Renewed Confidence

If God’s people would please take your Bibles and turn to Psalm 44. Psalm 44. Trust has been defined as an assured reliance on the character, ability, or truth of someone or something. When we trust someone, we believe that They are conducting themselves honestly. When we trust a chair, we believe that it will hold us when we sit down. When we trust a lock, we’re confident that it will keep things secure. When we trust a bank, we believe that our money will still be there when we return. Such trust is a feature of our lives.

An important feature and we cannot be everywhere. We cannot see or know everything or test everything. And so we have to develop trust in a wide variety of areas and arenas. Trust is one of the basic elements of a healthy relationship. It involves honesty, transparency, and integrity. Trust is developed in the parent-child relationship, in the employer-employee relationship, in the husband-wife relationship. There is a measure of trust between citizens and their governing officials, between nations, between coaches and players, teachers and students, and virtually every other human relationship. And there is to be trust and assured reliance between the Christian and his or her God.

As for God, he knows well what he’s getting in us from the very beginning. He knows that we’re sinful and weak and wayward. So it’s not so much God trusting us, rather we are called to trust in Him. The child of God begins his or her walk with God by faith, a trustful confidence in who God is and in what He has done, particularly with regard to His redemption of us from our sinful condition.

And this trust or confidence begins to grow and develop in the Christian. The more we walk with God, the more we see Him at work in our lives, the more we read about His principles and promises and see them fulfilled right before our eyes, the more confident in God we become.

Psalm 44 addresses the subject of trust, not by name, but it does address the principle of trust. Specifically, it deals with the element of trust in a believer’s relationship with God. And as the believer knows all too well, there are wide ranging fluctuations in our life with regard to that trust, aren’t there? The psalmist deals with these variations of trust in his relationship with God. If you would follow along with me as I read Psalm 44.

Oh God, we have heard with our ears, our fathers have told us, the work that you did in their days and the days of old. You with your own hand drove out the nations, Then you planted them, you afflicted the peoples, then you spread them abroad. For by their own sword they did not possess the land, and their own arm did not save them. But your right hand and your arm and the light of your presence, you favored them. For you are my God.

Command victories for Jacob, Through you we shall push back our adversaries. Through your name we will trample down those who rise up against us. For I will not trust in my bow, nor will my sword save me. But you have saved us from our adversaries, and you have put to shame those who hate us. In God we have boasted all day long, and we will give thanks to your name forever. Yet You have rejected us and brought us to dishonor, and do not go out with our armies. You cause us to turn back from the adversary, and those who hate us have taken spoil for themselves.

You give us as sheep to be eaten, and have scattered us among the nations. You sell your people cheaply and have not profited by their sale. You make us a reproach to our neighbors and scoffing and a derision to those around us. You make us a byword among the nations, a laughingstock among the peoples. All day long, my dishonor is before me and my humiliation has overwhelmed me because of the voice of him who reproaches and reviles because of the presence of the enemy and the avenger. All this has come upon us.

But we have not forgotten you, and we have not dealt falsely with your covenant. Our heart has not turned back, and our steps have not deviated from your way. Yet you have crushed us in a place of jackals and covered us with the shadow of death. If we had forgotten the name of our God or extended our hands to a strange God, would God not find this out? where he knows the secrets of the heart.

But for your sake, we are killed all day long. We are considered as sheep to be slaughtered. Arouse yourself. Why do you sleep, O Lord? Awake. Do not reject us forever. Why do you hide your face and forget our affliction and our oppression? For our soul has sunk down into the dust, our body cleaves to the earth. Rise up, be our help, and redeem us for the sake of your loving kindness.

God, of course, sees us for exactly who we are. He has a perfectly accurate view of every person. It’s not that God needs to learn to trust us. In reality, Although we, by grace, are always in a state of growing in faithfulness, God has great cause to generally distrust us. God, on the other hand, is always faithful. He doesn’t change. He cannot sin. He is inherently trustworthy.

God is the essence of faithfulness, but the child of God’s perspective of God’s faithfulness is quite often clouded, obscured by his own sin, his life circumstances, or his misunderstanding of God’s nature and character. Because of our weak and sinful hearts, our confidence in God becomes challenged and shaken at times. Sometimes our doubt leads us to despair. We call into question God’s reliability, and it takes time and patience on God’s part and much grace to restore our trust in Him.

