"THE ETERNALITY OF GOD AND THE MORTALITY OF HUMANKIND"

“THE ETERNALITY OF GOD AND THE

MORTALITY OF HUMANKIND”

PSALM 90:3-10, 12

          You turn man back into dust And say, "Return, O children of men." For a thousand years in Your sight are like yesterday when it passes by, Or as a watch man in the night. You have swept them away like a flood, they fall asleep; in the morning they are like grass which sprouts anew.

          In the morning it flourishes and sprouts anew; For we have been consumed by Your anger and by Your wrath we have been dismayed. You have placed our iniquities before You, Our secret sins in the light of Your presence. For all our days have declined in Your fury; We have finished our years like a sigh. As for the days of our life, they contain seventy years, Or if due to strength eighty years, Yet their pride is but labor and sorrow; For soon it is gone and we fly away.

          So teach us to number our days,

          That we may present to You a heart of wisdom (NASB).

INTRODUCTION

          Moses is considered as the author of Psalm 90, which makes this Psalm the oldest Psalm among the Psalms. If there was any person who was qualified to speak about death it was Moses. Moses led closely about two million people who wandered through the desert, waiting to die. Based on the population by estimation Moses presided over one hundred funerals every day for forty years. Every time the children of Israel left camp they left behind a large cemetery. One by one an entire generation died off. No wonder Moses wrote, You turn men back into dust And say, Return, O children of men (literally, sons of Adam). In this Psalm Moses paints for you and me the stark reality of the brevity of life.

         

I. THE BREVITY OF LIFE VV. 3-6

In his book, I am with You Always: Experiencing God in Times of Need, Chip Ingram tells a story about the death of several people who were close to him. He said, “One of them was a middle-aged man named Bruce Barnett, who died of cancer. I’ll never forget what he told the people of our church when he spoke about his experience. He said, “We are all terminal.” I am obviously terminal—but so are you. The only question is, ‘When?’”

          There is truth to the dying man’s statement. All of us are terminal it is just a matter of time. We know this fact intellectually but when someone who is close to you says it, it hits home. But we don’t want to hear it. Down deep in our hearts we say, “I have got time.” We make mental excuses that we will deal with these major spiritual issues when things calm down. Procrastination is the order of the day, and as we all know things don’t calm down.

          Moses buried well over a million people in his lifetime. He understood that life is short. Moses faced daily what we try to avoid. We live like we are going to live forever, don’t we? But the only certain day you and I can count on is when we cross the line from time into eternity. That is something most people don’t plan for; most even don’t want to think about it. But Moses puts it right in our faces. You and I were made for time and eternity, but life is short. The most important question you can ask yourself or a friend is, “Are you prepared to die?” The wisdom from the Christian past is when you are ready to die then you are ready to live. If you know without a doubt that in thirty days at exactly 11 a.m. you are going to die, would you live any differently between now and the date? Is there anybody you would call to apologize? Is there any relationship that needs to be mended? Is there anything that needs to be done? Are there any areas in your life that need to be refocused or straightened up? Would you spend too much time watching TV? Would you spend much time in amusement, just killing time? Or would you live with a purpose and a plan? Why don’t you do it now, for life is short? Sometimes when I think of the dictators, terrorists, power drunken political and spiritual leaders, and even some of us, I wonder whether we reflect on the fact that we are just mortals. The truth of this Psalm is that you and I live under divine mandate of mortality of which no human being can escape. Verses 5-6 define the process and the nature of mortality. This should even spur us to share Christ with others. In comparison to God, humankind is nothing but dust (v. 3). Man in his being is weak. You and I are subject to the Eternal God, who alone has power over all His creation, including the life and death of humans. In comparison with God’s eternity, our brief span of life may be likened to grass (v. 5), which sprouts only shortly to be parched (v. 6). The grass withers and human life is brief.

          Since God is eternal and you and I are mortals; since life is brief and death is certain this should move us from a life characterized by procrastination and trivial pursuits to a life characterized by priorities and divine purpose.

II. THE SERIOUSNESS OF SIN VV. 7-10

          After graphically reminding us of our mortality, Moses now explains why life is short. Life is short because death is part of our future. In verses 7-10, Moses states emphatically that sin is a serious business. Today some make sin to be full of fun, but it is not. Sin is responsible for all the problems you and I face in the world today. Sin results in death, but death was not in the original plan of God. God designed humans in His own image to enjoy fellowship with Him forever. God’s best was for you and I to live forever without tasting the sting of death, but there was a “coup de tat” on the planet, a rebellion within God’s creation. Adam and Eve willfully chose to disobey God. They chose not to listen to His word or enjoy the perfect environment He had created for them. Instead, they reasoned that they knew better. They succumbed to Satan’s deception and chose to rebel against their good and holy Creator. You know the rest of the story and therefore you can fill in the missing pieces. When sin set in it brought in its trail death in the world. When God said that when they eat from the tree in the middle of the Garden they would die, He was not playing games with Adam and Eve. The wages of sin is death.

