“Because you have made the Lord your refuge, and the Most High your dwelling place, there shall no evil befall you, nor any plague or calamity come near your tent. For He will give His angels [especial] charge over you to accompany and defend and preserve you in all your ways [of obedience and service]. They shall bear you up on their hands, lest you dash your foot against a stone. You shall tread upon the lion and the adder; the young lion and the serpent shall you trample underfoot.” (Psalm 91:9-13 AMPC)

I cannot “outgive” God. Can you? Now, that is a rhetorical question if ever there were one! Every time I start writing for you, dear reader, God blesses me far beyond anything I could ask or imagine. And that includes the day I wrote this blog, which was the fourth day of record-breaking cold and snow for Texas and many other states. From my desk, I saw snow lining the wide expanse of bare branches in front of the big double window. Piles of snow that had fallen four days before remained trapped in the forks of the bigger branches. Ice coated the smaller branches not big enough to capture snow. I watched, in wonder, as a cardinal, one of my most favorite birds, perched on a snow covered branch – just like Christmas cards I have loved all my life! Those rare snow-bound days gave extra hours for writing and Bible study and motivated me to make more time—when life returned to normal–to just sit down and search out the meaning of passages, new and old, talking with Holy Spirit, trusting Him to lead as I search His Word. By His grace, I have done that. Truly, Romans 8:28 is true!

“Line upon line. . . that concept – again! On that snowy day, as I heard the unfamiliar crunch of snow being shoveled from the sidewalk, thanks to a kind-hearted neighbor, I was looking again at that well-known passage in Isaiah 28–”line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little, there a little” . To dig deeply into that passage is a topic for another time, but briefly I see that God says He carefully taught His people that they must depend on Him and nothing else, that He has a “place of rest” for the weary, but they refused to heed His instruction so He will teach them with bitter consequences. Psalm 91 also speaks of that “place of rest”, that secret place of the Most High. Hopefully, we voluntarily seek out the place of rest that God has lovingly prepared, without being pressed there by the harsh consequences of complacency toward God.

Here is what we saw in previous blog posts on Psalm 91, dated Feb. 4, 11, and 25.

• V 1-4 If we make God our home, and confidently trust Him THEN He will deliver us and cover us, thus enabling us to find true refuge. THEN
• V 5-9 From our chosen position within that secret place, we will not fear, and we will be protected AND
• V 9-13 Because we obey and serve God, His angels will protect us and we will do exploits AND
• V 14-16 Because we love God deeply and serve Him, He will give us a peaceful, victorious, overcoming, satisfying and long life.

Verse 9: “Because you have made the Lord your refuge, and the Most High your dwelling place, there shall no evil befall you, nor any plague or calamity come near your dwelling.” Notice the “Because” that starts the passage from verse 9 through 13. The KJV also uses “because” and the NLT and NIV both use “If/then”, which makes the conditional nature of the promises in verses 9 through 13 even clearer. God says that because we stay close to Him and trust Him, He will protect us from evil (harm in some translations), plague, and calamity.

With this verse, as often happens when I try too hard to nail down what a verse means, I sense Holy Spirit saying to reflect on different translations and related verses that He has brought to mind, and then move on. So, I will just make note that in John 16:33 Jesus says He has overcome the world and deprived it of power to harm us. To me, that means that although we will encounter the “troubles, trials, distress, and frustration” Jesus said we would in this fallen world, those things will not do lasting damage or harm. Perhaps that is what God means here. Also, in Luke 10:19, Jesus says to His disciples “I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you.” (NIV) Such deep truths to ponder!

So, why does God promise us protection from evil or harm, from plagues and calamities? He says clearly that it is BECAUSE we have made Him our refuge and we dwell, or remain constantly, in the secret place of the Most High. Then, in verse 11 He explains how He will do that.

Verse 11: For He will give His angels [especial] charge over you to accompany and defend and preserve you in all your ways [of obedience and service]. (AMPC)

The NLT says “For He will order his angels to protect you wherever you go.” Angels are a profound mystery and, obviously, an essential part of all that God does and of spiritual things. (I know that is a woefully inadequate statement.) I know angels are real and that Hebrews 1:14 declares “Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?” I have never personally seen an angel, but they are mentioned often in the Bible, and that is enough for me! I have friends who have, however, seen angels,  and I have learned something of them in the books “Angel Armies: Releasing the Warriors of Heaven” by Tim Sheets and “Angels, God’s Secret Agents” by Billy Graham.

Notice that God says His angels will protect us “wherever we go.” It is important to recall that Satan tried to tempt Jesus to misapply this verse. Read Luke 4:1-13 to see the temptations Jesus endured before beginning His earthly ministry. In Luke 4:9 to 12, Satan quotes Psalm 91:11-12 and urges Jesus to throw Himself down from the highest point of the temple. Jesus answers this temptation with another verse, Deuteronomy 6:16 “Do not put the LORD your God to the test.” It is essential for us to follow this example of Jesus. Yes, God’s angels are watching over us, wherever we go, but if we deliberately do foolish things, we are testing the limits of God’s patience and should not be surprised if disaster falls upon us.

Our ways “of obedience and service”. We are promised God’s protection as we go about obeying and serving God. To me, this verse says that If we are living in disobedience or not serving Him, this does not apply.

We will do exploits. When we follow God whole-heartedly, He protects us and, as verse 13 indicates, we will do great things. What could be greater than defeating the enemy of our souls? Holy Spirit led the writer of Psalm 91 to tell us that, if you meet God’s conditions, “You will tread upon the lion and the adder; the young lion and the serpent shall you trample underfoot. (Psalm 91:13, AMPC)” The devil is compared to a roaring lion in 1 Peter 5:8 and in Genesis 3:14 God cursed the serpent, who had tempted Eve.

Notice that the second half of Psalm 91:13 echoes the first half, saying that not only will we walk upon or trample lions and cobras (NLT) but we will crush them under our feet. Remember the destiny God decreed for Satan in Genesis 3:14-15? Because the serpent had deceived Eve, God told the serpent ”Because you have done this, you are cursed more than all animals, domestic and wild. You will crawl on your belly, groveling in the dust as long as you live. And I will cause hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.” (NLT)

And Romans 16:20 encourages us that “The God of peace will soon crush Satan under our feet.” (NIV) When an animal is crushed, it is rendered powerless and dead, unable to affect the world of the living any longer. We do our part to crush the enemy here on earth in our personal life by living a life of loving obedience to God. And as John Gill commented, we can be encouraged by the fact that in heaven, we will be eternally free from the reach of Satan (from the John Gill commentary at Biblestudytools.com)

Next week we will look at the last four verses of Psalm 91 – which include eight thundering “I will” promises from God.  What a loving Father He is to tell us how to stay safe under His loving wings!