Psalm 91 is one of the most comforting chapters in the Bible, and one of the easiest to misread. It begins like this:<\/p>\n
\n\u201cHe who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say to the LORD, \u2018You are my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.\u2019\u201d (Psalm 91:1\u20132)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Then come promises so large that we hardly dare believe them:<\/p>\n
\n\u201cThough a thousand may fall at your side, and ten thousand at your right hand, no harm will come near you.\u201d (Psalm 91:7)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Is that true? Every one of us knows people who trusted God and still fell ill, lost their work, or stood at a graveside. Has the psalm promised too much? Or have we read it too quickly?<\/p>\n
Read on, and the psalm answers us itself.<\/p>\n
Look closely at what is promised.<\/strong> The psalm names real dangers: the snare, the plague, the terror of the night. God does keep His people through such things, far more often than we know, and nothing can reach them unless He allows it. But He has not promised that His people will never be ill, or bereaved, or wronged. What He has promised is that none of these things will come to them as His punishment, and none of them will finally harm them. The next verse speaks of \u201cthe punishment of the wicked\u201d (verse 8): that is the one thing a person who shelters in God will only ever see from a place of safety. Whatever else God allows into the life of His child, He allows as a Father, and He turns it to good (Romans 8:28).<\/p>\n
Look at what God says at the end.<\/strong> In the last three verses God Himself speaks: \u201cWhen he calls out to Me, I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble. I will deliver him and honor him\u201d (verse 15). Notice the words with him in trouble<\/em>. God does not say that His people will have no trouble. He says they will never be in it alone, and that trouble will not have the last word.<\/p>\n
Look at how Jesus read this psalm.<\/strong> When the devil tempted Jesus, he quoted it: \u201cHe will command His angels concerning You\u201d. Throw Yourself down from the temple, he said, and see if God keeps His word (Matthew 4:5\u20137). Jesus refused. God\u2019s promises are given to be trusted, not to be used to put Him to the test.<\/p>\n
And Jesus, who trusted His Father perfectly, was not kept from suffering. He went to the cross and died for sinners, bearing the judgement that our sins deserve. On the third day God raised Him from the dead. He was not delivered from death. He was delivered through it.<\/p>\n
That is the shape of the promise for everyone who belongs to Him. It is not that nothing painful will ever happen to you. It is that nothing can take you out of His hand:<\/p>\n
\n\u201cI give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one can snatch them out of My hand.\u201d (John 10:28)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
So who is the promise for?<\/strong> A shelter protects only those who are inside it. The psalm speaks of the person who has \u201cmade the LORD your dwelling\u201d (verse 9), who loves Him and knows His name (verse 14). And the way in is Jesus Himself:<\/p>\n
\n\u201cCome to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.\u201d (Matthew 11:28)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
To come to Him is to turn from your sin and trust Him, and Him alone, to save you. If you have never done that, do not put it off. He has promised: \u201cWhen he calls out to Me, I will answer him.\u201d<\/p>\n
And if you belong to Him and today is a hard day, say the second verse aloud, as your own words to God: \u201cYou are my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Psalm 91 makes promises so large that we hardly dare believe them. What does God promise those who shelter in Him, and what does He not?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3040,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"bh_theme":[50],"class_list":["post-3039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-devotionals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblehelp.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblehelp.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblehelp.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblehelp.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblehelp.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/biblehelp.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3039\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblehelp.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblehelp.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblehelp.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblehelp.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3039"},{"taxonomy":"bh_theme","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblehelp.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bh_theme?post=3039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}