          Moses develops the distance between humans and God. The Lord is eternal and sovereign, whereas we are weak and dependent. We are mortals and not in control of the universe. He explains that human frailty and anxiety are the expressions of God’s judgment upon us. The Lord’s anger and wrath create a barrier between the Lord and man, as man becomes terrified (v. 7), because man becomes more aware of his iniquities and secret sins. The Lord knows all our open and hidden sins. Our hidden sins are hidden from public eyes, but they are not hidden from the Lord, who knows the secrets of the heart (Psalm 44:21). God reacts with justified anger and wrath against sin because he loves us too much to leave us in our sinful state. When we love someone, we get angry over everything that threatens his/her well-being. We get angry because we love the one who is endangered by the wrongdoing. When we are called before a holy God, there is no place to run or hide. All our days pass away under His righteous indignation. We come to the end and groan life is short. We measure the length of our days by seventy or eighty years, but longevity is largely out of our control. Yet what is the day-to-day content of life? Trouble and sorrow haunt us. Our years quickly pass like a shadow. Do you take sin seriously? Do you tend to think about and describe sin like mistake, slipup, and little error? No! That is not God’s take on sin. The Bible says sin is serious and God’s character is holy, that He demands that sins we commit in this life be judged. They have already been judged. That is why Paul warns us in Galatians 6:7-8, Do not be deceived: God is not mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit will reap eternal life. "The soul who sins will die." These words are sobering. When sin prevails people get hurt. When you sow distrust, dishonesty, and disrespect, you reap multiplied bitterness, anger, and resentment. And that destroys human relationships and it causes people to run and hide, getting lost in the world of videos and virtual reality—anything but dealing with the real stuff. Sin is serious business, yet we live in a world of pervasive denial. So many people turn to almost anything to sedate the unrest in their soul. When was the last time you get quiet and said, God search me and know my heart? Try me and know my thoughts. See if there is any sinful way in me. Show me bitterness, resentment, and show me where my thoughts are less pure than you want them to be. You and I don’t do this quite often because we know that if we really got honest with ourselves and with God, the Holy Spirit would quickly locate those sins we have been denying or covering up. When you take sin seriously, you will tend to avoid anything that would pollute your relationship and fellowship with Jesus Christ.

III. THE INDISPENSABILITY OF DIVINE WISDOM VV. 11-12

          Notice the progression in the first eleven verses: the Psalm teaches us that God is great, life is brief, and sin is serious. Then Moses provides for us the next logical life lesson: divine wisdom is indispensable. Moses cries for help. In verse 11, he asks a searching rhetorical question, Who knows the power of your anger? For your wrath is as great as the fear that is due you. Maybe Moses was reminiscing all the funerals he had conducted in the wilderness. Maybe he was thinking of the rebellion of Korah when the earth opened and swallowed him, his followers, their wives, and children (Num. 16). Moses had seen what happened when people were belligerent and unforgiving, when they began to worship idols. He saw how God responded with powerful judgment. Moses was deeply conscious of what you and I pass over lightly: that God is holy. He doesn’t mess around with sin. Moses like us knew how difficult it was to live righteous life in a fallen and sinful world. He felt that he was helpless and he needed help, and he models for us how to get help from God. He prayed. He brought his petition before God. Listen to his prayer “Teach us to number our days” (v. 12). Because life is short, sin is serious, and God is holy, Moses realized we need God to teach us to know how to live and use our time wisely. We need a heart of wisdom, so we can live life God’s way. The numbering of our days is the recognition that there is a vast difference between God and finite man. It is the realization of how few the days of human life are. This enables you and I to become constantly aware and respond to the temporality of life. The heart of wisdom seeks persistently after the Lordship of Christ. This wisdom comes through divine revelation and illumination. Wisdom is not just intellectual ability. It is more than that. Wisdom is the supernatural ability to understand how to live your life according to God’s design. God has our best in mind, but how do we experience that in life day by day? That is exactly what Moses is asking God to show him. Godly wisdom hears the revelation from God’s word and seeks moment-by-moment, and day-by-day to make it work in real life, in relationships, and in the community of believers.

          When you learn to number your days, you will find priorities grow in importance. Ask yourself this fundamental question: Am I spending my life or investing it? When you look at the way you live your life are you wasting your life or investing it? Does the possibility of judgment cross your mind? This may sound like bad news, but sometimes people don’t appreciate the good news until they get the bad news straight. Are you one of those who think that science and technology are going to solve all our problems and cure all diseases? We may applaud technology for it has done so much for us, but at the same time technology in the hands of wicked men can become deadly weapons. United States and the western world are on the edge because we know what tyrants, Al-Qaeda and other terrorist networks can do with nuclear and chemical weapons. How are you using the limited time God has given you on this side of eternity? Are you keeping grudges? Are you being a talebearer?  Are you creating barriers? Or are you building bridges and letting your life count? Are you influencing more people for Christ for eternity?

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