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Bible preaching from the pulpit of Choice Hills Baptist Church in Greenville, South Carolina
All right, tonight we'll be in Psalm 44.
Psalm 44.
This evening we'll pray on the front end.
We'll not read the psalm first.
We'll read it as we go.
Psalm 44.
The subtitle says,
To the chief musician for the sons of Korah, Maskel.
Let's pray together.
Our fathers, we come before you, before your word.
Lord, we're here ready to listen, ready to hear.
And as we look at this psalm, Psalm 44, part of the heart of the Bible,
we see the heart of your people here.
Lord, would you be our teacher?
Would you help us to see the things you want us
to see and understand,
Lord, the things you want us to understand
from this psalm?
Guide me, Lord, as I try
to just serve your people and minister
the word to them, Lord.
I pray that you would do the work of being the
teacher, though, and
just strengthen our faith, not only our faith, but our resolve to follow you under all circumstance.
So, Lord, be our guide tonight, we pray. We commit the time to you. In Jesus' name, amen.
This psalm can be divided. If you like, I'll go ahead and give you
an outline. I'm not a big outline person. That just doesn't come natural to me, but this one kind of
falls rather neatly, and I know it's right because I read Spurgeon's Treasury of David,
and he had the same outline. I read it after I outlined it, so's my story and I'm sticking to it.
But here's the outline.
If you want to write it down, verses 1 through 3 can be called our history.
Verses 4 through 8, our expectation.
Verses 9 through 16, our defeat.
Verses 17 through 22, our adherence.
And verses 23 to 26 is our cry.
I'll go through one more time because I know some of you are feverishly writing down.
Verses 1 through 3, our history.
Verses 4 through 8, our expectation.
Verses 9 through 16, our defeat.
17 through 22, our adherence.
23 through 26, our cry.
Our cry.
To be honest with you, when I was reading through this psalm,
it kind of took an unexpected turn.
The first eight verses of the psalm are more along the lines of a kind of an uplifting psalm
like you would find often in the psalms. And then you
get to verse 9 and it just, the bottom falls out of the psalm and it turns into one of the psalms
that is so similar to the other psalms we've covered. And we're only on 44 people and we've
covered so many psalms that are similar to this, especially verses 9 through 16. But we just take it as the Lord gives it to us.
Verse 1. how thou didst afflict the people and cast them out. For they got not the land in possession by their own sword,
neither did their own arm save them,
but thy right hand and thine arm
and the light of thy countenance,
because thou hast a favor unto them.
So you see here, of course, this is a reference.
The psalmist here is writing about the history of Israel.
Most specifically, verse two is talking here is writing about the history of Israel. Most specifically,
verse 2 is talking about when Joshua and the children of Israel went into the promised land and how God fought for them. And if you want that kind of yo-yo of spiritual up and down,
read the book of Joshua followed by the book of Judges and you'll have the yo-yo of up and down. Joshua is a very exciting book,
and it's a victorious book. The theme of the book of Joshua is the victorious life,
and it's applied as the victorious Christian life. And then you get to the book of Judges,
and again, the bottom just falls out of the spiritual state of Israel. And in this verse,
that's what we're talking about. We're talking about the book of Joshua, how they drove out the heathen.
But notice in verse number three, it says this, For they got not the land in possession by their own sword,
neither did their own arm save them,
but thy right hand and thine arm in the light of thy countenance.
So let me ask you a question.
When we think about Joshua and the children of Israel going into the land of Canaan,
we do see that did they go into the land of Canaan armed?
Absolutely.
They went into the land of Canaan with weapons drawn.
And when they went to those various cities, whether it be Ai or Jericho or the other cities that are lesser known in the book of Joshua,
and they fought those battles, did they go into those battles with swords drawn and with their spears at the ready?
Of course they did.
In other words, they were in the battle.
They were in the battle.
And that's what we see here.
But even though they were in the battle,
it is a mistake to assume that because they went to the battle armed and ready to fight,
that that was the cause for their victory.
Because it wasn't.
And what you have in this, but not only that, look at verse number six.
We'll get to this in a minute, but you see the same truth. For I will not trust in my bow, neither shall my sword save me. Now here's the danger.
