How Can We Sing The Lord's Song in a Strange Land

In their own country the Jews were great singers. The Old testament abound with the references to their songs. They praised the Lord with their psaltery and harp, with stringed instruments and organs.

But then The great African King of Babylon marched against the city of God.
He raised it walls, raped it’s women, stole away the royal people to captivity, and now the Jews found themselves sitting by the great river Euphrates with the Negro people of Babylong yelling in their years, sing us one of the song of Zion.

The Bible says they hung their harps upon the willows, they had not a note of music left in them, their hearts were too heavy to sing.

By the Rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, Yea we wept when we remembered Zion.

“This love of home is a universal passion, but in no people did it burn with more intense flame than in the hearts of the Hebrews.

Their land, according to their belief, had been specially given to them by God.
Thus they had reason to sing. Their possession of this land was the visible sign of God’s favor. And as long as it was there’s the believe they were Gods.

When in exile,
All the color passed out of his life.
All the light died out of his sky.
In captivity, it was difficult to sing.

This Psalm of captivity is the whole idea of the Bible flashed into the most intense and vivid picture.

It tells the story not merely of a nation of captives, weeping in desolation beside the river Euphrates, over two thousands years ago,

But it tells the story of an exiled Humanity, with its endless longing for its lost home.

Mans sits at his best, and realizes God had something Greater in store for Him.

Like the Jews, all humanity held captives sit lifelesly by the waters of Babylon, folded in all the pathos of a thwarted destiny and a broken dream.

God had a great plan for us, we men. sons of Adam.
It was in God’s plan, that we sit on thrones
It was in God’s plan that we enter judgment in his stead,
we were meant to be God’s companion, us men.

But then old Lucifer stepped in and stole it all from us. And so for many, the music is gone out of our lives, the tears flow freely from our glands and we all declare.

‘How shall we sing the song of Zion in a strange land.’

Sure the Jews bore testimony to the faith of Zion. They told the stories of their glorious past. How God liberated them, parted the red sea for them, rained bread from heaven for them, fought their battles for them, But to sing the Lord’s song-

To sing out the glory of their history and destiny, To Sing.
To set to music the great notes of the Hebrew faith ringing in the alien ears-was
To sing, to tell the glorious stories of redemption while in captivity, To Sing, for a while that too much for them.

They broke down, and hung their harps on the willows. And surely here the story touches our lives.

The song of the heavenly city has always been hard to sing amid the shadows of the earthly exile. One prophet says, I cant sing it, because eyes have not seen, nor ears heard, neither have entered into the hearts of men, the things God has prepared for us.

But just the mere thought, proves that the song is there.

Sometimes people think if we don’t sing, it is because we have no song.
The Jews never parted with their song, they simply hung up their instruments, when the victors requested of them a song.

This picture of the Jews, with their harps on the willows, tell us just how much and how little Babylon can do.

It can take the harp out of mans hand, but it cannot pluck the song of the Lord out of his heart.

We can see in this group of grieving Jews the outward visible sign, not of Babylon’s triumph, but of Babylon’s defeat.

It tells of a loyalty that great city could not shake,
a dream of home it could not banish,
a song of the heart’s deep things that neither the music of its temples not the roar of its streets could make men forget.

This emphasis that it may be that our very depressions are precious to God;
It may be that the burdened silences of earnest hearts, are nothing but rest in God’s song. on the musical scale of life, Maybe they have their rightful place in the song we sing to Him.

Side by side with this word about the harps on the willows and the voices choked with tears we read the following words - “When the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion, then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with singing.”

Israel had never sung like that before; but where did they learn to sing like that, In Babylon?

In the only place where a man can learn to sing, the Lords song as it should be sung-in the strange land. The Jew brought back from Babylon not only the memory of a bitter captivity, but the art of a sweeter song.

The Lord’s song is not the song of the man who feels happy; it is the song of the man who does right. How did these Jewish exiles find an answer to their own question; The hung their harps on the willows, but their obedience was to God. Every Jew who kept his hands clean and his heart hopeful in that unholy and masterful capital, song the Lords song. If it did not fall on Babylon’s ear, it rang in Babylon’s conscience.

When Daniel made his choice between unfaithfulness and life, or faithfulness and death, The Lords song was being song.

When a troubled King ran to the Den of Lions one morning to call out. Daniel, Daniel, is the God you serve able to deliver you from the burning fiery furnace, The Lords song was being son.

