The book of Judges reminds us that Israel was often defeated due to its rebellion. But Psalm 44 shows a faithful man in defeat.

The psalmist says that his group (presumably his tribe) was faithful too (44:17-18). Therefore, his defeat bewilders him: “You have cast us off and put us to shame, and You do not go out with our armies…. The shame of my face has covered me.” (44:9, 15).

Even without knowing the particular situation, you can grasp the general idea—the Lord allows even the godly to experience setbacks and defeats. It’s not hard to see similarities between the psalmist’s circumstances and ours.

We might think that Christendom's many defeats are due to its own sin, and they undoubtedly are. But surely, godly Christians who have not dealt falsely with God’s covenant still exist. How might these believers be tempted to respond when they work hard to serve God but suffer defeat for their troubles? They might dump blame on those whom they think are responsible. They might be tempted to give up on God.

The psalmist does not cast blame or sink into despair. Instead, he pleads, almost demands, that things be different. It’s surprising and audacious. Psalm 44 blends faith in God and protest at circumstances; it is a sort of spiritual activism. It declares that the faithful shouldn’t serve God and be punished for it, and it seeks God to reverse the defeat.

The psalm shows five steps to protesting before God in defeat. Each step proceeds logically to the next, so there is a pleasing cohesion to the psalm. As we proceed, we will remember God’s past favor to us, refresh our faith in Him, view our hardships as coming from Him, make a case for why He should change things, and rely on God’s covenant faithfulness.

Remember God’s saving acts in the past

When God lets you endure a setback, recall His great saving acts He’s done before, and tell Him about them.

We have heard with our ears, O God, Our fathers have told us,

The deeds You did in their days,

In days of old:

You drove out the nations with Your hand,

But them You planted;

You afflicted the peoples, and cast them out.

For they did not gain possession of the land by their own sword,

Nor did their own arm save them;

But it was Your right hand, Your arm, and the light of Your countenance,

Because You favored them. (psalm 44:1-3)

God often allows good churches to have little impact, societies to disintegrate, and the wicked to have influence. When things seem to be falling apart, we must remember God’s past works for us. Forgetting our God-blessed past forces us into a practically-atheist present. Remembering God’s past deeds helps us trust that He’ll act again.

The psalmist tells God about His own works. He doesn’t just recall them. God doesn’t need reminding, so why tell God things He already knows? Well, he is drawing near to God, not just repeating facts to himself. So that would be reason enough. But the rest of the psalm shows that he’s also preparing to say, “You have shown yourself to be a God of salvation before, so why aren't you helping now?”

A frank question like that becomes bitter without humble faith. Therefore, before asking it, the psalmist re-confesses his faith in God for the here-and-now. And so must we. “Why” questions are fine, but they can easily become reproachful.

Re-confess faith in God now

The psalmist shifts his gaze away from the past and rests it on the present and future. He says, “You did great things, and you are doing great things, and you will do more great things in times to come.”

You are my King, O God;

Command victories for Jacob.

Through You we will push down our enemies;

Through Your name we will trample those who rise up against us.

For I will not trust in my bow,

Nor shall my sword save me.

But You have saved us from our enemies,

And have put to shame those who hated us.

In God we boast all day long,

And praise Your name forever. (Psa. 44:4-8)

We continually face new circumstances, and we are changeable and sinful. Our response to setbacks might be to stop relying on Christ and begin trusting ourselves. The psalmist shows us how to endure new storms and not be blown out to sea. In every new gust, we must anchor our souls to our unchanging, sovereign God.

Prayer is the breath of faith, the very expression of spiritual life. If you are experiencing a setback, refresh your faith in God as your help. Otherwise, you’ll start trusting in yourself as the Lord fades and becomes insubstantial to your eye of faith (Jer. 9:23-24).

Trusting God may be unsettling, though, because seeing Him as sovereign often leads to the question—"what is His relationship to our setback?" It doesn’t make sense to rely on Him as our only help in trouble but then deny He caused it. Trusting God leads you to ask, "just how sovereign is He?"

Interpret setbacks as God-ordained

Think of your trials as coming from God; the psalmist does this boldly.

