Bible Commentaries
Psalms 20

Verse 1

Ps 20:1

"May the Lord answer you when you are in distress; may the name of the God of Jacob protect you. May he send you help from the sanctuary and grant you support from Zion." — Ps 20:1-2

When the soul has to pass through the trying hour of temptation, it needs help from the sanctuary. And nothing but help from the sanctuary can ever stand it in any stead. All other help leaves the soul just where it found it. Now why does the Lord send help from the sanctuary, but because the soul to whom help is sent, has a saving interest in the Father’s love, the Savior’s blood, and the Spirit’s teachings—a saving interest in the eternal covenant transactions of the Three-One Jehovah. Help is sent him from the sanctuary, because his name has been from all eternity registered in the Lamb’s book of life, engraved upon the palms of his hands, borne on his shoulder, and worn on his heart.

He was in the sanctuary when his covenant Head stood up on his behalf, and in the Lord’s book all his members were written when as yet there was none of them. He was then virtually in the sanctuary before all time, and he will be personally in the sanctuary after all time. But he must be "made fit to be a partaker of the inheritance of the saints in light." As he is predestinated to inhabit that sanctuary, he must have a nature suited for its holy delights. Now it is receiving help from the sanctuary that fits him to inhabit it. Communications of life and grace out of it make him a new creature, and produce spirituality and heavenly-mindedness. The breath of heaven in his soul draws his affections upward, weans him from earth, and makes him a pilgrim and a sojourner here below, "looking for a city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God" (Heb 11:10).