Well, let us turn again to this
psalm that we've just read, the 102nd psalm, and drawing your
attention to the words that we find here in verses 19 and 20. Psalm 102, verses 19 and 20,
concerning the Lord God. For He hath looked down from
the height of His sanctuary from heaven. Did the Lord behold the
earth? to hear the groaning of the prisoner
and to lose those that are appointed to death. And I was struck by
the words at the beginning of each of these verses, for he
hath looked down to hear the groaning of the prisoner. For he hath looked down to hear. In a sense, that's the theme
that I want to try to take up. how the Lord God is pleased to
look down, but always to a purpose. He looks for his people and he
will hear them in all their prayers, even in their poor prayers, their
groanings. But to try to say a little initially,
as I won't, with regards to the context the historical setting
of this particular psalm. It does seem to be a psalm that
was probably composed at the time when the children of Israel
were in exile and Jerusalem was in ruins. The words of verse
13 following seem to indicate that. Thou shalt arise and have
mercy upon Zion for the time to favour her. Yea, the said
time is come. For thy servants take pleasure
in the stones, and favour the dust thereof. So the heathen
shall fear the name of the Lord, and all the kings of the earth
thy glory. When the Lord shall build up Zion, he shall appear
in his glory." And we can think of those dreadful days, the time
of the Babylonian captivity. We have of course the lamentations
of the prophet Jeremiah, a short book at the end of his prophecy.
The opening words there out of the city sit solitary that was
full of people. How is she become as a widow
she that was great among the nations and princess among the
provinces? How is she become tributary?
She weepeth sore in the night and her tears are on her cheeks.
Among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her. All her
friends have dealt treacherously with her. They are become her
enemies. Judah is gone into captivity
because of affliction. and because of great servitude.
She dwelleth among the heathen. She findeth no rest. All her
persecutors overtook her between the straits. The ways of Zion
do mourn, because none come to the solemn feast. All her gates
are desolate. Her priests sigh. Her virgins
are afflicted, and she is in bitterness." And so we could
read on. It's a book well worth reading, especially the third
chapter there in that book of the lamentations of Jeremiah. But it's not just Jeremiah. We
find the same theme in several of the Psalms. For example, in
Psalm 79, O God, the heathen are coming to thine inheritance. Thy holy temple have they defiled.
They have laid Jerusalem on heaps. And we find similar The language
is also in the words of Psalm 74, and there at verse 3, Lift up
thy feet unto the perpetual desolations, even all that the enemy hath
done wickedly in the sanctuary. And then he cries out at verse
9, We see not our signs, there is no more any prophet, neither
is there among us any that knoweth how long. O God, how long shall
the adversary approach Shall the enemy blaspheme thy name
forever? What a sad state of affairs. And yet we know that in all those
events God had a gracious purpose that he was going to fulfill.
He would not utterly destroy his people. He had thoughts of
peace and not of evil towards them. It was Jeremiah, of course,
who was the Lord's prophet at the time of that terrible calamity
that befell the children of Israel. And think of the language that
we have there in Jeremiah 29. And verse 10, For thus saith
the Lord, that after seventy years be accomplished at Babylon,
I will visit you. and perform my good word toward
you in causing you to return to this place for I know the
thoughts that I think toward you saith the Lord thoughts of
peace and not of evil to give you an expected end all those
things will come to pass and we often have that expression
in God's word it came to pass there are trials there are troubles
that come but God is only fulfilling his purpose And what are we to
do? We are to plead God's words. In a sense here the psalmist
surely is pleading those words of Jeremiah that we just read
in chapter 29 of his prophecy. Isn't that what moves him to
plead and to pray as he does here at verse 13 and the following
verses. The psalmist then is one who
is lamenting the awful state of affairs in Jerusalem. But of course, the psalm is really
very personal and that's so evident in the opening title of the psalm. It's a prayer of, or as the Margin
says, a prayer for the afflicted when he is overwhelmed and poureth
out his complaints before the Lord. We're not just to think
of the psalm in an historical context we're surely to to recognize
how personal it all is really all these things happen to them
for examples they're all written for admonitions says Paul upon
whom the ends of the world are come there's something spiritual
there's something experimental then in the language that we
have here in the psalm and so I want us to look at these two
things, how God looks upon certain people. God looks upon those
who feel themselves to be in a sad state of bondage, prisoners. And God hears the prayers of
those who are brought into such circumstances. Firstly then,
to say something of those whom God is looking for he hath looked down from the
height of his sanctuary from heaven did the Lord behold the
earth and of course we know that's a truth with regards to God's
sovereignty our God is in the heavens he hath done whatsoever
he pleased that is a blessed truth The heavens rule in that sense.
