Our scripture reading this afternoon comes from, first of all, from the first chapter of the Epistle of the Hebrews, chapter one. Now, very often when we have two scripture readings, one of them from the Old Testament and one of them from the New Testament, we read the Old Testament first and secondly the New Testament, but in this particular case, it's very suitable that we begin with Hebrews chapter one because there's something that's going to be said here later on in this chapter that's going to enable us to have the right perspective as we then seek to understand and read Psalm 102. So hear now the word of the living God. God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by his son, whom he has appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the worlds, who being the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high, having become so much better than angels, as he has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they. For to which of the angels did he ever say, you are my son, today I have begotten you. And again, I will be to him a father and he shall be to me a son. But when he again brings the firstborn into the world, he says, let all the angels of God worship him. And of the angels, he says, who makes his angels spirits and his ministers a flame of fire. But to the son, he says, your throne, O God, is forever and ever. A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness. Therefore, God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness more than your companions. And you, Lord, in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you remain. and they will all grow old like a garment, like a cloak. You will fold them up and they will be changed, but you are the same and your years will not fail. But to which of the angels has he ever said, sit at my right hand till I make your enemies your footstool? Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to minister for those who will inherit salvation? Amen. Let's turn Back now in our Bibles to Psalm 102. Psalm 102, give heed once again to the word of God. A prayer of the afflicted when he is overwhelmed 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 trouble. Incline your ear to me. In the day that I call, answer me speedily. For my days are consumed like smoke and my bones are burned like a hearth. My heart is stricken and withered like grass so that I forget to eat my bread. Because of the sound of my groaning, my bones cling to my skin. I am like a pelican of the wilderness. I am like an owl of the desert. I lie awake and am like a sparrow alone on the housetop. My enemies reproach me all day long. Those who deride me swear an oath against me, for I have eaten ashes like bread and mingled my drink with weeping. because of your indignation and your wrath, for you have lifted me up and cast me away. My days are like a shadow that lengthens, and I wither away like grass. But you, O Lord, shall endure forever, and the remembrance of your name to all generations. You will arise and have mercy on Zion for the time to favor her. Yes, the set time has come. For your servants take pleasure in her stones and show favor to her dust. So the nations shall fear the name of the Lord and all the kings of the earth your glory. For the Lord shall build up Zion. He shall appear in his glory. He shall regard the prayer of the destitute and shall not despise their prayer. This will be written for the generation to come that a people yet to be created may praise the Lord, For he looked down from the height of his sanctuary. From heaven the Lord viewed the earth to hear the groaning of the prisoner, to release those appointed to death, to declare the name of the Lord in Zion and his praise in Jerusalem. When the peoples are gathered together and the kingdoms to serve the Lord, he weakened my strength in the way. He shortened my days. I said, oh my God, do not take me away in the midst of my days. Your years are throughout all generations. Of old you laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you will endure. Yes, they will all grow old like a garment, like a cloak. You will change them, and they will be changed. But you are the same, and your years will have no end. The children of your servants will continue, and their descendants will be established before you." May the Lord bless His Word to us this afternoon. Amen. Psalm 102 is, as it is titled in the Scripture itself, it is a prayer of the afflicted when he is overwhelmed and pours out his complaint before the Lord. This title is very important because it tells us several important things, just by way of introduction here, about the Christian life. It tells us that those who worship God, it's presumed that this is a worship song, the worshipers of God will be singing this song. And it shows us that the worshipers of God endure oftentimes affliction. that to be a worshiper of God does not exempt us from hard times. It doesn't exempt us from struggles and trials and it doesn't mean that, oh, I became a Christian, therefore I'm gonna get promoted at work and have a lucrative career and successful, comfortable lifestyle. No, the worshipers of God here are