Psalm 91. part 1
Psalm 91 stands out as one of the most eloquent and clear voices in the Scriptures of Gods promise of protection from danger and calamity for his people who trust in him.
Make no mistake God intends to protect his people from danger and from harms way.
The Apostle Paul writing in 2 corinithians chapter 1 says
"For all the promises of God in him are "Yes", and in him "Amen", to the glory of God through us.
In Christ ,in our union with him, God desires that every one of his promises are manifested through our lives to his own glory,as we affirm them as yes and as amen.
Notice he did not say maybe and perhaps but yes and amen.
That includes all of the promise contained in psalm 91.
All of Gods promises are yes in Christ.
And all of them are amen.
Many Christians come to the promises of God with a heart full of unbelief.
They read these promises with qualifiers and caveats and do not take these words as statements of Gods intent to every child of God regardless of who they may be.
Why then do some good and fine Christians die in tragic circumstances, and why do others fail to receive their promised deliverance, some may ask?
That is a good question and one that demands an answer.
The truth is that every one of Gods promises will not automatically fall upon us like ripe cherries off of a tree, for they are conditional.
The promises of God are dependant upon two things our obedience and our faith.
We simply cannot do as we please when we please even living and acting contrary to Gods word and expect these promises to be powerfully manifested in our lives to the glory of God.
And in order for them to be at work in our lives we must combine them with faith.
However if we will walk in the light of these truths and believe them from our hearts then we can and should expect Gods delivering hand of power to be present with us to enforce these promises that he has made.
Surely in this day and in this hour in which we are alive we need to lay hold of every provision that God has made and walk in the powerful covenant promises of the most high God who is also our El shaddai.
The psalm begins
"He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High
Shall abide or rest under the shadow of the Almighty."
The two terms here used to describe the Lord are Most High and Almighty, however in the original Hebrew they are El Elyon and El Shaddai.
El Elyon speaks of Gods might and absolute sovereign supremacy over all other things
There is no challenge thrown your way that God is not equal to the task of delivering you from it and giving you the victory over it.
He is sovereign over everything that you face in this life and you and I should never forget it.
This is the One in whom we dwell and in whose shadow we take refuge.
Why if he is sovereign some people say does he allow me to go through this?
Some of the things that we must endure are for our salvation and for our development as Christians but there are other things that the enemy of our souls has determined for our destruction and harm that can occur and do occur because we permit them.
That is simply the truth whether we like to hear that or not.
God commands us to "give no place to the devil" and "to resist him and he must flee from you", which does not imply that we will ever cease to prevent him from attacking us consistently in this life but it does imply that we can prevent his schemes from succeeding in our lives.
The Most high is the One in whom we have found a secret place of refuge and he is also called El shaddai.
That was the name that was first revealed to Abraham and comes from the word shad which means breast.
El shaddai therefore means many breasted one and conjures up all of the associations of a nursing mother with her baby laid to her breast,watching over it feeding and nurturing it, and fiercely protective towards it.
This name implies Gods all sufficiency; the all sufficiency of his grace and of his goodness to nurture us and provide for us and watch over and protect us as a mother does her suckling babe.
This is the God in whose shadow we find protection and in whose shelter we rest.
"Surely he shall deliver you from the snare of the fowler,
And from the perilous pestilence.
He shall cover you with his feathers,
And under his wings you shall take refuge."
When the psalmist here speaks of taking refuge in under the feathers of Gods protective love and being covered by his wings, it reminds us of the words of Jesus when He spoke to the people of Jesusalem just before his arrest and trail and said
"O Jerusalem,Jerusalem,the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her!
How often I wanted to gather your children together,as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings,but you were not willing!"
Even in the face of ultimate rejection from the people whom he was sent to, the heart of Gods love expressed in Jesus is desiring to gather and deliver and save those to whom he was sent.
He desired to gather and to protect them and used the same intimate language of a mother bird covering her young under her wings to describe this covenant love of God.
This love is called in the hebrew language hesed and denotes a loyalty and protectiveness and a closely guarding and a watchfulness.
It speaks of the unchanging covenant love of our heavenly Father to hide us and protect us and gather us close to himself.
It is this love that is being spoken of in Psalm 91 also.
Why does God want to protect us from all evil and from destruction and danger?
Because he has entered into a covenant of love or hesed with us and desires to make known to us the nature of this fiercely protective love and of His goodness towards us.
Sadly satan has done a pretty successful job of distorting the image of Gods nature in His goodness towards us as His children.
What Father is their who would be considered a good earthly father who would willfully and knowingly let his child approach danger and harm without attempting to warn them and save them?
