www.thegospeltruthministry.com

Rev. J. Pete Hyde, Senior Pastor

Santa Rosa Beach Community Church

850-267-2599

Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16 

So, where does God live? Would you believe “Kearny, New Jersey”?

That’s what you might think if you drove by a certain trucking terminal in that city — until 2004, at least, when the company ceased operations. On the side of its building was a huge sign that said: “Welcome to the home of G.O.D.”

It wasn’t the God you’re thinking of. The company’s name was Guaranteed Overnight Delivery. The company had it painted on the side of its trucks in huge letters. It also displayed G.O.D. on the trucks’ mud flaps. For years, those tractor-trailer trucks caused drivers throughout the Northeast, and even beyond, to do double-takes.

“Does God deliver?” some motorists asked themselves in astonishment, as a G.O.D. truck roared past.

Ask that question of the writer of Psalm 91, and the answer you’ll get back is: “Well, yes.” But not anything you can load on a shipping pallet. “Those who love me, I will deliver,” says the Lord (v. 14).

Fulfillment is a big deal in the world of business — particularly online retail. “Fulfillment” is another word for “delivery.” It matters little if the online ordering experience is smooth and seamless. Ease of ordering is of little consequence if the product fails to arrive on time, as promised.

Retail companies — especially online retailers — put enormous amounts of time and energy into perfecting the fulfillment side of their operations. And they want to remain competitive retails of all sizes will need to get into the “fulfillment” business.

Pizza restaurants pioneered the delivery/fulfillment arm of retail. One hundred and sixty-three miles is a long way for a pizza delivery. But when William M. Abrams got a craving for hot, juicy pizza, that was his only option.

Mr. Abrams lives in the village of Savoonga, Alaska, on St. Lawrence Island in the middle of the Bering Sea. The nearest pizza place is located in Nome, on the mainland.

Undaunted, Mr. Abrams called the pizzeria. Could they deliver?

Sure, they told him. But it would take a little while. Mr. Abrams would have to wait till the next morning, then go meet the regularly scheduled commercial plane at the airport. (There’s no such thing as instant gratification when you live in the middle of the Bering Sea.)

Abrams recorded his pizza delivery adventure in a June 2014 YouTube video. He asked for the pizza to be delivered half-cooked, so he could warm it up in his own oven.

His choice of topping? Reindeer sausage (this is Alaska, after all).

Now that’s a pizzeria that really delivers!

Amazon’s massive warehouses are models of high-tech efficiency, using human and robot workers. One source describes the bustling fulfillment operation within these cavernous structures: “The robots vaguely resemble giant beetles and scurry around with vertical shelves loaded with merchandise weighing up to 3,000 pounds on their backs. Hundreds of them move autonomously inside a large caged area, tailgating each other but not colliding.”

On one edge of the cage, human workers — the “stowers” — stuff products onto the shelves, replenishing their inventory. The robots whisk those shelves away and when a customer order arrives for products stored on their backs, they line up at stations on another edge of the cage like cars waiting to go through a toll booth.

There, human “pickers” follow instructions on computer screens, grabbing items off the shelves and putting them in plastic bins, which then disappear on conveyor belts destined for “packers,” people who put the products in cardboard boxes bound for customers. As for delivery, that’s up to various shipping companies and the U.S. Postal Service. Amazon has also been experimenting with drone delivery in recent years.

“Fulfillment” is an odd word to use in this regard. Yes, retail orders need to be fulfilled. Of course, customers must be satisfied, or the company will not remain in business for long. Carrying a cardboard box in from the front porch may produce the tiniest tingle of acquisitive excitement, but it is as nothing compared to the larger goal of spiritual fulfillment we all seek in life. That, only God can deliver.

What — or rather, who — God delivers

When the psalmist — speaking for the Lord — says, “Those who love me, I will deliver,” it becomes clear what it means to say that God is in the delivery business. What God delivers — or, better, who God delivers — is not merchandise. It’s people:

“For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways. On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone” (v. 12). The psalmist’s focus here is not delivery to but delivery from — delivery from suffering.

Sounds pretty unambiguous, doesn't it? Believe in God, and God will keep you safe. Quid pro quo. Such a promise has huge appeal. It’s especially appealing because it has angels in it. Angels are a popular concept today (have been, for some time, actually). Psalm 91 seems, at first glance, to be about a certain cadre of angels known as “guardian angels.” Some people believe each one of us has a guardian angel who looks out for us every moment of every day.

There’s a famous painting that depicts guardian angels. It’s a very sentimental painting and has been reproduced endlessly. In the painting, a couple of children are walking together across a rickety wooden bridge that spans a deep gorge. The bridge is missing a few planks. It looks like the children’s feet could break through at any moment. Just behind the children, there is an angel, several times larger than them. The angel’s hovering over them, her hands outstretched protectively. Clearly, nothing’s going to happen to those precious little tykes, because their guardian angel is looking out for them.

Such a painting may look good on a nursery wall, and — for children old enough to understand it — it just may help them get to sleep at night. Yet, does this vision of angels truly jibe with our experience? We all know people of faith who have experienced suffering and difficulties far out of proportion to anything they’ve deserved. “The rain falls on the just and the unjust,” as Jesus himself says according to Matthew 5:45.

The concept of guardian angels gets a further boost from certain films and TV shows. The wildly popular TV series Touched by an Angel that ran from 1994 through 2003 can still be seen in reruns. It tells the stories of angels who walk among us performing random acts of kindness.

The movie Michael (1996) presents an angel that is a beer-drinking and smoking slob, but who also occasionally has insights that actually make sense. In this movie, Michael is sort of the anti-angel.

And who can forget the lovable, befuddled figure of Clarence, the guardian angel in Frank Capra’s film It’s a Wonderful Life? (“Every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings.”)

Wouldn’t it be great if guardian angels really existed — if each one of us had our very own celestial being following us around like a spiritual valet, picking up our discarded socks and making sure we don’t do anything really stupid?

The problem is, there’s nothing in the Bible to make us think there are guardian angels. The closest thing is this psalm — but if you read it carefully, you’ll find it says nothing about God assigning each of us a personal spiritual guide.

If you truly think of what an angel is, as described in Scripture, you wouldn’t be all that eager to get close to one. Angels are soldiers in God’s heavenly army. They’re fearsome warriors, equipped with weapons like flaming swords.

Remember that every time an angel visits a person in the Bible, the first thing the angel says is “Fear not!” That’s because, in every case, the poor recipient of the visitation is cowering in fear and has very possibly lost control of one or more bodily functions. No, you don’t really want to meet an angel. Not in a dark alley, nor anywhere else.

Interestingly, this psalm is the basis for one of the temptations of Jesus. Its words are quoted by none other than Satan, according to the gospel of Luke, chapter f4. Remember how that story goes? The devil takes Jesus up to the pinnacle of the temple and has him stand there looking down on the tiny people strolling by far below. Then, Satan taunts him: “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone’” (Luke 4:9-11). Even the devil can quote the Scriptures when it serves his purpose.

Jesus’ answer to this third and final temptation is resolute: “It is said, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” Jesus rejects Satan’s offer of protection — an offer which amounts to something very close to comic-book superhero powers. Our Lord wants none of that. Jesus could have lived his life perfectly safe and protected, but he casts all that aside. Our Savior chooses, instead, the slow and painful walk of shame up Calvary’s hill.

No doubt he believes God’s promise recorded in our psalm reading for today: “Those who love me, I will deliver.” God didn’t spare him from suffering. But God did bring him through the suffering and out the other side, to resurrection.

“Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord,” writes the author of Psalm 130. It’s a sorrowful cry for deliverance: “My soul waits for the Lord more than those who watch for the morning, more than those who watch for the morning.”

