Thank you, John. As I was listening to you, I thought there should be a casket right there, and I should be in it. In your bags, there's a piece of paper. If you would take that out, please. And I want to do something a little bit unusual, perhaps, but I hope that you'll understand by the time that we're done why I want to do this. I want to preach this evening from Psalm 135 and 136. These Psalms are intimately related to each other, and I wanted to find a way to demonstrate their relationship. So that's why they're laid out in the two columns as they are. But this is what I would like to do. I would like to read Psalm 135 to you And then I would like you to read with me Psalm 136 as a responsive reading. So I will read the plain typeface, and then I will ask you to respond with the bold typeface. There are 26 verses. is very clear that this psalm was intended to be read responsibly or antiphonally. So that's what we will do. So I'm going to ask you to stand and listen to me as I read Psalm 135 and then respond after I read the first line of Psalm 136 and respond all the way through. This is the Word of God. Praise the Lord. Praise the name of the Lord. Give praise, O servants of the Lord, who stand in the house of the Lord, in the courts of the house of our God. Praise the Lord, for the Lord is good. Sing to his name, for it is pleasant. For the Lord has chosen Jacob for himself, Israel as his own possession. For I know that the Lord is great and that our Lord is above all gods. Whatever the Lord pleases, he does in heaven and on earth, in the seas and in all deeps. He it is who makes the clouds rise at the end of the earth, who makes lightnings for the rain and brings forth the wind from his storehouses. He it was who struck down the firstborn of Egypt, both a man and a beast, who in your midst, O Egypt, sent signs and wonders against Pharaoh and all his servants, who struck down many nations and killed mighty kings, Sion, king of the Amorites, and Og, king of Bashan, and all the kingdoms of Canaan, and gave their land as a heritage to his people Israel. Your name, O Lord, endures forever. Your renown, O Lord, throughout all ages. For the Lord will vindicate his people and have compassion on his servants. The idols of the nations are silver and gold, the work of human hands. They have mouths, but do not speak. They have eyes, but do not see. They have ears, but do not hear, nor is there any breath in their mouths. Those who make them become like them, so do all who trust in them. O house of Israel, bless the Lord. O house of Aaron, bless the Lord. O house of Levi, bless the Lord. You who fear the Lord, bless the Lord. Blessed be the Lord from Zion. He who dwells in Jerusalem. Praise the Lord. Now join me. Give thanks to the Lord for he is good. Give thanks to the God of gods. Give thanks to the Lord of lords. To him who alone does great wonders. to Him who by understanding made the heavens, to Him who spread out the earth above the waters, to Him who made the great lights, the sun to rule over the day, the moon and stars to rule over the night, to Him who struck down the firstborn of Egypt, and brought Israel out from among them with a strong hand and an outstretched arm to him who divided the Red Sea in two and made Israel pass through the midst of it, but overthrew Pharaoh and his host in the Red Sea. to him who led his people through the wilderness, to him who struck down great kings and killed mighty kings, Sihon, king of the Amorites, and Og, king of Bashan, and gave their land as a heritage, a heritage to Israel, his servant. It is he who remembered us in our lowest state and rescued us from our foes. He who gives food to all flesh. Give thanks to the God of heaven. Amen. Please be seated. Have you ever noticed that the book of Psalms has been carefully structured? Or maybe you haven't. Sometimes Christians read it as simply a series of 150 inspired poems, and for sure it is this, but it is more than this. There is an arrangement and a logic to the order of the Psalms. In some cases, this is obvious. In others, it might take a little digging to recognize the arrangement. We're asking questions like, why is this book shaped the way that it is? Who organized it? And why in the order that it comes to us? Well, we don't know the answer to the who question, though we can offer some reasonable speculation. Psalm 126 is a psalm that was written about the return from the Babylonian exile, which means that we can date it at around 500 BC. Including it in the psalter as it stands indicates that this collection was made at that time or perhaps even afterwards. Some have suggested that Ezra the scribe was the one who brought the books together around the year 440 BC. Another possibility might be Nehemiah the governor. Either one of them were certainly capable of collecting and forming the shape of the Book of Psalms. It clearly comes to us in this form after Judah returned from exile in Babylon. But what about the organization question? Well, the order is not chronological, because if it were, Psalm 90 would probably be first, and Psalm 126 would be the last. Between these two Psalms, about a thousand years passes. Psalm 90 of Moses, the man of God, Psalm 126, after the return from Babylon. And yet both of these Psalms are found in the second half of the Book of Psalms. We need to look elsewhere for an answer. While none of the books of the Bible were written with chapters and verses, the way our Bibles are divided now, they're given to us in this way to help us easily find