Even in the Darkest Valley: Hope When Shadows Surround You

The reading today is Psalm 23. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters.

He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for His name's sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me. Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.

You anoint my head with oil. My cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever. This is the word of the Lord. So what was just read for us was perhaps the most famous portion of the Bible, Psalm 23.

People outside of church generally know this psalm. I was even speaking to a lady at my church recently who's exploring Christianity. She wouldn't call herself a churchgoer, and she said she once led a funeral service and decided to use this psalm because it's so comforting. So many people know about Psalm 23, and the danger with that is that we know it so well that we skim past the details and don't really listen to it well. And so today, we're gonna slow right down, and we're gonna look at just one verse in the psalm.

Psalm 23, verse four. Now, while this is a psalm of comfort, there are also some uncomfortable aspects to this psalm, and that's where we're gonna be camping out this morning. We're gonna be camping out in verse four in the uncomfortable part where David says, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. Now, I wonder what you would say if I said, what if you go through the darkest valley you can imagine? What if what you fear most actually happens to you?

I wonder what you think would be the conclusion of that scenario. Maybe for you, what you fear most would be losing your job and going bankrupt. Maybe it would be outliving your children. Maybe it would be World War Three and Australia getting involved in war again. I'm not sure what you think the darkest valley would be for you, and I don't say this to depress you this morning, but I say this because Psalm 23, verse four shows us that even if we do go through the darkest valley, there is hope, and there is a way through it.

And so if you're here this morning and you're just hanging on by a thread, you're in a really tough place, you're in a place of suffering, I'm so glad that you're here. I've been praying for you this week. And my prayer is that as you hear about the shepherd in this deep, dark valley, that you will find great comfort and great hope from that shepherd. Maybe you're here this morning and life is okay right now.

It's manageable. You know, you've got your ups and downs, but it's manageable. And you still need to hear about the shepherd of Psalm 23, verse four because the dark valleys will come, and we need resources. We need biblical wisdom for how to navigate those valleys when they come. Or maybe you're here this morning, and you're exploring Jesus.

You're coming along. You're visiting. You're not sure yet. And I've been praying for you as well. You know, you may know Psalm 23, but my question is, do you know the Lord of Psalm 23? Do you know the shepherd?

If you want the comfort that Psalm 23 offers, you need to know the shepherd of the psalm. You need to know Him, and you need to trust Him. And so as I share with you about how good and wonderful our shepherd is, my prayer is that you'll be drawn to put your trust in Him personally. So let's dive in. We're gonna look at four things that the shepherd offers us in the valley of the shadow of death.

And the first thing we see is the shepherd's providence. The shepherd's providence. So David says, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. In his commentary, Christopher Ash tells us that the dark valley conveys a feeling of death shadow, deep shadow, of impenetrable gloom, pitch darkness. Now, what should be coming into our minds when David talks about a valley is not some green, lush valley, but rather something that's barren, something that's rocky, and there's crags, and there's crevices, and there's places to trip over, and in the night, there's places for predators to hide and robbers to lurk.

It's a deep, dark, dangerous place. And this is really an apt metaphor for what suffering and bereavement can feel like. It can feel like endless night. It can feel like endless darkness. It can feel like this is a place where light is not going to break in.

It can feel like maybe another predator is hiding around the corner, and there's gonna be something else bad that's going to happen. David uses this image to describe the valley of suffering. But the surprising comfort of Psalm 23, verse four is the idea that the Lord has led David into the valley. So in the verse just previous to this, David said, He makes me walk in paths of righteousness. And then in verse four, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death.

You see, it was the Lord who led David into this valley. This is what we call the doctrine or the teaching of God's providence. Providence is the teaching that God guides all things towards His good ends. The Bible gives us a big God, not a small God. The Bible doesn't give us this picture of a God who's just playing whack-a-mole with all the difficult things that come into our lives, trying to fix them up and figure them out.

