A message on responding to God's hand in our suffering
“12 But You, O Lord, sit enthroned forever; Your renown endures through all generations.
13 You will arise and have compassion on Zion, for it is time to show favor to her; the appointed time has come.
14 For her stones are dear to Your servants; her very dust moves them to pity.
15 The nations will fear the name of the Lord, all the kings of the earth will revere Your glory.
16 For the Lord will rebuild Zion and appear in His glory.
17 He will respond to the prayer of the destitute; He will not despise their plea.
18 Let this be written for a future generation, that a people not yet created may praise the Lord: 19 “The Lord looked down from His sanctuary on high, from heaven He viewed the earth,
20 to hear the groans of the prisoners and release those condemned to death.”
21 So the name of the Lord will be declared in Zion and His praise in Jerusalem
22 when the peoples and the kingdoms assemble to worship the Lord.
”
Evelyn Waugh ate his children’s bananas. The British government celebrated victory in World War Two by getting a banana for every child in the kingdom. Bananas were a rare delicacy in those days—you peel them, slice them, put a little cream and sugar on top. Waugh, a famous author, had three children and so he received three bananas—one for each child. He was such a mean-spirited man that he took those three bananas home and ate them in front of these kids whom he considered to be an intolerable drain on his resources—“before the anguished eyes of his children,” as one of his kids later wrote.
Let’s say you were one of his kids and you broke a dinner plate. Would you expect much compassion from dear old dad? Let’s say that you crashed the car. Would you expect compassion? Of course not. His numerous enemies, his few friends, and his children knew his character well enough to know that no compassion would bleed out of that stone.
Do you know the Lord well enough to know whether to expect compassion from Him? Do you have a good read on the Lord? Waugh’s children had a good read on their dad. Do you have a good read on the Lord? Do you have reasons to expect whatever it is you expect from Him? The author of Psalm 102 expected compassion even though he and the people had sinned. He had good reasons for expecting compassion. He expected it because the Lord promised it. We’ll see how unlike Evelyn Waugh He is. The Lord promises compassion. Count on Him delivering. That’s the claim of this sermon: the Lord promises compassion. Count on Him delivering.
We will study this in two points. First: pleading the promises. Second: future hope. First, in verses 12-17, pleading the promises. Second, in verses 18-22, future hope.
The Lord has promised compassion. This suffering man threw himself on it. That’s our first point: pleading the promises. Last week we studied this man’s troubles. They were numerous. They were so bad that he couldn’t sleep. He had lost all interest in living. Now we see the immediate cause of his suffering. Exact situations matter. Cancer treatments, financial difficulties, or a family quarrel could leave you feeling like your life was going up in smoke—“my days vanish like smoke”—but any of us would say that which situation you are in matters. It matters why you’re lying awake at night—“I am like a desert owl, like an owl among the ruins.” Is it a wayward child, a stubborn in-law who is going to host Thanksgiving, an upcoming and unwelcomed merger at work? It matters.
The circumstance behind this man’s suffering mattered. This man was a conquered Jew living in Babylon. “All day long my enemies taunt me,” from verse 8 is about the Babylonians, and they did taunt the Jews. You see an example in Psalm 137, ‘By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion. There on the [trees] we hung our harps, because our captors asked us for songs, our tormentors demanded songs of joy; they said, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion.”’ ‘Hey Jew, sing us the one of your God-songs. “I will sing unto the Lord for He has triumphed gloriously, the horse and rider thrown into the sea.” Sing us that song about king Davey? Dave? David? What was his name? Yep, you’ve got great kings and a great God and that’s why you’re here paving our roads and doing our yardwork.’
This man was suffering because of such taunts. He was suffering because he was torn from his home. You can read verse 4 that way, “My heart is blighted and withered like grass.” This man’s heart was like cut flowers with no vase. He’d been plucked from his water and soil and was withering away far from everything he knew.
