Latest / Reformed Thinking / A Cry from the Ashes: When the Afflicted Plead with God (Psalm 102) | Charles Spurgeon

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A Cry from the Ashes: When the Afflicted Plead with God (Psalm 102) | Charles Spurgeon · Reformed Thinking

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Welcome to Reform Thinking. I'm so glad you're joining us
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today. Today, our mission is a
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comprehensive deep dive into some truly massive source
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material. Hello everyone.
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Yes, it is a massive text. We are looking directly at
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Charles Spurgeon's monumental work The Treasury of David.
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Right. And we are focusing specifically
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on his extensive commentary along with the collected
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historical notes for Psalm One O 2.
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And for you, the listener, we really want to establish our
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theological framework right out of the gate here.
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Yes, absolutely. As Protestant Christians who
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hold friendly to the Westminster Confession, we approach this
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text looking through a specific lens.
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The confession teaches that God is infinite in being and
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perfection. He is most absolute, working all
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things according to the counsel of His own immutable and most
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righteous will. So in this deep dive, we're
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going to examine how this specific Psalm highlights that
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absolute sovereignty, the unchangeable nature of God, and
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his magnificent grace. All this is set against the
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rather bleak backdrop of extreme human frailty.
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It is a remarkable text to examine.
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It really is. Spurgeon gives us a wonderful
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overview of the source text. Right at the beginning, he
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outlines the structure of Psalm one O 2 by comparing its
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composition to a single shifting day.
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That structural comparison is brilliant.
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It opens with wind and howling rain, a truly desolate morning.
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Then it clears up at noon, becoming warm with the sun, and
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finally it closes with a brilliant, glorious sunset.
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We will follow that precise progression today.
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We are going to step right into the pouring rain of the
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psalmist's grief. This is not a superficial
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sadness. The title of the Psalm itself
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marks it as a prayer of the afflicted when he's overwhelmed
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and pours out his complaint before the Lord.
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And Spurgeon notes that this is a prayer far more in spirit than
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in words. The formal petitions are few,
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but a strong stream of supplication runs from beginning
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to end. It is like an undercurrent
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finding its way heavenward through the moanings of grief.
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I love that image of the undercurrent.
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It paints a picture of someone who might not even have the
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right words, but the groan itself is the prayer.
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Precisely one of the classical commentators cited in our
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material, Finian's Canus Vove, illustrates this by comparing
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the afflicted soul to a vessel overcharged with new wine that
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simply bursts for vent. So there is no lazy, slothful
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lip labor here. Not at all.
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These are poured out prayers pressed forth with a vehemence
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of spirit and inward grief. When you are overwhelmed, when
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the cup of your life is turned upside down, all that is in it
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is naturally poured out. Spurgeon makes a crucial
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distinction here, though the word rendered complaint has no
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fault finding a repining in it. Right.
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It is a moaning, an expression of pain, not a rebellion against
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God. And that brings us to the core
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subject of the first half of our deep dive.
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Spurgeon calls this the Patriots Lament or the Patriots plaint.
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The sufferer erased himself in the griefs of his nation, as in
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a garment of sackcloth. He's afflicted in body, yes, but
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the miseries of his people cause him a far more bitter anguish.
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Which brings us to the physical reality of his suffering.
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OK, let's unpack this. The sheer physical toll of this
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kind of grief is staggering. Looking at verses one through
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11, we see visceral bodily reactions to intense sorrow.
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The psalmist says his days are consumed like smoke.
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And his bones are burned as a hearth.
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His heart is smitten and withered like grass, so much so
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that he forgets to eat his bread.
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I want you, the listener, to consider how spiritual grief
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often manifests in physical ailments.
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We like to compartmentalize our lives, separating the spiritual
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from the physical, but this text refuses to let you do that.
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When the soul is crushed, the body follows.
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Looking at these verses, it sounds like he is starving
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himself from sheer grief. Is that just a poetic
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exaggeration? No, not at all.
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In fact, Henry Cowell's, a 19th century theologian from our
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stack of sources, notes that consumed like smoke means his
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days waste away to nothing. They turn to no good account and
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are lost. They just vanish.
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And then we have Sir Richard Baker, a fascinating 17th
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century writer. Baker actually spent significant
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portion of his life in debtors prison, so he knew a thing or
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two about isolation and physical suffering.
