“…….so, all you have to do is pull the pin out and the noise will scare them off or attract attention” I can remember trying to hear the rest of the sales patter as an ear-piercing wail deafened all but the hard of hearing.
There had been the occasional ‘stranger’ hanging around as we left work and as this was sometimes quite late at night my employer was keen that we felt secure…not so keen that they offered to purchase them for us but hey, this was the 80’s and the NHS did what they could.
Nothing much has changed since those days of night school self-defence lessons for women and personal alarms…we all knew what to do but dreaded ever having to be in the position to practice our “skills”
Ever since the first annals of history, it's apparent that man has felt the need to feel safe, to feel protected and secure; cities had walls, castles had moats, frontiersmen harnessed their wagons in a circle, soldiers had shields and armour, the need to feel safe is built into every one of us.
Now we have noisier personal and intruder alarms, security cameras and motion sensors, car insurance, seatbelts, and safety systems that all but drive the car for you, airport x-rays, identity theft protection, passwords, and pin codes.
We still have the need to feel safe and secure.
Despite our efforts, we are still vulnerable, vulnerable to disease, assault (for some by the ones they love the most) disasters, terrorism, cancer, heart attack, and the list goes on.
It makes little difference if we go out or stay hidden away at home….covid comes in on the breath of our friends, care workers, maintenance, and tradesmen, those whose intention is to help can sometimes be the agents of our demise.
We have a desire and drive for safety, but we have no guarantees…not even for the Christian with the words of Psalm 91 embroidered on a cushion or displayed on a poster or bumper sticker.
As Christians we have a desire to think God will always protect us from any and all trouble ….but in both our own lives and throughout the Bible we see that this is not the case.
Evil does sometimes befall us, there is sometimes no sign of the angels to bear us up and we often feel like one of the ten thousand that are fallen.
But don’t we all want to believe that Psalm 91 means that we who trust God won't be snared or get a disease (v3), we won’t fall in a fight (v7), we won't be affected by evil or lose our fellow campers to a disease (v10), that angels will swoop in and prevent us crashing against a stone (v12), and we will always be delivered and protected (v14)?
What then can we do with this Psalm, with these verses? One thing we do know is that we should not use it as Satan tried to in Matthew 4:6 when he tempted Jesus to count on deliverance and Jesus replied by rightly quoting Scripture about not putting God to the test (Matthew 4:7) and then Jesus continued on His path of suffering, of torture, of whipping, nailing to a cross and eventual death at the hands of His enemies.
It seems the Godliest person who ever lived didn’t have the first-glance protection of Psalm 91.
And the first-glance meaning hasn’t been the case for many Christian missionaries who have been killed over the years.
Promises of protection do and have come true literally for Christians again and again over the years, all by God’s grace and mercy but throughout the Gospels, Jesus speaks of taking up our cross, of suffering, of persecution and to expect such things.
BUT it's essential that we realise that we have been rescued - we have been rescued from the dominion of darkness.
we have been healed - we have been healed from the disease of sin.
we have been saved from evil and given a long life - we are promised eternal life in the presence of God for all eternity.
In this physical realm, our God can and does rescue those who hold fast to Him in love, those who know His name(v14), those who call to Him (v15), although God can and frequently does deliver us from danger this is not always the case, but he always delivers us through danger even though such a deliverance sometimes means into His presence to spend all eternity with Him.
True rescue is that we have been rescued from the dominion of darkness and brought into the kingdom of God.
Charles Spurgeon puts it so much better than I ever could:
“It is impossible that any ill should happen to the man who is beloved of the Lord; the most crushing calamities can only shorten his journey and hasten him to his reward. Ill to him is not ill, but only good in a mysterious form. Losses enrich him, sickness is his medicine, reproach is his honour, death is his gain. No evil in the strict sense of the word can happen to him, for everything is overruled for good. Happy is he who is in such a case. He is secure where others are in peril, he lives where others die.”
All Christians suffer, you either are, have, or will suffer, it is through many tribulations that we enter the Kingdom of God Acts 14:22
Christians, especially new Christians, need to know the reality of what the Bible says and what we need to do with our suffering, with our illnesses, with our troubles.
If Christians don’t know how to respond to God’s deliverance and healings or God’s `no's, if they don’t have an understanding that God is sovereign, wise, and loving and that the same angels that prevent them from striking their foot against a stone are the same angels that come to escort a child of God home to glory, then their faith is at risk. Both instances are deliverance but if they don’t have an understanding of both categories, if they don’t have a box in which to put these different responses, if they can’t file them in the right place in their understanding then their faith can be shattered or broken when suffering and problems come.
In both responses, God is worthy of glory, we glorify Him when we are healed and delivered. But when people see our response to suffering and problems, when they see that we do not curse God, that we do not turn away from Christ and continue to say He is our Lord and Saviour, we make it plain to those watching that we consider Christ is more important to us than freedom of pain and in this way, we give Him glory. The story of Job teaches much on suffering and remaining faithful to Him.
We do and should pray for relief from suffering, from pain and anguish but we also need to pray that no matter what happens our faith will not waiver.
Commenti