Mens religious ideas have implied that God allows us to experience tragedy and to endure destruction and loss so as to teach us more of His mysterious ways, and so as to deepen our faith and our trust in him in spite of everything that we are experiencing around us.
It is true that in times of great suffering Gods consolation and comfort will and does abound towards us, but to imply that God wants us to experience danger or premature death or injury or calamity for some mysterious purpose unknown at that time to us, is to flatly contradict the promises that he has so clearly spoken in psalm 91.
Remember numbers 21 says that "God is not a man that he should lie neither the son of man that he should repent.
Has he said and shall he not do it, or has he spoken and shall he not make it good"
Consider the words of psalm 91 that he has spoken to us as translated in the amplified bible.
"Only a spectator shall you be (yourself inaccessible in the secret place of the Most High)as you witness the reward of the wicked.
Because you have made the Lord your refuge,and the most high your dwelling place,
There shall no evil befall you,nor any plague or calamity come near your tent.
For He will give his angels (especial)charge over you to accompany and defend and preserve you in all your ways (of obedience and service) vs 8-11.
For us to deny these promises or to doubt them is to call God a liar and that I will not do.
This psalm is written to build into our hearts strong assurance and peace with regards to Gods will to protect our lives from danger,so that we can confidently face our adversary the devil with no fear of what he can do to our lives.
So The Lord who is our refuge and our fortress is also our El Shaddai who nurtures and protects us in His covenant love;and He is El Elyon who is the Most High over all things.
This Psalm is written to instruct us how to access this place of safety in the Most High and one of the first things that we are told is that we must say this of the Lord.
"I will say of the Lord , He is my refuge and my fortress, my God in whom I have put my trust."vs2
The importance of what we say is always stated in the scripture, and here is no exception.
What we say is the barometer of what we believe,"I believed and therefore I have spoken"
However we may need to say something many times before is takes deep root in our hearts.
Many people miss the powerful truth about biblical confession, because they believe that if they say something without conviction then it is only vain repetition.
Firstly we can make the decision to believe, and so if we choose to believe what we are reading is true, and is true for our lives, then it can never be vain to repeat it.
But secondly to think that repeating Gods word over and over again as we say it to ourselves is vain repetition is to misunderstand the nature and power of Gods word.
Both in the Old and in the New testaments we read that "The Word (speaking of Gods word the bible) is very near you , that is in your mouth and in your heart, that is the word of faith which we preach."Romans 10 vs8, Deut 30 v14
The promises of God need to be put in our hearts and in our mouths continually in order for them to become a living reality to us, and in order for our faith in those very promises to be as instinctive to us as our speaking and eating and sleeping.
When we believe that the Heavenly Father cares for us, so as to watch over our lives, and we really believe that then that is an end to fear.
When we know as we know our own names and as we know the love of a loved one for us that our Father in Heaven covers us with the feathers of His covenant love,and that His love has anticipated danger and snares that lie before us, in order to warn us and guide us safely past them, then is an end to fear.
In verses 5 -8 the psalmist lists a number of potential dangers that can assail a child of God both day and night and states that we shall not be afraid.
We need never be afraid of anything that our enemy the devil tries to scheme against us for our destruction or injury because we know the power of Gods powerful protective covenant Love.
God is not impassively sitting upon His Throne in Heaven watching His children as they approach danger and not anticipating that danger and moving upon their lives to provide deliverance and salvation from that danger.
He is a good Father.
Jesus said in Johns gospel chapter 10 and vs 10 that
"The thief comes not but for to steal and to kill and to destroy.
But I am come that they may have life and have it more abundantly."
Jesus came to deliver us, "Who went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed of the devil, for God was with Him."
The devil only ever desires our death and our hurt.
God only ever desires to communicate His life and to do us good.
The devil and God have never changed roles, neither will they.
And yet to listen to some preachers you may be forgiven for imagining that God is somehow glorified in the unnecessary suffering that comes into our lives.
I say unnecessary suffering because there is for certain a necessary suffering that will be our portion in this life, infact Paul said that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.
However that does not and should not include unnecessary injury accidents or premature deaths.
These are the domain of the prince of this world, and thank God in Christ we have complete victory over the devil and all of his works.
God is a good God, and if we as earthly parents have a strong desire to protect our children from harms way, how much more does our Father who is in heaven.
But we have a responsibility to "close the door on fear" because our fear gives a place of opportunity to the devil to gain an advantage.
When the Scripture tells us to give no place to the devil, this includes giving no place to fear in our lives.
