Finding Refuge | Exploring Psalm 91 and God's Protection | Psalm 91:1-16

You're listening to the Bible Guys, a podcast where a

couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun in

practical ways. Hey today, Oh wow, todayda Hey everybody.

I was just gonna say happy Monday because today's Monday.

Oh, it's everybody's favorite day except for Garfield. You sound

a little too excited about it.

It was happy Monday.

Well, I'm trying to manufacture.

Energy, Okay, I try.

I'm trying to tell myself that I'm excited because it

was It's nine am in the studio. It was believable,

and today's actually Wednesday.

Wednesday.

But happy Monday to the listener. If you're listening on

those days, they could be archiving this.

I bet they are.

They could be at the gymnasium. I can't believe I

said gymnasium. They could be at the gym working out jimsium.

How old are you, dude, Well, you know.

The Red Wagon.

So no, they could be at the gym at two

in the morning. I just got that in the lobby too, Okay.

Guy came up to me and says, you know, I'm

the guy that works out at two am and every day,

And I said, you work at at two am, he said, listen.

To the Bible, guys. Why so happy technical morning.

Okay, well, good morning to you.

Yes for sure.

Well, hey, we have a special for our two.

Am listeners because we have a very special segment this

morning as we're doing. Yesterday was Easter, and so we're

going to do an Easter draft for our favorite things

about Easter.

Yeah, what do we like the most about Easter?

Easter traditions? What do you like the most about Easter?

Yeah, the same.

All right, we're gonna do rock paper scissors, so you

get to go, sure, we go. Okay, ready wrong? Two three? Oh?

He had rock, eye had scissors, So you get to

go first.

I'm superior.

You always beat me, right you cheat? Did you cheat?

No, no, you don't, Liz, I know your mind's or Liz.

So here's scary thought. Here's my favorite favorite thing about Easter.

And it has to be and I'm going to take

still your thunder. Uh, the Christmas services at churches?

So right, because I know Christmas services at churches.

What did I say?

You say, Christmas Easter services at church? Easter services at

church are your favorite thing about Eastern No?

No, no, wait a minute, you didn't say it has

to be number one.

Is Trump's number two?

You know? But I mean I get it.

It's so it's traditions, it's all your favorite it's in

the things that you like in the top.

But you're going to steal my thunder because.

That's what you're going to say. Okay, right, no, oh right,

We'll go ahead and like, so.

Yours is all the gajillions of services. So we did

like twenty two services across our campuses.

Yeah, I love you. Love love the camaraderie. I love

the people.

I love the energy, the chaos.

I love the chaos. I love all the people, the

artistic moments, all of it.

Yep.

Yeah, So favorite things about Easter? So that was your

first draft pick, number one draft pick. You used your

draft pick on Eastern Service.

Hush, are you going to make fun of me because

of my family staff?

So nope, My favorite thing about Easter is Jesus the Resurrection.

The Resurrection.

You left the best player on the board, dude, So

the resurrection is kind of a big deal about Easter.

Okay, I didn't know you were meaning what that. I

thought you you experiencing the holidays.

You said your favorite thing about Easter why.

You're doing so much set up? You set me at

the fail.

I was just hoping, I was hoping you'd choose anything

other than that. Yeah, So I got the Resurrection. Big fan,

big fan by the way, big fan of the Resurrection.

One of my favorite things.

That's a journey Christian love. All Right, I'm gonna go with.

Uh, Okay, anything besides.

Is out.

I'm gonna say, he's your basket, Resurrection Salvation, Okay, right,

so I'm gonna.

Go with you know, I just I just drafted Tom Brady.

You know that, right, Okay? Okay.

So here's the thing.

Uh, did you just compare Tom Brady the Resurrection, well

the goat?

Okay, I would say this. I would say.

I enjoy very much so the tradition that I have

with my family that most people who know me know this.

Yes, we hide Easter baskets.

