Brotherly Encouragement (Psalm 91:3-10)

It looks as if a second speaker responses to the words of the speaker in verse 2. We can call him Speaker B. He wants to encourage his fellow believer (Speaker A) in his commitment to God, which is a very good and important aspect of godly living.

Speaker B focuses on divine protection from unseen and uncontrollable dangers. They are only unseen and uncontrollable to humans, but not to God. The speaker mentions several dangers. A fowler is seeking to trap believers (who can this be but the devil?). They cannot see his next plan of attack, but the Lord does. No doubt, the trap will be designed for believers in a personal way, which makes it more dangerous. While they may not see it, their faithful God is fully aware of it and can deliver them from it, perhaps even without them realising it was there.

Speaker B also mentions the danger of deadly pestilence, a sudden plague that threatens all within reach. Today, because we live in a society which does not often face such a danger, we cannot imagine the terror that a sudden outbreak of disease would cause in a community. It was something beyond their control, and usually there was nowhere to hide from its reach. 

Where does Speaker B think safety is to be found? In God. He likens the Lord to a bird and to a soldier (v. 4). His friend, he says, will find refuge in God similar to how chicks find safety below the wings of the mother bird. He also will find safety behind the shield and buckler that God holds, which is his faithfulness. The point of both illustrations is that God comes between the believer and the danger. Speaker A is assured by his friend that he will be safe in God (which is way of saying that our safety is in Christ). 

Because that is the case, Speaker B points out that his friend need not fear what may happen at any time (vv. 5-6), whether during the daylight or during the darkness. Even when he takes a rest, as people often did at noon, he would be safe. Nor would he succumb to dangers that took others away in large numbers (v. 7).

Speaker B then urges his friend to look ahead to the final deliverance that God will give, which will be in contrast to what he will give to the wicked who would cause the dangers that his friend would face. The deliverance was not connected to any particular skill possessed by Speaker A, but only to the fact that he had chosen the Lord as his place of safety. Speaker B also points out that the Lord is his refuge as well.

Is the psalmist suggesting that it is possible to live a trouble-free life? No, but he is saying that it is possible to avoid certain expressions of evil. One suggestion is that the dangers described here are those that faithless Israelites would face from breaking the Mosaic covenant. There is a similarity between the list of curses in Deuteronomy 28 and the ones mentioned in the psalm. The speakers here, in contrast, are faithful to God.

How can Speaker B say that no evil or plague will affect Speaker A? The answer is the place of protection. He is in a special tent – his shelter is the Lord. His God will protect him from all the dangers that could destroy him. After all, he is the faithful God who will be faithful to those who are faithful to him.

How safe are we? (Psalm 91:1-2)

We know that individuals and firms engage in the necessity of examining their security provision if they possess items of value that could be lost if their security provision is inadequate. Of course, if their security is adequate, then they can feel secure if they know that is the case. Their feelings and knowledge do not make them more secure, but their feelings are an expression of comfort based on their sure knowledge that things are very secure.

Believers in God should know how secure they are. God is not just adequate in his security, he is much more than adequate. His people are safe spiritually whether or not they know all the details or sense the comfort they could have. Yet they should know a great deal about divine security, and they should have comfort from knowing about it.

There are different ways of estimating the provision of divine security. The psalmist in verses 1 and 2 mentions one way, and this way was to consider four names of God. He describes him as the Most High, the Almighty, the Lord, and God. 

The meanings of those names are obvious. Other rulers may be high, but only God is the Most High. He is infinitely greater than any creature or all creatures combined. We cannot estimate how high he is, because he is always infinitely higher than our greatest concept of him.

As the Almighty, he is the omni-competent provider for all the needs of his people at every moment. He knows their needs and their situations, and can deal with them immediately without any loss to his resources.

He is the LORD, which stresses that he is the eternal God who is in covenant with his people. Because he is the faithful God, he will never break his covenant commitments and promises. Since is infinitely wise, he always knows how to implement the contents of that covenant in which his grace is constantly revealed. His people find him at all times to be a refuge and a fortress, providing them with ongoing security.

He is the powerful God, the One who has no weaknesses, who cannot be defeated no matter how strong his opponents seem to be. His power is such that he can keep all his people from falling away from him, although at times he may let them experience the sad consequences that follow on from lack of devotion on their part.

Since he had that knowledge of those divine names, the psalmist knew that he could safely trust in God. We too have knowledge of divine names, even of each Person of the Trinity. Thinking about those divine titles enables us to know about our security and feel the comfort that comes from that knowledge.

So safe (Psalm 91:1)

In this anonymous psalm, we listen in to several speakers, with the One having the final word being God himself (vv. 12-14). We can see from his contribution that he was pleased with what the other speakers said. 

Of course, God was not only a speaker in the conversation. In addition, the Holy Spirit was working in the hearts of the human contributors, leading them to focus on the amazing benefits found in a saving relationship with God.

In verse 1, the psalmist describes a basic but profound reality, which is that God’s people are secure. Some suggest that verse 1 describes the experience of believers who are given special privileges by God. That may be true, although it may be better to see it as describing those who have greater awareness of the security provided by God. In a sense, all believers are equally secure. 

Yet none are beyond spiritual attack. Later in the psalm, the author mentions several types of ongoing danger. It is easier to cope with attack when those being assailed know the strengths of their defences. What can be stronger than God!

Shelter was required constantly from the sun as well as from other potential dangers. The author likens God to a shelter. Maybe he is thinking of the shelter a tent could provide, or perhaps the shelter a mother bird provides. Obviously, God is much bigger than them. In the heat of the sun, those in a tent could see the shadow of the shelter, and chicks could see the shadow of their mother. Both saw their security from the inside and could sense the presence of their security.

What is our safety? Surely, it is to be in Christ. Jesus said that his people are held by his hand and by his Father’s hand, and that nothing can take them out of there. Paul told the Colossians that their lives were hidden in Christ in God, which is a wonderful description of divine security. Being there, we can see our security from the inside.

So if we believe in Jesus we are safe. But if we meditate on what it means to be ‘in Christ’ we will discover more and more how safe we are, even when we are under spiritual attack.