Psalm 23 Devotional:

GNV: 1 Because the Prophet had proved the great mercies of God at divers times, and in sundry manners, he gathereth a certain assurance, fully persuading himself that God will continue the very same goodness towards him forever.

A Psalm of David.

23:1 The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

2 He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.

3 He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.

4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

5 Thou dost prepare a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou dost anoint my head with oil; and my cup runneth over.

6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

Previously we saw the nature and manner of the goodness of God displayed towards David and His people. For it is not so much that God gives without purpose or thought, but hath ordained our gifts and designed them exactly for our benefit so that we should not lack which may tempt to covetousness, nor have excess which may tempt to pride and indulgence. Therefore may the believer give God thanks for what He hath given and what He hath not given. We should note also that when it is said that the Lord as a shepherd hath prepared a table before us, it is as much to say that He hath brought us into His banqueting house to feast with members of His beloved family. Even as it is written, “He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love.” and again, “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.” and again, “They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house; and thou shalt make them drink of the river of thy pleasures.” and again, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: Who hath predestinated us, to be adopted as sons through Jesus Christ in himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us freely accepted in his beloved.” And thus we see the import of the sacred adoption, that as Christ hath led us like a good shepherd into green pastures, and set a table before us in the presence of our enemies, this means that He hath led us into His church and flock to be nourished by the word and encouraged in faith by the saints despite the rage of heretics and outsiders. So may we ever bless God for His provision to us. Therefore we see a progression in the themes here, inasmuch as God hath set a table before us and brought us into divine fellowship despite present trial, He hath poured His Spirit upon us through preaching, and blessed us so abundantly so that we lack nothing of all the spiritual gifts of God, as it is written, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ” and again, “According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue” and again, “And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions: And also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit.” Therefore we see here the import of the good shepherd anointing His people with oil. For that God hath given us the grace of the Spirit abundantly through Jesus Christ and anointed us even as He was anointed by His Father and accomplished His ministry by the power of the Spirit, even as it is written, “And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him..” and again, “And Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost returned from Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness” and again, “For he whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God: for God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him.” And therefore hath He power and authority to give the Spirit to whom He will, as it is written, “And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.” signifying that Christ is the Lord and will send His Spirit and the Father’s Spirit to be with us, that He may be with us. And again it is written, “And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.” Therefore we see from this the signification of the words, “thou dost anoint my head with oil.” For we ought not to limit the passage to material blessing, inasmuch as then it would terminate with David, and with those only who have access to fragrant oils. But inasmuch as it is written, “Because of the savour of thy good ointments thy name is as ointment poured forth, therefore do the virgins love thee.” therefore may the flock of Christ give Him praise and glory, and love Him exceedingly, for that they are blessed by His Spirit and cannot do other.

Henry,
From the good gifts of God’s bounty to him now he infers the constancy and perpetuity of his mercy, Psalms 23:5,6. Here we may observe, 1. How highly he magnifies God’s gracious vouchsafements to him (Psalms 23:5): “Thou preparest a table before me; thou hast provided for me all things pertaining both to life and godliness, all things requisite both for body and soul, for time and eternity:” such a bountiful benefactor is God to all his people; and it becomes them abundantly to utter his great goodness, as David here, who acknowledges, (1.) That he had food convenient, a table spread, a cup filled, meat for his hunger, drink for his thirst. (2.) That he had it carefully and readily provided for him. His table was not spread with any thing that came next to hand, but prepared, and prepared before him. (3.) That he was not stinted, was not straitened, but had abundance: “My cup runs over, enough for myself and my friends too.” (4.) That he had not only for necessity, but for ornament and delight: Thou anointest my head with oil. Samuel anointed him king, which was a certain pledge of further favor; but this is rather an instance of the plenty with which God had blessed him, or an allusion to the extraordinary entertainment of special friends, whose heads they anointed with oil, Luke 7:46. Nay, some think he still looks upon himself as a sheep, but such a one as the poor man’s ewe-lamb (2 Samuel 12:3), that did eat of his own meat, and drank of his own cup, and lay in his bosom; not only thus nobly, but thus tenderly, are the children of God looked after. Plentiful provision is made for their bodies, for their souls, for the life that now is and for that which is to come. If Providence do not bestow upon us thus plentifully for our natural life, it is our own fault if it be not made up to us in spiritual blessings.