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He draws out this smoke metaphor beautifully.
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He says that smoke is a vapor proceeding from the fire, yet it
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has no heat in it, it is dark, it affords no pleasure to look
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upon, and it wastes itself in ascending.
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When the psalmist says his bones are burned as a hearth, he means
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all the fuel of life is spent. You are left with the cold,
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spent ashes. That is a haunting image.
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You are just the ashes left behind after the fire has burned
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through everything you care about.
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And the physical devastation continues.
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The text says his heart is smitten and withered like grass.
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Adam Clark, the great British Methodist theologian, explains
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this by comparing it to grass cut down in the Meadow.
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First smitten with the scythe, then withered by the sun.
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And because of this, he forgets to eat.
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Sir Richard Baker points out the stark reality of this Hunger is
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a prompter that usually makes a man remember his meat in spite
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of his teeth. But when the heart is blasted
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and wiggered, your body basically goes into shock.
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Your survival instincts just shut down.
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Sorrow monopolizes the mind. It draws moisture from the brain
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to fill the eyes with water, leaving the body parched in the
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stomach without appetite. The result is emaciation.
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Verse 5 says by reason of the voice of my groaning, my bones
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cleave to my skin. Joseph Carroll, a prominent
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Puritan minister from the 1600s, bluntly summarizes this.
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He says when the bones cleave to the skin, both are near cleaving
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to the dust. The psalmist has grown himself
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down to a living skeleton. It.
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Is so intense, and what strikes me is how this physical
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breakdown leads directly to this massive sense of social
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isolation. In verses 6 and seven, he starts
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comparing himself to birds. He says he is like a Pelican of
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the wilderness, an owl of the desert, and a Sparrow alone upon
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the housetop. I have to admit, when I read
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that I did not immediately grasp the significance.
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Why these specific birds? What's fascinating here is the
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absolute specificity of the analogies A psalmist uses to
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describe his resultant isolation.
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These are not random choices. Let us look at the first one,
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the Pelican of the wilderness. The naturalist JG Wood explains
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that this bird does not like the neighborhood of human beings.
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Right. It resorts to broad,
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uncultivated lands to make its nest and hatch its young.
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After gorging itself with food, it sits motionless for hours,
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its head sunk on its shoulders, it's bill resting heavy on its
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breast, digesting its meal in utter quiet.
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WM Thompson, a missionary who observed these birds in the
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Middle East during the 19th century, calls them the most
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somber, austere birds he ever saw, adding that they gave him
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the Blues just to look at them. So we should picture a massive,
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heavy bird sitting entirely motionless in a swamp or
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wasteland, totally cut off from the rest of the world.
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Yes, the psalmist, weighed down by the heavy burden of his
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sorrow, identifies with this austere, motionless creature
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isolated in a desolate place. He feels heavy.
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He feels stuck. Then we have the owl of the
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desert. The Arabic translation for this
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specific bird, Al cherab, is highly revealing.
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It means mother of ruins. Wait, let's pause on that image
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for a second. The Mother of Ruins.
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That is an incredible title for anyone listening right now who
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feels like their life or their church or their communities is a
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pile of rubble. Identifying with the Mother of
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Ruins is such a striking concept.
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It truly is. This owl is an emblem of gloom
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that dwells among fallen palaces and prostate temples.
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The commentator W Houghton references the Arabic name Buma,
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describing a grotesque, cautious little bird that remains glued
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to its perch on the spray beaten fragments of Tyre or the ruins
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of ancient cities. Uttering a low, wailing noted
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sunset, it makes its home exclusively in the broken
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places. Finally, we see the Sparrow
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alone upon the housetop. JG Wood clarifies that this is
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likely not the cheerful, gregarious Sparrow we are
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accustomed to seeing in flocks fighting over crumbs.
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Right, we aren't talking about those hyperactive little
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sparrows you see in a grocery store parking lot.
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Not at all. It is the blue thrush, A
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solitary bird that refuses to flock.
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It is fond of sitting on the tops of houses, uttering A
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monotonous melancholy song. When it loses its mate, it will
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sit on the roof alone and lament its sad bereavement by the hour.
