Psalm 44 - Going Forward In Suffering

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The People of God Remembered God’s Work
Verse 1:
O God, we have heard with our ears,
our fathers have told us,
what deeds you performed in their days,
in the days of old:
Having a history, you are able to build on your history.
They heard about God and the history of God’s works through their family.
What did they hear from their fathers, and parents?
They heard not only an idea, or teaching about God, but they also heard about his works, his deliverances from enemies, how God afflicted and saved those who he delighted in
This means that the idea was not only passed on, but the reality, that this God is real, and that this is their God and that this God acts by covenant that he made to Jacob, for that people and no other.
If you grew up in a family where your parents had faith in Christ. It means you are able to build on it. It means you have a wonderful opportunity that not everyone has in life. You have been given a good start to life.
If you have no history, or Christian ancestry, you can repent yourself and build a new future, with Christ and also give your posterity and offspring a good outset.
The Psalmist (Sons of Korah) Helped Israel Call Upon God

You are my King, O God;

ordain salvation for Jacob!

5  Through you we push down our foes;

through your name we tread down those who rise up against us.

6  For not in my bow do I trust,

nor can my sword save me.

7  But you have saved us from our foes

and have put to shame those who hate us.

8  In God we have boasted continually,

and we will give thanks to your name forever. Selah

The remembering of their heritage, (probably in Judah) caused them to in thier present day, call on God, to act in their time, as he has done in the past. And to act, to restore their standing. Sometimes even directional decay happens over generations in Christian homes, chuches, and cultures, and God will raise up pastors and leaders and prophetic people to correct it, through divine wisdon and justice. To restore the original and preserve the truth of the evangelical gospel.
Current Suffering

But you have rejected us and disgraced us

and have not gone out with our armies.

10  You have made us turn back from the foe,

and those who hate us have gotten spoil.

11  You have made us like sheep for slaughter

and have scattered us among the nations.

12  You have sold your people for a trifle,

demanding no high price for them.

13  You have made us the taunt of our neighbors,

the derision and scorn of those around us.

14  You have made us a byword among the nations,

a laughingstock among the peoples.

15  All day long my disgrace is before me,

and shame has covered my face

16  at the sound of the taunter and reviler,

at the sight of the enemy and the avenger.

17  All this has come upon us,

though we have not forgotten you,

and we have not been false to your covenant.

18  Our heart has not turned back,

nor have our steps departed from your way;

19  yet you have broken us in the place of jackals

and covered us with the shadow of death.

20  If we had forgotten the name of our God

or spread out our hands to a foreign god,

21  would not God discover this?

For he knows the secrets of the heart.

22  Yet for your sake we are killed all the day long;

we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.

23  Awake! Why are you sleeping, O Lord?

Rouse yourself! Do not reject us forever!

24  Why do you hide your face?

Why do you forget our affliction and oppression?

25  For our soul is bowed down to the dust;

our belly clings to the ground.

26  Rise up; come to our help!

Redeem us for the sake of your steadfast love!

If you could open the window, of when this Psalm was written. It would have been a window that was full of suffering and turmoil. Disgrace, seemingly that God has departed from his people, being overcome by the enemy and overrun, having the world and the nations speaking terriblly about Israel and God letting it happen. There are people making fun of the people of God, reviling them and taunting them.
How would you respond in that situation?
The sons of Korah, caused and through this Psalm turned the people of God’s eyes to God. Calling on God to remember his love, and giving a plea that if it was because of idolatry and worshipping a foreign god that they are to blame, and obligated to repent.
But there is one verse in this section that gives great cause for hope which is:
verse 11, “You have made us like sheep for slaughter
and have scattered us among the nations.
This verse and when it is used in the scriptures always has the intention and meanings of redemptive suffering. It refers to Christians, in Romans and it also refers ultimately to the Lamb of God, who’s own people, and children suffer, in accord to and in the pathway of following the Lamb of God.
These suffereings, though could result in the discipline against sin in the people of God, also gives hope that if repentance and obedience is applied and correction and restoration, then the pathway, is suffering. Repentance is difficult, but the roads end is eternal life.
But if there is none to fault, but the providential suffering of believers, it also has purpose, to represent and be like Christ, a blessing in a cursed world, so as to gain glory for the kingdom of God.
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