places, the Psalms are not chapters, but they are, with some possible exceptions, separate poems or songs that are offered expressing the thoughts and the emotions of God's people. As you've read the Psalms, you've probably noticed that they're divided up into five books. This tells us that someone, Ezra, Nehemiah, perhaps someone else, grouped them into these five sections. Each of the five books has a specific theme and a specific purpose. You probably also have noticed that sometimes the Psalms are placed into what we might call clusters. These are groupings which have some kind of common element, such as those that are attributed to the sons of Korah, or the Psalms of Asaph, or the Songs of Ascent, or they have common themes, such as the kingship of God, or the Hallelujah Psalms. Psalm 119 is virtually its own cluster. It has 22 stanzas, almost like individual poems, all extolling the greatness of God's law. In fact, a very close study of the Psalms indicates that the entire book is filled with clusters, poems that are brought together because they share important themes. It was shaped quite purposefully and carefully. Now our Psalms, 135 through 137, perfectly fit this model. The preceding Psalms, 120 through 134, are the songs of ascents. You'll notice that every one of them is titled with those words, a song of ascents. These were Psalms that were sung by pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem in order to celebrate the great feasts of the Lord according to the commandments of God's law. Psalms 138 through 145, those immediately after our section, are the last cluster of psalms that are specifically ascribed to David the king, and these psalms lead to the spectacular conclusion of praise to God that we find in the final five. And while Psalms 135 to 137 pick up themes that are present in the songs of ascents, they form a bridge to prepare us for the grand finale. And our task is to think through this connection and learn from it. Now maybe you noticed, or you actually have in front of you, the fact that Psalm 135 and 136 are a closely related pair. They refer to the same events, they share common themes, and they even use the same language. But still, they are different. They're not identical to each other. Each of these two Psalms begins with a call to praise God, but there are slight variations between them. Psalm 135 begins with hallelujah, which it's translated in our Bibles, praise the Lord, but it is hallelujah. And then twice again in the line, the same line, repeats the Hebrew word hallelu, which is a word for praise. Psalm 136 also begins with a triple repetition, but it uses a different term. Our translations say, give thanks. The Hebrew word is yadah. Hallel, hallelujah, yadah, give thanks, are synonymous, but they have slightly different nuances. Hallel means to boast or glory in the Lord. Yadah means to speak a declaration. In fact, very interestingly, the ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament usually renders this word translated for us, give thanks, with the equivalent Greek word that we would translate as confess. It's a confession of thanks that is made. Think about it like this. When you and I give thanks, we confess our appreciation for someone's works. Imagine that a complete stranger were to approach you, someone you'd never met before, in a mall, walking on the street. A complete stranger comes to you and says, thank you, and then walks away. You'd probably be surprised and probably be baffled. Thank you for what? That would be in your thoughts. Because when we offer thanks, when we thank others, we are responding to something that they've done, and that's really a word of praise. Thank you for inviting me here today. Thank you for cooking this delicious food. Thank you for opening the door. Thank you for your kindness. You see, when we give thanks, we are offering praise in response to an action. We teach our children manners. We teach them to say please and thank you. But there's always a context for these words. Please may I. Thank you, mommy, for what you have done. That's what we see in these Psalms. Now here's another evidence that these two inspired poems work so beautifully in concert. One scholar put it this way, praise is a confession or declaration of who God is and what God does. Together, these Psalms provide us with what we know in order to worship our Lord. In fact, we could put it like this. Psalm 135 praises God for who He is. Psalm 136 exalts him by confessing his great works, the things that he has done. Who he is and what he has done, praise him, hallelujah, give thanks to him. Now, I want to briefly go through each of these Psalms and bring some of these things out. Let's start with 135, which teaches us about who God is. We have two, if you look at it closely, you'll see that there are two sets of nine that are presented to us here in Psalm 135. Nine times in the first six verses. He is called Lord. And your Bible, or even on the sheet of paper that you have in front of you, spells that out with all capital letters or uppercase letters. You see that? That's a device that our translators use to help us to understand the Hebrew name of God that's behind the English translation. Whenever you see it capitalized like that, it means it's the name Yahweh. The name that describes God in his being as he is. This is God's covenant name by which he reveals himself only to his people. It's the name of being. I am who I am. It's the name of faithfulness and promise and commitment. The declaration that he is