“I WILL FEAR NO EVIL: FOR THOU ARE WITH ME”
The brethren may have noticed that there is a division in this psalm between the first three verses and the last three. In the first three verses David is speaking of what the Lord had been to him as a shepherd. In the last three he is speaking to the Lord directly; which gives a particular touch to them. I was impressed in a fresh way with these words, “I will fear no evil: for thou art with me”. That is a very wonderful thing to be able to say.
He says, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death”. I do not think the valley of the shadow of death is something that persons are called on to face only at the end of their lives. It is something that persons may face at different times in different circumstances throughout their lives. How often David’s life was in danger. The shadow of death means that death is near, beside us or before us, casting its shadow over the way. There are many who have been conscious of walking in that dark valley, especially at the present time; it is a very real thing to face. Yet he says, “I will fear no evil”. He does not say, No evil will befall me. The saints are not immune to many of the things which take place in the world. The virus that is abroad is a further evidence of that. But David says, “I will fear no evil”.
It is a great thing to know present, practical, deliverance from the fear of death. Someone might say, Well, it is easy for you to say that, standing where you are; you do not know what you may have to face. That, of course, is true. But we have to remember that in these words we have the language of a believer. This is what David had arrived at through experience. “I will fear no evil”, he says. It is a wonderful thing to know present deliverance from the fear of death, so that we do not allow ourselves to give way to the doubts and fears that afflict our fellow men and women. The fear of death can be very subtle. It might mean that we hold back when we should go forward. It might mean that we do not face things as we ought to. But we are to be delivered from it. In 1 Corinthians 15 Paul speaks about the great final victory. He speaks of the time when it will be said, that “Death has been swallowed up in victory” (v.54). That is because of what the Lord Jesus has done in going into death and coming out of it triumphant. While we have to wait for the glorious change that Paul describes in such a wonderful way, we are to have the victory now. He says, “thanks to God, who gives us the victory by our Lord Jesus Christ” (v.57).
So David says, “I will fear no evil”, and he adds, “for thou art with me”. That was the secret of it. He was conscious of the Lord being with him. I would like to draw that to the attention of my beloved brethren, and to raise the question as to whether we are conscious individually of having the Lord with us, and of walking with Him in our pilgrim pathway here. It is not something we can pretend to. As I said, this is addressed to the Lord Himself. It has to be real. But I believe it is something we are to know. I have the impression that one of the things which the Lord has been seeking to draw to our attention over the last few months is as to what our individual relationships with Him really are. If we have not the consciousness of the Lord being with us, we could perhaps use a scripture such as this to exercise and to stimulate one another to cultivate greater nearness to Him. It is very important and blessed to be able to say, “for thou art with me”. One of the last things the Lord said before He left the earth was, “I am with you all the days, until the completion of the age”, Matt.28:20 “I”, He says; “am with you”. How blessed that is! It is something to be proved practically by us.
Then David says, “thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me”. The rod might be an allusion to the Lord’s ways in discipline, while the staff would be that which He provides for our support, something that can be leant on by us. How much we need that. But you notice David says of both, “they comfort me”. If we think of the Lord’s discipline, some know more of it than others, but even that is to be for our comfort. You may say, How can that comfort me? We naturally recoil from it. But it is evidence of the Lord’s interest in us. The Lord Himself said, “I rebuke and discipline as many as I love”, Rev.3:19. His ways in discipline, though painful at times, are evidence of His special love for us and His personal interest in us. They have in mind that we might be drawn closer to Himself, that we might be drawn into a deeper knowledge of His blessed love, and a closer walk with Him while we are here.
So David goes on to say, “Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies”. David was conscious of the Lord’s consideration for him. Evidently, David had the sense of being treated almost like an honoured guest by the Lord. He says, “thou hast anointed my head with oil; my cup runneth over”. Think of him being conscious in principle of being the subject of the personal service of Christ in this way. Again, dear brethren, it is to be known by us. It has been proved. Our brother was speaking about Paul and Silas in prison. What a table the Lord prepared for them there, you might say, right in the presence of their enemies! It says that they, “in praying, were praising God with singing”, Acts 16:25. That is a description of men who are conscious that their cup is full. It seems that they started to pray but as they went on it turned to praise. The more they went on the more conscious they were of how full their cup was. It is a wonderful example of the Lord preparing a table for His own, right in the midst of their enemies.
