Psalm 102, p1 of 2

We're going to begin Psalm 102 tonight if you want to turn in your Bible to Psalm 102. I want to give you first an introduction to this psalm after we read through it and then I want to give you the interpretation that God gives of this psalm, okay? So the first thing I want to do is read through this psalm with you.

There are 28 verses. Let's begin with verse one. It says, hear my prayer. Actually, I want to mention also that the subtitle of the psalm is part of the inspiration. And it says, a prayer of the afflicted when he is overwhelmed and poureth out his complaint before the Lord. That's the context here, and so I'll just read through this from the beginning of verse one. 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 to me, and the day when I call, answer me speedily. For my days are consumed like smoke and my bones are burned as an hearth. That shows why such a speedy answer is required. My heart is smitten and withered like grass so that I forget to eat my bread. By reason of the voice of my groaning, my bones cleave to my skin. I am like a pelican of the wilderness. I am like an owl of the desert. I watch and am as a sparrow alone upon the housetop. Mine enemies reproach me all the day and they that are mad against me are sworn against me. Mad meaning crazy. For I have eaten ashes like bread and mingled my drink with weeping because of thine indignation and thy wrath for thou has lifted me up and cast me down. My days are like a shadow that declineth, And I am withered like grass.

But thou, O Lord, shalt endure for ever, And thy remembrance unto all generations. Thou shalt arise and have mercy upon Zion, For the time to favor her, yea, the set time, is come. For thy servants take pleasure in her stones, And favor 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. He will regard the prayer of the destitute, and not despise their prayer. This shall be written for the generation to come, and the people which shall be created shall praise the Lord. 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, to declare the name of the Lord in Zion and His praise in Jerusalem when the people are gathered together and the kingdoms to serve the Lord. He weakened my strength in the way. He shortened my days. I said, Oh my God, take me not away in the midst of my days.

Thy years are throughout all generations. Of old hast thou laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of thy hands. They shall perish, but thou shalt endure. Yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment. As a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed. But thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end. The children of thy servants shall continue, and their seed shall be established before thee. All right, so this psalm is fairly lengthy, and it has two or three parts to it.

We can identify those in a minute. But before I do that, I want to point out the fact that the context of this psalm is clearly an afflicted person, one who is the Lord's, because he says, hear my prayer, O Lord, and let my cry come to thee. This is a man who is crying out to the Lord out of his affliction. That's the context.

And so, I thought about this for a minute because I think one of the questions I want to answer and try to ask from this psalm is, is this psalm talking about the suffering of all of God's people? Or is it talking about the sufferings of Christ? Or is it talking about both?

And so we want to look at that question as we look at this psalm. But the first thing I see here is that this psalm is the song of an afflicted man. Now, it says in James chapter 5, verse 13, is there any among you afflicted? And that word in James 5, 13 means hardships, trouble, evils. He says, let him pray. is any merry, let him sing psalms." So James, the apostle James, is telling us, if there's any afflicted, let him pray. So this psalm is just like that, isn't it? If we're afflicted, the Lord tells us to pray.

And then also in James chapter five, after the same context, verse 13 and following, he says, if we're sick, Then he tells us what to do. In fact, I'll read that to you from James chapter five, so you hear it just as it's written, and then I'll explain my understanding of that text of scripture. Let's get to James chapter five. He says in James five, verse 14, is any sick among you?

Let him call for the elders of the church and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up. And if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him. Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another that you may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." He goes on, Elijah was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain. and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit. Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth and one convert him, let him know that he which converteth a sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death and shall hide a multitude of sins.

All right, so if we're afflicted, James says, pray. And he also says, if we're sick, then go to the elders of the church and they'll pray and anoint him with oil. Now, that's a verse that's always puzzled me. People are often saying they're sick. We don't take oil to their house. We don't pour it on their head. We do pray for them, but we don't do that. And I wonder, is that what he means here? And I think the answer is different than we might initially think.

I believe the Lord is talking about sick believers, especially sick in their mind and in their hearts. And what he's saying here is that the elders, those are the ones God has placed as stewards over the congregation, over the church. And so to go to the elders and to have the elders anoint them with oil is synonymous with going and hearing the gospel preached. And the reason I say that is because in scripture, whenever it talks about the anointing oil, it talks about the Holy Spirit. Jesus, for example, was anointed when he was baptized. David was anointed. The priests in the Old Testament were anointed with oil. And all these things, point to the fact that God would enable and sanctify his servant to do his will by his Holy Spirit given to them.

