Sermon Brief Andre Riendeau December 7, 2014

Text: Psalm 129

Title: “Unbroken”

Subject: God’s people undergo severe oppression.

Complement: The Lord is able to sustain His people.

Textual Idea: God will enable His people to survive under severe oppression.

Sermon Idea: Faith lasts because God is faithful.

Interrogative: What do you do when you’re being plowed over?

Key word/Transitional sentence: Unbroken

Key Points: 1. God’s people will suffer in this world. (vv.1-3) 2. God’s people leave justice to God. (vv.5-8) 3. God is glorified through the perseverance of His people. (v.4)

What do I want people to know? I want people to know that God’s purposes for His people can’t be thwarted and that they can overcome severe trial by trusting God.

What do I want people to do? I want people to glorify God by trusting in Him in trials and leaving justice to Him while loving those who hurt them.

What need am I addressing? I am addressing the need for persevering in extreme difficulty.

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“Unbroken” Psalm 129 December 7, 2014 Faith lasts because God is faithful.

You all know that I love history, especially US history…which means that this is a big day…December 7th…a date that will live in infamy. Of course I’m talking about the (LCD) 73rd anniversary of the Japanese attack of Pearl Harbor. It was a complete surprise to Americans and to the 2400 sailors who lost their lives that day including 900 who died on this ship, the USS Arizona. Their bodies are still there to this day. A few days ago, (LCD) these survivors, all in their 90s, came to remember what they survived. What’s cool is that none of them are bitter. Sad, but not bitter. They’ve moved on with their lives but they still remember and honor those who suffered for freedom’s sake. It is important that we take time to remember what we’ve survived and to do so without resentment or bitterness.

We’re in a sermon series on the (LCD) of Ascent, Psalm 120 through 134, and today we’re looking at Psalm 129, go ahead and turn there in your . This psalm is different from the others that we’ve looked at. Like Pearl Harbor day, it is a remembrance of what Israel has survived. But it is also a curse upon all who would come against Israel. You heard me right, the second half of this psalm is a curse. It that how we are to remember what we’ve survived, by wishing ill on our tormentors? That’s not how the Pearl Harbor survivors have dealt with their trauma. How are we supposed to respond to those who’ve hurt us so badly? Let’s read:

1 “They have greatly oppressed me from my youth,” let Israel say; 2 “they have greatly oppressed me from my youth, but they have not gained the victory over me. 3 Plowmen have plowed my back and made their furrows long. 4 But the Lord is righteous; he has cut me free from the cords of the wicked.” 5 May all who hate be turned back in shame. 6 May they be like grass on the roof, which withers before it can grow; 7 a reaper cannot fill his hands with it, nor one who gathers fill his arms. 8 May those who pass by not say to them,

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“The blessing of the Lord be on you; we bless you in the name of the Lord.”

The first thing we read in this psalm is pain, “They have greatly oppressed me from my youth,” let Israel say; “they have greatly oppressed me from my youth, but they have not gained the victory over me. Notice this is Israel speaking, it is a collective, communal lament. They have GREATLY oppressed me, persecuted me, afflicted me…this was no small trauma, this was no “she stole my piece of bubble gum” injustice. This is BIG TIME injustice! So big the worship leader of the Jewish pilgrims exhorted them to repeat after him, “They have greatly oppressed me from my youth!” Feel the pain in that.

And it had been going on a long time too…from my youth. For Israel, this is a clear reference to her Pearl Harbor, her 911…it refers to her cruel bondage in Egypt when she was an infant nation being crushed under the heavy stones of Pharaoh’s pride. Hosea 11:1 says, (LCD) “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.” From her youth in Egypt, Israel as a nation has suffered greatly. The depth of this suffering is seen in verse 3, Plowmen have plowed my back and made their furrows long. Wow…what an image of cruelty and horrific pain. Israel is pictured as a person lying down with naked back as her tormentors plow bloody furrows the entire length of her back. Phew…this my friends, is traumatic suffering. Hundreds of years it! Deep, deep wounds of unjust malice. Ever felt plowed over, deeply wounded by injustice? A good friend came into my office last week asking to talk to me. He had just suffered an instance of racism and he wanted to be with a white person who loves him. Pain.

