THE Antichrist is in the Psalms. The Holy jf Spirit has so wonderfully couched the Psalms that they carry a four-fold message. The four messages are easily discerned. They are the Local, the Messianic, the Devotional and the Eschatological.¹ Standing connected with these four messages, the Spirit of God presents two outstanding characters, a good man and an evil. The entire Psalm-book, breathing as it does the deepest heart-yearnings and the highest expressions of worship of Ancient Israel, is by miracle divine at one and the same time a paradigm of sacred prophecy. The predicted "good man" who stands forth throughout the Psalms is Jesus, the long prophesied and waited for Messiah of Israel. The predicted "evil man" of the Psalm-book is the future Antichrist who shall come in with arrogance and, boasting, to tread down and oppress God's chosen people.

When properly apprehended, the Psalms are seen to literally teem with revelations of the things to come. In the book of Acts, the Apostle Peter refers to King David as "David the Prophet" (Acts 2:30). A careful and investigating study of the Psalms furnishes convincing confirmation of this declaration. We have been taught to expect unfoldings of the Tribulation and Kingdom in Isaiah, Jeremiah, Joel and the other prophets. But not so with the Psalms. We think of them as Hebrew poetry, or the high-water mark of devotional literature. We have not been generally awakened to the intensely prophetic character of this remarkable book of one hundred fifty songs used in the Temple worship of Ancient Israel. The Psalms are overwhelmingly prophetic in character; The Psalms speak much of the coming^hour of Israel's tribulation, and in that connection offer illuminating revelation concerning the future world-king, the super-man who shall oppress Israel with violence, and arrogate to himself with consummate bigotry all the honors, powers and prerogatives of deity. In a word, the Psalms predict the Antichrist.

Like many of the other Bible books the Psalms possess an introduction. The first two Psalms constitute the introduction to the Psalm-book. The purpose of an introduction is to prepare the mind of the reader for that which is to be discussed in the portion which follows. The inspired introduction to the Psalms performs its normal function. The two Psalms which make up the introduction to the Psalm-book disclose to us a godly man and an ungodly man. The godly man is Christ and the ungodly man is Antichrist. Thus the two outstanding persons of the book of Psalms are presented in these two Psalms which taken together make up the introduction. In the first Psalm the Psalmist shows the contrast in the two characters, thus revealing the inevitable conflict which must exist between them. In the second Psalm we see the climax and consummation of the conflict. Both Psalms are anonymous and were evidently placed by the Holy Spirit at the beginning of the Psalter because they epitomize the balance of the book. The Hebrew scholar, Rotherham, wisely observes, "they (the first two Psalms) are admirably adapted for the purpose they are manifestly intended to serve: namely, as introductory to the whole book of Psalms."

This study is devoted to the setting forth of at least a portion of the testimony of the Psalms concerning that amazing personage of Scripture — the Antichrist.

THE NAMES OF THE ANTICHRIST IN THE PSALMS

THE Antichrist bears an appropriate group of appellations in. the Psalms. After being brought forth in the first Psalm as the "ungodly man," he is easily identified whenever and wherever he appears in the prophetic appeals, petitions, prayers, and ascriptions of the balance of the book.

His names and titles reveal his character and his work. His names and titles show him up as an enemy to the plans and purposes of God. They reveal him to be the antipode of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the very personification of Satanic perfidy and corruption. By the cognomens and descriptive expressions applied to him he is picturized as "bloody" and "deceitful," "violent" and "unjust," "unrighteous," and "cruel." He is Israel's "enemy" and "adversary," the "evil" and "foolish" "man of the earth."

Some of the terms applied to him in the Psalms appear in the following passages:

"Thou Shalt destroy them that speak leasing (lies): the Lord will abhor the BLOODY AND DECEITFUL MAN" (Ps. 5:6).

"He delivereth me from mine enemies: yea, Thou liftest me up above those that rise up against me: Thou hast delivered me from the VIOLENT MAN" (Ps. 18:48).

"Deliver me, O my God, out of the hand of the WICKED (MAN), out of the hand of THE UNRIGHTEOUS AND CRUEL MAN" (Ps. 71:4).

"Arise, O God, plead Thine own cause: remember how THE FOOLISH MAN reproacheth Thee daily" (Ps. 74:22).

These passages are either prayers which shall be wrung from the lips of Israel during the Great Tribulation, while the Antichrist is in the ascendency, or shouts of victory which shall leap from their lips after Christ has begun His millenial reign, having cast the Antichrist into the lake of fire. The dispensational position of each utterance may be readily discovered by any student who will study the context.

