Psalm 91

Grace Fellowship Church

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This sermon is from Grace Fellowship Church in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. To access other sermons or to learn more about us, please visit our website at graceedmonton .ca.

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We're looking today at Psalm 91, which is one of the most beautiful psalms in this altar.

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We'll just take a look at some of the strengthening thoughts and comforting image we have here. We just heard it read, but if I just look at some of these verses again.

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Psalm 91, verse 1, he who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. Verse 4, he will cover you with his pinions, and under his wings you will find refuge.

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Verse 7, a thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you. Verses 9 and 10, because you have made the

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Lord your dwelling place, the Most High, who is my refuge, no evil shall be allowed to befall you, no plague come near your tent.

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And though the psalm is beautiful and inspiring, it's also the word of God, and the word of God is meant to be profitable.

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And in order to be profitable, it must first be understood. So my question is, do we really understand what this psalm means?

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What is it actually saying? What does it mean that no evil shall be allowed to befall you? Or that no plague will come near your tent?

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Does it mean that you'll be able to walk through life and have no bad thing happen to you? Well, if not, then what does it mean?

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And what I fear is when we come across a psalm like this is that we appreciate its beautiful language, but because we don't understand what it means, we carry on and go our way, having derived no real profit from it.

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That's sad. And it ought not to be that way, because there are precious things to be mined here if we will but take the time to search out the meaning of it.

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And so my aim in this sermon is to try and dig down with you and figure out what this psalm is all about. What is the big idea?

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So the first half of the sermon is going to be dedicated to getting an answer to this question. And then having become confident as to what its basic meaning is,

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I'd like to show you two concrete ways in which reading the psalm can actually be profitable. First then, how are we to understand

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Psalm 91? In order to unlock this mystery, we need to correctly answer four questions.

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We need to answer firstly, who is this psalm intended for? Secondly, are we to take these evils literally or metaphorically?

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Thirdly, when does God provide this deliverance? And then lastly, what about all of the exceptions?

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So let's try to answer the first question, who is this psalm intended for? Some will say that this psalm is intended for Jews who were under the

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Old Covenant and faithful to it, and it's not applicable to Christians like you and I. After all, it was

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Jews under the Old Covenant who were the original recipients of the psalms. And under the Old Covenant, there were specific promises held out to those who would obey it.

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Things like long life, dwelling in the land, and enjoying prosperity and protection and deliverance from every enemy.

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It sounds kind of like the psalm, doesn't it? But there's a problem here. If we're going to take this psalm as promises to the

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Jews who are faithful, then what about all those faithful Jews who were not delivered from their trials? Jesus spoke of all the righteous blood that had been shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous

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Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who was murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. Or take

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John the Baptist, of whom Jesus prays, speaking of the greatness of this prophet. It doesn't appear that he attained the promises of Psalm 91, because he was arrested and later beheaded.

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Now if the promises of the psalm are conditioned upon adherence to the Old Covenant, and the man who earned the accolades of Jesus, and was called the greatest of them that were born of women, did not attain unto these promises, what hope would there be for anyone else?

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So this interpretation goes too far. It does more than confine the promises to a select group of Jews under the

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Old Covenant, but it confines it so small that the true benefactors turn out to be nobody.

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And it seems to me that the psalm is meant for somebody rather than nobody, and so I think we can lay this interpretation aside.

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Well, maybe you're thinking that nobody obtained the promises because nobody was perfect. But what about Jesus?

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He was perfect. Maybe this was a messianic psalm referring to him. After all, there are other psalms that seem to be referring to the

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Messiah specifically, that can only be explained by having their fulfillment in him. Well, that is true enough, but there is a very simple reason why this interpretation won't work either.

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And that is because even Jesus was not rescued from every evil. Jesus faced the greatest trouble and terror of all, having to drink the cup of the wine of God's wrath.

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And he did not receive the deliverance and rescue that was promised in verses 14 and 15 of our psalm. He prayed earnestly and with great agony to be delivered from having to bear this burden and drink that cup.

