Divine discipline and drawing nearer to Christ; Thy rod and Thy staff Psa 23:4; Heb 12:5-13

God's grace policy in promoting David is stated in several places. In 1Sam.16:7, the prophet, Samuel, was mandated by the Lord to go and contact Jesse and anoint one of his son's. When he arrived, he was very impressed with all six sons. He thought it must be the eldest son, Eliab, a man of great strength and beauty, whom he was drawn to at once because of his outside appearance. As he approached to anoint him, God told him not to look at his outward appearance. He went down the line until God had rejected all six. Samuel asked Jesse if these were all his sons and Jesse told him about David, the youngest, tending the sheep. When Samuel saw David God told him he was the one.

 

In the next chapter, the Israel was preparing for battle with the Philistines. Jesse told David to go down to Israel's Army camp and give rations to his brothers, who were junior officers and 10 special cheeses for battalion commander. When he arrived he heard Goliath, a 10 foot giant, standing in front of the Philistine camp shouting insults and challenging any Jewish soldier to a duel. When David heard this he asked who this uncircumcised Philistine was that he should come out and challenge the Army of the living God. His oldest brother heard him and became angry and asked him why he had come down and with whom had he left the sheep. He told David that he was arrogant [projection] and evil in his heart and accused him of only coming to the camp to watch the battle. When they took him into Saul's tent, Saul asked him what experience he had. David told him about how he was in charge of the sheep and had killed a lion who had taken one of the flock. He also told him of how he had killed a bear in defending his flock. So Saul had him put on his own armor, but David took it off. So he went out with his sling down into a valley and picked out 5 perfect stones. Goliath started laughing at David and heaping insults. David told him that he came bragging but that he came in the name of the Lord, who would fight for him today. David knocked Goliath out with a shot between the eyes. He then went over and cut the giant's head off. This was the introduction to Israel's new King.

 

David wrote this during his Absalom's revolution. He was out in the desert while his son was in his palace. He maintained a RMA and Grace orientation during this lowest point in his life. He sat down and wrote this short song expressing the PSD's on his soul and is analogous to ROM 8:28

 

ROM 8:28

And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.

 

As was with the case of Eliab and David, God doesn’t look upon the outward appearance, but He looks upon the heart.

 

Psalm 23 is about a changed heart; a heart that was changed by the recognition of and faith in the Good Shepherd.

 

Only God can change a heart. And as David is sitting alone, no longer tending flocks, but alone in the desert remembering what it was like long ago as a young man tending flocks, he writes this song.

 

 

Ps 23:1-4

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.

 

We noted that the shepherd would take his flocks through the valleys up in to the hill country in the recesses of the mountains in the summer.

 

He would take them there because of the lush green meadows that grew there after the winter snows had receded.

 

When the sheep fed on these meadows, the Shepherd’s own fields were rested from the constant feeding of the sheep so that they could grow strongly for the fall and winter.

 

In this I find a great analogy for the maturing believer.

 

The mountain meadows represent growth to maturity. At the various stages of spiritual growth, the believer moves on to more doctrines, to different doctrines and more advanced doctrines.

 

This gives time for the other doctrines that were learned before to grow stronger as they are coupled with the new doctrines.

 

However, the sheep had to return from the mountains at the end of the summer because the snow and cold would be returning. But the sheep would return to rested fields that had time to strengthen and they would feed in those fields again.

 

This in analogous to repetition of doctrine.

 

Doctrine is a seamless whole of the mind of Christ. When different doctrines are learned then more continuity of the plan of God is learned and older doctrines are strengthened as the believer sees their place in God’s system.

 

But it cannot be left there. The older doctrines must be repeated so there is inculcation of their relationship to the new doctrines. And so goes the strong analogy to the sheep returning from the mountains, after they have passed through the dangerous valleys twice (on the way up and down) to feed again on the same fields.

 

The old fields have replenished, just like repetition of doctrine replenishes the soul, and the sheep have gained continuous strength and energy.

 

With that strength and energy they can face their next test - the winter.

 

You might be saying, “When do they ever get a rest?”

 

The answer is plenty of times. They rest during the whole summer on the mountain meadows. Not many predators up there. And, as we’ll see, sweet alone time with the shepherd. But that comes after the passage through the valleys.

