Psalm 90:1-12
I’m going to read some scripture this morning, and we’re going to look at Psalm 90, and so we’re going to unpack that in a little bit. But let’s read Psalm 90 from the book of Psalms here. We’re going to read just a few verses from the psalm.
O Lord, you’ve been our dwelling place throughout all generations. Before the mountains were born, you brought forth the world. From everlasting to everlasting, you are God.
You turn people back to dust, saying, return to dust, you mortals. A thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night. Our days may come to 70 years, or 80 if our strength endures.
Yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass and we fly away. If only we knew the power of your anger. Your wrath is as great as the fear that is your due. Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.
Time goes by quickly, doesn’t it? And that’s part of the truth of Psalm 90. So, if you want to look at Psalm 90, I love the Psalms. There’s 150 of them.
David wrote about half of them. The Psalms are real, raw, and relatable. Fifty of them are psalms of lament where the author is just like crying out to God like, God, when are you going to do something? Psalm 13.
How long, God? Maybe that describes you this morning in a particular situation, but Psalm 13, in the first three or four verses, the psalmist asks the how long question, how long, Lord, will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart? Lord, what’s going on? And that’s the Psalms. I encourage you to read the Psalms because they speak to our hearts. But this morning, we’re going to look at Psalm 90.
Author: Moses
And what’s interesting about Psalm 90 is that it’s the oldest of the 150 psalms. It was written by Moses, which makes this piece of literature that we’re looking at this morning was written about 3,400 years ago. Moses writes Psalm 90.
And we’re going to spend about 10 or 15 minutes looking at the background of the Psalm because that’ll help us understand it in the context of Psalm 90 this morning. But if you know your Old Testament, you’re familiar with the life of Moses. Moses lived to be 120 years old.
His life can be divided up into three 40-year periods. 40 years he was raised in the Egyptian palace. He received a very good, good education.
40 years as a shepherd on the backside of the desert for his father-in-law Jethro. And then in 80, Exodus 3, the burning bush. And he’s called to be the leader, the deliverer of Israel who had been in bondage at that point for about 360 years.
So, think about it. Israel was captive in Egypt for a total of 400 years. Our country will celebrate birthday number 275 next July 4th.
Israel was in slavery for 400 years. And God called Moses to be the one to go to Pharaoh to be the deliverer of the nation of Israel. In one sense, we could say his most important life assignment began when he was 80 years old.
In a strange way, that encourages me, having just turned 70. God wasn’t done with Moses. And so, Moses goes before Pharaoh.
And you know the story; it’s the 10 plagues and then the Red Sea delivery. And God’s plan was for them to go straight into this wonderful promised land, the land of Canaan. And they send spies out from Kadesh Barnea.
And they come back after 40 days in the land. They give the report and 10 of them, their names are listed in the book of numbers. Nobody remembers their names of the 10 that said, we’re not going.
There’s giants in the land. And Joshua and Caleb said, no, God gave us this land. God promised us this land.
We need to go in. And they took a vote, 10 to two, they decided not to go. And God’s judgment for them not believing God, because they were afraid, they were afraid of what they had to do and of the people in the land, was the wilderness wanderings.
By the way, Pastor Crawford Loritts, I’ve heard him many times at Maranatha, he makes this statement, what you fear, you give power to control you. What you fear in your life, then you give power to control you. And I have to tell you, when we’re afraid of something, when fear is controlling us, we do not make good decisions.
And that was true here with the spies. They were fearful and they made a wrong decision and I’ll just go to Numbers chapter 14, where God’s speaking with Moses. And here’s the punishment.
Wilderness wanderings for 40 years
God said to Moses and Aaron, how long will this wicked community grumble against me? I’ve heard the complaints of these grumbling Israelites. So, tell them, as surely as I live, declares the Lord, I will do to you the very thing I heard you say. In this wilderness, your bodies will fall.
