Joyce Meyer - Psalm 91 Bible Study (08/19/2019)
Pastor teaches on Psalm 91, stressing that dwelling in God's presence brings lasting stability and protection. By trusting Him and staying obedient, we receive angelic charge, authority over the enemy, and God's deliverance even in trouble, leading to peace and long life.
Dwelling in God's Secret Place for True Stability
Well, thank you so much for being with us today. I'm so glad that you've joined us. We've been trying to do some little Bible studies on the air where I'm just trying to go through some scriptures with you and teach you that it's not that hard to study the Bible. It's really not that hard to study the Bible. Actually, the Word of God is very practical. I think what we do sometimes is we read it too fast and then we're done and we think, well, I don't even know what I got out of that. So let's just look at it in sections or maybe a verse at a time and try to glean what we really believe that God might be saying to us for our everyday lives. And today, we're going to take a very familiar group of scriptures that you've probably read many times. But today, hopefully, you're going to learn something you didn't know before and that is Psalm 91. What a Psalm of comfort.
It starts out and it says, He that dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall remain stable and fixed under the shadow of the Almighty, whose power no foe can withstand. Now, we're going to stop right there and, boy, I can get a lot of lessons out of that. The Amplified Bible says that if we dwell in the secret place, which, by the way, is the presence of God. It's dwelling in the presence of God. And to dwell and live in the presence of God doesn't mean it's just going to church once a week or going to a Bible study once a week. To dwell means to live and remain. Like, I dwell in my house. Most of you wouldn't say you dwell at your job. You go to your job. You go home. But you have a dwelling place. You have a place that you live. And God wants us to learn to dwell and to live in His presence and to be aware of Him on a regular basis because the Bible says that He's with us all the time.
Benefits of Living in God's Presence
And we're going to talk a little bit more in a minute about some of the benefits of that secret place. But first of all, it says that He that dwells in the secret place shall remain stable and fixed. Now, I don't know about you, but I went through a lot of years in my life where I didn't feel like I had much stability. I was kind of up and down with my circumstances. If my circumstances were up, then I was in a good mood. And if my circumstances were down, then I wasn't in a very good mood. If my circumstances were good, I'd be easy to get along with. And if my circumstances were bad, then I wasn't very easy to get along with. And I think there's a lot of people today that are unstable. They're led by their emotions more than they're led by the Word of God.
The thing that we have to realize is, first of all, we can't be led by the Word of God if we don't know the Word of God. And we're not going to have this kind of stability if we don't ever spend any time with God. So let me just share a couple of other scriptures with you that talk about dwelling in the presence of God. In Psalm 94:13, it says that God will continue to let us go through different things until we learn how to keep ourselves calm in the day of adversity. And I like that. God's not going to come along and just do it all for me. He shows me what to do. But He actually gives us the fruit of self-control so we can learn to control ourselves.
Learning Self-Control in Tough Times
And just in case you think that you can't control yourself, one of the things that I've learned is things that I might do in front of my family. Like I might lose my temper and say something negative in front of my family, but if there was somebody there that I really wanted to impress or I wanted them to think well of me, it's amazing what kind of control we can get over ourselves if we're concerned about what somebody's going to think of us. And so the truth is, we can control ourselves if we want to. So I think, if nothing else, just the gift of being stable is worth so much because how awful is it to always be in a position where your circumstances are controlling you? You never know on any given day what may happen that day. And so we want to be able to handle whatever comes with good temper.
And you know, that's what the Apostle Paul taught the people at the church of Colossae. He didn't pray for their problems to go away. In chapter 3, verses 11 and 12, he prayed that they would learn to keep themselves calm and also that they would handle whatever came with good temper. Now, wouldn't that be good? To just say, you know what? I can be in a good mood. I can be stable. I can keep my temper steady no matter what comes along.
Declaring Trust in God During Difficulties
You know, it's one thing to always be asking God to remove your problems. It's another thing to ask God to keep you stable in the midst of those problems. What really is the greatest miracle? Is the greatest miracle in our life for God to arrange all of our circumstances where nothing ever disturbs us and everything goes the way we want it to every single day? Or is it a greater miracle, even a greater proof that God is present in our lives if we can have many of the same things that go on in everybody else's lives and yet we stay peaceful, we stay calm, we stay joyful, we continue to reach out to other people and help them? I think we both know it's the stability. So, I'm asking you today, our viewers, to make stability a goal in your life.
