Psalm 137 is very different in tone and content from the two preceding Psalms. We've seen that these Psalms 135 and 136 have highlighted and they've encouraged praise and thanksgiving to God. his steadfast love for his people, for his provision, for his care, for his salvation, for his protection, his rescue, his redemption. How he has demonstrated that he is sovereign over all things, he is supreme over all and is therefore to be praised and worshipped given all the worth. He is absolutely worthy to receive all of our devotion, all of our obedience, all of our service, more than we can ever give. He is God. We are creatures and we are sinful creatures whom he has saved in Christ. As we were reminded this morning, he has sent his spirit into our hearts. He has sent his son, that having regenerated us by his spirit, we should be justified by his grace and his atoning death, that we should be adopted then as his children into the family of God. All glory to our God. And that is essentially the theme of Psalm 135 and Psalm 136. It is the praise, it is the worship, of God for his steadfast love which endures forever. But you know the Christian life is not a life that is spent always on the mountaintops of praise. The placement of Psalm 137 after two psalms of such encouragement and such heights of praise is very deliberate. The Psalms express the full range of human emotion and experience. And it's not all rosy, as it were. And in Psalm 137, we are reminded of the depths of sorrow. and life in exile. And the need in such days to continue to look to God who has demonstrated his commitment to his people in Psalms 135 and 136. So Psalm 137 is a communal lament that indicates how traumatic and how devastating the exile to Babylon was for God's people. The pain of the experience is fresh in the Psalmist's mind, but God remains with them in the midst of their pain, as we read from Jeremiah's letter, Jeremiah 29, to the exile. And so we're gonna look at this psalm in three parts. The first part is recollecting. Recollecting the sorrows of memory, the first four verses. The second point, committing. Devotion to God and his people, verses five to six. And then finally, trusting that the judge of all the earth will do right, in verses seven to nine. So, first of all, recollecting the sorrows of memory, the first four verses. By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept when we remembered Zion. On the willows there we hung up our lyres, for there our captors required of us songs, and our tormentors mirth saying, sing us one of the songs of Zion. How shall we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land? Do you sense the sorrow? Do you sense the sadness of verse 1? We sat down and wept when they remembered Zion. Their overriding emotion was grief. And what had happened? The place that God had chosen to symbolically dwell among his worshipping people where God had made so many precious promises. The Lord has chosen Zion. He has desired it for his dwelling place. This is my resting place forever. Here I will dwell, for I have desired it, he said in Psalm 132. I will abundantly bless her provisions. I will satisfy her poor with bread. Her priests I will clothe with salvation, and her saints will shout for joy. There I will make a horn to sprang for David. I have prepared a lamp for my anointed. His enemies I will clothe with shame, but on him his crown will shine. And that place now lay in ruins. And God's people had been taken to a foreign land, out of that land of promise, away from God. And just as Adam and Eve had been driven east from Eden, so God's people were driven east out of Israel into Babylon, away from God's presence. Such was the judgment of God on the sin of the nation which had refused him. And judgment then is a giving over of sinners to their sin. It is not an earthquake. It is not a cyclone. It is not a volcanic eruption. It is not a tsunami, a fire or a flood. It is confirming the choice of men and women and boys and girls to sin. Romans one makes that abundantly clear. Paul says in Romans 1, 24, therefore God gave them up in their lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator. You won't listen to God. He will no longer speak. You will no longer have opportunity to hear the word. You want to live life your way, as you see fit? He will give you over to that way. He will give you over to that disobedience. He will give you over to those desires. And those desires will enslave you. And so it was in the exile. The nation had rejected God, so he gave them over to their disobedience. Into the hands of their enemies, into exile they went. And there was a remnant, this psalmist included, who wept at this turn of events. How devastating this must have been to be put out of their inheritance and driven away. And so on the willows, they hung up their lyres, a symbolic gesture indicating they were in no position, no mood to sing praises to God. The lyre was to accompany temple worship. Psalm 33 verse 2, give thanks to the Lord with a lyre, make melody to him with a harp of 10 strings. On top of this, they were being asked by their captors to sing one of the songs of Zion, which appears to be for the purpose of their captors' entertainment and their mirth and their mocking. Well, how could they sing the Lord's song in such a context, in a foreign land. Songs like Psalm 122, a