Where Is God When We Lose the Battle?
Psalm 44
Inherent in
warfare is the idea that there are winners and there are losers. One of the most frustrating things in war is
when both sides reach a stalemate. In
the trench warfare of the American Civil War and World War I, many soldiers
wrote that they would sooner accept defeat than remain in a deadlock. No one wanted to continue trading death for
death, neither winning nor losing, moving back and forth to conquer a couple of
miles of muddy ground.
Sometimes the Christian
life feels like a stalemate. Some days
you win the spiritual battles of temptation, or you see victory in the lives of
the loved ones you’re supporting in prayer.
Other days, it seems like you’re losing ground. At times you’re walking in God’s blessing,
and then something happens that makes you feel utterly defeated. Many believers wonder what makes the
difference between win, lose, and draw.Like Job’s friends[1], the author of Psalm 44 seems to believe that if things are going well then God is favoring you, but if you’re suffering, God must have removed His favor. If you’re blessed, it’s certainly because you have been faithful, but if you’ve been defeagted, you must deserve it in some way. Yet this runs contrary to Jesus’ words in Matthew 5:45, that God “makes His run to rise on the evil and the good.” He underscores this by saying, “Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. ‘Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you (Matthew 5:10-12).” In many other passages, Jesus indicates that sometimes the righteous suffer, and sometimes the wicked seem to prosper. But the psalmist doesn’t see it that way.
Psalm 44 is a cry for God’s help. Verses 1-3 recall the way God was always faithful to the psalmist’s ancestors.
1We 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.
The psalmist remembers the
days of God’s favor, when enemies were driven out by God’s hand. He attests to God’s greatness, stating that
it was not by human power that enemies were defeated. Instead, it was God’s power that won their
battles for them.In verses 4-8, the psalmist recognizes God’s sovereignty.
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. Selah
Verse 4 points out that all
victories are by the decree of God, and not because of human action. In verse 5, it is God who pushes enemies
back, and it is through the Name of God that we trample on our foes.[2] Note that verse 5 has God pushing back
enemies in the present tense, and God’s people trampling foes in the present
tense. Verse 6 continues with the psalmist
not trusting his bow in the present tense and his sword not bring present
victory. Verse 7 draws out the theme,
with God giving victory and putting adversaries to shame—all the in the present
tense. God is God of the present, giving
present victory in the battles of life.
Because of this (verse 8) we make our boast all day long, in
present-tense, continual action. This
continues even into the future, for “we will praise your name forever.” (And don’t forget to ponder this at the end
of verse 8—selah. Perhaps if we pondered this longer, we’d
never need to go on to the rest of the psalm, for we’d have a better
understanding.)Beginning with verse 9, we see a change in the psalmist’s attitude. Where there used to be a sense of victory, all of a sudden, now that the story of his life has changed, his outlook has also shifted. Military defeat has got him living in spiritual defeat. Rather than remembering God’s faithfulness in the past, he wallows in self-pity. Instead of glorifying God for His present deliverance and worshiping God and trusting God for the future, the psalmist allows the current troubles to cloud his faith. Believers who engage in spiritual warfare need to remember that God is always faithful—in the good times and in the bad. If Satan can keep you in a defeatist attitude, he has already won. So the following verses are an example of how not to think, when things get tough.
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.
It’s natural to feel that
God has abandoned you when things get tough.
Even Jesus felt abandoned when
He hung on the cross, saying, “My God, my
God, why have you forsaken me (Mark 15:34)?”[3] We have to understand verse 9, not as a
statement of fact, but as a statement that this is how the psalmist feels.
God does not reject His people.
Psalm 94:1 says, “For
the LORD
will not abandon His people, nor will He forsake His inheritance.”In verse 10, the psalmist goes on to blame God for their retreat and for being plundered. Verse 11 has God giving them up for devouring and scattering. In verse 12 the psalmist accuses God of selling them into slavery, and bemoans the fact that God didn’t even get a good price for His people. God bears the blame for the reproach, scorn, and derision the people feel in verses 13-16. Surely the psalmist has not only lost a physical battle, but he is losing the spiritual battle as well.
Often it’s difficult for the spiritual warrior to understand why painful things are happening to them, when they perceive that they have done nothing wrong to deserve it. The psalmist indicates this kind of confusion in verses 17-22.
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.
It would make sense for God
to judge violently if the people had been rebellious, but since the psalmist
perceives the people to have been faithful, he can’t understand this. Two answers may be important here.First, just because the psalmist doesn’t perceive the people’s sin, that doesn’t mean that they haven’t sinned. In Joshua 7, Israel’s armies experienced defeat in battle, and they couldn’t understand why. Eventually, God pointed to the reason: One man’s sin had caused the nation’s defeat. By human reasoning, Israel’s leaders would never have figured out that mystery. It took the Spirit of God to reveal the truth. Just because you don’t understand the reason God’s judgment falls, that doesn’t mean you aren’t experiencing God’s wrath.
