Since Father’s Day we’ve been exploring some themes from Psalm 23. We’ve looked at Psalm 23 from vantage point of David’s life; but also Jesus’ life.
• Week 1 was how David looked to God as His Shepherd and Lord.
• Week 2 was how David found satisfaction and contentment in God. Think of how anxious we are about life, our changing circumstances. Anxieties about relationships at home, work, world. Anxiety about health, life, and death. Psalm 23:1-2, “The Lord is my Shepherd I have what I need. He lets me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside quiet waters.”
• Week 3 was how David sought first God’s Kingdom and righteousness. Psalm 23:3, “He renews my life; he leads me along the right paths for his name’s sake.”
• We know that David, as a man, imperfectly navigated these things. There were times when in pride, he looked away from God to his own strength. There were times when his passions, desires, and dissatisfactions caused him to stumble deep into sin. There were times David crossed lines—into adultery, also into murder—no godly person should ever cross.
• So, we look to David and say, “Here was a man definitely after God’s heart.” But we look to Jesus and say, “Here is God, appearing in flesh as a man, truly living the Psalm 23 life, setting an example that we might follow in his steps. And more than that, Jesus offering forgiveness for our sin when we repent, and his Holy Spirit to purify us from all unrighteousness.
• When David messed up, he wouldn’t lie about it. Not to God, not Himself. He would turn to God. 1 John 1:7-10 says, “7 If we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. 8 If we say, “We have no sin,” we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins (work of Jesus) and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (work of Holy Spirit). 10 If we say, “We have not sinned,” we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.”
• So David is an example of restoration and renewal that can occur when we fall short.
We definitely have more ground to cover in Psalm 23. Psalm 23:4 continues, “Even when I go through the darkest valley, I fear no danger, for you are with me; your rod and your staff—they comfort me.” Next Sunday were going to explore the role of God’s discipline in our lives. How does God use his rod and staff to ping our conscience, to snag us from snares of temptation and/or danger? How does God comfort us with grace, when we fail, so we don’t grow discouraged and lose heart?
This morning, however, is about fear. Or perhaps we should state it more positively—it’s about courage. Psalm 23:4a, “Even when I go through the darkest valley, I fear no danger, for you are with me.” (CSB) The King James version says, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.” (KJV). As you can see there is some variation in how this verse is translated. Are we talking about going through darkest valleys, or are we talking about death itself? Are we talking about fearing “danger and harm” in general, or specifically fearing “evil people?”
Let me talk for a moment about “Dark Valleys.” Here in Illinois, we don’t have dark valleys, we have spacious, flat cornfields. So long as the corn isn’t up, you can see for miles. But lets just consult Websters Dictionary. “Geographically” speaking, what is a valley? A valley is a long depression that emerges in the surface of the land. Okay, “Metaphorically” or “Spiritually” what is a valley? A valley is a long depression that emerges deep within a person’s life.
The funny thing about a spiritual valley, or depression, is that it can emerge slowly or subtly. You think you are traveling on solid ground, everything seems okay on the surface, yet strangely you’ve already begun to descend. Day after day. Week after week. Month after month. Slowly you find yourself in a very uncomfortable and increasingly dark place. How did this happen? How did I get here?
Or sometimes a spiritual valley, or depression, can emerge rather quickly and abruptly. You suddenly lose your footing. You suddenly descend. You grab and grasp for anything to slow your descent but one day things seem fine, and the next day things are very dark indeed. Circumstances can change slowly over time, or abruptly, in a snap. Relationship can deteriorate slowly over time, or suddenly explode into chaos. Your health or the health of a loved one can ebb away slowly over decades. Or your health can change suddenly, and you find yourself facing death.
There are well-intentioned dragons, I mean Christians, who will find you there in your dark depression. Some will disable you with sympathy, “Oh you poor thing. So sad. So tragic.” Some will poke you with empathy, “How are you today? Help me understand? How can I help you? Let’s fix this. Pick yourself up.” Thanks, but maybe it can’t be fixed, not anytime soon? Thanks, but I don’t understand? I just feel dark inside. And others will afflict you with apathy. They won’t call out to you. They won’t notice you. They won’t pursue you. And if they do, like Job’s miserable comforters, they will callously assume, in a rather spiritualistic tone, “Hmm. You must not have faith. You must not be a very good Christian. God must be angry with you. You must have sinned or done something wrong. God’s teaching you a lesson. I just know you should have joy, not sadness. You should be on a mountaintop, not in some dark valley.”
The other concern, as it relates to Dark Valleys, is how deep does this depression go? And even more concerning, what is at the bottom of this deep dark valley? If you’ve ever found yourself in a dark valley, it does in fact feel like death. If not literally and physically death… then certain a death of perspective, a death of ambition and desire. A death of love, of joy and peace. And worse of all, a death of hope. What doesn’t seem to die is anxiety and fear. A certain desperation of the soul to get out of the dark place in which one now feels entombed.
“How can a Christian ever find themselves in such a place,” you ask? Look no further than the Psalms. King David was the author of many Psalms. But the Psalms read like journal entries. At times circumstances overwhelm the Psalmists. At times, relational pain. At times, physical pain, real dangers, hardships, injustices, injuries. The Psalmists weren’t exempt from spiritual darkness. If they’re not godly, if they’re not spiritual, if they’re not faithful people… then who is?
