Psalm 91
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Introduction
Introduction
We live in worrying times. No doubt about it, The dangers of this world both real or imagined can be a real source of debilitating fear and anxieties for many people, and that is what peole are now experienceing in the face of Covid 19.
How do we deal with fear amidst circumstances that seem feer incucing. How do we have our hearts at peace in the face of difficulty? how do you live in a dangerous world with calmness in your heart.
has provided Gods people throughout the generations with an atidote to fear and anxiety. It makes a remarkable promise in its first four verses. Lets read them:
Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High
will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.
Shelter or shadow. Why does someone go to a shelter? They go to a shelter for protection. Protection from the rain.
Shadow - Those who go to God as a shelter find rest relief in Gods shadow. I remeber in on when I was on holiday in Majorca with my wife anna and there were some days that were just to hot for me, my pale scottish skin could not cope and so I was happy to go and lie down where the was shadow and shade to find relief from the burning sun. Some climates are so hot that finding shade can literally be a matter of life and death.
I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress,
my God, in whom I trust.”
Again thats an image of protection and impenatrable security. The psalmist affirms that God doesnt just provide a refuge and fortress but that God himself is the refuge and fortress and the psalmist trust in him. He is saying this is my God in whon I trust.
Surely he will save you
from the fowler’s snare
and from the deadly pestilence.
In a time of deadly petulence that is Covid 19, this verse should have our attention.
Notice the change in pronoun in verse 3. The psalmist is no loger saying I (first person) but is saying you (speaking in the seconed person) God will save not just the psalmist but you, in other words I trust God he is my refuge my fortress, but if you trust God also, if you’ve given your life to God, if you have entered into a relationship with God, the promise is he will protect you.” and then we are given image after image of Gods protection some of which we will unpack a little later.
if you’ve given your life to God, if you have entered into a covenant relationship with God, the promise is he will protect you.”
Perhaps the most striking image of protection for those who make the most high their shelter is the one of a Mother bird protecting her chicks. “He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge”
The psalm goes on to say if you trust in God most high you wont experience violence, that we won’t experience plague, no disaster will come near your door. You wont even hurt your toe it says in verse 12?
At this point you should have some questions, because the reality is we live in a world where believers do get sick, where christians do experience violence. Even in the OT there are faithful rightous characters for whom Suffer, Joseph (10 years in prison), Job (looses his family his home and breaks out in boils)Jesus suffers at the hands of violent men and dies on the cross.
We might then look at this psalm here its promises, see what transpired in the life of Joseph Job and Jesus the suffering of a friend and loved one and say, These words cant be true? We are tempted then not to trust these promises. It was the Devil who tempted Jesus not to trust God on the basis that if God allowed Jesus to suffer psalm 91 couldnt be true.
How are we to make sense of this psalm, is it possible to misinterperet it? The answer is yes.
Some time ago I was reading the story of Jim Elliot. Jim Elliot was a young missionarry who was martyred trying to share the gospel and evangelize the Huaorani people of Ecuador, a tribe who were at the time known for thier violence. Some said that Eliot was couragous brave, others said he was foolish.
Eliot wrote in his diary “he is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot loose.”
His wife later published a biography called “shadow of the almighty” based on .
Eliot was able to do what he did because his life was hidden.
I think eliot and his wife understood something about psalm 91 that most of us miss. The way to overcome fear and anxiety is to live a life that is hidden in God
Are we reading it right? are we understanding it right?
Interestingly this is the psalm that Saten quoted to Jesus in the Desert temptations, Saten quotes Verse 12
they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.
He will cover you with his feathers,
and under his wings you will find refuge;
his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.
And then there is promise after promise that God will protect you.
Verse 4 He will cover you with his feathers and under his win
Perhaps a most relevent verse in light of the Covid 19 epidemic. God will s
Entering into the Promises of have a theraputic effect on “anchoring the soul in the midst of trouble”
Do you want peace that passes understanding? Do you want
AIM
The aim of is to encourage all God’s people to employ a quiet and simple trust in him, regardless of how threatening our circumstances may feel.
But we can only experience its promises when we understand its teaching correctly.
Trouble
Some time ago I was reading the story of Jim Elliot. Jim Elliot was a young missionarry who was martyred trying to share the gospel and evangelize the Huaorani people of Ecuador, a tribe who were at the time known for thier violence. Some said that Eliot was brave, others said he was foolish.
Eliot wrote in his diary “he is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot loose.”
His wife later published a biography called “shadow of the almighty” .
In his diary later published by his late wife which she called “shadow of the almighty he wrote this “He is no fool gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot loose.”
Jesus bore our sickkness, our disease, violence came to his door, he tasted death......
he wrote this “He is no fool gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot loose.”