Today we're going to um open up and look at Psalm 90. I was told by one pastor in our federation they their church they consider this every year at this time and it's um such a wonderful psalm, so important. We're going to give our attention at this last Sunday of the year uh to Psalm 90 this morning. So I invite you to turn to Psalm 90, and we will uh consider the entirety of the psalm.
Psalm 90. This is the Word of the Lord: "A prayer of Moses the man of 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 oh children of man For a thousand years in your sight are 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 is renewed; in the evening it fades and withers. For we are brought to an end by your anger, and by your wrath we are dismayed. You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins 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 seventy, or even by reason of strength, eighty. 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 gain a heart of wisdom. Return, oh 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 the 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, and establish the work of our hands upon us yes establish the work of our hands."
May the Lord bless the hearing of His Word this morning.
I begin with this: Mari Isdell is 40 years old. There are a million stories like this, but I want to begin with it today. I read an article about her. I've always thought she said, "I'll get my career sorted, then we'll get married and have children and go traveling," and then cancer happened stage 4 bowel cancer. has given me 18 months to live," she has created a YOLO list of things she wants to do before she dies. She has done snorkeling. She has done hot air ballooning over Cappadocia, snowmobiling in Iceland. She stayed in a cave hotel, seen the pyramids, the Coliseum, flown in a helicopter over New York, hand-fed tigers, taken Rocky Mountaineer train, began paragliding. Most important of all, she has seen the tulip fields of Holland.
She says, "I'm really going to live."
Here's a statement I want to run with today that I found important for our sermon: "It's ironic that it took being told I was dying before I really started living."
As we come to the close of another year, I think it's important for us to be reflective and to remember what the scriptures say about how we are to look at life under the sun, how we are to think about life in the way that the wisdom literature and also Moses here gives us in Psalm 90. The scriptures give us a lot of attention to this, and they help us with real meaning and real purpose in life beyond what I just described.
Most never give thought to these things as they go through life. In fact, you'll notice in the heart of the psalm there's a question that is so important. As I read it: "Who considers the power of your anger and your wrath according to the fear of you?" Who really stops and considers something that important in this life? Who really stops and considers the most important issues of life?
This is what Psalm 90 is is challenging us to do today and helping us with. It's important because it really does as the scriptures say God has set eternity in everyone's hearts god has placed that there so that they would know, that they would ponder, that they would reflect that our lives are fleeting, that they are passing away. I want us to think about why it's important to have such a reflection on the very thing that so few ever give attention to and the thing that we will try to avoid all our life thinking about until we're forced to deal with it, like that woman.
Psalm 90 is important because it presents to us, sort of, the good, the bad, and the ugly reality of life and death under the sun. It's leading us though which is important to a positive outlook on life. That's what's so remarkable about the psalm. It takes us down before it takes us up, and you will never appreciate what's being said at the end of this psalm until you ponder the depths a little bit of what's being said at the beginning of this psalm.
The great purpose of the psalm is really to do one thing. The great purpose of Psalm 90 is really to do one great thing: it is to contrast the eternity of God with the frailty and fleeting life of us. He wants us to grapple with that. He wants us to think about that the eternity. of god that great attribute of god's eternity it's a beautiful psalm in that way, but we have to stop and think just for a minute of who wrote it and why he wrote it.
And that's why Psalm 90 is so interesting to me. We're looking here at what he describes as I have labeled the good, the bad, And the ugly of life. And this has a lot better ending than the Clint Eastwood movie, I assure you.
Psalm 90 is a fascinating psalm because it's written by Moses. What makes it interesting is sort of the time that's generally received: when Moses, by the inspiration of the Spirit, gave this psalm. Many have recognized that it was a psalm that was written for the tribes of Israel in the wilderness. And you know that the wilderness journey of Israel was always intended to teach us something about our journey through life as we head to the promised land. It uses it as a paradigm, a model for us to think about life in the wilderness, life and death in the wilderness as I've titled it.
Moses was driven to write this psalm for a very important reason. That's why it's so unique. We don't have another psalm in the Psalter that's designated "a psalm of Moses the man of God." Remember, he was drawn out of the Nile. He was called for a very important purpose: to lead Israel out of bondage to the people to the promised land. This psalm is important for that reason.
What triggered Moses to write it? What triggered Moses to write it?