joyful song of a sense. I was glad when they said to me, let us go to the house of the Lord. Our feet have been standing within your gates, oh Jerusalem. How could they sing that song when they have been expelled from within those gates? When Jerusalem fell, there were those who clapped their hands in glee and mocked the songs of Zion that spoke of the city as the perfection of beauty, the joy of all the earth. Lamentations 2, 15. All who pass along the way clap their hands at you. They hiss and wag their heads at the daughter of Jerusalem. Is this the city that was called the perfection of beauty, the joy of all the earth? All your enemies rail against you, they hiss, they gnash their teeth, they cry. We have swallowed her. Ah, this is the day we long for. Now we have it, we see it. You see, this request of their captors was a sarcastic mocking of these people and of the living God. Your God couldn't help you. He couldn't help you against the might of Babylon, against Nebuchadnezzar. Your God isn't worth serving. Singing the songs of Zion in that context, you see, would have been to indulge their captors' blasphemies and give them cause for more mocking and mirth. Of course, their captors didn't realize that this turn of events was exactly as God had promised and purposed. As Lamentations 2.16 goes on to say, the Lord has done what he purposed. He has carried out his word, which he commanded long ago. He has thrown down without pity. He has made the enemy rejoice over you and exalted the might of your foes. So we're not to understand these verses as if it was that God's people could never sing praise to God in a foreign land, or that God could only be praised and only be worshiped in Jerusalem. Because the nations are called to worship God. Psalm 66, verse four, all the earth worships you and sings praises to you. They sing praises to your name. Psalm 98, four, make a joyful noise to the Lord. All the earth break forth into joyous song and sing praises. But you see the reason the exiles are here is because of God's judgment. And this is not a time for singing. This is a time for sorrow. This is a time for mourning. This is a time for grief over the sin that has brought them here. This is a time for deep contrition. It is a time for repentance, cries for mercy and forgiveness. As Daniel in exile prayed in Daniel chapter nine, you can read that prayer. And so we must ask the question, how do you view your sin? How do you view your sin? What effect does the memory of your sin have on you? Do you mourn? Do you weep? Do you grief? or do you sweep it under the carpet? Pretend that it never happened. You carry on singing regardless. My friends, we're sinners. We're failures. All of our sins, no matter how we would like to grade them, they are all, each one of them is an abomination to a holy God. and memory of them must keep us humble, must keep us contrite. We cannot pretend that that sin never happened, whatever that sin was. And that's why we sung a version of Psalm 51 earlier in our service. He says in verse three, I know my transgressions. And my sin is ever before me. Well, I know my sins. Their memory haunts my conscience all day long. Does that describe you? Do your sins haunt your conscience? If you have a right view of sin, there will be an element of this. But you mustn't stay there. When that memory comes back, when you recall again that failure, don't stay in self-pity. Don't stay looking at yourself and looking at your sin. There must be action. And that action is to flee to Jesus Christ. It is to turn again to Jesus Christ and cry out to him for forgiveness. The memory of our sin is surely a grief to us. and it must humble us and it must keep us humble. But for every look at sin and for every look at ourselves, we take 10 looks to Jesus Christ, as Robert Murray McShane has said. And I think I have previously misattributed that to Spurgeon. It is McShane who said, for every look at yourself, Take ten looks at Christ. There is the balance. Yes, the memory of that sin, the memory of that fall, the memory of that failure haunts you. But you use that to prompt you to turn to Jesus Christ. To look to Jesus Christ. To see that he has made an end of your sin. And he has done away with your sin. And that he has taken the punishment that your sin deserves. by dying in your place on the cross if you're trusting him alone for salvation. We must, you see, have Christ before us. We must see Jesus, who made an end of all my sin. He is your great high priest. whoever lives to intercede for you before the throne of grace. And so you come to God in Christ, you come to God in Christ, you stand in Christ, reconciled, redeemed, ransomed, restored, renewed, forgiven. Then you see you can praise God for the wonder of his salvation. You're led then from that point of weeping to that point of rejoicing in Christ. And that is where this psalm goes next. The psalmist vows not to forget Jerusalem. This is where the exiles God's people belong, as one commentator observes, Babylon was his address, Jerusalem was his home. And there is a commitment made then in the following verses, in verses five to six. Our second point is committing, having recollected our sin and using that to drive us to Christ. We commit in devotion to God and his people. Life in Babylon was not arduous. Psalmist says, if I forget your Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its scale. Let my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth. If I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy. There was a danger of forgetting. Jerusalem. We read from Jeremiah 29 which gives instruction for the exiles to settle, to build homes, to marry, to have children. They were not enslaved people. They were not mistreated as they were and had been in Egypt. In fact, they were probably many pleasant aspects to life in Babylon. It was a well-watered land. It was fed by irrigation canals from the main rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates, which sustained a great civilization and it produced a very fertile plain and life was actually likely to be easier in Babylon than it was had been back in Jerusalem. As one commentator has noted, those who had grown up in Babylon had got on in life. They were relaxing under shady trees along the banks of the rivers and the canals. It was a very appealing way of living compared with the harsher and hillier terrain of Jerusalem. And there would have been a strong temptation then to feel happy and content with those very pleasant surroundings and that prosperity in Babylon and a temptation to forget Jerusalem. And indeed very few then, a small remnant actually returned to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple and the city following Cyrus decree as we're seeing in our studies in Ezra. This world offers tempting comforts, doesn't it? How appealing then it would be, it would have been, to the average exile to have stayed in Babylon. What appeal would there have been to uproot from beside those shady waters, to return to a ruined city and a ruined country? Many then chose not to. They chose not to because they had forgotten what the promised land meant. They had forgotten what gathering for worship in the temple of God meant. They were not loving God, but they were in love with the world and its pleasantness in Babylon. And you and I face the same perils, exactly the same perils of comfort in this world. We want a quiet life, don't we? Or is it just me? We want to settle down in a quiet place and live a life of ease. The psalmist recognized the danger of forgetting Jerusalem while in this foreign land. And for us, as New Covenant people of God, the danger is not forgetting Jerusalem, the city, it is forgetting the church. Again, as we're reminded this morning in our reading from Nehemiah, Jerusalem, the city, prefigures Zion, the church, the church of the living God, the people of God. Jerusalem, Zion, was God's symbolic dwelling place in the old covenant. Now, in the new covenant, God's dwelling place is his people, the church. God dwells in each one of us by his spirit, and he calls us to assemble together week by week to worship him who presences himself in our midst when we gather. Jesus, by his spirit, is here. We are in Christ's presence as we worship him. And if we forsake the assembling together, we forsake gathering with Christ, we forsake gathering in his presence and we starve ourselves of the means of grace that God has provided to care for and to keep and to nurture his people. But oh how very tempting it is to pack it all in at times. The difficulties, the stresses, disappointments, the discouragements, the heartaches, the weariness, the grief, the sorrows. How much easier, how much more pleasant it would be if I could just check out, live a life without responsibility, live a life without commitment to God's people. Far less trouble, far less pain, far less anguish. Because we Christians, we're such hypocrites, aren't we? We're so difficult to love. Each one of us obstacles one to another in one way or another. But at the same time, brothers and sisters in Christ, we are called to love one another. And we're called to give ourselves for one another, and to encourage one another, and to exhort one another, and to care for one another, and to look out for one another, and to build one another up in love. And by God's grace, then we put aside all of our natural inclinations, all of our natural preferences, we serve our God together where he has placed us. You see God has not called us to live the Christian life on our own. It is a life that can only be lived fully corporately. Just as worship among the old covenant people of God found its highest fulfillment in the feasts when all of God's people were to gather in Jerusalem. So the Christian life finds its highest fulfilment in the corporate commitment of believers in Christ, expressed in the life of the Church. This is how we show Christ's love to the world. Jesus said in John chapter 13 a new commandment I give to you that you love one another just as I have loved you so you also are to love one another by this all people will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another you cannot then live the Christian life on your own it is simply not possible How do you demonstrate, how can you fulfill Christ's commandment that he's given you, that you love one another if you're living on your own, if you're isolated from God's people? You're not fulfilling Christ's commandment, you're doing your own thing. You're not living the Christian life. You're pursuing, rather, you're pursuing your own agenda. But Christ has commanded you, love one another, not separate from everyone. Not do your own thing to pursue a