Psalm 137 vividly portrays the sorrow of Israel in exile, lamenting their lost homeland and the destruction of Jerusalem. It highlights the tension between cultural engagement and maintaining pure worship in a hostile land, drawing parallels to the Church’s status as spiritual exiles today. In this message, Scott Aniol will show how this psalm beautifully illustrates our responsibility as Christians to actively engage in life with those around us—while remaining pure and distinct in our worship. 

I'd like to ask you to open your Bibles with me to Psalm 137. Psalm 137 this evening, I'm so grateful to Scott for the privilege of being a part of this conference. It is truly a delight for my family and I to be here, my wife Becky and our four children love this conference so much and thankful for this topic that we are focusing our attention on this week as well. Let's give attention to this Psalm, Psalm 137. Here now the word of the Lord.

By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept when we remembered Zion. On the willows there we hung up our liars, for there are captors required of us songs, and our tormentors mirth saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. How shall we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land? If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its skill. Let my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy.

Remember, O Lord, against the Edomites, the day of Jerusalem, how they said, lay it bare, lay it bare, down to its foundations. O daughter of Babylon, doomed to be destroyed, blessed shall he be who repays you with what you have done to us. Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock." This is the word of the Lord. One commenter wrote about Psalm 137, most Psalms are cherished by Christians, this one is not. In reality, this psalm is one of the most beautiful, picturesque, carefully crafted poems in all of scripture, but it is also very true that it is one of the most disturbing psalms.

Surely of all of the Psalms, this one has no relevance, no direct application for Christians, right? It's interesting that Isaac Watts paraphrased almost every one of the 150 Psalms, but he didn't go anywhere near Psalm 137. How could this horribly depressing Psalm be relevant for us today? But on the contrary, I would like us to see this evening that this psalm does have profound relevance for Christians today living in a pagan land. The psalm begins with this phrase, by the waters of Babylon.

We don't necessarily know who wrote this psalm, but it was most certainly written by someone who had experienced for himself the Babylonian captivity of Israel. And I want to take a moment to just remind ourselves again the core reasons that God sent Israel into exile in Babylon. King David, a man after God's own heart, had defeated Israel's most threatening enemies, had organized plans for the building of God's temple in Jerusalem, the center of true worship. His son Solomon, the wisest man on earth, built the temple and dedicated it to the Lord in a grand festival in which God visibly displayed his presence. And yet, during Solomon's reign, he married many foreign wives who brought with them false gods.

He allowed false worship to take place under his own roof, in his own family. And of course, inevitably, false worship then began to permeate the nation of Israel. And this ultimately resulted in a civil war after Solomon's death, the nation divided into two, Judah and the south, ruled by Solomon's son, Rehoboam, Israel and the north, ruled by Jeroboam. And the history of the nation of Israel from this time forward is almost all characterized by religious syncretism, mixing true worship with false worship, and eventually full-blown idolatry. On occasion, there is a relatively good king in the southern kingdom who tries to reform Judah's worship, but for most of their history, both kingdoms are characterized by false worship.

And God does not tolerate false worship. As Scott said a moment ago, false worship will lead always to the judgment of God. Because God's people did not keep his commandments, God allowed the northern kingdom to be defeated by Assyria in a series of invasions until in 722, Assyria completely defeated them and took the people captive. And the southern kingdom didn't fare much better. Because of their increasing idolatry, God raised up the nation of Babylon to invade Judah and finally in 586 the city of Jerusalem along with its temple were utterly destroyed and in a series of deportations the people were taken captive into Babylon.

Even the Edomites, descendants of Esau, cousins of the Jews you could say, aided the Babylonians in the destruction of Judah. And so now God's people were no longer in their land, they were in exile in a pagan land. This is the context for Psalm 137. Here are God's people no longer in their land, no longer in their holy city, no longer in their temple. This is a context specifically of worship in a pagan land by the waters of Babylon.

It was customary for Jews to gather for worship by a river due to the necessity of ceremonial washings. This was a practice that continued for building synagogues later. And so it is very likely that the setting of this psalm, By the Waters of Babylon, refers to an attempt to gather for worship in a pagan land. And yet instead the psalmist tells us that they sat down and wept. They hung up their lyres, the predominant instrument for accompaniment in temple worship.

Their captors mocked them, sing us one of your worship songs. But the captive Hebrews could not. The psalmist cries out, how shall we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land? Here were God's people in a pagan land. They had no place for worship.

