Preacher: Mason Kiple

Order of Service

• Prayer Requests
• Opening Prayer
• Scripture Reading: Psalm 91:1-16
• Sermon

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Sermon Title: God Our Strong Shelter

Scripture: Psalm 91

I. God Is a Strong Shelter (vv. 1-2)

• A. Setting of the psalm
  1. Likely addressed to the congregation as an army going out to battle, perhaps written by a priest or high priest.
  2. It was probably used in a ceremony consecrating the army to Yahweh, seeking his protection and strength.
  3. For the new covenant people of God, it applies to spiritual warfare, as in the armor of God in Ephesians 6:10-18.
• B. Heaped-up metaphors for God
  1. God is called a shelter, a shadow, a refuge, and a fortress.
  2. The psalter piles up images to show that God is an all-encompassing protector for whoever takes shelter in him.
• C. Anthropomorphism
  1. Scripture speaks of the God who is spirit as having a right hand, eyes, and ears. Calvin compared this to a parent speaking baby talk to a child, as God accommodates himself to us.
  2. Following Scott Swain, it is more than accommodation: creation itself is theomorphic, made to point to God.
  3. When an inspired author uses a shelter or a tree as an image of God, he is using creation in its proper sense, as metaphor for God.
  4. This helps modern Western readers, who are uncomfortable with poetry, to read the psalter and wisdom literature.
  5. A good thing like a strong right hand should lead us to think of God's right hand.

II. God's Strength in Action (vv. 3-8)

• A. Deadly pestilence (v. 3)
  1. Disease was a major threat to ancient armies and could spread quickly.
  2. God promises to keep his people from it.
• B. Pinions and wings (v. 4)
  1. Ancient Near Eastern nations spoke of the wings of their deities protecting them in war, so this may be a polemic against false gods: trust the wings of Yahweh.
  2. It may also allude to the cherubim whose wings overshadow the ark of the covenant in the most holy place, so God's wings overshadow all who trust in him.
• C. Day and night protection (vv. 5-8)
  1. The wicked fall around the righteous, who go untouched.
  2. The stark imagery shows God's protection in a fallen world, not in pristine meadows.
• D. The gritty realism of the psalter
  1. The bulk of the psalter is gritty, like Psalm 23, where God is with us in the valley of the shadow of death.
  2. David was protected and given victory, yet as a man of war with bloodied hands he could not build the temple.
  3. God is with us in a bloody, fallen world, but this help is not the ultimate thing.

III. The People Who Make God Their Strength (vv. 9-13)

• A. A conditional promise
  1. The promise rests on faith: "because you have made the Lord your dwelling place" (v. 9).
  2. It is not a name-it-and-claim-it guarantee.
• B. Satan's use of the psalm in Matthew 4:3-7
  1. Satan quotes verses 11-12 to tempt Jesus to throw himself from the temple pinnacle.
  2. Jesus answers with Deuteronomy 6:16: do not put the Lord your God to the test.
  3. Matthew 4 is the interpretive grid for the psalm. The idea that God owes us something because he promised it is Satan's reading, the prosperity gospel, and Christ does not bow to it.

IV. The Voice of the God of Strength (vv. 14-16)

• A. A change of voice
  1. God himself now speaks, which makes the psalm a personal invitation from God.
  2. He promises to be our strength and shield when we trust him.
• B. Holding fast in love (v. 14)
  1. The Hebrew is the same as in Genesis 2:24, where a man holds fast to his wife.
  2. Jesus' call to leave father and mother for him uses this marriage language. Ephesians 5:31-32 reveals that marriage always pointed to Christ and the church.
  3. We are called to leave all behind and cling to Christ, as Abraham left the Chaldeans.
• C. The promises of answered prayer and long life (vv. 15-16)
  1. Satan knows Scripture and twists it, as he did with Adam and Eve and again with Christ in the desert.
  2. Christ did not take the bait, which is why we are saved.
  3. The psalm ultimately points to Christ and must be understood through his life and ministry.
  4. Christ did not have a long physical life. He died at about 33 or 34, was captured by his enemies, and was crushed by the Lord at the cross, drinking the cup of God's wrath (Isaiah 51:17).
  5. The sermon was cut off here, as the preacher began to ask how the promise of long life should be read in light of Christ.