And my kids are in their twenties, and I even

have one that's in her thirties. And she said, she said,

I will never get too old for Easter baskets. I said, oh,

trust me, there will be a day where I mean,

I'm not going to be eighty and you're going to

be fifty coming home for you know, Easter, and then say, Dad,

hide my Easter basket. I said, this is not going

to happen, right, but currently I can't believe I'm still

doing it.

But here I do. Here, I find myself hiding Easter

baskets every year.

It's a big deal. I mean, like very big deal.

You have epic videos the whole night. Yr Yeah, I

figured you'd say that. So after my first draft pick,

I'm going to take a flyer. No, no, no, no,

I'm going to take a flyer and say, Reese's peanut

butter eggs.

Wow, resurrection.

I don't want you to steal those from me. I

don't want you to steal those from me.

Yeah, yeah, so I don't want you to steal those

because I was afraid you would punish me.

That's what I was afraid I should have. I should

I needed to grab that one.

Thank Okay.

The third thing that I'm going to choose as I'm

going to say that, my family does another big, crazy

thing and it's and it's it's massive. It's just as

big as the easter baskets. And that is we do

an egg fight. And so we do egg fights just

like the Greeks. Or the Italians. Uh, it's it's tradition.

If you ever seen My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Yes,

the movie, I remember they walked by and they did

it and they cracked the eggs.

Well, we have brackets.

I'm glad you explained it, because most people were envisioning

like flinging eggs each other.

That's correct, Thank you, thank you, You're welcome.

So we do we do egg fights.

And so like my Youngstown family growing up Youngstown, Ohio,

what they would do is they would literally, like you

would have a fights in your own home and then

you would meet together. And so like my uncle would

have egg fights with his family, and then the winner

of that egg he would bring to the final round

right right, and then he would bring it all over.

And then we would just do winners against winners, and

everybody has to submit names for their eggs and everything.

I mean, it's pretty crazy.

Okay, So can you give us the ground rules very

quickly on how to do an egg fight?

Yeah, see hardbown egg and then one person holds it

and the other person depends on you know, who's on

the bracket on the draft. But one person holds it

and one person strikes pointy, a gets pointy.

Only one's going to crack. Always two don't crack. It's

just one.

Then you flip it and you do the other side.

And if it's one in one, then the third one wins.

And sometimes if you have one end cracked and one

and not, I've seen a limp egg make it all

the way to the end, like one end is cracked.

One is not, and he wins.

How is there a limit to how hard you can hit?

Just hard enough to crack the shell?

Okay, tap, not a smash.

I'm sure if you smash smashed, both of them probably

would bring and then they're both out.

Yeah, that would be okay.

Okay, So you're trying to crack the other one. You're

hitting just hard enough to crack the other one, but

not crack yours. Correct, Okay, good, it is riveting. This

is riveting material, by the way. Okay, so was that

your number three? We got to get hurrying.

Then.

I love gathering the family around after a great Easter

church services.

And having a big Easter dinner.

Yeah, I love it, and I love it, and I

would say, uh, another tradition for us is I would

say I love well ge whiz, I'm gonna go with

our Easter dinner too, okay, yep, okay, so yours versus mine?

Yes, okay, that's better.

I doubt it. And then actually.

Then I would say around the Easter time, I love

the My wife is usually starting to fill every everything

with flowers. So yeah, the daffodils and all the stuff

coming up in Michigane, she loves that.

So we're done.

Okay, Was that it was that in our five? Okay?

Well it was four at least, so at least four. Good. Well, hey,

we have.

Been going through chronologically through the Old Testament, and we

kind of have been a in a Isaiah chunk.

But then you did a bunch of proverbs and psalms, you.

Right, speaking of chunks of chunklate, there are also chunks

of scripture.

Yeah, okay, good, good, because I was having trouble with

a with a bad thing. So for this chunk of

scripture that we're going to talk about is Psalm ninety

one today?

Chunks of scripture?

Well it is, yeah, it's okay.

Well, so when God wrote it, had it written, He

didn't have it written in verses and chapters, correct, right,

which people actually So then people chunked it up, okay,

leader or not.

Most people don't know about the verses in chapters right right, Yeah,

they don't really know that they came in the form

of you know, mostly let in long manuscripts.