I thought of this in connection with the Lord’s supper. We can think of the breaking of bread as the Lord’s provision for us. That is one side of it. The other side is that our partaking of it is really an expression of our loyalty to Christ. We do it out of love for Him, out of loyalty to Him. But on the other side we can think of it as the Lord’s gracious provision for us. I think we can say, humbly, that it has been quite remarkable to experience on that occasion the Lord’s tender consideration for us. His readiness to draw near has been most sweet and blessed. But it is in the presence of enemies. Think of all that is against Christ in the world. Think of all that is ranged against the testimony, all that is ranged against the saints. Yet in the presence of opposing forces the Lord makes this blessed provision for His own. How thankful we have been to know something of that provision all through these times.
Then David comes to this, “Surely, goodness and loving-kindness shall follow me all the days of my life”. He might not always have appreciated it at the time, for there were occasions when David became very downcast. But as David looked back, he can say, Yes, I can see now that goodness and loving-kindness were following me. They had been following him all the way through. I think the point of it for us, dear brethren, is that this is a true saint of God. If it was true for David, it is true for us too. We have not finished our journey yet, but we should be able to look back – and we will be able to look back and see how the Lord has entered into our pathways here.
Then David looks forward; he says, “I will dwell in the house of Jehovah for the length of the days”. And we too can look forward, dear brethren. What a blessed prospect of glory we have to look forward to: a place prepared for us in the Father’s house. That is wonderful! We need to constantly remind ourselves that there is a place that has already been prepared for us. The saints are just waiting to be translated into that place actually. The Lord Jesus says as to that, “I am coming again and shall receive you to myself, that where I am ye also may be”, John 14:3.
I trust these few thoughts may serve to renew our strength and, in particular, that they may stimulate us to renew our personal links with the Lord so that we might be more conscious of His personal service to us, and His provision for us; and that we might learn more of what it is to keep company with Him as we have to work out our pilgrim journey here. May it be so for each one of us for our encouragement and blessing, and for His name’s sake.
Given at a meeting for ministry, Strood
4 February 2021
Richard M Brown
THE PRECIOUSNESS OF HIS SAINTS TO THE LORD
In the Authorised Version of the Bible, this verse reads, “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints”. The One spoken of as Jehovah or as the Lord is the One whom believers in Him know as the Lord Jesus. This is a very comforting scripture: “Precious” in His sight “is the death of his saints”. That is the Lord’s view, His estimation of the matter. The death of our sister, one of His saints, is precious in His sight. Different ones may say, In our sight her death is sad, it is a sorrowful matter. Others may say that there was mercy in her being taken home by her Lord and Saviour, for her life, particularly at the end, was limited and she was frail in her mind and body. That would be true too. But the Lord Jesus has a view; the scripture speaks of what is in His sight. In the Lord’s view, the death of His saints is precious.
It is the Lord’s view which is the most important one, and we can hold on to it; it is an established view. This scripture was written perhaps three thousand years ago, but the Lord Jesus does not change. That view which the Lord has of the death of His saints is unchanging, and the Lord Himself is unchanging. Some of us were reminded of that in a preaching of the gospel on Lord’s day, that “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and to-day, and to the ages to come”, Heb.13:8. What comfort that brings to those of us who know Him! Our sister was comforted in the knowledge of her Saviour as One who did not change. She put her trust in Him early in her teens, perhaps seventy-five years ago, and she believed in Him as her Saviour, the Son of God who saved her because of the work He had done. She relied upon Him and leant upon Him for the whole of her life. She spoke of Him, she bore testimony to her Saviour and Lord. Our sister changed as she grew older, she matured in her knowledge of the Lord Jesus, she married and she had family and they grew up. She had sorrow in the death of her son, and other sorrows that came upon her, and yet she trusted in the Lord and she proved that He is the One who does not change. He was her Rock! That is a wonderful matter.
The death of one of the Lord’s saints is precious in His sight. Our sister is one of His saints and she has gone to be with Him. Her spirit and her body are now separate – her body lies here, and shortly we will bury it in the grave; but her spirit is with the Lord Jesus. He is the One who gave that spirit and He has taken it back. She is His also by right of redemption; that is, He has paid a price for her, a price reflecting His valuation. Redemption’s price was paid at Calvary in the precious death of the Lord Jesus; His life was laid down and His blood shed. That was the price that Christ paid for every one of His saints. The work of redemption is available for all. The scripture says that “he is the propitiation for our sins; but not for ours alone, but for the whole world”, 1 John 2:2. How great was the work accomplished by the Lord Jesus at Calvary. In that work He has secured myriads, but He did that work to secure one saint for Himself, so that the Lord as spoken of in this scripture can refer to “his saints”, and our sister was one of them. He paid the price for her, she trusted in Him and she is one of His saints, which is a blessed matter.
