Thanks in a Strange Land

The Lord teaches one way for His people in every land: cast down false worship, keep His commandments whole, and bless His name morning and night. Israel was forbidden to serve God in the manner of the nations. What He commanded was not to be trimmed, improved, or mixed with the customs of idols. As the Didache says, “Forsake in no way the commandments of the Lord; but you shall keep what you have received, neither adding thereto nor taking away therefrom.” Purity of worship is not a small matter. A divided altar makes a divided heart.

Yet Jeremiah speaks to a people far from Jerusalem, planted in Babylon under discipline for their sins. There, too, they were to live faithfully: build houses, labor honestly, seek the peace of the city, refuse lying prophets, and wait for the Lord’s appointed mercy. Exile did not cancel obedience. It tested it. The same man who cannot sing the Lord’s praise except in pleasant times has not yet learned thanksgiving. Cyprian says, “Praises must be given to God, and His benefits and gifts must be celebrated with giving of thanks, although even in the time of persecution our voice has not ceased to give thanks.”

So Psalm 92 stands between commandment and exile like a lamp: give thanks in the morning, declare His faithfulness at night. The righteous may seem pressed down for a time, while the wicked spring up quickly, but the end is not the same. God plants His own in His courts, and they still bear fruit in old age. Therefore let your worship be clean, your patience long, and your thanksgiving steadfast, until the Lord gathers what is His and makes His holiness known among the nations.