Psalm 90
Our reading tonight will be Psalm
90, verses one through 17. This is the beginning of book
four. There are five books to the Psalter. And this is the beginning of
book four, and it’ll go to about a dozen and a half psalms. And
then book five will begin. But this is, as you’ll notice
in the title, a Psalm of Moses. It says, a prayer of Moses, the
man of God. And so yes, this is the Moses. the one and only. And so we read
the words of Moses, the words of Almighty God, Lord, you have
been our dwelling place in all generations before the mountains
were brought forth or ever you had formed the earth and the
world from everlasting to everlasting. You are God. You return man to
dust and say, return, O children of man, for a thousand years
in your sight are as but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch
in the night. You sweep them away as with a
flood. They are like a dream, like grass that is renewed in
the morning. In the morning it flourishes and it is renewed,
but in the evening it fades and it withers. For we are brought
to an end by your anger. By your wrath, we are dismayed.
You have set our iniquities before you. Our secret sins are in the
light of your presence. For all our days pass away under
your wrath. We bring our years to an end,
like a sigh. The years of our life are 70,
or by reason of strength, 80. Yet their span is but toil and
trouble. They are soon gone and we fly
away. Who considers the power of your anger? and your wrath
according to the fear of you. So teach us to number our days,
that we may get a heart of wisdom. Return, O Lord, how long? Have
pity on your servants. Satisfy us in the morning with
your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our
days. Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us,
and for as many years as we have seen evil. Let your work be shown
to your servants and your glorious power to their children. Let
the favor of the Lord our God be upon us. Establish the work
of our hands upon us. Yes, establish the work of our
hands. Amen. This is God’s word. It is for us, for our instruction
and encouragement. We pray his blessings on it for
us now. Well, if you need a good passage
of scripture for the new year, for 2019, here it is. Or maybe some of you, and I recommend
that you do this, not that I know anything except that you will
die at some point, but if you’re thinking about jotting down a
few notes for your future funeral, Psalm 90 is a really good funeral
passage. It’s a passage of scripture that
sobers you up It’s a splash of cold water in the face. It’s
a gut check passage. It’s a worldview adjusting piece
of scripture. I’ve entitled this message for
the night, A Firm Grip on Reality. And that’s what Psalm 90 really
does. It reminds us who we are. It reminds us who God is. It
reminds us that sin is really bad and God judges it. And it
reminds us that we live in a cursed world where there are hardships
and obstacles and difficulties. And so Psalm 90 brings us back
to reality. It gives us a firm grip on reality. So whether you’re pondering your
own funeral someday, or you are thinking about 2019 and what
it may bring and how maybe you’ve let some things slip in your
life and you want to reorient and get back on pace, Psalm 90
is just for you. Now, what’s going on in the life
of Moses when he penned Psalm 90? Well, the best guess, so
to speak, the most assumed guess, truths about the context, the
place that he was in in life when this took place is this.
Miriam, his sister, was dead. Miriam, dead and gone. Aaron,
his brother, dead and gone. And Moses, because of his sin
against Almighty God by striking the rock from which the water
flowed, he struck it twice in anger. God punished him for that
and said, you will die before you enter the promised land.
Remember, Moses only saw the promised land from afar. He saw
it from the mountain of Nebo. He saw it from a distance. But
you can imagine Moses when he penned Psalm 90, he is very thoughtful. He is very sobered. He is, he’s
thinking hard about some things. He’s thinking about the reality
of sin, the reality of death, the reality of his own death,
his impending death. He’s thinking about 38 wasted
years in the wilderness. because the sin of that first
generation out of Egypt, they wandered in the wilderness because
they did not love God or keep faith with him. And so their
punishment, their judgment was to wander in the wilderness and
to die. And that next generation would
enter the promised land. And that curse, that punishment,
it fell on Moses. And so you can imagine what’s
going on in his heart and mind as he thinks through these things
and puts them to pen. Just this year, I was thinking,
what would it be like for Moses to soon die, Aaron to be dead,
and Miriam? Well, just this year, we’ve lost
H.W. Bush. We’ve lost Billy Graham. We’ve
lost John McCain. And you go down the list of statesmen
and politicians and generals and warriors and presidents,
it’s been a year of big losses. And maybe we think through the
history of America. We think through the history
of the church. We think through politics and
we think with these losses, how can life go on? And so maybe
we would get a little thoughtful like Moses. Notice when you read
through this passage that Moses is not bitter. He’s just realistic.
