Psalms 11

Chapter 11. Jesus Our Abiding HomePsalms 91Like the 22nd, 23rd and 24th Psalms, more effective in their grouping than even in their individuality, the 90th and 91st Psalms are fitted into each other with singular effect. The first was undoubtedly written by Moses, and the second, most probably, by the same author. We know it has been attributed to a much later time by many, but the internal evidences and the imagery employed point strongly to the wilderness. The 90th Psalm was the cry of his lonely heart, as for 40 years Israel wandered in the trackless wilderness without a habitation or a home, until from that scene of desolation and death his heart turns to find rest in God, as he cries, “Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations” (Psalms 90:1). But even this bright and blessed comfort seems almost lost in the dirge-like strains of the closing verses of the psalm, as all his thoughts become absorbed in the scenes of depression and mortality that gather around him, so that the song becomes one long, sad wail. “You turn men back to dust” (Psalms 90:3). “All our days pass away under your wrath; we finish our years with a moan” (Psalms 90:9). But in the 91st Psalm, his lonely heart has found its home “in the shelter of the Most High… in the shadow of the Almighty” (Psalms 91:1), and beneath the cover of His shadowing wings. There is no doubt that all through this psalm there is a reference to the Tabernacle in the wilderness. Its holy shrine within the veil and beneath the outspread wings of the cherubim is the secret place of the Most High and the shadow where His Spirit dwells in holy fellowship and eternal security and rest. Whoever was the author of this psalm, we know who is its great end. We know where the secret place of the Most High and the shadow of the Almighty for us are found, even in the bosom of Jesus our abiding home. And we know also for whom it is intended, even for all who are in Him and longing to abide in Him. There are few of us who cannot claim it as our own psalm and record it as our testimony. May the Holy Spirit enlarge it to our thought once more, and make it as never before our living experience! Let us look first at the names of God here given; secondly, His promises; and thirdly, their conditions. Section I—The Names of GodThere are four glorious names given to Him in this psalm:

1. The Most High. This tells of His supremacy as sovereign Lord, above all authority and dominion and every name that is named. High as may be our difficulties, He is higher. Our enemies may be lofty, but He is above them. The place to which He bids us rise may be beyond our reach, but He is able to raise us to the loftiest heights of faith and hope. What can be too hard or too high for the Most High?
2. The Almighty. This is the glorious name He gave to Abraham and repeated to Moses, the Hebrew Shaddai. It tells of the God of infinite power and resources for which nothing is too hard. It is He who formed the worlds out of nothing. It is He who holds those mighty suns in their places, and whirls those countless systems on their orbits, and keeps in motion this mighty universe without disturbance. It is He who has shown His mighty power in the miracles of the Bible, in the destruction of Pharaoh’s host and Sennacherib’s army, in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and in the conversion of the myriads who have passed from sin, white-robed and glorified, into the presence of His glory. It is He who is our Protector and our God.
3. Jehovah. This is the dearest of all names because it links them all with us. It means the covenant God. It means the God who is related to us, the God who is revealed in Jesus as the God of grace and mercy.
4. God. This, His absolute name, denotes His eternal deity and infinite perfection. But the best of it is, He is my God. He is not an abstract God, far away, but He gives Himself to me, and permits me to call Him my very own, to possess Him, to use Him, to say He is mine. Oh, have we known His mighty name? He condescends to give to us these glorious names. He might have hidden Himself away in inscrutable, inaccessible majesty, but He has deigned to come down to meet us, to tell us about Himself, to reveal Himself by names that we can understand. Let us meet Him; let us respond to His love; let us “say of the Lord, ‘He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust’” (Psalms 91:2). Section II—His Promises1. He promises protection from the wiles of temptation. “Surely he will save you from the fowler’s snare” (Psalms 91:3). We need first to be guarded from spiritual evil, and this is promised here even in its most subtle forms. The fowler is our great enemy, the devil, seeking to catch us like unwary little birds by his deceptive snares. But from these, the man who meets the conditions of this psalm shall be guarded. God will not allow us to be deceived. He is able to keep us from stumbling and to present us faultless. “God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear” (1 Corinthians 10:13). Blessed promise! How much we need it! How insidious are the deceptions of the foe! How weak and foolish all our wisdom! But how secure are those whose life is hid with Christ!
