IN GOD WE BOAST ALL THE DAY

1.     "We have heard with our ears, O God; our fathers have told us work You did in their days, in the days of old.

2.     You drove out the nations with Your hand and it was Your power that gave a home by rooting out the peoples, but You spread out.

3.     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 were favorable toward and did delight in them.

4.     You are my King, O God; command victories and deliverance for Jacob (Israel).

5.     Through You shall we push down our enemies; through Your name shall we tread them under who rise up against us.

6.     For I will not trust in and lean on my bow, neither shall my sword save me.

7.     But You have saved us from our foes and have put them to shame who hate us.

8.     In God we have made our boast all the day long, and we will give thanks to Your name forever." 

(Psalm 44:1-8 Amp).

Psalm 44 was written in response to an event that took place in the year 710 B.C.  Sennacherib, king of Assyria, sent three messengers along with his army to intimidate Hezekiah, the king of Judah, into surrendering to him.  Sennacherib had already defeated many other nations in the region, including the ten tribes of Israel who had broken away from the tribe of Judah years before.  He had then turned his greedy gaze toward Judah, and had taken all of the walled cities except for Jerusalem.  It seemed that the king of Assyria was unstoppable in his acquisition of all the lands around him. 

One of the messengers sent by Sennacherib whose name was Rabshakeh stood outside the walls of Jerusalem and spoke blasphemous things against the God of Israel and his people.  He told them that their faith in God was vain saying, "Neither let Hezekiah make you trust in the LORD, saying, The LORD will surely deliver us..." and, " Who are they among all the gods of the countries, that have delivered their country out of mine hand, that the LORD should deliver Jerusalem out of mine hand?"  (2 Kings 18:30, 35).  When Hezekiah heard the words of Rabshakeh, he humbled himself greatly before God and sent to Isaiah the prophet to hear the word of the Lord.

Against this tense backdrop was Psalm 44 written.  In it, the psalmist first reminisces about the victories that God had worked for the Israelites in former times.  He then reminds God that it was He Who had driven out their enemies from the promised land and had planted Israel in their place.  He acknowledges the fact that it was not their own strength or might that secured those victories for Israel, but it was God's might and power that brought them success. 

It is here that the psalmist shifts his attention from what God has done for others to what he was prepared to believe God would do for him and his people also.  He said, "You are my King, O God; command victories and deliverance for Jacob (Israel)."  (Psalm 44:4 Amp).  In all of the battles that you and I face in our lives, our deliverance starts and ends with acknowledging God's sovereignty over our lives.  More than our Friend, our helper, and our gentle Shepherd, God is our King and we must allow Him to rule in our lives.  What He has commanded for us, furthermore, is our victory and deliverance!  Deliverance from sin, the lusts of the flesh, and yes, even the devil himself. 

The story of Hezekiah and the king of Assyria sounds all too familiar when we apply it to the struggles we as Christians face on a regular basis.  We look all around us and see many souls who have been defeated by Satan through drug and alcohol abuse, addiction to pornography, anger and bitterness, covetousness, and a host of other enemies too numerous to mention.  The world seems to be turned on its ear, and it feels like we have been besieged by evil all around us.  Many Christians are living in fear of the enemy of their souls, allowing him to speak blasphemous things to them, and believing that they are helpless to resist his will.  They have heard of the things that God has done for others in times past, but their faith is not stirred to believe that victory is now theirs for the taking.  But, Beloved, there is power in the name of Jesus to tread down every foe that rises against us (v. 5).  We have a God - a King - in heaven Who is greater and mightier than any force on earth or in the universe.  He sees our struggles, and is ready to defend us just as soon as our faith reaches out to believe all that He has provided for us in Christ Jesus.

