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The Secret Of Psalm 91 - The Most Powerful Prayer in Bible · Bible stories

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  Speaker 1: Welcome back to The Bible Stories. As you watch today,
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  Speaker 1: you will notice there are no ads playing on this video.
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  Speaker 1: blessed your life, please consider supporting us by scanning the
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  Speaker 1: QR code on your screen or clicking the link in
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  Speaker 1: the description. There is a place in the Bible that
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  Speaker 1: promises something almost too large to believe. It promises that
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  Speaker 1: you can walk through a world full of danger, through
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  Speaker 1: nights of fear and days of trouble, and not be afraid.
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  Speaker 1: It promises angels. It promises rescue. It promises that God
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  Speaker 1: himself will lean down and answer when you call. People
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  Speaker 1: have whispered these words in hospital rooms. Soldiers have carried
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  Speaker 1: them folded in their pockets. Frightened parents have read them
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  Speaker 1: over sleeping children. For thousands of years, this single poem
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  Speaker 1: has felt like a hand reaching out in the dark,
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  Speaker 1: and yet many people read it and walk away disappointed.
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  Speaker 1: They treat it as a promise that nothing bad will
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  Speaker 1: ever touch them. They quote it like a charm, wait
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  Speaker 1: for life to turn safe, and when the trouble comes anyway,
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  Speaker 1: they quietly decide the words were only poetry after all.
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  Speaker 1: They are reading the right psalm with the wrong expectation.
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  Speaker 1: They never stop to ask the one question that unlocks
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  Speaker 1: the whole thing. What was this psalm actually written to answer?
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  Speaker 1: because Psalm 91 did not fall out of the sky
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  Speaker 1: on its own. It was placed where it sits on purpose,
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  Speaker 1: right after a prayer that changes everything about how you
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  Speaker 1: read it. And the secret is not buried in a
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  Speaker 1: lost language or a hidden code. It is sitting in
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  Speaker 1: plain view, in the words that come just before it.
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  Speaker 1: Once you see what this psalm is answering, you can
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  Speaker 1: never read it as a magic charm again. To feel
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  Speaker 1: the weight of Psalm 91, you have to read the
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  Speaker 1: Psalm that comes right before it. Psalm 90 is a
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  Speaker 1: prayer of Moses, and it is one of the most
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  Speaker 1: honest prayers in the whole Bible about how short and
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  Speaker 1: fragile a human life is. It says, Our years pass quickly,
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  Speaker 1: that we are like grass that grows up green in
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  Speaker 1: the morning and is dry by evening, that our strength
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  Speaker 1: runs out faster than we ever expect. It even asks
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  Speaker 1: God for one strange and beautiful thing. Teach us to
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  Speaker 1: number our days. Moses stares straight at death and does
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  Speaker 1: not blink. And then, in the very next breath, Psalm
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  Speaker 1: 91 begins. Think about what that means. A man finishes
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  Speaker 1: praying about how brief life is, how quickly we fade,
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  Speaker 1: how close death always sits. And the answer that follows
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  Speaker 1: is a song about a shadow. about shelter, about wings.
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  Speaker 1: God's reply to a prayer about dying is not a
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  Speaker 1: promise that you will never die. It is a promise
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  Speaker 1: about where you can live while you do. This is
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  Speaker 1: the secret most people miss, and it changes everything. The
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  Speaker 1: protection of Psalm 91 was never meant to be a
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  Speaker 1: guarantee that nothing painful will ever happen to you. It
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  Speaker 1: is God's answer to someone who has just faced how
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  Speaker 1: small and breakable he is. It is written for people
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  Speaker 1: who already know that life is fragile, who have counted
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  Speaker 1: their days and felt the chill of how few they are.
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  Speaker 1: So if you have ever lain awake aware that your
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  Speaker 1: strength is thinner than it used to be, that you
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  Speaker 1: are one phone call away from your whole world changing,
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  Speaker 1: then you are exactly the person this psalm was written for.
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  Speaker 1: It does not scold you for feeling small. It answers
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  Speaker 1: your smallness with the shadow of the Almighty. So how
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  Speaker 1: do you step into that answer? The psalm tells you
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  Speaker 1: in its very first sentence. Whoever dwells in the shelter
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  Speaker 1: of the Most High will rest in the shadow of
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  Speaker 1: the Almighty. The promise belongs to the one who dwells,
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  Speaker 1: not the one who visits, not the one who drops
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  Speaker 1: in when the storm comes and leaves when the sky clears,
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  Speaker 1: the one who dwells. The word behind that shelter means
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  Speaker 1: a hidden, covered place, the kind of inner room where
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  Speaker 1: a person goes to wait out a raid or a storm.
