Psalm 91 promises protection how do we prophetically and personally apply this to our lives in the midst of a “panic-demic”

<p>Psalm 91 promises protection how do we prophetically and personally apply this to our lives in the midst of a “panic-demic”</p>

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Newington Three Angels Church

Eric Walsh

Pandemic at the Door

COVID19: Not Afraid - Part 1

COVID19: Not Afraid - Part 2

Stopping the Pandemic at the Door

COVID19: Not Afraid - Part 3

COVID19: Spiritual Distancing - Deep Prophecy Version

COVID19: Not Afraid - Part 4

The Pandemic of Perversion

Don’t Cry for Jesus: Warning to the Last Generation

Pandemic of Persecution - Part 1

Pandemic of Persecution - Part 2

Pandemic of Addiction

After the Lockdown: Through Trials and Difficulties

Appetite for Pandemic


Our scripture reading for today is taken from Psalms chapter 91, verse 2. I will say of the Lord, he is my refuge and my fortress, my God and him will I trust. May God add a blessing to the reading of this word. Father God, we thank you, Lord, for bringing us together again. Lord, as we study your word and reflect on current events, I ask once again, Lord, that you just make me a nail upon the wall, A rusty, sorry nail, Lord.

But upon that nail, Lord, I ask that you hang a portrait of Jesus Christ. These are dark and difficult times, Father, and we need to hear a word from you. This is our prayer in Jesus' precious and holy name. Amen. There's a lot that's been going on, so we're gonna do kind of an update right now of pandemic at the door.

This would technically be the fifth installment, even though we'll probably have to call it part 4, and just talk a bit about what's going on and reflect from the Scripture as to what God promises us. So let's start with the promises. In Psalms 91, David writes, and this is 1 of the most popular verses, chapters of the Bible going around on the internet for Christians who are going through this pandemic. It says, 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.

Surely He shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler and from the noisome pestilence. I think that's why people like this, because David here, unlike many other Psalms, is not simply speaking about enemies, he's not simply speaking about being under attack or chased. He's not like in Psalm 51, reflecting on his own failures. Here, David is speaking to the fact that the world is unpredictable and life is unpredictable. David is speaking to the fact that the world is unpredictable and life is unpredictable.

David is speaking to the fact that at all times we are under attack. And in the next segment, we're gonna go deeper into why that is so and the prophetic ramifications of that. But David says God will deliver him from the snare of the fowler. And he also says that God will deliver him from the noisome pestilence. And right now, that is what many of us are looking for, deliverance from pestilence.

Verse 4, he shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust. His truth shall be thy shield and buckler. The scripture says like a bird puts its wings over its chicks. As it protects its young, God will put his wings over us. We will be protected under his feather.

And then the Bible says his Truth shall be thy shield and buckler. It is the truth, the word of God, that actually will protect us. Knowing what is coming upon the earth, the prophecies and what is about to unfold is protection. Because if you're not protected, if you don't understand what's coming on the earth, fear is the natural ramification. It is what will happen.

And so in verse 5, David says, thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night, nor for the arrow that flyeth by day. Then he says in verse 6, nor for the pestilence that walks in darkness, nor for the destruction that wastes at noonday. Then he says something I love. He says, a thousand shall fall at thy side and 10000 at thy right hand, but it shall not come nigh thee. This is the prayer we all have.

This week has been a tough week for the Coronavirus pandemic. I think 1 of the things that's interesting is that there are many who are still saying that this is a made up disease, that it doesn't really exist. I would agree with the argument that maybe there's been some media hype, but the truth is this is a real disease. People are really dying. In Connecticut, where I live and practice medicine, this week, coronavirus took its youngest victim, I believe, known on earth.

A 6 week old baby, 6 week old baby, died from what we believe are complications of this virus, the youngest to date. As we have now a rapid increase in the number of cases, we also are having a more rapid increase in fear of the disease. You go to the grocery store now, you've got to wait outside in the line. People have to stay 6 feet apart. People are afraid to come near other people.

So it's changed. Where first, you're having trouble with social distancing, it seems now, folk are running from each other almost. In the medical community, we are also facing shortages of personal protective equipment. You keep hearing about PPE. I still find it amazing that a country like America is running through its strategic cachet of personal protective equipment and America is running out of things it needs to protect those working on the front lines This Pandemic is not going away And I believe that psychologically people are going to be affected by this for a very long time?