5. He promises protection from physical ills. This undoubtedly denotes disease of every kind, for here the severest of all forms is mentioned—“the deadly pestilence” (Psalms 91:3). And if we are promised exemption from this, it must include all lesser forms. This must, of course, be preceded by the other promise. We must be saved first from spiritual evil. But if we are, we shall be kept from physical evil. Both these promises are preceded by the most emphatic word in the psalm, “surely.” It is God’s great amen. It must have a very marked meaning. God foresaw all the professors, editors and theologians who were going to write against the literal meaning of this blessed promise, and so He put this down and underscored it for all the ages, that no trembling soul need ever doubt or fear to take the Lord as a Sanctifier and Healer, and to expect to be kept in perfect peace and safety while humbly trusting in Him. Let us put our amen to God’s yea, and trust Him with all our heart for all our need.
6. He promises His overshadowing presence. “He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge” (Psalms 91:4). Undoubtedly this refers in some sense to the mother bird as she broods over her little ones, covering them with her strong pinions and nestling them under her soft feathers. What a beautiful figure it is of God’s tenderness! Not only the strong wings, but the soft, downy feathers. Oh, that we may claim all that the figure means; and while He stretches out His mighty wings, let us nestle close to His bosom. There is a double sense here: “He will cover,” but you will trust. We are to meet His love as it comes to us. There is something in human hearts that needs caressing and comforting, and God is full of it. We need to nestle on His bosom, to be cherished and fondled. God loves to do it. “He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing” (Zephaniah 3:17). But there is another meaning in the figure. It refers undoubtedly to the cherubim in the Most Holy Place, those beautiful wings of gold that were spread out above the ark, between which shone the Shekinah glory representing the face of God, the smile of heaven. This is “the shelter of the Most High” (Psalms 91:1). These are the wings that cover us. The figure is even more complete when we include all that it contained, for still lower down beneath those wings was the covering lid of the ark, the mercy seat sprinkled with the blood which covered the sins of the people and hid them from the eye that looked down from above. So that we are covered first by the blood, and then by the wings of God, while His countenance, full of light and love, beams down upon us from between the cherub wings.
7. He promises us victorious faith. “His faithfulness will be your shield and rampart” (Psalms 91:4). The shield is the uniform type of faith in the Scriptures. The shield was made very large in ancient times and covered all the person, warding off the dart that came in front. So it represents that perfect trust that covers all our person from every attack of the enemy. This is God’s glorious gift. Christ is our shield; Christ is our faith. But what about the rampart? Why, this shield might be lost; the hand that held it might let go; the blow of the enemy might strike it down; or the hand of the foe might wrest it from the bravest soldier and leave him unprotected. But the rampart could not be torn away. It was fastened on the arm, buckled to the wrist; it was part of the soldier. The rampart tells us of a faith we cannot lose. It is the faith of God, the Spirit of Christ within us, the Author and Finisher of our faith, establishing us immovably and making us “more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Romans 8:37). This is the promise. This is our privilege. Let us claim it.
8. He promises deliverance from fear. “You will not fear the terror of night, nor the arrow that flies by day, nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness, nor the plague that destroys at midday” (Psalms 91:5-6). Fear is the worst of our calamities, and it brings many a calamity. But God can save us from fear and keep us from all alarm. “This poor man called, and the Lord heard him; he saved him out of all his troubles” (Psalms 34:6). “But whoever listens to me will live in safety and be at ease, without fear of harm” (Proverbs 1:33). In God’s hands our future is safe, and He will let no evil harm us. Knowing that, we can be calm and free from care. Fear also includes care, worry, and anxiety of every kind. To be saved from this is indeed a haven of rest. No one is truly saved from these cares until he enters into and abides in “the shelter of the Most High” (Psalms 91:1). This is the difference between the consecrated and the ordinary Christian; the latter is oppressed with a thousand cares and fears; the former can “not be anxious about anything” (Philippians 4:6), and has the peace of God which is beyond understanding to garrison his heart and mind in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:7). The things mentioned here are very serious and terrible evils. The calamities in whose face the saint can look in the light of the psalm without an alarm are no imaginary things: the terror, the pestilence, the arrow, the destruction. It is a time of awful pestilence and widespread desolation, but he is calm and trustful and can sing: “Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea” (Psalms 46:2). Beloved, are you there? Is your future horizon without a cloud because it is covered by the light of His promise and His presence?
