The Good Shepherd

The Good Shepherd

(No. 3060)

A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, OCTOBER 3, 1907.

DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT NEW PARK STREET CHAPEL, SOUTHWARK.

"The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want." Psalm 23:1.

[See Sermon #3006, Volume 52–"THE LORD IS MY SHEPHERD." Sermons on the
Parable of the Good Shepherd are as follows–#1877, Volume 32–OUR OWN
DEAR SHEPHERD; #1713, Volume 29–OTHER SHEEP AND ONE FLOCK; #995,
Volume 17–THE SHEEP AND THEIR SHEPHERD and #2120, Volume 35–THE
SECURITY OF BELIEVERS–OR, SHEEP WHO SHALL NEVER PERISH.]

DOES not this sound just like poetry or like singing? If you read the
entire Psalm through, it is written in such poetic prose that though it
is not translated into meter, as it should have been, it reads just
like it. "The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me to lie
down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters. He
restores my soul: He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His
name's sake." It sounds like music for this, among other reasons,
because it came from David's heart. That which comes from the heart
always has melody in it. When men speak of what they know and from the
depths of their souls testify to what they have seen, they speak with
what we call, eloquence, for true eloquence is speaking from the soul.
Thus David spoke of what he knew–what he had verified all his
life–and this rendered him truly eloquent.

As "truth is stranger than fiction," so the truth that David spoke is
more sweet than even fancy could have imagined. And it has more beauty
than even the dream of the enthusiast could have pictured. "The Lord is
my Shepherd; I shall not want." How naturally it seems to strike on the
ear as uttered by David who had, himself, been a shepherd boy! He
remembers how he had led his flock by the waters in the warm summer,
how he had made them lie down in shady nooks by the side of the river,
how, on sultry days, he had led them on the high hills that they might
feel the cool air and how, when the winter set in, he had led them into
the valleys that they might be hidden from the stormy blasts. Well
could he remember the tender care with which he protected the lambs and
carried them–and how he had tended the wounded of the flock. And now,
appropriating to himself the familiar figure of a sheep, he says, "The
Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want." I will try to preach
experimentally tonight and I wonder how many of you will be able to
follow the Psalmist with me while I attempt to do so?

First of all, there are some preliminaries before a man can say
this–it is absolutely necessary that he should feel himself to be like
a sheep by nature, for he cannot know that God is his Shepherd unless
he feels in himself that he has the nature of a sheep. Secondly, there
is a sweet assurance–a man must have had some testimony of Divine care
and goodness in the past, otherwise he cannot appropriate to himself
this verse, "The Lord is my Shepherd." And thirdly, there is a holy
confidence. I wonder how many there are here who can place all their
future in the hand of God and can join with David in uttering the last
sentence, "The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want."

I. First then, we say THERE IS A CERTAIN CONFESSION NECESSARY BEFORE A
MAN CAN JOIN IN THESE WORDS. We must feel that there is something in us
which is akin to the sheep. We must acknowledge that in some measure we
exactly resemble it or else we cannot call God our Shepherd.

I think the first apprehension we shall have if the Lord has brought us
into this condition, is this–we shall be conscious of our own
folly–we shall feel how unwise we always are. A sheep is one of the
most unwise of creatures. It will go anywhere except in the right
direction. It will leave a fat pasture to wander into a barren one. It
will find out many ways, but not the right way. It would wander through
a forest and find its way through ravines into the wolf's jaws, but
never by its wariness turn away from the wolf. It could wander near his
den, but it would not instinctively turn

aside from the place of danger. It knows how to go astray, but it knows
not how to come home again. Left to itself, it would not know in what
pasture to feed in summer, or where to retire in winter.

Have we ever been brought to feel that in matters of Providence, as
well as in things of Grace, we are truly and entirely foolish? I think
no man can trust Providence till he distrusts himself–and no one can
say, "The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want," until he has given up
every idle notion that he can control himself or manage his own
interests. Alas, we are, most of us, wise above that which is written
and we are too vain to acknowledge the Wisdom of God! In our
self-esteem we fancy our reason can rule our purposes and we never
doubt our own power to accomplish our own intentions! And then, by a
little maneuvering we think to extricate ourselves from our
difficulties. Could we steer in such a direction as we have planned, we
entertain not a doubt that we could avoid at once the Scylla and the
Charybdis–and have fair sailing all our life! O Beloved, surely it
needs but little teaching in the School of Divine Grace to make out
that we are fools! True wisdom is sure to set folly in a strong light.

