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Psalm 90 is truly an amazing Psalm, dealing with time and eternity. God is from everlasting to everlasting and man lives 70 to 80 years. It tells the truth about what it means to live in God’s universe, on God’s earth. J. C. Ryle wrote, “I cannot tell how others feel when they read the ninetieth Psalm. It always makes me lean back in my chair and think.” Moses, the man of God, wrote it probably toward the end of Israel’s wilderness wanderings. You’ll remember in Numbers 14 the ten spies came back with a bad report about giants in the land. The people grumbled and even threatened to stone Moses and Aaron for bringing them into the wilderness. So God said all the people from 20 years and up would die in the wilderness over the next 40 years (Numbers 14:29). During those 40 years more than 2 million people died, a vivid demonstration of the basic truth of life: the wages of sin is death! All of history has been a death march for every nation. Every day nearly one-fourth million people die. The other day I was late for an appointment and wouldn’t you know, here comes a funeral procession down Lincoln Avenue so we all pulled over to wait.
Moses wrote this Psalm under divine inspiration, giving us a realistic view of life on God’s earth. In it are four bedrock truths only a fool who says there is no God would reject. God put you here (vss. 1-2). You’ll be leaving soon (vss. 3-11). You’ll be taking your heart with you (vs. 12). The only ultimate satisfaction is in Christ Himself (vss. 13-17).
GOD PUT YOU HERE
Psalm 90:1-2, Lord, You have been our dwelling place in all generations. [2] Before the mountains were born or You gave birth to the earth and the world, Even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God.
You aren’t here by chance. Freud said we put God here; he knows better now. Secularists deny there is a God. The truth is that this is God’s universe, God’s home. God has been our dwelling place. Paul told the Athenians, “In God we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). All of life is lived in His presence, before His face. He is our dwelling place or refuge and we live in it either in submission to His Word or as rebels against His rule.
Then Moses makes this amazing statement about God. “From everlasting to everlasting, You are God.” Adam Clarke, an Irish biblical scholar in the 1800s, said, “This is the highest description of the eternity of God to which human language can reach.” Theologian Albert Barnes wrote, “The mind cannot take in a grander thought than that there is one eternal, immutable Being.” Moses described God the same way.
Deuteronomy 33:27a, “The eternal God is a dwelling place, And underneath are the everlasting arms.”
Isaiah 40:28 describes God as, “The Everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth.” And Isaiah 57:15 says, “Thus says the high and exalted One Who lives forever (or inhabits eternity).” Puritan Stephen Charnock describes God’s eternity as the “gloss and lusters of all other attributes.”
The eternal God is not subject to time and space. He created time and space and all matter in Genesis 1. He is before all things and in Him all things consist. All of time is present to our mighty eternal God. Where did God come from? God always was or is. He didn’t cause Himself to become or He would have had to be there before He became. The doctrine of the aseity of God means God is self-existent. R. C. Sproul says, “He has the power of being in Himself.” His name Yahweh means, “I am who I am.” The beginning and the end and everything in between are present to God at the same time. There is no succession of time in God. Tozer said, “For Him, everything that will happen has already happened!” God sees past, present, and future in one instant. And yet, as Francis Schaeffer repeatedly said, “He is our ‘infinite, personal’ God.” In John 17:5 Jesus said He was with the Father before the world began. And 2 Timothy 1:9 tells us God chose and purposed to save His elect from all eternity, or according to Ephesians 1:4, before the foundation of the world.
If you have a hard time grasping God’s eternality, take courage. James Dolezal, theology professor at Cairn University, wrote God’s eternality “is undoubtedly among the most difficult theological claims to understand.” Yet it is true, God eternally exists in three Persons. God’s eternality is why prophecy is possible. God even named Cyrus over 100 years before he was born. Isaiah declared this about God.
Isaiah 46:3,9-10 “Listen to Me, O house of Jacob, And all the remnant of the house of Israel, You who have been borne by Me from birth And have been carried from the womb; [9] “Remember the former things long past, For I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is no one like Me, [10] Declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times things which have not been done, Saying, ‘My purpose will be established, And I will accomplish all My good pleasure’;
What a treasure to know we have an infinite, eternal, and unchanging God. God put us here and we reverence Him and trust Him as eternally trustworthy. But Psalm 90 has some bad news and we must look at that before we hear the good news.
YOU’LL BE LEAVING SHORTLY
Psalm 90:3-6, You turn man back into dust And say, “Return, O children of men.” [4] For a thousand years in Your sight Are like yesterday when it passes by, Or as a watch in the night. [5] You have swept them away like a flood, they fall asleep; In the morning they are like grass which sprouts anew. [6] In the morning it flourishes and sprouts anew; Toward evening it fades and withers away.