true being. He has life in himself. He is dependent on no one. He requires nothing from outside of himself. He exists by and out of himself. He alone knows himself thoroughly and completely. He has a perfect knowledge of himself and can alone uniquely know what it means to be God. When we read that word, Lord, we are to think in those terms. This is one who is unique. This is one who is being. This is one who has existence in and of himself. Listen to the way that our confession states this, because it's beautiful. The Lord our God is but one only living and true God, whose subsistence is in and of himself, infinite in being and perfection, whose essence cannot be comprehended by any but himself, a most pure spirit, invisible, without body, parts, or passions, who only hath immortality dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto. who is immutable, immense, eternal, incomprehensible, almighty, every way infinite, most holy, most wise, most free, most absolute, working all things according to the counsel of His own immutable and most righteous will for His own glory. most loving, gracious, merciful, long-suffering, abundant in goodness and truth, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin, the rewarder of them that diligently seek him, and with all most just and terrible in his judgments, hating all sin, and who will by no means clear the guilty." When I read those words, I want to fall on my knees and worship him because he's so great and so mighty. and so beautiful." These are wonderful words. They're intended to say to us, God is not like us. He's not a greater version of us. He alone is God. Hero Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and strength and might. He is unique. Now that's the first set of nine, but it's also the first of the next set of nine. the nine times that we see the name the Lord. In verse three, the second thing about him we are told is that he is good. Praise the Lord, hallelujah, for the Lord is good. Infinitely, eternally, and unchangeably, our Lord is good. He is the very definition of goodness. If we were to try to penetrate into the heart of what it means to be good, ultimately we would come back to the God of heaven and earth and say, He shows to us the nature of goodness. In verse 4, We read of his love. The psalmist says that he has chosen Jacob for himself and Israel as his own possession. This is a statement about God's love. We have much more to say about this as we move forward because this is the focus of Psalm 136. It picks up this thread. In verse 5, we are told that he is great and this means that he is exalted. I know that the Lord is great and that our Lord is above all gods. Do you notice in the second line of verse five, we encounter the word Lord for the 10th time, but it's written for us slightly differently? That tells us that there's a different Hebrew word behind this. It's the word Adonai. It means master. Our master, who is greater than any idol that might contend for worship. There is none like him. He is great, he is exalted. Verses 6 and 7 turn our attention to His sovereignty. He does as He pleases on earth and in heaven. He is the creator and sustainer of all things. Whatever exists and whatever happens is a result of His powerful action. Sixthly, in verses 8 through 11, he's the protector of Israel, of his people. He's a warrior who battles for her safety in the face of great and threatening enemies. Egypt's pharaoh, Sion, king of the Amorites, and Og, king of Bashan. These kings who stood on the east bank of the Jordan River, hindering Israel from crossing the river and entering into the promised land. The Lord alone defeated them. We see in verse 12 that he is a provider. When Israel entered Canaan, the Lord was their provider. He gave them everything necessary for abundant life and even more. He allowed them to come into a land and live in homes that they had not built, enjoy crops that they had not planted, eat the fruit of the vine that had not been the result of their labor. God gave that to them and provided it for them. Eighthly, in verse 13, we are told that He is eternal. Your name, O Lord, endures forever. Every time that I begin to think about eternity, I find myself in a conundrum. What does it mean? How do you describe eternity? All that we know is time and space, but time is a created thing. Time only exists because God has made it to exist. God is not subject to time. The way that the psalmist speaks it here, he says, his fame extends to all generation. You're renowned, O Lord, throughout all of the ages. Whatever generation there is, that generation is to claim or to extol, to glorify and exalt the Lord God because he is eternal. It doesn't matter whether it's the first generation to live on earth or the last generation to live on earth, his eternity is present and men and women are to bow before him. And then ninthly, we're told in verse 14 that he is a judge. The Lord will vindicate his people and have compassion on his servants. That's what a righteous judge does. He watches out for his people. He judges their enemies and he vindicates them, showing that they are righteous because of his grace and mercy. You see, that's the quickest trip through the 14 verses of Psalm 135 you'll ever have. But it says this, the Lord, Yahweh, the one who is, the Lord is a good, loving, great, sovereign protector and provider who is an eternal judge. And the response of God's people is, hallelujah, hallelujah. You see, Psalm 135 is really all about God, but there's still more to it. Because