Church: Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia | Text: Psalm 102 | Date: June 1, 2025 | Speaker: Fred Zaspel

Introduction: The Prayer of the Afflicted

Psalm 102—you’ll see here at the superscript: “This is a prayer of one afflicted when he was faint and pours out his complaint before the Lord.”

Hear my prayer, O Lord, and let my cry come to you. Do not hide your face from me in the day of my distress. Incline your ear to me. Answer me speedily in the day when I call. For my days pass away like smoke and my bones burn like a furnace. My heart is struck down like grass and has withered. I forget to eat my bread because of my loud groanings. My bones cling to my flesh. I’m like a desert owl in the wilderness, like an owl of the waste places. I lie awake. I am like a lonely sparrow on the housetop. All the day my enemies taunt me. Those who deride me use my name for a curse. I eat ashes like bread and mingle tears with my drink because of your indignation and anger, for you have taken me up and thrown me down. My days are like an evening shadow. I wither away like grass.

But you, O Lord, are enthroned forever. You are remembered throughout all generations. You will arise and have pity on Zion. It is the time to favor her. The appointed time has come. For your servants hold her stones dear and have pity on her dust. Nations will fear the name of the Lord, and all the kings of the earth will fear your glory. For the Lord builds up Zion, and He appears in His glory. He regards the prayer of the destitute and does not despise their prayer. Let this be recorded for a generation to come, so that a people yet to be created may praise the Lord. That he looked down from his holy height from heaven, the Lord looked down at the earth to hear the groans of the prisoners, to set free those who were doomed to die, that they may declare in Zion the name of the Lord, and in Jerusalem his praise, when peoples gather together in kingdoms to worship the Lord.

He has broken my strength in midcourse. He has shortened my days. Oh my God, I say, take me not away in the midst of my days, you whose years endure throughout all generations. Of old you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your 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. Children of your servants shall dwell secure. Their offspring shall be established before you.

We learn in the superscript that this is the psalm of one who is afflicted—one who is afflicted when he is faint and he pours out his complaint before the Lord. We’ve seen then in verses 1 to 11 already that he is frail, he’s near unto death, and this psalm is written to reflect that condition.

The setting of the psalm is important. This is not explicit, but we learn it particularly when we get to verses 12 and following. This afflicted man was in exile. He was with Israel in Babylon, in exile. Verses 13 and 14 tell us that Zion now has been reduced to a pile of stones and rubble—dust. And then verses 13 through 21, he calls for God to have pity on Zion, and that is to set his people free and to bring them home, to rebuild Jerusalem.

So this is a lament psalm, but he’s lamenting not only for himself; he’s lamenting for Israel. He’s part of Israel in suffering, and the suffering that he is enduring reflects the suffering of Israel itself as they are off into exile. He longs to see his people set free. He longs to see the worship of God restored in Zion. And he prays for that. He wants to live to see it himself. And he asks God not to cut his days short and let him die before he sees Israel brought home and worship restored in Zion. So the psalmist’s deliverance is bound up with the return of the people to Zion.

Many people, many commentators, have noticed and pointed out echoes in this psalm of Isaiah, particularly Isaiah 40 through 66, and even in Jeremiah, where both prophets speak not only of the coming exile of Israel, but then of God’s promised return. Even the time of the return Jeremiah gives us, and he alludes to that here in this psalm when he said, “It’s time now to favor Israel and to bring her back.”

Overview Of The Psalm

By way of overview of the psalm, broadly speaking, you have the lament and his prayer in verses 1 to 11, and then in verses 12 through 28, we have his trusting praise, and here he foresees God’s response to his prayer. We have the usual components of a lament psalm that we’ve come to expect now when we come to laments.

Verses 1 and 2, we have the direct address to God with his introductory petition: “Hear my prayer, O Lord. Let my cry come to you.” That’s the mark of a lament psalm. Then verses 3 through 11, we have the lament itself. And you’ll notice here that the lament in verses 3 through 11 is framed by the expression “my days.” Verse 3: “My days pass away like smoke, my bones burn like a furnace.” And then verse 11: “My days are like an evening shadow, I wither away like grass.”

