When was the last time you wept for your nation. Last Sunday we commemorated a day that will live in infamy for us born in this postmodern world. I wept. I wept for my son. But I also wept for my nation. We have for so long been spiritually blinded by materialism, both in and out of the church, that we cannot clearly see that political correctness has placed us in what my good friend Mark Levin describes as a soft tyranny. However the bonds of tyranny are getting stronger each day. And it is all happening right before our very eyes. Thankfully there is an awakening stirring that if properly stoked with bring the revival our nation so desperately needs.
There was a time in Israel’s history where her homeland was destroyed and she was taken captive into Babylon by King Nebuchadnezzer. The captives longed for their homeland, a longing eloquently penned by the Psalmist:
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“By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept when we remembered Zion. We hung our harps upon the willows in the midst of it. For there those who carried us away captive asked of us a song, and those who plundered us requested mirth, saying, ‘Sing us one of the songs of Zion!’ How shall we sing the LORD’s song in a foreign land?†(Psalm 137:1-4)
This was a despondent people. Would to God we would so long for our homeland. This country we live in today is not the one I was born into and grew up in. Would to God we would remember the magnificent history of our founding and the Great Provider who blessed this land of liberty.
I don’t not want to make this a letter of lament but an epistle of expectancy. I want us to remember that if we turn to our God who is in heaven and repent of our sins, both individually and corporately, then He is faithful to forgive us.
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“Anxiety in the heart of man causes depression, but a good word makes it glad.†(Proverbs 12:25)
Paul says that we are to be anxious for nothing, but the Bible exhorts us to be diligent in our Christian duties. Those duties are too numerous to list here; perhaps we’ll explore that in the coming weeks. But for now let us remember our homeland which for a Christian is heaven, but while we are here on earth may we be the salt and light America so desperately needs. No matter what we face we can never falter from this duty. Commenting on Psalm 137:1-4, Matthew Henry writes:
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Their enemies had carried the Jews captive from their own land. To complete their woes, they insulted them; they required of them mirth and a song. This was very barbarous; also profane, for no songs would serve but the songs of Zion. Scoffers are not to be complied with. They do not say, How shall we sing, when we are so much in sorrow? but, It is the Lord’s song, therefore we dare not sing it among idolaters.
If I had my way, when we sing our national anthem—The Star Spangled Banner—we would sing the last stanza instead of the first:
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O, thus be it ever when freemen shall stand,
Between their lov’d homes and the war’s desolation;
Blest with vict’ry and peace, may the heav’n-rescued land
Praise the Pow’r that hath made and preserv’d us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause is just,
And this be our motto: “In God is our trust”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
Would to God we would praise the Power that has made and preserved us a nation!
Beloved that is a song we should sing among the idolaters.
In Christ
Dave
Ps. 37:4
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Copyright © 2011 David Jeffers