verses 15 and 18 are next, They are almost identical, not exactly, but almost identical to verses four through eight of Psalm 115. They're a contrast with the religious practices of the nations, and they're placed here purposely because all of the nations around Israel had their own gods, local gods, the god of the clouds, the god of the valley, the god of the water. And the peoples of those nations bowed down before these idols. This is intended to say, this God who is described in nine different ways in the first fourteen verses is nothing like the idols. The idols are themselves nothing. That's literally what the word means. Idols are nothing, but the Lord is everything. A craftsman may take a piece of wood, he may carve a tree trunk, he may make it into the image of a living thing. It might even be beautiful because he's skilled. But ultimately what we have to say is it's just a carving of dead wood. It's been cut off from its nourishment and without the protection of human hands all that that wood will do is rot away. What a contrast that is to the eternal living God. You see, the psalmist here is reflecting on the being of God and contrasting the one true living God to the gods of the nations around. And then he calls upon the people of God to praise him. Look at how the psalm ends. O house of Israel, bless the Lord. O house of Aaron, bless the Lord. O house of Levi, bless the Lord. You who fear the Lord, bless the Lord. It's a call to all of God's people to join in because of who He is and bow down before Him. And of course, it concludes with the same words with which it begins. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. It's a great Psalm. And it prepares us for Psalm 136, because the theme of Psalm 136 is this, all that the Lord does is based on what he is, you said it 26 times, his steadfast love endures forever. Now a quick trip through Psalm 136. Psalm 136 begins with a threefold exhortation to give thanks to the Lord. He is the God of gods, and he is the Lord of lords. This is based on the most foundational truth of the faith of the Bible that is expressed in Deuteronomy 6.4. If we were all observant, believing Israelites, when our children could begin to memorize Bible verses, this is the first verse that we would teach them. Hero Israel, the Lord our God, The Lord is one, and you shall love the Lord with all your heart. These verses express this truth. Though there may be other pretenders who claim to be gods or claim to be lords, there is only one true God and one true Lord, and he is the creator of heaven and earth. You see, at the beginning of Psalm 136, we have a triple command to know and to love the one and only God. But this triple command introduces to us a refrain that occurs 26 times. We need to think about that refrain before we think about the other lines in the 26 verses of the psalm. This call to worship the one true living God is supported by the repeated expression, his steadfast love endures forever. And we have to ask, what does that mean? Well, you know, Hebrew poetry is often much more compact and simpler than English translations are able to be. This is simply a problem of the function of language. There's seldom a one-to-one correspondence between what we call the donor language, that's the original language, and the receptor language, the language into which you're translating. There's seldom are you able to give an exact one-to-one correspondence, and that's part of the problem here. Our English language simply is not able to express literally, or in a way that would make sense to us, what the Hebrew says. In the original, every line of Psalm 136 concludes with just three words. The same three words over and over again. And if we were to translate them literally, they would say, eternally his love. That's what it says. Eternally his love. His steadfast love endures forever. Eternally his love. Now these are simple words, but they point us to profound truths. First, there is the idea of his steadfast love. The Hebrew word here is his chesed. The Hebrew word is used with a depth and a fullness that once again we have a problem because there's no English word which can convey all that it means. Sometimes it might be translated as mercy, sometimes as grace, sometimes as love. I read an interesting article this week in which the author was saying that when, in the middle of the 20th century, there were a group that were trying to produce a new English translation of the Old Testament. And this word was the most difficult word that they encountered in the whole project. They spent hours debating and discussing, how do we take chesed and put it into English? Because it's such a rich concept, it can be translated as mercy, But it's more than mercy. It can be translated as grace, but it's grace alongside of mercy. It can be translated as love, but it's love that flows with mercy and grace. You see, that's the kind of concept this is. It's so rich and it's so full. When we read his steadfast love endures forever, we're saying something really amazing about God and what he does. When Moses made the second copy of the tablets of stone. Remember when he came down from the mountain and Israel was in a terrible idolatrous feast and he broke the tablets. God commanded him to cut two more and to come up on the mountain. We read this in Exodus 34. Moses cut two tablets of stone like the first. And he rose early in the morning and went up on Mount Sinai as the Lord had commanded him and took in his hand two tablets of