We who know Jesus as Saviour know that He paid redemption’s price for us and that means that we belong to Him. Our sister belongs to Him, and I trust that everyone in this room belongs to Him. As believing in Him and belonging to Him we accept and believe that He has borne our guilt, as we have had in our hymn. He has borne the guilt of my sins, and those of every one who believes on Him. What a blessed matter it is to know One who loved us enough to suffer and die for us. The Lord Jesus can say, ‘This one belongs to Me, this one who has placed his or her faith and trust in Me belongs to Me’. Our sister belongs to Him and I trust that everyone who is listening to this simple word can say that. If you do not, friend, now is the time to reach out in the faith of your heart and place your trust in Jesus Christ as the Saviour for you. He is the Saviour for me, the Saviour for myriads; uncountable millions of people have placed their trust in that blessed One. Our sister placed her trust in Him all these years ago, myriads have done so, and you can do it if you have not done so already. I trust that the soberness of the time would speak to our hearts. It would be our dear sister’s intense desire that anyone who has not yet trusted in her Saviour should do so, and do so now.
The name given to those who have trusted in the Lord Jesus is “his saints”. A saint in His sight is not somebody who has gone through a process of investigation and accreditation and beatification; it is not a human process that produces a saint. The scripture tells us who saints are. The word means someone who is sanctified, someone set apart for holy purposes. Scripture speaks about that in Acts 26 – those who are “sanctified by faith in me” (v.18). Those who are Christ’s saints are those who are sanctified by faith in Him. It is wonderful to think of all those whom He can take account of as having faith in Himself. He can speak of all of His own as ‘My saints’. It is not a narrow circle, it is a very large number whom the Lord can call ‘My saints’. It includes every one who has trusted in Him – a blessed company.
Soon we who believe in the Lord Jesus will all be together with Him. Our sister has gone ahead in her spirit to be with Him now, but for those of us who remain, our prospect is of being with the Lord when He comes. What His saints will hear is His voice. It is spoken of in Scripture as His “assembling shout”, 1 Thess.4:16. Think of the direct communication of the Lord with every one of His own! “We, the living who remain”, as that scripture says, will be changed and taken to be with Him, while those who have died, as our sister has, will be raised and a body of glory given to every one. The Lord is able for that. What tenderness in His relationship with every one whom He calls ‘My saints’. In John 10, the Lord says, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me”, and He says also “no one shall seize them out of my hand” (vv.27,28).
Our sister has been put to sleep by that One who looks upon her as one of ‘My saints’ and ‘my sheep’. The Lord has a personal relationship with every one of His own, and what a comfort that is. We are not speaking sentimentally, nor are we imagining this. It is what we have in the Scripture, which give us God’s words revealing His mind and disposition to humanity. They are words that speak the truth of God, yet full of sympathy and comfort and compassion and care. So full too of hope, for the hope of the believer is to be with the One who suffered and died for us, and paid the price at Calvary to redeem us to Himself.
Dear friend, what a blessing to be numbered among those whom He calls ‘My saints’. What a blessing and a comfort, even in this time of death, that it can be said, “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints”. It is a time to be sober and to recognise and accept the reality of death, and yet in the midst of that, there is great comfort and encouragement in dwelling upon the Lord’s words and the Lord’s view of His own. And there is now a fresh opportunity to come under the shelter of the precious work and the shed blood of the Lord Jesus, and to become one of His saints as our sister was.
May we find comfort and encouragement, and stimulation and exercise of soul too, through these words, dear friends and brethren. May we all be stirred up in our affections towards this blessed One whom our sister knew and loved, who has taken her to be with Him and in whose company she now is. May our hearts be comforted, for His name’s sake.
Given at a meeting for ministry on the occasion of a burial, Bo’ness
2 March 2021
Alistair M Brown
Edited and published monthly by John Brown and Paul Martin
Additional copies are available, free of charge, by emailing
notesofministry@virginmedia.com or paul@nofm.co.uk
36 Laverock Park Linlithgow EH49 6AT
Printed by Crystal Print, 22 Western Road, Billericay, Essex CM12 9DZ