Every one of you 20 years old or more who was counted in the census and who has grumbled against me, not one of you will enter the land I swore with uplifted hand to make your home, except Caleb and Joshua. As for your children that you said would be taken plunder, I will bring them in to enjoy the land. And so, your children will be shepherds here for 40 years, one year for each of the 40 days you explored the land.
And so, nobody over the age of 20 is going to enter the promised land for 40 years, one year for every day that the spies were in the land and you didn’t believe me and you made a wrong decision. You’re going to wander in the wilderness. And so that’s what happened for 40 years, one day for each, one year for each day that they were, the spies were in the land.
One commentator writes, what should have been a relatively short trip from Egypt to Canaan turned out to be a 40-year excursion of death, discouragement, and defeat. Very little is recorded from these years of wandering in the Sinai desert. Now the Israelites would wander in unpleasant conditions with nothing positive accomplished until all over the age of 20 years old had died.
Now, Dr. Leon Wood, who wrote a book called A Survey of Israel’s History and some others have done some math calculations of the approximate population of Israel at the time they left Egypt. And how many of those would have been 20 and older and how many would have had to die every day for everybody 20 years and older to die during that 40-year period. So, the population of the nation of Israel when they left Egypt was about 2 million.
It started out with 70 members of Jacob’s family, but 40 years or 400 years later, now Israel is 2 million strong. And so, the population or the estimate is that in order for everybody 20 years older to die in the wilderness that there would have been 80 to 85 deaths a day. Can you imagine 80 to 85 funerals a day? People dying in the wilderness every day and I’m thinking, I don’t know what the answer to this question, like what did they do with all those bodies? I guess they just buried them in the sand, I don’t know.
And so, everyday people are dying and in the midst of that Moses writes Psalm 90 in the midst of what some have described the longest funeral march in the world. So, let’s look at Psalm 90. The subtitle is a prayer of Moses, the man of God.
i. The character of God
1. God is our dwelling place
Moses wrote one psalm, this is it. And so, notice where Moses starts, he starts talking about the character of God, the character of God. Verse 1, Lord you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations.
Now when they wrote this, when Moses wrote this, they were living in tents, they were nomads, they were traveling from place to place. And Moses says, God you are our dwelling place, you are our safety, you are our security. In fact, if you look at Psalm 91, the first two verses, whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.
I will say to the Lord, he is my refuge, he is my fortress, my God in whom I trust. So, Moses starts out by talking about the character of God, he says, God you’ve been our dwelling place from generation to generation. In one sense he’s saying, you God are our safety, you God are our security, no matter where we are, no matter what life circumstances are.
I remember as a kid on the playground playing tag on recess, and here’s what I remember, you could put your hands like that means, safety zone, you can’t tag me. I think it worked, at least it worked sometimes, you know. And in a sense, that’s what Moses is saying, God you are our dwelling place, you’re our security, you are our safety.
2. God is eternal
Psalm 91 goes on to say, surely, He will save you from the fowler’s snare, from the deadly pestilence, He will cover you with His feathers, and under His wings you will find refuge. His faithfulness will be your shield and your rampart. The second thing that Moses talks about God’s character is that God is eternal, God is eternal.
Look at verse 2, before the mountains were born, for you brought forth the world. So, Moses is making it very clear, God’s the creator. Before the world came to be, before the mountains were formed, from everlasting to everlasting, you are God.
So, notice how does the Bible start? In the beginning, God. That doesn’t mean that’s the beginning of God, no it’s the beginning of time, it’s the beginning of creation. God existed before he created the world.
And this is a concept that I don’t think we can comprehend in our finite minds. God is infinite, no beginning and no ending. Now that blows your mind, how can something have no beginning? We can’t understand it.
But God was here long before, obviously, he created the world. Because God is eternal, he has no beginning, he is self-existent. In fact, at the burning bush, when he called Moses to be the leader of the nation of Israel, the deliverer, Moses says, well who should I say, who are you? And he says, I am that I am.