assumed, at least this worshiper who's writing the song for the rest of us worshipers, it's assumed that there's the experience of affliction for all of us. It also indicates that this is a song for God's people to sing when they become overwhelmed with affliction and adversity. So while God doesn't give us more than we can handle, He often gives us just about to the maximum of what we can handle. That sometimes happens where we feel overwhelmed. We're just basically at full capacity of what we can handle according to the grace that He's given us. And the psalmist here is feeling overwhelmed. This title also shows us that when we're overwhelmed by these things in our lives that challenge us, that what we're commanded to do here, by way of the psalmist's example, is to pour out our complaint before the Lord. Now that doesn't mean that we're complaining against the Lord. that we're complaining of Him, as though He's done something wrong, that we got a raw deal, God was unfair with us, or something like that. We're not complaining against God, or about God, or of God, but we complain before God. We bring our struggles into His presence in prayer, and we tell Him the situation, and we're honest about it, to the extent we can be more honest with Him than with anyone else. And so as we experience affliction, as we feel overwhelmed, we're called here to sing this psalm and to live it out by pouring out our complaint and telling our situation to the Lord. Now, as you sing this psalm, as you read through it, you can't help but think about the Lord Jesus Christ. especially in a congregation like this one where for so many years we've had psalm meditations and elders faithfully instructing us, instructing the flock in how to interpret the psalms and the importance of seeing Christ in the psalms. It's almost impossible to look at this psalm and not see Christ. However, the question comes exactly where is Christ in this psalm? Because at first glance, We might say that the most prominent Christological feature in this psalm, we might not all say it that way, we might just say the most obvious place where you see Jesus in this psalm, is in the affliction of the psalmist. that the struggles he faces, the suffering, that this seems like such an apt description of Jesus' life on this earth as a man of sorrows. And so here it is, Psalm 102, the first half of it is all about Jesus' suffering, and Jesus would have sung this in the synagogue, and so on and so forth. And there's nothing wrong with that. That's valid. This is a fitting psalm to sing in connection with a communion season as we're meditating on the sufferings of Christ. According to apostolic teaching as recorded in the New Testament, the most primary reference to Christ in this psalm comes in the second half of the psalm. The apostles are telling us here that it's not so much a prayer of Christ, though certainly he would have taken it upon his lips, but it's not so much a prayer of Christ as a prayer to Christ. Now, that seems shocking to us. The psalmist, in his affliction, is praying to the Messiah. He's praying to the Son of God. He's praying to Christ. Perhaps it expands the horizons, the boundaries of our sense of what the Old Testament saints knew and didn't know. Of course, the psalmist here is writing under inspiration, so maybe we're allowed to push those boundaries a little bit further than we ordinarily would. But he's praying to Christ, and we saw that from Hebrews chapter 1, where the author of this epistle quotes from the end of Psalm 102, quotes from the very end of the Psalm, and says that this is speaking of the second person of the Trinity, of the Son of God, of the Messiah. He says in Hebrews 1, 10 and following, well, in verse 8 he says, but to the son he says, then he quotes another passage. Then he says, and in verse 10, and you, Lord, in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you remain, and they will grow old like a garment, so on and so forth, speaking of the unchangeable nature of God. But he says that the psalmist is speaking here of Christ. As I said, it's fitting that we read Hebrews 1 before we read Psalm 102, because the author to the Hebrews here gives us some insights that might not immediately come to our minds when we read Psalm 102. But the psalmist here is praying to God, but second person of the Trinity is highlighted by the apostle as the object of this prayer. It's a prayer to the Messiah who is to come. From much of what we're going to see in this psalm, we'll see that that's very fitting. That it's very fitting because the great hope of the psalmist is wrapped up in Messiah and his kingdom and the reviving power of his spirit at work upon the earth, expanding that kingdom. And so it's quite fitting that he prays this prayer to Christ, that Christ is the Lord who is eternal and faithful and so on. in that text. Now, if we were to outline this psalm, there would be three main divisions. The first 11 verses, quite obviously, speak of affliction. The first 11 verses speak of affliction, and there's a personal emphasis here as you just peruse those verses or look over them briefly. Hear my prayer, O Lord. Let my cry