Angels Are Watching Over Us In 2017!
Dear Visionary Leader,
As we march into the new year, we need to be reminded that “Angels Are Watching Over Us This Year.” There is something that is very disquieting as we see the floodgates of immorality like a broken cesspool, flooding throughout the world. We witness the tyranny of terrorism so often, that it is becoming a normal expectation throughout many nations. The sin that use to slink back alleys, now struts down the main streets of major cities.
Yet, in days like these, we need to remember Psalm 91. In Psalm 91:5, we read, “You will not be afraid.” We need independence from our enemy and dependence on the Lord.
The late Mrs. Ann Landers, used to receive tens of thousands of letters each month asking her for advice and telling her about their problems. Mrs. Landers was asked, “Was there one problem that predominates above all the other problems that people write you about?” She said, “Indeed there is. The problem is fear. The one problem above all others seems to be fear. People are afraid of losing their health, their wealth, their loved ones, and people are afraid of life itself.”
I think it’s foolish to tell people there’s nothing to fear but fear itself. President Roosevelt coined that sentence in1933. Even though this is may appear to be a good line, there are some things we need to be afraid of. There are some normal dangers. You ought to be afraid of rattlesnakes; you ought to be afraid of drunken drivers, and you ought to be afraid of murderers. Those are normal and natural fears that God has given us for self-protection.
Furthermore, if a person does not know the Lord, then there is a lot to be afraid of. They will eventually die and go to Hell. Jesus said, “Fear not him that’s able to destroy the body but not able to destroy the soul, but rather fear him who is able to destroy both body and soul in hell.” In Hebrews 10:31, we read, “It’s a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”
Also, there is the wonderful and productive fear of the Lord. Proverbs 1:7 says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” A person does not have a modicum of good sense if you don’t fear the Lord. The fear of the Lord is just love on its knees and the one who fears God the most loves God the best.
But there is an unproductive, unhealthy fear that debilitates and destroys. The Bible calls that the spirit of fear. In 2 Timothy 1:7, “God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.”
A wise Christian says tomorrow has two handles: one is fear and one is faith and we can take it by either handle. I choose to make a declaration of independence from Satan, a declaration of dependence upon Almighty God. As we begin this new year, there are several steps to having “Angels Watching Over Us This Year.”
I hope you enjoy below the three steps to “Angels Watching Over Us This Year” below.
WE NEED TO DISCOVER THE SECRET PLACE
In Psalm 91:1 we read, “He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.”
Now when you were a child, did you have a hiding place? You probably had a secret place, a hiding place-well we still need one of those today. We need some place to go; we need some sort of a refuge, some sort of a secret place, some sort of getaway.
I believe today we have a “secret place.” The Scripture states, “He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.”
Jesus talked about the secret place and He taught us to go to it every day. He said in the Sermon on the Mount, “When you pray, you should not be as the hypocrites are, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues, at the corners of the streets that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, they have their reward, but you, when you pray, enter into thy closet and shut your door. Pray to your father,” which is in secret and your Father which sees in secret shall reward you openly.”
Why did Jesus tell us, to go into the closet and shut our door and pray for our Father? Why do we do that? Why do we pray this way? Why do we come to God in prayer?
First, we don’t come to inform God. When we pray, He already knows everything. Somebody said, “Has it ever occurred to you that nothing ever occurs to God?” He knows everything; He knows the beginning from the end. Jesus said, “Your Father knows what things you have need of before you ask him.”
Second, we don’t come to impress God. Jesus said, “When you pray, don’t use vain repetition as the heathen do, for they think they shall be heard for their much speaking.” I’ve got good news for you-you don’t have to be Shakespeare junior in order to pray. You don’t have to use great flowery words. You can’t impress God with your little memorized phrases and poetry when you pray. We don’t come to inform or to impress God.
Why do we pray? We come to invite God. We are inviting Him into our heart, into my life, take control of my destiny. That’s the secret place, when you get alone with God and you shut the door and you say, “God, please come now. I invite you to take control of my life.”
Why do we ask God to do what He always wants to do? God is Almighty and yet He has somehow limited Himself by our prayers. God never moves at all except in response to the prayers of His people. He could do it without us. We couldn’t do it without Him.
