welcome to gospel and life thank you for joining us we go through this special series of meditations by Tim Keller trusting God and difficult times this new series is meant to encourage you to trust God more deeply and to meditate on his word and what it promises to give you strength and hope in difficult times and now here’s today’s meditation Psalm 91 it begins verses 1 and 2 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 in my fortress and God I trust later on it says he will cover you with his feathers and under his wings you will find refuge you will not fear the arrow that flies by day nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness a thousand may fall at your side it will not come near you in verse 11 and 12 it says he will command his angels to guard you in all your ways so that you will not stub your foot against a stone so the promise of this Psalm is that God will keep you safe he’s a refuge he will keep you safe but how do we understand that promise what does it mean now I can tell you what Satan wants you to think about this promise I can tell you how Satan wants you to read this this song you might say how do you know that well as Shakespeare says in the Merchant of Venice the devil can sight scripture for his purpose and days exactly that is exactly what the devil does in Luke chapter 4 when we’re talking about Jesus Christ in the wilderness he’s being tempted by the devil and one of the ways in which the devil tempts Jesus as he actually cites Psalm 91 so there he is the devil citing scripture and he quotes the place which says in verse 11 and 12 he will command his angels to guard your way so you won’t even stub your toe on a stone and he says don’t go to the cross and don’t suffer if God really loved you he wouldn’t let you suffer that’s what Psalm 91 says I see how brilliant the devil is look at the strategy if the devil can get a Christian to believe that now that I’m a Christian God will not let any really really big bad things happen to me he might let me have a couple of bathra in general now that I’m a Christian God won’t let any really bad things happen to me if you believe that and really bad things will happen to you then you’re gonna pull back from God you’re gonna say that promise didn’t work and that’s exactly what Satan wants I hope there’s nobody out there that’s all that’s already happened to you but it might be it might be that you believe that or you have believed that but that’s not at all what the text is saying now the best way to understand any part of the Bible is to compare with the rest of the Bible so because there’s a great place in the Anglican churches 39 articles where it says we must never expound one place of Scripture that it be would pugna to another it’s another way of saying you must never take one set one scripture and read it in a way that it actually contradicts another one we need to look at them together and here’s three other passages and now we’ll see in light of these passages what it means that God keeps you safe Genesis 50 verse 20 is the place where Joseph at the end of a long life in which he was abused falsely accused and slaved convicted falsely convicted of crime at the very end of his life he looks at his brothers who had done all this to him and he says you meant it for evil but God meant it for good and what Joseph is saying is I was a spoiled brat and I was going in a bad direction the family was a dysfunctional family but if I had not been sent to Egypt if I hadn’t become a slave if I hadn’t become a convict if I hadn’t been brought down here I would not have been able to rise up become Prime Minister and save not only many people from famine but even save my own family from their their sin and show them how to repent and and he got you a metaphor evil God meant it for good which means God was keeping me safe when he sold me into slavery God was keeping me safe and all of a safe when I was put into that dungeon in hindsight God was keeping me safe but in the moment didn’t look like it another verse would be Romans 8:28 all things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to his purpose now look at that word together it says it doesn’t say all things are good it doesn’t say oh even the bad things if you just look at them every cloud has a silver lining and nothing so shallow and on unfeeling as that many many bad things that happen are bad they’re just bad but what this is saying is together God works things together he brings his power to bear on things so that in the long run and only we will only see this from the stand point at the end of history all things will have moved in the direction just like Joseph saw of God’s glory and our good but here’s my most famous of my favorite passage to read this is Luke chapter 21 verse 16 17 18 this is where Jesus is telling his disciples that they’re going to be persecuted and bad things are gonna happen to them and yet he’s gonna stand by them and he’s gonna keep them safe and this is what it says you will be betrayed some put to death and yet not a hair of your head will perish in patience you will possess your souls did you hear that you will be betrayed some will be put to death you some of you will be put to death but not a hair of your head will perish what in the world does that mean but here’s what it means especially if you look at what it is he means when he says in impatience you’ll possess your souls if you live for anything more than God if there’s anything in your life that’s more important to you than God whether it’s your career whether it’s a child anything more important than God you are not safe not at all because circumstances can come and threaten that thing or take that thing away and then you don’t have a life left you don’t have a self left you don’t have a meaning in life left but if during difficult times we learn to take the take our hearts off of some of the things that we probably make too important to us they’re almost like pseudo salvations or they’re their substitutes for God only as we more and more come not to love our career less not to love our child less but to love God more in relationship to them then and only then do we possess our own souls as it were otherwise we’re enslaved the career possesses our soul the more and more God possesses our souls and more we are actually in charge to the more we of possess our own souls and that means we’re finally safe and therefore what God is saying in this Psalm 91 is not I will protect you from all trouble but I will protect you not only in all trouble but even through it I will make you safer through the trouble and the only way we are absolutely sure that God is really doing that that he’s not just punishing us for our sins is to remember when he says he will cover you with his feathers and under his wings you will find refuge the image of a mother bird covering her children covering her chicks is an image that not only Psalm 91 uses of God but even Jesus uses it when he comes into Jerusalem he says o Jerusalem Jerusalem if only you knew the things that pertain to your peace I would have covered you over like a mother hen covers over her chicks you know what that means the mother is being a substitute if there’s terrible Sun coming down heat coming down on the chicks the mother gets the heat if there’s horrible rain and wind the mother gets the rain and win if there’s a predator coming to eat the mother gets eaten and Jesus Christ on the cross took what you and I deserve for our sin so that you can know that no we’re not being punished for sin we’re being kept safe we’re being kept safe no matter what happens you can trust him he will cover you with his feathers and under his wings you will find refuge and now here’s Tim and Cathy killer for a short time of qat on today’s meditation [Music] most people are used to reading the promises that they find in the Bible as guarantees for safety and happiness in this world which is what you were saying but when it doesn’t turn out to work out that way they get either confused or else they get angry and I think you say that that really comes down to not really understanding the Bible in its entirety that they’re they’re using it kind of as a promise box taking things out of context yeah they certainly are reading their understanding of happiness into any any of the biblical promises that God will we’ll keep you safe and keep you and you can be content in him for example there’s a lot of place where it talks about being content in God and yet a lot of us think what content means to Homes and a really nice wardrobe and and plenty of money to put our kids for college we have to do some public repentance here because as you will know inside both of our wedding rings you can take yours off too we took Psalm 34 verse 3 out of context I’ll read it to you it says glorify the Lord with me let us exalt his name forever and that seems like a really nice verse for a newly married couple and we put it inside both of our wedding rings just the citation not the whole verse but the rest of the psalm is all about suffering and how you know God is gonna deal with people who suffer and in particular the thing that a that jumped out at me when I was memorizing this not too long ago is verse 20 where it says he protects all his bones not one of them will be broken and of course in the Gospels that’s applied to Jesus on the cross that not one of his bones were broken but so you want to say well you’ve protected all of his bones but crucifixion you know he got crucified so that a lot of God’s promises it finally dawned on me are met on the far side of Resurrection nearside of resurrection and we we tend to think well if it’s not going to happen here and now then what good is it well it is but I think don’t you think we owe the ourselves an apology for taking that out of context agreed if you found today’s meditation encouraging please subscribe below and be sure to share it with a friend to encourage them as well and if you’d like to hear more teachings by Tim Keller you can listen to new sermons every week at gospel and live.com slash podcast thanks again for watching gospel and life [Music]