Psalms 102:23-28 - Homiletics

The mortality of man and the eternity of God.

The psalmist returns to his own personal condition; he considers himself as one who has but a narrow span of life, and even that small span is likely to be shortened; his heart is troubled at the thought of—

I. THE BREVITY AND UNCERTAINTY OF OUR MORTAL LIFE .

1 . The length of our life is regarded by us very differently, according to the portion of it which we have spent. In youth it seems long, and we are eager to get on further, we anticipate the coming years; but in age it seems short indeed, and we wish we were younger than we are. Many, immersed in cares or pleasures, have no time to measure the life they are fast expending; but to the thoughtful (as well as to the merely imaginative) human life seems a painfully short time in which to sustain its pure and holy relationships, in which to gather its fruits of learning and wisdom, in which to do its work and achieve some solid and enduring task. All too soon does that shadow decline, all too quickly do the flowers wither (see Psalms 102:11 ).

2 . And this pensiveness is deepened by the thought of the uncertainty of life. Sudden sickness comes, and the strong man in his prime is laid on the bed of death. The fatal accident occurs, and men and women are removed in an hour from the scenes of their activity, the homes of their affection. The land mourns its prince, its statesman, its scholar; the Church deplores its ruler, its minister, its counsellor; the home laments its head, its mistress, its ornament,—that one that should long have stayed and been its strength and joy. But in sharp and striking contrast with this is—

II. THE ETERNITY OF GOD .

1 . He is from everlasting. Our finite mind cannot possibly comprehend the idea of the infinite. We cannot take into our imagination the absolutely boundless past. But we can think of that which was indefinitely and immeasurably remote, and consider that God was long before that. We think of the ages behind us, when the first foundations of the earth were laid, and we reflect that all that vast and unknown period counts not even one degree of the time that God has been.

2 . He is to everlasting. Similarly, we look on to that distant hour, inconceivably far away, when our planet itself will be consumed or be congealed, or even to the time when the whole sidereal system will be dissolved, and we think that that immense tract of time will not count one unit of "the years of the right hand of the Most High."

3 . He is the Unchangeable One. Not that the idea of boundless temporal duration includes that of moral and spiritual constancy; but it suggests it, and it may be said to imply it; for surely it is only the Unchangeable that could be and would be the Eternal. So that while we are placing our mortality in contrast with the immortality of God, we may also place our fickleness and unreliableness in contrast with his immutability, and give the fullest meaning to the words, "thou art the same" (see James 1:17 ; Hebrews 13:8 ).

III. THE REDEEMING THOUGHT . The psalmist seems to feel that God, out of the exceeding riches of his eternity, might well bestow upon him a few more years of life ( Psalms 102:24 ). But he closes with the relieving thought that the children of God's servants will dwell in the land, that they will find a home there from which they will not be driven, and that their children will still be found in happy occupation, through coming generations ( Psalms 102:28 ). We have, in this Christian dispensation, a far more precious consolation. That is twofold. It consists of:

1 . The fact that the briefest human life, spent in the service of God and of man, holds a worth which no arithmetic can compute, no wealth can weigh.

2 . The truth that a holy life on earth conducts to a blessed and glorious immortality beyond. "They shall perish, but thou shalt endure." So also shall we, and our years shall have no end; for "he that doeth the will of God abideth forever."