The Grim Reaper? - [Psalm 90]

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Well, as you know, at this church, we put a high priority on 2 Timothy 4, preach the word.
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And typically, we are going verse by verse through a book of the Bible. It's called Lectio Continuum.
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That simply means the word just continued chapter after chapter. You pick up where you left off to teach through all the books of the
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Bible. And we're in between books now. We finished Hebrews, waiting for a couple more weeks to start our new series.
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And so I was thinking to myself, I've got about five different sermons I could preach. Which one should I preach?
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And that was on Monday. And then I started having some chest pains in the last few days.
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And I thought I better go in and take the high road. And so one EKG, two EKGs, x -ray, blood work.
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They said I was fine and all negative. I did say, by the way, to them, do you think
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I could go on a walk after this testing? Sure. Then I said, I have one more question for you.
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What was my next question? Could I go on a bicycle ride? That's right. They said, well, yeah,
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I guess you can. And as I sat there in the room getting the
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EKG, I thought, you know what? Life is short. Eternity is long.
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Heaven is real. Hell is real. And we all need to be ready to stand before God. And so if you take your
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Bibles today and turn to Psalm chapter 90, we're going to look at the oldest psalm in your Bible, a psalm that is solemn and sober, but good for you to get your mind around.
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A song of hope, yes. We today need to make sure that we think about God's nature and who we are in light of not only the trials of life, but also the death of loved ones.
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How do we process and frame life and death rightly?
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Psalm 90 gives us the answer. And so as we look at Psalm 90, this psalm that is very, like I said, solemn.
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As solemn as Psalm 90 is, Psalm 91 was rejoicing, celebratory. But it's important that we deal with these issues, our relationship with the
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Lord and where we stand. And we need to make sure that we ask ourselves the question, what does life matter?
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Does it matter that our lives are fleeting? Can I have purpose in my life? How do I think about death?
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Do I just default to eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die? Or can there be hope in the midst of death and sorrow and sickness and sadness?
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If we're trusting in the Lord Jesus, can we in fact live for him while our bodies decay?
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Can we walk by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ? This psalm is going to tell us that we need to think through the eternal nature of God as the key to solve all these problems.
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God is eternal. Therefore, he in his grace has given us the eternal son, that he might live a life of perfect obedience to the law.
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He didn't need that, but we did. And then dying for our sins on the cross and being raised from the dead.
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And now this eternal God, although our lives go by quickly, offers eternal life for all those who would believe.
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The Lord Jesus said, whoever believes in the son has eternal life. He said in John 4, whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again.
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The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.
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Jesus said, you search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life and it is they that bear witness about me.
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And so today we're going to look at the eternal God and the fleeting nature of mankind so we can think through these issues properly.
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Leopold said of Psalm 90, there does not appear to be any trace of bitterness or undue pessimism in Psalm 90.
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Just plain, realistic thinking. That's what we're going to have.
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And I have to say, and I'm not trying to be funny or flippant, but you'll never hear this sermon in Joe Osteen's church because it's all peppy and it's all uplifting and it's all your best life now.
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Everyone here, and even as of our funeral last Saturday of our dear friend, we need to be able to look at a casket, to look at cremains, to look at someone dying in the hospital and say, how do
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I think about this rightly? Left to my heart? Left to what the world says?
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I'm running, I'm thinking, I'm worrying. I have to frame my mind with the words of Scripture, not just in good times, but also in bad times.
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How do I live in light of my mortality? How do I live in light of my sin?
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Whom do I focus upon? Psalm 90 will give us the right view of God and the right view of man.
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And by the way, that's how you could look at every religion in this world. Christianity has the right view of God, thrice holy, yet gracious, and the right view of man, finite and frail and sinful.
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And every false religion messes those two things up. They've got a wrong view of God and a wrong view of man.
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So what we're going to do today for an outline is I'm just going to give you four Ms. I don't always use alliteration, but today
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I will, four Ms. And if you look at your Psalm 90 text in front of you, you can almost see the groupings with indentations and extra spaces.
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And so the Ms are these ahead of time, the majesty of God, the mortality of man, the morality of man, and the mercy of God.
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If you'd like, God is everlasting. We are frail, we are sinful, and we need
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God's mercy. Now, I don't know about you, but if I ever read something by an author, it makes me want to read everything else they write if I like them.
