The Old Testament text is Psalm 91. He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say to the Lord, my refuge and my fortress, my God in whom I trust. For he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the deadly pestilence. He will cover you with his pinions, and under his wings you will find refuge. His faithfulness is a shield and buckler. You will not fear the terror of the night, nor the arrow that flies by day, nor the pestilence that stalks in darkness, nor the destruction that wastes at noonday. A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you. You will only look with your eyes and see the recompense of the wicked. Because you have made the Lord your dwelling place, the Most High, who is my refuge, no evil shall be allowed to befall you, no plague come near your tent. For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways, On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone. You will tread on the lion and the adder, the young lion and the serpent you will trample underfoot. Because he holds fast to me in love, I will deliver him. I will protect him because he knows my name. When He calls to me, I will answer Him. I will be with Him in trouble. I will rescue Him and honor Him. With long life, I will satisfy Him and show Him my salvation." The Word of the Lord. Let's pray. Father, I pray that the words of my mouth and meditations of my heart will be acceptable to You, for You are our rock and our Redeemer. Amen. Please be seated. How is my amplification? I don't normally... I guess I'm good? Okay, everybody's hearing me fine. Sometimes I just seem a little louder than I do today. Anyway, Psalm 91 begins with this reference to the shelter of the Most High. reference to a shelter that is in God who is most high, but also an allusion to a very high place because there's a connection made very early on in the psalm between the most high and an eagle, and an eagle's eerie, or a place of abode for eagles. If you've seen Any documentaries on eagles, you've probably got a memory in your mind of eagles in very high places, way up on mountainsides, in clefts, way above a landscape. It's a great place for an eagle to live. Because eagles have great eyesight for one thing, but also that's where the food is down below. And the eagle, of course, from that perch can swoop down upon the unsuspecting prey, snatch it up in its pinions. Have you ever seen like a bald eagle's pinions. I mean, we're talking about a fairly impressive set of pinions. We're talking something large and intimidating. And fly off with lunch or dinner or breakfast or whatever it happens to be. We see that sometimes with regard to the fishing operation, you know, that you see eagles engage in. I remember one time driving through Connecticut And believe it or not, I saw a bald eagle and it was feeding on the carcass of a deer. I just looked out the window and I said, my goodness, we've come a long way since the time when I was a kid and we were concerned about eagles and bald eagles in particular and their extinction. Now they're kind of like everywhere, you know, and you just see them just, you know, on an ongoing basis there in the Connecticut River Valley, for example. The refuge that's referred to here is a refuge that we enjoy by being under the wings of the Most High and beyond reach. And there are a number of things that are trying to reach us. Throughout the course of the psalm, we see things that can do us in. There are serpents, there's pestilence, there's arrows, among other things. And as I noted, from the eerie top where we find refuge, we have a view, and it's a good view, and we can even see the recompense of the wicked, as we note there in verse 8. Because we find shelter in the presence of the Most High, we are protected even when everything around us is falling apart, even when people we know are subjected to horrible judgment because of God's wrath on them and even the society in which we share in common. And we're told that the reason why we can enjoy this refuge is because we trust in God. See that in verse two? I will say to the Lord, my refuge and my fortress, my God in whom I trust. Trust. Now, I think most folks, when they're addressed about the subject of trust and faith in God, and are asked, do you believe in God? Do you trust God? The sort of man-in-the-street answer is, or the woman-in-the-street answer is, of course. Of course I trust in God. And then we all behave in ways that demonstrate that we don't. We trust lots of other things more than God. In fact, the way we behave sometimes seems to indicate that we actually are quite afraid of God. And there actually are some good reasons for that. When you do see episodes in the Bible with people encountering, say, a theophany, a manifestation of God's presence, or even an angelic visitation, what's the first thing that is often said? Fear not, right? And the reason they're told to fear not is because they're terrified. It's not just sort of like, hello, nice to see you. No, the person that is being addressed is cowering in fear because the personage that has visited them is terrifying. I think that we have a hard time reconciling that with our notions of God's goodness that are popular today. Have you ever noticed that when you have a television program that interviews somebody with a near-death experience, there's always some kind of warm light that envelops them at the end of a tunnel, and they know that they're in the presence of a loving and indulgent and giving and nice God, right? And that's the way it's supposed to be forever. You know that that can't be the case because it's actually very different than the experience that everyone has in the Bible. Whenever you have someone encounter the holiness of God in the Bible, immediately they're on their faces begging for mercy. Please don't crush me, don't destroy me. There's something about just simply being in the presence of God that reminds us of our finitude, mortality, and