“SHELTER” - IT’S YOUR CHOICE

Psalms 91:9-13

Part 7

Pastor Vincent B. LigonSunday, May 21st, 2017

Never Blame another person for your personal choices-you are still the one who

must live out the consequences of your choices

INTRODUCTION

  1. Definition of “choice” - mean the act or opportunity of choosing or the thing chosen.choicesuggests the opportunity or privilege of choosing freely.⟨freedom of choice⟩optionimplies a power to choose that is specifically granted or guaranteed.⟨theoption of paying now or later⟩alternativeimplies a need to choose one and reject another possibility.⟨equally attractivealternatives⟩preferencesuggests a choice guided by one's judgment or predilections.⟨apreferencefor cool weather⟩selectionimplies a range of choice.⟨a varied selectionof furniture⟩electionimplies an end or purpose which requires exercise of judgment.⟨doing a tax return forces certainelectionson you⟩

Note our text in Psalm 91:9-14

  1. The Choice – Psalm 91:9

The idea is, that they had, as it were, chosen to abide with God, or to dwell with Him - to find they home with Him as in a father‘s house.

Note Psalm 91:1-2

The Divine guardianship is represented as extending to the whole household of the righteous; and we know that God comprehends under His love the children of such as He has adopted into His fatherly favor. Or, perhaps, the term may be taken in its simpler sense, and nothing more be intended than that those who choose God for their refuge will dwell safely in their houses.

  1. Protection - Defense from attack, hurt or exploitation. The ultimate protector is God but he also uses others in defending the weak and needy.

1)Protection from oppression

Psalm 72:4

May he vindicate the afflicted of the people, Save the children of the needy And crush the oppressor.

2)Protection from exploitation – Mark 12:38-40

3)Believers need protection from spiritual dangers

The consequence of this, or the security which would follow, he states in the following verses.

  1. The Benefits Of This Choice – Psalm 91:10-13
  1. There shall no evil befall thee.... The evil of sin cleaves to the best of saints, the evil of temptations besets them, and the evil of afflictions comes upon them, as chastisements from the Lord; for they must expect to receive evil, in this sense, as well as good, from His hands; but the evil of punishment never touches them; and therefore, when any public calamity befalls them in common with others, yet not as an evil of punishment; it is not an evil to them, it is for their good:

Turn to Exodus 11:1-7 (See Job 5:1-27)

Romans 8:28

(NASB)

And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God,

to those who are called according to His purpose.

1)Safety - Being free from danger or harm. God promises to keep His people from all lasting spiritual and physical danger; He requires, however, that His people act responsibly.

Turn to Romans 8:35–39 - Safety in God alone

  1. Angels Providing Safety – Psalm 91:11-12

He has commissioned angels to care for them. Angels protect from physical harm and give believers strength to overcome difficulties, pictured here as wild lions and dangerous snakes.

1st Peter5:8

Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.

1)False Security – Matthew 4:1-11

  1. Spiritual Victory - Psalm 91:13

Note Luke 10:17-20

This promise refers not only to the reptiles and wild beasts of outwards evil, but also to evils in which the deadliness of sin is concentrated against our individual hearts--the evil thoughts and deeds and words and habits that assault and hurt the soul. The lion is that inward sin, that special impulse and temptation which has most power against you. It is the favorite vice against which you/we are weakest.

Let a person but once give themselves over to a besetting and unrepented sin, and all else becomes in vain. Therefore, as you love your lives, enter alone, and with awful resolution, the dark caverns of your own hearts, face once for all the lion who lies lurking there, lay aside utterly the fancy that he can remain there without destroying you, give up the idle notion that you can fence yourself round against him by reason, or by philosophy, or by prudential reserves, or by vague delays, stalling of the struggle.

Nothing will save you but desperate wrestling with all the gathered forces of your life intensified by grace and prayer. But notice that the more early this battle is undertaken the more surely is it won.

Victory is won more easily at fifteen than at twenty, and more easily at twenty than at thirty, and a hundredfold more easily at thirty than at sixty. And which of us has not been in one way or another defeated? Which of us can encounter that poison-breathing lion in the dark cavern of his heart, and strangle it fearlessly as once he might have done?

But, it is never too late to fight, never too late to mend, never impossible to slay the lion within you, and to tread the young lion and the dragon under foot. Was not King David a murderer and an adulterer, and yet God gave him back the clean heart and the free spirit? We can find many examples of people who did sin and repented of those sins. If you have sinned with these, cannot you with these repent? (Dean Farrar.)

CLOSING – Psalm 91:9

Never Blame another person for your personal choices-you are still the one who must

live out the consequences of your choices