So we are in Psalm ninety one today, and the

Bible doesn't necessarily say who the author was. No, so

it says anonymous actually a ninety mouse, So here you go.

It says those who live in the shelter are the

most high, will find rest in the shadow of the Almighty.

This I declare about the Lord. He alone is my refuge,

my place of safety. He is my God, and I

trust him, for he will rescue you from every trap

and protect you from deadly disease. He will cover you

with his feathers, he will shelter you with his wings.

His faithful promises are your armor and protection. Do not

be afraid of the terrors of the night, for the

arrow that flies, nor the arrow that flies in the day.

Do not dread the disease that stalks in darkness, nor

the disaster that strikes at midday. Though a thousand fall

at your side, though ten thousand are dying around you,

these evils will not touch you. Just open your eyes

and see how the wicked are punished. If you make

the Lord your refuge, if you make the most High

your shelter, no evil will conquer you, No plague will

come near your home, for he will order his angels.

To protect you. Wherever you go.

They will hold you up with their hands, so you

won't even hurt your foot on a stone. You will

trample upon lions and cobras, and you will crush fierce

lions and serpents under your feet. The Lord says, I

will rescue those who love me. I will protect those

who trust in my name. When they call on me,

I will answer. I will be with them in trouble.

I will rescue and honor them. I will reward them

with a long life and give them my salvation. I

love that those who live in the shelter are the

most high, will find rest in the shadow of the Almighty.

Yeah. I love that.

Yeah, it's one of the most poetic verses in the Bible.

Yeah, I agree.

So we love the Life Applications study Bibles and the

first note here underneath that says God is a shelter.

A refuge when we are afraid.

The writer's faith in God as protector would carry him

through all.

The dangers and fears of life.

This should be a picture of our trust, trading all

of our fears for faith in Him, no matter how

intense our fears. Then we must live and rest with Him.

By entrusting ourselves to his protection and pledging our daily devotion.

To him, we will all be kept safe.

You know, when it says refuge, uh, in the Old Testament,

there were actually cities of refuge, right, And I'm not

sure anybody really grasps the fact that you know that

word refuge is you know, there were places where you

could run and claim refuge.

So if you were being hunted.

Or if you were being you know, unlawfully chased, you

could actually go to and and it's very similar to sanctuary.

Right, yeah, it's exact same.

Yeah, So so you could actually and and uh, you

know what, I went to Cuba one time. Well, you

were in Cuba too. You probably saw the doors. Did

you see how thick the doors were?

They give you that speech.

So there's this really.

Big cathedral in Cuba, and and and as they were

giving us this tour, uh, they had opened these doors.

And this is from the same sixteen hundreds, and so

this seventeen.

Yeah, because that one tower was built in seventeen seventy six.

That's why I remember that.

Oh, there you go, that's funny, seventeen seventy six. Anyway,

they opened the doors, and this door was I mean

probably three inches thick, and it was it was solid wood.

And to move the door even it wasn't he look

like an incredible amount of strength. And you could see

how somebody would run into a church and claim sanctuary

and they would shut these doors and both them and

it would quite frankly keep out like I wouldn't say

an army, but raging hordes. I would definitely say, I

would say, you know, definite you know, groups of bandits

and thieves and mobs, mobs and things like that. Right,

and so, but in the Old Testament, they actually had

cities that were like this, And so didn't David run

to Gath.

Yeah that wasn't a sanctuary city. That was a philistine city.

Oh that was a philistine city.

But he found sanctuary there. Okay, So the premise behind

the Old Testament sanctuary cities was God set those up

as places to be able to get a fair trial.

So if you were riding your camel and you accidently

ran over some guy and he dies, there wasn't like

the sheriff in town. So the families would choose a

blood avenger, somebody to hunt down the guy who killed

the family. And you know, it couldn't be the whole family.

