“Fear No Evil”
Psalm 23
Donald Barnhouse was the pastor of Philadelphia’s Tenth Presbyterian Church when his wife died and left him with two young daughters to raise alone.
While he was driving to his wife’s funeral he realized that he needed to say something to explain what was happening to his girls, somehow put it into perspective for them—something which he was struggling to do for himself.
They stopped at a traffic light.
It was a bright day, and the sun was streaming into the car.
A truck pulled up next to them, and the shadow that came with the truck darkened the inside of the car.
It was then that he turned to his daughters and asked, “Would you rather be hit by the shadow or by the truck?”
One of them responded: “Oh, Daddy. That’s a silly question!
The shadow can’t hurt you.
I would rather be hit by the shadow than by a truck.”
It was then that he tried to explain to them that their mother had died and that it was as if she had been hit by a shadow.
He quoted the familiar words of Psalm 23: “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.”
There are many ways in which death has the darkest shadow of all.
It strikes the greatest fear because it is the one valley through which we all must walk.
There are no exceptions; no exemptions.
But death is really not what these familiar words of Psalm 23 are most about.
The Hebrew word literally means “the valley of deepest darkness.”
And so, while death may be the last shadowy valley through which we pass, it’s not the only one.
Life has many other valleys.
Not too long ago, a friend of mine and I were walking across a fairly large bridge on a warm but windy day.
At the halfway point, I stopped walking and looked around.
The view from the bridge was fantastic and I wanted to soak it in, to enjoy it.
When I turned back around, I saw that my friend was still walking, and at a fairly brisk pace.
So, I called out: “Wait up!”
But my friend kept walking.
So, I started wondering if my friend was angry at me.
What had I said or done?
When I caught up, and we got to the other side, I asked my friend what was up.
“Are you mad at me?” I asked.
“No,” my friend replied, “I was just really scared being up on that bridge with the wind blowing.”
It hadn’t dawned on me that my friend would have been frightened.
We never know what is going on in someone else’s head.
We are all just people.
We all have our different fears and things that cause us to be anxious.
It’s something we all have in common.
We all experience dark valleys.
Some of us might walk through the valley of failure or the valley of broken relationships.
There is also the valley of sickness.
The valley of divorce or the valley of robbery or bankruptcy or betrayal.
There’s also the valley that is filled with shadows that is called unemployment, and another one that is labeled addiction.
There are valleys of homelessness and depression.
Lest all of this becomes just too depressing, be sure and take special note that the deep, dark valleys are never a destination for those who trust in Jesus—just a part of the way along the journey.
The words in Psalm 23 are chosen very carefully: we walk “through” the valley of the shadow of death—through it, not to it.
Remember what Jesus said in John Chapter 11?: “I am the resurrection and the life.
Whoever believes in me will live, even though they die, and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.”
So what is there to fear?
I’ll be the first to confess to you, though, I personally find fear an easy thing to come by.
There are some things I do poorly, and some things I do well.
But when it comes to getting scared—well, I’m very good at getting scared.
How about you?
Of course, there is healthy fear and unhealthy fear.
For instance, my dog Jack is a lovely dog but, perhaps not the sharpest knife in the drawer.
Since we don’t have a fenced in yard, I walk Jack several times throughout the day, and so do Clair, Mary Ellen and, of course, Owen.
And I have come to realize that Jack has absolutely no fear of oncoming traffic.
If it were entirely up to Jack, he would stand in the middle of the road until a vehicle did, indeed, run him over.
Again, there is healthy fear.
But there is unhealthy fear.
And we are certainly not created nor redeemed to be paralyzed by fear.
As it says in 1st John: “God is love. There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear.”
The most commonly repeated command in the Bible is “Fear not”, or “Don’t be afraid”.
The fact that it’s repeated so often should surely tell us something about the powerful role that fear plays in our lives.
Let me ask you a question: What do you do with your fears?
It’s probably not a good idea to deny them, to try to pretend they’re not there.
At first glance, it might seem as if the biblical writers are instructing us to do that, but actually they aren’t.
In most cases when the Bible says “Fear not,” it goes on to give us a reason for not being afraid – and the reason is connected with God.
In Luke 12:32 Jesus says, “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”
In Matthew 14:27 Jesus tells His disciples: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.”
And the Psalmist writes in Psalm 23:4: “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.”
Yes, from time to time we all feel like frightened sheep, but we have a Shepherd Who will protect us and provide for us and guide us – the Lord God, the Shepherd of His people, Who has come to live among us in Jesus Christ, the Good Shepherd.
“Your rod and your staff” is a well-loved translation, going all the way back to the King James Version of 1611.
Scholars, however, also translate it as “Your club and your cane – they comfort me.”
In other words, the sheep might be scared of the bears and cougars, but then they see that the shepherd’s got a great big club to protect them with, and they’re not so scared after all!
In fact, the word ‘comfort’ might be a little too therapeutic; in the original language, the word is closer to “courage”: “Your club and your cane, they give me courage!”
But we also look to God to protect us from danger.
For example, whenever Clair and I are apart and I know she’s driving around the busy streets of Chattanooga, I pray that God will keep her safe; I know that there are car accidents every day, and sometimes there are fatalities, and I want God to protect her from that.
It’s natural for us to pray like this, and I think God is happy to hear those prayers.
But if you’re like me, and if you think this through, you might find it a little troublesome.
We’ve all heard of people who somehow survive a car accident, or avoid getting on an airplane that crashes, and they say “Someone must have been looking out for me.”
But whenever I hear that, I find myself thinking, “What about the poor souls who didn’t survive?
Does that mean God wasn’t looking out for them?”
Yes, we know that God does sometimes answer our prayers in a positive way, so that the sick are healed and the hungry are fed and the hostages are rescued and so on.
But at other times things don’t seem to work out as well; the fatal disease claims another life, or the person in the refugee camp starves like thousands of others, despite their prayers, or the hostages are killed by their captors, despite the thousands who were praying for them.
So, what is actually promised to us as Christians?
What sort of ultimate protection from danger are we offered?
Again, what I can cling to without reservation is the promise that in the end nothing can take us out of God’s hands, not even death—for “you are with me.”
God is with us.
We are not alone down here.
The whole Gospel is that God is with us.
Jesus is called “Emmanuel” which means “God with us.”
“The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us.”
John Wesley’s dying words were “The best of all is, God is with us.”
And in Romans Chapter 8 the Apostle Paul says the following: “I consider our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us…
…Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
Shall trouble or hardship 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.
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
God doesn’t promise to shelter us from trouble.
God doesn’t magically manipulate everything to suit us.
But God is with us, and this is the most powerful statement God makes to us human beings.
“And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” Jesus promises us in Matthew Chapter 28.
Whatever we go through – suffering, disease, poverty, family breakdown, danger, even death – God will never leave us; God will never forsake us.
We are not alone.
Psalm 23 invites us to believe this, and to make this the basis and foundation for our lives--to bring us peace, even in the darkest darkness—even in the midst of horrible evil--to enable us to stand even when the storms are the most terrifying.
“I am with you,” says God.
“You need not fear evil.”
Praise God!!!
Amen.