So we have in verses 1 and 2, the direct address to God with his introductory petition. Verses 3 to 11, we have the lament. And then as typically in lament psalms, we have an expression of confident trust with praise in verses 12 through 22: “But you, O Lord, are enthroned forever.” And then verses 23 to 24, what is always the heart of a lament psalm is the petition: “Take me not away in the midst of my days.” Don’t let me die. And then finally, verses 25 to 28, we have the closing expression of trust and his confident praise again: “The children of your servants shall dwell secure. Their offspring shall be established before you.”

The Lament And Petition

All right, with that broad overview then in mind, let’s work our way through quickly, and then I want to go to the New Testament to see how that informs our understanding of the psalm in a very important way.

Again, the superscript: “This is a prayer of an afflicted man when he is faint and pours out his complaint before the Lord.” That is to say, there’s been much prayer, probably a lot of tears. We learned that in verse 9, where he’s crying in his drinks. So he’s afflicted, he’s discouraged, and now he’s emptying his heart out before the Lord.

In verses 1 and 2, we have the introductory petitions, and you’ll notice here five urgent requests: “Hear my prayer, O Lord. Let my cry come to you. Do not hide your face from me in the days of my distress. Incline your ear to me. Answer me speedily in the day when I call.” So we have four positive requests with one negative request in the center. And we have this something of an escalating sense of urgency with it all that climaxes at the end of verse 2: “Answer me speedily.” All of it is to the same point. He’s pleading with God to intervene and to give healing and to give restoration.

Then verses 3 to 5, he describes his physical affliction. He’s in physical anguish. He gives the figure of a physical burning here: “My days pass away like smoke. My bones burn like a furnace. My heart is struck down like grass and has withered. I forget to eat my bread.” He’s so forlorn that he forgets to eat, and he becomes more weak. Verse 5: “Because of my loud groanings, my bones cling to my flesh.” He seems emaciated. He’s starving.

Verses 6 through 8, he stresses it further with a social anguish. He’s isolated and abused. Verse 6: “I’m like a desert owl in the wilderness, like an owl of the waste places. I lie awake. I’m like a lonely sparrow on the housetop.” This is the imagery of solitary birds. Owls are generally loners, and that’s the imagery here. He’s off in exile in Babylon. He’s socially isolated. And then it gets worse. Verse 8: “All the day my enemies taunt me. Those who deride me use my name for a curse.” It’s not difficult at all to envision the situation that he’s in in Babylon. There are other Psalms that reflect the same—where they’re not only carried off into exile in a home that is not theirs, they’re surrounded by people who look down on them because of their status and make fun of them. There’s some kind of abuse going on as well, and now he’s at his wit’s end. He seems to be dying.

Verses 9 through 11, then he describes his emotional and spiritual struggles. Verse 9: “I eat ashes like bread and mingle tears with my drink.” Clearly this is poetic imagery, but it’s like he’s chewing on his sorrows. That’s what he eats. And when he drinks, his tears drip into the cup and he drinks his own tears. We have an expression, “he’s crying in his own beer.” And we usually say that with regard to someone who’s feeling sorry for himself. But here this man is in his—it is more literally—crying in his drinks. So forlorn, so beaten down, so sobbing with tears. He goes to take a drink, his tears become part of it. And this, verse 10, “because of your indignation and anger. Because of your indignation and anger. For you have taken me up and thrown me down.”

Now, a word of explanation here: you might have heard that Psalm 102 is one of seven of what are called the penitential psalms. That is, psalms that express repentance, the penitence of the psalmist. That is almost certainly a mistake to call this one of the penitential psalms. He is not here making any confession of sin. There’s no expression of repentance. Most importantly, there’s no petition for forgiveness at all. Israel itself is in exile because of her unfaithfulness, and so in that sense, God has brought all of this on them. But there’s no indication here at all that the psalmist himself is suffering because of his sin. But his suffering is severe. He’s crushed physically, he’s crushed emotionally, he’s crushed spiritually.