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I like to read Victor Davis Hanson, I think. Well, then I need to go by all of his books because he's an interesting war historian.
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Listen to what Moses wrote in Exodus 15. I will sing to the
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Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously, the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea. The Lord is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation.
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This is my God, and I will praise him, my Father's God, and I will exalt him. The Lord is a man of war, the
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Lord is his name. Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders?
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And when I read that, I think, anyone who can write like that, I'd like to know what else he writes.
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And, of course, we come today to something else that Moses wrote, Psalm 90. Now, whenever you come to a book of the
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Bible, if you know the context or the setting or the background, it will help you interpret the
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Bible. What is the setting to Psalm 90? Why is
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Moses praying this? And you'll see right at the very beginning, a prayer of Moses, the man of God.
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The man of God means the prophet of God, the speaker for God, a prayer of Moses.
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What's the setting for this oldest Psalm? Well, remember what's going on with Israel in the wilderness.
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We got the precursor today in Exodus 1. Israel's in the wilderness, and God has made certain promises, and you can think about then the sin of Miriam, the sin of Moses, the sin of Aaron, the sin of the people, and God is going to judge the people.
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And he said, unless you're under 20 or your name's Caleb or Joshua, you're not going to enter in the promised land.
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You're going to die in the wilderness. Two million Jews in the wilderness who aren't going to make it into the promised land.
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And scholars think, okay, if we take the children, that's about 800 ,000. So 1 .2 million people die in the wilderness in the next 38 years.
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And if you take 1 .2 divided by 365 times 38 in parentheses, you will get how many?
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Does anybody know off the top of their head? How many funerals a day does Moses see or officiate or make sure they're done?
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And the answer is, depending on how you want to calculate different things, about 87 funerals a day.
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One funeral will make you exhausted for the rest of the day and the rest of the week. How do
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I look at 87 deaths, funerals, loved ones who have died?
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How do I frame this properly? I need a lens to think through these issues because, again, left to myself,
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I'm not thinking rightly. So Psalm 90 is a psalm that helps you think realistically, properly, about life and about death and the
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God who you can trust. One last comment about the psalm before we get into the outline.
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Sometime this afternoon, read Psalm 90 and ask yourself, how many designations of time are in this psalm, 17 verses?
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There's all kinds of time in this psalm. All generations, everlasting and everlasting, a thousand years, yesterday, a watch in the night, in the morning, towards evening, all our days, our years like a sigh, the days of our lives, 70 years, 80 years, the number of our days, how long will it be according to the days, years that we have seen?
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This is a psalm about time and about the eternal God. One man said, men talk of killing time while time quietly kills.
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How do I think through mortality as a
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Christian? This psalm was read at burials along with 1
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Corinthians 15, victory over death, and we'll save that towards the end of our sermon.
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The first M, how do we deal with a fragile life, a fading life?
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Life is a vapor. Do I just say, forget it, it's not worth it? Or do I think differently?
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And the Lord would have us think differently with M number 1, the majesty of God, verses 1 and 2, the majesty of God.
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Everything starts here. I have to see life and death through this lens or everything is going to be out of proportion.
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The greatness of God as Israel's safe harbor, as the Christian's safe harbor.
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If I want to talk in New Testament terms, listen to the language here of how great God is for all those who have trusted in the risen
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Savior Christ Jesus and have had all their sins forgiven. And they're dying or they've died.
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How do I think of this? Lord, you've been our dwelling place in all generations.
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Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting, you are
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God. My heart's hurting, but I will affirm with Moses that God can be trusted.
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What if I were to say to you this? Your loved ones died or you're dying. And what
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Nietzsche said is true, God's dead. He might have been the God of the Old Testament.
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He might have been the God of Moses. But that's a figment of people's imagination. And God is dead.
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I see my friends. And while we as Christians mourn for our losses in the funeral homes, that's true and right.
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And Jesus wept for Lazarus. But I'm often thinking of my unbelieving friends, and I'm thinking they have no hope.
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They don't know what to do. They don't know how to process it. They need this specific revelation. They need to be bowing their knee in repentance and trusting in the
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Lord Jesus who grants eternal life freely from everlasting to everlasting. You're God.
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Everyone comes and goes, but God never changes. He's self -existent.
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He doesn't create. He's not self -created. And you can imagine if you've seen 87 deaths a day, you're like,
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I just would like a place of oasis. I just would like a place of protection.