But here in James, I believe he's talking about the spirit of life in Christ Jesus, as he's called in Romans chapter 8. And that is the Gospel preached to us, because when the Spirit of God reveals Christ to us, it's always through the Gospel, and it's always concerning Christ's suffering, dying, and putting away our sin, rising again and taking his place as King. for our salvation. And so, a sick believer goes to the place where the Gospel is preached. And by the Gospel being preached, the Spirit of God is given to that believer. And the message of the Gospel is the healing of their sin-sick soul.

And that's why he says here, The prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up, and if he has committed sins, they shall be forgiven him." And that reminds us of those four men who brought their friend who was paralytic to Jesus, led him down through the roof, and Jesus, rather than telling the man first to get up and walk, He told him, your sins are forgiven you. What we need is the forgiveness of sins. Now I say all this because this is part of the context of Psalm 102.

So in James, he tells the afflicted what to do, pray. He tells the sick and afflicted what to do, hear the gospel. And he tells the church what to do, to pray for the sick of soul. And so if a believing brother or sister is burdened, the Lord instructs us to bear their burdens. and also to consider ourselves. He says in Galatians chapter six, brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, you which are spiritual, restore such a one in the spirit of meekness, considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.

Bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. You see how important this is? Every believer should bear the burdens of their sisters and brothers in Christ because Christ is our burden bearer. and to bear one another's burdens is to fulfill the law of Christ.

Jesus said, come unto me all you who labor and are heavy laden. That's burdened. And I will give you rest. That's the bearing of our burden, the lifting up of our burden. And so we see here that the Lord himself is the burden bearer of his people. But he is pleased that his people also bear one another's burdens. And the way we do that, of course, is by the compassion shown to us and our prayers and our fellowship in the gospel of Christ.

Now, all sin is against God, we know that's true, because transgression is defined in scripture as breaking God's law. And the prodigal son said, I have sinned against heaven and against thee, to his father. And David said in Psalm 51, against thee, thee only have I sinned. So we know that sin is against God. Therefore, only God can forgive sin because it's an offense to God himself.

It's a breaking of his law. And scripture calls forgiveness the lifting up and the removing of our sin. And God does that in righteousness. So that's very important that we understand that forgiveness is the lifting of our burden. It's the removing of that burden that our sin against God has brought to us. And the Lord does that in righteousness.

So, in this psalm, anyone who is destitute, as it says in verse 17, he will regard the prayer of the destitute, anyone who is destitute and afflicted by their inward corruption, by their sin against God, knowing the guilt of their sin, knowing their helplessness against their sin, and their helplessness to do what's right for acceptance, and fearing alienation from God, fearing being forsaken by God because of these things. In this psalm, they find their need is met. They find the answer to their affliction from God in Christ's substitutionary, sin-bearing, curse-bearing intercessions and death. as their surety.

So in all that Christ did and suffered, he represented his people to God, and he has overcome. He has become the triumphant king over that that burdens us, which is our sin. And the way he did that is by bearing our burden. He bore the blows, the beatings, the chastisement from God that our sins deserved. And He prays for His people. He makes intercession for them. He has compassion on sinners. And His substitutionary sufferings have prevailed to purge our sins. So all this is our victory. This is our comfort. This is our blessing. We're saved by Him. We're saved by Him. And we're reconciled by Him to God.

And though I am in myself insignificant as dust, as it says in verse 14, thy servants take pleasure in the stones of Zion and favor the dust thereof. That's the place where God dwells. And the people of God are compared in scripture to stones that make up this building. And though I'm insignificant as dust myself, because God has put me in Christ and received me for Christ's sake as these stones and this dust, therefore we're precious to God. We're precious to God for Christ's sake. And so people who are sorrowful and people who suffer desire and seek comfort. And in this world, there's a natural way that people do that. There's many ways we do that. Remember King Saul? When he was troubled in spirit, an evil spirit from the Lord was upon him, what did he do? He had David play the harp.

And people do that today. They turn on music. It soothes them, and so they find relief in music. Other people find relief by just sleeping, and some people try to get away from it all. Some absorb themselves in literature or entertainment, and some in business, and some with friends.

But whatever those things are, those things are just a band-aid for the true solution, for the true remedy we need in our souls. Because true sorrow and true suffering of heart and mind, the heart and mind are spiritually the same organ, that can only be alleviated by God himself. Men cannot solve that problem. It's a sin sickness problem. It's a spiritual problem. And only God can do that.