This man took his pain to the Lord; verse 12, “You, O Lord, sit enthroned forever; Your renown endures through all generations.” This is the shift in focus that makes all the difference. The real, reality of pain no longer sets the agenda; the real, reality of the Lord is now calling the shots. That’s the mental shift we need to make in suffering. You need to bring the Lord back into your life equations.
This man brought the Lord back into his life equation. “You, O Lord, sit enthroned forever; Your renown endures through all generations.” This man thought about what’s called transcendence of God. That’s, “You, O Lord, sit enthroned forever.” The Lord is beyond all these troubles. Now the question is, “why would remembering that help this man?” Many people think it just makes it worse. Bette Midler did. That’s her famous song From a Distance. That song says, “yeah, God is beyond us; that’s why He doesn’t care.” “From a distance, we all have enough, and no one is in need, and there are no guns, no bombs, and no disease, no hungry mouths to feed, and God is watching us—yes, He’s watching us, God is watching us from a distance.” Midler would read, “You, O Lord, sit enthroned forever,” and say, “yep, and His throne is so high up there that He can’t see what’s going on in my life.”
So, why does God’s transcendence help this man? Why would it help to remember that the Lord is enthroned forever when you feel like your life is an evening shadow about to disappear? Why would it help to know that the Lord is enthroned forever when you feel like every single day of your life is pointless? It helps because this God who is beyond has connected Himself to little, puny you. This transcendent God takes a personal, loving interest in you and your seemingly intractable problems. He’s beyond you and so He can help you.
The Lord has promised that He will help. You see this man depend on this promise in verse 13, “You will arise and have compassion on Zion, for it is time to show favor to her; the appointed time has come.” This man was thinking about the prophecies of Jeremiah and Isaiah. Jeremiah said the exile would only last seventy years. Isaiah said that the far future was much, much brighter than it seemed.
This man took these promises seriously and expected God to do the same. Do you do that? Do you take Psalm 23:6 seriously, “Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life,” and expect God to do the same? Do you take Psalm 27:10 seriously, “Though my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me,” and expect God to do the same? Do you think those are inspirational sayings that might do it for you if you need to get in a certain mood or do you think of these as promises God must keep? This book is God’s way binding Himself to His people just like you writing a check is your way of binding yourself to the person to whom you write it.
This man knew that the Lord was tied to His people; you see that in verse 14, “For her stones are dear to Your servants; her very dust moves them to pity.” The idea here is that if the Jews got choked up about their ripped down temple, which they did, how much more was God choked up about His ripped down people?
Imagine a tornado makes its way through Inwood. People who grew up here but moved away would care deeply about whether the grain elevator was still standing. They would want to know if Lil’ Chubs is still upright. They’ve got memories of this town and they care about it. The idea here is to take your concern for your hometown and recognize that God cares even more about the people of that town. You see this in Jesus. The disciples were amazed by the temple. They were irritated and angry when Jesus said that the Romans were going to tear it and all of Jerusalem down. Jesus meanwhile was bawling his eyes out about the people of Jerusalem who wouldn’t come to him for salvation and so would die. He doesn’t care less than you at your most sentimental. He cares much, much more.
The breakdown of Jerusalem aroused the people’s affection and God’s affection, not their disdain. That’s how it ought to go but it usually goes the other way. Usually, breakdown brings disdain. Some people say that Sioux City has gone downhill. Flint, Michigan certainly has. The tendency is to disdain such places. The question is, “why would you live there?” Leaving a sinking ship is more common than loving a sinking ship. This man was different. God is different. They loved Jerusalem because it was brokedown and because it was theirs. “For her stones are dear to Your servants; her very dust moves them to pity.” That’s how it must go for anything to change. Chesterton was right, “Men did not love Rome because she was great. She was great because they had loved her.”
Is your love for Christ’s church such that you feel what Calvin felt when he said, “The sadder the desolations to which the church has been brought, the [more affection ought to be given] her”? Do you think of the church the way you might think about Sioux City or the way you think about your mother in a wheelchair—that you would give whatever you could to make her well?
