Can anything rob your Salvation?

Romans 8:35-39

Nothing can rob your salvation!

Romans 8:35-39, Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? ³⁶ As it is written: “For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.” ³⁷ Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. ³⁸ For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, 39 nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans chapter ⁸ is about our eternal security.

What it means to be saved eternally and to possess the Holy Spirit as the guarantee of that eternal promise. Good is our eternal glory. Everything that happens in our lives God causes to work for our eternal glory.

The plan and purpose of God to choose, to call, to justify and to glorify that He might bring us to the very image of His Son in His presence forever. Therefore, God works everything that happens to that end both good and bad things, righteous and sinful things. He works them all to our ultimate glory.

V 31-39, one of the most wonderful doxologies in all of Scripture. A song of praise. Paul, having stated all that he just stated about this matter of eternal security, about the matter of a salvation that can never end, that can never be forfeited, or removed, or taken away.

Paul knew that there are going to be some people who may pose some questions.

What about this? Or that? So, from verses 31-39 in kind of an anthem of praise, he answers all the possible arguments. Only two possible ways, hypothetically your salvation could be lost.

It could only happen in two categories

It could be lost because of something done ➢ by a person or ➢ by a circumstance. Can some person or persons cause us to lose our salvation? Can some circumstance or circumstances cause us to lose our salvation? Those are the only two possibilities.

Can you lose your salvation by the influence of a person? V 31 to 34 he answers the question. Can you lose your salvation by the influence of circumstances? V 35 to 39 he answers the question. What shall separate us from the love of Christ?

Nothing outside of us, no person outside of us, not God, not Satan, not Christ can do it. But what about something that happens to us that separates us from the love of Christ from our side? There isn't anything that can separate us from the love of Christ.

Though that implies our love to Him, it most notably speaks of His love for us.

V 37, "Him who loved us." V 39, "The love of God," Context is that He loves us. The primary issue here is His love for us, though certainly it brings into thought our love for Him. Is there anything that can cause us to lose our love for Him and therefore have Him cease loving us?

The feast of Passover was about to happen, and Jesus was very much aware that He was going to die.

John 13:1, Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour had come that He should depart from this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end. He loved them eis telos. ➢ He loved them to the max, that's what it means. ➢ He loved them supremely. ➢ He loved them perfectly. ➢ He loved them completely. ➢ He loved them ultimately.

God loves His own in the world to the max, to the fullness of the capacity that He must love. It has nothing to do with whether we are lovable, because there was hardly a time when the disciples were less lovable than at the very moment of John 13.

They were in the upper room. It was the night that Judas was going to betray Jesus. They were having the final supper, the last supper, the Passover meal. Judas was about to be dismissed from that gathering and he would go immediately and sell Jesus, who then the next day would be taken captive and crucified.

The disciples were not only disinterested in what was going on about Jesus, and more concerned about themselves. But they were demonstrating their carnality by being in the middle of a debate about which of them would be the greatest in the kingdom, which seemed to have been a constant subject for them.

Jesus had told them that He was going to die. He had told them what was coming. They were indifferent to that whole scenario.

The horrible sin-bearing which He was anticipating, never captured their compassion at all. Instead, they were arguing about who would be the greatest in the kingdom. They were very unlovable at that moment. Scripture chooses that very moment in which to tell us that Jesus loved them to the max.

His love for us is an eternal love, set upon us, never due to anything worthy in us or anything we have achieved. Consequently, it was not gained by us nor is it to be lost by us. He loved His own who were in the world to the max.

They were sitting at dinner already eating and nobody had washed feet. The roads are either muddy or dusty, nothing is paved except some stone streets. Most people would walk on dirt all day. They wore sandals. Passover meal like this was hours together and it was reclining and if your head reclined, you tended to recline toward somebody's feet.

Common courtesy indicated that there should be a foot washing. It was the lowest slave on the social totem pole who had that job.