The Turn To Confidence

Now when we get to verse 12, we have the turn. And here he expresses his continued confidence in the Lord. Verse 12: “But you, O Lord, are enthroned forever. You are remembered throughout all generations.” This little expression at the beginning of the verse, “but you,” that often marks the Lament Psalms. He started with his lament, he expresses the complaint and what is wrong, but then he shifts his attention from himself to God. And this “but you” often marks that shift or that turn in the psalm. And here he turns his attention away from himself to God, and specifically what he calls to mind here, verse 12: “But you, O Lord, are enthroned forever.”

Now that’s a common theme in the Psalter. It’s a common theme particularly in this area of the Psalter. Psalms 93 and following, we saw these are the “Lord reigns” Psalms. And it caps off with the doxology of Psalm 100, where the psalmist calls the whole earth to come and worship the Lord. We saw this particularly in Psalm 92, where the psalmist says, “You, O Lord, are on high forever.” A very similar expression. The idea is that the Lord reigns, He reigns over the whole earth, and now in the midst of my suffering, when I feel like I’m about to collapse, I’m going to shift my attention to the God who is on high forever. He’s pointing us to the divine transcendence. What distresses us does not distress God. He’s above it all. Our circumstances change. God’s circumstances never change. He is still God above it all.

And so he is assured in verse 13: “You will arise and have pity on Zion. It is time to favor her. The appointed time has come.” So here he’s shifted his attention away from his suffering, Israel’s suffering. He sees that above it all, we have God who reigns transcendent above all things, unaffected by any of it. And now he says, with that in mind, verse 13: “It’s time. It’s time for you to act.” And here he reflects some acquaintance with the prophets, as I mentioned earlier, Isaiah and Jeremiah. Jeremiah in particular mentioned some timing that you might remember Daniel calculated and figured out it’s time to come back from exile from Babylon. And he has some familiarity with that. And now he’s simply saying, “Lord, you’re exalted above the nations. You’re exalted above these powers that hold us in Babylon. It’s time now. Do what you said you would do and bring us home.” What has happened to Jerusalem, what’s happened to Israel, is not beyond your control at all. You are enthroned forever. And so bring us home.

Verse 15, when God does again show pity to Zion, he says there will be international repercussions: “Nations will fear the name of the Lord, and all the kings of the earth will fear your glory.” That is, because the Lord is enthroned forever, his purposes will be fulfilled. He will do what he has said. He will have a people from every nation under heaven worshiping him. That’s a marvelous prospect that we have here already in the Psalms. The nations of the earth, which presently and up to this point have been in a rage and rebellion against God—remember, that’s Psalm 2—and now he says, these nations who are presently in rebellion will in the end, verse 15, they will come and worship before God because God is enthroned for them. They will fear the name of the Lord. And the deliverance that God brings then will have global implications. We’ll see more of that in a minute. But he concludes then this section with verse 17, with strong confidence: “He,” that is God, “regards the prayer of the destitute, does not despise their prayer.”

Confidence Turned Into Praise

Verses 18 to 22 then, the psalmist turns his confidence into praise. His confidence here is so strong, he’s so certain—he’s certain now that in generations to come, we will have God’s people singing praise for God’s deliverance. Verse 18: “Let this be recorded for a generation to come, that a people yet to be created may praise the Lord. That he looked down from his holy height from heaven, he looked down at earth to hear the groans of the prisoners, to set free those who were doomed to die, that they may declare in Zion the name of the Lord and in Jerusalem his praise, when peoples gather together in kingdoms to worship the Lord.”

Now follow the thought here: verse 18, a generation yet to come will praise the Lord because, verse 19, he, the transcendent God who reigns, who’s enthroned forever, he looked down in pity. Verse 20, to hear the groans of the prisoners, that is the exiles, to set free those who were doomed to die—he’ll return them home from Babylon. And verse 21, with this purpose, he returns them home with this purpose: “that they may declare in Zion the name of the Lord and in Jerusalem his praise.” So back home in Jerusalem, worship of God and the presence of God will be restored, as God’s prophets had said. And people yet to come will say, “God has done this for us.”

