(A Psalm of David) The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.” Psalms 23:1
Along with John 3:16, the 23rd Psalm would probably be among the most well known verses in all the world. Men have quoted it, movies have recited it and monuments are engraved with it. This psalm holds the single most vital element that every soul in the world searches for, yearns for and desires to have and hold, that being peace and contentment in life. There is indeed a peace that can be found in this life and a contentment that rests within the hearts of those who adopt this scripture verse as a part of their existence. While Hollywood scavenges for it in money, city leaders search for it in monuments and some churches attempt to create it in their members, there is only one source of pure contentment and only One by whom true peace may be given, granted or gained. That source is The LORD, Jesus Christ.
Read with me the opening salutation in Psalm 23 in which David proclaims, "The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want." Because we know that David was a man after God’s own heart, he does not refer to the Lord generically by saying "a" Lord, nor with an impersonal title just of "Lord", but in full recognition of His majesty, as THE LORD!
When Christ traveled into Caesarea Philippi as recorded in Matthew 16:18, He stated to Peter, “And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” Beloved, we know that Jesus Christ is the Rock upon Whom the church is built. From a very early age, even my children understood that it was Jesus, not Peter, who was the foundation of the church. Peter himself professed Christ as the Rock in the second chapter of his first epistle in verses 6 through 8. While Jesus declared to Peter that the gates of hell would not prevail against the church, there stood as a backdrop a pagan shrine known as the Temple of Pan. It was referred to by pagans as the "Gates of Hell", believing that it was the entrance into a sacred place populated by the dead and ruled by the pagan god of the underworld, Hades. The Temple of Pan was a place where a number of statues of pagan gods stood on display. The historian Josephus provided a description of this temple and some of the Idols and carvings in the the walls of the ruins are still there today. Pan means "all" or "many". By combining the Greek words "pan" with "theos", which means "god", we may understand that the Pantheon constructed by the Romans in 27 B.C. was a structure dedicated to the hundreds of various gods worshipped by the Romans. As bad as that may sound, the Hindus today worship a pantheon of more than 300 million gods, ranging from insects to monkeys.
Yet David referred to THE LORD and, as believers, we know that the LORD we serve and worship today is "THE LORD of all" and not "the all as lord". When David refers to God as the LORD, we must know and understand that there is power in those two words, great, mighty and wonderful power! He is THE LORD of the Living! In Psalm 23:1 of your King James, AV1611 Bible, notice that the letters O,R and D in LORD are printed in small capitals which denotes the God of Israel. In other places in the Bible, we see "Lord" printed with a capital L preceding the lower case letters o,r and d. This word, Lord, means "Adonai", the personal name of God, the Lord who is God. This distinction is that LORD in Psalm 23 is translated from the name that identifies God with Himself as the personal God of Israel, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. This word is translated from YHWH (pronounced Yaheweh) and is the same title found in Exodus 3:15, “...the LORD God of your fathers…”. The same name is used in Genesis 12 when God introduced Himself to Abraham. In Malachi 2:16, LORD is also used as an identification: "For the LORD, the God of Israel, saith that he hateth putting away: for one covereth violence with his garment, saith the LORD of hosts: therefore take heed to your spirit, that ye deal not treacherously." He is the same Lord in Colossians 1:10-18. He is "The LORD" of the Living, the Creator and the Lord of Life. Romans 10:9 is another important and oft quoted scripture verse which can be effectively used when leading someone to Christ for salvation: "That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus…" Note that the emphasis here is back on "the Lord", not a Lord or best Lord or better Lord, but THE Lord (read Hebrews 2:10). The key to salvation is to make Christ, Who is The LORD, the Captain of your salvation. One must confess (proclaim) the Lord (agree that Jesus Christ is God) in order to be saved.
In Psalm 23, David is singing to proclaim "The LORD". The Psalm is an acclamation that He is the LORD of the Living, the LORD of Life and the LORD of Love. The word occurs 310 times within 260 verses. So how significant is Love to the 23rd Psalm? Love occurs 23 times in 23 verses in the book of Psalms and there is no way that these "23's" are coincidental. It is a as much a coincidence as John 6:66 which reads, “From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him."
Friends, when David penned by inspiration of the Holy Ghost the 23rd Psalm, there can be no doubt of how the love of God was poured into his heart and overflowed onto the parchment as he was moved by the LORD. Paul tells us in Romans 5:8, “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” So what is the LORD of Psalm 23? He is the: Father of all Living, Savior of all Life and Creator of all Love. Verses 7 and 8 of I John 5 tell us that, "For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one."
What a great blessing to know the God of all creation is the God who loves us and is willing to faithfully and willfully provide for us in all things… in this life as well as in the next.
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