Psalm 44

¹ We have heard with our ears, O God; our fathers have told us what you did in their days, in days long ago.
² With your hand you drove out the nations and planted our fathers; you crushed the peoples and made our fathersflourish.
³ It was not by their sword that they won the land, nor did their arm bring them victory; it was your right hand, your arm, and the light of your face, for you loved them.
⁴ You are my King and my God, who decrees victories for Jacob.
⁵ Through you we push back our enemies; through your name we trample our foes.
⁶ I do not trust in my bow, my sword does not bring me victory;
⁷ but you give us victory over our enemies, you put our adversaries to shame.
⁸ In God we make our boast all day long, and we will praise your name forever. Selah
⁹ But now you have rejected and humbled us; you no longer go out with our armies.
¹⁰ You made us retreat before the enemy, and our adversaries have plundered us.
¹¹ You gave us up to be devoured like sheep and have scattered us among the nations.
¹² You sold your people for a pittance, gaining nothing from their sale.
¹³ You have made us a reproach to ourneighbors, the scorn and derision of those around us.
¹⁴ You have made us a byword among the nations; the peoples shake their heads at us.
¹⁵ My disgrace is before me all day long, and my face is covered with shame
¹⁶ at the taunts of those who reproach and revile me, because of the enemy, who is bent on revenge.
¹⁷ All this happened to us, though we had not forgotten you or been false to your covenant.
¹⁸ Our hearts had not turned back; our feet had not strayed from your path.
¹⁹ But you crushed us and made us a haunt for jackals and covered us over with deep darkness.
²⁰ If we had forgotten the name of our God or spread out our hands to a foreign god,
²¹ would not God have discovered it, since he knows the secrets of the heart?
²² Yet for your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.
²³ Awake, O Lord! Why do you sleep? Rouse yourself! Do not reject us forever.
²⁴ Why do you hide your face and forget our misery and oppression?
²⁵ We are brought down to the dust; our bodies cling to the ground.
²⁶ Rise up and help us; redeem us because of your unfailing love.

Verse twenty-two “Yet for your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered” is used by Paul in Romans 8:36 in response to the question “If God is for us who can be against us”. In the past my daughter Alex and I would race to see who could quote Romans 8:28 the fastest. It was my desire to make this verse real in her life, since I knew her Christian walk in this life would not be easy. Romans 8:28 “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose” is the verse that states the conclusion of Paul’s discussion on living your life through the spirit. When studying Romans we realize that we were born in sin and we do not seek God, but it was God who seeks after us and provided a way back to Him through Christ that we might become sons of God. Therefore, to understand this psalm in light of Romans chapter eight we must understand that the world lives according to the sinful nature of the old man and we live according to the spiritual nature of the new man. These two natures have two different masters with two different goals: Christ and glorifying God, man and glorifying man. When we take on the spiritual nature we take on the nature of a servant just as Christ did when he was on this earth. This new nature then seeks Christ and ways of glorifying God.

When we study the scripture, we must realize that God’s will for man is that we become sons of God. Therefore, it is important that all believers know and completely understand the effects that the fall of man (found in Genesis 3) had on the relationship of God and man that existed before the fall. Before the fall man walk with God, after the fall man hid from God. Christ though his death on the cross has renewed the relationship between God and man. The relationship that existed before the fall (found in Genesis 3) has been restored to man through Christ.