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Psalm 91: Gods Shield Of Protection Order Printed Copy
- Author: Peggy Joyce Ruth
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About the Book
"Psalm 91: God's Shield of Protection" by Peggy Joyce Ruth explores the promises of divine protection found in Psalm 91. Ruth provides personal stories and practical insights to help readers understand and apply the powerful truths of this beloved scripture to their own lives. Ultimately, the book inspires faith and confidence in God's unwavering care and protection for his children.
David Livingstone
"[I am] serving Christ when shooting a buffalo for my men or taking an observation, [even if some] will consider it not sufficiently or even at all missionary."
With four theatrical words, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?"—words journalist Henry Morton Stanley rehearsed in advance—David Livingstone became immortal. Stanley stayed with Livingstone for five months and then went off to England to write his bestseller, How I Found Livingstone. Livingstone, in the meantime, got lost again—in a swamp literally up to his neck. Within a year and a half, he died in a mud hut, kneeling beside his cot in prayer.
Berlin Congress spurs African independent churches
The whole civilized world wept. They gave him a 21-gun salute and a hero's funeral among the saints in Westminster Abbey. "Brought by faithful hands over land and sea," his tombstone reads, "David Livingstone: missionary, traveler, philanthropist. For 30 years his life was spent in an unwearied effort to evangelize the native races, to explore the undiscovered secrets, and to abolish the slave trade." He was Mother Teresa, Neil Armstrong, and Abraham Lincoln rolled into one.
Highway man
At age 25, after a childhood spent working 14 hours a day in a cotton mill, followed by learning in class and on his own, Livingstone was captivated by an appeal for medical missionaries to China. As he trained, however, the door to China was slammed shut by the Opium War. Within six months, he met Robert Moffat, a veteran missionary of southern Africa, who enchanted him with tales of his remote station, glowing in the morning sun with "the smoke of a thousand villages where no missionary had been before."
For ten years, Livingstone tried to be a conventional missionary in southern Africa. He opened a string of stations in "the regions beyond," where he settled down to station life, teaching school and superintending the garden. After four years of bachelor life, he married his "boss's" daughter, Mary Moffat.
From the beginning, Livingstone showed signs of restlessness. After his only convert decided to return to polygamy, Livingstone felt more called than ever to explore. During his first term in South Africa, Livingstone made some of the most prodigious—and most dangerous—explorations of the nineteenth century. His object was to open a "Missionary Road"—"God's Highway," he also called it—1,500 miles north into the interior to bring "Christianity and civilization" to unreached peoples.
Explorer for Christ
On these early journeys, Livingstone's interpersonal quirks were already apparent. He had the singular inability to get along with other Westerners. He fought with missionaries, fellow explorers, assistants, and (later) his brother Charles. He held grudges for years. He had the temperament of a book-reading loner, emotionally inarticulate except when he exploded with Scottish rage. He held little patience for the attitudes of missionaries with "miserably contracted minds" who had absorbed "the colonial mentality" regarding the natives. When Livingstone spoke out against racial intolerance, white Afrikaners tried to drive him out, burning his station and stealing his animals.
He also had problems with the London Missionary Society, who felt that his explorations were distracting him from his missionary work. Throughout his life, however, Livingstone always thought of himself as primarily a missionary, "not a dumpy sort of person with a Bible under his arms, [but someone] serving Christ when shooting a buffalo for my men or taking an observation, [even if some] will consider it not sufficiently or even at all missionary."
Though alienated from the whites, the natives loved his common touch, his rough paternalism, and his curiosity. They also thought he might protect them or supply them with guns. More than most Europeans, Livingstone talked to them with respect, Scottish laird to African chief. Some explorers took as many as 150 porters when they traveled; Livingstone traveled with 30 or fewer.
On an epic, three-year trip from the Atlantic Ocean to the Indian Ocean (reputedly the first by a European) Livingstone was introduced to the 1,700-mile-long Zambezi. The river was also home to Victoria Falls, Livingstone's most awe-inspiring discovery. The scene was "so lovely," he later wrote, that it "must have been gazed upon by angels in their flight."
Despite its beauty, the Zambezi was a river of human misery. It linked the Portuguese colonies of Angola and Mozambique, the main suppliers of slaves for Brazil, who in turn sold to Cuba and the United States. Though Livingstone was partially driven by a desire to create a British colony, his primary ambition was to expose the slave trade and cut it off at the source. The strongest weapon in this task, he believed, was Christian commercial civilization. He hoped to replace the "inefficient" slave economy with a capitalist economy: buying and selling goods instead of people.