The danger is this. I'm going to trust in God, so I'm going to
throw down my weapons. That's
an extreme that is not correct.
For instance, you might say with your job, you might say,
well, I'm going to trust in God to supply my needs, so I'm not going to work.
Right?
Of course, that's not right.
But then you could go to the other extreme.
You could say, well, I'm going to take my weapons,
and by my own power, I'm going to win the victory.
Or, you know, I'm providing for myself.
I'm going to provide for my family.
I'm going to work hard and through my diligence,
so and so and so on and so forth.
And that's just, that's the other side.
That's the other extreme.
So on one, you have the danger of,
when you talk about faith and trusting God for your life
and in the regular things of life that you do, we can say that we trust in God and do nothing.
And that's not right.
And the other danger is that we do everything and we trust in ourselves for the outcome.
And that's also not right. these people, these people of God went into the battle. They had their armor. There was, there was
implicit in them this, this trust that even though I'm holding the sword, this is not up to my sword.
Even though I'm working, this is not up to my job. Even though I'm trying to serve God, even though
I'm witnessing, it's not up to me. That even as I carry the, the, the, the weapons, even as I carry the weapons, even as I do the thing that God wants me to do,
in my heart is the knowledge, the conscious realization that this is not really up to me.
Yes, I must do my duty.
I must be present.
Sorry, you can't see me.
I must be present.
I must be ready.
I must go out to the fight.
I can't lay my armor down. I can't lay my armor down.
I can't lay my sword down to go out into the fight
and think God's going to win the battle.
But at the same time, it's not up to me.
I refuse to trust in myself as I do that.
You know, because the moment we do that,
the Lord will, he'll just back off.
And that happened in the book of Joshua with the battle just back off. And that happened in the book of Joshua
with the battle of Ai. You know what happened in the book of, we won't look at it for time's sake,
but they won on the heels of the battle at Jericho when they did, now remember, they did exactly what
God told them to do. They had their weapons and they encircled the city one time for seven days,
right? And the seventh day they did it seven times. Remember that?
But that was not the cause for the fall of Jericho.
But they were there.
God did that.
And they thought, they kind of got high on the hog,
and they thought, well, Ai, that's just a little city.
We'll go up there and we'll take care of business.
And they were defeated, even though they had their weapons.
Why?
Because they were not trusting in God. He was not their trust and their
confidence. God's paying attention to that. He's paying attention. And it doesn't matter what you're
doing. What are you raising your children? You can raise your children. And I think a lot of Christians
make this mistake, to be honest with you. A lot of Christians have these lists of things that they're
supposed to do with their family. And they know that A, B, C, D, E, F, G.
And if you do all of these things and all of them are right and good,
but you better not trust just in that.
Yeah, you need to do that.
You need to be there for your kids.
You need to be teaching them and you need to be doing all the things the Lord says. But in the back of your mind, in the bottom of your heart, you're thinking,
Oh, Lord, Lord, you've got to do this.
This is your battle.
Right?
That's what you have here.
Spurgeon says this.
Well, before I read that, the point I'm making here is all of us have to learn the truth
of the way that our action and our fulfilling our duties
and God's action work together.
Both are required.
It's not that we help God.
No.
It's that God expects us to be doing our duty.
But when we do that and we show up,
God knows we're puny and weak
and He's going to do the job
so that at the end of the thing we look back
and we can say,
God, you did it. Lord, you fought the battle, which is what we see here in verse number three.
That's what they're acknowledging. God, you did it.
We have nothing to boast of. Interesting Spurgeon said of this particular verse
he says this
the passage may be viewed
as a beautiful parable
of the work of salvation
men are not saved
without prayer
repentance etc
but none of these things
save a man
salvation is altogether
of the Lord
now think about that
think about that for a minute
is it required
that a man
repent
and put his faith in Jesus to be saved?
Absolutely.
But salvation is still of the Lord, right?
And if God doesn't respond, if God doesn't act, he remains lost.
That's why the Bible says, for by grace are ye saved through faith, right?
It's still the grace of God acting
when a person humbly comes to God in repentance and faith.
God acts.
If God just said, oh, it's up to you.
You just have faith and you just believe
and you just repent everything.
You can do it yourself.
No, he doesn't say that.
God still responds.
No, our faith, our repentance doesn't help God at all.
