Deliverance!

I want to tell you the true story of a man who worked in a dimly-lit office in the city. There was a large fluorescent light fixture above his desk, but the tube was burned out. He made repeated requests of the building department to replace it, but they never seemed to be able to get around to it.

Finally, in frustration, the man went out on his lunch hour to an electrical supply store and bought a fluorescent tube himself. He brought it back to the office, replaced the burnt out tube, and sat down to a brightly lit desk. He took the burnt out tube and put it over in a corner of his office beside a file cabinet.

But then he began to worry. What if the building department came by and found the burnt out tube? They’d know that he had replaced the light, and he wasn’t a member of the electricians’ union. There’d be all sorts of trouble. How was he going to get rid of a seven-foot long fluorescent tube without anyone finding out?

Finally, he had an idea. There was a construction site near where he got off the subway on the way home. He’d just take the fluorescent tube along with him on the subway, drop it off at the construction site, and nobody would know the difference.

So when five o’clock rolled around, he got up from his desk, grabbed the fluorescent tube and headed down into the subway. He got on the train, which was pretty crowded, and he had to stand. He held onto the pole with one hand, and in the other, he held his seven foot long fluorescent tube.

Everything was going great, except that at the next stop, ten more people got on the train, and five of them grabbed hold of his fluorescent tube.

That’s when a new idea began to form in this man’s mind. When he got to his stop, he simply let go of the fluorescent tube and walked briskly off the train. Imagine what the other people must have thought when they discovered what they were holding onto!

This story illustrates something that is all-too-often true of people when it comes to spiritual truth. Many people are holding firmly onto something that isn’t going to hold them up. They think that they are secure, but they are not.

Psalm 91 is a passage of Scripture that talks about security. For that reason, it has been a psalm that many people turn to in times of crisis or danger. Many of the soldiers who went into battle in the Persian Gulf found reassurance and comfort in this Psalm. And that is certainly a valid application of it, but it’s not the primary application.

Let’s see what Psalm 91 is really all about.

Read Psalm 91.

Psalm 91 is a psalm about deliverance—a psalm about the security of the person who trusts in God. Now what exactly does that mean?

Does it mean that if you trust in God, you’ll never have any problems? You’ll never get cancer, your car will never break down, your kids will all turn out okay? You’ll be immune from pain and suffering? No, it certainly does not mean that.

There are just too many other passages of Scripture which teach us that believers do indeed go through trials, and pain, and hardship, and even death. So what kind of security can Psalm 91 be talking about then?

The answer is found in the ministry of Jesus. All Scripture points to Jesus, and Psalm 91 is no exception.

Psalm 91 is a very unique passage of Scripture because of something that happened in the ministry of Jesus. It is the only passage of Scripture we know of that the devil took the trouble to memorize.

When Satan tempted Jesus in the wilderness, he quoted from this Psalm. That’s the only time that Satan ever quoted Scripture. Why did he quote this Psalm? Because this Psalm talks about how the Son of God would ultimately defeat him. Look at verse 13:

Psalm 91:13 You will tread upon the lion and the cobra; you will trample the great lion and the serpent. (The Bible often refers to Satan as a great lion, or a serpent.)

Satan knows that this passage of Scripture spells out his doom. it describes the fact that the Son of God would crush him.

So Satan has made it his business to know this Psalm. Because he knows that this Psalm exposes his own weakness. And so he tried to use this Psalm against Jesus in the wilderness.

If he could just trick Jesus into misapplying, or misusing the truth of this passage of the Word of God, perhaps he could succeed in breaking the power of Jesus and the Word over him.

And that’s what Satan tries to do to us. If he can’t get us to ignore this Psalm, he’ll try to get us to misinterpret it, or misapply it, or misuse it.

You have to understand that Psalm 91 is one of those Psalms that is kind of like a split-track recording. Have you ever heard those split-track tapes or CD’s where one track has the music and the other track has the voices? Well that’s what this Psalm is like in terms of the spiritual truth that it conveys.

On one level, it’s what we call a Messianic Psalm. In other words, it talks about the coming Messiah. And it talks about things which would be uniquely true in the life of the Jesus Christ. It talks about how he would have a relationship of perfect fellowship and security and protection under God the Father.

It talks about how God would deliver him from death and from the power of Satan. And that all came true in the life of Jesus Christ. These prophecies were fulfilled in him. So that’s one track.

But there’s another track of spiritual truth here. On the other track, this psalm is telling us about our security as believers. It’s telling us about our deliverance from the power of Satan.

