90:1 A prayer of Moses, [the] man of God,
My Lord, a dwelling place your are for us from generation to generation.
90:2Before the mountains were born
and [brought forth with] writhing the earth and the world,
from everlasting to everlasting you [are] God.
90:3You turn mankind to dust,
and you say,
‘Return, sons of Adam’.
90:4For a thousand years in your eyes [are] like a day
yesterday that has passed, and a watch in the night
90:5You flood them, they are asleep,
In the morning like grass it passes.
90:6In the morning it flourishes and by the evening it passes.
And it withers and dries.
90:7For we are finished/exhausted by your anger
and in your rage we are disturbed/dismayed
90:8you put our guilts in front of you,
Our secreted things to the light of your face.
90:9For all our days turn in your fury/overflow
We finished our years like a moan.
90:10The days of our years, in them seventy years
And if with strength eighty years
Their pride [is] trouble and sorrow
It passes quickly and we fly.
90:11Who knows the strength of your anger?
And like your fear your overflowing/fury.
90:12To count our days thus teach
And we will bring a heart of wisdom.
90:13Return, Yahweh!
When?
And have compassion on your servants.
90:14Satisfy us in the morning with your covenant faithfulness
We will sing and we will rejoice in all our days
90:15Cause us to rejoice for as many days as our affliction.
Years we have seen evil.
90:16Show your servants your work,
And your splendour upon their sons.
90:17Let the pleasantness of the Lord our God be upon us,
And the work of our hands establish upon us,
And the work of our hands establish it.
Sometimes a problem has to be made worse before it gets better. I remember at our Moore College house. Our kids were sensitive to dust, so I needed to pull up the old carpet. Anyway, I pull up the carpet, and the underlay, and then find Masonite. So to get to the floor boards, I pull up the Masonite. But there are no floorboards. There is a very disturbing lack of timber, whether floorboards or beams, because termites had gotten there first and eaten it. So we had to put in a whole new floor with new footings. The problem became much worse before it became better. Sometimes a nose has to be rebroken before it can be reset.
You’ve come to this service of solace to receive ‘solace’. Anything else would be false advertising, wouldn’t it? I imagine you’ve come because something horrible has happened this year for you. Maybe 2021 was your ‘annus horribilis’. You’ve lost someone precious, or maybe more than one person, or your health has nosedived, or your relationships are not what you want them to be. Maybe its just one thing after another, and it is hard to get up again after each blow.
Well, I’m going to make it worse before I make it better. Thank you, that’s my pleasure. Because the real problem, both yours and mine, is even worse than it seems. But that makes the solution even better. That’s what makes the solution the best news ever. But unless you understand the problem, and how bad it is, you won’t understand God’s solution to our real problem, and how good it is.
Psalm 90 is not the only song Moses wrote, but it is the only one in the Book of Psalms. Moses, of course, was chosen by God to bring Israel out of slavery in Egypt. He was saved miraculously as a baby, he grew up in Pharaoh's palace, he fled after killing an Egyptian. He learned shepherding in his own 40 year desert exile. And from there God called him to rescue Israel and bring them to the promised land.
But sadly Moses and Israel, like us, were sinful. And God was not going to allow Moses and that generation to enter the promised land. The people had capped off all their grumbling and complaining along the way with a refusal to enter the promised land. And Moses himself had not respected God. God had told him to speak to a rock to draw water from it, but Moses, perhaps in anger, hit the rock. And because he wouldn’t do what God said, Moses missed out on entering Canaan.
And so Israel, with Moses, wandered in the desert 40 years. This was God’s mercy, of course. That generation got to see their children and grandchildren. God didn’t wipe them out all at once, as he could have, and as he sometimes does even now. Remember the Tsunami! But God patiently allowed this sinful Israelite generation to live their lives, provided them food and clothing and shelter. Their shoes didn’t wear it. He let them see their children and grandchildren. And then God laid them low in the dust of death. God littered the desert with their bodies. And that includes Moses, who died outside the promised land. He didn’t get to see everything that God had originally sent him to do.
From this Psalm we see why death must occur. Moses knew the experience of death. He explains the origin of death. We see it in verses 3 and 5:
Verse 3, “You turn people back to dust, saying, “Return to dust, you mortals.” (NIV) ….
Verse 5, “Yet you sweep people away in the sleep of death” (NIV). Notice verse 3, ‘You turn people back to dust’.
