I was about to talk, but I forgot my microphone.
So, we’re in Psalm 91 today. Last week we looked at Psalm 90, and we want to continue on from there. I wanted to start by reading a few selected, especially positive, verses.
He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High
Shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
Because thou hast made the Lord, who is my refuge,
Even the Most High, thy dwelling-place.
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.
With long life will I satisfy him,
And show him My salvation.
Let’s pray together.
Lord, we continue to worship You. We thank You for Your Word, and we look to You to speak to us, to meet with us, to speak to our hearts, and to comfort our hearts also. In Jesus’ name, amen.
So, we’re doing Psalm 91 not just because it is the next psalm after Psalm 90, but because the two go together on purpose. Psalm 90 has the inscription, “A Prayer of Moses the man of God,” and Psalm 91 carries over that authorship.
Throughout the Psalms, there is often a pattern in the psalms that follow one another. These two go together because they are talking about the same circumstance and the same experience. Psalm 91 is written in the same style and has the same types of language, phrases, and words.
You can also connect these psalms with Deuteronomy, especially with the books of Moses. In Deuteronomy, Moses reflects on Israel’s time in the wilderness, gives the law again, and shares the heart behind everything. These psalms do something similar, though they are not found in Deuteronomy itself.
The Israelites would have kept these psalms through the time of Joshua, through the time of the judges, through King Saul, and then into the time of King David. David compiled many of the Psalms, including these two precious and ancient psalms of Moses, at the beginning of the fourth book of Psalms.
Psalm 90 is a prayer that came out of the wilderness experience. Through the discipline of God, the children of Israel discovered that they were wasting their lives away because they were not making their home in God. They repented, began to redeem the time, numbered their days, and sought to make their days count for eternity.
The generation that rose up while the older generation was perishing in its sins was raised with a heart to have days that mattered and to have God as their home. Those Israelites who were born in the wilderness were born free people, and they were born with God as their God. They were not born under Egypt.
Psalm 91 seems especially written with Joshua and Caleb in mind. Moses wrote of the wilderness experience of the children of Israel, but he also wrote of the experience Joshua and Caleb went through under the same outward circumstances.
Joshua and Caleb were among the twelve leaders who went to spy out the promised land. They gave a good report and were ready to go. They were ready to conquer the land. But the other ten were afraid and rejected God’s direction.
Israel lost its privilege through sin and needed to learn through deep dealing and discipline. The younger generation would enter the promised land, and Joshua and Caleb would enter with them because they had already learned that God was their home. They had hope in His strength and protection, and they knew how to fight giants with the Lord as their strength.
The Lord said, in effect, “You will live. You will enter into the promised land.”
Moses himself had gone through wilderness dealings early in life. When he was forty, he was strong and eloquent, but God dealt with him. He went into his own wilderness before God used him to lead Israel out of Egypt.
Everyone goes through this rod experience of God—the discipline of God. Everyone. It is not that some of us are like Joshua and Caleb and some of us are not. All of us have to go through this. We can delay the process, or we can accept it, learn, and begin to count our time.
If we have been experiencing the good of the lesson learned in Psalm 90, we are ready for Psalm 91. Even if it has only been a week, if you have had a week of numbering your days and seeking to make your home in God, Psalm 91 builds on that foundation.
Last time, we borrowed from Psalm 23:4:
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil; for Thou art with me;
Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me.
We used the rod last time—the comfort of the rod—to look at Psalm 90. Now we are looking at the comfort of the staff of the Lord to look at Psalm 91.
They all went through the valley of the shadow of death. They went through much evil, many plagues, pestilences, arrows flying at them, and many other troubles. Many people died. But there was comfort in the discipline they received, and there was also comfort in the staff of God—in the way the Lord was leading.
Joshua and Caleb learned from Moses that the Lord will fight for you, and you shall be still. They learned how to fight impossible enemies.
When Caleb entered the land, he was ready to take the mountains where the giants lived. He and his people defeated them and conquered the worst part. During the wilderness time, they had been trained. Joshua was able to work with a generation that was ready to fight.
The Lord was leading them into a purpose. There was an end in view, and a work was already happening. They were involved in that work from the beginning.
Joshua and Caleb, like Moses, had their lives extended. Caleb said at eighty-five that he was as strong as when he was forty and first went into the land. He asked for the mountains with the giants, saying that he was still battle-ready. His strength had not faded.
Psalm 90 speaks of people perishing around seventy years, or eighty if they are strong. That does not mean there is an absolute time limit of eighty years on humanity. But for the Israelites who were destined to perish in the wilderness, there was a determined limit because they had rejected the Lord when they were first called to enter the promised land.