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The psalmist uses these three specific birds to paint a
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complete picture of his condition, austere isolation,
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dwelling among the ruins of what once was, and singing a
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solitary, melancholy lament. That paints a completely
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different mental picture than just saying I am sad and lonely.
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And if we connect this to the theological angle, we must keep
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in mind that this is a patriot's point.
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The psalmist is grieving for Zion, the church.
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He's not just crying over his own personal bank account or his
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own personal sickness. True believers are marked by
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their intense concern for the state of God's church.
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When the church is in decay, when its walls are broken down
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by false teaching or moral failure or external persecution.
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The true St. does not play the Peacock with worldly pride.
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They become the Pelican, the owl, the solitary thrush.
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They mourn. They eat ashes like bread, as
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verse 9 says. Sir Richard Baker points out the
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bitter irony here. All sin is a kind of surfeit
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committed with a design of pleasure, but it inevitably
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brings 1000 times more trouble to cure the mortal disease of
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sin. The psalmist is based on this
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strict diet of eating ashes and mingling his drink with tears.
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It is an all saturating, all in bittering sadness born out of an
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intense love for the Lord's people and a clear eyed view of
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their desolate condition. Here's where it gets really
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interesting, though. After 11 verses of unceasing
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lamentation, where the writer feels like a withered leaf
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caught up by a hurricane lifted up only to be dashed to the
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earth with greater violence, we hit a massive pivot in verse 12.
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The text says, But thou, O Lord, shalt endure forever, and thy
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remembrance unto all generations.
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The contrast is absolute. The psalmist looks at his own
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pining, withered smoke like existence and then turns his
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gaze to the eternal God. And there's a specific Hebrew
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translation here that changes everything about how we read
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this. The original Hebrew word
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translated as endure is actually the word for sit.
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It means Thou, Jehovah, to eternity, shalt sit.
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God remains forever seated upon His throne.
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He is completely sovereign, regardless of the earthly chaos,
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the ruined cities, or the captive people.
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This is the very bedrock of Reformed theology.
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The sovereignty of God in all things is the unfailing ground
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for consolation. Because He rules and reigns
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whatever happens, all is well. You might feel like your life is
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declining like a shadow. But over all these vanishing
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shadows, the one eternal, immutable light shines on.
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He's sitting down. He is not pacing the floors of
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heaven wondering what to do next.
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That is the perfect way to phrase it.
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He is not pacing, and this leads directly to a staggering
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declaration of faith in verse 13.
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Thou shalt arise and have mercy upon Zion for the time to favor
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her. Yay.
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The set time is come. Notice the absolute certainty
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the psalmist prophesized that apparent in action on God's part
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will turn to effective working. Zion might be in a low
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condition. God may hide his face in
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chastisement for a season to make the church see her poverty
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apart from Him, but in love he must return.
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He has a decreed timing. Stephen Charnock, A towering
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Puritan divine from the 1600s who wrote extensively on the
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attributes of God, lazes out brilliantly in his commentary on
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this text. What does Charnock say about the
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set time he. Explains that God has a certain
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set time for his great actions. He lets the powers of darkness
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have their hour, but God will take His hour.
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He has a set time for the discovery of His mercy, and He
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will not stay a single second beyond it.
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When the weeks of captivity and Babylon were fulfilled, no bolts
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or bars could imprison the ransomed of the Lord.
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When the set time comes, neither persecutors nor atheists can
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prevent the Kingdom of Christ from extending its bounds.
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And Charnock points out something beautiful that set
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time often aligns with the moment when the church is most
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humble, most affectionate to God's interests, and most
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sincere in her desires. That sincerity of desire seems
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to be perfectly illustrated in the very next verse, verse 14.
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It says, For thy servants, take pleasure in her stones, and
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favor the dust thereof. On the surface this is strange
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imagery. Why would anyone love rubbish
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and ruins? I mean, dust is what you sweep
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out of your house, not something you take pleasure in.
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It seems counterintuitive until you look at the historical
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context. The commentator Kiddo, in his
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19th century work, The Pictorial Bible, provides a moving
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historical illustration of this reality.
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He describes the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem.
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Worshippers would assemble. They're taking off their shoes
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as a standing on holy ground. They would stand or kneel with
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their faces toward the massive ancient stones, which are the
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only remaining traces of the temple enclosure.
