Keith Simons teaches on Psalm 91, emphasizing God's unwavering protection for those who dwell in His presence. He explains the significance of the four names of God mentioned in the psalm, illustrating how God surrounds His people with safety and security. Simons highlights that despite the presence of troubles and fears, believers can trust in God's promises of deliverance and refuge. He reassures that even in suffering, God's protection remains, and ultimately, He will honor and save His faithful ones. The sermon encourages listeners to maintain their faith in God's protection, regardless of their circumstances.

Hello, my name is Keith Symons, I'm a Bible teacher from England, and you're listening to the next in our series of talks on how to understand the King James Version of the Bible. Today we're looking at the Psalm of God's Protection, Psalm 91, and as usual we'll be looking through it verse by verse and word by word, looking at the meanings of the words. So Psalm 91 begins, verse 1, He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. And verse 2, I will say of the Lord, he is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in him will I trust. Okay, I don't usually begin by reading two verses together. I did there because that's built into the poetry of the Psalm, and you'll notice four names for God in that passage. The Most High, Almighty, Lord, that's the sacred name of God in capital letters, and finally my God. And it is part of Hebrew poetry that one of the features sometimes is that it likes to describe the same thing in four different ways. There is a traditional Hebrew bedtime prayer which describes four angels being round on each side of the sleeper while he sleeps. And so in this prayer, in this Psalm rather, we see four names of God as it's describing God's protection on each side. It's like we might say we have a God at the front and the back and the left and the right, and that God is God. God is on every side of us. God surrounds us with his protection if we are truly his people. He that dwelleth, he that lives, he that sits is the literal meaning of the Hebrew. The person who sits in the secret place or the shelter of the Most High, the highest God, the one who is above all others, he has a shelter for his people. He is looking after his people. They sit there and because they sit there, they remain or abide under the shadow of the Almighty. God, the provider, the Hebrew word is Shaddai. God, the provider, shadows them. He's looking after them. He's protecting them. They're in a safe place there with God. Verse 2, I will say of the Lord. Here we get using what's sometimes called the covenant name of God, the special name of God in the Bible. And the psalmist, the writer of the psalm, is remembering that God's relationship is with him. This is the Lord, his God, and so he can be very personal. Verse 1 referred to he that dwells, but verse 2 says I. It's me. I'm under his protection. I declare of him he is my refuge, my safe place and my fortress, my strong place. Fortress is a castle. So God is my safe place and my strong place. My God in him will I trust. So he declares this God, the God who protects him to be his personal God, his personal strong God and defender from all the troubles. And so he declares that he puts his trust in God. Verse 3 continues with a wonderful promise of protection. Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler and from the noisome pestilence. Few difficult words there. A fowler is someone who catches birds. The snare is the trap that he uses to catch the birds. So what it means is that the person with the power of death over you, the devil if you like, the one who desires to kill you and destroy your life has set traps for you, but God will rescue you from him and from his traps. But it's not just the person who you can't see. The person or the thing that you can't see, God's protection is also from the noisome pestilence. That means a destroying plague, a terrible illness which kills vast numbers of people. God's protection is from that trouble as well. So God protects from enemies and he protects from troubles. Verse 4. In verse 4 it's rather curious because it pictures God as a bird, like a mother bird, protecting its young. He shall cover thee with his feathers and under his wings shalt thou trust. Just as the mother bird covers its young to protect them from danger, that's the shadow, that's the shelter which you receive from God. His truth shall be thy shield and buckler. Okay, a shield was a defence, a board which you'd hold in front of you in time of war to protect you from arrows and from the attacks of the enemy. The word buckler also means a type of shield. It seems to, the Hebrew word seems to describe a shield that goes right around you. That seems to be a theme of this psalm, that God's protection is on every side. Verse 5 and I'll read verse 6 as well because it's another of these groups of four. We've had four names of God in verses 1 and 2. Here we're going to have four troubles in verses 5 and 6. Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night, nor for the arrow that flyeth by day, nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness, nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday. Let's go through these. The terror by night. Don't be afraid of the terrible thing that happens by night. Notice the times. Nor in the day, don't be afraid of the arrow that flies. And of course you'll be familiar with bows and arrows, what people used before they had guns. They would shoot a sharp object called an arrow and often this was fired in a very random way. And if you were in an army and your enemy started shooting arrows at you, well you just didn't know whether you were going to be hit and injured. Wars in those times were fearful I suppose. They always have been. But that fear you don't have to have because you are one of God's people, if you are one of God's people. If you are in God's special place of protection. Even in war you don't need to be afraid. Even in the heat of the battle you don't need to worry. Verse 6 may or may not also be referring to a battle. Often soldiers did fall ill. Camps were places where diseases spread quickly. We have a number of accounts in the bible of a sudden disease spreading through a camp. And so we've had the terror which was by night and the arrow by day. In the darkness there is pestilence. In the darkness there are diseases that attack the camp of the army. And there's destruction at noon day, the middle of the day, noon. And the pestilence is walking around in the poetry of verse 6. And the destruction is wasting, in other words taking away people's lives. And all these terrors, but you don't have to be afraid if you've got God on your side, if you've got God protecting you. And he builds up back to the battle now I suppose in verse 7. A thousand shall fall at thy side and ten thousand at thy right hand but it shall not come nigh thee, verse 8, only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked. So it's a terrible battle and people are being killed on every side of you. But in it you're safe because God is protecting you. You suffer no harm, you suffer no injury. You only behold, you only watch, you only see what happens to wicked people. You see their reward, what they've brought on themselves by their evil