He did it all. He did it all.
But he does require that sinner to come to him in faith and repentance.
He absolutely does require that.
You can't say, well, God will save me if he wants to save me.
That's not the way it works.
Not here, not there.
I continue with Spurgeon. He says this.
Canaan was not conquered without the armies of Israel.
That's pretty good.
But equally true is it that it was not conquered by them.
Let me read that again.
Canaan was not conquered without the armies of Israel.
But equally true is it that it was not conquered by them.
The Lord was the conqueror and the God will use our doing our duty.
We try to instruct our children and God will use that to help our children.
And God will use that to help our children.
We try to, you know, we need provision in our life.
God will use our job to do that.
So he chooses to use the duty that we perform in his sight to bring to pass the things that he does for us.
He often doesn't.
He doesn't have to do that, but he often does.
That's his, I would say that's his normal way
that he relates to us and he takes care of us.
So we must actually do what the Lord tells us to do.
Now let's go on to the next few verses.
Verse four begins, says,
Thou art my God, thou art my king, O God.
Command deliverances for Jacob so so what you
have here is the first three verses are talking about the history of Israel and and the psalmist
is deriving faith and confidence from what he has heard and read that God has done for the people
of Israel in the past and that's right and that's good that's why we read the scripture because we see what God has done for the people. We hear the testimonies like what
brother David said. That's why we should have testimonies. We hear what God does for other people
and it encourages us to exercise faith in God as well. And then verse five, it says,
so he's applying it now to himself through thee, we will push down our enemy. So we're not talking
about those in the past anymore.
We're talking about us now in our battle.
The psalmist in Israel.
The battles they now have.
He says, but they haven't fought the battle yet.
But he's speaking in faith here.
Through thy name will tread them under that rise up against us.
For I will not trust in my bow, neither shall my sword save me.
But thou hast saved us from our enemies and hast put them to shame that hated us. In God we boast all the day long and praise thy name forever.
We see this.
So what is he doing?
He's taking the truths about the Lord and the things God has done in the past that are true and right and good.
And he's saying, Lord, just like they trusted in you and not in their sword, so we're trusting in you and not in our sword.
Just as you brought them victory, we're trusting you to bring us victory.
Just like you heard their cry, we're trusting you to hear our cry.
Now, let me ask you a question.
When you get to verse eight,
would you say the psalmist is in a good place?
How many of you would say, yes,
he's right where he needs to be, right?
I would say that.
He knows the, you know, just kind of apply.
He knows the scripture.
He's applying the scripture to himself,
encouraging his own faith.
And now he's going to act.
Now think about it.
They're talking about going into battle.
This is serious business.
Right?
He's going to go into battle with his trust
in God.
But it does not
turn out as he expected.
That's the twist in this
psalm.
I'm going to read verses 9 through 16 all at once
so that we can get the full sense of his disappointment.
But thou hast cast us off and put us to shame
and goest not forth with our armies.
Thou makest us to turn back from the enemy
and they which hate us spoil for themselves.
Thou hast given us like sheep appointed for meat
and has scattered us among the heathen.
Thou sellest thy people for naught
and dost not increase thy wealth by their price.
Thou makest us a reproach to our neighbors
and a scorn and a derision to them that are round about us. Thou makest us a byach to our neighbors and a scorn and a derision to them that are round about us.
Thou makest us a byword among the heathen, a shaking of the head among the people.
Now notice the effect, verse 15.
My confusion is continually before me, and the shame of my face hath covered me,
for the voice of him that reproacheth and blasphemeth by reason of the enemy and avenger.
So this man went into the battle.
This psalmist, he's recounting this.
He went into the battle with his faith ablaze.
He went into this battle believing God was going to hear him and help him.
And God didn't. They were defeated by the enemy. They ran.
They were reproached. And the effect upon the psalmist is confusion. Lord, what happened?
We were trusting you.
We were trusting in your word.
We were trusting that you were going to hear our cry.
And nothing happened like we had hoped or asked.
Nothing had happened like we had expected.
You had power to do it, but you didn't.
I trusted you to do it, but you didn't. I trusted you to do it, and you didn't.
What's up?
Now, I know this is not popular,
and I don't know, who cares about popular,
but this is not exactly uplifting and encouraging preaching, is it not?