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They would gaze in silence or pour forth their complaints and
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half suppressed sobs, literally kissing the stones and weeping
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over the desolations of their holy places.
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They took pleasure in the stones and favored the dust.
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I have seen footage of people at the Western Wall today doing
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that exact same thing. It is a visceral connection to
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the past, even when that past is in ruins.
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How does that apply to us today, particularly within the Church?
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When applied to the Church today, this carries A weighty
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implication. True believers love the Church,
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even when it appears broken, compromised or in ruins.
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It is a good omen for any local congregation when its members
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are intensely interested in all that concerns her.
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When they care about the ordinances and the fellowship,
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even when things look bleak, the poorest church member, the most
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grievous backslider, should be precious in our sight because
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they form a part of the New Jerusalem.
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Stephen Marshall, a prominent English Puritan, captured this
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perfectly while preaching A sermon to the House of Peers in
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1645. What was his message to the
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political leaders of his day? He told them that the building
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of Zion infinitely pleases God, because Zion is the apple of his
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eye. He bought Zion at a dear rate
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with his own blood. He lays Zion in his bosom.
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Therefore, when God is going to build up Zion, as verse 16 says,
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He appears in His glory. He does not put on his morning
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apparel, He puts on His glorious apparel.
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As kings display their skill and wealth in the erection of their
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capitals, so the Lord reveals the splendor of His attributes
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in the restoration of Zion. Internal prosperity within the
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Church, when the Saints are edified, instructed, and bound
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together in Christian love, becomes the true source of
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external influence. Verse 15 says that when this
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happens, the heathen shall fear the name of the Lord and all the
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kings of the earth his glory. A quickened Church forces from
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the great ones of the earth. A recognition of divine working.
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That logic makes total sense. If the Church is thriving
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internally, the outside world cannot help but notice.
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But that brings up the question about verse 17.
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The psalmist says he will regard the prayer of the destitute, and
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not despise their prayer. We just talked about God
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appearing in his glorious apparel like a king building a
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capital city. Usually when a king is busy with
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a massive construction project, he did not have time for the
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peasants. So who specifically are these
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destitute people the text is talking about?
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If we connect this to the bigger picture of the Hebrew language,
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we get a fascinating insight. We know that during the
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Babylonian captivity, only the poorest of the people were left
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among the ruins, while the rest were carried away as strangers
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in a strange land. But the Hebrew word used here
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for destitute has a very specific botanical background.
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It refers to the merica shrub. A shrub like a Bush.
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Yes, it is a low base wild shrub like the Tamarix or the Retama
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that grows only in the desolate, howling, sandy deserts of
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Arabia. It survives in the harshest
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conditions imaginable, where the wadis dry up and the sun beats
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down relentlessly. It represents someone who is
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stripped of all comforts, entirely forsaken, like a barren
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heath in a miserable wilderness. Stephen Marshall notes that
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these are folks who have lost their children, their peace,
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their liberty, and feel utterly forlorn.
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Yet the text promises that the Lord will regard their prayer.
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When great kings are palaces, you don't expect them to turn
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aside to listen to a beggar pleading in the street.
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But when the Lord builds up Zion, when he appears in his
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robes of glory, he makes it a point to listen to every
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petition of the poor and needy. That is a stunning contrast.
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The King of Glory stopping to listen to the desert shrub
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George Bowen, a 19th century missionary to India, from our
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stack of sources gives us a piercing insight here.
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He says that a man who is destitute knows how to pray.
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He needs no instructor. His miseries indoctrinate him
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wonderfully in the art of offering prayer.
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Bowen Contrast this with a lukewarm church that says I am
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rich and increased in goods and have need of nothing while
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remaining blind to its spiritual poverty.
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You have to know yourself to be destitute of strength, wisdom,
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and righteousness to offer the prayer that God regards.
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And look at verses 19 and 20. They describe God looking down
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from the heights of his sanctuary, leaning from the high
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place of His Holiness like a watcher on the battlements of
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heaven. I love that phrase.
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The battlements of heaven. He is straining to see the
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earth, but what is he looking for?
