Welcome to Turning Point. In the 23rd Psalm, Jesus is described as the Good Shepherd. It's a comforting image, but what does it really picture? Today, Dr. David Jeremiah reveals how the Good Shepherd makes it possible for our weary, exhausted souls to be rejuvenated with rest and restoration.
From the battle for your soul, here's David to introduce his message of encouragement: restored souls. I'm not sure what it's like for you when your soul is tired and restless. I think most of us, if we reflect on it, will remember that there were times like that. Perhaps we're in a time like that right now. It just seemed everything going in different directions, and no solidarity at all in our heart.
What happens to us when our soul gets restless?
Well, what I can tell you for sure that I know is we need a shepherd, and the shepherd, of course, is the Lord Jesus, who is promised to restore our souls. We're in the midst of that discussion here on Turning Point, and I hope you will let your heart resonate with the truth of Psalm twenty-three, verse three. Hey friends, we have this book, *The Battle for Your Soul*, available for you. You can get your copy of the book by sending a gift of any size to Turning Point and saying, "Please send me the book." And we'll do it. We know that you can all send big gifts.
Some of you can send major gifts, but we want everyone to get a copy of this book. And if you'll just send a gift of any size and be as generous as you can be, we'll send it to you as our way of saying thank you and investing back into your life spiritually. We hope the book will be a blessing to you. We hope it will strengthen you. We hope it will cause you to pay more attention to your soul, because let me remind you.
Your soul is eternal. Your body will perish. Don't spend all your time on your body. Spend some time on your soul. That's what this is all about.
Well, here we go with restored souls. Psalm twenty-three. Let's listen. Author Jessica Lagrone told the story of a woman named Dorothy, who was raised by her grandmother during some very difficult years. And Dorothy said her grandmother was a staunch Methodist and took her to church every time the doors were open.
The older woman had never gone to school, but she had persuaded her brothers to teach her to read, so she could read the Bible. Every Sunday, when Dorothy went to Sunday school, she was asked to say a Bible verse in order to get the little snack provided to each child.
Well, Dorothy was only three years old, and she only knew one verse, and that was John eleven thirty five. Jesus wept, and it was the shortest verse in the Bible. And she said it every week to get her snack. One day, the teacher said to her, "Honey, that's a very short verse. Don't you think you could do something a little bit longer?" She went home and told her grandmother that she was embarrassed because all she knew was Jesus wept.
And her grandmother decided to teach her the twenty-third psalm. Though only three years old, Dorothy quickly had the entire passage memorized, all six verses. And the next Sunday, she walked into Sunday school class and recited Psalm twenty-three word for word. The teacher was impressed, and she told the minister. And before church was dismissed that day, that little three-year-old was up on the platform in the main church reciting the twenty-third psalm for the whole congregation.
She never forgot the experience of that psalm. She later credited her grandmother for teaching her that she could learn scripture and have confidence in herself without fear or embarrassment. She discovered one of the great healing passages in all of the Bible. God has placed a precious soul inside of each of us, and it is thirsty for Him. It often grows weary, and like Jesus, sometimes that soul weeps.
But Psalm 23 tells us that He knows how to restore our soul. The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He restores my soul. One author called this small chapter in Psalm. A microcosm of God's grace, just as the whole sun is reflected in a single drop of dew, so we see all the grace and the whole gospel of God reflected in Psalm 23.
You know this psalm, don't you? It was written by David, who grew up keeping his father's flocks. One of the greatest songs ever written. David put himself in the role of one of the sheep, and he said. The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. I wish all three-year-old children could learn Psalm 23. Sure would help them throughout life. It's a very personal passage, and in some ways, it's more personal than its famous twin in the New Testament.
The other passage, which is kind of equal to that in our memorizing, is the Lord's Prayer. When you read the Lord's Prayer, the pronouns are all plural: "Our Father, our daily bread, our debts." But in Psalm twenty-three, the pronouns are singular: "My Shepherd, my soul, all the days of my life." This psalm pictures life as a pilgrimage that begins. In a place of green pastures, travels down the righteous paths through dark valleys and eventually ends up in the Father's house. The verses of this psalm cover every age and stage in life. All along the way, the good shepherd is in the constant business of refreshing, rejuvenating, yes, and restoring his easily frightened sheep.
I believe Jesus was thinking of Psalm 23 when he called himself the Good Shepherd, but he didn't picture himself as the sheep in this song. He told us he is the shepherd. That's one of the roles that he fills when we receive him as our Savior. He does for us all the things that a shepherd does for sheep. That includes restoring our souls, and the Hebrew word here is very interesting, because it means to bring back or to recover.
