Safe from the deadly pestilence?

If you've got 24 minutes, instead of reading this post, listen to Christopher Ash's recent sermon on Psalm 91 (preached towards the beginning of the Covid-19 outbreak)

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Psalm 91 is a striking Psalm to read in days of pandemic:

For he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler
    and from the deadly pestilence.
He will cover you with his pinions,
    and under his wings you will find refuge;
    his faithfulness is a shield and buckler.
You will not fear the terror of the night,
    nor the arrow that flies by day,
nor the pestilence that stalks in darkness,
    nor the destruction that wastes at noonday.

How can that be true?
Perhaps a better first question - Who is this true of? Who is the 'you' the Psalm is talking about?
Let's look carefully at the different voices:

• Verse 1 – A voice talks in the third person about ‘he’ who takes refuge in the Most High
• Verse 2 – A voice talks in the first person, looking to the LORD for refuge.
• Verses 3-13 – A voice talks in the second person of how the LORD, the Most High, will be a refuge to ‘you’
• Verses 14-16 – A voice talks in the first person about how he will be a refuge to ‘him’

There are at least two speakers. Everyone agrees that v14-16 must be the LORD himself coming in and confirming that he will indeed deliver/protect/rescue.
It could be that v1-13 is all the Psalmist speaking, first giving a general truth (v1) , then saying what his prayer is to his God (v2), then encouraging other believers (v3-13). But it is very striking that the “you” throughout v3-13 is singular. Just as v1 and v14-16 seem to be talking about a singular man. It could be a generalised ‘believer’ but it’s interesting what happens when Satan quotes this Psalm to Jesus a thousand years later in the wilderness. The strength of the devil’s attack rests on the fact that Jesus knows that this Psalm is about the Son of God. “If you are the Son of God, then Psalm 91:11-12 applies to you doesn’t it? So why don’t you just throw yourself down off the Temple and claim those promises?”
Jesus doesn’t debate the application to himself but he knows a) that you don’t have to ‘test’ a Father-Son relationship and b) this Psalm is going to be fulfilled through the Cross and resurrection – suffering and then glory.
So Psalm 91:3-13 is being spoken to Jesus by another voice – a comforter who encourages him that the LORD God, the Most High will protect him. Who is this? Who could be Jesus’ comforter? How about The Comforter – the Spirit. The one who speaks through the psalmists (2 Sam. 23:2; Acts 1:16; 4:25).
And who is the Most High LORD who is mentioned in v1, v9 and then speaks in v14-16? Surely that must be the Father. The one who is loved by the Son (v14).
So perhaps Psalm 91 works a bit like this:

• Verse 1 – The Spirit tells us about the Son as the one who dwells in the Father (this verse in a sense functions as the title of the Psalm).
• Verse 2 – The Son speaks of how he will cry out to the Father.
• Verses 3-13 – The Spirit reassures the Son of the protection of the Father.
• Verses 14-16 – The Father tells us about what he will do for the Son.

So how do we read Psalm 91 as a Psalm of Jesus?

1. He is the One who fully, eternally dwells in the Father (v1 cf. John 14:10,11,20)
2. He is the perfect believer, who fully trusts in God (v2 cf. Heb. 2:13; John 20:17)
3. On Easter morning he was delivered from the snare of death (v3) but first he willingly walked into that snare, he didn't claim the protection he deserved (v4 cf. Matt 26:53), he faced the terror of the night and the piercing in the day (v5), he willingly took our sickness and sorrows on himself (v6,10 cf. Isaiah 53:4) and took the punishment of the wicked (v8 cf. Isaiah 53:5).
4. He did not call on legions of angels (v11) to avoid the Cross (Matt 26:53) but angels did attend him on his way to the Cross (Matt 4:11; Luke 22:43) .
5. Wonderfully at the Cross he did trample the great lion and the serpent (v13 cf. Gen. 3:15; 1 Pet. 5:8) - a verse that Satan tellingly omits to quote (Matt 4:6)!
6. He is the Son who perfectly loves the Father (v14 cf. John 14:31)
7. He knows the Name (v14 cf. John 17:11-12)
8. His cries were heard (v15a cf John 11:42; Heb 5:7) and they still are (Heb 7:25)
9. He had the Lord with him in his trouble (v15b) - even as he endured the greatest trouble of the Cross there was no separation of the persons of the Trinity (cf. Heb 9:14)
10. After three days he was rescued from the grave and 40 days later ascended to the place of honour (v15c) where he lives forever, our indestructible High Priest in the joyful presence of the Father (v16 cf. Heb 7).

Does that mean this Psalm is not for us? Well not first. But secondarily, yes, as we are in Christ - dwelling in the One who is dwelling in the Father (John 14:20). 

• We do not fear death. Strikingly, in Psalm 91:6, the words 'pestilence' and 'destruction' (ESV) are the same words (at least in the Hebrew consonant text) as in Hosea 13:14 - "Where, O death, are your plagues/pestilences? Where, O grave, is your sting/destruction?" Christ faced the full horror of these plagues of death (Matt 26:38-39). He knew that he would go, carrying all the sins of his people, to face the monstrous scorpion of Death armed with its vicious sting of hellfire. And he took that sting - all the plagues of hell. So that we don't have to. So we face death as a defeated, disarmed foe. So that it can hardly be called death anymore for Christ's people but rather 'sleep' (John 11:26,11). So we in Christ are no longer held captive by a fear of death.
• We follow Jesus on the way of the cross - through suffering, sorrow and shame in this life to deliverance, joy and honour in the next. So a martyr's biography can be titled Shadow of the Almighty. In a similar way to Jesus in the wilderness (Matt 4) refusing to test his Father-Son relationship with stupid stunts and refusing to avoid the way of the Cross by claiming all the clauses of Psalm 91 before their right time, so we need to be careful not to claim the resurrection life now, careful to walk as children of God by faith (just because of what God says, not demanding sight of miraculous deliverances), willing to take up our cross and follow Jesus for the joy set before us.
• We are utterly safe. Nothing can ultimately harm us. Psalm 91 is true. No evil can come near us because everything evil that is thrown at us the Lord will use for our good to make us more like Christ and so we shall be more than conquerors (as John Piper has shown from Romans 8). Luke 21:16,18 - "You will be betrayed even by parents, brothers and sisters, relatives and friends, and they will put some of you to death... But not a hair of your head will perish." You are utterly safe in the Father's hand. So Corrie Ten Boom writes of nights in a Nazi prison cell:

During my months of solitary confinement, I often felt lonely and afraid. In such moments I recalled that last night with my elderly father sharing Psalm 91 and praying. I could remember some of those verses, especially that "he shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust; his truth shall be thy shield and buckler." I would close my eyes and visualize that kind of protection, "he shall cover thee with his feathers," and with that thought in mind, I would fall asleep.

P.S. if you've wondered, like me, what a 'buckler' is - it's a small shield, particularly protecting your sword hand.