God does this death thing. God brings our lives to an end. God lays us in the dust of death. The Lord gives, and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. And the Bible tells us that God does this because of our sin. The wages of sin is death. We die because we sin, and belong to a sinful humanity. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. There is no one righteous, not even one. There is no one who has done good, only God alone. All are filled with iniquity, from head to toe, including me and you. In God’s sight, we are a sinful and wicked human race.
And this provokes God’s anger. You see, our sins are a great problem because they make God angry. God is holy and different to us. He is angry at our sins, verses 7 to 9:
“7 We are consumed by your anger and terrified by your indignation. 8 You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence. 9 All our days pass away under your wrath; we finish our years with a moan.” (NIV)
Not only is death the result of our sin, but there is something much worse. God is angry at us. God hates our sin, and he is angry about them. We are sinners in the hands of an angry God. Verse 7, “We are consumed by your anger, terrified by your indignation”, verse 8, we live “under your wrath”.
God knows everything that we have thought, said, and done, and even the inclinations of our heart. And he is not happy. For from within, out of our hearts, comes all kinds of evil thoughts and desires, which leads to the evil we practice. We might say, ‘Everyone is doing it. I’m only human. How else can I survive.’ But before God, we are sinful.
Indeed, Moses says that he and his people don’t know enough about God’s anger, verse 11:
“If only we knew the power of your anger! Your wrath is as great as the fear that is your due.” (NIV)
The way to living wisely in God’s world is to know God’s anger at our sins.
I have done quite a few funerals this year. because I am a chaplain to nursing home residents during the week. Mainly those funerals have been for people I have known, who have been in their eighties or nineties. They have been residents of our nursing homes who have come to church and Bible study with me. One dear lady was 100. Moses got to 120, which was excellent. But that is not the normal way. The average life expectancy in Australia is now 81.2 years for males and 85.3 years for females. And this was Moses’ experience as well, verse 10:
“Our days may come to seventy years, or eighty, if our strength endures; yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away.” (NIV)
Sure, many of us get to eighty. But those days are punctuated by lots of sorrow and trouble and pain, both physical and emotional. And they are very short in the sight of God, For as verse 4 reminds us, “A thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night.” (NIV)
Compared to God, our lives are like a three hour watch served by a sentry, or a three hour shift by a security guard. Our life span from God’s perspective is basically date night: dinner and then a movie, and that’s it. Three hours. Friends, our lives our short, and sorrowful, and quickly pass away. And the reason is our sin, our iniquity, our rebellion against God. And God is not happy about our sin. And his not happy about our predicament either.
Our lives are like grass: here today, gone tomorrow. And so Moses asks God to teach both him and his people how short their lives are, verse 12: “Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” (NIV) Our lives are so very short. God, help me to live sensibly in your world by knowing the brevity of my life.
As Paul Kelly sang, “You might have a happy family, nice house, fine car. You might be successful in real estate, even be a football star. You might have a prime-time TV show, seen in every home and bar, but you can’t take it with you.”
As Solomon says in Ecclesiastes 7:2: “It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, for death is the destiny of everyone; the living should take this to heart.” (NIV)
Welcome to our service of solace. We are so glad that you have ventured out of the safety of your home in this COVID world to come to church today for an extra service that you didn’t have to come to. We hope that you are experiencing all the comfort and consolation that God and his people can bring.
Where is the consolation and solace promised? Well, it is here. Remember I said that things have to get worse before they get better? This psalm is also hopeful, because Moses knows God. And we also know God. In fact, we know more about God than Moses did, because we have the New Testament. We have the revelation of what God was doing to save the world through his only Son, Jesus Christ. We live on this side of the miraculous birth, sinless life, sin-bearing death, vindicating resurrection, and powerful ascension of Jesus our Lord. We know more than Moses.
But Moses know a lot that gave him consolation. He knew that God as a God of mercy and salvation, verses 1 and 2:
“1 Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations. 2 Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the whole world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.” (NIV)
God is there and he is not silent. In love, He made us and everything in our world. We humans are lovingly made in his image as the rulers of creation under him. And even despite our sin and his anger, he never stopped loving us. He never gave up on us. He always had a plan of rescue, of redemption, and salvation, even before he made the world.
He loved us, even when he was angry with us, just like you love your kids, or grandkids, or your spouse, even though they drive you crazy and infuriate you at different times. God’s anger actually shows his love and respect for us. If God didn’t get angry with us, we would be worried whether he actually loved and cared for us.
