A Simple Strategy & Helpful Exercise
by JRP Ministry Staff on 03/28/20
I submit an abridged version of an article below by E.M. McCrum who puts forth a simple exercise of applying Psalm 91 in our lives and certainly during the Coronavirus/Covid-19 outbreak. I share it hoping that many who read it will find a model that demonstrates how we can apply Scripture as well as how Church at home can work.
I find that many Christians simply cannot grasp how to gather in their homes and invite Jesus in, sharing the Bible, praying and worshiping. We have gravitated to a dependence upon large group gatherings when the definition of Church is wherever two or three are gathered (Matthew 18:20); this is where the Church began.
A SIMPLE STRATEGY TO DEFEND YOUR HOUSEHOLD AGAINST THE CORONAVIRUS
COVID-19 literally means “coronavirus disease 2019”. Only this past week did I figure out that the “19” stood for the year 2019. While God’s Word does not mention the coronavirus disease specifically, it does address disease and plagues in general and specifically. So, if we want to see what God’s thoughts are about disease and plagues, then we only need to look up Scriptures on these topics, read them, and then apply them to our family, friends, neighbors, cities, states, and nations.
The Insurance Psalm
Shortly after my parents were born again, their pastor in Williamsport,
Pennsylvania asked them if they needed anything. They told him that their
one-year old child, me, was born with an immune system deficiency and had to
get shots for the rest of his life. The preacher prayed for me, and I was
miraculously healed. I did not have to get any more of those shots. That was 48
years ago, and I have had a strong immune system ever since.
Over the course of my childhood, I witnessed the faith of my
parents and saw them put their trust in the Lord repeatedly. They claimed God’s
promises in His Word and the benefits that we have from being in Christ.
“For
all the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God
through us.”
–
2 Cor 1:20 (NKJV)
Much of my life, I have lived without traditional health
insurance. When I was about 6 years old, my dad left the Army. He received
health coverage from the VA, but my mom, my sister, and I did not have health
insurance most of my growing up years. Thankfully, I learned repeatedly throughout
my childhood that God is the Great Physician and that one of his names
is Jehovah-Rophe, meaning the Lord who heals you. As an adult, I have
also gone without health insurance a great deal: during college, for most of
the time between college and law school, as a young attorney with a young
family when running my own law practice, and twice when I was working for
small, private law firms. As such, I am grateful that when I was a young man,
my dad taught me about what he called “God’s Insurance” – found in Psalm 91.
Psalm 91 (NLT) states:
Those who live in the shelter of the
Most High will find rest in the shadow of the Almighty.
This I declare about the Lord: He alone is my refuge, my
place of safety; he is my God, and I trust him.
For he will rescue you from every trap and
protect you from deadly disease.
He will cover you with his feathers.
He will shelter you with his wings.
His faithful promises are your armor
and protection.
Do not be afraid of the terrors of the
night, nor the arrow that flies in the day.
Do not dread the disease that
stalks in darkness, nor the disaster that strikes at midday.
Though a thousand fall at your side, though ten thousand are
dying around you, these
evils will not touch you.
Just open your eyes, and see how the
wicked are punished.
For he will order his angels to protect
you wherever you go.
They will hold you up with their hands so
you won’t even hurt your foot on a stone.
You will trample upon lions and cobras;
you will crush fierce lions and serpents under your feet!
The Lord says, “I will rescue those who
love me.
I will protect those who trust in my name.
When they call on me, I will answer; I
will be with them in trouble.
I will rescue and honor them.
I will reward them
with a long life and give them my salvation.” (Emphasis added)
Conditions Precedent
In three different verses in this psalm, the Spirit of God
(the author of all Scripture) mentions a phrase or word that is inclusive of
COVID-19: deadly disease, disease, and plague. Many of
God’s promises in His Word are conditional. In Elementary Logic class in
college and in my Contracts class in law school, I studied something called a
condition precedent. A condition precedent is simply the “if” in an “if-then”
statement. The Bible is full of condition precedents. In Psalm 91, the
condition precedent to God’s promise that no plague will come near our homes is
that we must make the Lord our refuge and our shelter. If we make the
Lord our refuge, then we are entitled to His insurance benefits. His
promise is conditional.
Hearing v. Obedience
So many times when we are in church services and hear
sermons, we hear God’s Word and grow in head knowledge but not in experience,
not in obedience. Hearing is not the same as believing. Hearing is not the same
thing as obeying. Hearing is not the same thing as experiencing God’s promises.
Neil Cole, a leader in the organic church movement, writes, “We in the Western
church are educated beyond our obedience and more education is not the
solution, we need more obedience.” In other words, we need to apply God’s Word
in our lives so that we experience His truth – that is true wisdom. So how do
we apply the promises in Psalm 91 to our lives and those around us?