Now as so often in the Psalms—we’ve seen this many times over—so often in the Psalms and in the prophets as well, Israel’s return from exile is prospective. That is, it’s of a piece with a greater return from all the nations, not just bringing them back from Babylon, but returning them from all the nations of the earth. Verse 22: “peoples and kingdoms gather together to worship the Lord in Jerusalem and to sing of his saving acts.” So Jerusalem then will become, he says, the center of worship for the whole world. That’s what we saw in Psalm 100, where he calls all the earth to come and worship and enter the gates of Jerusalem’s temple. So here’s his confidence and his praise.

Concluding Recap and Climax

In verses 23 to 28, we have his concluding recap of all of this. Verse 23, he restates his lament: “He has broken my strength in midcourse. He has shortened my days.” Verse 24, his petition: “Oh my God, I say take me not away in the midst of my days, you whose years endure throughout all generation.” That is, you who never dies. Don’t let my life be cut short before I see Zion restored.

Now verses 25 to 28 is the climax of the psalm, and here is his trusting praise. The Lord, in essence he’s saying here, the Lord is the creator, the eternal, unchangeable God who rules over all. Verse 25: “You of old laid the foundation of the earth. The heavens are the works of your hands.” Then in verses 26 and following, he contrasts all of that with an ever-changing world. Verse 26, we have this vivid imagery of the world scene: perishes, but he remains. “They will all wear out like a garment. You will change them like a robe. They will pass away,” but he is eternally the same, and his years have no end.

This is just a marvelous picture of God that he gives us here: the eternal immutable creator. All the changes of time and creation are to God like changing a set of clothes. All of the shifts and changes of time—it’s like God putting on another wardrobe. We come and we go. We live and we die. The years come and the years go. Institutions arise, great powers arise, great movements arise, great nations arise and they all fade. The centuries come and the centuries go and the millennia come and they go. And God is unchanged. He sits above all of it, reigning over all. Our lives are consumed with our little cares, but God is unchanged over all of it. God looks down on all of this that we call time and history. He sees it all from above, not as part of it, but as above it all, the creator, unchanged, undisturbed, unaffected by it all. He is God reigning over all. This is one of those many Psalms that leads us to consider the sheer godness of God—the eternal, unchanging creator.

Well, verse 28, then we get the climax. Because God is who he is, his people are safe. “The children of your servants shall dwell secure. Their offspring shall be established before you.” They will be home in Zion again in God’s presence, and they will be singing his praise. And so this is not just theology, although it’s wonderful theology. This is not just theology, and it is not just doxology, but this is applied theology—a theology put to use to his own help. The hope of God’s people, he is saying, is grounded in the greatness of their God.

New Testament Connection: Hebrews 1

Well, there in very brief overview is the psalm. Now what I want to do now is go to the New Testament because we’re going to find from the New Testament that I’ve overlooked something very important: Hebrews chapter one.

Hebrews chapter one. Now you will remember the theme and the purpose of this letter to the Hebrews. We don’t know who the author is. We always refer to him as the writer—this writer to his Jewish congregation. These are Christians, but they are Jewish Christians. They’ve acknowledged Jesus as the Messiah, but they have come into persecution because of it, various kinds of suffering because of it, and so many of them have been tempted to go back. And so here the pastor of the congregation is writing to them to exhort them to remain faithful and trusting Christ. Don’t turn back. Don’t go back. And many times throughout this letter he warns them in what are called the warning passages of the terrible consequences of turning away from Jesus.

And to argue his point—his point throughout is the superiority of Christ. You may have heard it referred to as the theme of Hebrews is “Jesus is better.” Jesus is better than the priest. Jesus is better than the sacrifice. We see that kind of thing coming over and again through the letter of Hebrews. And what we find then in verses one to three is that he starts that theme right out of the gate. Hebrews 1, beginning with verse 1:

Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. But in these last days, he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom he also created the world. He’s the radiance of the glory of God, the exact imprint of his nature. He upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purifications for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high.