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But there was no deliverance for Jesus. Okay then, well, maybe this psalm wasn't meant as a particular promise to Jesus.

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Maybe it was for King David, who himself penned many of the psalms and was a recipient of special promises of protection from God.

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Well, I think this view has its own problems. First, we have no idea who the author of this psalm was, and there is no indication it was written by David.

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Second, the psalm doesn't even mention David, and so this is a very arbitrary understanding. Third, it seems odd to me to have a psalm which is meant to be sung together, singing of the deliverance of David alone and how it applied to nobody else.

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It seems rather strange to sing about how David would fear no evil, or how angels would come and protect and take care of David, and how

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David alone would find refuge under the wings of the Almighty. David did write of times when he was delivered by God, but their reason was to assure others that they also may taste and see that the

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Lord is good and find the same refuge in God that he had found. Psalm 34 is just an example.

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Well, who then is this psalm intended for? Here's what I propose. Rather than all the conjecture in making wild and arbitrary stabs in the dark as to who this psalm is written to, why don't we just look at the text?

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If we look at the text, we can see who the promises are for, because it tells us. Look at verse 1.

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Then in verse 2, we see him described as someone who says to the Lord that he is his refuge and his fortress, his

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God in whom he trusts. Verse 9 describes him as someone who has made the

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Lord his dwelling place. And verse 14 describes him as someone who holds fast to the

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Lord in love and knows his name. So my question to you is this, what kind of person is this describing?

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Is this not the very description of a believer? It seems to me that this psalm is written to believers.

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But now the question becomes, is it written for all believers universally, or only for some believers in particular?

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Now some would say that this psalm applies only to some believers. They don't think that all believers possess the qualifications that are given in this psalm.

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And this is how they explain the fact that some believers are not delivered from evil. This happened to be the view of Charles Spurgeon.

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Listen to how he put it. It is not of all believers that the psalmist sings, but only of those who dwell in a secret place of the

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Most High. He goes on to say, If all the saints are not so sheltered, it is because they have not all such close abiding with God, and consequently not such confidence in the promise.

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And then he continues, If we die of pestilence as others die, it is because we acted like others and did not in patience possess our souls.

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Now as hard as it is to disagree with Spurgeon, I do believe he was wrong in this case. I don't know about you, but I have a hard time swallowing the idea that when

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God's children are not delivered from evil, it is because of their failure to abide with God. Just think of some of the absurdities this leads to.

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If this is true, then Job suffered because of his failure to abide with God. But it seems to me the whole book of Job was written precisely to correct this faulty way of thinking.

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We'd also have to say that John the Baptist was beheaded because of his failure to abide with God. Stephen was stoned because he failed to abide with God.

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And all of the apostles, save John, died martyrs' deaths because they failed to abide with God. Now if that is so, and all of these saints failed to meet the criteria, then what hope do we have?

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No, this interpretation not only conflicts with the teaching of Scripture, but it would nullify the whole purpose for which this psalm seems to be written.

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This psalm seems to be written to encourage people, not to convince them to throw in a towel and give up. So that leads us to only one answer remaining as to who this psalm is written for.

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That is, all believers. It is true that believers don't all abide in God to the same degree.

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Of course that is true. But abide they do. Those who fail to abide are not merely excluded from the promises of this psalm, but they are taken away and cast into the fire and burned, just as it says in John 15.

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Those who fail to abide are not weak Christians, they are unbelievers. And so now that we know who this psalm is written to, let's move on to the second question in interpreting this psalm.

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Are we to take these evils literally or metaphorically? There's a long list of evils that we have here that the saint is protected from in this psalm.

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In verse 3, we have deliverance from the snare of the bird trapper. In the same verse, we also see deliverance from pestilence.

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In verse 5, we have deliverance from the terror of the night and from flying arrows in the daytime. Verse 6 lists pestilence again, and it also adds destruction.

