Hi, this is Pastor Tom Holliday and I want to welcome you to our look at Psalm 91 this
week.
This happens to be the Psalm, Psalm 91, where in verses 11 and 12, Satan picked out some
verses and tried to twist them to tempt Jesus to a false trust in God.
Of course it didn't work, but I would say that since Satan used this Psalm to tempt
Jesus, there are some things you and I can see in this Psalm about temptation.
Some ways that Satan will try to tempt us, even as he tried to tempt Jesus.
And as we see how he tries to tempt us, when we know the ways of the evil one, then we
know the way out of those ways of the evil one.
So three ways that you can see that we will be tempted in this Psalm.
First, you'll be tempted to think God exists to do what you want.
This is the Psalm, these verses 11 and 12 are the verses where Satan pointed to these
verses and said, "Jesus, God has to do what you want, so throw yourself off this cliff
and God will save you."
Verses 11 and 12, "For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in your
ways.
They will lift you up in their hands so that you will not strike your foot against a stone."
He's saying, "God has to do what you want."
He's saying, "God has put himself in a box with this verse, and if you just say this
verse back to him, he'll have to do anything that you want.
He'll save you if you throw yourself down."
Well, you remember what Jesus answered probably, Luke 412, Jesus answered, it says, "Do not
put the Lord your God to the test."
We put God to the test when we have tempting thoughts of, "God, if you don't do this,
then you must not love me," when he's already shown us on the cross how much he loves us.
When we have thoughts of, "If you don't do this, you must not be real," when everything
around us shows us how real God is.
Just to be honest about my own heart of temptation and yours also most likely, think of the times
when you and I have become angry with God because his way was not our way.
It wasn't working out like I wanted it to work out.
Or even more often, for me at least, his timing was not my timing.
God was going to do it, but it wasn't going to happen in the timing that I wanted.
And maybe in those moments you've thought things like, "Does God really exist?
Does God really love me?
Why do I even keep serving him if he's not going to do this for me?
God exists to do what I want."
That's putting God to the test.
Because the truth of the matter is the opposite is true.
We exist to serve God.
We're made to worship him.
And when I get that wrong, I'm living in a life of temptation.
Now I want to just dig into this a little bit deeper because the truth is these verses
are in the Bible.
The angels will guard you.
There's even stronger assurances in verses 9 and 10.
If you make the most high your dwelling, even the Lord who is my refuge, then no harm will
befall you.
No disaster will come near your tent.
You read verses like this and you think, "Does that mean that nothing bad could ever happen
to someone who truly trusts God?"
One of the ways that you can check out scripture is by looking at the whole of scripture.
So when you look at a verse like this, you think, "Wait, I see that harm befell Abraham
and Moses and David and Peter and Paul, all of God's faithful people all throughout scripture.
Mary certainly had some harm befall her in the days of raising Jesus."
When you see this in scripture, you realize, "Okay, there's a broader thing, truth that
I need to see here."
And one of the truths behind what we're reading here is the difference between a principle
and a promise.
A promise is universal.
It's guaranteed.
A principle in scripture is what will most often happen based on the grace and the goodness
of who God is.
And the principle in this chapter is that following God puts your life in a place of
protection that you will not be in if you're not following Him.
And that's an obvious principle that you see in your health, in your life, in your relationships.
You can often see that it's a principle in the context of the entire scripture, looking
at the rest of scripture.
But when we read it in these verses, it sounds so certain to us.
And in our selfishness, to be honest, our temptation is to say, "God, that means this
cannot happen to me.
This cannot happen to my friend."
When trials have been a part of the life of believers all through the centuries, He protects
us as we face trials.
There is no trial that's greater than God's ultimate protection of you in heaven.
But the truth is, sometimes we're tempted to make our opinion of God's Word more important
than the truth of God's Word, the little idea that I get in the moment more important
than the entire truth of scripture.
That's why we need to study the whole of scripture.
So that's one temptation that we're going to face that's brought out in this psalm.
A second temptation is this, you'll be tempted to put your trust in things instead of God.