So right out of the gate, he’s pressing the superiority of Christ. There’s a sense in which the rest of the letter is just an unpacking of these three verses here. That Jesus is the radiance of the glory of God, the exact imprint of his nature, he upholds the universe by the word of his power, and so on. The superiority of Jesus Christ—it is unsurpassed.

Now, what we find then in the following verses, beginning with verse four, is that the writer will give us—and I want you to follow this argument here—he gives us a series of quotations from the Old Testament to demonstrate and support this idea of the superiority of Jesus. This is his argument; now let’s work through it. Very quickly, beginning with verse four: “he has become as much superior to the angels.” All right, there’s his theme: he’s better than the angels. “He has become as much superior to the angels as the name that he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.”

Verse five: “For to which of the angels did he ever say, ‘you are my son, today I have begotten you’?” Or again—and here he quotes, that by the way was Psalm 2, and now he quotes 2 Samuel 7—”I will be to him a father and he shall be to me a son.” Now we can’t work through all of this, but verse six then, he points back to Deuteronomy 32. Verses eight and nine, he points us to Psalm 45. In verses 10 to 12, he points us to our passage, Psalm 102. And then verse 13, he points us to Psalm 110. This is the Old Testament witness to this deity and the supremacy of Jesus Christ. These are his proof texts that he uses to anchor his argument.

Now, for our purposes, let’s look at verses 7 through 12, and here we’ll come into Psalm 102. Beginning with verse 7: “of the angels, he says,” and here he quotes Psalm 104, “he makes his angels winds, and his ministers a flame of fire.” But of the Son, he says—and here he quotes Psalm 45—”Your throne, O God, is forever and ever. The scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness. Therefore, God, your God has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions.”

Verse 10. Here he quotes Psalm 102, verses 25 to 27: “And you, Lord, laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning, and the heavens are the works of your hands. They will perish, but you will remain. They will all wear out like a garment, like a robe you will roll them up. Like a garment they will be changed, but you are the same, and your years have no end.”

Now verse eight here: the king is addressed, the messianic king is addressed as God. His throne lasts forever and forever. So that’s the Messiah, and he just makes the connection—that’s Jesus. Now verses 10 and following, he says that refers to Christ also, and it’s Psalm 102, verses 25 to 27. Verse 10, he’s the creator. Here’s Psalm 102, verse 25: “You, Lord, laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning, and the heavens are the works of your hands.” Verses 11 and 12, he says of the Messiah that he’s eternal and unchanging. “They will perish, but you will remain. They will all wear out like a garment, like a robe. You will roll them up like a garment. They will be changed, but you are the same. Your years will have no end.”

Now his purpose here in quoting Psalm 102 is simply to demonstrate the superiority of Christ. Verse 10, he affirms that the Messiah is the creator. We saw that back in verse two. Verses 11 and 12 affirm Messiah’s permanence, his eternality. And what’s interesting here is he says that God himself said so. He points back to Psalm 102 and says, “God said this of the Messiah.”

Now, he’s writing here to encourage his people to remain faithful, not turn back away from Jesus. He’s wanting to convince them of—remind them of—the superiority of Christ. And it’s significant here—and here I need you to follow along. What’s significant here is that he’s not arguing that Psalm 102 is messianic. That’s a shared assumption between him and his congregation. They already recognize that. He doesn’t need to argue that point. He’s simply pointing to Psalm 102 to demonstrate the greatness and the superiority of Christ. And so verses four and following, he’s giving his argument to convince them of Christ as a series of Old Testament verses. And that has force with his hearers only on the assumption that they recognize these as references to Messiah. Verse 10: “you, Lord, laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning.” That, he says, was Messiah. He did that.

