Bible Studies

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The 23rd Psalm says “The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.”

Notice it says the valley of the shadow of death not the valley of death. Why does death need to hide behind a shadow? Think about it what is the one thing used in all of the scary movies that Hollywood likes to frighten you with? The shadow, it is one of the simplest things to strike fear into you. You see this dark shadow of a figure coming up on you and it is always bigger than life.

Alfred Hitchcock was always big on using shadows to make you think you saw something when you saw nothing but a shadow. The shower scene in Psycho you thought you witnessed a murder but all you saw was the shadow of what appeared to be someone’s arm with a knife in their hand. That is all it took to strike fear into you.

Someone once said “the shadow of a dog never bit anybody” and it’s true. A shadow can not bite, but it sure can be used quite successfully to scare you. Picture this, a very large menacing shadow of what appears to be a dog. You are alone and you have no way of knowing if this thing is vicious or not. Suddenly fear just grips you, and you are almost totally paralyzed. You slowly turn around and here is a little tea cup sized Chihuahua “arf.” Sounds hilarious, but it is not when you are going through something like this.

You see death has to hide behind a shadow to keep you in fear. If you were to pull back the veil you would see just how small and contemptible death really is. The reason I say that is because the Word of God says that after Jesus death, burial, and resurrection he took back the Keys of death, hell and the Grave. Paul wrote in 1 cor. “O death, where is thy sting?”

Death no longer has the power it once had so it hides behind a shadow. (Hebrews 2:14-15) says Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he (Jesus) also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. That says that all fear is directly connected to the fear of death and Satan used it to keep us in bondage, but thank God Jesus has delivered us from the bondage of the fear of death by defeating the one who had the power of death which was Satan.

Let’s look at that passage again “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil:” I guess not!

The next time when you find yourself in the valley and death comes by hiding behind his shadow tell that dog to go talk to your big brother Jesus and don’t forget to remind him who has his keys.

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