The Bible Study Hour

Dr. James Boice: When we're young, we consider ourselves immortal and immune to tragedy, but that outlook tends to change as we age and become aware of our own mortality. When we're faced with what could be our final moments on this Earth, our prayers take on a different tone.

Dr. James Boice: Welcome to The Bible Study Hour, a radio and Internet broadcast with Dr. James Boice, preparing you to think and act biblically.

Dr. James Boice: It's been said that desperate conditions make for strong petitions. The writer of today's Psalm found himself afflicted and alone, except for the company of his enemies. What does a man of God do in that desperate situation?

Dr. James Boice: Let's join Dr. Boice as he examines Psalm 102 and shows us that while it's good to pray for our own troubles, praying for the things of God helps us focus our thoughts on problems bigger than ourselves.

Dr. James Boice: We had the ninth graduation of the senior class of City Center Academy here this week and it reminded me through that additional contact with young people once again how the young consider themselves immortal. No matter what they do, no matter what risks they take, no matter what dangerous behavior they engage in, they're sure they're going to live forever. And yet that changes as we get older.

Dr. James Boice: All of you are older, so you know that you begin to feel not quite so well from time to time and you begin to worry about other perhaps fatal diseases that are yet to come. You have friends that get sick. Members of the family that die, you become aware of the fact that you're going to die too, and perhaps as you go along, you begin to see the life that we live in a quite different perspective as that which is simply hanging on as it were almost by the fingernails at the very precipice of eternity. Sometimes it's sickness that brings about that particular way of thinking.

Dr. James Boice: Now that's what we have in Psalm 102, which is what we're going to study today. The author of this Psalm, unidentified, is sick. And this sickness, serious, has reminded him of his frailty. How easy it is to die and how we are certainly going to die sooner or later. Now in weakness like that and in sickness, people could do very different things. But what this man does is turn to God, who is not weak, and who is never sick, and who does not die, and he finds a refuge in him.

Dr. James Boice: Now just a few comments about the Psalm in general. In the lectionary of the church, it's regarded as a penitential Psalm. At first glance, it's hard to see why that's true, but I suppose the reason is because it speaks of God's great wrath in verse 10. And so whenever we have a reference to the wrath of God, it presupposes the sin of man that brings forth the wrath, and because of that, this is assumed to be penitential.

Dr. James Boice: It's actually what I would call a Messianic Psalm. Not in the detailed sense that some of the commentators suggest. You know, some commentators, which I find not very helpful today in a study of the Psalms, see virtually all of the Psalms as Messianic, and they read references to Jesus Christ in the little details, which to my way of thinking are far-fetched. Arno Gaebelein sees this Psalm as a prophecy of Christ's earthly humiliation and his redemptive work. A man named William Pettingill regards it as a dialogue between the Father and the Son.

Dr. James Boice: I don't think that's the way to regard it as Messianic, but it must be because verses at the very end, 25 and following are quoted in Hebrews 1:10-12 as words spoken by God the Father to Jesus Christ. So at least by the end of the Psalm, it's becoming Messianic. I think that's significant because here is a man beginning with his problems. He's discussing them quite openly. He has nothing to do with Jesus Christ in his humiliation, but he's trying to anchor himself in God and as he begins to think about that, the Holy Spirit leads him to indite verses which in the New Testament have their ultimate fulfillment in Jesus Christ. He is our rock. He is the one who is altogether trustworthy. And so it's a natural way for the Psalm to move.

Dr. James Boice: Look at another way. Psalm 102 is patriotic, which is the way Charles Haddon Spurgeon saw it, and that's because the writer, although he's sick even to death, isn't concerned merely about his own survival, but he's also concerned about the restoration of Zion. As we read the Psalm, we find that Jerusalem is in ruins. Her toppled stones, even the very dust, move God's servants to pity. But as the psalmist says, God is still her God. And so he looks forward to God to someday restore the city. And so that anticipation of blessing is what leads Spurgeon to think of it as he does.

