At the beginning of our study of the Psalms, we pointed out that the Psalms were written by godly saints. These saints were very close to God, and they had much thought and consideration concerning God and God's interest. Many of the psalms were written during times of suffering. When, as they were suffering, the psalmists were expressing certain of their feelings and complex sentiments, some high thoughts came forth mainly related to Christ, God's house, God's city, and God's recovery of His title over the earth. In the Old Testament this recovery is called the restoration, referring to the millennium. God's house denotes God's home and also His family, His household; God's city refers to His kingdom; and the coming restoration refers to the millennium. These four matters—Christ, God's house, God's city, and the coming restoration—are the essential elements, the inner essences, of the Bible.
We may say that the Psalms are an extract of the entire Bible. The Bible begins with God's existence and then goes on to speak of God's creation, which has certain indications concerning Christ. Out of Christ there issues the church, which is God's house. When the church as God's house is strengthened and enlarged, it becomes the city, that is, the kingdom of God. Eventually, the kingdom of God will bring in the restoration of the earth during the millennium, which will consummate in the new heaven and the new earth with the New Jerusalem—the consummation of God's house and God's kingdom—as the center. This extract of the Bible in the Psalms is a key that opens the whole Bible.
In this message we come to another group of psalms, consisting of Psalms 102 through 106, which is somewhat hard to understand. In this group we first see Christ. Psalm 102 is a psalm on Christ. Strong evidence of this is the quotation of verses 25 through 27 in Hebrews 1:10-12.
The title of Psalm 102 tells us that it is a prayer of an afflicted one, one who was suffering. The psalmist, a godly one, was suffering because of the destruction and devastation of Zion with the temple and the holy city. He suffered to such an extent that he was fainting. In this matter he was somewhat like Jeremiah who, after the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, sat on a mountain outside the city, looked at the devastation of the temple and the city, and wrote the book of Lamentations, probably fainting as he did so. The godly one who wrote Psalm 102 was also afflicted by the destruction of the temple and the city. Fainting because of his suffering, he prayed to God and poured out his complaint. The word "complaint" in the title of this psalm does not mean that the psalmist was complaining to God; rather, here this word denotes a miserable situation—the suffering caused by the destruction of the temple and the city of Jerusalem.