Just how does “thy rod and thy staff” comfort us? You may be surprised! 

<p>Just how does “thy rod and thy staff” comfort us? You may be surprised! </p>

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Ouachita Hills College

Scott Burgess

The Good Shepherd


Well, good morning everyone, and welcome to morning worship. Before we begin, let's open with a word of prayer. Father in heaven, I pray that you will guide here, that you'll make everything very simple and give us something precious to consider throughout the day and the rest of this week. Use us for your sake, I pray. Amen.

All right. Today we're going to look at the word God in the Bible. You may know that the Hebrew word for God is Elohim. There is also a shorter version that's simply El. Now, in Hebrew that two-letter word is another two-letter word.

It's aleph plus lamed. The aleph would give you the sound, the lamed would give you the el sound. So what significance is that to us? Well, in ancient Hebrew each letter was represented by a picture, sort of like Egyptian hieroglyphics. The letter Aleph is a bull's head and it can designate a bull or by extension it can represent whoever's in charge.

The letter Lamed is shaped like this. What am I showing here? This is a shepherd's staff. And so when you put those 2 letters together, a picture of a bull's head and a shepherd's staff, then you can conclude that the word El, what we normally think of as God, really shows God to be the lead shepherd. Now, the Bible actually confirms this.

Turn with me to 1 Peter 5 verse 4, if you would. 1 Peter 5 verse 4, and there we read, "...and when the chief shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away." Now, who is it talking about there? Well, of course, this is Jesus. Jesus is indeed the chief shepherd, and that matches with our conclusion. We know Jesus is God.

He's the chief shepherd. All right, moving on. Notice in a very familiar passage to us, John chapter 10, what it says about Jesus and the idea of being a shepherd. In verse 11 he says, I am the good shepherd. And how good is he?

Well the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. He is the lead shepherd, that does not mean that he lords it over everyone else, rather He's the 1 in charge of them. He's the 1 who cares for them. He is 1 who's responsible for them, responsible to the point that He would even give His life for them. And in verse 14, He says, I am the Good Shepherd and know my sheep and am known of mine.

Now, what is the most famous passage in all the Bible that depicts God as a shepherd? Anybody? It's Psalm 23, of course. Yes, Psalm 23. Let's turn there for just a moment.

Psalm 23. Now, you know this, the Lord is my shepherd I shall not want. And in verse 2, He makes me to lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside the still waters. He's caring for his sheep.

He restoreth my soul, verse 3. He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. But please notice I would like to direct our attention especially to verse 4. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, and the reason given is, for thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me." That's very interesting. The idea of him being with us and his rod and his staff comforting me, they seem to be parallel ideas.

I wonder how parallel they are. And why would the shepherd's rod and the shepherd's staff comfort him? Well, you realize the shepherd's staff has 2 ends to it. Now, the 1 end that you normally picture is sort of walking on the ground, that's the sharp hard end, and if need be, he could beat off, say, a wolf that might come to attack the sheep. But the other hand, the other end that has the crook in it, this is the 1 so that if the sheep goes astray, maybe it tumbles over a small cliff or gets stuck in briars or a bush or something, he can hook that around the shepherd's neck, the sheep's neck, and draw it forth.

And so you can see how, oh yes, the shepherd's staff would indeed comfort infidel sheep. But David, as he's writing this, this is more of a metaphor. What does he mean there? Well, I think we can understand it when we realize again that, remember, there were 2 Hebrew letters for the word God. The second 1 was the Lamed.

That's the 1 that's the shepherd's staff. But it turns out not only is there a letter in the Hebrew alphabet that is Lamed and it's pictured by a shepherd's staff, there is also a word in Hebrew that uses the same characters. It's Lamad, but it doesn't mean a shepherd's staff. Anybody know what it means? Those of you in the Hebrew class don't give it away.

Lamad is the Hebrew word that means to teach. Now that's interesting. Have you ever thought of teaching as being particularly comforting? Notice here Mark 6 34 it says that Jesus looked upon the people, they were as sheep not having a shepherd, and the very next words are, And he began to teach them many things. His compassion for them was to teach them.