sinfulness. And it's because God is holy and eternal and great that we're reminded of those things. It just kind of has to be that way. And when you think about the things that we're told here that should provide us comfort, they're, in a sense, a little bit awesome and scary. Pinions, I noted the intimidating character of an eagle's pinions before. And then you're way up. Anybody here suffer from vertigo? You know, vertigo, when you get a little bit uneasy, when you look down from a great height. You know, whenever I find myself on a roof and, you know, the pitch of the roof is anything more than, say, seven or eight or nine. I've been on, you know, roofs that are that steep. I have a pretty strong sense of my mortality at a moment like that. And I think that when we find ourselves in God's presence in that sort of situation and experiencing the heights in that way, we're reminded of our mortality even though we are safe as can be. I'm reminded of that scene from The Hobbit. Remember The Hobbit has these great eagles that just kind of show up always at the right moment. you know, to save the dwarves and Bilbo and so forth. And there's this scene in The Hobbit where Bilbo finds himself there on an eerie top, you know, way up in the Misty Mountains. These massive eagles have saved him and the dwarves from death at the hands of the wargs. Well, the paws or the fangs of the wargs, whatever. And so to get where they need to go, they have to be carried. And there's this marvelous exchange. between the eagle and Bilbo as the eagle is flying with Bilbo and other eagles with the other dwarves. And we're told in the story, after perceiving Bilbo's fears, the eagle says encouragingly, encouragingly, it's a fair morning with little wind. What is finer than flying? And Bilbo Baggins thinks, a warm bath and a late breakfast on the lawn. I think we all feel that way. Sometimes what delivers us from our fears is itself fearful. Another great episode where we see something similar, this time from C.S. Lewis, is the exchange between Jill and Asland in The Silver Chair. Do you remember that? How many folks here are Chronicles of Narnia fans? Okay, this particular episode might ring a bell, but Jill, is there in Aslan's country, and Aslan shows up. And if you remember, Aslan is a pretty magnificent lion. And he just is, you know, there. And that's a problem for Jill, because he happens to be close to some water, and she is really, really thirsty. And that's the occasion for this exchange. So here it is. "'Are you not thirsty?' said the lion. I am dying of thirst, said Jill. Then drink, said the lion. May I? Could I? Would you mind going away while I do, said Jill. The lion answered this only by a look and a very low growl. Growl. And as Jill gazed at its motionless bulk, she realized that she might as well have asked the whole mountain to move aside for her convenience. The delicious rippling noise of the stream was driving her nearly frantic. "'Will you promise not to do anything to me if I do come?' said Jill." "'I make no promise,' said the lion. Jill was so thirsty now, without noticing it, she had come a step nearer. "'Do you eat girls?' she said. "'I have swallowed up girls and boys, women and men, kings and emperors, cities and realms,' said the lion. It didn't say this as if it were boasting, nor as if it were sorry, nor as if it were angry. It just said it. I daren't come and drink, said Jill. Then you will die of thirst, said the lion. Oh dear, said Jill. Coming another step nearer, I suppose I must go and look for another stream then. There is no other stream, said the lion. And that really characterizes our experience with the holy, most high God in the course of our lives. The source of our salvation is also the one who unnerves us and makes us afraid. Afraid, though, in a good way, not in a bad way. Think about it this way. If God were not scary, how could he possibly deliver you? Have you ever given that any consideration? If the Lord is not fearsome and powerful, far more powerful than anything or anyone else that there is, including death, how could God deliver you? It's a package deal. They go together. One goes with the other. You can't have it both ways. So the question I'm bringing to your attention at this point that I'd like you to consider is, what are you running from? Are you running from a pursuer you should run from? or one that you shouldn't run from, but instead run to. I think many of us, at one point in our lives when we come to know Christ, realize we have been running from our Savior for a long, long time. But it's only when we kind of get the right perspective, when we see things as we really should, that we realize that the one that we've been running from is the one we should have been running to, and the one that we had been running to is the one we should have been running from all along. That's what regeneration is. It's a whole new way of thinking, a whole new outlook. That's what repentance is, a change of mind. Metanoia in the Greek literally means to change your mind, to see things in a different way. So we find ourselves often in the course of our lives needing shelter. Maybe you've wondered why you would need shelter. And there is a good reason why you would need shelter. And the reason you need shelter is because you really do have enemies. I know that some of us think that because we're such nice people, no one could actually be out to get us. I hate to break the news to you, but there are enemies out there who are out to get you. And realism in this regard is not paranoia, it's just reality. And I want to think a little bit about the situation with you for a moment. But one of the things I think characterizes the contemporary church, because we live in such a comfortable world and in a culture that has more or less provided conditions in which Christians just have not had to enjoy very often in the course of the world, we've kind of gotten soft in our assessment