Psalm 91:

He who 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 I will trust. Surely He will deliver you from the snare of the fowler — that means the secret traps that you don't see coming your way — and from the perilous pestilence.

In the original translation, the way that reads is: from the perversion that comes into a society when the restraining hand of God is lifted off of it. He will deliver you from secret traps and from the perversions that are going to be prevalent in this and other societies in the last days.

Whether there are acts of terrorism in various countries throughout the world, or threats even of nuclear war, the Bible says you will not be afraid. There will be a confidence that God puts in your heart that is born of the Spirit of God. It is born of a trust in the keeping power of God. No matter what happens, no matter what difficulty comes our way, you will not be afraid.

This psalm — Psalm 91 — contains a truth about God that Satan himself fears. He fears that if it's believed, it would instill a barrier of promise in the hearts of those who believe in it that no power of hell can get through and breach. That's why he is afraid of Psalm 91.

It was this psalm that Satan quoted when he tempted Jesus in the wilderness in Matthew 4. Actually, in the temptation of Christ — after he was baptized in the Jordan and went into the wilderness, led of the Spirit to be tempted by Satan — this was the only scripture that Satan did not fully quote. He quoted a part of it, but not the whole scripture.

He came to the Son of God. Now, he knew who he was fighting with. He was contesting with the Son of God. I don't know how he knew it, but Satan knew who Jesus Christ was, and he had a sense of what his mission was on the earth.

The first temptation he brought to him was essentially this: If you are the Son of God, command these stones to be made bread. In other words, if you are the Son of God, why are you not being fed? Why are you hungry? If you are the Son of God, there must be a resident power within you — use it for yourself, use it for your own benefit. Turn these stones to bread.

Of course, that's what the devil did — that's why he fell from heaven. He was not content with the ways, the will, and the word of God. He wanted something higher than he was assigned by God. He was tempting Christ to change his situation by his own power and his own influence.

Then he took him to the holy city, set him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said again: If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down. For it is written, He will give His angels charge over you, and in their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone.

Here's the more insidious temptation as I see this. In effect, what I think the devil was saying — and this is my opinion, my conjecture — he was basically saying: I'm going to throw you down. And what makes you think that when your feet hit the stone that somehow there are going to be angels there to help you? What makes you think that God will preserve you? What makes you think that God will protect you? What makes you think that God will raise you up? What makes you think he will send angels to be part of the process of bringing you to the conclusion of what your life is supposed to be? If you do believe this, throw yourself down.

But I want to remind you — that is not the whole scripture. He left a line out. Psalm 91 says: He will give His angels charge over you to keep you in all your ways. In their hands they will bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone.

It didn't say it's just for one specific event. God is going to assign angels to you to keep you in all of the journey of your life — the good times, the bad times, the easy times, the hard times, the times you understand, the times you don't, the times when it looks prosperous and the times when it looks hopeless. God is not going to fail you. God is going to keep you. And there will be a heavenly presence to assist you this whole time, lest you should be overthrown or overcome by the temptations or the testings that are all around you.

And lastly, seeing he could not turn Jesus from the truth of the word of God, he said to him: All the kingdoms of the world and all their glory belong to me. If you will fall down and worship me, you don't have to go to the cross. Basically, that's what he was saying. Then you don't have to die. You can have it all if you'll just bow down and worship me.

And Jesus said, Away with you, Satan. It is written, you shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.

Matthew 4:11 says: Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and ministered to him.

Praise be to God. That's exactly what the scripture says. He will give His angels charge over you to keep you in all your ways. In their hands they will bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone.

Now, what was the devil so afraid of in Psalm 91 — that if you and I laid hold of it, his power over us would be broken?

His power causes us to think that somehow God won't provide for us in the midst of our hunger or our hardship or whatever it is that you and I have to face in the days ahead. The promise of God is that we will have provision. Seek first the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added to you.

First of all, he was afraid that we would find this hidden place of God where our confidence in his keeping power can no longer be broken. He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High — Psalm 91:1 — shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. And I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress, my God. In him I will trust.

I will trust on the good days. I will trust on the bad days. I will trust when I hit the notes in the song. I will trust when my voice cracks and I can't hit them. I will trust when there's money in the bank, and I will trust when I have to trust God to pay my bills. I will trust in God.

This has to be our prayer in this generation: God, take me to this place. Take me to this place of trust in you. Oh, Jesus Christ, Son of God, don't let me trust in my own reasonings, my own resources, my own thinking, my own abilities, my own strength. God Almighty, give me the ability to trust in your word — that the things you say to me are true. They cannot be contravened. They cannot be thrown away.

God Almighty, you cannot be tested. Satan said to Jesus, throw yourself...

I want to bring to you a message I've entitled "A Billion Reasons Not to Give Up."

Galatians 6:9 — just one verse, where the Apostle Paul says, And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart.

The original King James says "if we don't faint." It carries the connotation of somebody running a race — perhaps they get halfway, two-thirds of the way through this long-distance race, and then they just quit. They just stop. Maybe it's pressing through the exhaustion or the pain. There are times that we feel pain and we're exhausted, and we have a tendency to want to draw back from the work that God has entrusted into our hands.

But there's an incredible promise given to us. First of all, there's an admonition: don't grow weary in doing good. For in due season — in the proper time, in God's timing — we will reap if we don't lose heart.

