(Newswire.net — September 21, 2020) — 1. This Psalm is that from which the Devil dared to tempt our Lord Jesus Christ: allow us to therefore attend thereto, that thus armed, we could also be enabled to resist Satan, not presuming in ourselves, but in Him who before we were tempted, that we’d not be overcome when tempted. The temptation to Him wasn’t necessary: the temptation of Christ is our learning, but if we hear His answers to the devil, so as that, when ourselves are tempted, we may answer in like manner, we are then entering through the gate, as ye have heard it read within the Gospel. For what’s to enter by the gate? To enter by Christ, who Himself said, “I am the door:” and to enter through Christ, is to imitate His ways. …He urges us to imitate Him in those works which He couldn’t have done had He not been made Man; for a way could He endure sufferings, unless He had become a Man? How could He otherwise have died, been crucified, been humbled? Thus then do thou, when thou sufferest the troubles of this world, which the devil, openly by men, or secretly, as in Job’s case, inflicts; be courageous, be of long-suffering; “thou shall dwell under the defense of the foremost High,” as this Psalm 91 Commentary expresses it: for if thou depart from the assistance of the foremost High, without strength to help thyself, thou wilt fall.
2. For several men are brave, once they are enduring persecution from men, and see them openly rage against themselves: imagining they’re then imitating the sufferings of Christ, just in case men openly persecute them; but if assailed by the hidden attack of the devil, they believe they’re not being crowned by Christ. Never fear when thou dost imitate Christ. For when the devil tempted our Lord, there was no man within the wilderness; he tempted Him secretly, but he was conquered and conquered too when openly attacking Him. This does thou, if thou wisheth to enter by the door, when the enemy secretly assails thee, when he asks for a person that he may do him some hurt by bodily troubles, by fever, by sickness, or the other bodily sufferings, like those of Job. He saw not the devil, yet he acknowledged the ability of God. He knew that the devil had no power against him, unless from the Almighty Ruler of all things he received that power: the full glory he gave to God, the power to the devil he did not. …
3. He then who so imitates Christ on enduring all the troubles of this world, together with his hopes set on God, that he falls into no snare, is diminished by no panic fears, he “who dwelleth under the defense of the foremost High, who shall abide under the protection of God” (ver. 1), within the words with which the Psalm, which you have got heard and sung, begins. you’ll recognize the words, so well-known, during which the devil tempted our Lord after we come to them. “He shall say unto the Lord, Thou art my taker up, and my refuge: my God” (ver. 2). Who speaks thus to the Lord? “He who dwelleth under the defense of the foremost High:” not under his defense. Who is this? He dwelleth under the defense of the foremost High, who isn’t proud, like people who ate, that they may become as Gods, and lost the immortality within which they were made. For they chose to dwell under a defense of their own, not thereunder of the foremost High: thus they listened to the suggestions of the serpent, and despised the precept of God: and discovered finally that what God threatened, not what the devil promised, had come to pass in them.
4. Thus then do thou say also, “In Him will I trust. For He shall deliver me” (ver. 3), not I. Observe whether he teaches anything but this, that every one our trust be in God, none in man. Whence shall he deliver thee? “From the snare of Orion, and a harsh word.” Deliverance from the hunter’s net is indeed an excellent blessing: but how is deliverance from a harsh word so? Many have fallen into the hunter’s net through a harsh word. what’s it that I say? The devil and his angels spread their snares, as hunters do: and people who come in Christ tread beyond those snares: for he dares not spread his net in Christ: he sets it on the verge of the way, not within the way. Let then thy way be Christ, and thou shall not be the snares of the devil. …
But what’s, “from a harsh word”? The devil has entrapped many by a harsh word: as an example, those that profess Christianity among Pagans suffer insult from the heathen: they blush once they hear reproach, and shrinking out of their path, in consequence, constitute the hunter’s snares. And yet what’s going to a harsh word do to you? Nothing. Can the snares with which the enemy entraps you by means of reproaches, do nothing to you? Nets are usually spread for birds at the top of a hedge, and stones are thrown into the hedge: those stones won’t harm the birds. When did anybody ever hit a bird by throwing a stone into a hedge? But the bird, frightened at the harmless noise, falls into the nets; and thus men who fear the vain reproaches of their calumniators, and who blush at unprovoked insults, represent the snares of the hunters, and are taken captive by the devil …Just as among the heathen, the Christian who fears their reproaches falls into the snare of the hunter: so among the Christians, people who endeavor to be more diligent and better than the remainder, are doomed connected insults from Christians themselves. What then doth it profit, my brother, if thou occasionally find a city within which there’s no heathen? nobody there insults a person because he’s a Christian, for this reason, that there’s no Pagan therein: but there are many Christians who lead a foul life, among whom those that are resolved to measure righteously, and to be sober among the drunken, and chaste among the unchaste, and amid the consulters of astrologers sincerely to worship God, and to ask after no such things, and among spectators of frivolous shows will go only to the church, suffer from those very Christians reproaches, and harsh words, after they address such a 1, “Thou art the mighty, the righteous, thou art Elias thou art Peter: thou hast come from heaven.” They insult him: whichever way he turns, he hears harsh sayings on each side: and if he fears, and abandons the way of Christ, he falls into the snares of the hunters. But what’s it, when he hears such words, to not swerve from the way? On hearing them, what comfort has he, which prevents his heeding them, and enables him to enter by the door? Let him say; What words am I called, who am I? servant and a sinner? To my Lord Jesus, they said, “Thou hast a devil.” you’ve just heard the tough words were spoken against our Lord: it had been not necessary for our Lord to suffer this, but in doing so He has warned thee against harsh words, lest thou represent the snares of the hunters.
5. “He shall defend thee between His shoulders, and thou shall hope under His wings” (ver. 4). He says this, that thy protection might not be to thee from thyself, that thou mayest not imagine that thou canst defend thyself; He will defend thee, to deliver thee from the hunter’s snare, and a harsh word. The expression, “between His shoulders,” is also understood both before and behind: for the shoulders are about the head; but within the words, “thou shalt hope under His wings,” it’s clear that the protection of the wings of God expanded places thee between His shoulders, so God’s wings on this side which have thee within the midst, where thou shalt not fear lest anybody hurt thee: only be thou careful never to depart that spot, where no foe dares approach. If the hen defends her chickens beneath her wings; what proportion more shalt thou be safe beneath the wings of God, even against the devil and his angels, the powers who fly about in mid-air like hawks, to hold off the weak young one? For the comparison of the hen to the very Wisdom of God isn’t without ground; for Christ, Himself, our Lord and Saviour, speaks of Himself as likened to a hen; “how often would I’ve got gathered thy children,” etc. That Jerusalem would not: allow us to be willing. …If you concentrate on other birds, brethren, you may find many who hatch their eggs, and keep their young warm: but none that weakens herself in sympathy along with her chickens, because the hen does. We see swallows, sparrows, and storks outside their nests, without having the ability to decide whether or not they litter or no: but we all know the hen to be a mother by the weakness of her voice, and therefore the loosening of her feathers: she alters altogether from love for her chickens: she weakens herself because they’re weak. Thus since we were weak, the Wisdom of God made Itself weak, when the Word was made flesh, and dwelt in us, that we’d hope under His wings.