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Therefore as we have a table set before us in the preaching of the word and the Lord’s supper wherein we partake freely and sweetly of Christ’s benefits so dearly procured for us, let us come before the Lord with confidence and love, trusting that He will guide us to our promised rest and as He dwells in us now by faith, we will dwell with Him forever in paradise.

Opening Prayer.

Intro.

1. Sign and Thing.
God has received us, once for all, into His family, to hold us not only as servants but as sons. Thereafter, to fulfill the duties of a most excellent Father concerned for His offspring, He undertakes also to nourish us throughout the course of our lives. And not content with this alone, He has willed, by giving His pledge, to assure us of this continuing generosity. To this end, therefore, He has, through the hand of His only-begotten Son, given to His church another sacrament—a spiritual banquet—in which Christ attests Himself as the life-giving bread, upon which our souls feed unto true and blessed immortality (John 6:51).

The knowledge of this high mystery is very necessary, and, given its greatness, it demands careful explanation. Furthermore, Satan, to deprive the church of this inestimable treasure, has long since spread clouds of confusion and, later, raised quarrels and conflicts to estrange the minds of the simple from a taste for this sacred food—a tactic he also employs in our own day. For these reasons, after summarizing the matter in a way intelligible to the unlearned, I shall resolve the difficulties with which Satan has tried to ensnare the world.

First, the signs are bread and wine, representing the invisible food we receive from the flesh and blood of Christ. For as in baptism, God, regenerating us, engrafts us into the society of His church and makes us His own by adoption; so, as a provident householder, He supplies us with the food to sustain us in the life into which we have been begotten by His Word.

Now, Christ is the only food of our soul, and therefore our Heavenly Father invites us to Christ, that, refreshed by partaking of Him, we may repeatedly gather strength until we reach heavenly immortality. Since, however, this mystery of Christ’s union with the devout is incomprehensible by nature, God shows its figure and image in visible signs, best adapted to our limited understanding. Indeed, by giving us these guarantees and tokens, He makes it as certain for us as if we had seen it with our own eyes. For this familiar comparison penetrates even the dullest minds: just as bread and wine sustain physical life, so our souls are fed by Christ. We now understand the purpose of this mystical blessing—namely, to confirm for us that the Lord’s body was once for all sacrificed for us, that we may now feed upon it, and by feeding, feel in ourselves the work of that unique sacrifice; and that His blood was shed once, to be our perpetual drink. Thus speak the words of the promise: “Take, this is my body, which is given for you” (1 Corinthians 11:24; cf. Matthew 26:26; Mark 14:22; Luke 22:19). We are therefore bidden to take and eat the body, which was once offered for our salvation, so that in seeing ourselves made partakers, we may assuredly conclude that the power of His life-giving death is efficacious in us. Hence, He also calls the cup “the covenant in His blood” (Luke 22:20; 1 Corinthians 11:25), for He in some measure renews, or rather continues, the covenant He ratified once for all with His blood, as far as it pertains to strengthening our faith whenever He offers that sacred blood for us to taste.

2. Union with Christ as the Special Fruit of the Lord’s Supper.
Godly souls can gather great assurance and delight from this Sacrament; in it, they have witness of our growth into one body with Christ, such that whatever is His may be called ours. Consequently, we may dare assure ourselves that eternal life, of which He is the heir, is also ours; and that the Kingdom of Heaven, into which He has entered, cannot be cut off from us any more than from Him; again, that we cannot be condemned for our sins, from whose guilt He has absolved us, since He chose to bear them as His own. This is the wonderful exchange, which, out of His measureless benevolence, He has made with us: becoming Son of Man with us, He has made us sons of God with Him; by descending to earth, He prepared an ascent to heaven for us; by taking on our mortality, He conferred His immortality upon us; by accepting our weakness, He strengthened us by His power; by receiving our poverty unto Himself, He transferred His wealth to us; by taking upon Himself the weight of our iniquity (which oppressed us), He clothed us with His righteousness.