stone. The Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there and proclaimed the name of the Lord, Yahweh. The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, this is what the Lord says, the Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children to the third and fourth generation. You know what the next line says? And Moses quickly bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped. because as God in his being, in his greatness, in his mercy, gracious love was revealed, all that Moses could do in response was worship. This is a description of God's chesed, of his merciful, gracious love. You know, this is an Old Testament equivalent of some very familiar words to you from John's first epistle, God is love. That's what this is saying, God is love. Now the other word in this phrase that we've repeated 26 times, translated endures forever, also tells us something very important. The word endures is not in the original. It's a supplied word, but it's a word that intends to help us to understand the point. It accurately reflects what the psalmist wrote But it also obscures, in some way, the fullness of his words. Because, you see, our English translations, when we read, his steadfast love endures forever. Our English translations may cause us to think that this refers to something that begins in time and continues without ceasing. But that's not the whole story. Rather, the idea is that God's love is, like him, eternal. And this is precisely what John intends when he says, God is love. Love is a way to describe God. He is everything that love is. When we repeat the words of this verse 26 times, we are saying something truly wonderful. We confess that the God of heaven and earth, the one true living God, is love in eternity and in space and time. When we again and again respond to the first line of each verse, we are saying, for all eternity and for all time, God is love. And not simply love as a concept, but love in reality. Love between the persons of the Trinity. Love expressed to creation. Undying, unending love to His people. His steadfast love endures forever. Or literally, eternally, His love. You know, I had an experience a few moments ago that you didn't have. because I had the privilege of standing in front of you and hearing the thunder of your response every time I read that line. Now you heard it in a sense too, but you're in the middle of it. I get to hear it come back to me. It's moving. It's powerful. to hear God's people 26 times confess the glory, the eternity of God's love in response to what the scripture says. Now, you see, remember we said at the beginning of Psalm 136, David says, or the psalmist, it's not David, says, give thanks to the Lord. for he is good. And we said that the give thanks is a confession of praise. You see how full and how rich that is at this point. This is the confession. Thank you, Lord. Eternally, you have loved us. We bow before you and praise you. Now, that happens 26 times in the Psalm. Let's consider the first lines. Verses one through three are parallels to verses 1-3 of Psalm 135 only in a slightly revised order. The psalmist takes the good of 135.3 and places it in the first line of 136 and follows by contrasting the Lord with idols. Now think about this. Verses 4 through 6 describe to us what we call general revelation. This refers to the fact that the created world around us discloses to us true things about God. He does powerful things. He does great wonders in verse 4. He creates the heavens and the earth. General revelation is available to all people, everyone, everywhere, at all times. Everyone is constantly surrounded by God's revelation of His being and His power. And this is, of course, in contrast to the local deities of the nations surrounding Israel, who in the mythology of the day were limited to certain places. You'd have a god of a valley or a stream or a mountaintop. But these places could not testify to the idols, and when away from these places the idol was powerless and forgotten." He was limited to that stream. If there is no stream, if you're in a desert, the idol of that stream is nothing. But the God of heaven and earth is everywhere. Creation, wherever you go, whether you go to the mountaintop or you go to the seashore, wherever you might be, creation testifies to the one true God and calls for him to be worshipped. Verses 7-9 carry on this thought, and they speak about God's providential acts. Every day and every night testifies to the universal presence and power of God. Not just yesterday, not just tomorrow, but every day. Because He is always the same. You see, in a sense, creation and providence say every day at every moment, here, O peoples of the earth, wherever you are and whenever you live, there is one God. Worship Him. Now, the psalmist very quickly moves from creation and providence to redemption when he refers to the exodus from Egypt. In the Old Testament, the exodus from Egypt is redemption. It's bringing freedom to slaves, people who are subject to unrelenting toil, people who are in bondage and poverty and affliction. What hope do slaves have in themselves? They're powerless, they're only faced with despair and resignation. It's as if all that they can say is, there's no way out, I have no means of rescue. But the Lord came to Israel in their slavery, and the Lord rescued them. We need to remember that Israel spent 400 years in Egypt. And throughout all of those years, the Lord's steadfast love was present with them. Present when they first went down to Egypt, when Joseph rescued his