How many of you have had in your experience with the Lord,
your walk and relationship with God,
have had a number of times
that you were fully persuaded that God would help you
or come through or answer the prayer or do a thing that you had been asking Him to do. You had been
fasting and praying that He would do and He didn't.
Listen,
we are dreaming. We're living in
fantasy if we think this is not part of the Christian experience
it absolutely is
if you or I
if any person is saved for any length of time
and exercises any faith in God
that person is going to learn
this lesson pretty soon
I can think in my mind very specific things to learn this lesson pretty soon.
I can think in my mind very specific things that I asked the Lord for and He didn't do.
How many of you have had a loved one
that was ailing, that was sick,
and you prayed for that person
and you trusted God and hoped
and might have even believed that God was going to do a thing
and he didn't.
Listen,
that might not be encouraging,
but that's real life.
I think of my aunt,
Stacy.
Some of you know Stacy, knew Stacy.
And she died in 2021, I think it was, from COVID.
And we prayed.
She was only like 50, 51.
She was born in 70, whatever it was.
I think she was 51.
No, she was 50.
And we prayed and we prayed
and she got worse and worse and worse.
We prayed and prayed and prayed
and she got worse and worse and worse
and of course she died.
What do you say to that?
You know, what do you say to that?
All of us understand, all of us have experienced
the reality of that sometimes God doesn't do the thing
that we trust Him to do and ask Him to do.
And that doesn't mean we did it wrong.
This psalmist, when we get from verses 1 to verse 8,
he's doing everything right.
He's trusting in God.
His faith is not in his sword.
His faith is in God, and yet the battle was lost.
and yet the battle was lost.
You know, there's sometimes we have contrary events that happen in our life that set us back.
Things happen in our life that cause us
to question God's care for us.
Now, I can't say for sure why the Lord does that.
Because there's plenty of examples where He doesn't.
Right?
In fact, the first three verses of the psalm are examples of the opposite.
Right?
And that's the basis for the psalmist's trust in God in the current battle.
It didn't work out that way.
He was not delivered.
They did not have victory.
I can't tell you why the Lord does that.
The psalmist blames the Lord for it. You read verses 9 through 16, thou sellest, thou hast
given, thou makest, thou makest, thou makest. He lays the results squarely at the Lord's
feet. Now that, I don't think he's saying you're, I honestly don't think the psalmist is
saying, God, you're wrong. But I think he's confused. He's confounded. He's been, he's in a
tailspin how that he could trust in God and it not turn out like he had hoped and expected.
Spurgeon said this on this verse, those who follow God for what they get
will leave him
when persecution is stirred up
but not so with the sincere believer
he will not forget his God
even though the worst come to the worst
now look at verse number 17.
Here's what happened.
He read the scripture and when his faith was encouraged,
he applied his faith to this and said,
Lord, we're trusting you, not in our sword.
The Lord lets it fall flat for some reason.
The question is, what will be the response of God's people to the reality of defeat when they did trust in God?
Will they, in light of this enormous disappointment, forsake the Lord?
in light of this enormous disappointment forsake the Lord?
Or will they continue to trust Him despite disappointments like this?
Listen to the psalmist's response to the defeat in battle after he had trusted God.
Imagine how confused and confounded and disappointed he is.
Some of you know what that's like.
Verse 17, all this has come
upon us, yet have we not forgotten thee. Neither have we dealt falsely in thy covenant. Our heart
is not turned back, neither have our steps declined from thy way. Though thou hast sore broken us in
the place of dragons and covered us with the shadow of death, if we have forgotten the name What is his response? yea, for thy sake we are killed all the day long. We are counted as sheep for the slaughter.
What is his response?
His response is this.
What you don't see is any explanation.
What you see is him saying,
we are terribly disappointed and confused
and we don't have an explanation
for why the Lord did not do as we had
expected and as we trusted him. But we are not turning away from our God. We are not forsaking him.
You know what? That's the evidence of a sincere, as Spurgeon says, a sincere believer.
A sincere believer is the person who, despite the Lord confounding him,
despite the Lord disappointing him, even when he was trusting him,
yet he tenaciously cleaves to God no matter what.
Job did it. Job 13, 15, you know this verse.
