But the thought here is going to come out of verse 1, so if you're able tonight, let's stand together and only 16 verses, let's read all the verses together just to get us familiar with what this psalm is talking about. In verse number 1 of Psalm 91, the Bible said, 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 noise and 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 flyeth by day, nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness, nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday. 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. And 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 I will deliver him, I will set him on high, because he hath known my name. He shall call upon me, 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. Let's pray together. Father, we come to You this evening just with joy in our hearts, thankful to be saved, thankful for all that You've done for us in these days. And Lord, as we read this psalm tonight, we're reminded again of your great love and your great care for your children. Lord, I am so thankful tonight that we can preach and pass on to generations and generations to come about your greatness, about your mercy, about your majesty. Lord, I pray tonight now you would open our hearts as we go through this psalm verse by verse and look at the great truths that you pin down in this passage of scripture. Lord, may you not only speak to us tonight, but challenge us through the word. I'm thankful, Lord, that the word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword. Lord, I pray tonight that you would do in our hearts what only the word of God can do through your power and change us and make us more like you. And Lord, if there would be one tonight unsaved, let this be the hour that they call upon your name and become a child of God. And we pray tonight for your mercy in each one of our lives. In Jesus' name we ask. Amen. Thank you for standing. I know there are several verses, but when I read this psalm, I love to read all of it. It just seems to flow from verse 1 through verse 16. Now, the thought I want to look at tonight is found in verse 1. And I believe this is really the key to what this chapter is talking about. In verse 1, the psalmist said, he that dwelleth in the secret place. I underlined that and highlighted that in my Bible. some time ago. He said, He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. Now here the psalmist is talking about a close relationship with the Almighty, who is the Lord. And he uses the term here, the secret place. And I believe what he's talking about is our private life. I think every one of us need a secret time, a secret place that we meet with God, that we block out the world, we turn off all the electronics, and we shut down everything we can from the world, and even try to shut down our mind from the tasks at hand, and spend some time in the secret place with God. Now, with that thought in mind tonight, I want to look at these verses, and again, we'll deal with about the first eight verses tonight, and then finish this up in a couple services, but I want to look at the thought tonight of the power of a proper private life, the power of having a proper private life. I don't know who said this, but it's so true. And you've heard it. It's been said that your character and who you are is what you are when nobody's around. Boy, how true that is and how convicting that is. Listen, let's be honest tonight. We all like to put on the best when we get out in public. We all like to look our best, or at least most people do, anybody that cares about anything. You like to look your best, you like to act your best, you like to be on your best behavior. How many times growing up as a kid did one of your parents look at you and say, now we're going somewhere, you better be on your best behavior. That's just human nature tonight, that when we are in the public eye, we want to be our best. But sadly, many times we will put so much effort into that and we'll fail to put the effort in our secret life, in our private life. And really who we are tonight is who we are in private. It's who we are when nobody's around and we're not trying to impress someone or put on a show for someone. And I believe the psalmist here is teaching us some tremendous truths in these 16 verses of the power that is unleashed in the life of a believer when we have a proper private life. Now, I want to say this tonight before we get into our thoughts here. When you spend time with God is really irrelevant. It's the fact that you do spend time with God. I know many times in the scripture, even in the psalms, the psalmist will talk about seeking the Lord early. And I think that really probably is the best time of day to seek the Lord early before you get busy and you get your mind on the events of the day and the task at hand. And if you're like me, if you don't read your Bible first thing in the morning, chances are you're probably not going to get to read it at all. Or you're going to sit down at night and try to read it and your nose is going to be bouncing off the paper because you're tired. So early is a good time, but whenever you seek the Lord, I think it's a good time. I remember my pastor, he was a night owl, and he would stay up way up in the early morning in his time with the Lord. That was just the way he was designed. But the fact of the matter is tonight, you and I need a secret time, and we need a secret place with the Lord. We need a time of day that we just pull away and get alone in prayer and with the Word of God and meditate on these things, to have the power of God in our life that He wants us to have. Now, there are at least nine different things that the Lord put on my heart throughout these 16 verses, and I'm going to give you probably about five of them tonight. We'll deal with the other four at another time. And as you study this for yourself, you'll probably see even more. I went through this passage of Scripture early this morning and began to highlight everywhere that the word