Psalm 119:114

We come to the second verse in this octave of Psalm 119 entitled Samech.

Psalms 119:114  Thou art my hiding place and my shield: I hope in thy word.

Let us recall that this 119^th psalm is a series of prayers to God. In the prayer we consider today the psalmist acknowledges to God that He was his hiding place and shield. 

Today’s verse stresses the fact that the Lord was the psalmist’s defense and protection in danger.  This protection is contemplated from two angles. When one is in danger from enemies he has two options. He can flee the danger by seeking refuge in a hiding place. Or he can stand his ground and resist the enemy by wielding a shield. A shield provides one with protection from the weapons that the enemy would thrust or hurl at him. With a hiding place and a shield, one has a means of defense whether he runs away or stands his ground. So when the psalmist confesses the Lord to be my hiding place and my shield, he is confessing God as his defense whether he was fleeing danger or resisting danger.

When the adversary attacks us with persecution or temptation, it is sometimes wise to flee and just avoid the situation if at all possible (see 1Corinthians 6:18; 10:14). We find times in the life of David when Saul was pursuing him and he fled away (1Samuel 19:10-12; 21:10). When the Jews were laying wait for Paul in Damascus to kill him, Paul was let “down by the wall in a basket” and thus fled the danger (Acts 9:23-25; 2Corinthians 11:32-33). But even though David and Paul utilized means for escape from danger, it was God Who was protecting them. He was their real hiding place and that is why their enemies could not seize them before the time. Thus we find David writing:

Psalms 31:19  Oh how great is thy goodness, which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee; which thou hast wrought for them that trust in thee before the sons of men!

20  Thou shalt hide them in the secret of thy presence from the pride of man: thou shalt keep them secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues.

Psalms 64:1  Hear my voice, O God, in my prayer: preserve my life from fear of the enemy.

2  Hide me from the secret counsel of the wicked; from the insurrection of the workers of iniquity:

3  Who whet their tongue like a sword, and bend their bows to shoot their arrows, even bitter words….

Psalms 143:9  Deliver me, O LORD, from mine enemies: I flee unto thee to hide me.

So, dear reader, when you feel the devil closing in on you with fierce accusations and temptations, then flee to God in prayer and you will find in Him a hiding place where you will know that you are safe from the power of the enemy. When you have the Lord for your hiding place it is amazing how many hurtful things cannot get to you. Let your enemies plot and say what they will, you remain safe when you live in the secret of God’s presence. In fact, you will be so safe that not even death itself can separate you from the secret of His presence since to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord (2Corinthians 5:8). 

But sometimes the thing to do is to stand your ground and resist the attack of the enemy.  David did this when he went out to meet Goliath on the field of battle. Instead of running away from the giant, as the soldiers of Israel’s army had been doing, David went right up to him in the confidence that the Lord was his shield. Goliath was utterly powerless to inflict harm on someone armed with such a shield.

1 Samuel 17:45  Then said David to the Philistine, Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a shield: but I come to thee in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom thou hast defied.

46  This day will the LORD deliver thee into mine hand; and I will smite thee, and take thine head from thee; and I will give the carcases of the host of the Philistines this day unto the fowls of the air, and to the wild beasts of the earth; that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel.

47  And all this assembly shall know that the LORD saveth not with sword and spear: for the battle is the LORD'S, and he will give you into our hands. 

When the apostle Paul was finally arrested and made a prisoner of Rome, he could no longer run away. But God intervened to be his shield and he was wonderfully defended so that he became a witness of Jesus Christ even in Caesar’s palace. Trace the Lord as Paul’s shield in his personal testimony:

Philippians 1:12  But I would ye should understand, brethren, that the things which happened unto me have fallen out rather unto the furtherance of the gospel;

13  So that my bonds in Christ are manifest in all the palace, and in all other places;

2 Timothy 4:16  At my first answer no man stood with me, but all men forsook me: I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge.

17  Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me, and strengthened me; that by me the preaching might be fully known, and that all the Gentiles might hear: and I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion.

18  And the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom: to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

In this prayer the psalmist also confessed to God what he was doing:  I hope in thy word.  And it is just such persons as hope in God’s word as have Him for a hiding place and a shield.  When our enemies accuse us with our sins and weaknesses thus trying to discourage us, the promises we read in Scripture of God’s merciful forgiveness and the help of His strengthening grace point us to a sure hiding place and shield from those stinging accusations. But that hiding place and shield will only be found if we hope in God’s word of promise. If you find yourself defenseless before your enemies, it may just be that you have placed your hope and expectation in the wrong place. Perhaps you are placing all your hope in the promises of man rather than in the promises of God. You are looking to someone or something else to defend you, to take up your cause rather than the Lord. Perhaps you are expecting your ultimate deliverance to come in this world, rather than in the next. I know from sad experience how naked and defenseless one can be when his hope is misplaced. Unfulfilled expectation can leave you feeling devastated with nothing to look forward to and wondering what it is all for. You need to get back to your Bible and discover there the One that has the power to defend you. Fix your hope upon God’s sure word of truth and you will find the hiding place and shield you so much need in this perilous world.

Proverbs 30:5 Every word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him.

I know I am stretching this out a little longer, but I am compelled to pass on to you the weighty words of William Grant on the subject of hope.

“Of all the ingredients that sweeten the cup of human life, there is none more rich or powerful than hope. Its absence embitters the sweetest lot; its presence alleviates the deepest woe. Surround me with all the joys which memory can awaken or possession bestow, ─without hope it is not enough. In the absence of hope there is sadness in past and present joys ─sadness in the thought that the past is past, and that the present is passing too. But though you strip me of all the joys the past or the present can confer, if the morrow shineth bright with hope, I am glad amid my woe.”

For those of us who hope in God’s word, we live “in hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began…” (Titus 1:2). Indeed, “the morrow shineth bright with hope” and here I find a place to hide and a shield to defend me.