Abiding in God's Word in the Psalms, Book IV

The Lord, Our Dwelling Place

Anyone who loves Psalm 23 is going to love Book IV of the Psalms. Comprising Psalms 90-106, Book IV shows Israel emerging from the valley of the shadow of death to dwell instead under the Shadow of the Almighty. Those who witnessed the catastrophic destruction of Solomon's Temple as seen in Book III are now brought back to the words of Moses in Psalm 90, believed to be the oldest Psalm in the Bible: "LORD, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations.  Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God" (Psalm 90:1-2). What a comfort this realization of God's eternal omnipresence is to an exiled people returning home to view wasteland and devastation. And Psalm 91, also believed to have been written by Moses although anonymous, not only echoes this theme but adds one of Scripture's most thrilling promises: "He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty" (Psalm 91:1).

Moses, having spoken to God as His friend, would remind the children's children of his people, as it were, that there never has been anywhere else to turn but to God; He has always been our dwelling place--in the Garden; in Canaan; in the wilderness, in Babylon; and here, back in the Promised Land reclaimed. Amid the wonder of knowing God as his dwelling place, Moses wrestles in Psalm 90 with the brevity and frailty of human life. And yet, not unlike David who sings of dwelling "in the house of the Lord for ever" (Psalm 23:6), Moses (allegedly) quotes the Lord as promising, "With long life will I satisfy him, and show him my salvation" (Psalm 91:16).

The Nature of Divine Protection

This long life would be a dubious blessing if Eliphaz the Temanite were correct when "comforting" Job: "Yet man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward" (Job 5:7). But Psalm 91 promises not only long life; it promises divine protection for the one who dwells in the secret place of the Most High. A host of dangers is powerless against this charmed life: the "snare of the fowler, the noisome pestilence, the terror by night, the arrow that flieth by day, the pestilence that walketh in darkness," and "the destruction that wasteth at noonday" (Psalm 91:3-6). Imagine putting your address as--God: not one of these evils shall come near you. But does this mean that the child of God will never suffer? Haven't Christians suffered for centuries and often more than the wicked? Psalm 91:8, following all the evils the Lord's sheep need not fear (Psalm 23:4), says this about those evils: "Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked."  

Ah, herein lies the answer to the riddle of suffering. Our protection is not an exemption from suffering but a shelter from the wrath of God, bringing this difference: the Christian suffers in the context of the Lord's Shekinah glory, but the wicked suffers in the context of God's wrath. Job found this glory, although it took touching bottom to learn it. Martyrs for centuries have found it, and many Christians suffering all around the world today are finding it. Our Lord Jesus bore God's wrath in our place, which is the sole reason we may dwell in the otherwise unapproachable "secret place" of the Holy of Holies.

In case we missed this verse about the "reward of the wicked" tucked deep into the meaning of Psalm 91, the Psalmist defines not merely the evils the godly man escapes but also the nature of the godly man who escapes them. "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" (Psalm 91:9-11). The one who makes God his exclusive trust will receive God's exclusive protection. Without a doubt, the godly man is given the sole right to these promises. The conditions cannot be violated without canceling out the promises. This is why Satan failed when quoting this passage out of context to tempt Christ to cast Himself down from the Temple. As Jesus made clear when rebuking Satan, we shall not tempt the Lord our God--and this includes abusing His protection.

Verses 14-16 of Psalm 91 emphasize the condition of dwelling in God even further: "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 honor him. With long life will I satisfy him, and show him my salvation" (Psalm 91:14-16). In case we had any doubt, this passage makes clear that the Christian is not protected from trouble but from evil, for the Lord says he will be with him in trouble--the very trouble it sounded like he would miss in verses 3-7.

But can anything be "trouble" if God is with us? Everything that befalls us has a purpose, for God always has a plan. And, the fact is, the Lord protects us from untold trouble every single day. Not only that, as Hannah Whitall Smith makes clear in her classic, The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life, even if trouble does reach us, there are no "second causes" in the life of the Christian. By the time a problem reaches us, it has already received the Lord's permission and is wrapped in His love. This means that no pain that befalls us in Christ is "evil." This is the unique nature of our protection. Not only shall I therefore "fear no evil" (Psalm 23:4); I shall "tread upon the lion and adder" and even the dragon I shall "trample under feet" (Psalm 91:13), for Satan cannot hurt me.