3. The Spiritual Presence of Christ.
In this Sacrament, we have such full witness of these things that we must consider them as if Christ Himself were present, set before our eyes and touched by our hands. For His word cannot lie or deceive us: “Take, eat, drink; this is my body, which is given for you; this is my blood, shed for the forgiveness of sins” (Matthew 26:26-28, conflated with 1 Corinthians 11:24; cf. Mark 14:22-24; Luke 22:19-20). By bidding us take, He indicates that it is ours; by bidding us eat, that it is made one with us; by declaring His body given for us and His blood shed for us, He teaches that both are not so much His as ours. For He took up and laid down both, not for His advantage, but for our salvation.

We must carefully observe that the powerful and almost entire force of the Sacrament lies in these words: “which is given for you,” “which is shed for you.” The present distribution of the body and blood of the Lord would not greatly benefit us unless they had been given for our redemption and salvation. They are therefore represented under bread and wine so that we may learn not only that they are ours but that they have been destined as food for our spiritual life.

As previously stated, from the physical things set forth in the Sacrament, we are led by a sort of analogy to spiritual things. Thus, when bread is given as a symbol of Christ’s body, we must at once grasp this comparison: as bread nourishes and sustains the life of our body, so Christ’s body is the only food to invigorate and enliven our soul. When we see wine set forth as a symbol of blood, we must reflect on the benefits wine imparts to the body and so realize that these same benefits are imparted to us by Christ’s blood. These benefits are to nourish, refresh, strengthen, and gladden. For if we sufficiently consider the value we have received from the giving of that most holy body and the shedding of that blood, we shall clearly perceive that the qualities of bread and wine are, by analogy, excellently adapted to express these things when they are communicated to us.

4. The Meaning of the Promise of the Lord’s Supper.
The chief function of the Sacrament, then, is not simply and without higher consideration to extend to us the body of Christ. Rather, it is to seal and confirm that promise by which He testifies that His flesh is true food and His blood true drink (John 6:56), which feed us unto eternal life (John 6:55). By this, He declares Himself to be the bread of life, of which whoever eats shall live forever (John 6:48, 50). The Sacrament, therefore, points us to the cross of Christ, where this promise was performed and fulfilled in all respects, for we do not partake of Christ duly and unto salvation unless He is crucified—when in living experience we grasp the efficacy of His death. When Christ calls Himself “the bread of life,” He does not borrow that name from the Sacrament, as some wrongly interpret. Rather, He was given to us by the Father as such and showed Himself to be so when, sharing in our human mortality, He made us partakers in His divine immortality; when, offering Himself as a sacrifice, He bore our curse to bestow His blessing; when, by His death, He swallowed up and annihilated death (1 Peter 3:22, 1 Corinthians 15:54); and when, in His resurrection, He raised up our corruptible flesh, which He had put on, to glory and incorruption (1 Corinthians 15:53-54).

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The Westminster Confession of Faith.

Lesson 4. Introduction. [4] The Practical Use of Spiritual Knowledge.
Proverbs 2.
A. Knowledge and justification. (cause and effect. Pardon and peace of conscience.)
B. Knowledge and sanctification. (instrumental. Sanctified through knowledge.)
C. Knowledge and adoption. (Privilege)
1. The use of knowledge in understanding scripture. (the law and the gospel, the old and new Testaments, the decalogue, general to particular)
2. The use of knowledge in meditation. (a deliberate act, circumstantial musing, unraveling an enigma)
3. The use of knowledge in prayer. (addressing the Father through Christ. What do we pray for?)
4. The use of knowledge in teaching. (imparting knowledge to others. Abstract to concrete)
5. The use of knowledge in singing. (hymns or Psalms, self centered or tears of affliction) 6. The use of knowledge in relations. (how to treat a non believer, a heretic, a Christian)
7. The use of knowledge in judgment. Lawful (to rebuke heresy and condemn hypocrisy), indifferent (drinking, recreation, using the world), unlawful (swearing, stealing, lying, the soul).
8. The use of knowledge in resisting temptation. (we are not ignorant of his devices, the 5 senses, using relations, Adam, Job)
9. The use of knowledge in discerning providence. (Is prosperity a blessing? Affliction a curse?) Psalm 73, Ecc. 9:1-12
10. The use of knowledge in worship. (giving glory to God)
Knowledge is light to our path, speed to our walk, warmth to our condition, sustenance to our soul, life to our religion.
2 Chron. 1:11.

Conclusion.

Closing Prayer.

YouTube Audio: https://youtu.be/SbAE_oJCYiY?si=8u9toVNvjKi6v4VX