Psalm 44 - In God We Boast All the Day Long!

Expositors of Psalm 44 have various problems. They do not know by whom or at what junction of time the psalm was written. The psalm talks about a time when God’s people were blessed and felt His presence and His protection. But now has arisen a Pharoah that knew not Joseph. Now they are suffering under persecution and difficulties and they can only remember the stories they were told of the past when God fought for His people and went forth with their armies to victory. The psalm is therefore seen almost as prophetic of the persecution the people of God have suffered during the time of Christianity and will yet suffer under the time of Antichrist. Christianity suffers today more than any other religious community. The people who bear the name of Christ suffer ridicule, slander, persecution and death in many countries and locations around the world.

According to Open Doors’ Persecution Watch List, more than 380 million Christians suffer from a high level of persecution for their faith, while 310 million of those suffer a very high or extreme level of persecution. I have published a separate post today with some of the details from the Watch List with a 5 minute YouTube about world-wide persecution of the Christian community.  

As we read and study Psalm 44, we can pray for our fellow believers in countries suffering severe persecution. Let us also be bold in our faith and do all we can to preach or share the gospel with those in need in our own countries. We know from Scripture that in the last days the church will experience extreme persecution world-wide. Let us redeem the time for the days will eventually become more evil as evil men grow worse and worse deceiving and being deceived, 2 Timothy 3:13.

Psalm 44:1-3 We have heard with our ears, O God, our fathers have told us, what work You did in their days, in the times of old. How You did drive out the heathen with Your hand, and planted them; how You did 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 Your right hand, and Your arm, and the light of Your countenance, because You had a favour unto them.

In our own lives we must remember that our own arm has not saved us. It is God that has given us the ability to produce wealth. It is He that has helped us in our own lives and established our works.

Deuteronomy 8:18-20 But you shall remember the Lord your God: for it is He that gives you power to get wealth, that He may establish His covenant which He swore unto your fathers, as it is this day. And it shall be, if you do at all forget the Lord your God, and walk after other gods, and serve them, and worship them, I testify against you this day that you shall surely perish. As the nations which the Lord destroyed before your face, so shall you perish; because you would not be obedient unto the voice of the Lord your God.

Psalm 44:4-8 You are my King, O God: command deliverances for Jacob. Through You will we push down our enemies: through Your name will we tread them under that rise up against us. For I will not trust in my bow, neither shall my sword save me. But You have saved us from our enemies, and have put them to shame that hated us. In God we boast all the day long, and praise Your name for ever. Selah.

In the account of Jehoshaphat in 2 Chronicles 20, we see that the king and the leaders, and the people sought God in prayer and fasting when their enemies were coming against them. As a result, God fought for them.

2 Chronicles 20:15b&17 “Be not afraid nor dismayed by reason of this great multitude; for the battle is not yours, but God’s. Ye shall not need to fight in this battle: set yourselves, stand still, and you shall see the salvation of the Lord with you,…Fear not, nor be dismayed; tomorrow go out against them for the Lord will be with you.”

We are told that as the people began to sing and to praise the Lord on the morning of the battle, that God caused the three armies coming against Judah to destroy one another, instead of fighting against Judah, 2 Chronicles 20:23.

It seems with the election of Trump, America may have entered into a period of revival. A lot of the antichrist agenda of the opposing party are being overthrown. Let use the weapons of prayer and praise to fight for the spiritual forces that fight against us as we pray that God continues to raise up men and women of God willing to follow God, come what may.

“I still believe that standing up for the truth of God is the greatest thing in the world. This is the end (purpose) of life. The end (purpose) of life is not to be happy. The end (purpose) of life is not to achieve pleasure and avoid pain. The end (purpose) of life is to do the will of God, come what may,” Martin Luther King Jr.

Psalm 44:9-14 But You have cast off, and put us to shame; and go not forth with our armies. You make us to turn back from the enemy: and they which hate us spoil for themselves. You have given us like sheep appointed for meat; and have scattered us among the heathen. You sell Your people for nought, and do not increase Your wealth by their price. You make us a reproach to our neighbours, a scorn and a derision to them that are round about us. You make us a byword among the heathen, a shaking of the head among the people.

As the Jewish people fell into disrepute, so the early Christians suffered under severe persecution and testing during various Roman persecutions. Both the Jewish people and the name of Jesus Christ are or have been used as swear words or in cussing, “a byword among the heathen.”

Psalm 44:15-16 My confusion is continually before me, and the shame of my face has covered me, For the voice of him that reproaches and blasphemes; by reason of the enemy and avenger.

The antichrist world leaders of the past like Hitler, Stalin, Mão, and others have blasphemed the name of God and persecuted His people. These have been antichrists. However, Scripture indicates that in the last days the final manifestation of evil will arise in the face of the Antichrist who will attempt to eliminate Christianity and its followers from off the earth.

Revelation 13:5-7 And there was given unto him (the Antichrist) a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months (3 ½ years). And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme His name, and His tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven. And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.”

Daniel 7:25 “And he (the Antichrist) shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time (or 3 ½ years).”

Psalm 44:17-22 All this is come upon us; yet have we not forgotten You, neither have we dealt falsely in Your covenant. Our heart is not turned back, neither have our steps declined from Your way; Though You have sore broken us in the place of dragons (probably some type of flying reptiles or small dinosaur still not extinct at the time of the writing of the psalm), and covered us with the shadow of death. If we have forgotten the name of our God, or stretched out our hands to a strange god; Shall not God search this out? for He knows the secrets of the heart. Yea, for Your sake are we killed all the day long; we are counted as sheep for the slaughter.

Many followers of God from the days before Christ and in the days afterwards have suffered persecution and death for their faith. But, they remained faithful. They did not deny their faith, though they may have been tempted to or may have waivered in their faith. Isaiah was sawn asunder under Manasseh King of Judah. Jeremiah was stoned to death in Egypt. Zechariah was stoned to death in the courtyard of the temple under King Joash. The disciples of Jesus, save John the Revelator, all are traditionally considered to have died for their faith in spreading the gospel message. John Fox in the 1500 made a book of a record of the early Protestant Christian martyrs.

Apostle Paul quotes from Psalm 44:22 in Romans 8 where he is encouraging the early church to stay firm in the face of persecution and death, because nothing can separate us from God’s love.

Romans 8:31-34 “What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? 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? Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifies. Who is he that condemns? 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.”

Romans 8:35-39 “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For Your sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter (Psalm 44:22). Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us. 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.”

Psalm 44:23-26 Awake, why do You sleep, O Lord? arise, cast us not off for ever. Wherefore do You hide Your face, and forget our affliction and our oppression? For our soul is bowed down to the dust: our belly cleaves unto the earth. Arise for our help, and redeem us for Your mercies' sake.

Whether in life or in death, we are the Lord’s and fear not them that can kill the body. We fear and obey only Him that can cast both body and soul in hell. It is He we fear and obey. “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep His commandments: for this is the whole duty of man,” Ecclesiastes 12:13.

Mark 8:36-38 For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?  Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of Me and of My words in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.