And our resting in that secret place (which we do by faith and trust)of the Knowledge of our Fathers love, is the way that fear is dissipated in our lives.
There is one more crucial factor which comes in to play here, when we are standing to see the delivering power of God at work in our lives,and that is our willingness to heed the still small voice of Gods Spirit.
Romans chapter 8 says that "As many as are led by the Spirit of God, these shall be called the sons of God."
The Greek text is in the continuous present tense, which reads" as many as are being (continually )led by the Spirit of God, these shall be called the sons of God."
Many people I believe have failed to receive their deliverance from danger, because they have failed to heed the warnings and checks that the Holy spirit gave them.
Two ministers were flying back from a conference in the united states, the pastor and his assistant pastor.
During the lay over of the interconnecting flight the pastor had a strong urge not to board the flight that they were scheduled to take.
This was not a fear but a disquiet and strong ill ease in his spirit compelling him to take a different flight.
The practical implications of this were inconvenient to the pastor for it meant cancelling his flight and rerouting by a longer more circuitous route.
This pastor communicated his instincts to his assistant, but the assistant did not wish to change as he had pledged to his wife that he would make it home that night which was his anniversary.
The assistant never made it home, for the plane which he was on went down, killing everyone on board.
Some people may hear that story and wonder why God did not speak to that assistant pastor, but it was evident that he did.
He spoke through the other pastor who in this case did not have a strong motive for returning home early,and therefore could listen to God more objectively.
In another instance a man of God know to Jan and I was killed when the plane that he was on burst into flames as it was landing.
This man was a significant leader in an African nation and not only was he killed but a number of other pastors who were also on board this chartered flight, as they were flying in to an African nation for a mission.
After this event such was the stature of this man to those who knew him, that it caused much soul searching among those who heard.
Some people suggested that though we do not know why, perhaps in some way it was Gods time to take this brother home to his reward.
However I believe that the truth was nearer to what his wife subsequently revealed, that she had pleaded with him not to go on this particular trip, as she felt a strong check and was troubled in here spirit about it.
The leader concerned had overridden his wife concern, saying that it was his duty to go to the people that he had promised.
Again I have no doubt that his life could have been spared had he heeded his wife's concerns and taken it to the Lord in prayer.
John G Lake an apostle to the African nation and in particular to south Africa was once driving down a highway, when he distinctly heard the Holy Spirit saying to him,"Pull the car over right now!"
He obeyed and a few seconds later a truck came careering round an approaching bend in the road, on the wrong side of the road, as its brakes had failed.
Had He not have given heed to that warning he later said he would have almost certainly have been killed in a head on collision.
Again I am sure that had he failed to hear and to obey the Holy Spirits warnings, some would have said "Well it was Gods time to take him"
However this would not have been true since he went on to profoundly shake that Africian nation by the power of God.
That is why I said that the promises in psalm 91 are conditional, they depend upon our faith and obedience to heed implicitly Gods voice when He is warning us of impending danger.
Trust and obey.
Sometimes the Lord will give to us an intercession to pray and to avert danger that lies ahead, and this is one of the great blessings of praying in tongues.
We can "pick up" by a knowing a sense of something being wrong, without actually knowing what precisely it is.
By yielding to the Holy Spirit however we can pray through to a place of victory or of peace, and many times,I believe,have by the Spirits intercession through us,secured the victory and protection of God over a diabolical scheme of the evil one to try to injure or to kill us.
Lyn Hammon wife of Mac Hammon pastors of a great church in Minneapolis,was led to urgently pray for her husband who was returning from a ministry trip, sensing strongly that he was in danger.
Being a woman of prayer she discerned that there was an unusual degree of urgency upon this leading for intercession and prayed through until she knew that she had "hit"a note of victory.
Her husband returned back later that evening testifying that the plane which he was on had encountered difficulties on approaching landing, and though part of it had crashed no one on board was injured.
When we are called to be led by the Spirit this extends to far more then simply not losing our tempers!
As we are led by the Spirit so we shall learn to consistently walk in the Spirit and then we shall consistently learn to enter into and abide in the promises of God.
God is constantly seeking to speak to us, to lead us and to guide us maneuvering us away from danger if we will learn to listen to our spirits, for it is there that the Spirit of God dwells.
And it is in our spirits, in our inward man that the Holy Spirit communes with our spirits as children of God.
If we will believe his promises, and listen diligently to Him,he will lead us away from danger and He will guide us safely through.
"Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,I will fear no evil
For you are with me, your Shepard's rod and staff they comfort and uphold me"psalm 23.