They will not Prevail

Psalm 129

This is another of the Songs of Ascent. It is different than the others because it is an imprecatory Psalm. It’s a Psalm that includes prayer for divine justice. The Psalm is easily divided:

1-4 God has made sure His people have prevailed.

5-8 A prayer for judgment on God’s enemies.

Some believe this was also an antiphonal Psalm. Look at verse 1 “Let Israel now say”. The point of the Psalm is to remind Gd’s people that the Lord will give them victory and the enemies of the Lord will be defeated. As we break it down we will make application to the church and the induvial believer.

1. Those who love God may be afflicted greatly (1).  

We are promised ease in heaven but never on earth.

“Greatly” is “Many a time” in KJV. Affliction is not the exception, it is the rule.

We may think of trials as afflictions. We get sick, we lose money, an accident occurs, etc. But the context here is affliction from others. People are intentionally afflicting us.

The testimony of the nation of Israel was one of great affliction. We don’t know the context of the Psalm. Was it before, during, or after one of the captivities? There is not enough internal evidence in the Psalm to tell.

If we go to the earlies incident of national affliction we see enough to qualify as great affliction.

Egypt:

Enslaved them

Beat them

Forced hard working conditions upon them

Attempted to kill their newborn children

People hated Israel. Nations hated Israel. They still do. People hate the church. Not the church that has abandoned the Bible. They love that church. They hate the church that stands on the Word of God.

Look at the early church and you see affliction. They were persecuted for their faith. They were oppressed, threatened, beaten and even killed for their faith. If you want to avoid affliction Christianity is not the religion for you. 

The proof of God’s favor on your life is not the absence but the presence of affliction. Jesus says they hate His people because they hate Him (J 15:18).

We should not try to be unlikeable. That’s not the point. We should try and be like Christ. We should be people of the book. When we are some people will hate us for it. They bring a measure of affliction against us if they can.

2. Affliction continues throughout the life of the godly person (1).   

“from my youth”

It wasn’t a season of affliction. It was an ongoing affliction.

Think of Israel. Egypt afflicted her in her youth. Other nations afflicted her as she grew older.

Philistines, Ammonites, Moabites, etc.

The Assyrians defeated and enslaved the Northern Kingdom in 721 BC.

The Babylonians defeated and enslaved the Southern kingdom in 586 BC.

Then the Greeks and Romans came along. In the last 100 years it was the Nazis.

Israel has had a bull’s eye on itself.

For the Christian, affliction will continue throughout our lives. In fact, the more we grow in our faith the more people will hate us.

Do you know anyone who hates you? If you do not, then perhaps:

You do not know enough people. How can we win people to Christ unless we engage with them?

You are not sharing the truth of the gospel. If we never talk to people about their sin of course they will love us.  Christians are not in the secret service.

You are not growing in grace.

Someone says, “Everyone loves that preacher.” Everyone? Something must be wrong then.

Affliction continues because Christians continue. The only way for the affliction to stop is for the person who is doing the afflicting to become saved.

As long as you choose to stand on the truth of God’s Word affliction will follow you.

3. We must remind ourselves that affliction has not conquered us (2-3).

Isarel was to speak to herself. She was to say, “Greatly have they afflicted e from my youth, yet they have not prevailed against me.”

This is a great point:

Instead of being discouraged by the affliction be encouraged that the enemy has not prevailed against you. Israel had been afflicted for many years, but she remained. She was still a nation. Many nations have tried to destroy her, but she remains.

It has been said that if you need proof that the Bible is true just look to the existence of the Jews. The Bible says they will be here, and they are despite great attempts to remove them from the earth.

There is an application here for the Christian. Affliction has not conquered us and the proof is that we are here. By that I mean we continue to believe. Affliction doesn’t win because:

It discourages you

It takes from you

It hurts you

Your enemies only win if you stop believing.

Look at all you have been through. Write it down if that helps.

Loss of friends

Subject of gossip/false accusations

Divorce

Family ties broken

Look at the pain in verse 3.

“the plowers plowed upon my back, they made long their furrow.”