You see, as believers, we are in Christ. We’re united with Him. Therefore, the things which were true in Christ’s life can also be true in our lives. Because Christ is our pioneer. He’s like a big brother who has gone before us and blazed a trail for us to follow.

So that means that if Jesus enjoyed the spiritual protection of God the Father, then we also enjoy the spiritual protection of God the Father. Now that doesn’t mean that we aren’t going to have physical trials, or even emotional, or spiritual trials. But it does mean that we are going to have deliverance from the power and the clutches of Satan.

Satan will never be able to deal a fatal blow to the child of God. Because God has made himself responsible for our spiritual protection. Now how does this work? Well, let’s divide this Psalm into two parts:

1. The Basis of our Security

2. The Benefits of our Security

What is the basis of our security? How are we delivered from the enemy’s power? How are we made spiritually secure? Well, Psalm 91 says that our security is based on the character of God himself.

Look at verses 1–2:

Psalm 91:1 He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.”

Look closely at those two verses. How many names are there for God in those verses? There are four: the Most High, the Almighty; the Lord; and my God.

There are many names for God in the Scriptures, and each one of them reveals something about his character; his personality. Each one of those names is highly significant.

The first name for God in verse 1 is “the Most High”. In Hebrew, it is El Elyon. It is one of the oldest names for God. Back in Genesis 14, Abram encountered a king named Melchizedek. The Bible says that Melchizedek was a priest of El Elyon, and he blessed Abram, saying, “Blessed be Abram by El Elyon, Creator of heaven and earth.”

Now in Canaan at that time (just a little after the year 2,000 BC), the chief god that the Canaanites worshiped was called El, which means “The Strong One”. All the Canaanites worshiped El. Except Melchizedek and Abram— they worshiped El Elyon, which literally means “The One Who is Stronger than the Strong One”. Elyon is the superlative of El.

As a name for God, El Elyon appears most frequently in the book of Daniel. Because Daniel lived in a time of power politics. He was up against a king—Nebuchadnezzar—who thought that he was the strongest king in all the earth. And he had the resumé to prove it. He had conquered every nation in the world.

And Nebuchadnezzar became drunk with his own power. Eventually, he built a big statue of himself and he wanted everybody to bow down and worship his image, because by this time, he was thinking of himself as a god.

But there were three young men who wouldn’t bow down to the image of this strongman. Because they worshiped El Elyon—the One who is stronger than the Strong One. So Nebuchadnezzar had them thrown into a furnace. But El Elyon delivered Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego from the fiery furnace.

So when you remember the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, remember that the name El Elyon tells us that God is stronger than the strongest enemy that could ever come against us.

The second name for God in verse one is translated the Almighty. In Hebrew it is El Shaddai, and it literally means the One who is All-Sufficient. The word Shaddai comes from a root word that refers to the female breast—a source of nourishment and fruitfulness.

So the name El Shaddai tells us that God is our source of strength. He nourishes us. Just like a mother nourishes her helpless baby at her breast, He is strong when we are weak. He provides us all that we need.

We’re studying the book of Job in Sunday School. Did you know that the name El Shaddai occurs more frequently in the Book of Job than anywhere else in the Bible? Why is that? Because Job was weak. Job was helpless. Job was a broken man.

Job was teetering on the brink of falling into Satan’s clutches. Satan wanted Job as a trophy for his mantelpiece. So Job needed spiritual sustenance to keep on going. And he found it in El Shaddai.

The third name for God is translated LORD (with all capital letters). It is the name Yahweh in Hebrew. It’s a name that the Jews regard as so holy, so sacred, that they will not even say it.

I know a man who was on a tour of the Holy Land who actually said this name—Yahweh—out loud when he was over there. And the Jewish people who heard him say it were scandalized. They told him “Never say that name out loud in this country!”

Why do the Jewish people think that this name is so sacred? Because Yahweh is the name by which God revealed himself to Moses and the children of Israel. It is the name by which he entered into a covenant relationship with them. Now he has not only made a covenant with the Jews; he has made a new covenant with all nations through the blood of Jesus Christ.

So when we think of Yahweh, we must think of God as a covenant-maker, a God who cares enough about us to be willing to enter into a binding relationship with us. He is the God who has made a commitment to us—because that’s what a covenant is; it is a binding commitment.

Finally, we see in verse 2 the simple name God. It is the word Elohim in Hebrew and it is the most common of God’s names. It occurs over 2,000 times in the OT.