We see this promise in action with Job, and we also witness that his "secret place" of daily sacrifice and intercessory prayer did indeed find the Shadow of the Almighty during his worst suffering, even when he thought he was suffering alone. After the second round of tragedies, the Lord closed the hedge about Job even tighter than before, insisting on the protection of his life which was given to him for a prey (Job 1:10; 2:2-6; Jeremiah 45:5). The Lord who has been our dwelling place in all generations (Psalm 90:1) clearly calls us to dwell in the secret place of His Presence (Psalm 91:1), not only that He might grant us immunity from danger but also that we, like Israel, might understand that the only real danger is sin.     

The Unique Security of Thanksgiving and Praise

If we faced our trials with Hannah's secret, we would never be afraid. And we see this serenity of trust play out in the remainder of Book IV with its resounding themes of praise and worship. We might put it this way: the one who has learned to abide in God's truth will continue to abide in His Presence as he comes to the Lord in thanksgiving (Psalms 92; 105; and 106) and in song (Psalms 92; 95; 96; 98; 100; and 101). Any one of these Psalms could become a worship song today, and many have. As Book IV lifts us up into the eternal dwelling place of God, it teaches us to "make a joyful noise" (Psalms 98:4; 100:1).

The story of Israel teaches that the Lord does not want lip service. He requires obedience, and the return to His Word that we saw in Book III must be maintained by abiding in Him, as Book IV shows. False worship finds no admittance whatsoever in the soul that is always thankful and always rejoicing--even amid those problems that we assume are evil when they are not. Where our culture has failed is in giving God "worship" devoid of truth--the truth that is "my shield and buckler" (Psalm 91:4)--the sole source of my protection. Let truth slip, and we are no longer dwelling in the secret place. But dwell in the secret place--the prayer closet Jesus describes in His Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 6:5-6)--and the Father who sees in secret shall reward us openly.

Angels Among Us

The most profound story along this line that I have ever heard in my own life personally involved a saint of old named Beulah Lewis. She was a prayer warrior my parents knew in their church in Auburn Heights, Michigan, when I was a baby. I heard this woman pray once in my life when she visited us years later in Largo, Florida. I could hear her praying full blast from another room, and I had never heard anything like it in my nine-year-old life, despite the devout fervency of my own parents' prayers. A thrill such as I would never forget shot through me: it seemed as if she transported us right to the Throne of Grace. Or rather, in her tender authority, it seemed as if heaven came down. Oldtimers used to call that "praying through."

This woman no doubt had had many a secret audience with the Lord in order to pray like that with others; and reward her the Lord most certainly did. I had grown up hearing of this woman's miraculous deliverance from death when she was in a car accident in eight lanes of Detroit rush hour traffic on a winter night. She was thrown from her vehicle in the direct path of oncoming cars with seemingly no hope of survival. One car stopped with its front tire touching her neck. As she lay in the hospital recovering, a man she had never met visited her and said, "You must be a good Catholic." Stunned, if not amused, she said, "No," but listened to what he had witnessed. "That night when you lay in the road, a man in white appeared out of nowhere holding a lantern and directing traffic all around you. When you were taken to the hospital by ambulance, he disappeared."

Take Jesus With You

Friend, what divine protection do you need to claim in these dark and unpredictable days? Perhaps you feel out of place wherever you go, having no sanctuary in which to worship. This present moment is but one stop in our soul's quest for God, as our brief journey through the Psalms shows. As Book I begins in God's holiness, leading us to Book II with a theme of hope, Book III takes us through the valley of humiliation, only to bring us home in Book IV--straight into the Presence of God. Instead of feeling lost in this world, look up, my friend, and with Moses rejoice: "LORD, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations." Under the Shadow of the Almighty we will abide--until, with David, we shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Amen.