shall was used. And if you'll notice through our text, multiple times there are promises here. He shall deliver. He shall cover thee. His truth shall be thy shield and buckler. Thou shalt not be afraid. On and on and on we find great promises in this 91st Psalm. But these promises hinge on verse number 1. There is a condition to these promises and we find it in verse 1. So let's look at the first thing tonight about the power of a proper private life. Number one, we see the dedication in verses one and two. And again, this is the key to unlocking all of the verses that this psalm is talking about. If you and I fail in verse number one, we'll never experience the blessings of the other 15 verses. Look what he said in verse number one. He said, He, and of course you can put your name there, anyone there, man or woman, boy or girl, that knows the Lord, that walks with God, that's been saved by His grace, and will spend time with Him, you can put your name there. He that dwelleth. The word dwell means to spend time. It means to pause, it means to take notice of. He that dwelleth in the secret place, that's the place that the psalmist reminds us of. Now, I do not believe he's talking about church. Why? Because church is a public place. He's talking about a secret place, a private time. It may be an office. It may be a barn. It may be a pine patch somewhere. There are all kinds of places. It might be a secret place. But it's simply a place that we get alone with God and we spend an amount of time there in His Word. in prayer and communing with Him. He said, He that dwelleth in the secret place, there's the condition, that's where we have to be if we're going to enjoy the blessings of this psalm. He said, the secret place of the Most High. Of course, we know tonight He's talking about the Lord. The word high in your Bible is capital H. It's personified. He's talking about the highest of the highest, the King of kings, the Lord of lords. He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High, notice the promise here, shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. we find to begin with in this psalm, the dedication that is mentioned here by the psalmist. We must dwell with him. That is the first and foremost thing to gathering and enjoying the blessings of Psalm 91. We must dwell with him. And would you admit with me tonight, would you be honest? In our fast-paced society, sometimes that's very difficult. We push it to the limit, don't we? We get up at the last moment, we run wide open through our day, and so many times we fail to dwell with the Lord and spend time with Him. Many times we make excuses and say, well, Lord, I don't have time to spend with you today. I've got this to do and got that to do. But I have to often remind myself, what is more important than me meeting with God? I remember years ago reading about a preacher, and I can't remember his name. It may have been Dr. Criswell there that was at First Baptist in Dallas years ago, and he wrote a tremendous book. on pastors and being in the ministry. He was a very knowledgeable man of God and I believe it was him that I read about that had a church member and he had a very large church even in that day. He had a church member that needed him and early one morning he came to his house and began to beat on the door, beat on the door and his wife came to the door and said, can I help you? And the church member said, I need to talk to Dr. Criswell. I need to talk to him. I've got an emergency. I need to talk to him. And she said, well, I'm sorry I can't bother him right now. He's with the Lord. He's spending time with the Lord. He said, you don't understand. This is so important. I need him right now. And that wise wife of that dear man of God, she said, sir, she said him spending time with the Lord is going to help you more than stopping that now and having him come talk to you. And boy, that's the truth. We have to put a high priority on our time in the secret place. And I know everything in our society causes it hard to do that, but we must spend some time with the Lord. And I know there's some young mothers here saying, preacher, you don't understand. I don't have any time. I get that. Your time is probably more limited than anybody else's time. But when you do have a moment, get you a verse. If that's all you can, get you a phrase out of a verse and read it and meditate on it. And maybe when you get the babies to rest just for a few moments, talk to the Lord about it. and He'll help you with it. We need to spend that time in dedication. So the psalmist reminds us here in verse 1, we must dwell with Him. If we fail to dwell with Him, then the rest of the chapter is not going to apply to us. All these blessings we're going to look at tonight and in another service to come, all those blessings will never apply to us unless we enter in to verse number one, and spend that time in Dwell with Him. And I'll promise you this, when you purpose in your heart to spend time with God, everything in the world is going to come against you. How many times have we sat down to read the scripture and a million things ran through our mind? How many times have we took a moment to try to pray and commune with the Lord and all of a sudden things you hadn't thought about in a long time begin to pop up in your mind and you feel an urgency to lay that Bible down and get out of that prayer closet and go get something done. I'll promise you tonight, whatever it is, and I can say this with all assurance, whatever you've got to do is nowhere near as important as spending a few minutes with the Lord each and every day. Some of the old-time preachers, and I understand many of them were pastors, and that was their occupation, for lack of better terms. They had more time than many of you that work a job every day and all that, but they would spend hours and hours in prayer and in fellowship with God. And I think that's why we don't see revival today. I think that's why we're missing out on some of the blessings that God has for us, because we will not take