Covered with His wings

Several years ago I wrote my first book, published under the title of "Psalm 91, Promises of Protection for perilous times." It may seem like a catchy title but actually, the name was meant to convey the message which I believed then and do so all the more now, that we are going to need to abide in the shelter of God's presence and know His powerful promises of protection for the days which lie ahead of us.

Currently, I live with my family in the ancient town of Pembroke which is in southwest Wales

The town features a prominent castle which was the birthplace of King Henry the Seventh and surrounding the castle and extending away from it is a stretch of water called the millpond (which acts like a moat around the castle itself). I enclose a photograph of the castle.

We often walk this stretch of waterway which is also home to a significant number of swans.

At this particular time, the female swans are giving birth to their young and recently I saw a swan who had one of her signets resting hidden in her wings, his small, (they were newly born), grey head peeping out from under her white feathers.

My wife and I tried our best to photograph this spectacle whilst trying not to alarm the mother swan (who was fiercely protective of her young brood and hissing at anyone who got remotely near to them). However it was visually a perfect example of what we see described in psalm ninety-one where we are told that for those who abide in the Lord as their refuge, they may come to know Him covering them under the shelter of His wings. A beautiful picture indeed.

"He who dwells 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 fortress, My God, in Him, I will trust." vs 1-2

It was the Victorian preacher Charles Spurgeon who once wrote,

"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 mercy seat, 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."

The key thought throughout this psalm is that of abiding, dwelling, and remaining in the conscious presence of God.

These powerful and exceedingly precious promises of God, (and this psalm is filled with such as these), are never to be viewed in some kind of sterile and disjointed way, as being separated from that of a seeking heart that longs to know the Lord's presence and dwell close to Him.

They are given to the one who dwells and abides vs1, trusts in, vs2, and makes, vs9, the Lord His refuge.

The psalm continues,

"Surely He shall deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the perilous pestilence. He shall cover you with His feathers, And under His wings, you shall take refuge."vs3-4

This was the image both my wife and I saw so graphically displayed in the newborn swans.

The statement made by Charles Spurgeon (who was a preacher known throughout the world for his powerful preaching of God's free and sovereign grace in our salvation through Christ), is a statement that is neither mean nor elitist.

Spurgeon states that the promises here mentioned in this psalm are not automatically guaranteed to every believer, including those who may be half-hearted and carnal and who care little about a life of consecration to God.

This is not about earning, or seeking to earn God's protection by our good behavior either, since we will never earn anything by our own good works, rather it is stating a fact that these promises of God's protection and of His intimate presence being more felt and known in our lives require a response on our part to the Lord.

They demand from us a hungry heart to seek His face, a desire to walk in obedience borne not out of legalism but rather out of a heart filled with love for Him.

These promises are assured to those believers who have come to a place of being surrendered to Him, willing to trust in Him more them themselves (or their own fears), and those who are hungering and thirsting for more of Him.

It is not promised to perfect Christians which would disqualify us all, neither to only mature believers but rather these words are spoken to every hungry heart that desires to commune more closely with God.

The Canadian pastor, preacher, and prolific author, A.w Tozer, whose writings have continued to inspire countless Christians who are restless and longing for more of God, once said,

"With the veil removed by the rending of Jesus' flesh, with nothing on God's side to prevent us from entering, why do we tarry without? Why do we consent to abide all our days just outside the holy of holies and never enter at all to look upon God? We hear the bridegroom say, "Let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice, for sweet is thy voice and thy countenance is comely". We sense that the call is for us, but still, we fail to draw near, and the years pass, and we grow old and tired in the outer courts of the Tabernacle. What doth hinder us?"

It is a good question and Tozer goes on to attempt to answer it.

The reason for this reluctance on our part, Tozer says, is the presence of a veil that still lies upon our hearts. Not the ancient veil, of the thick woven curtain that was erected between the holy of holies and the outer sanctuary in the Old Covenant, but another veil invisible to every human eye, but visible and manifest in the eyes of God. This veil is the woven veil of our self-life, says Tozer," Our fleshly fallen nature living on, unjudged within us, uncrucified and unrepudiated."

This veil is hard to see especially in ourselves, it is "opaque", Tozer says, but we are aware of its presence by the barrier that it erects between ourselves and the Lord's presence and the access we long to experience into more of the conscious presence of God.

The answer of course is the cross, for it alone has the power to crucify our old nature in all of its inglorious fallen instincts and to remove the veil and veils from our hearts and from our spiritual eyes.

Thank God for the power of the blood of Jesus and the ongoing work of the cross of Christ that the Holy Spirit continually applies to every seeking heart, to cause us to know and seek to know, and to love and to grow in our love for Jesus who is the great lover of our souls.

The invitation is given, the promises remain but will we embrace them? Will we with a child-hearted faith simply believe?

Listen to some of these beautiful promises that God has given to those who set their love upon Him(vs14);

"Because you have made the Lord who is my refuge, even the Most High your dwelling place, no evil shall befall you, nor shall any plague come near your dwelling.

For He shall give His angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways. In their hands, they will bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone. You shall tread upon the lion and the cobra, the young lion and the serpent you shall trample underfoot."

"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, I will satisfy him, and show him my salvation." vs9-13, 15-16.

Charles Surgeon writes in his commentary on this psalm of an incident that occurred to him early on in his pastoral ministry when he was a young pastor living in London.