come to you. Do not hide your face from me. It's always me, my, I, He's making personal references. He just goes on and on for 11 verses, speaking about his own situation. Here's an analogy. I'm like a pelican in the wilderness. In other words, I'm out of place. I'm like an owl in the desert. I'm lonely like a sparrow on a housetop. So he's using all these illustrations to express what's going on in his own heart and mind, in his own experience, and you might look at that and say, well, he's being selfish. His prayer, it just goes on and on about himself. Sometimes you hear criticisms of contemporary worship choruses and people say, well, there's too much about me and I and that sort of thing. And perhaps there is in a lot of contemporary worship choruses. However, it's not intrinsically wrong to pray or to worship with a sense of my own situation. God wants us to come and bring our complaint before him when we are overwhelmed with our affliction. He's not, God is not in any way going to disparage us for focusing in a certain measure upon ourselves when we come into his presence. Now with the Lord's Prayer we know that God comes first in priority and we come second, but in chronology, in the order of the way it's done here, the psalmist begins with his own thoughts, his own concerns that he brings before the Lord, and there's nothing wrong with that. But what's significant about the statement of his affliction here, what's easy to miss is that his personal anguish is not primarily resulting from something that was done to him individually, but his personal anguish is a reaction to trials that have come upon the church. He's feeling all of this personal heartache because of what he's seeing going on in the church. As the church is being attacked, and he's writing very likely around the time just after the Babylonian captivity where the temple was destroyed, Jerusalem's walls were broken down, the people were taken into exile, and because of this corporate calamity, he's Individualizing it. It shows his great love for the church. It's not them out there, but he's part of it, and he feels the affliction of God's people. And so it's not selfish at the end of the day. It's actually quite a charitable response on his part. Now, secondly, the next section, after the first 11 verses on affliction, secondly, there is verses 12 through 22, which express the psalmist's hope. See, it doesn't end there. It's not just like Psalm 88. We often think of that psalm as a psalm where there's some implicit hope, but not a whole lot to cling to in Psalm 88. But in Psalm 102, the affliction is followed up with hope. And for this particular psalmist, the hope involves a series of events. that begin in his own day with the return of God's people from captivity in Babylon back to the land of Judah. And then, as is so often done in the Old Testament, especially the prophets, other events are just lumped together with that return from exile. such as the coming of the Messiah and the growth and expansion of Messiah's kingdom and the reviving power that that has in the world. You often see this as you're reading through, especially the major prophets, especially in Isaiah and Ezekiel, where the return from captivity back to Judah, the days of Ezra and Nehemiah, predictions of that are lumped together with predictions of the coming of Christ and the expansion of his kingdom. And so it is here, as we'll see, in verses 12 through 22. You see much of these things there. Now, thirdly, after speaking of his hope, thirdly, there is a submission on the part of the psalmist. He's encouraged by this anticipation of revival and blessing and of God's faithfulness to restore his people, both at that time and moving forward. But then he comes to the fact in verse 23 through the end Where he recognizes, verse 23, his own weakness. That God weakened his strength in the way. He shortened my days. In other words, the psalmist recognizes that he's not going to live to see the fullness of what is being prophesied here. He might see it from afar. He might even taste just a drop of it. But the brevity of his life is going to cut him short. He's not going to see. So many of these things are going to be beyond his lifetime. And he's struggling with that. Verse 24, I said, oh my God, and just a moment, just taking a moment here, taking a step back, he says, oh my God, what a shame it is that many of us read those words, oh my God, and our first thought is something we've heard dozens of times in movies that we watch, or on the television, or in school, or wherever it is, and we think of people taking the Lord's name in vain. What a horrible thing. This is a wonderful phrase that should not be stolen away, should not be corrupted. This is a wonderful statement of praise where God's people say, oh my God, they cling to God as their Savior, as their Lord. What a victory for the devil when anyone, especially the people of God, would ever use that phrase in any other way. But he says, oh my God. Do not take me away in the midst of my days. But then he submits, doesn't he? He recognizes his own brevity. He submits to the will of God to take him in his own time. And