In 3 months, or 4 months, or 5 months, will people still pour into churches to sit close to people? Will they go into movie theaters and sit next to people they don't know, worried about the next pandemic? I believe that psychologically, the world is going to be scarred by what has happened But I want to submit that 1 of the biggest things and we'll talk more about this in the next message as well Is that we are now finding that the effects on the poor are very serious in cities like Detroit in Los Angeles the homeless and the poor disproportionately being destroyed. High-risk groups, African-Americans who already had significant health disparities, when hit by the coronavirus, many of these comorbidities are actually increasing the chance that this virus will be serious in those individuals. In India, we're watching immigrants who come into those countries like India and other parts of the world as the place shuts down and there's no more money, they are starting to walk back home in large numbers.

We're seeing even probably just as crazy as anything else, we're beginning to see that money from overseas to countries like the Philippines and Haiti and Jamaica and other parts of the world dry up where expats usually send money back home to help to drive those economies. The impacts of this is deep. I was reading 1 article on the impacts of the coronavirus on India, and they were speaking to the fact that in some of the poorer parts, the virus would just rip through, and there would be almost nothing anyone could do to stop it or slow it down. All of this while America has set up a 2000000000000 dollar bailout. And someone was trying to give me a sense of what a trillion is, and they were saying a million seconds will take you back like 8 days or something like that.

A billion seconds will take you back like 30-something years, but a trillion seconds would take you back like 30 something thousand years And here we are about to release 2000000000000 dollars to try and save our economy I've said it before and I'll say it again If you can't go to the store because you're under quarantine and you get a check I'm not sure what it's gonna do for the economy because you can't spend the check But that's where we are Where the United States the government has become bigger and everyone is looking to the government for salvation. Things are changing drastically. Even law enforcement and the medical community is not safe. The study showed that if you're in the healthcare field, in some of the countries that have already been hit, that the risk of getting a serious infection and dying from it is higher. And that's probably because of something we call viral load, meaning that you're constantly exposed to this virus all day at work, and so the amount of virus in your blood goes up and more quickly overwhelms the immune system.

But it's not just first responders in ambulances or physicians and nurses in hospitals. It also, unfortunately, is law enforcement. In 1, in the Detroit Police Department, There have been multiple deaths of high-ranking officials from the coronavirus and other, NYPD I think came out today, have 1, 400 officers who have been infected. In some cities, basically, people are saying, unless someone commits murder, the police aren't coming because there aren't enough police really willing to work and even those that are working are afraid to engage the public because they're afraid to contract this virus. Is there any hope for us as this thing continues to go on?

Well, fortunately we do have a vaccine being tried out. It will take a time. It can't come to market, I don't think, before 12 months. I think the other thing that is interesting, and you look at it, is there are some treatments In Colorado, there's a company that might be able to do an antibody-based treatment that would actually effectively be a cure that has been turned over to the army scientists in the military to test here in the United States. And we are still testing things like Plaquenil and Zithromax and the Japanese even have a flu medicine that might be able to help.

And so we're fighting it, we're spacing, we're staying home, we're doing all of these things, but this pestilence, this noise and pestilence, as David describes pestilence in Psalm 91, this noise and pestilence is ubiquitous. It has circled the globe and is now in places where you would think it would have had a hard time reaching. Mankind doesn't even know how to respond to this. Governments are afraid, economies are collapsing, and I believe that powers, we'll talk about in the next section, powers are being mobilized together in order to use this for, to promote and to forward their agenda. And interestingly enough, when 9-11 happened in 2001 and Americans flooded churches to try and find solace, that weekend the churches of America were full.

In this catastrophe, You can't go to church. In fact, pastors have been arrested in the United States, and South Korea is beginning lawsuits against some pastors for having church service when meetings of over a certain size have been banned. Spiritually, this doesn't seem to be pulling America together to try and find God. I think instead it seems to be driving us in America and many around the world to try and find a solution in man. But the Bible warns that you cannot trust the arm of flesh.

And we have been shocked to see how quickly our civil and religious freedoms have evaporated. You can't, you know, soon there'll be little that we'll be able to do. This is quintessentially the kind of event that has to happen in order to move things forward for prophecy to be fulfilled. The spirit of prophecy, Ellen White says that the last events will be rapid ones. And you can see that in a matter of weeks how drastically the world has changed.