quiet life of ease. And this is hard. This is hard because this is part of our engagement in a spiritual war. And that spiritual war is unceasing in this life. And don't expect a truce to be called any time. Don't expect a ceasefire, there won't be one. the devil and his legions are hell-bent on destroying your witness to Jesus Christ. And one of the strategies that they use is to lull you into a stupor, to send you to sleep on the quiet, shady banks of those pleasant streams in this world. But the trouble is you're not at home in this world. You're in exile in this world. If you're following Christ, you are in exile. And if you're lulled into this existence, you'll never reach home. And that sadly then is what happened to many of the exiles from Judah. They grew comfortable in Babylon, too comfortable in Babylon. And they didn't want to return to Jerusalem, to their inheritance, to worship of the living God. They lived for the world's prosperity, the quiet life, the shady streams by the waters of Babylon. And there they perished. Friends, don't let this happen to you. Don't let this happen to you. Guard against it. Be of the same mind of the Psalmist in verses five to six. Make this your resolution, be resolved to set Jerusalem, that is the church and its gatherings and serving God's people in its context as your highest joy. Because this, brothers and sisters in Christ, is where in Christ you belong. It is where God has ordained to meet with you, his people. And this gathering, this assembling, prefigures your ultimate home, which is heaven itself. You see, we're currently sojourners and pilgrims in this world, but we have to set our minds on things above where Christ is seated. and eagerly await his return because, as Philippians 3 reminds us, our citizenship is in heaven. And from it we await a saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself. Therefore, my brothers, whom I love and long for my joy and crown, stand firm thus in the Lord my beloved. Don't go to sleep. by the shady, seductive waters of Babylon in this world. Be committed, commit yourself, be devoted to God and to Jesus Christ, your Lord and Savior. Thirdly, trusting. The psalm concludes, trusting the judge of all the earth will do right in verses seven to nine. The psalmist's sorrow at the sin that's brought him to exile and his commitment to set Jerusalem and the worship of the living God as his highest joy is then followed by an expression of trust in God that he will do what is right. In verse seven, he asks God to remember against the Edomites the day of Jerusalem, how they said, lay it bare, lay it bare, down to its foundations. In verse eight, O daughter of Babylon, doomed to be destroyed, blessed shall he be who repays you with what you have done to us. Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock. in asking God to remember against the Edomites their attitude down to the fall of Jerusalem. Nehemiah calls on God to remember in his prayers for God to punish treacherous enemies. The Edomites you see rejoiced to see Jerusalem fall. Lay it bare! Lay it bare! They were to the psalmist then the symbolic of all worldly opposition that sought to destroy the witness of God and his people in this world. And the Psalmist calls on God to remember against them. And the judgment against Edom is the subject of Obadiah. And you can read that book. All who take their stand against God and his people will be brought to nothing. And that's the theme of Psalm 2. And so it is right to pray that God will remember against the enemies of his people and remember his promises to bring them to justice in his time and in his way. It's not then for us to take matters into our own hands. We leave it to the Lord to repay. Romans 12 again makes that clear. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, as far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. To the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him something to drink, for by so doing you will keep burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. And the psalmist then turns attention to Babylon. But there is no prayer for the city's destruction, just a confident statement that Babylon will be destroyed because that's what God in Isaiah 13 promises. Babylon will be overrun by the Medes and become like Sodom and Gomorrah, Isaiah 13 verse 19 in history. tells us that that's exactly what happened. The translation then in verse 8 and 9 of blessed or happy are not the best I'm told. The psalmist is not saying that the one who repays Babylon with destruction and destroys their children will be under God's blessing or happy but rather the emphasis, the meaning intended is, this is right. In other words, how right shall he be who repays you? How right shall he be who takes your little ones? In other words, doing the right thing in a given circumstance. So when Babylon is treated as Babylon treated Jerusalem, it will be in the same way a just requital. The ruins of Jerusalem, you see, reveal that the world is ruled by a just and a holy God who is faithful to his word and a like justice will be given to Babylon and that you see is right. We are not then to read the closing verses of this psalm as a desire for revenge. It is not the psalmist's intention to act personally in this matter either. He is not going to take vengeance. He knows that it will be so, and