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I'd just like a place of home. I'd like to be home. By the way, that's the language here.
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Lord, you've been our dwelling place in all generations, all the generations that have come and gone before Moses.
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He says, you know what, that's what we need. In the midst of death, I can still trust in you. It's like Job.
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Even though he slay me, yet I will trust in him. Abraham, he dwelt in this great everlasting
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God. Isaac, Jacob, Lord, you have been our dwelling place.
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You're the creator. You're the ruler. And he uses language here, so you just think, he protects me.
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He cares. It matters to him. He's my dwelling place. Where else am
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I going to go? I guess I could go take a nap. I could go to a movie. I could go to the bottle. I could do this.
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I could do that. I have to deal with this. This isn't going to go away, so my eyes need to be on the object of my faith.
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Faith. God never changes. And if God loved your loved one when he was alive, guess what, he still loves his loved one because God's love never changes.
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I need help. I need safety. I need shelter. That's this idea here. I could maybe put it this way in Colossians terms.
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Your life is hid with Christ in God. Believers dwell in the dwelling place, and now we know, according to the
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New Testament, the Holy Spirit even dwells in us. A place of abode.
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I need protection where I can find security and peace. Look at the language he uses, this poetic language in verse 2.
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Before the mountains were brought forth, by the way, the idea is supposed to be those things are unchangeable and old.
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Wherever you had formed the earth and the world, before creation, from everlasting to everlasting, you are
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God. That's fascinating to me. Before the mountains were brought forth or you formed the dust of the earth, you're
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God. Now, some people have said there's never such thing as a dumb question, right?
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But this would be a dumb question to ask in light of this verse. Who made God? God is self -existent.
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God doesn't change. People come and go, but God stays the same. Therefore, His promises stay the same.
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Your hope in God can stay the same. Where did God come from? He existed.
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And even before Genesis 1 -1, if you begin to think before the mountains, before the earth, the
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Eternal Father, the Eternal Son, the Eternal Spirit, in perfect loving communion within the triune
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God, one essence, three persons, Father, Son, and Spirit, distinct yet one with great communion with one another, this everlasting
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God. And when you go out far enough, well, you know what? My loved one trusted in Jesus on earth, but maybe we go out far enough that way in eternity future, billions and zillions of years in infinitude.
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Maybe God will change. Maybe God will be different. Maybe God will renege on His promises. Maybe God's not powerful enough to keep
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His promises. Maybe, maybe, maybe. But from everlasting to everlasting, you are
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God. God always will be. God always is.
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Even though our life's brief, He is our home. Jews answered,
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Jesus, are we not right in saying that you're a Samaritan and have a demon? Can you imagine saying that? Jesus, you've got a demon.
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Jesus said, I do not have a demon, but I honor my Father, and you dishonor me. Yet I do not seek my own glory.
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There is one who seeks it, and he is the judge. Truly, truly, I say to you that if anyone keeps my word, he shall never see death.
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The Jews said to Him, now we know you have a demon. Abraham died as a prophet, yet you say, if anyone keeps my word, he'll never taste death.
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Are you greater than our father Abraham who died and the prophets who died? Who do you make yourselves out to be?
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Jesus answered, if I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me of whom you say,
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He is our God. But you have not known Him, I know Him. And if I were to say that I do not know
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Him, I would be a liar like you. But I do know Him, and I keep His word. Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day.
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He saw it and was glad. So the Jews said to Him, you're not yet fifty years old, and you've seen
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Abraham? And Jesus said, truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was,
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I am the everlasting, eternal Son. Thousands of years before He took on human flesh,
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Jesus existed as the eternal God. Present tense, transcendent over time.
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Of course, they wanted to pick up stones to kill Him. Now, we are immortal, we live forever.
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But God is eternal because He's had no beginning and He has no end. God always is.
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I think about God, trusting in Him in difficult times. His everlasting nature is a key to this.
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Listen to what these verses say. Jesus said, I am the Alpha and the
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Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end. Isaiah 57, for thus says the
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High and Exalted One who lives forever, whose name is Holy. He who is the blessed and only
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Sovereign, 1 Timothy 6. King of kings, Lord of lords, who alone possesses immortality and dwells in unapproachable life.
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To Him be honor and eternal dominion. God has no beginning.
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He has no end. He'll never change. He can always be faithful. He always is faithful. Remember the name of God even?
