Psalm 44 - Christ Is With You In Difficulties

We are in Book 2 of Psalms, and we are in Psalm 44 today.

And the inscription for this Psalm reads, for the choir director, a maskill of the songs of Korah. That is a particular type of song for this particular singing group to do.

And this was a group that often led some of the different music things, or would sing in the temple. And this is what the psalm says. God, we have heard with our ears.

Our ancestors have told us the work you accomplished in their days, in days long ago. In order to plant them, you displaced the nations by your hand, in order to settle them.

You brought disaster on the peoples, for they did not take the land by their sword. Their arm did not bring them victory, but by your right hand, your arm in the light of your face, because you were favorable toward them.

So here, the psalmist starts off and he's talking about how the ancestors remembered what God had done in bringing them into the land of Israel.

And here, they highlight that it wasn't through like Israel's battle acumen, it wasn't through their greatness that they were able to come in, but it was that God had moved the nations that were in that land, and he had moved them away, that they did

not achieve victory through their might, but because of what God had done, that brought the people into the land of Israel. And as I don't remember if I've mentioned it much here on the podcast, except maybe a little bit in the Book of Leviticus, the

entrance of the people of Israel into the land of Canaan was, number one, justified because God had promised that land to Abraham, and Abraham and the Canaanites had once perfectly co-existed in peace, and there was not a problem there. There were

even Canaanites that had been calling on the name of the Lord, like you can read about the King Abimelech in Genesis chapter. I forget which particular chapter it is that Abraham has the encounter with him.

So, there was this goodness that was taking place, but then, over the course of the following centuries, up until when Moses was leading the children of Israel out of Egypt, the actions of the tribes and groups that had been living in the land of

Canaan had gotten to such an abysmal state that God needed to bring justice, just as He had in Genesis 6 and 7, with the flood. Now, He was bringing a judgment of a nation upon all of these littler nations and tribes and people groups that were

engaging in child sacrifice, bestiality, sexual wickedness of all sorts, a hundred different types of idolatry and evil in every possible conceivable way. And so God said, Okay, we're going to clear out these peoples.

There was going to be justice, but every single one of them that turned to the Lord were saved. You have Rahab the harlot and all of her family in the very first city in Jericho.

You have the Gibeonites that had been so convinced of the power of the God of Israel and of God's people that they tricked Israel into making a treaty with them so that they would not harm them. And so they follow through.

You can even look at some of the surviving groups and the Hethites and Uriah the Hethite, who would have been from one of the people groups that had been in the land of Canaan before Israel got there and how he worshiped the Lord and all sorts of

wonderful things. So I did want to mention that just because some people, as they've looked at the Bible's account, they go, OK, well, why does this happen? Was it just sort of arbitrary? No, no, no.

It was God's justice, the same justice that he brought on Israel when Israel did those exact same things. And anyone that turned to the Lord would be saved.

So all of that there, I want to, as much as I can, try and equip you guys for when you hear from perhaps unbelieving people, or maybe you've got kids or grandkids that have questions about the Bible, and go, hey, why is this in there?

Why does it say this? Why would God command this? So that you know what some of the answers are.

OK, verse number four. The psalmist continues. So he's thanked God for and praised the Lord for what he's done in the past and bringing them into Israel.

He says, you are my king, my God, who ordains victories for Jacob. You're the one that sets up if we win. He says, through you, we drive back our foes.

Through your name, we trample our enemies, for I do not trust in my bow, and my sword does not bring me victory. But you give us victory over our foes, and let those who hate us be disgraced. We boast in God all day long.

We will praise your name forever, Salah.

So he says, God, if we're going to win, as people invade, as there's nomadic tribes, as people come to steal, as there's, as you look at Israel's history, Babylon and Assyria and Syria and Edom and all of these groups of people that would come in and

try and attack and steal Egypt would be another one of those. That they're saying, hey, God, we, our victory is not found in how great our army is or how great our king is. It is found in you. And so we're going to boast about you.

We're going to have confidence in you. For you, for your job today, do you boast in your abilities, your intelligence, your people skills, or do you boast in God? Are you thankful to the Lord for what you are able to do with where he has placed you?

When you think about perhaps your country, do you boast in a political party or in perhaps a favorite president or a, you know? I was going to say denomination. That's not the correct word.

It's the party in your party's favorite candidate. Are you boasting in those things? Is that what you tell people about?

Is that what you spend a bunch of time posting or talking about? Or do you spend time boasting in God? Here, a person could boast in their sword's ability.

A person could boast in, you know, Saul's fighting ability or David's fighting ability. But he says, our victory doesn't come through people. It doesn't come through weapons.

It comes through the Lord. So let's boast in. Let's talk about.

Let's make much of God. Verse number nine. Now he takes such a sharp turn.

So here he's been saying like, hey, here's what God did in the past. Here's where I know my victory comes from. But verse number nine, but you have rejected and humiliated us.

You do not march out with our armies. You make us retreat from the foe. And those who hate us have taken plunder for themselves.

You hand us over to be eaten like sheep and scatter us among the nations. You sell your people for nothing. You make no profit from selling them.

You make us an object of reproach to our neighbors, a source of mockery and ridicule to those around us. You make, pardon me, you make us a joke among the nations, a laughing stock among the peoples.

