Lesson 83 - Elementary

Memory Verse

"For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways”  (Psalm 91:11).

Notes

God's Promises 

The Bible, God's Holy Word, contains a great many promises to the child of God. We have Jesus' own words that "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away" [MAT:24:35]). So we know without a doubt that all the promises in the Bible are true. However, we have something to do in order to receive the good things the Lord has promised. Did your mother or father ever promise you something good if you obeyed what was told you to do? God's promises are often that way " He will give us many, many good things if we do the things He wants us to do.

A Christian does not have a hard time obeying the words of Jesus; a child who is saved does not have a hard time obeying his parents. But those who are not saved cannot easily obey the Lord and it is hard for them to be obedient to their parents, too. Jesus wants to save every child. Then it is easy for them to do what God wants them to do.

In the first verse of the Ninety-First Psalm we find a promise to those who live very near to God. In order to dwell there, we must be saved from our sin " the Blood of Jesus must cover our soul. Then we need to pray every day, morning and night, in order to keep saved from sin. If we keep saved, we may expect to be taken care of by God. We may take a pencil and write our name wherever we find the words, thee, thou, thy and thine, in this chapter. All those wonderful promises are for us if we dwell in the secret place " if we keep saved.

The Shadow of His Wings

The man who wrote this Psalm gave us many beautiful pictures of God's care over us. When he said, "He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust," he perhaps meant what Jesus said when He talked about gathering people as a hen gathers her chickens. The baby chicks feel safe when the mother hen takes them under her feathers; a Christian is safe when God takes care of him.

No Fear

God said that His children did not need to be afraid at night nor in the daytime, because He would protect them if they trusted Him. We have learned that when the people were travelling through the wilderness, where there was little water, God brought water out of the rock. He sent them bread from Heaven, that they called manna. He went before them in a pillar of fire at night and in a cloud by day. God protected them from going the wrong way at night and protected them from the heat of the day in that land " the cloud kept the hot desert sun from shining too much on the people.

We who are saved have nothing whatever to fear. We may place our trust in God and know that He will never fail us. Should trouble come, He promises: "I will be with him in trouble." We are told that when sickness comes, "Thou shalt not be afraid . . . for the pestilence." He also promises that "there shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling." When we love Jesus with all our heart, His love and watchful eye is over us.

In Time of Danger

During the recent war, the soldier boys who were trusting in God found that He was their protection when in danger. The Lord took care of them and brought many of them safely home again. They are thanking God for His kindness to them.

A young soldier who flew 35 times over enemy country said that the boys in his crew gave him a Bible to take care of on those missions. He had the Bible open to Psalm 91, and he trusted in God's promises to protect him and the crew. He said, "When you face death, and your life can be snapped out in a moment of time, you want to be living mighty close to God.... Many times we saw ships go down around us." The seventh verse tells us: "A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand: but it shall not come nigh thee." This chapter was a great comfort to him. He also said, "One day we were going over the target and my pilot called back over the phones and said, 'Pray as you never prayed before.' We saw a ship go down in front of us that day. I can see many times that the Lord's hand was over us. I can't count the times He protected us."

Jesus' Temptation

When Jesus was here upon earth, He was led by the Spirit one day into a lonely place to be tempted of the devil " Satan. He was there for forty days and forty nights and had nothing to eat. But the angels were watching over Jesus, and they came to Him at once after He had sent Satan away. Satan had go to when Jesus told him to go, because Jesus has power over all evil spirits. We do not need to be afraid of Satan when we have Jesus with us.

Divine Protection

Many times when we are in danger although we may not see the angel of the Lord yet he is present to protect us. A missionary said that in India the little unsaved children are always afraid in the dark. The missionary told them that they need not be afraid if they asked Jesus to take care of them. She said that Jesus was so strong that if a whole army of people should try to hurt one of them, all Jesus would have to say was, "Stop," and the whole army would have to stand still. A week later one of those children who had never before heard about Jesus said: "I went to grandmother's house and it was dark when I came home. Then I asked that 'Jesus-God' to take care of me, and nothing hurt me at all." Jesus is stronger than anyone, and when we obey Him, and trust Him, and ask Him to take care of us, He can do it, and will do it.

Questions

1. Name three ways in which God will protect us. [PS:91:3-4];[PS:91:12].

2. Do we need to fear when sickness comes to us? [PS:91:3];[PS:91:6];[PS:91:15].

3. Tell how the angels watch over us. [PS:91:11];[PS:34:7];.

4. Will God answer when we call upon Him? [PS:91:15]; [JER:33:3].

5. What will God do for us when we are in trouble? [PS:91:15];[PS:50:15];.