He understands what’s reality. He realizes that a generation
has failed to obey God. And that included he, that included
Moses. And so one of the things we must
remember as we make our way through this Psalm is this, Moses failed
in the wilderness. Moses failed as a covenant mediator
to lead God’s people into the promised land. But a greater
Moses has come, and that’s Jesus. And he does not fail. And he
does lead us, his people, into heaven, the greater promised
land. And so that big perspective helps
us. But we need to take a look at
a couple of things that Moses speaks about in this passage.
These are things to ponder, things to think about, things for wisdom. There’s four of them. And the
first is this, God is big and eternal. We find that in verses
one and two, God is big and eternal. Lord, you have been our dwelling
place in all generations. before the mountains were brought
forth or ever you form the earth and the world from everlasting
to everlasting. You are God. I remember as a
kid trying to fathom in my little pea brain, and it still is a
little pea brain. How can God be forever? I mean,
we’re born. We have birthdays, we have years,
we watched grandparents pass away, we watched babies be born
in the family. But how can God be forever? Eternity
backwards, eternity forward, that’s just something that just
blows our minds. But God is big, he’s immense,
and he is eternal. Now Moses, remember, was the
author of the first five books of the Bible. What do we call
it? The Pentateuch. Right? And in the Pentateuch,
in the first five books of Moses, one of the striking features
that we have is Moses is giving to Israel a worldview. It’s over and against the Canaanite
worldview. It’s over and against the Persian or the Babylonian
worldview. It’s over and against all the other worldviews of the
little kingdoms of the world. He is giving the worldview of
Yahweh, I am. The king of the universe who
made the world and everything in it. That’s how the beginning
of the Pentateuch begins. In the beginning was God. And
he created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless
and void. And it goes on to speak about how God formed it and filled
it. And so we read from the pen of
Moses or the quill of Moses or whatever instrument he used.
this existence of Almighty God. And so over and against all the
other ancient Near Eastern worldviews, Moses knew. He knew God. And he knew of his eternality.
He knew of his greatness. And even he had met with God
face to face. And so God is big. God is eternal. And we understand that our human
institutions may fail. We see marriages falling apart
in this world. We see families falling apart
in this world. We see churches breaking apart in this world.
We see schools that existed no longer exist. We see stores come
and go. We see bankruptcy. We see stock
markets rise, and then they fall, and sometimes they crash. And
we see that throughout the history of the world, nations rise, empires
rise, but they also fall. Everything in this world comes
and goes except God. And Moses is recognizing that.
I mean, you think Moses had it all, right? But remember he was
stuck in a basket as a baby. He was put in a basket as a baby.
He was picked up by a princess. He lived in the palace. He escaped
for his life from Pharaoh to Midian and pretty much the rest
of his life till his death. He lived in the wilderness and
was a wanderer. He was a pilgrim. And so all
people in the Old Testament, he knew, he knew that our human
institutions will fail. He had lived in the palace of
Pharaoh, the greatest of all kingdoms in history. And now
he’s finding himself thinking rather thoughtfully about the
brevity of life and the meaninglessness of it all apart from almighty
God. But God is big. God is eternal. And God is our heavenly home.