More importantly than that—hang with me here—there is a really long and complex unpacking of these verses, and there’s a short one. You’ll be happy to know I’m giving you the short one. The verses that he cites here, notice how he introduces it. These are the words of God to the Messiah. We have God speaking. So, verse 5: “For to which of the angels did he,” God, “ever say?” Verse 6: “And again, when he,” God, “brings the firstborn into the world, he says.” Verse seven: “of the angels, he,” God, “says.” Verse eight: “but of the Son, he,” God, “says, ‘Your throne is forever and ever.'” And, verse 10: “you, Lord, laid the foundations of the earth in the beginning.” So God the Father said this to the Son. He looks back at Psalm 102, verses 25 and following, and he says these are the words of God to the Messiah: “You, Lord, laid the foundations of the earth in the beginning.”

Now, the question is, how does he know that? How does he know that the words of Psalm 102 verses 25 and following are the words of God to the Messiah, not the words of the psalmist to God? Again, there’s a long explanation for this. I’m gonna give you the short one, but you do have to hang with me on this to see it, because it’s critical to understanding the rest of the psalm.

The short answer is, the writer here is reading the Septuagint. Septuagint is the Greek translation of the Old Testament, about 250 years before Jesus. Down in Alexandria, Egypt, there’s this great center of Jewish community there. And there were—this is known as the 70, who translated the Septuagint. That’s why you have the “sept” in Septuagint. Actually, it was 72 translators. There were six from each of the 12 tribes, and they worked together to put together this Greek translation of the Old Testament. Now that is important to us because what it shows for us in the Septuagint is the pre-Christian, ancient Jewish understanding of the Hebrew Old Testament.

Now the Hebrew Old Testament—this is gonna be a little different for us to understand, we don’t read like this, but the Hebrew originals were written in consonants only. No vowels. So not only are you reading from right to left in Hebrew, not left to right like we do in English, but then later, much later into the Christian era, early Middle Ages, the Masoretes—all kinds of vocabulary today—Jewish scholars came together to add vowel points to those consonants. And they don’t write inside the words like our vowels do; they write below it. If you ever see a Hebrew text, you’ll see a dot, or you’ll see two dots, or three dots, or a little line, or a little line and two dots next to it, or something like that. These are all vowel points that the Masoretes put in.

And why do I get into all of it? Almost never is there any question as to, did they get it right? But once in a while, when you put the vowel points in, you’re making a decision. Because that word, those consonants, could be another word altogether. And so they have to make a decision, and which is it? Now the Septuagint reading in verses 23 and following, what we have in the Septuagint is God addressing the psalmist. In fact, the word “answer” is there with a different vowel pointing. It said God now in verses—back in verses—let’s look at Psalm 102 so you can see this. Psalm 102, verses 23 and following, we now, according to their reading of the Hebrew, this is God addressing the psalmist. So Psalm 102, verse 23 would read, according to their reading of the Hebrew, “He answered him in the way of his strength.” So now this is introducing God’s speaking to the psalmist. Verse 25: “in the beginning you, Lord, laid the foundations of the earth.” The word “Lord” is not there in the Hebrew, but the Septuagint translators put it there to clarify the meaning that this is a word of God to the Messiah.

So, this is what we call an oracular psalm. This is an oracle; this is God speaking. God himself speaking and he’s speaking to the Messiah. We saw something like that in Psalm 45: “Your throne, oh God, is forever and ever.” The clearest example of an oracular psalm is Psalm 110, where “the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until you make your enemies your footstool.” Now according to the inspired writer in Hebrews, Hebrews chapter one, the translators of the Hebrew and the Septuagint got it right. And that’s the shared assumption he has with his audience. They recognize Psalm 102 verses 25 and following as messianic—God speaking to the Messiah. He doesn’t need to argue that point. All he does is point to that, read the verse, and he’s demonstrated the superiority of Jesus.

Now why is this important? Why do I take time to do all that kind of technical stuff? Well that tells us then, if that is the reading of these verses, that tells us that the entire Psalm is Messianic. So verses 1 to 22, this is Messiah’s lament and petition. “Hear my prayer.” Psalm 102 verse 1: “Hear my prayer.” This is Messiah. “Hear my prayer, O Lord.” You remember in Hebrews chapter 5, he tells us that in the days of his flesh, the Lord Jesus offered prayers and supplications with cries and prayers and tears. Here’s one. Verse 1: “Hear my prayer, O Lord. Let my cry come to you. Do not hide your face from me in the day of my distress. Incline your ear to me. Answer me speedily in the day when I call. For my days are passed away like smoke. My bones burn like a furnace.” Verse six: “I am like a desert owl in the wilderness, like an owl of waste places.” Verse eight: “All the days my enemies taunt me. Those who deride me use my name for a curse.”

