"Give us help from trouble: for vain is the help of man."
Psalm 60:11
This verse is repeated in Psalm 108. Memorize it once, and you know two verses. As a child, I loved these repeats.
“Give us help from trouble: for vain is the help of man,” (Psalm 108:12).
Our verse for today comes in a psalm written by David. The spiritual condition of Israel before Saul became the king was at a very low ebb. When David became the king the nation still was not where it should have been in its relationship to Jehovah. David desires his people to turn back to God. What a great and generous God is Jehovah. In this context, we find our verse.
“Give us help from trouble:”
What a privilege we have to go to the living God and ask Him to help us with our need. Whatever the trouble we are facing, the expected or even the unexpected. His children can go to Him with their needs. Jesus taught the same truth.
“Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?” (Matthew 7:7-11)
“For vain is the help of man.”
David learned through his life experiences that the answer to man’s need is not found in man’s philosophy, or his economics, or in his “wisdom.” The answer isn’t the military, with all of its destructive power. Nor is the answer found in civil government, it thinks it knows and can meet man’s need. Mankind will try to meet its own needs apart from the Lord, and it will always fail. The only one who understands man’s need is his Maker. He knows us best, and He cares. He is the one we need to trust for our help from trouble. Regardless of the problem, He knows the answer and how to help us. In fact, “your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him,” (Matthew 6:8b).
Learn to go to your heavenly Father first when you have a need.