I’m the self-existent one. What did Jesus say in John chapter 8 verse 58 when he was confronting the religious leaders? He said, before Abraham was, I am. Wait a second, Abraham was thousands of years ago.
He’s like, yes. And they knew he was claiming to be God, and so they pick up stones to stone him. So, God is eternal.
And that’s all through scripture. First Timothy chapter 1, Paul’s writing to Timothy in verse 17, now to the king eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God beyond our glory forever. Later on, in that letter in first Timothy chapter 6, last part of verse 15, God the blessed and only ruler, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, to him be honor and might forever.
And so, in the midst of the wilderness wanderings, in the midst of 85 funerals a day, Moses begins to say, God, you’re eternal. You’re our safety. You’re our dwelling place.
ii. The contrast
You’re the one that has no beginning and no ending. Well, the bulk of Psalm 90 then, the next section of verses, we read about the contrast. So, Moses begins to contrast what he’s experiencing and what the nation’s experiencing with the eternal nature of God.
1. God’s immortality verses man’s mortality
And here’s the contrast, God’s immortality versus man’s mortality. God’s immortality versus our own mortality. Verse 3, you turn people back to dust saying, return to dust you mortals.
After you go to Genesis chapter 2, chapter 2 verse 7, you discover that God created Adam out of the dust of the ground. And so, the same from dust to dust. And these bodies, when they die, decay.
I’ve often been asked about cremation. Is it right? Is it okay for a believer to be cremated? Bible doesn’t really speak to it, but what cremation does is just speeds up the process of what’s going to happen over a longer period of time. You turn man back to dust.
He’s talking about our mortality here. Verse 4, a thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by. We are time-oriented.
We are so bound by time. I don’t know how many times a day we look at these things. Dozens.
Often time to find out what time it is, but we’re bound by time. We’re bound by schedules. God isn’t.
And so, Moses says a thousand years in your sight is like a day that’s gone by or a watch in the night. That’s three hours. And then he goes on to describe this contrast between God being immortal and our own mortality.
You sweep people away in the sleep of death. They are like the new grass to the mornings. In the morning it springs up new, but by evening it’s dry and withered.
We are consumed by your anger and terrified by our indignation. You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in light of your presence. Verse 9, all our days pass away under your wrath.
Here’s a great encouraging text this morning. We finish our years with a moan. With a moan.
I will tell you, and this is God’s sovereign, but sometimes as we get older and age towards the end of life, life is difficult. I’ve been in dozens and dozens of nursing homes. Sometimes they can be a little bit depressing because life is hard and people are very, very sick.
And the Bible says we finish our years with a moan. That’s why Solomon in Ecclesiastes 12 says, remember your creator now when you’re young. And he says before the years come and the aging process takes place, then he describes the aging process in Ecclesiastes 12, the first seven verses.
Or 2nd Corinthians 4:16 through 18, do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we’re being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.
So, we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but as what is unseen. Since what is seen is temporary, what is unseen is eternal. And so, life is hard and life is difficult.
We finish our years with a moan. Verse 10, here it is. Our days may come to 70 years or 80 if our strength endures.
Now it doesn’t go beyond that. So, some of you are in overtime here this morning. 70, 80, maybe a little bit more.
But they, everybody that’s older will, they quickly pass. Every person that I talk to always told me like, you won’t believe how quickly life passes by. And now being at the other end of the spectrum, like, how did that happen? How did life happen so quickly? Quickly pass.
And then we fly away. There’s that old hymn, I’ll fly away someday, oh glory, I’ll fly away. It’s a song about heaven.
The best of them are but trouble and sorrow. Jesus said in John 16:33, in this world you will have trouble. We live in a fallen world.
James says, don’t be surprised when trials and difficulties come. Gods got a plan. Gods got a purpose.