Wendell Berry’s novel Jayber Crow, contains a sort of parable about a hunter who gets himself into a very tight spot. On a perfect fall day, he steps onto the rotted wood covering an abandoned well. He plunges into the watery depths below, comes up for air, then grabs hold of the cool, mossy stones that line the side of the well.

Looking up, he sees a tiny circle of light, impossibly far away. There are no discernible handholds on the sides of the well. There’s no point in calling out for help, because no one is nearby. Berry writes:

“How does this story end? Does he save himself? Is he athletic enough, maybe, to get his boots off and climb out, clawing with fingers and toes into the grudging holds between the rocks of the wall? Does he climb up and fall back? Does somebody, in fact, for a wonder, chance to pass nearby and hear him? Does he despair, give up and drown? Does he, despairing, pray finally the first true prayer of his life?

“Listen. There is a light that includes our darkness, a day that shines down even on the clouds. A man of faith believes that the Man in the Well is not lost. He does not believe this easily or without pain, but he believes it. His belief is a kind of knowledge beyond any way of knowing. He believes that the child in the womb is not lost, nor is the man whose work has come to nothing, nor is the old woman forsaken in a nursing home. He believes that those who make their bed in Hell are not lost, or those who dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, or the lame man at Bethesda Pool, or Lazarus in the grave, or those who pray, ‘Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani.’ Have mercy.”

That parable is truer to the meaning of Psalm 91 than the shallow, sentimental picture of a God who never allows anything bad to happen to us. Is this a psalm about escaping the everyday hurts and pains of life? Or is it, in fact, something deeper and more wonderful — a celebration of the powerful truth that, as long as we are enfolded in the love of God, we can never be truly lost?

None of us have to think very deeply to recall the stories of people we have known who have been inundated by the dark storm surge of undeserved suffering.

The ways of the Almighty are mysterious, but even so, we don’t want to go there. Yes, there’s suffering in this world that people bring on themselves, but there’s also a type of suffering that has no explanation. It’s random — at least as far as we can see. Sadly, it just is.

So, is all this talk in Psalm 91 about God’s deliverance just a passel of empty words — a pleasant fantasy to distract the attention of the naive and simpleminded from the cold, cruel ways of the world?

No, it’s not. Sometimes, God intervenes in troubling times, changing our circumstances in unexpected ways. When this happens, we call it a miracle — although we can never count on such a graceful outcome.

Other times, God may leave our outward circumstances unchanged, but instead change our inner lives — helping us discover reservoirs of faith we never knew we had. When this happens, it’s likewise a miracle, for who would have thought at the beginning of such a season of suffering that we’d have what it takes to get through it?

As we journey with God through the bleak, uncharted landscape of pain — physical, emotional or spiritual — we frequently find the only way to do it is one step at a time. We find that as we place one foot in front of the other, God guides our steps. Together, our Lord and us, we get through it. Very often, we emerge as stronger people than when we began the woeful journey.

Perhaps the greatest sense in which this psalm is true is a larger, spiritual sense. It has to do with the question of where we ultimately end up: on the other side of death.

Christians believe life does not end with death. It continues, by the grace of God, beyond it. God’s deliverance and protection are not limited to the number of times our hearts beat or our lungs inflate over the course of a lifetime.

The resounding promise of faith is that, if we trust the risen Lord Jesus Christ, there is a wonderful and unimaginable life beyond this one — a life hidden with Christ in God.

Let us pray:

As long as you are with your children, O Lord, they are with you.
They lose nothing by dying.
They depart out of the world, but not out of your family.
They vanish from our sight, but not out of your care.
They are not dead: no, for it is death itself that has died in them.
In the fullness of your time, O Lord, gather all your sons and daughters to yourself:
those who have turned to you for strength,
those who have served you with joy,
even those who have hung their heads and said, at the last,
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” — 
for even they have followed the sacrificial way of Jesus, your Son:
he whom you have made the resurrection and the life. Amen.