This is the dynamic event that the psalmist is considering. He takes his readers through a series of five meditations on God’s reliability, from beginning to end, ups and downs, twists and turns, good and bad, and everything in between, in the level of trust in his relationship with God. Let’s start in verse one, if we could. The first meditation on God’s reliability is God’s faithfulness, which is embraced by faith. Verses one through three. That first meditation that our unnamed writer presents is God’s faithfulness is embraced, first of all, by faith.

The psalmist acknowledges no independent, upfront, personal knowledge or experience. He only mentions what he’s heard. We’ve heard with our ears. Our fathers have told us. This is the way that we come to an awareness of God’s faithfulness at the very beginning. He’s one in whom we can trust. We either read about him or someone testifies about him, and we come to believe.

It’s the wonderful role that parents play in pointing their children in God’s direction. They tell of God’s amazing qualities. They speak of God’s fantastic deeds throughout history. They tell of a loving Savior and how he worked to save them. We’re called and commanded in scripture to do exactly that as parents, to pass along these biblical accounts of all of those sacred traditions and stories.

In his preparation to extract God’s people from Egypt, God commanded Moses to tell, in the hearing of your son and of your grandson, how I made a mockery of the Egyptians and how I performed my signs among them, that you may know that I am the Lord. Likewise, in Exodus 12, at the institution of the Passover meal, the Passover meal itself was a memorial of what God had done in Egypt on Israel’s behalf. Well, there in Exodus 12, God said, you shall observe this event as an ordinance for you and for your children forever. When you enter the land, which the Lord will give you, as he has promised, you shall observe this rite. And when your Children say to you, what does this right mean to you? You shall say it is a Passover sacrifice to the Lord who passed over the houses of Israel in Egypt when he smote the Egyptians that spared our homes.

They were to teach their Children about God’s deeds. Deuteronomy 6 says this as well, God commands Moses and the people, when your son asks you in time to come, saying, what do the testimonies and the statutes and the judgments mean which the Lord our God commanded you? Then you shall say to your son, We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt, and the Lord brought us from Egypt with a mighty hand. We are supposed to teach and tell our children.

Moses, in Psalm 96, which Psalm we considered a few weeks ago, he speaks of this practice when he says, let your work appear to your servants and your majesty to their children. Speak of God’s mighty deeds in such a way that your children can see them, he says. This is not just an Old Testament concept. Paul carries it into the new when he says in Ephesians 6, 4, fathers do not provoke your children in anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

We’re supposed to teach our children. The psalmist indicates here is that the faith of God’s people was established on the foundation of what their godly parents had told and taught them. The work that he did in their days, driving out the heathen nations in the land of Canaan, planting and establishing the nation of Israel on their God-given land. God, he says, planted them. He made them to flourish. He spread them abroad, the psalmist says. He blessed them so that their boughs may become strong and many.

Ezekiel 31.5. She is a healthy tree. God’s nation was like a tree planted by water.

Jeremiah 17.8. This was God’s doing, not Israel’s. And he makes abundantly clear in verse three when he says it wasn’t by their sword, it wasn’t by their arm, their own strength, rather it was by God’s might, his right hand, his arm, his presence. And that because they were his chosen and favored people. Familiar images from the Psalms. which speak of God’s power exercised on Israel’s behalf. This kind of faith where we just hear of God and believe, it’s a simpler, purer faith. All they had to do was hear of these things and they believed.

It reminds us of that doubting apostle Thomas who refused to believe until he had seen proof of the resurrected Christ. Once Jesus presented himself to Thomas, he issued him a gentle rebuke, remember? John 20, 29, because you have seen me, you have believed. Blessed are they who do not see and yet believe. Thomas needed proof in order for his faith to be energized, but the essence of faith is simply hearing about something that you have not seen and believing as if you have.

The psalmist’s parent told him of the Lord’s faithfulness. This was the ground of his faith, but he had also come to experience God’s faithfulness firsthand. This he addresses in verses four through eight. The second meditation on God’s reliability. God’s faithfulness is not only embraced by faith, but it’s known by experience. One thing to hear about God’s faithfulness and believe, but it’s a powerful thing also to experience God’s faithfulness. To see him move on your behalf.

This is the psalmist’s meditation here in four through eight. It’s the faith that is stirred by visible, that is tangible evidence. This is an even stronger admonition to faith. This is, if you will, the pillar of fire. This is the parting of the Red Sea. This is the raising of Lazarus from the dead. This is the healing of Malchus, the soldier’s ear. This is the resurrection of Christ and so much more. How could someone not believe after witnessing any of those miracles?

