Sunday, April 29, 2012

Sing for Us (Ps 137)




“By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yes, we wept when we remembered Zion. We hung our harps upon the willows in the midst of it. For there are those who carried us away captive asked of us a song, and those who plundered us requested mirth, saying, ‘Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”(vs1-3)

We can’t sing the songs of salvation and rejoice in Christ under the bondage of sin (vs1-4). We must be delivered.  He says, “How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?”  Yet, instead of hypocrisy, we honestly weep, honestly mourn, and we trust Him to deliver us in due time, rather than pretend.  Paul wrote, “For even if I made you sorry with my letter, I do not regret it; though I did regret it. For I perceive that the same epistle made you sorry, though only for a while.  Now I rejoice, not that you were made sorry, but that your sorrow led to repentance. For you were made sorry in a godly manner, that you might suffer loss from us in nothing” (2 Cor 7:8-9).  Our sins mock us, our failures ask us, “Where is your God”, and we must fight off despair with the truth that it will be well for us eventually.  We are not people who have happy times every day, but we know the bitter consequences of sin.  They teach us to trust Christ, but they don’t break us from our hope.

Secondly, if we forget God because He is far from us, it proves that we don’t know Him (vs4-6). He says, “If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its skill! If I do not remember you, let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth – if I do not exalt Jerusalem above my chief joy”. God’s people, in spite of consequences for sin, have a deep and irrevocable love that He’s put in us (1 John 4:19). We love the church, love the gospel, and we love Him more than pleasure.  It isn’t happiness that we want; it is God who makes us happy, and this can’t be found anywhere except in Christ.

Many leave Christ because of lost pleasure, but they loved feelings instead of the Savior, and they didn’t believe, not really, in the grace that He gives. But, Babylonian bondage makes the saints LONG for God, for we miss what we’ve lost. We’ve known better days, and sin has been a liar, giving us pain instead of peace.  Bless God, you and I mourn, and even when forsaken and rejected, even when miserable and burdened, we WILLINGLY choose God over sin and holiness over unrighteousness.

Finally, the Lord Jesus, eventually, shall deliver us, and we are sure (vs7-9). He says, “Remember, O Lord, against the sons of Edom the day of Jerusalem, who said, ‘Raze it, raze it, to its very foundation! O daughter of Babylon, who are to be destroyed, happy the one who repays you as you have served us! Happy the one who takes and ashes your little ones against the rock!” We are like children kicked to the ground by a taunting bully, speaking of the time when our Brother shall come and guide us safely. He who oppresses us, even sin, Satan, and ungodly people, shall have their mouths shut when Christ DELIVERS us from sin. Like the Hebrew boys who were in the flaming fire, bondage to our enemies NEVER breaks our trust in Christ, only in ourselves, even as the shackles that bound them were burned, while the smoke didn’t even linger on their person (Deut 3:24-27).  We MOURN now, but we shall rejoice, so we rejoice now, even while we wait on full deliverance soon to come.

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Heshimu Colar, Pastor

Heshimu Colar, Pastor
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