Enfolded: A Reflection on God’s Psalm 91 PromisesÀpẹrẹ

When potential risks become realities, God moves from preventive cover methods into a protective carry mode. “For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways” (v. 11). Supernatural angelic assistance (v. 12) is provided to conquer supernatural demonic attacks (vv. 3-6).

Angelic ministry to those under God’s charge is assumed in the Old and New Testaments. Angels strengthen Daniel (Daniel 10:10-21), Jesus (Matthew 4:11), and Paul (Acts 27:23) and minister to all believers (Hebrews 1:14). God sends them as divine security guards to personally whisk His people away “in their hands” from injury. They will conquer obvious lion-like (visible, public) terror and private serpent-like (obscure, invisible) strikes.

Evil is currently contained by God’s common mercies. It is yet to be defeated. Thus anyone anywhere at any time can be afflicted by disease and death. This is why the “whoever” (v. 1) is more than a principle. This psalm is an invitation to take refuge in the divine quadrangle of safety: shelter, shadow, sanctuary, and stronghold.

If these verses are taken to guarantee a pain-free life, we would have to discount all the psalms where believers cry out to God in unbearable trouble. A grief-free life does not fit the realities of a fallen world. The Lord Jesus Himself wept at His friend’s death and winced at human suffering; He did not shun Gethsemane and Golgotha. He lived His entire Incarnation in voluntary limitation.

A trouble-free life would be a trust-free life and a prayer-free life. This psalm affirms the realities of danger and distress and expects the believer to call on God, who will be with him in trouble (v. 15).

A guarantee of permanent safety was the kind of misuse of the psalm that Jesus did not accept from Satan (Luke 4:9-11). Our Lord countered Satan’s misapplication of Psalm 91 (Matthew 4:6-7; Luke 4:10-12). Presuming God’s purposes and forcing God’s timing would be putting God to the test (cf. Deuteronomy 6:16). Indeed, Satan left out the qualifying phrase “in all your ways” to make Scripture suit his purposes.

When Jesus could have called on His Father to deploy 12 legions of angels to keep Him from suffering, He did not, since God’s purposes as written in the Scriptures would not have been fulfilled (Matthew 26:53-54). We trust the God who can’t be tested to help us triumph through our trials.