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In verse 10, we have evil and plagues. In verse 12, we have protection from striking our feet against stones.

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And then in verse 13, we have dominion over lions and snakes. Now, one way to understand this list of dangers and evils is by understanding them as metaphors, colorful ways of speaking about spiritual evils.

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With this understanding, trampling on a serpent and a lion would not be taken in a strict literal sense, but conveying rather victory over Satan, who was at times called a serpent and a roaring lion.

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Angels would not be commissioned to protect us from physical things like rocks, but protection from spiritual threats.

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The arrow that flies by day would be something like protection from Satan's fiery darts. Protection from pestilence might be interpreted as protection from lies and falsehoods that others are ensnared by.

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Now, I can see how this interpretation has appeal. It both leaves room for the fact that we have trouble in this world, and it also acknowledges the fact that oftentimes the biblical writers made use of metaphors.

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The Psalms, after all, are poetry and not always meant to be taken in a strict literal sense. Some lines in the

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Psalm are clearly figurative. We are not under the physical shadow of God, and God doesn't have physical wings that he covers us with.

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However, I believe it would be a mistake to conclude that every deliverance spoken of here is to be taken as a metaphor for some spiritual reality.

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It's one thing to allow for metaphors where they fit and when there is some reason to suppose the author is speaking figuratively, but it's another thing to assume the author is using figures of speech when there is no reason to do so and when the plain meaning makes perfect sense.

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For instance, take the promise of protection from pestilence. Now, it seems obvious that there's a bit of metaphorical language being used here.

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Pestilence doesn't stalk in the darkness. Of course not. But we don't have to go so far as assuming that pestilence itself is a metaphor for some spiritual danger like false doctrine.

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That seems to be stretching it to me. What are we going to make of the fact that it will not come near your tent?

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Are we going to say that false doctrine will not infect your family? Or maybe it will not enter your mind?

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No, I think this is just taking wild stabs in the dark. When people use metaphors, they expect you to know what they mean.

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They don't expect people to listen to their words and then try to decipher a hidden meaning that we are trying to communicate to them in some kind of code.

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I think the ordinary reader would understand the author simply as saying we would be protected from pestilence, which spreads and moves just like an enemy that stalks and hunts its victims.

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10 ,000 falling at your right hand might just be a way of saying that a great many people will perish all around you. There's no reason to assume here there is some deeper hidden meaning.

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Angels guarding you and keeping you from striking your foot against a stone may mean just what it says.

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In fact, I know this is the case. Why? Because of the time when the devil tempted

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Jesus and brought him to the top of the temple and told him to jump. He then quoted

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Psalm 91 about how the angels would deliver him. Now, if the

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Psalm had no reference to physical harm but was speaking metaphorically about spiritual harm, then this temptation would lose all force.

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What kind of temptation would it be to take Jesus to the top of the temple and then say, throw yourself down because God promised to protect your mind from being overcome by spiritual deception?

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There's no temptation in that. But our Lord was truly tempted and therefore he didn't correct

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Satan and tell him that he misunderstood the scriptures, but he said, it is also written you shall not tempt the

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Lord your God. So I think the writer of the Psalm was speaking quite literally and employed some metaphors at times to get his point across.

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And his point was to show us that we are safe and protected from every form of evil, whether they come in the form of natural evils such as pestilence or from moral evils such as trappers hunting you or archers shooting at you.

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This protection would naturally include spiritual evils as well as physical evils. No evil shall befall you, it says in verse 10.

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The whole thrust of the Psalm is to make us feel like we are protected from head to toe from every evil.

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Now then, if all I've been saying so far is correct, then what we have here in Psalm 91 is a teaching that all believers are protected from every form of evil.

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But if that's the case, then how do we explain the fact that we aren't always delivered?

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Well, that brings us to the third interpretive question, which has to do with the timing of this deliverance. The question is, when does

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God promise this deliverance? Now one solution to this apparent contradiction is that the time of deliverance is not yet.

