BIG IDEA:
ULTIMATE DEFEAT IS RESERVED FOR OUR PERSECUTORS
I. (:1-4) THEY CAN BEAT ME BUT THEY CAN NEVER DEFEAT ME
(THEY CAN WHIP ME BUT THEY CAN NEVER TOTALLY WHIP ME)
A. Numerous Persecutions But Divine Perseverance
1. Numerous Persecutions
“Many times they have persecuted me from my youth up”
2. Divine Perseverance
“Yet they have not prevailed against me”
B. Painful Persecutions But Divine Deliverance
1. Painful Persecutions
“The plowers plowed upon my back; They lengthened their furrows”
Image of Israel lying down like a field and being scourged
2. Divine Deliverance
“The Lord is righteous; He has cut in two the cords of the wicked”
II. (:5-8) THEY WILL ULTIMATELY SUFFER THE SHAME OF FRUITLESSNESS AND DEFEAT
A. Defining Characteristic of the Persecutors:
They hate God / They hate God’s Program / They hate God’s People
“all who hate Zion”
B. Final Destiny of the Persecutors
1. Shame: “Be put to shame”
2. Frustration and Defeat: “turned backward”
C. Image of Fruitlessness
1. Withering Grass
“Let them be like grass upon the housetops, Which withers before it grows up”
2. Barren Harvest
“With which the reaper does not fill his hand”
“or the binder of sheaves his bosom”
D. Denial of Any Blessing
“Nor do those who pass by say,
‘The blessing of the Lord be upon you;
We bless you in the name of the Lord’”