They were a unique people with a unique identity, but they were aliens and strangers in a land that was ultimately not their home. You see, when they were in their land, the nation of Israel existed as a theocracy, meaning that God was their ultimate ruler and so the culture of their worship and the rest of their culture fit perfectly together under God's law, at least in theory. But Now, the Hebrews found themselves in a cultural situation that was hostile to their religion and hostile to pure worship. Two of the most well-known stories from the Old Testament are specifically meant to highlight how difficult it was for Hebrews to worship God as he had commanded in a pagan setting. We just heard about one of them, Daniel, and then later Daniel in the lion's den, and of course the other one being the three Hebrews in the fiery furnace.

In both of those cases, the matter in view is whether or not God's people in exile will worship him as he has commanded or whether they will give in to the pressure of their pagan captors and bow to false gods. And in both cases, it is the vast minority that actually follow God's commands. As far as we know, most of the nation of Israel forsook the true worship of God in exile. They forgot Jerusalem. They forgot the temple.

These expressions in Psalm 137 are just another way of saying they forgot the pure worship of the one true and living God. But this is what the psalmist wishes not to do. He does not want to forget God. He does not want to forget Jerusalem, the place of God's worship. He says that if he forgets the true worship of God, then may it be that his fingers lose the skill to play the liar.

He doesn't want to use these skills except in the pure worship of Yahweh. And so this is the setting of our Psalm this evening. How can we worship God when we are so far from His place of worship? How can we worship God when we are exiles in a land that is hostile to His worship? How can we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?

Now once again understanding this immediate context of Israel and exile might cause us to wonder how in the world could this Psalm be relevant for Christians today? Surely we don't live in such depressing conditions as Israel and Babylon, do we? Well, what is particularly instructive for us, and we've been dealing with this in the series of messages at this conference. But what is instructive for us is that the New Testament authors often use language to describe our situation today that refers to Israel's experience in exile by way of analogy. We like Israel, as we have been discussing this entire conference, we like Israel are God's people living in a pagan land.

Consider for example this idea of Babylon. In the New Testament the title of Babylon becomes representative for everything that is contrary and hostile to God and His worship and His people. And isn't this exactly how the scriptures describe our present age? Galatians 1, 4 calls the world in which we Christians live the present evil age. 2 Corinthians 4, 4 identifies the God of this world as the one who has blinded the mind of unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ.

This one who Ephesians 2 2 calls the Prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience. In other words, there are striking similarities between the Babylon in which the Jewish exiles found themselves and how the New Testament describes the age in which we Christians find ourselves. Or think about the idea of Zion or Jerusalem. In Psalm 137, of course, these refer to a literal city, but even in the psalm, these titles represent more than just a physical location. They represent the place where God's presence dwelt, the place of true worship.

And in the New Testament, the terms Zion and Jerusalem are likewise often used in reference to the place of God's presence and true worship. Probably the most vivid example of this is found in Ephesians chapter 12 where in verse 22 the author is describing Christian worship And he says to us as Christians, but you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering. God's presence is in the temple of heaven, but the author of Hebrews is telling us that when we Christians worship, we are actually joining in with the true worship of heaven. We are uniting our voices with the innumerable angels in festal gathering and the saints who have gone before us. In Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 19, Paul calls us fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.

And Philippians 3.20 tells us that our citizenship is not here on earth, our citizenship is actually in heaven itself. We are seated with Christ in the heavenlies. You see, when we consider how the New Testament describes this present age, it sounds a whole lot like Babylon. And when we consider how the New Testament describes our citizenship in the place of God's presence and worship, It sounds a whole lot like a distant city where we have our citizenship, but where we currently don't find ourselves. And to make this comparison even more apparent, consider how Peter refers to the church today.

First Peter 1, 17 calls our current situation as Christians the time of your exile. And chapter 2 verse 11 specifically calls us sojourners and exiles. In other words, we who are members of Christ's church in this present age are, like Israel, God's people in exile. Like Israel, our citizenship is in Zion, a city far away where God's presence dwells in his temple and where pure worship is perpetually taking place. Like Israel we find ourselves now by the waters of Babylon amidst a people whose ruler hates God and his worship and his people.

And so the question before us then is how should we respond to this reality of living and worshiping as exiles in a pagan land. Are we supposed to just huddle together as Christians and do nothing as we wait for God to come and deliver us? Well, is that what Israel was supposed to do in exile? Consider once again what the prophet commanded the people, Jeremiah, as they were being taken off into exile in Babylon, as we heard so beautifully preached on last night. God did not expect his people to just cloister themselves and do nothing as they waited for God to deliver them from exile.