 

Feeding on the old fields during the fall is a great time of rest. And that also comes after the passage through the valleys.

 

Then comes the winter. So, we have rest, then testing, rest, then testing, rest, then trials, heartache, problems, adversity, etc.

 

2 Cor 1:5

For just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ.

 

Ps 23:4

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.

What is the rod and staff?

 

To me this is the most perplexing part of the Psalm because this is the only addition to the Shepherd.

 

When the Shepherd is TLJC, why would the God/Man need an instrument?

 

Surely, the presence of the Shepherd Himself should comfort us. Just His proximity, so close to us, should comfort us. But, David, sitting in the desert quite alone remembers the shepherd’s staff that he carried, and metaphorically, under the inspiration of God the Holy Spirit, put a shepherds staff in the Lord’s hands.

 

With the help of Phillip Keller, I think I have an answer.

 

The key to the analogy lies in the many ways that the natural shepherd would use his staff or rod.

 

It’s not hard to notice that David describes the instrument in the Lord’s hands with two words, which are quite different in the original Hebrew.

 

It’s the rod and the staff.

 

The rod is a Hebrew word that means an instrument of correction or punishment.

 

The staff is a Hebrew word that means something to lean on, which actually means to lean on something you trust to hold you up, so it comes to mean a relief or comfort from something other than yourself.

 

Both uses of the shepherd’s staff draw you near to the shepherd and hence the rest of the flock.

 

So we find two uses of the rod/staff in David’s song.

 

Think of David sitting on that lonely desert, while he recognizes his own mistakes and the mistakes of his son Absalom, whom he loves, but knows has made a huge error in arrogance.

 

He writes in his song, not one word for the shepherds staff, but two, knowing that the discipline and the comfort of the Lord were both completely necessary.

 

His little song could have been lost for all time, but God didn’t think that way. God desired this precious song of a fallen man to inspire believers for 3000 years.

 

1 Cor 10:11

Now these things happened to them as an example, and they were written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.

 

Most people wouldn’t think of discipline and comfort as similar, and while the action of applying discipline and comfort to a person might look different, there is a commonality among them.

 

Both discipline (the rod) and comfort (the staff) draw you near to God.

 

David experienced both as will every believer who pursues God.

 

We’ve noted several times:

 

ISA 53:6

All of us like sheep have gone astray,

Each of us has turned to his own way;

But the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all

To fall on Him.

 

God in His Sovereign will gave us free will. And while it is not God’s will that we sin personally we do. And while it is not God’s will that we fail to rebound and get out of the cosmic system, we often remain in the cosmos, ignoring Him.

 

But God is also omniscient and so He has seen every decision we would make in His foreknowledge and He has made provision for the good decisions and the bad.

 

And only known to Him are the times that He will bring in divine discipline in order to change or halt a certain system of thinking.

 

It is only through changed thinking that decision patterns and thus behavior patters can change.

 

The behavior patterns that God wants to see in us is described by David as the paths of Righteousness.

 

Those paths are like wheel ruts that we discussed on Sunday. The same patterns become easier and easier whether they are patterns of evil or patterns of Righteousness.

 

Yet, a straying sheep needs to be halted. Phillip Keller describes how a shepherd is so skilled with this staff that he can hurl it like a javelin with pinpoint accuracy.

 

He not only throws it at predators but he also throws it at sheep who are looking to leave the field or who are straying towards a dangerous cliff.

 

This is analogous to God’s divine discipline.

 

REV 3:19

'Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline; be zealous therefore, and repent.

 

 

 

 

HEB 12:5-13

"My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,

Nor faint when you are reproved by Him;

6 For those whom the Lord loves He disciplines,

And He scourges every son whom He receives."

7 It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? 8 But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. 9 Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live? 10 For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, that we may share His holiness. 11 All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. 12 Therefore, strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble, 13 and make straight paths for your feet, so that the limb which is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed.

 

Hebrews 12 says it all on the topic of discipline. Why does God do it and what the results are for the believer who is trained by it.

 

Notice how nicely it matches up with Psa 23; it results in peaceful fruit of righteousness which is further described as straight paths.

 

Paths of righteousness.

 

And coming up we will see the beautiful picture of the lame limb. All of us have one as a result of God’s shepherding us.

 

This doctrine, divine discipline, is for believers only, Hebrew 12:5. It is for the family of God.