Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever. - Psalm 23: 6
We have seen so many promises through the first five verses of Psalm 23 but David is not done yet! So far Psalm 23 has revealed:
Verse One -- when you allow your life to be shepherded by God, you will truly want for nothing.
Verse Two -- God will provide a resting place for us when the storms of life come against us.
Verse Three -- God will restore our souls, even on a daily or moment-to-moment basis.
Verse Four -- the promises of the valley are that not only is God with us, but that we are only walking through"
Verse Five -- the promises for the mountaintop are that if we will just bring to God that which hinders our walk, our cup will surely overflow.
This brings us to the sixth and final verse of the great Psalm. Before we move into the differences between goodness and mercy it is important to note the key words "surely" and "follow". Surely indicates the assuredness we can have in God. There is no doubt in David's voice. There is no wavering in his faith. There is absolutely no uncertainty in whom he has believed. That is how we are to approach the promises of God. The world will tell you that God is not with you in the valley, that He has abandoned you. David says, "Surely not!"
Then
a man of God came and spoke to the king of Israel, and said, "Thus says the Lord : "Because the Syrians have said, "The Lord is God of the hills,
but He is not God of the
valleys," therefore I will deliver all this great multitude into your hand, and
you shall know that I am the Lord .'" -- 1Kings 20: 28 (NKJV)
He is the God of the hills and the valleys! We are reminded
of the confidence of Abraham in
But how quickly we surrender this assuredness. How quick we are to believe our eyes instead of our faith. It is easy to feel assured when everything is going great in our lives but as we saw in the fourth verse we will find ourselves in the valley of the shadow of death itself and then the world will ask us how we feel. If we respond with our flesh we hand over our assuredness. If we answer with our faith -- we strengthen who we are in God. Our assuredness is what makes us different beloved. It is what makes three Hebrew boys tell a king to throw them into the fiery furnace. It is what makes a shepherd boy think nothing of taking on a ten foot giant. It is what makes someone who views themselves as the least in their family take on an army of 120,000 soldiers with a company of only 300 men. These aren't veggie tales! They are real events that happened and were recorded by God Himself to show us today how important it is that we value our assuredness in Christ. Cling to it. Protect it because it will be the first thing the devil will try to steal.
The second key word is "follow". David is not saying we will never have problems. He is not saying that everything will always be mountaintops. No, what he is saying is that no matter what you go through, goodness and mercy will follow you. What God is speaking to us is that no matter what may come against us, what will follow will be the promises of God. Have you ever found yourself in the lowest valley, wondering how or when God would deliver you? Take a moment and reflect and remember what followed that valley. God is always good and His mercy endures forever!
The promise here is for when bad things happen to you in this world. According to God what will follow? Goodness. It is the eternal promise that God will deliver us from the evils we may face in the world, or the troubled times if we turn to Him and have faith in His promises. The evils or troubles that David speaks about may not even be our own fault. The reality is that bad things do happen to good people. God however is saying regardless of that, Goodness will follow those bad times. Psalm 138:7 states that, "Though I walk in the midst of trouble, thou wilt revive me: thou shalt stretch forth thine hand against the wrath of mine enemies, and thy right hand shall save me." What has God saved you from?
The second promise is that mercy will follow us as well. Mercy is God's favor that holds back from us what we deserve. Could you imagine the wrath we would face if we got what we truly deserved? So, what the Psalmist is saying is that surely God will provide His mercy when we have strayed from His will. Our God is not the God of a second chance but a God of another chance. Sometimes in this walk we go through valleys because of our own disobedience to God. Elijah walked right into his wilderness and sometimes we do the same. What follows is often those moments when we cry out to God and what David is saying in this verse is that God's mercy will follow us as well as His goodness. 1John 1: 9 affirms, " If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us [our] sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." What an all-providing God we serve!
As draw to a close of Psalm 23 we find two more promises
from God. The first is that the mercy and goodness of God is not temporary. It
seems sometimes that we can mess up so often that we think somehow we have
walked out of the grace of God. The work
of Jesus Christ on
Rev. Anthony