Listen to what he says.
Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him,
but I will maintain mine own ways before him.
Job says, if there's any character in the Bible
that lived this, it was Job.
He served God, He lived for God.
He sacrificed for his family.
By that I mean he offered sacrifices on the behalf of his children.
All of those things we know that Job did.
And Job's hopes and expectations and trust in God was totally and completely disappointed.
Just wrecked.
And his response was, you wrecked my life
I am still going to trust you
it reminded me of the verse
where Peter said
when the disciples had started
to trickle away
and turn away from Jesus
and Jesus looked at his 12 disciples
and he says
will you go away also
and what was Peter's response
to whom shall we go
thou hast the words of eternal life. There's nowhere else to go.
We don't turn from the Lord because though we did not, the reason we don't turn from the Lord is
because even though we did not get the thing that we had hoped for and expected from God and trusted God for, He is still true.
And whether we get it or not,
whether the Lord comes through like we ask or He doesn't,
that has no bearing at all upon whether He is true.
None at all.
He remains the same.
His truth is not subject to me getting what I want or ask for. Does not humanity in their searchings for God, do not they have this thing completely backward? I'll believe in God if God
does the things that I want him to do. And that's not the way this thing works. And God always
teaches his people this truth. It is a painful lesson
but it's true.
Now if you would go to
Romans and we'll close in
Romans
chapter 8.
The good thing is is that
this psalm is not the end of the story
on something
like this. Romans
8.
Because in Romans 8,
the Apostle Paul quotes Psalm 44.
Verse 35.
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
Now notice the things that are mentioned.
Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword?
If there was a war in our country
and it took the lives of our family members,
do you think you would be asking,
Lord, why didn't you protect my family?
If there was a famine
or there was a downturn in the economy
and you lost your house,
do you think you would be asking,
Lord, I asked you to help me to keep my house
and now I have nowhere to,
do you think you'd be saying that?
I probably would be saying it. If you were persecuted, Lord, why won't you protect us
from these people who are our enemies? Tribulation. You know, you think about the people in North
Carolina when Hurricane Helene went through and just wrecked their lives. Some of those were people of God.
You know that?
Some of those were believers.
Lord, we prayed as the hurricane came
and the meteorologists were saying it's going to be this and that
and it could be really bad.
And we prayed and now our house is gone.
It's just, it's real life.
That's verse 35.
But notice verse 36.
As it is written,
this is the quote from Psalm 44.
For thy sake we are killed all the day long.
We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.
Notice, for thy sake.
You know, if it wasn't for those three words,
if it wasn't for that, it would make all the distress and persecution
and all the things that are listed in verse 35 a lot more difficult.
Really?
Those things are going to happen to us?
But we know those things.
Romans 8 is telling us those things are happening to us under the providence of God.
That's what the whole chapter is talking about.
He says nay.
So verse 36 is a little bit parenthetical.
So read 35 again.
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
Shall tribulation separate us or distress separate us or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword separate us from the love of Christ?
That's the question. Then he says verse 36 and he answers it in verse 37. He says, no,
nothing, nothing that can happen to a believer. The source is irrelevant. Nothing that can happen to a believer has any bearing upon the love of Christ to that believer.
So, Psalm 44 is put in a positive light.
We cannot always explain the tribulation and the distress
and the peril and the nakedness, and it will come upon God's people from time
to time. It does.
What we're reminded of in this passage, though,
that's not mentioned because it had not yet happened in Psalm 44,
is that the love of Christ is steadfast,
and we know it is because,
verse 34,
Who is he that condemneth?
It is Christ that died, yea, rather that is risen again.
Who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.
You see that? Verse 32.
He that spared not his own son, but delivered him up for us all,
how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?
The anchor of the love of God in the midst of whatever distress that might
disappoint us is the knowledge that the Savior bled and died in our place. And nothing, nothing,
nothing, nothing that can happen can change that. That's truth that's revealed in Romans 8.
It's not yet revealed in Psalm 44. For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels,
nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present,
nor things to come, nor height, nor depth,
nor any other creature shall be able to separate us
from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
You think about, I put it like this,
there is nothing that has happened
or could possibly come to pass whatsoever
that changes that.
Amen.
Amen.
Let's pray.
Amen.