Verses one and two of these great verses of this psalm say, "He who dwells in the shelter
of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.
I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress, my God in whom I trust."
In verses three and five, he's going to talk, three, two, five, he's going to talk about
facing the dangers of life.
He's going to talk about the fowler's snare and deadly pestilence and arrow and plague.
But he starts, before he talks about any of those trials, he starts by confessing that
God is his protection.
And he adds in verse four, "He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings
you will find refuge.
His faithfulness will be your shield and rampart."
Now, they carried swords and they did battle, but they recognized that God was their protector.
They had medicine and healers even in that day, but they saw that God was their healer.
So here is the principle that keeps us from this temptation of putting trust in things
instead of in God.
The principle is be grateful to God for the things that help you, but don't trust in the
things that help you.
Don't trust in the sword.
Don't even trust in the medicine.
Be grateful for the medicine.
God gave somebody the idea for that medicine, but in the end, your ultimate protector is
God.
God has certainly given us the ability to heal ourselves with medicine and protect ourselves
with locked doors.
It would be foolish not to appreciate and even use those abilities.
The temptation is to think that somehow now, because we are so well-versed in our present
modern-day world, we are now perfectly protected by our own devices when we all know that's
not true.
We all know that even today, our health is sometimes just so fragile that even with the
greatest medicine, we cannot always get what we want.
We know how vulnerable we can be even with the strongest locks.
So the biggest question is, where is your trust?
If my trust is in things, if I've been tempted to put my trust in things, that trust will
eventually fail me.
Because ultimately, we need to give God the credit for our protection.
And not only for ourselves, but also for all that we love.
And ultimately, we need to realize that even when I'm not protected in this world, he will
protect me all the way into eternity.
Even as I face physical difficulties in this world, he is still the protector of my heart
and soul.
He is still my protector in all of eternity.
And then I don't live in anxiety as a follower of Christ.
I live with a sense of joy and a sense of protection no matter what the trials are.
A third temptation that we see in this psalm is you'll be tempted to see the temporary
as more important than the eternal.
In verses 14 to 16, this psalm ends by saying, "Because he loves me," says the Lord, "I
will rescue him.
I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.
He will call upon me, and I will answer him.
I will be with him in trouble.
I will deliver him and honor him.
With long life will I satisfy him and show him my salvation."
So, he talks about, again, his protection through these verses, that even in trials
God protects us.
He talks about long life that God will give us.
But then he ends by saying he will show his salvation.
And that's his eternal salvation.
God's ultimate delivery is not in this world of trials.
We do want to live in this world of trials for eternal life anyway, but in our heavenly
and perfect home.
And Paul said in Romans 8 that the temporary trials we face here, they're not even worth
being compared to the eternal hope that God gives us.
There's much that will be explained in eternity, if we need it then.
There's much that will be set right in eternity.
But because we live in this present, modern, everyday world, surrounded by it all the time,
we're tempted sometimes to see that it's the most important thing.
I got to admit, I fall for this temptation almost every day.
A problem looks like it'll sink me.
Until I remind myself, God reminds me, to start looking again with eyes on eternity.
Set your heart on things above.
Set your heart on eternity.
Don't put God to the test.
Let's take a minute to talk to God about our temptations.
He said to us, if we would talk to Him about our temptations, He would come to us and He
would heal us of those temptations.
He would show us the way out.
And so Father, right now, we take some time to pray and talk to you.
And we say before you, you do not exist to do what we want.
Release us from that temptation.
Free us from it by reminding us, Lord, that our temptation to look to you as a genie in
a bottle who does what we want is a foolish temptation.
We want to serve you.
That's the life that you've given to us.
And God, deliver us from the temptation of putting our trust in things.
Our trust is in you.
And ultimately, only you can be trusted.
And deliver us from the temptation to think that this life is all there is.
The temporary seems so important to us.
Get our eyes right now on eternity, Lord, like only you can.
We ask that you would do this in Jesus' name.
Amen.
Well, thanks for being with us today.
And tomorrow we're going to look at Psalm 92 together.