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  Speaker 1: You cannot stumble into it by accident. You have to
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  Speaker 1: go there, and you have to stay. And then comes
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  Speaker 1: the word that holds the whole psalm together, the shadow.
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  Speaker 1: Think about what a shadow really is. A shadow falls
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  Speaker 1: in only one place. To stand in someone's shadow, you
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  Speaker 1: have to stand close to them. Step away, and the
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  Speaker 1: shadow no longer covers you. It is not that the
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  Speaker 1: shadow failed. It is that you walked out of it.
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  Speaker 1: The sun is still hot. The shade is still cool.
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  Speaker 1: But the shade only reaches the one who stays near
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  Speaker 1: enough to be inside it. That is the doorway. You
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  Speaker 1: do not unlock this psalm by saying the right words
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  Speaker 1: in the right order. You unlock it by staying close.
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  Speaker 1: And the next verse shows you what staying close sounds like.
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  Speaker 1: I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge
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  Speaker 1: and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust. The
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  Speaker 1: psalm does not stay in the third person for long.
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  Speaker 1: It turns personal almost at once. My refuge, my fortress,
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  Speaker 1: my God. This is not a fact about God filed
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  Speaker 1: away in the mind. It is a person held onto
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  Speaker 1: with both hands. Watch how the opening builds its foundation.
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  Speaker 1: In just the first two verses, the psalm reaches for
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  Speaker 1: four different names for God, and each one is a
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  Speaker 1: different kind of comfort. He is the Most High. In
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  Speaker 1: the old language, that name is Elion, and it lifts
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  Speaker 1: your eyes. It says that above every power that frightens you,
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  Speaker 1: above every authority that seems to rule your life, above
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  Speaker 1: the illness and the news and the people who hold
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  Speaker 1: something over you, there is one who is higher than
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  Speaker 1: all of it. Nothing towers over him. He is the Almighty.
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  Speaker 1: That name is Shaddai, and it speaks of a God
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  Speaker 1: who has no limit to his strength. There is no
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  Speaker 1: situation too heavy for him, no enemy too strong, no
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  Speaker 1: problem that drains him. When you reach the end of
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  Speaker 1: your own strength, you have not reached the end of his.
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  Speaker 1: Then the psalm uses the most personal name of all.
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  Speaker 1: In most Bibles, it is printed as the Lord, and
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  Speaker 1: behind it is the name Yahweh, the name God gave
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  Speaker 1: when he bound himself to his people in love. It
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  Speaker 1: is not a title for a distant ruler. It is
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  Speaker 1: the name of a God who makes promises and keeps them.
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  Speaker 1: And finally, my God, the God of the whole universe,
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  Speaker 1: becomes the God of one trembling heart. Sovereignty, strength, faithfulness,
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  Speaker 1: and nearness all gathered into the first two lines. You
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  Speaker 1: do not hide in a doctrine, you hide in Him.
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  Speaker 1: Before we continue with the current video, I want to
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  Speaker 1: show you a quick trailer for our Bible quiz app.
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  Speaker 1: Let's take a look. Think you know the Bible? Let's
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  Speaker 1: put your faith to the test. Play every day to
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  Speaker 1: grow your wisdom and build a strong habit that stays
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  Speaker 1: with you. Enjoy fun, quick quizzes that help you learn
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  Speaker 1: and remember the Bible better than ever. Earn faith points,
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  Speaker 1: level up, and climb the global leaderboard. Unlock the stories
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  Speaker 1: of the Bible today. Download now. After naming God as
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  Speaker 1: a fortress, a word made of stone and height and strength,
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  Speaker 1: the psalm suddenly changes the image completely. He will cover
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  Speaker 1: you with his feathers, and under his wings you will
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  Speaker 1: find refuge. His faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.
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  Speaker 1: A fortress and a feather in the same breath, the
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  Speaker 1: strongest place imaginable and the softest, that is the heart
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  Speaker 1: of God toward you. Picture a mother bird when danger
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  Speaker 1: comes near her nest. She does not flee. She spreads
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  Speaker 1: her wings wide and pulls her little ones underneath, pressing
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  Speaker 1: them against her own body, putting herself between them and
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  Speaker 1: the threat. If anything is going to reach those small lives,
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  Speaker 1: it will have to come through her first. The young
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  Speaker 1: ones do not just receive protection, they feel the warmth
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  Speaker 1: of the one protecting them. They are pressed against her heartbeat.