And it tells you that it won't take much when the time comes for the world to be propelled into chaos or into complete control under certain powers. Before I finish Psalm 91, the saddest thing in the news this week is that now they're finding video As people and 1 Amazon deliverer was dropping off a package in front of someone's house He spat on the package and rubbed his spit all over it for the family to touch it They're not finding where people are spitting on doorknobs in public and wiping their, it's just disgusting. In fact, in some medical clinics where they're doing the testing, if you say, you know, you don't qualify for the test, I talked to 1 of my colleagues today And he said that people will spit in your face threaten to cough on you because you refuse to do the test for them the world is in Chaos and let me tell you like I said in the first time we did 1 of these the truth of the matter is This disease as bad as it is is not as bad as it's going to get. The case fatality for this 1 will, I believe, ultimately settle under 1, when the flu is around 0.1.

So it'll still be worse than the flu, but it will settle under 1 somewhere. Imagine when a disease comes that the case fatality rate is 3 or 4 or 5 or 10, and it's able to circle the globe. Imagine how all that we understand would collapse in a night, And yet this is what is described in the 7 last plagues. But by then probation will have closed. So I pray that everyone is getting ready because the devil is like the man spitting on his hands or spitting on the packages and spitting on the doorknobs.

The devil wants to spread the virus of sin and destruction. And he doesn't care who gets it. So we've got to be protected. So David says in Psalm 91, verse 8, only with thine eye 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 inhabitation. There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.

If we are in Christ, the plague will stay from us. And I don't mean somebody won't get sick, because there are some that God will allow to get sick and will put them to sleep before the trials that are coming before this world, at the end of this world. What I mean is the plague of sin, the plague of eternal damnation will not reach a door. For he shall give his angels charge over thee, David says, 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 the adder. The young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample underfoot. 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. At the end of the Psalm, God begins to speak back to David.

David says that God is gonna give his angels charge over his people He says that they shall bear thee up in their hands lest I dash thy foot against the stone It's just but then God says thou shalt tread upon the lion in the outer He says that we will step on the dragon Trample him underfoot. So there's that I believe there's some some allegory there it's not just that you'll step on a lizard or a snake. I believe that the dragon means that the day will come when those of us who are in Christ, when the earth is made new and the wicked are like ashes under our feet, Satan himself would have been burned among those ashes and we will trample upon the dragon. I know how terrible it seems right now, but David is promising us In verse 14, God speaks to us through David. He says, because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him, because you love the Lord, which is the first and great commandment, to love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul.

He says, because you have set his love upon me, therefore I will deliver him and I will set him on high. Why will God set you on high when the whole world has gone low in this pandemic? Because he has known my name. Let me tell you something, for those of us stuck at home, social distancing, working from home, out of work, as bleak as it gets, your children are running around the house, probably running up your nerves, tough as it seems, everybody's out of school, there's a lack of what is coming next. There's security in the fact that you love the Lord and that you know His name.

And I want to challenge the believers who hear this, not to panic, not to fret. Remember that you love him and that you know his name. Let us pray. Father God, we thank you, Lord, for bringing us together again to record these messages. And I just ask Lord that Psalm 91 would become the prayer and the guide and the strength of all who need strength and hope right now.

Lord, every time I've been in trouble, I've turned to the book of Psalms and this is no different. Because in this book, Lord, you said that you would protect us from the noisome pestilence, that the plague would not come near our door, that you would elevate us, Lord, and that we would 1 day trample on the dragon. Lord, we claim the promises of Psalms 91. And as the world descends into chaos and fear, Lord, let us rise into a greater knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Lord, let us rise into a better relationship with you.

This is our prayer in Jesus's precious and holy name. Amen. This media was brought to you by AudioVerse, a website dedicated to spreading God's Word through free sermon audio and much more. If you would like to know more about Audioverse or if you would like to listen to more sermons, please visit www.audioverse.org.

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Series

Pandemic at the Door

COVID19: Not Afraid - Part 4

Description

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

Other Teachings in Series

COVID19: Not Afraid - Part 1

18m

COVID19: Not Afraid - Part 2

27m

Stopping the Pandemic at the Door

31m

COVID19: Not Afraid - Part 3

33m

COVID19: Spiritual Distancing - Deep Prophecy Version

51m

COVID19: Not Afraid - Part 4

18m

The Pandemic of Perversion

46m

Don’t Cry for Jesus: Warning to the Last Generation

37m

Pandemic of Persecution - Part 1

1h 2m

Pandemic of Persecution - Part 2

58m

Pandemic of Addiction

50m

After the Lockdown: Through Trials and Difficulties

27m

Appetite for Pandemic

1h 4m

Sound Doctrine