Psalm 91 Resting in God's Arms

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Ben Wainwright; Psalm 91 Resting in God's Arms

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You are listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Mattawan, Michigan. Yes, as she said, my name is
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Ben Wainwright. I'm the Associate Pastor of Student Ministries here.
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I'm just glad that you're all gathered here together this morning to join us. I'm grateful to God for the opportunity that I've had this past week to be able to spend closely studying
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His holy and precious word. Hopefully, everybody has had a wonderful 4th of July weekend so far.
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Still one more day to live it up today with some beautiful sunshine, and I think I heard like mid -80s for the temperature as our forecast.
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So, hope you enjoy that. I always find it to be such a fun time every summer, celebrating our country's independence while grilling some delicious food and watching fireworks together with family.
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I think that's such a fun, regular routine and part of our mid -summer that we have.
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I mean, honestly, is there anything much more American than watching colors in the sky go boom?
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I mean, that's just kind of what we do, right, America? Yeah. Seriously though,
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I hope that the extra day off of work this week has been a rejuvenating time for you, filled with lots of rest and relaxation, and that you've been able to recharge.
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Speaking of resting in independence, our scripture passage for today is actually going to tell us kind of the opposite of that, and I'll explain what that means and get to that in just a little bit here.
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But over this past week of our Summer in the Psalms, summer Bible reading plan, we were blessed with being able to read a total of 15 different psalms, starting with Psalm 90 all the way up through Psalm 104, yeah, we finally,
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I think this is week seven, and we've hit the 100s. While each psalm is different and unique in its own way, there was an overarching theme for many of the psalms that we read this week, that maybe you noticed.
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The theme is that of praising God for His rule as King over all of creation.
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A song came to my mind this week as I was reading, and it's called,
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Everything That Has Breath. The song has been remade by several different artists.
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The version that I listen to most often is by a singer named Matt Redman, and his version of this song, he has some powerful lyrics that read this,
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Praise you in the morning, praise you in the evening, praise you when I'm young and when
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I'm old, praise you when I'm laughing, praise you when I'm grieving, praise you every season of the soul.
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Well, God is without a doubt the one worthy of all our praise, church.
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Well, when trying to decide what psalm I would preach on this Sunday, I think if you speak with the elders, they can probably attest to the fact that it's a little bit of a challenge, kind of narrowing down and figuring out which one, and I think all of us would definitely credit
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God with the wisdom and the guidance to which one we land on, right?
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I mean, I think that while that is not having to go through this, would definitely skip over, the convenience of that is not having to go through this process, right?
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And when we went through 1 Corinthians, hey, we're at chapter 9, what am I preaching on next week? Chapter 10, right? I mean, pretty straightforward.
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So the process that I kind of went through in figuring this out, there were a few different factors that went into play.
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The first thing was that back in early June, when I was blessed with the opportunity to preach,
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I preached on Psalm 29, and that was a psalm about glorifying God for his awesome power over creation.
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So lots of similarities with the psalms that we read this week. So with that being said, yeah, over half of this week's psalms, nine of them in fact, were psalms of praise.
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It was Psalm 92 and 93, 95 through 100, and then Psalm 103.
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So I kind of just scratched those off on my list. The second factor that kind of went into play was that when
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I spoke with Jesse Hill, one of our elders who just preached last week, I spoke with him a couple weeks ago, and he shared with me that he was preaching a lament psalm the week before that I was to preach.
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So that turned me away from the three psalms of lament, which that's Psalm 90, 94, and 102.
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So that left me with three psalms, which is kind of nice. It's like, all right, narrow this thing down to 91, 101, and 104.
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But I just, I still kind of was not sure where to go. So again, prayerfully, just kind of giving this up to God.
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And the Lord laid on my heart that over these past six to seven weeks that our faithful Pastor Don has been on sabbatical, and I'm very grateful for him being able to get that time.
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I'm seeing kind of firsthand how something like that can be so valuable and necessary and needed for pastors.
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I've become aware of more situations here within the congregation, situations of people going through some really, really tough stuff right now.
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And so after reading over those remaining three psalms, and, you know, just giving that up to God for guidance, the
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Lord clearly laid it on my heart that Psalm 91 was the passage that he wanted me to. One, it is described in the
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ESV Study Bible as a tender psalm, which describes the confidence that the believer may have through all types of dangers and challenges.
