A Call To The Remnant

Psa 137:1  By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion. 

It is a sad day when we sit down to weep. Memories come rushing into our minds like a river that never stops flowing. Our tears and our sadness only add to its flow as we consider the source of our pain. We remember how it was. We are left with the vague shadows that the world calls memories. Yet, what is a memory? It’s a pale imitation of what once was real. We grasp onto them, yet they are like gossamer butterflies flitting through our minds. Our hearts cry out for one more moment, just one more day and yet the knowing of that impossibility is the source of our sadness. The children of Israel had taken it all for granted and now it was no more.

How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land? How shall we who dwell in a foreign land rejoice when the enemy has stripped it all away? How shall we respond to the jeers of an enemy who taunts us and asks us to sing our songs of victory now? Shall we do as the children of Israel did? Shall we hang our harps upon the willow tree in our midst?(v2) How shall we in our day sing in the midst of great loss? Can we rejoice in the depths of captivity when the enemy seems to be so victorious? What do we have that the children of Israel did not have? Jesus said in John 14 that He would not leave us as orphans. He would send the Helper, the Holy Spirit. Jesus says that He has prepared a place for us, even in the presence of our enemies. There is a table set before us, a feast of His presence. It enables us to take the harps down from the willow tree, the tree of weeping, and play a song of victory, right there, in the midst of our circumstances.

“And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto God: and the prisoners heard them.” (Acts 16:25) The harp had been taken down at the midnight hour and the power of God came down with it. As the praises and the prayers went up, down came the power of God and it shook everything. That harp is in our hands brothers and sisters. That prayer is on our lips, those praises are in our mouth. And the power of God never fails, it is eternal. The children of Israel sat down beside the raging river of weeping. We have been made to sit down in green pastures and the river that flows is the still waters of peace and joy and comfort. Even in the valley of the shadow of death we shall not want, for He leads us and He guides us and He comforts us. And in that comfort that He sent us, the Holy Spirit, we are victorious and we find that He inhabits the praises of His people.