Psalm 137:1&4: “By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion...
How shall we sing the LORD’s song in a strange land?” Indeed we as followers of Christ live in a strange world. We are just strangers passing by earth for a visit. Of course it does not mean that we are not concerned about the communities, social issues, politics, environment and various affairs of this world. We are called to be salt of the earth. Like the Jews we come across times in life when we cry out: “How can I sing the Lord’s song in a strange land? How can I rejoice when everything is against me?”
In 586 BC Babylon led by Nebuchadnezzar had destroyed Jerusalem. Besides, King Solomon’s temple was also destroyed in the process. So the Jews were left without their place of worship. To hang on to God in captivity seemed beyond reason for them. How could God allow such a thing to them? After all they were God’s chosen people. How many times do we long for hope and peace when we sit by our own rivers of Babylon and weep? How many times do we sow in tears yet reaping in joy seems like a dream?
Then God says: “Hang on my child. I as your Father am in complete control of everything. My Son Jesus also cried out from the cross and asked me why he was forsaken. I did not reply back because I wanted him to see the big picture in person. And on the third day he knew what it was all about. See? By the rivers of Babylon my people sat and remembered me and wept. I knew what they were going through. Remember that I knew you before you were formed in your mother’s womb. My servant Paul also wrote to the Romans: “Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honour and another for is dishonour?”(Romans 9:21). So, I am in control.” Your Babylon will fall. Your restoration is on the way. You did not find God at the Cross. God had already found you there before. Isn’t that wisdom? This is also an assurance that God may not be as distant as you think. Either sin or God’s plan is keeping you away from God. These are the only two reasons. If the former is the case, repent. God is not against us but our sins. If God were against us there would have been no salvation at all. In case of the latter, have hope. Having hope is in that which is not seen. Romans 8:24 says: “For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have?” Hope is exactly for those times when you don’t see things happening as they should.
Getting saved is not the end. It is a beginning. A baby is born. It’s a beginning not the end. Our impossibility is God’s possibility. For instance, salvation was impossible to you. So, God planned salvation for you. Only if you face impossibilities will you realise that God can make them possible and tangible in your life. Our human feebleness opens up doors to God’s omnipotence. Can you challenge yourself once more to look at Jesus and think about the meaning of his life, death and resurrection? By the rivers of Babylon the captive Jews remembered Zion. If you are in a dark hour and not sure you can make it, remember that only someone who knows that it is not yet over can be with you at such times. Jesus is that person.
We read about the healing of the woman with the issue of blood for 12 years (Mark 5:25); woman with the spirit of infirmity for 18 years (Luke 13:11); man born blind (John 9:1); crippled man from birth for 40 years (Acts 3:2; 4:22). What do these miraculous healing testimonies tell us as we sit by our own rivers of Babylon and weep? They tell us that nothing has gone ‘too far’ as we think. You might as well sit by the rivers of Babylon and weep but understand that it is not desperation but faith that moves God to move for us. Famed English poet William Cowper writes: “God is His own interpreter, and He will make it plain.” Like any of us Cowper struggled with depression, doubts and fears. In most of the Psalms David starts out in hopelessness but always ends in faith and hope. Without beginning there can be no end. How we end is what David is teaching us – to end in faith and hope.
1 Chronicles 4:9-10 talks about a person named Jabez. His mother named him Jabez because she bore him in pain. The very meaning of his name was pain. It is hard to imagine a mother naming her son pain. People may name you this and that as you sit by the rivers of Babylon and weep. Jabez also sat by his own rivers of Babylon and wept. Then, by the rivers of Babylon he remembered God and prayed: “...Oh, that You would bless me indeed, and enlarge my territory, that Your hand would be with me, and that You would keep me from evil, that I may not cause pain!” So God granted him what he requested” (verse 10).
God can enlarge your territory. Your territory can be your area of influence and purpose as a child of God in serving God within and outside the church. It can be the areas within yourself that need to be exposed to the fire of God for judgement and cleansing. Whatever your territory, God’s hand will be upon you as was upon Jabez as he sat by the rivers of Babylon and wept. The complexities that affected his birth did not affect Jabez’s life. He learned to swim over the rivers of Babylon and became “more honorable than his brothers”(Verse 9). He did not let the wrong things learned from his imperfect family settings affect his walk with God. Jesus also faced challenges in his own family. John 15:7 teaches us how to swim over the rivers of Babylon: “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.”
