Psalm 102

"LORD, Hear My Prayer"



The tune that we have selected for Psalm 102 is entitled "Jerusalem,"

and was written by Charles Hubert Hastings Parry (1848-1918)

for an 1804 poem by William Blake.



Blake's poem went like this:



And did those feet in an-cient time

Walk up-on Eng-land's mount-ains green?

And was the Ho-ly Lamb of God

On Eng-land's plea-sant pas-tures seen?

And did the coun-te-nance di-vine

Shine forth up-on our cloud-ed hills?

And was Je-ru-sa-lem build-ed here

A-mong these dark sa-tan-ic mills?

Bring me my bow of burn-ing gold!

Bring me my ar-rows of de-sire!

Bring me my spear!

O clouds, un-fold!

Bring me my char-i-ot of fire!

I will not cease from men-tal fight,

Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,

Till we have built Je-ru-sa-lem

In Eng-land's green and plea-sant land.



There is an ancient legend that Christ appeared in England after his resurrection,

which has figured prominently in the movement called "British Israelitism"

which claimed that the original inhabitants of Britain

were members of the lost ten tribes of Israel.



But the basic theme of Blake's poem is that Jerusalem is to be built in England.

The city of God is to be established in "England's green and pleasant land."

You could rescue the poem through its contrast between "Jerusalem"

and the "dark satanic mills"-

the city of man that exploits and corrupts the people of God.

But the problem is that the poem too closely identifies Jerusalem

with England as it should be.

And no nation should be considered the place where Jerusalem is built.

The Jerusalem that is above-she is our mother-

so states the apostle Paul in Galatians 4.

We have here no abiding city.

The heavenly Jerusalem cannot be identified with any earthly location-

although it may well take shape in every place

where the name of Jesus Christ is praised.



But Parry's tune "Jerusalem" was too good to pass up.

Trinity Hymnal #81 used it for Horatius Bonar's "O Love of God, How Strong and True,"

which works to some extent-

but the tune is abstracted from its "Jerusalemic" context.

The tune "Jerusalem" deserved to be connected to a Psalm of Zion,

and in that way to be redeemed from its perverse connection to British Israelitism!



And Psalm 102 fits beautifully to this tune.

Because Psalm 102 is titled "a prayer of one afflicted,

when he is faint and pours out his complaint before the LORD."

The tune has a note of lament in it-

fitting well with the lament of Psalm 102-

and yet there is triumphal confidence that sees hope and a future

for the people of God in Zion.



Introduction: "Hear My Prayer, O LORD" (v1-2)

The Psalmist opens with the language of lament,

(Read v1-2)

One of the key themes of this psalm is the idea of the "day"

He speaks of the "day of distress" and the "day when I call" in verse 2.

My "days" pass like smoke in verse 3

"All the day my enemies taunt me" (v8)

"My days are like an evening shadow" (v11)

"He has shortened my days" (v23)

Notice that all of these time references focus on our lives as brief "days"

This contrasts with the time references for God in the second section:

"You are enthroned forever" (v12)

Future generations are spoken of in verse 18

"Your years endure throughout all generations" (v24)

Though the heavens and earth perish "you will remain" (v26)

"You are the same and your years have no end (v27)

This is why the Psalmist asks God to "answer me speedily in the day when I call!"

Because my life is but a passing day, compared to God's eternal years.

I am but a fleeting breath.

If God waits until tomorrow, I shall be no more!



This is the lament of the cross.

"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?!"

If you do not answer me today, then I shall perish.

Hebrews tells us that Jesus "offered up prayers and supplications,

with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death,

and he was heard because of his reverence" (Heb 5:7).

The Father heard the cry of his Son,

and answered him speedily, raising him from the dead on the third day,

delivering him from the power of death, and seating him at his right hand,

in order that the heavenly Jerusalem might be established.



Therefore, because the Father has heard Jesus,

we too may pray this Psalm with Jesus-

with confidence that we will be heard, because we pray in his name!