So the question arises: why do people lose heart? Why do they faint? Why do they quit? People who knew the redemption of Christ. People who have been given the Spirit of God. People who know the truth of God's Word. People who have at least a sense of what our commission is on the earth.

We're not here to live for ourselves any longer. As we teach here in our Bible school, the purest expression of the Christian life is found in living for the benefit of others. That's what our Savior did for us, and we've been commissioned to do that for the sake of others. And while we are on that journey, Jesus Christ promises that he will give us all that we need. He'll give us comfort in times of sorrow. He'll give us his strength in times of weakness. He'll give us his encouragement in times of discouragement. He'll keep us going. He'll keep us running for a divine reason — reaching those that are lost, because that is the mission of Jesus Christ on the earth.

People lose heart because they have no vision for life in the future. Proverbs 29:18 says, Where there is no vision, the people perish. The King James says they cast off restraint. They turn to self-focus, or they become disillusioned. Where there's no vision — what is my life? What is the purpose of my life? What is the purpose of God? Help me to understand why I'm here. When we lose the vision of God for the future of our own lives, it is inevitable that we are going to lose heart.

People lose heart when they fall into constant complaining about the present. Psalm 77:3 — the psalmist says, I complained and my spirit was overwhelmed.

If you want to sink your own boat — if you want to drill a hole in the bottom of your own boat in the middle of the ocean — start complaining, and your boat's going to fill and you're going to go down. We have to learn not to complain.

Listen, it might be tough, but you're not going to hell. I'm talking to the Christians. It might be tough. I used to say to the choir in New York City: if you're going through hell, just be thankful you're not staying there. You're going through. You're going to come out the other side, and heaven is your eternal home.

There is no guarantee in the Word of God that everything is going to be easy. You're going to be opposed. You have an enemy in this world. There are going to be things said, things done. There's going to be exhaustion, all kinds of things coming your way. But don't fall into complaining. A complainer not only sinks his or her own boat, but they sink everybody else's boat around them.

To me, complaint is the opposite of faith. Complaint is the absence of seeing God. I would rather be an optimist. I would rather live on the side of "it's going to work out," because that's what God says is going to happen.

The Bible does say all things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to his purpose. Not some things, or just the things that I like. All things work together for good — the things I like and the things I don't. The day I get up and I feel twenty years old, the day I get up and I feel two hundred years old — all things are still working together for good because I love God and I'm called according to his purpose.

People lose heart because of pain. Psalm 55:6 — the psalmist says, Oh, that I had wings like a dove! I would fly away and be at rest.

The pain of betrayal. The pain of constant enemies. The pain of just the difficulties of life in general. Something can come into the heart and say, "God, I want out. I don't want to do this anymore." And we end up on the sidelines. As Paul says to the Galatians, we lose heart. And because we lose heart, we don't reap. It's pretty hard to bring a Savior to somebody else that you don't necessarily want yourself.

People lose heart because they faint because of regret. Psalm 42:3 — the psalmist says, My tears have been my food day and night.

They regret the life choices they made. They regret the things that were done to them or things that they did to others, or the way they lived or what they did.

I just thank God for the testimony of this young lady. There's no regret there at all. It's just: I'm going on with God. My sins are washed away. My past is buried in the sea. And God put a sign on the shore that says "No Fishing." Nobody can come there. Nobody can dig it up. Nobody can drag me through it. It's gone. It's dead. It's buried. It's over. I walked out of that grave, and I'm living a new life now in Jesus Christ.

Yes, we've all made mistakes. I've made mistakes. You've made mistakes. And if I choose to live there in my mind — if I choose to live with the regrets of the things I did say or didn't say, did do or didn't do — then I'm going to lose heart eventually. I'm not called to live there. I am a new creation in Christ Jesus. I have a new birthright. I have new life. I have a new future. I have the presence of God dwelling inside this earthly body. I refuse to live in regret for the past.

I did for a season, as a young believer, before I understood that we don't have to live there anymore. I used to make daily crying a part of my prayer. You get to feeling it as holy after a while — going in and just hanging your head and talking about all the things you did or didn't do — until one day the Lord spoke to me.

I was going through my regular crying, and the Lord told me, "Stand up." And I stood up, and He said, "Your tears are an accusation against my faithfulness."

I knew it was the voice of God because it wasn't in my mind to think that way. He said, "I'm going to show you some things in the future. And if you get on your knees and weep one more time over this, I'm going to take that as an accusation against my faithfulness to you."

You're not called to live in regret. You're not called to live in the past. You have a new future. You have a new hope. You have a new life.

So people would say, "What can you tell me that would give me a reason not to give up?" Well, I have a billion reasons. I'm not going to tell you the whole billion, but I'm going to give you five, and you can fill in the rest.

Here's why you shouldn't give up: because you know the truth. John 8:32 — Jesus said, You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

You know the truth. The freedom might not come in one hour. It might not come in one week or even one year, but it's coming your way. You know the truth, and the truth will make you free.

There's a man called Michael who sent in a prayer request this week. He said: "I need an encounter with Jesus. I need to be filled with the Holy Spirit and to be delivered from besetting sins." For the sake of Michael, and every other Michael in this world who needs to encounte...