Second, we need to understand that sometimes painful things happen.
There’s nothing you can do about them, and you don’t need to figure out
the reason why. You may never understand
why you’re suffering, but you can trust that God is working His purposes
out. Romans 8:28 says, “And we
know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have
been called according to his purpose.” In Romans 8:37, Paul in fact quotes Psalm
44:22, saying, “For your sake we face
death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” But then he addresses the attitude of
those who complain like this, contradicting the attitude of the psalmist. “No,”
he says. “In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved
us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor
any powers, neither 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.
Not long ago, I watched an interviewer try to back a celebrity preacher into a corner with the age-old question about suffering in the world: There are three possibilities about God’s nature. Either God is good and all-powerful, but doesn’t see the suffering in the world, and is therefore not omniscient; or the good God sees suffering and is powerless to do anything about it and therefore isn’t omnipotent; or God does both sees the suffering in the world, is able to do something about it, and yet does nothing about it, and is therefore not good. “Which one is it?” asked the interviewer. But the celebrity preacher refused to take the bait, quickly changing the subject. In verses 23-26, the psalmist chooses to believe that God is good and that God is omnipotent, yet challenges God’s omniscience. He believes that God is asleep.
23Awake, O Lord! Why do you sleep?
Rouse
yourself! Do not reject us forever.
24Why do you hide your face
and
forget our misery and oppression?
25We are brought down to the dust;
our
bodies cling to the ground.
26Rise up and help us;
redeem
us because of your unfailing love.
The psalmist
believes that if God would simply rouse Himself, lift His face from the
celestial pillow, and see that we are brought down to the dust, then God would
rise up to help us. Verse 26 attests to
the idea that God is able to help. God’s
unfailing love reflects divine goodness.
So the solution is simply for God to “rise up” from His slumber,
breaking God’s sleepy ignorance, and for God to help. This perspective can’t be further from the
truth. It is simply the way the psalmist
feels, much like Jesus saying that He
feels like God has abandoned Him when in fact God has not. Psalm 121:3-4 says, “He who watches over you will not slumber; indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep,"
In my opinion,
the evangelist made a mistake in evading the question. The interviewer made the mistake of assuming
that everything that is painful must also be bad. In fact, God uses painful things in our life
to bring good things about. Paul gives radical
encouragement in Romans 5:3-5 when he says, “And
not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation
brings about perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and proven
character, hope; and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been
poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.”
The Christian
life is warfare. Some of the warfare is
external. We struggle with sickness,
accidents, relationship conflicts, praying for the struggles of our loved ones,
and many other things. But most of our
spiritual warfare is internal. We face
temptations to sin, spiritual depression, mental exhaustion, difficult
decisions, doctrinal confusion, perplexing emotions, and a host of other soul-level
enemies that wage war against us. Sometimes we win these battles, and sometimes we
lose. Instead
of blaming God for our troubles, we need to pray Psalm 44 as if it ends after
the selah at the end of verse 8. Selah means
“pause and reflect.” If you’re a
Christian, then you need to pause and reflect on all that God has done for you
in the past, so you can have faith that He will sustain you today and into the
future. Then you will be able to pray
with the psalmist, “In God we make our
boast all day long, and we will praise your name forever (44:8).”
[1] For more
on this, read the entire Biblical book of Job.
[2] See the
Name of God, “Yah” in Psalm 68:1-4.
[3] Many
claim that in this verse, Jesus is stating fact,
rather than feeling. They often quote the first part of Habakkuk 1:13 (KJV), which says, “You are of purer eyes than to behold evil, and can not look on
iniquity.” They say, “See, God had
to turn His face away from Jesus, so in this instant, God did abandon Him. They say this because they don’t want to
believe that Jesus ever said anything that was factually inaccurate. But Jesus was not in error when He said
this. He factually felt abandoned at
this moment, and He was saying what He really felt. Proponents of the view that God cannot look
on evil should read the rest of Habakkuk 1:13, which says, “Why do you look upon them that deal treacherously, and hold your
tongue when the wicked devours the man that is more righteous than he?” Obviously, the psalmist knows that God
can see the evil that’s going on. His
problem is trying to understand why God does nothing about it. The truth is that God does see evil, and does
do something about it. Genesis
6:5-8 says, “Then the LORD saw
that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the
thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. The LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth,
and He was grieved in His heart. The LORD said, “I will blot out man whom I have
created from the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things and
to birds of the sky; for I am sorry that I have made them.” But Noah found
favor in the eyes of the LORD.”
God sees sin. God judges
sin. But God also offers grace.
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