This morning here at the beginning of the month of May as a psalm of the month, we'll look at Psalm 137 together. So I'll read this whole psalm, hear God's holy infallible word. By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down and wept when we remembered Zion. Upon the willows in the midst of it we hung our harps, for there our captors demanded of us songs, and our tormentors mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. How can we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land? If I forget you, O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget her skill. May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth if I do not remember you, if I do not exalt Jerusalem above my chief joy. Remember, O Lord, against the sons of Edom, the day of Jerusalem, who said, Raise it, raise it to its very foundation. O daughter of Babylon, you devastated one. How blessed will be the one who repays you with the recompense with which you have repaid us. How blessed will be the one who seizes and dashes your little ones against the rock. If the reading of that psalm, especially the end of it, doesn't make you really uncomfortable, and you weren't paying attention. It's one of the more difficult, troubling verses in the Bible. I've sort of avoided teaching and preaching on this passively through 14 years of being a pastor, but we're going to look at it this morning. This psalm is, because of that, a favorite psalm of atheists who want to ridicule the idea of God. For example, A guy named Dan Barker wrote the book, God, the Most Unpleasant Character in All of Fiction. He was in debate with a Christian scholar a few years ago, and he brought up his favorite passage, Psalm 137. He said, in Psalm 137, verse 9, God tells us we should be happy to take innocent babies and dash them against the stones. Even if God did exist, I wouldn't want to worship such a monster. I might ask him to confess his sins to me. Dan Barker's not reading this psalm rightly, but my point is he brings it up. How do we understand it? Many Christians look at this psalm and can't see how it squares with some of Jesus' sayings in the New Testament. Jesus' love for children, let the little children come to me. To such belongs the kingdom of heaven. Or Jesus' command, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you. And so many Christians have concluded these things are just incompatible. And what's said in Psalm 137, at least in the end here, is just a raging Old Testament character who's not speaking in a godly Christian way. This is sub-Christian Jewish attitudes. And some have even suggested, well, this piece is not really the Word of God. I fully believe we can understand this whole psalm as the Word of God. It's consistent with the whole counsel of God and true and godly faith in God. Before we look at that, I just want to be clear, I don't think that we can, or should, explain away the horror, the shock, especially of verse 9 in this psalm. There's no translation or interpretive trick by which we can soften that, or not be arrested by the passion, the grief, and the strength of the language in this psalm. But quite against the idea of this being an expression that's contrary to true faith, The psalm really expresses a people who have finally been awakened to faith, who have been finally awakened to true and biblical faith. And so, I want to look at it this morning as that, as an expression of a believer awakened to true faith in three senses. You see these on your bulletin, in terms of grief, in terms of resolve, in terms of trust. Trust in the Lord. So first, the grief of this psalm. Grief over the Lord's judgment, particularly. Looking at verses 1 to 4. Grief over the Lord's judgment. This psalm exudes serious pain and grief, doesn't it? At the least. What's the setting? What's behind this? Well, it's clear at the beginning of the psalm. These are the Israelites. They've just been through the Babylonian attack on Jerusalem. And they were carried off to Babylon. Rather than just easily summarizing it like that, let's think a little bit about what that meant. In the 6th century BC, the Babylonians besieged Jerusalem for the last time, and that lasted for a couple of years. So people couldn't go in and out of the city, and they lived under constant threat, and of course it created a severe famine. Many people saw loved ones starve to death during that time. But it got worse. The Babylonians eventually broke through the walls, And what followed then, I think, in many ways is hard to fathom. For example, we read in the Old Testament, they captured the king, King Zedekiah. And they lined up all of his sons in front of them and killed them all in front of him. And then took out his eyes immediately. That would be his last vision and memory as he lived on in suffering. They treated many Israelites similarly. They murdered thousands, raped, killed women, children. completely destroyed the temple, they burned the houses, they burned the whole city of Jerusalem, and dragged off many of who were left to Babylon. And so this psalm is written by those who just went through that. They lost their homes, their beloved city, the temple of God, many lost spouses or little children or parents, they witnessed really unspeakable evil, and this is what's burned into their memories. And so the psalm begins, by the rivers of Babylon, this is where they were, there we sat down and wept when we remembered Zion. Babylon is known for an extensive system of canals, there's rivers, canals all over, and so they're finding a place by one of these and weeping with grief, and they're also suffering some taunting from the Babylonians. Verse 3 describes that, there are captors demanded of us songs, our tormentors mirth, saying, sing us one of the songs of Zion. Imagine the wicked Babylonians laughing at their Israelite captives. Hey, sing us one of those psalms you have about Jerusalem. Maybe they'd heard about Psalm 48, for example, a psalm all about Jerusalem. It describes Jerusalem as the city of the great king, the city of God, the joy of the earth, it