He Restores My Soul, Day 3

Leslie Basham: In Psalm 23, David said goodness and mercy will follow him. Damaris Carbaugh says you can experience that, too.

Damaris Carbaugh: No matter how much you’ve messed up back there, once you’ve truly turned yourself around and given yourself to God, you can say like David, “Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life!”

Leslie: This is Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of A Place of Quiet Rest, for Friday, April 28, 2017.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: I know that so many of our listeners were encouraged yesterday when Damaris Carbaugh gave us an honest account of her depression. She gave us hope, telling us about the Savior who walks with us through the valley of the shadow of death.

We’re about to hear part three of Damaris Carbaugh’s message on Psalm 23. But first, let me remind you that she’ll be joining us on September 29 and 30 for the Revive '17 conference: Women Mentoring Women.

At Revive '17, Damaris and several other speakers will help us explore the first paragraph of Titus chapter 2. That’s the passage that gives specific instructions for us as women. We’ll learn what those important principles are and how to pass them on to others, sharing life to life.

The early registration discount ends this coming Monday, so make your plans to join us for Revive ’17 and call us at 1–800– 569–5959, or visit us at ReviveOurHearts.com.

Now let’s listen to one of the speakers who will be with us at Revive ’17, Damaris Carbaugh.

Damaris: The 23^rd Psalm, ladies, verses 5 and 6. David is expressing his feelings to the Lord. He remembers how he took care of those sheep—and now he realizes that he’s a sheep, and God has been his shepherd.

And now David says in verses 5–6 of Psalm 23, “Thou dost prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies: thou hast anointed my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely goodness and lovingkindness will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever” (paraphrased).

“Thou dost prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.” Ladies, when I read this, even thinking about it as a little girl, when I would read in Spanish it’s, “Aderezarás mesa delante de mí, en presencia de mis angustiadores.” I would read that and it sounded beautiful. But a part of me was like, “I don’t really get it. I mean, You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. So You want me to eat in front of my enemies so that I can go, ‘Ha, ha—I have food, you don’t!’ I don’t know. Is that what it is?”

You have wonderful scholars who look into the original language and know the culture of the day. Sometimes they can help you tremendously to understand the Word of God. I’ve heard people really trash commentaries and any kind of help.

Let me encourage you; let me just tell you something. Do you see this Bible I’m holding here? Listen to me carefully. Yhis is a translation. Every one of them, even the King James (that some people believe is the one the apostle Paul read laughter) is a translation. (laughter) God has been merciful, and we have enough in the translations that we can be saved. We have enough to understand what God is saying to us.

But let me just tell you something: the perfect Word is in Hebrew and in Greek. Let me give you a perfect example of how I understand that better now, because I am bilingual. I am Puerto Rican. I speak Spanish as well as English.

By the way, you don’t speak Puerto Rican. There is no such language as Mexican. You don’t speak Peruvian. There is only one Spanish, and every Spanish-speaking country speaks Spanish. Do we have different words for different things? Absolutely! Just like England has different English words than Americans for different things, but we speak English. 

Because people ask me sometimes, “Do you speak Puerto Rican?” Let’s just settle it right now: there is no “Puerto Rican language.” There are little Puerto Rican idioms and stuff like that, but if I were to say to you right now . . .

If your daughter or son was a year old, you might say in English, “Where are your eyes? Where’s your mouth? Where’s your nose? Now, tell Nana that verse we’ve memorized.” And your child might know that little verse, and they will do it perfectly for you. But all of sudden they’re in front of somebody they don’t know, and they get tongue-tied and just stand there staring. And you’re going, “Stop it! You know how to say it, do it for Nana!”

And you say, “Don’t be silly!”—right?

That’s the word you might use. Puerto Ricans have a word; we say, “No sean changas.” Now, check this out—Mexicans may not use that phrase. (I don’t even know what I’m saying!) But if I wrote to the church in Albuquerque, New Mexico “no sean changas”—to the ladies, they would understand me. But if somebody had to translate it, they really wouldn’t know what to say. So, we come up with some words, sometimes, to try to fill in the blanks—but we really don’t know.

There are places like that in this Book, and that’s why you find such incredibly different words in different translations. But, I don’t care what translation you use . . . I don’t trash one of them. Thank God for every translation out there. Just get in it!

But because I’ve read commentaries . . . “Help me to understand this thing about, ‘You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.’” Then I started to remember the life of David. I also read somebody who said that the word translated “table” might possibly mean not a table that you eat at, but it might have meant “tableland.”

(singing): “Lord plant my feet on higher ground, by faith on heaven’s tableland—a higher plane than I have found. Lord, plant my feet on higher ground.”

When David was running from Saul, a couple of times he escaped Saul by the hand of God.

And on two separate occasions, David is on a higher place. God let him get to that higher place so he could shout down to Saul. They look up, and they see him.

Saul: “Is that you, David, my son!?”

David: “Yes, it is. And your boys were asleep while I went down and took your spear [or whatever it was]!”