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  Speaker 1: That is the safety this psalm describes. Not a cold
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  Speaker 1: wall standing somewhere in the background. A nearness so close
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  Speaker 1: you can feel it. And notice what the psalm calls
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  Speaker 1: the shield. It does not say his power will be
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  Speaker 1: your shield. though his power is real. It says his
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  Speaker 1: faithfulness will be your shield. What stands between you and
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  Speaker 1: the worst the world can do is the faithfulness of God,
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  Speaker 1: his refusal to abandon the ones who hide in him.
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  Speaker 1: You are not shielded. by your own strength or your
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  Speaker 1: own steadiness. You are shielded by the fact that God
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  Speaker 1: does not change His mind about His people. The psalm
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  Speaker 1: does not soften the danger. It lists it. You will
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  Speaker 1: not fear the terror of night nor the arrow that
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  Speaker 1: flies by day. The terror of night is the fear
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  Speaker 1: that has no face, the dread that creeps in when
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  Speaker 1: the lights are off and the house is quiet and
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  Speaker 1: your mind starts walking down every dark hallway it can find.
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  Speaker 1: The arrow by day is the danger you can see coming,
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  Speaker 1: the trouble that flies at you in the open, the diagnosis,
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  Speaker 1: the bill, the conversation you have been dreading for weeks.
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  Speaker 1: The psalm gathers up the fear that hides in the
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  Speaker 1: dark and the fear that strikes in the open, and
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  Speaker 1: it answers both with the same quiet promise. You will
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  Speaker 1: not fear. Look closely at the words, because this is
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  Speaker 1: where so many people misread the psalm and then feel
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  Speaker 1: let down by it. It does not promise that no
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  Speaker 1: arrow will ever fly. It promises that you will not
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  Speaker 1: be ruled by the fear of it. It does not
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  Speaker 1: promise a life with no night. It promises that the
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  Speaker 1: terror of the night will not own you. The arrows
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  Speaker 1: still fly in this world. The nights still come. But
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  Speaker 1: the one who dwells in the secret place has been
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  Speaker 1: moved to a place where fear loses its grip, because
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  Speaker 1: something larger than the danger now stands over him. This
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  Speaker 1: is the difference between a life with no trouble and
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  Speaker 1: a life with no terror. God does not promise the first,
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  Speaker 1: he promises the second. He does not always still the
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  Speaker 1: storm around you, but he stills the storm inside you,
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  Speaker 1: because you are no longer facing it alone. The psalm
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  Speaker 1: keeps naming things, and the next ones are heavier still.
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  Speaker 1: Nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness, nor the
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  Speaker 1: plague that destroys at midday, This was written in a
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  Speaker 1: world where sickness could empty a village, where a fever
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  Speaker 1: could take a child between morning and night, where there
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  Speaker 1: was no medicine and no warning. The plague was the
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  Speaker 1: deepest fear of the ancient world, and the psalm walks
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  Speaker 1: right up to it and says, even this will not
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  Speaker 1: have the final word over the one who dwells in God.
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  Speaker 1: Then comes one of the boldest lines in all of Scripture.
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  Speaker 1: A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at
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  Speaker 1: your right hand, but it will not come near you.
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  Speaker 1: Not a quiet field, but a field where people are
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  Speaker 1: falling all around. The psalm does not promise a world
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  Speaker 1: where no one suffers. It pictures you standing in the
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  Speaker 1: middle of a world where suffering is everywhere, where the
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  Speaker 1: ground is covered with the fallen, and yet the one
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  Speaker 1: who is hidden in God is held. Be careful here,
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  Speaker 1: because this is the place people stumble most. This is
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  Speaker 1: not a promise that a believer will never get sick,
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  Speaker 1: never grieve, never stand at a graveside. Godly people in
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  Speaker 1: the Bible still suffered and still died. The Psalm is
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  Speaker 1: not handing out immunity from the body's frailty. It is
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  Speaker 1: making a deeper promise. Even when the worst sweeps through
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  Speaker 1: the world, even when it is all around you, even
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  Speaker 1: when it touches you, it cannot reach the part of
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  Speaker 1: you that belongs to God. It cannot separate you from Him.