It’s OK that Moses won’t get to the promised land, because God is his dwelling place, verse 1: “Lord you have been our dwelling place through all generations.” (NIV)
Few people get to fulfil their potential in this world. Only a few get to live their dream. Most fall short of what they hoped for themselves. But this world is not all there is. This world is not the end. Moses didn’t think the land of Canaan was his ultimate goal. He was looking forward to God’s heavenly kingdom, a new heaven and a new earth, a heavenly country, and a city coming down from heaven.
And along the way to that country, as he walked with God, he had God himself. “Guide me O thou great Jehovah, pilgrim through this barren land. I am weak but thou art mighty, hold me in thy powerful hand.”
If you’ve got God, you’ve got everything you need. And he will bring you to the place where there is no more weeping, mourning, crying or pain.
Moses know that God is our strength and refuge, our ever present help in times of trouble. Moses knew of the mercy and the pity of Yahweh the God of Israel, and his tender kindness and gracious favour and mercy.
So Moses asks God to turn, to relent, to give us joy and to prosper the work of our hands, verses 13-17:
“Relent, Lord! How long will it be? Have compassion on your servants. 14 Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.15 Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, for as many years as we have seen trouble. 16 May your deeds be shown to your servants, your splendour to their children. 17 May the favour of the Lord our God rest on us; establish the work of our hands for us—yes, establish the work of our hands.” (NIV)
And the call of Moses, for God, to turn, relent, to give us joy, to give us reasons to rejoice, is answered in the New Testament. For God is not merely interested in this generation or that one. God sees the beginning from the end. He considers the first human pair, Adam and Eve, to the very last human to be born in this world. He is drawing from this current evil world of despair, death, and pain, a new people, gathered around his Son. For he is bringing everything he has made under the headship of his Son, the Christ, Jesus.
Jesus will be the benevolent dictator, the ruler that we need. Jesus will be the source of unity. And if you trust in Jesus, you have Jesus as your Lord. He is God who became human for us. On the first Christmas day, God in human form, the one who is both God and man, was born. He lived an utterly obedient and faithful live, of love to God and service to others. He died on the cross, taking the punishment for all our sins. He was the lamb of God slaughtered in our place. We all like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. But not only this, Jesus rose again, defeating our worst enemy, death. After the suffering of his soul, he saw light, and was satisfied. By his knowledge, this righteous servant of Yahweh will justify many and will bear their iniquities. And then Jesus returned to heaven, where he ever lives to intercede for us. He is now alive as our great high priest who has gone through the heavens, our champion, our hero, one of us sitting there at God’s right hand.
And one day he will return to judge and bring to an end this current world order. Jesus is our helper, our friend, and the one who gives rest. “What a friend we have in Jesus. All our sins and griefs to bear. What a privilege to carry Everything to God in prayer.”
So during his life, Jesus cried out, “Come to me all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” This is the rest that each of us longs for. God has put eternity in the heart of humans.
Those who have trusted in the Lord Jesus, who have owned their own sinfulness and sought mercy and forgiveness from the saviour, and have died, are with Jesus now. Those who die in the Lord are now at rest in him. They are like the penitent thief, who Jesus promised from the cross, ‘Today you will be with me in paradise’. Those who have gone ahead, who have died in the Lord, are now enjoying that rest, resting from their labours, in the presence of the Lord Jesus himself, the great shepherd of the sheep, and awaiting their new resurrection bodies. They receive this rest not because they earned or deserved it, but because of Jesus love, kindness and mercy.
For those who have died in the Lord, we grieve, but not as the rest of humanity, who have no hope. We grieve as Jesus grieved in front of Lazarus’ tomb. We weep at the pain and destruction which entered God’s world because of sin. But we expect Jesus to call to the graves, “Come out”, and then we will be with him forever.
Moses asks twice in verse 17 for God to establish the work of our hands for us. We want our work to last, not to disappear. We hate wasting time. We hate losing work. And the good news is, because of the resurrection, we know that God will establish the work of our hands in the Lord.
The Apostle Paul, in view of the resurrection of Jesus, and his coming kingdom, bids us, “Always give yourself fully to the work of the Lord, for you know that your labour in the Lord is not in vain”.
What are you going to do now with the few days, perhaps years, that you have left? Why don’t you give yourself fully to the work of the Lord? Have Jesus Christ as your Lord and make his concerns your concerns. You won’t be wasting your time. You will be richly rewarded more than you could imagine.
Let’s pray.