It just had to be the one blood avenger, and

he would be then like deputized to be the sheriff,

but he'd also be the judge and the executioner, so

he'd try to he'd hunt you down, he'd find you

and execute you. So they so they set up these

cities of refuge in the north and the south, the

east and the west of Israel, and if you felt

like it was an accident, you could run to that

city claim refuge. They would protect you until they could

do a legal trial. So that was the original idea

behind the cities of refuge.

It's in the law.

I'm not sure if we talked about that when we

when we were in that part of the Bible. But

then in this one, refuge in general is just a

safe place, right. It's a it's a castle if you're thinking,

or it's a it's a high spot when the flood

is is, you know, pouring in, it's it's all those things.

It's that the safest place you can possibly be. And

that's what it's trying to explain, is that God is

our safest place in the middle of the storm or

the problems.

Can you imagine being slow enough to where you couldn't

get out of the way of a camel?

Yeah?

Or if you're the writer, oh no, a.

Lot of There were a lot of camel accidents back then.

If you just read the old newspapers, it was pretty

pretty horrific.

So yeah, exactly.

So I love the imagery of those first four verses right,

that He alone is my refuge, my place of safety.

He's my God. I trust him. He will rescue you

from every trap, protect you from deadly disease. He'll cover

you with his feathers, He'll shelter you with his wings.

His paint faithful promises are your armor and protection. Have

you ever seen a hen that will drop down and

pull all of her baby chicks underneath? And if you've

ever come in and startled a hen with a bunch

of chicks, the chicks will immediately turn and run from you,

and the hen will run towards her chicks, throw out

her feathers, the chicks will run.

Underneath, and she'll use her body to protect her.

Shall we share with our listeners the goose that's outside, Yeah.

You've got just outside. Well, that's how we keep the

riff raff out of the studio. So we've got a

couple of geese.

Yeah, and one is nesting and the other is protecting.

And so literally, if you walk too closed. And I

was walking in with my buddy Jeff Miller and who's

here of this today, And so as we were walking

in together, I said, don't even go near that side.

Of the parking lot. He goes why, and I go, oh,

it'll get you.

I've been gotten yeah, yeah, yeah, you got got several

times last year.

Yes, yes, and so, and that goose keeps on coming back.

And it's in the landscaping of the building. And for

some reason they.

Think make a big nest in the mulch.

Yeah, that's that's where they wanted. That's what they wanted.

That's because they found a bunch of cowards they can

bully us, so they just keep coming back, I guess.

But so there's this this imagery that the farmers the

agricultural type people. You know, most people get their chicken

in a bag handed out the window now in our

in our culture, right, But back then chicken was was

you know, you kept chickens and then you'd have your eggs, certainly,

and then eventually you'd make you so because of that,

they would have chickens everywhere. This is one of those

images that everybody would have known. Everybody would have understood

this one, right, that she'll she'll die protecting her chicks. Right,

she provides the shelter and the protection for those chicks

is under her wings, under her care. And that's what

it's talking about here, is that's how God views his people.

So those first four.

And by the way, I love how God connects his

nature to motherhood, right because you know he created both

Adam and Eve both in his image. And so you know,

we all, you know, twenty twenty five nobody wants to

well not nobody, but culture is trying to make men

and women less different than they are, right, and so

we have to understand, like, you know, God created men

completely different than women. So if you look at all

the differences, it's pretty striking, right, right. But you know,

somehow culture wants to say, you know, and by the way,

equality is different. We believe that you know equal rights

versus you know, different roles. Right. So anyway, the point

is is that the motherhood role, which is usually you know,

fulfilled by the motherly instinct, that that is also a

god instinct. Right, That's a God. That's part of God's nature,

which is pretty cool, I think.

So it is.

Yeah, So this is I think the most important phrase

is in verse two. He alone is my refuge, my

place of safety. He is my God, and I trust him.

Then everything else in this chapter it talks about terrors

of the night, arrows that fly in the day, diseases

that stalk in the darkness, disaster that strikes at midday,

a thousand falling at your side in some war, right,

punishment for evil plagues, all those things. He says, those

things aren't going to touch you as long as God's

on your side. So it really does come down to trust.

