The text of a sermon preached at Muswell Hill Baptist Church on March 15, 2020. This was the church's last meeting before the growing pandemic led the Government to instruct all religious groups to stop gathering in order to hold back the spread of the COVID-19 virus.
We are in unusual times – for us.
But these are far from unusual times for the human race. More locally, these are far from unusual
times in London.
Every so often you may be checking out the
increasingly grim coronavirus statistics.
But in the Diary of Samuel Pepys we find him reading the 17th
century Bills of Mortality:
Thus this month ends, with great sadness upon the
public through the greatness of the plague, everywhere through the Kingdom
almost. Every day sadder and sadder news of its increase. In the City died this
week 7496; and all of them, 6102 of the plague. But it is feared that the true
number of the dead this week is near 10000 - partly from the poor that cannot
be taken notice of through the greatness of the number, and partly from the
Quakers and others that will not have any bell ring for them. As to myself, I am very well; only, in fear of the
plague . .
So we are not at all the first London congregation to
turn to Psalm 91 as a pestilence happens around us.
1. This Psalm is for You - personally
Psalm 90 begins this 4th
book of Psalms.
1 Lord, you have been our dwelling-place
throughout all generations.
. . .4 A thousand years in your sight
are like a day that has just gone by,
or like a watch in the night.
5 Yet you sweep people away in the sleep of
death –
they are like the new grass of the morning:
It makes uncomfortable
human reading (until you trust in God.) The individual human being seems very small,
part of a tide. This is what a global
epidemic feels like - numbers and statistics and curves and percentages. And it always was:
The Bills of Mortality began
to be published regularly in 1603, in which year 33,347 deaths were recorded
from plague. 1625 saw 41,313 dead. The
1625 outbreak was recorded at the time as the 'Great Plague', until deaths from
the plague of 1665 surpassed it. The
official returns for 1665 record 68,596 cases of plague, but a reasonable
estimate suggests this figure is 30,000 short of the true total.
Into all these fearful statistics
comes Psalm 91.
1 He who dwells in
the shelter of the Most High
will rest in the
shadow of the Almighty.
2 I will say of the
Lord, ‘He is my refuge and my fortress,
my God, in whom I
trust.’
In every ‘you’ in this Psalm
it is addressed to the singular.
HE who dwells – that’s just him, you, me.
The numbers are
here of course:
7 A thousand may fall at your side,
ten thousand at your right hand,
but it will not come near you.
But the number that
matters is just you.
This is a pointed and
opportune time to ask this question – how is your personal relationship with
God?
ISAIAH 55:6 Seek the LORD while he may be found; call on him while he is
near. 7 Let the wicked forsake his way
and the evil man his thoughts. Let him turn to the LORD, and he will have mercy
on him, and to our God, for he will freely pardon.
If you must self-isolate in this epidemic – take
this Psalm with you – and remember it is for you, not for church. Provided you too can say:
2 I will say of the
Lord, ‘He is my refuge and my fortress,
my God, in whom I
trust.’
2. This Psalm is for Salvation but not for Show
a. For Salvation
3 Surely he will
save you
from the fowler’s
snare
and from the deadly
pestilence.
4 He will cover you
with his feathers,
and under his wings
you will find refuge;
his faithfulness
will be your shield and rampart.
14 ‘Because he
loves me,’ says the Lord, ‘I will rescue him;
I will protect him,
for he acknowledges my name.
15 He will call on
me, and I will answer him;
I will be with him
in trouble,
I will deliver him
and honour him.
16 With long life I
will satisfy him
and show him my
salvation.’
There are many troubles in
this Psalm:
5 You will not fear
the terror of night,
nor the arrow that
flies by day,
6 nor the
pestilence that stalks in the darkness,
nor the plague that
destroys at midday.
But His feathers are enough.
They are as a shield, as a rampart.
Feathers so gentle, so powerful.
Lord Craven lived
in London when the plague raged. On the plague growing epidemic, his Lordship,
to avoid the danger, resolved to go to his seat in the country. His coach and
six were accordingly at the door, his baggage put up, and all things in
readiness for the journey. As he was walking through his hall he overheard his servant
saying to another servant. "I suppose, by my Lord's quitting London to
avoid the plague, that his God lives in the country, and not in town." The
man said this really believing a plurality of gods.
Lord Craven paused.
"My God lives everywhere, and can preserve me in town as well as in the
country. I will stay where I am.”
He continued in
London, helped his sick neighbours, and never caught the infection.
It is a Psalm to place our trust in because God is personally
with us where we are.
b. Not for Show
A Psalm for a Pandemic - in Lent. What has it to do with Lent?
Lent is framed around the forty days when Jesus, in
the wilderness, confronted and overcame Satan, the tempter.
LUKE 4:9 The devil led him to Jerusalem and had him
stand on the highest point of the temple. ‘If you are the Son of God,’ he said,
‘throw yourself down from here. 10 For it is written [Psalm 91]:
‘“He will command his angels concerning you
to guard you
carefully;
11 they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you
will not strike your foot against a stone.”’
12 Jesus answered, ‘It is said: “Do not put the Lord
your God to the test.”’
Satan tempts Jesus with Psalm 91. It is Jesus’ chance to display his
invincibility. Jesus, instead, shows his
obedience to his calling.
Even the most wonderful promises are part of our
discipleship, our discipline, our self-denial.
Like the gifts of the Holy Spirit, the promises of God are for Service
and for Salvation, not for Show.
Charles Haddon
Spurgeon, the great Baptist Preacher in Victorian London told this account of
service and salvation in pestilential times:
In the year 1854,
when I had scarcely been in London twelve months, the neighbourhood in which I
laboured was visited by Asiatic cholera, and my congregation suffered from its
inroads. Family after family summoned me to the bedside of the smitten, and
almost every day I was called to visit the grave... I became weary in body and
sick at heart. My friends seemed falling one by one, and I felt or fancied that
I was sickening like those around me… As God would have it, I was returning
mournfully home from a funeral, when my curiosity led me to read a paper in a
shoemaker's window in the Dover Road. It bore in a good bold handwriting these
words: "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." The effect upon my heart was immediate. Faith
appropriated the passage as her own. I felt secure, refreshed, girt with
immortality ... The providence which moved the tradesman to place those verses
in his window I gratefully acknowledge, and in the remembrance of its
marvellous power I adore the Lord my God.
Nobody can have two homes — two
places of ultimate resort. And if the Lord be truly my dwelling place then even
in these times, my home is enough and is secure - a home of divine feathers in a hard world.
