Shelter of His Wings

“When I abide under the shadow of Shaddai, I am hidden in the strength of God Most High. He’s the hope that holds me and the stronghold to shelter me, the only God for me, and my great confidence.

He will rescue me from every hidden trap of the enemy, and he will protect me from false accusations and any deadly curse. His massive arms are wrapped around me, protecting me. I can run under his covering of majesty and hide. His arms of faithfulness are a shield keeping me from harm.

I will never worry about an attack of demonic forces at night nor have to fear a spirit of darkness coming against me.

Don't fear a thing! Whether by night or day, demonic danger will not trouble me, nor will the powers of evil be launched against me.

Even in a time of disaster, with thousands and thousands being killed, I will remain unscathed and unharmed.

I will be a spectator as the wicked perish in judgment, for they will be paid back for what they have done!

When I live within the shadow of God Most High, my secret hiding place, I will always be shielded from harm.

How, then, could evil prevail against me or disease infect me?

God sends angels with special orders to protect me wherever I go, defending me from all harm. If I walk into a trap, they’ll be there for me and keep me from stumbling.

I’ll even walk unharmed among the fiercest powers of darkness, trampling every one of them beneath my feet!

For here is what the Lord has spoken to me:

Because you loved me, delighted in me, and have been loyal to my name, I will greatly protect you.

I will answer your cry for help every time you pray, and you will feel my presence in your time of trouble.

I will deliver you and bring you honor. I will satisfy you with a full life and with all that I do for you.

For you will enjoy the fullness of my salvation.”

~ Psalm 91

(I replaced you, with I and me for a personal read. Something I do when reading Psalms.)

Psalm 91 spells out a world we are either prepared for or it will destroy us. Are we walking into battle equipped to take on an enemy well armed? The New Testament (NT) also warns us of the difficulties we will face when we are told of the principalities and powers we will encounter in our lifetime. And of the thief that comes to steal, kill, and destroy.

(As I've covered lately, the behavioral issues caused by childhood trauma may be bridging as many as eight generations and make it extremely difficult to deal with the battles at hand as well. It is a cultural disaster at hand.)

Back to the psalm Moses wrote the day he entered the newly built Tabernacle on Mt.Sinai. We are told that he composed this psalm while ascending into the clouds hovering over the Mt. at which time he recited these words as protection from the angels of destruction. The theme of the psalm contains God's protection and rescue if they will worship and trust Him, the God most High, Jehova. The psalm is later used to drive away evil spirits during exorcisms we are told. The words “Even in a time of disaster, with thousands and thousands being killed, I will remain unscathed and unharmed.” refer to the demons falling away in times of attack or threat of various times. As mentioned, Moses shared the psalm with the Israelites at the completion of the Tabernacle, the holy place inhabited by God.

This is an excellent time to consider who the Israelites were and the mindset of these people. Culturally, they were a tribal people that herded sheep and goats, Uneducated and illiterate, We’re talking about the Iron Age. Frederick Buechner wrote about Abraham, referring to God as “The Fear.” His tribesmen had no recollection of God at that time other than “The Fear” that Abraham talked to. No one else had this opportunity but him.   We can quickly transfer this understanding to the time of Moses. They were a people with many idols and gods. They lived in a society held together by the commonality of race, religion, and survival.

What is in this psalm for contemporaries? Could God be speaking to us as well? Is He using a contemporary psalm of sorts, or does this psalm have relevance to us today? Are conditions on this planet any better today than they were during Moses's time? Have the demons left the planet, and are the wicked eliminated from our lives? Are the governments being managed by saints? I will examine this question from an angle that extrapolates the damage done by these entities and man's general ontology.

Cultural Influences

Let's look at feminism politics and briefly explore its role in our culture and its impact on marriage and families. Since the Garden Curse, voiced by God as Adam and Eve were leaving the Garden, He is recorded to tell Eve mainly that her curse is that she wants to be in control of her husband and demand he serve her needs exclusively. And as we see today, the female of our species has a general problem with what they call a patriarchal culture. They hate it enough to abort their children and choose to live in lesbian relationships in ever-increasing numbers. Feminist movements have not done us any favors. I identify feminism as one of many demonic philosophies having an origin in the Marxist playbook. You can read it and find the “feminist movement” clearly stated as one of the things used to bring down the capitalist Western societies. It originally sent mothers to work and left the childcare to an institution. With increasing divorce rates and child abuse, we are reaping the rewards of putting more money into the family budgets. I might add that our local education institutions also teach our children to be good little Marxists.