time to pause and to dwell with the Lord. So we must dwell with Him in verse 1. And then something else I see about the dedication of this proper private life, we must depend on Him. I really believe tonight these two go hand in hand. Verse 1 teaches us to dwell with God. He that dwelleth in the secret place. But verse 2 teaches us that when we dwell with God, we will learn to depend on Him. Verse 2 said this, I will say of the Lord, this is one that has spent time in the secret place. He's coming out of verse number 1. He knows what it's like to dwell in the secret place. He knows what it's like to rest under the shadow of the Almighty. And this is what he has to say about it in verse 2. He said, I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge. And my fortress, my God, in Him will I trust. You see, this is a man that has learned to depend upon the Lord. And I'm telling you, in our fast-paced society, when we've got every kind of edge and every kind of instrument and every kind of luxury, if we're not careful, we'll factor God out of the equation. If we're not careful, we'll not learn to depend on Him. Generations of old, my grandparents' generation and even great-grandparents' generation, many of them had to pray for their daily bread. Many of them had to pray when a child was in the clutches of a fever and they didn't have a doctor to take them to or a hospital to rush them to or a pill to give them to get that fever down. And I'm not against that, amen? God gives us modern conveniences and we ought to take advantage of those but we should never forget that we must depend upon the Lord. And the more we dwell in the secret place, the more we'll learn to depend on Him. You see, when you don't spend time in the secret place, you depend on yourself. And if you've walked with the Lord any length of time, you know how that goes, don't you? Amen? Every time I depend on myself, I end up causing myself more trouble than if I would have just depended upon the Lord and just went to Him first. So the psalmist is reminding us here tonight of that initial dedication that unlocks all of these great truths in Psalm 91. If you paid attention tonight as we read through this, you should have rejoiced in your heart at some of the things that he promises us here. But be reminded tonight if that initial dedication is not engaged, If we do not dwell, if we do not learn to trust upon the Lord, we'll never reap the benefits of what this psalm is talking about. We must dwell with Him and we must learn to depend on Him for everything in our life. And when we do that, we'll have joy unspeakable in our life. Now notice secondly tonight, as we're looking at the power of a proper private life, we see that dedication must be there. You've got a hunger for it, you've got a long for it. Jesus said, those that hunger and thirst for righteousness shall be filled. But in verse number 3 now, he begins to unlock some of these great truths of this psalm. In verse number 3, we find deliverance. Notice what he said in verse 3, he mentions deliverance from the snare. He said, surely he shall deliver thee. There's a positive term. He didn't say maybe. He didn't say if the stars are right or if God's having a good day or, you know, on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. But he said, surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler. Do you know tonight many times you and I are ensnared in sin a lot more often than we ought to be because we don't dwell in the secret place? It is amazing because I've experienced it both ways, and many of you have. It is amazing when I spend time in the Word, and I spend time in prayer, it seems like the temptations are nowhere near as strong in this world. It seems like the snares don't catch me by surprise, but you let me go a day without getting in the Word. You let me go a day without spending some time in prayer, and it seems like the enemy ramps up the temptations And the snares are set. And many times we walk right into them because we haven't been dwelling in the secret place. The psalmist reminds us tonight that when we dwell in that secret place, when we learn to trust the Lord and lean on Him in our daily life, what He's going to do first of all is deliver us from the snare. How many times have you been walking with the Lord and the Spirit of God or through a message the Word of God has pointed out a snare in your life? Well, I remember several times, one in particular, several years ago, probably about 15 years ago, I'm telling you, I wasn't even thinking about anything wrong. And the devil set a snare in my life. I mean, he laid it out right there, and I didn't see it coming. And all of a sudden, the Spirit of God jumped up in me and said, that's a snare. Don't go that direction. No telling what he saved me from. No telling how many times through the Word and through the witness of the Holy Ghost and spending time with God, we have avoided the snares of the enemy. I'll promise you something. When you and I get up in the morning, even before we go to bed tonight, when we get up in the morning, there will be snares set by the adversary. There will be snares by the enemy that will be laid out. And if you know anything, Brother Tim mentioned last Sunday morning about the traps. If you know anything about the traps of the devil, he's a good trapper, amen? He knows how to catch his quarry. He knows how to hide it. He knows how to camouflage it. He knows what kind of bait to put in that trap. He's very good at snaring his prey. And that's why the psalmist, I believe, being inspired by the Holy Spirit, uses the terminology of a fowler here. He's talking about one that would snare a bird. And you know, the fowler knew what kind of snare to set for which kind of bird he was after. And I'll promise you this evening that the fowler in our life, the adversary, the devil, the enemy, he knows how to snare us. He knows what'll get us. He knows what bait to run by us. He knows what situation to try to channel us into to cause us to lose our testimony and make