In their hands they shall bear you up, Lest you dash your foot against a stone. You shall tread upon the lion and the cobra, The young lion and the serpent you shall trample underfoot. Because you have made the LORD…your dwelling place : The principles and promises in verses 10 through 16 are directed toward those who trust in the LORD, making Him their dwelling place — their source of life and satisfaction.
No evil shall befall you : The previous promises verses of security and safety even in a time of plague are repeated. Again, this is not regarded as an absolute promise for every believer in every circumstance, because beloved people of God have fallen to evil or died in plague. Nor shall any plague come near your dwelling : Charles Spurgeon gave remarkable testimony to a specific fulfillment of this promise:. Family after family summoned me to the bedside of the smitten, and almost every day I was called to visit the grave.
I gave myself up with youthful ardour to the visitation of the sick, and was sent for from all corners of the district by persons of all ranks and religions. I became weary in body and sick at heart. My friends seemed falling one by one, and I felt or fancied that I was sickening like those around me. A little more work and weeping would have laid me low among the rest; I felt that my burden was heavier than I could bear, and I was ready to sink under it.
Faith appropriated the passage as her own. I felt secure, refreshed, girt with immortality. I went on with my visitation of the dying in a calm and peaceful spirit; I felt no fear of evil, and I suffered no harm. The providence which moved the tradesman to place those verses in his window I gratefully acknowledge, and in the remembrance of its marvellous power I adore the Lord my God. For He shall give His angels charge over you : This describes another way God may send His protection and care unto His people — through His angels , commanding them to keep and bear…up His people.
These will, when necessary, turn thy steps out of the way of danger; ward it off when it comes in thy ordinary path. So says the Lord unto the angels. They have received commission from their Lord and ours to watch carefully over all the interests of the faithful. Whether they repel demons, counteract spiritual plots, or even ward off the subtler physical forces of disease, we do not know.
Perhaps we shall one day stand amazed at the multiplied services which the unseen bands have rendered to us. From God thou art to expect them; and for their help he alone is to receive the praise. It is expressly said, He shall give his angels charge ; to show that they are not to be prayed to nor praised ; but GOD alone , whose servants they are. For He shall give His angels charge over you : The promise in verses 11 and 12 was quoted and twisted by Satan in His temptation of Jesus in the wilderness Matthew , Luke Satan tempted Jesus to create an artificial crisis by throwing Himself from a high point on the temple mount, and Satan quoted Psalm as a promise of protection if Jesus were to do this.
The angels were there to help Jesus in His temptation, just not in the way the devil suggested Matthew You shall tread upon the lion and the cobra : The protection of God to His people extends beyond the general deliverance from harm; it also speaks of a general granting of victory to His people, even over opponents as strong as the young lion and the cobra. There is another interesting connection with the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness.
He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him and honor him. With long life I will satisfy him, And show him My salvation. Because he has set his love upon Me : These last three verses are set in the first person as God speaks promise and blessing over His people. He speaks specifically over those who set their love upon Him. He does not wait for the feeling of love to come, but simply chooses to think and act toward God in ways that express and build love.
This would include:. Our present culture often thinks of love as something that happens to people, not something chosen. In the midst of great darkness in this world, living in it all without His Truth and freedom, would be like wallowing in the pit. Not much hope to be found there. The truth is, this world has been dark for generations, since sin first entered the earth at the hiss of the enemy's lies. Yet God's reminders are sure, strong, and true, assuring us that in all that we walk through in this journey, His call is always to rise above.
He reminds us we're not alone. And though He never says that we won't face hard times, He does say He'll be with us in it, rescuing us, and shining His favor over us. God works on behalf of those who love Him and honor His name. He is so good to us.
We may never fully know, this side of heaven, how very much He has sheltered us from in this life. Thank you that you go before us, and cover us from behind. Thank you that you are in our midst, and that our future is secure in the place you're preparing for us. Your words bring such hope and comfort. Remind us of your strength today, may we see glimpses of your glory and blessing along the way as we seek after you. For victory and salvation are found in you alone.
He that by faith chooses God for his protector, shall find all in him that he needs or can desire. And those who have found the comfort of making the Lord their refuge, cannot but desire that others may do so.
But when we begin to think about them, we might start to wonder just how we're meant to understand them. Perhaps there's a niggling doubt — after all, Christians do get ill and die. A few of us will catch the coronavirus, and some of us — though a tiny minority — will not recover. So is the Bible just plain wrong? There's a clue in the New Testament about how we're meant to understand Psalm In Matthew 4 and in Luke 4 we read about the devil tempting Jesus in the wilderness.
One of the temptations is for Jesus to cast himself down from the highest point of the temple; quoting Psalm One way of reading this is to say that Jesus is refusing to let the devil turn Scripture into a sort of exam on God's faithfulness. He knows very well that God's word can be trusted, and he won't let the devil twist it to say something it doesn't — a hint to us that we're to read Psalm 91 in the context of the whole of Scripture, rather than just looking at a few verses by themselves.
When we do that, we find that God's people often suffer harm. It means that the Lord is God who is all-powerful, all-knowing, and knows us on a deep, intimate level. He knows the exact number of hairs on our heads, the color of our eyes when we lie down and wake up, he knows the number of our days on this earth. The fourth name, my God, comes from the Hebrew Elohim. In just these first few verses of Psalm 91 , we are reassured beyond a shadow of a doubt that we serve a mighty God.
It reminds us that even though we live in a fallen world, he is still with us. We are reminded God is in control, forever and always. This kind of thinking is often preached by pastors and ministers who teach the false and deceptive prosperity gospel. Nothing can be farther from the truth. What we can count on are the promises found in this Psalm. It is filled with the goodness and power of God with eight promises:.
Deliver, Cause to Escape 2 I will protect him Set Him on a High Place 3 I will answer him Respond to, Speak 4 I will be with him in trouble In Afflictions, in Distress 5 I will deliver him Rescue, to Bring into Safety 6 and honor him
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