The ill-fated Zambezi expedition
After a brief heroic return to England, Livingstone returned to Africa, this time to navigate 1,000 miles up the Zambezi in a brass-and-mahogany steamboat to establish a mission near Victoria Falls. The boat was state-of-the-art technology but proved too frail for the expedition. It leaked horribly after repeatedly running aground on sandbars.
Livingstone pushed his men beyond human endurance. When they reached a 30-foot waterfall, he waved his hand, as if to wish it away, and said, "That's not supposed to be there." His wife, who had just given birth to her sixth child, died in 1862 beside the river, only one of several lives claimed on the voyage. Two years later, the British government, which had no interest in "forcing steamers up cataracts," recalled Livingstone and his mission party.
A year later, he was on his way back to Africa again, this time leading an expedition sponsored by the Royal Geographical Society and wealthy friends. "I would not consent to go simply as a geographer," he emphasized, but as biographer Tim Jeal wrote, "It would be hard to judge whether the search for the Nile's source or his desire to expose the slave trade was his dominant motive." The source of the Nile was the great geographical puzzle of the day. But more important to Livingstone was the possibility of proving that the Bible was true by tracing the African roots of Judaism and Christianity.
For two years he simply disappeared, without a letter or scrap of information. He reported later that he had been so ill he could not even lift a pen, but he was able to read the Bible straight through four times. Livingstone's disappearance fascinated the public as much as Amelia Earhart's a few generations later.
When American journalist Henry Stanley found Livingstone, the news exploded in England and America. Papers carried special editions devoted to the famous meeting. In August 1872, in precarious health, Livingstone shook Stanley's hand and set out on his final journey.
When Livingstone had arrived in Africa in 1841, it was as exotic as outer space, called the "Dark Continent" and the "White Man's Graveyard." although the Portuguese, Dutch, and English were pushing into the interior, African maps had blank unexplored areas—no roads, no countries, no landmarks. Livingstone helped redraw the maps, exploring what are now a dozen countries, including South Africa, Rwanda, Angola, and the Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire). And he made the West aware of the continuing evil of African slavery, which led to its being eventually outlawed.
When I (Still) Don’t Desire God
It’s been fifteen years since I wrote When I Don’t Desire God: How to Fight for Joy . I wrote it because hundreds of people who hear the message of Christian Hedonism with hope drift into discouragement because they don’t have the joy in God that they know they should. Christian Hedonism says that God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him . Which makes matters worse if that satisfaction is missing. That’s why I wrote the book. I have been asked, What would I say now, with the accumulated wisdom of 72 years, to those still  struggling to “delight yourself in the Lord” (Psalm 37:4)? This is not theoretical for me. Not only do I share the struggle, but I have conversations with real people struggling like this. I followed up one such conversation recently with an email. I’m going to share that with you below. But first a caution. Wisdom for the Darkness Whether we can help someone struggling with joylessness in the Christian life depends not primarily on the quantity of wisdom we have accumulated over the years, but on how we apply the truth we have, and whether the Spirit of God turns that truth into life and freedom and joy. “When the darkness of uncertainty and fear hangs over you, don’t let go of the One you knew in the light.” I am not minimizing the value of accumulated wisdom. The Old Testament sage commands, “ Get  wisdom” (Proverbs 4:7). Jesus “ increased  in wisdom” (Luke 2:52). Paul prays that we would be “ filled  with spiritual wisdom” (Colossians 1:9). We know that in Christ “are hidden all the treasures of wisdom” (Colossians 2:3). Paul calls us to admonish each other “in all wisdom” (Colossians 3:16). James tells us that if we “lack wisdom,” we should ask for it from God (James 1:5). For there is a “wisdom that comes down from above” (James 3:17). We can never get too much wisdom. But my point is that if you are 30 instead of 70, you should not be intimidated or paralyzed by the fact that you still have 40 years of wisdom accumulation in front of you. As you read your Bible tomorrow morning, praying for supernatural insight, God may grant you a glimpse of some precious truth that later in the day will be exactly the truth that your struggling friend needs. Am I Beyond Hope? After the conversation that I had recently with my friend, he followed up with an email. He was still in distress. What do you say when you feel you have said all you know to say — in the book and in conversation? One answer is this: Don’t think that you need the  tailor-made answer to the presenting problem. Instead, realize that any  precious biblical truth that has ministered deeply to you, though it may seem irrelevant to your friend’s situation, may be more helpful than you realize. Just go ahead and overflow from your morning devotions. They will know the truth (which may seem random to us), and the truth may set them free. You also can give the sober counsel that struggling has hope of success, but forsaking the struggle does not. I think it is a