Is this a description of a person’s back that has been beaten with a whip?

It could be but more likely the language is poetic. It speaks in general of the pain caused by others. Couple of points from this:

Affliction can leave scars. They may be physical, or they be emotional. Even though there is a break in the affliction a reminder is always present with us.

Affliction may be long. “Made long their furrows” Some people have no mercy. They continue with the pain they cause. They reach deep into our heart like a plow does when it breaks up the ground. They plow a long row. If you are waiting on some folks to stop with the affliction against you, you may be in for a long wait. 

But you still believe the gospel. If you still hold to the gospel you have prevailed. That is a great victory. Tell yourself that.

“They have not prevailed against me!”

When affliction makes you feel like a loser tell yourself you are a winner.

4. God will always deliver His people (4).

“The Lord is righteous”

This is the character of our Lord. He is righteous. He will do what is right.

“he has cut the cords of the wicked”

The imagery here is important. In verse three we have the enemies plowing over the back of God’s people. Imagine the people of God stretched out on the ground. The enemies have the plows hooked to their oxen.   The Lord reaches down and cuts the cord of the wicked. He removes the plow from the beast. The wicked can no longer afflict God’s people. 

Israel experienced this many times. God delivered His people on many occasions. As believers we have experienced it many times as well. One day He will deliver us from the presence of those who afflict us. We will never be afflicted again. We can trust that God will do this.

5. We should not pray for the wicked to prosper (5).

We are told to pray for our enemies and bless those who curse us. That does not mean that we desire them to prosper in wickedness. We are to pray for their salvation. To pray for their prosperity would be to pray for the advancement of wickedness.

“all who hate Zion” These are people who wanted the Jewish nation to cease to exist.

“be put to shame, turned backward” This refers to an advancing army that realizes they are defeated. In shame they retreat.

We should not want anything to prosper that is ungodly.

A cult

A Temple

An abortion clinic

A bar

A homosexual relationship

We can’t ask God to bless what His word says He curses. Listen to what Spurgeon says. This is one of the greatest things I have ever read by him: 

Study a chapter from the “Book of Martyrs,” and see if you do not feel inclined to read an imprecatory Psalm over Bishop Bonner and Bloody Mary. It may be that some wretched nineteenth century sentimentalist will blame you: if so, read another over him.

“Let them be like the grass on the housetops (6)” Flat rooves that contained dirt gave opportunity for grass to grow. It couldn’t grow long though because it had little dirt, little water, and no shade. The grass would quickly wither.

The Psalmist prays that the wicked will be fruitless like dried up grass.

“with which the reaper does not fill his hand nor the binder of sheaves his arms”.

There is very little grass to harvest from a housetop. The shortness of human life is compared to grass in Scripture (Psalm 103:15, 1 Peter 1:24). This grass is even more short lived because of where it is located, on a housetop.

Those who work against the Lord are wasting their time. All their efforts will fail. They will bear no fruit at all.

“nor do those who pass by say ‘the blessing of the Lord be upon you! We bless you in the name of the Lord.” (8)

In Ruth 2:4 Boaz speaking to the reapers in the field says, “The Lord be with you” and they answered, “The Lord bless thee”.

It was a common thing to greet one another in that way. You didn’t want someone else’s crops to fail. That makes this verse particularly harsh. 

To understand this, we need to return to what I said earlier. We don’t want the work of the enemies of the gospel to succeed. That would be counterproductive to our work.

A phrase we use today is “God bless you.” We should only say it when we mean it. Matthew Henry said:

Religious expressions, being sacred things, must never be made use of in light and ludicrous actions.

2 John 10- 11 says

 “If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed: For he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds.

Spurgeon said, “We dare not use pious expressions as mere compliments”.

We should only call them brother or sister if they are our brother or sister.

We should only say “God bless you” if we want God to bless what they are doing.

Those who afflict the people of God need to repent. They need to come to Christ. We should treat them in such a way that they see their need. We should hope and pray that all they are doing against the gospel and against godly people will fail.  

They will not prevail. We should do our part to make sure they know that.