Moses's life is interesting. It comes in threes it comes in three sets of 40 if you will. 40 years of preparation, then there were 40 years of confrontation, and then 40 years in the wilderness. Those three sets of 40 there are important. The psalm was written at the end of his life, so he's about 120 God had raised up this man of God, God had raised up this servant to deliver the people from Egypt and take them to the promised land.
It's generally known that the psalm was written against the background of Numbers 20. Moses had lived with a great pain in leading God's people of their rebellion in the wilderness. Imagine how devastating it would be to be the deliverer! Imagine to be the deliverer, called and raised up to do this great task the one called to save God's people out of egypt and then to see in those 40 years, the last 40 years of his life, that entire generation perish in the wilderness. 20 years and older, something went wrong. Something that was meant to teach us about life and death in the wilderness. Israel had been rebellious. Israel had not walked by faith. You remember, so Hebrews tells us. And the Lord ended up saying that generation shall surely die in the wilderness numbers 32. So the Lord's anger was aroused, and that's important for the language that Moses uses here. The Lord's anger was aroused against Israel, and He made them wander in the wilderness 40 years until all that generation that had done evil in the sight of the Lord was gone.
It would be devastating to see this. If this church, such a thing had happened, and everyone 20 years and older died in front of me as the pastor, can you imagine the effect? One death burdens you beyond what you could imagine as a pastor. They broke His covenant, Jeremiah 31.
What we have recorded for us is that the Lord, in His wrath, made them wander in the wilderness until all that generation was gone. Imagine that leader of God's people, and you see God's people dying off like flies.
In Numbers 20, you have three significant events. By this point, all that were left really were Moses, Aaron, Miriam, and Caleb and Joshua. And in Numbers 20, Miriam dies, and then Aaron dies his brother and his sister. He loved them. If you have dealt with that, you know how hard that is. By the time Moses writes Psalm 90, he had probably witnessed most of that generation fall, and the ones that head into the promised land would be the the ones that younger the new generation, led by Caleb and Joshua. But the generation he knew, the generation he loved, had all died.
Now, don't in light of that doesn't verses three through six make sense?
"You turn man to dust and say, return oh children of man For a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is passed, 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 is renewed, and in the evening it fades and it withers."
That's the reality that the scriptures press us to think about. 70 years, or if by reason of strength, 80 That's pretty common to this whole congregation, to life 70 years, maybe you'll get 80 and the rare ones will get into the 90s
Moses gives us perspective on this. Moses is helping us with this. In verse 3 "You turn man to destruction. You turn him literally to dust." um It's it's thinking of creation, and it's Moses is pondering creation and the curse that came out at creation. "From dust you were taken and to dust you shall return." Like a watch in the night, like sleep in the morning, grass grows up, and in the evening it withers.
I wondered if that woman pondered how quickly the tulip dies away. The most beautiful flower, I think. It was frustrating for me when I tried to grow them in Linden. Not only did they not grow very well because of me, but they were gone shortly after.
Well, he's thinking about this. He compares our life to grass. You know what he's thinking about? The curse at creation. They had greatly broken the covenant that God had made with them on Sinai. The truth of Romans 6 played out in front of his eyes: "The wages of sin is death."
Moses says in verse 10, "We finish our years like a sigh. The days of our lives are 70 years, and if by reason of strength they're 80, yet their boast is only labor and sorrow."
In light of the fact that a thousand years are like a day in God's sight, in light of the fact that those great truths of His eternity, the great truth of His eternity in light of the fact that we are like a blade of grass that is here one morning and then gone the next, 70 to 80 years, the psalm is pressing us to think about this. The psalm wants us to wrestle with this. Moses wants us to take this seriously, because it's the last thing people do. We really don't believe that tomorrow could be our funeral.
Psalm 39: "Lord, make me to know something, make me to know my end and what is the measure of my days. Let me know how fleeting I am. Behold, you have made my days as a few hand breaths my lifetime is as nothing before you. Surely all mankind stands as a mere breath. Selah. Surely a man goes out as a shadow; surely for nothing they are in turmoil. Man heaps up wealth, and he does not even know who will gather it."
That's the what I begin with The ugliness, of this the ugliness kind of working backward from the good the bad and the ugly, you feel Moses's pain really jump off the pages of the scripture here. There is nothing that sobers our reality more than death. It's the best tutor to wake us up. When you feel the pain of that and of losing a loved one who you are most close with, mortality stares us in the face.
