The Prepared Horse and the Sovereign Lord Text: Proverbs 21:31
Introduction: The False Dilemma
We live in an age of false dilemmas, a time when men love to create dichotomies where God has made none. One of the most persistent and debilitating of these is the supposed conflict between divine sovereignty and human responsibility. On one side, you have the fatalists, the hyper-Calvinists, and the assorted pietists who, under the guise of trusting God, do absolutely nothing. They see the overwhelming sovereignty of God and conclude that their efforts are meaningless. They leave the horse in the barn, as it were, because God is God. On the other side, you have the frantic activists, the pragmatists, and the secularists who believe that everything depends on them. They polish the armor, train the horse, and strategize day and night, all while forgetting that God is God. They believe victory is forged entirely in the smithy of human effort.
Both positions are a profound insult to the living God. Both are a form of rebellion. One is the rebellion of sloth, and the other is the rebellion of pride. The Christian faith, grounded in the Scriptures, cuts straight through this Gordian knot. It refuses the false choice. It tells us to be diligent, to be prepared, to be responsible, and to work with all our might, while at the same time trusting with all our might in the God who alone gives the victory. Our text for today, a short and potent proverb from Solomon, is the perfect antidote to this modern confusion. It is a dose of sanctified common sense, and it lays out the biblical pattern for all faithful, godly endeavors.
This proverb is not just about ancient warfare with horses and chariots. It is about every battle we face. It is about how you conduct your business, how you raise your children, how you engage in cultural and political conflicts, and how you fight against your own sin. It teaches us the essential, two-part rhythm of the Christian life: work, and trust. Prepare, and pray. Act, and adore. If you get this balance wrong, you will find yourself either lazy and useless or anxious and arrogant. But if you get it right, you will find the straight and narrow path of faithful, fruitful, and fearless Christian living.
The Text
The horse is set for the day of battle,
But salvation belongs to Yahweh.
(Proverbs 21:31 LSB)
Our Diligent Duty (v. 31a)
The proverb begins with a statement of practical, earthly wisdom. It is a recognition of our responsibility in the world God has made.
"The horse is set for the day of battle..." (Proverbs 21:31a)
Notice the active preparation. The horse doesn't just wander onto the battlefield. It is prepared. It is made ready. This implies a whole host of activities. It means the horse was bred, fed, trained, and equipped. It means the soldier learned to ride it. It means the blacksmith forged the horseshoes and the tanner made the saddle. It means scouts have surveyed the terrain and generals have drawn up battle plans. In short, it means that God's people are not called to be passive fools. We are not to be mystics who stare at the clouds waiting for a divine intervention while the enemy overruns the camp.
This first clause is a flat refutation of all lazy, hyper-spiritualized quietism. God ordained the means as well as the ends. If you want a harvest, you must plow the field and plant the seed. If you want your children to follow the Lord, you must teach them the catechism and discipline them in the Lord. And if you want to win a battle, you must prepare the horse. This is our duty. To neglect it is not faith; it is presumption. It is tempting God. When the Devil told Jesus to jump from the pinnacle of the temple, he was tempting Him to abandon the ordinary means of preservation, walking down the stairs, in favor of a reckless and unwarranted miracle. Jesus refused.
This principle applies to every area of life. In the great cultural battles of our day, we are to prepare the horse. This means we must study, we must build institutions, we must create beautiful art and music, we must engage in reasoned debate, we must run for school board, and we must raise up godly families. We are to be as wise as serpents. We are to do our homework. A Christian who says, "I'm just trusting the Lord," but who has not bothered to prepare, to study, to work, and to train, is not trusting. He is just being lazy and is using God as an excuse for it.
God's Sovereign Victory (v. 31b)
But the proverb does not end with our preparation. If it did, it would be a manual for secular pragmatists and godless bootstrap-pullers. The second clause provides the essential, God-centered foundation for all our activity.
"...But salvation belongs to Yahweh." (Proverbs 21:31b LSB)
After all the preparation, after all the training, after the horse is chomping at the bit and the soldier is in the saddle, the outcome is entirely in the hands of God. The word for "salvation" here is yeshua. It means deliverance, victory, safety. It is not our preparation that secures the victory. Our preparation is an act of obedience, but the victory itself is a gift of grace. The outcome is not determined by the strength of our horse, the sharpness of our sword, or the cleverness of our strategy. The victory belongs to the Lord.
This demolishes all human pride and boasting. It is a direct assault on the idolatry of human strength and technology. The Psalmist says it plainly: "Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Yahweh our God" (Psalm 20:7). And again, "A horse is a vain hope for deliverance; despite all its great strength it cannot save" (Psalm 33:17). The prepared horse is necessary, but it is not sufficient. It is our duty, but it is not our savior.
This is where true faith lives and breathes. We work as though everything depended on us, and we trust as though everything depended on God. Because both are true. God has sovereignly decreed to work through our responsible actions. He does not save the lazy farmer from starvation, nor does He grant victory to the cowardly soldier who refuses to prepare his horse. But neither does He grant the harvest to the farmer who trusts in his tractor, nor the victory to the general who trusts in his tanks. He calls us to faithful work, and then He calls us to look away from our work and to Him for the result.
This truth should liberate us from two crippling sins: anxiety and arrogance. We are freed from anxiety because the ultimate burden of the outcome is not on our shoulders. We do our part, we prepare the horse, and then we can sleep at night, knowing that the battle is the Lord's. We are also freed from arrogance in victory. When success comes, we cannot pound our chests and praise our magnificent horses. We must fall on our faces and give all glory to God, because salvation belongs to Yahweh.
Putting It All Together
So what does this look like? It means we are a people of cheerful, robust, and confident action. We are not hand-wringing pessimists who believe the culture is circling the drain and all we can do is huddle in the corner and wait for the rapture. That is a theology for losers. That is a theology for people who have left their horse in the barn to rot. Because we believe that salvation belongs to the Lord, we also believe that the Lord is actually going to save. He is going to grant victory. Jesus Christ did not die and rise again to hand the world over to Satan. He rose again to claim it as His own.
This gives us a glorious, postmillennial confidence. We prepare our horses for the day of battle because we believe that this is the day of battle, and that our King is leading us to victory. The gospel is the power of God unto salvation, and it is going to triumph. The Great Commission is not the Great Suggestion. We are commanded to disciple the nations, and because salvation belongs to the Lord, we can be confident that the nations will, in fact, be discipled. History is headed toward the global triumph of the gospel, not a global defeat for the church.
Therefore, we engage in our work with gusto. We prepare our horses with excellence. The Christian student should be the best student. The Christian carpenter should be the best carpenter. The Christian statesman should be the best statesman. We do this not because our excellence saves, but because our excellence is the fitting, obedient response to the God who saves. We are diligent in our preparation, and then we are utterly dependent in our supplication.
Before the battle, we pray for God's favor on our preparations. During the battle, we fight with all our might, trusting in His strength. And after the battle, whether in victory or seeming defeat, we give Him all the glory. This is the rhythm of a faithful life. Prepare your horse. And know, with every fiber of your being, that the victory belongs to God alone.