Introduction:
King Saul has been anointed by God to rule over the nation of Israel. He was an impressive young man without equal among the Israelites and a head taller than any of the others (1 Samuel 9:2). The people of Israel had demanded to have a king and Samuel the prophet went before the LORD with their request and the LORD told Samuel that He would give them a king but that he would be a harsh king. God also said through His prophet that in choosing a king of even demanding to have a king in the end would bring them grief to the point where they would cry out to the LORD but He would not answer them (1 Samuel 8:4-21).
However, the LORD heard their request and because He saw them oppressed by the Philistines in Gaza in His compassion for His people He would anoint Saul as their king (1 Samuel 9:16). Saul started out well as the LORD and was told by Samuel that the Spirit of God would come upon him and give him the power to rule as Israel’s’ king and have success in whatever he put his hand to (1 Samuel 10:6-7), and Saul was told by Samuel that the prophet would come to him to sacrifice burnt offerings and fellowship offerings but that Saul was to wait for seven days. It was a test to see if Saul would be an obedient servant of God, Samuel was the only one authorised by the LORD to offer sacrifices, not Saul.
When Saul was about to leave Samuel who was going to go away for seven days, the Spirit of the LORD came powerfully upon the king and he prophesied by the Spirit (1 Samuel 10:8-11). After Saul had been anointed with the Spirit of God he started to have victories when he and the army of Israel defeated their enemies in open battle. Among the ranks of his officers and men were some whose heart God had touched and these were valiant fighters, but also some were troublemakers. After the great victory when the Israelites had rescued the City of Jabeth from the Ammonites, all of the people including King Saul along with Samuel went to Gilgal to confirm the kingship and there in the presence of the LORD they sacrificed fellowship offerings and Saul and the people had a great celebration.
As time progressed king Saul disobeyed the LORD twice and the second time he did this the LORD rejected him as king because Saul had rejected the Word of the LORD and so the LORD chose David, a man after God’s heart to replace Saul (1 Samuel 13:1-14) (1 Samuel 15:1-23; 16:1-13). Because Saul had deliberately rejected the Word of the LORD the power of the Spirit that had rested on him departed from him, and an evil spirit, given permission by the LORD, came upon Saul to torment him (1 Samuel 16:14). Young David, who God had anointed to replace Saul came into the service of King Saul and whenever David played his harp the evil spirit would depart from Saul. However, the king became increasingly jealous of David, knowing that David would be the future king. After David had killed Goliath the people’s attention and praise shifted from Saul to David (1 Samuel 18:5-8).
Saul became insanely jealous of David and when David came in to play the harp as was his custom an evil spirit, given permission by the LORD, came forcibly upon Saul and he prophesied, this time not by the power of the Spirit, but by the power of the evil spirit and in a rage tried to pin David to the wall with a spear. After this David had to flee for his life. In the intervening years that followed there was a considerable time gap between David’s anointing to be king until he sat on the throne at Jerusalem. During this prolonged waiting period David grew in His trust in the LORD, which he found through many trials and tests, as he worked his way to the throne, knowing that in the end of this testing time God would fulfil his Word to David, and we see David’s consistent trust in the LORD reflected in this Psalm as in other psalms he wrote by the Spirit of God.
At one point David felt like a hunted bird in the mountains when fleeing from Saul (1 Samuel 26:20b) and this situation caused him to write Psalm 11. Throughout the Old Testament we read about the lives of men like David and many other godly men and the battles and difficulties they had to face with implacable enemies and how they overcame such adversity in the natural physical realm. The experiences of these men teach us about spiritual warfare we face every day as New Covenant Messianic believers. As we approach this psalm we will see how the deeper spiritual truths apply to us. Let’s now look at this psalm…
Psalm 11: Exposition
(Vs, 1) “In the LORD I take refuge; How can you say to my soul, “Flee as a bird to your mountain;”
When we look at the lives of many whom God used in the Bible they did not experience instant spirituality but had to persevere as God did His work in them before He really used them to fulfil his ultimate purpose for them, such as we see in the lives of men like Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Joseph and many others in the Bible. It has been said that God trains men and women for extraordinary service in the everyday circumstances of life, and as the divine potter uses every experience whether good or not so good to mould and to reshape the clay of their lives into the vessel He has ordained them to be, even from before they were conceived in their mother’s womb, such as we see concerning the prophet Jeremiah (Jeremiah 1:4-5).