God, in scripture, in 2 Corinthians 1, verse 3, is called the God of all comfort. And so he comforts sin-suffering sinners by Christ. He comforts them in Christ. And how does he do that? Well, he tells them how his glorious and everlasting achievements are for sinners. that He bore the cause of their suffering, all of their suffering, in His own suffering, and He balanced the scales of justice by judgment to make mercy from God flow in unrestricted abundance to them. That's what the Gospel is.

So, a believer's comfort, according to Scripture now, a believer's comfort is Christ crucified, risen, reigning for them. It says in Isaiah 40, chapter 40, verse 1, Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Speak comfortably to Jerusalem that her warfare is accomplished, her iniquity is pardoned, she has received of the Lord's hand double for all her sins.

So you can see that the comfort comes because sins have been dealt with. And therefore, we understand that from scripture, now, the comfort we need is the comfort that comes from God because of Christ crucified. It says in Colossians chapter 1, Christ is our peace and we have peace through the blood of his cross. Having made peace through the blood of his cross by him to reconcile all things to himself, by him I say whether they be things in earth or things in heaven and you that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works yet now have he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death to present you holy and unblameable and unreprovable in his sight." Now this is just the context, this is the context of Psalm 102, and I'm going through this to help set it up for the comfort that God gives.

In our experience, God's comfort comes to us by faith in Christ. Because Christ is our peace, we are made to know that through faith. Romans 15 verse 13 says, Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost. Clearly God our Father is the God of hope and He fills us with joy and peace in believing and that enables us to abound in hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.

So great certainty is what gives great assurance, doesn't it? And that great certainty is declared to us by Scripture. Scripture assures every believer that nothing shall be able to separate them from the love of God, because that love of God is in Christ Jesus, the Lord, our Lord.

I can think of no words of greater comfort than the words from Romans chapter eight. And you can read that in your own time. But scripture also assures every believer that Christ shall in no wise and never, no, never leave them nor forsake them. He says in Hebrews chapter 13, let your conversation, your manner of life be without covetousness and be content with such things as you have for he has said, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee. So in other words, if we have Christ, we have all things.

That's what he's saying there, just like Jacob told Esau. Christ's work for us is our peace, and the application of that is the assurance of that peace because of His righteousness springs. Isaiah chapter 32 verse 17 says, the work of righteousness shall be peace. The work of righteousness shall be peace. and the effect of righteousness, quietness, and assurance forever. So these are God's statements. That's why they're certain. And these great statements of great certainty give great assurance to troubled believers.

And so since our sin is only against God, and when he makes our peace with himself, in the blood of his son, then he makes even our enemies to be at peace with us." And what is that? Oh, this old wretched man that I am. He says in Proverbs 16, verse 7, when a man's ways please the Lord, and that can only be done in Christ, his righteousness, he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him.

So our sense, in Psalm 102, what we read about is, we could say as believers, we have a sense of things in the experience of our lives. We go through things, as we would put it. We experience things. But our sense is not faith. Our sense gives us a feeling that God hides his face from us, that he will cause That sense of a loss of God's comfort gives us great distress. That's what that sense does. And God allows that, God actually allows that. And the result of that is that we gain, by God's good grace, that sense of our loss of God's comforts and his presence, his hiding his face from us, because that's what it means for God to hide his face, the sense of the loss of God's own presence.

That has an effect on us, and one of the effects it has is it gives us an appreciation for Christ's suffering, doesn't it? If we never suffered, we wouldn't have any empathy for sufferers, would we? If we never had sorrow, we would have no empathy for those who sorrow.

And when I say, there's two words that are very similar. Sympathy means we can understand, at least intellectually, what someone's going through, and we can show some compassion to them. But empathy means the same thing has been experienced, and so that person has a sympathy that reaches a different level. It's a level of, I've been there, I've experienced that. And so, when we suffer, it gives us some empathy for Christ's sufferings. When we hear about his sufferings, then we can see something about this.

It says in scripture in Isaiah 54 that the Lord has forsaken us for but a moment. because Christ was forsaken for a moment when God poured out His wrath upon Him that we deserve for our sins. When He bore our sins, God brought that wrath upon Him. And that was but for a moment. And that is what enabled the Lord to say that He would never leave us. He would never leave us because He was forsaken for a moment that we might be received forever, that God would never forsake us.