The inspired designations of the future Man of Blasphemy leave him stripped and exposed. His true character is revealed. God has graciously delivered the warning. If any man is deceived by this arch-charlatan, he cannot cast the blame back on God. God has vindicated His justice, and cleared Himself of charge. The man is without excuse. The book of Psalms, by means of its descriptive names of the Antichrist, has unmasked this dastardly fraud, and left him standing forth in his true and horrid colors.

THE PRAYERS CONCERNING THE ANTICHRIST IN THE PSALMS

THE prayers concerning the Antichrist, in the Psalms, are all for his overthrow and undoing. He is the enemy of righteousness; he should be overthrown. He is Satan's appointed exponent of all that is unclean and blasphemous, he should be prayed against by every lover of that which is right. The modernist sneeringly dubs these Psalms, in which Israel prays for judgment on the Antichrist, as "imprecatory." J. Patterson Smyth, a teacher of the modernist school, says of the imprecatory Psalms that in them we "find words spoken which would be very unfit for the lips of our Lord." This is a self-evident attempt at discrediting the inspiration and authority of those Psalms which predict how Israel will pray for God to defend His own cause by bringing summary defeat on the "ungodly man." Such prayers are neither abnormal nor sinful. They are wholesome and right.

The so called Imprecatory Psalms have a distinctive dispensational setting. They are not prayers against David's private enemies. They are predictive and national. When Israel's plight under the rule of the blasphemous Man of Sin is recognized and the Man of Sin himself is seen to be the personification of all transgression and rebellion against God, to pray against him becomes not iniquitous, but positively holy and good. It is true that in this dispensation the exact language of the Imprecatory Psalms would not be appropos, but it is certainly the Christian duty and responsibility of all believers in this age to pray constantly against the work of those evil men who lend themselves and their influence to Satan's faith-wrecking propaganda called Modernism. The recognition of the dispensational aspect of these Psalms completely answers the criticisms of the Modernist. James M. Gray declares, "From a dispensational point of view, the Imprecatory Psalms do not belong or apply to this Christian age except in an accommodated sense, but to the age which follows it." The Tribulation is the age which follows this Christian dispensation.

We quote a number of these prayers which will come fervently from the heart of God's persecuted people in the Great Tribulation. This list is only partial. We suggest that the student sit down with his Bible, notebook, and pencil. Let him read the Psalms clear through, making a complete list of all the prayers uttered by Israel against the Antichrist and his wicked followers. He will catch a new glimpse of the coming Tribulation, the terrible persecutions of the Antichrist, and the awful sufi^erings which shall yet fall on God's people Israel.

"BREAK THOU THE ARM of the wicked and the evil man: SEEK OUT HIS WICKEDNESS till Thou find none.

"The Lord is King for ever and ever: the heathen are perished out of his land.

"Lord, Thou hast heard the desire of the humble: Thou wilt prepare their heart, Thou wilt cause Thine ear to hear:

"To judge the fatherless and the oppressed, THAT THE MAN OF THE EARTH MAY NO MORE OPPRESS" (Ps. 10:15-18).

". . . O DELIVER ME from the deceitful and unjust man" (Ps. 43:1).

"DELIVER ME, O MY GOD, out of the hand of the wicked, out of the hand of the unrighteous and cruel man" (Ps. 71:4).

"BREAK THEIR TEETH, O GOD, in their mouth: . . . So that a man shall say. Verily there is a reward for the righteous: verily He is a God that judgeth in the earth'' (Ps 58:6,' 11).

"CONSUME THEM in wrath, CONSUME THEM, that they may not be: and let them know that God ruleth in Jacob unto the ends of the earth" (Ps. 59:13).

"LET THE LYING LIPS BE PUT TO SILENCE which speak grievous things proudly and contemptuously against the righteous" (Ps. 31:8).

"LET THEM BE CONFOUNDED and PUT TO SHAME that seek after my soul: let them be TURNED BACK and BROUGHT TO CONFUSION" (Ps. 35:4).

"Let the wicked BE ASHAMED, and let them RE SILENT IN THE GRAVE" (Ps. 31:17).

"Let them be CONFOUNDED and TROUBLED FOREVER: yea, let them be PUT TO SHAME, and PERISH" (Ps. 83:17).

