Psalm 91.
We don't really know who wrote this Psalm.
Some say that it's a Davidic Psalm and perhaps it is, but we don't know.
Nonetheless, we can understand what it's talking about and hopefully we can relate to it and
find some strength and comfort because it's a song, a Psalm, excuse me, that talks about
finding protection in God.
And that's something that throughout our lives we probably find ourselves many times having
to seek God for protection as we go through different trials and hardships and difficulties.
And this Psalm is a good reminder for where we will find our protection in those times.
So let's pray and we'll get started.
God we come to you, I thank you for your good word and I pray tonight, God, that we would
draw closer to your presence.
That we would know dear Lord that that's where our comfort and that's where our protection
comes from dear Lord.
So let our happy place be in your presence tonight, God.
I pray that you'd bless the time that we have.
I pray that you'd bless the reading of your word.
That you'd take away any pride or any nerves that I have dear Lord.
That you'd hide me behind the cross.
That I would preach and teach your word in a way that brings glory to you.
And I ask these things in Jesus name, amen.
Amen.
Psalm 91, verse one, those who live under the protection of the most high dwells in
the shadow of the Almighty.
Now that's a beautiful thing to think about being in the protection of God, being in a
place where you feel like you cannot be reached by anyone else.
And what does it say?
The one who dwells in the shadow of the Almighty.
That implies that we have to be close to God.
If something produces a shadow, if you're going to stand in the shadow of that person
or that thing that you're standing by, you're going to have to be pretty close to it.
So when we are in the presence of God, when we are dwelling close to God, there's a certain
protection there.
It's a place that we feel like that our enemy cannot reach us.
A place that we find some safety.
Maybe we have those places in our life.
Maybe there's a physical place in our life.
A place that we go in times of struggle, in times of pain.
A place that we go to seek God.
And that place brings us protection.
Maybe not necessarily because there's anything special about the place, but that place brings
us a sense of protection because it's a place where we come and draw closer to God.
I was watching this YouTube video a couple of months ago, and this guy, I believe he
was in the Grand Canyon.
He didn't say where he was, but he was in a canyon area.
It looked a lot like the Grand Canyon.
And there was an area where a little ways down off the edge of the cliff of the Grand
Canyon, the canyon kind of curved back under and there was a spot under there off into
the edge of the rock.
And this went for a quarter of a mile, I believe he said.
And there were Native American tribes in that area hundreds of years ago, and they had built
these little houses or these little things, these little walls there.
And you could tell that it was a place that certainly would be protected.
It would be protected from the elements because they were tucked away in the edge of the
cliff.
It was a place that would have been protected from any kind of enemies because you get down
in there, it's pretty tough.
And once you get down in there, there's only one way in and they had built a little wall
there.
They had closed off the entrance and there was no way you were getting in there.
That would be a place of safety and a place of protection, which is why they probably
lived there.
And that's what we need to feel when we are in the presence of God.
We need to feel that we can retreat to God.
We can retreat to a place that when we are in the presence of God, that we are safe,
that we are protected from anything and everything that is around us, from any body that is around
us, from any situation that's difficult.
There are times that we need to retreat from the world and we need to draw closer to God.
We need to dwell in the shadow of the Most High.
Verse two, I will say to the Lord, my refuge and my fortress, my God in whom I trust.
Maybe that needs to be our prayer today.
Maybe that truth needs to be something that we are reminded of today.
Do we look at God as our refuge and our fortress?
Do we call out to him and say, God, I trust in you?
And maybe sometimes we find ourselves in lives not really trusting in God the way we should.
Maybe we trust in our own abilities or we trust in our wealth or we trust in our newly
elected president more than we trust in God.
But perhaps tonight our prayer needs to be, God, I seek refuge in you.
God, I trust in you.
Who do we seek refuge in?
Who do we trust in?
Well, if we don't seek refuge in the Lord and don't trust him first and foremost, then
we're already starting in the wrong spot.
And so this Psalm is full of this kind of language of seeking a dwelling place, a place
of protection, a place of refuge, a place where we are safe from all of the enemies
that come against us.
And that safe place comes when we trust in the Lord.
Verse three, he himself will deliver you from the hunter's net, from the destructive plague.
He will cover you with his feathers.
He will take refuge under his wings.
His faithfulness will be a protective shield.
Now the first part of verse four there, he will cover you with his feathers.
You will take refuge under his wings.
You can imagine a bird, you can imagine a mother bird sitting on a nest with all the
new little baby birds.
And you can imagine that bird wrapping her wing around those baby birds, protecting that
bird from other predators that may come, protecting that bird from weather that may come, protecting
those baby birds from whatever it may be.
They are helpless and they are hopeless.
And there has to be one who will look after them and provide for them and give them everything
they need and protect them.
And what a beautiful illustration that is for what God does for us, that we are pretty
hopeless and we are pretty helpless.
We are pretty rotten sometimes as sinners, our faith isn't always super strong.
Even on our best days, we're still not very good sometimes, but God is so beautiful that
he wraps us up, that he covers us, that he protects us.
This verse that we see here in verse four, we also see the same language used in the
book of Ruth in chapter two, I believe it's verse 12, where Ruth is out there picking
up the leftover scraps out of Boaz's field and Boaz sees what's going on and he goes
over to her and he's very kind to her and he says the same thing to her.
He says, look, you know, may the Lord bless you.
And then he says the same thing.
He will cover you with his feathers.
You will take refuge under his wings.
It's beautiful language there and Boaz recognized that of Ruth.
Hey, look, Ruth, I heard your story, he says, and God is blessing you.
God is taking care of you.
And perhaps Boaz didn't even quite know how much God was going to take care of Ruth as
the story went on and how much he would be a part of that story.
It's a good book to go read if you never read the book of Ruth is short, put it on your
reading list this week.
Verse five, you will not fear the terror of the night, the arrow that flies by day, the
plague that stalks in darkness or the pestilence that ravages at noon.
Though a thousand fall at your side and 10,000 at your right hand, the pestilence will not
reach you.
You will only see it with your eyes and witness the punishment of the wicked.
Now this is a beautiful place to be because there are a lot of things in our life that
we go through that are just so scary.
There are some things in life that are just, they just terrifies.
They bring about fear, they bring about worry, they bring about anxiety.
And it might just be stuff that's going on at school or stuff that's going on at our
job or just some small things like that.
Or maybe sometimes we may find ourselves in the midst of a battle zone where arrows really
are flying at us and really horrible situations.
There are lots of things in life that are scary to us.
There are lots of things that we find ourselves afraid of.
And being afraid in that way is somewhat natural.
It's something that we have to fight against.
But it's a beautiful thing.
If you've ever been to a place where you were really afraid and you cried out to God and
you began to trust him and you found that peace to know that you were in the protection
of God, to know that whatever was going on around you, the cancer that you're fighting,
the stress of your job, the hardship of just life and whatever it may be, there are times
in our life that our fear overwhelms us and we really begin to call out to God and we
really begin to seek him.
And it's such a beautiful feeling when we feel that we are behind the wing of God, that
we are in the presence of God, that we are dwelling in the protection of God.
And when we get to that moment, all of a sudden our fear is lifted.
And whatever we're up against doesn't disappear.
We still are up against whatever we were battling.
We're still up against the disease.
We're still up against the stress at school.
We're still up against our enemies that are shooting at us.
Those things often don't change.
But what does change is our heart.
Because now we're trusting in the Lord and we know the Lord is going to protect us and
we can go about our day.
And we can say, God, I'm not going to fret anymore because I'm trusting in you.
And that's a beautiful place to be.
And I think that's why Psalm 91 is a good psalm for us to look at and think about, to
see if we're dwelling in that kind of protection.
Maybe we're not.
Maybe today you're living in that place of fear and that place of stress and that place
of being afraid and being overwhelmed.
But maybe through Psalm 91 tonight we can find some protection in the Lord if we would
call out to him so that we would be those who wouldn't worry in those times, but would
find peace in the midst of our deepest and darkest and most difficult days.
That we would be those that could find peace.
That those around us would see that peace.
That it would just radiate from us and people would come up to us and say, man, I don't
know how in the world you're getting through this.
I don't know how you can be at peace.
I don't know how you're not scared to death.
And we can respond because I'm trusting in God.
What a beautiful testimony that is.
If we live our life in such a way that people can see that peace of God in us and we may
can tell others about that peace and maybe it'll help them to find peace in their situation.
And maybe they can find some comfort in their situation as well.
Verse nine, because you have made the Lord my refuge, the most high, your dwelling place,
no harm will come to you.
No plague will come near you.
Here we see that same idea of being close to God.
That we're making God our refuge, our most high.
That we are making him our dwelling place.
That we are dwelling with God.
We've not wandered off from God.
We're not out there living for the world.
We're not out there living for ourself.
But here again for this third time we see this idea of living in closeness to God, of
dwelling close to God, of being in his protection, of being under his wings, of being in that
safe place.
And we need safe place in our life.
Every one of us do because there are days that are tough and that are scary.
And so we need that safe place that we can retreat to.
And that safe place is in the presence of God.
Verse 11, excuse me, verse 10, no harm will come to you.
No plague will come to your tent.
For he will give his angels orders concerning you to protect you in all your ways.
They will support you with their hands so that you will not strike your foot against
the stone.
You will tread on the lion and the cobra.
You will trample the young lion and the serpent.
Now verse 11 here you may recognize from Matthew chapter 4.
Now when Jesus first began his ministry, the devil tried to tempt Jesus three different
ways.
And one of the ways was is that he told Jesus, hey, just jump off from this high spot and
you're going to be okay because Psalm 91, 11 says that God will not allow you to die.
He's going to take care of you.
He's not going to allow you to hit the ground.
His angels are going to come and they're going to protect you and they're going to take care
of you.
Now this is very clever of the devil.
He's very, very clever.
He's not stupid.
And obviously he knows the word of God.
And just because he knows the word of God doesn't mean he listens to the word of God.
There's a difference.
We want to make sure that if we know the word of God, that we listen to the word of God
because even the devil knows the word of God, but he doesn't pay any attention to it.
Instead of using it for his benefit, he tried to use it to get Jesus to stumble.
And perhaps he tries to do the same thing for you and I.
He took a scripture.
He took it out of context.
He twisted it.
But Jesus was far more clever than the devil.
As smart as the devil may have thought he was, Jesus said, but the scripture also says,
do not test God.
You see, there's a difference between trusting God and testing God.
There's a difference between saying I'm in a hard time.
Everything is against me.
I'm scared, but I'm going to trust God to deliver me through this and I'm not going
to be afraid and I'm going to do what God caused me to do.
I'm going to walk into the danger zone.
I'm going to go where God caused me to go and I will not be afraid because I trust in
God.
Now that's a beautiful thing.
That's a good thing.
That's what we're seeing here in Psalm 91.
But that's different than saying God is going to protect me.
There's nothing that can harm me.
I'm going to go do whatever I want to do and I'm invincible.
Now that's testing God.
That's saying, okay, God, you say you're going to test me.
I'm going to try you, God.
I'm going to go do this thing and I'm going to see what you're going to do.
Well that's different.
I know what the devil wanted Jesus to do, but Jesus was far too clever.
Jesus certainly trusted God.
Jesus certainly knew that God would be with him and that God would deliver him and take
care of him and protect him, which he did.
But Jesus also knew there would come a time that he would have to fulfill the plan of
God.
And perhaps that's a good reminder in there for us in that way too.
That God is going to be with us, that God will never allow anything to happen to us
that is not part of his plan.
But then again, there are some things that are part of God's plan that we just have to
trust in God.
Not test God, but we trust God and whatever happens according to God's will is what we
need to do.
We need to be willing to be like Jesus in that way.
To know that even if hard times come, God has not abandoned us and ultimately God will
deliver us.
Sometimes he delivers us in this life and sometimes he delivers us from this life.
But God is our deliverer.
He is our protection and he is the one that is in control of our life.
And so if God, it tells us to go, if he's with us and he gives us something that we're
up against, then he's going to give us the strength to get through it.
He's going to protect us until the time comes that he is ready to take us on because he
is the one who is in control.
So we have nothing to fear and no one to fear in this world because the world is not in
control.
There's nothing that will happen to us apart from what God allows to happen to us.
Verse 14, because he has lovingly devoted to me, this is God speaking here, I will deliver
him.
I will protect him because he knows my name.
When he calls out to me, I will answer him.
I will be with him in trouble.
I will rescue him and give him honor.
I will satisfy him with a long life and show him my salvation.
Isn't that a beautiful word there at the end that if we would just call out to God in our
day of trouble, he would be our salvation.
And so the question is, do we?
Well, maybe we do.
I hope we do.
Maybe we call out to God instantly in our times of trouble.
Maybe sometimes we're so caught up in the worry of stress, we go a half a day worrying
about something, upset about something, afraid about something and it's three o'clock before
it dawns on us.
You know, maybe I should pray about this.
No, I don't.
Y'all probably don't do that.
I'm ashamed to say that I do.
It should be so natural.
That should be the first thing that I think about.
But man, I get caught up in all the stresses and the worries and the things of the world.
And then sometimes I catch myself and I say, what?
I hadn't even prayed about this.
It'd be a good place for us to start and everything in life is to start by calling out to the
Lord and say, God, I need you because I'm just kind of stumbling my way through this
world and I'm not doing too good of a job.
And the world is against me and life is against me and the devil's against me and I'm struggling
and I'm stressed and I'm worried and I'm afraid and I don't know if I can make it another
day, dear Lord.
So I come into your presence and I call on you because God, your word says in Psalm 91
that you'll hear me.
That if I trust in you, that you'll protect me, that you'll be with me.
Let us take these words to heart today that we would be those who would call on the Lord.
Let's pray.
God, we thank you for your good word.
I pray that we would listen to this word, that we would remember this word, that we
would learn from this word and that tonight, dear Lord, if we are not, that we would dwell
closely in your presence, that we would be in your shadow, dear Lord, that we would not
be wandering away in things of the world, that we would find protection in your presence,
that we would find a safe place, dear Lord, that just as a mama bird takes care of her
baby birds, dear Lord, so you take care of us.
God, we can't leave the nest, we can't fend for ourself.
There's no way we can make it, dear Lord.
So we need you to come and meet us where we are and hold on tight to us.
Let us hold on tight to you, dear Lord.
Let us never test you, but let us always trust you.
Let us be faithful to call out to you on our deepest, darkest days.
God, let us praise you on the good days and let us call out for you on the tough days.
And I ask these things in Jesus' name, amen.