9. He promises safety amid all danger. “A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you. You will only observe with your eyes and see the punishment of the wicked” (Psalms 91:7-8). Not only are we free from fear, but we are saved from harm. The man or woman who is in the Master’s will cannot perish until His work is accomplished. How often God has carried His chosen ones through battles and oceans, tempests and wild beasts! Look at the story of Jeremiah amid the last days of Jerusalem; of Arnot and Livingstone among the tribes of Africa; of Paton among the murderous heathen of the New Hebrides; of the Covenanters in their conventicles in Scotland; and of many another whom God has guarded amid a thousand deaths. Let us believe in our almighty God and fear not to step wherever He bids us, for we are far safer in the midst of dangers in His will than surrounded by every human precaution, but disobedient to Him.
10. He promises security from all real evil. “Then no harm will befall you, no disaster will come near your tent” (Psalms 91:10). Literally in the Hebrew this means “any stroke.” It denotes the judgment of God’s displeasure; or a calamity such as often overtakes the wicked. The meaning is that nothing shall overtake the trusting and abiding child of God which has real evil in it, or any element of the divine displeasure or of actual harm. Troubles undoubtedly will come to him, but the evil will be taken out of them. The devil’s sting will not reach him. “The evil one cannot harm him” (1 John 5:18), and God’s displeasure will never visit him, for He has sworn “not to be angry with you, never to rebuke you again” (Isaiah 54:9). Sorrow, indeed, is hard to bear when it comes with God’s anger and with Satan’s hate unguarded by heavenly love. But when we are conscious that the Master comes between us and everything that touches us, and that every trial that meets us is brought to us by our blessed Redeemer, and shorn of its evil by His love, then nothing can injure us or even discourage us; but up through every cloud we can look into His face and say: “Goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life” (Psalms 23:6), and “No good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless” (Psalms 84:11), and “Who is going to harm you if you are eager to do good?” (1 Peter 3:13).
11. He promises angelic guardianship. “For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways; they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone” (Psalms 91:11-12). The ministry of angels is too plainly revealed in the Old and New Testaments to need any demonstration, and it has not ceased. The vision of Jacob represents the angels as ascending and descending upon the son of man, and all through the Christian age they are busy still for God’s redeemed. “Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?” (Hebrews 1:14). Were we to visit heaven today, we should find it, perhaps, emptied of angels, and all their myriads busy on this earth with God’s redeemed ones. The annals of Christian biography have some very wonderful instances of angelic appearances, and we can scarcely doubt that they sometimes have become visible even since the apostolic age. Not a single angel, but a camp of angels is represented as round about those who fear the Lord. Could we see the spiritual realm, we should behold armies of mighty beings all around us, and in the loneliest and most perilous places we should never fear. Sometimes we can almost hear the flutter of their wings and feel the touch of their interposing hands. They are never absent from us. The devil forgot to quote this rightly when he repeated it to Christ in the wilderness. He left out this clause, “in all your ways” (Psalms 91:11). His idea was that the angels would appear on some great occasion when Christ fell from the pinnacle of the temple, but the truth was the angels were just as near in the wilderness as they could have been in Jerusalem, and their presence even at that moment was between Christ and the arch-fiend. “Always they are with us, and upon their hands they shall bear you up.” This is much more beautiful than the ordinary translation. Not “in their hands” as if they were carrying us; but “upon their hands” as if we were walking upon a pavement of angelic wings, or, rather, soaring in the heavenly places, up-borne by their mighty pinions. Oh, let us realize our heavenly escort, and go forth without fear to do our Master’s work and will.
