Let us turn together in the Word of God to Psalm 91 and give our careful attention to the reading of this psalm. Psalm 91, let us hear God's own Word. He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say to the Lord, my refuge and my fortress, my God. in whom I trust. For he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the deadly pestilence. He will cover you with his pinions and under his wings you will find refuge. His faithfulness is a shield and buckler. You will not fear the terror of the night nor the arrow that flies by day nor the pestilence that stalks in darkness nor the destruction that wastes at noonday. A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you. You will only look with your eyes and see the recompense of the wicked. Because you have made the Lord your dwelling place, the Most High who is my refuge, no evil shall be allowed to befall you, no plague shall come near your tent. For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways. On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone. You will tread on the lion and the adder, the young lion and the serpent you will trample underfoot. Because he holds fast to me in love, I will deliver him. I will protect him because he knows my name. When he calls to me, I will answer him. I will be with him in trouble. I will rescue him and honor him. With long life, I will satisfy him and show him my salvation. So far, the reading of God's word. Like Psalm 90, Psalm 91 is a beautiful psalm, a wonderful psalm, an encouraging psalm, a relatively familiar psalm, and also a somewhat challenging psalm. and after I had decided to preach on this psalm tonight and realized there was an awful lot in it, then I was asked to preach again next Sunday night. So I'm going to preach part of it tonight and part of it next Sunday night, but I didn't want you to think that I failed to get to the end of the psalm tonight when I quit partway through, so I wanted to make that clear right at the outset. Psalm 91. It's a wonderful psalm because of the wonderful promises that it makes. Consider verse 7. A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you. Or verse 10. No evil shall be allowed to befall you. No plague shall come near your tent. No evil. That's a wonderful promise, isn't it? It was this psalm that was my father-in-law's favorite psalm and brought him great comfort after he was shot down during the Second World War and spent some 16 months in a German prisoner of war camp. You can sort of see how a verse like a thousand may fall at your side, but it will not come near you might seem appropriate. And he drew great strength and comfort from this psalm over and over again. And we can appreciate that, can't we? We can understand the clarity, the joy, the comfort, the hope that such promises bring us. But what's challenging about these promises is how do they apply to members of my father-in-law's crew who died the day he was shot dead? Are these promises too good to be true? As I look around this church tonight, there's hardly a pew in which I don't see someone who has struggled with real problems in life. And we might well ask, can many of us really say no evil has been allowed to befall us? You see, the question here is, these are wonderful promises. These are encouraging promises. We know they're true promises because they're in the Word of God. But exactly what do they mean? Exactly how do we apply them? exactly how do we understand what they mean for us? Clearly, they don't mean that we'll never have any trouble in life. But what do they mean? How can we appropriate them? How can we rejoice in them? How can we rightly understand them? And in order to do that, I think, we have to really pause over this psalm and reflect on it. You remember the psalmist any number of times calls us to meditate on the psalms. Meditation means going over and over and over it again. Not just giving it a quick read-through. You know, sometimes when we read, say, Matthew chapter 1, the genealogy of our Lord, it may be alright to give that a somewhat quick read-through. There are important things in there, but we might not need to meditate and meditate and meditate on Matthew chapter 1. But here, particularly because this is a poetic expression, we have to give some careful reflection to what is going on in this psalm if we're to understand it and apply it. And the very first thing we have to reflect on is the context of this psalm. What is its setting in the Bible? Why has God put it here? What is it connected to? How does it relate to the history of God's people? I think sometimes we treat the psalms like a hallmark card. You know, you just sort of rummage through the cards to find one that seems somewhat appropriate. And we don't think that the cards necessarily in the store are put in any particular order. Or that the greeting of one card necessarily relates to the greeting of another card. But that's not the way it is with the Psalms. I think the Psalms are very deliberately placed where they are in the Psalter. And what that means is that we are looking at the second Psalm of book four. And book four of the Psalter comes after book three. That's the kind of thing they have to pay tuition for at seminary. So you'll want to write that down. Book four comes after book three. Now, what is book three all about? Book three is primarily about a crisis in the history of Israel. The crisis of invasion. The crisis of destruction. The crisis of exile. And so, Psalm 74, the second psalm of Book 3, we have this reflection on what's happening in Israel. And the psalmist cries out to the Lord, Direct your steps to the perpetual ruins. The enemy has destroyed everything in the sanctuary. Or down at verse 7, They set your sanctuary on fire. They profaned the dwelling place of your name, bringing it down to the ground. We're turning over to the second part of verse 20 of Psalm 74. For the dark places of the land are full of the habitations of violence. Israel's been invaded. Not just invaded, but conquered. And really, in a fundamental way, destroyed because the temple has been destroyed. And that theme continues in the last psalm of book 3, where we read, for example, in verse 38, But now you have cast off and rejected. You are full of wrath against your anointed. It's not only the temple that is gone, but the king is gone. Down in verse 49 of Psalm 89, Lord, where is your steadfast love of old, which by your faithfulness you swore to David? Lords, what's going on? We don't understand. Everything seems gone. Everything seems defeated. The temple is destroyed. The kingship is overturned. Many of your people