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On this view, the Psalm is not promising an immediate deliverance in this present life, but promising rather our final and complete deliverance that will only be realized at the return of Christ when we are raised again to eternal life.

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You could liken it to how Jesus spoke to his disciples when he told them that some of them would be killed, but yet assured them that not a hair of their head would perish.

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It sounds contradictory until you realize he was not speaking of an immediate perishing of their hair, but rather of final and ultimate deliverance.

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In a final analysis, death itself would not even harm a single hair of the one who is risen again to eternal life.

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Another example of Jesus speaking this way was when he said, whoever lives and believes in me shall never die.

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He wasn't speaking of dying in this world, but of never dying in the world to come. So all of the deliverance spoken of in this

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Psalm then would be true in this ultimate and final sense. When it says in verse 16, with long life

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I will satisfy him and show him my salvation, it would be referring to eternal life and final salvation.

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So of all the interpretations we've gone through so far, this one seems the most compelling to me.

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That is, until we look more closely at the text itself and test this theory. So for example, if this is the right way to interpret it, then what are we to make of angels ministering to us to prevent us from striking our feet against a stone?

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What could this possibly mean in an ultimate and final sense? As far as I can tell, that doesn't make any sense.

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Moreover, the Psalm itself doesn't seem to be referring to future deliverance, but to present deliverance at the moment when we are exposed to real threats.

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Just read verse 15. When he calls to me, I will answer him. I will be with him in trouble.

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When will he answer us and rescue us? When we are in trouble and call to him. Moreover, the teaching of God's present deliverance is found clearly all over the scriptures.

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Turn with me to Psalm 50. I'd like you to see this one for yourself.

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Psalm 50 verses 14 and 15. Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving and perform your vows to the

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Most High and call upon me in the day of trouble. I will deliver you and you shall glorify me.

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Does this sound like a deferred deliverance in an ultimate and final sense? No, it's talking about present trouble and how present help can be found in that present trouble.

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And if you flip back just a few more pages to Psalm 46. Psalm 46 in the first three verses.

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Let's read just one more to help drive home the point. Psalm 34. Psalm 34, 17 through 19.

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When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles.

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The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the

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Lord delivers him out of them all. And it's not just the Psalms.

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Consider the New Testament teaching on this subject. In the Sermon on the

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Mount, Jesus had much to say to his disciples about anxiety. And what is anxiety but a fear that some evil will overtake you?

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Now what is the approach that Jesus took here? Did he tell them not to worry because they would rise again and be free from all their troubles?

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Though that is true, and those things are taught elsewhere, that was not the line of argument that Jesus used here.

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But the way he assured his disciples was much to the effect of the 91st Psalm. He told his disciples not to be anxious because they could expect

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God to take care of them. If God took care of the birds and the lilies, how much more would he take care of his sons and daughters?

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And his taking care of them does not mean he will merely comfort them and do nothing else for them. No, the idea is that their

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Heavenly Father will actually take care of them, both body and soul. And if God cares for his children that way, will he not protect them from danger and rescue them from evil?

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Or consider how Jesus taught his disciples to pray. Give us this day our daily bread.

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Deliver us from evil. We are to continually pray for sustenance and deliverance now in this present world.

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And why is that? Because God is concerned about sustaining and delivering us in this present world.

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The universal teaching of Scripture is that God is greatly concerned to care for his children who know him and abide with him and put their trust in him.

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And we are not to fear because God will see to it that we are protected and provided for. So I believe

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Psalm 91 is right in line with the corpus of Scripture, teaching the present deliverance from every evil for all believers.

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But I still haven't answered the big question, have I? If this Psalm is teaching what

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I'm saying it's teaching, and what it seems to be teaching, then what about all of the exceptions?

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Church history is filled with cases of Christians not being delivered. We have also in our own experience many instances when we have not been delivered.

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And even in the Bible itself we find scores of exceptions where saints are not delivered from their present troubles.

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So I'm going to try and attempt to answer that question now. And I think the question can be answered if we just have the right key.

