The Hiding Place
by Rev. Paul Howden
August 31, 2008
The Feast of St. Bartholomew
Psalm 91
Some of you may have heard of Corrie Ten Boom. She lived with her sister and father in Amsterdam, Holland. Her father had a clock business that he ran from the house, and Corrie helped him. They sold and repaired clocks. Then World War II came along. The Nazis overran the Netherlands and occupied it. They started rounding up Jews, packing them in railroad cars and hauling them off to concentration camps. Corrie, her sister and her father decided to give refuge to as many Jews as they could. They hired masons to construct a secret hiding place in their house. Corrie’s bedroom was big. So they walled off part of it, creating an extra bedroom. A three-foot high door was made and they put a desk in front of it. Nobody entering Corrie’s bedroom could notice another room concealed behind the wall. Corrie and her family hid about ten Jewish people at a time. When the German soldiers inspected the house, they couldn’t find the hiding place or the people. Psalm 91:1 speaks of such a place. Let’s read it. On this feast of St. Bartholomew we will focus on Psalm 91. Psalm 91:1-2.
He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the LORD, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust.
The Bible tells us that you have a hiding place in the Lord. There is a secret place you can go to escape from the enemy. This hiding place is also a refuge and a fortress. Martin Luther liked this thought, so he composed the hymn, “A Mighty Fortress is our God.” Sometimes, I need a fortress; you need a fortress, a strong castle. We need a hiding place. Why? We see it in the next verses. Reading Psalm 91:3-9.
Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence. He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler. Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day; Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday. A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee. Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked. Because thou hast made the LORD, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation;
There are snares of thieves, assassins, disease, and the devil. Due to the Fall, lethal forces lurk along the paths of life. Nightmares happen. An old copy of National Geographic featured an article on the headhunters of Africa. It pictured a headless cadaver dangling from a pole carried by two naked warriors. These two had just killed a man and lopped off his head for shrinking. Headhunting was a lifestyle. People of that region faced a constant threat of ambush from enemy tribes. They needed to leave the relative safety of their villages to hunt and gather, but every trip into the jungle ran a risk. Terror was normal.
South America had a similar problem with the tribes there. Before missionaries arrived in the jungles of Ecuador, the Auca Indians had a brutal existence. They were so vengeful and violent, that the idea of grandparents was foreign to them. Nobody lived long enough to be a grandparent. It was a culture of terror.
With the resurgence of militant Islam, terror haunts many places around the globe. Suicide bombers target pilgrims, job applicants standing in line, young people eating pizza at a café, and mothers pushing their babies in buggies. When a Muslim mother announces, “I am proud that my 14-year-old son blew himself up to kill innocent people;” when a mother says something like that we are dealing with profound evil; blood-curdling terror. Satan leads the forces of wickedness, and we never know from moment to moment what snares he is setting to capture our souls. But we have a God who can deliver us from the snare of the fowler. If you trust in Him He will keep you.
Twice the Psalmist mentions pestilence. That was more a menace in the past than it is today. My mother visited the city of Derbyshire, England, and learned its history. In 1666 the bubonic plague struck. During the plague, the people of the city voluntarily sealed off all traffic entering and exiting their city. Why did they quarantine themselves? To contain the bubonic disease, and protect people in other cities! While tumors, vomiting, and flaming fevers depopulated the village, the quarantine stopped the plague from spreading to other districts. God will deliver you from the perilous pestilence. He will deliver you from the terror by night.
Is Jesus Christ your Lord and God? If so, He protects you in many ways. Look back over your life. Have you recovered from sickness, and avoided accidents? Have you found refuge? God has been good to you in a hundred ways. Verse four says, “He shall cover you with His feathers, and under His wings you shall take refuge.” Is the Lord your refuge in times of trouble?
At a poor village in Angola, Africa, a wildfire got out of control during the dry season. It wiped out an entire village. After the conflagration, while wisps of smoke rose gently from the charred and blackened remains, a missionary walked through to examine things. He came upon a dead chicken lying on the ground. Without thinking he gave the bird a little kick. To his surprise, five chicks came scurrying out from under. He picked up those baby chicks and gave them to a villager. The hen had stayed on her babies and protected them even as the fire burned her to death. This is the Lord Jesus: “He shall cover you with His feathers, and under His wings you shall take refuge.”
In a way, Christ covered you with His feathers on the cross. The wrath of God burned upon Jesus as He hanged upon the tree. Instead of you and me suffering the pain of God’s fiery wrath, Jesus took that punishment in our stead. Instead of you and I burning in Hell, Jesus burned on the cross. Do you live in close fellowship with God? Do you rest in the shadow of the Almighty? That is the most important hiding place you can have.
There are qualifications to God’s protection of His people. Does Psalm 91 guarantee that harm will never come? No! Teaching like this from Psalm 91 means that God normally defends His children when they are in danger, and He habitually does so. But we also know that there will be occasions when God refrains from granting us deliverance. Bad things can happen to Christians, and God finally takes us to be with Himself. That is death. But then Heaven becomes your hiding place, your refuge and fortress.
One night there was a dreadful knocking and pounding at the door of Corrie Ten Boom’s house. The Nazi soldiers burst in. Corrie, her sister Betty, and her father were led away. One of Corrie’s relatives had told the Nazis what was happening; how they were hiding Jews. The beatings began. The three were packed like cattle in a boxcar and put in the concentration camp in Germany. Exposure, starvation, slavery, torment, and atrocities all took place. They did not escape the barbed wire, the threats, the roll calls in the snow. The yawning mass grave at the far end of the camp claimed Corrie’s sister.
The Lord will not every time spare you from terror, or pain or trouble, but He promises, “lo, I am with you always.” Jesus will be with you in the midst of your most dreadful difficulty. You may die of some disease, or get killed in some military conflict, but you will not die because God is judging your sin. Jesus already took that judgment.