of the situation we find ourselves in. And it's kind of sneaking up on us more recently that, well, you know what, the world that we live in really doesn't like us very much. But that's always been the case. And I think one of the things that has characterized, say, the evangelical church over the last, say, 20, 30 years, has been a kind of delusional way of looking at the situation, which seems to indicate that there's a kind of belief at work that if we were just nicer, everyone will be nice to us. That's kind of the winsomest argument. And basically the winsomest argument kind of works like this. It's sort of like, another way to put it and the way I tend to think of it is it's basically the wallflower argument. The wallflower argument runs like this. Basically the church is looking for the world to ask it to dance. And it thinks that if it just rouges and powders itself a little more and makes itself a little more attractive that the world will actually come over and say, hey, let's dance. That's not really the appropriate way of thinking about the matter. We're told in Scripture that the advance of the church is much more militant. Let me give you an example. When Jesus was reflecting upon the ministry of John the Baptist, he talks about seizing the kingdom with violence. The violent bear it away. There's a sense in which, you know, the language implies that where we find ourselves isn't a nice place, and being nice is not going to get you treated nicely. Another way to think about it. Have you ever thought about the phrase, this is the Lord addressing Peter, and he says to Peter, you know, your name is Simon Peter, on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. You know what I think? I think most of us have this image of the devil running around with the gates of hell trying to knock on our heads. Wham, wham, wham. But that's not really the way it works. The gates of hell are intended to do what? Keep us out. Why would I want to get into hell? Not to live, just so you know, but to get people who are there out. We're supposed to be on the offensive. We're not supposed to stand around making ourselves look pretty. We're supposed to be on the move, on the march, pressing the case, proclaiming the gospel. It's a whole different frame of mind that we need to recover. And the scriptures tell us that friendship with the world is what? Enmity with God. Why are we trying to make friends then? If we're trying to make friends with the world, we're in a sense, in a very real sense, betraying our trust, betraying our first love, right? Friendship with the world is enmity toward God. And the world really doesn't like us. It really doesn't. Remember the Lord told us that? If they hate you, it's because they hated me first. So expect it. Be ready for that. Steal yourself for it. Now, that's not like a license to be nasty or a license to go out and start arguments with people. What it's implying is just simply the state of affairs. We find ourselves in a situation where we have enemies. The world, the flesh, and the devil. The world, the flesh, and the devil, those are ways, or those are the enemies that the church has identified and scripture identifies, and they are out to get us. The world, we find ourselves in an environment that seems to be disordered, and it's disordered because it's not ordered to God's glory, it's ordered to the glory of human beings. The devil, who is an intelligence and is real. You know, there's this crazy idea, I've run into this, you've probably run into it in the course of your life as well, that people more or less assume that if you believe in the devil, you're not very intelligent. Have you noticed that? If you say, you know, I really believe in a devil that is a malicious intelligence that's out to get people, people kind of roll their eyes, you know, think that you believe in fairy tales and little, you know, gnomes and stuff like that, too. But it's not really a measure of intelligence whether you believe in the devil or not, because if the devil is real, the most intelligent thing to believe is that's the case. To deny it's the case is actually evidence of ignorance. And what would be more conducive to the devil's program than to remain anonymous, unnoted, undefended against, I think this situation that we find ourselves in popular culture right now actually plays right into his interests very well. But then there's the flesh, and this is where you become your own worst enemy. The flesh is the inner traitor. Remember Pogo, that comic strip from back in the day? Maybe you don't, but there's this famous line in Pogo, we have met the enemy and he are us. That's it. Very often we discover that not only are the enemies out there, the enemy's in here, and I need to master that enemy. So we've got some enemies, and you need to reconcile yourself to that. Now, one of the things about the temptation of Jesus that I had Joseph read for you a while ago is something that occurs in the course of the temptations. One of the temptations is justified by actually an allusion to this very psalm, Psalm 91. The devil quotes verses 11 and 12. But it's fascinating that he leaves out verse 13. Did you notice that? Let me take you back to the temptation itself. And we're told there in verse 5 that the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple, again in a high place, and said to him, if you are the son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, he will command his angels concerning you. On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone." And that's where he stops. But what does verse 13 say? Go back to the psalm itself. After verse 12, it reads, "'You will tread on the lion and the adder, the young lion and the serpent you will trample underfoot.'" This bears a striking resemblance to the Proto-Evangelium. Are you familiar with the Proto-Evangelium from the prophecy that is pronounced by the Lord during the course of the curse? of Adam and Eve, there