Joshua lived to be one hundred and ten years old. Joshua and Caleb experienced the promise of life out of death. They experienced the comfort of the staff—the Lord leading them beyond the valley of the shadow of death.
He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High
Shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
This is the foundation, and this is where Joshua was already living. In the stories of Moses, you often see Joshua remaining near the tent where the presence of the Lord was.
When we think of the secret place of the Most High God, we may think of the Holy of Holies. Israel built the tabernacle in the wilderness, and the Holy of Holies was the place where the ark and the glory of the Lord were.
The Israelites understood that they could not casually enter that place. The high priest entered once each year to deal with sins, even sins the people did not know about. The whole experience showed that the presence of God was holy.
The Israelites said to Moses, “You speak to God; we do not want to speak to God. This is scary.” They saw Moses speaking with the Lord face to face. He would come away from meetings with the Lord, and his face would shine.
The tabernacle was a shadow of the reality in heaven. It was built according to the pattern Moses saw of the real thing. Moses experienced something of that heavenly reality in his fellowship with God.
Moses shows us that there is more than merely seeing the law. There is grace in the law. There is a way to understand its value, benefit, and lessons, but also a way to break through to loving the Lord with all your heart.
David experienced this also. That is why some of David’s Psalms sound as though he were living in the New Testament. David discovered the secret place of the Most High God. He prayed that he might dwell in the house of the Lord, even before the temple was built.
For us today, the way is wide open. Hebrews 10:19-22 explains that we can approach the Holy of Holies with boldness and full assurance of faith. Our hearts have been cleansed from an evil conscience by the precious blood of the Lord Jesus.
We can enter the secret place. We can enter the Holy of Holies, the place of the presence of God, where we behold the mercy seat spiritually. The way has been opened through Christ.
We have open access if we are willing. As we approach the house of God, the glory of God floods even the place of fellowship, light, bread, and incense. We are brought face to face with Him, and from glory to glory we are changed into His likeness.
As soon as we confess our sins, we are at the face of the Lord. When we are justified and made right before God, we are not merely made right before a King; we are brought near to Him in the Beloved Son.
He has translated us out of the kingdom of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son of His love. We are accepted in the Beloved immediately.
As soon as you confess your sins and repent, you are brought into the secret place of the Most High God. If you will just sit there, look to the Lord, and wait a moment—if you do not run off somewhere else—you can enjoy the fact that you are clean before the Lord and can fellowship with Him.
There the Lord searches us with His eyes. He searches our hearts, cleanses us, washes us, deals with us, and works on us. If we agree with Him and are willing to stay in His home, we begin to dwell in the secret place of the Most High.
As we repent, accept His dealings, remain in the light, and refuse to hide, He shows us the truth of what is going on.
After a while, we begin to behold His face. We begin to see His love and His care for other people. Then we are able to bring His presence into other places and share with others. This is the way we abide with the Lord.
Psalm 90 carries the thought, “Let me get to the experience of making God my home.” But after we begin doing that, Psalm 91 calls us to dwell in the secret place of the Most High.
There is a difference between going to God’s house, repenting, coming back, and realizing, “Ah, I did it again. I need to make my home in God,” and actually dwelling in the secret place of the Most High. This is what we call abiding. It is your normal place to stay.
It does not mean you never make a mistake. It means that you purpose to stay there. When the Lord calls us to do something difficult, such as fighting giants in the promised land, or when He calls us to give up something He is touching in our lives, we quickly obey.
John 15 teaches that if you want to abide, you keep His commandments. As those little commands come from the Lord while you are in His presence, staying in His presence means responding and doing those things.
If you put those things off until tomorrow or later in the day, you begin to end up in your own home. You pull away from that face-to-face experience. You cease to dwell in the secret place.
When we rest in His love, we are like John at the bosom of the Lord, hearing His heartbeat. If you dwell in the secret place of the Most High God, you begin to discover the heartbeat of the Lord.
This is a comfort to us. This is the way the Lord leads us, and we abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
We are walking through the valley of the shadow of death, with darkness and death all around us. But we say, “I will fear no evil; for Thou art with me.”
If the Lord is with you as your Shepherd, you are not veering from the path and needing the rod to bring you back. You are near to Him. He is the Most High God. He is the Almighty.
He is so great that His shadow overpowers every other shadow of death and Hades. The Lord Jesus has the keys of death and Hades. When we are under His shadow, we do not focus on death and Hades because we notice Him.