says. And it's this powerful, secure city under God's protection. They want to hear the Israelites sing that one so they can laugh at them now. Often, the world is looking for opportunities to laugh at those who follow the Lord. I had a small taste of that just a few weeks ago. I was reffing a soccer game at Meade High School. We were under a 45-minute lightning delay and the other refs and I were hiding in a maintenance shed. So, we had all this time to talk and Eventually I was asked what my work is. I said I was a pastor. And the head ref from the game immediately wanted to tell me a story about a run-in he had with another church person, as he put it, sort of condescendingly. And so he told me about, he was refing this girls varsity playoff game. In Loveland, this was a few years ago, it wasn't even recent, and after the game an enraged parent from the losing team wouldn't let him leave the parking lot and was pounding his fist on the hood of his car. Eventually this guy, the parent, took his water bottle and smashed the mirror off of the ref's car. And by this time, of course, the referee had called the police. The police came. The man was criminally charged. But his whole purpose in telling me this story, and he said this with maybe a tiny bit of the scoffing of the Babylonians, is this guy was also a pastor of a prominent church in Loveland. And his subtle point, I truly believe, was, you know, that's nice that you're a church-going person, a pastor and all, but, you know, what is the point? He was saying, in my experience, it makes no difference, right? The Israelites suffered, of course, dramatically in terms of this taunting as well, but we need to not miss, in the midst of all of this grief of all kinds, this is not just a case of senseless injustice. The Israelites ultimately were suffering as a judgment, a call to repentance for their own sin. This is something God had warned them of over and over, and they've been trampling on the grace of God over and over for generations and generations. And so the Babylonians were allowed to come as instruments of God's chastening of them, And as the psalm goes on, it, I think, is clear that the writers of this psalm, at least, got the message. They turned from their sin. There's repentance in this psalm. But all the pain and the grief, the horrific description of recompense against Babylon at the end of the psalm, is fundamentally reflecting, ultimately, the horror and the consequences, the sinfulness of sin itself. It's all a result of and coming from the offense of sin and of your sin and my sin. One of the reasons I think we recoil at imprecatory portions of the Psalter where there are these brutal curses called down on God's enemies is because we don't want to reckon with the fact that that's what my sin deserves. Ligon Duncan comments on this psalm, it's a sad truth we will never in this life know the exceeding sinfulness of sin. Even when we stand before the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Holy Spirit see our own sin as clearly as we have ever seen it, we will not have scratched the surface of the exceeding sinfulness of sin. And the reality is that what happened at Jerusalem shortly before this, what's described as happening to the Babylonians at the end of the psalm here, is not somehow beyond what you and your family and I deserve for the cosmic treason of our sin. There's nothing that can equal our sin against the Holy God. And the fact, we'll come back to this, the fact is the Son of God dying on a cross should horrify you far more than anything in this psalm or any other. It should show you more clearly how heinous your sin is and mine. This psalm shows that this is the consequences of sin. This is what it deserves. William Plummer, another American theologian of the past, writes this, there must be something exceedingly dreadful in sin, else such sad consequences could not flow from it in time and eternity. This world has always been under the government of the kindest being in the universe. And so when we see sin punished like this, we must be witnessing just judgment against something that's dreadful at a magnitude beyond our capacity of explanation. The fact is that much of modern Western Christianity has cut Psalm 137 and anything else like it out of our piety and study and theology and so on. We don't like to think about things like this and so the scary irony of that is But it puts us back really in the very same position as the Israelites were just before the psalm was sung. They had forgotten the seriousness and the offense of sin. So may that not be true of us. God brings redemptive fruit from knowing and grieving the sinfulness of sin, from taking seriously the judgment of God. That's a big part of what's behind the grief in this psalm. Secondly, and the expression of faith in this psalm. Secondly, faith is expressed in terms of resolve. Resolve to value the Lord and His blessings. Resolve to value the Lord and His blessings. Two verses in the middle, five and six here. Listen to the resolve of this psalm. And it's put in part in the form of a curse against the psalmist. themselves if they don't adhere to this resolve. Verse 5, If I forget you, O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget her skill. May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth if I do not remember you, if I do not exalt Jerusalem above my chief joy. What does that mean? this desire to remember and exalt Jerusalem. Is this just a psalmist remembering his home that he's lost, a place where he has nice memories, the capital of his homeland? Well, that's probably part of it, but that's not the main thing. Jerusalem, in the Psalms, in the Old Testament, stands for, and it's celebrated, it's loved, as the center and the symbol of God's relationship with his people. Of course, God's people lived not just in Jerusalem, but often Jerusalem is stated as the church, the people of God, the center of God's relationship with His people. Jerusalem is the center of God's purposes for His people, and in fact, the whole world in a real sense. It's God's chosen city, His chosen people. It's where He demonstrates and preaches and shares His grace at the temple. in the sacrifices, in the festivals, and through His Word. All the gifts of God in the Old Testament centered around Jerusalem and the Temple. And that's why Jerusalem comes up in that way. It's where the sacrifices that anticipated the once-for-all sacrifice of the Messiah were. It's where the King, who sat on the throne that the Messiah would sit on, sat in Jerusalem, etc. And so the psalmists are saying, we're not going to forget, we're not going to fail to value God and His blessings and His worship. Again, above everything. See, that's exactly what had happened. That's what led to God's judgment on Jerusalem. When they had the gift of Jerusalem, when they had the temple, and all of the precious ordinances of God, His worship, they had the house of prayer, they took it for granted. They didn't value it. Now they've lost it in horrific circumstances. And they're saying, never again. Never again will we fail to value what you've given us, Lord, above everything. How easy is it for us to do the same thing as Israel did? To fail to value the church as we should, purchased by the blood of Jesus. where we share together the promises that Jesus made to his church, the gifts of Jesus in the church, of the word preached, the sacraments, the communion of the saints, the ways that we love and serve and encourage each other, the accountability and protection and discipleship of the church. And of course, above and behind all of that is the God of the church. There's nothing more valuable in the world Hebrews speaks to how much, over against the Old Testament saints, how much more we ought to value Christ and His relationship to His church. How eager we ought to be, no longer just for Jerusalem, just for the temple, but for the honor of Christ and His church and for her faithfulness. Many of the blessings Christ has given you in His Church, the worship, and fellowship, and leadership, and mutual care, and protection, and nurture, all by Christ's design, Christians die for these blessings. Throughout history, people have died for the privilege of gathering for worship on the Lord's Day. Do you take these things for granted? We ought to in full New Testament revelation, treasure Zion. The people and the presence and the gifts of God in the church above everything else in life. That leads us to the last piece of the expression of people awakened to faith in this psalm, which is trust. Trust in the Lord's promises. The last three verses of the psalm. And I think that's how we should understand these final verses. as an expression of trust. Now listen again to these verses. Verse seven, remember, O Lord, against the sons of Edom the day of Jerusalem, who said, raise it, raise it to its very foundation. O daughter of Babylon, you devastated one. How blessed will be the one who repays you with the recompense with which you have repaid us. How blessed will be the one who seizes and dashes your little ones against the rock. How should we understand that part of this psalm? Especially verse 9. It's kind of obviously the most difficult part. I want to suggest three ways that we should understand the end of this psalm. First, as a covenant prayer. A covenant prayer. Note that the psalmist turns in prayer to God in this part of the psalm. So verse 7 is where God is explicitly addressed. This is to the Lord, a request to the Lord. And one thing that's so wrong about the accusation against this psalm that it shows just a hateful, wicked person's attitude, or worse, a wicked God, is that it's focused, these last verses are focused like a laser on a ton of scripture. There's a bunch of promises of God packed into this prayer in the background. I'll give you just a couple examples. Chapters in Isaiah speak of God rescuing His people from captivity, from Babylon, giving Babylon judgment. This is the day of the Lord in Isaiah, when God comes and brings justice to Babylon. and gives his people peace and rest. Jeremiah 50, Jeremiah 51 speak at length about God giving Babylon what it deserves one day. Bringing justice to this unthinkably brutal and evil city. Here's an example, Jeremiah 51. For the destroyer is coming against her, against Babylon, and her mighty men will be captured. Their bows are shattered, for the Lord is a God of recompense. He will fully repay." So this psalm is praying, Lord, remember your covenant promises. Remember your faithfulness to your people. Do justice. But there's one passage that stands out above all the others relative to this psalm where God says, He's saying what is going to inevitably happen to Babylon when another powerful and arrogant and evil nation is going to arise someday against Babylon. And this will simply be Babylon's own evil coming back around to them. Isaiah 13. It says, anyone who is found, in Babylon, will be thrust through. Anyone who is captured will fall by the sword. Their little ones also will be dashed to pieces before their eyes. Their houses will be plundered, and their wives will be ravished. And so see, one piece of understanding of what's being stated in this psalm, is that the psalmist is praying the very words of God back to him. This isn't his own raging, he's taking Isaiah 13 and praying it back to the Lord. That God would be faithful to his own promise, that he wouldn't let Babylon get away with this excruciating, nauseating evil, but that God would be, as he described himself, the God of recompense. That justice would be done. It's a covenant prayer. It begins with this key covenant word, remember. Asking God to remember. His own faithfulness, which of course He does. Along with that, secondly, we should understand this as a declaration in faith. A declaration in faith. Again, thinking particularly about verse 9, my point here is simply, there is nothing prescriptive in this statement, in an honest reading of it. It says nothing about what is good, about what the psalmist himself wants to do, or what believers should do. It's a statement of what will happen. What