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The True Faith Max A Forsythe Christ
Covenant
REFORMED
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O JERUSALEM!
Psalm 137: 1-9
Have you ever felt like in a stranger in a strange land? Perhaps something like the fictional Man Without a Country who supposedly lived out his life aboard Naval vessels who was never allowed to set foot in his Native land again? Even the newspapers reminded him of his sentence, because all articles which referred to his homeland were regularly censored.
Well, that story is fiction, but the reality of the strangeness of contemporary America came home rather hard to me this week. I read and heard about the public protests against our sister congregation Northwest Presbyterian Church. The public outcry was against a biblically based seminar on leading people out of Sodomy and into a far healthier lifestyle and even spiritual salvation. However the media saw it differently and railed against biblical decency in favor of immorality, moral pollution and sin!
It is difficult to suddenly be proclaimed "public enemy number one"! I remember six years ago when I preached a baccalaureate sermon for my oldest son's graduation. Within a few short days, the Supreme Court of the United States declared that what I had done was suddenly illegal! I have survived, but my once fond feelings for this home, this place, this country, this America: have been trashed by people whom I had been trained to respect. Since then I have not been able to say the pledge to the flag outloud because I get choked up with emotions that are more upsetting than uplifting. In the grand scheme of things, this emotional response may seem to be of little importance.
But because of these events I feel that I can better understand one of the most emotional of all the psalms in the Psalter, our 137th. There are very strong emotions and feelings here in this psalm. So strong that it is not even included in the back of our Trinity hymnals. It is not often that we would gloss over any words of the sacred text. Like some of Shakespeare's earthy observations, there are honest images, phrases and feelings of the writers whom God chose that we do not teach in their full impact because we do indeed live under a New Covenant of the Gospel of Grace rather than any eye for eye legalism.
While we do not pray for God to neglect His eternal justice, we today do not publicly advocate how the Almighty might achieve justice. And yet, the Lord knows our true feelings even as He allows them to be highlighted in this particular psalm. Let us consider the patriotic sorrow of this captive POW.
Like several hundred GI's during the cold war, our psalmist is doomed to death in a strange land far from home. The reality of the fate of this musician is made clear in Sennacherib's records that Israelite tribute included singers and musicians. There are also historic artistic references in Middle Eastern art of musicians being marched into captivity with their instruments.
Once these captives were settled we read of their immediate reactions in the first four verses: "By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept." "There on the willows we hung up our harps". The wind and tears beneath the willows will not harmonious melodies compose. It is experiences such as these that build national character and mold it hard as rock!
Let us only remember the loud squawking noise of the Celtic bagpipe to common ears. And yet to those of Scots blood who remembered that after the last rising of the Forty-five, those very pipes and the beloved tartans and weapons of the clans were by law forbidden on pain of death. For a generation the pipes played not over the glens and fortresses of the highlands. Finally, the laws of the Kingdom were made to relent and in the Scots revival of the late Nineteenth Century more clans than had ever wore a kilt, rediscovered an "ancient" tartan and tunes to celebrate.
And those clannish habits which might have died a natural death in the growth of English Empire were infused with immortal strength. And so too was the emotional ties of the Judean captives strengthened by their experiences by the captive waters of Babylon. This fact we see in the second part of our psalm today in verses five and six: "If I forget you, O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill. May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth." The very hand that plucks the melody, the very mouth that praised the Lord in Zion's fair city would be forever silenced.
Now notice a common Jewish problem here in verse six: their devotion to the city of Jerusalem. This devotion may have been as extreme as that of the French with their fair city of Paris. I have only been to that city once and I was made to feel that even the speaking of English was pollution enough not even to be satisfied by the tourist taxes.
This emotional attachment to a geographic place can be dangerous and even supplant the proper devotion owed to the God of Zion itself. Well may we ask if Jerusalem is Israel's highest joy? At the time of Jesus Christ when he talked of tearing down the temple of His body and rebuilding it in three days time, His hearers were incensed that Zion's halls could be so insulted in comparison.
In this century, modern Israel has been obsessed with its control of "the sacred precincts" of Jerusalem. In the 1948 War of Liberation fully one quarter of all Israeli forces were thrown away in desperate attempts to recapture the Holy City. Finally in the Six Day War of 1967 Israeli forces succeeded for the first time in two thousand five hundred years in regaining Israeli sovereignty over the Holy City. That multiple millennia desire has shaken the status quo of military might for most of the second half of our century. And if ever a Holy War erupts over the ancient temple site it will take more than modern armaments to contain the conflict.
While contemporary Israeli forces may have the discipline to contain their revenge on the infidels who are in their way, the feelings of verses seven through nine are very real. And there are bumbling bigots in Baghdad and Damascus who have not the same morality to avoid the actions requested in verse nine.
It is well that modern Christianity does not have the same devotion to geographic space and architecture that the disporate Jews show us here in this psalm. Our calling is higher than the mere steeples of our churches. Our calling is higher than the obsessions of the fundamentalistic godly who mean to assist the Jews in their rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem whose appropriate time and purpose are long gone.
Our calling is to sense the spiritual desire of the psalmist for the presence of God that was known in the precincts of Zion's hill - in the Spiritual presence known by all devout Old Covenant saints. A presence that we called to value above all the stones, beams, briks and tiles of human construction. Yes, there are many many lovely churches, cathedrals and chapels. but even as we worship the Lord of Zion in spirit and truth we should learn to look beyond our emotional attachment and seek the Spirit who inspired our Psalmist.
And may we remember that the Lord does not forget His people. Even while we do not remember nor sing any more the songs of Zion we are instructed to learn new songs that glorify our Lord Jesus Christ. May we by His eternal Spirit be lifted above the common devotion tothe "sacred" buildings of Zion, Paris, Scotland, and America to the Lord alone. And may the Lord come quickly to take us to our true home in heaven. Amen!
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RESOURCES USED |
PLACES PREACHED |
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Anderson,
A.A. |
Rushsylvania United
Presbyterian Church |
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Kidner,
Derek. |
WTOO Radio
Bellefontaine, Ohio |
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Maclaren,
Alexander |
Belle Center United
Presbyterian Church |
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Spurgeon,
C.H. |
Belle Center Reformed
Presbyterian Church |
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psm137a.htm |
Christ Covenant
Reformed (PCA) |
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