No, even in exile, God's people were supposed to build houses, plant gardens, get married, have children, and they were even supposed to pray and seek for the welfare of Babylon. We see this kind of thing exemplified with the life of Daniel. Like we saw in the previous message, Daniel would not pray to the king, he would not eat the meat that was associated with the pagan worship of the king, he would not refuse to stop praying to Yahweh, and yet he served in political leadership. He worked for the welfare of Babylon. God's people were supposed to work.

They were supposed to seek and pray for the welfare of the pagans around them. They were supposed to engage in commerce, get married, raise children even as exiles in a pagan land. And so when we consider that, when we consider Jeremiah's instructions, why is the Psalmist so distraught in Psalm 137? Well, remember the primary focus of this Psalm. The emphasis of Psalm 137 is not on building houses and planting gardens or working alongside pagan people and seeking the welfare of the city.

Remember, why are they by the waters of Babylon? The specific focus of Psalm 137 is faithful worship in a pagan land. You see, again, when Israel lived in their own land and existed as a theocratic nation, worship and culture were perfectly intertwined. But now that they are in exile in a pagan land, there is a strong antithesis between their worship and pagan worship. There is absolutely nothing in common between true worship and false worship, and the pagans, as the psalmist is saying here, are actually hostile toward the worship of Yahweh.

And so this creates a difficult tension for God's people in a pagan land. They are citizens and exiles. On one hand, they can work, they can build houses, they can plant gardens, they can do those sorts of things right alongside the pagan people because of God's common grace, because even pagan people are made in God's image. Even pagans can build structurally sound houses. Even pagans can plant fruitful gardens.

I mean, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Even pagan unbelievers, because of God's common grace, can devise successful political systems. They can sometimes produce worthy art. They can sometimes write true books. They can sometimes teach things that are true.

All of these things that they do are filthy rags when it comes to their standing before God, but because all people are made in God's image, because of God's common grace, there is often a lot in common between believers and unbelievers in just the everyday affairs of life. And in fact, this is why God commands his people to seek the welfare of the city and pray on its behalf. Why? Because its welfare is our welfare. But the fact of the matter is that when it comes to worship, there is never that kind of commonality.

There is a strict antithesis between the belief system and worship practices of God's people and pagan people. And that is what is specifically at view here in Psalm 137. Its focus is not on everyday life. Its focus is on gathering by the river for worship. The songs of Zion are not the everyday folk songs of the people, these are the songs of corporate worship in the temple.

The longing for Jerusalem is not longing merely for a city, but it is longing for its center of worship. And the same is true for the New Testament church. We are both citizens and exiles. Jesus was very clear, render to Caesar that which is Caesar's, pay your taxes. Why?

Because the welfare of the city is also our welfare. A healthy government that punishes the innocent and protects, or that protects the innocent and punishes injustice is a good thing even if that government is pagan. Peter commands us just like he does with, or Paul commands us just like Jeremiah to pray for kings and all who are in high positions. Why? So that we might live a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.

You see, there's a very real sense in which we as Christians very similar to Israel in exile are dual citizens. We are first and foremost citizens of the heavenly city, the heavenly Jerusalem, where God's presence dwells, where He is worshiped in truth and purity, but We are also citizens of the present earthly city in which we should faithfully contribute to society, we should submit to and pray for governmental authorities, we should participate in the various aspects of cultural endeavors. But the important reality we must always remember is this. While we, like Israel, may legitimately build houses and plant gardens and participate in the political process and enjoy some of the arts and literature of the foreign land in which we find ourselves, while all of that is true as exiles, our worship must remain distinct. We can work alongside unbelieving people all week long, working for their welfare and ours, but when we gather on the Lord's Day, we are leaving the world for a time.

We are a set apart people distinct from the pagans around us, And that is never more true than when we gather by the rivers to worship. We, like Israel, must recognize ourselves in a situation in which true worship will always be at odds with the prevailing beliefs and values of the world around us. True worship will always be mocked and maligned by unbelieving people. True worship will always be countercultural to pagan worship. But the problem is that very few modern Christians today recognize this conflict between true worship and the pagan worship that surrounds us.

