By The Rivers of Babylon

What do you think when you hear that recently a Christian Iraqi laundry worker employed at the U.S. embassy in Baghdad was shot and killed on his way home from work? His family, it is reported, are convinced he was killed for his faith. So they now plan to flee the country themselves. What do you think when you hear that Christians make up 20% of the refugees fleeing Iraq for Syria, while they only make up 3% or the total population? What did you think when you heard in August that there had been an attack on five churches in Baghdad and Mosul when car bombs killed a dozen people?

Tonight we are going to be looking at Psalm 137 as we conclude a series in the book of Psalms. And, as you will see, the people of God at the time of the Babylonian captivity had been facing far worse experiences and were also wanting to know what to think. So much by way of introduction.

My headings tonight are first, THE CHURCH IN THE WORLD, and, secondly, MEASURE FOR MEASURE.

First, THE CHURCH IN THE WORLD

This Psalm tells you about living as a believer or a Christian in a hostile, God rejecting, pagan environment. It is about the Church - which is fundamentally people, not a building - the Church in the World. First, it teaches that things are not always easy for the Church in the World. And I want to spend some time thinking about that tonight. For this is an important subject for new believers, and so for those who have been baptized this evening. Look at verse 1:

By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion.

So these believers in God - the ancient Israelite believers, the predecessors of modern Christians - "sat and wept". When the Apostle Paul and his friend Barnabas made their first follow-up visit to some churches they had started in Asia Minor, this is what they taught the new converts- Acts 14.21-22:

they [Paul and Barnabas] returned to [these churches], strengthening the disciples and encouraging them to remain true to the faith. [ Listen!] 'We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God,' they said

There is a wonderful hope for the Christian - the hope of heaven. But before heaven there is a cost in this life. It is infinitely worth it. But thre is a cost. The apostles said: "we must [not 'may' but 'must'] go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God." That is what those Christians in Iraq are experiencing at the moment. And that is precisely what those ancient Israelites experienced in the same part of the world nearly 2600 years ago by the rivers of Babylon. The ruins of Babylon, of course, are still there 51 miles south of modern Baghdad. Suffering for the true Christian is a mark of God's love. Both the Old Testament and the New Testament teach that. Listen to the New Testament letter to the Hebrews quoting the Old Testament book of Proverbs:

My son, do not make light of the Lord's discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son.

God wants the best for you. But to get that best you need to trust him; and he has to allow you to go though difficult times. Who is going through a hard time at the moment? Maybe you've come up to one of the universities for the very first time and you are finding things hard. One girl student said: "I was told that if you stick it out for four weeks, it never gets any worse." Some people do find the first weeks at the university very hard. You may be much older and going through some other very difficult time. Well, the letter to the Hebrews goes on in chapter 12 verse 11 like this:

No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.

Now these ancient Jewish people in Babylon had previously been suffering the most definite of discipline - it was the discipline of God's judgment. They had been through, what someone has called, "a nightmare of apocalyptic proportions". Think of the worst you can imagine in Iraq today. Multiply that over and over again, and you have something like the Babylonian siege and sack of Jerusalem in the 6th century BC. Twice it was besieged and the second time in 589 BC was the worst imaginable. Nebuchadnezzar was the king of Babylon at the time and he besieged it for 18 months. The people of Jerusalem were literally at death's door. Caring mothers had to cook and eat their own children. They could not believe what was happening. They were supposed to be the people of God.

And after the city eventually fell in 587, many were taken away by the Babylonians and dumped in refugee camps hundreds of miles away along the rivers, or canals, of Babylon to join the Jews who had already been exiled there earlier. Then, and only then, in that far away country they came to their spiritual senses - like the Prodigal Son we were hearing about last week. They reflected on what had been happening. They thought back to Zion - another name for Jerusalem - and all it meant to them of God's goodness and faithfulness. And they wept.

But these were tears not just of remorse: they were tears of true repentance. So what had happened? Well, this. Their prophet Ezekiel had explained why they were where they were. You can read about it in the book of Ezekiel in the Old Testament. Their problem had all stemmed from their rebellion against God. That was the first message God gave to Ezekiel. While he was in one of these refugee camps on a river of Babylon, God's commission came to him in these words:

Son of man, I am sending you to the Israelites, to a rebellious nation that has rebelled against me; they and their fathers have been in revolt against me to this very day" (Ezekiel 2.3).

For many years now the Israelites had drifted away from the God of the Bible. "Let's follow the religion of our neighbours - the religion of the Baals," they said. You see, Baalism was so seductive. It was, of course, related to the religion of Babylonian god, Marduk. It allowed you to do what you liked - sexually and in other ways. But what was the result? Answer: social chaos. There was not only unlicensed sex but an increase of violence and injustice. So God said, in effect: "you want to live like the Babylonians and the other pagan people around you - so be it. To Babylon you can go."

And God says the same thing to day. "You want to reject me and my laws. So be it. Have a permissive society. That is your choice. You can have all the moral and social lawlessness you like - but with all the inevitable consequences."

All the immorality and violence of today is not just something that the West is going to be judged for. It is the judgement of God. The violence and crime on our streets; the sexually transmitted diseases; the marriage breakdowns with all the traumas children have to face; the abortions; the fact that currently 250,000 children in this country live with parents who have a serious drug problem (as I learnt yesterday); and so on and so forth - these are not only what we are going to be judged for. They are part of that judgement. They are the consequences of rebelling against God and his laws. At least that is what the Bible would teach us. Do you believe that? I do!

So what is the way out? What was the way out for these Israelite refugees? Answer: they began to take stock. They remembered Zion and all it had stood for. They came to their spiritual senses. Who needs to do that tonight? Perhaps you have been brought up in a Christian home and you have rebelled against all that your family have stood for; and you are now in a mess. Well learn from these ancient Israelites. However, when these Israelites did come to their senses, life still was not easy. They now experienced opposition from their Babylonian guards. Look at verses 2-3:

There on the poplars we hung our harps, for there our captors asked us for songs, our tormentors demanded songs of joy; they said, 'Sing us one of the songs of Zion!

These guards saw how miserable these people were and wanted to make fun of them by making them sing one of their songs. And most likely you will be mocked or abused or come under pressure, if you are going to be faithful to Jesus Christ - in your Hall of Residence, in your school, in your hospital, your business, your office - anywhere. So follow the example of these ancient Israelite believers. It certainly is not always easy being a believer in the true God, the God of the Bible. That is 'a', probably 'the', fundamental lesson this Psalm teaches.

Secondly, this Psalm teaches that the pagan world is a sad place. Look at verse 4:

How can we sing the songs of the LORD while in a foreign land?

These Israelites came to the conclusion that Babylon and its life-style was terrible and a cause for sadness and not joy. So there was nothing to sing about.

Now, the Babylon of these exiles was totally anti-God (and had been so, for much of its existence as a super-power). The name "Babylon", therefore, in the Bible, comes to symbolize all societies that are organized against God and his laws. In the New Testament Babylon is a code name for Rome - pagan Rome. And in the last book of the Bible - the book of Revelation - Babylon stands for the whole world where it is against God and defying his word. It is, therefore, pretty obvious that much of the modern world and much of modern Britain is Babylonian. For all its glitter and glitz it is a sad place. If you loose the Fatherhood of God you soon loose the brotherhood of man.

I was down in London last week - or the week before last. A main story in the evening paper I was reading in the train home was of a young woman on a London tube train who was sexually assaulted by a few youths in front of everyone. But not a person stirred to restrain them or help her. Babylon and modern Babylons, for all their glamour, are sad places. That is the second lesson this Psalm teaches.

Thirdly, this Psalm teaches what to do when you have to live in a Godless world - or a Babylon. One thing you have to do is to pray. And you are to pray like these refugees. Look at verses 5-6:

If I forget you, O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill. May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth if I do not remember you, if I do not consider Jerusalem my highest joy.

Once they had remembered Jerusalem (or Zion), they prayed against forgetting it and being seduced by Babylon. They prayed that they would not forget that "Jerusalem" - which stands for a life and life-style in accordance with God and his word - is a place of genuine happiness and joy, unlike Babylon.

If the first temptation for the new Christian is to give up under pressure - under mockery or attacks, the second temptation is simply to "forget" God and his word. It is so easy to forget God amongst all the busyness of life and also amongst the legitimate pleasures of life - not least student life. That is why it so essential to be regular in coming to church to hear God's word and be regular in meeting with other Christians in smaller groups, and in reading your bible and in praying. So these ancient Israelites were praying that God would keep them from forgetting him. Are you doing that?

