Pastor Choi Dae-gyu
At this time of year when we settle our accounts, what song are you singing? The people of Judah were taken captive twice by Babylon. Royalty and nobles, prophets and soldiers, countless people were led away captive. Though they had lived relatively stable lives in Judah, they now found themselves digging clay by the Chebar River, groaning under the lash.
We too are tossed about by various problems, trampled underfoot by the world, this Babylon. So what song should we sing in such a life? Let us consider this together.
First, it is a song of waiting for God's timing.
Babylon is not merely a nation; it symbolizes the world's values and power that oppose God. Babylon is the reality where visible success and prosperity, seemingly secure walls and conditions, become more relied upon than God.
Life in captivity is a place of helpless trampling under Babylon's power. Yet God clearly declares, “The time is near” for the harvest to come. He tells us not to view this captivity as an indefinite period, but to think of it like a farmer awaiting harvest. Just as there is a time to sow and a time to reap, the time of captivity too will surely end.
Though we cannot end captivity itself, I can choose how to live each day. Captivity is never a place of honor. It is a place of scorn and ridicule. This does not mean we must endure any insult unconditionally. Rather, it means we must shatter the mindset that says, ‘Why should I be scorned?’—remembering that even Jesus was scorned. We must be well-formed in the midst of being ignored.
Life in captivity is a life of enduring being ignored. This is the song we must sing in the threshing floor.
Second, it is a song of appeal to God.
Jerusalem pours out to God, without hiding, the violence and abuse inflicted by Babylon. Psalm 137 contains their harsh curses and confessions of anger, yet God does not turn away. He does not hear their curses and lamentations as unbelief or rebellion. Instead, God responds, “I have heard your complaint and will fight for you.”
When we pour out our grievances, anger, and frustrations, it creates space within us for something else to enter. That's why sharing in the small group isn't just venting.
One associate pastor, who had lost money selling an apartment following a small group's advice, poured out his anguish honestly in the group, saying it was too painful. This is what we call prayer that God hears. Because the small group is a church gathered in Jesus' name, even in suffering, God ultimately leads us to salvation.
Prayers offered in captivity transform over time—from curses to repentance, from complaints to seeking God's will. Ultimately, through hearing His Word, we realize we must return to the Lord and pray for Babylon's peace and salvation, which revealed our own sin. This transformation occurs within the small group, confirmed through the lives of our seniors, so we must remain steadfast and not leave the group.
Third, it is the song of ‘Let it be done according to Your word.’
Babylon's walls were the ultimate security structure humans could build, yet God declares He will reduce them to a heap of rubble overnight. He tells us that even the networks, academic backgrounds, and achievements we build layer upon layer will become a heap of rubble overnight if He calls them—they are not to be relied upon.
What matters is not splendid walls or sturdy fortifications, but that even five small stones in David's hand, when held in God's hand, become not a heap of rubble but stones God uses.
Verse 41 speaks of sorrow over Babylon's destruction, but the expression “Alas!” is not mourning; it is mockery of Babylon's pride and God's warning to repent quickly. Yet Babylon, failing to grasp this meaning, grew more arrogant, and the exiled people lived that time not as a mission but merely as slaves.
Jeremiah's prophecy was not vague consolation or false hope, but words fulfilled exactly in actual history. Babylon's fall and the collapse of its walls occurred precisely as God declared. This was not coincidence but according to God's will and plan, signifying that everything in the world has God's purpose and reason.
Babylon's fall was an event revealing the end of the proud, demonstrating that God is the cause, purpose, and conclusion of all things.
Believers must remember they are called not to build worldly walls, but to build walls of the Word and walls of faith.
During the pastor's pilgrimage to the Holy Land, when he held Sunday worship in Malta, young people from across Europe gathered to worship and share together. At that gathering, a sister serving as a shepherd in Switzerland received encouragement, being told she was “doing a good job as a mother-in-law,” and she was thankful. But soon after, a question posed by the pastor captured her heart. “If your brother only had faith, could you marry him?” A moment of silence followed, and the sister confessed, “Before, I thought I couldn't, but now I think I could say ‘yes.’”
Later, during an offline small group meeting, when asked, “Do you like Leah or Rachel?” she answered, "Why must I choose one of the two? I just find both of them annoying.“ Yet she still saw her own desire to be like Joseph. Meditating on Jeremiah 45:5, ”Do not seek great things for yourself," she shared how she repented, realizing that even when encouraged, she was ultimately seeking ‘great things for myself’—visible success.
He confessed that the pastor's question went beyond mere marriage issues, sounding like a call to entrust one's spouse, career, and entire life to God and live solely by faith.
Dear friends, this week too, I pray you will strive not merely to escape a life of captivity, but to patiently wait for God's timing and live a life that appeals to God alone in every circumstance. Furthermore, I pray in the name of the Lord that you will come to believe: when you build walls of God's Word and walls of faith, He will enable you to reap joyfully.