The essence of prayer is that God can do it without us but we cannot do it without Him. The Bible says we are “laborers together with God.” And so, if you want to live a life without fear; if you want to have real freedom from that tyrant the devil, just declare your dependence upon the Almighty and find that secret place day by day.
When you do this, you’ll abide under the shadow of the Almighty. Psalm 91 says, when you go to God, we will abide under the shadow of the Almighty. You have to be very close to someone to be under his/her shadow. I mean you have to be very close to someone to be in his/her shadow. God wants us to be so dependent upon Him that we just seek out that secret place. The second step to freedom from fear this year is:
WE NEED TO DELIGHT IN THE SACRED PLACE
In Psalm 91:2, “I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge.” In Psalm 91:1, we read, “He that dwells 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 him will I trust.”
When the Psalmist talks about the secret place, he is also talking about the sacred place, the Holy of Holies. Did you know that when you come into the secret place you as a child of God are coming into a sacred place?
We can go into the Holy of Holies every day. When Jesus died, the veil of the temple was torn. What was the veil of the temple? The veil of the temple was that thick curtain that separated the Holy Place from the Holy of Holies. The Holy of Holies is the secret place and that secret place becomes the sacred place. When Jesus died, there was an earthquake and the veil of the temple was torn from the top to the bottom.
The veil was highly symbolic, for the Bible teaches us that the veil was the body of the Lord Jesus Christ. And the Bible says, “By his death he’s made a way for us.” He’s made a way for us into the Holy of Holies.
The veil had several colors. That veil was done first of all on white linen. White linen represents the purity of Jesus Christ. The entire veil was a picture of Jesus. Jesus was spotlessly perfect and pure. Also, the veil had blue. Blue is the color of the sky because He is the Son of God from Heaven. And so the veil had blue on it. But not only did that veil have blue, but it had crimson red and crimson red, represents the humanity of Jesus. It speaks of blood. The very name Adam means red and He’s the second Adam.
Jesus is the Almighty, but He is also the God-man. He is totally human. What a wonderful person is Jesus-perfectly sinless, the God from heaven, and a man from earth, virgin-born Son of God. Yet, He’s also King of kings and Lord of lords.
The last color on veil was royal purple. How do we get purple? We take white and then put on that white some blue and overlay that blue with red and you have purple. Just take the blue and the scarlet and put them together and you have that royal purple.
What a picture of Jesus! When you look at the purpose, you can’t tell where the blue begins and the red ends. When we look at Jesus, you cannot tell where His Deity begins nor His humanity ends. He becomes heaven’s King. Isn’t that wonderful? I challenge you to declare your dependence on Him and you find the secret place and when you find the secret place, you’re going to enjoy the sacred place. There’s nothing more wonderful than to go in and have fellowship with Heaven’s king, the King of kings and the Lord of lords. The third step to having “Angels Watching Over Us This Year is:
WE NEED TO DESIRE THE SAFEST PLACE
In Psalm 91:2, we read, “I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress. In him will I trust.”
At the turn of the 21st century, the communist government of Romania collapsed. The wicked dictator, Nikolai Ceausescu was not able to finish his palace and fortress. He had been working on his palace and he spent an incredible amount of money. He had 24,000 workers working day and night to finish his palace. This palace was so monstrous; just in the presidential suite alone, it had one thousand rooms. It was done of white marble and had 14,000 chandeliers. The cost, though unfinished, was 7 billion dollars. There were 14-carat gold leaf was all over the walnut walls and doors. The walls and doors were intricately carved. There was a reception room that had a, a hand-woven carpet that weighed two and one half tons. Money was no object to this wicked leader. Just imagine that he had been building this palace and fortress, year after year, 24,000 workers, seven days a week.
This enormous building was scheduled to be finished within six months, but a revolution took place. The Christian Romanians rose up in Timisoara and they began to sing in the face of this tyrant, “There’s a God! There is a God! There is a God!” The soldiers came in with their water cannons. The water cannons were then destroyed by the people. The soldiers began to shoot the people down, but the men would unbutton their shirts, hold them open, and say, “I’ll take your bullet.”