Now, you see, some of you might be thinking, Wow! That's only the first verse. Psalm 91:1. And you got all that out of that. Yes, it's amazing what really is in the Word of God, if we will just look at it. You know, Jesus said, In the world you will have tribulation. Cheer up, for I have overcome the world. That's John 16:33. So, He's saying, everything's not going to go the way you want it to. But you can be joyful in the midst of it.
Saying the Right Things About God in Hard Times
And I believe right now that there's some people watching, and you need what I have just said. Because you've got something going on in your life right now that you don't like. And honey, you were not in a good mood when you turned this program on. And now you can just say, Well, you know what? I'm just going to cheer up, and I'm going to calm down, and I'm going to stay stable. And the way you do that is by going to God. Jesus said, Come unto me, all you that labor and are heavy laden. So, you just take the time to go to Him and say, God, I need You to strengthen me in this situation and help me to stay calm and to represent You the way that I should. Amen? All right.
Verse 2, pressing on. The second thing that this teaches us is, I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress, my God. On Him I lean and rely, and in Him I confidently trust. So, what are you saying of God? What do we say in good times? That's really not all that important. Anybody can say the right thing when everything's going their way. What do we say in disappointment? In difficulty? When things don't seem fair? When it seems like we're not being treated right?
You know what God wants to hear us say in those times? Father, I trust You. That's all. He doesn't even want to hear, why God, why? Oh me, oh me. Why am I being treated this way? He certainly doesn't want to hear, oh God, don't you love me? That's the worst thing in the world we can say. Because God doesn't have to prove His love to us by keeping every single thing in our lives perfect all the time.
Protection and Angelic Help in the Secret Place
And so God wants to hear us say all the time, this doesn't feel good, I don't like it, but I trust You. I trust You. I believe that somehow or another this is going to work out for good in my life. This is going to work out in my life to make me a better person. This would not be happening to me if you couldn't work it out for good because you are good. And even though the thing isn't good and God didn't necessarily bring the thing into your life, God can work good out of anything. So what do we say of the Lord? I think that's so important.
And you know, I love what Hebrews 4:14 says. It says that we're to hold fast our confession of faith in Him. Hold fast your confession of faith in Him. It's easy to say I trust You when things are going good. But to say I trust You when they're not, that's another story.
Staying Consistent in Faith Through Trials
And then also I love John 14:30, where Jesus was about to go into His greatest time of suffering. He was going to have His time in the Garden of Gethsemane where He suffered so much. And He knew that that meant that He was getting ready to go to the cross because He knew ahead of time the way that He was going to need to suffer. And He actually said to His disciples, and I love this, I will not be talking much more with you from now on because the wicked one comes and He has no part in me. So, the way I look at that is, sometimes when we're having a lot of pressure and trouble in our lives, the best thing we can do is just keep quiet. I mean, we tell our kids sometimes, well, if you can't say something positive, then don't say anything at all. Well, I wonder who needs that advice maybe sometimes as much as our kids do.
And I believe that if we will learn in difficulty to stay stable, keep the same confession. See, I think that one of the greatest goals of a believer is to be the same way in hard times as you are in good times. To be the same way you are in the valley as you are on the mountaintop. Is it easy? No, it's definitely not easy. But just because something's not easy, that doesn't mean that it can't be done.
Angels Charge Over the Obedient Believer
So, verse 7, 1,000 may fall at your right side and 10,000 at your right hand, but it will not come near you. Only a spectator shall you be, yourself inaccessible in the secret place of the Most High, as you witness the reward of the wicked. So, here again, he's not promising to keep us from ever having any issues, but he's saying that even in the midst of them, God is your hiding place. And ultimately, even though the enemy may come against you one way, he'll have to flee before you many ways, because God is on your side and he's always going to help you.
Because you have made the Lord your refuge, and the Most High your dwelling place, there shall no evil befall you, nor any plague or calamity come near your tent. Now, hang on a minute, because I know you're thinking, well, wait a minute, that says nothing bad's going to happen. Well, every trial that we have is not necessarily a bad thing. That's one of the things that we really need to learn. The whole reason why God gives us faith is to protect us in difficult times. And like any muscle that you have, let's just say faith is a muscle, it's not ever going to get stronger if you don't use it.
Authority and Power Given to Believers
So God hasn't given us faith for all the goody, goody, wonderful times in life. He's given us faith for when everything looks like it's going sour, but in the midst of that, we're in that secret place with God, and we know things about Him that maybe other people don't know because we trust in His Word. Now, here it comes, for He will give His angels special charge over you. I mean, so here's the thing that I felt like God wanted to present to you today. There are some things that happen to us. Granted, every day is not perfect. But how many things does God save us from that could happen? I think it's a greater thing for God to not necessarily remove every cactus in life that we think is going to make us uncomfortable, but instead to put flowers on those cactuses and let us see the goodness that He has for us right in the midst of these situations.