My disgrace is before me all day long, and shame has covered my face because of the taunts of the scorner and reviler because of the enemy and avenger. All this has happened to us.

So here all of these terrible things that he says, but we've not been experiencing victory. Like we we've been losing. And he lets God know, like, hey, here's how it's affecting us.

When there are difficulties in your life, bring him to God, say, hey, God, here's what's happening. Like, I am really, really struggling with this family member right now. And it's it's kind of crushing me.

Verse number 17, with all of these things, the psalmist says, all this has happened to us, but we have not forgotten you or betrayed your covenant. Our hearts have not turned back. Our steps have not strayed from your path.

But you have crushed us in a haunt of jackals and have covered us with deepest darkness. Basically like we're in a cave of darkness and we don't know why we're in this circumstance.

He says, if we had forgotten the name of our God and spread out our hands to a foreign God, wouldn't God have found this out since he knows the secrets of the heart? Because of you, we are being put to death all day long.

We are counted as sheep to be slaughtered. He says, wake up, Yahweh. Why are you sleeping?

Get up. Don't reject us forever. Why do you hide and forget our affliction and oppression?

For we have sunk down to the dust. Our bodies cling to the ground. Rise up.

Help us. Redeem us because of your faithful love.

So a lot of the Psalms that we go through, they have some phrases and words like this, and then at the very end, we get like we had yesterday of, you know, put your hope in God, for I will still praise him, for he is my Savior and my God.

And this Psalm doesn't end there. This is Psalm ends at the, hey, there are problems and there are difficulties, and we don't know what we did wrong, and we need you to help us, and we need you to redeem us because of your faithful love.

And so, as we encounter that, number one, God knows where you're at. When you feel abandoned and forsaken, and like, God, I haven't turned my back on you, but it feels like you turned your back on me.

And what would be perhaps the answer to that type of circumstance? Well, number one, realize that you can feel those things, and it is normal, it is natural, and you can bring those prayer requests to God.

But then I think Romans chapter 8 brings us into our answer for this, because it is the portion of the New Testament that quotes from Psalm 44, where the Apostle Paul writes this, who can separate us from the love of Christ?

So here, the psalmist asks, Hey God, like, redeem us according to your faithful love, your chesed. So now Paul asks, who can separate us from the chesed of Christ? Can affliction or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?

As it is written, because of you, we are being put to death all day long. We are counted as sheep to be slaughtered. So Paul says, hey, we are in this spot.

Paul knew about this. He'd been beaten. He had been stoned.

He had been rejected. He had been arrested. He had been ridiculed.

He'd been put in stocks. He had been jailed. All these things that happened to him.

So Paul knows exactly the type of feeling that the psalmist has where he goes like, hey God, like, did this separate me from you? Are you away from me? Do you not love me anymore?

Verse 37, Paul says no in all these things.

In affliction, in distress, in persecution, in fame, in famine, in nakedness, in need, in danger, and in sword, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us, the one who has that covenant, steadfast, faithful love for us.

He says, for I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in

Christ Jesus our Lord. So Paul here doesn't say, like, hey, you... God will rescue you and you will not have any of these difficulties. He says, within the difficulties, God's love is with you.

Because as we look at Jesus, that he endured the cross, he went through his beatings, he went through his family rejecting him, he went through the spiritual leaders rejecting him. And yet God's love was still in him.

He was still working, but he was doing something greater than earthly circumstances.

So as we encounter difficult earthly circumstances where we go like God, it feels like I am abandoned and I need you, I need you to come redeem me, I need you to rise up, I need you to wake up. Like stop the sleeping and come save me.

It's the disciples in the end of Mark chapter 4 when they're undergoing the storm on the Sea of Galilee and they wake up Jesus and they're like, hey, do you not care that we're about to die? And Jesus stands up and he goes, peace, be still.

In the middle of the storm, the Savior is able to sleep. In the middle of the difficult circumstances, we are more than conquerors because the circumstances don't change our status. They don't make us not children of God.

They don't make us not have a home in heaven. They don't make us unable to witness for the Lord. They don't make us unable to experience God's grace and his peace and his joy.

So it really doesn't, it doesn't change who we are. It doesn't change our future. It cannot affect us in that way.

So in all of these things, we are more than conquerors because we have been redeemed by the love of God bought through the blood of Jesus Christ. So today, for you, will you choose to open your heart before God, to be honest and raw before him?

Will you remember what he has done for you as the Psalmist remembered what God had done in bringing the children of Israel into the land? Will you be grateful for what God has done?

And will you realize that even when all of these things are piled against you, that you are more than a conqueror through Jesus and that nothing can separate you from him? So don't believe the lie from Satan that he is far, that God is far from you.

Instead, realize he lives in you, in the person of the Holy Spirit. And so as you go through difficulties, realize, yes, the sorrow, the sadness, that is normal. But don't let it make you turn to despair, because God is with you.

Thanks for tuning in today. Hope that would be an encouragement to you from Psalm 44. I know it made me think of some different things from my life, of how do I view difficulties?

Do I view them as something that says, hey, God's not at work? Or am I viewing it as God is with me in those circumstances?

Thanks for tuning in, and see you tomorrow for Psalm 45, which actually I'm really looking forward to, because there's a great song from Shane and Shane written on that Psalm. So see you then.