And so our suffering brings us to Christ in our heart, in our mind, and it causes us to adore him for the salvation that is by him and in him. And that's the result of all suffering, doesn't it? All suffering from God, from God, leads us to Christ by faith. That's the effect of sufferings at the hand of God in the lives of his people. To see the suffering of our Savior and our escape in Him is to see God's magnificent salvation.

And that is the source of all comfort. Troubles persuade us of the necessity of Christ's sufferings for us. And that brings us comfort in this substitutionary suffering of Christ for us. Our troubles convince us that we have no hope and we cannot produce comfort within ourselves. It has to come from God. And the comfort from God will always be according to righteousness. It will always be according to His goodness and mercy, but according to His judgments. And our comfort from God doesn't come for free.

It comes at the highest cost. because someone else had to bear the suffering that we deserve and the sufferings that we endure now in our lives, we realize that someone else suffered in order that we might not suffer as we deserve. Also, there's this realization that those who brought the scripture, whether it be the Apostle Paul or David in this psalm, or whoever it might be, they also suffered, they experienced things that were great sorrow and suffering. So that these comforts that come to us, come to us at the cost not only of Christ, but of his people.

And so this also produces a comfort in us that God would give so much for us who are nothing, we're just the dust. All right. Now, we know that trouble is common to all of God's servants, and there's something that we need to realize, too, is that Scripture tells us these things, but we can also understand this, that there is really no suffering like the suffering of the Lord Jesus Christ. Think about it.

He suffered for our sins, all of our sins, as we deserve to suffer. That means whatever God pours out, Upon a person for sin, Christ suffered, and he suffered for all their sins, which means that he suffered in every way that sin can possibly bring suffering. And he suffered to the degree required by God's justice, which is inconceivable.

The distance between us and God is infinite. We're creatures. We're insignificant compared to God. There's no measure of the greatness of God compared to us. There's no measure. And Moses in Psalm 90 said, Who knows the power of thine anger? And so we know that if God were to pour out his wrath upon us, we would not survive for a moment. And yet the Lord Jesus Christ had to experience that in his own person on the tree. In the garden and on the tree, he suffered. He bore our sicknesses and our sufferings. He was a man of sorrows.

Augustus' top lady in the hymn we love, Rock of Ages, he said this, could my tears forever flow? Could my zeal no languor? No, that means no frailty, no fainting, no weariness, no weakness. These for sin could not atone, thou must save and thou alone. No matter how many tears I shed, no matter how much sorrow I experienced, no matter how much suffering I endure, none of that, not any of it, no matter how great it is, can pay for one of my sins.

That should give us a great deal of pause to consider how the Lord comforts I've repeated those words from Rock of Ages many times. Each time I do, they comfort me. They teach this truth. Only Christ's sufferings and Christ's sorrows avail with God. Only His, that's why I say so emphatically that our comfort comes, the believer's comfort comes from Christ and Him crucified. And that's the way God gives us comfort, is through faith in His blood.

At worst, our sufferings are called light affliction. In 2 Corinthians chapter 4, the Apostle Paul said, though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, works for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen, for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. So whatever we experience is just temporal. And the worst it can go is to our temporal life, but it cannot touch our eternal life. And so Paul, the apostle, says, light affliction. Our sufferings cannot in any way be compared to the sufferings and sorrow of Christ. No one ever suffered as he did.

Isaiah 53 verse 3 says he was a man of sorrows. Yet in all of his sufferings, even while he went to the cross, remember what he did? He was thinking about his people. He prayed for them. He interceded for them. He was bearing their sins. And it was for joy of having them and perfecting them and presenting them to himself as holy and without blame that he ran that race. He suffered for his father's name, for his father's purpose, for his father's glory. There's a modern hymn writer who wrote this. him, his name is Thomas Kelly, stricken, smitten, and afflicted, see him dying on the tree, tis Christ by man rejected, yes my soul, tis he, tis he. Tell me, you who hear him groaning, was there ever grief like his? friends through fear, his cause disowning, foes insulting his distress.

Many hands were raised to wound him. None would interpose to save. But the deepest stroke that pierced him was the stroke that justice gave." Our sorrows and our sufferings just don't compensate God for our sins. Therefore, no matter how many tears or how much sorrow we suffer, Could my tears forever flow? Could my zeal? No, respite no. These for sin could not atone. Thou must save, and thou alone."