Dr. James Boice: I might say also there are echoes of other portions of the Bible in this Psalm. Echoes of other Psalms or echoes from the Book of Job. Isaiah and Lamentations. It's not necessary to go into all of that, but the reason for it is this description of Jerusalem's ruin. So other parts of the Bible that refer to that tend to use the same language.

Dr. James Boice: Now let's look at it in detail little by little. The first 11 verses are a lament. This is the section of the Psalm in which this writer is describing how sick he is, and how bad things are for him in his sickness. But it's possible, I think, to detach the first two verses from that opening lament as the editors of the New International Version did, setting it off as a separate paragraph because they're really a prelude, an introduction to the whole. It's one in which the psalmist is calling out to God to hear him in his sad condition.

Dr. James Boice: You know, I'm sure that the most notable feature of Hebrew poetry is parallelism or repetition. Something that is said in one line will be repeated in the second line. There are different kinds of parallelism. It's why the Psalms are sophisticated and not just simple poetry. Sometimes that second line is supplemental, it adds to what has been said before. Sometimes it merely repeats it. Sometimes it's antithetical. This is true and the contrary is not true. But altogether you have that kind of parallelism and you see it in virtually every Psalm.

Dr. James Boice: Now you have it almost to excess in these first two verses. Because what you have here in these lines are five requests that are virtually identical. And the requests are that God might hear the prayer of the psalmist. Notice, hear my prayer, let my cry for help come to you, do not hide your face, turn your ear to me and answer me quickly.

Dr. James Boice: Now the impression that's left with us at that point, and certainly it's intentional, is that this is no half-hearted passive prayer by the psalmist. This is something he's very serious about. He's in bad health, he's about to die. And furthermore, as we see when we go on to study it, lots of other bad things are happening too. And so he's really crying out impassioned for God to hear him. Desperate conditions make for strong petitions.

Dr. James Boice: One of the reasons why, I suppose, you and I don't pray better than we are is that we don't consider our case to be desperate. We would if we understood a little more about our sin and about the holiness of God. Well, he begins now to voice his lament. I've already said that the psalmist is sick. That's not the only thing that's bothering him. He's concerned about the condition of Jerusalem too. And he is being taunted by his enemies. Nevertheless, it's chiefly his sickness that's causing him to write the Psalm.

Dr. James Boice: Now he describes his condition like this. Number one, he says his life is like smoke. You see that there in verse three. Earlier in the Bible in the Book of Job, we find something quite like this. Job is talking about his sad condition and he says, hardship does not spring from the soil, nor does trouble sprout from the ground, yet man is born to trouble as surely as sparks fly upward.

Dr. James Boice: Very interesting image. Job is saying that life is something like being consumed by a bonfire. Every generation comes along and throws its lumber upon the burning fire, but in the passage of time, it's consumed. Sparks fly up, the smoke dissipates and life is gone. Maybe because there are other echoes of the Book of Job in this Psalm, maybe the psalmist got that image from Job. At any rate, he's saying as he looks at his life, it seems to him that it's just dissipating as smoke would dissipate in a windy afternoon.

Dr. James Boice: Secondly, he says he's sick. Very clearly. He spells that out. There's not much in these verses to indicate what his particular problem was. That is generally true of the Psalms. They just speak of affliction. It means that it's able, we're able to apply that to all kinds of illnesses. But nevertheless, it was serious. It had affected his appearance. It had taken away his appetite and he says, as a result of it, he was not eating and he was reduced just to skin and bones, verse five.

Dr. James Boice: Third thing he tells us about his condition is that he's lonely and isolated. I use those words, although they're not in the text, because I think that's the meaning of the references to the birds in verses six and seven. Some of the older versions refer to these as a pelican and an owl, but the reason they do that is that the older translators just didn't know what particular birds the Hebrew words were referring to. Now the New International Version doesn't seem to know either because it talks about a desert owl, whatever that is, and then a different kind of an owl, and then a bird alone upon a housetop. I suppose they're just doing the best they can. But what they're saying is, here here's this bird out there all by itself.