he says, your years are throughout all generations. Here again, Hebrews says he's thinking of Christ. He's thinking of the eternality of Christ's kingdom, that though the psalmist will perish, yet Jesus Christ, as Hebrews says very clearly, is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Your years are throughout all generations, and of old you laid the foundations of the earth, as John chapter one makes explicit. The Father created through Jesus the Son. And he says that the heavens and the earth will perish, but this messianic king, the Lord Jesus Christ, will remain and endure. And even at the end, it says, your years will have no end. The children of your servants will continue. Christ is bringing a spiritual seed to salvation. He's establishing a kingdom. And that kingdom will continue. And his spiritual offspring as the second Adam will be established. forever. So the psalmist submits to that. Okay, I'm not going to live to see all that. Okay, I'll submit to that. Thy will be done. So you see affliction, hope, and then submission as to the future timing of many of these things. So that's in a nutshell, that's Psalm 102. Now, a question that we need to consider as we focus in on that second section, where the psalmist has hope of restoration and hope of revival, where he says in verse 13, you will arise and have mercy on Zion for the time to favor her. Yes, the set time has come, and he goes into all the wonderful blessings God's gonna pour out upon his people. at that time. Now the question that I want us to consider is, what is the revival that God, but more specifically according to Hebrews, Christ himself as the God-man, will bring? What is the revival that Christ will bring? Now there is an already-not-yet factor here. As I said, there's the return from exile, which has to happen, the rebuilding of Jerusalem, the rebuilding of the temple, to set the stage for Messiah, who's then going to come back three or 400 years later. That needs to happen, that's the first step, and then Messiah comes, then the Great Commission, and then the kingdom expands into the future. So there's an already, there's an immediate thing with Ezra and Nehemiah, but there's also this not yet element of Messiah and his kingdom to come. So take that into account as we apply it. We're primarily going to be focusing on how it applies to us in the Kingdom of Christ today, but be aware of that phenomenon there. So the set time has come. What's the set time? The set time for what? The set time for what? What is on the horizon here? And in verses 15 through 17, we see five distinct elements of this revival that the Spirit of Christ will bring to his church. First, expansion. Verse 15, so the nations shall fear the name of the Lord. So these are the Gentile nations that worship idols, who are not really gods at all, but they're worshiping demons. These are people who are children of wrath, bond slaves to the devil, are under the wrath of God, the condemnation of God's law, and they want nothing to do with Jehovah and with the true God. And yet, these nations, these Gentile nations who are now attacking and destroying the church in the psalmist's day, are going to fear the name of the Lord. Now keep in mind, the word fear in the Old Testament, in the Hebrew especially, refers to worship. Someone's a God-fearer, they're a worshiper of God. It's all-inclusive, it doesn't just mean that they're scared of God, though there's an element of reverence and holy awe, but it means that they're going to become servants of God, worshipers of God, they're going to fear the name of the Lord. When do we see this coming into play? Is this something that happened immediately in the lifetime of the psalmist or in that time with Ezra Nehemiah? Well, perhaps to some small extent, we could try to find something that would fit that description. But chiefly, these are the things that are beyond the psalmist days, in the New Covenant period, where we see the Great Commission. Jesus calls his people to disciple the nations, all the nations. and to teach them, and to baptize them, and to bring them into His kingdom. And this is what's happening today, it's what's been happening for the last 2,000 years. The gospel goes out to disciple the nations as it's preached and taught. Romans 1125, we see in a very controversial text which we could debate all day long about all Israel being saved and probably after that debate we would have a half dozen more, but notice regardless of how we understand all Israel being saved, Notice in verse 25, Paul says, blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. So whatever we think of Israel, there's a time when the fullness of the ethnos, Gentile nations, it's not the word for Gentile individuals, to the Jew first, also to the Greek, sometimes translated Gentile, that's not in view. The word is ethnos. The same thing that we're discipling in the Great Commission, and he says quite clearly that there's a time when the fullness of the ethnos will come into the kingdom. The fullness of the nations will come in. And then, however we understand all Israel, if that's the elect or the nation of Israel revived, regardless