But I call to God, and the Lord saves me.
Evening, morning and noon I cry out in distress,
and he hears my voice. He ransoms me unharmed from
the battle waged against me, even though many oppose me.
—Psalm 55:16–18
Compare the deep faith of David to the self-serving claims of some of our modern leaders who stake everything on the belief that man can save man. These contemporary leaders give lip service to God, but their genuine faith seems to be built on the premise that mankind has progressed to a point in history where we are better off acting as if the God of David did not exist at all. For many of our leaders, God represents a stumbling block to their own use of intellect, technology, and political power to erect monuments to their own self-defined heroic stature.
But is the enlightened leader really modern, or does he represent nothing more than mankind’s ancient and ongoing rebellion against God? “Son of man, say to the ruler of Tyre, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: “In the pride of your heart, you say, I am a god; I sit on the throne of a god in the heart of the seas.” But you are not a god, though you think you are as wise as a god’” (Ezekiel 28:2).
Have the leaders of our time fallen for the same old promise offered to our ancestors that we “will be like God, knowing good and evil”? If so, then like so many before them, their monuments to their own pride will, in the end, crumble into so many particles of dust. “Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities!” (Ecclesiastes 1:2)