Since they rented the upper room, probably no slave came with it. None of the disciples was about to volunteer since they were all arguing about who was the greatest. None of them wanted to disqualify himself from such consideration by taking the role of a servant. They were exhibiting selfishness, indifference, and pride.

Jesus Himself got up, take off His outer garment, leaving only His inner cloak, put a towel around His waist, and do the dirty work Himself. There is nothing to indicate that they were worth loving at this moment. But the love of God is not dependent on how we act in any given circumstance in life. It is an unending love. At that very time He loved them to the very max.

That is just a profound truth. Is there anything that can separate us from Him loving us to the max? He loves us to the fullest that it is possible for Him to love His creature. He cannot love any creature more than He loves His own.

Is there anything that can come into our lives and affect us in such a way as to cause us the forfeiture of that love?

V 35, Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

Can any of those things, do it? Tribulation is from the Greek word thlipsis, which means pressure, literally the word for pressure, outward difficulty, could be bodily harm, accusation, rejection. The word "distress"really two words, stenochōria, probably means not outward difficulty but inward difficulty.

"Distress"means to be hemmed into a narrow way from which there is no escape. Are there temptations that are so inescapable external pressures, internal temptations so inescapable that we just can't sustain our faith? Can they cause us to totally collapse so that there's absolutely no way out?

What about persecution? What about abuse for the cause of Christ which can get very wearing; physical, mental suffering at the hands of Christ- rejecters and God-haters?

Can that break the back of our faith?

What about famine?

Not even having necessary food, being deprived?

What about nakedness? That means you don't have any clothes, nothing to wear, you are so bereft, you are so poor, impoverished, don't have any food, don't have the necessary clothing.

What about peril? That simply means being exposed to danger that you can't identify. Fear is what's involved there, the dread of potential impending disaster.

What about the sword? Execution. Is that a powerful enough catalogue of circumstances as to destroy true faith? It will destroy shallow illegitimate faith. Because in the parable that Jesus told of the soil and the seeds, He talked about seed that went into the stony ground and came up for a little while but as soon as there was persecution, it died and never bore any fruit.

We know false faith can be destroyed by persecution.

False faith, according to the parable and that thorny weedy ground can even be destroyed just by the love of the world, the love of riches, which is a form of temptation. But the question is, can the true faith, genuine salvation be devastated by these things?

Can they drive us to doubt if we are genuinely God's? This is not theory.

Did Paul suffer external pressure all the time?

Did he suffer internal pressure? Yes.

Was he depressed? Yes.

Was he fearful? Yes.

Did he suffer persecution? Yes.

Did he go without food? Yes.

Did he go without clothing?

Was he in danger of death? Yes.

Was he facing execution? Yes.

We are not talking theory. Paul is literally giving you a recitation of things parallel.

2 Corinthians 11:23-27, Are they ministers of Christ?—I speak as a fool—I am more: in labours more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequently, in deaths often. ²⁴ From the Jews five times I received forty stripes minus one. ²⁵ Three times I was beaten with rods; once I was stoned; three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been in the deep; ²⁶ in journeys often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen, in perils of the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; ²⁷ in weariness and toil, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness—

Hebrews 11:32-38, And what more shall I say? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah, also of David and Samuel and the prophets: ³³ who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, ³⁴ quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. ³⁵ Women received their dead raised to life again. Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. 36 Still others had trial of mockings and

scourging’s, yes, and of chains and imprisonment. ³⁷ They were stoned, they were sawn in two, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented— ³⁸ of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth.

Not only Paul, but a lot of other people of God, great heroes of the faith, have endured these kinds of things. Does that break the bond of Christ's love for His own? When we struggle with those kinds of things, does He stop loving us?

No. V 36, As it is written: “For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.”

John 16:1-2, “These things I have spoken to you, that you should not be made to stumble. ² They will put you out of the synagogues; yes, the time is coming that whoever kills you will think that he offers God service. Paul quotes from Psalm 44:22, "Yet for Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. All the saints have endured that.

Not surprising. The God hating world is going to persecute the Lord's own.