of that, the Bible clearly predicts that the nations will be brought under subjection to King Jesus. There's this expansion by the power of Christ that is promised here. Secondly, there is dominion, verse 15. There's dominion. Not only will the gospel bear fruit among all nations, but there will be a dominion. All the kings of the earth shall fear your glory. So it's not just the nations, but as the people groups embrace Christ, and as the gospel pervades the people groups, it will not go from the top down, but it will flow up and be reflected in the leadership of those nations. This is something that is spoken of throughout the scriptures. The mandate of this is in Psalm 2. where it says, the Father says to the Son, ask of me and I will give you the nations for your inheritance, all the ends of the earth for your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron. You shall dash them to pieces like a potter's vessel. So Christ is gonna conquer these nations through the gospel and through his providential judgments. Now therefore be wise, O kings, be instructed, you judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear. Same language from Psalm 102. and rejoice with trembling, kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and you perish in the way." On and on it goes. So, this is something that kings have a duty to do, to fear the name of Christ. And in Psalm 72, verses 11 and 12, we see somewhat of a picture of this. It says, yes, all kings shall fall down before Him, all nations shall serve Him, For he will deliver the needy when he cries, the poor also, and him who has no helper. So the time period, when is this happening? It's happening while there's poor people, while there's needy people, while there's those who have no helper. So it's not in heaven, it's happening when there's still poor people. There's no poor people in heaven. So the kings are bowing down before Christ and the nations are serving him Hence, the dominion which is the result of this revival that Christ sends. Now, the third aspect of this revival, edification. Edification, this is, I think, one of the most important elements of this revival, this reviving power of Christ in our own age. Edification, verse 16, for the Lord shall build up Zion. The Lord shall build up Zion. Now, the church is often spoken of as it was in a certain sense in the Old Testament, there was a temple, there was a physical structure, so in the New Testament, the church is often spoken of as a holy temple, as a structure that's built, the Spirit of God is building the temple, Christ is laying the foundation, and there's living stones, people that are converted that are placed in this temple as it's edified. as the great house of God, a house of worship, a place where God is glorified. That's the church, and here it says, Zion being the holy hill where the temple was, this is a picture of the New Testament church being edified. And this is something that the Apostle Paul speaks to us of in Ephesians chapter four of Christ's ascension and sending his spirit to build up and edify the church. It's a result of Christ's mediatorial work. It says in verse 11, he himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers. For the equipping of the saints, for the work of ministry, there's some debate there where the comma is, but for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, That we should no longer, notice here the implication of this. When the church is built up, what's the practical value of that? Or is this just another one of those illustrations you're supposed to picture a building, but there's no real impact? No, there's a description here of what it actually means when the church is built up. That we should no longer be children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine. by the trickery of men in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting. But speaking the truth in love may grow up in all things into him who is the head, even Christ." So what's it saying? It's saying that when the church is edified, it's mature. It's on guard against clever devices and false teachings and we're no longer children. We sway in the wind of popular opinion and whatever is a popular teaching we buy into it. No, the church becomes doctrinally sound and the church becomes such that every member is able to speak that truth accurately and maturely so that the body is edified in love and it's not vulnerable to cunning craftiness and deceitful plotting. Now, the church needs to be edified. The church, if we think of it as a building, sometimes the church is built up and it's looking good and you walk past the building and you just see that So much has been done to beautify the building, but at other times the church can be dilapidated and torn down. Think of Psalm 80 about the imagery of the church being torn down and the fences are torn down and the wild animals are gnawing upon it and so forth. The church has highs and lows. And I think in our own day, if we're honest, we'll say the church perhaps is not at its highest point. The church in terms of its doctrine, its worship, its discipline, its government, really is not at a