Remember one time Saul was sleeping and another time he was in a cave. But when David shouted down, “Why are you coming after me? Twice I could have taken you out!” Where is David saying this? In a higher place—right in front of his enemies. God, in the presence of his enemies, gave David a higher place.

But also, think of it this way: the Shepherd leads us in green pastures, to still waters. He leads us right in that valley because we’re going where? We’re going down. We’re not going down to stay down—we’re going down to come back up to where? A tableland—a higher place where the shepherd can watch and see where the enemy is while the sheep eat. Our God is beautiful and wonderful. He teaches us in simple life lessons, like a shepherd taking care of the sheep.

Once you’re done with that valley, you come back up to a tableland—which is wonderful place, because it’s flat and not dangerous. They can eat there, and the shepherd can watch. “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.”

And even if it meant, “You have provided food or provisions in the presence of my enemies,” I want to say, "When God provides for you when everyone around you thinks, How is she gonna make it?—you can say, 'I have made it!'”

Haven’t you heard the stories of the missionary George Muller who had an orphanage? One time he had those boys sitting at that table, and they didn’t have anything to eat. He said, “Let us bow our heads to pray for the food that God is going to provide.” And while they’re praying—ding dong—a man came in with loaves and loaves and loaves of bread!

The world is also a type of the enemy. I don’t mean people, in this sense, because people are lost. But I’m saying the spirit of the world. The enemy is Satan, the world, and the flesh. So God provides for us right before those people in the world. He provides. In the presence of our enemies, God provides!

Then, “Thou has anointed my head with oil” (v. 5). David experienced that. David’s brothers were brought in . . . Remember Samuel? The Lord told Samuel, “Go to Jesse and you’ll find the man there.”

All the boys come before Samuel, and the Bible says the first one that came, and Samuel was like, “Tuh! Of course, he’s the one, no doubt!”

And the Lord’s like, “No, no, no, not him. You look at the outward. I don’t look at the outward. I look at the heart. That’s not the one . . . not the one . . . not the one . . .”

This kills me. I love the Bible because it’s so honest. I want to say, “What is up with you, Jesse? You didn’t even invite David to come!” He chose the boys that he thought. And Samuel had to say, “Is this it?”

“Well, actually, there’s another one!”

David says, “You anointed my head with oil,” so David remembers that day when he was almost forgotten, and the Lord anointed him. We read in 2 Corinthians 1:21, “Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and anointed us is God.” If you belong to Jesus, you have received an anointing! And 1 John chapter 2, verse 20, says, “But you have an anointing from the Holy One.” We also have been anointed. He has anointed our head; we have received the Holy Spirit. Amen? Amen!

And I know, listen, there is a baptism of the Holy Spirit. But the day you got saved, you received the Holy Spirit. He has anointed our head, and “my cup overflows.”

Now, let me tell you what blesses me about those three words, “my cup overflows.” Everything God gives is immeasurable! God does not give you a cup—it overflows! “Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more” (Eph. 3:20 NIV). You can’t measure it. His grace is limitless. His love cannot even be—in a sense—comprehended.

He lavishes! That’s another word in the Bible. “He has lavished on us” (Eph. 1:8).  He gives, remember, "pressed down, shaken together" (Luke 6:38). You do that with flour. Have you noticed how you fill it up, and you go bump, bump, bump, and it goes way down?

And God goes, “Oh no, not enough!” Bump, bump, bump . . . more . . . dump, dump, dump . . . until there’s more, until it’s just coming all out. That’s how our God gives. Your cup overflows. Whoever believes in Him, it’s like rivers of living water. 

Now, can I tell you that I have come to the best part of this psalm? David says, “Surely goodness and lovingkindness [or mercy] shall follow me all the days of my life” (v. 6).

Remember that I told you this is not a young David who wrote this. This is an older David.

I believe it’s King David; I believe it’s King David way ahead. David messed up two times that we know real bad. First time, Bathsheba; first child died. He gets rid of Uriah. That’s unbelievable!

This is what’s unbelievable to me: this man took that poor, that sweet . . . Remember how Nathan said it? There’s a poor guy who only has one little lamb, and a rich guy next door has some friends who come over. He decides to rob the lamb of the little, poor guy next door. He kills it and serves it to his friends.

David gets up, and he’s just livid. He says, “That man ought to die!”

Then Nathan says, “That’s you.” Thank God for the Nathans in our life. God tells them what to say, and they’re not afraid.

You know how these kings could be. That one priest who gave David the sword of Goliath . . . Saul had him killed. “I didn’t like the way you look today—you’re dead!” David could have taken Nathan’s head off. Nathan says, “You took her, and then you murdered her husband. You planned it so that he could die, and he died. You took someone like that!”

What amazes me is that David is still the one of whom Jesus said, “I am the son of David.” We have a merciful God! I would not have picked David. Don’t take him. Use Enoch. He walked with You. But our God is a merciful God.

So he falls with Bathsheba. Then listen to this . . . the Son of the promise is the son with that woman. I say, “Fine. Okay. So the Messiah is going to be the son of David, but let it be through Abigail’s son or the other one. Not Michal (or Michelle, however you want to say her name). She had a problem. Not her.