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And the key to answer this question lies in the very question itself. The key is that word exceptions.

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You see, if the Psalm allows for exceptions, then the apparent contradiction vanishes away.

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It then remains only a problem for the one who insists that the exceptions must be included right there in the text, and if it doesn't do that, then it must be teaching falsehood.

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But that's a foolish thing to insist upon. For example, if you read in a textbook that a year is composed of 365 days, you wouldn't slam the book shut and cry foul.

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You wouldn't say, why would they teach such a thing? Don't they know that every fourth year is a leap year, which is composed of 366 days?

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How can they say that a year is composed of 365 days? Well, only a fool would do that.

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Especially if you could just flip to the next page and read about leap years. The textbook didn't teach a contradiction.

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The problem was, you didn't finish reading. And as it is in the textbook, so it is in the

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Bible. The authors naturally assumed that the readers would be aware of the exceptions. And this is not only because the exceptions are patently obvious, but because the

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Bible itself teaches that there are exceptions. And sometimes you don't have to go very far to see these exceptions.

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Sometimes they're right there in the very same passage. If you want to flip with me and go to Psalm 72, verses 12 to 14, it says this.

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For he delivers the needy when he calls, the poor and him who has no helper. He has pity on the weak and the needy, and saves the lives of the needy.

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From oppression and violence, he redeems their life, and precious is their blood in his sight.

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It says in the same breath that God both saves their lives, and yet sometimes they are killed.

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You see, the scriptures are not meant to have a verse or phrase plucked out and isolated and taken on its own as if that were all that God had to say about the matter.

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Just like you don't stop someone in mid -sentence and run off with what they say without letting them finish speaking. And so with the

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Bible, we are not to take a portion of scripture like Psalm 91 and disregard everything else that God has to say about the matter.

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We have to consider all that God has to say or all that God has said in order to get a fuller understanding of what he has said.

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If you understand this, it will help you understand the great many of the scriptures that so many people come across and stumble over.

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Take for example Jesus teaching about prayer. In some parts of the scripture, the statements all by themselves sound amazing and almost beyond belief.

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Listen to this stunning statement of Jesus in Mark 11, 23 and 24. Truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, be taken up and thrown into the sea, and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says shall come to pass, it shall be done for him.

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Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it and it will be yours.

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Now when a word of faith teacher gets ahold of a verse like that, they take it and run with it, ignoring everything else that the word of God has to say about the matter.

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But a careful student who diligently searches the scriptures will learn that this statement is qualified. They will discover that there are exceptions to the rule.

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Jesus said elsewhere that we must ask in his name. He says elsewhere that our prayers are answered when we ask according to his will.

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We learn also that it is the fervent prayer that avails much. We discover that if we regard iniquity in our hearts, the

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Lord will not hear us. We are also taught that even things like a husband failing to treat his wife with understanding and respect can result in his prayers being hindered.

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And then other factors come into play as well, such as the need to go on asking, or of having prayers answered when we pray together with other believers, or the idea of having prayers answered when they are accompanied with fasting.

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So to get the whole teaching on prayer, we need to read the whole Bible. And we must not expect the authors to present us with a full, systematic, and comprehensive doctrine every time it speaks on an issue.

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Nobody communicates like that. When we communicate, it's usually to get a very specific point across.

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The writer of Psalm 91 had a particular point he wanted to get across. He was trying to get across the idea that God does, in fact, deliver

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His loved ones in this world. Did he not know about the exceptions?

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Of course he did. But he wrote this psalm to encourage the people who needed it. And the people who need to hear this psalm the most are those who are fearful and timid and full of doubt.

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They are the ones who need to be convinced of all the times that God delivers His loved ones. I think the psalmist knew that if he started listing off these exceptions, then it is the exceptions that these fearful hearers would latch onto, and not the part about deliverance.

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And the point would be entirely lost on them. On some occasions, it is the author's intent to speak of such exceptions.