1Kings 18:19: “Now therefore send, and gather to me all Israel unto mount Carmel, and the prophets of Baal four hundred and fifty, and the prophets of the groves four hundred, which eat at Jezebel’s table.” Elijah challenged altogether 850 prophets of Baal and Asherah to a one-time showdown to prove God. That is a big number. Elijah was not at all deterred by these prophets of Baal and Asherah. Are you deterred by the challenges around you? It is time for a showdown between your challenges and the God you serve. Who is winning the battle? Your challenges or God? Elijah directed the people to build an altar of wood and place a bullock at the top and said (verse24): “Then you call on the name of your gods, and I will call on the name of the LORD; and the God who answers by fire, He is God.”
So all the people answered and said, “It is well spoken.”” The prophets called upon Baal all day long but nothing happened. So, Elijah took over. He told the people to come near him. He repaired the altar of the Lord by laying twelve stones, wood, a bullock and digging a trench around it. He told the people to pour twelve barrels of water. There was no way the altar could catch fire. Then he called on the Lord and: “Then the fire of the LORD fell, and consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench” (verse 38). God came down with in fire. There is nothing that can stand against fire. You are called to call down fire in your family, office, school, college, workplace or wherever you may be. Fear is not the option for the one that is born of God. The fire of God is what you need if you want to see walls crumbling off in your life to reveal who really the God you serve is.
The Devil is bound to attack you in whatever areas he can get hold of. But you say: “Devil, you’re time’s up! I stand covered by the blood of Jesus Christ. No weapon that is formed against me will prevail. Every tongue that rises up against me shall face the judgement of the God I serve. I am a joint-heir with Christ. I am a victor not a victim. I am an overcomer for in Christ I can do all things.” Build an altar and place your impossibility over there. Then dig a trench around you and fill it with barrels of tears and call upon God to send His fire. That is when you realise that your days of sitting by the rivers of Babylon and weeping are over. Time has come to swim over the rivers of Babylon.
How shall we sing the LORD’s song in a strange land?” Indeed we as followers of Christ live in a strange world. We are just strangers passing by earth for a visit. Of course it does not mean that we are not concerned about the communities, social issues, politics, environment and various affairs of this world. We are called to be salt of the earth. Like the Jews we come across times in life when we cry out: “How can I sing the Lord’s song in a strange land? How can I rejoice when everything is against me?”
In 586 BC Babylon led by Nebuchadnezzar had destroyed Jerusalem. Besides, King Solomon’s temple was also destroyed in the process. So the Jews were left without their place of worship. To hang on to God in captivity seemed beyond reason for them. How could God allow such a thing to them? After all they were God’s chosen people. How many times do we long for hope and peace when we sit by our own rivers of Babylon and weep? How many times do we sow in tears yet reaping in joy seems like a dream?
Then God says: “Hang on my child. I as your Father am in complete control of everything. My Son Jesus also cried out from the cross and asked me why he was forsaken. I did not reply back because I wanted him to see the big picture in person. And on the third day he knew what it was all about. See? By the rivers of Babylon my people sat and remembered me and wept. I knew what they were going through. Remember that I knew you before you were formed in your mother’s womb. My servant Paul also wrote to the Romans: “Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honour and another for is dishonour?”(Romans 9:21). So, I am in control.” Your Babylon will fall. Your restoration is on the way. You did not find God at the Cross. God had already found you there before. Isn’t that wisdom? This is also an assurance that God may not be as distant as you think. Either sin or God’s plan is keeping you away from God. These are the only two reasons. If the former is the case, repent. God is not against us but our sins. If God were against us there would have been no salvation at all. In case of the latter, have hope. Having hope is in that which is not seen. Romans 8:24 says: “For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have?” Hope is exactly for those times when you don’t see things happening as they should.
Getting saved is not the end. It is a beginning. A baby is born. It’s a beginning not the end. Our impossibility is God’s possibility. For instance, salvation was impossible to you. So, God planned salvation for you. Only if you face impossibilities will you realise that God can make them possible and tangible in your life. Our human feebleness opens up doors to God’s omnipotence. Can you challenge yourself once more to look at Jesus and think about the meaning of his life, death and resurrection? By the rivers of Babylon the captive Jews remembered Zion. If you are in a dark hour and not sure you can make it, remember that only someone who knows that it is not yet over can be with you at such times. Jesus is that person.
We read about the healing of the woman with the issue of blood for 12 years (Mark 5:25); woman with the spirit of infirmity for 18 years (Luke 13:11); man born blind (John 9:1); crippled man from birth for 40 years (Acts 3:2; 4:22). What do these miraculous healing testimonies tell us as we sit by our own rivers of Babylon and weep? They tell us that nothing has gone ‘too far’ as we think. You might as well sit by the rivers of Babylon and weep but understand that it is not desperation but faith that moves God to move for us. Famed English poet William Cowper writes: “God is His own interpreter, and He will make it plain.” Like any of us Cowper struggled with depression, doubts and fears. In most of the Psalms David starts out in hopelessness but always ends in faith and hope. Without beginning there can be no end. How we end is what David is teaching us – to end in faith and hope.
1 Chronicles 4:9-10 talks about a person named Jabez. His mother named him Jabez because she bore him in pain. The very meaning of his name was pain. It is hard to imagine a mother naming her son pain. People may name you this and that as you sit by the rivers of Babylon and weep. Jabez also sat by his own rivers of Babylon and wept. Then, by the rivers of Babylon he remembered God and prayed: “...Oh, that You would bless me indeed, and enlarge my territory, that Your hand would be with me, and that You would keep me from evil, that I may not cause pain!” So God granted him what he requested” (verse 10).
God can enlarge your territory. Your territory can be your area of influence and purpose as a child of God in serving God within and outside the church. It can be the areas within yourself that need to be exposed to the fire of God for judgement and cleansing. Whatever your territory, God’s hand will be upon you as was upon Jabez as he sat by the rivers of Babylon and wept. The complexities that affected his birth did not affect Jabez’s life. He learned to swim over the rivers of Babylon and became “more honorable than his brothers”(Verse 9). He did not let the wrong things learned from his imperfect family settings affect his walk with God. Jesus also faced challenges in his own family. John 15:7 teaches us how to swim over the rivers of Babylon: “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.”
1Kings 18:19: “Now therefore send, and gather to me all Israel unto mount Carmel, and the prophets of Baal four hundred and fifty, and the prophets of the groves four hundred, which eat at Jezebel’s table.” Elijah challenged altogether 850 prophets of Baal and Asherah to a one-time showdown to prove God. That is a big number. Elijah was not at all deterred by these prophets of Baal and Asherah. Are you deterred by the challenges around you? It is time for a showdown between your challenges and the God you serve. Who is winning the battle? Your challenges or God? Elijah directed the people to build an altar of wood and place a bullock at the top and said (verse24): “Then you call on the name of your gods, and I will call on the name of the LORD; and the God who answers by fire, He is God.”
So all the people answered and said, “It is well spoken.”” The prophets called upon Baal all day long but nothing happened. So, Elijah took over. He told the people to come near him. He repaired the altar of the Lord by laying twelve stones, wood, a bullock and digging a trench around it. He told the people to pour twelve barrels of water. There was no way the altar could catch fire. Then he called on the Lord and: “Then the fire of the LORD fell, and consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench” (verse 38). God came down with in fire. There is nothing that can stand against fire. You are called to call down fire in your family, office, school, college, workplace or wherever you may be. Fear is not the option for the one that is born of God. The fire of God is what you need if you want to see walls crumbling off in your life to reveal who really the God you serve is.
The Devil is bound to attack you in whatever areas he can get hold of. But you say: “Devil, you’re time’s up! I stand covered by the blood of Jesus Christ. No weapon that is formed against me will prevail. Every tongue that rises up against me shall face the judgement of the God I serve. I am a joint-heir with Christ. I am a victor not a victim. I am an overcomer for in Christ I can do all things.” Build an altar and place your impossibility over there. Then dig a trench around you and fill it with barrels of tears and call upon God to send His fire. That is when you realise that your days of sitting by the rivers of Babylon and weeping are over. Time has come to swim over the rivers of Babylon.