I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress;
My God; in Him will I trust.
The Lord Himself is our hiding place. All protection and safety are embodied in the Lord Himself, and that protection is found when we are near to Him.
For He will deliver thee from the snare of the fowler,
And from the deadly pestilence.
A snare for birds is usually attractive. Birds are drawn toward it, but it is hidden, sneaky, and unseen. Then the trap catches them.
There are spiritual traps like this. Something seems attractive and draws our attention away. It does not initially appear evil or deadly. It does not look like a trap.
With Israel, Balaam could not curse the Israelites as he had been paid to do. So he devised a trap. Beautiful women tempted the Israelites into sexual sin, and many fell into that trap and perished.
There are many traps like this for us. Something seems acceptable at first, and we begin to go in that direction. Often, our own conscience does not immediately save us because we can confuse our conscience through the trap. It makes enough sense in our minds that we deceive ourselves and continue walking in darkness.
But when you are dwelling in the secret place of the Most High, when you are near to the Lord, you can ask for His heart. You can stand before Him face to face. Even when you do not understand why something is wrong, you know His presence is not there.
You simply know, “The Lord is not with me when I am doing this.” That is a deliverance. There is comfort in the Lord’s presence and in knowing that He is leading you.
When we ask, “Is this okay for me to do?” we should also ask, “Am I dwelling in the secret place of the Most High? Am I near to the Lord right now?”
The destructive pestilence is like a disease that hides in darkness and destroys. Spiritually speaking, these are hidden things of shame. If there is something you must hide, something that requires a hidden mode on your web browser, something for which you must delete your history, or something you do not want others to know you are doing, it is a hidden thing of shame.
I do not mean something merely embarrassing, like going to the bathroom. I mean something which, spiritually speaking, you are not sure you would want others to know you are doing.
You may not always be able to put your finger on why it is wrong. You may have made yourself comfortable with it. But it will destroy you. It creeps along; it is small and unseen. It is invisible evil.
An arrow flying by day may be visible enough for you to raise a shield. A beast coming toward you may be something you can see and kill. But a destructive pestilence is unseen.
When there is something you are doing in secret, you know you are not in the secret place of the Most High God. When it is not something you can bring before the Lord in confidence, and even before the Lord’s people, you know it is a destructive pestilence.
He will cover thee with His pinions,
And under His wings shalt thou take refuge:
His truth is a shield and a buckler.
A shield protects your whole body. These large shields protect you when many arrows are flying by day. The Lord’s truth is like that shield. As you stand with the Lord, many of the arrows that would normally come against you are blocked: wrong thoughts and attacks from the enemy.
Then there is a buckler, a smaller arm shield that can be directed purposefully. In the midst of a battle, it can block a specific attack.
When particular thoughts come to you, the Lord’s truth becomes your protection. As you remain near to the Lord, you take that thought captive to Him and make it obey Christ, as taught in 2 Corinthians 10:5.
Usually, Scripture rises up. The truth of the Lord is like a buckler that blocks and undoes the thought. The Lord Jesus overcame Satan’s temptations by answering with Scripture.
We can also think of the Lord Jesus grieving over Jerusalem and desiring to gather its people under His wings as a mother hen gathers her chicks. There is a picture here of protection. The enemy would have to get through the mother first.
When we hide with the Lord, every attack and temptation has to get through the Lord first. That is a comfort in the staff of the Lord.
When temptations come and seem large in your mind, you have to bring the Lord Himself in front of those temptations. Hide under His wings. Come under His shadow. Dwell near to Him in the secret place. Remain next to His heart, hearing His heartbeat.
Then whatever is out there has to answer to Him first. If something comes through Christ, it is something you can handle in fellowship with the Lord. It will not destroy you. If it does not make it through the Lord, you are safe.
There is no temptation that the Lord will not help us through. As 1 Corinthians 10:13 teaches, God provides a way to bear up under temptation. This is part of the Lord’s comfort.
Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night,
Nor for the arrow that flieth by day;
For the pestilence that walketh in darkness,
Nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday.
These verses give us dangers at night and dangers in the daytime. There is terror at night, pestilence in darkness, arrows by day, and destruction at noonday. But with the Lord, whatever time it is, it is His presence that we notice.
In the New Jerusalem, the light of the city is the Lord Himself. Whatever darkness may be outside, the light of the Lord keeps it light.
My children would love that, because sometimes children—and even adults—become afraid of the terror by night or of pestilence that walks in darkness. We may not have pestilence in our house, but sometimes an ant crawls on the bed. Then my daughter is afraid to sleep in her bed and wants to go somewhere else, because she thinks the ants may creep up on her.