shipwreck of the life that God's given us. So it's imperative this morning, or this evening, it's imperative that we spend time with God so that we can be delivered from the snare. Then notice something else about this deliverance. Not only the snare is mentioned here, but also the scare is mentioned here. Look at what he said in the last part of verse number 3. He said, Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and, here's something else, this is what I call the scare, and from the noisome pestilence. You know, noise is usually a confusing thing. You know that? I remember years ago, I saw a thing in the military where they started having some kind of noise, amplified noise thing. It looked like a big radar disc. And they could take that thing and shoot that noise at a certain decibel. And I don't know how all that worked. But man, I'm telling you, it messed people up. I know in torture situations and things like that, they'll use noise to confuse you and to conflict you and to get your mind. And I'm telling you, this world is full of noise. Everywhere we turn, there's noise in this world. This is the noisiest world that anyone's ever lived in. It's very hard to get quiet time in the day that we live. Again, with our hustle and bustle and all the devices that we have, the internet, the cell phones, all the things that occupy our time. I watched a little clip of a guy yesterday. I haven't tried it. I don't know if it's true. I'm tempted to try it, but I watched a little clip from a guy yesterday and he said that he went seven weeks without looking at any kind of screen. Seven weeks without looking at a cell phone, a tablet, a computer, a TV, anything. And he said his cognitive energy went through the roof. He said, I was remembering things he said that I could never remember before. I'm telling you, a lot of the noise of this hour that we're living in is drowning out the voice of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And that's what it's intended to do. See, the devil's a good noisemaker, and he's a good distractor. He's good at saying, look over here and listen over here, while something else is going on over here. And the psalmist reminds us tonight, when we dwell in that secret place, when we have a proper private life, And we exercise that daily. We will be delivered from the scare of the noise. There's so many people that are scared in this generation. There's so many people, even God's people, that won't do anything for the Lord. They won't step out on faith. They won't do anything to serve the Lord. Why? Because they're so afraid they're listening to too many voices. I'm telling you brother Lester Roloff said one time talking about the TV and if you ever listen to he preached hard against the TV and I'm telling you we lost that battle a long time ago but you and I know tonight we'd all be better without one. Amen. We've all seen things on that thing that we never had any reason to see or any intention of seeing and things that come up at just a split second that are etched in our mind. And he said this one time about the television and the Bible. He said, why would I peep into Hollywood when I can peep into heaven? Amen? And you think about it. When we open the Bible and we spend time with God, it is like we've entered the throne of grace. We've entered the throne room in heaven. And we have an audience with God. And we can dwell in that secret place and be delivered from all the snares and all the scares. There's a lot of that out there. We only find peace from the noise when we're in the secret place. How many times in your life, in my life, have we been in turmoil? How many times have we gotten some kind of news, some kind of word, some kind of scare, and we ran to that secret place and we spent time there, and all that just faded away for a while. All that just took a back seat for a while. God is telling us tonight in this psalm that He'll deliver us if we will dwell in that secret place and have the proper private life. You see the dedication, you see the deliverance. Then notice the third thing I want to look at here tonight. We see the defense. Listen, we're living in a dangerous world. Paul told Timothy this, in the last days would be perilous times. You look at that word perilous, it simply means to be demonically charged. It's dangerous. And that's the day we're living in. We're living in dangerous times. You know, many of us remember days before there were school shootings and all these drug overdoses and all this crazy stuff that's going on in excess today. I know sin's always been around. It's been around for 6,000 years. It showed up in the Garden of Eden and it's been around ever since. But you have to agree with me tonight, the longer we get from that time and the closer we get to the coming of the Lord, it seems like it magnifies and it intensifies. We need defense tonight. We need defense that only the Lord can give us. And in verse number 4, the psalmist shows us that if we'll spend that time in the secret place and dwell with God and have a proper private life, we can get defense like none other. Look in verse number 4, we see the defense of His wings. Notice what the psalmist said. There's another one of those positive statements. I cannot help but think of a story I heard years ago when I read this verse. Every time I read it, I hear about this story. There was a fire on a farm years ago somewhere, and it burnt up the barn and burnt up most all the animals and everything. And the family was out there trying to salvage what they could, and said they came by and there was an old hen and she was just burnt to a crisp. and she was just kind of fanned out there with her wings and just charcoaled, I mean fried chicken, amen, and said whoever that was just kicked her, you know, and kicked her old charred body over and out from under her ran several little bitties. You know what they had done? They had got under the wings of mama. They had got under those wings of protection. And tonight you and I need to understand the greatest place of defense