Psalm 91:3 (ESV) … “For he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the deadly pestilence.”
In the last chapter of his fascinating book, Fifty Years in the Church of Rome, Father Chiniquy tells how God delivered him again and again from the snare of the fowler after his break with the church, which for so long had commanded his loyalty and love. Twenty-three times he was stoned publicly, often by furious mobs intent on killing him. When his enemies saw that he was a hard man to kill, they tried to ruin his character. For much of eighteen years they kept him in the hands of sheriffs, under bail, a prisoner awaiting suits brought against him by enemies who swore to the most outrageous lies as truth. Thirty-two times his name was called before magistrates in various cities of Illinois and French Canada. No less than seventy-two false witnesses were brought forward by his former colleagues to support their false accusations. “But God be thanked,” he wrote, “every time, from the lips of the perjured witnesses, we got the proof that they were swearing falsely at the instigation of their confessors.” God delivered him over and over again from the snare of the fowler.
We are in a wicked world. Its forces of wickedness are led by the father of lies. We never know from moment to moment what snares are being set for our feet, but we have a God who can deliver us from the snare of the fowler. If we trust Him He will keep us.
So the psalmist confessed how much he owed to God: “As for me, my feet had well-nigh slipped,” he says in Psalm 73:2. The traps were there, they were cunningly concealed, baited, and ready to be sprung.[1]
[1] Phillips, J. (2012). Exploring Psalms 89–150: An Expository Commentary (Vol. 2, Ps 91:3). Kregel Publications; WORDsearch Corp.
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