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Psalm 88 is a prime example. But this is not the time. Not everyone needs the same medicine, but to give specific medicine to heal specific maladies.

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Psalm 91 is a very specific medicine. The person who needs to hear it is a person who is already aware of trials and difficulties in this life.

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If they are already preoccupied with that, they don't need to hear more of that. But to bring their perspective into a proper balance, they need to think a while about the fact that God often does deliver

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His loved ones from their troubles. They need to be reminded of this fact and dwell on it for a while, rather than being solely fixated on the exceptions.

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So I hope that's helped take away some of the confusion regarding this psalm, and that you now have a better handle on the basic thrust of this psalm and how to interpret it.

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So I'd like now, for the remaining time, to show you two practical ways that we can profit from this psalm.

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The first way that this psalm can be profitable to us is by helping us overcome fear. We all have our own fears.

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Perhaps there are some who have financial fears. You're not sure how you're going to survive and pay your bills. Perhaps there are some who are fearful about what the future has in store for Christians.

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You see how our society is degrading and becoming more and more like animals, quickly losing any tolerance that one's had for Christians.

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And you fear what this means for you and for your family and for your children. Think with yourself what it is that stirs up fear in you.

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Now let's look at the last three verses of this psalm and see if God's word does not address these fears and help set our fears at ease.

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Verse 14. Now if you are comforted and assured and strengthened by hearing

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God Himself say this to you, that is wonderful. That's precisely the effect that this psalm was meant to produce.

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But maybe there's others of you who hear these words and your fears are still with you. Now if that is you,

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I wonder if the reason that these verses didn't help you is this. Is it because you are fixated on all those pesky exceptions?

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We've been talking about the fact that there are exceptions to the rule. So what comfort is it to know that maybe

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God will protect you? Well it's true, we don't have absolute certainty that God will protect us from the thing we fear.

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I'm not denying that. But what I'd like you to consider is the possibility that maybe you don't need 100 % absolute certainty to feel safe.

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If you are expecting absolute assurance of safety, then your fear will cripple you.

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And if fear is crippling you, there's something wrong with a mindset like that. Ecclesiastes 11 .4

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speaks of a person with such a crippling mindset. It says, He who observes the wind will not sow, and he who regards the clouds will not reap.

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This is a person who will not sow his seed because he fears that natural forces outside of his control may possibly come and destroy all his labor.

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Nevertheless, there are farmers who sow their crops. But don't they know that they don't have 100 % certainty of success?

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Of course they do. But they also know that generally speaking, farmers who sow their seed reap a harvest.

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I don't believe the psalm was ever designed to assure you of absolute protection from the things you fear. But it was meant to alleviate you of your fears, knowing that generally speaking,

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God delivers and protects his children. We need to be reminded of this fact because we tend to fasten our gaze only upon the exceptions.

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Perhaps we hear some story about Christians in some part of the world who are going hungry, and that becomes a thing we are fixed on.

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But let me ask you a question. Did you have something to eat today? Or at least, did you have some food at home?

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Do you know what that means? God has been protecting you and has quietly been delivering you even this very day from the threat of starvation.

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He is keeping you alive at this very moment and protecting you just as the psalm says.

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Would you consider the possibility that God delivers his children more than you give him credit for?

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Do not let the exceptions govern the whole of your thinking. Give some attention to this fact.

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God does answer his children. God does rescue his children. God does protect his children.

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And does not your own experience tell you the same? I'm sure we all have stories we could tell about how we feared some trouble and then we besought the

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Lord for deliverance and God delivered us from the outcome that we had feared. So consider that idea that maybe absolute certainty isn't required in order to feel safe.

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Now with that in view, let's read the verses one more time and give some attention to what it is saying rather than dismissing these statements because of the exceptions.

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Because he holds fast to me in love, I will deliver him. I will protect him because he knows my name.

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When he calls to me, I will answer him. I will be with him in trouble. I will rescue him and honor him.

