Hope for Mortal Man #2

One of the prevalent things that I've been trying to do again and again and again through everything I've said in the pulpit is to just try to convince you God is good to His people. God cares for you. God is providentially concerned for you and ordering everything for your benefit and for your good. Welcome to The Truth Pulpit with Don Green, founding pastor of Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Hi, I'm Bill Wright. Today Don continues our series, Here You May Safely Dwell, with part two of a message titled, Hope for Mortal Man. Last time Don helped us appreciate the protection God offers believers in Psalm 91. We were reminded we need to appropriate that protection, claiming it as a biblical promise. Then we are to apply the hope we now have and not let challenging circumstances shake our faith in that promise. On today's program, Don will call us to affirm our hope, just as the psalmist does, in word and in deed.

Let's join our teacher now in the Truth Pulpit. Now, in verse four, psalmist says he will cover you with his pinions. Pinions are the outer parts of a bird's wing that enable flight to take place. Under his wings you may seek refuge. His faithfulness is a shield and a ballwork. The things that enable flight. What's he saying here?

Why is he making this point? Beloved, it's so wonderful. It's so magnificent. Everything about the essence of God that enables him and empowers him to exercise sovereignty over all of the universe, over the course of planets, and over the course of human history, everything about his essence that enables him to do that is exercised for your protection as well. The full exercise of his sovereignty is at work in the fullness of his providence in your life to guarantee a good and loving and faithful outcome for you in the end.

Everything about the power of God is exercised for the benefit of his people. He holds nothing back. He protects you from human threats. Verse three, he delivers you from the snare of the trapper. He protects you from non-human threats. He delivers you from the deadly pestilence.

Is it a human threat, a human foe of which you're concerned? God protects you. Are there other matters of life, other matters of illness, other matters of stress or difficulty?

He protects you there as well. And in the brilliance of this psalm, in the brilliance of this psalm, look at verse five. He states that this isn't a momentary thing that kind of comes and goes.

This is constant. Verse five, you will not be afraid of the terror by night or of the arrow that flies by day, of the pestilence that stalks in darkness or of the destruction that lays waste at noon. Notice the time elements that are embedded in these two verses. Night and day, darkness and noon. He's using a figure of speech called a merism.

Merism. And that's just a fancy term for saying he is expressing a totality by using and listing several individual parts. And so, night and day is a statement of ongoing, unbroken protection.

Darkness and noon, similar thing. The idea here that he is expressing is that there is a continual protection day and night throughout all of the course of your life that God exercises over you. His sovereignty is never suspended. His love is not withdrawn. He keeps you. He protects you because he loves you. And this is the God that you know by faith. And so he is expressing, and notice, he's saying you will not be afraid of these different things. You will not be afraid is a negative way of saying you have complete security in the protection of your God. It is absolute.

There are no exceptions to it all. And then he goes on and he highlights how personal and how individual God's care is. Look at verses 7 and 8. A thousand may fall at your side and ten thousand at your right hand, but it shall not approach you. You will only look on with your eyes and see the recompense of the wicked. This section is making an emphatic application to the reader of faith.

And what he is saying is this. He is saying God's hand is on you even as thousands fall around you. Even as the mountains collapse into the sea, in times past are the brothers and sisters in Christ that went before us had to trust in God in the midst of World War as bombs were dropping down on their churches even in London. Had a friend who pastored in London.

He's now in the States. But in his church I saw this pew, a projectile during World War II, I believe it was World War II, had fallen through their roof and landed on one of the wooden pews in their church and yet had not exploded. That's the kind of life that our brothers and sisters in Christ were living through in those dark days where bombs were literally falling on them.

Some of them died, sure. This isn't a promise that you'll always be protected from death. Rather it is a promise of something even better. It is a promise of something even more important than your earthly life. It's that whatever comes to you, no matter what is happening in the world around you, God has not taken his eye off of you any more than he's taken his eye off the sparrow that falls to the ground. If you know and exercise faith in the God of whom he is speaking here, God sees you with that individual protective eye and his hand is on you no matter what comes to you. No matter what comes to you. And who is it? Who is it that enjoys this security, this protection?

Who enjoys this hope? Verse 9, remember he's talking in the second person singular. All of these things of which he's been talking about, no fear, perfect protection.

Who does it belong to? What's the condition of this blessed position in life? Verse 9, For you have made the Lord my refuge, even the Most High your dwelling place. No evil will befall you, nor will any plague come near your tent. What he's saying is there is real security for those with a real abiding faith.

Look at it. All of those promises of protection in the merism and the metaphors that went before belong to the man that is described in verse 9. You've made the Lord my refuge, even the Most High your dwelling place. You have rested your faith in this God of whom I speak and therefore all of this wonderful protection, all of this wonderful meaning that is injected into life that would otherwise be wasted, all of this belongs to you by faith.