very high point. This could be easily illustrated if you were to read through the Westminster Standards, the preface to the Shorter Catechism, where it speaks of who the Shorter Catechism was designed for. It was designed for children and I think other weak persons or something like that, people that were either at a young age or not quite there, you know, ultimately, you know, intellectually, they were not the sharpest tool in the shed. And I'm not saying that to be demeaning, I'm just saying that's what they're communicating there, that this was very basic. But if you go to seminaries today, I know at RPTS we memorized the Shorter Catechism as part of our seminary, and I'm glad we did, and I hope they continue to do that. But you see how the church in our day is not at the maturity level of the church at the time of the Westminster Standards, where their children were easily memorizing that, whereas we today, we do it in seminary. And I include myself in all of that. We have a ways to go, and you take it one step at a time, one brick at a time. I'm not suggesting that everybody here should memorize the shorter and then the larger catechism. But here it's promised that the Church will be built up, that the Spirit will produce progress in the maturity and strength of the Church. Fourthly, there's illumination, verse 16. Illumination. He shall appear in His glory. In other words, He shall be seen in His glory. Who will be seen? God will be seen in his glory. The Lord Jesus Christ will be seen in his glory. We know from common, just our own experience. We were going door to door yesterday and you present the gospel to people and they don't see anything special about it. They don't see any glory. Every once in a while, you just say the word gospel and somebody's face lights up and you can tell that this person understands And it just brings a smile to their face, and they'll tell you about Jesus and about how they love him and they see his glory. But for most people, they don't see that. The God of this world, Paul says, has blinded their minds, lest they should see the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, lest they should see the light and power of the gospel. But here it says that the Holy Spirit will cause people to see his glory. That as the gospel goes forth that there are times in the new covenant period where God pours out his spirit to the point where the very name Jesus is mentioned and people can't even contain themselves. They see his glory. Well, fifthly, the fifth and final aspect of this revival is audience. Audience, verse 17, He shall regard the prayer of the destitute and shall not despise their prayer. Audience, audience with God. God hears the prayers of His people. That's not up for debate. That's something that's always the case. He does hear our prayers. But there's a unique blessing here. Where the prayers of God's people in their low condition are regarded and not despised in a special way. It's almost like they're praying, and as Isaiah says, before they even get the prayer out of their mouths, God is answering their prayer. I don't know if you've ever had that experience, where you actually seriously set aside some time to pray for an issue. You're not just casually doing it because you know you should. And you should, by the way, so sometimes that's the best we have, is I know I should pray, I pray, I ask God for the grace to benefit from it and to glorify his name. But there are times when we focus on prayer and the spirit causes us to be zealous in prayer, and it's almost like we set the time to pray, we start praying, and before we even get to the petition, God's already answered that prayer. I had that happen recently, several months ago. In fact, it was during our day of fasting and prayer as a congregation. Halfway through the day, prayer was answered. It's a wonderful encouragement when that happens. Doesn't mean God doesn't hear us when he doesn't respond immediately, but this is an aspect of revival when you see God specially working in his people and he just seems to be answering prayer left and right. He seems to be more active and present as in giving an audience to his people. So this is the revival that the power of Christ brings. Now another question we need to ask is, okay, great, so there's revival and it happens from time to time. How do we anticipate it happening in our own lifetime? How do we anticipate, is there a way to anticipate when God will send even a measure of this blessing? I mean, I don't know about you, but I would just, I would take one of those five, just give me one. I don't need all five, I don't even need everything, just maybe a little bit of one of those five. Maybe a little bit more of illumination, just a little bit more. A few more answered prayers, whatever it is. But how can we anticipate the outpouring of Christ's reviving power? Is there anything in this text that I've skipped over that we can go back to now and see what it is that is a precursor to revival? That if you see this, you should be encouraged. Because it means that God is at work and he's paving the way for blessing. Now is the President of the United States