(1) Those who opposed Zion, or the true Church of God, under the Old Testament dispensation.
When the children of Israel came to take possession of the land of Canaan, they were commanded to destroy the Amorites, etc., who inhabited it. They did not fulfil this command, as we have it written—”And the angel of the Lord came up from Gilgal to Bochim, and said, I made you to go up out of Egypt, and have brought you unto the land which I sware unto your fathers ; and I said, I will never break my covenant with you, and ye shall make no league with the inhabitants of this land ; ye shall throw down their altars ; but ye have not obeyed my voice : Why have ye done this ? Wherefore, I also said, I will not drive them out from before you ; but they shall be as thorns in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare unto you. And it came to pass . . . that the people lifted up their voice and wept” (Judges ii. 1-4). They had good cause for weeping, as their after history reveals.
In the days of Isaiah the Church is described by him as a besieged city. This siege is set forth in the 83rd Psalm—”They said, Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation ; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance. For they have consulted together with one consent : they are confederate against thee : the tabernacles of Edom, and the Ishmaelites ; Moab and the Hagarenes ; Gebal and Ammon, and Amalek ; the Philistines with the inhabitants of Tyre ; Assur also is joined with them ; they have holpen the children of Lot.” Surely this is an extraordinary confederacy against the Church, which justifies fully the description of a besieged city. They were all idolaters, and they considered that Jehovah, the God of Israel, was not better than their own idols, and that His worship was not at all so good as the worship of their gods. But the animosity shown against the Church of God has a power behind it in every age—even the power of the god of this world (Satan), but He that is in the Church is stronger than he that is in the world.
(2) Those who oppose Zion in New Testament times
Those who oppose Zion in New Testament times, are legion. First, the nations that imbibed the pernicious idolatry of the Church of Rome. Religiously, they are to the true Christian Church what the surrounding idolatrous nations were to the Old Testament Church. Besides, these nations—such as France, Italy, Spain, Ireland, etc., there are hosts of others. Germany, with her Rationalism ; Russia with her nefarious Communism, thirsting for the blood of their neighbours, and the extirpation of all true religion ; Ritualists in England and Scotland, bent upon bringing the Churches of the Reformation in Britain back to the slavery and idolatry of Rome. Along with all these are to be considered the carnal professors of religion within the Churches, who have a form of godliness while denying its power. The world with its lusts—the lusts of the flesh and of the eyes, and the pride of life. Surely the true Church of the living God is like a besieged city in the midst of them all. But seeing that time demands brevity, let us proceed to consider, in the last place—