is a promise that's inserted, and that promise in that chapter, the third chapter of Genesis, notes that the way the story would end is that, he shall bruise your head, addressing the serpent, and you shall bruise his heel. Do you notice the striking resemblance? And perhaps you can understand why the serpent at this point in the temptation of Jesus would leave that part out. But that is the rest of the story and it's very relevant for us. Now, who, according to Scripture, is both a serpent and a lion? The devil, of course. We're told that the serpent, in Genesis 3, verse 1, was crafty. And there are a number of things in the course of this psalm that are crafty in character or difficult to fight against because of their nature. You can think of things like, well, Serpents themselves, but also snares, pestilence, plague. In other words, things that strike you and you can find yourself defenseless against because they, by their very character, are difficult to defend against. They're crafty. They come from below like a snake does. One of the things that makes, you know, of course, snakes particularly dangerous is that you can find yourself stepping on one without intending to. I remember I was in Arizona at the Navajo Nation. Did I ever tell this story about when James caught the rattlesnake? This is a fun one. Okay. I'm glad I've not used up all my stories. But anyway, so I took a youth group to the Navajo Nation there in Arizona. And one day, while we were engaged in various work projects, we were having some lunch, and one of the young men who was part of our youth group, who was kind of from the Ozarks, kind of a kid from a rough background, came and announced to the rest of us that he had caught a rattlesnake. We were like, no way. You didn't catch a rattlesnake. Yes, I did. No way. What'd you do with it? I let him go. Why'd you do that? Well, I just thought it was the right thing to do. Anyways, he was offended by the fact that we didn't believe him, so we went out and caught it again. And he brought it back, and he was holding it by its head, you know, and we saw the fangs, we tried to milk the fangs for the poison for a little bit, and then guess what happened? There were about 30 people all around. Wow, look at that! He dropped it. He caught it a third time, and then we cut its head off. But, we knew that we just couldn't let that snake go, because why? Well, some girl going out to the latrine late at night with bare feet? No, maybe. You get the picture. You gotta get rid of that thing. They're dangerous, they can kill you. That particular snake really could. And so consequently there are these snares, there are these things that strike from below, things that are unseen that you can find yourself stepping on or stepping into or experiencing or subject to that can harm you. Then there's the lion, which is really the complete opposite in terms of what we think of when it comes to danger. The lion's not necessarily sneaky. The lion is large. Now, the lion can lie in wait and pounce upon you, but the approach that the lion takes is not to inject a little bit of venom into your body and let you die slowly. No, the lion's approach is just crush you and eat you. Overwhelming power. You're done. And Satan can apply either strategy at any given time. Craft or power, that's what we're up against. And this is what the Lord can deliver us from, from the cunning of the serpent and the power of the lion. Remember, Peter told us that Satan's like a lion prowling, seeking someone to devour. Have you ever run across a person that you just really have a sense that, that person is actually out to devour me? There's no real prospect of having a relationship with this person. This person just simply wants to consume me in some way, to be nourished to his or her own advantage. We find ourselves with those sorts of people, and Satan is that kind of person. But we're told in this psalm that because we know His name, we will be able to enjoy His protection. Look at verse 14, because He holds fast to me in love, I will deliver Him. I will protect Him because, what? He knows my name. When He calls to me, I will answer Him. I will be with Him in trouble. I will rescue Him and honor Him. With long life, I will satisfy Him and show Him my salvation. We serve a God who is terrifying, and it's because He is terrifying that He can deliver us. It doesn't work any other way. Now, what's in a name? Because He knows my name. Now, I think in our society, we don't really give much thought to names, at least not in the same way that people in Scripture do. Today, you know, people make up names all the time. New names, you know, just kind of pull them out of the air. What does that mean? I don't know, it just sounds nice. So people, you know, give names to their children without any kind of thought to the meaning of the name. But that's not the way people in the past, even in America's past, thought about it. And certainly, that's not the way people thought about it in Scripture. There's a phenomenon that got kind of underway in the 13th century known as nominalism. And basically nominalism is the conviction that there's really no connection between a name and the sort of the essential character of what is named. They're completely separate things. You can see it summarized in Romeo and Juliet. A rose by another name smells just as sweet. Of course, this is talking about these star-crossed lovers who find themselves in this sort of tragic love affair, and the two families are at odds with each other, and the name is the problem. You know, they have the wrong last names. And so consequently they're not supposed to be able to be together and enjoy the love that Shakespeare is celebrating. But this is really not a scriptural way of thinking at all. There is, in scripture, an essential connection between what is named and its name. We see this on display when Adam names the animals. Now, when Adam names the animals, I think many