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He is not looking at the grand nobles or the kings of the
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earth. He's straining to hear the
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groaning of the prisoner to loose those that are appointed
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to death. God bends down to hear the
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groans of those in prison, which are usually horrible to hear,
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and He Danes to stoop from his greatness to relieve their
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extreme distress. You know, it is one thing to
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read that in a poetic Psalm. It is another thing to see it
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play out in history. Has this reliance on the prayer
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of the destitute ever been tangibly proven?
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Absolutely. Stephen Marshall provides a
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brilliant anecdote from the English Civil War to illustrate
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this very point. To set the stage, it was 1643.
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The parliamentary forces, who largely represented the Puritan
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and Reformed factions, were facing a devastating low point.
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The royalist forces, led by Prince Rupert of the Rhine, had
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just captured the major stronghold of Bristol.
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The siege was brutal and the fall of Bristol was a massive
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strategic and psychological blow to the parliamentarians.
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So the people who held to this theology, we're losing the war
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badly. Yes, the Royalist forces were so
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confident in their victory that they sent out a triumphant
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boast. They looked at the shattered
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remains of their opposition and concluded that all was subdued.
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They claimed there was nothing left to conquer the king but the
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prayers of a few fanatic people. They had taken the cities,
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melted the armies, and driven out the opposition.
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Only tears and prayers were left.
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They were mocking them. They were basically saying all
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you have left is your little prayers.
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Precisely. But Marshall highlights the
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incredible irony of that boast. Prayer was the one thing the
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enemy could not conquer. They founded the hardest wall to
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climb and the strongest brigade to overthrow.
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God reserved the preservation of the cause to the desperate
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prayers of the destitute. The parliamentarians eventually
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turned the tide of the war, not by military might alone, but
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through the sustaining grace sought in those desperate
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prayers. It is a stunning historical
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validation of verse 17. God will not despise their
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prayer. We brought up Sir Richard Baker
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earlier, the commentator who spent time in debtors prison.
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He has an observation here that perfectly sums us up.
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He uses this Latin legal phrase inform a pauperous.
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That basically means filing a lawsuit when you are too poor to
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afford the court fees. You are submitting your plea in
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the form of a pauper. Baker says it is hard for us to
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believe, because human kings keep their distance from the
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poor and think it degrades them to look downwards, that the king
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of the universe would accept a petition written by someone who
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has absolutely nothing but with God.
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He counts it his glory to regard the inglorious.
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And because of this marvelous deliverance, verse 18 tells us,
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this shall be written for the generation to come, and the
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people which shall be created shall praise the Lord.
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This points to the absolute necessity of keeping registers
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of divine kindness. We write down in history the
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calamities of nations, wars, famines, pestilences, but we
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should set up memorials of the Lord's loving kindness.
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Stephen Marshall observes that the Redeemed Church takes no
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thought concerning their own ease or wealth.
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Their thoughts are wholly laid out on how succeeding
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generations should give all glory to God.
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They know the Lord has reserved His glory for Himself, and their
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highest joy is to ensure that the people yet to be created
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will know that the Lord God of their fathers is full of
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compassion. It is amazing to think of God
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leaning out of heaven just to hear the poorest of the poor.
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But that raises a pretty massive question in my mind.
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If this world is so broken and fleeting, who is this eternal
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God doing the listening? Because in verse 23, the tone
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shifts completely. The psalmist comes back down to
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his personal complaint. He says he weakened my strength
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in the way he shortened my days. I said, Oh my God, take me not
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away in the midst of my days. He feels like a limping Pilgrim,
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ready to lie down and die before he sees the restoration of
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Jerusalem. But then, right in the middle of
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this plea for a little more time, he suddenly shifts his
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focus away from his own shortened days to the eternal
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days of God, and specifically to the creation of the heavens and
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the earth. The transition is abrupt but
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intentional. He says.
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Thy years are throughout all generations of old.
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Hast thou leave the foundation of the earth, and the heavens of
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the work of thy hands? He contrasts his own pining,
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expiring frame with his God, who lives on in the fullness of
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strength forever. The commentator Joseph Carroll
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points out that the phrase take me not away literally means let
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me not ascend in the original text carrying a double illusion.
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It is like corn taken up by the Reaper or candle that spends its
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fuel, ascends in smoke and vanishes.