Israel is but praying against the enemies of God and. of righteousness. These prayers are the very prayers of the tribulational saints which the angel in Rev. 8 offers on the heavenly alter and places in the golden censer. And then the golden censer, loaded and charged with the impassioned pleadings of the distressed people of God, is hurled by angelic hands down to earth, into the midst of the kingdom of the Beast. The Antichrist has had much experience in warfare. He doubtless will be familiar with every type of bomb employed by his teeming armies, but that horrid Man of Sin will have no devices whereby he can offset the stupendous effects of the prayer bomb which the angel will hurl upon him — the kingdom of the Antichrist is doomed. God answers prayer.

THE PURPOSE OF THE ANTICHRIST AS SET FORTH IN THE PSALMS

THE Antichrist desires and purposes to be God. In working toward this blasphemous purpose he would most naturally vent his venom and spleen upon Israel because they will be worshipping the true God in the Tribulation. Ps. 10:2-14 is one of the many passages telling of Israel's suffering under the Antichrist's cruel persecutions. We quote the Moffat translation:

"The ungodly are haughty and
          harry the downtrodden —
     may they be snared in their
          own schemes!
The ungodly boasts of his rapacity;
     the plunderer disowns,
          despises the Eternal;
     he thinks, in his insolence, 'God
          never punishes';
     his thoughts amount to this,
          'There is no God at all';
     the dealings of thy justice
          high are far beyond his sight.
Life for him is always stable;
     he laughs at any who oppose him,
thinking he can never fail,
     never come to grief.

His talk is all of perjury, and craft,
     mischief and injury slip from
          his tongue.
He lurks round hamlets,
     and murders innocent folk in
          secret,
     ever on the outlook for the
          hapless:
he lies in ambush, like a lion in
          his lair,
     hiding to catch the weak,
     to catch the weak and drag
          them off.
He hunts the helpless till they drop,
     unlucky victims, in his clutches.
And he thinks. 'God has forgotten,'
     'He hides his face,' 'He never
          sees.'
But Thou hast seen this misery
          and mischief;
     Thou markest it, to punish it
          Thyself!
The hapless can leave their
          plight to Thee,
     Thou Helper of the forlorn.
Take action, O Eternal, lift thy
          hand;
     O God. forget not the afflicted.
How dare ungodly men scorn God,
          thinking that thou wilt never
          punish?
Shatter the ungodly's power,
     punish his evil till there is
          no more."

But the "Man of the Earth" will not rest nor stop with mere murder, rapine, and theft. His cruelty, hate, and pride will not long endure the existence of the Jerusalem temple which, the Jews will have rebuilt, nor the orthodox worship of the true God which the Jews will have resumed. But jealousy will surge within his breast and he will covet to have his own emblems and representations in the temple at Jerusalem instead of the emblems and types which point to the living and the true God. The prophecy of his sacking of the temple appears in Psalm 74:4-9, We again use the Moffat translation;

"Thine enemies bawled inside
     thy house,
set up their emblems there;
they smashed the doors down
     with their axes,
like woodmen felling trees,
then broke up all the carved
     work there
with hatchet and with hammer;
they set Thy sanctuary ablaze,
laying it low, profaning Thine
     own dwelling.
They said to themselves, 'Let
     us root them out!'
so all the synagogues in the land
     they burned;
not an emblem of ours is to be seen.
No prophet now — none knows
     when this will end!"

The words are crystal-clear. The Antichrist will set up his emblem in the temple. This is exactly what Daniel predicted would occur. This prophecy of awful profanation and blasphemy was also referred to and confirmed by our Saviour. The book of the Revelation shows us that the emblem which the Antichrist shall allow to be placed in God's holy temple will be an image of himself. No Wonder this wicked deed is referred to in Scripture as "the transgression which astoundeth" (Rotherham trans.).

The fact that he succeeds in perpetrating such deeds of infamy fills the Antichrist with unmeasured bigotry and arrogance. The nations which go a whoring after him will also plunge deeper and deeper into daring sins. They will be convinced, because no punishment comes from God, that Antichrist is God, and that they themselves are supernatural beings. In one of Israel's fervent prayers concerning this terrible condition it is revealed that the heathen have fallen under this delusion of being more than mere men.

"Arise, O Lord; let not man prevail: let the heathen be judged in Thy sight.

"Put them in fear, O Lord: that the nations may know themselves to be but men. Selah" (Ps. 9: 19-20).

As the Antichrist thus forges forward in his blasphemous purposes of being God, he adds to his other offences, the common sin of the braggart — he challenges God! And worst of all he does this cheap and theatrical thing daily;

"Arise, O God, plead Thine own cause; remember how the foolish man reproacheth Thee daily" (Ps. 74:22).

