A Pilgrims Heart: Psalm 91

The Bible is full of promises that the Lord has chosen to make by His own wisdom, pleasure and purposes. These promises give hope to the weary, ignites faith in the asker, gives comfort in times of distress, encourages the faint hearted, brings peace in the storm, reassures the concerned, prepares for coming tribulation.........but above all this (which so far is for OUR benefit), the promises of God demonstrate the riches that He, as our Father, desires to pour upon us, as His children. He has already made full provision for all His promises, and His store house never runs dry :)

Psalm 91 is a well quoted piece of scripture that has been in the heart and on the lips of believers down through the centuries, and it is full of beautiful promises for those who put their trust in Him. There is a printable card for you to use that's featured halfway through this post, I hope it will be a blessing to you.

I have here, thanks to Charles Spurgeon, an excellent over view of what each promise of this Psalm means to us as followers of Jesus. It's quite long, so I have only featured the first three verses. To read the rest please click here, well worth the time to ponder. Hope you read and enjoy it as much as I did..........

Psalm 91, the promises of God by Charles Spurgeon

Dear reader, pray for grace to say, "In him will I trust."

Verse 1. He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High.

The blessings here promised are not for all believers, but for those who live in close fellowship with God. Every child of God looks towards the inner sanctuary and the mercyseat, yet all do not dwell in the most holy place; they run to it at times, and enjoy occasional approaches, but they do not habitually reside in the mysterious presence.

Those who through rich grace obtain unusual and continuous communion with God, so as to abide in Christ and Christ in them, become possessors of rare and special benefits, which are missed by those who follow afar off, and grieve the Holy Spirit of God.

Into the secret place those only come who know the love of God in Christ Jesus, and those only dwell there to whom to live is Christ. To them the veil is rent, the mercyseat is revealed, the covering cherubs are manifest, and the awful glory of the Most High is apparent: these, like Simeon, have the Holy Ghost upon them, and like Anna they depart not from the temple; they are the courtiers of the Great King, the valiant men who keep watch around the bed of Solomon, the virgin souls who follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth.

Elect out of the elect, they have "attained unto the first three", and shall walk with their Lord in white, for they are worthy. Sitting down in the august presence chamber where shines the mystic light of the Sheckinah, they know what it is to be raised up together, and to be made to sit together with Christ in the heavenlies, and of them it is truly said that their conversation is in heaven. Special grace like theirs brings with it special immunity. Outer court worshippers little know what belongs to the inner sanctuary, or surely they would press on until the place of nearness and divine familiarity became theirs.

Those who are the Lord's constant guests shall find that he will never suffer any to be injured within his gates; he has eaten the covenant salt with them, and is pledged for their protection.

Shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.

The Omnipotent Lord will shield all those who dwell with him, they shall remain under his care as guests under the protection of their host. In the most holy place the wings of the cherubim were the most conspicuous objects, and they probably suggested to the psalmist the expression here employed. Those who commune with God are safe with Him, no evil can reach them, for the outstretched wings of his power and love cover them from all harm.

This protection is constant—they abide under it, and it is all sufficient, for it is the shadow of the Almighty, whose omnipotence will surely screen them from all attack. No shelter can be imagined at all comparable to the protection of Jehovah's own shadow. The Almighty himself is where his shadow is, and hence those who dwell in his secret place are shielded by himself.

What a shade in the day of noxious heat! What a refuge in the hour of deadly storm! Communion with God is safety. The more closely we cling to our Almighty Father the more confident may we be.

Verse 2. I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress.

To take up a general truth and make it our own by personal faith is the highest wisdom. It is but poor comfort to say `the Lord is a refuge, 'but to say he is my refuge, is the essence of consolation. Those who believe should also speak—"I will say", for such bold avowals honour God and lead others to seek the same confidence.

Men are apt enough to proclaim their doubts, and even to boast of them, indeed there is a party nowadays of the most audacious pretenders to culture and thought, who glory in casting suspicion upon every thing: hence it becomes the duty of all true believers to speak out and testify with calm courage to their own well grounded reliance upon their God. Let others say what they will, be it ours to say of the Lord, "he is our refuge." But what we say we must prove by our actions, we must fly to the Lord for shelter, and not to an arm of flesh. The bird flies away to the thicket, and the fox hastens to its hole, every creature uses its refuge in the hour of danger, and even so in all peril or fear of peril let us flee unto Jehovah, the Eternal Protector of his own.