So apparently the idea of a shepherd and teaching do go together just as suggested by the Hebrew word El. He's the chief shepherd and he comforts people, but apparently he comforts them with his teaching. So the question is, are you allowing God to comfort you by his teachings? Or, on the flip side, if you have to teach Sabbath school, or give a sermon, or you're called upon to teach, whether in a religious setting or maybe out in a completely secular setting. Does your teaching, does it really instruct people on how to do something, to share knowledge with them, or does it comfort?

If we want to be like Jesus, our teaching is to comfort. Let's take the last step here. Jesus said, they were as sheep not having a shepherd and he began to teach them many things. Now today Jesus is not with us, how does he teach us today? We find out in John chapter 14.

In John chapter 14 in verse 26, please notice what it says, "...but the Comforter, ah Comforter, which is the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send to my name, He shall teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I've said to you." Well, the Comforter is the Holy Spirit that Jesus sends in His place. And that word Comforter there is parakletos. Now you might ask, is that the same word back in Psalm 23 4? If we were to look there in the the Greek version, in fact it is. When it says thy rod and thy staff they comfort me, well in Greek it says they parakaleo me, they comfort me.

So Jesus will teach us all things by his Holy Spirit, whom he calls the Comforter, just as his staff and his rod, they comfort us. Have you ever considered the idea that perhaps Jesus' rod and his staff, for us living at the end of earth's history, is in fact his Holy Spirit? That will be what comforts us. When we need promises brought back to our memory, it's the Holy Spirit who does it. When we are facing grave perils, who will comfort us?

The Holy Spirit. Why, that's the shepherd's staff. He's the 1 that's going to write the law in our hearts, and we're going to need that on our hearts to be faithful to Him. Also notice something else. In John 14, we looked at verse 26.

Go back 10 verses to verse 16. Jesus says, I will pray the Father and He will give you another comforter. Another comforter of the same variety. In other words, the Holy Spirit is the comforter. It said in verse 26, Jesus himself is the other comforter.

It says so explicitly in 1 John. It says that He, He there, is the parakletos. And so, if you're curious, that's 1 John 2.1. There they translate the word as advocate, but it's the same word. He is the comforter, the Holy Spirit is the other comforter.

Thy rod and thy staff. We could look at 1 as Jesus, 1 as the Holy Spirit, they're in perfect harmony here. Second Corinthians 1, verses 3 through 5 says, Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all, there it is again, the God of all comfort, who comforteth us in all our tribulation. We'll have plenty of that coming up very soon. That we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.

For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ." 2 Corinthians 1 verses 3 through 5. Now, did you count how many times you heard the word comfort, comforteth there? It turns out there were 5 instances. The God of all comfort, who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. And in fact, in verse 5, there is actually a sixth instance.

When it said, so our consolation also abounded by Christ, that word translated as consolation, that word there is also parakletos. So we have 6 instances of parakletos, parakletos, they're all the same root. God is interested in comforting you. Do you believe that God the Father is interested in comforting you, that he sent Jesus as our comforter and that Jesus has in turn sent the Holy Spirit as our comforter in his place? Do you accept that Jesus is our Good Shepherd and that his staff is there to comfort you by way of the Holy Spirit.

Are you willing to ask Him to use you to comfort those who need comforting themselves? They may be going through far greater trials than you, But if you've had an experience with the Lord, and you've come to experience this truth, not just intellectually, but by experience, you will in turn be able to comfort them. And God wants us as his representatives. He wants us to comfort just as he comforts us. With that, I ask that we bow our heads for a closing word of prayer.

Father in heaven, I thank you for this beautiful truth, that you are God, you are El. You are the chief shepherd, and the shepherd is there not only to lead the sheep, but to comfort them. I thank you for that. I thank you that you have sent Jesus as our Comforter, that He has in turn sent the Holy Spirit as our Comforter, and that it is your great joy to comfort us. And We have the enormous privilege.

We cannot be you, but we can be your representatives, and just as you have comforted us, so you will in turn use us to comfort others. We are your instruments. We are, as it were, your staff in some limited sense, to be used of you to comfort others who are in great need. May we keep that in mind today. May we prove faithful.

May we stay faithful until Jesus' coming. And may we win many souls. For your glory We pray in Jesus' name, amen. Or if you

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The Good Shepherd

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