This is Messiah speaking. And then in verses 23 and following, God responds. And he says, “you’re the Lord, you’re the creator, you’re the eternal one.” Verse 25: “of old you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you will remain. They will all wear out like a garment. You will change them like a robe. They will pass away, but you are the same, and your years have no end.”

Many people, many commentators, have suggested that Psalm 102 records for us or represents the dialogue that would take place between Jesus and the Father in Gethsemane. Verses one to 24, we have the Son, the messianic king—he’s praying, he’s lamenting, “don’t let my life get cut short. Let me see your people returned from exile. Let me see worship restored.” Verses 23 and following, the Father responds with encouragement: “You’re the eternal, unchanging creator. They will pass away, but you are the same. Your years have no end.”

This is just key to understanding the whole psalm then. For example, Psalm 102, look at verse 19. The psalmist is confident that God would look down from his holy height, that he would look down in pity and hear the groans of the prisoners and set free those who were doomed to die. He prays this so that future generations will praise him. The writer of Hebrews now picks that up and he says he has done just that. The Lord God has looked down from heaven in pity from his holy heights and he’s heard the groans of the sinners. And he took steps, verse 20, he took steps to set free those who were doomed to die, that they may declare in Zion the name of the Lord.

The writer of Hebrews says, indeed, he has done that. He has sent his Son to do that. He has entered into humanity itself. He has taken on the same blood and flesh. That’s the argument of Hebrews chapter two. He has entered into our suffering in order to suffer in our place and render propitiation to God. That in turn explains the international repercussions of this deliverance that he brings. As a result of this deliverance, verse 15, “nations will fear the name of the Lord, and all the kings of the earth will fear your glory.” Verse 22, peoples and kingdoms the world over will gather to worship the Lord.

So the psalmist now has read the prophets carefully and closely. And he has seen in them that God has promised to bring his people home. And he has seen in that promise a bigger promise—that there’ll be a bigger return from a greater exile. Just as he brought his people back from Babylon to Israel, so also God will bring his people from the nations in a greater deliverance. And the psalmist has read the prophets and he’s seen all of that. And he says, “that’s the work of Messiah.”

In fact, the editors of the Psalter see the same thing. The book four of the Psalter here is oriented to Israel in exile. There’s no king in Israel. The Davidic dynasty has collapsed. There’s no temple in Jerusalem. And yet their hope is very much alive that God will send his Messiah to do this. And now the book of Hebrews, the writer of the book of Hebrews, just follows in step—only now, from the standpoint of fulfillment. It says, Jesus has come and he has brought the deliverance that the psalmist has prayed for.

Psalm 102 then is a lament that’s bursting with faith. It’s a lament that’s bursting with an eager anticipation of a deliverance that God will bring. The kingdom of God will be established in all of its global glory. God the Son, Hebrews tells us, has become the Son of David. He has become the deliverer of God’s people. And peoples as a result, peoples of all the nations of the world will be gathered safely to sing the praises of God.

The purpose of the writer of this letter to the Hebrews is very simple then. If you turn back from Jesus, you’ve missed everything. Hebrews 1 verses 11 and 12, citing Psalm 102: all else will perish, but he, Jesus, will remain. They will wear out like a garment. He will change them like a robe. They will pass away, but he is the same, and his years have no end. Trusting fast to the Lord Jesus Christ, the eternal, unchanging creator, we have the sure hope of the kingdom of God in all of its fullness and glory. And again we see then that the Psalter presses this theme of the kingdom of God. It drives our attention in doing that. It drives our attention to the Lord Jesus Christ who will bring it all to its grand culmination. And it drives us to say, in Jesus we have this hope and nowhere else. Amen.