Now, angels. Wow. I'll be honest with you. I don't think about angels enough. I've been trying to do a little better at that because it's actually amazing when you think about all the angels, the guardian angels. Maybe, you know, Jesus said, don't you know that I could call a legion of angels? A legion. I don't know how many that is. We don't use that terminology now, but it's a whole bunch. And so, we have not only special angels that I think are assigned to each one of us, but there are angels everywhere watching over us. You're not alone. I said you are not alone. First of all, Jesus said He would never, ever leave you nor forsake you. And in addition to that, you have angels helping you and watching over you all the time.
Obedience Unlocks Angelic Protection
But now, we've got to read the rest of this to get it right. Verse 11. For He will give His angels a special charge over you to accompany and defend and preserve you in all of your ways of obedience and service. Now, that's really the kicker right there. So, God doesn't promise us angels in the midst of our disobedience and laziness. He promises us angels in the midst of our obedience and service. So, you get up. Your goal that day is to glorify God to the best of your ability. You want to be obedient to Him. I'm sure we all miss it, even with our best goal. We're trying to serve God. I mean, that's what this is all about. And so, we can trust that God will give His angels charge over us.
It says, You shall tread upon the lion and the adder, the young lion and the serpent shall you trample underfoot. Now, you know, I could give you a good lesson right here out of verse 13. There's so much in verse 13 because that talks to us about the authority of the believer. And actually, there's a cross-reference here to Luke 10:19, which says, Behold, I have given you power. We have power. We're not powerless. As God's children, we have power. And maybe you've believed in God for a lot of years and nobody's ever told you that you have power. Well, you have power. You don't have to just let the devil walk all over you.
Using Authority to Resist the Enemy
You can open your mouth and say, I resist you in the name of Jesus. I submit myself to God and I resist you. That's James 4. You know, Jesus spoke when the devil was trying to work through Peter and he said, Get thee behind me, Satan. So, Jesus talked back to the devil in Luke chapter 4. It says, The devil said to him, and he said to the devil, It is written. And so, we don't look at these things enough to realize, angels aren't going to help me and I'm not going to scare the devil with my murmuring and grumbling and complaining. But if I will remain stable and say of the Lord, then I can expect to get all the help that heaven can give me.
So, you have authority. Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions and over all the power the enemy possesses and nothing shall by any means harm you. I love that. And then in Ephesians 1:19, Paul was praying a prayer for the church in Ephesus and he prayed three distinct things that they would know God, that they would know who they were in Christ and that the believers would know the power available to them as a believer in Jesus Christ. Those three things. Know God, know who you are in Him and know that you have power as a believer.
God's Direct Promises to Those Who Love Him
Now, this takes a little turn and it's like God now talking back to us and I want you to get these last few verses because they're powerful. Because He has set His love upon Me, so this is God speaking. Therefore will I deliver Him. I will set Him on high because He knows and understands My name, has a personal knowledge of My mercy, love, and kindness, trusts and relies on Me, knowing that I will never forsake Him. No, not ever.
He shall call upon Me and I will answer Him. I will be with Him in trouble. I will deliver Him and honor Him. With long life, I will satisfy Him and show Him My salvation. So, those last three verses, if you really take the time to not just quickly read over them and gloss over them and think, well, I didn't get anything out of that. If you sit and look at it for a little bit, what is He saying? He's saying, here's the most important things. Love God. Know Him personally for yourself. Stop being satisfied with the secondhand faith that you got through your grandmama or your mama or your pastor. Know God for yourself. Know that He's merciful and kind. Know that He will never forsake you. No, not ever.
Personal Relationship and Answered Prayer
Pray and He will answer. You can't get an answered prayer if you don't pray. Know that He will be with you in trouble. So, even when you're going through trouble, that's a good time to say, God, I believe you're right here working in this situation. I believe that God is working. No matter how I feel, I believe that God is working. And then last, He will satisfy you with long life and God will show you His salvation.
So, that's all that we can get out of Psalm 91 today, but I think that's some good information. So, if you really think about it, how many people gloss over Psalm 91? They maybe read it religiously or think it's a nice psalm to read for comfort, but there's so much to get out of the Word if we will just take the time to meditate on it a little bit. Now, today we're offering you some teaching because I think that the Word of God is one of the most important things that we can offer you on a daily basis. All we can do is offer. You're the one that has to move and make a phone call or get on your computer and order these things and then listen to them, read them, or whatever the offer might be.