It is a compound word that comes from two smaller words: the word “el”, which we have already seen means “The Strong One”; and the word “ohim” which is the plural form of the word “alah” which means “faithful”.

So when we put those two together, we get Elohim—the Strong, Faithful One. When God makes a promise, he keeps it. He is faithful.

So here we have four names for God which tell us about his character. He is the Strongest of the Strong, he is the All Sufficient One who supplies our needs, He is the Covenant-Maker who makes commitments to us, and he is the Faithful Promise Keeper who keeps those commitments.

And our spiritual security and deliverance from Satan is rooted in who he is. When he enters into a relationship with us…

- his attributes—not our attributes

- His intentions—not our intentions

- His performance—not our performance

are what guarantee the integrity and security of that relationship.

Now why are there four names of God here? Because there are four threats to us in the following verses: there is the fowler’s snare; the deadly pestilence; the terror of night; and the arrow that flies by day. Each of these threats has an element of stealth or of surprise.

A bird blunders into a fowler’s snare. You catch pestilence, or plague when you’re not even aware of it. The terror of night overtakes you when you’re least expecting it, and the arrow strikes before you can even react to it. And that’s what Satan would like to do to bring you down.

And there are four deadly animals mentioned in verse 13: the lion, the cobra, the great lion, and the serpent.

These are all images of Satan, and of what Satan wants to do to us. Either by sly cunning or stealth, or by a roaring frontal assault like a man-eating lion, Satan wants your soul. He wants to ruin you. And he could do it except for that fact that God stands in front of us.

He covers us with his feathers and under his wings we find refuge. His faithfulness is our shield and rampart. God himself is the basis of our security.

Have you ever felt like you were under spiritual attack? What’s the best way to handle that? The best way to handle that is to focus your mind on who God is. Meditate on the attributes of God. Bring the truth of the Word of God to bear on that situation—it is the Sword of the Spirit—and Satan will flee. He has no choice because he cannot fight against El Elyon.

What are the benefits of our security?

1. Angelic protection.

Psalm 91:11 For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways; they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.

Satan wanted Jesus to abuse that benefit—to go out of his way to act recklessly in order to prove whether God would really bail him out. And Jesus rebuked Satan for that.

But God does provide us with angelic protection.

Hebrews 1:14 Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?

God appoints angels to watch over us and protect us. Now that simply means that there are times when Satan would like to get at us and he would succeed except for the fact that one of God’s angels intervenes.

Again, we see that this was true in the life of our Lord Jesus. Who warned Joseph in a dream to get Mary and Jesus out of Bethlehem and flee to Egypt? It was an angel. Who ministered to Jesus after he was tempted by Satan in the wilderness? The angels did.

And likewise, what was true for Jesus is also true for us. God’s angels minister to us in times of spiritual testing. And his angels give us spiritual protection from the Enemy when we need it. We may not even be aware of them doing that, but they are there for us.

2. Victory over the power of sin in your life.

In verse 13, the Psalmist says that you will tread upon the lion and the cobra; you will trample the great lion and the serpent.

Now that was certainly true of Jesus Christ. He crushed the head of the Serpent when he died on the cross and rose again, because he took Satan’s hammer—Death—and he broke it. And because he did that, the truth of this verse is now true for us.

These words indicate a decisive victory over Satan. We tread upon him and trample him. It’s not like we just scare him away and he comes back another day. In Christ, we have ongoing victory over him. His power in our lives is broken.

Does that mean that we’ll reach the point as Christians where we’ll never sin? No, it doesn’t. Because we never perfectly abide in fellowship with God moment by moment as Jesus did when he was on this earth.

But when we do abide in fellowship with God, the power of sin in our life is broken. We are no longer slaves or hostages to Satan.

If you are dealing with a particularly troublesome sin in your life—perhaps it is a sinful habit. Or perhaps it is something that you have become addicted to. Whatever it is—you know that it’s displeasing to God, but you just can’t seem to break its hold on your life.

Look at verses 14—15

Psalm 91:14 “Because he loves me,” says the Lord, “I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name. He will call upon me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him.

Have you ever called out to the Lord. I mean, have you really cried out to God for deliverance? Have you come to the place where you realize that you just can’t do it alone? And all you have left is to cry out to God?

God says he will deliver you and honor you.

Psalm 91 is a psalm about deliverance. Not deliverance from pain. Not deliverance from problems. But deliverance from the power of the evil one. And ultimately, that’s the only kind of deliverance we really need.

So be encouraged!

God is good…all the time.

All the time…God is good!