he's confident, in terms of God's own word in Isaiah, what he's confident will happen, what God has promised, what will come to pass in this terrible fallen world. But what about the word blessed? It could maybe better be translated, and sometimes is, happy. which doesn't make it any easier to understand. Happy is the one. Again, the psalmist is simply speaking of what would be the case one day. The comparison is to Babylon. When he says, happy will be the one one day who does these atrocities to you, Babylon is the one right now who is happy in some sense, right? Satisfied, blessed, prospering, whatever word you want to use. The Old Testament at times uses this same word, happy or blessed, to speak of evil people doing evil things. Jeremiah 12, why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why are those happy, same word, who deal treacherously? So here's happy people doing treacherous things. getting satisfaction out of it. Jeremiah 50, God speaks against Babylon specifically in Jeremiah 50, because you were glad, because you rejoiced, you destroyers of my heritage. It's not making any kind of a moral statement about, you know, through the word glad and rejoicing and happy, it's a wicked rejoicing and happiness and satisfaction. It's not a positive assessment. Think about how we might describe a criminals. The man who robbed the bank was happy he got away from the cops. That's not to say there's anything good about what he did, but he found satisfaction. Babylon now is the glad party, but there will come a day, because God has said, and as the psalmist is affirming, when it will be the Medes and Persians will be in that position. They will be celebrating and successful and prosperous in doing atrocities against Babylon. And so it's a covenant prayer. It's a declaration of faith, a statement of what will be one day. And then these both relate to the final way we should see the end of this psalm as a longing for God's kingdom. A longing for God's kingdom. Again, this is not the psalmist, in any way, just in a plain reading, wishing that he could be some giddy person committing this atrocity. It's not a wish for personal revenge. It's a longing for God's promise, a longing for God's kingdom to prevail in the world. God's justice. It goes with the middle part of the psalm that we looked at in the second point in our outline this morning. Concern for God's glory, for His kingdom, the psalmist prayer, verses five and six. Lord, let me suffer, let me waste away if I don't make your worship and your kingdom, your purposes, if I don't put those above everything. He speaks particularly to His ability to sing. Our singing will be blasphemous, Lord. Don't let us do it if it's not honest and sincere for Your kingdom. And this part of the psalm goes with that. It's not, Lord, give me revenge. It's, Lord, be victorious. Do what You've promised. Bring Your just kingdom. And what is a prayer What is that prayer for ultimately? Where are the promises of God? Where does the kingdom of God terminate? Well, in blessing and peace and justice and eternal life for anyone who comes to the Lord. That's not an Old Testament prayer or longing. If anything, the language is equally, if not stronger, in the New Testament places. Jesus taught us to pray, your kingdom come, implicitly. That is praying, in part, for the judgment, the final removal that there will be of anything, anyone, that is opposed to King Jesus in the end. We find the saints in Revelation longing for God's kingdom. and His coming in justice. And Babylon in the Bible is, in fact, a symbol to the very end of all that is evil and opposed to King Jesus. What's the cry of the mighty angel in Revelation 18, for example? He's shouting to the earth. Well, first, He calls people to come out of Babylon and be saved. That invitation goes out to all. Secondly, the celebration is, Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great. That's how our final celebration is put in Revelation 18. Your highest desire as people of God must be and is the victory of God's kingdom. That is what will mean peace and joy and life forever for the world. We pray for the same thing. And this side of the cross, our situation, And the words and so on, the situation is somewhat different. We're not, for example, a political nation as the church at war with another political nation that's trying to destroy us and take our promised land. That's no longer our situation. But if anything, we understand the enemy as even greater, more dangerous in a sense. We ought to see the sinfulness of sin even greater in the cross. Think about it this way. The Old Testament people had examples of the sinfulness of sin, the consequences of sin like this. The Babylonians coming in and killing children, and then later seeing their own children killed. The Old Testament people saw Pharaoh aim to kill all of the Hebrew babies, and then the Egyptians firstborn were killed. These are brutal examples of the consequences of sin to think about. But your perspective is so much more powerful. Outside of Jerusalem, 2,000 years ago, God's own Son, His firstborn beloved Son, was brutally struck down for your sin. And His mercy to you, God crushed His own Son in your place. And so verse 9 describes what sin deserves, what you and I deserve, and that's a horrible thought, but what happened on the cross to the sinless, loving, faithful Son of God because of your sin is infinitely more horrifying. And so we pray this with this psalm for the victory of God's kingdom. Again, not in the exact same time or political situation, This side of the cross, you know the Holy Spirit poured out. This will mean, in the end, yes, God will crush His enemies. He will remove anyone who is opposed to King Jesus. But the Holy Spirit is also poured out so that millions, from every tribe, tongue, and nation, for many, the justice of God will be poured out on Jesus for those who confess their sin and put their faith in Him. Amen. Would you join me as we close in praying the Lord's Prayer? Let's pray. Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.