As we sang from The Psalter from Psalm 90, as we sang from the
hymnal from Isaac Watts, O God, our help in ages past, we recognize
that our home is under the throne of Almighty God. We’re not at
home right now. We’re away from the immediate
presence of God. But Moses was thinking about
being there with God in his heavenly home, his dwelling place, his
refuge. So God is big. God is eternal. So the second thing this passage
shows us, man is small. and fleeting. If God is big and
eternal, man is small and fleeting. I was trying to look up some,
what do you call it, antonyms for eternal, and it was like
ephemeral. So I figured, I didn’t know what
that meant too much, so I figured y’all wouldn’t either, because
we’re all about half as smart as each other. So fleeting, I
figured we knew what that is, fleeting. Man is small and fleeting. Some of y’all may have aced the
SAT, I didn’t. So I equate y’all with me. Sorry, but man is small
and fleeting. Some of you have watched, maybe
in the spring, you put out some grass seed and the dew comes
and the rains come in May. You know, what is it? April showers
bring May flowers. And so your grass may grow and
then the scorching heat of June and July and August come and
guess what? You’ve planted grass and it may have popped up, but
it is not there. After a while, it has no time
to take root. It has no time to put down roots. And our lives are like that.
We think life is long enough to put down roots and live. We
think it’s long enough to drive our tent pegs deep into the ground,
but life is very short. Man is small and fleeting. And notice what it says in verses
three through six. It says, you return man to dust. That was promised to Adam, wasn’t
it? After the fall. And you say, return old children
of man, You know, one of the most final things I do as a minister,
one of the most final things I do as a minister is a committal
service. And generally you stand at the
head of the coffin and you say something like this, for as much
as it has pleased the Almighty to bring so-and-so onto this
earth, We now commend their body ashes to ashes dust to dust to
return to the earth and we make a prayer something like this
Almighty God in your wisdom you have brought forth men and women
into this world But in your wisdom you take them from this life.
And so we commend the spirit of thus and so to you and we
long for the day when the dead shall in Christ be raised and
when every grave will be opened and when the sea will give up
her dead and all shall be brought into the presence of Almighty
God. It’s a very humbling moment. It’s generally with the family
when the tears start to flow because it’s the last goodbye. It’s the last sight of anything
of their physical presence and it’s a good reminder to us with
Psalm 90 to get that straight in our heads. that man is small
and fleeting, that our life is like a watch of the night. A
thousand years to God is but a peep, but a blink of the eye.
And it says, if you pick up at verse four, for a thousand years
on your side is but yesterday when it is past or a watch in
the night. Verse five, you sweep them away as with a flood. They
are like a dream, like grass that is renewed in the morning.
In the morning it flourishes and it is renewed. In the evening
it fades, it withers. For we are brought to an end
by your anger. And that leads us to the next
thing. God is big and eternal, man is
small and fleeting. Third reality, this passage teaches
us, is about sin and judgment. We find it in verses seven through
12. And the question is this, why
is life the way it is? Why is life hard? Why is this
world dark? Why is it we sing, beneath life’s crushing loads,
forms are bending low? Why is it true? Well, it’s because
of sin. Adam and Eve sinned, they sinned
for us, and it brought curses, it brought futility, it brought
hardship, it brought the fact that we work, and by the sweat
of our brow, the smashing of our fingers, the earth brings
forth fruit, but not like it would have before sin. And so
life is hard, our bodies get sick, we get old, we age, we
fall apart, we have creaks and aches and pains, difficulties
in this life. Our relationships are strained.