But You have cast us off and put us to shame,

And You do not go out with our armies.

You make us turn back from the enemy,

And those who hate us have taken spoil for themselves.

You have given us up like sheep intended for food,

And have scattered us among the nations.

You sell Your people for next to nothing,

And are not enriched by selling them.

You make us a reproach to our neighbors,

A scorn and a derision to those all around us.

You make us a byword among the nations,

A shaking of the head among the peoples. (Psa. 44:9-16).

When God’s people suffer, they want an explanation. Here are two: People often blame human sin. Job’s comforters famously took this route; they couldn’t imagine that anyone could be suffering like Job was unless he was being punished for sin. People also remove God from the picture by emphasizing free will, not God’s sovereignty—"God has little or nothing to do with this situation; we are the captains of our souls."

Human sin is a real cause of defeat, doubtless in many cases. It is to be feared that the church is weak because there is much sin in the camp. But the psalmist denies this explanation in his case (vv. 17, 20-21). He is not claiming that they are sinless, but that they've not turned away from God or cooled in their love for Him.

The psalmist does not remove God from the picture. In fact, he does the opposite. He mentions second causes (“the enemy”), but he says God is the cause of His defeat: “You make us turn back from the enemy" (v. 10).

The lesson is clear. God brought their troubles on them. Elsewhere, God says this is always the case (Amos 3:6). Whether due to our sin or to some unknown cause, losses and setbacks are due to God’s decision. Any attempt at comfort by interpreting the situation as out of God’s control only puts our gaze on man and away from God.

Let's sum up the psalm so far: The psalmist remembers God’s past kindness, refreshes his faith, and insists that God is sovereign over his setback. In short, he believes that his loving God is at the center of the maelstrom, and in control of it. He does not question God or become outraged at Him. His view of sovereignty does not make him feel apathetic about his own freedom to act, either. In fact it leads Him to seek God for help. A robust view of sovereignty should lead to a robust life of prayer.

Make a case against defeat

The psalmist needs a rationale to bring before God, a reason why He should help.

If you’re suffering because you were foolish or sinful, then your rationale, or case, will be based upon God’s mercy to sinners. The psalmists pray like that—“Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Your lovingkindness … blot out my transgressions'' ( Psa. 51:1). It's good to know God is merciful to sinners and the foolish! This time however, the psalmist, like Job, cannot see a link between any moral failure and their setback, so his rationale is that they’re doing right:

All this has come upon us;

But we have not forgotten You,

Nor have we dealt falsely with Your covenant.

Our heart has not turned back,

Nor have our steps departed from Your way;

But You have severely broken us in the place of jackals,

And covered us with the shadow of death (Psa. 44:17-19).

It’s important to be honest with God about your situation. The psalmist is suffering even though he’s righteous. He’s honest about that. But he feels he’s being treated as though he was living wrongly.

Not that he’s telling God what to do. He’s arguing in light of who God has revealed Himself to be. He prays like Abraham did—“shall not the judge of all the earth do right?” (Gen. 18:25). God has said He would deliver His people from all evil (Psa. 127:7). Therefore, defeat shouldn’t be the reward of the godly.

Yet godly people suffer evil circumstances. The psalmist says that all day long he is like a sheep led away to be slaughtered (22). The apostle Paul quotes this verse in Romans 8:36 to point out that godly people often suffer persecution, famine, nakedness, danger, and sword. Paul’s point is that believers are more than conquerors over such terrors, because no earthly terror can separate them from the love of Christ. Therefore, despite all the harm, godly people aren’t harmed. They suffer, yes, but God sanctifies the suffering to bring Christlikeness (Rom. 8:28-29), not to mention providing for the sufferers an “eternal weight of glory” (2 Cor. 4:17). So a good answer to the agonized psalmist is, "Don't worry, God is using this setback to change you into Christ’s image and provide a weight of glory for you."