The psalmist is not just saying he relaxes my soul. There's more to it. He's saying the good shepherd recovers me. He turns me back to himself. He brings me back into the right place.
And that begs the question: Why do we need to be brought back? Does anybody need to ask that question today? Because sometimes we stray, don't we? We get off the path. We go our own way, and if it were not for the shepherd, we would be lost, like sheep without a shepherd.
So today, I'd like to suggest to you five ways that he restores us. And one of these ways surely touches every one of us. First of all, He restores my soul from foolishness.
Now that doesn't probably cover anybody here, but once in a while we do some foolish things, don't we? We need to be restored from bouts of foolishness that we afflict on ourselves. Many of our problems, believe it or not, are self-made. I remember telling you that someone had made the statement: "When we are born, we look like our parents; when we die, we look like our decisions." And that's true, isn't it? We often make foolish decisions.
The Bible says, "The way of the unfaithful is hard," and Proverbs 19 says, "People ruin their lives by their own foolishness, and then they're angry at the Lord." Isn't that true? That's what Jonah learned. Very gifted prophet who ran the other way when God told him to go to Nineveh. You know how that turned out. That was foolish on his part.
He went down to Joppa. There he went down into a ship heading the opposite direction from Nineveh. He thought he'd escape God and found himself thrown overboard, so that he sank down into the depths of the sea. But God restored him. God didn't leave him.
God didn't just say, "Well, that's it, Jonah. You're done." God restored him, returned him to his ministry. And as I mentioned to you so often in Jonah, we read that the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the second time, and God gave him another chance. In the New Testament, we have a similar illustration in Simon Peter. He was the poster child for self-inflicted injuries.
He spoke when he should have listened. He boasted when he should have prayed. Slept when he should have watched, and he followed at a distance when he should have stayed close. Yet Christ restored him, and He restored his soul. And of course, there's the prodigal son, who is another great illustration of this.
He demanded his inheritance. He walked away from his father, blew all his money on reckless living, and then ended up broke and hungry, and feeding pigs, just to survive. But here is how the father, who in the story is a picture of God, restored him. Luke 15 reads: His father said to the servants, "Bring the finest robe in the house and put it on him." Get a ring for his finger and sandals for his feet. Kill the calf we have been fattening.
We must celebrate with a feast for this son of mine was dead and has now returned to life. He was lost but now is found, and so the party began. If you read the story in its entirety, you'll find out that there was a Turning Point when the Bible says the prodigal came to his senses. He came to his senses. That expression forms the basis for one of the most unusual prayers you can pray for yourself.
Paul used the same language when he told the Corinthians to come back to your senses as you ought and stop sinning. He urged Timothy to help those who were acting foolishly so that they would come to their senses and escape the trap from the devil. All of us make foolish mistakes. I'm sure you can think of things you wish you could reverse. You can't change the past, but you can let the Lord restore your soul.
Somehow, we find that even when we are restored, we can be better than we were before. If you're cast down because of something you've done, you're one with the rest of us. Approach the Good Shepherd with humble repentance. Ask Him to restore your soul. Say to the Lord, dear Shepherd, I ask you now to restore my soul, restore me from my own foolishness, lead me in the paths of righteousness for Your name's sake.
So maybe you're here today and you've done something foolish. You don't have to raise your hand, you don't have to nudge your neighbor, but down in your heart you know that was really a dumb thing. God will restore you from that if you ask Him. I just thought you should know that, because we kind of are all together and doing dumb things once in a while. He restores your soul from foolishness, and then we learn that He restores your soul from failure.
The Lord knows how to restore our souls from failure. There was this young man in the New Testament. He's kind of like a lesser light among all of the characters of the Bible. His name was John Mark. He won the distinction of being chosen by the apostle Paul to go with Paul and Barnabas on their first missionary journey.
Partway through the trip, John Mark quit. He walked away. He went home. He didn't want to do this anymore. And later, when Barnabas wanted to take him with them on another trip, Paul refused to let it happen.
He said he's a quitter, and I'm not taking him. He didn't trust him, and John Mark gained the reputation of having disappointed the great apostle Paul. I wonder if John Mark ever quoted Psalm 23 about being restored, because years later he was restored. It was the Lord who took John Mark's failure and fashioned it into faith and faithfulness. And listen to me.
