LORD, I have heard the report about You , revive Your work.

Psalm 44:1-8 from the daily reading in the One Year Bible

Former Deliverances and Present Troubles.

A Maskil of the sons of Korah.

O God, we have heard with our ears,
Our fathers have told us
The work that You did in their days,
In the days of old.
² You with Your own hand drove out the nations;
Then You planted them;
You afflicted the peoples,
Then You spread them abroad.
³ For by their own sword they did not possess the land,
And their own arm did not save them,
But Your right hand and Your arm and the light of Your presence,
For You favored them.

⁴ You are my King, O God;
Command victories for Jacob.
⁵ Through You we will push back our adversaries;
Through Your name we will trample down those who rise up against us.
⁶ For I will not trust in my bow,
Nor will my sword save me.
⁷ But You have saved us from our adversaries,
And You have put to shame those who hate us.
⁸ In God we have boasted all day long,
And we will give thanks to Your name forever. Selah.

Habakkuk 3:2 says:  LORD, I have heard the report about You and I fear. O LORD, revive Your work in the midst of the years, In the midst of the years make it known; In wrath remember mercy.     In today’s text, the psalmist echoes a similar declaration of what God has done:   O God, we have heard with our ears, Our fathers have told us The work that You did in their days.  We too should declare the marvelous and mighty works of God, both those recorded in scripture and those from more recent times. In Malachi 3:6 God says:   "For I, the LORD, do not change…”  and in Numbers 23:19:   "God is not a man, that He should lie, Nor a son of man, that He should repent; Has He said, and will He not do it? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?”   The very same God who parted the sea so the Israelites could go through on dry land is watching over us today. He has not changed. The same God who over and over, Himself defeated the enemies of Israel will fight for us today. Many would ask; if God has not changed, why don’t we see the miracles today? I am convinced that it is not God, it is us.

Because of our “great” human wisdom, we rely on ourselves and our human wisdom and strength. Psalm 115:16 says:   The heavens are the heavens of the Lord, But the earth He has given to the sons of men.   God created man in His own image and likeness and He gave us dominion over the earth. (Genesis 1) Through sin, man’s dominion over earth was given to the devil. God, being omnipotent, all powerful, continued to do great miracles here on earth even though man’s authority was lost. When Jesus came He said:  “The kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (Matthew 4:17) Jesus walked in the power and the authority of the kingdom of heaven. The miracles He did were manifestations of the realities of heaven here on earth. After Jesus suffered and died on the cross and was raised, resurrected from death back to life, He said:  “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.” (Matthew 28:18) So Jesus reclaimed the lost authority of man, from the devil.

Here though is why and how we often miss out on the authority we have; why we often fail to see the miraculous works of God in our day. Matthew 16:13-19 says:   Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, He was asking His disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” And they said, “Some say John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; but still others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.”     The Greek word translated as church, is the word ekklesia, which is a body or group that is called apart for the purpose of governing or ruling. Jesus says that on the rock, the solid foundation of the revelation that He is the Christ, the Savior, the Messiah, He will build His church, His ruling body of people. But watch what He says; watch where our authority lies. Jesus says He will give us “the keys to the kingdom of heaven,” not the keys to the earth.  We are to use the keys to the kingdom of heaven to exercise authority on the earth. Ephesians 6:12 says:  For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.      When we engage in the battle with our own wisdom and strength, the victories we see are only what we are able to do. Instead we are to use the keys to the kingdom of heaven, bringing the authority of heaven to our earthly situations and circumstances. Then the same power that has done miraculous things for thousands of years will also do marvelous and miraculous things in our lives.

Returning to the text, it is important for us, like the psalmist and like the Israelites, to remember and declare the miracles of God. Revelation 12:10-11 says:  Now the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down, he who accuses them before our God day and night.  And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony.     Through our testimony of the power of the blood of Christ and the works of God we overcome the enemy. When we declare the marvelous works of God we build our faith; we remind ourselves and others that God has not changed. We also remind the enemy that he has been defeated. When we use the authority of the kingdom of heaven, given to us in Christ, the very gates of hell cannot stand against us.

May our prayer and declaration be as the psalmist and Habakkuk:  You are my King, O God; Command victories for Jacob. Through You we will push back our adversaries; Through Your name we will trample down those who rise up against us. For I will not trust in my bow, Nor will my sword save me. But You have saved us from our adversaries, And You have put to shame those who hate us. In God we have boasted all day long, And we will give thanks to Your name forever. :  LORD, I have heard the report about You and I fear. O LORD, revive Your work in the midst of the years, In the midst of the years make it known.  Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.   Amen.