But if all we say to the sufferer is “hardships bring Christlikeness” and “glory is coming,” life can seem like a tormenting prison, and death a release. That may have a ring of truth to it, because life in a fallen world is difficult, but there is more to say to the sufferer. We don’t have to wait for glory to experience blessings—The psalmist expected to “see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living” (Psa. 27:13). He expected blessings in this life, not merely defeat, disgrace, and misery. Jesus said that those who serve God should expect to “receive a hundredfold now in this time—houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions—and in the age to come, eternal life” (Mark 10:30). Here is a fuller picture: The servants of God can expect much in life—great spiritual growth, great material blessing, and many hardships. And always, shining like a sunrise over the horizon, great hope for the life to come.

The earthly blessing that the psalmist wanted was military victory in the cause of God, and he made a case for it. We often desire blessings in this life, and we plead for them like the psalmist does. I think it is intuitive to do so. Few people blankly wait for blessings to come only in heaven. However, I sometimes wonder if we feel guilty for wanting blessings now. There are of course a multitude of ways to go wrong wanting them. Our requests may be covetous, earthly-minded, entitled, or impatient. We’re right to be cautious about our desires for earthly blessings. But the basic idea is valid—we should seek God for earthly blessings, just as the psalmist is doing. Of course, the earthly blessings we seek should all be for the advancement of God's cause, not merely for our own enjoyment (James 4:3). Everything we do must promote God's glory and kingdom (1 Cor. 10:31). But given these caveats, make your case.

Plead your case based on God’s promise

In verses 23–26, we see the psalmist pressing his case to God:

Awake! Why do You sleep, O Lord?

Arise! Do not cast us off forever.

Why do You hide Your face,

And forget our affliction and our oppression?

For our soul is bowed down to the dust;

Our body clings to the ground.

Arise for our help,

And redeem us for Your mercies’ sake. (Psalm 44:23-26)

Earlier, the psalmist grounded his prayer on their righteous lives, but here he grounds it on God’s “mercies,” or His kind acts that flow from His covenant. Is there a specific mercy he has in mind?

The most relevant covenant promise to his situation of military defeat was—“If you diligently obey the voice of the Lord…. The Lord will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before your face” (Deut. 28:1, 7). The psalmist, by praying “for Your mercies’ sake,” is praying that promise.

His logic is simple: God promises that if we’re faithful, we will defeat our enemies. Well, we’re faithful, but our enemies are defeating us! Therefore, I will plead the promise.

According to William Gurnall, this is the very nature of prayer—“Prayer is nothing but the promise reversed, or God’s Word formed into an argument, and retorted by faith upon God again” (William Gurnall, The Christian in Complete Armor, repr., Banner of Truth, 2:88).

We’re not told whether the psalmist received a “yes” to his prayer on this occasion. We just see him feeling stung by losses and seeking a change by praying the promise. He pleads for blessings, wringing them from heaven in his setback. He protests before God in defeat because He believes God can change things, and he wants God’s cause to prosper. I presume he received a “yes” answer.

Here’s the parallel from the psalmist’s case to ours—Christianity has little apparent influence in our times. The gospel appears to have minimal effect in a world that is awash in sin to a degree unimaginable a few decades ago. Is our terrible state of affairs a legitimate parallel to the defeat the psalmist is protesting? If so, some questions confront us: “Are we protesting against our defeat like he did against his?” “Shouldn’t we be praying for revival?” “Do we believe that the fervent prayer of a righteous person avails much?”

There’s another important question—has God given us the promise of revival in the same way that He gave the psalmist the promise of military victory? Deuteronomy 28 gave him a basis for seeking military victory in prayer. Do we have a scriptural basis to pray for revival? 2 Chronicles 7:14 appears to provide that basis. If you balk at using that verse, remember that all the promises of God are yes to us in Christ (2 Cor. 1:20), and this particular promise isn’t confined to a now-obsolete national administration, as are Deuteronomy 28:1, 7. We shouldn’t drive a wedge between 2 Chronicles 7:14 and ourselves. Besides, how can we think it wrong to want God to hear our prayers of repentance and heal our land? How can we not want the gospel to turn the world upside down once more (Acts 17:6)? It clearly is right to want this. These are holy desires, and the heart who feels them fervently will pray them. “Awake! Why do You sleep, O Lord? Arise! Do not cast us off forever.”