God Our Dwelling Place
Wednesday, April 22, 2020
Ken Fish, Founder of Orbis Ministries, is an honors graduate of Princeton University. He has also earned an MDiv from Fuller Theological Seminary and an MBA from UCLA's Anderson Graduate School of Management. Formerly a colleague of John Wimber, the late leader of the Vineyard Movement, Ken brings more than 30 years of academic study and practical experience to ministry.
Transcript
Hi there. This is Ken Fish checking in. I'm the leader of Orbis Ministries and I want to talk to you today about dwelling in God. These are difficult times we're living in. There's a lot of uncertainty and fear. People wonder how it will all end, but in Psalm 90—which isn't the one people are quoting right now, people are quoting Psalms 91—but in Psalm 90, Moses writes this, "Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations"—and some translations render this our hiding place or our refuge—"Before the mountains were born, or you gave birth to the earth and the world even from everlasting to everlasting, you are God." This was Moses' reflection. This was Moses' prayer. This was his declaration about the person of God. And I think Moses knew a thing or two about difficulty. He is speaking as one who knows that there have been other generations before him.
At a minimum, Abraham had been the father of faith about 400 years before Moses had famously brought the children of Israel out of Egypt. We don't know when Moses wrote this Psalm. He may have done it during the time that he was taking care of sheep in the wilderness. He may have written it while he was overseeing the people of God following the Exodus, but somewhere in there he reflected on the fact that he was not the first believer, and he wasn't the first believer to go through hardship. Remember as well that Moses had had to flee for his life after he had killed an Egyptian taskmaster who was abusing Hebrew slaves. Additionally, there had been a time when the Egyptian army had been closing in upon the children of Israel, and he'd cried out to the Lord, and the Lord had said, "Why do you cry out to me? Hold out your rod over the sea." And so the sea was parted.
So Moses had known difficulty. Moses knew what it was to be hemmed in. Moses knew what it was to struggle with fear in the midst of a time when it seemed all might be lost. I think Moses' words give us comfort in this time of COVID because he says, before there were mountains, before the earth was created or even the world itself, You were there, God. You were constant and You were eternal. And so this is Moses' reflection in the midst of a calamitous and volatile time. Those times are our times. Our circumstances of course are different. We aren't facing an army bearing down upon us. We aren't fleeing for our lives from Pharaoh trying to kill us for killing one of his servants. But we wonder, is there death stocking on every corner? We wonder, is there plague and pestilence going to be visited upon me or upon my loved ones, upon my household? And so with this, I think we can take confidence.
God is God. He knows our needs, He knows our difficulties, and He still wants to be beside us. Let's pray. Father from everlasting to everlasting, from before the time of the beginning until the time that surpasses the end, You persist and remain because you are God. Father, let us dwell in that, and know the certainty and the safety of dwelling with You. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