God sits upon the circle of the earth and he accounts all the
inhabitants as grasshoppers. He takes up nations as a very
small thing. A drop in a bucket, fine dust
on a balance, says Isaiah. God looks upon certain individuals. He looks in order to hear the
groaning of the prisoner and to loose those that are appointed
to death. It's interesting there in that
20th verse we have an alternative reading in the margin. Those
who are the children of death, it says. Those who are the children
of death. Oh God looks upon such, he lifts
up the light of his countenance upon them. And he beholds them
and he hears them. He deals with them in strange
ways. Isn't the psalmist acknowledging this really? He says in verse
23, He weakened my strength in the way. Again, the margin, interestingly,
the Hebrew we're told literally means He afflicted. He afflicted
my strength in the way. Those who are walking in that
way, the narrow way, the way that leads to life, how God deals
with them and at times deals with them in such contrary ways
and fashions. How they feel their days are
troublesome days. Verse 3, My days are consumed
like smoke, My bones are burned up as an hearth, My heart is
smitten and withered like grass, So that I forget to eat my bread. Or what words are these that
the psalmist is able to utter? My days, he says in verse 11,
are like a shadow that declineth, and are withered like grass. These are the ones whom the Lord
is beholding, looking out for. God has a purpose to fulfill,
of course, in the lives of these people, in the lives of all these
people. It's interesting, isn't it, what
we read concerning the ministry of John the Baptist, the Lord's
forerunner. We're told there in the 40th
of Isaiah concerning the nature of John's ministry. Verse 6,
the voice said, Cry. And he said, What shall I cry?
All flesh is grass. and all the goodness thereof
is as the flower of the field. The grass withereth, the flower
fadeth, because the Spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it. Surely
the people is grass. The grass withereth, the flower
fadeth, but the word of our God shall stand forever." That work
of preparation that the Baptist was exercising, preparing the
way for the coming of the promised one, the Messiah. But our man
was brought to feel what he is, grass. His weakness. This is how the Lord deals with
His people. But God has a gracious end in
view when He deals with His people in such a fashion. He will not
cast off forever, says Jeremiah there in that book of
the Lamentations, that lovely passage in chapter 3, verse 31
following. He says, The Lord will not cast
off forever, but though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion
according to the multitude of his mercies. For he doth not
afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men. And again,
how interesting is the margin, telling us that that expression,
afflict willingly, literally is, he doth not afflict from
his heart. He does not afflict from his
heart. He is a tender-hearted Saviour, is our Lord Jesus Christ.
In all their affliction, He was afflicted. Oh, these are those,
then, that the Lord looks upon, these poor prisoners. And we
see it time and again in the experiences of the godly, how
many of them cry out, feeling themselves to be, as it were,
in some sort of bondage, strange as it might seem, really. because
they are those who have known the grace of God, they've experienced
the salvation of the Lord, and yet how these men cry out. Moses
in Psalm 90, remember, thou turnest man to destruction, and sayest,
return ye children of me. God doesn't just bring his people
to that place of destruction, destroying all their hopes as
it were, but he turns then and says return, and draws them back
to himself and of course David often times in all the midst
of his troubles how many times do we find him in the Psalms
crying out bring my soul out of prison that I may praise thy
name oh we want God to sanctify all those troubles that he might
be brought to that place of praise even the place of thanksgiving
it was good for me he says that I was afflicted Heman, in Psalm
88, how he cries out, I am shut up, and I cannot come forth. He couldn't release himself. He had to cry to God. And here
we have it, you see, in the text. What is God looking down for?
To hear the groaning of the prisoner, to lose those that are appointed
to death. And Paul tells us, doesn't he,
in the New Testament, before faith came, we were kept under
the law, shut up to the faith that was afterward revealed. Oh God shuts us up, he shuts
us up to himself. Even the commandments of God.
Paul can say there in Romans 7, the commandment which was
ordained to life, I found to be unto death. When he was a
self-righteous Pharisee, he thought there was spiritual life in his
law-keeping. He didn't understand the significance
of that law of God, the spiritual nature of it. It was ordained
to life. There's nothing wrong at all
with God's commandments, why the commandment is holy and just
and good. But it deals with men who are
in a sad, sinful state. their fallen creatures. And so
that commandment they ordained to life, Paul has to say, he
found it was unto death. He was shut up. Shut up to what
he was as an unbelieving sinner. We often refer to the lines of
dear John Newton, O could I but believe! Then all would easy
be, I would, but cannot, Lord, relieve. My help must come from
Thee. That's where God brings us, to
that point where we have nowhere else to turn, we have to cry
to Him. But let us turn in the second
place to this prayer. The whole psalm really of course
is a prayer. That's the title of the psalm,
a prayer. And how does it open? Hear my prayer, O Lord. and let
my cry come unto thee. Hide not thy face from me in
the day when I am in trouble. Incline thine ear unto me in
the day when I call. Answer me speedily. And here is God looking down
from heaven. And we're told in verse 20 to hear the groaning
of the prisoner, to lose those that are appointed to death. I want to think of two things
with regards to the prayer here. First of all, the subject matter
of the prayer, and then the object of his praying. The subject matter, or the content
of the prayer. What is the prayer? Well, God
looks down to hear the groaning. To hear the groaning. I said that Psalm 79 also seems
to be associated with that terrible time of the Babylonian exile. And again in Psalm 79 and verse