This will be a surprise to some of you. We know this man today as the writer of the second gospel, the Gospel of Mark. The man who failed was privileged to write the second gospel in the New Testament. Near the end of his ministry, Paul wrote, "Get Mark, bring him, for he's useful to me in the ministry." Was he restored? Absolutely, was.
Many of you know that Satan has a twofold strategy for the Christian life. Let me remind you of what that is. First, he tries to convince us that we're not capable of falling into sin. Whenever you begin to think I could never do that, you are standing dangerously close to a fall. But Satan has a second strategy, even more sinister than the first.
And that is, after we sin, he whispers in our ears that we can never be restored and be useful to God again. He tells us our failure is too great, our sin is too serious, and that God could never forgive us after what we have done. But I'm here to tell you today that that is a lie. That is not the truth. Has he ever whispered that to you?
Has he ever tried to convince you that what you have done is too terrible to be forgiven?
Well, I want to tell you plainly today: Almighty God restores souls. You cannot sin away the grace of God. The only person who can never be restored is the person who refuses restoration from God. You can refuse to be restored and not be restored, but that's the only way I know that that'll ever happen. I remember reading the story some years ago about Ruth Graham, and her first marriage that ended after 21 years.
She was Billy Graham's daughter, and she believed she had embarrassed her family, and embarrassed God, and that God would certainly be through with her. Needing a fresh start, she moved to Florida. And began attending a new church, and she met a widower there, and their relationship progressed quickly, despite concerns of her children, and repeated warnings from her parents to slow down. Ruth pressed ahead, and just six months after meeting him, they were married. But five weeks later, she fled the marriage in fear, and drove to her parents' home in North Carolina.
As she wound up the mountain road, she braced herself for criticism and disappointment. She dreaded what was to come, but when she made the final turn at the top of the mountain, she saw her father, Dr. Graham, standing at the entrance to their driveway. And once out of the car, he pulled his daughter into his arms and whispered, "Welcome home, honey." She later said. My father's embrace at that moment was one of the most profound gestures of acceptance I have ever experienced.
To be utterly broken and still accepted, to feel ugly and yet loved, to feel like an outcast and still be welcome—I marvelled at the contrast between my heart, which was full of shame and regret, and my father's heart, which was full of love. If you feel like a failure today, Or if you're frustrated because things fell apart under your watch, just come and say, "Lord, you're my shepherd. I ask you to restore my soul. Restore me from this failure. I claim your promise that goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life.
You are my shepherd. I'm a sheep. He restores us from foolishness and from failure." Sometimes from friction, the Lord can restore our souls from the friction of difficult relationships. There's nothing more painful than rejection.
Some people are rejected by their parents. I can't imagine the pain of that.
Some people are deeply wounded when a girlfriend or a boyfriend breaks up with them.
Sometimes we feel betrayed by coworkers. The bruises and scars and injuries that are inflicted on our souls are just like physical wounds in our body, and maybe even worse. David understood that. He wrote, "Even my own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, who ate my bread and lifted up his heel against me." David said, "This person who betrayed me was my personal friend. We used to eat together." The Bible says Jesus was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
My friend Robert Morgan wrote a book called The Lord Is My Shepherd, and in this book he talked about one day checking on his small flock of backyard sheep, and he discovered that the horse. Had taken a serious bite out of Ethel's ear. Ethel was an old ewe. After pondering whether to call a vet, Psalm twenty-three, five came to his mind. Grabbing a bottle of olive oil from the pantry, Rob washed Ethel's ear and rubbed the oil into the wound.
It seemed to soothe her. After several treatments, the wound healed. Later, a sheep exhibitor at the state fair told him, "That's the little trick we use at livestock shows. If we're showing a sheep and she gets a nick or a cut, we rub olive oil on it, and it does the trick." The good shepherd we are told is alert to the various hurts and cuts and scrapes that we have, and he anoints us with oil. Did you know that oil is a symbol of the Holy Spirit in the Bible?
The Lord Jesus tends our wounds with the oil of the Holy Spirit, and it's the most amazing medication you've ever known.
So let me just say to you today: If some old nag has taken a bite out of your ear, if you've been deeply wounded by another person, just say to the Lord, dear Shepherd, please restore my love and my joy. Please give me a special anointing of the healing oil of your Holy Spirit. You know, so often when we get hurt, our first tendency is to hurt back, and all that does is hurt us more. And there's a way to deal with hurt. The Shepherd's way is a good way.
