Psalm 20

Psalms 20:6-8 (ESV)

[6] Now I know that the LORD saves his anointed;

he will answer him from his holy heaven

with the saving might of his right hand.

[7] Some trust in chariots and some in horses,

but we trust in the name of the LORD our God.

[8] They collapse and fall,

but we rise and stand upright.

 

There is a tendency to believe that because our cause, whatever that might be, is right and just, then we have the right, even responsibility to pursue that just cause by any means necessary. The point of these verses from Psalm 20 is that even though God’s cause is right and just, we do not have the right to pursue it by any means necessary. We do not have the freedom to pursue the cause of justice through unjust means. We do not have the freedom to pursue the cause of peace through violence. We do not have the freedom to pursue the cause of grace and holiness through ungracious and unholy means. The virtue of our cause does not give us license to pursue it in an unvirtuous means, nor to redefine virtue. Our trust is not in creative ways of justifying unholiness for the sake of holiness. Our trust is “in the name of the LORD our God.” As believers in Jesus Christ, I fear that we sometimes forget that simple truth.