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Hillside O’Malley SDA Church

David Shin

Pandemic Protection and Psalm 91

So I pull into the parking lot and there weren't that many cars there.

And I felt kind of like I was preparing to go into a biohazard zone or a place that had experienced nuclear fallout like Chernobyl or something because in the parking lot before I got out of the car, I put on my latex gloves and grabbed a cart once I got inside the door.

And then they had a little station for you to wipe down your handle.

And as I entered the grocery store, it seemed strangely normal.

There was actually quite a bit of food in the fresh produce areas.

I didn't see any empty, empty lots or I don't know what you say, the empty, empty bins of potatoes or empty bins of celery.

And the thing that struck me was this new reality that we're living in, that 1 of the most dangerous or perceived dangerous things of the week is going to the grocery store.

There's a lot of fear I could sense walking down the aisles.

You're fearful of coming in contact with people.

And the people around me were really geared up.

I thought I was a little bit out of the ordinary for putting on gloves.

But I was surprised at how many people had masks, how many people had gloves.

I mean, this 1 guy I walked by, he was really set up.

He looked like he was going into some sort of some anthrax zone or something.

And we're all going around and they have these signs as you're getting ready to check out to please stay at a safe distance from 1 another or stay 6 feet apart.

And then once I got back in the car, I realized that, not thinking this through, I had used my gloved hands to touch my phone, and also I touched my car keys.

And I proceeded, after getting in the car, to disinfect my car keys and my phone.

The world that we are living in right now is so fearful of this COVID-19 virus that protection is at the foremost of our minds, physical protection from this pandemic.

I want to look at what the Bible has to say about protection from pestilences and plagues and pandemics.

And today I thought that we could take a look at Psalm 91.

You shall not be afraid of the terror by night, nor of the arrow that flies by day, nor of the pestilence that walks in darkness, nor of the destruction that lays waste at noonday.

A thousand may fall at your side, 10000 at your right hand, but it shall not come near you.

Verse 10, no evil shall befall you, nor shall any plague come near your dwelling, for he shall give his angels charge over you to keep you in all your ways." This is a powerful promise.

It indicates that God's angels will protect us and that the plague, the pandemic, will not come near your dwelling place and you don't have anything to fear.

I mean, this is a pandemic protection psalm, if ever I heard 1.

And it's interesting because Ellen White cites Psalm 91 as specifically applying to God's commandment-keeping people.

And she also uses this Psalm to refer to those who shall experience the time of trouble and the perils of the last days.

So this Psalm, Psalm 91, has special significance for God's people living in the very end of time, after the close of probation, when the 7 plagues are being poured out on the earth, that God's people will not get the plague.

But in a broader application, I believe that this promise is for us right now and that we can find assurance in Psalm 91 because although this may not be the time of trouble, we know that pestilences and earthquakes are signs of the nearness of the second coming of Jesus Christ.

So let's examine Psalm 91 a little bit more closely.

I want to make a few observations about this Psalm as we go forward in our reflection of this passage.

Observation number 1, God promises emotional and psychological assurance when He says, you shall not be afraid.

I think this is the main promise of Psalm 91, that even though there is chaos, uncertainty, fear all around us, that we can find our anchor in God and that we cannot be afraid.

So first is the promise of not living in fear.

There is so much fear all around us and Psalm 91 says, look, you can have this experience today of not being afraid.

Observation number 2, God promises physical protection from the pestilences and pandemics.

So, the beauty of Psalm 91 is that it is a total package, not only of physical protection, but of emotional and psychological assurance of not living in fear.

Now, the natural question that arises in my mind when I read Psalm 91 is, okay, it promises no pandemic or no pestilence shall come near you.

Does this mean that Christians are immune to the COVID-19 virus?

Now, there's several things that we need to reflect upon in this passage.

1 thing is that later on in Psalm 91, he clarifies that God does not exempt us from trouble and from calamity.

Verse 15, God says, I will be with him in trouble.

In other words, God did not say that you will avoid troubleless times, but rather, like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, God did not keep them from the fire, but He was with them through the fire.

So Psalm 91, you have to read the whole chapter to understand that many times living on planet earth means that we have sin around us, the results of sin, and Christians get colds and flus and other things, and even like the COVID-19 virus, God may allow us to get the virus and become sick.

But the beauty of this promise is that God says, I will be with you in trouble, God also promises protection from pestilences as well, but if for some reason that we don't understand in God's greater purpose, He allows us to get this virus, God says, look, I will be with you through troubleless times.

