Reading:
Psalm 44
Do
you ever wonder if God is sleeping on the job? Or, do you ever
want to say, “God, I know you have done many wonderful things in
the past—I could certainly speak of great acts of God which
culminate in the cross and resurrection of our Lord Jesus—but
lately, if I dare say so, it seems like you might have fallen asleep.
I need you to wake up and act.” You
might not dare to pray such things even if you felt them, but the
psalmist did.
Psalm
44 may adjust your understanding of the kinds of prayer God invites
to come to Him, even teaches us to bring to Him, and of the
willingness of our God to hear such prayers. The first 8 verses
start off sounding like a promising and proper prayer.
We
have heard with our ears, O God; our fathers have told us what you
did in their days, in days long ago. 2With
your hand you drove out the nations and planted our fathers; you
crushed the peoples and made our fathers flourish. 3It
was not by their sword that they won the land, nor did their arm
bring them victory; it was your right hand, your arm, and the light
of your face, for you loved them.
4You
are my King and my God, who decrees victories for Jacob. 5Through
you we push back our enemies; through your name we trample our foes.
6I
do not trust in my bow, my sword does not bring me victory; 7but
you give us victory over our enemies, you put our adversaries to
shame. 8In
God we make our boast all day long, and we will praise your name
forever. (Psalm 44:1-8)
The
psalmist speaks of the truths of God's deliverance that have been
handed down—what God did in days of old. There is no denying the
history of redemption laid out in Scripture. The
psalmist trusts God and even boasts in God. Suddenly the prayer
changes direction. The current experience of the psalmist causes him
to wonder if God has fallen asleep.
9But
now you have rejected and humbled us; you no longer go out with our
armies. 10You
made us retreat before the enemy, and our adversaries have plundered
us. 11You
gave us up to be devoured like sheep and have scattered us among the
nations. 12You
sold your people for a pittance, gaining nothing from their sale.
13You
have made us a reproach to our neighbors, the scorn and derision of
those around us. 14You
have made us a byword among the nations; the peoples shake their
heads at us. 15My
disgrace is before me all day long, and my face is covered with shame
16at
the taunts of those who reproach and revile me, because of the enemy,
who is bent on revenge.
17All
this happened to us, though we had not forgotten you or been false to
your covenant. 18Our
hearts had not turned back; our feet had not strayed from your path.
19But
you crushed us and made us a haunt for jackals and covered us over
with deep darkness. 20If
we had forgotten the name of our God or spread out our hands to a
foreign god, 21would
not God have discovered it, since he knows the secrets of the heart?
22Yet
for your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep
to be slaughtered.
There
were many times in Israel's history when afflictions like these came,
bit God was “off the hook” because Israel had forgotten His name
and been false to the covenant. However,
this is not such a time. This list of
current experiences ends with a familiar verse (Psalm 44:22)—familiar
because it is quoted in the New Testament. The Christian Standard
Bible captures the emotion of the statement well, “Because
of You we are slain all day long; we are counted as sheep to be
slaughtered.” In
other words, “God,
because you have stopped doing for us what you did for our fathers,
we are being destroyed while You do nothing to even slow down the
enemy.”
The
psalmist, feeling forsaken by God, says what seems inappropriate—at
least to our sensibilities. He
says something that almost feels we've reached the edge of blasphemy.
Wake
up, LORD! Why are You sleeping? Get up! Don't reject us forever! (Psa
44:23 HCSB)
Elijah
mocked the priests of baal with a similar question about why their
altar was not burning (1 Kings 18:27). Now, the psalmist in his
despair is bringing a similar kind of question directly to God. He
is nearly mocking God in this prayer because of His inactivity.
We may wonder why the psalmist dares to pray this way. However, there
is a bigger question. Why
did God put a prayer like this in our inspired prayer book? Is God
inviting us to bring our worst feelings about Him to Him in prayer?
Is God willing to bear our near mocking and ridicule in prayer about
His seeming inaction?
He must be.
It
should be no surprise to us that God is willing to bear our near
mocking and ridicule in prayer when we feel forsaken and in despair,
because Jesus came and bore our mocking and ridicule at the cross
while we were still enemies. How much more, now that we are saved,
will the Father not bear our fears and doubts when we bring them to
the Author and Finisher of our faith. In fact, as we are discovering
in our series
in Job at Gulf Coast Community Church, Job is commended for
bringing his hardest questions, his greatest doubts, and his
accusations to God with a earnest desire for God to hear and answer.
Far
too often, we feel we must finish our faith and then bring finished
faith to the Father. Only the One who gave us faith can complete it.
What
is God's answer to our crying, “Because
of You we are slain all day long; we are counted as sheep to be
slaughtered”?
His answer is,
37No,
in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved
us. 38For
I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor
demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39neither
height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to
separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
(Romans 8:37-39)
God
assures us in the cross of our Lord Jesus, that His stance toward us
is love, even in the midst of the kinds of afflictions described in
Psalm 44:9-19.
In fact, even in these horrible circumstances, God is working it
together for our good. He is not condemning us, He justifies us
(Romans 8:28-36). So
God not only hears our prayers, bears our near mocking Him for
inaction, He answers us with assurance of His love, and in so doing
He matures our faith.
Love
the Gospel, Live the Gospel, Advance the Gospel,
Jerry