While God is eternal, we are temporal. B. M. Page, a Baptist evangelist from Indianapolis, had a bumper sticker that said, “Cheer up. You’ll soon be dead.” Whether we live two minutes, two years, or 102 years, in light of eternity it’s not only brief but certain. The Bible describes our lives as returning to dust, a vapor, a cloud, a shadow, as breath, and especially as grass. Grass sprouts in the morning, blossoms at noon, and bows down and dies in the evening. Someone described man as, “Stout and strong today. Tomorrow turned to clay. This day in his bloom. The next in the tomb.” Every day thousands go off into eternity. What’s going on here? This should trouble any thoughtful person. Some godly people only lived to be about 30 years old – Robert Murray M’Cheyne, David Brainerd, Henry Martyn, William Borden of Yale. Jonathan Edwards died at 54 after taking a smallpox inoculation. Jim Elliot was cut down by a native’s spear at 28 in Ecuador.
Yes, you’ll be leaving shortly. Are you ready? Do you know where you’re going? Life can be enjoyable for a while. I grew up water skiing and snow skiing – great fun. Some of you enjoy pickle ball. A good meal is satisfying, intimacy with your spouse is a good gift from God, but all the time there looms over your head the possibility of that old ticker in there quitting, or a clot of blood breaking free and hitting a vulnerable spot in our brain. We are so fragile, so temporary in this life. Why? The reason we’re all dying may surprise you.
Psalm 90:7-11, For we have been consumed by Your anger And by Your wrath we have been dismayed. [8] You have placed our iniquities before You, Our secret sins in the light of Your presence. [9] For all our days have declined in Your fury; We have finished our years like a sigh. [10] As for the days of our life, they contain seventy years, Or if due to strength, eighty years, Yet their pride is but labor and sorrow; For soon it is gone and we fly away. [11] Who understands the power of Your anger And Your fury, according to the fear that is due You?
God gives a clear-cut, no-nonsense answer for why we all die – SIN! The wages of sin is death. God said in Genesis 2:17, “The day you eat of the forbidden fruit you will surely die.” Adam and Eve ate it and began to die. And then you read all those genealogies: and he died, and he died, and he died. History is a death march! Romans 5:12, “By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men for all have sinned.” Romans 1:18, “God’s wrath is revealed against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of man.” We die because we’re sinners. Death is God’s judgment. For lost people there’s even a second death, the lake of fire (Revelation 20:14).
But why do God’s people die? We’ve been saved so why should we die? One reason – we don’t yet have our resurrected, glorified bodies. Romans 8:23 says we’re waiting for the redemption of our bodies. Our spirits are saved through faith in Christ but our bodies are not yet glorified. But praise God they will be. If you are a believer, death is an entrance into God’s very presence and these perishable and mortal bodies will be changed to live with Christ in eternal victory (1 Corinthians 15:53). Christ took the sting out of death by His resurrection.
But lost people die in their sins and perish forever. They have only judgment and wrath to look forward to, forever. My favorite Puritan Thomas Watson said, “That word ‘ever’ breaks the heart.” The only way to understand life in this world is through the lens of God’s Word. If you aren’t looking at life through that lens, you are being tragically deceived. If you think, “You live, you die, and that’s it,” you’re greatly mistaken. This Psalm is designed to tell you the truth about your life in God’s eternal house, on God’s earth.
Did you notice verse 8, “our secret sins” are placed before Him? This is like your expense account with God. Every sin, like every dollar charged, is recorded and added to the total. And we can’t hide them. We may hide secret sins from others but there are no secret sins with God. We may hope we can hide them from God like Adam did when he ran, hid, covered, and then blamed, but God easily found him. Secret sins could be jealousies, bitterness, lust, envy, hatred and malice, and they are all in plain view to God.
Have you ever imagined how many sins you’ve piled up before God? He sees them all in the light of His presence, right now (vs.8). If you’re 40 years old, you’ve had over 14,000 days to sin. And if you only sinned three times a day, God’s looking at least at 42,000 sins piled on your account. If only one sin makes us guilty of transgressing the whole law (James 2:10), we don’t need to wonder about other big sinners like Stalin or Hitler. We need to be concerned about our own accounts! Thank God, there is a Savior who paid the enormous penalty we owe to God through His death on that cross. “Jesus paid it all!” If not for Jesus Christ, we sink down under God’s eternal punishment and wrath for our many transgressions against our eternal Creator.
How long do we have here in God’s house before judgment? Seventy years, maybe eighty (vs.10). Moses lived to age 120. The average life span today is 73.8 years, longer for females than males. And then “we fly away!” What a picture! An Oklahoma cotton farmer named Albert Brumley wrote that popular song, “Some glad morning when this life is o’er, I’ll fly away…. When I die hallelujah by and by, I’ll fly away.” Fanny Crosby described it like this, “Someday the silver cord will break… And I shall see Him face to face, and tell the story saved by grace.”
God put you here. You’ll be leaving shortly. So be sure your wages of sin have been paid and you have the gift of God, eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord (Romans 6:23).
YOU’RE TAKING YOUR HEART WITH YOU
Psalm 90:12, So teach us to number our days, That we may present to You a heart of wisdom.
You aren’t taking your bulging portfolio with you. Degrees and titles will be left behind but when you leave, your heart goes with you. That’s why this verse is saying, “Make each day count for eternity.” Your heart is all you are and have done. The only way for God to accept your heart is if Christ lives in it. