Psalm 91, let's read through this psalm together, beginning at verse 1. It says, He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress, my God in whom will I trust. Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence. He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust. His truth shall be thy shield and buckler. Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night, nor for the arrow that flyeth by day, nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness, nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday. A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand, but it shall not come nigh thee. Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked. 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. For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone. Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder. The young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet. Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him. I will set him on high, because he hath known my name. He shall call upon me and I will answer him. I will be with him in trouble. I will deliver him and honor him. With long life will I satisfy him and show him my salvation. All right, so this psalm, especially you can see in verse 11 and 12, this is a verse that we recognize from the New Testament. Remember in Matthew chapter 4, the Spirit of God drove the Lord Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil? And in that temptation, remember how the devil tempted Christ with three different things. And one of them was he took Christ up onto a high pinnacle of the temple. And he told him, he said, you see all these kingdoms. He said, well actually no, the one that I'm referring to now is when he told the Lord Jesus, he said, well let me just read it to you so I don't stumble over my words. In Matthew chapter four, let me turn there. He says this in the first few verses, he says, in verse six, or verse five, then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple, and saith to him, if thou be the son of God, cast thyself down, for it is written, he shall give his angels charge concerning thee, and in their hands shall they bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone. Which is what was said in Psalm 91, in verse 11 and 12. So the devil is quoting Psalm 91 and he's applying it to the Lord Jesus. The Lord Jesus doesn't deny that this is speaking of him. In fact, rather than trying to debate with the devil about the scriptures in that way, what he does is he applies God's words from scripture to himself as a man and he doesn't take the bait, he doesn't take the temptation to try to prove that he is the son of God by asking God to fulfill his promise of Psalm 91. to keep him from being hurt if he were to be in danger of dashing his foot against a stone. So instead of doing that, the Lord Jesus wisely, he said in Matthew chapter four and verse seven, he said to him, it is written again, thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. To tempt the Lord thy God is to prove his word by asking him or putting him in a position where he has to uphold his word in order to prove his word is true. And that's not necessary because God's word is true and there's no need to prove it. And to put myself in a position where God would have to fulfill that promise would be to tempt the Lord. The Lord will, he will prove his word in his own time if he chooses to do it that way.

All right, so back to Psalm 91. So what we see here is in Psalm 91, this Psalm speaks of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's why I want to look at this psalm in an overview way.

First of all, in the first thirteen verses of this psalm, you can see that it's speaking of things and we can't tell exactly who's speaking, but if we look at it with a little bit of care, we can see. Verse one really is, as most of the psalms, verse one is a summary of the entire psalm. It's like The Lord is giving us a statement, a statement of truth, a promise, and in that promise he's setting forth everything that follows in the psalm. He says this in verse 1, He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. So that's the promise. The one who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.

And so, as you read through the psalm, you can see that the second part of that verse, shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty, is referring to the protection. the protection that God gives to those who are in the secret place, who dwell in the secret place of the Most High. And then if you read from verse 2 through verse 13, for example, in verse 2 it says, I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in Him will I trust. Surely He shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler and from the noisome pestilence, and so on. Many troubles are mentioned.

So, Since this psalm is a psalm of the Lord Jesus Christ, we can see that the first verse is describing God's promise to his son as Christ, our mediator. And as the Lord Jesus Christ, he's giving him these promises. And the Lord, in response, is saying in verse two, I will say of the Lord, he is my refuge and my fortress, my God, and him will I trust.

Now, if we read through all of these 13 verses again, we would see that it's the Lord Jesus Christ, in the days of his flesh, applying God's promises to himself. In other words, he's taking God's word and he's speaking, as it were, to his own soul. He's meditating on it. He's taking God's promises to himself in faith. And that's the point I want to make here when we look at these first 13 verses. It's the Lord Jesus Christ speaking. from God, he's speaking in faith, in God's word, of himself, to himself, so that when we read verse one, he's taking this promise, that the one who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty, and everything that follows, where in verse two he says, the Lord is his trust, and all the things that God is gonna deliver him from, it makes sense to us now, when we consider the fact that In verse 11 and 12, where the devil quoted from in the days of Christ's temptation, it's referring to the time of trouble, of Christ's trouble, and how he trusted in God that he would deliver him from that trouble.

So God has given his son promises. His son is God himself, but his son in the office of Christ. In other words, he's dealing with his son in the place of his people, as the head of his people, the representative head, as the covenant head, as the surety of his people. So he's dealing with the Lord Jesus Christ in this psalm as the mediator. And because we see that here in the words from verses 1 through 13, that the Lord Jesus Christ is taking God's promises to himself by faith, and trusting God throughout all of these temptations and troubles that threaten his soul and life. We can see that this is the way that he himself lived his life. Christ lived by faith. He himself trusted in God to save him, but he didn't trust God for himself alone. And that's the great comfort that comes to us as sinners. Because the Lord Jesus Christ stood for us, and he himself had these promises from God, and he trusted God, and God gave him, fulfilled these promises and delivered him in that, in his trust. Therefore we can see then that God is speaking here to all of his people in his son, so that what he did for his son, he did for his son with God's elect, for the church. And that's what this psalm is teaching us here. It's teaching us that Christ took the promises of God in trust. took God in trust as his refuge and fortress and his salvation. And he leaned upon him in life, and he lived his life in faith. And that faith upon which he lived on God's promises and his word, he committed himself into his father's hands. And he loved his father. He lived by faith under the knowledge of his love for himself. and for himself as the one who stood for his people in their place." So this is a psalm of God's great love for his people and their faith in God in that love. So I'm saying all these things by way of introduction to the psalm. The first 13 verses, in verse 1 we see the promised blessing that the one who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. And then we see in verse 2 the faith of God's elect. They say in Christ, their head, and we say this too, I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge, my fortress, my God, in Him will I trust. So we can see a principle here. Number one is faith is nothing except God speaks. Faith has no foundation except that foundation is God's word. And we know that God's word tells us that Christ himself is the cornerstone, the chief cornerstone. He is the foundation. No other foundation can any man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. And so we see here that because God has spoken, therefore we believe. We wouldn't know God's mind. We wouldn't know God's promises. We wouldn't know His will. We wouldn't know what He was going to do unless He told us what He was going to do in His word. And so faith is based and has warrant to trusting God only because God has spoken. And so that's the first thing we see here. And Christ is, as man, perfectly trusts His Father, His God and His Father. In Psalm 22, verse 8, it talks about His trust. It says that He rolled Himself upon Jehovah. When He was on the cross, they taunted Him with those words, He trusted in God. Let Him deliver Him, seeing He trusted in Him. And that's what it means, He rolled Himself upon Jehovah. He just committed himself into his father's hands. In 1 Peter, this is spoken of also in 1 Peter. Let me read this to you. chapter 2. He says it this way, 1 Peter chapter 2. It says, Even here unto where you called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow his steps, who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he reviled not again. When he suffered, notice, he threatened not But it says, he committed himself to him that judges righteously. That's trust. That's rolling himself upon Jehovah. And then in the next verse of 1 Peter 2, verse 24, it says, who his own self bear our sins in his own body on the tree. So that's the way in which he trusted God. He submitted himself under all that God gave him to do to fulfill the will of God in order to save his people by committing himself, bearing our sins, bearing the curse for our sins, and fulfilling all that God gave him to do as the sacrifice to make satisfaction to God and remove our sins from us. That's the way he lived his life. It was a perfect faith. It says in Galatians 2, in verse 16, let me read those words to you. He says in Galatians 2, 16, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ. That's what we're talking about here. The righteousness worked out by Christ is a righteousness worked out in His trust, in His faith in God, His Father. And so we see that in this first part of the psalm, God is speaking about His promise, verse 1, and the response of that in the heart of God's people, preeminently in the heart of Christ. The response of Christ's heart to the promise of God was that he said, I will say of the Lord, he is my refuge, my fortress, my God, in him will I trust. That's what faith does. Faith trusts in God. We do not consider all that our eyes and senses can see. We consider God's word. And this comes to us by a convincing, persuading grace. teaches us what his word is saying. He shows us, for example, that we are sinners and that by God's grace and by his eternal will, he determined to save his people from their sins when they had no strength. And he did it by the Lord Jesus Christ. He set him up. He gave him that will to fulfill and he did it. He came in the body in our nature and fulfilled God's law, being made under the law and redeemed us from the law, that we might be made the children of God. And so this is the revelation of the gospel. And so we know this to be true. And so Christ was the one who, first of all, trusted in God, okay? Our faith in God always looks only to God's revelation of himself in his word. That's the principle. Faith is nothing unless God has spoken and what God has said is a revelation of God himself in his word. There can be no faith unless God has given us his word. There can be no understanding of the truth upon which faith rests, no knowledge of God's will, no knowledge of God's promise, no warrant to believe, no confidence in God, but what God has said. David said, Lord, do as you have said. That was David's confidence. And so scripture is the only God-given true basis for faith in Christ. Scripture alone. And that's why when you read in 1 Corinthians 15, for example, it says that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures. He was buried and rose again the third day according to the scriptures. Do you see how important it is that scripture says this. Paul didn't make these things up. God spoke them. And scripture is what God has said. And so that's the first thing we learn in this psalm. The word of God in verse 1 is the basis of our faith in verse 2. And Christ preeminently is the one who trusted in God, in God's word. And it was with that word that he defended himself under all temptations of the devil. It is written. It is written. It is written. He didn't say, I'm God. How dare you talk to me like that? He didn't use that at all. He committed himself into the hands of God. He said his word. His word. It's his word that you cannot Assail, you cannot prevail against God's Word. God's Word is the truth. You can't change the truth. Have you ever tried to change gravity? I know when I was a kid, I thought I could fly somehow. I wanted to do that in my dreams. It never happened because you can't change it. And that's the way God's truth is much more. You can't change the truth. And so Christ is compared to a stone of stumbling because you only stumble when you reject the truth of God's word concerning Christ. And so that's the first lesson here. And the second thing I want to see in this psalm by way of overview is that It's Christ who is speaking in this psalm, first of all. He's the one who's speaking. But because we see how he takes these promises, and he depends on God, and these promises have to do with God delivering him from the fowler, the one who is the, the one who lays bait and traps in order to catch the bird, as it were, the bird of God's, the one who is God's own, and he's the fowler, the bird killer, the bird hunter. And so the Lord is showing us that all these promises that he made to the Lord Jesus, he made to him and fulfilled them in him, and therefore they are promises to all of his people. So let's take this, just a real brief survey of these things, just very briefly now, so that when we read these words in the psalm, we see the richness of them. You see, God is always telling us the truth in the revelation of it, so that when we look at it, for example, in the Old Testament, we see the richness that God had spoken of these things before, and we didn't know it. But when He tells us the truth of it, then we can go back and see all the while God had been saying these things. For example, when the disciples heard Jesus say to the Pharisees in John 2, verse 22, or around verse 22, about how they would destroy this temple, and He would rebuild it again in three days, and He was referring to the temple of His body, The disciples didn't realize that until after he was risen from the dead. And it says there in John 2 verse 22, then they remembered the scripture and the words which Jesus said. They believed then. And so that's what happens when we read the Old Testament. We take the New Testament. where it's plainly revealed. And our familiarity with the gospel allows us to go through that lens of the gospel to see the richness of God's prophecy in Old Testament concerning the things of Christ. And we say, oh, there it was all the time. Here we see the Lord Jesus trusting God, even as he tells us to trust him. And so we see this greatly amplified. And then we see how we also are to trust him. And most assuredly, the thing that gives us the greatest comfort and assurance is that Christ, as our forerunner, fulfilled these things and therefore he brought us to God in doing these things. Okay, so now I wanna take that brief survey. So I said in verse one, there's a promise given. He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. That's a promise. And remember in the New Testament, for example, 2 Corinthians 1 verse 20, it says, all the promises of God in him, in Christ, are yes and amen. Okay, so where are the promises of God? They're in Christ. Who are they made to? Well, first of all, they're made to Christ, but not to Christ as a man, a private man, but Christ as the head of the body. And so then we also, so that's one place in 2 Corinthians 1.20, the promises of God are yes and amen in Christ. But notice