If God Promises Protection, Why Do Bad Things Still Happen to His People?

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4 days ago

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There is a verse in Psalm 91 that sounds wonderfully comforting until life gives us a reason to wrestle with it.

“There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.”— Psalm 91:10 KJV

Those are strong words.

No evil.

No plague.

And if we read them quickly, we might come away believing Psalm 91 gives us a guarantee:

If I trust God enough, nothing terrible will happen to me.

No serious illness.

No tragedy.

No devastating loss.

No violence.

No disaster.

No suffering that reaches my home.

But then life happens.

A faithful Christian gets cancer.

A godly family loses a child.

A believer is killed in an accident.

A devoted husband loses his wife.

A missionary suffers persecution.

A Christian loses everything in a fire or natural disaster.

People who genuinely love God experience circumstances that we would unquestionably describe as terrible.

And suddenly Psalm 91:10 becomes difficult.

If God says,

“There shall no evil befall thee…”

then what are we supposed to do when evil appears to do exactly that?

We have several choices.

We can ignore the question.

We can blame the suffering person and say they must not have had enough faith.

We can quietly stop believing the verse.

Or we can do something much healthier.

We can slow down and ask what Scripture is actually teaching us.

Because God’s Word does not need us to protect it from difficult questions.

Psalm 91 Never Says Trouble Doesn’t Exist

We’ve already seen something important throughout this series.

Psalm 91 is filled with danger.

The snare of the fowler.

Pestilence.

Terror by night.

The arrow that flies by day.

Destruction.

Thousands falling.

Evil.

Plague.

Lions.

Adders.

Dragons.

This is hardly a picture of a world where nothing dangerous ever happens.

And then, near the end of the psalm, God Himself says:

“I will be with him in trouble…”— Psalm 91:15 KJV

Don’t rush past that.

God does not say:

My people will never experience trouble.

He says:

I will be with him in trouble.

That single statement should stop us from interpreting the rest of Psalm 91 as a blanket promise that believers will never experience suffering.

God’s protection must mean something deeper than nothing painful will ever happen to me.

So What Does “No Evil” Mean?

Part of our difficulty comes from how we hear the word evil.

We often use evil to describe anything terrible, painful, destructive, or unwanted.

But Scripture can speak of evil in more than one sense. The underlying Hebrew term can carry the idea of evil, harm, calamity, adversity, or distress depending upon context.

That doesn’t make Psalm 91:10 weaker.

It makes us ask a better question:

What kind of protection is this psalm describing?

Psalm 91 is Hebrew poetry.

Poetry often communicates truth through vivid images, parallel statements, repetition, contrast, and sweeping declarations.

We shouldn’t treat biblical poetry as though we’re reading the fine print of an insurance policy.

The psalmist is declaring the comprehensive security of the person who dwells under God’s care.

That doesn’t mean the believer becomes physically untouchable.

It means that ultimately, nothing can reach the person who belongs to God outside God’s sovereign care.

That’s a much bigger promise.

Scripture Cannot Mean That God’s People Never Suffer

We know this because we don’t have to leave the Bible to find faithful people who suffered.

Joseph was betrayed and imprisoned.

Job lost his children, possessions, and health.

David spent years running for his life.

Jeremiah was persecuted.

Daniel was thrown into a lions’ den.

Stephen was stoned.

Paul was beaten, imprisoned, shipwrecked, and eventually faced death.

The apostles suffered tremendously.

And then there is Jesus.

If Psalm 91 means that genuine trust in God guarantees physical immunity from suffering, we have an enormous theological problem.

Because nobody trusted the Father more perfectly than Jesus.

And Jesus suffered.

So whatever Psalm 91 promises, it cannot contradict what the rest of Scripture clearly demonstrates:

Faithful people sometimes suffer terribly.

Satan Quoted Psalm 91 to Jesus

And this is where the interpretation becomes particularly fascinating.

During Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness, Satan took Him to a pinnacle of the temple and told Him to throw Himself down.

Then Satan quoted Scripture.

Specifically, he quoted Psalm 91.

“For he shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up…”— Matthew 4:6 KJV

Think about that.

The devil essentially argued:

If God’s promise of protection is true, prove it. Put yourself in danger and make God protect you.

Jesus refused.

“Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.”— Matthew 4:7 KJV

That exchange gives us an important boundary for understanding Psalm 91.

God’s promises of protection are invitations to trust Him.

They are not permission to test Him.

Faith says:

God is my refuge.

Presumption says:

If God is really my refuge, He must prevent anything bad from happening to me.

Those are not the same thing.

Protection Is Not the Same as Immunity

Maybe that’s the distinction we need.

God’s protection does not mean Christians receive immunity from living in a fallen world.

Our bodies can become sick.

Accidents happen.

Other people can make choices that hurt us.

Natural disasters occur.

People die.