No. The Bible gives us a picture of a big God who is sovereign, who doesn't even allow one hair from your head to perish apart from His will. He is sovereign. He's in control. He is ruling over things and guiding all things towards His good ends.

This is called the doctrine of providence. The beautiful words of the Heidelberg Catechism, it's a question and answer summary of the Christian faith, explains this doctrine for us in this way. It says, what do you mean by the providence of God? Answer: The almighty and everywhere present power of God, whereby, as it were by His hand, He upholds and governs heaven, earth, and all creatures, so that herbs and grass, rain and drought, fruitful and barren years, meat and drink, health and sickness, riches and poverty.

Yea, and all things come, not by chance, but by His fatherly hand. David Gibson wrote the book The Lord of Psalm 23. It's a beautiful book if you wanna purchase it. He's given me some gold as I've thought about this psalm. He comments on this. He says, it may not yet be part of your theological framework that all things, including each valley, come from God's fatherly hand, but it needs to be.

For if God is not in charge of the valley, how do you know He can get you through it? If you're in the valley right now, you might not understand how the Lord could still be in charge of this and why He would allow you to go through this, and we may not understand this side of eternity. But we don't gain more comfort by making God smaller and saying, well, He didn't know this was coming, and He's not in control. He didn't bring this into my life, or whatever it might be. We actually find more comfort from a great big God who is in charge of the valley and who in His infinite wisdom and love and goodness can actually work something evil together with everything else in your life for good.

Only those of a great big God can say with Paul in Romans 8:28, and we know that all things work together for the good of those who love Him. If you're going through something that is so dark right now, you just can't imagine how the Lord could be using this for good, how He could have let this come into your life, I wanna remind you that that's exactly what the disciples thought as Jesus was stripped naked and tortured to death on the cross. That was the most evil thing that they could imagine, and yet in all the wisdom and the love of God, the most evil thing that we could imagine became the best thing that we could ever imagine. It was used for the salvation of His people. We have a great big God who governs all things, and if you are in a valley, you have a great big God who's in charge of that valley and who can bring you through it.

But just because our God is big, it doesn't mean that He is far from us, that He's distant from us. He is far closer to you in your pain than you may think. This is what we're going to look at next. So we've looked at the shepherd's providence, and now we're gonna look at the shepherd's presence. So David says, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for You are with me.

When we go through a valley of darkness, when we're going through suffering or bereavement, what we need is companionship. It's a terrible feeling when you are suffering and you feel like you need to suffer in silence, when you feel like there's no one that you can share that with. I've been there before. I've gone through things where I felt like I just there's no one I can actually bring this to, and it's a terrible place to be. It feels fragile.

It feels isolated. And if that's you, I'm so sorry if that's what you're going through right now. But I just wanna encourage you. If you're trusting in Jesus, you are actually not alone. You are not alone.

David says, I will fear no evil for You are with me, to the Lord who is your shepherd. You see, one of the beautiful things that can happen in the valley is that your relationship with the Lord can become even more intimate. And did you notice how the language that David is using has become more intimate in this verse? So in verses one to three, he talks about God. He says, He makes me lie down in green pastures.

He leads me beside still waters. But then once he enters into the valley of suffering, he says, You. You are with me. Sometimes that is the gift that God gives us in the valley. It's just in that place, there's nothing else that can really help.

All that you can rely on is God, and He becomes so dear, so precious. Your prayer life expands. That is sometimes one of the gifts that God gives us in a deep, dark valley of suffering. No matter how dark your valley may feel, God is with you. So in this one little verse, we've already discovered two things that comforted David in his valley.

The shepherd's providence, God was in charge of the valley, and the shepherd's presence, God was with him in the valley. But it wasn't only the fact that the shepherd was with David in the valley, but it was what the shepherd was carrying that comforted David. It was what the shepherd was willing to do that comforted David. It was the tools that he was carrying. And we're gonna look at one of them now in the third section, the shepherd's protection.

