OUR PLACE OF SECURITY

Psalm 91 11/04/07

Last Sunday the message was about how our beliefs should change our actions and in order for our beliefs to have the power to change us, our beliefs must be based on what God has said. All Scripture is good to study:

2Ti 3:16 All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:

However, some passages really stand out when it comes to the promises of God that we should be reaching out, grabbing a hold of and standing on. Psalm 91 is one of those passages and has it several great promises. We don’t know who wrote this chapter, some think it was probably Moses, others think it may have been David. The main point is, it is inspired Scripture, it is the Word of God and we can have a solid rock belief in what it says. In other words if we will read this Psalm, meditate on it, and spiritually digest it, it will grow our faith; then we can by faith stand on these great promises of protection and security that will bring peace to our lives. We cannot do the work that God has given us to do if we don’t have peace. The virtue of peace that we have is not apart from our faith. So, when we read Scripture it very important that that we personalize it; God wants to speak to you personally through His Word. Let Him speak to you through these next two verses:

Psa 91:1KJV He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.

Psa 91:2 I will say of the LORD, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust.

I think it takes more than just reading these verses to get what God is saying to us.

What is the secret place of the most High?

How do you abide under the shadow of the Almighty?

Where is this refuge and fortress that is spoken of by the psalmist?

Knowledge comes by understanding what is read or said.

Hos 4:6 My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.

God speaks of a sever consequence here for rejecting knowledge of Him.

First let us notice the four names or titles of God in these first two verses.

Most High=el-yone' this speaks of elevation, most high, Supreme, the highest God.

Almighty=shadday, sometimes as el-shaddi=God Almighty. In Gen. 17:1 God introduces Himself to Abraham as el-shaddi; in the Hebrew it is shaddi-el or Almighty God.

LORD= yehôvâh, (the) selfExistent or eternal; Jehovah, Jewish national name of God.

God=el; when applied to Jehovah God it is capitalized. el is from ah'-yil has to do with strength, mighty. Could denote any god.

It is important that we get to know God through His various names. For the most part these various names and titles of God was the way He revealed Himself to His people at that time. Through out Scripture we see God progressively revealing Himself to His people; culminating in the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. There is power in these words; these words can change your life if you believe them. Listen to what God says about knowing His name in V14.

Psa 91:14 [God speaking] Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he hath known my name.

See you cannot love God or trust Him if you don’t know what is revealed about God through His name. Now, the most important name to know God by is the Lord Jesus Christ, but why stop there? Getting to know God by the name of Jesus Christ is where we start; we cannot be saved unless we know Him by that name. We should have a desire to know much about God; and we can start by studying His Word and what is revealed about Him through His Names and His ways with His people. Then we should get to know God in an experiential way where we experience Him through prayer and His working in our lives.

This is what the 91st Psalm is about: getting to know God and trusting Him for protection and our security. Read again V2.

Can you say, as the writer of this Psalm, Jehovah God, ‘He is my refuge and my fortress?’ God is our hiding place, our place of protection, our fortress that shields us from harm. How long has it been since you have seen a mother hen comforting and protecting her chicks under her wings? It has been many years since I have witness this, but the picture is still very clear in my mind; I helped raise lots of chickens while growing up on the farm. This is the picture I get from these first two verses. Just as the little chicks, when excited by something strange, are quick to run to the place of protection under the mother’s wings, we are to run to our refuge and fortress when danger threatens us.

Now, when it comes to the truth of matters, the spiritual dangers we face each day is much more dangerous to us than the physical dangers we face. Sometimes we can see the physical dangers with our physical eyes, but the spiritual dangers we face can only be seen with our spiritual eyes. So, as the little chick, I never want to get too far from my refuge and my fortress; I never know when I might want to make a mad dash back to that place of safety. Of course, to start with we should never leave this place of safety.

The thing that to me is so exciting about my hiding place is that it is my secret place. See, I cannot show you my hiding place or you cannot show me your secret place of safety, because they are provided for us by el-yone, the Most High God.

When I was growing up on the farm, my brother and I would make our own hiding places; sometimes in the hayloft or out in the woods, but they were always our secret places. Sometimes when friends would come over to play with us, we would show them our hidings places, because they were our friends. (Also, they would help us fight off the Indians or bears or what ever else we happen to be fighting that day.)

However, the secret hiding places that our Most High God provides for us we can only tell others about and we should tell others and help them find their own dwelling in the secret place of the most High.

The Scripture here tells us that those that dwell in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. The word ‘shadow’ literally means shade. Now we may not think as much today about the shade as I did as a boy growing up on the farm. The house we lived in was a two story with a screen in porch on the back corner and out to the side was a well that we drink out of some of the time, if it had water in it. Maple trees surrounded the house and there was a maple tree on each side of the well by the fence. In the hot summertime this shade by the well was a great place to be. I would be working out in the field, wet with sweat, I really looked forward to getting back to the shade. We had no air conditioning in the house, the house was always hot, but the shade was a very comfortable place to be. Usually the shade was a place to temporarily cool off and then you go back to work or go into house after it cooled off. The Word tells us here in this first verse that we abide or live in this cool comfortable place, in the shadow of the Almighty.

Now verse 2 tells us that if you dwell in that secret place and have experienced this place of closeness under the wings of the Almighty then you will be able to say of Jehovah, “He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust.”

You will be able to say this because you know Him as el-yone, the Most High God and el-shadday the Almighty God.

We desperately need to get back to reading the Scripture, studying the Scripture, meditating on the Scripture and applying the Scripture as it was meant to be. Too many today only have a surface understanding of God’s Word; God desires that His people dive into the depths of His revelations to us and enjoy the beauty of the deep places. It is through God’s Word that we can find our secret place in God—a place of peace and security. AMEN