The Enemies of Israel

 Temple Baptist Church - 5-4-2025

Psalm 129

 

Introduction:

 

A. Last week, we studied Psalm 29, which is all prophetic concerning the ultimate destruction of Jerusalem, the Jews, and the defilement of the Temple called “The Abomination of Desolation.”

 

B. Psalm 129 is historic, contemporary, and prophetic, reflecting on Israel’s less-than-stellar past, challenging present, and ongoing future. Israel is the most hated nation on Earth, and home to the most persecuted of all people.

 

Possibly the oldest book in the Bible says in Job 14:1-2, “Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble. (2) He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not.”

 

Jacob, before Pharoah, said inGenesis 47:9, “And Jacob said unto Pharaoh, The days of the years of my pilgrimage are an hundred and thirty years: few and evil have the days of the years of my life been, and have not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage.”

 

Verses 1-2.

 

Psalms 34:19a Many are the afflictions of the righteous …

 

1. The Jews had been oppressed by Pharaoh in Egypt, by the tribes north of the wilderness, and by the Canaanites, Philistines, Ammonites, Assyrians, Babylonians, Samaritans, Greeks, and Romans in biblical days. In modern history, they were slaughtered in Germany during the Holocaust, and Jews are hated, with antisemitism found in almost every place they live. The newborn Nation of Israel has fought against its neighbors since becoming a nation in 1948 and continues to fight for its life against Iranian proxies across the Middle East.

 

The religious leaders crucified the Son of God because they hated who He was.

 

2. We need to make an application to Christians around the world in all ages. The war against God’s people began 2500 years before the persecution of the Nation of Israel began. In Genesis, chapter 4, we find the struggle of good and evil in the home of Adam and Eve. Cain killed his brother Abel because Abel was righteous, and Cain was ungodly. The hatred and persecution of the people of God has never stopped or even slacked.

 

3. The Church has suffered great atrocities at the hands of both religious institutions and heathens. In the Middle Ages alone, the Roman Catholic Church put to death over 50,000,000 “apostates” because they would recant their faith in Christ alone and bow to Rome. The Saint Bartholomew's Day massacre (French: Massacre de la Saint-Barthélemy) in 1572 was a targeted group of assassinations and a wave of Catholic mob violence directed against the French Huguenots of which tens of thousands died for their faith.

 

4. Germany killed over 6,000,000 Jews simply because they were Jews. Christians in our day are being assassinated and slaughtered throughout Africa and Arabic nations.

 

Verse 2.

 

Psalms 34:19 Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the LORD delivereth him out of them all.

 

1. The combined powers of evil have not been able to destroy Israel. Israel survives today because of the continued protective hand of God, who is not done with them yet. They will live to be restored to their intended glory in the end time.

 

Exodus 3:2 And the angel of the LORD appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed.

 

2. The combined powers of evil have been unable to destroy the Church. By the Church, I mean the body of Christ. The great persecution in the days of Saul of Tarsus of the Church only scattered the believers who took the Word of God with them and continued to sow the Seed of Salvation.

 

The great persecution of God’s people by the Roman Church in the Middle Ages fired the Protestant Reformation of the 1500’s. Read “Fox’s Book of Martyrs”, where you will find that the faith of God’s people was an enduring, overcoming faith.

 

Foxe's Book of Martyrs is a work of Protestant history and martyrology by Protestant English historian John Foxe, first published in 1563 by John Day. It gives the accounts of the greatness of the persecution and physical destruction of believers that could not stop the greatness of their faith and willingness to die for their faith.

 

In the New Testament, we find these verses:

 

2 Corinthians 4:8-9 We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; (9) Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed;

 

Hebrews 11:32-40 And what shall I more say? for the time would fail me to tell of Gedeon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthae; of David also, and Samuel, and of the prophets: (33) Who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, (34) Quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. (35) Women received their dead raised to life again: and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection: (36) And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment: (37) They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented; (38) (Of whom the world was not worthy:) they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth. (39) And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise: (40) God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect.

 

Therein lies the summary of the history of the Church

 

Verse 3.

 

John 15:18 If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you.

 

1. The unparalleled sufferings of God’s people, both Jew and Gentile, have been beyond comprehension at times as the furrows of hatred were plowed long and deep. Relentless at times but Israel and the Church still live.

 

2. When Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch (A.D. 107), about 12 years after John the Beloved was given the Revelation of Jesus Christ, was taken to Rome and cast to the lions, he exclaimed, “I am God’s wheat, and must be ground by the teeth of the wild beasts that I may be found His pure bread.”

 

3. The Sufferings of Christ. Isaiah 50:6 I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not my face from shame and spitting.

 

Verse 4.

 

Isaiah 54:16-17 Behold, I have created the smith that bloweth the coals in the fire, and that bringeth forth an instrument for his work; and I have created the waster to destroy. (17) No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, and their righteousness is of me, saith the LORD.

 

1. The Righteous Lord will not allow God’s people to be destroyed. He allows the disobedient to suffer as well as the obedient. We are not exempt from the sorrows of this world but are under the protection of God’s hedge and hands.

 

2. The Ungodly’s power is limited by God. They cannot reach farther than God will allow. God is in control of the lives of the godly and the lives of the ungodly.

 

Verses 5-7.

 

1. Their Wondering. As much as they hate God’s people, as much as they try to destroy God’s people, the more that Israel endures and prospers! The same with God’s Church. Tribulation and persecution have always caused spiritual prosperity.

 

2. Their Withering. These hate groups come and go. Others rise to take their place but ultimately wither away as all others. Only the things of God truly last.

 

3. Their Worthlessness. They become castaways that no one wants to help or retain. ISIS turns into Hamas, which turns into Hezbollah, and no one wants to associate with any of them because they are all losers.

 

Verse 8.

 

1. The Wicked will see the testimony of God’s people. “Neither do they which go by”

 

2. The Wicked will never say, “The blessing of the LORD be upon you: we bless you in the name of the LORD.”

 

3. This present world will never bless Israel as their hearts are cold and hardened. Their hatred for the people of god will lead to their own destruction.

 

4. The present world will never bless God’s children. Bless religion, yes! Bless God’s children, no!

 

5. But, God’s people will continue to bless Israel.

 

Ruth 2:1-4 And Naomi had a kinsman of her husband's, a mighty man of wealth, of the family of Elimelech; and his name was Boaz. (2) And Ruth the Moabitess said unto Naomi, Let me now go to the field, and glean ears of corn after him in whose sight I shall find grace. And she said unto her, Go, my daughter. (3) And she went, and came, and gleaned in the field after the reapers: and her hap was to light on a part of the field belonging unto Boaz, who was of the kindred of Elimelech. (4) And, behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem, and said unto the reapers, The LORD be with you. And they answered him, The LORD bless thee.