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The author of this psalm is unknown. Some biblical scholars, they believe it was written by Moses, while others believe that David was the one who penned it.
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But regardless of who wrote this anonymous psalm, two things are certain.
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One is that the psalmist had a real relationship with God. And then two is that he was well acquainted with the significance of trusting in the
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Lord through all times of life. Well, looking at the context of Psalm 91, it seems that this psalm serves as a response to some heavy questions in previous psalms.
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Look at just three psalms before this. Psalm 88, verse 14, it says this,
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O Lord, why do you cast my soul away? Why do you hide your face from me? Psalm 89, verse 46, the very next psalm says this,
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How long, O Lord, will you hide yourself forever? How long will your wrath burn like fire?
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And then lastly, we look at just the psalm right before this. Psalm 90, verse 13, it says,
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Return, O Lord, how long? Have pity on your servants. In fact, as I mentioned earlier last week,
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Jesse, he preached on Psalm 79, and that psalm has the heading of,
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How long, O Lord? So again, we see these things coming up. But as we get ready to shift our focus to looking at the powerful words of Psalm 91, which is titled in the
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ESV Bible, My Refuge and My Fortress, Christians, we can take great comfort in the promise from this psalm that the main idea, the primary message of this text is
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God will keep us safe. Unfortunately, some have taken this passage too far by idolizing the words from these verses, the words themselves.
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I read online that Psalm 91 is considered an amulet psalm by some believers. If you don't know what an amulet is, amulets are magic charms or trinkets worn by people to protect themselves from negative energies or evil, as well as to avoid illness or injury.
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When researching this a little further, I found out that some people have actually put certain verses from Psalm 91 into charms or necklaces in an attempt to keep them free of danger.
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So, what they're doing is they're using the actual text of Scripture, the words themselves, and putting them in a piece of wearable jewelry as their form of physical protection, instead of relying on the
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One who promises that He will keep us safe. Well, I mentioned earlier that this passage contradicts our earthly notions of independence that we hold today.
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Now, I want to be clear. I hope that you don't take that at all to mean that we shouldn't celebrate the freedom that countless brave soldiers have fought for and died to earn for us, not in the least bit.
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On July 4th every year, the entire U .S. of A., we proudly celebrate the signing of the
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Declaration of Independence back in 1776, which granted us freedom from British rule. And becoming an independent nation is definitely a reason to celebrate, right?
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Let's do that. That's awesome. Well, you probably noticed that I titled my sermon, Rest in God's Arms.
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Well, Psalm 91 encourages believers to dwell in God's presence every day of their lives.
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So, as Christians, we should celebrate each new day of life that God gives us by living in the only form of true freedom, one that comes from complete dependence on Him.
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Now, at this time, I'm going to ask that you please take out your Bibles or devices and find
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Psalm chapter 91. If you have a physical copy of your Bible, you can locate Psalms roughly around the middle of your
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Bible. And if you have a device, it's going to be the click right after Job and right before Proverbs.
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Precast, this is God's sacred word given to us. I consider it an immense honor to read out loud these incredible truths about the
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Lord that come directly from the Holy Bible. Please follow along as I read all 16 verses of chapter 91, starting with verse 1.
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Let's hear from Him now, church. He who dwells in the shelter of the
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Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say to the
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Lord, my refuge and my fortress, my God in whom I trust. For He will deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the deadly pestilence.
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He will cover you with His pinions and under His wings, you will find refuge.
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His faithfulness is a shield and buckler. You will not fear the tear of the night nor the arrow that flies by day, nor the pestilence that stalks in darkness, nor the destruction that wastes at noonday.
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A thousand may fall at your side, 10 ,000 at your right hand, but it will not come near you.
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You will only look with your eyes and see the recompense of the wicked. 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.
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No plague come near your tent, for He will command His angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways.
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On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone. You will tread on the lion and the adder, the young lion and the serpent you will trample underfoot.
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Because He holds fast to me in love, I will deliver Him. I will protect
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Him because He knows my name. When He calls to me, I will answer Him. I will be with Him in trouble,
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I will rescue Him and honor Him. With long life, I will satisfy Him and show
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Him my salvation. Church, please bow with me as we pray.
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God, we thank you for this time that we can spend together this morning.