The Jews know something about the sting of racism and injustice, don’t they? I mean they come out of Egypt only to be accosted by Sihon and Og, kings of stronger nations, in the desert wanderings. They they end up in Canaan and face almost constant warfare from people like Hazael the Aramean who came extremely close to totally annihilating the Jews at one point. Then you have the days of the Judges and groups like the Midianites, the Philistines, the Moabites, and others who constantly raid and pillage Israel. In Josiah’s day, Pharaoh Necco of Egypt came close to annihilating Israel. Later, Assyria invaded the northern kingdom and destroyed it and Babylon took the southern kingdom into captivity…all tried to annihilate Israel. All that had already taken place by the writing of this psalm.

Since this psalm was written, the Greeks and the Romans mercilessly dominated the Jews. In the Middle Ages, one European power after another confined their Jewish populations to ghettos. Later on, Spain tried to annihilate the Jews within her borders. In the 20th century, Hitler came close to completing the “final solution” and, finally, today ISIS and radical Muslims are trying to do the same. Has any people group ever suffered like Israel? And yet, despite Israel’s weakness, we read the end of verse 2, but they have not gained the victory over me. Isn’t that amazing?! I’ll have more to say about that later but for now, the first three verses of Psalm 129 remind us that, (LCD) God’s people will suffer in this world. Make no mistake about it. When you sign up to follow the God of the , you are signing up to suffer.

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Paul makes that clear in his letter to Timothy, (LCD) In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. It is part of the deal and it is why we must have deep roots in Jesus if we’re going to hang in there. We see this kind of resolve today in the Persecuted Church that we prayed for a few weeks ago. I want to remind of these prayer pointers. While we moved on from that service to our Thanksgiving football and turkey, our brothers and sisters in places like Syria weren’t able to. They are inheritors of Psalm 129…deeply plowed pain in their hearts and souls. One of these sufferers is a woman named Allieh. Watch her story and think about the cost of following Jesus. (VIDEO)

“He took up his cross and died for Jesus.” If you are going to follow Jesus, it will require your entire life. And in this world, that means suffering because God’s ways are not the ways of the world. We need to suffer with those who suffer. Our Thanksgiving Offering was a great way to join in the suffering. Good job Wintonbury. Another way is to join us tonight. The first Sunday night of each month we set aside to pray for the Persecuted Church…that is what they need most. We’ll be here tonight. Come and join us if you can.

Now I don’t know about you, but the part of that video that really bothers me is when she says that they did what they asked, they paid the tax! They paid the stinking, unfair tax and yet they still killed her son! I love how she responds but man…I want to respond the way the psalmist does in Psalm 129. Look at verses 5-8, May all who hate Zion be turned back in shame. 6 May they be like grass on the roof, which withers before it can grow; 7 a reaper cannot fill his hands with it, nor one who gathers fill his arms. 8 May those who pass by not say to them, “The blessing of the Lord be on you; we bless you in the name of the Lord.”

Yeah! Amen! Get ‘em Lord! Curse them! Return the evil they intend on their own heads! Yes! Isn’t that our natural reaction to injustice? Look at Ferguson. We want justice! Now! I don’t want to wait any longer for it! Now, Lord, now!!!! When anyone feels the plowman of injustice running roughshod over their back, they just want to get up and scream, right! At least this psalmist does.

Theologians call this kind of psalm an imprecatory psalm. The verb “imprecate” means “to pray evil against” or “to invoke a curse upon” another. Now our modern sensibilities read these and we are like…there goes that again! Hate your enemies! Actually, that is not what the Old Testament said. Listen to Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount, (LCD) “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?”