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With long life, I will satisfy him and show him my salvation. Are you beginning to hear the ring of truth in these sayings yet?

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Is it dawning on you yet that many of your fears are unfounded? Consider why the scripture is even here.

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Is it not because God wants you to have a strong sense of his protection even though at times he sees fit not to deliver?

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He doesn't want you to be overburdened and paralyzed by fear. If that happens, you are placing a burden upon yourself that God never designed you to carry.

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Allow me to quote Spurgeon who put this so very well. The wear and tear of life comes not out of the providential trials which we have to endure, but out of the unbelieving cares and burdens which we make for ourselves.

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You can carry easily enough the load that God appoints for you, my brother. But if you let the devil sit on top of it in the form of your own anxieties and doubts and fears, then the burden will crush you to the earth.

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So the first way that Psalm 91 can profit us is by helping us overcome fear. The second way that Psalm 91 can profit us is by showing us

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God's love for us. The one great consolation of the Christian that belongs to the

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Christian is to know that his God loves him. If he can but just perceive that the smile of God is upon him, that God is pleased with him, and right there with him, he can endure just about anything.

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He can go through fire and water. He will be as Stephen, who even as he was being stoned to death, had his heart fixed and full of hope as he committed his soul to God and prayed for mercy for the men who were killing him.

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How could he do that? Because at that moment, he was able to peer into heaven, pull back the curtain, and behold the countenance of his

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Father and Jesus Christ standing at his right hand. But if a man is not able to perceive that his

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God is truly for him and is not able to see a smiling face looking back at him, his light will become darkness and his heart will shrink as he perceives his one great hope slipping away out of reach.

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He will become as Job, who wished for death rather than life, assuming the countenance of God towards him had altered, and become one like an enemy rather than a friend.

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We've been talking about the idea that God delivers his loved ones from their troubles, and this is a great blessing and worthy of much contemplation and reason for much thanksgiving.

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But hidden deeper down, within the words of this psalm, is an even greater blessing than this.

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For Psalm 91 reveals to us not only that God is committed to deliver us, but it reveals to us the smile of his face as he looks upon us.

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It reveals a heart full of love and compassion, open and enlarged towards us, towards all those who take refuge in him.

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And it is that revelation that I believe is at the heart of Psalm 91 and makes it so precious to the believer.

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When the prodigal son left home and spent a season in reckless living and wasting all the wealth that his father had left to him, he returned again home in shame, hoping to be able to convince his father to let him just stay and to treat him as one of the hired servants.

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But when he came to his father, and his father came running out to him and embracing him and falling on his neck and kissing him, how must that have made his son feel?

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How must he have felt to see his father's face looking at him and beaming? It must have felt like life from the dead.

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Now, what do you suppose made the son more happy? That he found a place to stay where he could receive a fresh change of clothes and all the food he could eat?

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Or because his father's heart was so overflowing with love for him and he gained his father?

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Well, Psalm 91 is a window for us, not only to see the blessings of deliverance that God infers upon us, but to see a heart overflowing with love towards us, with a face that is beaming.

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And this is what every believer can take hold of, regardless of whether God chooses to deliver them out of their present distress or not.

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So where does the psalm teach us that? Well, to see that, I'd like you to shift your gaze as you read the psalm and focus not so much on the deliverance itself, but on the several reasons that are given as to why

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God delivers believers. We have three statements in the psalm that tell us the reason that God is pleased to deliver and honor the believer.

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Let's look at these three because statements. There's one in verse 9 and the other two in verse 14.

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Verse 9, Because you have made the Lord your dwelling place, the Most High who is my refuge, no evil shall be allowed to befall you, no plague come near your tent.

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And then in verse 14, Because he holds fast to me in love, I will deliver him.

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I will protect him because he knows my name. So the reason that God is moved to deliver his children is because of these several things that define what a believer is.

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Someone who dwells in God, holds fast to him in love, and knows his name.

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Those are the things that move the heart of God. We can infer then that as we read about these particular instances of deliverance, we are about reading some of the particular manifestations of God's good will toward us.

