During their seventy years of captivity in Babylon, the people of Israel didnβt feel much like singing:
βBy the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. How shall we sing the Lordβs song in a strange land?β (Psa. 137:1-4).
We are told that the children of Israel were well known for their music, and we wouldnβt be surprised if this were so, for faith in our God has inspired countless great compositions down through the centuries. But when their captors demanded that they sing the songs that expressed the joy they felt in their God and their homeland, the sorrow they felt in their hearts would not allow these captives to give voice to such expressions while shackled with the chains of Babylonian bondage.
But if Godβs people cannot sing outside of their Promised Land, how can Paul call on us to be βspeaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lordβ (Eph. 5:19)? How can we sing the Lordβs songs in the land made strange to us by the anti-God sentiment found all around us, and the iniquity upon iniquity that we see on every hand?
We believe it is because God has already βraised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesusβ (Eph. 2:6). Remember, we serve a God that βcalleth those things which be not as though they wereβ (Rom. 4:17). In that passage, God was able to call Abraham βthe father of manyβ before he had any children. This is because God had promised to multiply his seed, and so in the mind of God he already had a multitude of descendants! In the same way, God can use the past tense in describing how we are already βglorifiedβ (Rom. 8:30), and since the Lord has promised that we will one day βreign with Himβ (II Tim. 2:12) from thrones on which we will sit together with Christ in heavenly places, in His mind it is as good as done, we are as good as there.
And if thatβs not something worth singing about, I donβt know what is! source
[β¦] π A Reason to Sing! πΆ Β» [β¦]