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God said to Moses, here's my name. I am who? I am. I exist. I am.
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That's just to say to the sons of Israel, I am. Sent me. God is spoken of in the present tense.
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Because it's not like he used to be faithful and he's not faithful anymore. He used to be compassionate, but he's not anymore.
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God is eternally faithful. No wonder Isaiah 46 says, there's none like me,
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God said, declaring the end from the beginning. I just looked up a few things about time and units of time.
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And I talked about WPI students, the first service, so I guess I can say it again. These are standards of time.
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I knew most of them, but not all of them. Nanosecond, microsecond, millisecond, second, minute, hour, day, week, fortnight, 14 days, month, quarter, year, common year, leap year, tropical year.
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Who knows what a tropical year is? 365 .24219. Gregorian year, 365 .2425.
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An Olympiad, four years. A lustrum, five years. Decade, score, 20 years. Generation, 25 years.
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Century and millennium. None of these measurements of time or standards of time or units of time mean anything to God except when the
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Lord Jesus gets into time. God sees things in time and actually he works in time.
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That is amazing to me. But time doesn't limit
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God. Time does not change God. And when Moses sees 87 people, as it were, a day dying, he has to say, you know,
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I need to make sure I keep remembering who this God is and why he can be trusted.
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The second M found in verses three through six, God is majestic even when we're hurting.
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Number two, we are mortal, verses three through six. The second M, the mortality of man.
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I don't know if I came up with this outline or just found it someplace. It doesn't matter. It's just easy to remember the majesty of God and now the mortality of man.
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Man is temporal. Man is ephemeral. Verse three. You return man to dust and say return,
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O 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.
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You sweep them away as with the flood. They're like a dream, like grass that is renewed in the morning.
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In the morning it flourishes and is renewed. In the evening it fades and withers. Now here's a little hint.
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I know this is gonna sound redundant.
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Who wrote Moses? Who wrote Psalm 90? Moses did.
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What else did he write? He wrote Moses one, Moses two, Moses three,
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Moses four, Moses five. That is the German way of looking at the Pentateuch, the first five books of the
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Bible. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. Moses wrote those. I think you're gonna hear some things in these sections about Moses' understanding of life.
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I can see it right at the very beginning, right? Verse three. You turn man back into dust.
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God, the Holy Spirit, had Moses write about Adam and Eve. Dust to dust, right?
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Same kind of language. Verse three. Man is dust and will return to the dust.
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He, God, is the active one. God, man is on the receiving end of this.
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Spurgeon said God resolves and man dissolves. That's true from dust to dust.
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And by the way, when it comes to greatness of men and women, this is what the
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Lord has said of every one of those with two exceptions. Whether it's Churchill or Aristotle or Aquinas, our presidents, our kings, our princes, sports stars, they return to dust.
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And they don't live forever because of diet or exercise or vitamins or anything else.
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Man's life is fragile and short. Do you see what Moses is also doing here? Verse four. Who comes to your mind when
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I say for a thousand in your sight, a thousand years in your sight are like yesterday when it passes away. Who should you be thinking of?
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You think dust to dust. That's a little illusion of that. A thousand years. Who lived to be a thousand years in the
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Bible? Pretty close, Methuselah. 696. I don't care if you live to be as old as Methuselah.
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That used to be a parlance, by the way. He used to say that regularly. He's as old as Methuselah. I think
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I used to say that about grandma. Now the kids here at the church say it about me. It's like yesterday.
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How fast did yesterday go? Fast. Or as a watch in the night.
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Three watches back in those days. The New Testament had a different way of counting watches. And if you sleep through a watch, it even goes by faster.
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I don't care how old you are, how long you live. It's just over. You know, you can take those bubbles that the kids get.
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And, of course, that was always a fun thing to do because, as a dad, I'm looking for cheap fun. It was like a dollar to get the bubbles, and you put the bubble in, and you begin to fly the bubbles around in the wind, or you blow the bubbles with your lips.
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I still have a distinct taste of that soapy bubble thing. And you watch the big bubble go, and it just kind of floats.
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And then it just pops. That's the idea. It just goes by fast.
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You say, I don't want this to happen. I don't like that it's happening. But, friends, it's happening. 2
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Peter 3, with the Lord, a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.
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Life goes by quickly. A watch in the night.