He’s working on your character. But life has troubles. But then the last part of verse 33 says, take heart Jesus, I’ve overcome the world.
iii. The compelling requests
And so, there’s something better that you and I that know Jesus have to look forward to. Well, the psalmist closes this with some compelling requests. So, he’s got death all around him.
He says, God, you’re our dwelling place. God, you’re eternal. No beginning, no ending.
You’re infinite. We are finite. And so, he concludes this psalm by asking some requests.
And so, let’s look at them. I think there’s four or five of them this morning from Psalm chapter 90. And here is the first one found in verse 12.
1. Teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom
Teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom. So, in light of the fact that life is short, life is finite, God, would you teach me how to make wise use of my time? Would you teach me how to make my life count? Someone paraphrases Psalm 90:12 as, Lord, teach me to count my days so I can make my days count. That’s really what Moses is asking for here.
He is asking for wisdom. James chapter 1 verse 5. If any of you lack wisdom, all right, you’re facing a situation in your life and you’re saying, I don’t know where to go from here. I don’t know what to do.
Step number one, ask of God. First step, pray. Ask God for wisdom who generously will give us wisdom.
Now, where is that wisdom found? Primarily, it’s found in God’s word. In fact, there’s whole portions of scriptures called what wisdom literature. The first 10 chapters of the book of Proverbs is a father passing wisdom on to his son.
Colossians 2:3, in Christ is hidden all what wisdom and knowledge. And so where do we find wisdom? We find wisdom in God’s word because the wisdom and instruction in this book will never lead you astray. It will never steer you wrong.
And so, wisdom is found in God’s word. I remember when Diane and I were first married many, many years ago and we were in seminary. And if I told you what our weekly income was, we were actually a family of three, you would laugh.
Of course, this is a long time ago. I’ll tell you what it was, our weekly income. When I was going to seminary, $100 a week, that was for the three of us.
Somehow, I got the great idea that, well, we need a little bit more money. And I remember I met with some advisor and he advised me to invest what little money I had into a stock of a restaurant. Some of you will know, remember this restaurant called Chi-Chi’s.
It was a Mexican restaurant. And I took what little money we were able to save up and invested it in Chi-Chi’s and eventually Chi-Chi’s went out of business. So, it wasn’t the greatest investment, but God’s word will never lead you astray.
It will always point you in the right path. So, the apostle Paul writing to his son in the faith, Timothy, and he’s reflecting on Timothy’s mother and grandmother who built into his life, 2nd Timothy 3:15, Timothy, how from infancy you have known the holy scriptures, which are able to make you wise through faith for salvation. So, what’s the first wisdom step for people is what? To come to faith in Jesus.
Put your faith in Jesus alone who gave His life for us on the cross so that our sins could be forgiven. But there’s lots more wisdom in the Bible. His purpose is primarily to point us to heaven, but there’s wisdom in the Bible about how marriage should function.
Ephesians 5. There’s wisdom about parenting. There’s wisdom about finances. There’s wisdom about friendship.
There’s wisdom about employer-employee relationships. There’s wisdom about how a church is to be structured and how a church is to operate. The qualifications for leaders, there is a wealth of wisdom for life found in God’s Word.
2. Have compassion on your servants
Well, secondly, the compelling request, he asked for wisdom. We’ll run through these rather quickly. The second one is compassion.
Verse 13, relent, Lord, how long will it be? Have compassion on your servants. And so here they were and had been in slavery for 400 years and he’s asking for compassion. And you don’t want to ask God for justice because what we deserve is eternal punishment in a place called hell.
What you want from God is mercy. What you want from God is compassion. And the good news is that that’s His character.
He is full of mercy. He is full of compassion. Lamentations 3:23, great is your faithfulness.
Your mercies and compassions are new every day. Guess why we were able to wake up this morning? Because God enabled us to. Our very next breath is dependent on him.
3. Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love
And so, Moses is asking for compassion. And then the third request is for satisfaction. Verse 14, Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love. Satisfaction.
I looked it up. It was 1965. I was 10 years old.
Rolling Stones, famous song. You know what it is. You can’t get no satisfaction.
That’s the book of Ecclesiastes. Solomon has all the resources in the world and he says, meaningless, meaningless. Everything is meaningless.
Where can you find ultimate satisfaction? And Moses hits the nail on the head. It’s found in God’s unfailing love. I think the Hebrew word is hesed.
It’s used over and over and over again in scripture. God’s unfailing love, satisfaction, ultimate satisfaction is only found in our personal relationship with Jesus. With God through what Christ has done on the cross.
So, remember the conversation that Jesus had. He was thirsty. He stops at Jacob’s well.
It’s the middle of the heat of the day and here’s a lady that normally you’d get your water in the evening when it’s cooler, but here’s a lady that probably wants to avoid the rest of the town ladies. She’s been married five times and she’s living with a sick person. She’s trying to find ultimate satisfaction in these human relationships and Jesus breaks all sorts of cultural, racial barriers because he’s Jewish, she’s a Gentile, and she’s a woman, but he initiates a conversation and asks her to do something for him.
Would you get me a drink of water? And then in John chapter four, Jesus speaks some very, very profound words. He drinks the water and he says, everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.
I mean, basically Jesus was saying the satisfaction you’re looking for in relationship after relationship after relationship, the ultimate satisfaction is found in Jesus. So, when we find our ultimate satisfaction in God that Moses is asking for, satisfy us with your unfailing love, the result is found in the last part of verse 14, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days. And so, when we find our ultimate joy in Jesus, we can experience joy and satisfaction.
4. Let your work be shown to your servants
Request number four, there’s two more, then we’ll wrap this up. May your deeds be shown to your servants, your splendor to their children. That’s verse 16.
5. God’s blessing
Where do we find the deeds of God? Well, it’s in the Bible, in the scriptures, the Old Testament. And so, show your deeds to your servants and your splendor to your children. And then he concludes here by asking for God’s blessing, God’s blessing.
6. may the favor of the Lord our God establish the work of our hands
Verse 17, may the favor of the Lord our God rest on us, establish the work of our hands for us. And then he repeats it again. Yes, establish the work of our hands.
What’s Moses saying? He says, we need God’s help, don’t we? We need God’s blessing. We need God’s partnership in our life so that the work that we do has ultimate meaning in our life. We need God’s blessing as parents.
Psalm 127, that familiar psalm, the first two verses, the psalm illustrates, unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain. You’re trying to have family life and you’re trying to do it on your own and you’re leaving God out of the process. You’re wasting your time.
Unless the Lord watches over the city, the guards stand in vain. In vain, you rise up early and stay up late. And so, as parents, we need to partner with God in this parenting process.
Boy, we need to be praying for our kids. And if you have more than one child, you know that each one is individual and different characteristics. And to have wisdom to know how to speak their love language, when to discipline, how to discipline.
Boy, we need God’s wisdom in that. We need God to establish the work of our hands, not only in our home life, but in our church life. Our church leadership needs wisdom.
2nd Corinthians 6:1, Paul says we’re co-labors with God. And so, as we seek God’s face and direction and decisions, we need God’s wisdom. We need him to establish the work of His hands through our homes and through our ministries.
Application Questions
Well, four quick application questions and then we’re done. Here’s the first one.
1. Have I come to terms with my mortality?
Here’s a big one. Have I come to terms with my mortality? Hebrews 9:27, it’s appointed a man once to die. Romans chapter 5, verse 12 tells us how this all came about.
Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man and death through sin, and in this way, death came to all people because all have sinned. And so have I come to grips with the fact that we’re all here for a certain amount of time and only God knows that time. I’ve said to people, I’ve done weddings, I’ve done many more funerals than I’ve done weddings.
