October 6, 2017
Psalm 91:1-4(All Scripture is from the New King James Version unless otherwise indicated)
The psalmist wrote in Psalm 91:1 through 4…
He who dwells 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 you
from the snare of the fowler and from the perilous pestilence. He shall
cover you with His feathers, and under His wings you shall take refuge;
His truth shall be your shield and buckler.
In the last blog we looked at the conditions for having God’s protection and blessing under His wings:
• We must be His offspring! For God only promises to protect His children! So we must heed what the Bible tells us:
✞ John 1:12 – “…as many as received Him [Jesus Christ as Savior] to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name.”
✞ John 17:3 – “…this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.”
✞ Acts 4:12 – “Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”
✞ Galatians 3:26 – “For you are all sons of God through faith in Jesus Christ.”
✞ I John 5:11-13 – “…God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.”
We also explored in the last blog that we carry the nature of Satan before we put our faith in Jesus Christ! That’s why we need to be recreated (see II Corinthians 5:17) – born again, as Jesus told Nicodemus in John 3:3 through 7. And that recreation and second birth can only be accomplished by God when we put our faith in Jesus Christ!
• We must dwell in the secret place of the Most High! The secret place is intimacy with God! Paul expressed this beautifully in Philippians 3:10 through 14:
That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellow-
ship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I
may attain to the resurrection of the dead. Not that I have already attain-
ed, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for
which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count
myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things
which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead,
I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ
Jesus.
The secret place is seeking, loving, and obeying God, “…with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind.” (Luke 10:27 – see also Jeremiah 29:12-14).
Jesus used the anology of a mother hen and her chicks running under her wings for protection in Matthew 23:37:
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those
who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together,
as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!
In His omnipotent knowledge, Jesus knew what was coming for this city – and all Israel! Just 40 years hence, the Romans would besiege, overthrow, and sack Jerusalem. Many thousands of Jews would be killed, and many more would have to run for their lives! With the destruction of the Temple, their religion (around which Jewish life revolved) would be drastically altered – even unto today! Israel would cease to exist as a nation for 1,878 years – from 70 AD until 1948!
When He spoke this lament over the Jews’ capital city, it was just after the Lord had offered Himself to Israel as their Messiah! But they rejected His offer! Instead they boldly proclaimed to Pilate in John 19:6 and 15, “Crucify Him, crucify Him!…We have no king but Caesar! ” As Jesus had called the Pharisees out in John 8:44 – “You are of your father the devil…,” so the majority of the Israelites would retain the seed of Satan, and remain under the authority of the evil one! They would know no peace! Instead they would be crushed to pieces! (See Matthew 21:44).
There are many illustrations in Scripture of protection and blessing in the secret place of the Most High:
• Genesis 7:1 and I Peter 3:20 – “Come into the ark, you and all your household….Noah… [and] eight souls were saved.”
• Exodus 12:23 – “…the LORD will pass through to strike the Egyptians; and when He sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the LORD will pass over the door and not allow the destroyer to come in to your houses to strike you.”
• Proverbs 18:10 – “The name of the LORD is a strong tower; the righteous run to it, and are safe.”
• Ephesians 1:3 through 7 – “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestinated us to the adoption of sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He has made us accepted in the Beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace….”
Read this last Scripture again! If you are not praising God for His secret place offered to every believer, then read it several more times! For “…His divine power has given us all things that pertain to life and godliness…”! (II Peter 1:3). Run under His wings, into the secret place of the Most High, under the shadow of the Almighty! There is no safer nor better place!