We can be encouraged in this that whatever our ultimate calling and gifting God works everything that happens to us in our lives for our good. As Rabbi the apostle Paul writes; “And we know that God works all things together for the good of those who love Him, who are called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28). Even godly Job understood this in the midst of his terrible suffering and extreme trial when by faith he proclaimed; “Behold, I go forward but He is not there, And backward, but I cannot perceive Him; When He acts on the left, I cannot behold Him; He turns on the right, I cannot see Him. “But He knows the way I take; When He has tried me, I shall come forth as gold” (Job 23:8-11).
Moses was another prime example whom God took care of even as a tiny baby when his mother placed him in a very small papyrus basket coated with tar and pitch and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile River to save him from being killed by Pharaoh. However, through many trials and difficulties Moses was trained by the LORD for his ultimate task God had ordained for his life and ministry. Joseph also was prepared for many years through adversity before he came into that place where God could use him to save the lives of many (Genesis 50:19-20). As we also read about Joseph in the psalms; “He (the LORD) sent a man before them (his brothers), Joseph, who was sold as a slave. They afflicted his feet with fetters, He himself was laid in irons; Until the time that his word came to pass, The word of the Lord tested him. The king sent and released him, The ruler of peoples, and set him free” (Psalm 105:17-20).
God is never in a hurry when preparing us for His work. There are no instance spiritual ‘fixes’ in the spiritual life despite what many pastors and leaders are propagating today within the wider Body of Messiah as if the LORD is a spiritual dispensing machine that hands out all kinds of spiritual ‘candy’ to His children. God has a great task for David, and even after his anointing as the future king there would be many years before it came to fruition. One thing that we always need to remember that will encourage us in our daily walk with the LORD is that “God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable” (Romans 11:29).
When the Messiah our Lord Jesus called His disciple Peter a rock Peter was anything but that, he was ‘rocky and rough’ in his demeanour, his speech and impulsiveness and even denied the Lord three times before he was restored by the Lord Jesus after His resurrection.
However, Peter had been called to be a rock in proclaiming the revelation knowledge concerning the Lord Jesus and through this knowledge he had received himself would be used in the future to enable the future Body of Messiah to stand against the gates of hell itself and to take the good fight of faith to the devil and his cohorts from hell (Matthew 16:16-18).
By the grace, the calling and the gifting of God in the course of his life Peter became a rock in spiritual matters. Long before the Lord Jesus called Peter to follow him Peter was a seasoned fisherman and undoubtedly the LORD used this aspect of his life to teach him how to fish for the souls of men. It would take time and patience and perseverance to catch people for the Lord Jesus, and God knew this when He called Peter long before Peter heard that call from the lips of the Messiah our Lord Jesus.
Now David had been called and anointed by the LORD and even as a young shepherd boy watching over the sheep on the bare hillside there were times when he had to defend the sheep against a lion or a bear in the power of God and because God had been training him to be a good shepherd when Goliath challenged the LORD and His people, young David took him out. He may have been the sweet singer on Israel, but he most certainly knew how to use his sling and his staff to protect and to lead the sheep in his care.
In this psalm David found himself on the run and his life threatened by King Saul who had his men out searching for David to kill him. Even though David through faith and trust in the LORD, had killed Goliath as if he had been like a bear or a lion, now he was feeling despondent and possibly even fearful for his life. David “was down but not out for the count” as he continued to stand against the odds that were arrayed against him. So we find him saying “In the LORD I take refuge; How can you say to my soul, “Flee as a bird to your mountain;” He was encouraging himself in the LORD, as he would do again later alone in a cave when even his own men were starting to question his leadership over a situation that had drastically affected all of their families when a raiding party of Amalekites had destroyed David’s camp and taken all of the families into captivity as booty, and David’s men were blaming him even to the point where they were considering stoning him.