Matthew 10:37-39, He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. ³⁸ And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. ³⁹ He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it.

It could cost you your family. It could cost you your life. All the saints through all the ages have endured this. If that drives someone to reject Christ, they were never His.

1 John 2:19, They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us. V 36, For Your sake Expresses a willingness. God's people, for His sake, Christ's own for His sake are willing to suffer.

Luke 9:57-58, Now it happened as they journeyed on the road, that someone said to Him, “Lord, I will follow You wherever You go.” ⁵⁸ And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.” Somebody comes along and says, "I am impressed with You, I will follow You wherever You go." He says, "probably ought to tell you, I am homeless. I can't offer you anything."

This is basic in discipleship. He offers us in this world persecution, tribulation, suffering, alienation. We are the off scouring. It is a willingness that Christians have, a willingness to go all the way to death.

Matthew 16:24-25, Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. ²⁵ For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. You come to Christ acknowledging a sacrifice, a willingness to suffer. When true Christian’s face things, they don't abandon their salvation. True believers persevere.

V 37, Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. We are super-conquerors, winners of a resounding victory. We defeat them in an overwhelming fashion. In all our trials, persecutions, temptations, tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, sword, in all of that we are triumphant and victorious.

The trial works to our greater good. Those kind of trials in our lives make us humble, drive us to God. They enable us to strengthen others. We overwhelmingly conquer, not in our own strength but through Him who loved us.

He never let go. He loves us all the way through that, and He holds onto that. It is an unbreakable bond. Paul wrote this during a winter in Corinth and neither Paul, nor the Romans could know how short a time would elapse before they would stand in need of this very comforting truth.

Paul himself would be killed by a Roman sword. His readers were men and women whose blood would soak the sands of the great Roman amphitheatres, under the massive Roman persecution. But the honour of Christ was safe in their keeping because they were safe in His love.

✓ He would never let them go. ✓ He would give them the strength to endure and to persevere. ✓ He would give them the faith to be sustained through whatever came, and an undying love for Him.

• They didn't need to fear to die.
• They didn't need to fear being mauled by wild beasts.
• They didn't need to fear being soaked in tar and then told to deny Christ or they would be lit as torches in the gardens of Caesar.
• They didn't need to fear fighting with gladiators.
• They didn't need to fear fighting beasts.
• They didn't need to fear conflict with hell's demons.

They were safe in the undying love of Christ. Those who abandoned their faith never belonged to Him, never. His love is an everlasting love. He loves to the max.

There is absolutely nothing that can separate them from that love. Ezekiel 16. This illustrates the unbreakable love that God has. This is a chapter that many rabbis have forbidden to be read in synagogues. It is very graphic, and it is very tragically dishonouring to Israel. That's why rabbis have not allowed it to be read.

Ezekiel 16:1-4, Again the word of the Lord came to me, saying, ² “Son of man, cause Jerusalem to know her abominations, ³ and say, ‘Thus says the Lord God to Jerusalem: “Your birth and your nativity are from the land of Canaan; your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite. ⁴ As for your nativity, on the day you were born your navel cord was not cut, nor were you washed in water to cleanse you; you were not rubbed with salt nor wrapped in swaddling cloths.

It was the land of the Canaanite when the Israelites came there and conquered it. The pagan nations that were there when Israel came in. A baby was born, and somebody just took that baby without cleaning that baby at all and leaving the umbilical cord hanging out of that little body and just pitched that baby out in an open field.

Ezekiel 16:5, No eye pitied you, to do any of these things for you, to have compassion on you; but you were thrown out into the open field, when you yourself were loathed on the day you were born. Abortion was less common in the ancient world but throwing away new-born babies was quite common. When somebody didn't want a child, they just took that child, ripped it, as it were, out of its mother's womb, left it in the condition it was in and just pitched it into a dirt pile. That was Israel. God found Israel like an unwanted baby lying in the dirt, unwashed, unclothed.