God protects, but not always. This is no blanket guarantee of well-being. We celebrate the feast of Bartholomew. Tradition has it that some fierce unbelievers skinned him alive. God didn’t step in and help out Bartholomew. As Douglas Jones recently wrote, “The God of Abraham is dangerous, wild, and unpredictable.” We can’t domesticate or manipulate the Lord. A family lost their two-year-old son in a freak tractor accident. It was the day before Easter, while the preparations for Easter morning were under way, cries of bereavement filled the hospital and the house. Parents, grandparents and friends were – and still are – inconsolable. No words will heal the hearts of those who weep. But God remains God. He is our God, and His salvation is immovable. So let’s understand how to use Psalm 91. It should not be used as a good luck charm. Rather, this psalm is a reminder that nothing “Will be able to separate us from the love of God” (Romans 8:39), and “Lo, I am with you always.” Which means that nothing will be able to separate our souls from Christ. Even when a terrible incident transpires, as with Corrie’s sister, or the two-year-old crushed by the tractor, we have the ultimate assurance that God will not abandon us, or our children. And then God sometimes brings good out of tragedy and defeat. Corrie Ten Boom went on to become a missionary whose testimony captured the imagination of the world. Her sister was a martyr. God brought good out of their families’ catastrophe. He can bring good out of your calamity.
Let’s move on to the next verses. Psalm 91:10-13.
There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling. For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone. Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder: the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet.
“God shall give His angels charge over you.” The work of angels is recognized here. They keep us from tripping. Verse twelve says, “In their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone.” Once in a while I trip over cracks in the sidewalk. It is when I am inattentive, and running along in a trance, that I’ll catch my toe on the edge of a one-inch unevenness in the sidewalk, or a root that is above ground, scraping my hands and knees. The passage suggests that we would stub our toes and tumble more frequently if it weren’t for the assistance of angels. The angels keep us from tripping. The work they do for us is low and humble. They bend over and help. Angelic ministry is often like that. It is similar to the work that Jesus did in washing the feet of his disciples. The angels do us many kindnesses, and never look for thanks. They do us many favors that we are unaware of. Not only should we be grateful for what God sends His angels to do for us, we should try to emulate their humble example by stooping to do menial tasks for others.
In Matthew 4, Satan tempted Jesus to jump off the pinnacle of the temple by quoting this Psalm. Let’s read Matthew 4:5-7.
Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple, And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone. Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.
We learn from Jesus’ temptation in the desert that Satan studied Scripture and even memorized it. That is right. Satan and his demons actually study and learn certain portions of Scripture. However, their study is head knowledge without commitment or experience. I knew a guy who had a job writing articles for golf magazines. He wrote about golf and golf courses, and the magazines paid him for doing this, yet here is the rub: he never golfed. He read up on the subject and was a gifted writer, while never actually playing the game. That is the way Satan studies Scripture. The devil can download Scripture, but he knows nothing of the grace and power of God’s Word, because he has blasphemed the Holy Spirit, and rebelled against his Creator. He learns the Bible, even though he hates it, so he can twist it, and destroy humans. Jesus rebuked Satan for misusing the Bible, “You shall not tempt the LORD your God.” (Matthew 4:7). Reading the last verses, Psalm 91:14-16.
Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he hath known my name. He shall call upon me, and I will answer him: I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him. With long life will I satisfy him, and shew him my salvation.
We see here that God desires to shower His people with blessings. Upon those who trust Him with all their hearts the Lord sends protection, deliverance, longevity, and salvation. Let’s consider longevity. That is a subject that doesn’t get much attention. Verse 14 says, “With long life I will satisfy him…” The phrase suggests that it is natural to desire long life. Life is good and death is bad; long life is very good. Key passages of Scripture highlight this lesson. Proverbs 3:1 says, “My son, do not forget my law, But let your heart keep my commands; for length of days and long life and peace they will add to you.” The Fifth Commandment says, “Honor thy father and mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee” (Ex. 20:12). The book of Isaiah foretells an era when long life will be restored. Isaiah 65:20 says: “No more shall an infant live but a few days, Nor an old man who has not fulfilled his days: For the child shall die one hundred years old, But the sinner being one hundred years old shall be accursed.” Because Isaiah declares that sin still exists in the world, this cannot be a prophecy of the New Heavens and New Earth after the Final Judgment. All sin ceases at the Final Judgment. This is therefore a prophecy of the preliminary stages of the New Heavens and New Earth before the Final Judgment. Could this prophecy of Isaiah signify that God will restore something analogous to the long lives lived by people prior to the flood of Noah? Some of them got to be more than 900 years old. A future day may be coming when, due to covenantal obedience and God’s grace, believers on earth will again attain the age of 900 years, or older.
The tendency of Christianity has been to produce dramatic longevity. Christianity brought about hospitals, science and medicine. This helped us gain longer lives. But more than any other factor, godliness leads to a long life expectancy. Obedience to God’s Word affects personal health. Spiritual health leads to physical health. Things like moderation in eating and drinking, redeeming the time, thrift, industry, hard work, freedom from addictions, calmness of mind, love, joy, and peace; these things tend to add more years to your life: “With long life I will satisfy him.”
Psalm 91 encourages you to trust God for protection and security. The Lord is your hiding place. Under his wings you can take refuge. One man remembers that his father traveled a lot. Before he would get in the car and drive away, the family would gather in a circle, and recite this psalm. It beseeched the Lord’s mercies for his father so that he would be safe on the highways and byways: “He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High Shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the LORD, ‘He is my refuge and my fortress; My God, in Him I will trust’ … He shall give His angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways…” These are wonderful promises for us to take hold of today on this Feast of St. Bartholomew.