Jesus says, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’” Guess what…”Love your neighbor” is found in three places in the Old Testament: in

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Exodus 24, Leviticus 19 and Proverbs 24. “Hate your enemy” was a teaching of rabbis which they had hitched to the biblical truth. What Jesus is doing is affirming the Law of God and repudiating the teaching of the rabbis. We are not to curse our enemies, He says, rather we are to love them. Why? Because even the righteous God Himself sends rains, blesses, both the wicked and the good.

So how do we explain Psalm 129’s nasty cursing? First of all, let’s examine the curses. In verse 5, the psalmist curses the Zion-haters and asks God to shame them. This is referring to war. When the wicked war against Israel, cause them to be turned back and defeated in great humiliation. I could pray that against ISIS, couldn’t I? In verses 6-7, the psalmist curses Israel’s enemies by comparing them to a harvest consisting of grass grown on rooftops. Roofs in ancient Israel were constructed of branches with a thin layer of soil for insulation. Seeds would blow unto the roofs and then, when it rained, grass would grow but it would be very shallow and the hot sun would kill it off. It reminds me of (LCD) a similar kind of shallow growth that we encounter on our roofs today. Ever have these things? They just come right up…worthless. This is a picture of wanting the enemy to not prosper so that they cannot continue to harm God’s people. I can pray this for ISIS too…that they don’t get the millions they need to continue to terrorize the innocent.

Finally in verse 8, the psalmist curses the foes of Israel by asking that they not receive the traditional blessing that people in the ancient world gave to one another. So I guess I’m not supposed to be friendly to any ISIS warriors? What in the world do we do with all these curses? First of all, let me start by showing you another example of this last curse. In Luke 10, Jesus sends out 70 disciples and among His instructions, He tells them this, (LCD) “When you enter a house, first say, ‘Peace to this house.’ If someone who promotes peace is there, your peace will rest on them; if not, it will return to you…But when you enter a town and are not welcomed, go into its streets and say, ‘Even the dust of your town we wipe from our feet as a warning to you. Yet be sure of this: The kingdom of God has come near.’ I tell you, it will be more bearable on that day for Sodom than for that town…Whoever listens to you listens to me; whoever rejects you rejects me; but whoever rejects me rejects him who sent me.”

Interesting, isn’t it? We have this commodity called ‘peace’ or ‘shalom’ as Jesus would have called it. We can either share it or withhold it. Like when Jesus said to not throw our pearls to swine. There is a wisdom in making a clear demarcation between those who honor God and those who mock Him. We are to bless those who honor God, even if they aren’t fellow Christians but not those who mock us because when they mock us, they are mocking God. That doesn’t mean we have license to be ugly, but it does mean speaking the hard word of truth and that truth is that those who oppose God’s people, and therefore God Himself, are going to have to answer for it. In other words, when we make truth statements to our enemies, we are warning them and then leaving justice to God. Are you being plowed over by someone in your personal life? Make your truth statement and leave justice to God. Our second point this morning is, (LCD) God’s people leave justice to God.

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They leave it to God but that doesn’t mean they don’t feel anything. In these four verses, the psalmist pours out his agonized heart to God. He is taking His case to the Lord. That is a right and proper place to take our pain and injustices. The imprecatory psalms give us a place to breathe when we’re suffering injustice. They give voice to our hurt and emotional upheaval. A book called “Hard Sayings of the Bible” makes a very interesting point about these curse psalms, (LCD) David was the author of far more imprecatory psalms than anyone else… (yet) David exhibited just the opposite of a vindictive or revengeful spirit in his own life." Perhaps David’s honesty before the Lord, getting out his emotional frustration through prayer, was the key in his ability to NOT take vengeance on Saul and others who plowed over his back.