Ezekiel 16:6, “And when I passed by you and saw you struggling in your own blood, I said to you in your blood, ‘Live!’ Yes, I said to you in your blood, ‘Live!’ Sovereign election. God just finds this dirty outcast and gives it life purely, because He chose to do it.

Ezekiel 16:7, I made you thrive like a plant in the field; and you grew, matured, and became very beautiful. Your breasts were formed, your hair grew, but you were naked and bare. A little girl who reaches the age of puberty and it is no longer appropriate for her to be unclothed.

Ezekiel 16:8, “When I passed by you again and looked upon you, indeed your time was the time of love; so I spread My wing over you and covered your nakedness. Yes, I swore an oath to you and entered into a covenant with you, and you became Mine,” says the Lord God. God's wonderful blessings to Israel when He brought them, as it were, out of the infancy and the barrenness and the nakedness of the wilderness wanderings and brought them into the land of Israel and clothed Israel.

Ezekiel 16:9-13, “Then I washed you in water; yes, I thoroughly washed off your blood, and I anointed you with oil. ¹⁰ I clothed you in embroidered cloth and gave you sandals of badger skin; I clothed you with fine linen and covered you with silk. ¹¹ I adorned you with ornaments, put bracelets on your wrists, and a chain on your neck. ¹² And I put a jewel in your nose, earrings in your ears, and a beautiful crown on your head. ¹³ Thus you were adorned with gold and silver, and your clothing was of fine linen, silk, and embroidered cloth. You ate pastry of fine flour, honey, and oil. You were exceedingly beautiful, and succeeded to royalty. Like God raising a daughter and just decking her out. A small ring on the side.

The royalty of that nation was so remarkable that even the Queen of Sheba came to see it. This is the story of God rearing Israel.

Ezekiel 16:14, Your fame went out among the nations because of your beauty, for it was perfect through My splendour which I had bestowed on you,” says the Lord God.

God says I did all that.

What did they have to do? They were nothing but a dirty, filthy, little infant lying in dirt and blood in the middle of a field.

Ezekiel 16:15-16, “But you trusted in your own beauty, played the harlot because of your fame, and poured out your harlotry on everyone passing by who would have it. 16 You took some of your garments and adorned multi-coloured high places for yourself, and played the harlot on them. Such things should not happen, nor be.

They were so vile. They didn't even care with whom they committed harlotry. This was idolatry. This would be like a wife who had been given everything a husband could possibly give a wife who went out as a prostitute and could care less who it was that she engaged herself with.

Ezekiel 16:17-21, You have also taken your beautiful jewellery from My gold and My silver, which I had given you, and made for yourself male images and played the harlot with them. ¹⁸ You took your embroidered garments and covered them, and you set My oil and My incense before them. ¹⁹ Also My food which I gave you—the pastry of fine flour, oil, and honey which I fed you— you set it before them as sweet incense; and so it was,” says the Lord God. ²⁰ “Moreover you took your sons and your daughters, whom you bore to Me, and these you sacrificed to them to be devoured. Were your acts of harlotry a small matter, ²¹ that you have slain My children and offered them up to them by causing them to pass through the fire?

They offered their babies on a fire to the god Molech.

Ezekiel 16:28, You also played the harlot with the Assyrians, because you were insatiable; indeed you played the harlot with them and still were not satisfied. You had such a lust and such a passion for evil it couldn't even be satisfied. No matter what you did it couldn't be satisfied.

Ezekiel 16:46-47, “Your elder sister is Samaria, who dwells with her daughters to the north of you; and your younger sister, who dwells to the south of you, is Sodom and her daughters. 47 You did not walk in their ways nor act according to their

abominations; but, as if that were too little, you became more corrupt than they in all your ways. Samaria was wretched. Sodom was more wretched. God destroyed Sodom with fire and brimstone. You were worse than Samaria and Sodom.

Ezekiel 16:60, “Nevertheless I will remember My covenant with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish an everlasting covenant with you. Unbelievable! In spite of all of that, My love for you is unbreakable.