You carry them away like a flood. You flood them away. Think of all the people who lived just 100 years ago who were all about their business. Think of the people in the 1800s, all about their business, who lived, who were in the very same situation we were in, who were sitting in church hearing a sermon like Psalm 90 a hundred years ago. the same words. the preacher saying the same thing. And that whole generation is in the grave. right now. And in a hundred years, we all are in The grave. the entire generation had perished. You've looked at The hourglass, right? You've flipped it over, haven't you? The sand moves, and then it ends.
Spurgeon once said, "We are pursuing shadows while death pursues us."
All of you are saying, "I didn't come at the end of the year to get this really discouraging message, did you?" and Moses is saying, "This is good for you. This is good for you."
Is it a morbid perspective about life? That depends.
To add further to the tragedy, it gets worse for Moses. This is the bad of the psalm. Remember what happened? Moses struck the rock in anger over rebellion of Israel in the wilderness, and the Lord says, "Because you did not hallow me in front of Israel, you will not bring Israel into the promised land." It seems like a little sin, or was it? How many times have we been angry with people? How many times have we spoken against people?
Further, the Lord said to Moses, "Aaron won't enter the land because you rebelled against my word at the waters of Meribah." So before the eyes of Moses and Aaron, they now are given the message, the ears, they will die because of their failure.
Now Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, which is opposite Jericho, and the Lord showed him all the land gilead as far as Dan. From the mountaintop, Moses, Deuteronomy 34, saw the promised land. 120 years 40 of preparation, 40 of deliverance in nothing but difficulty before Pharaoh, and then 40 years in the wilderness. All for it to end for him, that he would simply stand on a mountain and look at the land and not enter it.
What is this? What is this life? What's the end of the road for the man? Moses is wrestling with this. Moses is thinking about this. He saw his own failure, and he saw what sin did, and it grieved him terribly.
It said in verse 7, "We have been consumed in your anger; you have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your countenance."
Imagine. Think about this. Think about the great truth of a holy God who made heaven and earth, and every last sin that we have committed is an offense to him. And year after year, they're multiplied. Romans 2 the wicked store up for themselves, treasure up for themselves, wrath for the day of wrath.
Look at our years: 70 and if by reason of strength you might get 80 full of labor and sorrow. reality of what I came to learn in the wilderness. I saw clearly what our lives are under the law of God and under the sun.
And it's here, beloved, that the psalm surprises us with the good! And it's really good!
So this point this would have been the most depressing psalm ever if we had ended here. At this point, the answer doesn't come at the end of the psalm though. The answer came where? At the beginning of the psalm!
"Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, wherever you had formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, you are God."
This is what enthralled Moses. This was the happiness Moses had. All of the Psalter faces this reality elevates to us, in the midst of the reality of death, and some of you've been through this recently you know the pain of this it elevates in the midst of the reality of death something that is a solution and an answer to us that we need to think about. And it's something about God himself that is the answer. It's His eternity.
Psalm 102, which is a deep psalm of lament: "For my days pass away like smoke." See? It's all over the place. "My bones burn like a furnace, but in the heart of that psalm, you oh lord are enthroned forever You are remembered throughout all generations you will arise and have pity on Zion; it is time to favor her, the appointed time has come
What Moses was saying is: "Lord, at the beginning of the psalm, verse one, you are my land. Did you hear it? You are the land. You are my home."
You think of all the psalms capturing this beautiful truth. Asaph: "Whom have I in heaven but you? It's not heaven I want it's you. My heart and my flesh falter, but you are the portion and stay of my heart forever."
It was the fact that God himself exists eternally. And if it could be had that we could find His favor in this life, then we as His people could be assured that we will dwell with Him forever. God is not the God of the dead, but He's the God of the living. Do you think about that? Anyone who's died there's a reason Jesus said they're not truly dead. "Anyone who believes in me," what did He say? "Even though he dies, he shall live because in the presence of God, death cannot be."
