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By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat and wept (Ps. 136:1)
So stated the unlucky captives—the Jews who had been disadvantaged of their beloved, holy homeland. Just like the leaves of the weeping willows bent over the By the Rivers of Babylon: Commentary on Psalm 136From its very first verses, the hymn “By the Rivers of Babylon” reveals the entire that means of Nice Lent. We’re in captivity to sin—“by the rivers of Babylon.” Just like the Jews, we now have to put mirth apart and mirror upon our sins and bear in mind Zion—the Heavenly Kingdom, or the Heavenly Jerusalem.
“>rivers of Babylon, they sighed and wept for his or her native Jerusalem. Proud enemies, mocking these hapless ones, stated to them: Sing us one of many songs of Sion. And How ought to we sing the Lord’s tune in a wierd land? they answered (Ps. 136:3–4). Songs of their homeland, songs to the Lord… Is it becoming to sing them in a overseas land? Full of bitter sorrow, with inescapable grief, every gave an oath to ever bear in mind their beloved Jerusalem: If I overlook thee, O Jerusalem, let my proper hand overlook its ability. Might my tongue cleave to my throat, if I don’t bear in mind thee; if I don’t desire Jerusalem because the chief of my pleasure (Ps. 136:5–6).
What does it imply, brethren, that the Church repeats to us the hymn of lamentation of the Babylonian captives on these Sundays? Is that this solely to remind us of what occurred to the Jews? True, this previous was bitter, exceedingly bitter. However what want do we now have for another person’s previous, if it’s gone and didn’t concern us? No, our mom, the holy Church, doesn’t take take care of the Jews, however for us—her kids. She calls us to weep for ourselves with the weeping of the Babylonian captives.
Who’re we on this earth? What does the world imply to us? All of creation sighs and groans, awaiting the liberation of the sons of God. Harmful storms, earthquakes that tear aside mountains and cities, famine, plagues—these are the groans of nature. The earth is a graveyard—loss of life and extra loss of life at each flip! Wherever you look is sorrow and grief. What number of troubles, what number of sicknesses, how a lot loss of life! However that’s not all. Who likes sorrows? Who can love sorrows? We weep, we groan beneath the burden of the troubles with which the world represses us. However there are troubles on this planet that we not solely don’t concern, however which we take for happiness, that folks love, for which they provide their complete lives and damage themselves for all of 
A Sense of EternityThe considered loss of life is a sort of timebomb, a minefield for the trendy liberal ideology that’s being inculcated from all fronts into the minds and hearts of individuals residing on earth.
“>eternity. What does the world imply within the eyes of tens of millions? They can’t get sufficient of it. They develop into ecstatic over it.
However God’s judgment of the world just isn’t like this. Based on God’s judgment, the world is BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH (Rev. 17:5). All that is on this planet [is]the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pleasure of life (1 Jn. 2:16). The son of the world doesn’t hear, doesn’t really feel, doesn’t need to know the holy voice concerning the world. The whirlwind of gentle, the glitter of gold, the seduction of honors, the sweetness of lust have carried him away, have bewitched his thoughts. With out eager about something, he rushes to drink the waters of Babylon to satiety. Ah! Let him cease whereas there’s nonetheless time. The judgment upon Babylon, upon the sinful world has been pronounced and won’t change. The blessings that consolation the world are funeral flowers lining the trail to destruction. His joys are poisoned with sin.
Is the world alluring? However therein lies its ruination. How many iniquities are justified by the world’s judgment! How a lot godlessness is in its view of males’s lives! Essentially the most legal, base, and vile acts are glossed over, being known as, “harmless weak point,” “forgivable sin.” So as for a cheerful life to be even happier, for a lawless life to be much more lawless, the world composed its personal legal guidelines, which not solely overlook Christ’s legislation of the self-denial of the Cross, the crucifixion of the lusts of the flesh and spirit, however typically overlook even the admonitions of the pure conscience. Woe to you, nice Babylon, the mom of abominations! How can we not weep on the rivers of Babylon, the pernicious world? It so persistently, so imperceptibly seizes our souls into destruction. What number of centuries have they preached to us: Love not the world, neither the issues which can be within the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father just isn’t in him (1 Jn. 2:15)?
And males, as earlier than, love the world that’s destroying them. Flip away mine eyes that I’ll not behold vainness… Affirm Thine oracle to Thy servant, that he might concern Thee (Ps. 118:37–38). Weep, sinner, whereas there’s nonetheless time. Time flies and carries with it salvation from Babylon. Lament each your joys and sorrows. Lament your joys: There’s a lot insanity and horrible destruction in them. Lament your sorrows: There is way unforgivable cowardice in them.
Weep, sinner, wandering far out of your homeland, out of your Heavenly fatherland. The place is our homeland? The place is our Jerusalem? Individuals have so fallen in love with the world that they’ve forgotten about their homeland. How horrible it’s, particularly for the Christian soul! It was redeemed by the Blood of the Son of God not for the world, however for eternity. The place is our homeland? There, in Heaven, For right here have we no persevering with metropolis, however we search one to come back (Heb. 13:14). And O, if solely we sought it, as all of the righteous have executed! How nice our loss, having misplaced our homeland! If a wealthy man have been to abruptly lose all his treasures, his loss would imply nothing in comparison with the lack of Heaven. Collect all earthly losses, collect all misfortunes of time, and they might imply nothing in contrast to the lack of the Heavenly fatherland.
They weep for the lack of honor; they weep for the lack of gold; they weep for the lack of their kinfolk within the flesh. What does this weeping imply? Infantile weeping! Isn’t it the problem that we’re wandering far from our Heavenly Father, that we’ve been banished from His radiant face? We’ve misplaced that with out which even the world’s rich, famend, and clever are as poor and insignificant as could be. What the ear has not heard, what the attention has not seen, what has not entered into the center of man, what the thoughts can not think about—such blessings, such treasures, such joys we have misplaced, exiled from our everlasting homeland. Kids separated from their dad and mom shed tears. How can we not shed bitter tears, we who’re separated from our true Father?