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  Speaker 1: A thousand things may fall at your side, but the
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  Speaker 1: one thing that matters most, your place in the shelter
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  Speaker 1: of the Most High, will not come near being lost.
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  Speaker 1: That is a promise strong enough to hold in a hospital.
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  Speaker 1: The shelter is not your body. The shelter is God,
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  Speaker 1: and nothing that happens to your body can evict you
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  Speaker 1: from him. Near the start, the psalm named a danger
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  Speaker 1: that is different from all the others, and it is
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  Speaker 1: one we rarely talk about. Surely he will save you
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  Speaker 1: from the fowler's snare and from the deadly pestilence. A
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  Speaker 1: fowler was a hunter of birds, and his snare was
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  Speaker 1: a trap. The whole point of a snare is that
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  Speaker 1: the bird never sees it. There is no warning. The
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  Speaker 1: bird is going about its day, looking for food, and
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  Speaker 1: the trap is already set in the grass, waiting. By
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  Speaker 1: the time the bird feels it, the trap has already closed.
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  Speaker 1: Some of the dangers in this psalm are loud. The
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  Speaker 1: arrow flies, the plague stalks, you can see them coming,
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  Speaker 1: but the snare is quiet. The snare is the trouble
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  Speaker 1: that hides until it is too late, the trap laid
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  Speaker 1: in the ordinary path of an ordinary day. It is
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  Speaker 1: the betrayal you never expected from someone you trusted. It
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  Speaker 1: is the sin that looked harmless until it had you.
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  Speaker 1: It is the slow drift of a heart away from
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  Speaker 1: God that you never notice until you woke one morning
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  Speaker 1: and felt far from Him. And the Psalm says God
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  Speaker 1: saves you even from that, even from the danger you
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  Speaker 1: cannot see. So much of what we fear is exactly
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  Speaker 1: the thing we cannot spot coming. We can prepare for
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  Speaker 1: the dangers we know about. It is the hidden ones
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  Speaker 1: that keep us awake. And the psalm answers that fear
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  Speaker 1: by reminding us that the one who shelters us sees
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  Speaker 1: what we cannot. He sees the snare in the grass.
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  Speaker 1: He sees the trap around the next corner. You do
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  Speaker 1: not have to be able to spot every danger. You
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  Speaker 1: are not the one keeping yourself safe. The God who
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  Speaker 1: hides you is awake when you are asleep, and he
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  Speaker 1: sees the traps your eyes will never find. Now, we
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  Speaker 1: come to the strangest moment in the whole story of
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  Speaker 1: this psalm, and it is the moment that shows you
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  Speaker 1: how the promise is meant to be held. The psalm
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  Speaker 1: goes on, For he will command his angels concerning you
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  Speaker 1: to guard you in all your ways. Angels, commanded by God,
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  Speaker 1: assigned to watch over you, to guard your steps. It
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  Speaker 1: is one of the most comforting promises in all of Scripture,
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  Speaker 1: and it is the exact verse the devil chose to
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  Speaker 1: quote to the Son of God. When Jesus went into
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  Speaker 1: the wilderness, hungry and alone, the tempter came to him.
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  Speaker 1: At one point, the devil took him to the highest
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  Speaker 1: point of the temple and told him, in effect, if
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  Speaker 1: you really are the Son of God, throw yourself down.
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  Speaker 1: And then, the devil quoted scripture. He quoted this very psalm.
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  Speaker 1: He said, God will command his angels concerning you, and
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  Speaker 1: they will lift you up so you will not even
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  Speaker 1: strike your foot against a stone. The devil knew Psalm 91.
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  Speaker 1: He could quote it word for word. Sit with that
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  Speaker 1: for a moment. The promise of this psalm is so real,
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  Speaker 1: so powerful, that even the enemy reached for it as
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  Speaker 1: a weapon. He did not deny it. He used it.
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  Speaker 1: He took a true promise of God and tried to
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  Speaker 1: bend it into a dare. And here is how Jesus answered.