Terrors in the night. We taught our kids to pray

these verses, right, those who live in the shelters the

most high I'll find rest in the shadow of the

Almighty Mighty.

He alone is my refuge, my place of safety. Is

my God. I trust him, especially that verse we taught

my daughter to pray he is my God.

I trust him as we talk, right, because she'd have

those little terrors at night, she'd be afraid or whatever.

And so if you totally trust him, those terrors of

the night don't have to be as terrifying.

Are they still there? Sure? You know?

Right, Sometimes it's scary to be in the dark, and

there's bumps that happen. Yes, wars happen, arrows do fly,

diseases do kill people, certainly, But if you are in

God's will and it's fulfilling his purpose in the moment,

nothing can hurt you.

Right.

Then on occasion you read through the Bible, there are martyrs.

There are people who die for the cause of Christ.

One that's a great privilege. And two there are times

when God says, Okay, your race on this earth is done,

and so I'm going to use you for my purpose

for this amazing moment, right, this really important thing, and

then something will happen there. But when it comes down

to He's my God and I trust him, then whatever

happens to me is going to be okay, right, because

I'm trusting Him for my safety.

Well, when I was you processing this chapter, I started

thinking about the application of the arrows, you know, think

about I mean, I can't imagine being in a war.

But again, I'm a movie guy, so I certainly have

seen my share of movies. And if you're in a

war back then I would guess running around on the battlefield,

it would be much easier to worry about a guy

in front of you with a sword, as you could

assess those kind of risks as opposed to arrows randomly

flying through the air. Arrows flying through the air can

come at any given time from anywhere and strike you down.

And so I would imagine the.

Scariest part of being on the battlefield are the arrows,

like by a million times, right, because you don't know,

and you can't defend, and it's just unbelievable and you

can't see and you can't react quick enough and so

you know, you know you and I have no idea

how you know that must have been, you know, to

be on guard against those kinds of things. Well, anyway,

I'm thinking about the application of that, and I'm thinking, man,

what are the scariest things in our lives? What are

the things that we think are going to come out

of the blue. Sometimes it's even worry and anxiety. You know,

we create those arrows. Sometimes we're like, oh, no, what

if this happens, What if this happens that Aaron's going

to come right out and just you know, destroy my

future or my financial future, or or something will happen

with health and we'll get oh at the doctor or

whatever it is. And so there could be worried anxiety

about something that hasn't happened yet. But whatever that is,

whether it's we create them ourselves or whether it's a reality,

you know, think about what God is saying. He's saying,

I'm trying to describe the most terrifying thing, and I'm

telling you that if you trust in me, it'll be

like a chick underneath the wings of its mom. It'll

be like going into a city where you finally make

the city. Am I going to make the city? I

made the city of refuge or sanctuary? Or He's saying

it's like a suit of armor. You know, you can

feel confident and He's making all these you know, metaphors,

and so imagine what your scariest thing is.

And God's saying you'll feel safe. If you have me

there with you.

I'll be your God and you can trust me. That's

that's what he's saying.

So then he says in by the way, I'm going

to send my angels right, So you've got guardian angels.

We don't pray to our guardian angels. We pray to God.

He's one who sends them, right. But he uses his

angels to protect us all those kinds of things. But

then he says in verse fourteen, the Lord says, I

will rescue those who love me. I will protect those

who trust in my name. When they call on me,

I will answer. I'll be with them in trouble. I

will rescue and honor them. And so the appropriate thing

to do when the night terrors calm, or when the

angel when the arrows are flying, or when the battle

is raging, or when the plagues are you know, wiping

out the population, he says, run to me, and those

that love me, those that call on me, I'll rescue you.

And so if you find yourself in the middle of

some kind of crisis or some kind of fearful moment,

the best thing to do is to run to God

and He'll protect you.

Yeah, I'm sure you've given advice before when somebody has

fears in the night about scary things, to yell at

the name of Jesus. Yeah, all the time, just claiming

of Jesus and rebuke everything else. Well, that's a great

place to end, what a great chapter, and hopefully we

will see you next time on the Bible.

Guys,