THY ROD AND THY STAFF

"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me;

thy rod and thy staff they comfort me."

-PSALM 23:4-

As a youth I had a horrible habit of skimming over assigned reading in school. I would skim the entire book but absorb just the main points so that I could say that I finished the task at hand.

In like fashion, many of us approach the Bible in this same manner. We have a tendency to pick out the catchy parts and set the rest aside. Psalm 23:4 is no exception to this habit. If you took away my emphasis above what would stand out to all readers would be "though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou are with me". This is an amazing statement and it stands the test of time as one of the most famous verses in all of the 31,102 verses in the Bible.

BUT- In case the title of this blog and the highlighted portion of the Scripture above have eluded you I'd like to focus for a moment on a specific portion of Psalm 23:4.

"Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me."

By reading the above verse a simple lesson in deductive logic would lead us to an interesting conclusion:

The psalmist feared no evil because God comforted him with His rod and staff.

The questions we are then led to is "What does that mean? How does God comfort us with His rod and His staff?"

THE ROD:

When a shepherd would care for his sheep he would carry two instruments with him at all times. The first instrument was a rod.

The rod was meant for a two-fold purpose.

1- If any enemy would come to attack the sheep the shepherd would beat that predatory animal over the head with his rod and thus drive away the threat to his sheep.

2- When a sheep was really pushing his luck and was being rebellious against the shepherd it would receive a blow. The shepherd would give the sheep a nice knock on the head to remind it who was boss and to break it's rebellious spirit.

Simply put, Psalm 23:4 is telling us that God's rod of correction will keep us from attacks from our enemy (Satan) and it will keep us from attacks from our biggest enemy (our own flesh) which constantly leads us to rebel against Him.

THE STAFF:
The shepherd had another instrument that was always on hand, and that second instrument was his staff.

The shepherd's staff was a long stick, much like a walking stick and at the end of it was a crook. There was a large lip on the end of the staff that was designed much like the hooks used in the Vaudeville shows of old. We've all seen the clips on television- where someone had a bad act and they were forcefully pulled off the stage with a shepherd's crook.

In like manner a shepherd would watch his sheep diligently and when a sheep would begin to stray off of the path of safety the shepherd would wrap his crook around it's neck and guide it back onto the path of certainty.
The shepherd's number one concern for his sheep was their safety and their arrival at the proper destination.

Likewise God has a shepherd's staff that He uses to keep us off of paths that lead us away from Him and into danger. He will gladly direct us back to the path of safety with his staff.

THE GOOD NEWS:

In order to fully appreciate the Good News of Jesus Christ and the nature of God's comforting power we need to first come to grips with the bad news.

We read the good news in Psalm 23:4 and sometimes ignore the bad news, but you see; The Good News doesn't really shine through in it's fullness until it is contrasted with the bad news.

The bad news simply put is this: WE ARE DEPRAVED BEINGS.

Mankind is sin-sick and cannot cure himself, the answer is not within himself- the answer is the external, eternal Almighty God.

We are under the curse of sin and death and because of our sin we deserve nothing more from God than an eternity in Hell- that is the HORRIBLE NEWS.

Yet, while we were still sinners Jesus Christ came and died for us so that we could be free- nothing that we could have done would free us, but Jesus came to offer Himself as an atonement to reconcile us to God the Father.

That is what makes the Good News so GOOD! When we were at our worst Jesus gave us His best!!

What better news could there possibly be?

God Himself stepped out of eternity and into the temporal

solely to receive the just punishment meant for us.

There is no better news!

The beauty of Psalm 23:4 isn't that we have comfort in times of distress. The beauty is that we can know that God is there in the times of hardship and the times of abundance. He is there to correct our rebellion and to pull us back on the path of safety when we have wandered astray!

God has a rod to protect us from external attacks and to correct us when we rebel within ourselves.

God has a staff to direct us towards His path which leads unto salvation.

Next time we are struggling or going through difficulty; next time we receive a heavy blow to the head- instead of immediately saying "The devil is attacking me".

Let us ask the questions:

"Is the Lord trying to show me something?

Is this heavy blow from the rod of God's holy correction?

Is this yank in another direction because God is pulling me back onto His perfect path?"

Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me!