I was recently told that in the near future, an increasing number of women will be childless and living alone. The feminist movement introduced into the Western culture has not done us any favors. It clearly shows how humanity deals with the garden curse and how our ontology is revealed to us. The enemy is easily manipulating us, and they know how to use our ontology against us by introducing the “feminist” idea that would create problems between men and women for decades and attempt to destroy the family. And they are getting away with it!

I've known many people impacted by the demons parading about us today, whether it be due to the feminist theology parading as fair and equity opportunities for women, or the church not knowing how to respond to the emotional needs of women (and men) abused as children, thus making them vulnerable to the Marxist message of freedom and justice echoed through the feminist message.

I know persons who came out of abusive families and went on to die alone and in despair. Were they left prey to the evil that the 91st Psalm speaks of? Were they kept from love, protection, and fear? I would wager to say no, not at all. I've known personally that I had not known the salvation offered in the Psalm in mention. God’s majesty did not cover their lives. They fell prey to every hidden trap. They were very troubled all their days.

What I later came to know and understand is much anxiety and fear was being lived out. I wrote about my mother and the family dynamic she lived out till she was of legal age and could leave it, and she made a desperate leap to a man who wouldn’t treat her any better than what she thought she was escaping.

It’s getting increasingly difficult to receive honest, truthful teaching from protestant and catholic pulpits these days. The Pope of the Catholic Church is currently attempting to allow gay weddings and promote women to the priesthood. This will be a complete failure for the church in general and further erode the family, and confuse our children's psychosexual development even more. They are increasingly adopting Woke philosophies. The true gospel message and psalmist message are getting lost.

It’s a rare message people will ever hear from the pulpit or small group fellowship today that gets them headed in the right direction of health and healing from the abuse being dished out in families today. Even our clergy are ill-equipped to counsel today and they should if we are to take the words of Yeshua speaking from the temple before starting on his short three year ministry. Yeshua, the name meaning restorer in Hebrew, clearly stated his purpose was to give sight to the blind, free the prisoners from slavery, and bring good news to the afflicted. Compare with our psalm and we see many comparisons. God wants us to be fully alive and whole. Believe it or not, I’m still right.

“The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted; He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to captives and freedom to prisoners.” ~ Isaiah 61:1

They have specialized in biblical theologies that leave them unable to understand the trauma-bound congregations they extract tithes from every Sunday. This leaves the people emotionally and, yes, spiritually immature. And subsequently, leaves the pastoral types preaching a gospel of the evangelical, and lives are left wanting of Yeshua's “man fully alive” promise.

The quote from St. Irenaeus is appropriate here in that not only does God glory in man fully alive, but He has spoken to this since Mt. Sinai when Moses wrote the 91st Psalm that King David also appropriated for his life. Moses subsequently associates a full, abundant life with the fullness of His salvation. Later again, I’ll speak of the fullness of His Salvation and what that would look like if I didn’t fully tease it out in the post titled “The Salvation Paradox.”

To finish, I will refer back to those without any idea what a “fully alive” life looked like. It’s as if a barrier was raised around them, and they were never allowed to understand what was outside the boundary. There was a crippling that made it difficult, a neurological compromise, as mentioned by McGilchrist, characterized in this postmodern culture. They didn’t have eyes to see or ears to hear what lay before them. As told, they are neurologically and spiritually compromised. I find myself grieving sorrowfully for them in that they were cut off, their cry for help wasn’t answered, nor were they delivered in their anguish, pain, and loneliness.

Finally, the psalmist (Moses) is told by God that He will satisfy us with a full life. I prefer a full life and all that is declared. A full life is contained in the fruit of the spirit spoken of in the New Testament with characteristics including love, joy, peace, and faith. Love, for instance, and receiving the ability to exercise the fruit implies a person is emotionally and spiritually enabled to operate in a place of being fully alive. I don’t think one can adequately love another person without the Holy Spirit having had a profound effect on our emotional and spiritual life as the bible tells us:

“Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage” ~ Galatians 5:1

My mother, nor my father, had not really heard the gospel or the promises of God, and His offering to satisfy and heal them with the fullness of His salvation. Frankly, I’m not so sure they had any understanding of what Yeshua was offering through the gospel message. They went to the grave still entangled in many yokes of bondage as so many before them, as far back as eight generations, not knowing the peace and joy of His Salvation.