acts. They have brought the judgment of God against themselves, your enemies, suffering death on every side. But you are safe even in the battle because God is with you. God is looking after you. God is saving your life. Okay, that's the first half of the psalm. We're going to look at the second half in a moment or two. But firstly I want to deal with an objection, a problem that you might have with this psalm. And it's describing so completely, so fully God's protection of his people. Yet anyone who reads the Bible knows that God's people suffer a lot of troubles. In the Old Testament we've got the account of Job who was a righteous and a good man and yet God permitted Satan to attack him and he lost his family and he lost his wealth and he lost his health. And in his great suffering the book of Job describes how he remained faithful to God. And you might say, well how does this match with what we've just heard about? Because Job did fall ill and his family for whom he prayed much died and he lost all his possessions. Does this psalm still apply to him? Well at the beginning of the book of Job we see that Satan complains that God has protected Job. So yes, at the beginning of the book of Job clearly Job was under God's special protection. But God permitted Satan to act against Job and he did it for God's own honour so that Job could show that in suffering he would remain faithful to God. He would continue to trust God whatever happened. And that is what the psalm is encouraging us to do. You know we may not see God's protection in this life but that does not mean the protection is not there. God is still protecting and looking after his people and the proof of it is that when they die he will take them to be with him in heaven. But when we have troubles then certainly we can claim and declare the protection of this psalm. And if those troubles continue and God does not seem to answer our prayers then we must continue to trust God and we must continue to have faith in him whatever happens because God is not finished with us when our bodies die. God will look after us and God will protect us and God will defend us. So the second half of the psalm then, verse 9. Because thou hast made the Lord which is my refuge even the most high thy habitation. Habitation, the place where you live. You've made God your habitation. You've made God your home. You dwell with God. Therefore, verse 10, there shall no evil before you. Neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling. Plague is an illness. How can it come nigh thy dwelling, near your dwelling, near your house when your home is with God? So therefore, no evil can really attack you. No evil can really harm you. Yes, you may suffer illness, you may suffer troubles, yet it can't really destroy you. It can't really take away your life because your life is hid with God. So how does God protect you? Verse 11. For he shall give his angels charge over thee to keep thee in all their ways. He has given his angels charge or responsibility for you. We sometimes speak about guardian angels and this is a verse that suggests this strongly. God is giving his angels responsibility to look after his people, to keep thee, to look after you in all your way, in all thy ways, in everything that you're doing, in every situation you're in. The angels have responsibility to look after you. Verse 12. They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against the stone. The picture is of someone being supported and carried over rough ground so that he doesn't even hurt his foot by dashing it or hitting it against a stone. He's not going to trip up or stumble or fall because the angels are holding him up. Verse 13. Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder. The young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet. The lion of course is a fierce and aggressive animal. They had lions in Israel at the time of the Bible. The adder is a snake. The dragon, the word we've got for dragon here, can also mean a snake or it can mean a sea monster, a big animal at sea, a fierce animal and yet it's declared that this person who's trusting in God can walk on over these enemies and be safe. It's a reference here really to the spirit world rather than actual animals. The lions describe how fierce the enemies of God's people are. The adder and the dragon describe the secret way in which they try to poison and destroy their faith in God. But the person who trusts God stands above these. The person who trusts God is not overcome by the devil but rather in the strength that God has given him, he overcomes the devil's power. Verse 14, the words of God. 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. So this person, this person who's trusting God truly loves God. Therefore God declares that he will deliver him, rescue him. I will set him on high, I will place him in a high place because he knows my name, in other words he knows who I am, he truly knows me as a friend. Verse 15, he shall call upon me, in other words he will pray and I, that's God, will answer him. He'll pray and I answer his prayer. He suffers trouble, yes, but God declares I will be with him in trouble. I will deliver him, that's rescue him and honour him. So God will give honour to his people. And then the final promise, verse 16, with long life will I satisfy him and show him my salvation. My salvation is God's complete deliverance from all his troubles. Yes he goes through those troubles, yes his life does seem in danger, yes at times it seems as if he cannot stand but God is there looking after him, protecting him, defending him. And my Christian listeners will want me to point out that the word salvation there is Yeshua, the name of Jesus. So in a moment or two I'll read through this psalm in its entirety but first let me give you my email address because I would love to hear from you, 333kjv at gmail.com. If you've been rushing for a pen I'll give it again, 333kjv at gmail.com. And here is the whole psalm. He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, he is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in him will I trust. Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler and from the noisome pestilence. He shall cover thee with his feathers and under his wings shalt thou trust, his truth shall be thy shield and buckler. Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night, nor for the arrow that flyeth by day, nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness, nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday. A thousand shall fall at thy side and ten thousand at thy right hand, but it shall not come nigh thee. Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked. Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the Most High, thy habitation, there shall no evil before thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling. For he shall give his angels charge over thee to keep thee in all thy ways. They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against the stone. Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder, the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet. 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. He shall call upon me and I will answer him. I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honour him. With long life will I satisfy him and show him my salvation.