SEVEN-FOLD
PROMISES IN LOVING GOD
Psalm
91:9-16
Introduction: Erwin W. Lutzer
wrote, “Better to love God and die unknown than to love the world and be a hero.
Better to be content with poverty than to die a slave to wealth; better to have
taken some risks and lost than to have done nothing and succeeded at it; better
to have lost some battles than to have retreated from the war; better to have
failed when serving God than to have succeeded when serving the devil. What a
tragedy to climb the ladder of success, only to discover that the ladder was
leaning against the wrong wall.”
In
what are you better at today? On which wall is the ladder of your life placed? For
the past few weeks, we have been learning about how God’s faithfulness works in
the lives of those who trust Him. Today we will look at some of the promises that
God makes to those who Love Him. Before we talk about those promises, here is
how we can appropriate God’s promises.
I. IF: THE BIGGEST
“LITTLE” WORD
Vs.
9-12, 9 “If you make the Lord your refuge if you make the Most High your
shelter, 10 no evil will conquer you; no plague will come near your home. 11
For he will order his angel to protect you wherever you go. 12 They will hold you
up with their hands so you won’t even hurt your foot on a stone.” All the
promises of protection, safety, and health are yea and amen, and they are for
all God’s Children, but they are conditional.
The
promises found in these verses depend on a conditional clause called “If.” In
the English language, “IF” is used to talk about the result or effect of
something that may happen or be true. But in the Bible, the biggest little word
“if” carries the power of life or death, a blessing, or a curse. When we are
faced with storms in life, we can either choose to run to His shelter in faith,
or we can passively live our lives the way the world does. The choice is ours,
if we run to Him, we will be saved if not we will reap the consequences accordingly.
In
Vs. 11-12, “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.”
This promise of angelic protection was misquoted by Satan in his temptation of
the Messiah (Matt 4:6).
This the idea of angels protecting people was prevalent in the OT. For example, in Psalm
103:20, “Praise the Lord, you angels, you mighty ones who carry out his plans, listening
for each of his commands.” Corrie Ten Boom tells the story of an English man
who was held in a German prison camp for a long time. One day he read Psalm 91. “Father in heaven,”
he prayed, “I see all these men dying around me, one after the other. Will I
also have to die here?
I
am still young, and I very much want to work in Your kingdom here on earth.” He
received this answer: “Rely on what you have just read and go home! Trusting in
the Lord, he got up and walked into the corridor toward the gate. A guard
called out, “Prisoner, where are you going? “I am under the protection of the
“Most High,” he replied. The guard came to attention and let him pass, for
Adolf Hitler was known as “the most high.”
He
came to the gate, where a group of guards stood. They commanded him to stop and
asked him where he was going. “I am under the protection of the Most High.” All
the guards stood at attention as he walked out the gate. He made his way
through the German countryside and eventually reached England, where he told
how he had made his escape. He was the only one to come out of the prison
alive. If we make God our refuge, we too will be protected.
II. SEVEN-FOLD
PROMISES IN LOVING GOD (Vs. 14-16)
Vs. 14-16, “Because he has loved
Me, therefore I will deliver him; I will set him
securely on high because he has known My name. 15
“He will call upon Me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble;
I will rescue him and honor him. 16 “With a long life I will satisfy him and
let him see My salvation.” (NASB).
Those
of us who have been in the church for a while have heard these words, “Loving
God” many times. We may need to pause
and ask ourselves, what does it mean – to love God? What does love for God look like – feel like –
how does it show itself? How did the original recipients understand loving God?
In our modern contemporary world, the word love lost its essence. For example;
we say we love God and chocolate in the same manner.
However,
for the OT people, the Hebrew word chashaq, which is translated as “love”
has a much deeper meaning. It meant: To
be attached to, to love, to have pleasure, to delight in. It has a sense of
joining together (intimacy) adhering, cleaving. This kind of love is already
bound to its object. In the OT, it occurs twelve times. It can be used to
describe God’s feelings for man or a man’s devotion towards God. It is a love which
will not let go easily.
With
that understanding, I will paraphrase verse 14, “Because you have loved me…” In
other words, “Because you know my name, delight in me, take pleasure in me,
cleave to me, are attached to me, will never let go of me. Therefore, I will deliver
you and keep you safe.”