At this time, even though tired and even fearful, David found his refuge in the LORD as we read; “Now David was greatly distressed, for the people spoke of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and his daughters. But David strengthened (or encouraged) himself in the LORD his God” (1 Samuel 30:6). However, the LORD intervened and after seeking His help and guidance David was able to lead his men to the place where their families had been taken captive by their enemies the Amalekites, and after fighting and destroying all of them except for a hundred who escaped on camels, rescued all of their family members with one of them being lost (1 Samuel Chapter 30). Fighting God’s battles in God’s way always ends in God’s victories!
After when David penned Psalm 11 he said to himself in effect; “how could I tell myself to give into panic and fear and like a bird being hunted have a desire to flee to the mountain where Saul cannot reach me when I have a strong refuge in the LORD my God?” God was training David to be the kind of King that could lead a nation and knew what He was doing and what it would take to bring this about for David. No doubt God was at work in David and in his circumstances as daunting as they were for him, both to will and to work His good pleasure in David’s spiritual journey (Philippians 2:13).
David’s experience was mirrored in the life and ministry of the prophet Elijah, who after having a great spiritual victory against the prophets of Baal on Mt Carmel, he eventually found himself in a cave having a kind of ’pity party’ and even being afraid because Jezebel had been killing of God’s prophets and she wanted Elijah more than any of the other prophets. God loved his servant and understood his exhaustion after winning a great spiritual victory. It is not uncommon when the LORD has used us in some situation to feel somewhat spiritually depleted after seeing God’s power at work through us in that particular situation.
The LORD came to Elijah after feeding him supernaturally through the ravens and revealed His power again to him and Elijah realised that God was not always just in the sensational situations that could be likened to a powerful wind or to an earthquake, but that the LORD was also in the still small voice, which comforted and encouraged the weary prophet. Elijah through he was the only one left but the LORD revealed to him that He had in reserve seven thousand who were not prophets as such but were faithful believers who had not bowed their knees to worship the demonic ‘god’ Baal or kissed his image. Once the LORD has spiritually replenished Elijah He sent him on his way to complete the work he had been assigned and empowered to perform as God’s prophet. In David’s situation he realised that he was in a spiritual battle. Let’s look at this…
(Vs.2) “For, behold, the wicked bend the bow, They make ready their arrow upon the string To shoot in darkness at the upright in heart.”
David understood that there were only two kinds of people on earth, those who were wicked and those who were righteous. He knew that the wicked being Saul, now under the power of an evil spirit, was fixated and fully intent of exterminating David no matter what it took. When God puts His hand on a person’s life and calls him or her to do a mighty work for Him, you can bet that Satan and his cohorts from hades will target that one and have them in their crosshairs. The entire Bible bears this out when we see the battles being fought both in the physical realm and in the unseen spiritual realm between the righteous with the wicked and this is very clearly seen in the psalms that David and others wrote in scripture.
“For, behold, the wicked bend the bow” We also know that Satan’s fiery arrows are always aimed at the shield of faith, because he knows that if he can get us to stop trusting in the LORD, or to even doubt what the LORD has promised us in His Word then he will be able to impede our service and ministry and its effectiveness. This is why, when we put on the whole spiritual armour that God has provided for and we also wield the shield of faith and the sword of the Spirit being the promises of God in His Word, the Bible. When Satan sees us standing by faith and confessing and trusting in the Word, he takes a wide birth because he knows full well what will happen to him if he gets within reach of that sword of the Spirit.
“They make ready their arrow upon the string To shoot in darkness at the upright in heart.” The wicked are always bending their bows to strike the righteous living by faith in the LORD. The wicked, whether they are physical enemies or spiritual enemies in the unseen spiritual real, they shoot in the darkness because they cannot stand the light of God in the righteous living by faith. These wicked spirits that operate through wicked human beings operate in spiritual darkness. David was not only conscious of the wicked intent of Saul and his soldiers but also of the fact that there were dark spiritual entities behind them. David had seen this when Saul had tried to spear him in a fit of anger.