are carried off into exile outside the land of promise. All is lost. And this book three is really reflecting back on what Moses had prophesied would happen to the people of Israel. You all remember how late in the book of Deuteronomy, Moses wrote that if Israel was faithless, they would suffer exile. But then Moses went on to say, but after that exile, God will remember his covenant and restore his people. Exile will not be the end. Exile will not be the final word. Exile will not be all there is. And so the very language that we find at the end of Deuteronomy, if you want a homework assignment for this week, spend some time this week reading Deuteronomy 32 and 33. And you'll see how much of that language is picked up in Psalm 91. And Psalm 90, as the first book, the first psalm in book 4 of the Psalter, is picking up this theme of loss. Verse 9 of Psalm 90, For all our days pass away under your wrath. We bring your years to an end like a sigh. Or verse 11, Who considers the power of your anger and your wrath according to the fear of you? You see how Israel has had to face loss and judgment and the anger of the Lord. But Psalm 90 also remembers the promise of restoration, doesn't it? Verse 12, or rather verse 13, Return, O Lord, how long? Have pity on your servants. Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us. We hear something of an echo of Isaiah 40. Comfort, comfort, my people. Her warfare is ended. You see, this is the flow of history of God's dealing with his old covenant people. First this exile and judgment and wrath, and then this restoration. And so one of the great themes that we find here in Psalm 90 and in Psalm 91 is, when we've lost everything, what do we have? When we've lost everything, what do we have? And Psalm 90 verse 1 begins with this marvelous statement. Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all our generations. Lord, we live in you. And even if we lose Jerusalem as our dwelling place, even if we lose Israel as our dwelling place, we have an older, surer, more wonderful dwelling place, the Lord himself. And that theme then is picked up again at the beginning of Psalm 91. You thought I was never going to get there. Well, here we are. We are at Psalm 91 now. This is an unpardonably long introduction unless you're preaching two sermons. And here we have this wonderful expression of confidence at the beginning of Psalm 91. He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. This is the confidence of the psalmist. This is the declaration of faith, if you will, of the psalms. Everyone who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. Now, what exactly does that mean? Well, in its simplest form, it means he who lives in God will live in God. It's a little grander when you put it poetically, isn't it? But the reason that it's put poetically is very much in relation to all of this context I've been talking about, all of this suffering that Israel has been going through. Israel that's lost its dwelling place in Jerusalem and lost its dwelling place in Israel is now able to say, I can dwell in the shelter of the Most High. There is no higher power. Those who have invaded Israel and conquered Israel are nothing in comparison to the Most High. So it's not just that we're promised that if we dwell in God, we will dwell in God. We're promised that if we dwell in the Most High, in the All-Powerful, we will abide in the Almighty. You see, the stress of the poet here is, in your suffering, in your loss, Israel, don't forget. that your God is all-powerful, that your God is in control, that your God is supreme, and that your God is with you, that your God is close to you, we dwell in the very shelter of the Most High. We abide in the shadow of the Almighty. Now, to be close enough to someone who casts a shadow, you have to be close, right? That's the picture here, our closeness to God. That's the confidence that we are called to have. No matter what our sense of loss, no matter what our sense of struggle, God himself is our dwelling place. God himself is our shelter. And in the end of the day, what the psalmist is saying, that's all that we need. That's all that we need. To be so close to God. And so this wonderful expression of confidence in the God of all power then draws from the heart of the believer a statement of commitment. Confidence leads to commitment. That's what this psalm is telling us at the beginning. And so verse 2 says, I will say to the Lord, my refuge and my fortress, my God in whom I trust. Here is the commitment of the heart of a believer, of an Israelite or of a Christian who in his relationship with God has this kind of intimacy. I will say to the Lord, you are my refuge. When every other refuge is gone, you are my fortress. When the walls of Jerusalem have been torn down, you are my God in whom I trust. That's the very essence of what our Christian life is about, is trusting that God is who he says he is. that he is the Most High One, that he is the Almighty One, that he is the refuge and fortress of his people. That's the promise, and that's the commitment that the psalmist makes. I trust those words, O God. We recited tonight the Nicene Creed. I believe in one God, this God. I believe in him. You see, the words of the creeds that we take upon our lips, whether the Nicene Creed or the Apostles' Creed, are intended not simply to be speaking the truth. They are that. But to be speaking what's in our hearts. I believe in God. Not as an abstract idea, simply. But I believe in God who is my refuge and my fortress, my shelter. I believe in the God who draws close to me. Of course, in a sense, this psalm should mean more to us than it meant to Israel because we know how God drew close to us in Jesus Christ. It is in Jesus Christ that we find shelter, isn't it? It's in the shadow of his cross that we have a refuge. He is to us a fortress. You could almost add his name here to verse 2. I will say to the Lord, Jesus, you are my refuge, Jesus, my fortress, Jesus, my God, Jesus, in whom I trust. And that's what's being called out to us as God's people. Do you have that confidence? Do you have that commitment? And when we reflect on that, we see that God in this psalm is making a commitment to us. In a sense, the first two verses and the last three verses of this psalm are interconnected and echo one another. The first two verses we could say the psalmist speaks. In the last three verses, God speaks. And to the psalmist, to the believer who says, my God, I will trust you, God says, because he holds fast to me in love, God has seen the heart of the believer, the heart of trust, the heart of holding