So we looked at the shepherd's providence, the shepherd's presence, and now the shepherd's protection. Now, I wonder what comes to mind when I mention a shepherd to you. Maybe for you, what came into my mind for a while is someone who was kinda gentle and meek and lowly. But if you get back in the mindset of David in the ancient world, shepherding was a rugged profession. They had to literally defend their flocks from lions.

If I offered you a job and said, hey, it's great pay. You can do this job, but once a month, you're gonna have to get in this cage and fight a lion. Who would actually put their hand up for that job, no matter how much you're getting paid? That is a dangerous profession. Shepherds were rugged, tough, strong people.

And this is why the shepherd in the psalm is carrying a rod. So the rod was a club with heavy pieces of iron embedded into the end. It was like a mace, right? And it was used to defend against and kill predators.

Ralph Davis applies this to the Lord Jesus for us. He says, Jesus Christ, our shepherd, is no emaciated weakling. Our shepherd is a warrior, as shepherds had to be. No one can snatch His sheep out of His hand. The muscles of His arm are flexed to defend His flock.

He doesn't carry a club for nothing. He is obviously enough for whatever the valley throws at us. Jesus Himself said in John 10, my sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. If Jesus is with you, who can be against you?

Nothing can come against you but by His permission. He is not walking with you through the valley kind of like really comforting but scared. He is walking with you through the valley with a mace in hand, ready to club any predator that comes against you that He has not permitted to test you. Jesus is our warrior king, our warrior shepherd, and He is not intimidated by whatever darkness you may be going through right now. He's just not scared of it.

He's already faced the worst that darkness can throw at Him and overcome it. You see, in the day of His crucifixion, Jesus entered into such a terrible darkness that it eclipsed the sun in full strength. Matthew 27, verse 45 says, now from the sixth hour, there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. Now the sixth hour was the middle of the day. That was lunchtime.

So at lunchtime when the sun should be brightest, the sun was eclipsed in the darkness that was covering over the land as Jesus hung there dying on our behalf. In that valley of the shadow of death, Jesus did not feel the shepherd's presence. He was not comforted by God. Instead, as the representative sinner, He was condemned and exiled by God. In verse 46, it says, and about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lemma sabachthani. That is, my God, my God, why have You forsaken me?

Jesus felt the full force of God's judgment against the sins of multitudes, sins that He had never committed. Jesus chose to confront the deep, utter darkness that our sins deserve. He willingly and voluntarily submitted Himself to the shame and the pain of the cross so that no matter what you're going through, if your trust is in Jesus, you will never be abandoned to the darkness. You are never alone in the valley. Jesus faced darkness in full strength and overcame it in His resurrection.

Our good shepherd, Jesus Christ, will at times lead us into the valley. But He is in charge of the valley. He has reasons for the valley. He stays with us in the valley. He protects us from eternal harm in the valley, and He guides us through the valley until we reach the other side. The book of Revelation shows us the destination that our good shepherd has in mind for us.

And we read about that destination in Revelation chapter seven where it says, therefore, they are God's people before the throne of God and serve Him day and night in His temple, and He who sits on the throne will shelter them with His presence. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore. The sun shall not strike them nor any scorching heat, for the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd. And He will guide them to springs of living water. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

Your good shepherd has a good destination in mind for you. That is not a fictional, imaginary thing. That is your destination. If your trust is in Jesus, that is where He is leading you. The place where there is no more tears, where you are comforted forever, where there's perfect peace, where there's no more thirst, no more hunger for more, you are perfectly satisfied in the presence of our God.

Friend, if the Lord has led you into a dark valley, it is only because He intends to lead you higher up and further in. The destination will be glorious. God will ensure that His sheep get there. No one will snatch us out of His hand. He will not only protect us with His rod, that mace that I talked about, but He will also preserve us from evil with His staff.

So let's finish our time together just by looking at what the staff represents. In the final section, the shepherd's preservation. The shepherd's preservation. So David says, your rod and your staff, they comfort me. Now, what is the staff?

