«A prayer of Moses, the man of God.» It is well to know the author, because it helps you to an understanding of the psalm. Remember that Moses lived in the midst of a pilgrim people who were dwelling in tents, journeying towards Canaan. He lived in the midst of a people doomed to die in the wilderness. Only two of them, Moses himself not one of them only two of those that came out of Egypt were to be permitted to enter into the promised land. You may expect, therefore to find much that is somber about this psalm, and yet there is much that is very restful trustful, about it. If it is the prayer of Moses, it is the prayer of a man of God.
Psalms 90:1. LORD, thou has been our dwelling place in all generations.
Thy chosen people have dwelt in thee. Thou art their rest, their refuge, their comfort, their home. It is just the same now as in the days of Moses.
God's people have no dwelling-place for their souls, but their God. They are happy when they get to him. In him they dwell at ease.
Psalms 90:2. Before the mountains were brought forth,
Before they were born like infants, gigantic as they are.
Psalms 90:2. Or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.
Everything else changes. Thou dost not. We lose our comforts. We dwell, as it were, in tents which are taken down, and removed, but there is no change in thee. Beloved brethren, you know this truth, but do you enjoy it? I think there is no sweeter food for the soul than the doctrine of the immutability of the eternal existence of God God that cannot die and cannot change that is, and always is, God. Oh! he is our confidence and joy! As for men, what are they?
Psalms 90:3. Thou turnest man to destruction; and sayest, return, ye children of men.
He has only to speak no need to take the scythe and mow us down. He does but say, «Return, ye children of men,» and we go back to the dust.
Psalms 90:4. For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.
A thousand years is a very long period in human history. If you fly back and try, in your knowledge of history, to recollect what the world was a thousand years ago, it seems, a long, long time ago; but to God, who ever liveth, all the age of the world must seem but as the twinkling of an eye. What are a thousand years to thee, thou glorious one, before whom the past is present, and the future is as now?
Psalms 90:5. Thou carriest them away as with a flood;
Men stand, as they think, firmly; but as the best built buildings are swept away by a torrent trees, cattle, everything dispersed before the impetuous outburst so, great God, dost thou carry men away as with a flood.
Psalms 90:5-6. They are as a sleep: in the morning they are like grass which groweth up. In the morning it flourisheth, and groweth up; in the evening it is cut down, and withereth.
Have you ever watched a field of grass when in full bloom? There is, perhaps, no more beautiful sight. What variety of colors in the flowers, which are the glory of the grass! And then you come by, and the mower has done his work, and there it all lies. It has been withered by the sun's heat. Just such are we. Our generations fall before the scythe of death as falls the grass. And it is done at once. «In the morning it flourisheth: in the evening it is cut down.»
Psalms 90:7. For we are consumed by thine anger, and by thy wrath are we troubled.
Whenever God's anger does break forth against a people, it must consume them! Oh! what a blessing it is if you and I know that his anger is turned away, and he comforts us. Then we are not troubled by it any longer. Do not apply these words to yourselves. They belong to the Israelites in the wilderness, who were dying, consumed by God's anger, and troubled by his wrath. But as for us who believe in Jesus Christ, we have love, instead of anger and the sure mercies of David, instead of wrath, and in this we may rejoice.
Psalms 90:8. Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, our secret sins in the light of thy countenance.
And what was the result of that but that they all had to die? Their carcasses fell in the wilderness. Oh! if you are a believer in Jesus Christ, this text is not true to you does not belong to you. Here is another that belongs to you «Thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back «He has not set them in the light of his countenance, but he has cast them into the depths of the sea and you stand acquitted, justified, beloved. And yet there may be some here who feel their sins tonight, and know that God is looking at their sin. Do you know, dear friend, there is no hope for you but one, and that is written in the Book of Exodus: «When I see the blood, I will pass over you.» If you do but put your trust in the blood of Jesus Christ, God will turn away his eyes from your sins and look upon the blood of Jesus Christ. Yea, the blood of Jesus shall blot out your sins, and you shall rejoice.
Psalms 90:9-10. For all our days are passed away in thy wrath: we spend our years as a tale that is told. The days of our years are threescore years and ten: and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.
It is well to have such a sense of our mortality upon us as this psalm suggests, and yet it is better still to recollect that we are immortal that, when we die after the flesh. we shall not die, but live in Christ, world without end. Life is cut off, and it is like a string that holds a bird by the leg: we fly away. Which way? If we are God's own, we fly away above yon clouds. We reach the eternal fields where we shall sing for ever and ever.
Psalms 90:11. Who knoweth the power of thine anger? even according to thy fear, so is thy wrath.
Dread is God's anger, indeed. Who knows it? None of us do. The lost in hell begin to know it, but it will need eternity for them to learn it all. Oh! I charge everyone here who is unpardoned never to attempt to learn what God's anger means. It will be an awful lesson, the power of that anger!
Why, when it is let loose against a man, even in this life in a measure it crushes him. But what the power of that anger must be, who can tell?
Psalms 90:12. So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.
Count how many days have gone. Will not the time past suffice us to have wrought the will of the flesh? You cannot tell how few remain, but still, if you live to the longest period of life, taking that for granted which you may not take for granted, how little remains! Oh! that we might by the shortness of life, be led to apply our hearts unto wisdom, so as to live wisely. And what is the best way of living wisely, but to live in Christ, and live to God?
Psalms 90:13. Return, O LORD, how long?
It is an earnest prayer, full of grief. The prophet of Israel, Moses, was attending one continual funeral. Whenever the tribes halted, they formed a cemetery, and buried another legion of their dead. I do not wonder that he prays, «Return, O Lord, how long?»
Psalms 90:13-14. And let it repent thee concerning thy servants. O satisfy us early with thy mercy: that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
If they be but few, help us to live happily in them. Grant us the art of thy grace of knowing thyself, the source of happiness, that we may drink of bliss to the full.
Psalms 90:15. Make us glad according to the days wherein thou hast afflicted us, and the years wherein we have seen evil.
Give us measure for measure sweets in bounty, according to the bitterness. Surely God has done more than this to some of us. We can bless his name because his love has abounded, and he has made our cup to run over with his goodness.
Psalms 90:16. Let thy work appear unto thy servants, and thy glory unto their children.
We will do the work, and the next generation shall have the glory, We will be content to wait, plodding on. Jesus will come by and by. «Let thy work appear to us; thy glory to our children.»
Psalms 90:17. And let the beauty of the LORD our god be upon us: and establish thou the work of our hands upon us:
That, if we must go, we may do something that will live that we may not have lived in vain. «Establish thou the work of our hands upon us.»
Psalms 90:17. Yea, the work of our hands establish thou it.
It is my daily prayer. My heart goes up to heaven often that the work that is done in this place may never pass away, but that God would make it such a work of true and real grace, that it may abide until the Lord himself shall come. We may expect it if we seek it at his hands. «Yea, the work of our hands, establish thou it.»