Thank God Almighty, we are Free at Last
Scripture References: Psalm 126;
April 3, 2022, Quacco Baptist Church
Introduction
I would think that we’re all up to date on the
Russian invasion of Ukraine and can get a pretty good idea of what a siege is
along with its results. This is a military operation in which enemy forces surround a town or building, territory,
cutting off essential supplies, with the aim of compelling a surrender. This
tactic goes back at least 4000 years. These days it may be accompanied by H
& I (Harassment & Interdiction) fire. Artillery and or rockets fired at
no specific target. Just done to harass you. In Vietnam, we did it to the
NVA/Viet Cong and they would also return the favor. Usually in the hours
between 1 am and 3 am.
Psalm 126 is one of the Songs of Ascent, a
special group of psalms comprising Psalms 120—134. They are also called
Pilgrim Songs. Four of these songs are attributed to King David (122, 124, 131,
133) and one to Solomon (127), while the remaining ten are anonymous.
The city of Jerusalem is situated on a high
hill of mount Moriah. Jews traveling to Jerusalem for one of the three main
annual Jewish festivals traditionally sang these songs on the “ascent” on the
uphill road to the city. According to some traditions, the Jewish priests also
sang some of these Songs of Ascent as they walked up the steps to the temple in
Jerusalem.
Psalm 126 offers encouragement for those who are looking, who are
seeking to worship God today: The Lord has done great things. And, He
will continue to do great things. These Psalms serve as powerful examples of
how we can express our worship, our love for God through the power of song.
The words from Martin Luther King’s I Have a Dream speech: Free at Last, Free at Last Thank God
Almighty, we are Free at Last.
The Jews, after 70 years in exile, the horrors
of the siege and sack of Jerusalem, now in 538 BC were beginning their return
to Jerusalem. They had been besieged twice, the first in 597 BC then in 587 BC
for 18 months.
Now, in another 650 years Jerusalem would be at
war with the Romans and be under siege again for five months, and along with
the Temple be completely destroyed by Titus in 70 AD. There would be over 1.1
million non-combatants will be killed by the Romans and also die of starvation
during the siege along with around 90,000 combatants killed. Then would the
diaspora or dispersion of the Jews among the Gentiles be in full swing. It
actually began with the dispersion of the Northern kingdom of Israel in 722 BC,
then the Babylonian exile, and now completed after Rome’s destruction of Jerusalem
and the Temple.
Following would be centuries of persecution and
various pogroms too many to include in this sermon; There would be full-scale
persecution of Jews in many places, with blood libels, expulsions, forced conversions, and massacres. An underlying
source of prejudice against Jews in Europe was religious. They were frequently
massacred and exiled from various European countries. The persecution reached
its first peak during the Crusades. In the First Crusade (1096), flourishing
communities on the Rhine and the Danube were utterly
destroyed, a prime example being the Rhineland
massacres. In the Second Crusade (1147) the Jews in France were subject to frequent massacres. The
Jews were also subjected to attacks by the Shepherds'
Crusades of 1251 and 1320. The Crusades were followed by expulsions,
including in 1290, the banishing of all English
Jews; in 1396, 100,000 Jews were expelled
from France; and, in 1421, thousands were expelled from Austria. Many of the
expelled Jews fled to Poland. In 1492 were the inquisitions in Spain. Jews
came to the new world but the inquisitions also came to the Americas.
The Black Death epidemic was a time
when more than half of the European population died. The Jews were blamed. We
can go on to the persecution by the Russian Tsars; During the rule of the
Soviet Union, the Jews were moved to western Russia, Poland, Ukraine, Moldova,
the Baltic states. Then the holocaust of WWII.
1890 years After 70 AD, on May 14, 1948,
Isaiah’s 2,600-year-old prophecy from the 8th century BC will be fulfilled: Who has ever seen
anything as strange as this? Whoever heard of such a thing? Has a nation ever
been born in a single day? Has a country ever come forth in a mere moment? But
by the time Jerusalem's birth pains begin, her children will be born, (Isaiah 66:8).
President Harry Truman recognized Israel on the same date and time that David
ben Gurion declared Israel a nation.
Transition
Our Psalm this morning, Psalm 126, “Free At
Last, Free at Last”. Six verses that throb with relief. The joy of being set
free. A psalm with two stanzas. Vs 1-3 beings with great joy of being released
from their captivity in Babylon & return to Zion, Jerusalem. Vs 4-6 Describes
a time when they returned, the hard times, unrewarding labor & weeping but
contains a prayer & a prophecy for better days to come.
It may be hard for us to appreciate the opening
stanza I don’t know how many of us have experienced joy and happiness similar to
this homecoming.
If you have seen clips of the six-day war in
1967 you can get a good idea of the joy they felt when you see the Israeli
troop's react as they reached the Temple Mount, Western Wall. our mouth was filled with laughter, And
our tongue with singing.
The Israeli airstrike destroyed the Egyptian
air force on the ground, paving the way for Israel to defeat Egypt, Jordan and
Syria in what came to be known as the "Six-Day War." Israel’s
lightning victory over its Arab neighbors in June of 1967 stunned the world and
surprised even the Israelis themselves. Then they said among the nations, “The
LORD has done great things for them.” The LORD has done great things for us,
And we are glad.