So the Bible says, "He restores my soul from foolishness, failure, friction." Here's one. From fear, maybe you're a fearful person. The Lord can restore your soul from fear. Fear is no respecter of person or ages. It strikes the weak and the powerful.
It haunts the young and the old, the rich and the poor. Even those who seem to have it all often battle anxious thoughts. I've talked to many high-level people who suffer with fear. You know it's one thing to have a lot, but when you have it, then you fear losing it.
So, you know, there's all kinds of fears that come to take their toll on people. Author and educator Neil Anderson said, "Fear is a thief. It erodes our faith. It plunders our hope. It steals our freedom, and it takes away our joy." But in Christ.
That goes away. The Lord restores fearful souls. Isaiah forty-one is one of my favorite verses. It says, "Fear not, for I am with you. Be not dismayed, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you. I will help you. I will uphold you with my righteous right hand." And David wrote in Psalm twenty-three, verse four: "I will fear no evil, for you are with me." In his memoir *A Turtle on a Fencepost*, industrialist Allen Emery recalled spending a night with a shepherd on the Texas prairie. I remember this story from some years ago and how it impressed me. How it has stayed with me.
How I can never forget the impact of this story. The shepherd was tending a flock of about 2,000 sheep with the help of three sheepdogs. As evening settled in. The sheep lay down around a large bonfire. Then the stillness was broken by the long howl of coyotes.
The dogs growled. The sheep lumbered to their feet, and the shepherd threw more logs on the fire. In the glow, Alan looked out, and he saw thousands of little lights. He realized those lights were the reflections of the fire in the eyes of the sheep. The sheep had instinctively looked toward the shepherd.
They didn't look toward the sound of the dogs or the coyotes. They looked toward the shepherd in the midst of the danger. The sheep were not looking into the darkness, but were keeping their eyes in the direction of their safety, looking toward the shepherd. What an amazing story that is, and how that should impact us. What do you do when trouble comes?
Do you look toward the trouble? Isn't that what we normally do? We analyze it. Here's the new thing we do: we look it up on the internet. We try to find out everything we can about it.
You got a little tweak in your back.
Well, if you can fight it on the internet, you will, and there'll be nine hundred things that it could be, and you'll be thinking about that for the next week.
So, what is the best thing we can do? I'm not saying we should be ignorant about what's going on in us, but when trouble comes, you can make your decision: keep your eye on the trouble, or keep your eye on the shepherd. I recommend the latter. Keep your eye on the shepherd.
Sometimes we think when bad things happen to us or we go through a tough spell, this is the way it's going to be from now on. But the Bible doesn't let us do that. What does the Bible say in Psalm 23? Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life. My life has been filled with mercy and goodness, and so shall your future be.
Amen. What a great psalm! And most of us have memorized it. In fact, I challenged our congregation when I was preaching this to memorize it. And so many people called me back, or wrote me, or saw me in the hallway and said, "You know what?
I memorized that psalm. That was really good." And some people said, "Yeah, I memorized that psalm. That's the hardest thing I ever did." You know, that's the way it is. But it will stay with you, and you will need it sometime in the middle of the night when you're distressed over something, or something takes place you weren't expecting. Oh, what a wonderful truth it is that we have a shepherd who cares for us, and he restores our souls.
We'll talk about that again tomorrow here on Turning Point as we finish the week out together. I hope you'll be with us for the Friday edition of Turning Point, and let me ask you to memorize Psalm twenty-three. Between now and tomorrow, yeah, that's right. You can do it. Not very long, and it will be a blessing to you.
I'm David Jeremiah. Thank you so much for joining us. Have a great day, and may God go with you. For more information on Dr. Jeremiah's series, "The Battle for Your Soul," please visit our website, where we also offer two free ways to help you stay connected: our monthly magazine, Turning Points, and our daily email devotional.
Sign up today at davidjeremiah.org/radio. That's davidjeremiah.org/radio, or call us at eight hundred nine four seven nineteen ninety three. Ask for your copy of David's helpful new book, *The Battle for Your Soul: Thirty-One Biblical Secrets of Spiritual Warfare*. It's yours for a gift of any amount. You can also purchase the Jeremiah Study Bible in the New International and New King James versions, complete with notes and articles from Dr.
Jeremiah's decades of study. Get all the details when you visit our website, DavidJeremiah.org/radio. This is David Michael Jeremiah. Join us tomorrow as we continue the battle for your soul on Turning Point with Dr. David Jeremiah.