And so I'll ask it a second time. Is your faith real like this? Do you exercise this kind of conscious, living, vital trust in the God of Scripture, in the Christ of Scripture? Well if you do, what the psalmist is saying here is this. What he's saying, the idea here in this passage is, my sovereign God whom I know like this, what he does for me he'll do for you as well. There is a wonderful promise given to those who will exercise the kind of faith that the psalmist describes as being his own. It's not exclusive for him.

It's not exclusive for Israel. This is the promise that is offered to everyone who would put their faith in Christ. God for his people does this. He provides unseen, supernatural help to them throughout all of life.

So that, beloved, so that whatever is deeply troubling your heart should be filtered through the reality of the fact. If you're a Christian, my Heavenly Father has his wings over me. He has his protective wings over me. He has brought me near to his bosom.

He cares for me. And even in the midst of this heartache and this conflict and the suffering and this lack, in the midst of it, he has drawn me near and I am safe in him and I am satisfied in him no matter what else may be true. Now, the psalmist goes on, alludes to the fact that part of the way that God ministers his supernatural care is through the ministering spirits called angels. Verse 11, he will give his angels charge concerning you to guard you in all your ways. They will bear you up in their hands that you do not strike your foot against a stone. There's just this promise that God is surrounding you with supernatural help that you cannot see with your physical eyes, but you are to appropriate this by faith and say, I am just surrounded before me, behind me, to my left, to my right, above me, and below me.

I am surrounded in an environment of the supernatural care and provision and love of my Heavenly Father. You know the story, we'll pick it up in verse 5 of Matthew chapter 4. The devil took him into the holy city and had him stand on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down for it is written, He will command his angels concerning you and on their hands they will bear you up so that you will not strike your foot against a stone. That's what with the passage we just read. He's quoting from Psalm 91 verses 11 and 12.

We're preaching a text that the devil himself knew and knows. Well, Christ answers that in verse 7. He says to him, On the other hand, it is written, You shall not put the Lord your God to the test. What we are to do in response to Psalm 91, what we are to do in response to the greatness of this loving protection that God gives to us, is this, beloved, here's what you're to do.

You're to trust him, not test him. The protection and provision of God is not an invitation for you to be foolish, to be careless in life. It is to trust him as you obey his revealed will in scripture that whatever comes to your life in a life of obedience to him will be filtered to you in a manner that is loving and is designed for your good in the end. When you trust God like Psalm 91 describes, when you know and trust Christ, here's the thing, here's the implication for you.

No matter what the financial or physical or relational adversity is that you're facing, no matter what it is, these are absolutes that we are meant to condition our mind and view all of life through. When you're trusting God like this, then you, my friend, you, my brother and sister in Christ, you have serenity in the face of danger. You have serenity in the face of hardship. You have serenity in the face of the deepest sorrows of life. Why?

Why? Because this God of whom Psalm 91 speaks has stretched his wings over you and brought you near. And no matter what you might lose in life out of faithfulness to him is inconsequential in comparison of being under the shadow of his wings. He is worthy of that kind of faith from you.

He is worthy of that kind of trust no matter what comes. You cannot, you cannot look at the cross of Jesus Christ. You cannot look at the empty tomb. You cannot look, metaphorically speaking, you cannot look into heaven and see your elder brother at the right hand of God interceding for you, praying for your perseverance in the faith. You cannot look at Christ and come to any other conclusion.

You cannot do that. And for some of us it's just time for us to stop talking about the hardship that we've had in the past. It's time for us to stop complaining about how hard life has been or how hard life is and to get serious about saying, no, no, no, no, no, no, that's not what defines me. What defines me is the Lord God, Jesus Christ is my refuge and my fortress. He is my God in whom I trust and that is sufficient for me.

Now let me say this. Look at verse 13 with me. Psalm 91 verse 13.

You will tread upon the lion and cobra, the young lion and the serpent you will trample down. You know what that's indicating to us? It's not that trust in God like this excludes you from adversity. It's not that it excludes you from threats and danger. Hardship fell on the righteous man Job that was not of his own making.

Christ literally suffered in his earthly life and on the cross. It's not saying that God will exclude you from adversity. Rather, Psalm 91 is a promise of protection in the midst of the adversity.

The lions may be around and the cobras may be curling for a strike. The idea is even in the midst of those immediate mortal threats, God's hand will be upon you, controlling and directing the outcome of everything that comes into your life to the fulfillment of his perfect will and without exception to the goodness of your soul and the glory of God in the end. These great truths, my Christian friends, are designed to define the very way that you look at life. This is the lens through which you look at this mortal world and it influences everything that you think about it and everything that comes into your life as a result. If this has come to me, it's been filtered by God's hand, then I'll trust him for it. Period! Period!

End of sentence, end of paragraph, end of chapter, end of story. So the security is not that we avoid everything that is negative in life. Rather, it is that God filters our circumstances to us. That brings us to our third point here, the affirmation of hope or the affirmation of God's protection. And in this final section, after the psalmist, as it were, has addressed his fellow man in these verses 3 through 13 with the personal pronoun you, now the voice of God steps into the psalm and God speaks directly in affirmation of the first 13 verses of the psalm. God himself confirms what the psalmist has just said.