Now, when God chastens his children, they cry. That's the result of chastening. And his intent in chastening is always fulfilled when he brings us to Christ. Such an important principle of scripture. that scripture teaches us God's chastening hand brings us to Christ. What a comfort.

What a blessed result of God's chastening. were we to truly understand what God is saying in Isaiah 53 about the sufferings of Christ or Psalm 22 or Psalm 40 or 69, whatever it is, the gospel account of his sufferings, I think we would be very reluctant to make much of our own sufferings, wouldn't we? We would think of, would we think of our sufferings when we read Psalm 102, if we truly understood what the Lord suffered, and why he suffered, and the result of his sufferings?

All right, so that I say so far, and this has been a fairly lengthy introduction, but I needed to set that up because of the way this Psalm is written. I think that because of the frailty of our flesh, it's hard for us to enter into the truth of the gospel. The Lord always brings us down before he lifts us up. So I have a question.

Does Psalm 102 speak of the suffering of Christ? Or does it speak of his people's sufferings? Or perhaps does it speak of Christ's sufferings and their sufferings? I believe we can understand Psalm 102 on two levels. First is the prayer of an afflicted sufferer. But in the fullest sense, in the fullest sense, this psalm speaks of the Lord Jesus Christ. And through him, it also speaks of his people. Through him, in him. The psalm is the cry of an afflicted servant of God. The title reads this way, a prayer of the afflicted when he's overwhelmed and pours out his complaint before the Lord.

Many expressions in this Psalm describe the experience of deep distress. In verse 3, for example, he says, my days are consumed like smoke. In verse 4, my heart is smitten and withered like grass. In verse 9, I eat ashes like bread. In verse 23, he says, he weakened my strength, my human strength. Whatever it was, whatever strength I thought I had, he weakened it. Now, these experiences, these are common to God's suffering people throughout the ages. And this psalm, therefore, provides language for believers under affliction.

But the New Testament, and here's the key, the New Testament itself explicitly applies part of this psalm directly to the Lord Jesus Christ. So the strongest reason for seeing Christ in Psalm 102 is that in Hebrews chapter one, it quotes Psalm 102. And the quotation is, I'll read it to you from Hebrews chapter one. I'll start with verse eight, which is from another psalm, but it goes into this one. It says in Hebrews one, now understand the context of Hebrews chapter one. I hope you remember. Hebrews chapter one begins the book of Hebrews by proving the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ and that God has spoken in his son. and that the way he's spoken in his son is through his accomplishments. when he by himself purged our sins.

This was the revelation of the brightness of God's glory. And he goes on in that same chapter. He says in verse eight, but unto the Son, notice he's talking about the Son. He's proving his deity and his glory as the Son. He says, unto the Son he saith, thy throne, O God, is forever and ever. A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of thy kingdom. Thou hast loved righteousness and hated iniquity. Therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.

And now here in verse 10 of Hebrews 1 begins a quotation from Psalm 102. He says, And thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of thine hands. They shall perish, the heavens, the creation, they shall perish. But thou remainest, and they all shall wax old as doth a garment, and as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed, but thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail." Alright, so that's a quotation from Psalm 102. In Psalm 102, verse 25, he says, beginning in the middle of verse 24, he says, Thy years are throughout all generations of old. Hast thou laid the foundation of the earth? The heavens are the work of thy hands. They shall perish, but thou shalt endure. Yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment. As a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed.

So clearly, Hebrews 1 is talking about the Son of God. And clearly, quoting Psalm 102, verses 24 through 27, he's applying the words in Hebrews 1 to the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's the reason, that is the reason, this is God's interpretation of this psalm. that this prayer, this psalm is applied to the Lord Jesus Christ. So the writer of Hebrews is proving the deity, the deity of Christ and his eternal glory. And in that first chapter, the one who is God and eternal and all glorious is the one who by himself purged our sins through his sufferings and through his death. The one addressed in Psalm 102 is the Creator, whose years never fail, and He is identified in the New Testament as the Son Himself, who is the Lamb of God. And that is the mystery of godliness, isn't it? So the latter part of Psalm 102 unquestionably speaks of Christ. And the middle of the psalm also contains language remarkably suited to Christ's humiliation.

Look at verse 23 and the first part of 24. He says, He weakened my strength in the way. He shortened my days. I said, oh, my God, take me not away in the midst of my days. These words fit Christ uniquely. His earthly life was cut off in the midst of his days, wasn't it? Isaiah 53 says he was cut off out of the land of the living. And Daniel nine, verse 26, says Messiah shall be cut off. That's that's being severed from life.

