I believe every word God says in Psalm 91 (and the rest of the Bible too, for that matter). I believe with all my heart that if I dwell “in the secret place of the most High [and] shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty,” if “I say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust,” then surely—absolutely, for sure, without a doubt—“He shall deliver [me] from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence” (Psalm 91:1-3).
What exactly is the snare of the fowler? It’s any trap, hazard or harm that Satan might throw in our path.
What’s a noisome pestilence? It’s any damaging or deadly sickness, disease, plague or substance that has ever existed in the past or will ever exist in the future.
When you think about it, just those two phrases offer us all the protection we’ll ever need. They cover every kind of danger we could possibly encounter. But even so, Psalm 91 doesn’t stop there.
It goes on to tell us that when we’re under God’s protection, we will “not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day” (verse 5). We don’t have to lie awake at night worrying about what might be lurking out there in the darkness, we can sleep in peace. If we or our loved ones are serving in the military, we don’t have to be afraid of arrows or bullets or missiles or grenades or IEDs. We don’t have to fret about natural disasters like fires, earthquakes, tornados, tsunamis, storms, or any other kind of “destruction and sudden death that surprise and lay waste at noonday” (verse 6, The Amplified Bible).
As massive and destructive as such things might be, God can get us through them all in perfect safety. He can surround us with His power so that, as verse 7 says, even if “a thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee.”
If you think that kind of protection sounds too good to be true, all you have to do is keep reading and you’ll see that Psalm 91 promises it again and again. It says, for example, that “because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation; there shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling” (verses 9-10).
The word refuge means “a tent or a covering.” It’s something that encloses you. Think of it! When we trust God as our refuge, we walk around enclosed by the Spirit of the living, Almighty God!
—this article by Gloria Copeland is an excerpt from “Taking Refuge in the Secret Place”—Believer’s Voice of Victory Magazine October 2011.
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