I have heard of a young man who went to college and when he had been
there a year, his father said to him, "Do you know more than when you
went?" "Oh, yes!" he said, "I do." Then he went the second year and was
asked the same question, "Do you know more than when you went?" "Oh,
no," he said, "I know a great deal less." "Well," said the father, "you
are getting on." Then he went the third year and was asked, "What do
you know now?" "Oh," he said, "I don't think I know anything." "That is
right," said his father, "you have now learned to profit since you say
you know nothing." He who is convinced that he knows nothing as he
ought to know gives up steering his ship and lets God put His hand on
the rudder. He lays aside his own wisdom and cries, "O God, my little
wisdom is cast at Your feet. Such as it is, I surrender it to You. I am
prepared to renounce it, for it has caused me many an ill and many a
tear of regret, that I should have followed my own devices. But from
now on I will delight in Your statutes. As the eyes of servants look
unto the hand of their masters, and as the eyes of a maiden unto the
hand of her mistress, so shall my eyes wait upon the Lord my God. I
will not trust in horses or in chariots; but the name of the God of
Jacob shall be my refuge. Too long, alas, have I sought my own pleasure
and labored to do everything for my own gratification. Now would I ask,
O Lord, Your help that I may seek first the Kingdom of God and His
righteousness, and leave all the rest to You." Do you, O my Friends,
feel persuaded that you are foolish? Have you been brought to confess
the sheepishness of your nature? Or are you flattering your hearts with
the fond conceit that you are wise? If so, you are indeed fools! But if
brought to see yourself like Agur when he said, "I am more brutish than
any man and have not the understanding of a man," then even Solomon
might pronounce you wise! And if you are thus brought to confess, "I am
a silly sheep," I hope you will be able to say, "The Lord is my
Shepherd, I cannot have any other, I want none other–He is enough for
me."

Again, a sheep is not only foolish, but it is a very dependent
creature. The sheep, at least in its domesticated state, as we know it,
must always be dependent. If we should take a horse, we might turn him
loose upon the prairie and there he would find sufficient food for his
sustenance. And years later we might see him in no worse condition than
that in which we left him. Even the ox might thus be treated and still
be able to provide for itself. But as for the silly sheep, set it alone
in the wilderness, let it pursue its own course unheeded–and what
would be its fate? Presently, if it did not wander into places where it
would be starved, it would ultimately come to ruin, for assuredly some
wild beast would lay hold upon it and it has no means of defense for
itself.

Beloved, have we been brought to feel that we have of ourselves no
means of subsistence and no power of defense against our foes? Do we
perceive the necessity for our dependence upon God? If so, then we have
learned another part of the great lesson that the Lord is our Shepherd.
Some of us have yet to learn this lesson. Gladly would we cater for
ourselves and carve for ourselves–but as the good old Puritan said,
"No child of God ever carves for himself without cutting his fingers,"
we sometimes fancy that we can do a little for ourselves–but we shall
have that conceit taken out of us very soon. If we, indeed, are God's
people, He will bring us to depend absolutely upon Him day by day. He
will make us pray, "Give us this day our daily bread"–and make us
acknowledge that He opens His hands and gives us our food in due
season. Sweet is the meal that we eat, as it were, out of His hands!
Yet some will rebel against this dependence as very humiliating. Men
like to vaunt their independence–nothing is more respectable in their
eyes than to live in independent circumstances. But it is no use for us
to talk of being independent–we can never be.