And quite frankly, this will sound strange, I quite frankly prefer funerals because when you’re preaching a message and there’s a casket up front, you have people’s attention and you can talk to them about life and how short life can be. And you need to come to know Jesus and people are listening. Normally at weddings, they can’t wait to get to the reception.
So, they’re kind of like, let’s party. Have I come to grips with my own mortality? One of the things I’m doing occasionally, my dad died five years ago at 91. My brother gave me all of his journals.
My dad wrote in a journal every day, three or four paragraphs. The frustrating part is his handwriting was horrific and it’s like trying to read Egyptian hieroglyphics. And so, boy, but I’m learning that my dad was very honest in his journals, like life was challenging.
Life was difficult, those last number of years of his life. So, we’re all going to die someday unless Jesus returns. And so, here’s the application.
We need to be ready. We need to make sure our faith has found that resting place in Christ and Christ alone. So, here’s the poem I shared at every funeral.
Maybe everyone I’ve ever done, pause stranger as you pass me by. This was on a headstone at a cemetery in Indiana. Pause stranger as you pass me by.
As you are now, so once was I. As I am now, so you will be. So, prepare for death and follow me. Someone read that and put a little sticky note on it and they wrote; to follow you I’m not content until I know which way you went.
2. Am I applying the wisdom of Scripture to my daily life?
And so that’s good advice as well. Number two, am I applying the wisdom of scripture to my daily life? I mentioned this book is full of wisdom and guidance and God’s given us Christian counselors and spiritually mature people who don’t be afraid to go to them for advice or to your pastor. It’s wisdom in God’s word.
Does God’s word address everything that we’re going to experience in this life? Probably not, but it’s got probably some principles that you can apply to it that might help guide you. And so, applying God’s wisdom. So, it’s not just about head knowledge, it’s about what putting it into practice and living out God’s truth.
3. Have I discovered the source of ultimate satisfaction in life?
Thirdly, have I discovered the source of ultimate satisfaction? Have I drunk from the well of Jesus where Jesus says, you will never thirst again because Jesus satisfies and he’s our ultimate satisfaction. Ecclesiastes 3:11 basically says we’re all created with a God-shaped vacuum in our hearts that only God can fulfill.
4. Am I asking God to establish the work of my hands?
And lastly, am I asking God to establish the work of my hands? I painted for a living when I was going through seminary and my boss used to say don’t work harder, work smarter. There’s a quicker and easier way to do this and that’s true for us. If you’re leaving God out of the equation, you need to bring God into the equation of your life and ask him to guide you and bless you in all that you do, in your home, in your workplace, in our church. And so am I asking God to establish the work of my hands.
Let me close with a poem that I think is appropriate and it’s written by C.T. Studd, 1860-1931. You might have heard a couple lines of this poem, but I’m not going to read you the whole thing because it’s rather lengthy. It’s entitled; Only One Life Will Soon Be Passed.
Here’s what C.T. Studd wrote. Two little lines I heard one day, traveling along life’s busy way, bringing conviction to my heart and from my mind would not depart. Only one life will soon be passed.
Only what’s done for Christ will last. Only one life, yes, only one. Soon will its fleeting hours be done.
Then in that day my Lord to meet and stand before His judgment seat. Only one life, the still small voice gently pleads for a better choice, bidding me selfish aims to leave and to God’s holy will to cleave. Only one life, a few brief years, each with its burdens, hopes and fears, each with its days I must fulfill, living for self or in His will.
Oh, let my love with fervor burn and from the world now let me turn, living for thee and thee alone, bringing thee pleasure on thy throne. Only one life, yes, only one. Not let me say, now let me say thy will be done.
And when at last, I hear the call, I know I’ll say it was worth it all because only one life will soon be passed and only what’s done for Christ will last. Make it your aim in the time that God gives you on this earth. Invest your time, talent, and treasure in things that are going to last forever.
There’s only three things that are eternal, God, God’s word, and the souls of people. May God give us wisdom to do that.