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Now the fact that God doesn't always manifest his good will in the form of present deliverance does not mean his heart has changed.

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It is merely the manifestation that has changed. And we know this because the things that moved

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God's heart in the first place are still intact. The believer continues to dwell in God, continues to hold fast to him in love, continues to know his name.

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So God's heart then is open and fixed toward the believer no matter what happens. That's a mouthful

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I just said there. Perhaps an illustration will help make this point. In the book of Esther, we read about how

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Mordecai saved King Ahasuerus from an assassination attempt.

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Afterwards, when the king thought upon what Mordecai had done for him, he looked for some way to bestow honor and distinction on him.

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He said, what should be done to the man whom the king delights to honor? And so following the suggestion that was given to him, he dressed

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Mordecai in the king's royal robes and set him upon his own horse and put his crown on him and had his most noble officials lead him through the city saying, thus shall it be done to the man whom the king delights to honor.

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Now clearly the king wanted to do something for Mordecai. He looked for some way to honor him.

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It didn't have to be by dressing him in royal robes and parading him through the city. That was just one of many possible ways.

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The important thing was that the king wanted to honor Mordecai because of what

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Mordecai had done. In Psalm 91, we also see how God desires to honor his children.

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Sometimes he honors them by delivering them from their troubles, but sometimes he honors them in some other way.

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The important idea here is not so much the particular way that God honors his children, but that he desires to do so.

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And the reason he desires to do so is because his children have taken refuge in him and hold fast to him in love and know his name.

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And so through these because statements in the Psalm, we learn of God's loving disposition towards all of his children, whether he happens to honor them in a particular way that is written or not.

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And that's something to take hold of. Just as the prodigal son beheld the loving countenance of his father, so we may read

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Psalm 91 and behold the loving countenance of our father. And what we can perceive here as we read the

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Psalm is the countenance of our father looking on us. And that his countenance is radiating with fullness of love and eager longing to comfort and protect and deliver and honor us and make our joy full.

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You read the Psalm and it is as if God were saying, what should be done for the man whom the king delights to honor?

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Sometimes it may not appear to us that this is the case. The mysterious providence of God may sometimes obscure this sight.

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Clouds sometimes pass overhead and as thick shadows pass over us, the sky darkens and we become cold.

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But the clouds do not change the properties of the sun. And even when the sun is obscured, it shines no less brightly.

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William Cooper captured the idea so well in his hymn, God Moves in a Mysterious Way. Listen to a few of the lines.

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Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take. The clouds ye so much dread are big with mercy and shall break in blessings on your head.

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Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, but trust him for his grace. Behind a frowning providence, he hides a smiling face.

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And so Psalm 91 gives us a clear and an accurate view of God's loving countenance towards us.

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It's a picture of God's countenance without all the obstruction of the clouds. As when you are outside and soaking up the sun, it's bright rays lighting up upon your eyelids and it's brilliant rays enveloping your body with warmth.

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And therefore we can read the psalm and bask in its light, knowing that it portrays the true heart of our

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God towards us, even as it is this very moment. Psalm 91 is indeed a precious psalm.

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Not beautiful only, but highly profitable. I know we didn't get to go through and contemplate each verse, but I hope

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I have at least given you a framework for understanding this psalm. I hope I have given you some practical ways in which you may profit by reading it.

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And I hope you make Psalm 91 your own, that you read it often and keep it in your heart.

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Recite it when you are in trouble. Recite it when you are afraid. Recite it when it feels to you like God is not on your side.

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Take it out and use it like a medicine. It's written for you. Use it when you want to be like David when he said,

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I will encourage myself in the Lord my God. And with God's help, as he opens the scriptures to you, you'll stand once again in the place where the psalmist stood when he penned verse 2.

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And he said to the Lord, my refuge and my fortress, my God in whom

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I trust. May the Lord open all of our eyes that we may taste and see clearly that great beatitude.