We must learn to not trust in ourselves for our deliverance.  "For I will not trust in and lean on my bow, neither shall my sword save me."  (v. 6).  We should never come to the point where we think we have outgrown our need of a savior.  God did not send His Son into the world to only save the weak ones - we are all incapable of achieving God's standard of holiness by ourselves.  He wants us to be like little children in our dependence on Him.  When we learn to do this, we find that we have nothing to boast in but God Himself.  We are freed from the pride that goes along with thinking we have done it ourselves.  This is very hard for us humans to accept.  We would rather struggle and fail doing things our own way than accept God's help, believe, and overcome.  The story of Cain and Abel illustrates this principle very well.  Cain brought of the fruits of the ground which he had worked to present an offering to the LORD.  Abel, on the other hand, offered a lamb from the flock.  Cain's offering was the fruit of his labor, while Abel's was the blood of a living sacrifice.  Abel's offering was accepted by God.  Cain's was rejected.  Christ's life, death, and resurrection is the only means of salvation that there is - He is not interested in our labors, ideas, or even our sacrifices if they are not aligned with the One true sacrifice that He has provided to atone for our sin.  That sacrifice is Jesus Christ, the perfect Lamb of God Who was slain for our transgressions, and wounded for our iniquities.

It is said that, "God helps those who help themselves."  The Christian demographer and pollster George Barna of The Barna Group polled the beliefs of Americans regarding this phrase and the Bible and discovered the following:

 

·         In response to the statement "The Bible teaches that God helps those who help themselves; 53% of Americans agree strongly, 22% agree somewhat, 7% disagree somewhat, 14% disagree strongly, and 5% stated they don't know.

 

·         Of "born-again" Christians 68% agreed, and 81% of non "born-again" Christians agreed with the statement.

·         In a February 2000 poll, 53% strongly agreed and 22% agreed somewhat that the Bible teaches the phrase.

·         A poll in the late 1990s showed the majority (81%) believe the concept is taught by the Bible.

·         Despite being of non-Biblical origin, the phrase topped a poll of the most widely known Bible verses.

·         Seventy-five percent of American teenagers said they believed that it was the central message of the Bible.

According to a Wikipedia article, "Barna critiques this as evidence of Americans' unfamiliarity with the Bible and believes that the statement actually conflicts with the doctrine of Grace in Christianity.  It "suggests a spiritual self-reliance inconsistent with Christianity" according to David Kinnaman, vice president of the Barna Research Group."

The Bible, in fact, teaches us that God helps those who cannot help themselves, and those who fall into that category include the whole human race.  It is only a form of pride that suggests that we can live and function independently from God.  It is the very essence  of humanism that seeks to elevate man to a level with, or above, God.  When Adam and Eve were tempted in the Garden of Eden, the serpent told them that the only reason that God told them not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was because they would then become as gods themselves.  This, then, is the real motivation behind refusing a life of dependence upon God: we want to be like gods ourselves - in control of our own destiny.  Like Adam and Eve, however, the price that we pay for that decision is spiritual death.  We may still go through the motions of Christianity (going to church, praying, reading the Bible, helping others), but we lack the life-force of Christ that breathes joy, vitality, and  relevance into those actions.  If I prune my apple tree and lay the cut branches in a bundle on the ground beside the tree, they continue to be apple branches, but they do not function in the same way as those branches that remain on the tree.  They dry up and die while the live branches blossom and produce fruit.  The difference?  It is the life-force that they are attached to.  If we want to try to "help ourselves," God will afford us that opportunity to be sure.  It is our relationship with the Savior that will suffer in the end, though.

When Israel cried out to God because they knew how helpless they were against Sennacherib, then God answered them through the Prophet Isaiah saying, "Thus saith the LORD, Be not afraid of the words which thou hast heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed Me.  Behold, I will send a blast upon him, and he shall hear a rumour, and shall return to his own land; and I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land."  (2 Kings 19:6,7).  Ultimately, God sent an angel which killed185,000 Assyrian soldiers without Hezekiah's army ever having to lift a sword or spear in their own defense.  As a result, Sennacherib returned to his capitol in Nineveh where two of his sons took his life while he was praying to an idol.  


God will defend us also if we will place our trust in Him.  Through Christ, we have the victory always.  It is time for the church of Jesus Christ (His people) to rise up and be the light of the world.  It is time for us to be the salt of the earth.  There must be something in God's people that distinguishes them from the everyone else.  If we only ever testify of what God has done and can do, but never demonstrate what He is doing, what kind of hope does that give to others?  If we abide in Christ and learn to lean on His everlasting arms, we will spiritual fruit that can then feed the world!

"I will bless the LORD at all times: His praise shall continually be in my mouth.  My soul shall make her boast in the LORD: the humble shall hear thereof, and be glad.  O magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt His name together."  (Psalm 34:1-3).

"For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast [in himself].  For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them."  (Ephesians 2:8-10).