On the surface of things it appears that the Antichrist has indeed proved his case. He looks like God. The strong delusion is working — he now calls on the nations to join with him in plotting against the One Who sitteth in the heavens. If only Jehovah can be disposed of then the Antichrist's claims to worship will be undisputed. In Psalm 73:6-9 Israel is speaking. We use Moffat:

"So they vaunt them in their pride
     and flaunt them in rough
          insolence;
vice oozes from their very soul,
     their minds are rank and
          riotous,
their talk is mocking and malicious,
     and haughtily they lay their
          plots;
lofty as heaven itself their speech,
     lording it over the world
          below."

Another passage in which the plot against God comes into view is Psalm 2:

"Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?

"The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord, and against His Anointed, saying.

"Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us,

"He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision" (Ps. 2:1-4).

In this remarkable prophecy we see the world confederacy of the nations culminating in the bloody battle of Armageddon. The Antichrist is making his last desperate stand in one final effort to demonstrate that he is God.

Thank God, he will meet with failure. The Great Tribulation culminates with the utter collapse of the Antichrist's purpose to demonstrate that he is Deity. Well might God laugh at his silly and boastful pretentions. He is about to be ingloriously overthrown.

THE DOOM OF THE ANTICHRIST AS SET FORTH IN THE PSALMS

THE Psalms make clear the utter rout of the Antichrist and his followers. When the hour of the Second Coming shall break upon this old earth, the forces of evil which have with so little interruption had their fling, shall be forced to slink back into disaster and defeat before the glory of Him Whose face shineth as the sun. A few of the Psalm passages showing the judgments of God on the Antichrist are:

"God shall likewise destroy thee forever. He shall take thee away, and pluck thee out of thy dwellingplace, and root thee out of the land of the living. Selah,

"The righteous also shall sec, and fear, and shall laugh at him:

"Lo, this is the man that made not God his strength; hut trusted in the abundance of his riches, and strengthened himself in his wickedness" (Ps. 52:5-7).

"Let burning coals fall upon them: let them be cast into the fire; into deep pits, that they rise not up again.

"Let not an evil speaker he established in the earth: evil shall hunt the violent man to overthrow him" (Ps. 140:10-11).

"The Lord trieth the righteous: but the wicked and him that loveth violence His soul hateth.

"Upon the wicked He shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and a horrible tempest: this shall be the portion of their cup" (Ps. 11:5-6).

"But Thou, O God, shalt bring them down into the pit of destruction: bloody and deceitful men shall not live out half their days; but I will trust in Thee" (Ps. 55:23).

"The heathen are sunk down in the pit that they made: in the net which they hid is their own foot taken.

"The Lord is known by the judgment which He execnteth: the wicked is snared in the work of his own hands. Higgaion. Selah.

"The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God" (Ps. 9:15-17).

The foregoing Scriptures tell the story of the overthrow of the Antichrist and his blinded dupes. When this judgment has fallen and Antichrist's host has been crushed in the wine press of the wrath of God Almighty, then shall God set Jesus His King upon His holy hill of Zion, and inaugurate the long yearned-for Messianic Kingdom upon the earth. This glorious event is signalized in Psalm 9:1-7. We again employ the Moffat translation:

"With all my heart I thank Thee,
          O Eternal.
     I will tell over all Thy deeds
          of wonder,
I thrill and triumph in Thee,
     singing praise to Thee, O Thou
          Most High,
For my foes are routed,
     stumbling to their ruin at Thy
          frown;
Thou hast upheld my cause, my
          rights,
     passing just sentence, seated
          on Thy throne;
Thou hast curbed pagans, crushing
          the ungodly,
     blotting their very name out
          for all time.
The foe is at an end, no more
          to be remembered,
     the towns Thou hast torn up
          lie in lasting ruin;
but the Eternal sits enthroned
          forevermore,
     enthroned for government."

The Psalms do indeed disclose to our wondering hearts very much concerning that "Violent man," the Antichrist who shall yet be manifested upon the earth. His names reveal his great wickedness; the prayers concerning him uncover the awful cruelty with which he shall deal with Israel; his purpose shows up the blasphemous ambition for deification which shall actuate him. The doom which befalls him under the just judgment of God is a testimony of the awful sinfulness of his rebellion.

The Tribulation is coming. The Antichrist shall rule for a brief season. Then comes the Victor, the Friend. He shall come subduing all enemies and shall bring to the old earth, reeling and drunken from the tribulational storm of sin and judgment — peace — at last — peace.

Lord Jesus, Come quickly!

1) See "The Four-fold message of the Psalms." a Bible study booklet by Clifton L. Fowler.