Let us, when we are secure in the Lord, rejoice that our position is unassailable, for he is our fortress as well as our refuge. No moat, portcullis, drawbridge, wall, battlement and donjon, could make us so secure as we are when the attributes of the Lord of Hosts environ us around. Behold this day the Lord is to us instead of walls and bulwarks! Our ramparts defy the leagured hosts of hell. Foes in flesh, and foes in ghostly guise are alike balked of their prey when the Lord of Hosts stands between us and their fury, and all other evil forces are turned aside. Walls cannot keep out the pestilence, but the Lord can.

As if it were not enough to call the Lord his refuge and fortress, he adds, My God! in him will I trust. Now he can say no more;

"my God"

means all, and more than all, that heart can conceive by way of security. It was most meet that he should say

"in him will I trust",

since to deny faith to such a one were wilful wickedness and wanton insult. He who dwells in an impregnable fortress, naturally trusts in it; and shall not he who dwells in God feel himself well at ease, and repose his soul in safety? O that we more fully carried out the psalmist's resolve! We have trusted in God, let us trust him still. He has never failed us, why then should we suspect him?

To trust in man is natural to fallen nature, to trust in God should be as natural to regenerated nature. Where there is every reason and warrant for faith, we ought to place our confidence without hesitancy or wavering.

Dear reader, pray for grace to say, "In him will I trust."

Verse 3. Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler.

Assuredly no subtle plot shall succeed against one who has the eyes of God watching for his defence, We are foolish and weak as poor little birds, and are very apt to be lured to our destruction by cunning foes, but if we dwell near to God, he will see to it that the most skilful deceiver shall not entrap us.

"Satan the fowler who betrays unguarded souls a thousand ways," shall be foiled in the case of the man whose high and honourable condition consists in residence within the holy place of the Most High.

And from the noisome pestilence.

He who is a Spirit can protect us from evil spirits, he who is mysterious can rescue us from mysterious dangers, he who is immortal can redeem its from mortal sickness. There is a deadly pestilence of error, we are safe from that if we dwell in communion with the God of truth; there is a fatal pestilence of sin, we shall not be infected by it if we abide with the thrice Holy One; there is also a pestilence of disease, and even from that calamity our faith shall win immunity if it be of that high order which abides in God, walks on in calm serenity, and ventures all things for duty's sake. Faith by cheering the heart keeps it free from the fear which, in times of pestilence, kills more than the plague itself.

It will not in all cases ward off disease and death, but where the man is such as the first verse describes, it will assuredly render him immortal where others die; if all the saints are not so sheltered it is because they have not all such a close abiding with God, and consequently not such confidence in the promise.

Such special faith is not given to all, for there are diversities in the measure of faith. It is not of all believers that the psalmist sings, but only of those who dwell in the secret place of the Most High. Too many among us are weak in faith, and in fact place more reliance in a phial or a globule than in the Lord and giver of life, and if we die of pestilence as others die it is because we acted like others, and did not in patience possess our souls.

The great mercy is that in such a case our deaths are blessed, and it is well with us, for we are for ever with the Lord. Pestilence to the saints shall not be noisome but the messenger of heaven.

PRINTABLE PSALM 91 CARD

To go with this excellent study, and to be a helpful reminder to you of this Psalm, I have this little gift for you! I've prepared the much loved Psalm 91 ready for you to use as you like. There's lots of different things you can do with these lovely images once printed, so if you have a little time, and a few simple craft items to hand, then you can turn them into a nice gift or card to bless someone else who may need encouraging, or just to put somewhere in your own home.

Click here to open the PDF file ready for you to print.

So, first change your printer settings to 'Best' or 'Photo' as you want the image to look good. I prefer to use glossy photo paper for these, but you can use matt photo paper, or white card. Put your paper in the printer, then print :)

If you have the use of a guillotine cutter, great. If not, scissors and a steady hand will suffice. Cut as close to the border as you can to not leave any white edges, unless you want them.

Once done, you'll have four same sized cards...........

Now, you can leave these as they are, or you can modify them as you like. Three years ago I had a very large amount of craft items, but when my husband and I left England to cycle Europe, almost everything we had was sold, and the craft items were passed on to a very happy ladies group. I no longer have a stash of card and craft papers, and have no intention of acquiring any!

So if you're like me and don't have much at hand, you can pick up craft items very cheaply, or you can see what you have hanging around the home. I had a quick look at what I had, and I found some left over creamy sparkly wall paper, a peice of green card, and a mini roll of tartan ribbon. Happy days!

I cut the wall paper to a 6"x 5" neat rectangle for a nice backing, then glued one of the Psalm cards on. I'll be putting this through the laminator, so I only need the paper glue to secure it.

I glued another Psalm card on to the green card I had found, and trimmed it very close to the border, leaving a 1/2 inch top. After laminating I'm going to punch a hole in and put some of the tartan ribbon through.

Arrange the cards into an A4 laminating pouch (I could only fit 3 in) then feed into the hot machine.