Now, we come to our third observation of Psalm 91, that God's promise in Psalm 91 is conditional in nature.

So this promise of psychological and emotional assurance of not being in fear, and this promise of God being with us in trouble, and this promise of protection is predicated on a certain condition.

If you read verse 9 and 10, Because you have made the Lord who is my refuge, even the Most High, your dwelling-place, no evil shall befall you, nor shall any plague come near your dwelling." Notice what the verses say.

It indicates that the condition for the plague not coming near your dwelling is to make the Lord your dwelling place.

If you make God your dwelling place, using the language of the psalmist, he says that that is the condition for not having this pandemic come near your tent.

Now, the idea of God being your dwelling, what does that mean?

Now, the idea of abiding in the Most High or dwelling in the secret place of the Most High comes up earlier in Psalm 91.

If you read verse 1, He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty." So this theme of dwelling in God, or abiding in the shadow of the Almighty, emerges at the very beginning of the psalm, and then later on indicates that that is the very condition for receiving of the promises of Psalm 91.

So this idea of abiding in God is also associated with being in the secret place of the Most High.

There's another place that the psalmist uses the secret place, and it's found in Psalm 27, verse 5.

For in the time of trouble, Notice that the context of this is a time of calamity.

Notice again, this is talking about protection in the time of trouble.

In the secret place of his tabernacle, he shall set me high upon a rock." Notice that the psalmist says that the secret place is in the tabernacle.

So in Psalm 91, when it says that we shall abide or we shall dwell in the secret place of the Most High, comparing Scripture with Scripture, we can come to the reasonable conclusion that this is pointing towards the tabernacle.

The secret place of the Most High is found in the sanctuary.

There's some other clues that emerge in Psalm 91.

When you go back to Psalm 91 and see the second part of verse 1, it says, He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.

So the term secret place has sanctuary implications and then we come to this idea of the shadow of the Almighty.

In other words, if you're in the secret place of God, you're also in the shadow of the Almighty.

And the question is, what is it that is casting this shadow?

Again, comparing scripture with scripture, we look at Psalm 51, verse 1, and it says, Under the shadow of your wings I will make my refuge until these calamities pass by.

So in Psalm 51, again it's the context of protection.

Again, it's a context of where we're finding refuge from the calamities.

And here it indicates that it's under the shadow of God's wings that we find this protection.

Incidentally, in Psalm 91, there's also a reference to the wings of God being the place that we find refuge.

The question is, where in the sanctuary is the secret place where there is a shadow that is cast by wings?

What is the exact location that we can find this refuge in God.

Again, cross-referencing it with other scriptures, if you go to Psalm 61 verse 4, the Bible says, I will abide in your tabernacle forever, I will trust in the shelter of your wings." The Bible puts it together that we can find refuge in the tabernacle under the shelter of his wings.

And if you hone it down to the location where the secret place of the Most High, where there is a shadow under the wings of God that we can find refuge and protection, it is in the Most Holy Place.

In 2 Chronicles 5, verse 7, the Bible says, Then the priest brought in the ark of the covenant of the Lord to its place, into the inner sanctuary of the temple, to the most holy place, under the wings of the cherubim.

The Bible says in Psalm 91 that the condition for receiving the protection promised in Psalm 91 is to dwell in the secret place of the Most High, under the shadow of the Almighty, and cross-referencing it with other psalms, it indicates that this is referring to the Shekinah glory, or the place where the Shekinah glory of God is, in the inner sanctum of the most holy place, the throne of God, where cherubim are there with their wings, and it is in the shadow of these wings, in the secret place of the Most High, that we can find refuge and protection and freedom from fear in the midst of the chaos and the lack of peace that is raging all around us.

Now, as I studied this passage this week, I wanted to see if there were any other individuals that saw sanctuary language in Psalm 91.

And I did a quick search of the journal archives and I came across this particular journal that was published in the Journal of the Adventist Theological Society, and it refers to the psalmist's journey and the sanctuary.

Now this article did not do a detailed exegesis of Psalm 91, but it referenced Psalm 91 in passing, And this is what it said, that Psalm 90 and 93 deal with the problem of a destroyed sanctuary and point believers toward a better sanctuary, i.e.

And he goes on later indicating that Psalm 91 specifically is referring to the imagery of the heavenly sanctuary and the divine king who rules in it.

So Psalm 91 has all of these allusions and references to the heavenly sanctuary and to abide under the shadow of the Almighty, to dwell in the secret place of the Most High, is to have that experience of being in the most holy place of the heavenly sanctuary.

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Pandemic Protection and Psalm 91

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