This man loved broken down Jerusalem like his grandmother in a wheelchair. At times, however, he feared that all hope was gone. Many in exile feared that they had botched it so badly that God had given up on them. They were, after all, in exile due to generation upon generation of unrepentant sin. We parents get nervous about how our sin affects our children. That’s understandable. These people were coming to terms with how to explain to their children that they were slaves because daddy and mommy didn’t want to obey God. Many of them feared that they now truly were hopeless. This man countered such fears by remembering God’s promises; that’s verses 15-16, “The nations will fear the name of the Lord, all the kings of the earth will revere Your glory. For the Lord will rebuild Zion and appear in His glory.”
Others were giving up on the Lord, but this man was still all in because of the promises. He turned to the promises. Did you ever wonder what would happen to Christianity among Americans if we became a province of China? Would there be a widespread falling away—“how could a good God allow this?” Would there be revival amid the suffering? I have no idea. I say it to help you put yourself in this man’s shoes. His life was shattered but He didn’t think that God’s plan was shattered. He believed the Lord was still for His people and he had the promises to prove it. Do you depend on that? It’s all you have in the end.
This suffering man believed that the Lord was for His people. That’s what motivated this prayer. He expected this prayer to have consequences; verse 17, “[the Lord] will respond to the prayer of the destitute; He will not despise their plea.” I’ve heard all sorts of explanations of exactly how prayer works. Almost all of them have raised more questions than they’ve answered. It seems the best way to show that you understand prayer is the same way you show that you understand riding a bike—you do it; you don’t explain it. When you’re suffering, pull out Psalm 102 and pray. That’s how you can be sure you’ve got something from our time in it.
That’s our first point. It’s by far the longest because, to my mind, it’s what this middle section of this Psalm is about. What’s left for today is something of an addition. The man is imagining what it will be like when God answers his prayer. That’s our second point: future hope.
This man is sure that he’s suffering, and he’s right. “For my days vanish like smoke; my bones burn like glowing embers.” This man is also sure that the Lord will make it better, and he’s right. “The Lord will rebuild Zion and appear in His glory.” This man is so sure of this that he talks about the after party. It’s like two baseball teams talking before a game. “When we win, you guys need to buy us supper afterwards.” “No, when we win, you write an apology saying that you’re sorry you even tried to beat us.” This imagination of the future is this suffering man’s way of saying, “the trouble is good as over. Let’s plan the afterparty.”
That’s, verse 18 “Let this be written for a future generation, that a people not yet created may praise the Lord…”
This suffering man is saying that in the middle of verse 8, “All day long my enemies taunt me; those who rail against me use my name as a curse.” That trouble isn’t over. This man is just choosing to put his focus elsewhere. We’ve got to learn to do that. “In this world you will have trouble,” said Jesus, “but take heart—I’ve overcome the world.” Which part of that dominates your focus? You can change your focus.
The aftermath of this Psalm gives you reason to change your focus. This man’s future is now our past. This suffering man looked forward in verses 19 and 20 to the Lord bringing the Jews back to Jerusalem, “The Lord looked down from His sanctuary on high, from heaven He viewed the earth, to hear the groans of the prisoners and release those condemned to death.” That happened when the Persians conquered the Babylonians and in a stunning reversal of geopolitical strategy sent all the people groups Babylon had conquered back home. This suffering man looked forward in verses 21 and 22 to people groups who cared nothing about the Jews coming to worship the God of the Jews, “So the name of the Lord will be declared in Zion and His praise in Jerusalem when the peoples and the kingdoms assemble to worship the Lord.” That began with the early church. It’s going on right now with us gathered half a world away from Jerusalem to worship the God of the Jews. Do you think something like that just happens? It’s a work of God. If you don’t think that God keeps His promises, please recognize that you’re only worshipping the God of the Jews because God keeps His promises.
If that doesn’t seem remarkable to you, please recognize that it would seem remarkable to this man. He would see this church as yet another reason to go to God when life hurts because clearly the Lord keeps His promise. He’s nothing like Evelyn Waugh eating his children’s treats in front of them. He’s something different altogether. Do you have a good read on Him? You’ll know by whether you go to Him in your pain. Amen.