11 we read of the sighing of the prisoner. The groaning of the prisoner,
the sighing of the prisoner. We can think about the experience
of their fathers many centuries before of course when they too
were in bondage in Egypt and what we're told there at the
end of Exodus 2 leading up to the call of the man Moses whom
the Lord had prepared to be their deliverer. We have that call
of Moses in chapter 3 of Exodus while he's there keeping the
flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, but at the end of chapter 2 we're
told how he came to pass in the process of time the king of Egypt
died and the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage
and they cried and their cry came up unto God by reason of
the bondage and God heard their groaning and God remembered his
covenant with Abraham with Isaac and with Jacob and then we're
told God looked upon the children of Israel and God had respect
unto them all God had respect unto them the margin again says
God knew them He knew them in the midst of all their terrible
sufferings and He was attending to all their sighs and their
cries and their groans and sometimes isn't that the place that God
brings us to where we cannot really articulate our prayers
properly and we we find words fail us it was like that when
they were in bondage there in Egypt and surely it was the same
with those who were in exile in Babylon and as I said whatever
things are written here aforetime it's all written for our learning
that we through patience or endurance and comfort of the scriptures
might have hope that's what Paul says in Romans 15 all these things
are written for us this book of Psalms especially I'm sure
we all would acknowledge that we find comfort in the book of
Psalms great comfort when we read the Psalms and we come then
as the Psalmist does with our sighs and our groaning David
in the 38th Psalm, Lord, all my desire is before Thee, and
my groaning is not heard from Thee, he says. It's the Spirit
Himself who helps us, isn't it? We know not what to pray for
as we ought, but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with
groanings that cannot be uttered. That's our assurance. The subject
matter then, of the prayer that God is hearing is little more
than a groan or a sigh. But what are the objects? What
is the object of the prayer? Well, is it not the great covenant
God? The God of Abraham, the God of
Isaac, the God of Jacob, the God who made himself known to
Moses there in Exodus 3 at the burning bush the great I am that
I am and as you know the the very name Lord as we have it
here in the Old Testament spelt with capital letters is derived
from what God said of himself and who is the psalmist addressing
look at verse 1 here my prayer he says O Lord he's addressing
the God of the eternal covenant Again, when we come to the end
of the psalm, we see quite clearly just who this God He is. He's
the Great I Am, that I Am, the Unchanging One. He says in verse
27, Thou art the same, and thy years have no end. Previously at verse 12, Thou,
O Lord, shalt endure forever. thy remembrance unto all generations
for this is the great unchanging one I am the Lord I change not
therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed he says and this
is the God who hears he hears our words if we have
words but more than that he He hears us even when we can't articulate
proper words. He reads our very hearts. And
what does He do? He remembers His own words. Oh, He remembers His own words.
He's given us His word. We're told aren't we here in
the second verse of Psalm 138, that remarkable statement thou
hast magnified thy word above all thy name." God's Word. How
He's magnified His Word. How has He magnified His Word
above His name? Well, He's not only given promise,
He's confirmed that promise, as we've said before, He's confirmed
it with an oath He swore by Himself. If we might use the term, He
stakes His very being as God upon His Word. If His Word is
not true, God is not true. If his word fails, God fails.
That's impossible. We have those words at the end
of Micah, Thou wilt perform the truth to Jacob, and the mercy
to Abraham, which thou hast sworn unto our fathers from of old. This is the God who hears us
then in our prayers. and the God who hears us is the
God who sees us, the God who sees all things he hath looked down from the
height of his sanctuary from heaven did the Lord behold the
earth always in the heavens he does whatever he pleases all
the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing he doeth
according to his will among the armies of heaven and the inhabitants
of the earth none can stay his hand or say to him what doest
thou and from that vantage point of course he sees everything
he's the eternal one he sees everything in one moment of time
we might say he knows the ends from the beginning and how does
he act? he acts in mercy towards his
people Verse 13, Thou shalt arise, and
have mercy upon Zion. For the time to favour her, yea,
the set time is come. And is not this that set time?
Behold, now is the accepted time, we're told. This is the accepted
time. Behold, now is the day of salvation. And so when we come together
in this fashion, we're not wasting an evening that we are the ear
of God. And God looks down, and God beholds
us, and God lifts up the light of His countenance upon us, and
He hears us in all our poor prayers, be they spoken prayers, be they
unspoken prayers. Oh, the Lord then be pleased
to bless His Word to us tonight. For He hath looked down from
the height of His sanctuary. From heaven did the Lord behold
the earth, to hear the groaning of the prisoner, to loose those
that are appointed to death. Where is that liberty? It's in
the Lord Jesus Christ, of course. You shall know the truth, says
Christ. The truth shall make you free. If the Son therefore
make you free, you are free indeed. Oh God, grant that we might know
much freedom then and great liberty as we seek to come before Him.
with our prayers tonight the lord bless his word to us let
us before we pray sing our second praise you will excuse my voice
i think i can sing very well but at least my voice has held
out thus far we're going to sing the hymn 748 and the tune is maritain 366 in darkness
born i went astray and wandered from the gospel way and since
the savior gave me sight I cannot see without his light 748 June
366