Ezekiel 16:62-63, And I will establish My covenant with you.

Then you shall know that I am the Lord, ⁶³ that you may remember and be ashamed, and never open your mouth anymore because of your shame, when I provide you an atonement for all you have done,” says the Lord God.’ ” Israel is distinct as a nation from us as individuals, but the principle is the same. When God sets His love on someone, nothing breaks it.

• I am not saying that we are not going to fall to temptation.

• I am not saying we are not going to sin.
• I am not saying that when persecution comes, we don't fear those things.
• I am not saying that we would never question God about those things.

But God loves us to the max with an unbreakable love through which He will provide for us forgiveness, and for us in the New Covenant.

1 Corinthians 10:13, "No temptation will ever overtake us but such is as common to man and God is faithful who will also make a way of escape that you may be able to bear it."

When God sets His love on someone, it's permanent. In spite of all their failures, it's permanent. Israel will someday remember and be ashamed.

Zechariah 12:10, “And I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication; then they will look on Me whom they pierced. Yes, they will mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for a firstborn.

Zechariah 13:1, “In that day a fountain shall be opened for the house of David and for the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for uncleanness. Because God has set His love on that nation, individuals in that nation that constitute His special people. Romans 8

What will separate us from the love of Christ? Nothing. In all the things that come we will overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us because His love for us will never be broken and in that love, He provides sustaining faith. Our faith will not die. We may have our moments of doubt. Our faith will not die because He grants to us sustained faith.

V 38-39, For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, ³⁹ nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

“I am persuaded.” This is a confident declaration of a Holy Spirit inspired man.

I have a settled conclusion not even death, the great enemy, not even death can separate us. Not even the gates of Hades which Satan wants to use against us.

Psalms 116:15, Precious in the sight of the Lord Is the death of His saints. Death can't separate us from the love of Christ. In fact, death just ushers us into it!

What about life all its dangers, difficulties, temptations, and troubles? What he is saying here is there is no state of being here or there, live, or dead, there is no state of being in which we can be separated from the love of Christ.

1 Corinthians 3:21-23, Therefore let no one boast in men. For all things are yours: ²² whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas, or the world or life or death, or things present or things to come—all are yours. ²³ And you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.

There is no sphere in which you could exist, there is no state of being in which you could exist which would be outside the eternal love of Christ. Nor are there any personalities that could separate you.

Nor angels. Paul probably here is thinking about good angels. No good angel, not that they would, because it’s hypothetical, but no good angel can alter our salvation. It's not possible for even a good angel to do that. It's impossible.

Principalities, probably there he has in mind evil angels because he uses that term to express evil angels in Ephesians chapter 6 and Colossians chapter 1. No holy angel and no demon. That is to say there is no state of being in which you could be separated from the love of Christ and there are no supernatural, angelic beings either good or evil who could effect such a separation. No state of being and no demons, or angels, can alter our eternal glory.

"Nor things present, nor things to come." There is nothing here and now, there's nothing in the present age, in the present time now and there's nothing in any future time, any future age or any future moment, including the judgment of God that's coming on the world.

No state of being, no supernatural power, either good or evil angels, and no dimension of time or eternity, not the present

and not the future, not now and not ever could we be separated from the love of Christ. "Nor powers." When plural used in a plural form in the New Testament, it frequently, most frequently refers to miracles. There is no mighty work, there is no mighty miracle, no mighty power, no state of being, no supernatural creature, no period in time or eternity and no power source in existence could separate you from the love of Christ.

"Nor height, nor depth." Height is an astrological term used to describe the orbit of a star or the apex of the orbit of a star, when a star was at its zenith, the highest point that they could imagine, or conceive of. There's nothing in infinite space above.

Depth was the term used to describe the star at its lowest point of orbit. There's nothing that the extreme and infinite point of the highest heaven and the extreme and infinite point of the lowest heaven and there's nothing anywhere from one heaven to the other that can separate us from the love of Christ.