going to kiss the sun two weeks from now if you see that? Well, I don't know. But expect good things if you see this, and we see it in verse 14. Because the psalmist is using an argument here. He's arguing with God in a good sense. Jacob wrestled with God. We talked about violent prayer this morning. There's an instance of violent prayer. Jacob wrestled with God. And God showed him his own weakness by the end of it. He says, the set time has come for your servants take pleasure in her stones. Whose stones? Zion's stones, the church's stones, the temple's stones. Your servants take pleasure in her stones and show favor to her dust. That's the mindset, that's the condition of God's people that is a harbinger of blessing to come. When you see verse 14, you can pull out the word for in your prayers and say, Lord, you're going to do this or please do this for your servants are taking pleasure in her stones and showing favor to her dust. If we can have that, then now we have a leg to stand on, as it were. What does this mean? What is he saying here? Stones, dust? What's this all about? Of course, the temple had been destroyed. Jerusalem had been sacked, burned with fire. The officials had been slaughtered. The instruments in the temple, the vessels and so forth, had been either destroyed or taken into captivity. The church was divested of all her outward glory. Zion was pillaged and was now a heap of rubble. It was just stones. They weren't even piled up on each other. The temple was just a pile of stones and maybe some dust from maybe some ashes from when they burned it to the ground. You can read about that in 2 Kings chapter 25. But that's the condition, the low condition of the church. Now what does it mean when it says to take pleasure in her stones and to show favor to her dust? Well, it doesn't mean to simply tolerate the weaknesses of the church. It doesn't mean that. Well, the church is at a low point, so I'll just put up with the church. I'll just stick it out. No. It says that when the church is in this low condition, that God's people, in this situation, take pleasure in her stones. They look at the rubble that's left, the meager remnant of what's left of the church after it's experienced trouble and tribulation. they take pleasure because it's still God's church, that's still God's temple, those are God's stones. You see, it doesn't have the outward glory that it had before, but it's still God's, it's still the same stones, and so they love it, they take pleasure in it. But when they're going into exile in Psalm 137, they say, if I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its skill. I'll let my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth if Jerusalem, if the church is not my chief joy. They take pleasure even in the weaknesses of the church or the hardships, the trials. And when the church has difficult times, when the church is struggling, when the church is diminishing in many ways. This is saying that the people of God, their hearts ought to yearn even more for the church and to see the beauty of God in her midst, nevertheless, despite the rubble. And when it says, show favor to her dust, That word show favor really means show pity. That's what the word should be better translated, to show pity. So when we look upon the weaknesses of the church, when we look upon the shortcomings, people in the church that rub us the wrong way, people that do things we don't like, or aspects of the church that don't meet our particular needs, or whatever it is, whatever weaknesses the church has, where it's been just sort of ground to dust in that particular area were to show pity. In this scenario, the people of God don't look at those things and simply tolerate them. They don't look at those things and say, well, you know. That's just, I can't believe so and so did that or said that. They look at those weaknesses and their heart goes out to those people, their heart goes out to the church. They pity the weaknesses of Zion. Charles Spurgeon says this. To the Church of God, no token can be more full of hope than to see the members thereof deeply interested in all that concerns her. No prosperity is likely to rest upon a church when carelessness about ordinances, enterprises, and services is manifest. But when even the least and lowest matter connected with the Lord's work is carefully attended to, we may be sure that the set time to favor Zion has come. The poorest church member, the most grievous backslider, the most ignorant convert should be precious in our sight, because forming a part, although possibly a very feeble part, of the New Jerusalem, if we do not care about the prosperity of the church to which we belong, need we wonder if the blessing of the Lord is withheld? There's something else here, isn't there? Verse 14. Who are the ones that are taking pleasure in her stones, pitying her dust? They're servants. They're servants. Jesus said, I didn't come to be served, I came to serve and to give my life as a ransom for many. That ought to be the mindset. The Apostle Paul said that he would pour himself out as a drink offering upon the faith of God's people. Revival is most often preceded