PSALM FORTY FOUR

TURNING HISTORY
INTO PRESENT PROOF.

   What God has done for His people in the past He will surely do for us 
today. A simple division of this psalm seems to be:-
   1. What God has done.
   2. What we must do.
   3. What seems to be happening now.
   4. Where our hope lies.
   There is always a great difficulty with some people in relating what God 
has done in the past with what is happening today. Consequently they are 
prone to think of God as being in the past or the future. Yet He is the God 
of today - THE I AM.
   The Psalmist begins by considering what God has done. "We have heard - our 
fathers have told us."  He recounts the conquest of Canaan.
"You destroyed the heathen, but planted your own people." "You troubled 
kingdoms, but propagated your own." The planting of Israel of old was God's 
own work. So was the planting of modern Israel. The Jewish nation was being 
eliminated - the whole world was actively against their return to Palestine - 
YET THEY ARE THERE.

   "We must push down the enemy," sings David. The form of the verb 'push 
down' expresses the confidence in victory. The power which gives this 
confidence is expressed in the words, "IN THY NAME." It is a personal 
experience of the power of God in our lives that turns history into present 
proof. History is but HIS-STORY. What He has done in the past, He can do in 
the present. Our reliance for victory must be upon God alone - not on Bow nor 
Sword but on God. We will glory in God.
   Yet when the psalmist looks around at what seemed to be happening, he 
says, "O God, you have removed us to a distance. You are no longer out with 
our armies. You made us turn back from our enemies. We are sheep for meat."  
How often this feeling of failure of fulfilment has come to God's people. Yet 
God is doing most when He seems to be doing least.
   David's reign was remarkable for its lack of idol worship. He could truly 
say that in spite of what seemed to be happening, they had not forgotten God. 
"Our heart is not turned back," He could sing. "Neither have our steps 
declined."  They were not backslidden in heart. The Bible declares that the 
backslider in heart is full of his own ways. When things do not seem to be 
what they ought to be and God seems afar off, we need to set our hearts upon 
Him more and more. We may be imperfect, but let us never be play-actors. 
Cleave to God and He can bring what He has done for us in the past into 
action in the present experience.



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file: /pub/resources/text/hpalmer/psalms: ps-044.txt
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