This is the substantial proof that is set before us in order to bring about faith. It’s the kind of faith of which Job spoke following his lengthy lesson from God in chapter 40 and 41 of Job, In 42, he says, I’ve heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you. Now I get it. Now I have objective proof for faith. Verses seven and eight, our writer tells us that his faith is no longer just because of what others have told him. Now he builds upon that faith because what God has allowed him to see firsthand.

You have saved us from our adversaries. You have put to shame those who hate us. You’ve routed our enemies before us, these stubborn, heathen nations. And it’s this, he says in verse eight, that prompts boasting on Israel’s behalf, boasting in God, as well as heartfelt gratitude.

We will give thanks to your name forever, says the psalmist. Witnessing these glorious deeds by God, the psalmist, it leads the psalmist to something else as well here. It produces in him a kind of a personal commitment. He articulates this in verse four. You are my king, O God. Because I now have seen and experienced your great faithfulness, I acknowledge you as my great sovereign. This confidence in God’s faithfulness spills over from God’s past kindnesses in the days of old to the victories God has ensured in the psalmist’s own day to even future needs, which are expressed now in verses four through six.

Command victories. Push back our adversaries. We will trample them down, he exclaims. The psalmist passionately employs powerful images here. When he implores God to command victories, he’s pleading with God to play the part of a king. You are sovereign after all. Send forth your command in the earth. As Psalm 147 has it. God, Be God is essentially what he pleads. When he says that by God’s help, we will push back our enemies, our adversaries, he pictures a great horned beast, a buffalo, if you will, driving back Israel’s foes. If you saw any news feeds this week, you saw a graphic example of this.

You see, grandpa decided to take his kids, his grandkids, to Yellowstone. And I’m sure that at that moment they believed that they were far enough away from the giant beast. But when that creature decided that he didn’t want to be watched anymore, he charged. And he gave Grandpa a ride that he’ll never forget.

That is the same exact image that the psalmist employs here. Push back our adversaries. Toss them into the air. The only thing the bison didn’t do was trample that poor man. The writer here uses these images to refer to the very powerful and practical help that God provides. He speaks of a sure thing, that if the king will only give command, victory is assured.

Well, We wish the meditations about God’s faithfulness ended right here, or that they were perhaps received and acted upon more steadily from this point forward. The psalmist meditations, as we said at the outset, are wide ranging, good and bad. And things turn abruptly downhill in verses nine through 16, just about as badly as they can go. In our third meditation, we have not only God’s faithfulness embraced by faith and known by experience, but challenged by blame. Psalm. had such a pleasant and upbeat tone so far, wonderful accounts and experiences of God, but now suddenly the psalm takes a dark and depressing turn. Even though he’s heard of God’s faithfulness and witnessed it firsthand, seemingly he now turns on God, criticizing and assigning fault to him.

Bottom line, is that Israel wasn’t supposed to lose battles. After all, they were God’s chosen people. This was their land, given to them by God, and they had the all-powerful God on their side. So when they did struggle, and when they lost a battle, or when they lost badly, that only provided their enemies with fodder for mockery. And it filled their own minds with doubt and despair.

Now, before we get too sanctimonious about the psalmist’s tone and words here, we have to remember the reason that the Psalms are preserved for us. The Psalms give us a realistic interaction between man and God. and it doesn’t get any more real than to have one of these very human eruptions.

Doesn’t make it right that I’m not encouraging you to go home and let God have it. Simply have you make obvious notice of just how patient and how gracious God is in bearing with these seven pairs of grievances, 14 in all. What’s amazing to me is that God even allows the psalmist to finish. You and I might stop it after the first line. What a merciful God we have.

These complaints were written and likely meant to be read in rapid fire succession. One accusation after the other. Verse 9, the accusation that God had rejected and dishonored them because he does not go out with their armies to ensure victory. Verse 10, the additional complaint that it’s God’s fault that they have been turned back by their adversary, that the enemy has made spoil of their possessions, stealing them. Verse 11, perhaps the most graphic charge, is that God has given them up as sheep to be eaten, scattered like an unwanted flock, killed or driven into the wilderness. Verse 12, another explicit image is that God’s people are sold, cheap, a fire sale. Everything must go. And for God, no profit. Considered, treated as if they are a worthless commodity, he says. Verses 13 and 14 taken together.

