Christ is relaxed concerning you because He gave a rod and a staff to comfort you. Psa 23:4; Rom 8:33-39.

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?

 

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.

 

The rod we noted last time as divine discipline.

 

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.

 

This is not saying that unbelievers do not suffer. They suffer by violating the laws of establishment, they suffer from self-induced misery, from the decadence of their soul in the field of mental attitude sins.

 

The unbelievers do suffer but their suffering is not a family matter. Divine discipline is a family matter.

           

Discipline is based on love, Hebrews 12:6.

           

Divine discipline does not entail the loss of salvation, Galatians 3:26 cf Hebrews 12:6.

           

Divine discipline is often removed by rebound, 1 Corinthians 11:31. In this way God turns cursing into blessing.

           

If the suffering continues after rebound the purpose is blessing, JOB 5:17,18.

           

All discipline for members of the family of God is confined to time, Revelation 21:4.

           

Discipline relates to sins of the immediate past. The suffering is caused by discipline for something you have done wrong in the immediate past. The only exception to this would be reversionism over a long period of time, as in the case of king Saul.

           

Maximum discipline for any member of the family of God is the sin unto death, 1 John 5:16. This is caused by prolonged reversionism.

           

Triple compound discipline is one of the more intense forms of divine discipline. An illustration is found in Matthew 7:1-2.

         

The benefits from divine discipline

 

When you are under divine discipline you have the encouragement of knowing that you belong to God. It is a sign of sonship, it is encouragement in the field of eternal security. God only spanks His own children.

           

It is a sign of reversionism, it is a warning to you as a believer, as a child of God, that you are off the royal road to glory. So God graciously warns His children by discipline.

           

Discipline is a teacher and a corrector. The growing believer is taught and corrected indirectly by Bible teaching. The reversionist is taught and corrected directly by discipline.

           

A motivator of positive volition toward Bible doctrine. It motivates to get positive toward doctrine.

           

It is the hard way of attaining spiritual maturity.

 

Every believer has the ability to incur more or less discipline from God in time as he is on the road to maturity. The difference makers are good decisions made from spiritual strength or bad decisions made from spiritual weakness.

 

Mr. Keller describes the times that he would have to throw his staff at sheep to keep them from roaming into dangerous areas and he also describes how he would nudge the sheep towards the other sheep as well as closer to himself.

 

And here in lies the comforting aspect of the staff.

 

The shepherd’s loneliest time was during the summer when he was up in the mountains with the sheep. This is where David was when the Lord sent Samuel to anoint him as king.

 

There would be a little shack up in the hills that he would stay in and so it was just him and the sheep. It was intimate time with the sheep.

 

Some sheep are shy and tend to move away from the shepherd. The shepherd would use his staff to pull them closer. And they would have to be close to the shepherd because the shepherd always had to check them for parasites and to do this he would have to part the wool and look at the skin.

 

With great skill the shepherd would use his staff to part the wool and check for skin rashes, parasites, or the beginnings of disease. If the sheep is not close to the shepherd he can’t check this.

 

Mr. Keller describes how a person who was selling sheep at auction or market would trim the wool in a certain way so as to hide skin problems, but a wise shepherd would know to part the wool with his staff and look for healthy skin.

 

Now, again, we turn to the Lord’s omniscience. Nothing is hidden from His sight. His word, which is our greatest comfort, pierces deep down into the soul and the spirit.

 

And the Lord sees our problems, our own parasites and defects. And like any good shepherd who cares for his sheep, he wants to heal them.

 

A sheep possessing parasites is bothered by them, but when the shepherd applies certain chemicals to the skin to remove the parasites the sheep feels comfort.

 

Think about how the Lord has comforted you in the past. Did He come down to earth and hug you, kiss you on the cheek and pat you on the head while whispering, “There, there, everything’s going to be OK.”

 

No, He comforts us with our two options of power, the word of God and the filling of the HS.

 

John 15:26

"When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, He will bear witness of Me,

 

The Greek word for Helper is paraklete which can be translated Comforter. The word means to stand by a person in order to help them in time of need. It is also a legal term for an attorney who stands by you to defend you in court.

 

Turns out the name Advocate used for Christ has a similar connotation. It means lawyer or defender.

 

What greater lawyers could God give us? We have a defense team that consists of the God/Man Jesus Christ and God the Holy Spirit.

 

By means of the word of God they comfort us which gives a peace that goes beyond understanding.

 

So, again we have a staff that was a great tool of the shepherd. God’s tools are the word of God and the filling of the HS.

 

A young shepherd in training would go into the woods a choose a young sapling tree, pull it up by its roots and whittle it to give it a club like large end that tapered down to a thinner diameter on the other end.

 

This was a very exciting time for the young shepherd because this staff would be the only tool he would need.

 

Shepherds would lean on the staff to rest, fight off predators, part the wool to look for problems, stop straying sheep, push new borns toward their mothers since the smell of the shepherds hands might cause a mother to reject her newborn, count the sheep, pull a sheep out of a thicket or push them away from a dangerous cliff. There were dozens of applications of this staff, but all pointed toward one thing - comfort.

 

Comfort through discipline and comfort through closeness.

 

And what a beautiful picture Mr. Keller paints in his book of the few sheep that would become the shepherd’s favorites.

 

I think all of us can imagine, even though we’re not shepherds, how some of the sheep would become almost like pets to the shepherd. These were the ones who were not shy. And as the shepherd walked along, among his flocks, these few sheep might often be found walking along side and the shepherd would put his staff on the side of the sheep and pull him close so as to rub up against his leg as he walked. Imagine the comfort to that lamb.

 

I liken this to those who do reach spiritual maturity, who do find the comfort of the Lord, who are trained by his discipline, and whose lame limb has been healed and they walk with the Lord.

 

They have concluded like Paul did after his Rom 7 experience when his head was knocked around by discipline from terrible decisions:

 

ROM 8:31-39

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? 32 He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things? 33 Who will bring a charge against God's elect? God is the one who justifies; 34 who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36 Just as it is written,

"For Thy sake we are being put to death all day long;

We were considered as sheep to be slaughtered."

37 But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.