by a more pervasive desire to serve. Not to be served, not looking as a consumer upon the church, looking for what tickles my fancy, what makes me feel good or comfortable, or what services or whatever it is that meets all of my needs, but rather to have the heart of a servant. When we see a weakness, we're drawn to try to strengthen and bolster that area and not to complain about it. And so we're servants, we're giving of ourselves. Ask not what your church can do for you, but ask what you can do for your church. That's the idea here. Servants But they're your servants, they're God's servants, they're Christ's servants. And so part of looking for a church to align yourself with, part of being involved as a servant in the church does involve saying, where can I best serve and worship God? Because ultimately, I'm in the church to serve Him. So we're not just servants of each other, but we need to take it seriously. We need to be in a church and be active where we're serving God, and we're in a situation where we're able to do that. So we can't just serve anywhere, is my point. Well, I'll just conclude with this. I wanted to make a few applications, questions you might be asking yourself, which this text addresses. And real quick here, the first question is, why is God making it so difficult for me to serve him? You might be having trouble serving the Lord, you have obstacles and hindrances, and why is God bringing these things into my life? And let me just say this, that very well it could be, it could be that God wants to see if you really want to serve him. If you really wanna serve him and you're willing to jump over the hurdles and you're willing to overcome the obstacles and put up with whatever difficulties you're having, do you really want to serve me, he's saying, because he's looking for servants. He's looking for a church of servants that he can bless. And he's willing to weed out those who are not interested in that. If you're not interested in serving God, if it's about you or about your needs or something like that in a selfish sense, God is saying, do you really want to serve me? So take it as a challenge. Secondly, why does God seem to be dismantling his church? Well, that could be for a number of reasons. But let me suggest just one. That God sometimes dismantles his church as he did in the days of the psalmist to see if his people love Zion for her success or for her savior. What are we in it for? Are we in it for the success or are we in it for the savior? It reveals our motives, it pairs us down, it prunes us down to servants who take pleasure in her stones. Thirdly, why is God allowing certain brothers or sisters to grow spiritually weak? We struggle with this. Why? Why, Lord? Why is a brother or sister struggling? Why are you allowing this to happen according to your permissive sovereign will? Why? Well, maybe God's testing our love for those people. As Spurgeon said, are we willing to love the dust, the stones? Are we willing to love the members of the church where they're in their most feeble and weak condition? God's testing our love. Are you really servants that take pleasure in her stones? Because if not, he's going to send revival elsewhere. And finally, what hope do we have as a congregation? We need to always be asking questions like this. What hope do we have as a congregation? Well, our hope is not in the idea, not in the fact that there would be no stones and no dust. The goal is not to have a church where there are no stones, no dust, no weak people, no weaknesses as a congregation. Those are always going to be there. That's just going to be a constant on this side of eternity. There will be stones and dust to some extent, It's not that there's an absence of stones and dust, but we must take encouragement if we still take pleasure in the church, despite those stones and dust, and even a step further, if we're able to take pleasure in that rubble. What's our response when God dismantles the church, when a brother falls into sin? What's our response? If our response is to take pleasure in what God is doing in our midst, And to love those people and meet those needs, then we have hope. So let that be a challenge to us. We can't produce those graces, by the way. God alone can do it in our hearts. But let's be thinking about those things. Let's be encouraged when we actually see people doing those very things and having that very attitude. And I've seen that attitude increasing in our congregation over the last several months. And it's one of the reasons I wanted to preach on this text, as a source of encouragement. Don't look at the rubble, look at our response and be encouraged. Let's pray. Father, you are the God who has called us out of darkness into your marvelous light to proclaim your praises. We pray that you would give us hearts like that of the Lord Jesus Christ, of whom it says, zeal for your house, consumed him. and who wept over Jerusalem, who was compassionate and is compassionate today for his church. Help us to have that love, that deep affection, even in the midst of weakness in the church that we're in. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen.