Episode Transcript
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Turn in God's word to Psalm Ninety. We heard from Psalm Eighty nine this
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morning, and so, continuing from
the questions raised in Psalm Eighty nine,
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we see how Psalm Ninety is situated
right here, the beginning of book,
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for of the five book of books
within the Psalter so psalm ninety, beginning
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verse one. Listen, for this
is the word of the Lord, a
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prayer of Moses, the man of
God. Lord, you have been our
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dwelling place in all generations, before
the mountains were brought forth, or ever
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you had formed the earth and the
world from everlasting to everlasting. You are
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God. You return man to dust
and say return, oh children of man,
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for a thousand years in your sight, are but as yesterday when it
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is passed, or as a watch
in the night. You swept them away
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as with a flood. They are
like a dream, like grass that is
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renewed in the morning. In the
morning it flourishes and is renewed in the
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evening it fades and withers. For
we are brought to an end by your
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anger, by your wrath. We
are dismayed. You have set our iniquities
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before you, our secret sins,
in the light of your presence for all
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our days pass away under your wrath. We bring our years to an end
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like a sigh. The years of
our life, our seventy or even,
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by reason of strength, eighty,
get their span is but toil and trouble.
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They are soon gone and we fly
away. WHO considers the power of
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your anger and your wrath according to
the fear of you? So teach us
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to number our days that we may
get a heart of wisdom. Return.
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Oh Lord, how long have pity
on your servants? Satisfy us in the
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morning with your steadfast love that we
may rejoice and be glad all our days.
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Make US glad for as many days
as you have afflicted us and for
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as many years as we have seen
evil. Let your work be shown to
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your servants and your glorious power to
their children. Let the favor of the
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Lord, our God, be upon
us and establish the work of our hands.
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Establish us, yes, establish the
work of our hands, that's by
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the reading of God's word. May
he bless it to us. Men,
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you may be seated, as we
saw this morning. Give you a brief
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glimpse of the structure to this psalter. You have book one in the beginning
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of the Book of Psalms a book. Book One is primarily about King David
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Right. Book two ends at the
culmination of David's life. Psalm seventy two
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is David's prayer. You can picture
it, written on his deathbed, basically
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a prayer for his son Solomon.
And, as we saw this morning,
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Psalm Eighty nine concludes book three,
which is not just found at the end
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of David's life but what appears to
be the end of David's dynasty, the
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end of Israel, as as Israel
is facing destruction. So there's a structure
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to these first three books of the
PSALTER which are focused heavily on David and
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God's covenant with David. And yet
book three ends asking these terrifying questions,
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questions wondering, is this the end? Questions ending in despair, mourning and
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questioning God's faithfulness to David. Book
three ends with this terrible question. Has
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God forgotten his promise to David,
a promise which psalm eighty nine even says
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was eternal, everlasting? As King
David's dynasty has been removed from the throne,
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as God's people have been carried in
exile, Psalm Eighty nine asks how
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long, Old Lord, in Verse
Forty Six, will you hide yourself forever?
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How long will your wrath burn like
fire, so that not just eight
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psalm eighty nine, but book three
of this psalter ends with this great sense
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of loss and it almost carries a
sense of finality when psalm eighty nine says
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in verse forty seven, remember how
short my time is, for what vanity
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you've created all the children of Man. What man can live and never see
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death? Who can deliver his soul
from the power of Cherhol? But be
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comforted, because the psalms don't end
there, do they? Book three is
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not the last word of this psalter. There's a book for, there's a
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book five. We we'll see this
evening. Is that the despair and the
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confusion we hear in psalm eighty nine
is exactly what's being addressed and answered in
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Psalm Ninety. We have to view
these two psalms as belonging together. The
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questions raised in Psalm Eighty nine are
put to rest in the response here from
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Psalm Ninety, and it look at
what these two psalms are mean. Doesn't
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psalm eighty nine seem to be written
in light of the fall of Jerusalem,
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this exile of God's people. What's
this first line in Psalm Ninety? It's
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called a prayer of Moses, the
man of God. And so these two
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psalms that we have, they're separated
by a thousand years and yet are now,
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by the guidance, by the inspiration
of the Holy Spirit, are placed
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side by side for us. Obviously, this, this placement, then,
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is intentional, as psalm eighty nine
ends in defeat, the nation is conquered,
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the Lord's anointed as being mocked,
and so this Psalm of Moses is
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to be respread as a response to
this broken estate. And yet it was
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written a thousand years before it for
notice how it responds to this question.