I remember a dear Christian who prayed very sweetly each Sunday morning
at a certain Prayer Meeting that I once attended, "O Lord, we are
independent creatures upon You." Except in such a sense as that, I
never knew any

independence worth having! Of course he meant, "we are dependent
creatures upon You." So we must be. We cannot be independent even of
one another–and certainly we are not independent of God, for when we
have health and strength, we are dependent upon Him for their
continuance. And if we have them not, we are dependent on Him to
restore them to us. In all matters whatever, it is sweet, it is blessed
to see the tokens of His watchful care. If I had anything of which I
could say, "God has not given me this," I hope, by Divine Grace, I
would turn it out of doors. Food, raiment, health, breath,
strength–everything comes from Him and we are constantly dependent
upon Him! As Huntington used to say, "My God gives me a hand-basket
portion. He does not give me an abundance at once, but He gives it,
basket by basket, and I live from hand to mouth." Or, as old Hardy once
said, "I am a gentleman commoner on the bounty of God. I live day by
day upon morning commons and evening commons–and thus I am dependent
upon Him–independent of the world, but dependent upon God." The sheep
is a dependent creature, always needing some help. And so is the
Christian. And he realizes the blessedness of his dependence when he
can say, "The Lord is my Shepherd."

These are the two principal points upon which we view this Truth of God
with regard to Providence. I might wander from what I wished to be the
subject of this evening. And I might be doing good if I were to show
you some other points of comparison between the Christian and the
sheep. O Beloved, there are some of you here present who know
yourselves to be sheep by reason of your frequent wanderings. How often
have we made this confession, "We have erred and strayed from Your ways
like lost sheep"? And we feel it this night, bitterly ruing the
waywardness of our hearts. But it is well to be the sheep of God's
pasture even if we have been wandering sheep! We do not read of
wandering dogs, because dogs are naturally wild, while sheep are always
accounted to be someone's property. The straying sheep has an
owner–and however far it may stray from the fold, it ceases not to
belong to that owner. I believe that God will yet bring back into the
fold every one of His own sheep and they shall all be saved. It is
something to feel our wanderings, for if we feel ourselves to be lost,
we shall certainly be saved! If we feel ourselves to have wandered, we
shall certainly be brought back.

Again, we are just like sheep by reason of the perverseness of our
wills. People talk about free-will Christians and tell us of persons
being saved and coming to God of their own free will. It is a very
curious thing, but though I have heard a great nanny free-will sermons,
I never heard any free-will prayers. I have heard Arminianism in
preaching and talking, but I have never heard any Arminian praying. In
fact, I do not think there can be any prayer of that sort–it is a
style that does not suit prayer! The theory may look very nice in
argument and sound very proper in discourse, though we somewhat differ
from it. But for practical purposes it is useless! The language will
not suit us in prayer and this alone would be sufficient reason to
condemn it. If a man cannot pray in the spirit of his own convictions,
it shows they are a delusion from beginning to end, for if they were
true, he could pray in that language as well as in any other! Blessed
be God, the Doctrines of Grace are as good to pray with as to preach
with! We do not find ourselves out of order in any act of worship when
once we have the old fundamental Doctrines of the blessed Gospel of
Grace! Persons talk about free-will Christians coming back to Jesus of
themselves. I intend to believe them when they find me a free-will
sheep that has come back of itself–when they have discovered some
sheep, after it has gone from its fold–stand bleating at its master's
door, asking to be taken in again! You will not find such a sheep and
you will not find a free-will Christian, for they will all confess, if
you thoroughly probe the matter, that it was Grace, and Grace alone
that restored their souls–

"Grace taught our souls to pray, And made our eyes overflow– 'Tis
Grace that keeps us to this day And will not let us go."

II. The next thing is THE ASSURANCE THAT THE LORD IS OUR SHEPHERD. It
is very easy to say, "The Lord is a Shepherd," but how shall we
appropriate the blessedness to ourselves and be able to say, "The Lord
is our Shepherd?" I answer that He has had certain dealings with our
souls in the past which have taught us that He is our Shepherd. If
every man and every woman in this assembly should rise up and say, "The
Lord is my Shepherd," I feel convinced it would be, in many instances,
the solemn utterance of a lie, for there are, it is to be feared, many
here who have not God for their Shepherd. He is their Guide, it is
true, in some sense, because He overrules all the hearts and controls
all the affairs of the children of men. But they are not the people of
His pasture, they are not the sheep of His hand. They do not
believe–therefore they are not of His fold. And if some of you should
say that you are, your own conscience would belie you! How, then, does
a man come to know that the Lord is his Shepherd?