But why not pick a son of one of the other wives? Why Bathsheba? Because He’s a merciful God! Oh, my goodness, and because David truly repented! Let’s not forget that. When Nathan said, “You’re that man.” David ran to God and said, “You have got to cleanse me. You’ve got to wash me. You’ve got to restore my soul. You’ve got to restore my joy. Wipe out my sin. Give me a pure and a clean heart. You do it, God!” (see Ps. 51).

He ran to the right Person. Hallelujah! When you run and ask God for forgiveness, He lavishes forgiveness—to the point of saying, “And I’m not even giving up on you. Your name will last forever.” Unbelievable!

So, Bathsheba’s mistake—number one. A serious mistake—number two—is when David decided to count the army. Remember that? And even Joab said, “Don’t do this. Listen to me, may God multiply them—may you have ten million soldiers—but don’t count them! God’s not going to be pleased with this.”

[David]: “Count them!”

The only reason he wanted them counted was bragging rights: “I want to know, how many do we have?” And they’re counted. God is very displeased, so displeased that He says, “I’m going to punish you. I’m going to give you a choice: three things . . . this one, this one, or this one.”

And David says, “No, no, no, no, no. I’d rather You strike me those three days that You said . . . but it’s You. I don’t want to put myself in the hands of men, because God is a merciful God. So, go ahead God—do to me what you want to do to me in those three days.”

And you know what happened, right? Seventy-thousand men lost their lives! You don’t sin alone. When you sin you hurt a lot of people; it might take a while, but you hurt a lot of people.

Even though I just said that, David is so right, because David is the one who says this: “Against You and You alone have I sinned!” (see Ps. 51:4). Now, don’t get me wrong—God is grieved when we hurt one another but, oh that we would understand that whom we sin against is God. David understood that.

So the Angel of the Lord goes out and wipes out seventy-thousand men. David sees that Angel, and he says, “Stop it! Stop it, please! Not anymore, don’t kill anymore! It’s my fault! Don’t!”

And, at that place where the angel of the Lord stayed His hand and stopped killing, David decides then to buy that plot. Araunah was the owner, and David said, “I want to buy this piece of land. That is where I saw the angel of the Lord, and where I pleaded with God to stop.” 

And the man said, “You can have it.” And David said, “Oh, no, no, no, no, no. I will not take anything that doesn’t cost me. I won’t give to God something that hasn’t cost me something.” So David buys that plot of land (see 2 Samuel 15–17).

Don’t miss this. Ladies, I never saw this until I heard Warren Wiersbe. This is what Warren Wiersbe pointed out: do you know what the piece of land became? That’s the site where Solomon, the son of . . . who? [ladies—David] and the woman? [ladies—Bathsheba!] Yes, that’s the plot where Solomon built the temple! 

Now, look at it again: David has messed up twice in his life. He’s walking with His God, and he sees what God will do. And he can say, “Solomon (not Solomon so much but) the mistake with that woman, in a sense, and the temple is what’s coming behind me.”

“Surely, goodness and mercy will follow me.” Listen. When you’re walking and someone’s following they’re where? Behind you. Oh, hallelujah! No matter how much you’ve messed up back there, if you have totally repented—and you’re like a David—once you’ve truly turned yourself around and given yourself to God, you can say, like David, “Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life!” Those coming after you those children, those grandchildren, those great-grandchildren . . . mercy, goodness will follow them. Oh, hallelujah!

Surely goodness and mercy come together. His goodness, which is perfect, and His mercy is what follow us. They followed David. Solomon, the son of Bathsheba . . . Solomon, the one who is the one to follow David, who is the one of whom the Lord said, “You can’t build it, David. You’ve shed too much blood. Your son will build that place for Me.”

Oh, how David knew it. And then he said, “And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever” (v. 6). That’s exactly what our end will be. Our end will be to dwell in the house of the Lord forever!

Nancy: What a joy that will be! For the last few days, Damaris Carbaugh has been exploring Psalm 23 with us. It’s such a familiar passage to some of us that we can let its truths just slip by, but Damaris has been making it come alive in some fresh ways, and I’m so grateful.

I’m glad that Revive Our Hearts listeners have been getting to know Damaris better these last few days, because she’ll be one of the speakers at Revive ’17, the conference hosted by Revive Our Hearts on women mentoring women.

Damaris, along with the other speakers who will be a part of that weekend, will be joining together to unpack Titus 2:1–5. That’s where the apostle Paul gives us a list of qualities for godly women to pursue. We’ll talk about what those character qualities look like, how to develop them in our lives, and how to pass them on to other women in discipling relationships.

You can still get in on the early registration deadline for a few more days. The price goes up this coming Monday, May 1. So call us for more details at 1–800–569–5959, or you can visit us online at ReviveOurHearts.com.

I really hope you’ll back with us on Monday. That’s when my husband, Robert Wolgemuth, will join us to talk about marriage, family—and following our Good Shepherd. Please be back with us for Revive Our Hearts.

Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth wants to be there for you on the mountaintops—and in the valleys. 

All Scripture is taken from the NASB unless otherwise noted.

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