Here's Moses's comfort. Moses describes creation itself. Think of this world and how set it seems. Think of all that's set in the heavens the lights and the mountains and the stars and oceans and all that He formed with His hand. He describes creation itself as a birth, if you will, having a birth. "Before you, literally gave birth to the mountains or ever form the earth or the world, as if to say, even the earth itself, as you know it, was just born yesterday before you. There is no time in the sense as we understand yesterday, today, and forever. He exists. But even the heavens and the earth will pass away; it will die. But with you, Lord, with you there's no beginning or end. You always were, you always are, you always will be."
He found so much comfort in that truth, beloved. What that means is: Him being, always having always been always is always will be what that means is there's true hope, help. There's true help. And then when you start to think, as Moses does here, of the gospel that's been announced all throughout history to His people the gospel that's been announced throughout history a gospel that said death itself can be overcome! Well, when He sent His Son, the very cords of death could not hold Him, could they? He rose victorious from the tomb, and the bars, as we sing, ripped away, if you will. The stone, and He's enthroned. And this Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
What's remarkable about the song is the confidence it breeds that this attribute of God is not a weapon against us. It's the solution! If death is a result of sin, our mortality is set before the immortal One. The remarkable truth here is that Moses has absolute confidence that God is in His eternity. He's not speaking of God's eternity as something that stands against him, but as something he's finding comfort in.
Moses knew that not even the sorrows of this life nor even the reality of death can remove us from the presence of the One who is from everlasting to everlasting.
Hope permeates the psalm in one of the worst realities we face in this life.
The word "dwelling place" means refuge, doesn't it? They say that, as the Jews believed, that if the next psalm is not named, it belonged to the previous author. So that would mean Psalm 91 was probably written by Moses, as has been received. Listen to how it begins: "He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say to the Lord, my refuge and my fortress, my God in whom I trust.
See? He was assured he could have that.
When we face the ugly and awful and bad reality of death and sin, sin and death, what is the way forward? Can there be peace? And probably the bigger question of the psalm is: Is there true meaning to life? Is that not what everyone's searching for?
The heart of the psalm, the answer in the heart of the psalm, is in verse 14.
"Satisfy us."
Such a beautiful word. "Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love."
You know that's a special word throughout the Psalter. It's a covenantal word. It's a word that is celebrating the steadfast, faithful, covenant love that cannot change to His people. "Would you satisfy me with that, O Lord?" is His prayer. "Satisfy us with, as some translations capture, mercy."
May we rejoice in the midst of this. Now notice, notice this is this, is a remarkable inclusion in the midst of this can you rejoice in the midst of the wilderness walk in the reality of death? "May we rejoice and may we be glad, not just some of our days, all of them!" The days in which we face this affliction, God has satisfied us. It's um remarkable how much the Psalter gives attention to this.
"Where do you begin, O God? You are my God. Earnestly I seek you. My soul thirsts for you. My flesh faints for you, in a dry and thirsty land where there is no water." Yeah, that's what Israel struggled with in the wilderness. "So I've looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory, because your steadfast love is better than life. My lips will praise you. I will bless your name as long as I live. In your name I will lift up my hands."
A satisfied life. A life of meaning.
You didn't have to go today to listen to any guru to get it. You just had to listen to your pastor. It was not very remarkable to tell you that the Lord's intention for you is a satisfied, happy life in the midst of this.
Does the world have that? I read that Sproul comment because, you know, maybe it applied a little bit to me. I tend to wallow in all my failings. I tend to wallow in the cloud of guilt. "We're never doing enough. Always feeling like God's cloud is on me." Do you?
It does not say, "Oh, you're so bad, God despises you," and that's the end of the matter. You know what the Psalter continually reverberates with? is This word: covenant mercy.
Psalm 103: "But the mercy of the Lord is from what? What's from everlasting? The mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear Him and His righteousness to children's children."
You'll notice it says, that "Let your work be shown to your servants and your glorious power to their children." That's a promise. He's got that. He does that. We worry about it all the time.
The remarkable truth of the gospel, inspired everywhere, which comes with a question: "Who has believed our report?" Isaiah 53. "To whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?" In the face of sorrow, He replaces that wrath with mercy.
"What manner of love the Father has given to us that we should be called sons of God!"
Death doesn't destroy mercy. That's why I love R. Heidelberg. It doesn't pay the debt of our sins. Death is that benefit of putting an end to sinning and entering into eternal life.
Moses asks this important question in verse 11, doesn't he? "Who knows the power of your anger?"