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Even if you think how much has happened in the 1900s, from World War I, the
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Great War, to World War II, before that, the Depression, Korea, Vietnam, just thinking about wars and things in America.
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A lot of things have happened over that span of time, and they just go by like that in the eyes of God, and in our eyes as well.
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He gives you an idea or an illustration, verses 5 and 6. Swept them away like a flood.
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I think Moses knew about Genesis 6, 7, and 8, about the flood, Noah's flood.
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Just so quickly swept away. They fall asleep. In the morning, they're like grass which sprouts anew.
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And then you know what happens after that. In the morning, it flourishes, starts anew.
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Toward evening, it fades. I want to make sure I directly look, especially at some of you younger people.
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You are not guaranteed anything with this life. You say, well, my grandpa lived to be 95.
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My grandma lived to be 95. I'll live to be 95. No, you don't know that.
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I give you a poem that was written a long time ago. Stout and strong today, tomorrow turned to clay.
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This day in his bloom, the next in the tomb. So that's why you have to think, you know what,
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I'm not going to live forever. And I need to make sure that I'm right in God's eyes. I need to make sure that I trust in his son.
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If his son, his beloved son, the one whom he's well pleased, that he had inter -Trinitarian fellowship with before Genesis 1, the son that he loves above all.
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And he says, I'm going to give you my son as an offering, as a sacrifice, as a substitute. And he will be the perfect sacrifice.
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And you trust in him. You take me at his word, at my word, and you trust in him and he will be raised from the dead.
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And if you look to him, you get eternal life because Jesus will have paid for your sins and you get his righteousness.
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You deal with that and you go, well, you know what? I'll do that later. I've got some things I'd like to do first.
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Jeremiah 9 says, death has come up through our windows. It's entered our palaces to cut off the children from the streets, the young men from the town squares.
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You don't know, so be ready. This is why when you go to a wedding, you say, oh, this is wonderful.
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Praise the Lord, a wedding. But when you go to a funeral later that day, you think, you know, the promises of God are real.
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I've never more thought to myself, absent from the body, present with the Lord. I even talked to Louise about this when
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I was over at her house. And when I looked at my mom's dead body, I said to myself and then to the Lord, I've never thought before that I believed in this verse like I do now, to live as Christ and to die as what?
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Gain. She said, that's exactly what I thought. I've got to frame these things.
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Who else is going to frame them? The news? Philosophers? I want people to frame these things for me that have conquered death themselves like Jesus.
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Frame it for my mind. You ever ask yourself why our lives are so short and mortal?
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The answer is found in verses 7 through 11, the third M. The majesty of God, the mortality of man, and the morality of man.
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And really it's immorality. It's the sinful nature of man. You know the answer, don't you?
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To this villain, the wages of sin is death. Adam's sin and our own sin.
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We live a short time because God judges sin and the wages of sin is death.
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I wish it weren't true that Adam sinned and I followed, but it is true. And so we see poetic language in verses 7 through 11 that remind us of this.
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God's not unjust. God's not giving us something that we didn't deserve. There's more to the story and we're going to be glad it didn't end in verse 11, that's for certain.
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But verses 7 through 11 reads, For we are brought to an end by your anger, by your wrath we're dismayed.
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You have set our inequities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence. For all our days pass away under your wrath.
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We bring our years to an end like a sigh. The years of our life are 70 or even by reason of strength 80.
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Yet their span is but toil and trouble. They are soon gone and we fly away.
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Who considers the power of your anger and your wrath according to the fear of you?
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So it's not accidental that somehow this is just built into the system. No, no, it's our sin has caused things.
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And even though now we're forgiven, our bodies still do die. Verse 8,
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Good thing we have the Lord Jesus. You have to be praising God the Father for the advocacy of the
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Son as your intermediator because what's the text say in verse 8? Our secret sins in the light of your presence.
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God knows all of our sins. And for Christians we're still redeemed by the blood of the Lamb because His sacrifice was enough.
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He knew all those sins. When I was younger, people told me, you know what, when you want to sin in secret or in the dark or someplace where you don't want anybody to see including
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God, you try to get away from things, remember this next time you want to sin. It's like you're going to sin in the presence of God.
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It's like you shot yourself up into the throne room of the third heavens and you stood before Jesus, the risen
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Lamb, standing as if slain. And you say, you know what, I don't care that you've redeemed me and forgiven me.
