Psalm 44:1-14 NKJV
44 We have heard with our ears, O God,
Our fathers have told us,
The deeds You did in their days,
In days of old:
2 You drove out the nations with Your hand,
But them You planted;
You afflicted the peoples, and cast them out.
3 For they did not gain possession of the land by their own sword,
Nor did their own arm save them;
But it was Your right hand, Your arm, and the light of Your countenance,
Because You favored them.
4 You are my King, O God;
Command victories for Jacob.
5 Through You we will push down our enemies;
Through Your name we will trample those who rise up against us.
6 For I will not trust in my bow,
Nor shall my sword save me.
7 But You have saved us from our enemies,
And have put to shame those who hated us.
8 In God we boast all day long,
And praise Your name forever. Selah
9 But You have cast us off and put us to shame,
And You do not go out with our armies.
10 You make us turn back from the enemy,
And those who hate us have taken spoil for themselves.
11 You have given us up like sheep intended for food,
And have scattered us among the nations.
12 You sell Your people for next to nothing,
And are not enriched by selling them.
13 You make us a reproach to our neighbors,
A scorn and a derision to those all around us.
14 You make us a byword among the nations,
A shaking of the head among the peoples.
The Lord did mighty wonders for the church of old. Joshua led the Israelites into Canaan, but it was the Lord who drove out the inhabitants of the land and planted Israel there. God acted mightily and miraculously on the church’s behalf against her enemies. Because God had acted thus in the past, the psalmist trusts that God would act thus in his day. The psalmist says confidently, “Through You we will push down our enemies; Through Your name we will trample those who rise up against us” (5).
But that isn’t what happened. It seems to the psalmist that the Lord had cast them off so that He no longer goes out with their armies. It appears as if the Lord has given them up like sheep intended for food and that He has scattered them among the nations. God’s people—once bold and victorious—are now weak and suffering because God did not go with them into battle. Since the psalmist does not say this was punishment for any sin of Israel, we may assume the Lord allowed this to happen as an exercise of the Old Testament church’s faith.
The same holds true for the church in the New Testament era. Like the psalmist, we trust that God will give us victory and prosperity. While we prefer the church to be strong and victorious in the eyes of the world, that is not always God’s will. Our sinful flesh expects God to bless the church with full pews and offering plates. The Old Adam within us opines that the church should be renowned and influential in the world.
But God’s thoughts are not our thoughts, nor are His ways our ways. God often blesses His church with hardship and weakness. He does this to remind His people not to think they are sufficient in themselves but that their sufficiency and strength come from God. We are not to “despise the day of small things” (Zech 4:10). We can “take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake” (2 Cor 12:10). For when He makes us weak, He shows us His mighty strength, and we see it by faith.
Let us pray: Teach us to evaluate all our circumstances according to Your Word, O Lord, that in our weakness we may rejoice in Your sufficiency and strength. Amen.