The reality is only one. Only one. Not you. You couldn't handle that for a moment.
The one to lead them in the promised land was not Moses. It was a man named Joshua. Joshua. The Hebrew name for who? "The Lord is salvation." He saves. "And you shall call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins."
Who knew the power of His anger? Aren't you glad that you and your loved ones who have died, who believe, won't? Joshua means salvation. It prefigured the One who would carry us into the land. It wasn't Moses. Moses couldn't save himself. Moses couldn't save Israel. Only One could, and we answer today: praise be to God that Christ knew that anger, and that the fierce anger of the Lord was poured out upon him for our eternal life. Believing in him, we have passed from what john 5 death to life.
And the result of that is this: "Death is swallowed up in victory! It's the whole message: Death is swallowed up in victory! Oh death, where is your victory? Oh death, where is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law, but thanks be to God who gives us it's a gift the victory through Jesus Christ!"
So what is the altering perspective of life as we begin a new year? End one? Well, it really is verse 12
"Teach us then to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom."
That should be a good resolution. I don't know what your resolutions are. I doubt you'll keep them for a week if you're like me. The Lord must teach us. Lord must guide us. You don't even know how to live your life. You ever feel like that? The Lord must teach you how to live your life with true purpose. The Lord must give you wisdom to know even how to begin to take a step as an adult.
Life is not found in the abundance of what we have. Happiness in life is not found in completing some bucket list of looking at tulips before I die. You want to go look at tulips? Go ahead. I did not. I won't criticize that. It's finding meaning today. It's being satisfied every day of life with meaning and purpose.
See? This is so important for the psalm to close this out a numbering our days. Yes, it's taking sin seriously. It's repenting of sin. It's trusting in Christ and not wasting our life on life's vanities. Absolutely. Israel was saved to come out and to be a worshiping people.
Moses concludes in verse 17 "Let the favor isn't that amazing after all this favor gracious favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands upon us yes establish the work of our hands."
I had someone tell me one time it seems like, to this very well-known and popular and favorite psalm of people, that's such an anticlimactic ending. How wrong they are!
One of the great sadnesses in our day, lived out before you as you begin your year, what you're seeing play out in our country is a people who have no purpose for living, a people who have no optimism. It was Dr. Godfrey, to Thanksgiving sermon years uh sermon years ago who said the reason America at its beginning was successful and prosperous is because the people had purpose; the people had optimism. The world ultimately can't provide it.
This is exactly why today everyone's fearful and they're frantic and they're worried.
Hear me: You can live with meaning and purpose, and God just gave it in this psalm.
He establishes. Who does? He establishes the work of our hands. The work of our hands matters! We live with meaning for His glory. You can rise every day whether you eat or drink and give glory to God. That lifts us out of depression. Anyone knows that if you're depressed, you have to first establish again meaning and purpose, and that your life's valued by the One to whom it matters.
"Satisfy us with your mercy. May we rejoice all of our days and be glad."
Satisfy us now. And where is that found? Only in Jesus Christ. Establish our hearts in hope. Establish our hearts that He's coming again. Establish our hands and we our hearts and hands and our work and We will have joy in this life. we will have happiness in this life "You are the One that establishes the work of our hands. You give us the work. This is happiness!"
What a wonderful message today to tell you to rest in Christ and to be comforted, to know that whatever He has for us in 2025 even if it's death when you believed in Christ, you've received Him by faith. There's a reason that the first thing at the end of Romans 8, it says: "Not even death separates us from His love." We awake when we die into the very presence of the One who is from everlasting to everlasting, who has put away, because of His Son, sin and death forever.
He is our land. He is our hope. He's our dwelling place. His purpose was always to save us. That Psalm 16 says: "We would dwell in the land of the living with pleasures at His right hand forever."
That's the perspective that should guide us to the end of this year and into a brand new one.
Let's pray.
Gracious Lord, thank you for your favor that rests upon us that we do not deserve. You taught us a lot by looking at Israel in the wilderness of who we are, what we are like. But then you gave a new covenant. Whereas Israel broke the old, you said, "In the new covenant, you will remember our sins no more." Thank you that your mercy is from everlasting to everlasting. Let us celebrate, O Lord, and all of our days find meaning and purpose. For if you are establishing the work of our hands, nothing can stand against us, not even death. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.