When three young princes stood upright and strong , in the flush of their youth and the power of their faith, amid the crowd that bowed itself on the plain of Dura, the Lord’s song went up to heaven from the land of strangers.”

When Nebuchadnezzar looked into the burning fiery furnace, and declared “Did we not put three men in the fire, how then do I see four, furthermore, the fourth looked like the Son of God.

When Esther, was chosen Queen in the land of Ashurua, THE Lords Song was being sung in a strange land.

Yes we can sing the Lords Song in a strange land.

The Book of Jonah means almost nothing else that this. You must sing the song of Zion in a strange land.

Go preach in Nineveh, whispered the voice of God to Jonah. Nineveh, whispered the voice of God to Jonah.

Nineveh!! Cried the indignant prophet-
Nineveh which has tramples us under its heel and carried away our fighting men.
Nineveh that city that has dishonored our women enslaved our children.
Preach in Nineveh! Never! Never! And he fled to Tarshis-to a place, that is to say as far as possible away from Nineveh.

But then the voices of the alien sailors cried out to him, you destroy us by your obedience.

The voice of every innocent child in Nineveh, cries out Jonah, you destroy us by your disobedience.

Just as the voice of every Ignorant sinner call out to us today, you destroy us by your disobedience.

And finally, even though reluctantly, he sung the Lords song, and there was no greater music in the years of the sinners of Nineveh. for the Bible says the entire city bowed their hearts in sacloth and ashes.

Yes we must sing the Lords Song, in a strange land.

It is an hard business trying to sing when you carry within a sad and broken heart.

Life as a rule pursues the even tenor of its way. It leads us through familiar places and familiar scenes.

But occasionally we are driven out into strange countries.
Desolate and bleak countries.

Maybe we are Phillips, conducting successful evangelistic campaigns, when God call, Phillip, Phillip, I need you to go up to the deserts of Gaza.

Maybe we are Ezekiel, taken up by God, and brought to the valleys of Dry bones, and are asked the Question, can these bones live.

Maybe we are Jonas, sent to the distant country of Nineveh.
Paul’s sent to the Gentiles.
Johns isolated on the Isles of Patmos.
Elisha, preaching in the country side.
Jeremiah, weeping over every inch of our parish.

But we will never grow familiar with the valley of weeping
We will never grow familiar with the valley of the valley of the shadow of death.

Always our souls like the souls of the Jews will be tempted to raise their voices.
“How shall we sing the Lords son in a strange land.”

I am here to tell this Afternoon. That:

Faith sings the Lords song in a strange land.

It sings in the face of difficulty and distress.

It sings in the face of sorrow and lost.

Faith sings the Lords song in the face of death itself.

One author says, Gods nightingale must always be ready and able to sing at midnight.

There is only one specific recorded instance of our Lords singing. No doubt he sang at other times, but only once is it definitely mentioned.

It was the night in which He was betrayed. It was just before the agony in the garden and the scourging, and the cross, and the grave.

They sang a hymn we read, and went out unto the mount of Olives.

Our Lords world, to us was about to be shattered into ruin,
His whole cause seemed about to be overwhelmed with defeat,
evil seemed about to win a final victory,

Yet in face of it all He sang His Hymn of faith and trust.

His father was on the throne, and even the wrath of men would give him Praises.

So our Lord sang the Lords song in that strange land.

And so may we. There is only one place where we cane learn to sing, and that is at the cross the empty grave of Jesus Christ;

for the message of the cross is that God is infinite love,
The message of the empty grave is that life reigns.

Once those become the sure faith of the soul we shall be able to sing at midnight.

In face of sorrow and loss we shall be able to sing at midnight.

When death and disillusion come, we shall be able to sing at midnight.

When the wave and billow roll, when burdens press the soul, we shall be able to sing at midnight.

And we will not all sing the same song. For the Bible says Holy, Holy Holy is what the angels sing, and I expect to help them make the courts of heaven ring, but when I sing redemption’s story, angels fold their wing, for angels never felt the joy that our salvation brings.

No we shall not all sing the same songs:

The Jews will lift their voices in singing the Song of Moses and the Lamb
the Europeans will join together to sing Handel’s Messiah
The Islanders will raise their voices “If you want to be a worker for the Lord
The Africans well raise their voices singing “Ose Oh Baba, Oshe Oh Umba, Bame Shee Je Be Oh Baba.”