How many times to the Apostle Paul maybe find himself in a dark valley? As his circumstances languished. Imprisonments. Riots. Beatings. Shipwrecks. Hunger. Thirst. As Christian churches languished, and Christian brothers and sisters turned against him? Or as Paul’s own health languished in prison. Do I just die? Do I keep on living?
And let’s not forget the Son of Man, Jesus. Luke 9:58, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” I know that whatever was going on in Jesus’ spirit in the Garden of Gethsemane, he certainly wasn’t on some mountaintop, but rather a descending into some dark valley, “Jesus became sorrowful and troubled… he said, ‘I am deeply grieved to the point of death, remain here and stay awake with me… he prayed, ‘Father if you are willing, take this cup away from me’. . . his sweat became like drops of blood falling to the ground. . . ” Betrayed by his good friend Judas. Abandoned by all his disciples. Falsely accused, sentenced to torture and death. On the cross Jesus cries out, “My God, My God, why hath though forsaken me?” Others mocked him, “He saved others, but he can’t save himself.” Again, I don’t know if you’ve ever read Psalm 22—but there is a reason Jesus quotes its opening words as he dies on the cross. There is no darkness, valley, or depression that’s ever visited us (past, present, or future) that didn’t also in some way visit even Jesus. Hebrews 4:15, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin.”
Where do we get this notion that we will be exempt from such dark valleys? Are we better than King David, than an Apostle Paul, than Jesus Himself? No, spiritual pride cometh before a spiritual fall. Don’t ever let spiritually proud dragons (no matter how well intentioned with their spiritualistic superiority) pile it on and add to your already burdened soul.
Now David also mentions fearing no evil. The word “evil” has a strong moral overtone. We could talk a lot about not fearing evil, or evil people. You can read 1st & 2nd Kings, 1st & 2nd Samuel, or the Psalms. Imagine how David felt when he was being hunted by an evil and deranged King Saul. Imagine how Paul felt hunted down by Judaizers, or Jesus being hunted down by the chief priests and that bunch. But this is “evil” in the more generic sense. Evil in terms of distress, adversity, misery, injury, calamity, bad things happening. In the wilderness, the Israelites continually murmured and complained. That’s what we do as well when bad things happen!
The obvious question before us today is this: How do we navigate the seemingly inevitable, deep dark valleys and depressions of life? By the way, we considered the Hebrew word for valley, as a depression in the surface of land. But there is also the word “darkest” as in “darkest valley.” The word “darkest” is the Hebrew word for shadow. Sometimes somethings can be evil, or dangerous, or a thing in life can become SO HUGE it casts a shadow of darkness on everything around us including our very soul. Let me ask. How many of you have something going on in your life that is so overwhelming, its casts a deep dark shadow over everything in your life, including your very soul?
Anyway, how do we get out the darkest valley? I don’t have three steps for you to follow, or even twelve steps. I can only offer the encouragement and hope of Psalm 23:4. That no matter how dark things get, that no matter how deep that valley goes, David says, “Even when I go through the darkest valley, I fear no danger, for you are with me.” You know, I don’t want to brush over that too quickly. I want us just to sit in that for a while and absorb it. “I fear no danger… for you are with me.” Repeat that.
There is a poem that was written in the 16th Century by a Spanish mystic and poet named St. John of the Cross. The poem is titled, “The Dark Night of the Soul.” It’s a poem that’s been an encouragement to Christians for centuries who have found themselves in very dark valleys, depressions. It’s a poem about how inevitably everything gets stripped away, so that the only truly necessary things remain. There is one to whom we can cling when all else fades away into the dark nights of the soul.
It’s the one David found when he wrote, “I fear no danger, for you are with me.”
It’s the one the great Apostle Paul found when he wrote about how the earth is groaning, and even we are groaning in our weakness. But God hasn’t destined us for groaning but for glory. Romans 8! His Spirit comes and prays right alongside us, interceding on our behalf. All things are working to the “good”, not the “evil or bad”, of those who love God. “Who can separate us from the love of Christ? Can affliction or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Psalm 22. Did the Father forsake Jesus that Friday night, as the cruel darkness of the cross cast the darkest shadow over the whole earth? Psalm 22:1-18 forecasts the hellish dark night of the soul that not even the Son of God was exempt from. But in Psalm 22:19-21a there is a sharp break. “But you, Lord, don’t be far away. My strength, come quickly to help me. Rescue my life from the sword, my only life from these dogs. Save me from the lion’s mouth, from the horns of wild oxen. . .”
Psalm 22:21b-24. Get ready for goose bumps. “You answered me! I will proclaim your name to my brothers and sisters; I will praise you in the assembly. You who fear the Lord praise him! . . . For he has not despised or abhorred the torment of the oppressed. He did not hide his face from him but listened when he cried for help.”
For those willing to love and fear God, call out to him. . .Psalm 23:4 will be the defining reality and hope of your life, no matter how deep or dark is the place you descend. “Even when I go through the darkest valley (death?), I fear no danger, for you are with me.”