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  Speaker 1: He did not argue that the psalm was false. He
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  Speaker 1: answered with another word of Scripture. He said, It is
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  Speaker 1: also written, Do not put the Lord your God to
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  Speaker 1: the test. That is the secret inside the secret. There
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  Speaker 1: is a way to hold the promises of Psalm 91
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  Speaker 1: that is actually the opposite of faith. There is a
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  Speaker 1: way to take these beautiful words and turn them into
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  Speaker 1: a demand, to leap off the temple and force God
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  Speaker 1: to catch you, to treat the promise like a trick
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  Speaker 1: you can trigger whenever you please. The devil offered Jesus
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  Speaker 1: exactly that, and Jesus refused, because trusting God and testing
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  Speaker 1: God are not the same thing. Trusting God means you
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  Speaker 1: stay in his shelter and rest in his care. Testing
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  Speaker 1: God means you walk out into danger you were never
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  Speaker 1: told to enter and then demand that he rescue you
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  Speaker 1: to prove he loves you. One is the heart of
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  Speaker 1: a child who feels safe. The other is the heart
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  Speaker 1: of someone who is not sure and wants proof. Psalm
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  Speaker 1: 91 is for the first heart, never the second. It
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  Speaker 1: is not a promise you spend, it is a home
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  Speaker 1: you live in. This brings us back to that doorway
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  Speaker 1: at the beginning, the word dwell. The psalm keeps circling
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  Speaker 1: back to it. If you say, the Lord is my refuge,
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  Speaker 1: and you make the Most High your dwelling, there it
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  Speaker 1: is again, your dwelling, the place you live. So let
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  Speaker 1: me ask the question the psalm is really asking. Where
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  Speaker 1: do you actually live? Not where you sleep, but where
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  Speaker 1: your heart goes, when it has nowhere it has to be.
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  Speaker 1: For many of us, if we are honest, we live
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  Speaker 1: in worry. Worry is our true address. We visit God
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  Speaker 1: on Sunday, we knock on his door in an emergency,
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  Speaker 1: but when the day quiets down and our thoughts are
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  Speaker 1: free to wander, they wander straight back to fear. they
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  Speaker 1: move back into the house of dread. We know the
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  Speaker 1: way home to anxiety in the dark without turning on
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  Speaker 1: a light. The psalm is not asking you to feel braver.
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  Speaker 1: It is asking you to move. to carry your heart
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  Speaker 1: out of the house of fear and into the shelter
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  Speaker 1: of the Most High, and then to stay there, to
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  Speaker 1: make God the place you return to a hundred times
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  Speaker 1: a day. And here is the mercy of it. You
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  Speaker 1: do not move in by being strong enough. You move
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  Speaker 1: in by trusting. The door is not locked against the weak.
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  Speaker 1: It is held open for them. The shelter is not
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  Speaker 1: a reward for people who have conquered their fear. It
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  Speaker 1: is a refuge for people who are still afraid and
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  Speaker 1: have decided to be afraid in the presence of God
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  Speaker 1: instead of alone. Something shifts as the psalm goes on.
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  Speaker 1: It begins with a person hiding, taking cover. But by
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  Speaker 1: its middle, that same person is no longer cowering. He
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  Speaker 1: is standing. He is walking forward. You will tread on
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  Speaker 1: the lion and the cobra. You will trample the great
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  Speaker 1: lion and the serpent. Think about how strange and wonderful
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  Speaker 1: that is. The lion is the predator that hunts you.
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  Speaker 1: The cobra is the danger that hides and strikes from below. Together,
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  Speaker 1: they are everything that stalks a human life, the threat
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  Speaker 1: that roars, and the threat that slithers the open enemy
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  Speaker 1: and the hidden one. And the psalm does not say
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  Speaker 1: you will run from them. It does not even say
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  Speaker 1: you will only be kept safe from them. It says
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: you will tread on them. You will walk over them.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: The things that once towered over you will end up
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: under your feet. This is what living close to God
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: does to a person over time. It does not just
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: keep you safe, it changes you. The one who dwells
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: in the shelter slowly stops being the prey and starts
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: walking through the world with a strength that is not
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: his own. The fears do not vanish. The lion still
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: roars out there somewhere, but it no longer rules him.
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: And one of the creatures under that foot is a serpent.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: The Bible has a long memory, and the serpent is
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: the oldest enemy of all, the one who whispered in
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: the garden, the one who lies and accuses. To picture
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: a person treading on the serpent is to picture the
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: day the whole power of evil is crushed under a heel.