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The psalmist is begging not to be snuffed out halfway through
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his course. But the comfort he finds is
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entirely rooted in the unchangeable, eternal nature of
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the Creator. If the Almighty made a world out
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of nothing, it will be no labor for him to raise the walls of
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Zion from their heaps. He who arched the world with a
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ceiling of blue can easily pile the loftiest stories of his
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earthly palace. This raises an important
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question. Who is the Creator being
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addressed in these specific verses?
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And here we find one of the most magnificent theological
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revelations in the entire Bible. We don't have to guess because
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the New Testament tells us explicitly.
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I love when scripture interprets scripture.
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It is the safest way to read the text.
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In the 1st chapter of Hebrews, the author takes these exact
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verses from Psalm 102, verses 25 through 27, and applies them
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directly to Jesus Christ. This proves his divine, eternal
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nature. The afflicted psalmist, in the
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depths of his Babylonian despair, was actually addressing
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the eternal Son of God. Wait, so the guy sitting in the
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ruins of Jerusalem crying about the stones and the dust is
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talking to Jesus? Yes, Thomas Goodwin, a brilliant
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17th century Puritan who is a member of the Westminster
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Assembly and chaplain to Oliver Cromwell, wrote a monumental
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treatise on the knowledge of God the Father and his Son Jesus
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Christ. Goodwin takes this truth from
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Hebrews 1 and traces the existence of Christ backward
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through time. It is a breathtaking theological
23:11
exercise. Walk us through Goodwin's
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timeline. How does he trace Christ
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backward? Goodwin starts at the
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Incarnation, noting that Christ had a body prepared for him,
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meaning he existed before he took on flesh.
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Then he steps back to John the Baptist, who said he that cometh
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after me is preferred before me, for he was before me.
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Right, because Jesus was born after John, but John
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acknowledges Jesus existed first.
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Correct. Then Goodwin steps back to the
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wilderness wanderings where the Israelites attempted Christ, as
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Paul states in his letter to the Corinthians.
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Then back to Abraham, where Jesus famously declared before
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Abraham was I am. The back to the days of Noah
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where Christ by his Spirit preached to the spirits now in
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prison. Then back to the very beginning
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of creation as the Word, who was with God and was God.
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Finally, Goodwin traces Christ all the way back to eternity
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past before the foundation of the earth, where his goings
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forth are from everlasting. The psalmist's comfort in his
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shortened days is entirely anchored in the everlasting days
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of the Son of God. That is an incredible
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progression. Seeing the eternal Christ in the
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Old Testament completely changes how you read the Psalms, and
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this leads to the breathtaking garment metaphor in verse 26.
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Speaking of the heavens and the earth, the text says they shall
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perish, but thou shalt endure. Yeah, all of them shall wax old
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like a garment as a vesture. Shalt thou change them, and they
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shall be changed. John Owen, who is often called
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the Prince of Puritans and served as the Vice chancellor of
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Oxford University, breaks this down for us in a way that is
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just staggering. He says that the whole physical
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creation is like a garment wherein the Lord clothes Himself
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to show His might to men. The creation shows the shape of
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the man, so to speak, but it also hides his full essence.
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No creature can come to the perfect knowledge of God by
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simply looking at the physical universe.
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Wait, let's pause on that for a second.
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Think about what that means. The stars, The galaxies, The
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Rocky Mountains, The Pacific Ocean, well, all of it is just a
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coat he is wearing and one day he is just going to put it in
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the closet. Yes.
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The universe is wearing out. The laws of thermodynamics tell
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us that everything is winding down.
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It is waxing old, and when the time comes, God will simply lay
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it aside. He will fold up the stars and
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the earth like a worn out vesture as easily as a man takes
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off an old coat he intends to wear no more.
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Thomas Adams, an English clergyman from the 1600s, adds
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that this destruction is not an but a change.
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A purging of the dross so that all things are restored to their
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original beauty. But the central point is that
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while the universe is a disposable garment, the creator
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wearing it is unalterable. So what does this all mean for
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you the listener? It means your salvation is
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utterly secure. Verse 27 says, But thou art the
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same, and thy year shall have no end.
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Stephen Charnock explains that God cannot be changed into any
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other thing than what He is. He is immutable in essence,
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nature, will, and purpose. He receives no shadow of change.