Practical Steps to Apply Psalm 91 to Your
Household
Don’t
be drunk with wine, because that will ruin your life. Instead, be filled with
the Holy Spirit, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves,
and making music to the Lord in your hearts.
-
Ephesians 5:18-19
STEP 1: Read Psalm 91 again. Then meditate on it;
ponder it. Think about the words and their meaning. Note if there are any
conditions to the promises within the psalm.
STEP 2: Read Psalm 91 to your family aloud. Don’t hog
all the reading to yourself. Learn to involve others by giving them a chance to
participate in the reading. If you have a family, divide the Psalm into the
same number of parts as the number of people in your family. (For example, if
your family has 4 people in it, divide the 16 total verses of the psalm by 4 so
that each person gets to read 4 verses.)
STEP 3: Discuss the passage with your family. Ask them questions
based on the Psalm – questions like:
- What
does this passage teach us about God?
- What
does God require of us to receive these promises?
- What
does refuge mean? How about shelter?
- What
is your favorite part of this passage and why? (this is one of my favorite
questions for Bible readings)
- Is
anything in this passage “jumping out” at you?
- How
can you apply this passage to your life over the next week?
STEP 4: Personalize the passage or pray your way through the
passage, using the first person or inserting a family member’s name throughout
the reading. Here’s an example from verses 8 and 9 of personalizing the passage
by replacing the second person with the first person:
“If we (you) make the Lord our refuge, if we
(you) make the Most High our (your) shelter, no evil will conquer us
(you); no plague will come near our (your) home.”
Or here is an example of praying through the passage:
“Lord, I make You my refuge; Most High, I make
you my shelter. I receive Your promises that no evil will conquer
me and no plague will come near my home.”
STEP 5: Ask your family members to pick out one of the
“if-then” statements with a promise and then ask each person how he or she will
practice meeting that condition during the next week.
Distributing the COVID-19 Vaccine
It is interesting to me that “91” is “19” in reverse. If you
want to reverse the rise of COVID-19, just flip the numbers to “91”. If we flip
the numbers and apply Psalm 91 to our own lives and our households during this
global crisis, the Lord will protect us from the COVID-19. And we can stand in
the gap and intercede for our cities, states, and nations. Recently, I was thinking
about whether Psalm 91 could be analogized to an antidote, but very quickly I realized
that an “antidote” is not a good analogy since antidotes are for people after-the-fact,
after they are poisoned (not before). God’s promise that plagues won’t come
near our homes is preventative rather than after-the-fact. Instead, God’s
promises in Psalm 91 are like vaccinations – something one uses ahead of time
to protect from disease. f
In his article “The Gifted Teacher”, Neil Cole writes:
Getting the message right is only a quarter of the task for
the teacher. Communicating the message so that others understand the content
only brings the teacher to half of his or her role. Seeing the content applied
well in the listener's context is another 25% of the task of the teacher. Yet
this only brings the teacher to 75% fulfillment of the task. 75% on an exam is
barely passing, and certainly not a success. How can a teacher get to 100%? The
only way a teacher can fulfill one hundred percent of the call of the teacher
is by releasing the learners to fulfill the task of the teacher themselves with
other people!
When you are starting to pass the content on to others is
when you have learned the content on its fullest level. To teach others best
you must see the process through until the learners become the teachers.[1]
If Neil Cole is right, then we really have only fully
learned Psalm 91 when we pass it on to others.
People are ready to hear about God’s vaccine – PS 91.
Everyday across the world, people are keeping abreast of the daily news,
whether through tv, social media, or newspapers. People are reading about infection
rates, shortages, quarantines, and death stats.
Yesterday, I was at a supplement store and made a purchase.
I’ve known the owner of the store for about 10 years now – I’ll call him Bob. I
don’t think Bob’s born again, but he believes in God. We started talking about
the coronavirus and its spread. Before leaving, I told Bob that the Scripture
contains a vaccine for COVID-19 … and that it is found in Psalm 91. That is
pretty much all I said. I may have mentioned that there are some conditions to
the vaccine. I then left the store. Before driving away, I called my wife. She
asked me to get one more item in the store. So I went back inside. When I arrived
at the counter, I was surprised to see that on Bob’s computer screen, he had
Psalm 91 pulled up. Less than 4 minutes after I told him about God’s vaccine
for COVID-19, Bob dug it up on the web on his own and was reading it. He even
complained that his computer didn’t have printing capability. He was hungry for
preventative medicine.
Right now, there is a global concern about the pandemic of
COVID-19 to the extent that governments and individuals are taking radical
action: closing businesses, working from home, quarantining, practicing social
distancing, testing, etc. And we, wanderers in the Way, have the vaccine. Help
reverse the curse. Turn COVID-19 on its head by vaccinating your household with
PS 91. Then freely distribute the vaccine to others. Tell others of His
promises found in Psalm 91.
-
written by E.M. McCrum, an ordinary
Jesus-follower, on March 19, 2020
