Psalm 83:1-4 (NIV)
O God, do not remain silent; do not turn a deaf ear, do not stand aloof, O God. See how your enemies growl, how your foes rear their heads. With cunning they conspire against your people; they plot against those you cherish. “Come,” they say, “let us destroy them as a nation, so that Israel’s name is remembered no more.”
Some bible commentators connect this psalm with the events found in 2 Chronicles 20:1-37 and the great victory won by the Israelites under the leadership of Jehoshaphat. Others see the ten enemies listed in verses 6-8 as both specific to the time in which this was written (actual countries) as well as the future of the Jewish nation in general as she could expect to be persecuted time and time again. This has certainly been the well-documented testimony of the last two thousand years.
Many a nation has plotted and planned to “destroy them as a nation” (v. 4), yet Israel and the Jewish community at-large is bigger and stronger than it ever has been. Radical Middle-Eastern notions of “wiping Israel off the map” are nothing new…but then again, neither is God’s plan and providence. American theologian and renowned bible teacher, James Boice, noted:
“In all the annals of recorded history there has never been a people so encircled by foes or as persecuted as the Jews have been. Yet surprisingly, the Jews have prospered. In 1836 a world census indicated that there were then three million Jews living in many countries. A century later, in 1936, in spite of severe persecutions in which many Jews were killed, particularly in Russia, a second census indicated that the Jewish world population had risen to sixteen million, an increase of thirteen million in a century. The Nazis killed more than six million Jews, but today there are more Jews in the world than before the Nazi era. The only explanation for this growth is that the hand of God has been on this people and that he has blessed them.”
In addition to the plight of the Jewish people, you can add to it the long history of abuses against Christianity in general, starting with the Messiah himself. A good example of this on-going battle can be found in one of the worst persecutors among the Roman Emperors, who even claimed to have destroyed Christianity itself: Emperor Diocletian (A.D. 245-313). He regularly boasted that he had defeated Christianity. He had a medal created with this inscription: “The name of Christianity being extinguished.” Diocletian also set up two monuments on the frontier of the Roman Empire with these inscriptions:
Diocletian Jovian Maximian Herculeus Caesares Augusti for having extended the Roman Empire in the east and the west and for having extinguished the name of Christians who brought the Republic to ruin.
Diocletian Jovian Maximian Herculeus Caesares Augusti for having everywhere abolished the superstition of Christ for having extended the worship of the gods.
Diocletian is dead and gone, hardly a footnote on the pages of history, especially relative to the on-going worldwide fame and glory of Jesus Christ. Here is a more modern example. The French philosopher Voltaire, a skeptic who destroyed the faith of many people, boasted that within 100 years of his death, the Bible would disappear from the face of the earth. Voltaire died in 1728 and 50 years after his death, the Geneva Bible Society moved into his former house and used his printing presses to print thousands of Bibles. Diocletian tried and failed. Voltaire tried and failed. Hitler tried and failed. Communism tried and failed. China is trying and failing. Radical Islam is trying and failing. Secular Humanism is trying a failing. Atheists are trying and failing. God’s Word not only survives, but ultimately triumphs. So do His Children. So do you and I.