In the Old Testament times God’s people knew about evil spirits and even Satan is mentioned in the Old Testament, however, when the Lord Jesus came into this world to tabernacle among us, there was an open clash of the two kingdoms. Satan’s kingdom of darkness and subterfuge was exposed when the Messiah confronted and expelled demons. Satan always dwells in darkness and strikes out at us from that darkness, and we need to be aware of his tactics and situations he sets up to hinder our work for the LORD.
Anything or any situation that draws us away from our trust in the LORD is a fiery arrow that Satan or one of his principalities has put into their bow to shoot at us from out of the dark unseen spiritual world in which they inhabit in the atmosphere just above the surface of the earth. His main goal is to get us to doubt the Word of God or to twist it out of context as he did when tempting the Messiah our Lord Jesus in the wilderness for forty days and nights.
The Lord Jesus used scripture in its proper context to fight Satan off. He said three times to Satan; “It is written.” The fiery darts of the devil then are always aimed at the shield of our faith and we are to resist Him using the Word of God as our sword just as the Lord Jesus did. We are also told in God’s Word that “faith comes from hearing and hearing by the Word of God” (Romans 10:17). In this psalm David by the Holy Spirit expressed this truth…
(Vs.3) “If the foundations are destroyed, What can the righteous do?”
The foundation of our faith is the Word of God and Satan knows this and gets scared when he sees a righteous one who is living by faith walking in step with the Holy Spirit and in line with the Word of God. If our lives are being built on the solid rock foundation of the Word of God then our life will stand when the storms of adversity in times of spiritual attack hit us hard. If we are only building our lives upon sand, which is not a solid foundation, then, when the storms of adversity come at us when we are spiritually attacked our lives will not be able to stand spiritually.
As the Messiah our Lord Jesus said; ““Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it” (Matthew 7:24-27). If we, who God declares to be righteous in His sight through exercising saving faith in His Son the Lord Jesus, neglect to keep building our spiritual lives upon the sold rock foundation of God’s Word, then what can we do to prevent Satan from overpowering us? David knew that the spiritual foundation upon which he was building his life was the Word of the LORD which was the Torah (the first five books in the Old Testament written by Moses).
It is interesting to note that when David went out to meet Goliath, David had five stones in his pouch and took one in his sling and brought Goliath down with it. We also know that Goliath had five brothers. We could say that the five stones represented the Torah and the sling represented the word of David launched against Goliath with the sling of David’s mouth. His confession of faith in God and in His covenant promises given in the Torah was the spiritual weapon that lay behind David’s confession and accompanying actions.
We see this spiritual principle enunciated in the New Testament in the process of our salvation. “The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,” that is, the message concerning faith that we proclaim: If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved. As Scripture says, “Anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame.” For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Romans 10:8-13).
Words are part of our confession of faith especially when we speak out the promises of God acknowledging our trust in the LORD and in His word. God is very pleased with this kind of faith and rewards it (Hebrews 11: 6). What can the righteous do when the fiery arrows of the evil one are coming one upon another? They can hold up the shield of faith that will every time extinguish those fiery arrows and with the words of their mouth release the Word of God in the devils’ direction and in resisting him we will drive him out of our affairs, after that we need to draw near to God to replenish our spiritual strength. As James writes; “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you” (James 4:6b-8a).
Once David had understood what was happening to him both in the physical and unseen spiritual realm, he then focused on the absolute sovereign power of God who sees everything that man thinks, speaks and does in his outward actions.
(Vs.4) “The LORD is in His holy temple; the LORD’s throne is in heaven; His eyes behold, His eyelids test the sons of men.”
God is a holy Triune God sitting on His throne in heaven from which He controls everything in the whole universe, one who is Himself set apart from all sin and wickedness, and in Him is no darkness at all of any kind (1 John 1:5), and his eyes to pure to even look upon evil (Habakkuk 1:13a), because anything of the darkness is completely extinguished in the light of His presence. Nothing escapes His all-seeing eyes. As we read; “For the eyes of the LORD roam to and fro over all the earth, to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose hearts are fully devoted to Him” (2 Chronicles 16:9a).