God
himself is the speaker in this section (14-16), and he describes the blessings
he gives to those who know him and love Him. Again, the word love here means,
“a deep longing to God,” or “clinging to God.” If we were, to be honest with ourselves,
we might not be loving Him the way he expects us to love Him. I say this not to
make us feel guilty because I don’t want anyone of us to miss out on the abundant
promises that will be ours when we love Him.
1. GOD IS MY
DELIVERER: “Because
he has loved Me, therefore I will deliver him.”
Deliverance is the
first of the seven promises of loving God from this passage. Let’s make it personal.
We say because I love you, Lord, I thank you for your promise of deliverance to
me. At the beginning of Psalm 91, we learned that God wants to deliver us from
every evil known to humankind. His protection will go with His people wherever
they go.
As
a young missionary in India, traveling to unknown places in foreign countries,
I had experienced God’s deliverance over and over again. His protection has not yet stopped; he is
there still to protect me. God’s deliverance for those who love Him is all-encompassing.
It happens within(internal), and without (external); in fact, it surrounds us.
Psalm 32: 7, “For you are my hiding place; you protect me from trouble. You
surround me with songs of victory.”
2. I AM SEATED ON
HIGH, “I
will set him securely on high because he has known My name.”
To
be set securely on high is the second promise to those who love the lord and
know him by His name. In Ephesians 2:6, we read, “For he raised us from the
dead along with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms because we
are united with Christ Jesus.”
It is interesting to note that God pulls us up
to where He is! When we are drowning by insurmountable problems, let us
remember God has raised us and made us sit with Jesus. Gloomy things look brighter,
and trying things become manageable from higher up.
3. GOD ANSWERS MY
CALL: Vs.
15“He will call upon Me, and I will answer him.”
The
third promise to those who love Him and call on His name is that God will
answer him. What a wonderful blessing is this to know and remember. I John
5:14-15, “And we
are confident that he hears us whenever we ask for anything that pleases him.15 And
since we know he hears us when we make our requests; we also know that he will
give us what we ask for.”
It gives me the
confidence to know that when I pray in line with God’s word, He hears me. Not
only that, He will answer me, though I may not understand all the ways in which
He works. By studying the prayers in the Bible, we can learn that God knows
what is best for us. He is our loving father who longs to bless his children
with good gifts. According to James 1:17, “Whatever is good and perfect is a
gift coming down to us from God our Father.”
4. GOD RESCUES ME FROM TROUBLE: Vs. 15, “I will be with him in trouble; I will rescue him
and honor him.” The fourth
promise to save from trouble those who love the Lord is found in the middle of verse
fifteen. When we are in deep trouble, we tend to cry out to God and say, Lord, where
you are? Can’t you see what I am going through? I don’t sense your presence! In turn, God will respond to us
affirmingly saying, “I have not left you to your misery, I am not too far from
you, I am right here with you in your trouble, I will rescue you. The bible has
many examples where the people of God saw this promise of God’s rescue fulfilled.
5. GOD HONORS ME: I will honor him. Psalm 91:15 The fifth promise to honor those who love God is in
the last part of verse 15. Let’s admit
all of us like to be praised, acknowledged, recognized, or honored for who we
are and what we do. Have you ever thought about what it means to be honored by
the God of the universe? He honors us by calling us his sons and daughters. In
the Bible, honor also means wealth, riches and prosperity. God will bestow
earthly riches and success on those who love Him and Call on His name.
6 & 7 LONG LIFE & SALVATION Vs. 16, “With long life, I will satisfy him and let him
see My salvation.” In
this verse, God doesn’t only say that he will prolong our life, means we will
have many more birthdays. No! He says He will satisfy us with a long life. For
those who love God, the promise is a long, satisfying life. Loving is like having
your cake and eat it too.
On top of
giving us long, satisfying life, the best is yet to come when he ushers us
into His eternal presence to be with Him forever, that is the seventh promise
of salvation. It secures our future, but
it starts now. Jesus constantly reminded us, “Salvation is now.” In order to live
with Jesus eternally, you have to begin that journey with him today by accepting
him as your savior. The word salvation has a much deeper meaning which includes
health, security, deliverance, and provision. God is promising all that and
much more to those who love and Know Him. Amen!
