I remember meeting a young lady early on in my walk with the Lord. She had lived a very hard life far from the Lord but was beginning to show some early signs of interest in the things of the Lord.
She was actively resisting her long-time relationship with her drug dealer – a scrawny but nevertheless dangerous man that I confronted in a Walmart parking lot – her oldest son was beginning to attend youth group, and she was beginning to read her Bible and even attended Sunday gatherings regularly.
She was also a little over halfway through a pregnancy with the baby of the drug dealer. Everything was going well for this young lady and for the first time in her life she was enjoying the benefits of the blessings of faith in Christ and obedience to the Lord.
But everything came unraveled one night when she went into premature labor a few months before her due date, and she lost the baby. It was an absolute tragedy. I remember rushing to the hospital and then spending untold amounts of time with her and her son and other members of her family as they grieved the painful loss.
It was easy to look back over the past months (before the loss of her baby) and clearly remember God’s redeeming power in her life. It was also really confusing and bewildering to experience the current level of suffering in this family despite their newfound faith and obedience to God.
This was not the first time I had experienced something like this, and it would not be the last time either. I am sure that most of you have experienced something similar. It is a fairly common human experience to be doing well, to even be doing what seems right and good and honoring to God, and then to have tragedy strike out of the middle of nowhere and to be left wondering why God allowed this suffering to come into your life. This is the general place where we find our Psalmist today and he begins by remembering the past. Look at the text with me…
1O God, we have heard with our ears, our fathers have told us, what deeds you performed in their days, in the days of old; 2you with your own hand drove out the nations, but them you planted; you afflicted the peoples, but them you set free; 3for not by their own sword did they win the land, nor did their own arm save them, but your right hand and your arm, and the light of your face, for you delighted in them. 4You are my King, O God; ordain salvation for Jacob! 5Through you we push down our foes; through your name we tread down those who rise up against us. 6For not in my bow do I trust, nor can my sword save me. 7But you have saved us from our foes and have put to shame those who hate us. 8In God we have boasted continually, and we will give thanks to your name forever. Selah. 9But you have rejected us and disgraced us and have not gone out with our armies. 10You have made us turn back from the foe, and those who hate us have gotten spoil. 11You have made us like sheep for slaughter and have scattered us among the nations. 12You have sold your people for a trifle, demanding no high price for them. 13You have made us the taunt of our neighbors, the derision and scorn of those around us. 14You have made us a byword among the nations, a laughingstock among the peoples. 15All day long my disgrace is before me, and shame has covered my face 16at the sound of the taunter and reviler, at the sight of the enemy and the avenger. 17All this has come upon us, though we have not forgotten you, and we have not been false to your covenant. 18Our heart has not turned back, nor have our steps departed from your way; 19yet you have broken us in the place of jackals and covered us with the shadow of death. 20If we had forgotten the name of our God or spread out our hands to a foreign god, 21would not God discover this? For he knows the secrets of the heart. 22Yet for your sake we are killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered. 23Awake! Why are you sleeping, O Lord? Rouse yourself! Do not reject us forever! 24Why do you hide your face? Why do you forget our affliction and oppression? 25For our soul is bowed down to the dust; our belly clings to the ground. 26Rise up; come to our help! Redeem us for the sake of your steadfast love!
#1: REMEMBERING THE PAST (VV. 1 – 8)
In verses 1 – 8 our Psalmist remembers God’s powerful deeds in the past. He remembers hearing the older generation recount things that God had miraculously done in their midst throughout the centuries (v. 1). He remembers hearing how God had destroyed Israel’s enemies while redeeming, protecting, and sustaining his people (v. 2). He has been taught well to recognize that no victory comes through human strength because we know that it is God who gives the victory even as he provides humans with the strength to be victorious over our enemies (vv. 3, 5 – 7).
Because of what our Psalmist has heard and even experienced regarding God’s power in the past, he proclaims “You are my King, O God… In God we have boasted continually, and we give thanks to your name forever” (vv. 4, 8). Our Psalmist is literally praising God as he remembers God’s powerful work in the past.