people, when they come across that little episode there early in the Bible, they think, oh, how cute. This is like children's Bible material. It's just kind of this marvelous episode where God brings zebras and giraffes and lions before Adam and he gives them names. But is there anything more to it? Well, we see when Adam names his wife that there's actually a reason he gives her the names he does. First, he names her woman because she has been taken from his side, flesh of my flesh, bone of my bone. At one and the same moment, she is the same sort of person or creature that he is, and at the same time, she's different. She's not just like me. So he notes that with the name he gives her. And then, when she's told that she would be the mother of all the living, that's the name that Adam gives her, Eve. And that's what Eve means, the mother of all the living. So there's a logic behind it. And we see throughout Scripture, again, connections between names and meaning and the essential character of people. Think about the name Esau. What does Esau mean? Remember the two boys, Esau and Jacob? They got their names for reasons. Well, Esau means red, right? And he was a violent man. He was a man who got his way by, well, forcing you to go along with his way. Or you were dead. Then there was Jacob, which means the heel grabber, literally. But that language of grabbing the heel is intended to bring to mind what? Have you ever seen anybody in a race and they trip a person that's in front of them? Guess what happens? They, in a sense, grab that person's heel, that person falls to the ground, and the person who does that nasty, cheating thing gets a hit. And when people saw Jacob, they said, that's that guy. You watch out for that. So can you imagine naming your kids in ways that would like be a warning to the entire community? Watch out for my boys. There's Blood and Lyre. Those are the two guys that are my sons, Blood and Lyre. Watch out for those boys. People say, yeah, watch out for those boys. And then later on in the story of Jacob, he gets a new name. Why? Just because God likes to give people new names? No, because His character has been changed, altered, and His relationship to God now has affected Him in such a way that He is a new creature. And He's named what, remember? Israel, Prince of God. Well, names mean things. And this is why the third commandment says, do not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. It doesn't just mean, you know, God doesn't like you talking about him when he's not around or something like that, or like using his name in a harsh way. It means that you're using his name to your advantage because his name means something. So if you even, one of the marvelous things about Hebrew, and this is what was great about Joseph's class that he just finished up this morning, if you weren't there, scold yourself. You can actually listen to it online, it's available. But what you have in Hebrew is it's very much an onomatopoeia language. Words actually kind of give you, you know, the way they sound, give you a hint as to what they're referring to. Like laughter, Isaac, Yitzhak, that's the way you pronounce it. Yitzhak, Yitzhak, Yitzhak, Yitzhak, Yitzhak. It actually sounds like you're laughing, that's what it's supposed to do. His name means laughter. And the name of the Lord, Yahweh. Notice the airy character of it. It's intended to communicate to you that God is spirit. And, by the way, we've misused it because it was actually, think about this, hallelujah. When you hear the word hallelujah, doesn't your mind tend to go to sort of sweet, melodic, you know, sort of treatments? Hallelujah, hallelujah. It was a battle cry. When you shouted hallelujah, it's the sort of thing the Muhyiddin, you know, in Afghanistan would shout when they were attacking you. So the Israelites, when they would say something like that, were actually saying, our God is a God of war. So all these things are in play. And that's something to keep in mind when we hear this statement, because they know my name, or he knows my name, because he knows my name, I will deliver him. Now how do you know you know his name? How do you know you know His name? If it's not just simply, I know the way it sounds, or I've got it memorized, what does it mean to know God's name? Well, we're given a couple of clues. There are signs that you know God's name. And one of those is this, because He holds fast to me. Because He holds fast to me. Because He won't let go. Remember that episode? Get it back to Jacob. Remember Jacob wrestling with the angel? That angel whose identity is a little bit shifty, you're not really sure who he's wrestling with. And what does Jacob say when the angel says, let me go? I will not let you go unless you bless me. He knew who he was talking to. He held on, hold on. You know who you're talking about. It demonstrates you know who you're addressing because you won't let go. You won't let go. And the other thing is that he calls. The fact that you call upon the Lord demonstrates you know who you're talking to. You're talking to the one who can deliver you. It's not a hope he can. It's a no he can't, because we're talking about God, the one who is awesome, terrifying, powerful. And it's because we are in the shadow of his wings, beneath those pinions that could rip us to shreds, that we know he can deliver us. And we're promised that he will. We're told, I will answer. I will be with him in trouble. I will rescue him and honor him. With long life I will satisfy him. And what? Show him my salvation. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, help us to remember your name when we find ourselves in trouble. Help us, though, too, to remember your name when we find ourselves in the place of blessing And we have lots of things going on in our lives that we are tempted to give ourselves credit for, but we know we owe you for. Help us, Lord, to trust you in good times and bad. In Christ's name, amen.