When the authorities of Babylon and Persia commanded Daniel to stop praying to Yahweh and instead pray to the king, that was a very clear example of the antithesis between true worship and false worship. When the authorities commanded the people to bow down to the statue of Nebuchadnezzar, that was very clearly pagan. But the problem for us today is that pagan worship is often disguised. Pagan worship today is not always so blatantly obvious, especially in our nation. Pagan worship is often packaged in wrappings that make it seem less overtly pagan.

But our Babylon is no less pagan. It's just a different kind of paganism. It's a paganism that doesn't necessarily worship idols of gold or bow down to kings as gods. Rather, our Babylonian paganism worships financial prosperity and hedonism and entertainment and self-gratification. And unfortunately, these are the very kinds of sanitized pagan worship practices that many Christians today bring right into their families and right into their worship.

You see, this is why the message of Psalm 137 is so relevant for us today. We are God's people seeking to worship him in a pagan land. We are supposed to submit to our authorities, participate in society, pray for the welfare of the city, but when we gather for worship, we must recognize our worship as set apart from the worship of this pagan land in which we live. Now let us consider again the immediate context of Psalm 137. Imagine that you are a Hebrew, your home has been destroyed, your temple and capital city have been decimated, hundreds of your neighbors have been brutally murdered, including many women and children.

In fact, the evading armies have smashed the skulls of your own infants. And now you have been taken into captivity in a pagan land and you are attempting to gather for worship even though you are not in Jerusalem, you are not in the temple, you have none of the sacred implements of worship. How would you feel? What would you be thinking? Well, we don't have to simply wonder what we would be feeling.

Psalm 137 shows us what faithful Hebrews felt as they sought to worship God in a pagan land. Psalm 137 does not simply tell us about the historical facts of worship in a pagan land. It doesn't just describe to us the thoughts and feelings of the Babylonian captives. No, this psalm actually enables us to experience for ourselves the thoughts and feelings of God's people as they were attempting to worship him faithfully in a pagan land. And since this is inspired Scripture, Psalm 137 is a God-centered interpretation of that experience.

It is exactly what God wants us to experience as His people worshiping in a pagan land. Now in some ways then this might seem even more disturbing. I mean does God really want us to pray the children of our enemies would have their skulls dashed against the rocks? I mean We read the final verses of this psalm and we are disgusted. We pull back in horror.

But that is exactly the point. That is exactly what God wants us to feel. We should feel horror and disgust at rebellion against God and adulteration of His worship and destruction of His people. The author of Psalm 137 uses this language because this is exactly what the Babylonians did to the Hebrew infants. He is using this language to artistically capture the experience and emotions of injustice and violence and exile.

He uses this language as a way to say, as God's people in a pagan land, you should not feel comfortable and at ease with the sin around you. You should feel horror and grief and sadness at the violence and immorality and idolatry going around you. This psalm is supposed to shake us out of any sort of tolerance we might be tempted to have toward the pagan worship around us. But this imprecatory language is not only an expression of disgust because of sin, it is also actually an expression of hopeful trust in the promises of God. Keep in mind that what the psalmist prays for here in verses 7 and 8 is exactly what God promised that he would do.

God says to Babylon, through his prophet in Isaiah 13 verse 13, therefore I will make the heavens tremble and the earth will be shaken out of its place at the wrath of the Lord of hosts in the day of his fierce anger. Whoever is found will be thrust through and whoever is caught will fall by the sword. Their infants will be dashed in pieces before their eyes, their houses will be plundered, and their wives ravished." You see, God promised that one day He would bring His people back to the land and He would utterly destroy Babylon. And so not only is Psalm 137 a prayer of horror and grief at the consequences of idolatrous worship, it is also a psalm of confident trust that God will do what he has promised to do. You see, the imprecatory language in the Psalms is not unbridled expression of personal rage and vengeance made in a moment of passion.

Imprecatory language is not the equivalent of cursing in anger. Rather, imprecatory Psalms are actually expressions of confident trust that God will keep His promises to us. When the psalmist prays, blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock, he is simply affirming what Isaiah prophesied that God would do. And neither are these expressions of what we intend to do. We are not called to take up arms and exercise vengeance on God's enemies and dash their little ones against the rocks.

No. Who is it who will one day take vengeance on all of God's enemies? Who will break the rebellious kings of this earth with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel? Well, it is one sitting on a white horse called faithful and true, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. His eyes are like a flame of fire and on his head are many diadems and he has a name written that no one knows but himself.

