The filling of the Holy Spirit relieves the irritation of life Psa 23:5

Ps 23:1-5

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

2 He makes me lie down in green pastures;

He leads me beside quiet waters.

3 He restores my soul;

He guides me in the paths of righteousness

For His name's sake.

4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I fear no evil; for Thou art with me;

Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me.

 

   

Ps 23:5

Thou dost prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;

Thou hast anointed my head with oil;

My cup overflows.

 

 

The preparation of the table represents the shepherd’s preparation of the mountain meadows that the sheep graze upon during the summer.

 

 

 

 

He would look for signs of predators, usually big cats and coyotes. He would look for poisonous plants and flowers and pull them up. He would be on his hands and knees all day pulling up poisonous plants. He would look for the best places for the sheep to sleep at night so he could set up his own camp there. He would watch the fields closely and see which ones were better for grazing and plan out a grazing schedule for the sheep to follow.

 

The analogy is clear. TLJC went ahead of us. He fulfilled the plan that we now have. And He advanced to the mountain top pastures of spiritual maturity and has prepared that place for us.

 

He has prepared our tables for time and for eternity. He alone has prepared it all. It is through His work that we can enjoy the mountain pastures in safety and comfort.

 

The question then begs, can you make it to the high pastures and still become a victim of the predators or the poisonous plants? The answer is yes.

 

In fact, it is rare to find a hero in the OT or NT that hasn’t done it. David was at maturity and fell. Moses was at maturity and fell. Even the great apostle Paul was at maturity and fell.

 

Why? We possess desires that we simply refuse to give over to God. They are tucked away in the deep parts of our soul. And we climb through the valleys, we pass the tests, we conquer our enemies because we’ve followed the Shepherd. We’ve heard the word of God every day and done our best to apply it.

 

All the while, we have our little desire tucked deep away, and at sometimes the strangest and unpredictable times it rushes to the forefront of the soul, the launching pad and we say, what the hell, let’s give it a shot, and we’ll even justify it by telling ourselves, “we deserve a little.”

 

Fools all of us.

 

Our good Shepherd is going ahead of us in every situation, anticipating what danger we may encounter, and praying for us that in it we might succumb to it.

 

Ps 23:5

Thou dost prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;

Thou hast anointed my head with oil;

My cup overflows.

 

David has taken us through an entire year, and therefore every season in which the shepherd has to take care of the sheep.

 

He has taken us from the home ranch, where every need is carefully supplied by the owner, out into the green pastures, along the still waters, up through the mountain valleys to the high tablelands of summer.

 

The shepherd has taken care of the predators, the poisonous plants, and found for them the best grazing ground.

 

Surely this is a sublime time of peace and relaxation with no adversities at all.

 

Well as we all know, even spiritual maturity is not exempt from adversity. There are always periods of prosperity and periods of adversity in all stages of the CWL, in fact until we die.

 

This verse points to the annoyances that can get the better of us if we let them. And in fact, the summer time is when they come out in force.

 

The sheepman would say, “Summer time is fly time.”

 

What he’s referring to is the hordes of insects that emerge with the warm weather.

 

To make the sheep’s summer miserable there were, warble flies, bot flies, heel flies, nose flies, deer flies, black flies, mosquitoes, and gnats.

 

The constant nagging of all these parasites would make the sheep, who should have been enjoying a summer grazing on sweet grass, drinking clear water, and having intimate time with the shepherd, miserable.

 

What especially troubled the sheep was the nose fly or nasal fly. These flies would buzz about the sheep’s head trying to get the chance to lay eggs in the damp mucus membrane of the sheep. If they’re successful, the eggs will hatch in a few days and the larvae will head up into the flesh of the sheep’s head and there cause irritation and swelling.

 

For relief the sheep would deliberately beat their heads against trees, rocks, posts or brush. Sometimes they would even kill themselves in a frenzy.

 

And if the infection was not treated eventually it would lead to blindness.

 

Now the remedy to the shepherd in the middle east was a mixture of olive oil, sulfur, and spices that was rubbed on the sheep’s nose and all around his head.

 

So there you see the connection to what David is saying. He anoints my head with oil means that God’s Holy Spirit gives me the power to overcome the petty irritations and adversities that come my way when I’m in the mountain meadows of spiritual growth.

 

It’s interesting to note that a few irritated sheep would irritate the rest of them by running around, stamping their hooves, bumping into others.

 

And isn’t it so true that when we’re irritated we irritate others. And in fact it is generally people that do the irritating in the first place.

 

The unbeliever and the carnal believer become the fly in the ointment of the positive believer.

 

However, when the oil/sulfur/spice mix was applied to the nose and head of the sheep there was an amazing transformation.

 

Immediately he would no longer be aggravated or irritated and he would start to feed quietly again and then lie down in peaceful contentment.

 

Throughout the scriptures the Holy Spirit is referred to under the typology of oil.