is under his wings. If you'll go back to verse number one, notice the position of the believer here. He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High, notice what he teaches us here, shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. If you're going to be under something's shadow, you've got to be close to it. You can't get under a shadow if you're a half a mile away, unless it's really tall and really big. Most things, you're going to have to get close to it if you're going to be under the shadow. And here in verse number 4, when we're in that place, When we're where we're supposed to be, He said, He shall cover thee with His feathers and under His wings that shalt thou trust. You know what the psalmist is telling us tonight? You and I can trust that we are defended when we're under His wings. That's a position that we have to willingly put ourselves. God is not going to make us reside under His wings. Just because you're saved and I'm saved doesn't mean God's going to force me to stay close to Him. Now, He can arrange things in your life to make you wish you were close to Him, and He can allow things in your life that'll cause you to run to Him, and I think He does that a lot of times to keep us where we need to be and doesn't let us get too far away, and I'm thankful for that. But being under His wings tonight is a blessed place. When you think about the wings and how they protect from the elements, and like I mentioned there, the fire, how they protect from the rain, most of the wings of any kind of feathered fowl are camouflaged to some degree. And if you've ever had chickens, you know that. We're full of red-tailed hawks in these mountains. And if you've got chickens every now and then, we've not had them for years, but back when we had them, boy, you'd hear that shrill. You'd look up, and you know that old hawk's up there circling. And if he gets a chance to snatch one of those chickens, he'll do it. I've seen him grab a rabbit. I've seen him grab chickens. I'm telling you, those things are very efficient hunters. And I think about that when I think about the Lord being our defense. And when we get under his wings, oh, how safe we are. I wonder how many times we've been hit by the fiery darts of the enemy because we were not in the right place. If you've ever been in the military, you know you've got a position. Whatever your job is, wherever your place is, you've got a position. You better be in that place. I mean, when things start happening, you better be in your place. If things are going to somewhat turn out right at all, you better be in that place that you're assigned to be in. If you're not in your place, you're gonna get in trouble. And that's what the psalmist is telling us here tonight. under the wings of the Lord. We only get there by dwelling with Him, spending time with Him in the Word and in prayer and meditating on what we've read and what we've heard and letting it sink into our heart. We spend that time where we get under His wings and it's a great place of defense. He mentions the wings, but notice what else He mentions. He mentions the Word. Look on down in verse 4. He said, and under his wing shalt thou trust. Notice this, his truth shall be thy shield and buckler. A shield and a buckler were very important instruments of defense, especially in Bible days. We don't use them per se like they used them in that day, but the shield and the buckler, you've seen it before. You've seen these documentaries where the armies would face each other in days gone by. and all the marksmen with the bow, they would rear back and they would shoot the arrows high in the sky and if they had a good shield, they would get down under that shield and crouch under that shield and it would quench the arrows of the enemy. Boy, how we need the shield of that proper private life. We need to get in that place and the word here resembles the shield and the buckler. You know where you find His Word at? You find His Word in His presence. You can read your Bible and you can run through it and read a few words and go on about your day. You might get a little bit, but I'm telling you, when you'll sit down and you'll block out everything else and you'll read this Bible methodically and slowly Think about what you're reading and put yourself in the text and let it speak to you. It is amazing the nuggets you'll mine out of this book, amen. I was reading the book of Ruth just yesterday. Saw something I've never seen before. I don't know how many times I've read the book of Ruth. I don't know how many times I've preached out of it. I don't know how many times I've heard preaching out of it. But I saw something the other day that's coming to a pulpit near you soon when the Lord lets me, amen. I almost preached it tonight, but he said, no, go this way. So I'm trying to mind him. But I'm telling you, it's amazing when you just spend a little time in the Word, how it speaks to you. I've read books, and I'm not a great reader. Now, I struggle reading, okay? I don't like to sit down. I love audiobooks. If I'm going to read a book, I like to listen to it more than sit down and read it because I like to be doing something. So many times I have to force my flesh to sit down and read the Bible. I'm just like you. I'm telling you. That's why it's good a lot of times to read it early in the morning because when the sun starts shining, especially a day like today, man, I don't want to be sitting still reading something. I want to be out doing something. So that's why it's good to get at it early if you can, and I know we all fail at it. But I'm telling you, when you read it and you meditate on it and you let it sink down in your heart, it's amazing what you'll find in this book. It's amazing the times I've read over familiar scripture and something's jumped out and I thought, how did I miss that before? I've read that so many times. It's because this book is alive. It's not like reading a regular book. I've read a lot of good books, but when I get to the end of them, I usually put them aside and