mistake to give unqualified assurance to a struggler when you do not know if they are born again. You hope they are. They hope they are. But you are not God. And they are in a season of darkness. What you do know beyond doubt is: if they finally abandon Christ and hope, there is no hope. “Struggling has hope of success, but forsaking the struggle does not.” So I thought it might be helpful to share with you how I responded to my friend’s email. Keep in mind that his struggle has to do with patterns of repeated sin which make him feel hopeless about ever getting victory. These failures leave him feeling distant from God and, at times, wondering if he is a Christian, or perhaps whether he may even be an Esau who has spurned grace so often that true repentance is no longer possible (Hebrews 12:16–17). This is a terrifying position to be in. I don’t think my friend is unusual. I think thousands of Christians, if they will pause to be painfully honest, will admit to the same struggles. It is hard to admit this, because it is so scary. Parts of the following letter are exact quotes. Other parts are altered enough so as not to betray any confidences. Letter to a Distressed Friend Dear brother, I totally empathize with the frustration and fears of possibly being an Esau because of sinning so deeply against God’s mercy and light and patience. There is no comfortable answer to how one conquers such fears and escapes such a condition. From my own experience, what I would say is this: If you have the grace to hold on to God’s mercy and not throw it away in apostasy, there is hope. This is not a comfortable answer. It doesn’t speak in terms of simple certainties — namely, that you will definitely prove not to be an Esau. But it is the only way forward into light and hope and relief. I can’t promise that you are  a child of God, but I can  promise that if you throw away hope, you will prove not  to be a child of God. God’s word speaks often about “waiting” for the Lord, as in Psalm 40: I waited patiently for the Lord;      he inclined to me and heard my cry. He drew me up from the pit of destruction,      out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock,      making my steps secure. (Psalm 40:1–2) How long was David in the miry bog? It doesn’t say. But what is clear from all the psalms is that the psalmists never forsake God when they feel like he has forsaken them. Something holds them. “I can’t promise that you’re a child of God, but I can promise that if you abandon hope, you will prove not to be.” Not only does the Bible speak of waiting for God in the miry bog, but it also speaks of true believers walking in a kind of darkness. Perhaps you have considered this word from Isaiah: Who among you fears the Lord      and obeys the voice of his servant? Let him who walks in darkness      and has no light trust in the name of the Lord      and rely on his God. Behold, all you who kindle a fire,      who equip yourselves with burning torches! Walk by the light of your fire,      and by the torches that you have kindled! This you have from my hand:      you shall lie down in torment. (Isaiah 50:10–11) We may not be able to describe adequately what it means both  to walk in darkness and  to trust the Lord. They seem contradictory. And yet there it is. I’m suggesting that it would mean this: When the darkness of uncertainty and fear hangs over you, inasmuch as by grace it remains in you, don’t let go of the One you knew in the light . Keep holding on, if only, it may seem, by your fingernails. Know this: his hands are on his children’s fingernails — day and night. Pray for dawn and deliverance. From where I stand at age 72, I believe I can encourage you that it will come. Paul speaks in a way that captures some of the mystery of the ongoing battle with sin: Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. (Romans 7:24–25) Paul is ashamed of his inconsistency in these times of defeat. But he does not despair. He looks away from himself, confesses his divided self, and presses on in the battle. But he also tells us that the way he fights as an imperfect saint is by the hope that Christ has a firmer grip on him than he does on Christ. He may feel like only his fingernails grip the cliff. But he believes that Christ grips his fingernails: Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own . (Philippians 3:12) Or, to paraphrase, “I grasp for the hope for future perfection, because Christ has already grasped me and will not let me go.” Sometimes we feel his grasp more sweetly than at other times. It is a fearful thing when we are going through a season where we don’t feel it at all. I’m not going to give you a list of ways to fight for your joy. Those are all in the book that you already read. What I am doing in this letter is simply reminding you (1) that God is present in the darkness, (2) that he is holding on to his people when they feel barely able to hold on to him, and (3) that though you may feel unsure of your salvation in this struggle, you may be totally  sure you will not have salvation if you give up the struggle and walk away. “If you have the grace to hold on to God’s mercy and not throw it away in apostasy or suicide, there is hope.” May I recommend a song about God’s precious keeping power? In the last several years, the song “He Will Hold Me Fast” has gone deep with me and become very sweet. I love the robust congregational affirmation of this recording of Capitol Hill Baptist Church singing it. I could never keep my hold Through life’s fearful path. For my love is often cold, He must hold me fast. May God give you the grace to sing it anew.