relatives from the famine in the Promised Land. but also faithful when the Pharaoh who did not know Joseph came to power and made them suffer for years and years and years until they cried out to the Lord for deliverance. You see, the idea is that human circumstances do not change the being of God. God is what he is. Now, while the events of the sojourn in Egypt and the Exodus are true history, they serve another purpose. They serve the purpose of a portrait of our bondage to sin. It is the Lord alone who loves us and delivers us, who redeems us only by his powerful hand. We come to verse 16, where the psalmist speaks about the wilderness wanderings. And he wants us to remember that even in that 40-year period, the Lord loved his people. Verses 18 through 21 summarize for us the final chapters of Deuteronomy. The enemies of God's people, powerful foes who held the east bank of the Jordan River and would have prevented Israel from crossing and reaching the promised land, were defeated by God's power. He provided land to slaves, abundant gifts. These are the same themes that we saw in the previous psalm. And once again, we see the language of slavery. They were in a low estate and the Lord rescued us. for a steadfast love endures forever, or even more simply, eternally is love. If Psalm 136 was penned during the era of David and Solomon, It summarizes many centuries of Israel's history, from captivity in Egypt through to the conquest, the judges, the established kingdom. All of these events point to the God of Psalm 135 and his unwavering love for his people. And finally, verse 26 summarizes it all. Give thanks to the God of heaven for his steadfast love endures forever. Confess your thanks. because God is the only God and always manifests his love. That's a nice place to end, isn't it? But we're not done. Do you remember that I said that there was a trio of Psalms, bridging between the end of the Songs of Ascent and the final collection of David's Psalms? Imagine that you're reading along in these two wonderful Psalms, And by faith you find yourself encouraged in the never-ending love of God. And then you continue reading. And what do you come across? By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down and wept when we remembered Zion. On the widows there we hung up our liars, for there our captors required of us songs, and our tormentors mirthed, 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. What is this? How can this fit with these other two Psalms? Is there dissonance here between them? Why does this follow our Psalms? What was Ezra or Nehemiah thinking by putting this one here? That's a good question to ask. Why after such encouraging words, do we suddenly encounter a Psalm that makes us take a step back and say, what's going on here? Well, think about it like this. When the people of God consider the horror of another captivity, 70 years of oppression in Babylon, they need to remember that God is always the same. That which was true during the early history of the nation is always true, even in the darkest of times, eternally His love. As I was preparing, I was wondering, I don't have any musical gifts to compose music, but I have a little bit of an understanding of how music works. And I was imagining that a composer were trying to write a symphony of some kind that gave a musical background or a musical presentation of the themes of these psalms. What would it be like? Some 135 would be martial rhythms and fanfares, because it's about conquest and victory. And some 136 would pick up those threads, but it would introduce a beautiful melody that would be repeated 26 times over and over again. But then Psalm 137 would take those same themes and those same melodies and place them in a minor key and change the tempo and perhaps introduce some dissonance, but we would still be able to see the relationship between what went before and what's in Psalm 137, the same piece of music. You see, these three Psalms cover almost a thousand years of Israel's history. In fact, One might even say that they extend from creation, because creation is mentioned in both 135 and 136. You could say that they extend from creation right up until the time that they were written. What they are saying to us is this, no matter the circumstances, the Lord is always the same. His steadfast love endures forever, eternally His love. Whether looking at the big picture of triumph or enduring the taunts of the heathen, God's chesed is eternal, for He is eternal. He is always the same, unmovable in His being, His wisdom, His power, and His love. Now, let me very briefly add something as a parenthesis. This is a parenthesis. Footnote, call it what you want to, appendix at the end. The picture presented to us at the conclusion of Psalm 137 may be difficult and disturbing. It is at first appearance. Let's be honest. Does the psalmist contemplate something like Herod's murder of the innocents of Bethlehem at the time of Jesus' birth? Is that what the psalmist is talking about? Is that his prayer? I can assure you that it's not. We need to read carefully and think cautiously about how Psalm 137 ends and place it into its context within all of scripture. Now, all I can do for you right now is summarize, but I hope that this will be helpful. A key phrase towards the end of Psalm 137 is the phrase, the daughter of Babylon. You see that there in your Bibles. This refers very specifically to the queen, as the head of the royal house. In the same way that kings often personified their kingdoms, maybe you've watched a movie about Henry VIII where he says, I am England. And what he means is he represents all of the people and all of the people are summarized in him. So the queen and the princesses represented the continuation of the royal line of Babylon. And so far as the godly Israelites were concerned, the Babylonian monarchy was pagan and evil through and through. They were not only oppressors, they were also promoters of the most gross kind of idolatry. Their dynasty was an enemy of the Lord and his people. In fact, we find this type of language repeated in the book of Revelation. Listen to these words from chapter 17. Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and said to me, Come, I will show you the judgment of the great prostitute who is seated on many waters, with whom the kings of the earth have committed sexual immorality, and with the wine of whose sexual immorality the dwellers on earth have become drunk. And he carried me away in the spirit into a wilderness. And I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was full of blasphemous names, and it had seven heads and ten horns. The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet and adorned with gold and jewels and pearls, holding in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of her sexual immorality. And on her forehead was written a name of mystery." You know what that name is? Babylon the Great, mother of prostitutes and of earth's abominations. And I saw the woman drunk with the blood of the saints, the blood of the martyrs of Jesus." Verses 7 and 8 of Psalm 137 are not about the murder of infants, but rather about the destruction of Babylon's power by ending the royal line by putting an end to those who would inherit the throne and continue on the oppression of God's people. When there are no more descendants for that throne, the enemies of God will be overcome. End of parenthesis, let's go back and think about this a little bit further. What shall we say in response to these Psalms? Well, there's one obvious response that applies to all three. You've said it 26 times. His steadfast love endures forever. These Psalms teach us that thanksgiving is a duty that we all owe to the true Lord of heaven and earth. Together, Psalm 135 and 136 call us to praise and thanksgiving. The refrain, His steadfast love endured forever, recurring 26 times, is not a mindless repetition. Rather, it is the primary teaching of these psalms. God's unchanging character is real, and His immutable, merciful, gracious love is eternal. Whatever our outward circumstances, good or bad, we must give thanks to him for this. That is, all that he does is rooted in this eternal virtue. So I ask you, can you or do you give thanks to him in all situations, whether things go well or you face difficulty? God's mercy endures forever. See, even the world around us is full of testimonies and reminders of the being and works of God. The creation, the sun, moon, and stars, everything points to His glory and calls us to worship. Creation itself is an awesome and amazing witness to the majesty of God. If He rules over it in every way possible, how much more is He able to rule over our lives? This is one reason why unbelief seeks to deny the activity of God in creation. Such actions are foolish denials of reality, similar to thinking that life is no more than a dream. God made the heavens and the earth, and this calls us to bow down before him and give thanks. Now, the reality is that the Lord often allows his people to endure extended periods of suffering and affliction, but he does this to turn our eyes to heaven. He is always full of merciful, gracious love to us. Never does his favor diminish, retreat, or suffer distraction. His steadfast love endures forever. Remember Israel in Egypt, and remember Israel in Babylon, and know that in good times and in bad times, God is the same, because he does not change. The Lord delivers from bondage. Because his love endures forever, he saves his people. And of course, the great gift is redemption through his son, Jesus Christ. If Egypt stands for slavery to sin and the Passover, which took place when Israel was told to flee from Egypt, is a type of the sacrifice of Christ. And the journey through the wilderness is a picture of this life and its temptations. And Canaan is heavenly rest. All of these things call us to believe the gospel and to trust in our Lord. The Lord does this for his people, for churches and individuals. We may know periods of struggle and we may know periods of blessing, but in all these times, we are called to look to him. These three Psalms are reminders of what we must do in affliction. God is, and because he is, his people may always trust him. Hallelujah. Give thanks. And remember this, eternally his love or his steadfast love endures forever. Amen. Let's pray. Oh Lord, thank you for your greatness and your goodness and the revelation of yourself that you give to us in creation, but even better in scripture. We bow to worship you and confess that your merciful, gracious love indeed is eternal because you are eternal. Whatever our outward circumstances, when they change, you do not, and you remain the same. So we come to you with thanksgiving, and we praise you, and we even come boldly to pray for those who are in need, especially our dear brother and sister who aren't able to be with us this evening. Show your steadfast love to them, draw near, and glorify yourself in their lives. Thank you for what you've taught us. Write it on our hearts, we pray in Jesus' name.