also in Galatians chapter three, in Galatians three, it speaks about God's promise to Abraham. that was made in Genesis, in Genesis 12, verse 3, and later in Genesis 22, chapter 22, where he talks about how he would, without fail, fulfill his promises and covenant of oath to Abraham, and he would multiply his seed, and all nations would be blessed in Abraham's seed. So the promise that God made to Abraham that all the nations of the world would be blessed in his seed, According to Galatians 3, were God's promise that he would justify his people in the Lord Jesus Christ. And also in Galatians 3, we see the way that God did that is by making Christ a curse for us. He bore our sins and the curse due to our sins. Galatians 3.13, Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law being made a curse for us. Okay, so we see that not only did God say in Galatians 3 verse 8, the scripture foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith preached before the gospel to Abraham saying, in thee shall all nations be blessed, but he explains how all nations would be blessed because the Lord Jesus Christ would substitute himself as our surety and bear our sins and that curse for our sins and remove the curse from us. and therefore give us his spirit, so that as children of God, we would be born of God, we would know our adoption. But also in Galatians 3, he says that, in verse 16, it says, to Abraham and to his seed were the promises made. Not to seeds, plural, but seeds, one, to Christ. That's in Galatians 3, 16. So what we see there in this brief survey is that the promises God made to the saints of old in Christ. He had given those promises and Christ would fulfill those promises to his people and God would fulfill them to Christ on the condition that he would bear their sins and the curse and justify them by his own obedience and blood. So that the promises of God were made to Christ, but not to Christ alone, because he would justify the heathen through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. And they would be given the Spirit of God in order to believe him. And this life by the Spirit would enable them to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. And so in Galatians 3.19 it says, why then was the law given? Wherefore then serveth the law? Because it says it was added because of transgressions, till the seed, Christ, should come, to whom the promise was made. Okay, so I just, I'm pointing this out to show you that in Galatians 3 and 2 Corinthians 1.20, the promises of God were made to Christ. And they were made in a covenant. And that covenant was made with Christ, the Son of God, as Christ, the mediator between God and His people, God's elect, those that Christ would stand for in this covenant. And promises were given to them. And the promises were fulfilled when Christ shed His blood, when He laid His life down. So that not only in Galatians 3, but consider the book of Hebrews. The book of Hebrews is the new covenant in Christ's blood. Hebrews 13 20. Now the God of peace through the blood of the everlasting covenant make you perfect in every good work to do his will. So this is the covenant. And Hebrews is a book that explains that the Old Testament covenant, that Old Testament, that Old Covenant was just a shadow and a type. which was fulfilled in Christ, which is the new covenant and the everlasting covenant, newly revealed, newly set forth and manifested. The mystery of that Old Testament prophecy has been fulfilled and therefore declared in the gospel. Christ's blood has been shed. The new covenant has been put into force. He was not only the one who shed his blood, but the testator, the one who established this as a will and testament, and his death put it all into force, just like a last will and testament does in our day. Taking all these things together, the promise of God to Abraham, for example, the promise we read about in Psalm 89, how the Lord had made a promise and made a covenant with Christ. Isaiah 55, verse 3, he said, I will give you the sure mercies of David. I will make a covenant with you and give you the sure mercies of David, of Christ." And then in Hebrews 13, where he talks about the everlasting covenant made in Christ's blood, when Jesus took the cup and gave it to his disciples at the Last Supper, he said, this cup is the New Testament in my blood. So he's talking about this new covenant. Second Corinthians 3 talks about the new covenant. The old is done away because it's been fulfilled, and Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. All these things we have to continually do what? Like the Lord Jesus does in Psalm 91, we take these things to ourselves, don't we? We see that in them God has made promises to the Lord