At the time there was a terrible plague ravaging the people of London and many of the saints of God were dying including those of his own congregation.

He recalls how walking home one day after attending yet another funeral he could feel his own spirit flagging and despair and fear descending upon him. At that moment he was walking past a shoemakers shop on the Dover Road when he saw in the window of this establishment a handwritten placard with a quotation from Psalm 91 vs 9-10 which says,

" If you make the Most High your dwelling, even the Lord who is my refuge, then will no evil befall you, no plague come near your dwelling."

Spurgeon says that at that moment the Holy Spirit took that one single verse of scripture known so well to him, and quickened a living faith that removed all doubt and shattered his melancholy to the extent that he continued his ministrations to the sick and dying without any fear for his own personal safety or any fear of the disease.

"The effect upon my heart was immediate," wrote Spurgeon, "I felt secure, refreshed, girt with immortality. I went on with my visitation of the dying in a calm and peaceful spirit; I felt no fear of evil, and I suffered no harm."

Of course, we may hear a testimony like this and say,

"Well that is wonderful when God does something supernaturally like that, but most people do not experience a faith like that"

However, to even think like that is to miss the whole purpose of Spurgeon recounting this story.

The reason why he shared this experience is not so that we may consider this a rare and strange thing, and it certainly would not have been him saying, "Look how special I am"

Rather this testimony should provoke every one of us that considers ourselves a bible believing Christian to see that although Spurgeon was a godly man who sought the Lord diligently and knew and loved this psalm, until that moment he did not actually believe that the promises spoken within those verses were as true for him as for the one who first penned them.

That experience exposed his prior unbelief.

These promises are spoken to those who with a child-like quality of heart faith will believe them and continually look to the Lord to trust in Him to manifest His salvation towards them.

This psalm is written to those who have set their love upon Him, and to those who desire God with all of their hearts and seek His face.

This psalm is penned as a magna carta from the Lord to His people, to those who will take Him at His word because they have sought to make Him their refuge and their dwelling place in this journey of life.

There is nothing remotely elitist about saying that these promises are only going to be functional in the lives of those who believe and who live their lives walking closely with God.

It is self-evident that to those who choose not to make the Lord their refuge and their dwelling place, for those who choose not to walk with God in this life, that these same people are invariably going to look either to themselves or to other people or other things to deliver them from evil and danger in this life.

I want to end this piece by comparing the words of the psalmist in Psalm 91, which many believe to have been penned by Moses as a testament to God's delivering hand of power as he journeyed through the wilderness with the people of God, to the words of David in psalm 27;

"The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear, the Lord is the stronghold of my life, of whom shall I be afraid?

When evil men advance against me to devour my flesh, when my enemies and foes attack me, they will stumble and fall. Though an army besiege me, my heart will not fear, though war break out against me even then will I be confident.

One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek Him in his temple. For in the day of trouble He will keep me safe in His dwelling, He will hide me in the shelter of His tabernacle and set me high upon a rock. Then my head will be exalted above my enemies who surround, me at His tabernacle I will sacrifice with shouts of joy, I will sing and make music to the Lord. "vs 1-6

David begins the psalm declaring to us and reminding himself that the Lord is His only stronghold in this life, the one who has saved him and will strengthen Him and enlighten his way.

Later he expresses the beautiful words of a heart longing for God, to know more of Him and to seek His face. He says, (in paraphrase),

"One thing I desire and one thing I have asked of the Lord, this one thing I seek, that I may gaze upon Him to behold Him and to see His beauty and His glory and to be changed by it."

How do we overcome fear in our lives, and the many insecurities that can beset us, whether fear of danger or of sickness and disease, or fear of some form of harm and evil overcoming us?

The answer is by gazing upon the beautiful face of Jesus Christ, which is an act of faith inwardly with the eyes of our hearts as we meditate upon Him and dwell in His presence.

Some people might say that this is impractical or they simply do not have the time to devote to this.

However this is the most practical use of our time we can possibly exercise in the course of a day, and if we neglect to do this how much time will we spend and waste in worrying and oftentimes speaking out or acting upon those anxieties or fears that assail us?

David was intensely practical in gazing upon the face of God devotionally which is a heart posture he, not God, determined to possess and nurture, because in so doing he was nurturing and strengthening his faith in God to deliver and preserve him.

David's heart's request of, "One thing, to gaze upon the Lord's glory and beauty", came before his declaration that the Lord would in the day of trouble keep Him safe in His dwelling (presence) and hide him in the shelter of His tent.

The one came before the other, but they really are inextricably joined together, and it is we, not God that attempt to separate them, greatly to our cost.

It was Tozer again who once wrote,

"For it is not mere words that nourish the soul, but God Himself, and unless and until the hearer finds God in personal experience, they are not the better for having heard the truth."

We may read Psalm 91 hundreds of times and it be and remain to us merely words, even if God's inspired word to us, until we actually experience the reality of these precious promises given to us by experiencing the God who spoke them, speaking peace and comfort to our turbulent souls, and troubled hearts.

"Faith", said Tozer, "Is not a once-done act, but a continuous gaze of the heart upon the triune God."

That was the spirit in men like Moses and David and so many of the saints of old, who took God at His word and believed.

Let us, beloved, follow in their example of those who possessed a seeking heart to press on to know the Lord in an ever greater measure and to therefore dwell under the shadow of His wings. Amen.