 

Olive oil was used for lamps, so He was light to a room or a path (we cannot understand doctrine without Him), it was used in cooking, so He was sustenance and taste, it was used for healing wounds, He heals the scars on our soul, it was used as a cosmetic, the HS makes us look good through peace in the soul, and as remedy for all kinds of irritations like bugs, He gives us the power to love people with impersonal unconditional love.

 

And it is no coincidence that the olive tree would ripen in October and November, the end of the summer, which for the sheep was the end of the irritating flies.

How many times have we been just after a wonderful spiritual achievement or period of growth when we are suddenly cast into petty annoyances that destroy our peace.

 

The remedy is always rebound. Regain the filling of the HS and you will be amazed at how a once super annoying person or circumstance becomes nothing.

 

The shepherd had to apply the oil mixture several times over the summer, meaning that we will need rebound often.

 

The key is not to wait until the nasal flies’ eggs hatch in the larvae and start their trip up to your head. Keep short accounts with God and be very conscious of your relationship to God the HS every day.

 

ROM 8:1-2

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.

 

The fruit of the Spirit is real and will be real in us when we walk by means of the Spirit, which is BD every day and a very keen awareness of our relationship to the Spirit every day, and by that I mean simply, keep short accounts with God.

 

This is what David meant by, “He restores my soul.”

 

 

 

GAL 5:22-23

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

 

Both references to the Spirit’s work in our life are shown in comparison to the Mosaic Law that is no longer the plan of God.

 

Why? The OT was the ritual plan of God. The Law was a conditional covenant based on rules that were but a shadow of the real relationship to Christ that would come in the CA.

 

But our relationship or fellowship to Christ is based upon fellowship with the Spirit.

 

When we walk by means of the Spirit the fruit of the Spirit, which the Lord indicated would be ours if we as branches were rightly related to Him and the word He used was to abide.

 

He would be at home in our hearts when we abide or were in fellowship with Him and then we would bear much fruit.

 

This is the meaning now of “He anoints my head with oil.”

 

Now, there was another ailment that the summer brought to the sheep and that was scabs.

 

Scab is an irritating and highly contagious disease common among sheep the world over. It is cause by a minute, microscopic parasite that proliferates in warm weather. It can spread throughout the flock by direct contact.

 

Scab would be one of the blemishes that the high priest would check for on the sacrificial lamb. It was considered not worthy for sacrifice if it had scab.

 

Again, the effective antidote is oil with sulfur and other spices. In many cases the entire sheep has to be dipped into an entire tank of it and the head dipped over and over.

 

To do an entire flock was expensive and labor intensive.

 

But this work, remember, is not ours, it is the work of the Shepherd. He applies the ointment for flies and if He has to, He will go as far as to dip our whole bodies in ointment.

 

I believe this is analogous to those times where we are so stubborn that we simply refuse to rebound and return to God, or that we rebound, but our back out into the cosmic system in moments living like spiritual yo-yos.

 

The Lord in His graciousness will use whatever circumstances He needs to, including discipline, to dunk us in the HS, or in other words pushing us towards regaining fellowship with the Spirit.

 

However, we still have to make the free will decision to name and cite our sins.

 

Our contamination comes from the world. Like the disciples in the upper room who refused to wash their feet, our contact with the world dirties our souls, but the Lord has come to wash our feet.

 

All He’s asking us to do is to confess it. There is no merit to the confessor, but only to the one who forgives.

 

Our world is going crazy. Young people especially are believing the thousands of lies they hear everyday through our communication technology and their minds are being molded by satan’s propaganda parasites.

 

Like we all do, we need the healing ointment of God the HS. He gives us power, He gives us life, healing, and fruit.

 

Naturally He needs the word of God in your soul to do this.

 

We have one more analogy that applies to verse 5.

 

As summer moved into autumn it was mating time. The rams strutted their stuff, knocking into each other with their horns, and bumping each other’s bodies trying to gain the attention of a lovely ewe.

 

Mr. Keller relates how he would put axle grease on their heads so that when they butted they would glance off each other without doing any damage.

 

He writes how they would try to butt each other and then stop and looking a little confused they would seem to forget what they were doing.

 

We all knock against each other. We all butt heads from time to time. If we both have the oil of the Spirit, the filling of the Spirit, there will eventually be forgiveness and reconciliation.

 

I cannot tell you, nor would I for privacy sake, how many times I have seen this happen amongst positive believers, myself included.

 

Why does it all occur? The Shepherd is near. It was TLJC who asked the Father for the Spirit and told us He would send Him.

 

And often when we’re in the midst of adversity when we thought prosperity was around the corner we think foolishly that He has forgotten about us somehow.

 

Mr. Keller wrote how he always slept with his rifle at his side and with one eye open. Well, the Lord’s weapons are a lot bigger than a rifle and He doesn’t sleep at all.

 

No matter what you are going through, keep close to the Shepherd by hearing His word and keep short accounts on your sins and He will be there at the ready with the oil when you need it.