Sometimes I bring my children a flashlight, and we call it a shadow zapper so that they can fight against the darkness. But the thing that always works is when they go to Mommy and Daddy’s bed.
Even if we are not in the bed, if they can simply lie there for a moment and fall asleep, they have total peace. It is not that ants could never get there. It is that the presence of their parents brings comfort.
There is comfort in knowing, “I am in my parents’ bed. I am in the safety of this place.” With all of our children, they can fall asleep there.
It is like that with the Lord. There is comfort in His staff, knowing that He is leading us through. Whether it is nighttime and there are evils at night, or daytime and there are evils in the day, the Lord is with us.
With the Lord, it is always light. We walk in the light as God is in the light. It is not an issue to go somewhere full of evil when we are walking with the Lord.
Before I understood much about Psalm 91, I memorized it early on. I remember leading a Bible study in the old city of Jerusalem, in a dangerous part of the city. I had to walk through the Muslim quarters and through places that were not wise to walk through alone at night.
The Bible study did not end until around nine-thirty or ten, and I was by myself on those nights. Afterward, Psalm 91 came to me. I would rehearse it and walk together with the Lord through it.
I noticed that when the Lord was with me, it did not seem like nighttime. The terrors of the night were overshadowed by the reality of the Lord. It was a real comfort in that time.
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.
Joshua experienced this firsthand in the wilderness. His family, friends, and fellow Israelites kept falling and dying around him, just as Psalm 90 describes. There was death all around.
This did not come near Joshua because he had a promise from the Lord that he would make it through. In that particular circumstance, the blessing of his righteous walk was that he would remain alive and would not fall in the wilderness.
For the Israelites who rebelled, the physical reward of wickedness was to die in the wilderness. Spiritually speaking, we see something like this today. Fellow believers may walk beside us, share fellowship with us, and then suddenly fall down and stop walking with the Lord.
Sometimes it feels as though a thousand have fallen. We pray for them, desire to help them, and often can help them back up. The righteous may fall seven times and rise again. They can experience the rod of God, receive comfort, and return to the path.
But sometimes we do not know what is happening. While many are falling beside us, we may be tempted to pause our own walk and sit down with them, asking, “Why go on? Everyone around me is falling down. Am I the only one?”
Like Elijah, we may ask, “Am I the only prophet left?” We can feel lonely on the path of righteousness. But the Lord comforts us with His staff and says, “You are with Me. It will not come near you. You are with Me.”
The Lord is truly with you. He has brought many through this same way, and He is bringing others through it even now. Another generation is rising up, just as it did with Israel.
Joshua had to press on through the forty-two stages of Israel’s wilderness journey. He had to go on even after burying beloved family members. We press on for the sake of our brethren.
If brethren fall and are not faithful to the Lord, we may see the reward of wickedness. We may see them fall and stop walking with the Lord. But it does not have to touch us when we remain with the Lord. He will bring us through. He will comfort us with His staff and lead us on.
It is for their sake also. How many times in the wilderness did Moses fall on his face before the Lord when people were perishing? He knew the heartbeat of the Lord and cried, “This is not Your heart. This is not Your way. Help them, save them, rescue them, and do not give up on Your people.”
That is the comfort of the staff of the Lord. You know His heart because you are dwelling in the secret place of the Most High. As you see others falling, you do not fall beside them in hopelessness. You hold on to that staff with the Lord, press forward, pray, and travail for your brethren.
At some point, they will all be made clean and come to the New Jerusalem. The Lord will restore many in this time if we are faithful to press on. You behold the reward of wickedness, but you press on with the Lord. That is comfort.
We need to mention physical dangers because we have real physical dangers around us now and throughout our lives. Psalm 91 was a particular guarantee to Joshua and Caleb during the wilderness that physical danger would not destroy them before their appointed time.
But this does not mean believers have an absolute escape from every physical danger. It means that no physical danger touches us except what the Lord allows.
That is different from walking in a wicked way. We may have guardian angels protecting us, but if I am driving recklessly, driving drunk, or driving far beyond what I should, I am no longer walking in the secret place of the Most High. I am tempting the Lord.
Satan quoted Psalm 91 when he tempted the Lord Jesus, saying that His foot would not strike against a stone. But that was a twisted use of Scripture. If I tempt the Lord and go beyond the Shepherd’s path, I cannot presume upon the Lord’s protection.
There is comfort in physical protection and safety from the Lord. Here is the comfort: nothing comes upon us except what the Lord allows.