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I don't care that it cost you your life for me to forgive me of these sins. I'm going to sin now in your face.
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And then that person who was discipling me said, and it doesn't even need to be that because he sees everything just like that, all your secret sins in the light of your holy presence.
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Yes, we're redeemed. Yes, we're forgiven. But the effects of sin last on our body. We don't have renewed bodies yet.
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We don't have our resurrected bodies yet. We have the promise of God. We have eternal life. But our bodies are going to die.
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And you can even see the language in verse 9, our years are finished like a sigh. That's how the life ends often, literally.
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You might live to be 70. You might live to be 80. But soon it's gone and we fly away.
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It's a consequence of Adam's sin, my sin. When I read, and I'll fly away, what was the first thing that went through my mind?
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What goes through your mind when I say, I'll fly away? I know, I thought of the song and I thought, well, is the song, does it even make sense here?
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The 1929 hymn written by Albert Brumley. Some glad morning when this life is over, I'll fly away.
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To a home on God's celestial shore, I'll fly away. I'll fly away, oh glory,
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I'll fly away in the morning. When I die, hallelujah, by and by,
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I'll fly away. Well, that's a good New Testament interpretation of this because there it's just like,
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I'm just gone. I'm here today, gone tomorrow. Of course, for us, we know we have the hope of the resurrection.
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What's the response to all this? God, you're unjust for judging. God, what you do is wrong.
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Verse 11, who understands the power of your anger and your fury? According to the fear that is due you, answer, not many people.
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Not many people truly get it about the fear of the Lord that's due him. It took
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Job a long time to figure that out. He had to go to God's schooling to figure that out. Now, if the psalm ended here, it'd be so sad.
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But God has a tender spot in his heart, figuratively speaking, for sinners.
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So think about it. How do I frame trials up including death?
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I have to have my eyes focused on who God is and his attributes. I realize
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I'm not going to live forever, so think rightly. I know it comes from my own sin.
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God has not somehow given me something I don't deserve. I realize the world says, you deserve this, and it delivers this, and the difference is depression.
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So I have to realize that I deserve this hell, and I get this eternal life because of the work of Jesus so I could have joy.
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And I'm going to frame it this way, and so what's the only response? Well, the response is, God's not only everlasting, he's merciful, so pray.
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Let me give you some prayer requests that if you're hurting, you know people that are, here's a way to pray or to pray for them in light of a short time on earth.
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Remember back in the very beginning before Psalm 90, verse 1, a prayer of Moses.
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So here's some prayer requests of mercy. They're all related to God and his mercy and God giving great mercy to us.
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So prayer request number one, verse 12, teach us to number our days.
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Lord, help us to number our days that we may present to you a heart of wisdom. Lord, I'd like to live in the past and all the good old days, and I have wonderful memories of your providence.
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That's fine. Lord, I've got all kinds of plans about the future and my 401K and all the grandkids that I'll have and what they'll do and everything else, and that's up to your good hand as well, and you often grant that.
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But while I want to have birthdays and celebrate birthdays, Lord, I don't do this on my own, so I need your help in doing it.
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Would you teach me to number my days today? I have to think about today. I've been told that this is the hardest math problem in all the world to solve.
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I was in chemical engineering at college for a while. I don't know why, but I dropped out quickly when
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I realized I didn't. I was A, too lazy, and B, not smart enough. And so once we got kind of like pre -calc, calc, diffy, cues, and some other things,
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I just thought, I have no idea what you're talking about. I'm just going to look at you and, like, if I don't talk, you'll think maybe
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I understand. But I don't care how smart you are. You can't get this without the mercy of God.
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And can you imagine? God is having Moses write this so that we would do it because he knows we need it.
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It doesn't end in verse 11. I know you need wisdom. I know you need to count your days. I know you need to live in light of eternity.
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I don't want you to fall into, well, you know what? Dogs die, my friends die, my family dies. It doesn't matter. No. And so,
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Lord, would you help us? This reminds me of James 1, 5, where God is so generous in his wisdom.
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If you ask him for wisdom, what does he do? He gives it liberally. Life is brief.
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And I need to do things that are going to last forever. You know the song. One life only, t 'will soon be past.
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Only what's done for Christ will what? Last. You, if you know me, you know
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I'm not a legalist. But there's something deep down inside of me that thinks the destruction of American sports and the sports across the globe is kind of a helpful thing to me.