• There is no state of being, not in time or eternity,
• There is no created being, whether holy angel or an evil one,
• There is no dimension of time, either in time or eternity,

• There is no source of power,
• There is no place in the endless universe where there is anything that can ever sever us from the love of Christ.

Nothing in this life or the life to come, nothing in time, nothing in eternity, nothing in the world of angels, nothing in the world of demons, no power, nothing on earth, nothing in the infinite heavens, nothing. Just in case someone says, "except,"he adds, "Nor any other created thing."

No exceptions, none shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. You understand that the love of God toward us is all bound up in Christ and the reason God has set His eternal love on us is because He has covered us with the righteousness of Christ so that His love for us is not conditioned on what we are, but on what Christ is.

Conclusion

Jeremiah 31:3, The Lord has appeared of old to me, saying: “Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love; Therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you.

I have loved you with an everlasting love that is the kind of love that God places upon those who belong to Him eternally.

Philippians 1:6, being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ;

It is an everlasting work of salvation that God does.

2 Timothy 1:12, For this reason I also suffer these things; nevertheless I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day.

Jude 1:24-25, Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, And to present you faultless Before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy, ²⁵ To God our Saviour, Who alone is wise, Be glory and majesty, Dominion and power, Both now and forever. Amen. Scripture is filled with promises about the eternality of our salvation, that whom the Lord saves He secures forever.

Romans 8:1, "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus."

If you are in Christ, if you've been placed into Christ, into union with Christ in faith in Him, there will never be any condemnation. Paul takes the conceivable objections and answers them as he closes this chapter. If God has determined that we are in a no-condemnation status, and that no-condemnation status is eternal, no one can alter that.

Since God is infinite in power, it is utterly impossible to thwart His will. There is no greater power. No one can halt the completion of His eternal plan. Because my God is all powerful, infinite in power. Because my God is infinite in power, I can say in what time I am afraid I will trust in Him.

Psalm 91 celebrates the security that we enjoy from an Old Testament perspective.

Psalm 91:1-16, He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High Shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. ² I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress; My God, in Him I will trust.” 3 Surely He shall deliver you from the snare of the fowler And from the perilous pestilence. 4 He shall cover you with His

feathers, And under His wings you shall take refuge; His truth shall be your shield and buckler. ⁵ You shall not be afraid of the terror by night, Nor of the arrow that flies by day, ⁶ Nor of the pestilence that walks in darkness, Nor of the destruction that lays waste at noonday. ⁷ A thousand may fall at your side, And ten thousand at your right hand; But it shall not come near you. ⁸ Only with your eyes shall you look, And see the reward of the wicked. ⁹ Because you have made the Lord, who is my refuge, Even the Most High, your dwelling place, ¹⁰ No evil shall befall you, Nor shall any plague come near your dwelling; ¹¹ For He shall give His angels charge over you, To keep you in all your ways. ¹² In their hands they shall bear you up, Lest you dash your foot against a stone. ¹³ You shall tread upon the lion and the cobra, The young lion and the serpent you shall trample underfoot. ¹⁴ “Because he has set his love upon Me, therefore I will deliver him; I will set him on high, because he has known My name. ¹⁵ He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him and honour him.

¹⁶ With long life I will satisfy him, And show him My salvation.” Psalm 91 is a great Psalm of the security of the believer. Our security then is founded on the plan of God, on the promise of God and most notably on the power of God.

Numbers 14:9, Only do not rebel against the Lord, nor fear the people of the land, for they are our bread; their protection has departed from them, and the Lord is with us. Do not fear them.”

Deuteronomy 33:29, Happy are you, O Israel! Who is like you, a people saved by the Lord, The shield of your help And the sword of your majesty! Your enemies shall submit to you, And you shall tread down their high places.” Just in the same way God stood by His people Israel, God stands by to defend His church. Paul makes a grand and glorious statement in verse 31, "If God is for us, who is against us?" Who can successfully be against us. No one can remove our no-condemnation status.