Dr. James Boice: And the psalmist is saying something like that. In my sickness, I feel left alone. I'm abandoned. Many of you feel that way. You go through times in your lives. You may be going through a time like that now where you say, I it's it's really difficult what I'm going through, whether it's sickness or something else and nobody really seems to care. I'm all alone.

Dr. James Boice: Fourth thing he says is that his enemies are mocking him. Now it's bad enough to be sick, but if people are making fun of you at the same time, it's virtually intolerable. And yet, that's what they were doing. Presumably the writer is somebody prominent, a object of envy, which would be what would lie behind comments like that. But that's what they were doing. These these critics, these mockers would have been afraid to attack a strong man when he was healthy, but when he's sick, down out of luck, flat on his back, they don't mind doing it then. And at any rate, that's what's happening.

Dr. James Boice: And then here's the fifth thing. I think what he's suggesting in verse 10 is that his sufferings are unexplained. And that's because he talks about your great wrath. Now I said earlier, that when the Psalms talk about wrath, it presupposes sin. God isn't just an angry God, He's angry against sin. So, if the psalmist acknowledges that what is happening to him is a result of the wrath of God, he's acknowledging that in some way it's related to his sin or perhaps to someone else's sin. But the significant thing is he doesn't spell it out. We have no idea what his sin is. And perhaps he doesn't know either. He doesn't confess it. What is there to confess? He's not quite sure. What I'm suggesting is that the situation is very similar to Job's.

Dr. James Boice: You see, Job went through all those terrible things and he was well aware that he wasn't perfect, he was a sinner of course. And he knew that sin's related to punishment and bad things happened because of sin, but he couldn't see any direct correlation between what was happening to him and what he had done. He knew he hadn't done anything to deserve the kind of relentless problem that had been coming into his life. And probably the psalmist is saying something like that here. He gets through all this description of what's wrong with him and he says, you know, but when you get right down to the bottom line, I really don't understand it. I have to leave it with God.

Dr. James Boice: And that's what he does. If you don't remember anything else about this study, remember what happens here at verse 12 because verse 12 is the turning point in the Psalm. That's what Martin Luther said. Luther said, everything that has gone before looks to this verse. Yes, that's true and everything that follows builds on it as well. In the verses before, the psalmist has been talking about his weakened condition, how frail he is. He's like smoke that vanishes. But as he thinks along those lines, what he reminds himself of is that his God is not like that. His God isn't like smoke that vanishes. His God does not provide an unstable foundation upon which he's to stand. His God is eternal. One can build upon him.

Dr. James Boice: And so he says in verse 12, but you, oh Lord, sit enthroned forever. Your renown endures through all generations. Now let me suggest there are different ways in which those words could be said. They could be said bitterly, couldn't they? Here's this man suffering. He looks to God. He knows that God is eternal. He could be saying something like this. Look at you. You're sitting in eternal unshakeable splendor while I'm down here suffering. You could do something about it if you wanted to, but you don't. See, he could be thinking that way. But these words are not intended in that tone.

Dr. James Boice: They could be demanding, couldn't they? You're the eternal God. You have all power. I have need. I'm your child. You've got to heal me. It's my right to be healed. So, so, so get on with the job. Do that. Significant that the psalmist isn't saying that either. We do have a tendency toward that today. There's a kind of Christianity that's very popular today that sort of demands of God what we think we ought to have. It's it's his duty and it's our right to be cured of all ills. And God just has to get on with it. And so we name it, we claim it, we ask for that kind of blessing and so forth. It's a great travesty. That is presented today as if that's a higher level of spirituality. But actually, the opposite is the case. It's really worldliness.

Dr. James Boice: There's a great Baptist pastor in Cambridge, England. His name is Roy Clements. Very highly regarded in England and has spoken also in this country. He's written a book on some of the Psalms and he has a study of this one and he begins his study of Psalm 102 by noting how we have become a society that is preoccupied with health. You can't pick up a newspaper or a magazine that doesn't have articles in it about health. Virtually every article that appears in the New England Journal of Medicine is front page news. You get it on television and and you get it in the newspapers. Every dietary quirk gets attention. Exercise routines proliferate. We think we have a right to live forever. And what has happened, of course, is that this demand for perfect health, which we find in the world, is filtered into the church.