Christians grieve.

Christians experience betrayal.

Christians suffer injustice.

Christians can become victims of terrible things.

The Bible never asks us to pretend otherwise.

But none of those realities means God has abandoned His people.

That is where Psalm 91 takes us deeper.

The Refuge Does Not Mean There Will Never Be a Storm

Think back to the first teaching in this series.

“He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust.”— Psalm 91:2 KJV

Why would we need a refuge if there were never any storms?

Why would we need a fortress if there were never any danger?

Why would God promise to be with us in trouble if trusting Him meant trouble could never reach us?

The existence of the refuge doesn’t prove the absence of the storm.

It proves we have somewhere to stand when the storm comes.

That’s different.

And perhaps much more comforting.

Because a theology that tells us nothing terrible will ever happen eventually collapses when something terrible does.

But a faith that says,

“Whatever happens, God will not leave me,”

can survive the storm.

Sometimes God Protects Us From It

There are absolutely times when God’s protection means prevention.

The accident doesn’t happen.

The disease doesn’t come.

The dangerous situation is avoided.

The relationship doesn’t proceed.

The trap is exposed.

The disaster passes.

The prayer is answered exactly as we hoped.

And we should thank God for those moments.

Sometimes we can clearly see:

God protected me from that.

But that isn’t the only form protection takes.

Sometimes God Protects Us Through It

Daniel was protected from the lions while standing in their den.

The three Hebrew men were protected through the furnace, not from entering it.

Joseph wasn’t protected from betrayal or prison, but God preserved him through both.

Paul wasn’t protected from every beating, shipwreck, imprisonment, or persecution.

Yet he could eventually write:

“And the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom…”— 2 Timothy 4:18 KJV

Paul wrote about deliverance while knowing his earthly life was nearing its end.

That should tell us something.

For Paul, God’s ultimate protection was bigger than physical survival.

There was something suffering could not take from him.

Something prison couldn’t touch.

Something persecution couldn’t destroy.

Something even death could not steal.

He belonged to Christ.

And Sometimes God’s Protection Doesn’t Look Like What We Asked For

This may be the hardest part.

Sometimes we pray:

God, protect them.

And what we mean is:

Don’t let them die.

Sometimes we pray:

God, protect my family.

And what we mean is:

Don’t let anything happen that changes our lives painfully.

Sometimes we pray:

God, keep me safe.

And what we mean is:

Make sure nothing happens that frightens or hurts me.

Those prayers aren’t wrong.

Jesus Himself prayed honestly about what He desired in Gethsemane.

But trusting God requires us to acknowledge that His definition of keeping us may be larger than ours.

We tend to define protection by what happens to the body, the home, the finances, the relationship, or the circumstances.

God sees eternity.

And this is where Christian hope becomes radically different from mere optimism.

Our ultimate hope isn’t:

Nothing bad will happen to me.

It is:

Nothing can separate me from God.

There Is a Protection Suffering Cannot Penetrate

Paul wrote:

“For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God…”— Romans 8:38–39 KJV

Notice something remarkable.

Paul includes death.

Death itself cannot breach the security we have in Christ.

That means Christian protection reaches somewhere physical protection cannot.

Even when the worst thing we can imagine happens, it still cannot remove us from God.

That doesn’t make suffering painless.

It doesn’t make grief less real.

It doesn’t mean we smile through tragedy and pretend everything is fine.

Jesus wept.

Grief is not unbelief.

Pain is not evidence that we have failed to trust God.

But underneath our grief is something suffering cannot reach.

We are His.

We Need to Be Careful What We Tell Suffering People

This matters pastorally.

If someone experiences tragedy, we should never casually tell them:

“You must not have had enough faith.”

Imagine placing that burden upon a grieving parent.

Or someone battling cancer.

Or someone who survived abuse.

Or someone whose home was destroyed.

Or someone mourning a spouse.

Psalm 91 was never intended to become a weapon we use against suffering people.

Jesus didn’t promise His followers a life without suffering.

In fact, He said:

“In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.”— John 16:33 KJV

Notice again the pattern.

Not:

You will never experience trouble.

But:

Trouble does not get the final word.

Then Can We Still Pray Psalm 91 Over Our Families?

Absolutely.

Pray it.

Pray for God’s protection over your children.

Your grandchildren.

Your home.

Your health.

Your travels.

Your work.

Ask God to guard you from dangers you can see and dangers you cannot.

Ask Him to expose snares.

Ask Him to protect your dwelling.

Ask Him to send His angels according to His will.

Ask Him for physical protection.

There is nothing wrong with any of that.

But pray Psalm 91 as trust, not as a contract demanding that God produce a pain-free life.

We aren’t saying:

“God, because I quoted Psalm 91, You are now obligated to make sure nothing painful happens.”

We’re saying:

“God, You are my refuge. My life is in Your hands.”