David also wrote; “Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the dawn, If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, Even there Your hand will lead me, And Your right hand will lay hold of me. If I say, “Surely the darkness will overwhelm me, And the light around me will be night,” Even the darkness is not dark to You, And the night is as bright as the day. Darkness and light are alike to You” (Psalm 139:7-12).
God sits upon His throne and no matter what the spiritual floods are like that hit us, as we continue with persevering faith to seek to walk in the will of God and in step with the Holy Spirit and in line with the Word of God, He sits enthroned above the flood and controls its course and oversees everything that happens to us. David also spoke about this when he wrote in Psalm 29; “The LORD sits enthroned over the flood; the LORD is enthroned as King forever. The LORD gives His people strength; the LORD blesses His people with peace” (Psalm 29:10). Strength and peace come from the LORD in a time of great turmoil and adversity when the enemy of our souls comes in, and like a flood the Spirit of the LORD will raise up a battle standard against him and drive him off! (Isaiah 59:19). Praise expressed with faith is also a spiritual weapon that shuts the devil’s mouth! (Psalm 8:2; 9:1-3).
As we also read; “But at your rebuke the waters fled, at the sound of your thunder they took to flight;” (Psalm 104:7). And yet again we read; “The voice of the LORD is over the waters; the God of glory thunders; the LORD is heard over many waters” (Psalm 29:3). Satan may roar like a roaring line but at the LORD’s rebuke he flees in abject terror. And then we read…
(Vs.5-6) “The LORD tests the righteous and the wicked, And the one who loves violence His soul hates. Upon the wicked He will rain snares; Fire and brimstone and burning wind will be the portion of their cup.”
Whatever is happening on earth the LORD sees everything and by this He tests the thoughts and the motives of the hearts of men and women because “man looks only on the outward appearance but God looks upon the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7). He tests both the righteous and the wicked alike, because He is no respecter of persons and shows no partiality. As Rabbi the apostle Paul writes; “He will render to each one according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, He will give eternal life; but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury. There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, but glory and honour and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. For God shows no partiality” (Romans 2:6-10).
Now David knew that God was still in control of the situation he faced with King Saul hunting for him, even as daunting and even life threatening as it was. He also knew that God had ordained him to be the king of Israel and that God’s call and his gifts were irrevocable and that what He had ordained would come to pass exactly as He had said even down to the very finest detail. David would face many violent men during the course of his life that had it in for him, however, David also knew that God hated the souls of those who loved to commit acts of violence without compunction such as we see today with Hamas in Gaza and with Hezbollah in Lebanon and the other Iranian backed terrorist groups in Iraq and Syria seeking to destroy the Jewish people.
God will always exercise His righteous vengeance upon those, who without compunction, seek to murder and mutilate His children as we have seen with ISIS and with Hamas in Gaza and many Arab civilians in Gaza also seeking to engage in acts of murder against Jews. On a broader scale we see this terrible persecution of faithful Christians in North Korea, China, and Russia and in every Muslim country to a greater or lesser degree in the world today without exception.
While it seems that many wicked in this world are getting away with their acts of violence against the Jews and the Christians the day is coming when their violence will come back upon their own heads when God’s justice is meted out when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with His powerful angels. He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of the Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the LORD and from the majesty of His power on the day when He comes to be glorified in His holy people and to be marvelled at among all those who have believed (2 Thessalonians 1:6-10a). “Snares; Fire and brimstone and burning wind will be the portion of their cup” as the wicked are swept away in judgement (Proverbs 10:25) (Psalm 28:3) (Zephaniah 1:2-3) (Proverbs 21:7) (Psalm 58:9) (Psalm 90:5) (1 Samuel 12:25).