Mr. Ceausescu went to Budapest to make a speech and to make an oration like he had done so many times before. While he was standing up there, somebody yells out, “Murderer!” Somebody else shook his fists. He’d never seen that. He started to flee. He had a helicopter on the roof and it took him away. The helicopter landed and he got in an armored vehicle and began to flee, but he’d been so paranoid, he would never let his soldiers put a full tank of gas in the vehicle lest they would get away and it ran out of gas. Mr. Ceausescu ran out of gas while he was trying to flee free from the revolution.
He had to get out of his armored vehicle and hail a cab. An ordinary cab driver picks up this man, this great, vaunted, atheistic, ungodly, lascivious, vile, wicked man trying to flee in a little cab. Of course, they catch his little cab. On Christmas day, 2,000, ten men put him in front of a firing squad and shoot 160 bullets in him. Mr. Ceausescu, had a hiding place, he called his palace, but it wasn’t a good one. He had a refuge, but what a failure was his refuge.
Let me tell you about an eternal one. “I will say of the Lord, he is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in him will I trust.” Four different names for God are used here. He is called the Most High, the Almighty, the Lord and God. The psalmist is describing his fortress and it’s almost as if these are the four components of this fortress.
Please take a look at this fortress now. What we’re talking about is a future free of fear. We’re talking about a declaration of independence from Satan and a declaration of dependence on Almighty God. Now if you want a fortress, there are four things that are necessary for a fortress and these four things are found in the Lord.
First of all, please reflect about the situation of our fortress. Notice he says, “in the place of the Most High.” Now remember, it’s God who is your fortress, not, He’s not with you in your fortress, He is your fortress. And the situation is the Most High. The word here is, is El-Elyon, or and it means the Most High God, the possessor of heaven and earth. That means He owns everything and therefore everything is beneath Him. Your fortress is in the highest place. You are seated with Him in the heavenlies. Everybody knows that the highest place is the safest place and we’re seated with Him.
When we go on down to Psalm 91:4 we read, “Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him, I will set him on high,” Please note, “because he has known my name.” What is His name? El-Elyon. His name means the Most High. What is the situation of your fortress? We are seated in the heavenlies.
The second aspect about this fortress is our sufficiency. For a fortress to be worthwhile and secure, it has to be self-contained. You have to have everything that you need on the inside. The name for Almighty is the word El-Shaddai and that means the, not only the living God, but the giving God. Our God provides all of our necessities and has everything we need. Satan can’t starve you out when you abide here. God just keeps on giving and giving and giving.
Next, there is the stability of our fortress. He is called “the Lord.” That word is the name for God, is Yahweh, it means the Great I Am, and it speaks of the stability of our fortress. Our God never has a beginning and He never has an ending. He cannot change, He is forever and ever. There are many fortresses over time are dismantled and destroyed, but our God remains forever and ever and ever. In order for us to be safe, our fortress has to be absolutely unchanging.
Last, there is the fourth aspect our fortress. He is the God who is, eternal. He is Elohim, and that speaks of the security of our fortress. Do you know what the word Elohim means? It’s the word that’s used of God when He created the world. It means that He is the Almighty. There’s absolutely nothing He cannot do and He is the one who is our fortress. Do you know what we need to do, in the midst of our problems? We need to do exactly what the psalmist said here in this psalm; I am going to find my security in Him, I’m going to find my sufficiency in Him, I’m going to find my stability in Him, I am going to find my all-in-all in Christ the Lord!
As the psalmist wraps his song up, he mentions things that are not going to happen to him. He says: “Surely he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler,” that’s deception. Next he says in verse 5, “You will not be afraid for the terror by night, and the arrow by day,” that’s death. In verse 7, “A thousand shall fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand,” that’s destruction. In verse 10, “There shall no evil plague, neither any evil, befall you, neither any plague come upon thy dwelling,” that’s disease. In verse 12, “You will bear thee up with thy hand, thy hands the angels lest thy dash your foot against a stone,” that’s disaster. In verse 13, “You shall tread upon the lion and the adder,” that’s the devil and his demons.
Wow! What’s he saying? He is saying, when we come to God, we will discover the secret place, abide in the sacred place and experience the safest place! God is going to take care of us! God will have his “Angels Watching Over Us This Year.”
Until The Last Person Has Heard,
Dr. James. O. Davis
Cofounder / Billion Soul Network
Cochair / Global Networking