The contrast here is striking. The sufferer says, take me not away in the midst of my days. The answer to the sufferer, look at verse 24, read this together with me. I said, oh my God, take me not away in the midst of my days. And the rest of the verse is God's answer. Thy years are throughout all generations. Do you see that? That's significant, isn't it? He says, Thou remainest.

The one whose days appear shortened is nevertheless the eternal Lord. And this paradox is fulfilled in Christ. He was truly man. He was subject to suffering and death, and yet truly God, whose years have no end. And Christ is called the man of sorrows, the man of sorrows.

He is the man who has seen affliction at the hand of the Lord. In Lamentations chapter three and verse one, he says, I am the man that has seen affliction by the rod of his wrath. In Lamentations one, verse 12, it says, Is it nothing to you, all you that pass by? Behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow which is done to me, wherewith the Lord has afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger.

From above hath he sent fire into my bones, and it prevaileth against them. He has spread a net for my feet. He has turned me back. He has made me desolate and faint all the day. These are the words we find in Psalm 102. The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand. They are wreathed and come upon my neck. He hath made my strength to fail. The Lord has delivered me into their hands from whom I am not able to rise up.

Okay, so here, what we're seeing then is God himself applies this psalm to Christ. It's seen in the end of the psalm as the one whose life endures forever, the creator who has an endless life, and though creation is folded up and put away, he endures. Yet he's the one who speaks earlier in the psalm as a representative of his people. Many psalms have this character. Christ identifies himself with his people in the psalm and takes their condition upon himself. So this is the way the Psalms are written.

This is how we see both the Lord and his people in the suffering because we see them in Christ and in his sufferings. In Psalm 22, confessions and experiences unique to Christ in his crucifixion are made. And yet they also describe, as Psalm 22 verse four says, the same kind of trust the fathers had.

And Jacob suffered at Esau's hand, and Joseph from his brethren, and David by Paul. So there were others who suffered. So we can see that Christ preeminently then suffered with his people, for his people, and they suffered in him. And their sufferings are fulfilled in his sufferings. Psalm 69 is the same thing. It contains confessions that belong only to the sinless Lord Jesus Christ. And the New Testament repeatedly applies it to Him in the way He fulfilled Psalm 69.

And so Psalm 102, in that psalm, in this psalm we're studying now, Christ enters into the affliction, into the loneliness, into the reproach, into the mortality that belongs to His people. Think about that. The God of glory enters into the affliction, the sorrows, the fear, the loneliness, the reproach, the unjustified hatred and the mortality that belongs to his people. The movement of this psalm, or you could say it this way, the flow of this psalm mirrors the gospel. Notice this. In the first 11 verses, it speaks of affliction and weakness. It begins, hear my prayer, O Lord, and let my cry come to Thee. Hide not Thy face from me in the day when I'm in trouble. Incline Thine ear to me in the day when I call.

Answer me speedily, for my days are consumed like smoke. My bones are burned as a hearth. My heart is smitten, withered like grass, so that I forget to eat. My bread, by reason of the voice of my groaning, my bones cleave to my skin. You could see his bones. It's like all he had over his bones was skin because he wasn't eating. He was so distressed.

I'm like a pelican in the wilderness. Like I said last week, pelicans don't belong in the wilderness. They belong in a marshy land or a saltwater place. I'm like an owl of the desert. Owls can't survive in the desert. They need cover. They need a way to hide and they need rodents and things like that to swoop down on. There's no covering in the desert. I watch, I'm like a sparrow, alone on the mountain, on the housetop. Sparrows don't, they don't live alone. They're always together.

My enemies reproach me all the day. They that are mad, they're crazy. They're raving, unhinged, shameless fools. against me, and they're sworn together. The Gentiles, the Jews, Herod, Pilate, they all considered Christ their common enemy. And like the literature saying goes, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. They made a league together. They covenanted together against the Lord Jesus Christ. They saw his sufferings, and they thought, aha, you see, God has forsaken him. We can do what we want. And they did. They did whatever they wanted to do. For I have eaten ashes like bread, mingled my drink with weeping, because of thine indignation, and thy wrath thou hast lifted me up and cast me down. My days are like a shadow that declineth, and I'm withered like grass."

