We have talked about Israel’s ‘Pain’. Note come to the source of that pain - her persecutor!
“The wicked in his pride doth persecute the poor: let them be taken in the devices that they have imagined,” Psalm 10:2.
There is a frequent reference in the Psalm to ‘the wicked’, which is a prophetic reference to the Antichrist and his activities during the ‘tribulation’, (trouble) verse 1.
Here is a prophecy of the people of Israel praying in the midst of the affliction caused by the Antichrist. We are told something of the character of the future Antichrist.
- He is an atheist. “The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God: God is not in all his thoughts,”4. Paul speaks of his atheism. 2 Thess 2:3-4. See Ezekiel 28:2.
- He is self-confident. “Boasteth’ v 3, self praise. He is full of pride, v 4. “Pride of his countenance”, ‘haughtiness’. Despises his enemies, verses 5-6. It is said of Babylon, the antichrist’s city, that she boasted: “How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her: for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow,” Revelation 18:7. He speaks great words, “And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies,” Revelation 13:5.
- He is greedy. “For the wicked . . . blesseth the covetous, whom the LORD abhorreth,” verse 3. He will be the ‘patron saint’ of avarice. That is why the kings and merchants mourne so much over the fall of his empire, Revelation 18:9-19.
- He is full of cruelty, deceit and treachery. Verse 7, “His mouth is full of cursing and deceit and fraud: under his tongue is mischief and vanity.” See 8-10.
- He has power. He is likened unto a ‘lion’, verse 9. But it is the power of the devil and that to work evil, Rev 13:2.