He knows it, first, because Jesus Christ has brought him back from his
wanderings. If there is anyone here who, after a course of folly and
sin, has been fetched back from the mountains of error and the haunts
of evil. If there is one here who has been stopped in a mad career of
vice and has been reclaimed by the power of Jehovah Jesus, such a one
will know, by a happy experience, that the Lord is his Shepherd! If I
once wandered on yon mountaintop and Jesus climbed up and caught me,
and put me on His shoulders and carried me home, I cannot and dare not
doubt that He is my Shepherd! If I had belonged to some other
sheep-owner, He would not have sought me. And from the fact that He did
seek me, I learn that He must be my Shepherd! Did I think that any man
convinced me of sin, or that any human power had converted me, I would
fear I was that man's sheep and that he was my shepherd. Could I trace
my deliverance to the hand of a creature, I would think that a creature
might be my shepherd! But since he who has been reclaimed of God must
and will confess that God alone has done it and will ascribe to His
free Grace, and to that alone, his deliverance from sin, such a one
will feel persuaded that the Lord must be his Shepherd because He
fetched him back from his wanderings–He snatched him out of the jaw of
the lion and out of the paw of the bear.

We know still further that like a shepherd, He has supplied our needs.
Some of you, Beloved, know of a surety that God is your Provider.
Sometimes you have been brought into such straits that if it had not
been for an interposition of Heaven, itself, you never could have had
deliverance! You have sunk so deep down into poverty and loved ones and
acquaintances have stood so far aloof from you that you know there is
but one arm which could have fetched you up. You have been reduced,
perhaps, to such straits that all you could do was to pray. You have
wrestled at the Throne of God and sought for an answer, but it has not
come. You have used every effort to extricate yourself and darkness has
still compassed your path. Again and again you have tried till hope has
well-near vanished from your heart. And then, adding vows to your
prayer, you have said in your agony, "O God, if You will deliver me
this time, I will never doubt You again!" Look back on the path of your
pilgrimage. Some of you can count as many Ebenezers as there are
milestones from here to York! Ebenezers piled up with oil poured on the
top of them–places where you have said, "Hitherto, the Lord has helped
me." Look through the pages of your diary and you will see, time after
time, when your perils and emergencies were such as no earthly skill
could relieve and you felt constrained to witness what others among you
have never felt–that there is a God, that there is a Providence–a God
who compasses your path and is acquainted with all your ways! You have
received deliverance in so marvelous a way, from so unseen a hand and
so unlikely a source, under circumstances, perhaps, so foreign to your
wishes–and yet the deliverance has been so perfect, so complete and
wonderful–you have been obliged to say, "The Lord is my Shepherd."
Yes, He is! The sheep, we know, fed day by day in good pasture, may
forget its Shepherd. But if for a time it is taken from the pasture and
then brought home again, after having been nearly starved, it says,
"Truly, He is my Shepherd." If I had always been supplied with bread,
without the pinch of anxiety, I might have doubted whether He had given
it, and ascribed it to the ordinary course of passing events. But
seeing that "everywhere and in all things I am instructed both to be
full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need," I
acknowledge that it is my God who supplies all my need! Yes, and with
gratitude I will write it down for a certainty–"The Lord is my
Shepherd."

But, Beloved, do not be distressed even though you should not have had
these particular trials and deliverances, for there is a way whereby we
can tell that the Lord is our Shepherd without encountering so many
rough and rugged passes, as I will show you presently. I have heard it
said, by some, that a man cannot be a child of God unless he has gone
through a certain set of trials and troubles. I recollect hearing a
sermon from these words, "Who passing through the Valley of Baca makes
it a well." Certainly the preacher did not make his sermon a well, for
it was as dry as a stick and not worth hearing. There was nothing like
cheerfulness in it, but a flood of declamation all the way through
against hopeful Christians, against people going to Heaven who are not
always grumbling, murmuring, doubting, fumbling for their evidences
amidst the exercises of their own hearts, always reading and striving
to rival Job and Jeremiah in grief, taking the Lamentations as the fit
expression of their own lips, troubling their poor brains, vexing their
poor hearts, smarting, crying and wearying themselves with the
perpetual habit of complaining against God, saying with poor Job, "My
stroke is heavier than my groaning." Such persons measure themselves by
their troubles, trials, distresses, tribulations, perplexities and no
end of things–things that we will not stop to recount! We believe,
indeed, that such things will come to a child of God. We think every
Christian will be corrected in due measure–we would be the last to
deny that God's

people are a tried people! They must all pass through the furnace of
affliction and He has chosen them there, but still, we believe that
religion is a blessed and a happy thing and we love to sing that
verse–

"The men of Grace have found Glory begun below! Celestial fruits on
earthly ground From faith and hope may grow."

And what though some of my Hearers have not yet had to swim through the
rivers. Though they may not have had to pass through the fiery furnace
of Providential trial, they have had trials enough and trials that no
heart has known except their own suffering which they could not tell to
flesh and blood, which have gnawed their very souls and catered into
the marrow of their spirits. Bitter anguish and aching voids such as
those who boast about their trials nearer felt, such as mere babbling
troublers did never know, deep rushing of the stream of woe with which
little bubbling narrow brooks could never compare! Such persons fear to
murmur–they cannot reveal their sufferings because they think it would
be showing some lack of trust in God. They keep their trials to
themselves and only speak of them into that ear which hears and has no
lips to babble afterwards.

"But," you say, "how can you tell that the Lord is your Shepherd if you
have not been tried in any of those great deeps?" We know that He is
because He has fed us day by day in goodpasture. And if He has not
allowed us to wander as far away as others, we can lift up our eyes to
Him and each one of us say, "Lord, You are my Shepherd. I can as fully
prove that You are my Shepherd by Your keeping me in the grassy field
as by Your fetching me back when I have wandered. I know You are as
much my Shepherd when You have supplied my needs day by day as if you
had allowed me to go into poverty and given me bitterness. I know You
are as much my Shepherd when granting me a continua1 stream of mercy,
as if that stream had stopped for a moment and then had begun to flow
again." People say, if they have had an accident and been nearly
killed, or have narrowly escaped, "What a Providence!" Yet it is as
much a Providence when you have no accident at all! A good man once
went to a certain place to meet his son. Both his son and he had ridden
some distance. When the son arrived, he exclaimed, "Oh Father! I had
such a Providence on the road." "Why, what was that?" "My horse
stumbled six times and yet I was not thrown." "Dear me!" said his
father, "but I have had a Providence too!" "And what was that?" "Why,
my horse never stumbled at all! And that is just as much a Providence
as if the horse had stumbled six times and I had not been thrown."

It is a great Providence when you have lost your property and God
provides for you. But it is quite as much a Providence when you have no
loss at all and when you are still able to live above the depths of
poverty! And so God provides for you. I say this to some of you when
God has blessed and continually provided for you from your earliest
youth. You, too, can each of you say, "The Lord is my Shepherd." You
can see this title stamped on your mercies, though they come daily.
They are given to you by God and you will say, by humble faith, the
word, "my," as loudly as anyone can! Do not get to despising the little
ones of the flock because they have not had as many trials as you have
had! Do not get to cutting the children of God in pieces because they
have not been in such fights as you have! The Shepherd leads the sheep
where He pleases and be you sure that He will lead them rightly! And as
long as they can say from their hearts, "The Lord is my Shepherd, I
shall not want," do not trouble yourselves about where or how they
learned it!

III. Now we finish up with THE HOLY CONFIDENCE OF THE PSALMIST. "I
shall not want."

"There," poor Unbelief says, "I am wanting in everything. I am wanting
in spirituals, I am wanting in temporals and I shall always want! Ah,
such distress as I had a little while ago you cannot tell what it
was–it was enough to break one's heart and it is coming again–I shall
want." That is what Unbelief says, but you must write your own name at
the bottom and then I will repeat this, "The Lord is my Shepherd, I
shall not want." That is what David said and I think David's faith far
preferable to your unbelief. I might take your evidence in some
matters, but I really would not take it before David's. I would accept
your testimony as an honest man in some respects, but the words of
Inspiration must be preferable to your words of apprehension! When I
find it written, "The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want," I would
rather take one of David's affirmations than 50 of your negations.

I think I hear someone saying, "I would bear the want of any temporal
good if I could but obtain spiritual blessings. I am in want this night
of more faith, more love, more holiness, more communion with my
Savior." Well, Beloved, the Lord is your Shepherd, you shall not want
even those blessings–if you ask of Him, He will give them to you,
though it

may be by terrible things in righteousness that He will save you. He
often answers His people in an unexpected manner. Many of God's answers
to our letters come down in black-edged envelopes, yet mark you, they
will come. If you want peace, joy, sanctification and such blessings,
they shall be given to you, for God has promised them. The Lord is your
Shepherd, you shall not want. I have often thought of that great
promise written in the Bible–I do not know where there is a greater
one–"No good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly."
"No good thing!" It is a mercy that the word, "good," was put in, for
if it had said, "He, will withhold nothing," we should have been asking
for many things that would be bad for us. But it says, "no good thing!"
Now, spiritual mercies are good things and not only good things, but
the best things so that you may well ask for them! For if no good thing
will be withheld, much more will none of the best things! Ask, then,
Christian, for He is your Shepherd and you shall not want! He will
supply your needs. He will give you whatever you require. Ask in faith,
doubting nothing, and He shall give you what you really need.

But still there are some who say, "The text applies to temporal
matters," and persist in it. Well, then, I will accept this sense–the
Lord is your Shepherd, you shall not want for temporal blessings. "Ah,"
cries one, "I was once in affluence and now I am brought down to
penury. I once stood among the mighty and was rich–now I walk among
the lowly and am poor." Well, David does not say, "The Lord is your
Shepherd, and you shall not come down in society." He does not say,
"The Lord is your Shepherd and, therefore, you shall have 500 or a
thousand pounds a year." He does not say, "The Lord is your Shepherd
and, therefore, you shall have whatever your soul lusts after." All
David says is, "The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want." There are
different ways of wanting. There are many people whose foolish craving
and restless anxiety make them always in want. If you gave them a house
to live in and fed them day by day, they would always be wanting
something more. And after you had just relieved their necessities, they
would still want. The fact is theirs are not real wants, but simply
fancied wants. David does not say, "The Lord is my Shepherd, therefore
I shall not fancy that I want," for though God might promise that, it
would need His Omnipotence to carry it out, for His people often get to
fancying that they want when they do not. It is real needs that are
referred to. "The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not really want." There
are many things we wish for that we do not really need, but there is no
promise given that we shal1 have all we wish for. God has not said that
He would give us anything more than we need, but He will give us that.

So lift up your head and do not be afraid! Fear not, your God is with
you! He shall prevent evil from hurting you. He shall turn darkness
into light and bitter into sweet. He has led you all the way and all
the way this shall be your constant joy–He is my Shepherd, I shall not
really want that which is absolutely necessary. Whatever I really
require shall be given by the lavish hands of a tender Father.
Believer, here is your inheritance, here is your income, here is your
yearly living–"He is your Shepherd, and you shall not want." What is
your income, Believer? "Why," you say, "it varies with some and others
of us." Well, but, a Believer's income is still the same. This is
it–"The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want." That is my income and
it is yours, poor little one. That is the income of the poorest pauper
in the workhouse who has an interest in the Grace of God–the Lord is
her Shepherd, she shall not want! That is the income of the poor
foundling child who has come to know the Lord in early life and has no
other friend–the Lord is his Shepherd, he shall not want! That is the
widow's inheritance–the Lord is her Shepherd, she shall not want! That
is the orphan's fortune–the Lord is his Shepherd, he shall not want!
That is the Believer's portion, his inheritance, his blessing!

"Well now," some may say, "what is this Truth worth?" Beloved, if we
could change this Truth for a world of gold, we would not! We had
rather live on this Truth of God than live on the finest fortune in
creation! We reckon that this is an inheritance that makes us rich,
indeed–"The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want." Give me ten
thousand pounds and one reverse of fortune may scatter it all away. But
let me have a spiritual hold of this Divine Assurance, "The Lord is my
Shepherd, I shall not want," and then I am set up for life! I cannot
break with such stock as this in hand! I never can be a bankrupt, for I
hold this security–"The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want." Do not
give me ready money now–give me a checkbook and let me draw what I
like. That is what God does with the Believer. He does not immediately
transfer his inheritance to him, but lets him draw what he needs out of
the riches of his fullness in Christ Jesus! The Lord is his Shepherd;
he shall not want. What a glorious inheritance! Walk up and down it
Christian! Lie down upon it, it will do for your pillow–it will be
soft as down for you to lie upon. "The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not
want." Climb up that creaking staircase to the top of your house, lie
down on your hard mattress, wrap yourself with

a blanket, look out for the winter when hard times are coming and say
not, "What shall I do?" but just hum over to yourself these words, "The
Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want."