1. I Wither and Die (v3-11)

Verses 3-11 focus on the reason for the Psalmist's lament.

You can see in verses 3-4 and verses 9-11 a certain parallel in themes.

This passage opens and closes with the themes of "my days" "withering grass"

and "eating bread."

"My days pass away like smoke" (v3)

"My days are like an evening shadow" (v11)

"My heart is struck down like grass and has withered" (v4)

"I wither away like grass" (v11)

"I forget to eat my bread" (v4)

"I eat ashes like bread" (v9)

The difference between verses 3-4 and verses 9-11 is the agent of this misery:

In verses 3-4 we do not hear who has done this.

He simply says that "My heart is struck down,"

but we do not know who or why.

But in verse 10 we discover that God is behind the sufferings of the Psalmist:

"Because of your indignation and anger;

for you have taken me up and thrown me down."



In the central four verses of this section

we start with "my loud groaning" (v5)--

I am the one who is speaking-

but we end with "my enemies taunting me" all the day.

The Psalmist moves from my speech, to the speech of my enemies-

those who use my name for a curse (v8).



And in the very center, verses 6-7, we have this somewhat odd image of birds:

"I am like a desert owl of the wilderness, like an owl of the waste places;

I lie awake; I am like a lonely sparrow on the housetop."

We actually do not know what kind of birds these are-

the Hebrew words are too rare to be identified with precision.

But it is clear that whatever birds they may be,

they are birds of the wilderness, solitary birds that are isolated from others.

The movement of the Psalm takes us from this image of loneliness and groaning,

to the mockery of the enemies,

to the ultimate reason for all of this:

"you have taken me up and thrown me down."



When you are suffering,

remember that all of this is because God has put you there!



And don't be afraid to say so!

"I am the man who has seen affliction under the rod of his wrath;

he has driven and brought me into darkness without any light;

surely against me he turns his hand again and again the whole day long.

He has made my flesh and my skin waste away; he has broken my bones;

he has besieged and enveloped me with bitterness and tribulation;

he has made me dwell in darkness like the dead of long ago.

He has walled me about so that I cannot escape;

he has made my chains heavy;

though I call and cry for help, he shuts out my prayer;

he has blocked my ways with blocks of stones;

he has made my paths crooked.

He is a bear lying in wait for me, a lion in hiding;

he turned aside my steps and tore me to pieces;

he has made me desolate."



Is that the voice of unbelief and despair?

No.

That is the prophet Jeremiah who spoke in Lamentations 3:1-11 of his afflictions and suffering

as Jerusalem was thrown down.



But Jeremiah does not stop there:

"But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:

the steadfast love of the LORD never ceases;

His mercies never come to an end;

they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness!" (3:21-23)



This is the prayer of the cross,

as our Lord Jesus Christ was mocked by his enemies,

isolated from his people,

all because of God's indignation and anger.



2. But You Are Enthroned Forever (v12-22)

The Psalmist does something similar in his second section.

After having focused on "me" and "my days," "my heart," "my enemies,"

now he turns to "you, O LORD."

After 20 references to me and my in verses 3-11 (with only two references to "you"),

verses 12-22 reverse the pattern,

with a focus on the second and third person reference to Yahweh.



The first part of this second section, verses 12-15,

focus on who "you" are.

You, O LORD, are enthroned forever.

If I am dust, and my days pass like smoke,

then you are remembered throughout all generations.

I can endure through trials and tribulations,

because I know that "you will arise and have pity on Zion."

This is also the song of our Lord Jesus.

He could sing with confidence that "it is the time to favor her;

the appointed time has come." (v13)

God will not allow Zion to crumble into dust.

And even though you may look around and see Zion in disrepair,

you are called to believe that which you cannot see.

"For your servants hold her stones dear and have pity on her dust."

Yes, Zion is, in a sense, to be understood as Jerusalem as it stood in the OT.