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While recreation can be fine, we need rest. There's nothing wrong with sports, but there's something wrong with the idolatry of sports.
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I'm 60 years old. If I do the thing with my grandma and grandpa, they're 95, 95 when they died, that's pretty good.
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But I think I've got a long time left. If I do my mom 65, dad 55, I guess I should already be dead.
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So I have to try to figure out if I have 20 years left, 365 days, 20 years, that I have 7 ,300 days left.
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But I don't know if I have got one day left. I do a lot of dumb things in my life, but one of the things
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I try to do when I preach, I rarely go by a Sunday where I don't think, this could be my last sermon.
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Make sure you talk about who Jesus is, the one who has victory over sin and death, and you can trust him.
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He'll never let you down. Teach us to number our days.
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When's the last time you prayed that? God, help me see life like you see it, that you're eternal,
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I'm temporal, and I'm sinful. I need to see that. We can't even say, oh, I'm sinful. If I ever said, well, why do people only live to be 70 or 80 years old and not 969?
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Well, because of sin. People will laugh you to scorn. I need to see things rightly.
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If you want a soft bed to lay on as you're dying, learn from this Psalm's mercy request number one.
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Would you teach me to number my days? So when you're able to get around and you're able to walk, you do what you're supposed to do so that when you're on your deathbed, all you have to do is die and meet the
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Lord face to face. There's a second request found in verse 13, a request of mercy.
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This is the mercy of God to write it and the mercy of God who grants it.
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P .S., before I read it, was Moses often asking God for mercy?
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Was Moses often granted the mercy of God? All the sinful people out in the wilderness, Moses, you better pray for us.
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And Moses would pray for the people and God would grant them what? Mercy. Moses knows exactly what this means.
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God, I need mercy. Help me to number my days. By the way, when you do number your days, you think to yourself, you know what, who am
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I not forgiving? Who am I bitter toward? Who am I just acting like a child toward?
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Who am I doing these things? I've got one day to live possibly. By the way, this is why
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I say to my kids every single time I talk to them, is I always tell them the last words they ever hear out of my mouth is what?
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And in our family, love you don't work. It doesn't work. I want
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I love you. I love you. Part of that is because I don't think my dad said it much, but this could be it.
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In other words, I say, and I am proud of you. Like, well, you know, my kids are just so rascally.
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All I do is give them the law all the time and discipline and everything else. Part of numbering your days is going, you know what,
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God's given you mercy. And now how about some mercy for the kids? But that's for the parenting class.
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I digress. Prayer request number two, do return.
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Oh, Lord, Yahweh, how long will it be? And be sorry for your servants. And when you first read this like a
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Christian, I get it because I did the same thing. Jesus, come back. Would that be a good thing? Jesus, come back.
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Perfect. Lord Jesus, come quickly. It's actually biblical. It's in the book of Revelation. It's talked about in Titus chapter two.
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It's talked about in second Peter chapter three. Jesus talks about it. Son of son of man coming back in Daniel seven.
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Great. That would solve all my problems. But remember when Moses wrote this, there hadn't even been the first coming yet.
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Right. So what do you mean return? Now, some people think it was we want the
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Messiah to come the first time. But here's what this means. Lord, would you turn to us in mercy now?
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I'd like help now. It's poetic language for just saying, don't wait any longer.
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I'm hurting. Could you please help me right now, Lord, based on your promises? This is not demanding of God.
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It's not I've got you under my thumb. This is, you know, Lord, I'm hurting. Would you help show mercy?
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Spare me. And when sins are great, I have good news for you. The mercy of God is great. Remember Ephesians two, you were dead in trespasses and sins.
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And according to the in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the air, the spirit that is now in work and the sons of disobedience, among whom we all lived in the passions of the flesh, carrying out the desires of the body in the mind and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind.
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What if the next word was and God smashed? What if the next word was therefore
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God destroyed? But the next word is in Ephesians chapter two, verse four. It's what? But God, we're rich in sins.
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What's the text say? Being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.
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Lord, would you come to us in mercy? We need your mercy right now. That's a good prayer to pray.
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Prayer request number three. In the midst of all the sadness and difficulty and pain and tears, and if that's not happening to us now, it will.
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Could I have any joy in my life now? Verse 14, prayer request three of mercy.
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Oh, satisfy us in the morning with your loving kindness, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.