Dr. James Boice: And so the church begins to reflect that and say to God, well, I have a right to health too. You're my God. You ought to provide it. And what Clement says is that that kind of thing is not spiritual. That's actually worldliness. You want to know what spiritual approach really is? Well, it's what you have here in the Psalm. And don't misunderstand me. God is an all powerful God, and he can heal and he does in many cases. But he doesn't always, and we certainly don't have a right to demand it. And it's often the case that God is accomplishing something in our lives by disappointment and sickness and other such things.

Dr. James Boice: You see, what the psalmist is doing is simply laying his wasted condition before God. His words are spiritual because they're allowing God to be God. God will do what God will do, but he lets God know his need. And having turned to God, he really rests on God. He knows that what happens in his life is no accident. G. Campbell Morgan had a good comment at this point. He said there is nothing more calculated to strengthen the heart in suffering or inspire the spirit with courage in days of danger and difficulty than this sense of the eternity of God.

Dr. James Boice: You know that? You know the God who is eternal, all powerful, sovereign, doesn't make any mistakes in your life. You see, that's the faith upon which the people of God have always stood and moved and grown strong and become a witness to others in the world. Now I said that everything that follows in the Psalm builds upon this, and I want you to see that too because this is not just a turning point, it's not just a case of the writer now turning his thoughts to God from himself. In the first part, he's thinking about himself. Now he turns to God. It doesn't just stop there. When you do that, when you turn your thoughts away from yourself to God, you inevitably find that your whole outlook is transformed. And from that point on, you begin to think about quite different things.

Dr. James Boice: And that's exactly what we see. We find him praying now not for himself, as he was in the first half of the Psalm, but he begins to pray for other people and other situations. Now there are four things he prays for. First of all, the rebuilding of Jerusalem. I mentioned that earlier. This is the only clue, by the way, to the dating of the Psalm, but the question of the dating of the Psalm is really only of academic interest. What matters is that the writer is concerned for the city. He's been concerned for himself, but when he thinks about God, now he's being concerned for the city, the neighborhood, the state and he reasons that because God's people show compassion for the city, God must have compassion for the city too. And if he does, that's a mark of encouragement. He says, you will arise. You, I'm sure you will, arise and have compassion on Zion, for it's time to show favor to her, the appointed time has come.

Dr. James Boice: I want to suggest that we need a little bit of this today. You see, if God's people were less self-satisfied and preoccupied with themselves and a little more concerned for the neighborhoods in the city, at this very point, actually having pity on those who are suffering under bad conditions and for the neighborhoods and the cities which are in decline, then it may well be that God would have compassion upon the city and the people too and begin to work in ways that would actually bring revival. Isn't it true that revival starts with the people of God? It doesn't start out in the world. Starts with the people of God. So maybe that's what we should see ourselves.

Dr. James Boice: The second thing he prays for is the conversion of the Gentile nations. You see how his thoughts are expanding. Now, he's not just thinking about himself or even the other people like him who are afflicted because of the destruction of Jerusalem and for whom he's also concerned. Now he's concerned about the Gentile nations, the nations of the world, verse 15. The nations will fear the name of the Lord. All the kings of the Earth will revere your glory. You find it again in verses 21 and 22. So the name of the Lord will be declared in Zion and his praise in Jerusalem when the peoples and the kingdoms assemble to worship the Lord.