What turned of our soul after tasting the primary sin? It was lovely, just like the picture of God Himself. And now? Vile and ugly. Harmless, righteousness, and lofty and pure ideas are misplaced. Sin lined it with the scabs of passions. If the sight of a useless man is hideous, a sinful soul is way worse. Magnificence, wealthy materials, jewels, ruinous adornments—do you assume they beautify the soul? Gilding a coffin is even worse: It will increase the ugliness, multiplying the scabs of the soul. Incline Thine ear, O Lord, and listen to me “for I’m poor and needy. I’m a sojourner with Thee and a stranger, like all my fathers. Don’t disguise Thy commandments from me” (cf. Ps. 38:13, 85:1, 118:19). Weep, sinner, having misplaced your Heavenly Jerusalem. Repeat the holy vow of the captive Jew: If I overlook thee, O Jerusalem, let my proper hand overlook its ability.
Who’re we on this earth? Prisoners of the flesh, slaves of sin. Will we discover that after we need to do one thing good, it’s extraordinarily tough for us? Why this problem? Why this reluctance, this laziness to do good? Is that this actually pure? It will possibly’t be. Woe to us sinners! We serve sin from our youth; we’re born in sins. Double woe to us from ourselves. We’ve nurtured the passions inside us, they usually rule over us with absolute energy. One man, from a younger age to the very grave, nurtures a ardour for cash in his soul, one other—malice, one other—worldly vainness, and different—pleasure. Typically the considered eternity, the concern of God’s judgment involves us, like a visitor visiting our soul. However then we are saying: Ah, now’s not the time. We’ve this and that to take care of; or having stated some sort of prayer, having disturbed our soul with the remembrance of our iniquities, we begin sinning once more.
O, woe to us sinners! Our sins have so taken maintain of us that we’ve develop into like weak and mindless kids—afraid to surrender our habits. We got grace-filled powers for good, however we’ve squandered or are squandering them. By repeating sinful ideas, emotions, and needs yesterday and once more now, we now have strengthened the behavior of sin in our souls and weakened and enfeebled the grace-filled willpower to work the legislation of God. By placing repentance off day after day, we’ve misplaced the honest want to repent. We nonetheless have a way of fine, a sighing for good, however even these are weak and fruitless and reveal themselves increasingly more hardly ever, every now and then.
What’s our life? A sequence of vanities, a sequence of sins. Worries about meals, worries about our house, worries about commerce or rank—one after the opposite. Subsequently, our immortal soul is within the fixed service of corruption. The place is the dignity by which man was made just a little decrease than the angels (Ps. 8:6)? We’ve develop into like “mindless cattle” (Ps. 48:13), residing by the identical needs, the identical pleasures as they do. O, weep, sinner, prisoner of passions and sin! Wash your depressing sinful captivity with tears, beseech the Most Excessive to return to you the liberty of the sons of God. He gained’t refuse; He’ll lovingly settle for you in repentance and dress you with new power for the battle towards sin.
Ultimately, we now have to return to our homeland. Sooner or later, our wandering life on earth will finish. How will we return to the home of our Father? With what is going to we stand earlier than Him? And initially, what is going to our exit from this life be like? The loss of life of sinners is evil (Ps. 33:22). And the way might it not be evil? Hitherto lulled by vainness, now that vainness disappears, the conscience begins to torment the sinful soul. Hell opens up earlier than it, about which it didn’t need to assume about earlier than. Eternity opens up earlier than it, with its torments for sinners, which it thoughtlessly forgot about. Earlier than it lies the need to seem earlier than the horrible and neutral Decide, Whose legal guidelines have been violated. O, lament, sinner, earlier than the time for ineffective weeping has handed! Beseech the Lord with tears for a peaceable finish, for such is the loss of life of a trustworthy Christian!
In any other case, bitter might be your entry into eternity, which might be much more depressing. This non permanent life was given to you solely in order that, tempted and cleansed by the sufferings of life, you would possibly return to the home of your Father as a clever son, with agency love for the Lord, with the knowledge skilled in goodness. What then? How have you ready to face earlier than your Lord? The place are your struggles for good? The place your virtues? The place your chastity? The place your abstinence? The place your meekness? The place tears in your sins? The place the battle with the passions? What weak point have you ever conquered inside your self? What sin have you ever fought to the purpose of blood? Do you assume your deeds might be judged as frivolously there as you choose them right here, or as this deceitful age judges? The judgment there isn’t in accordance with your passions, however in accordance with the legislation of justice; not in accordance with the opinions of males, however in accordance with the everlasting reality of God. There all the key actions of your coronary heart might be uncovered, all of the vile ideas hidden right here beneath numerous veils of day and evening might be revealed.
And all of eternity might be an eternity of torment for the sinner. O eternity, eternity! How unfathomable is your period! How immeasurable your size! You’ll be able to add up the centuries, add millennia to millennia and all that gained’t be eternity. And all of that isn’t the top of the sinner’s torment.
Heavenly Father, to Whom I have to return from a distant land! Strengthen this weak pilgrim on the paths of Your commandments! Enlighten and strengthen me in Thy concern! Grant me fountains of tears, that they might wash away my sins and that by sowing with tears I’ll joyfully reap my fruits in eternity! Might the concern of Thy judgments penetrate me to the very marrow of my bones, dispelling earlier than my eyes the temptations of Babylon—this sinful world! For Thine is the ability and the glory unto the ages.
Amen.