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: Jesus picked up this very promise when he told his
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: followers that he had given them authority to tread on
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: snakes and scorpions, and that nothing would harm them. The
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: one who hid at the start of the Psalm is
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: by the middle, walking in triumph. That is the journey
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: God wants for you. Not a life crouched in fear,
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: but a life lived so close to Him that the
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: things that once owned you end up beneath your feet. Now,
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: something happens in this Psalm that you can easily miss,
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: and once you see it, you can never read these
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: words the same way again. For most of the psalm,
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: a human voice is speaking. First, it teaches, describing the
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: one who trusts God. Then it turns and speaks directly
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: to you, promising the shelter and the wings and the angels.
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: But at the very end, the voice changes. It is
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: no longer a worshipper talking about God. It is God
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: himself talking about you. Because he loves me, says the Lord,
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: I will rescue him, I will protect him, for he
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: acknowledges my name. Hear who is speaking now. This is
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: God's own voice entering his own psalm, as if the
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: prayer has risen high enough that heaven answers back. And
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: the first thing God says is the secret all over again,
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: said now from his side. Because he loves me, because
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: he acknowledges my name. The protection is rooted in relationship,
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: not in ritual, not in the right words said in
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: the right order, but in love and in clinging to
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: who he is. Then God makes promise after promise in
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: the first person, and they are not careful or distant.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: They are the words of someone who has chosen you.
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: Listen to one in particular, because it is the most
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: honest promise in the psalm. He will call on me,
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: and I will answer him. I will be with him
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: in trouble. I will deliver him and honor him. The
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: psalm does not say, I will keep him out of
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: all trouble. It says, I will be with him in trouble.
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: God assumes the trouble is coming. He does not pretend
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: your life will be free of it. He promises something
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: better than a life with no trouble. He promises that
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: he will be in the trouble with you. When the
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: night comes, he will be in the night. When the
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: trial comes, he will be in the trial. You will
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: never face it as an orphan. This is the promise
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: that survives real life. A promise of no pain would
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: shatter the first time pain arrived. But a promise of
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: His presence in the pain only grows stronger the deeper
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: the pain goes. The people who have loved this psalm
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: most are not people who never suffered. They are people
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: who suffered and found that God was there, exactly as
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: He said He would be. There is one word in
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: God's closing promises that is easy to read right past,
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: and it may be the most surprising word in the
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: whole psalm. After God says He will rescue and protect
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: and answer and stay near, He says one more thing,
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: I will honor Him. The God of all the earth
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: says He will honor the one who hides in Him.
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: Think about who this psalm is for. It is for
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: the small life, the one who counted his days and
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: felt how few they were. So much of this psalm
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: is about being hidden, covered, tucked under wings, kept out
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: of sight in the shelter of the Most High. And
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: you might think a hidden life is a forgotten life.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: You might think the people the world never notices are
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: the people who do not matter. That a quiet faith
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: lived in a small room by someone no one applauds,
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: simply disappears. The world honors the loud, the strong, the
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: ones with a crowd around them. But God leans down
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: over a hidden life, a life spent trusting him in private,
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: a life the world walked right past, and he says,
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: I see that one. I will honor that one. The
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: faith no one noticed is the faith God himself notices.
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: The trust offered in an empty room is offered into
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: the eyes of the one who matters most. So if
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: you have ever felt unseen, if you have ever felt
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: that your quiet faithfulness goes unnoticed while everyone else seems
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: to be living a larger story, hear this. The secret
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: place is not where forgotten people go. It is where
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: honored people live. God does not measure a life by
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: how many saw it. He measures it by whether it
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: was hidden in him. And then the psalm ends, and
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: where it ends tells you everything about what it was
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: reaching for all along. With long life I will satisfy
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: him and show him my salvation. The final word of
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: this entire poem about protection is not protection, it is salvation.
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: The psalm climbs through shelter and shadow and wings and
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: angels and rescue, and at the top of the climb
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: it shows you something greater than a safe life. It
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: shows you a saved one. It lifts your eyes past
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: this world entirely, and now you see why it had to.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: Remember where this psalm came from. It was born as
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: the answer to a prayer about dying, a prayer that
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: faced how short and fragile life is. If Psalm 91
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: were only about this life, it would eventually break every
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: heart that trusted it, because everyone who has ever loved
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: God still grows old, and everyone in the end still
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: walks through the valley of the shadow. If the promise
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: stopped at the edge of the grave, it would be
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: a promise with an expiration date. But it does not
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: stop there. The last word is salvation, and salvation reaches
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: past the grave into forever. The God who covers you
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: in this life is the God who carries you out
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: the other side of death itself. So the protection of
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: Psalm 91 is real, but it is bigger than you thought.