God says, he says that God is to blame that Israel has become a reproach to the heathen nations around them, subject to scoffing and derision because their God has abandoned them. God’s doing. God’s fault that they are now a byword, a laughingstock to a godless people. And then verse 15 essentially sums up the whole, that God is responsible for the fact that his people are dishonored and humiliated because of the defeat, the devastation. And all of this, alarmingly he asserts, is God’s fault. He challenges God’s faithfulness by assigning him blame.

These painfully blunt words of the psalmists, they sound terrible to us, don’t they? I mean, they should. It’s a sad feature of our humanness, just how common this is. If we don’t get our way, if God doesn’t move, and move fast enough to satisfy us, We grumble, even if only internally. But that grumbling, even if it isn’t actually verbalized, is really no different than the actual words recorded here by the psalmist. The truth is our own ungodly grumbling is the seed from the same noxious weed recorded here.

Here’s one thing we never need to do. We never need to blame God. We never need to blame God for anything. The first cause we have to consider is our own lives, our own sin. Take inventory there first. Beyond that, God has surely a purpose for whatever trial we’re going through. And over it all, we have to remember that we are not owed a pristine and happy existence. Nothing that is less than ideal can be construed in any way as God’s fault. These criticisms and displeasures with God are so common that they must be so grievous to God. So how do we overcome sentiments like this, even if we don’t verbalize them? How do we restore our confidence in God’s faithfulness?

That is largely the psalmist’s aim in verses 17 through 22. Embraced by faith, known by experience, challenged by blame, God’s faithfulness is also restored by reflection. Verses 17 through 22, the writer’s fourth meditation. He now begins to heal his erroneous perspective. No longer is he engaged in the blame game against God, he ponders things as they are. The facts of the matter, his nation’s situation, their heart attitude, their relationship with God, and his nature.

All of these things are considered as they really are, not in some accusatory exaggeration. Verse 17, he humbly admits that even though they have experienced a season of great difficulty, they hold fast to the covenant that God made with them. There are other sins, many other sins, for which they may be justly held accountable But apostasy is not one of them.

They have not forgotten or forsaken their God. They have not traded Him in for some so-called other gods. Their heart has not turned back, he says. They know that He is the Creator, the Redeemer, Almighty God. They continue to worship Him only. And in the manner in which He has prescribed Their hope in Him abides.

There’s a contention here. It’s a plaintiff argument. In his words, there’s a measure of, we don’t deserve this severe treatment. There are things, he says, that have come upon us. Things that are not in line with our thoughts and conduct. There are things that have come unexpectedly and beyond what an earthly foe could bring. He doesn’t gloss over the reality. They have experienced a great difficulty.

You’ve crushed us in a place of jackals, covered us with the shadow of death. We’re broken, we’re humbled, we’re laid low, we’re afflicted. A place of jackals is a wild, desolate, inhospitable place. An image of abandonment and desperation. And the jackals suggest the tormentors of God’s people, constantly nipping. That familiar description, the shadow of death, the identical phrase of Psalm 23, verse 4. It just tells of a dark, foreboding swamp. what Bunyan originally called in Pilgrim’s Progress, the slew of despond, remember?

Here, the psalmist acknowledges that since God has done these things, they must have brought them upon themselves. That this is the Lord’s righteous judgment. True, they are fighting earthly enemies, but the devastating calamity has ultimately come from God.

Then, in verses 20 and 21, he pleads his integrity and the integrity of his people. He basically says, you know, God, you know that we have not forgotten your name, that we still revere you and you alone. You know that we have not given ourselves over to the worship of heathen gods or to idolatrous practices, you know. God knows because he knows, the psalmist says, even the secrets of men’s hearts. He’s asking God to search their hearts, to observe their sincerity. None of that erases the difficulty that they’re in as a nation. And in verse 22, without the vitriolic drama of the previous section, without the harsh and inaccurate accusations, he lays their situation before God.

He says, for your sake, we are killed all day long. Considered as sheep to be slaughtered. And that may sound a little dramatic to our ears, but in reality, they are once again in a desperate condition, under attack by foreign armies. People are being killed.

Romans 8, Paul declares that nothing can separate the believer from the love of Christ. You remember this? Paul mentioned some of those things that could divide, tribulation, distress, sword, and so on. And then he cites this very verse. put to death, considered as sheep to be slaughtered. Paul there, just like our psalmist here, points to the hardships and perils that every believer in every age have faced. Both our psalmist and Paul tell us that these are among those things that cannot divide, cannot separate us from God’s love. Paul says it this way, Timothy, indeed all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. That’s the psalmist’s acknowledgement here.