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The doctrine of the immutability of God is the bedrock of our
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peace. If Christ changed, if his love
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waxed and waned like the moon, if his decrees were subject to
26:17
revision based on our performance or the shifting
26:19
tides of human history, we would have no hope.
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But because Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever,
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the believer can rejoice always. You might lose your dearest
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earthly friends. Your health might decline like a
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shadow. The visible church might look
26:33
like a pile of rubble, and the very stars in the sky might burn
26:36
out and be folded up like old clothes, but your heavenly
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friend remains unaltered. That is the anchor for the soul,
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and that anchor brings us to the final verse of this deep dive,
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Verse 28. The children of thy servants
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shall continue, and their seed shall be established before
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thee. Having looked at his own
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impending death and then at the eternal nature of Christ, the
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psalmist now looks forward to the future generation.
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He finds good cheer in the fact that a race will arise to be
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preserved and blessed by God. How do we interpret that promise
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today? Because from a strictly
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biological standpoint, we know that faith does not just
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automatically pass from parent to child like eye color or
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height. We must analyze this final
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promise through a strict, Reformed lens.
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Thomas Manton, a Puritan clergyman who actually served as
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a clerk at the Westminster Assembly, provides the necessary
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theological nuance here. We know that saving grace is not
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biologically hereditary. God has no grandchildren in the
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sense of automatic spiritual inheritance.
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Each person must be regenerated by the Holy Spirit.
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However, God does not neglect the children of His servants.
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It is the general rule of His covenant dealings that He
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delights to be worshipped by the same families generation after
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generation. Manton has a really unique way
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of phrasing this, doesn't he? He does.
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Manton beautifully describes children as the parents
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multiplied and a knot tied in the line of.
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Time. A knot tied in the line of time.
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That is brilliant. When a father's life runs out,
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the knot is tied and the line is continued by the child.
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This is Zion's true hope. Her sons will build her up.
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Her offspring will restore her former glories.
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God's service is the surest way to establish a family.
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This gives a massive weight to the prayers of the afflicted
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that we discussed earlier. The prayers you offer today,
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even when poured out from a state of complete destitution,
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are laying the groundwork for the spiritual vitality of future
28:29
generations. The psalmist, sitting in the
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ruins of Jerusalem, eating ashes and weeping, was actually
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securing a promise that his seed would be established before the
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war. That is a staggering reality.
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To recap the movement of this text, we started in the bleakest
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rainstorm of personal and national grief, looking at a man
28:48
whose bones were burning and who felt entirely isolated, like a
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motionless Pelican in the wilderness or an owl sitting in
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the ruins. Then we watched the text pivot
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at noon, realizing that God sits on an eternal throne and has a
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decreed set time to favor his people.
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We saw how God leans out from the battlements of heaven to
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hear the groaning of the destitute prisoner, the person
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who feels like a dried up desert shrub.
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We trace the eternal nature of Christ backward through time,
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recognizing that the entire physical universe is nothing
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more than a temporary garment He will eventually fold up and put
29:20
away. And finally, we arrived at a
29:22
glorious sunset, basking in the secure promise that the children
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of God's servants will continue and be established.
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It is an incredible progression from despair to absolute,
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unshakable confidence in the sovereignty and immutability of
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God. Before we sign off, I want to
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leave you, the listener with a final thought to Mull over
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something that builds on this source material.
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We talked extensively about the physical universe being a
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garment that God will eventually fold up and replace.
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Think about the implications of that for your daily life.
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If the vast, seemingly permanent physical universe, the
29:55
mountains, the oceans, the stars, is just a temporary
29:58
vesture, how much of your daily anxiety is tied up in the
30:02
wrinkles of a fabric that isn't meant to last?
30:05
We spend so much energy agonizing over the fading
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threads of this temporary world, while the eternal Creator, who
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remains the same forever, holds us in an unyielding grip of
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grace. That is a brilliant perspective
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to carry with you. Thank you for joining us on
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Reformed Thinking for this deep dive into Psalm 102.
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As you go about your week, we encourage you to meditate on the
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pronouns in your own prayers. As Martin Luther noted in our
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source text, much religion lieth in pronouns.
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Saying God is one thing, but saying my God is the door
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through which the King of Saints enters into our hearts with his
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whole train of delights and comforts.
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Until next time, keep your eyes on the Eternal Throne.