Even church is not as glorious as it could be because of sin. And one of the things that we
have to remember is that sin comes to us in its judgment in
a couple ways. Remember, big picture, the wages
of sin is death. But also, in this life, there
are temporal judgments that we may experience. that are just
judgments. They may be temporary, but they
are just judgments on our sin. Now, a couple things to keep
in mind here. One is if the wages of sin is death, what’s the great
news? The free gift of God is eternal life. And if we are in
Christ, there is no condemnation, right? Romans chapter eight teaches
us that. If we are in Christ, there is
therefore now no condemnation. We do not have to fear eternal
judgment for our sins. But here’s a $64,000 question
for you. We still sin. Does God still judge those sins
in a temporal way? And the answer is yes, Moses. Moses was a man of God. Moses
was the meekest man on the earth, the Bible tells us. But God still
judged him for striking that rock. And yes, he died and he
went to heaven and he will face eternity with God standing just
before the throne of grace. But he had to pay. He had to
pay for tapping that rock. He didn’t make it into the promised
land, at least not the little bitty one. He’s in the big promised
land, right? But he didn’t make it to the promised land. And
sometimes we think in our heads that God does not punish our
sin in temporal ways. Well, dear Christian, go drink
and drive. Dear Christian, Be unfaithful. Dear Christian, lie,
cheat, and steal. And see if there are not just
and temporal judgments for your sins. Oh, you’ll stand before
God righteous one day. You’ll be forgiven of all your
sins, past, present, and future. No doubt about that. But we need
to remember that there is penalty. There are hardships in life because
of our sin. Why is life the way it is? Well, because there’s sin and
there’s judgment. And the ultimate end of sin is
death. But thanks be to God for Christ Jesus who has paid our
penalty and frees us from our condemnation and we make it safely
to heaven’s shores. But don’t you know, don’t you
know when Moses was writing Psalm 90, maybe he got a stack of journals. And he went back a little ways
and said, what was I thinking? Why was I angry? Why did God
say strike the rock once and I struck it twice? Why did I
lash out in anger when God, the God of the universe, was spreading
a table in the wilderness and he was giving us water from a
rock, bread from heaven? Why was my anger such that I
sinned and it has brought me these consequences? Friends,
we need to not lose sight of the fact that sin is just that,
it is sin. And it affects our lives. And
it affects our lives in this age. But thanks be to God, we
are free from it in the age to come. Now notice, notice if you
will, in verse 12, verse 14 and verse 17, in light of sin, in
light of judgment, what does Moses do? He asks God for help.
Verse 12 says, teach us to number our days that we may get a heart
of wisdom. I’m tired of being foolish. I’m tired of doing dumb
things and dying on the top of Mount Nebo, not having entered
the promised land. Verse 14, satisfy us in the morning with
your steadfast love that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
That’s a second request. And then verse 16, I think it
is. No, verse 17, let the favor of
the Lord be upon us and establish the work of our hands. In light of sin, in light of
judgment, in light of all the hardship that Moses has been
through, that we go through, he’s saying it’s not all lost.
God can hit a straight lick with a crooked stick. That’s what
we like to say, isn’t it? Or if you’re a really country
person, he can skin a cat any way he wants to. I never figured
out why you’d want to skin a cat, but God can use our messes and
make things new and beautiful. And so he makes these prayers.
We’ll take a peek at them in just a moment, but I wanted you
to take notice of them in light of sin and judgment. Well, the
last thing this passage shows us is our need of grace. We found it in verses 13 through
17, and it includes those requests that he makes. So God is big
and eternal. Man is small and fleeting. their
sin and judgment. And then finally this notice
that we need grace. If we live life in a sin-cursed
world, we live life in a dark and dying world, we live under
the struggle of living by the Spirit and not the flesh and
living by Christ and not Satan, living by the Word and the world,
we need God’s grace. It is hard to live the Christian
life. Whoever told us when we first became a Christian, come
to Jesus and it all gets better. Boy, they were selling a bill
of goods, weren’t they? It does get better, but it’s a knock
down drag out until we go sliding into heaven safe and secure.
It’s a hard fought battle. through many dangers and toils
and snares is the Christian life. But thanks be to God for His
grace, and we need it. We need it greatly. And there’s
a couple things that these requests show us. Verse 12, when it says,
You know the old story, I think I’ve told it a time or two, where
the guy who was going to become emperor
before he was crowned or coronated or made emperor of his vast kingdom. He was taken to the marble yard
and his name was etched in marble and his birth date was etched
in marble. And what was taking place there?
They were teaching him to number his days. He may have been the
greatest ruler on earth, but he would one day pass from this
life to the next. So teach us. Teach us to number
our days that we may get a heart of wisdom. Do you ever wake up
in the morning and say, Lord, help me to use my time wisely
today. Help me to use it for your kingdom. Help me to use
it for your glory. Help me to bump into someone
who needs the encouragement of Christ. Help me to see the mundane,
ordinary events of life as kingdom opportunities. Teach me to number
our days, not just the span of them, but to use this one well.
and then verse 14. One of the things I’ve noticed
as we’ve been praying on Sunday nights for the last couple of
years is, and this is the goal, this is the hope. When you make
your way through the Lord’s prayer, you know, our Father who art
in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done
on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread.
Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Lead us not into
temptation. Deliver us from evil. Thine is the kingdom, power,
and glory forever. Where is praying for Aunt Susie’s uncle’s cousin’s
friend who once knew somebody who had a cat that has feline
cat problems and I wanna pray for them? It’s not there, is
it? But the glory of God is. The forgiveness of sins is there.
And does God care about, I can’t even recite it all again, Aunt
Susie’s friend’s cat who once knew, no. That’s not in there. Does God care about it? Of course
He does. But you see, our prayer priorities change when we go
through adoration and confession and thanksgiving and then land
at supplication last. It’s like verse 14. Satisfy us in the morning with
your steadfast love that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
You know, if you live out in the world, you’re probably pretty
sad that you have an iPhone 5 and not an iPhone 10, right? That’s the way TV commercials
work. They get you to be dissatisfied. Or you don’t have tier 7 of cable.
Or your car is an 07 and not a 19. Or your house has 1,800
square feet and they make ones with 2,200. Or if you really
need it, 5,700. Or your stove has four burners and they make a
six burner. You know, life always gets bigger and better, right?
The tires get bigger on cars. They go faster. The square footage
in the house goes up. The finishings in our homes gets
better and nicer. And, you know, the grocery is
more organic or less processed. You know, there’s always bigger
and better. And what does verse 14 there
teach us? Help us to be happy. Help us
to be thankful. We were talking the other night
about something in our house. And it’s just a first world problem. I forgot to charge my iPhone. Right? I mean, you forgot to
charge it. But you got an iPhone. And it does amazing things. Or
the internet’s not working on your transcontinental flight.
You’re flying through the air in record time. It doesn’t take
you four months to get to England. It takes eight hours. You know,
we need to be thankful. God has blessed us. And so perspective
is everything. We need grace, though, to live
a wise life, a thankful life. And notice the last request,
verse 17. Can’t you imagine Moses? I don’t know where he is. He’s
out under the stars, maybe. He’s got his quill and his parchment. He’s writing down Psalm 90 and
he’s thinking about all he’s been through. Rescued from the
bulrushes, raised by the princess, in the same house with Pharaoh,
the king of vast regions, the king of Egypt, the king of that
part of the world. He lived along the Nile, the life blood, the
life source of Egypt. He saw all the gods. He saw all
the wonders. He lived in the wilderness. He
laid out and saw the stars in the night. He saw the oppression
of Israel. He saw the abuse of the Egyptians. He’s seen quite a bit. He’s held
newborn babies. All these sorts of things are
flashing before him. And he’s saying, probably like
some of us do, Lord, is what I’m doing even worth it? is what
I’m doing, does it even count? And I’m reminded of the wonderful
phrase that R.C. Sproul, maybe he penned it, I
don’t know, but it’s something I’ve seen often, and it’s this,
right now counts forever. And so in your life, in addition
to making these other requests, ask God to make it count forever,
what you’re doing. you’re living, what you’re working,
the relationships that you’re in. That’s what Psalm 90 teaches
us. Get the right perspective. Get
a firm grip on not just reality but spiritual reality. Let’s pause and give thanks.
Our Lord, we are grateful that The Bible very often stops us
in our tracks and says, what are you doing and why are you
doing it? And that’s exactly what Psalm 90 has done for us.
What are we doing? Why are we doing it? Well, we
want right now to count forever. So Lord, make every moment of
every day in our lives, our leisure, our work, our hobbies, our relationships,
our worship, our discipleship, Make every moment of every day
count forever so that you will be glorified and so that our
neighbors will be loved and served and most especially be brought
into the kingdom of your marvelous light through faith in Jesus.
Lord, help us in this, we ask and pray. And we do it in the
strong name of Jesus, who helps us make sense of life. And we
say together, amen. Let’s respond to God’s