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Lord, it is a blessing to be in your presence,
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Lord. Not just because we are here at church, Lord, but we know from this text, Lord, that for those who have put their faith in you, that you go before us.
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You are with us always, Lord. You have promised to never leave us or forsake us. And Lord, I pray that each and every one of us will find great comfort in that, knowing that in this life we will have trouble and there will be tribulations.
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But Lord, we are never alone. Now, as we come to you in songs of worship and praise,
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I ask that this time, Lord, that we will block out any distractions, anything that vies for our attention.
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Or Lord, just let us be present in this moment, focusing on you,
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Lord. Let us shift our eyes and our attention heavenward towards our
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Creator, the King of the universe, Lord. And may you be glorified through this time of praise. And Lord, we just, we're so grateful for who you are, the loving
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Father that watches over us every single day of our lives. We love you,
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Lord, with all of our hearts, and we pray this in your name. Amen. Thank you,
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Dan, for your prayer. And thank you to David and the worship team. What a blessing it is to, when we have our faithful worship leader,
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Dave Bunt, out. What a blessing it is to have David Schrock lead us in the team in worship.
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It's just so encouraging to me to see the faithful service of selecting those songs.
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You know, part of the process here at Recast is that whoever's preaching for the week sends the sermon first to the elders for just kind of any insights and feedback, and then also to the worship leader for the week so that they can kind of hand select and pick out some songs.
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And I felt as though David did an excellent job getting some songs that align with this week's text.
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So I'm going to ask that you please get comfortable, reopen your Bibles or devices to Psalm chapter 91.
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Also, feel free to get some coffee or doughnuts from the back while supplies last.
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Or if you need to use the restroom, go ahead and out the double doors there. It's just down the hallway on your left -hand side.
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And yeah, as we dive back into our passage today, I want to start off first by sharing the outline that I've come up with for today's text.
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So that should be up on our screen here in just a second. I think we've got three parts for today.
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Part one is Abide in God's Presence. And that is from verses one and two,
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Abide in God's Presence. Part two is Deliverance through God's Presence.
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That's our biggest section where we'll spend most of our time for today, verses three through 13, Deliverance through God's Presence, through being our main word there that we're going to focus on.
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And then part three, Assurance of God's Presence. And that's verses 14 to 16,
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Assurance of God's Presence. So let's begin with part one, Abide in God's Presence.
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And we're going to do this by rereading verse one. It says, He who dwells in the shelter of the
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Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. So before we spend time analyzing the meaning of this verse,
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I want to compare two key verbs that are used here, which most of us probably don't see or hear very often.
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They're not all that common. It's dwell and abide. Merriam -Webster online defines dwell as to live as a resident.
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Also, the definition of abide is found as this, to remain stable or continue in a place.
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The similarity of these two words is the fact that both refer to someone residing or being in a certain place.
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The author of this psalm is telling us here that those who live in God's shelter will be continually surrounded by God's presence.
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Looking back one chapter to Psalm chapter 90, verse one, we read, These are words from Moses around the time of Deuteronomy as the
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Israelites were about to cross the Jordan River and enter into the promised land. God himself, our eternal creator, has been and always will continue to be faithful to his people.
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Well, using our physical presence here on this earth as an example, think about it.
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We dwell in our houses, right? However, none of us are certain how long we'll be able to abide in our current home.
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In fact, my wife and I, we hope to, it's our desire to remain residents of Concord Hills, our house in Lawton, until we retire.
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That's our plan as of now. But we're trusting in God and whatever his plan is for us in the future.
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However, I'm sure as many of you are aware, like I just said, that we can think of a life verse of one of mine from Proverbs, Man can plan his ways, but the
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Lord establishes his steps, right? So, I mean, it's not always up to us what our future will hold.
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And so I think about this, a prime example of us being unsure of where we will continue to abide and dwell here on earth, we can use the crazy weather that we've been having here in Michigan over the past few months, right?
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Thinking back on previous spring and summers, I mean, we've always had thunderstorms and tornado watches, but it feels like there's been a lot more warnings this year than usual.
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And in fact, we've seen, unfortunately, some destruction that has been caused by many storms.
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And as a result of those, there have been many people, especially in the Portage area, that have been displaced from their homes, which
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I imagine many of them thought would be their permanent dwelling places, right? Maybe they'd be there for forever, right?
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They thought that would be it, their life home. Well, the psalmist firmly declares where his hope lies in, in verse two, when he says these words, he says,
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I will say to the Lord, my refuge and my fortress, my God in whom I trust. For those who have put their faith in Jesus and trust wholeheartedly in his finished work for us on the cross, we can be confident, church, that the sacrifice of the perfect lamb absolutely secures our future dwelling place with him for all of eternity.
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This truth is further confirmed for us in 1 John 4, verse 15. It says this, whoever confesses that Jesus is the son of God, listen to this,
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God abides in him and he in God. So for us to abide in God, that means for us to live in daily fellowship with him through prayer and the reading of his word, to trust in his goodness at all times, even when it's hard, and to thank him for allowing us to have a personal relationship with him by his grace, through our
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God -given faith. Well, part two of our passage, as I mentioned the bulk of our sermon for today,
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I've titled this part Deliverance Through God's Presence. This covers 11 different verses, and this section of Psalm 91, it lists several different ways in which
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God protects his children in the face of life's many different trials and tribulations.
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Verses three to four begin this section by telling exactly what God will do for believers. Here's what it says.
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For he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the deadly pestilence.
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He will cover you with his pinions and under his wings you will find refuge. His faithfulness is a shield and buckler.
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So if you're like me, you hear that, maybe you read that if you're going through the Bible plan this week or just this morning, you're like some of those terms and phrases,
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I'm not quite sure what they mean. And I wasn't too clear on that either until I did a little research.
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So I want to share with you some of these things.
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So maybe some hunters might have already known some of these things. But here it is.
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So it says, if we have the phrase, the snare of the fowler, it's referencing a trap that is set by someone who hunts birds.
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Which when I looked that up, I was like, duh. Like, of course, it reminded me that fowl, right, is birds that are hunted.
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So of course, a fowler would be a hunter and a snare is a trap. So it all made sense to me then.
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But just wanted to clear that up. Another one is the word pestilence.
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Not a word that we hear very often either. That is, that's at the end of verse three and it refers to a deadly disease.
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The word pinions at the beginning of verse four means the outer part of a bird's wing, which includes the flight feathers.
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And then lastly, another one to clear up is the word buckler. Not, again, a word that I think of like my belt buckle.
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No, this is at the end of verse four, we see that word and it refers to a round shield that was handheld in size and it was actually even often used as like an additional weapon as well.
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So now that we've defined some of these less common and infrequently used words, let's focus on the first few words of verse three.
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Probably the most powerful words of them all. For He, being God, will deliver you.
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As I mentioned in the sermon introduction, many people regularly misinterpret
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Psalm 91. Some intentionally misinterpret and many unintentionally misinterpret it.
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And they take it to mean that God will protect Christians from all harm.
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But upon close examination of the text, it doesn't say that believers will never get caught up in the traps of this world or contract terminal illnesses.
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But in fact, it does say that God will deliver Christians from every terrifying danger brought on by sin in this world.
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Sometimes the deliverance that the Lord provides will be in form of physical safety and miraculously restored health here on earth.
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But not always. When reading Psalm 91 in isolation without further study, it can appear to provide believers with a blanket guarantee against all harm.
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If that was indeed true, then I guess it would make sense why some people put this verse into amulets for personal safety.
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Satan, he wants people to believe the lie that once we become
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Christian, nothing terribly bad will ever happen to us again. That's what he wants us to believe.
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Well, those who fall for this deception and turn their backs on God when something goes wrong in their life, either they possibly aren't genuine believers in the first place or they may have some maturing to do in their faith yet to come.
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But Psalm 91 doesn't promise Christians are exempt from all pain in this life. In fact, when talking to his disciples in John 16, 33, listen to the words that he tells them.
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He says, I have said these things to you that in me you may have peace in him.
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In the world, you will have tribulation. Hear it? Jesus says those words directly.
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But take heart, I have overcome the world, he says. Church, God will deliver his chosen people.
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Well, after the psalmist talks of some ways that the Lord cares for and watches over Christians, he moves on in verses five to seven to talk about specific things that those who trust in the
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Lord will be delivered from. Well, all the analogies given in these three verses are referring to Christians under attack from others, right?
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People and things in this world. Well, thankfully, living in America, we don't really have a daily fear of losing our life for our faith, right?