12. He promises victory over Satan. “You will tread upon the lion and the cobra; you will trample the great lion and the serpent” (Psalms 91:13). These are figures of Satanic powers in their strength and malignity; but to the one who abides in Christ, they are all conquered foes, and it is our privilege to tread them beneath our feet and treat them as vanquished enemies. Our Savior has given us the same promise in the New Testament. “I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you” (Luke 10:19). We shall not be exempt from temptation, but we may keep temptation beneath our feet and not allow it to come even within touch of our heart. “We know that anyone born of God does not continue to sin; the one who was born of God keeps him safe, and the evil one cannot harm him” (1 John 5:18). This is our privilege in Christ. Let us fully claim it. There is a suggestive thought in connection with “the young lion” (Psalms 91:13). The right time to tread upon the lion is while he is young; meet the evil before it grows to importance; claim victory over the first assaults of temptation. Do not let the devil get headway even for a moment, and then shall we have no old lions to contend with. This is the secret of victory in the great conflicts, to be always on guard in the little skirmishes, and immediately triumph over the breath of temptation. Will we take our victory over the enemy? It is our privilege. Our Lord has triumphed, and in Him we are already raised up “far above all rule and authority” (Ephesians 1:21). Let us keep them beneath our feet. Let us stand in Him triumphant, waving evermore the banner of victory as we cry, “But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:57).
13. He promises to set us on high. “I will set him on high” (Psalms 91:14). This may mean earthly honor; certainly it means spiritual exaltation. It is the same promise which Isaiah so eloquently expresses: “This is the man who will dwell on the heights, whose refuge will be the mountain fortress” (Isaiah 33:16). It is to dwell in heavenly places in Christ Jesus; it is to have the lofty and heavenly life. And by and by it shall reach the still higher sense of everlasting glory.
14. He promises answered prayer. “He will call upon me, and I will answer him” (Psalms 91:15). This is the privilege of those who dwell in the secret place. “If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you” (John 15:7). God wants us to have our prayers answered. It is as much for His glory as it is for our blessing. He tells us that He has chosen and ordained us for this, that whatsoever we ask in the name of Jesus, we may receive. We may abide so near Him that we will ask only what He wants to give, and therefore we shall never ask in vain if we catch His thought before we offer our petition.
15. He promises His presence in trouble. “I will be with him in trouble” (Psalms 91:15). The tense changes, and the Lord is with us before we have time to recognize the trouble. He comes with the trouble. There is not an instant’s interval until He is there. “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble” (Psalms 46:1). Never is His presence so consciously realized as when circumstances are trying, and all around is dark and sad. Then, like the stars that come out under the pall of night, His face shines with a luster that we never know in more prosperous times; and if He is with us, we are so conscious of His presence that the trouble is scarcely realized. It is possible to be so enwrapped with God that we shall not “fear when heat comes” (Jeremiah 17:8). We shall scarcely be conscious of the dark cloud around till it is left: behind us. There is nothing that more gloriously characterizes the consecrated child of God than his spirit in times of trouble. Anyone can be cheerful and happy amid prosperity. But to rejoice in the midst of suffering, to be strengthened unto all longsuffering with joyfulness (see Colossians 1:11), to meet poverty, disappointment, desertion and difficulty with patience, fortitude and cheerfulness—this is possible only to a soul that is filled with the grace and presence of Jesus.
16. He promises deliverance from trouble. God wants us first to know His presence in trouble, so sustaining us that we are enabled to triumph even before the trouble is removed. But then when He has taught us this lesson, He loves to remove the trouble and to show us His providence as well as His grace. And so, when we have learned to bear our trials with patience and victory, we usually find that they are taken away and that our path is made smooth again. The discipline has done its work, and it is not necessary that it should continue.
17. He promises to honor us. “I will… honor him” (Psalms 91:15). God does love to honor a soul that lives wholly for Him. He honors such men with great usefulness, with wide influence among their fellow men, by His signal blessing upon their work; by the seal of His Holy Spirit; and, by and by, by the crowns and kingdoms which He shall have to bestow, not only upon those who have served Him much, but those who have loved Him truly.
18. He promises length of days. “With long life will I satisfy him” (Psalms 91:16). This does not necessarily mean that we shall live for a century, but it means that we shall be satisfied. The Lord will fulfill our hearts’ desires if we abide in Him, and enable us to say before our journey is ended, “Not one of all the good promises the Lord your God gave you has failed” (Joshua 23:14). But its highest sense is to be fulfilled in the days of eternity. Oh, we are yet but babes in the great cycles of existence! But as a drop to the ocean is this life compared with the ages to come, through which we are to live in His glory and grow into higher, nobler conditions of blessing and power. For He has saved us and raised us up “that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:7).
