IN GOD WE BOAST ALL THE DAY
1 We have heard with our ears, O God, our fathers have told us, what work thou didst in their days, in the times of old.
2 How thou
didst drive out the heathen with thy hand, and plantedst them; how thou didst
afflict the people, and cast them out.
3 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 hadst a favour unto them.
4 Thou art
my King, O God: command deliverances for Jacob.
5 Through
thee will we push down our enemies: through thy name will we tread them under
that rise up against us.
6 For I will
not trust in my bow, neither shall my sword save me.
7 But thou
hast saved us from our enemies, and hast put them to shame that hated us.
8 In God we
boast all the day long, and praise thy name for ever. Selah. (Psalm 44:1-8).
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 called on Isaiah the prophet to hear
the word of the Lord.
Against this tense backdrop Psalm 44 was 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,
" Thou art my King, O God: command
deliverances for Jacob." (Psalm 44:4).
In all of the spiritual 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 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 is
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, pride, 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 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 not to trust in ourselves for our
deliverance. " For I will not trust in 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 only to 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 own 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. According to David Kinnaman, vice president of the
Barna Research Group it ‘suggests a
spiritual self-reliance inconsistent with Christianity.’”
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 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 killed 185,000
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, too, if we will place our trust
in Him. Through Christ, we always have
the victory. 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 everyone else. If we only 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 bear 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).
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