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Now, please don't hear me as saying that all believers in this country are completely free or invulnerable from persecution that can lead to loss of life.
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That's not the case. It is possible, especially because we live in a world that is getting progressively more and more hostile for believers in Christ.
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There have been various shootings over the past few decades where, in fact, Christians were directly the ones who were targeted.
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Well, does that mean that we should walk around in fear of the potential that our life could be taken from us for our faith at any given moment?
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Absolutely not. Instead, we should find peace from examples in the Bible of those who
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God helped persevere through intense trials in their lives. As we think back on the many different examples of God empowering men of faith to persevere through difficult earthly circumstances,
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I'd like us to take a look back at the life of Joseph from Genesis chapter 37 to 50.
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Don't worry, we're not going to read all 14 of these chapters, but I do encourage you, if you haven't read about Joseph's life, to please read that, read those sections of Scripture.
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It's great. Well, I mean, the guy has one of the most rollercoaster lives in the history of the
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Bible in terms of sharing his fair share of ups and downs. Well, first off, his life story starts out great by being the favorite son, right?
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I mean, many people joke about I'm the favorite or this or that, but I mean, it was pretty definitively clear.
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I mean, he is given a rainbow or a coat of many colors by his father, and it was pretty obvious that out of the 12, he was the favorite.
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Things are great. He's on a high. Well, things take a quick turn south for him because his 12 older brothers, they get so overcome with jealousy that they beat him and they throw him into a pit to die.
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How intense is that? Oh, your own siblings. You know, sometimes I get we're socking each other, little brothers will do that thing.
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But I mean, they literally, they beat him vigorously and they throw him into this pit to die. Well, shortly after that, as if things maybe, you know, couldn't seem bleak enough, well, they end up actually, this is
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God moving in their hearts because he has a great plan for Joseph. They don't leave him to die.
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They say, well, you know, let's just sell him. Let's sell him to some slave traders. Why not? We don't want, you know, we don't want any news to get out to father what we've done to him, right?
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So let's sell him. Well, throughout all this in the pit, through being sold,
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God never left Joseph's side. So when the traders brought him to Egypt where he gained the favor of his master
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Potiphar, Joseph lived a great life in the palace. So now he's back up, right? He's living in an immense palace, a wonderful place.
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But that didn't last too long. If you know the story, Potiphar's wife, she thought,
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Joseph's a pretty strapping, handsome young fellow. And she desired to have some intimate relations with him.
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But Joseph, in his faith, in his strong faith, he was able through God's power to resist that temptation.
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Because Potiphar's not just going to pick any decent looking wife. She's a beautiful woman. But he resisted that temptation through God's faith.
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And he declined, which resulted in her accusing him of doing things that he didn't do.
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And then Potiphar being like, what? And he threw him in prison, right? So here he's back down again, right?
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I mean, it's like thrown into a pit, thrown into prison. What's the deal here, right?
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And both of these things really for being undeserved, right? Well, by God's grace,
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Joseph eventually finds his way back into Pharaoh's presence where God enables him to interpret Pharaoh's dreams, which earns
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Joseph a spot as second in command under Pharaoh, right? Even above Potiphar now.
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And ends up saving the lives of thousands of people, all according to God's great plan.
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This is a very short paraphrase of, as I mentioned, the 14 incredible chapters from Genesis. And I do recommend you read them if you haven't already.
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But throughout all the low points in Joseph's life, which there are some extremely low points as I shared with you, throughout all of it, he kept trusting in God.
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And in fact, this is probably one of the most striking parts of the whole story. When given the opportunity to take revenge on his brothers after their dad passed away, right?
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Because the brothers, they felt the comfort and security, like, oh, Joseph's not gonna do anything while dad's alive. Like he's not gonna, but then the dad dies and they're like, oh crud, like what's gonna happen now?
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He's gonna take it out on us, right? Here's what he says to his brothers. Joseph, as for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.
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To bring it about that many people should be kept alive as they are today. Wow, what a strong relationship
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Joseph had with God the Father. Incredible example. Well, it goes beyond that.
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We can look to some New Testament example for us is the 12 disciples.
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Those closest to Jesus during his earthly ministry of walking here on earth.
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Even they were not free from tribulation. Listen to what Jesus told them in the book of Luke, right?
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The gospel of Luke chapter 21, verse 16 to 19. Jesus says this, you will be delivered up even by parents and brothers and relatives and friends and some of you they will put to death.
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You will be hated by all for my name's sake. Sounding good so far, right? No, but not a hair of your head will perish.
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By your endurance, you will gain your lives. So wait a second. He says and some of you they will put to death, but then he ends that by saying, but by your endurance, you will gain your lives.
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These things seem to contradict, but as Christians, we know he's not talking about our earthly lives, right?
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He's talking about that eternal life that he gives to us. And what's incredible is after that bold statement,
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I mean, I don't know about you, but like if I heard Jesus tell me something like that,
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I would want to think that I would still continue to follow, but there's a part of me that thinks like, man, I might just like want to go like live a life of seclusion and hide in my closet and be like,
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I don't want to die, right? But listen to what happens here. The apostle
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Paul, Paul utters these words from Philippians chapter one. He says, for to me to live is
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Christ and to die is gain. Wow, what a firm statement of faith.
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And we do see, sure enough, every apostle except for John was indeed martyred for their faith.
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We find James was beheaded and history tells us that Simon Peter was actually crucified upside down.
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It's crazy. So how was it, how are they able to keep their faith and continue following Jesus even after his resurrected body ascended into heaven, right?
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So I think like seeing his physical presence that would be extremely comforting and they'd be like, oh, we got the son of God by our side, like we're good, right?
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But then after he died on the cross, rose from the grave and four days later, ascended into heaven, that'd be,
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I think that'd be a little, that'd be a little alarming. You'd still have your trust and your faith in him because if you've seen the miracles that he's done, but he's no longer with you, feel like it'd kind of be harder to keep that faith so strong, right?
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But listen, here's the thing. They were given an incredible assurance in Matthew chapter 28, verse 20, before Jesus left them.
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Listen to what he says, which he tells not just to disciples, these words ring true to all of us, church. He says this, and behold,
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I am with you always, not sometimes, church, I'm with you always to the end of the age, amen.
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God promises to never leave us or forsake us. What further comfort do we need during hard times than to know that we are continually in the presence of our almighty father who loves us more than we can ever imagine.
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Moving on to verse eight for a moment, the psalmist says this, he says, you will only look with your eyes and see the recompense of the wicked.
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Well, I don't know about you, but again, recompense, I mean, I don't have quite that expanded of a vocabulary.
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So I was looking, before I even went to the internet for a definition, right?
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I didn't go to the dictionary. I actually just went to different Bible translations to see like what might they say. So I actually looked in the
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NIV version. Instead of using recompense, they used the word punishment in place of it.
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So the verse is saying that while believers are safe, thank goodness under the protective wings of God, non -believers will, they will receive punishment.
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They will get their due reward for what they deserve. And that is eternal condemnation. Well, as I mentioned earlier, many people get caught up on verse 10 by taking it too literally.
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It says this, no evil shall befall you. No plague come near your tent.
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It sounds pretty clear, right? It sounds pretty great. In fact, like I said, this is one of those verses that many people would put into that amulet, right?
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And keep near and dear and close to their heart. Well, my ESV footnote, it says that just because it's a quick mention when it talks about plague, because we don't often think about plagues in our current day and age.
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The mention of the plague, it's recalling back to the plagues that fell on the Egyptians in Egypt, right?
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And as was true of things that happened to them, the
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Israelites, the faithful ones, they were safe in a time of God's judgment, just as we church will be safe when
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God comes to judge. I've heard someone say, but what about the believer who lost their life due to a disease or a medical health emergency?
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Well, I personally have two different friends who both suddenly lost the lives of their dear
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Christian fathers in their mid -50s. So, question is, how can this verse be explained to them in the light of their fathers passing away before the age of 60?
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Well, to answer that question, I'll use a quote from renowned preacher Charles Spurgeon, who, in fact, himself actually died at the age of 57 due to health complications, right?
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Unexpected. Here's what it says. It is impossible that any ill should happen to the man who is beloved of the
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Lord. The most crushing calamities can only shorten his journey and hasten him to his reward.
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Ill to him is no ill at all, but only good in a mysterious form.
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Losses enrich him, sickness is his medicine, reproach is his honor, and death is his gain.
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No evil in the strict sense of the word can happen to him, for everything is overruled for God's good. So it is my daily prayer that my two good friends from high school can find comfort and peace in knowing that their fathers are in the presence of our
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Almighty Savior and Creator. Well, as we close part two of three, which
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I mentioned, is the longest one, so don't worry and think like, oh wow, look at the time, we still got one more part.
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No, no. This is our longest section. As we close here, look with me at verses 11 and 12.
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Take a look right now at your device or your Bible and look at these. There are two things that really stand out from these verses.
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The first thing is that they give us an incredible confirmation that God has indeed commanded his angels to watch over those who put their faith in Jesus.
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What a blessing that is to know that God has angels watching over his children.
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Next, right, second thing. Well, in fact, before I get to that, I have a quote here from influential
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British theologian Adam Clark. It says this, he's quoted as saying, The angels of God shall have a special charge to accompany, defend, and preserve thee.
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And against their power, the influence of evil spirits cannot prevail. These will, when necessary, turn thy steps out of the way of danger, ward it off when it comes in thy ordinary path.
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So I thank God for giving us angels in our lives to watch over us. Well, the second thing that stands out about these two verses is that, and this one's actually quite striking, is that these verses, they were spoken by Satan himself when he had tried to tempt
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Jesus in the wilderness. Look at the gospel of Luke chapter four, verses nine through 11, and it says this,
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And he, being Satan, took him, being Jesus, to Jerusalem and set him on the pinnacle of the temple, and he said to him this,
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If you are the son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written, and we now know from our sermon today, when it's written, it's written in Psalm 91.
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He will command his angels concerning you to guard you and on their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.
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But if you look very carefully, if you're someone who pays close attention to detail, some of you might have noticed that Satan left out four key words in order to try and twist the meaning of the original passage.
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He omitted the words in all your ways from verse 11. If you look at verse 11, he left out the phrase in all your ways.
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He did that intentionally because to test
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God in this way, in his way, it was not Jesus's way.
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It was not the way of the Savior. And God never promised in scripture, and he's never given any protection of angels in sinful or forbidden ways, only in his ways.
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As we come to the final three verses of Psalm 91, we move to part three of today's sermon titled
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Assurance of God's Presence. While the previous 11 verses from the
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Anonymous Psalmist are truly amazing, the next three verses give us some incredibly comforting words from our
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Heavenly Father. Verses 14 to 16 of Psalm 91, they come to us as a divine oracle or prophetic word from God himself.
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Here in these verses, we see the words I will, repeated six times.
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Having a true relationship with God means to hold fast to him in love, to truly know his name, and to call out to him in prayer.
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That's what we see in these verses. Well, for the believer with genuine faith, God promises to deliver him, to protect him, to answer him.
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Thank goodness, church, he promises to hear our prayers. To be with him in trouble, to rescue and honor him, to satisfy him with long life.
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And then most importantly, while all those other things are great, most importantly, he promises to show him my salvation.
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He will show us his salvation, church. Thank goodness. So if there's ever a question as to why
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God would allow something bad to happen to someone who's a good person, and I put air quotes around good because we know that Romans tells us, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, right?
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There's not a single one of us in this room, myself included. All of us are sinners. So none of us are truly good.
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But if there's ever a question as to why something bad would happen, right? Why does God, why do you let that go on?
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Look to the cross, right? First Peter 3 .18 says this, For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit.
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I stand up here in front of you today, currently in the middle of a truly blessed season of life.
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And I'm very thankful to God for it. My wife, Erica, she's a kindergarten teacher at Matawan. She's on summer break.
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Lots of extra time off. My daughter, Sloane, she's a year and a half. And while there are some challenges, she gets into things she didn't used to from that extra height.
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And she's learning that famous two -letter word, no, and starting to use that a lot more than usual. Her joy, her, you know, waking up, she reminds us if for some reason we're busy and we get right down to a prayer, the cutest thing that she's been doing over the past couple few weeks, she'll slap her hands together.
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She'll say, I pray. And it's just, I thank God for that. She's a true, true blessing and joy.
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But while I'm in that phase of life, I recognize and I give
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God thanks for that, knowing that this life will bring tribulations.
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And as I mentioned earlier, taking on more pastoral responsibilities here within the church, I am fully aware that many of you are barely hanging on in the valley of life that you're struggling through right now.
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And I pray for you. My prayer list, I have a long list of prayers that I pray for regularly for people in this church, many of them who are not even able to be here.
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I pray for you. So along with that, some people might even possibly be questioning if God really loves them because of a tragic event that has happened to them personally or in their family or a friend.
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But I urge you, church, please listen to the words from Romans 5, 8. But God shows his love for us and that while we were still sinners,
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Christ died for us. How amazing is that? And hearing the truth of the gospel that it's nothing that we did, right?
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It wasn't after we cleaned up our lives because we'd still be waiting, right? That can't happen. Out of his great love for us, he died for us.
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Church, I want you to know God loves you so much that he sent his one and only son to earth to die on the cross for your sins that you can be saved.
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Well, as we close, as far as application points go, I just have two short ones for you this week.
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Um, my first application point is this. Live for God. Tim Keller, probably my favorite pastor of all time, besides Billy Graham.
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Both of these pastors already passed away and are with the Lord right now. But Tim Keller, he said this.
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He's quoted as this. If you live for anything more than God or if anything in your life is more important to you than him, you're not safe.
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Not at all. Because circumstances can come and threaten or take that thing away and then you don't have a meaning in life left.
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It's not that we need to love that thing any less or pay less attention to that person, but love
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God more in relationship to them. My second application point for today is this.
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Cling to God's word. When life unexpectedly throws a curveball your way or you feel like you're overburdened from the stress in your life right now and you can hardly take another breath,
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I encourage you to open up your Bible and turn to Romans 8. And I'm going to give you three verses, but honestly, the whole entire chapter of Romans 8, referred to by many as the great eight.
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I do encourage you to read that entire chapter. It is incredible. There's many other verses I wanted to highlight on there, but for sake of time, we're going to read verses 37 through 39.
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It says, No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
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For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all of creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our
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Lord. If life seems so heavy that you're not sure if you can go on another day, challenge you to read those three verses over and over again until you have them memorized, right?
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Hide those words of God in your heart. Then I encourage you to recite them to yourself frequently as a reminder that the
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Lord's presence is always with you. As we prepare our hearts now for communion, pray that we will glorify
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God by expressing our gratitude to him for his life -changing gift of salvation.
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We close every week together with a time of reflecting on the perfect sacrifice that Jesus made for sinners like you and me.
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And I hope that this weekly reminder of Jesus's finished work on the cross further strengthens your faith and deepens your personal relationship with him.
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I'm so thankful that Jesus Christ endured the immense pain and suffering of the cross for each and every one of us so that we can be saved from our sins.
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Please take this time to remember his body which was beaten and bruised for you as well as his blood that was spilled out in order to pay for your sins.
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Receive his forgiveness freely offered to you and repent or turn from your sin to follow him today.
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If you've accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior and are at peace with everyone here so far as it depends on you, then please get up, walk to one of the tables at the side or the back there, take the cracker and the juice back to your seat, and after spending some time in prayer you may eat the cracker and the juice and drink the juice while acknowledging how
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Jesus gave up his life to rescue you from the punishment that your sins so rightly deserve.
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And as we leave here today, I encourage you to praise God for his constant presence in your life and rest in his loving arms this week.
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Please bow with me as we pray. Dear God, you are amazing.
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You are so incredibly wonderful for countless reasons.
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Lord, you created us. You've given us life. You sustain us and you continually day after day provide for us.
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But Lord, as we know, life can hit us hard in so many areas,
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Lord, and we know that that is a direct result of sin. That is fallen humanity and that we will have trouble.
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Jesus promised that. In this world, we will have trouble. But Lord, you have promised to give us the presence of your
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Holy Spirit, Lord. And once we put our faith in you, nothing can take that away, Lord. You never leave us or forsake us.
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It is my hope and prayer that throughout this week that we will rest in the truth of Scripture and Lord, that we will dwell in your presence and abide in you daily,
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Lord. You are a loving
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Father who is just full of grace and mercy that we do not deserve.
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But Lord, through your Son's sacrifice on the cross for us, we are able to receive forgiveness for our sins.
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Thank you for Jesus's incredible sacrifice. Thank you for providing us a way to be saved from our sins and to receive eternal life through your incredible gift of salvation.
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love you so much and we pray all these things in your heavenly name. Amen.