Dr. James Boice: Now, it's nothing other than a worldwide outlook. A worldwide missionary outlook which has always characterized the church of God in its better days. In its bad days, the church focuses on itself. In good days, where the Holy Spirit is moving among his people, there's a concern for others elsewhere. The third thing he prays for is the church of the future. See, one of the most fascinating things about the movement of his thought in this Psalm is that it is transformed and expanding, but not only globally, it's also extending forward into time. Because he sees his time as related to a future time and he's sure that what God is about to do in his time to bring deliverance to his people is going to be reported on in future generations and be a blessing for the entire church in ages yet to come, verse 18. Let this be written for a future generation that a people not yet created may praise the Lord.

Dr. James Boice: And so I ask, have you ever thought about your experience like that? All of us have experiences with God. Do you think of it as a testimony that will be a blessing to those who come after you? Perhaps not in the scriptural sense where you've written it down and the church is going to read this and meditate on it for generations to come. But perhaps just within your own family. Do you live in such a way that your testimony of God's grace in your life is repeated to your children and and they get to the point where they're looking for that same God, the God of their fathers and their mothers also to operate in their life. That's what the psalmist is saying.

Dr. James Boice: And then the fourth thing, the deliverance of the prisoners. That's the final condition that the writer is anticipating. When God is going to release those condemned to death. It's very hard to know what he's thinking about here because he doesn't give much detail. It might be some of the Jews who are still retained in Babylon and he's looking for their deliverance that they might be brought to Jerusalem. We don't know that. But it's hard to read that without thinking of some things the Lord Jesus Christ said when he introduced his ministry. Remember that when he was in the synagogue of Nazareth on the Sabbath, and he launched his ministry, he did it by reading from the Old Testament, and these are the words he read. The Spirit of the Lord is on me because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. He was just talking about spiritual deliverance.

Dr. James Boice: And it's significant to come to that point as we also come to the end of the Psalm. Because that's the way the Psalm ends according to the interpretation that's given to it by the Book of Hebrews. Hebrews takes these last verses as referring to Jesus Christ. Now the psalmist is talking about God. He says, you remain the same and your years will never end, verse 27. And although he's talking about God, it's quite appropriate also to apply those words to Jesus Christ. Because he too is God and it's said of him that he is the same yesterday and today and forever.

Dr. James Boice: Jesus Christ is the one through whom Zion is restored. Jesus Christ is the one through whom the Gentile nations are converted. Jesus Christ is the one through whom future generations of the church are created and restored and raised up and preserved. Jesus Christ is the one who delivers the enslaved from their sin in order that they might serve him. Jesus Christ, the focal point of the Bible from the very beginning to the very end. We talk about frailty? Yes, we are frail. We talk about being anchored in eternity? Yes. We're talking about Jesus. He's the eternal one. Change and decay and all around I see. Oh thou who changest not, abide with me.

Dr. James Boice: Let's pray. Our Father, we're thankful for the solid foundation which is ours in Jesus Christ. We are shaken, but he is unshaken. We tremble. But it makes all the difference whether or not we are standing on the rock. Our Father, give us grace to stand and to do that in such a way that we become a testimony to those who will come after us for the praise of the glory of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

Dr. James Boice: Thank you for listening to this message from The Bible Study Hour, a listener-supported ministry of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. The Alliance is a coalition of pastors, scholars, and churchmen who hold to the historic creeds and confessions of the Reformed faith and who proclaim biblical doctrine in order to foster a reformed awakening in today's church. To learn more about the Alliance, visit Alliancenet.org. And while you're there, visit our online store, Reformed Resources, where you can find messages and books from Dr. Boice and other outstanding teachers and theologians. Or, ask for a free Reformed Resources catalog by calling 1-800-488-1888. Please take the time to write to us and share how The Bible Study Hour has impacted you. We'd love to hear from you and pray for you. Our address is 600 Eden Road, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 17601. Please consider giving financially to help keep The Bible Study Hour impacting people for decades to come. You can do so at our website, Alliancenet.org. Over the phone at 1-800-488-1888, or send a check to 600 Eden Road, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 17601. For Canadian gifts, mail those to 237 Rouge Hills Drive, Scarborough, Ontario, M1C2Y9. Thanks for your continued prayer and support and for listening to The Bible Study Hour, preparing you to think and act biblically.