on because we love the Lord. And God says then to us, as the expression of his commitment, Because he, the believer, holds fast to me in love, I will deliver him. I will protect him because he knows my name. When he calls to me, I will answer him. I will be with him in trouble. I will rescue him and honor him. With long life, I will satisfy him and show him my salvation. That's a marvelous commitment, isn't it? An amazing commitment. a sweeping commitment for his people this is what God declares I will deliver him from all the trouble that he has seen I will protect him I will be his guardian I will be with him in trouble and then the amazing promise when he calls to me I will answer we'll come back next week to talk about well, it doesn't seem like we get the answers we want. But this is the fundamental promise we want to cling to. God says, when you call to me, I will answer you. And what's really crucial here, you see, is that there is nothing mechanical about this relationship between God and the believer as envisioned in this psalm. That's why it's so wrong when some people have said, well, you see, you have to do a certain amount for God to do his part. That's not the way the relationship between God and the believer is constructed in the scriptures ever. It is a loving, mutual, and intimate relationship between the heart of the believer and God Almighty who comes and says, I want you to know how much I care for you. When you call to me, I will answer you. When you call to me, I hear you. I am not far away. And when I see the needs of your life, I will be with you and answer you and provide for you. And he'll do more than meet the minimum. It's amazing here. I will honor him. Isn't that an amazing thing for God to promise to you and me that he will honor us? What can that even mean? It means he'll exalt us. He'll raise us up. He'll show the world his love for us. And he'll satisfy us. With long life, I will satisfy you. What about those who die young? Has this promise not been kept? Well, how long is the life that God has given to you and me in him because of the work of Christ? It is not for this life only that we have believed. It is not for this life only that we have lived. The promise of the gospel, the great promise of the gospel, is that we'll live forever in Christ. He will satisfy us with a life that we'll never end. I've been struck recently in reading various parts of the Bible how one of the themes that comes up again and again and again and again is that people don't look to the long run. People live only for today, or maybe only for today and tomorrow, or maybe only for today and next month. And we think it's a really big deal when we make a resolution for a whole year. I've lost that same 15 pounds every year for years and years and years. What is the life that God has promised us? It's an everlasting life in Jesus Christ that will be satisfying. Some of you may have been down to the Natural History Museum in Balboa Park where there's a display of the replicas of all the treasures that were found in Pharaoh Tutankhamen's tomb. Fascinating exhibit if you're interested in ancient Egypt. I find not everyone is interested in ancient Egypt. But if you are, it's a fascinating exhibit. And the reason that Pharaoh was buried with chariots and swords and games and statues of servants and food and clothing was that his long life in eternity would be satisfied. The problem with the ancient Egyptian religion is that apparently that only worked for Pharaoh. Only he got the long life. Only he had all the gold and all the servants. You see, Scripture doesn't see it that way. The promise of a glorious, satisfying, fulfilled life forever with Jesus Christ is what the Scriptures promise to his people. God says, I will show him my salvation. I will show him all that I have provided for him in Christ. That's God's commitment. And you see how intimate that is, how from the heart of God, how much it shows the love of God. We trust him and love him. He loves us and provides for us. It's not mechanical. It's not accounting. It's not we do so much that he does so much that he does. It's not that way at all. It's a life of love together. When Pastor Gordon preached from 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, I was struck particularly by this statement. Paul says, our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep, we might live. And I expected that Paul would have said, so that we might live for him. Christ died for us, so that we might live for him. Paul does say that in other places. would be a perfectly true thing to say, a perfectly helpful thing to say, but it's not what Paul actually said. He wrote about our Lord Jesus Christ who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him. Our life is not just for God, our life is with God. Our life is intertwined personally with God. The God who has loved us with an everlasting love. The God who provides us with a dwelling place for all generations. A God who has promised to be our refuge and our fortress. A God who has promised to satisfy us with long life and show us his salvation. What a glorious promise. What a glorious hope. What a glorious provision. But most of all, what a glorious God who has so cared for us and promised so to provide for us. And this is just the beginning and end of this psalm. The really good stuff is in the middle. And so come back next week and we'll continue with this psalm to look into the heart of God as he speaks to his people in their distress and in their need with rich promises to encourage us and to build us up in the faith. But even if we didn't have verses 3 through 13, this is a pretty good song of great encouragement. So I hope the confession of every heart here tonight is this. I will say to the Lord, my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust. Amen. Let us pray. Oh Lord, how thankful we are for the rich promises of your word. How we confess that meditating upon your word helps us to see things so much more clearly, so much more profoundly. And draws us into your word and into the love that you have for your people in Jesus Christ. And so, O Lord, build us up in that faith. Particularly when the days are dark and difficult. Particularly in those days when you seem far away. Particularly in those times when it's hard to believe that you care and that you protect us. Be with us, O Lord. Encourage us. Encourage us by your word. Encourage us by your Holy Spirit. Encourage us by your people so that we might be, indeed, each one of us, those who trust in you. Hear us, for we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.