That will be like the hush of lullaby to your poor soul and you will
soon sink to slumber. Go, you business man, to your counting-house
again, after this little hour of recreation in God's House, and again
cast up those wearisome books. You are saying, "How about business?
These prices may be my ruin. What shall I do?" When you have cast up
your accounts, put this down against all your fears and see what a
balance it will leave–"The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want."
There is another man. He does not lack anything, but still he feels
that some great loss may injure him considerably. Go and write this
down in your cash-book. If you have made out your cash-account truly,
put this down– "The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want." Put this
down for something better than gold and silver–"The Lord is my
Shepherd; I shall not want." He who disregards this Truth, knows
nothing about its preciousness, but he who apprehends it, says, "Ah,
yes, it is true, 'The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want.'" He will
find this promise like China wind of which the ancients said that it
was flavored to the lips of him that tasted it! So this truth shall
taste sweet to you if your spiritual palate is pure–yet it shall be
worth nothing to you but mere froth if your taste is not healthy.

But Beloved, we must divide our congregation before we send you away
and remind you that there are some of you to whom this Truth of God
does not belong. Perhaps some of you professors of religion may want
this Truth badly enough, but it is not yours. The Lord is not your
Shepherd–you are not the sheep of His pasture and the flock of His
hand. You are not sheep, but goats–unclean creatures, not harmless and
undefiled as sheep, but everything that is the very reverse! Oh it is
not only eternal loss, it is not only everlasting injury that you have
to regret–it is also present loss and present injury–the loss of an
inheritance on earth, the loss of an inheritance below. To be deprived
of such a comfort as this is a terrible privation. Oh, it is enough to
make men long for religion if it were only for that sweet peace and
calm of mind which it gives here below! Well might men wish for this
heavenly oil to be cast on the troubled waters of this mortal life even
if they did not anoint their heads with it or enter into glory with the
joy of their Lord upon their countenance!

Beloved, there are some I know here–and your conscience tells you whom
I mean–who have a voice within your own hearts which says, "I am not
one of Christ's sheep." Well then, there is no promise for you that you
shall not want! The promise and the Providence are for Believers, not
for you. There is no promise that all things shall work together for
your good, but rather you shall be cursed in your basket and cursed in
your store, cursed in the field, cursed in your house, cursed in your
going out and cursed in your coming in, for, "the curse of the Lord is
in the house of the wicked." It does not merely peep in at his window
but it is in his house! Yet God "blesses the habitation of the just."
If you do not repent, the curse shall follow you until your dying day
and not having Christ for your Shepherd, you shall wander where that
hungry wolf, the devil, shall at last seize upon your soul–and
everlasting misery and destruction from the Presence of Jehovah must be
your inevitable, miserable and inexpressibly awful doom! May the Lord
in mercy deliver you from it!

And this is the way of salvation–"He that believes and is baptized
shall be saved; but he that believes not shall be damned." "He that
believes and is baptized"–we omit nothing that God has said. "He that
believes and is baptized"– not he that is baptized and then believes
(which would be reversing God's order), but "He that believes and is
baptized– not he that is baptized without believing, but the two
joined together! He that believes with his heart and is baptized,
confessing with his mouth–"he that believes and is baptized shall be
saved." Do you neglect one part of it? It is at your peril, Sir! "He
that believes and is baptized," says God. If any of you have neglected
one portion of it–if you have believed and have not been baptized–God
will save you. Still, this promise says not so. "He that believes and
is baptized." It puts the two together and "what God has joined
together, let no man put asunder." What He has ordered let no man
disarrange. "He that believes"–that is, he that trusts in Jesus–he
that relies upon His blood, His merits, His righteousness–"and is
baptized, shall be saved; but he that believes not shall be damned."