Psalm 91: The Only Safe Place - Preach The Word

1 Psalm 91 The only safe Place A short series of studies by Pastor David Legge Psalm 91: THE only safe Place Pastor David Legge 2 David Legge is a Christian evangelist, preacher and Bible teacher. He served as Assistant Pastor at Portadown baptist Church before receiving a call to the pastorate of the Iron Hall Assembly in Belfast, Northern Ireland. He ministered as pastor-teacher of the Iron Hall from 1998-2008, and now resides in Portadown with his wife Barbara, daughter Lydia and son Noah. Contents 1. The only safe Place - 3 2. Getting Through Life - 8 3. God's Guardians And Guarantees - 14 4. A God Of His Word - 20 Appendix A: Where Is God? - 26 Appendix B: God Over All! - 32 Appendix C: When Bad Things Happen To Good People - 38 Appendix D: Courage For The Unknown Road - 44 The audio for this series is available free of charge either on our website ( ) or by request from All material by Pastor Legge is copyrighted.

2 However, these materials may be freely copied and distributed unaltered for the purpose of study and teaching, so long as they are made available to others free of charge, and the copyright is included. This does not include hosting or broadcasting the materials on another website, however linking to the resources on is permitted. These materials may not, in any manner, be sold or used to solicit "donations" from others, nor may they be included in anything you intend to copyright, sell, or offer for a fee. This copyright is exercised to keep these materials freely available to all. Psalm 91: THE only safe Place Pastor David Legge 3 Psalm 91: The only safe Place - Chapter 1 "The only safe Place " Copyright 2001 by Pastor David Legge All Rights Reserved aymond was reading from Psalm 90, and I want us to turn to Psalm 91.

3 I want us to look at this Psalm in great depth today, because I believe that the Lord has laid it upon my heart to share with you. Psalm 91, we'll read the whole Psalm together. Verse 1: "He that dwelleth 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 thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence. He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler. Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day; nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday.

4 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. Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation; There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling. For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone. Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder: the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet. 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.

5 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". We all know the little rhyme: 'Sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me'. A simple statement that we all know so well, yet behind it is a profound philosophy. You know that the sticks and the stones may touch you, they may cut your flesh, they may do all sorts of pain and bruising to your body - but you know that if people call you names that there's a choice of whether to listen to them or not, whether to let them affect you or penetrate your heart and hurt you. In a way that statement is an expression of how we can be in the very midst of trouble, yet not let that same trouble touch us or harm us.

6 It is the ability to sing in the midst of the waves and the billows: 'It is well with my soul'. A. Leonard Griffiths entitled a sermon on verse 6 of this Psalm : 'A Gospel for the Middle-aged'. Now we have a lot of middle-aged - I have to watch what I say, but we have a lot of older folk (well, there we go, I've put my foot in it already!). We have a lot of senior people within the assembly here, and folks in their middle-age, and you find that there are many pressures and trials and tribulations that enter into life at that stage - that's why he titled it: 'A Gospel for the Middle-aged'. When crises enter into life, and we all find that, and we also find - and I have found in my short time in pastoral ministry - that many who are vocal in their faith, when the times of trouble enter in they become shattered and disillusioned as to what is happening to them.

7 As the hymn says: 'Will your anchor hold when the storms of life come in, when the clouds unfold their winds of strife'? I believe that within the word of God, one of the greatest ways that God has of revealing Himself - apart from the word of God - to a world that is dying, and in sin, and lost, is the testimony and the witness of believers when they enter into trouble in life. When they come into suffering: how we cope - or do not cope - within it. The question that is posed to us by the Spirit of God, by the Psalmist here in 91, is: how do you R Psalm 91: THE only safe Place Pastor David Legge 4 behave when trouble hits your life? Do you cope? Do you go to pieces or do you go to God?

8 The question that we could ask today is: is there a way of surviving life here in our century? Troubled life, perplexed, stressful, anxious, with all the threats that are on our body and soul, is there a way that God has given us that we might survive without a scratch? Now the setting of this Psalm is interesting, because we don't really know what it is. One thing we do know is that the Psalmist is describing the ongoing sovereign protection of God's people - that God is ever protecting them in all dangers and terrors which surround them day by day. Literally the Psalm will be fulfilled in the Messianic kingdom, and we see that in Psalms 96 through to 100, it depicts prophetically what will happen upon the earth here when the lion shall lie down with the lamb.

9 But the original setting of the Psalm is unknown, some people think David wrote the Psalm and it's in connection to 2 Samuel 24 - you remember where David took a census of the people, and God had not led him to do such, and because he did it God sent famine to the land - some believe that this Psalm is David talking about how God would relieve the famine. I don't believe that because there's not a note of repentance within the Psalm , and you would imagine that if David was being cursed by God with famine for his sin that there would be an air of repentance within these verses, but there is not. The song is how, as we go through the trouble, God is with us and God will bring us through it. Some believe that Moses wrote the Psalm , because Psalm 90 - a prayer of Moses that we've already heard this morning - is the Psalm before it.

10 Some believe that Moses is talking about Joshua and Caleb as they went into the promised land - those who, the word of God says, followed the Lord fully - and as a reward for their faith, and their abiding and dwelling in the secret Place of the Most High, God let them live amongst the dead, amid their graves. Well, I don't know what the context of the Psalm is, but I know this: that perhaps the very fact that it is undefined and we're not sure what the historic context is, is perhaps a way that the Holy Spirit is able to apply it to your life and mine. In other words, because it's undefined we can apply these dangers to the dangers that we face, these trials to the trials that we have, and we can therefore in turn choose to abide in God, and to trust in God, as these saints did.