“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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