Along these lines, Paul also encourages us to look to God and to bless our enemies, (LCD) “Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. On the contrary: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” Notice that justice is left to God, yet in returning good for evil, the burning coals of judgment are not removed. How are you doing with leaving justice to God toward those who have plowed your back? A recent email I received quoted this verse and then said this, “Did you cross anyone off your Christmas card or gift list this year because they have been "bad" to you? According to Paul's instruction, our enemies ought to be at the top of our holiday sharing lists. In our day and age, even the pagans give Christmas gifts to their friends (to paraphrase Jesus). What makes Christians different is that we care--passionately--for our enemies. We work hard to give them good gifts. Is there one particular "enemy" who you need to add back onto your list? What can you give an enemy this season that would be particularly thoughtful?” That’s a good question. Anyone you need to put back on your Christmas card list? Once we’ve prayerfully worked through our pain with God, we can then receive grace to bless those who don’t deserve it…just like God has done with us in the gospel. I like how one commentator put it, (LCD) “ is not the subtraction of all problems but the addition of God’s grace to overcome those problems.”

How are we able to do that? Did you notice that I skipped verse 4? Look at what it says, But the Lord is righteous; he has cut me free from the cords of the wicked.” Our strength to love those who have plowed our backs comes from the Lord. Why…because He is righteous. The Hebrew word here is (LCD) saddiq and it means “loyal; faithful; conformity to a norm.” The Lord is righteous, saddiq, because He conforms to the norm of His own Law, He is loyal to what is true. Now in the context of this psalm about Israel we immediately are reminded that our strength comes not from our faith but from God’s faithfulness to His covenant with Israel. What was that covenant? God said to Abraham, (LCD) “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” See that? The Living God made a covenant, an unbreakable agreement with Abraham, a man who believed God. That unbreakable covenant was that through Abraham’s line, all the world would be blessed. But note that God said that He would curse those who curse His

6 people. The grammar demands that this action is obligatory – God must banish those who unrepentantly oppose His people. Why? Because as verse 4 says, ‘The Lord is saddiq, He is righteous, loyal to His own.’

The rest of verse 4 tells us that God will cut His people free from the cords of the wicked. Going back to that image of Israel’s back being plowed, the Lord will cut the cords between the oxen and the plow so that the plowing will stop. That is God’s promise. The suffering will not last forever. It will stop. Our loyal God promises it. And He grants us that freedom through His Son who had His back plowed with a whip, placed raw on a splintered cross so that He could die for the sin of the world...to set us free from the oppressive hold of sin and death. Though relationship with Jesus, we can experience that same freedom from the cords of oppression.

But there is still one lingering question. Why? Why should Israel have suffered so much? Why should Jesus have suffered so much? Why should believers in Syria suffer so much? It was the question that (LCD) Louis Zamperini asked as he lay with a raw, plowed over back for almost three years in a Japanese prison camp. Can’t wait for the movie to come out on Christmas day! Here is a picture of some (LCD) fellow POWs as they were found at the end of WWII. How can one survive and not break under this kind of ungodly, agonizing brutality? Before he was captured, Louis drifted on the ocean for weeks, one day He said to the Lord, “If you get me out of here, I will serve you all the days of my life.” He made a covenant with God. God got him out…enabled him to not break…and eventually Louis remembered his promise to the Lord and ended up serving him for over 60 years. Unbroken. Glory to God. That is what God does for His people. He strengthens us in our weakness to bring glory to Himself. That is what Paul says in 2 Corinthians, (LCD) “But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.” Jars of clay…hard pressed, but not crushed…unbroken. Such are they that trust in their loyal God, who know Him personally as their savior and Lord. Do you know Him? Our last point this morning is (LCD) God is glorified through the perseverance of His people.

We exist to bring glory to God and in this world that means allowing Christ to live in me in such a way that even my enemies can’t help but be amazed. It means allowing God to make us unbreakable even under the worst plowing. And we can do that because victory is assured and God’s grace is enough. In the 16th century, the French reformer Theodore Beza said this about the church. (LCD) “Sire, it is the lot of the Church of God to endure blows and not to inflict them. But may it please you to remember that the Church is an anvil that has worn out many hammers.” Unbroken. Thus is the one who trusts in our righteous God. Do you know Him?

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