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: It is not a promise that you will never be touched.
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: It is a promise that nothing which touches you can
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: finally have you. The arrow may fly, the night may come,
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: the body may fail, but the one who dwells in
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: the secret place of the Most High belongs to a
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: God who has already promised the last word, and the
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: last word is salvation. There is one more thing hidden
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: in this psalm, and it is the deepest thing of all.
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: There was a man who dwelt in the secret place
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: of the Most High perfectly, who trusted the Father with
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: every breath, who knew the Father's name and loved it,
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: who stood on the temple with the devil, quoting this
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: very psalm in his ear, and refused to turn the
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: promise into a stunt. That man was Jesus. He is
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: the one human being who lived inside Psalm 91 the
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: way it was always meant to be lived. He dwelt
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: in the shelter. He rested in the shadow. He trusted
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: completely and never once tested God. And yet, watch what
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: happened to him. When he came to the end, the
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: arrows flew at him in broad daylight. The terror came
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: in the night of the garden, and on the cross,
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: the one who had perfectly dwelt in the secret place,
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: cried out, as though the shadow had lifted, as though
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: he had been struck, as though for one terrible moment
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: no angel came. He was not rescued from death. He
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: went down into it. Why? Why was the only perfect
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: dweller in the shelter not spared, so that the salvation
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: at the end of the psalm could reach you? He
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: stepped out from under the wings, so that there would
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: be room for you underneath them. He let the trouble
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: fall on him, so that the promise, I will be
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: with him in trouble, could become flesh and blood and
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: walk straight into your darkest place. On the cross, he
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: took the unanswered cry so that your cry would always
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: be answered. He went into the grave so that when
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: the psalm says, I will show him my salvation, the
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: salvation it shows you has a face, and the face
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: is his. This is why the secret of Psalm 91
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: changes everything. It is not finally a poem about avoiding harm.
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: It is a poem about a God who came down
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: into the harm himself, who made himself your shelter by
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: becoming unsheltered for you, who is now so near that
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: nothing in life or death can pull you out from
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: under his wings. So let me speak now to the
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: person who needs this most. Maybe you are tired. Maybe
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: fear has been your address for so long you have
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: forgotten there is anywhere else to live. Maybe you lie
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: awake with the terror that has no name, or you
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: watch the arrows of the day fly toward you and
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: feel that you are facing all of it alone. Maybe
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: you are older now and the body that once felt
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: strong feels fragile and the nights feel longer than they
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: used to and you wonder if God still sees one
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: small life in a very large world. Hear the secret
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: of this psalm one more time. It was God's answer
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: to a prayer about dying and the answer was a
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: shadow you could live in. The shelter is not for
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: the people who have stopped being afraid. It is for
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: the people who carry their fear straight into the presence
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: of God and refuse to face it by themselves. You
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: do not have to be brave to come in. You
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: only have to come. You move in by trusting, by
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: saying with the psalm, The Lord is my refuge, my God,
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: in whom I trust, and then staying close enough to
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: be in the shadow. You are not promised a life
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: with no night. You are promised that you will never
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: spend the night alone. You are not promised that no
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: arrow will ever come. You are promised a God who
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: stands between you and the worst of it, whose faithfulness
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: is your shield, who has already said with his own voice,
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: I will be with him in trouble. And when the
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: last night finally comes, as it comes to us all,
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: you are promised the final word of the whole psalm,
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: Not the end of you, but the showing of His salvation.
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: The wings that covered you in life will carry you home.
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: So come in. Stop visiting God in your emergencies and
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: start living in Him. Make the Most High your dwelling.
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: Move your heart out of the house of fear and
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: into the secret place where the shadow always falls and
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: the wings are always spread. That is the secret of
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: Psalm 91. Not magic word. Not a guarantee of an
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: easy road. A home in God, opened by love, kept
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: by His faithfulness, reaching all the way past death into
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: life that never ends. You were never meant to face
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: any of it alone. There is a room no enemy
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: can find, and the door is open, and your name
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: is already known inside it. If this video helped you
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: grow deeper in God's Word, I want to personally invite
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: you to be part of what we are building here.
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: Every video on this channel takes many hours of study
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: and careful research to make sure we bring you content
• 34:41
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• 34:45
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• 34:48
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• 34:51
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• 34:55
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• 35:00
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• 35:05
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• 35:08
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• 35:11
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• 35:15
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• 35:20
  Speaker 1: you for being here, and may God bless you richly.