In the time of Noah before the flood we are told that the earth was full of violence (Genesis 6:11a) and when the flood came the wicked were swept away and only the remnant were spared. The wicked were taken away in judgement while the righteous, being Noah and his family the faithful remnant, were spared. This is how it will be at the end of this age when the Lord Jesus comes back to judge the world. One will be taken away in judgement, and the other left to inherit the Messianic Kingdom and after that to enter into the New Jerusalem for all of eternity after the Messianic age has come to a close. As it was in the days of Noah before the flood came so it will be in the last days leading up to the Day of the LORD and the Messiah’s Second Coming (Matthew 24:37-41). Finally we read…
(Vs.7) “For the LORD is righteous, He loves righteousness; The upright will behold His face.” While David was feeling like a bird being relentlessly hunted on the mountains, he had the inward assurance that his God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who is perfectly righteous in every way and the one who loves righteousness in the heart and in the actions, would see the face of the LORD when the time came to leave this world. While the Old Testament saints did not have the fuller revelation of the world to come as we see revealed in the New Testament they most certainly had the hope of an eternity with the LORD.
We see this hope David expressed in the testimony of righteous Job, who lived a long time before the time of David, in the midst of Job’s terrible afflictions laid upon him by Satan personally (Job 1:6-12; 2:1-10). We are also told that in this entire suffering Job did not sin in what he said and accepted that God allowed suffering for His purposes (Genesis 2:10. Even though, having lost all things, his children apart from his wife, his goods ransacked, and his body racked with boils, he still had the hope of eternity and even saw Himself beholding the face of the Messiah when He comes back. Job’s hope was not in this world as he also had the hope of a physical resurrection when the prophesied Messiah would stand once again upon the earth and Job with his own physical eyes would see Him. As Job declared; “But I know that my Redeemer lives, and in the end He will stand upon the earth. Even after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God” (Job 19:25-26).
David had this hope as we see reflected in many of the psalms he wrote. No matter what happens to us in this life and things are going to get worse before they get better, we also have the hope of the resurrection and eternity with the LORD. Even eons after this world has passed away, and we are dwelling in the New Jerusalem, and living in the new heavens and earth, we will be continuously seeing the face of our Triune God in all of His eternal splendour and glory and basking in His light and His love. We may not look like God’s righteous ones at present and we are painfully aware of our fleshly nature and our propensity to sin as we keep trusting in the Lord Jesus to keep His word, the one who gave Himself for our sins so that He might rescue us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father (Galatians 1-4).
As the apostle John also writes; “See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are. For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is. And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure” (1 John 3:1-3).
The wicked inspired by Satan have always had it in for the saints of God as scripture affirms going all the way back to when Cain killed his brother Abel because Abel’s heart and his deeds were right before the LORD, but Cain’s heart and his actions were evil before the LORD and that with a murderous intent. Abel served the righteous one while Cain served the evil one, who was a liar and a murderer from even before creation (1 John 3:12) (John 8:44).
We are told in scripture that God’s gifts and His call are irrevocable (Romans 11:29), and no matter how Saul tried to kill David, the LORD always protected him in order that David might fulfil God’s will for his life. Even though Satan set David up to commit adultery and murder, the LORD spared David because of His love, and because He knew that David would repent because deep down on the inside he really loved God. David came to understand that his days on earth had already been ordained by the LORD and recorded in God’s record books in heaven even before any of them came to be (Psalm 139:16).
God knows how our life on earth will end and nothing can change that. While He knows this He still gives us choices to make. Even though we will face many difficult times ahead as we see the world and all in it rapidly deteriorating, we know that nothing will happen to us until it is God’s time for us to leave this earth and go to be with Him. His gifts and calling are irrevocable and no matter what Satan throws our way our times are still in the hands of the LORD.
As David also wrote; “For I hear the whispering of many—terror on every side!—as they scheme together against me, as they plot to take my life. But I trust in you, O LORD; I say, “You are my God.” My times are in your hand; rescue me from the hand of my enemies and from my persecutors! Make your face shine on your servant; save me in your steadfast love! (Psalm 31:13-16). As we read in Lamentations; “The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness! (Lamentations 3:22-23). As Rabbi the apostle Paul also writes; “For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13). There is always Refuge in the LORD!