There may, though, have others that have
experienced joy and laughter similar to what the returning exiles did. The
leper in Matt. 8:1-4 as he stands before Jesus and feels the touch of His hand
when asked if he wants to be healed replies yes if Jesus would be willing to
which Jesus says He is willing and heals the leper’s putrefied hand. The man
goes off talking about what just happened.
The lame beggar that was healed by Peter and
John, who With a leap he stood upright
and [began] to walk; and he entered the temple with them, walking and leaping
and praising God. (Acts 3:8). This is for us even today. A person wracked
with cancer is healed. Someone involved in a serious accident and, as many will
report, miraculously survives.
Then there’s the protagonist ‘Christian’, in
Bunyan's Pilgrim’s Progress who sings with joy
of sins forgiven, in the joy of peace with God.
In Chuck Swindoll’s “Book of Quotes &
Illustrations”, on forgiveness, he writes of a father who tells his son, “This
is the third fatted cafe we’ve killed”; well the Lord our God does that time
& time again.”
This brings us to mind Gene’s sermon last week
on Luke 15, “You Can Always Come Home”.
All of us, everyone, every single Christian can
sing a song of joy & praise of sins forgiven, of being in the joy of peace
with God; Being in the peace of God.
A reality
Maybe we have trouble thinking of joyful times
like those of the first stanza of the Psalm, but I’m sure, if you’re like me
and are nostalgic, don’t have any trouble thinking of times in which we’ve lost
some former joy, however great or even weak it may have been.
What about a loss of spiritual good times?
James Boice suggested four occasions where many experience great joy and the sense
that God has done great things in their Christian life.
Can you lose the joy of salvation?
Those who have been believers for some time,
those who became Christians later in life, especially having lived apart from
God for a time, conversion to Christ was really thrilling - I’m not talking
necessarily about having a Damascus Road Experience - it was a wonderful thing;
one is always talking about Jesus, telling everyone; so much so, that people
start avoiding you, sort of.
But then that initial joy passes, one gets more
settled but the songs & laughter are gone. There may be discouragement of
defeats & doubts that slip in. Nothing seems to go right and the Christian
starts to wonder if their even a Christian.
Losing this initial joy in no way means that a
person is no longer as Christian; it is though a difficult experience to live
through and somembelievers never seem to recover.
The joy of spiritual victory?
The joy os spiritual victory comes later in the
Christian life, when we become concious of some sin and are struggling against
it. Now before we were a Christian there would have been no hope of victory;
for that matter, not even have a desire to overcome it. We’d have been content
just as we were. But, God points it out to us, we struggle but then there’s a
break through.
That grudge we held against the one or one’s
who did us wrong is gone; the addiction to drugs or alcohol or both and that
was destroying us mentally, physically, and now that’s been removed - Ruptured
family relationships have been healed.
But there are many times that we run into other
failures & that joy becomes a faded memory - Holy cow, are we going to have
to struggle like this to the end? Will there ever be a time when I’ll be happy
again?
One of the best wrote, The trouble is with
me, for I am all too human, a slave to sin. I don't really understand myself,
for I want to do what is right, but I don't do it. Instead, I do what I hate
… I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. I
want to do what is right, but I can't. I want to do what is good, but I don't.
I don't want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway. … what a miserable person
I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death?
Doesn’t sound to encouraging does it? But he
goes on and writes: Thank God! The
answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. So you see how it is: In my mind I really
want to obey God's law, but because of my sinful nature I am a slave to sin.
We’ve talked on fellowship, How about losing
the joy of fellowship?
There are commentators that say fellowship is
the closest, probably, we’ll get to know the joys of heaven in this life here
on earth.
But then the person we’re closest to may die; a
relationship may be destroyed by some sin, arguing over something that was
silly or grave. Churches have been destroyed by sins of some, strong
disagreements and taken the arguments to secular civil courts.
A fellowship could lost simply by the
relocation of a close friend because of a change of job, school, retirement.
The communion of saints goes beyond barriers here on earth, even death, but one
can’t deny the feelings of a great loss when those close to us have meant much
to us in life and our Christian walk.
How about the joy of a new work for God.
Then there’s that excitement of new challenge
or when starting a project that soom settles down to be hard and tiring work -
Your home study group or Sunday School takes on a project but soon becomes
difficult & you find yourself struggling along in the trenches as some like
to say. Its not as exciting as the planning.
What are you to do when those slugging times
come? Do we give up & settle down to just merely humdrum Christian
living?
No don’t give up. Yes the labor is hard; this
is a very sinful world….. Vs 5-6: But those
who sow in tears reap with shouts of joy! He that goes forth weeping,
bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, bringing his
sheaves with him.
I don’t think there could be anything that
could compare to the joy in heaven to the one who stands before the Lord with
those who have been saved through their faithful service sharing and teaching
God’s word. And many of those will be ones we may have never known.
Let me close by quoting in part Eugene
Peterson’s summary of Psalm 126 - “The Psalm does not give us … joy as a
package or formula, but … it shows the tinnines of the world’s joy &
affirms the solidity of God’s joy. … the accelerating cost & diminishing
returns of those who pursue pleasure as a path toward joy. It tells the story
of God’s acts which put laughter into people’s mouths & shouts on their
tongues. It repeats the promises of God who accompanies his wandering,
weeping children until they arrive home. It announces the existence of a people
… who along with whatever else is happening are able to say, at the center, “We
are glad.”