I don't read them again. But this Bible is an everlasting will. The truth of this book, every time we go to it, it will speak to us and speak in us and impart some truth in us if we'll spend some time in it. I think it would shock us if we really just sat down and realized how little time we spend in the book. You know, some of these phones and devices, I guess all of them do now, they have a little thing on there called screen time or something like that. You can set that and you can see how much time that you've been on certain apps or whatever or been on your phone or whatever. Wouldn't it be amazing, probably convicting is a better word, if we'd measure our screen time and then measure our book time. I would say without a doubt tonight our screen time in this generation is gonna be far higher than our book time. And we wonder why there's no revival. We wonder why we can't quote scripture. We wonder why we have no discernment. Discernment comes from this book. There have been times in my life, in your life, that I have either read something in the scripture or heard something preached, and very shortly down the road, I needed to know that. Not far around the corner, I needed that. I had to make a decision, and the Holy Spirit reminded me of what I had read or what I had heard, and that discernment was there to give me the understanding to know which way to go. I'm telling you, it's priceless tonight. The defense of His wings, the defense of His Word. Now, let me give you one more thing tonight. And well, let's look at two more things and then we'll look at the other ones maybe on Sunday night or on next Wednesday. I want you to notice number four tonight, the determination here. Look at verse 5 and 6. Now there are times in our life and our walk with the Lord and just life general, we need some extra determination, don't we? We need a little bit of prodding every now and then. We need a little swift kick every now and then to keep us going. Well, look at verse number five, if you would. He talks about here the determination that we get when we have a proper private life. You see, when we don't have a proper private life, then our spirituality and our walk with God gets stale. And listen, we've all been there. Man, I find myself there way too many times. There are times when I've just come to the realization my Christian life's stale. There are times when I realize I'm not going forward. I may not be going backwards, but I'm not gaining any ground. I'm just kind of stagnant. I'm in a holding pattern. I'm not really gaining ground. I'm not really growing like I ought to be, and the Holy Spirit will remind me of that. Many times we find ourselves in that condition, and that's when we need that determination. That determination is going to come from that private life when it's right. You see, when you don't have a right private life, you're not going to grow spiritually. You're not going to go forward. That's why you got some people that got saved 30, 40 years ago, but they're babes in Christ, and they don't understand the book, and they don't walk by faith, and there's no fruit in their life. If they are saved, they don't spend any time in the secret place. They don't spend any time in the Bible. They don't spend any time in prayer. So we get this determination every time that we exercise the proper private life, it gives us a little bit more fuel to go the extra mile. Look at what he tells us here, two things in verses 5 and 6. Number one, we get the determination in times of darkness. Notice this, you see both of these mentioned in both verses. Verse 5, the first part. He said, Thou shalt, again this is a product of dwelling in the secret place. We could read verse 1 before every one of these verses and it would be right in context. Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night. Now you'll have to agree with me, sometimes there are some terrors in the night. Some of you here, you know everywhere you go, you gotta have a light. Man, I've known grown men, 250 pounds, could just take somebody down and they won't sleep without a light on. That's okay. Maybe God made you that way. I'm opposite. I want it pitch black dark, amen? That's the way I like it when I sleep. But you have to admit, we've all been a little scared in the nighttime sometimes. I remember a friend of mine years ago, he was deer hunting. He got up early that morning. He had a long way to go up to the ridge where his stand was at. He said, man, I was getting it through there. And he said, I was going wide open. You know how it is, men, when you're going up the ridge line and you're huffing and puffing and you're just trying to get through there. He said, I got almost to the stand and I stopped. And he said, all of a sudden, something slapped me on the leg and went by me. He said, I thought I was going to have a heart attack. It says an old dog had followed him up the hill and run into him. He said, man, I about checked out right there. You can get some terrors in the night, okay? It's not just little kids that get scared of the dark sometimes. And here the psalmist is telling us, in times of darkness, we need the determination found in the secret place. You see, our flesh nature, when darkness comes, the flesh nature wants to withdraw. The flesh nature doesn't want to read the Bible. The flesh nature doesn't want to pray. The flesh nature doesn't want to go to church. When the dark times come in our life, the nature of the flesh is to pull back from the things of God. But we need to do right the opposite. It's not how we feel, but it's what faith says. And the psalmist reminds us here tonight in verse 5, again in verse 6. He said, Thou shalt not be afraid for the terrible night. Nor for the pestilence that walketh in the darkness. We live in a dark world. There's a lot of dark things out there. There's a lot of ungodly things out there that are constantly coming at us and holding us back and depressing us and hindering us. And that's why we need that determination that's found only in the private place of our