Well, it was kind of like a walking stick but with a crook in it, if you can imagine what I'm talking about. And shepherds would use that crook, that staff to hook sheep back in that were wandering astray, to guide them along the path to ensure they stayed on the right path. It is essentially a symbol of correction. You see, God's care for us is complete. He protects us from our enemies, but He also corrects us and disciplines us when we are going astray in love.

We love the idea of Jesus defeating our enemies. We don't warm as easily to the idea of Jesus disciplining and correcting us. But what is our most deadly enemy? It is the sin that remains within us. It is the sin that is so deceiving, that can feel so right and so real and can lead us astray from the Lord.

It's like the words of that hymn, prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love. Here's my heart, Lord. Take and seal it. Seal it for Thy courts above.

See, knowing that the Lord will use His staff to correct us and keep us in the path, it is a good thing. We don't want to leave the God we love. We want Him to keep us on the path. We need Jesus to pull us with His staff away from the path of sin. We need a watchful shepherd to keep us on the right path.

He uses the crook of His staff to pull us back, and sometimes that correction can mean that we have to get caught in a lie. If we're just not repenting of something and not bringing it to the Lord, sometimes we get caught. Sometimes it looks like an inner sense of conviction from the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit's just weighing on you, saying, this area of your life, it's not right with God. Sometimes it looks like another Christian brother or sister having a conversation with you.

You know, hey, I just saw you. You seemed a bit angry with that person, and I just wanna check in. Are you okay? As brothers and sisters, we're actually called to correct and help one another along in the journey.

So in Hebrews 3, it says, take care, brothers and sisters, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart leading you to fall away from the living God. But rather, verse 13, exhort one another. That word means to urge, to appeal to, to encourage. Exhort one another every day as long as it is called today that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. So this is something we do for one another as brothers and sisters. This is also something that the elders are called to do.

So Jesus is the chief shepherd, and elders are like under shepherds serving under Jesus. And they're called to correct you in love and in humility when they see you going astray. Hey, I saw this. Like, are you okay? I just wanna check in and make sure that you're okay.

Humbly, gently, and yet called to bring correction where it is needed. God's care for us is holistic. We're not only sufferers, we're also sinners. And so we need both the rod and the staff.

We need to submit to His discipline and correction in our lives. It's for our good. It's one of the ways He keeps us in the paths of righteousness that lead to that glorious place we were talking about earlier. So let me return to my original question. What if you go through the darkest valley you can imagine?

What if what you fear most actually happens? Psalm 23, verse four shows us that you will be okay. We've learned that the shepherd's providence means that the Lord is in charge of every high and every low. He is in charge of that valley. We've learned the shepherd's presence means that you are not alone.

You're not abandoned. Your suffering is not evidence of God's abandonment. The Lord is with you. Jesus was already forsaken at the cross so that you will never be forsaken. The shepherd's protection reminds us that Jesus is strong.

He's a king. He carries this cudgel ready to beat back any evil thing that comes against us that He is not permitted to test and grow us. And the shepherd's preservation reminds us that He uses His staff as a watchful, caring, gentle, loving shepherd to bring us back into the path when we are going astray and we're being led away from the Lord. Your shepherd has not led you into a darkness that He Himself has not conquered. He is leading you, He is with you, and He will keep you all the days of your life.

Let's pray together. Father, we thank You for this picture we're given of You in Psalm 23, verse four. We thank You, Father, that You are great and that You are in control. Help us to entrust ourselves completely to Your care. Help us when we do not understand what we're going through, when we're suffering, to look to Jesus who suffered for the sake of our salvation.

To look at Jesus, the one whose terrible agony was turned into the deepest joy for so many. Father, we give ourselves to You, and we pray that we would just know Your comfort, Your kindness, Your presence. Help us to submit to Your staff as well to welcome it, knowing that You are good and You never intend to harm us. Lord, we thank You for this time together, and we pray this all in the name of Jesus, the good shepherd. Amen.