it will be right. God will do it. Bring it about. The judge of all the earth will do what is just. He will do what is right, always and only. Genesis 18, verse 25. Neither are we to take these closing verses of Psalm 137 literally, in the sense that little ones being taken and dashed against the rock. Reading the commentators, this was rather a vivid way of indicating the end of a nation. This judgment against Babylon is written in the language of the day that expressed a complete and a total defeat of the enemy. And in exactly the same way, the Lord's anointed will dash in pieces the rebellious nations. And that's described in Psalm 2 verse 9. In other words, their end is complete. and their end is total. And so there was going to be an end to Babylon. It was doomed to be destroyed just as Jerusalem was doomed to be destroyed because of the rebellion of God's people. God fulfilled his promises. God fulfilled his word. And Babylon, likewise, destroyed for their arrogance, for their evil, for their wickedness. You see, my friends, there is no escape from the judgments of God. the judge of all the earth will do right. Trust him. But you know, this fall of Babylon, this destruction of Babylon also points us to the end times. points us to the eschatological fall of Babylon described in Revelation where Babylon is symbolic of all worldly powers in that letter. The fall of Babylon and the fall then of all worldly powers is described in Revelation 18. And in that day will come to pass the words of Revelation 18 verse 20 Rejoice over her, O heaven, and you saints and apostles and prophets, for God has given judgment for you against her. You see, that will be a day of vindication when the victory is seen to be the Lord's and all worldly opposition to God and his people will be destroyed. God's people will be vindicated. But that day will not come until the end of the age. But that day is a day of justice, when justice will be done and seen to be done because the judge of all the earth will do right. And then shall come the sound of a great multitude. heaven crying out hallelujah salvation and glory and power belong to our God for his judgments are true and just for he has judged the great prostitute who corrupted the earth with her immorality and has avenged on her the blood of his servants revelation 19 3 1 2 3 and so we don't need to pray for the destruction of worldly power. It's a given. It's a certainty. It will come, and it will come on the day that God has set. And we can get ourselves all caught up in these things, and these events, and when they will happen, and what are the signs that they're going to happen, But the one thing that we need to ask ourselves, are we ready for that day? Are you ready for that day? To be ready for that day, you must submit to the Son. You must submit to the Lord Jesus Christ before that day. You must bow the knee and kiss the Son lest his anger be kindled against you in that day. Because today is the day of salvation. Now is the day of grace. That day will be too late. But if you put your trust in Christ today, in this day of grace, in this day of salvation, you will not suffer the judgment of God for the sin and rebellion you deserve because that judgment fell on Christ and it spent itself there in his atoning sacrifice on the cross. He turned aside that judgment from all of his people and he bore it himself in himself for all who would trust him. That day is coming that day when all worldly powers shall be destroyed and all who have not bowed the knee to Jesus Christ in this life will bow the knee to Jesus Christ on that day. Every knee shall bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Will you confess Him as your Saviour? Will you confess Him as the one to whom you are committed in your devotion, in your life, when you confess him as the one who has saved you from those sins that haunt your memory. Brothers and sisters in Christ, live in a way which walks closely with your Savior as you recollect and as you sorrow over sin, Flee to Him. Flee to Him for mercy and commit your life to Him in devotion, in serving God, in His people, in the context of His people, the Church. And as you trust Him who will do what is right in His time and in His way, you will bring Him the glory. Let's pray. O Lord our God, we do ask that you help us to look to Jesus Christ. When the memory of sin haunts us, O that we would be spurred to flee again to the cross of Christ. And keep us, Lord, keep us there. Keep us at the foot of the cross. Keep us in the shadow of Calvary. Keep us looking to Jesus, the author, the perfecter, the finisher of our faith, that we would not wander. And when sin and memories stalk us and haunt us, oh, that we would come looking to Jesus again. And so, Lord, that we would be devoted to our Lord and Savior, that we will be committed to serving you, our God, where you have called us, where you have placed us in this community of your people. And we trust you, oh Lord, we trust, commit our ways to you, and we trust that you will do that which is right in your time and for your glory. Lord, may we not be taking matters into our own hands, but be content, Lord, to trust your good hand of providence in all your ways, in all your dealings, with all your people, in all of time. And so may you have all the glory and bring us safely home, we pray, in Jesus' name. Amen.