That is affliction, that is weakness, and that is what this psalm is speaking of, and that is what the Gospel teaches us about the Lord Jesus Christ, Isaiah 53, and all the Gospels. And the second thing in this psalm we see is that there's confidence in God's mercy towards Zion. Look at verse 12.

But, and there's a great but, there's the grace of God's buts in scripture. He says, but thou, O Lord, shalt endure forever, and thy remembrance unto all generations, thou shalt arise and have mercy upon Zion. Here the Lord Jesus himself is suffering, and what is he rejoicing in?

God's mercy to his people. Zion, the church, for the time to favor her, yea, the set time is come, for thy servants take pleasure in her stones and favor 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."

This is clearly talking about Christ building the church, which followed, what, his sufferings in verses 1 through 11. exactly according to the way the gospel works. Christ suffered, and then he sent his spirit through his apostles to preach the gospel, and through the gospel, the church is built up. James in Acts chapter 15 refers to that very thing. The temple of the Lord being built up in the Old Testament was explained by James in Acts 15 verses 14 through 18 as being God building up the temple of his people. Then, the next thing we see in this psalm, in verse 16 through 22, is the sending of the gospel.

He says, in verse 16, "...when the Lord shall build up Zion, He shall appear in His glory. He will regard the prayer of the destitute and not despise their prayer. This shall be written for the generation to come." Notice, written. And the people which shall be created shall praise the Lord, for He has 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, to declare the name of the Lord in Zion and His praise in Jerusalem, when the people are gathered together in the kingdoms to serve the Lord." So there's a declaration, and the result of that is the gathering in.

So here we see the sufferings of Christ, confidence of Christ in God's covenant towards his people, through verses 12 and following, and then the sending of the gospel, and then in verse 23, as I mentioned before, the suffering and the shortening of the Lord Jesus Christ, the afflicted one, and then in verse 25 and 27, what do we have? We have the revelation of his glory. His days, God's answer to Christ in his sufferings, was not only according to covenant, not only a declaration, a coming declaration of the gospel and the gathering in of his people, but is saying here in verses 23 and 24 that the one who suffered is the one who is the creator, whose days have no end. And then we see in that the revelation of his His eternal glory, His divine glory. And at the last verse of this psalm, look at verse 28, he says, the children of thy servants shall continue and their seed shall be established before thee. This is the security, the eternal security of God's people because Christ rose and reigns. The creator who became the crucified has overcome and his victory is our victory. All right. So this is why I say this psalm is about the Lord Jesus Christ.

But it's also about his people. By referring to his sufferings and his victory, it's talking about how God comforts them by their sins passing upon Christ, and his sufferings being compensation to God for those sins, and the resulting triumph that comes from his success in that, is that the gospel goes forward, forth, and they're gathered in, and they're comforted They shall be created the people that shall be created and and they will be loosed like prisoners And so this psalm is about Christ and his people not merely side by side, but the afflicted sufferer Represents the Lord Jesus Christ the afflicted man Represents God's people the New Testament says that Christ himself is the ultimate sufferer He enters into the afflictions of his people. He bears their weakness. He bears their reproaches and yet He is the Eternal Creator and His years shall never end. It tells us about His person before He suffered.

It tells us the Son of God who became the Lamb of God is now exalted as the Son and the Lamb of God again. And so this psalm is both a prayer of afflicted saints, and in its primary and highest fulfillment, it is the prayer of the suffering Christ, the Messiah, who identifies himself with his people and secures the church's everlasting salvation, and he is their everlasting hope.

And the quotation from Hebrews 1 settles this interpretation beyond all question. So I want you to see that. Now, we've reached the next point here and I have to stop, both because of time and because I know that the weakness of our own ability. Next time I want to look at this psalm and I want to ask this question. How does this psalm then comfort God's afflicted people? All right, we'll hold that question. Next time, how does this psalm produce confidence and assurance and comfort and peace and joy and thanksgiving to a suffering sinner?

All right, let's ask the Lord to be with us. Lord, we thank you for your words concerning our Savior. Help us to see our need of Him. Help us to see your salvation of us in Him. that He Himself is our salvation. Help us to see Your glory and that You would be so merciful and yet so righteous to justify us through His precious blood. Help us, Lord, to absorb these things so that in our very souls we would find the highest comfort in the experience of our life and we would be given this triumphant joy that is consistent with Christ's own joy so that we might live by faith in Him and give praise to Him and to you by Him. In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.

Psalm 102, p1 of 2

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Psalm 102, p1 of 2

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