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It responds, first of all by
looking backwards, by looking back upon the
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past. Psalm eighty nine was focused
on God's promise, God's covenant to David,
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but now psalmninety looks backwards, far
beyond that promise. What is verse
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one say? Lord, you have
been our dwelling place in all generations,
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before the mountains were brought forth,
or ever you had formed the earth and
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the world from everlasting to everlasting.
You are God. Of course this is
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a psalm which will look forward in
hopeful expectation, but when it does,
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it does so because that hope is
grounded upon what has been founded in the
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past. If Psalm Eighty nine comes
in light of the exile, at the
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end of Israel's time in the Promised
Land, then psalm nineties stands on the
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other side of the promised land,
before Israel ever entered into the promised land.
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And these first two verses call us
to confess what has always been true.
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Lord, you have been our dwelling
place in all generations. Do you
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see what a fresh perspective this springs
for those who were suffering under the very
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curse of the exile it? Psalm
Eighty nine depicts a confused people who have
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lost their homes and their possessions,
and so Psalm Ninety answers with the perspective
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of a pilgrim. Before you had
the land, before you had your homes,
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before you had your possessions, when
your fathers were wandering in the desert,
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when their fathers were in slavery in
Egypt, when Abraham, Isaac and
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Jacob lived in tents, your true
home has always been in the Lord.
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Your true identity has always been that
of a pilgrim, and so this psalm
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offers an eternal perspective to answer.
Psalm eighty nine present questions of suffering and
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loss. Here Moses is calling us
to proclaim where our true home is found.
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And it's not found intense it's not
found in Egypt, not found in
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lands flowing with milk and honey,
whether in plenty or in want. Our
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actual dwelling place is the Lord.
Proceed to dwell in the presence of the
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Lord is life itself. This is
what we were created for, to live
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in harmony with our Lord. But
ever since Adam and eves exile from the
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Garden of Eden, our existence has
not matched this reality, and verse three
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tells us why that is. You
return man to dust and say return O,
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children of man for a thousand years
in your sight are but as yesterday,
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when it is past or is a
watch in the night, you sweep
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them away as with a flood.
They are like a dream, like grass
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that is renewed in the morning.
In the morning it flourishes and is renewed
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in the evening it fades and withers. And so Moses also gives us a
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sober reminder on the briefness of life, the brevity of life. This morning
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we saying the hymn our God,
our help in ages pass, which phrases
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this line this way. Time,
like an ever rolling stream, bears all
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its sons away. They fly forgotten
as a dream dies at the opening day.
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While our God is everlasting, while
our God is eternal and all sufficient,
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the Psalm reminds us that we are
not. We our lives get cut
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off, and we ought to be
umbled by this truth. To The Lord,
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a thousand years are as a day, and I've heard someone put it
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this way. Think of all that
we've accomplished as a society over the past
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thousand years. Think of all the
expectations we have for what this world may
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accomplish over the next thousand years.
To Our Lord, who is the creator
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of time itself, all that time, all that progress, is as significant
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as last Wednesday. Were you really
affected by last Wednesday? Did anything truly
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monumental happened to you last Wednesday?
Do you remember what you had for lunch
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last Wednesday? All our years,
all our cares, all our advancements and
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all our Stra ivings do very little
to impress the one who created time itself.
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While our God is everlasting, standing
above and outside of time itself.
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We are like grass that is bright
and fresh in the morning, the Psalm
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says, withers and dries by the
evening. And reminded that he is God
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and we are not, in verse
three tells us why it is, why
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this is the present state of things, though we were created to live forever
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in God's presence. Verse Three says
you return man to dust. And Say
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Return, Oh child, children of
man, or could be rephrased children of
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Adam, for the ultimate reason for
the brevity of human life under the sun
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is because of the curse upon Adam. Here's the psalm quotes from Genesis three,
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when God cursed Adam. God said, by the sweat of your face,
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you shall eat bread till you return
to the ground, for out of
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it you were taken, for you
are dust, and too dust, you
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shall return. And this soalm continues
in verse seven by declaring that not only
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are our lives short, but what
is it that defines our short lives?
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What are incredibly brief lives filled with? Or seven further humbles us by showing
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how incredibly, how are incredibly brief
lives are actually filled with an incredible amount
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of sin. As verse seven says, we are brought to an end by
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your anger, by your wrath.