He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood and the name by which he is called is the Word of God. This is what Psalms like Psalm 137 portray when they cry out for vengeance. They are crying for Jesus the King to defeat all of his enemies. These songs help us to cry out to the only source of help and deliverance that we can depend upon, the anointed one of God, Jesus Christ. And these songs don't just give us language to express these sentiments, God's inspired songs form us to live in this present evil age with courage and hope and confidence that the King will do what he has promised to do.

You see, when we see sin and wickedness around us, when we see the nation's rage and the people meditating on a vain thing, when we see the kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel against the Lord and against his anointed, what are we supposed to do? What we don't do is take up physical arms. As we saw this morning from 2 Corinthians 10, we have been given weapons even more powerful than physical weapons. We are in a war, but as Paul says in 2 Corinthians 10, we are not waging war against the flesh. The weapons of our warfare, Paul insists, are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds, to destroy arguments in every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God.

And so what are those divine spiritual weapons? Well, the weapons of our warfare are what we sometimes call the ordinary means of grace. If you're concerned about the godless ideologies that are plaguing our society, if you are concerned with the paganism of the Babylon around us as you should be, then what is the solution? The solution is to gather by the waters for worship. That is where our weapons are.

Our primary battlefield is not in the political sphere. Our primary battlefield is not among the elite culture makers. Our primary battlefield is what we do when we gather for worship, the ordinary means of grace, preaching and prayer and singing and Scripture reading and baptism in the Lord's table, these are the weapons of our warfare. This is our battlefield. Worship is warfare.

When the culture around us raises up arguments and lofty opinions against the knowledge of God, we gather for worship. We take up the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God and we boldly sing, the Lord reigns. The gods of the people are worthless idols, but the Lord made the heavens. My friends, when you are tempted to despair or perhaps even tempted to give up under the pressures of Babylon, here is the solution. We must faithfully continue to worship.

We must not forget Jerusalem. We gather for worship like Asaph, whose feet almost slipped when he saw the wickedness around him until he went into the sanctuary of God. Then he discerned their end. If you are wearied in your soul by what is happening in the pagan land around you, the very worst thing that you could do is to forsake the worship of God. The very worst thing that you could do is to forget Jerusalem.

No, come to the service of God, where God's Word mediates grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Where you can for a time leave Babylon behind and enter into the heavenly sanctuary of God through Christ. That is what we do when we worship. And if you want to protect your children from the paganism of Babylon, don't just cloister them in your home. Bring them to the worship of the church.

Bring them to gather by the waters to faithfully worship God. You see, that is the message of Psalm 137. Faithful worship is how we battle against the encroaching paganism of Babylon. Do not forget Jerusalem. Always remember that you are a citizen of Zion, the city of the living God.

We must set Jerusalem above our highest joy. Glorious things of thee are spoken, Zion, city of our God. We believers, as the author of Hebrews tells us, we have come to Mount Zion and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant. And so if you are beaten down by the horrors of Babylon, tempted to despair, tempted to forget Jerusalem, tempted to buckle under the pressures and bow down to the idols all around you? Then the answer is to take your eyes off of Babylon and fix your eyes with confident trust on Jesus Christ, the Savior of His people, and the Judge of all of the wicked.

Cry out with the psalmist, with tears in your eyes, but with confident trust in your heart, Remember, O Lord. Cry out with the martyrs who even now surround the throne of God in heaven, how long, O Lord, before you judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth. But make no mistake, God has promised that He will, and He will keep His promises. God has promised that our time of exile in this pagan land will have an end. One day we will enter into the celestial city.

We will be in God's presence forevermore, free from sin, free from hostility, free from idolatry, free to worship God in purity and holiness. And God will keep that promise. He will free us from our exile. The dwelling place of God will be with man. He will dwell with us, and we will be His people, and God will be our God, and He will wipe all of our tears from our eyes.

Death will be no more. There will be no more mourning, no more crying, no more lament like we sing here in Psalm 137. That will all pass away. But until then, let us worship God faithfully as we sojourn in this pagan land. And let us cry out with faith in Christ, who is our Redeemer, Savior.

Sense of Zion City, I through grace a member am. Let the world deride or pity. I will glory in your name. Fading are the world's best pleasures, all its boasted pomp and show. Solid joys and lasting treasures, none but Zion's children know.

Let us worship God faithfully and let us with hope and trust and confident expectation in our hearts long for the presence of God in the heavenly Jerusalem. Amen.