And through his meditation on God’s character and his ways, his confidence or his faith in God’s faithfulness is restored. Neither he nor we can afford to have a wrong idea about God. One of the greatest studies that a young child of God can take up is the study of the attributes of God. We have to behold God as He is, not as if we as if we want Him to be. We have to behold Him accurately as He’s presented in His Word.

But even having restored our confidence in God’s faithfulness. We’re not yet finished, and neither is the psalmist. We haven’t done anything with that confidence yet. And so in the closing verses, our writer urges us to seek out God’s faithfulness by praying to him. Verses 23 through 26.

In this fifth meditation, He presents God’s faithfulness sought by appeal. This is the most practical of all of the meditations. And I say practical because he opens his heart and his hands and humbly presents his needs before his king. He makes four nearly identical appeals. Arouse yourself, awake, rise up, redeem us.

This is yet another obvious anthropomorphism attributing human characteristics to God because God doesn’t need a nap or a good night’s rest. As Isaiah 40, 28 so well declares, the everlasting God, the Lord, the creator of the ends of the earth, does not become weary or tired. The psalmist here isn’t suggesting that God really is asleep.

He’s merely using common phrases to appeal to God to intervene on their behalf. Awaken from your lack of attentiveness to us. From your deafening silence. Similar way in verse 24 when the psalmist asks the Lord about his hiding his face and forgetting his people’s affliction. He isn’t accusing God of cowardice or amnesia. Rather, it’s as if he’s hidden his face, as if he’s forgotten his people. And it’s not as if he’s informing God when he calls attention to the fact that his people have sunk down in the dust, cleaving to the earth. What a picture, dramatic as it may be, of their faces literally being rubbed in the dusty ground by their enemy.

God surely knows this because he knows all. Even still, the writer is trying to reconcile their present condition with their favored position with God. How can these things be? And with one final plea, he cries, rise up, be our help, redeem us. Thomas recalls God’s own promise to his people. First Samuel 12, 22, the Lord will not abandon his people on account of his great name. Not because of them, because of who he is.

Prophet Jeremiah records the strongest possible affirmation of that promise. Jeremiah 31, 37, thus says the Lord, if the heavens above can be measured, and the foundation of the earth below searched. Then I will also cast off the offspring of Israel for all that they have done, declares the Lord.” The bottom line is that the heavens cannot be measured, nor can we search out the foundations of the earth.

God will not forsake his people. And like all of God’s promises, it isn’t because of us. because of God and His great mercy. What use would it be if we came to a restoration of an understanding of God’s great faithfulness, but we never tapped into that resource by asking God for help? It would be the height of foolishness to know of a divine resource and not make use of it by presenting our request before Him. As the Apostle James put it, you do not have because you do not ask.

Paul writing, I’ll have you turn here. First Corinthians, great passage. Great passage in which to close that restores our perspective of God’s great faithfulness to us. First Corinthians chapter one, when you get there, scroll down to verse three. Verse three, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

I thank my God always concerning you for the grace of God which was given you in Christ Jesus, that in everything you were enriched in him, in all speech and all knowledge, even as the testimony confirming Christ was confirmed in you, so that you are not lacking any gift. awaiting eagerly the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will also confirm you to the end, blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, through whom you were called into fellowship with his son, Jesus Christ, our Lord.

Our merciful God, we humble ourselves before you. And we have seen our perspective of your faithfulness shift and change, diminish and be reinvigorated time and time again. Lord, we acknowledge that you have shown incredible faithfulness to us in sending us what we needed most in a Savior, our Lord Jesus. Father, we thank you for your great kindness and favor to us. And Lord, having heard of it and having now experienced it, Lord, how could we ever wag our finger at God and accuse him? Restore in us perspective of your great faithfulness. And Lord, having done so, may we be bold to come before you at the throne of grace and seek whatever grace we need in whatever challenge we face. We thank you for the psalmist’s very bold and very familiar words.

Lord, we plead with you on behalf of any who do not know the Lord Jesus. They don’t know of your faithfulness. As Paul says, they are without hope and without God in this world. Father, we pray that you would do in them a work of grace that you’ve done in our own lives. Bring them to an understanding of your great faithfulness and of their need of a Savior that you’ve already provided. Father, for us, we humbly thank you for what you’ve given us in Christ. Great indeed is your faithfulness in Jesus name that we pray