Jesus as the head of this covenant, the representative head, the covenant itself, the surety, the redeemer, the one who stood for his people in this interchange, this exchange with God as our surety, to give himself and to set us free. And the promises that God made to him were that by laying down your life in obedience and in sacrifice to God to remove the sins of his people and to establish their everlasting righteousness, he would deliver them from the fowler. He would deliver them. to life eternal and give them eternal glory and give them an inheritance. And so that's why he says in Galatians 3 that we are heirs, heirs of God. Ephesians 1 talks about our inheritance and God's working everything according to his will in order to give us that inheritance. Now these things, I'm just kind of giving you a very, very superficial broad-brush stroke from the New Testament of these things to remind you to pull those things down now into this chapter so that we can see the promise that God made in verse 1. He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. And Christ, in verse 2, taking that promise to Himself, says, I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge, my fortress, my God, and Him will I trust. that we can see then how the Lord lived. He lived as a man, trusting God, by faith, looking to his word, submitting himself and committing himself to God's keeping and to save him and save his people with him in that deliverance from the death that their sins deserved and the fowler, the devil, and the temptations here. We can see that throughout his life he lived in submission to his father. Everything he did in faith and in love and in obedience and this is our righteousness because he lived for us. He died for us and he rose again for us. Alright, so I use that in order to kind of ground us in the overview of this psalm. That is, speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ, the promises of God to him which were made in covenant and which he lived in fulfillment of by fulfilling the the will that God gave him to do in order to bring those promises to pass for his people. Okay, you see this? At least you understand what I'm trying to say here. Now, let's look at verse 1 of this Psalm, Psalm 91, just briefly. He says in verse 1, he that dwelleth in the secret place, of the Most High. What is the secret place of the Most High? I want to understand that, don't you? I was looking wherever this word is used in the Old Testament, the secret place. It turns out it's used quite extensively, and if we understand this, I think it will help us immensely in this psalm. First thing I want to point out here is that in the secret place, he talks about this as being in the presence of God. In the presence of God. But let me just, before I go down and enumerate all these different things, let me just say this about the secret place. Because I think that if we get lost in the details here, we might forget the important point here. The secret place of the Most High, what is that? Well, as I look at all these scriptures that refer to this, I want to say this, the secret place of the Most High is the everlasting love of God in his heart, which is towards his people in the blood of his Son. so that this secret place that is with God, God the Son, was forever with His Father, face to face, intimately communing with His Father over this, that He would do His Father's will. He would fulfill the love, the everlasting love of His Father's heart towards His people. He would give Himself in love to His Father and in love for His people, and they would be brought to God. The secret place is in the presence of God by the propitiation of Christ, which was made, which he made by his own blood, giving himself in sacrifice to God for our sins. Now, let me show you some scriptures so that we strengthen this claim from scripture in a very endearing way. First of all, in Psalm 31 and verse 20, it says this. Thou shalt hide them in the secret of thy presence. From the pride of man thou shalt keep them secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues. So here in Psalm 31 20, he's saying the secret of thy presence. That's the secret place. Where is God? That's the secret place. How is God known? He has to reveal himself. Do you know that the gospel is called a mystery? A mystery unfolded. The apostle Paul in Ephesians chapter 3 said this. Let me read that to you. He says, Unto me, whom less than the least of all saints is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles, notice, the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery. which from the beginning of the world have been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ, to the intent, this is part of that mystery now that's revealed, that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God according to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord. Now you can go on reading there, you can see that, you can feel it, can't you? There's a mystery. It's been unfolded. It's been revealed. It's been made known, manifest. What is that mystery? The unsearchable riches of Christ in the church. God's dealings with the church in Christ and how he dealt with them and brought them into his presence when he brought the Lord Jesus Christ back from the dead and brought him in to set him in his own right hand. Okay. So that's the first thing in Psalm 3120, the secret of thy presence. And then also in Psalm 27 in verse 5, it talks about this. He says, For in the time of trouble he shall hide me in his pavilion, in the secret of his tabernacle shall he hide me, he shall set me upon a rock. And in Psalm 1614, I will abide in thy tabernacle forever, I will trust in the covert, the secret place of thy wings. Alright, so here he talks about the secret place being the tabernacle. And we know that Christ tabernacled amongst us. Christ himself in our nature is the tabernacle, the dwelling place of God. and God dwells with us. Solomon said, and shall God in very deed dwell with men on the earth? Yes, the word was made flesh and dwelt among us. He who was in the bosom of the Father was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory. The glory is of the only begotten of the Father." And so this is the place where God dwells with his people, in Christ, in Christ, the tabernacle. But when he speaks of the tabernacle, it immediately draws us back to the Old Testament, doesn't it? And what happened there in the Old Testament? Well, there was a tabernacle built, and all of this was a shadow and a type, of course, but there was a tabernacle. And in that first chamber within the overall tabernacle, there was, you go through the gates, there was the burnt offering, I mean, the altar of burnt offerings, and then you go in there, and then there was the candlestick, and there was the table of the showbread, and then there was the altar of incense, in front of the veil, and beyond the veil was the Holy of Holies, and inside the Holy of Holies, what was there? Well, the Ark, the Ark of the Covenant. And what was on the Ark? Well, the lid, the mercy seat. And what was on the lid, the mercy seat? The cherubim. And what were they doing? They were looking down upon the lid, the mercy seat. And the high priest would enter once a year, not without blood. He offered this blood for himself and for the heirs of the people. he sprinkled the blood on the mercy seat and the cherubim representing God's justice looking down upon that mercy seat and seeing the arc in which the testimony of God was what God required of his people and the blood is sprinkled there and so that God sees on that mercy seat the fulfillment of all that his law required in justice and in righteousness in the blood of his son. And God was satisfied. God was propitiated. God was satisfied and our sins were taken away. And atonement was made. And what happened when atonement was made? Peace with God. We were brought into the secret place. That's where God dwells. He says in Exodus chapter 20, sorry, Exodus chapter 25, in verse 20, he said, the cherubims shall stretch forth their wings on high, covering the mercy seat with their wings, and their faces shall look one to another, and they would look toward the mercy seat, shall the faces of the cherubims be, and thou shalt put the mercy seat above upon the ark, and in the ark thou shalt put the testimony that I shall give thee, and there, there, will I meet with thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy seat. All right, do you see this? This is the place of propitiation, the mercy seat. Hebrews 9, verse 5 says the mercy seat is the same word that the publican used in Luke 18, 13. God, be propitious to me, the sinner. This is how God meets with man. How can a man dwell in the secret place? Only in the Lord Jesus Christ in his shed blood. And in the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ that made propitiation, God dwells. That's where he meets with his people and reveals himself, holds communion with them. This is the secret place. This is the heart of God's everlasting love. This is the everlasting love of God towards his people, the shed blood of his son, shed as the propitiation for our sins, to take away our sins, to make reconciliation, between us and God, bringing us to God in the blood of His Son, making peace. And so making peace, bringing us into communion with Him, intimate communion, so that we can see the mind and the heart of God, the secret place. That's what he's talking about here. This is the place where God dwells with his people, in Christ. Christ crucified. Christ, the one who gave himself for us. And I want to take you to a couple of other verses about this. We could go on and on. There's more in the notes, but look at 1 John 4. We'll have to stop here for the night. Look at 1 John, the book of 1 John 4. So you can see this. The great heart of God, the secret place, His eternal will. This is the bosom of the Father in which Christ dwells. The Son of God, face to face for all eternity. Nothing between the heart of God and the Son of God. He knows His Father's heart. He knows His will. He knows His eternal love. He knows His mind. And he knows how to fulfill that will. And by his knowledge, Isaiah 53, 11 says, by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many. His knowledge of his father's heart and will, the secret place. In 1 John chapter four, he says this in verse nine. He says, in verse nine of 1 John four, in this was manifested the love of God toward us. This is the way God made known his love. the instance of his love, his eternal love. He says, because that God sent his only begotten son into the world that we might live through him. That's love, isn't it? We were sinners. We were dead. Our sins had separated between us and our God. God had to remove those sins in order for us to have the curse removed, in order for us to have righteousness provided to not only wash us but to clothe us. and to give us life out of that righteousness. And he says here, in this the love of God was manifested towards us because that God sent his only begotten son into the world that we might live through him. How do we