life when we're in that secret place to keep us going in the dark times. Listen, there's many of you here tonight, and you could stand this evening and testify that you've been through some dark times in your life. And when you went through those dark times, if it hadn't been for your Bible, maybe you could just read a phrase, maybe you didn't even get a whole verse in that day. Maybe you were so overwhelmed, you couldn't get hardly any, but you said a prayer, you read a verse, you got a phrase, and that time and that secret place, or maybe you just went there and sat down with God. You take Job. We don't find anywhere when Job was sitting in that ash pile, did he read any scripture or anything like that? He was so overwhelmed. Maybe you just went to that ash pile, that secret place, and just got along with God, and just being in His presence got you through those dark times. It's essential tonight. I'm telling you, we're going to have more dark times between now and when the Lord comes back. We must have that private life. So notice the times of darkness he mentions in verse 5 and 6. And then notice the times of day. Now a lot of times we think darkness is the worst, and in some ways it can be. But notice this, look back at verse 6. He said, nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday. Jump down to verse 7, middle of the verse. He said this. Excuse me, verse five, I meant verse five, verse six. Verse five said, nor for the air that flyeth by day. Verse six said, nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday. As the first part of the two verses talked about the night, the second half talks about the day. Now most of us would say, you know, if I'm going to get attacked, I'd rather be in the daytime than the nighttime. That's why historically most battles or attacks or invasions come at the night a lot of times, early morning hours when you're off guard. That's why the SWAT team knocks the door down at O-Dark 30 in the morning, amen? Because they want to trust that you're asleep and you're out of your element and hopefully they can gain the upper hand and get you. But here he's talking about now the daytime. Here's the thing about the daytime, sometimes in the daytime you see a far off and you see it coming. I don't know about you, but sometimes I get tore up when I see something coming. Sometimes I almost wish that things would come on me in an instant without me having to see it coming. When I know something's coming, man, I'm my worst enemy. When I see a trial coming, when I see a confrontation, when I see something about to happen, I'm telling you, I'm blowing it up in my mind. Let me give you a little for instance this morning, okay? You're going to laugh about this. But I'm going to give you a little instance that happened to me this morning. And you're going to see just how weak your preacher is. Amen. I've been needing to get my license renewed. And if you know anything about that, that's an act of Congress. Amen. You've got to spend three and a half days and travel all over the country to get your license renewed. I hope in all this mess that's going on in Washington, they'll clean that mess up. That's something we need is a streamlined DMV where we can go in like we used to, take the little test, read the little signs, get your license, and leave. I mean, y'all remember the good old days? Now you've got to call around and find, well, I found a spot. My wife found me a spot all the way down in Marion. So I had an hour to get there this morning. You know what I'm running through my mind? I needed to get my real ID and get all that taken care of. And I got to get my CDLs renewed. I'm thinking in my mind, man, I'm going to be missing a paper. I know y'all don't do this, but this is how I do it. I'm going down the mountain thinking I'm going to miss a paper. I'm going to have some. You know how it is with the government? I mean, you can have everything in line and one little thing off. No, sir, you're going to have to come back again. How many of us have been there? Go get a tag renewed. No, you're gonna have to come back another day. Go get your license. I had it all drummed up in my mind. Man, I saw it coming, just like the daytime right here. I saw it coming. I just knew. I told my wife. You can ask her. I knew I was gonna get down there, waste all that time going to the driver's license office, and something not be right, and I was gonna have to bite my tongue and not say something when I left there. I told her, I said, if it don't work, I'm just driving without a license. I'm done with it, amen? You know what happened? Anybody know what happened? I got down there. I checked in. I was out of that place in 15 minutes. Amen. That's never happened even in the good old days. I said all that to say this. I had it all drummed up in my mind. I knew. I knew it wasn't going to work. I know you're not that way. Y'all are the half-full people in the glass. I'm the half-empty, amen? And I'll admit it tonight, I struggle with that. And I had it in my mind, this ain't gonna work, I'm gonna waste a half a day, I'm gonna be so mad, the rest of my day's gonna be horrible. But it didn't work that way. You see, I had it all drummed up in my mind. And sometimes in the daytimes when we see things coming, man, we get all worked up, don't we? We think it's gonna be so bad and so horrible. But when we go to that secret place, when we get that private life right, it's amazing how the Lord calms us. It's amazing how He rests us in some of those things and says, look, just don't worry about it. I'll take care of it. It may not turn out like you want it to. It may not turn out like you think, but just rest in me and I'll take care of it. You know, I like that song they used to sing a lot. It said, sometimes He calms the storm, but then sometimes He calms me. God doesn't always take the storm away, but if He don't calm the storm, thank God He'll calm us, amen, through the storm. That determination is found in the secret place, in that private life. Let me give you one more thing and