So, first, it will not always be easy being a Christian - God will discipline you when necessary and non-Christians will attack you. Therefore, secondly, pray - and pray not to be seduced by the false glamour of a pagan world that is really a very sad place. And then, thirdly, pray that you do not forget God. Let's now and more briefly move on and to my second heading ...

Secondly, MEASURE FOR MEASURE

These refugees didn't only pray for themselves. Look at verses 7-8:

Remember, O LORD, what the Edomites did on the day Jerusalem fell. "Tear it down," they cried, "tear it down to its foundations!" O Daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction, happy is he who repays you for what you have done to us - he who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks.

You say, "how can this be in the Bible? This sounds too terrible for words." Well, this is one of those parts of the Old Testament that raises questions that only Jesus Christ can answer. The question that it raises is the question of retribution. It says bluntly (and shockingly) that retribution is a good thing:

happy is he who repays you for what you have done to us" - [the "you" being the Babylonians] (verse 8).

Now we know by way of background that warfare in the Ancient Near East meant utterly ruthless aggression. Men ripped open women and battered children to death. And we know that retribution means there is to be "measure for measure", or as Gilbert and Sullivan rather than Shakespeare put it, "make the punishment fit the crime". There is a God-implanted moral sense that people have that evil deserves to be punished and punished justly. Hitler shouldn't get away with the holocaust. Al-Sarqawi shouldn't get away with murdering the hostages in Iraq. Nor should the American soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison get away with their degrading behaviour.

And retribution - biblical retribution - ensures a fair form of punishment - making the punishment fit the crime. Biblical retribution, the principle of an "eye for an eye", was (and is) limiting. There should be no more than one eye for one eye; not two eyes for one eye, or one eye for a tooth. Yes, Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount made it crystal clear that retribution should not be sought by an individual. Individually you should turn the other cheek and go the second mile. And Paul taught, as we heard in our second reading, that there was to be no vengeance taken by individuals.

Yet, he also taught that the state had to administer justice on behalf of God. But for there to be true justice in the state, you need, indeed, measure for measure with the punishment fitting the crime. Otherwise, there is no check on what is acceptable by way of deterrence or reform.

Retribution rules out the cruel punishments of previous centuries when people were hanged for sheep-stealing. True, hanging was a deterrent, but the punishment in no way fitted the crime. It was not measure for measure.

Biblical retribution also rules out locking someone away in a "mental hospital" for years and years to reform them for an alleged minor offence as can happen in totalitarian regimes. So this Psalm raises questions about retribution. It makes it clear what a crime deserves. But that is very different from what should then be done about that crime.

The full and final answer only came with Jesus. First, he taught that there is life after death and judgment after death. And his resurrection proved the truth of his teaching. So present judgment and retribution can be postponed until a final judgment day. That is when Christ returns at the end of history and for judgment. Retribution, therefore, does not always have to take place now. God's ultimate wrath when all evil will be punished absolutely - yes there is hell - can be (and is now being) held back. Now is the day of grace. The Psalmist didn't know this. But we do.

Also the Psalmist didn't know the greatest of all "mysteries" - God's open secret. That, too, was only revealed with the coming of Jesus Christ. Yes, retribution was and always is essential. There must be measure for measure. Evil has to be hated and punished. God is absolutely just. But the gospel is that our God is also loving and merciful. So the great and good news is this: evil - all human rebelliousness and defiance and disobedience of God - has been laid on Christ on the cross. Christ, God the Son, bore the punishment you and I deserve. That was predicted by Isaiah before Nebuchadnezzar's time. But it only became clear when Christ came and died and when his apostles taught what had happened. The apostle Peter puts it like this in his letter:

He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed" (1 Peter 2.24).

Now is the day of grace.

So if you now confess your sins and trust Christ for forgiveness and the Holy Spirit for new strength to live a new life, you don't have to suffer God's retribution or judgment. And remember: no one is too bad to be forgiven or too good to need to be forgiven. The apostle John sums it up in a nutshell - in John 3.16:

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Who needs to believe in Jesus tonight - for the first time? Why not do so? But if you do believe, you then need to go public. There will be an opportunity for doing that at our next baptism and renewal of vows in November - on the 28th. In the meantime join one of our Christianity Explored courses.