But Zion was never identified with Jerusalem only.

From the day Solomon dedicated the temple it was understood

that the earthly temple was only a picture of the heavenly temple.

And so when the Psalmist declares that "the LORD builds up Zion;

he appears in his glory," (v16)

this should not be taken as a reference merely to the earthly city.

No, God's purpose is to establish the heavenly Zion as his holy dwelling place with his people.



And you are the living stones that God's servants hold dear.

Even the dust they pity.

For we are like dust!



And yet when the LORD appears in his glory to build up Zion,

how does he do it?

He does it by regarding the prayer of the destitute-by not despising their prayer.

It is easy to look around the evangelical world

-indeed even the Presbyterian world-

and conclude that the Reformation has crumbled into dust.

Our beloved Zion has fallen from her glory.



But the Psalmist tells us that God regards the prayer of the destitute.

Indeed, he heard the prayer of his Son, the destitute one, from the cross.

And so let us bring our prayers to God, acknowledging that we are helpless,

that we wither like the grass and have no strength in ourselves.

And let it be recorded for a generation yet to come

that the LORD looked down from heaven,

he looked from his holy height above,

and he heard the groans of the prisoners,

and he set free those who were doomed to die!



Thus may we declare in Zion the name of the LORD,

may we gather in the heavenly Jerusalem to praise the name of the LORD,

as we gather together with all nations-all peoples and kingdoms-to worship Yahweh.



3. Therefore Our Children Will Dwell Secure (v23-28)

It may seem somewhat strange that, having proclaimed the solution,

the Psalmist returns to the problem.

But the Psalmist still lives in the middle of the problem.

He sees the solution-by faith-but he returns now to the question of how do I live

in the middle of the problem.

And so he reminds us, briefly, of the contrast between "me" and God.

God is the one who has broken my strength in the midcourse-

He has shortened my days.

But God is also the one whose years endure throughout all generations.

He laid the foundation of the earth.

The heavens are the works of his hands.

"They will perish, but you will remain;

they will all wear out like a garment.

You will change them like a robe, and they will pass away,

But you are the same, and your years have no end." (v26-27)



The heavens and the earth are the most unchanging things that we know.

The heavenly bodies move inexorably in their courses above.

The foundations of the earth are solid and stable-

even the most violent of earthquakes does not alter the stability of the earth.

And yet these most stable of God's creatures are but "garments" in God's closet.

How long do you wear a robe?

Perhaps a whole day-and then you take it off in the evening.

A garment lasts for a few years, and then you discard it.



If God is unchanging, and his purposes stand firm,

then do not fret at the changing tides of history.



I heard a story at the PCA General Assembly that in 1975,

Francis Schaeffer argued against the union of the RPCES and the OPC

on the ground that the united church would spend 10 years

wrangling over relatively minor points

before they could get back to the business of planting churches.

Let's say he was right.

Ten years.

Those ten years would have expired twenty years ago.

And today a united church would no doubt have been far stronger

than either the PCA or the OPC is today.



God's purposes endure.

Zion will be rebuilt.

The heavenly city is our mother-and we may rest in the confidence that

"The children of your servants shall dwell secure;

Their offspring shall be established before you."



Psalm 102 ends with the Psalmist still living in the middle of trouble and desolation.

He does not assume that he will live to see the solution.

But he has confidence that God will be faithful to his promises-

and that his children-his offspring-will be established.



When you are tempted to despair at the state of the church today-

fragmented and torn into little bits-

remember the Psalmist!

Remember Israel in the days of the kings!

in those dark days, when it seemed that the house of David

had sunk in honor lower than that of a woodman's cot!

In such days the Psalmist declares his confidence that God will arise in the end

and establish his children.

And that is what God has done in Jesus Christ.

In Jesus, God has established the children of his servants.

Never again will he cut his people off.

Because Jesus was cut off-

because God hid his face from Jesus-

now we may dwell secure because he is the established offspring

who sits at God's right hand!