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I could cry thinking about that. That the Lord would give us mercy in the midst of all that pain, in the midst of a vain life, it seems like.
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No, it's not vain. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, and peace. God, you're so faithful to your covenant.
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You're so full of loving kindness. I see it demonstrated in the Lord Jesus. I see it demonstrated in my own life.
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I'm trying to be happy, but I can't muster it up on my own. Could you just make me satisfied in you?
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Because I'd like to sing and be glad. I know a lot of people in this world who have went through a lot of bad things, and I know a lot of those people can have joy.
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Kim's not here, so she's not going to kill me if I say it, but not many people have gone through the pain that Kim Avendroth has gone through, but she has joy and she has gladness.
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How? Not from herself. It's because of the Lord Jesus. If she can have joy, you can have joy.
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Prayer request number four. P .S. Don't tell Kim I said that. Are you watching, honey?
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Prayer request four, another one of mercy. Make us glad according to the days you have afflicted us.
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Balance it out. I've got a lot of hard days where I've had to bury people, and now could you give me some glad days?
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And the years we've seen evil? That's not a bad prayer. I've been in the wilderness for 40 years.
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And I might not make it, Moses knows, but for the other people I'll pray for them. How much more for us as Christians?
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Blessing equal to our trouble, gladness, blessings. Paul said in Romans 8,
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For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.
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That's the idea. Futility of life is for the unbeliever who will not see the triune
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God's hand in everything. Life is a gift of God, and you can still enjoy it even with a tear.
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Ecclesiastes makes explicit how much God has given in spite of such a short, difficult life.
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I like James 1. Every good thing bestowed and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the
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Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow. Every good and every perfect gift comes from the
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Lord. Ecclesiastes 2. Who can eat and who can have enjoyment without Him? The answer is nobody.
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But with Him, who can eat and have enjoyment, even though life is difficult? Prayer request number 5.
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Of mercy. Let your work appear to your servants and your majesty to their children. Is it even worth doing anything on this earth?
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I'm going to die anyway. Shall I serve? Should I build? Should I do anything? Nothing is going to have meaning.
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Well, the answer here is, yes there is, because the Lord sees. Nobody else sees. But you're working, and I'd like to see that, and I'd like to see the majesty of your children.
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So what does he say in verse 17? Let the favor of our Lord, our God, be upon us, and establish the work of our hands upon us.
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Yes, establish the work of our hands. Lord, you're working. We'd like to see it. And we're working. Would you establish it?
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Would you make it count? Would you help us do things with an eternal perspective? Verse 17.
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I just draw your attention to the word favor in the ESV. It's not a typical word. It's the word that means delight.
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It's the word that means splendor. Let the delight of the
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Lord God be upon us. How could God delight in anybody? The answer, because you're in the
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Son, Lord Jesus, and he delights in his Son, and if you're in him, he delights in you. God is majestic.
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We're mortal, sinful, and therefore we ought to pray to God for mercy.
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Like I said, the burial services for many Christians for many years has been to read
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Psalm 90 on the one side and then 1 Corinthians 15 on the other.
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And I'm not going to read all of 1 Corinthians 15, the great resurrection chapter, but I will say this, which echoes
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Psalm 90. I tell you this, brothers. Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.
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Behold, I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall be changed. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet, for the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.
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Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where's your victory?
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O death, where's your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.
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But thanks be to God, who gives us victory through the Lord Jesus Christ.
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And by the way, since it does, your work matters. Therefore, beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the
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Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. Isaac Watts paraphrased
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Psalm 90 and put it in a song, and we're going to pray, and then we're going to sing that song. Bow with me, please.
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Father in heaven, we look to you as the God of all comfort, the God of all grace, the everlasting
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God. We're thankful for that. And we are in distress, and we will continue to be.
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So therefore, we beseech you to have mercy upon us. Help us to pray these very prayers found at the end of Psalm 90.
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And we realize that we are only righteous before you because of the
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Lord Jesus Christ. And we realize out of the commandments that you've given us, we've never really kept any of them with a perfect good motive.
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But our salvation does not rest with our merit. We thank you, Father, that out of sheer sovereign grace, you see us as righteous and holy, as holy and as righteous as the
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Lord Jesus, never committing any sin. Why? Because the Lord Jesus did it all.
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So, Father, help us to trust in you, not only as we live, but also as we die.