Look at verse 14. Because he has loved me in response to that faith, therefore I will deliver him. I will set him securely on high because he has known my name. He will call upon me and I will answer him. I will be with him in trouble.

You see it there? This is what I was just saying. It's not that you're excluded from trouble.

It's even better than that. God is with you in the trouble. I will rescue him and honor him. And with a long life I will satisfy him and let him see my salvation.

What does this genuine trust look like? What is this faith of which the psalmist speaks? Verse 14, he has loved me.

Speaking of strong desire and passion. The end of verse 14, he has known my name. He will call upon me. This psalm is speaking about a faith. The kind of faith that engenders this protection from God is an active trust. It is rooted in a true knowledge of the revealed God.

Watch this. It's active trust based on true knowledge of the revealed God. And in response to that knowledge, in response to that God, this faith earnestly yields to this God in affection and in dependence. God, I see you revealed in your word. I believe your word.

I love you for it. And I will trust you with all of my soul, with all of my heart, with all of my life. That is the kind of faith of which this psalm speaks. Active trust. A true knowledge of God. Yielded affection.

Trusting dependence. And I ask you if you know God like that. If you care about God like that.

To know him enough to trust him. This is a sharp contrast to the autonomy of an unbelieving man. Had some correspondence with an atheist recently, which was very interesting and has nothing to do with this message so I won't go any further. Except to say that everything that he said to me was just dripping with autonomy and hostility toward the God that he denied who even existed. And in this passage, this closing passage here in Psalm 91, God's protection is expressed in eight progressive aspects.

I can only point this out to you, but walk through it with me here. Verse 14, I will deliver him. Having delivered him, I will set him securely on high.

Having set him securely on high, I'll answer him. I'll honor him. I'll be with him in trouble. I'll rescue him.

I'll satisfy him. I will let him see my salvation. Beloved, what you're meant to see here is that the psalmist has expressed his own faith to open the psalm. He's invited you to join with him in like precious faith and promised you all of these blessings that we saw in the middle section of the psalm. And now at the end of Psalm 91, God comes and lends his affirmation and extends it even further, saying this is what I will do with a man who has this active faith and dependence on me.

I'll do all of these things. He takes us from delivering us from the trouble to security that cannot be shaken. He takes us from trouble to peace. He takes us from isolation in this mortal life to companionship. He takes us from mortality and death to a promise of long life and satisfaction. From earthly death to eternal salvation. Beloved, what I want you to see is this, these great promises in verses 14, 15, and 16 are recorded in the first person voice of the very God who Scripture says cannot lie. There can be no other outcome.

Not because you're so great or your faith is so strong or mine. There can be no other outcome because this is what God has promised and God is faithful and God cannot lie. This tells you what the outcome is for all of life for the one who has this kind of faith in Christ. And as New Testament believers we know the safety even more fully.

We have a fuller revelation of it. Look at Romans 8 with me. In Romans 8 we just see the New Testament extension of this in light of our salvation in Christ. Verse 35, you see the same Spirit. The God of the Old Testament is the same God in the New Testament. This is how God promised his people and cared for them in the Old Testament. This is what we see in the New Testament as well. Who will separate us, verse 35, from the love of Christ? Well, tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword.

For your sake we're being put to death all day long, considered as sheep to be slaughtered. But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through him who loved us. For I'm convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. In Christ, God has covered us with Christ's righteousness and we are safe from his wrath against our sin. Having saved us, Christ keeps us forever.

When judgment comes, he will deliver us to life eternal. Beloved, this is the gift of your God to you. This is the security that he gives to you in Christ. This is the gift of Christ for everyone who puts their trust in him. And what I want you to see as we close here now is this. Is that this kind of security and blessing is a gift that the world cannot give to you.

And on the other side, it is a gift that the world cannot take away. Have you come to Christ in this kind of trusting, yielded faith? Those who exercise that kind of faith in the Most High God will certainly enjoy his protection. Beloved, I'm here to tell you, in light of Psalm 91, that is the only hope for mortal man. Today on The Truth Pulpit, Pastor Don Green has wrapped up a message titled, Hope for Mortal Man, part of our larger series in Psalms 90 through 92 called, Here You May Safely Dwell. As you'll be reminded next time, the wonderful promises God offers in Psalms 90 and 91 should lead us to continual praise. Psalm 92 shows us what that praise looks like, and Don will take us there. Make plans now to join us for our next broadcast.

Right now though, Don's back in studio with a few closing words. Well, as we close today's broadcast, I just want to express my gratitude for the many friends whose generosity make this program possible. You know, if you would like to join with those who are supporting us, you can do so at our website. Here's Bill to tell you how. Just visit thetruthpulpit.com. That's thetruthpulpit.com. I'm Bill Wright, and we'll see you next time on The Truth Pulpit.