I will be done tonight. Verses 7 and 8, let's look at the division here. In verse number 7, the psalmist teaches us here that that proper time in the secret place, that proper private life will produce a good division in our life. Now I know we're living in a society that thinks all division is bad. I'm telling you all division is not bad. Amen? There's a division between heaven and hell. I'm glad of it. Amen. There's a division between male and female. Contrary to popular belief, there is a division between male and female. And I say amen. Amen. I'm glad of that. I'm thankful for that. There's a lot of good divisions in this world. And here the psalmist talks about that. Look at this in verse number 7. He talks about being in the secret place, getting division from the fallen. This verse always stands out to me. Years ago, many of you remember the actor Jimmy Stewart. Jimmy Stewart. Amen. You remember him? Well, I watched an interview one time. I watched a documentary, and I believe Jimmy Stewart was a Christian. Now, I don't know everything he believed, but from his own testimony, I believe he was a Christian. And he said this, he said when he was in World War II, he kept quoting this verse that his mom had taught him, right here in verse number 7. A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand, but it shall not come nigh thee. Here the psalmist is talking about being in that secret place, being in that proper private life, and having division from the fallen. I don't have to remind you tonight, church. There's a lot of people that are falling by the wayside in these days. I mean, it's all around us. It's heartbreaking. We hear about it all the time. There's preachers that are falling. Church members that are falling. Husbands are falling. Wives are falling. Senators are falling. All kinds of people are just falling into sin and making a shipwreck of their life and their testimony. Well, notice what the psalmist said. If we get in that secret place and spend time with God and get that private life where it ought to be. He said, a thousand shall fall at thy side, ten thousand at thy right hand, but it shall not come nigh thee. I'm going to say something tonight that I wholeheartedly believe. I do not believe that any believer is going to walk out of the will of God if they'll stay in a secret place. I don't believe it. I don't believe a believer is going to get out into sin. I didn't say sinless now. I know we all battle sin. None of us are sinless. But I don't think a believer will ever go into sin if he or she stays in the secret place. The reason why we get into sin is because it's been time that we haven't been in the secret place. That's exactly why. That's how it works in my life and I've got a sneaky suspicion that's how it works in your life. The times that I have the biggest trouble is my lax times when I'm not in the secret place and I'm not spending time with God like I ought to. He tells us here, division from the fallen. I don't know about you tonight, but I want to run my race without falling. I want to finish this course without falling. I heard that message last week about what are they gonna say about you when you're gone, amen? I want them to say something good about me. I mean, I wanna have a good testimony. I don't wanna blow it in the last few miles of the race, amen? And so many are today. Good people are doing that because they're getting out of the secret place. There's division from the fallen. Then look at verse eight, and I'm done tonight. There's division from the foolish. Look at what he said. He said, only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked. What a promise tonight. You see, God's going to judge the wicked. And many times the wicked are even judged in their daily life because of their wicked acts. Many times that happens. Look at what the psalmist tells us here tonight. Only with thine eyes. He said you're going to see the reward of the wicked, but guess what? It's not going to be on you if you'll stay in that secret place. You won't get the punishment of the wicked if you'll stay close to the Lord. You won't have to suffer the things that the wicked suffer if you'll keep your private life, right? Until you find somebody that falls publicly and makes a shipwreck of their faith publicly, you can mark her down. Their private life went astray a long time ago. God is merciful. He is gracious. He does not kick us to the curb the very first time we step out of line. But I'm telling you, when it's over and over and over and it becomes a pattern in our life and we drift away from the secret place, you can rest assured we're going to have a fall. The psalmist tells us tonight we can avoid that all by having the right kind of private life. I'm going to stop right there tonight. And Lord willing, we'll pick up in verse 9 next time we're in this chapter. But what a great truth. What great truths here tonight. about the proper private life. We all need to ask ourselves this question tonight. How's my private life? I would venture to say none of us here have a perfect private life, and none of us will have a perfect one, but we ought to strive to have the very best private life we can. Walking with God spending some time with him. I know some days are gonna be easier than others. I know that. Sometimes, listen, when you wake up in the morning and you got 103 fever, you don't feel like spending time in the Word. I get that. There are gonna be days like that. There are gonna be times where you have emergencies. I get that. That's why it's so important to spend the good days in the secret place. Job's a great example of that. When all of Job's world fell apart, he went right back to the ash pile where he had met with God so many days before, amen, so many days before. And if we're not careful, we'll slack in the secret place. And then when the troublesome times come, we won't know what to do. We won't know where to turn. May God help us tonight have a proper private life. It'll make the difference. Amen. I hope this will help you. Let's stand.