Sometimes our past is full of difficulty. But part of healing from the suffering of the past (whether it be the ever constant voice of our old enemy, Satan, or the weaknesses and consequences we live with because of our own sin, or the very present reality that our days on this earth are numbered) part of healing from the suffering and rebellion of the past is to remember God’s powerful work in the midst of that suffering and rebellion.
Some of us can tell stories of how God showed up and miraculously saved us from a life of sin and rebellion. Others can tell stories of how God got ahold of our lives despite generations of Satanic strongholds in our family. Many of us can testify to the newfound sense of calling and purpose we now have in Christ Jesus as we live out our human timeline on this earth before death ushers us into the eternal presence of our Heavenly Father.
These are all ways that each of us remember God’s powerful work in the past. But we live in the present and sometimes this present darkness causes us to grieve because of some kind of sudden, prolonged, and often unexplainable suffering. This is where our Psalmist turns his attention next.
#2: GRIEVING IN THE PRESENT (VV. 9 – 22)
In verses 9 – 22 our Psalmist grieves and laments the suffering that God’s people are enduring in the present. He uses some really strong imagery with his words to describe what God’s people are experiencing. They have been rejected, disgraced, and abandoned (v. 9). They have been defeated by their enemies as they retreated (v. 10). They are being slaughtered and scattered like helpless sheep (v. 11). They have been sold out like cheap unwanted junk (v. 12). They are being taunted and made fun of by everyone around them (v. 13). Their suffering has become like a comedy hour to entertain the masses (v. 14). Day in and day and day out there is no escape from the shame that they feel (vv. 15 – 16). Despite their faithfulness, they are suffering unexplainable amounts of persecution and opposition (vv. 17 – 22).
If these descriptions are not enough to depict the grief God’s people are experiencing in the present, the Psalmist takes things a step further; he basically jams the knife into the shoulder blade up to the hilt when he describes who is responsible for the suffering. It might surprise you to notice that the psalmist blames everything on God.
He says, “you have rejected us and disgraced us” (v. 9), he also says, “you have made us” retreat (v. 10), and he also says, “you have sold your people” for a cheap price (v. 12). And the accusations goe on and on and on; nearly every verse from verses 9 – 22 ascribes responsibility for this suffering to God. It is not just that God’s people are suffering, God (the very one who miraculously redeemed his people in the past) is the very one who has brought on this suffering.
How do we explain this? How do we explain the activity of our loving and benevolent God when it appears that he is responsible for bringing pain and hardship into our lives? Can it be true that God would knowingly bring suffering into our lives? Is that really what the Psalmist is saying? Or, could it be, that God simply is not able to intervene in our suffering because our free will trumps his sovereignty; he cannot control the circumstances of our lives?
Or could it be true that God does not really foresee the suffering that is around the corner for us, and he merely responds to it in accordance with how we exert our free will; God is merely a puppet pulled around by the strings of our choices, right? Is God responsible for our suffering or is he unable to foresee our suffering or is he unable to intervene in our suffering? These are the questions we ask when we grieve the suffering we experience in this present age.
But before we can even attempt to answer those questions, we have to answer a much more important question, a much more foundational question to all the others. It is the age-old question: Why does God allow or even orchestrate bad things for good people or bad things for people who are doing good?This is exactly the question the Psalmist asks in the final verses of our text.
#3: ASKING WHY (VV. 23 – 26)
In verses 23 – 26 our Psalmist literally asks the why questions: “Why are you sleeping, O Lord? Why do you hide your face? Why do you forget our affliction and oppression?” and he also begs God to intervene when he says, “Rouse yourself! Do not reject us forever! Rise up; come to our help! Redeem us”.
Our Psalmist describes God’s people like they are lying face down on the mat in the middle of the ring of suffering (v. 25) and within the context of the entire Psalm it appears as though God is standing outside the ring directing God’s enemies to pile drive God’s people through the mat and the Psalmist wants to know why God is doing this and he wants God to come to their rescue.
At the core of the Psalmist’s questions is the question: Why does God allow or orchestrate bad things to happen to good people who are doing good things? The Scriptures help to teach us that this age-old question is a misguided question because “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23), therefore the real question is: Why does God allow or orchestrate good things for bad people?2
We also have to remember that even Jesus explained that human suffering is sometimes orchestrated and allowed so “that the works of God might be displayed” in and through us so that God is glorified by how we suffer (John 9:2 – 3). We can also take comfort in knowing that suffering strengthens our faith according to 1 Peter 1:6 – 7 and suffering also gives us the opportunity to suffer like Jesus did according to Philippians 1:29.3
I would also add that the entire book of Job in the Old Testament introduces us to the God who is not only in complete control of Job’s suffering and the evil that is coming against him but he is also the one who initiates Job’s suffering from the beginning when he starts the conversation with Lucifer and then directs his attention to Job; the entire story is a study in God’s complete sovereignty in both initiating and eventually relieving Job’s suffering so that God and God alone is fully justified and glorified. So how do we answer the questions that we and our Psalmist have asked?
#4: ANSWERING THE QUESTION TO THE BEST OF OUR ABILITY
Here are our questions: Does God allow and orchestrate suffering in the lives of good people? Is God really in full control of our suffering? Is God unable to control the circumstances of our lives? Is God unable to foresee the suffering that comes into our lives? Does God merely react to the decisions that I make with the freedom of my will? After we ask those questions and examine the text we must agree with the Psalmist, that God is the one who is in full control and that he even orchestrates our suffering for our good and his glory.
If God does not orchestrate my suffering, then my suffering has no eternal purpose (it only has a demonic purpose or a momentary human purpose). If God is unable to orchestrate my suffering, because of my free will, then God becomes my puppet, and he ceases to be God as my will takes the throne. If God is unable to foresee my suffering, then how could I ever trust him to be the captain of the ship of my life? At this point everything would depend on my strength and ability.
You see, I must trust that God is in complete control from the beginning to the end of my suffering and that he has a purpose that is far beyond my understanding and that if I hold on tightly to him, then he will bring me through to the other side of my suffering with my eternal reward intact and with his glory shining through in my life.
CONCLUSION…
In conclusion, maybe this understanding of God’s sovereignty is why the Psalmist says in verses 22 and 26 that all of this suffering is happening “for your [God’s] sake” and that when God intervenes then it will serve to highlight or glorify God’s “steadfast love”. Maybe this is why the apostle Paul says in Romans 8:18 that he considers that “the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us”. Maybe this is also why the apostle Paul says further down in Romans 8:28 “that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose”.
Maybe it is this very understanding of God’s sovereignty in our suffering that once again in Romans 8:35 – 39 the apostle Paul directly quotes Psalm 44:22 when he says, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, ‘For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.’ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord”.
Nothing can separate us from God because God is in full control, he has full knowledge, and therefore he is fully capable of conquering the suffering that he brings into our lives. Nowhere is this truth more obvious than the bloody cross, the empty tomb, and the promise of heaven.
If God ordained the suffering of his perfect Son Jesus on our behalf, why would he not also ordain our suffering so that we might become more and more like our Savior? If God also ordained the empty tomb on the third day, then why would we not look forward to suffering in anticipation of our own experience of the victory of the empty grave? If God also ordained that one day we would walk with him in the perfection of heaven for all eternity, why would we lose hope here amidst the suffering of this life?
The reality of Psalm 44 is that in it we find what may appear to be tiny shreds of hope in the gospel of our crucified, risen, and returning Savior. But the reality is that we actually gain massive, gigantic threads of hope in the historical message of our sovereign and redeeming God who is full of steadfast love.
When we look to the past, we see God’s mighty, powerful, and miraculous works, and when we grieve the suffering that he brings into our present circumstances, we are enabled to anticipate our complete victory in the future as we look to the cross, the empty tomb, and the promise of heaven. This is how we endure suffering in the present, in light of God’s powerful works in the past as we look forward with hope to the future as those who “are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Rom. 8:37). – Amen!
1 Unless otherwise specified, all Bible references in this paper are to the English Standard Version Bible, The New Classic Reference Edition (ESV) (Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers, 2001).
2 Richard D. Phillips, Psalms 42 – 72, (Phillipsburg, New Jersey: P&R Publishing, 2019), 20.
3 Ibid., 20 – 21.