When Pilate told Jesus that he had authority to release Him or crucify Him, the Lord Jesus answered that Pilate would have no authority unless it had been given from above. Pilate could not act apart from God’s allowance.
Likewise, Satan could not touch Job unless the Lord allowed it. Satan recognized that there was a hedge of protection around Job. That is a man dwelling in the secret place of the Most High.
If physical danger affects us, if sickness comes upon us, or if pestilence comes near our tent, it is only because the Lord has allowed it and there is a reason behind it.
Even if we are to die, to die is gain, as Paul said in Philippians 1:21. If it is the Lord’s time and He allows it, then to die is gain. If we have more time here, that is good too, and we will be with the Lord. We can have comfort in His leading.
James 5:11 tells us that we see the end of the Lord in Job. There was a great purpose in what the Lord did with Job. There is comfort in knowing that if something happens to me, it is for the Lord’s purpose because I am near to Him.
Not every hardship is the rod of God disciplining us. There is a kind of discipline that separates wheat from weeds. But there is another kind of cross, like what Joshua and Caleb experienced in Psalm 91. It is like grapes being made into wine—not because the grapes are bad, but to bring them to greater maturity and usefulness.
This is the Lord’s design in the dealings that happen to us. Joshua and Caleb went through the wilderness and experienced its hardships, but it was all according to the Lord’s design to bring forth Himself in them.
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.
It seems that the Lord Himself takes over the psalm here. Moses is writing, but now the Lord speaks: “Because he hath set his love upon Me, therefore will I deliver him.”
Perhaps the Lord is speaking of Moses himself—His servant, the man of God, the meekest man. It is as though the Lord takes over the pen and says, “My servant Moses has set his love upon Me. I will deliver him. I will set him on high because he has known My name.”
This was a comfort to Moses. He was writing about Joshua and Caleb going into the promised land while he himself would not enter it in the same way. But the Lord showed him, “You will see it.”
Moses saw the promised land from the mountain. Yet Moses also appeared with Elijah and the Lord Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration in Matthew 17. There he saw the Lord’s true salvation.
The word translated “salvation” is Yeshuati—“My salvation,” connected with the name Joshua and, in New Testament form, Jesus. Moses saw the face of the true Man, the Lord Jesus, in glory.
Joshua had a similar experience. He walked in the steps of Moses and set his love upon the Lord. Before the battle of Jericho, Joshua encountered the Captain of the Lord’s host and stood in the presence of the Lord. He removed his sandals and beheld the Lord’s salvation.
Joshua’s original name was Hoshea, meaning salvation. Moses changed it to Jehoshua, or Joshua, which corresponds to the name Jesus. There is a beautiful play on words: “I will show him My Joshua. I will show him My Jesus.”
For us, there is a precious and solid promise as we walk this way. Sometimes the Lord gives a specific promise for a particular circumstance—perhaps that a danger will not come near you. That is unique and personal.
But there is a promise given to all of us: the Lord will satisfy us with eternal life and show us His salvation. In the future we will see the Lord, and He will say, “Well done, good and faithful servant; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.”
That is the reward of the righteous. We will see Him face to face. Yet before that day, we can behold Him spiritually, face to face, and behold Him in His glory.
The greatest comfort any person can have while walking through the valley of the shadow of death is the presence of the Lord. It is not merely that you are surrounded and protected by Him. He turns your gaze so that you behold Him face to face.
As you behold Him, He shows you the face of Jesus. He shows you the love of Jesus. He shows you the smile of God. He shows you what your heart has always longed for—the purpose of our lives: to finally meet Him, for Him to know us, and for us to know Him.
Right now, we are beholding Him. Then, when we suddenly see Him, He will be familiar. He will smile, and we will see that smile physically as we have known it spiritually.
He will say, “Well done. I appreciate you. Enter into the joy of the Lord. You have brought joy to Me, and now I bring joy to you.”
The Lord gives us joy in our most difficult times. In the hardest times, He gives us the joy of the Lord as our strength. He gives us the very joy of His presence.
So let us take comfort in the staff of the Lord as He leads us, fearing no evil because our God is with us.
Lord, we worship You. We worship You again in the beauty of Your presence. Lord, we love You, and we love that we can abide with You and abide in Your love.
We love that we can see Your smile today. Lord, we thank You for this promise that You will show us Your salvation, and that even now, as we hide ourselves in You, we can make our home there.
Lord, we take our stand today that we do not want to leave You. You will never leave us nor forsake us. We set ourselves to take refuge in You right now. In Jesus’ name, amen.