Online Bible Audio/Readings Links (ESV)
4/13 Reading Portions: Leviticus 17; Psalm 20-21; Proverbs 31; 1 Timothy 2
Psalm 20:7-8
Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God. They collapse and fall, but we rise and stand upright.
COLLAPSE
Fallen man tends to trust in anything but the LORD our God. Apart from the grace of God in Jesus Christ, we will trust in our own devices (chariots), or trust in something more powerful than ourselves, whether natural or supernatural creations of God (horses). Even saved by God’s grace through faith in Christ, the corruptions of our flesh will attempt to pull us away to those things. This is when idolatry rears its ugly head. We count the things of our own manufacture, the creations of our own hands, the opinions of our own intellects, or the crafting of our own strategies, as important. We give them a value in our estimation that is equal to or greater than the Lord Jesus Christ, and the power of His might. On the more insidious side of this idolatry, we will give a higher place to God’s created things than is holy and acceptable before our sovereign. Animals, angels (fallen or not), celestial bodies such as the sun, moon, or stars, or even terrestrial things, such as earth, plants, wood, or stone, will become objects of worship, or in our case as believers, elements of greater esteem than appropriate. For unbelievers, their end is collapse and ruin. Their knees will buckle before the righteous Judge, and as David declared in the first psalm, those wicked will not stand in the judgment. Yet we who trust in the name of the LORD our God, will rise and stand upright because we stand upon the Rock, the Lord Jesus Christ— for we are only there, not from our own work or merit but, because of God’s grace and mercy toward us. Because of what will be in that Day, the downcast and brokenhearted can rise daily in God’s Messiah; and the humble can stand upright, empowered by the goodness, strength and might of our Lord Jesus Christ. Hallelujah! What a Savior!
Unstable are idolatrous men,
With worship grown from their own lusts;
Yet those who stand and rise depend
On Christ, the Rock, our Hope and Trust.