live? Through Christ crucified. Through Christ. The son of God who loved me and gave himself for me is my life. That's what he said in Galatians 2 20 But here notice in verse 10 herein is love not that we love God That's the one thing is is absolutely certain. We did not love God first No man ever loved God first no man ever But herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins, the mercy seat where God meets with sinners and has made atonement. at one with sinners in the blood of his son. Reconcile them to himself by the death of his son. This is the way God brings his people into the secret place in Christ crucified. And then he goes on. Verse 11, beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. No man has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwells in us and his love is perfected in us. Hereby know we that we dwell in him. He says, and He is in us because He hath given us of His Spirit. And how do we know we have the Spirit of God? Because we look to Christ. Faith is the fruit of the Spirit of God. It's the fruit of life in our souls. He goes on in verse 14, and we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world, the world of God's elect. If He sent Him to be the Savior of every person throughout all of history, across the whole world, then He didn't make a difference between those in hell and those in heaven. But He didn't send Him to save every person. Not Pharaoh, not Esau, not Balaam. Not Cain. He sent him, not the fallen angels. He sent him to save his people from their sins. The world of God's elect. That's the world that God's interested in. That's the world Christ came to save. He goes on. He says, verse 15, whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the son of God, the one who came in our nature is the son of God. God dwelleth in him and he in God, the secret place. And he says in verse 16, and this is a pivotal verse here, and we have known and believed. See, this is very, very important. We have known, we have come to the understanding of the truth of God. The secret of God has been made known to us. We have known and believed. God has persuaded us of this. Our conscience, is convinced this is the truth, the truth of God. We have known and believed the love that God hath to us. And we just read how that love is made known, the propitiation. Christ is the propitiation for our sins. God is love, he says in verse 16. He, notice these words, he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God and God in him. You see this? God is love. His heart. God's mind towards His people, His love, everlasting love in Christ. And he that dwelleth in love, meaning dwelling upon the love of God in Christ by faith, he that dwelleth in love by faith, looking to Christ, latching on, holding on to Christ, laying... I have no other hope. And Christ is all-sufficient, therefore I come to God through the blood of his Son. That's the only way I come, and it's the all-sufficient way. And so coming, he says, he that dwelleth in love by faith, dwelling upon the love God has shown to us and made known to us in the propitiating blood of his Son, he dwells in God and God in him. That's the secret place. And in Psalm 91, he says, he that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High, shall abide under the shadow of his wings. And we'll have to get to that next time. But I just wanted you to see in this psalm how the Lord Jesus Christ, speaking as one, as a man, for the head of his people, he perfectly believes God. And in so believing, establishes their everlasting righteousness. He lays down his life for them. and he brings them into the secret place by his own shed blood. What an amazing thing. The devil tempted Christ to try to overturn this will of God, but it was in his heart, and he would not, as a man, he would not prove himself to be the son of God, because he had God's word. God's word is all he needed. He lived upon it. It was his It was His food. It was His meat and drink to do it. What a Savior! What a Savior! Isn't it comforting to know that all of... In order to come into God's secret place, we come in the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the way, isn't He? There's no other name under heaven. given among men whereby we must be saved, Christ is it. And so since Christ is our only way into the presence of God, then Christ is enough. He's all sufficient. God has accepted him and set him in his own right hand. Therefore, we also can come now by faith and dwell in God and know him and believe his love towards us in Christ. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your wonderful words of the wonderful Savior, of your wonderful salvation. What a blessing it is to take these things from your Word and ask you, Lord, to do as you have said concerning sinners like us. Bring us into your presence through the reconciling, propitiating blood of your dear Son, our precious Savior and Lord. We want to be ruled by none but Him. We want to be saved. We can only be saved by Him. And we're happy with Him. We have nothing to complain about. Everything we have in life, we trust, Lord, that You will fulfill Your Word and do Your will. And we ask You, Lord, to keep Your promises to Him for our sake, that You would glorify Yourself in our salvation. In His name we pray. Amen.