We are dismayed. You have set our
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iniquities before you. Are Secret Sins
in the light of your presence, for
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all our days pass away under your
wrath. We bring our years to an
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end like a sigh. The years
of our lives are seventy or even,
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by reason of strength, eighty.
GET THEIR SPAN is but toil and trouble.
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They are soon gone and we fly
away. WHO considers the power of
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your anger and your wrath according to
the fear of you, and so teach
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us to number our days that we
may get a heart of wisdom. So,
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basically, what he's saying is we
live in a world that is under
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God's curse because of the fall.
We live in a world affected by sin
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because of the curse. We live
in a world affected by God's judgment upon
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sin. And do you see how
appropriately this truth would resonate within Israel,
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who is in exile? They are
experiencing the curse of God in a in
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a unique way. And yet this
same truth was necessary even long ago,
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in Moses's Day. So the whether
we're in Israel or not, whether we're
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in the land or not, whether
we're in the days of Noah or our
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own last days before Christ's return,
whatever Arrow wherein we are bound under the
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same common curse of Genesis Three.
For here you're told that not only are
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your life short, but they are
also filled with sin. And so do
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you see how this is already giving
a response to Psalm Eighty nine? Psalm
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eighty nine lamented mankinds returned to the
dust, lamented the futility and shortness of
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life. So many nine verse forty
six cried out. How long will your
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wrath burn like fire? Remember how
short my time is, for what vanity
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you've created all the children of Man. What man can live and never see
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death? And now Moses is psalm
comes alongside this truth, not denying those
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things. In answering Psalm Eighty nine, psalm ninety is not correcting psalm eighty
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nine. Rather, it's telling the
rest of the story, for this psalm
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sounds a lot like the book of
ECCLESIASTS, please, as these is essentially
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a commentary on this common curse of
genesis three, where mankind longs for permanence,
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though we know we can never achieve
it. We build memorials, we
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build statues, hoping that our names
will live on. We have children,
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hoping that our lives will be remembered
through them, but even our greatest deeds
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are quickly forgotten. We are remembered
by our children, by our grandchildren,
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but perhaps not much longer than that. The end of a lifetime, what
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do we have to show for it? After a lifetime of working, of
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striving, of toiling, what is
our hands produced of true, lasting value?
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But in this reality of life under
the Sun, it's not meant to
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depress us. It's given to us
to sober us up to the reality of
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life living in a broken and cursed
world, which is why Moses says in
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verse twelve, so teach us to
number our days, that we may get
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a heart of wisdom, knowing what
little time we have, knowing that our
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lives are incredibly short, it should
not cause us to stop our toilsome labors.
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Moses isn't saying what your jobs and
move to the foothills and wait for
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Christ to return, but they were
gaining a proper perspective on what to expect
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from our labors in a world that's
sinful, in a world that is broken,
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as a people who are still far
too sinful and far too broken.
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Were being reminded that this world is
not our home. This world will disappoint
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you, this world will use you
up in this world will kill you.
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But the Psalm doesn't stop there.
We're not just called to reflect up on
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what this life has in store.
We're also called to see what the world
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to come has in store. Remember
where this Psalm begins. God has been
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our dwelling place from the beginning,
even though that doesn't seem to align with
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our experiences. We're to gain wisdom
by knowing that our days are short,
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by knowing that this life will come
to an end, by knowing that our
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work in this life is not lasting. But because God's faithfulness in the past,
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because he's been faithful to his people
all along, there is cause to
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look to the future in hopeful expectation, as verse thirteen says. Return.
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Oh Lord, how long have pity
on your servants? Satisfy us in the
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morning with your steadfast love that we
may rejoice and be glad all our days.
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Make US glad for as many days
as you have afflicted us and for
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as many years as we have seen
evil. Let your work be shown to
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your servants and your glorious power to
their children. But the favor of the
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Lord, our God, be upon
us and establish the work of our hands
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upon us, yes, establish the
work of our hands in light of the
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common curse that afflicts and affects all
of us, in light of the brevity
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of our lives and in light of
the frequent and ongoing sins of the ninety.
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Here directs us to our true and
lasting hope, our true hope which
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is the return of the Lord.
Verse Fourteen says, satisfy us in the
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morning with your steadfast love. With
this reference to the morning, what imagery
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is he drawing upon? What imagery
is being expressed? Does it mourning signify
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the dawn of a new day?
In the Bible, the imagery of darkness
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and sleep is used to express sin, it's used to express death, and
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so to the imagery of mourning signifies
the spiritual reality of the day of the
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Lord. The Psalm isn't praying for
just one more morning in a long line
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of mornings which all eventually turned to
dusk and end, like the thousands of
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other mornings that we've had here.
We're being called to long for a day
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that will never become night. We're
called the long for that final day of
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the Lord, called the long for
that final Sabbath rest, where we will
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finally rest from the weariness, from
the brokenness of this world, or we
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will finally be at rest from pain
and from loss, where our sin will,
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once and for all, be fully
and finally done away with. As
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Paul says in Romans A, that
creation itself is longing for recreation. Romans
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Eight, verse twenty, for the
creation was subjected to futility, not willingly
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but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will
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be set free from its bondage to
decay and obtain the freedom of the glory
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of the Children of God. For
we know that the whole creation has been
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groaning together in the pains of childbirth
until now. Therefore, since our works
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profit us nothing, since our works
obtain little lasting value for us, where's
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our hope? Is Verse Sixteen say, Let your work be shown to your
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servants and your glorious power to their
children. Do you see whose work is
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being exalted? It's the Lord's.
He's the one who's from everlasting to everlasting.
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He's the one whose work produces lasting
value and benefit. It's the work
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of Christ that is of eternal and
everlasting blessing, his work and his glorious
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power, which is still being shown
to our children today. The work of
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Christ in his life, death,
resurrect and ascension was sufficient not just for
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his generation but for all generations.
It's only because of his work that your
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work may be established. It's only
because of him that you and I do
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not Labor in vain, for he
has been your dwelling place for all generations
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because, as Paul says an Ephesians, you were chosen if you just one
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verse, for in Him. You
were chosen in him before the foundation of
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the world. So Psalm Eighty nine, the end of book three, was
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reflecting on a divine promise that seemed
to be in jeopardy. The same thing
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happened to Moses, didn't it?
At Mount Sinai, when God's Divine Promise
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to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob seemed
to be in jeopardy due to the People's
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Sin of worshiping the Golden Calf.
There Moses interceded for the people, reminding
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God of his promise to their fathers. Now here. We come to Psalm
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Ninety, and it's as if Moses
is again interceding for God's people, once
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more calling God to return, calling
God to finally do away with sin.
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And therefore this psalm is directing us
to the one who is greater than Moses,
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in the person of Jesus Christ.
It is our very, ever last
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sing Lord, the immortal who took
on mortality, the Lord who cursed this
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world, subjected, as only son, to the full weight of the common
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curse and the individual curse each one
of us deserves for our sin. So
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only in Christ has the this pattern
of brief life and permanent death been overturned,
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whereby one man's disobedience, this death
cycle began. Through the one man,
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Jesus Christ, all who believe in
him will experience his eternal life.
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This eternal life is yours by faith
in Christ. And this is the same
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Jesus who taught us to pray your
kingdom come, your will be done on
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earth as it is in heaven,
so that we still hope, we still
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long for the return of our Lord, and we do so knowing that our
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savior, who has defeated death itself, is longing for the same thing,
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and he now intercedes for us.
He's now praying to the father on our
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behalf, this same prayer. How
long? And so it's no surprise that
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when this psalm is referenced in the
New Testament, it's used in reference to
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the return of Christ. Second Peter, Chapter Three, verse eight. Peter
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reminds his hearers do not overlook this
one fact, beloved, that with the
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Lord, one day is as a
thousand years, and a thousand years as
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as one day. The Lord is
not slow to fulfill his promise, as
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some counts slowness, but his patient
towards you, not wishing that any should
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perish, but that all should reach
repentance. So we do long for the
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Lord's return, but we do so
not in despair. Let us long with
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Joy, knowing that his delay is
not a lack of faithfulness. He is
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not slow, he's not subject to
the futility that faces our own works.
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The resurrection of Our Lord, Jesus
Christ, declares to us that the common
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curse is being overturned, and it
declares to you that your life is hidden
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in Christ, with God, for
he is your dwelling place. Let us
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therefore live lives of humility, knowing
what this world has in store for us,
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and let us endure these things knowing
that in that great and final day,
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we will fully know and see what
it means to have the Lord for
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a dwelling for all generations. Amen. Let's pray.