19. He promises that we will see the salvation of God. “And show him my salvation” (Psalms 91:16). Now this, of course, means the great salvation of the gospel, the unfolding of God’s plan in all its beauty and glory, to know in its breadth and length and depth and height, the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge (Ephesians 3:18-19). But it is not merely to know salvation as an abstract thing, but it is to know the Savior. Standing in his trembling age in yonder temple, old Simeon holds in his arms a little Babe; and as he drops his tears on the smiling face of Jesus, he cries, “My eyes have seen your salvation” (Luke 2:30). Ah, he must have learned the 91st Psalm by heart. And by and by we shall see Christ in all His beauty and glory and reach the climax of the 91st Psalm, and of all other psalms and songs and experiences. Christ to trust and Christ to know Constitute our bliss below; Christ to see and Christ to love Constitute our bliss above. Section III—The Conditions1. We must dwell “in the shelter of the Most High” and “rest in the shadow of the Almighty” (Psalms 91:1). The meaning of this is all explained in the 15th chapter of John, which is the New Testament counterpart of the 91st Psalm. It is to know Jesus in His indwelling, and to live in unbroken fellowship with Him. The Hebrew is very beautiful. The two clauses are parallel. It is not “he who dwells,” etc., “will rest.” It is “He who dwells and he who rests.” They are coordinate clauses, both describing the same person. There is a little difference in the verb in each case: the one signifies to dwell by day; the other, to lodge by night. Together they express a continual abiding in Jesus, both day and night, that union and communion with Him that are unbroken and perpetual. This is the habit of the consecrated life. This is the secret of holiness, peace, power, victory, and every physical blessing. Let us hear Him say today, “Remain in me, and I in [you]… apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5).
20. We must confess Him as our Keeper. “I will say of the Lord” (Psalms 91:2). It is not enough to think it, to feel it, to resolve it; we must say it. “How great is your goodness, which you have stored up for those who fear you, which you bestow in the sight of men on those who take refuge in you” (Psalms 31:19). We must not be ashamed to confess our deliverance and commit ourselves to His promises and risk our whole future upon His faithfulness. We must confess Him in order to be saved; so we must receive and keep our sanctification, our healing, and the answers to our prayers by acknowledging God, even before we see His working.
21. We must trust Him. “In whom I trust” (Psalms 91:2). We must claim His promise and lean upon it, and steadily rest without doubt or fear, meeting every temptation and questioning with the victorious answer, “I will trust.”
22. We must give ourselves utterly to Him, and be His, and His alone. “‘Because he loves me says the Lord, ‘I will rescue him’” (Psalms 91:14). God seems to be so deeply stirred by the devotion of the heart to Him, that there is nothing that He will not do. He seems to rise up in holy gladness and say, “‘Because he loves me,’ says the Lord, ‘I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name’” (Psalms 91:14). God loves a single and devoted heart. Oh beloved, He is calling you to choose Him. To every one of you the test will come; but as it comes, it will show in the depths of your being whether you love Him with all your heart, or know whether you have so set your love upon Him that all else shall go, before you let go His love or disobey His will. Christ’s heart is longing for devotion, and to the man or woman who will give it, there is nothing which He will withhold.
23. We must take our victory by putting our foot upon the lion and the adder and trampling our foes in victorious faith. God has the victory for us, but we must take it by putting our feet upon the necks of our foes, and claim His power to make good our bold, aggressive stand. He is not going to annihilate the devil and stop our temptations, but He is going to give us victory if we will take it. Oh, may He enable us thus to abide in Him, thus to trust Him, thus to confess Him, thus to set our heart upon Him, and thus to triumph in Him over all our foes. And may we know in all its meaning this glorious psalm, which the Master Himself so grandly fulfilled, and then left as the heritage of His children until the wilderness of trial shall be past and the closing echoes shall be fulfilled in the song we shall sing before the throne, “Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb” (Revelation 7:10).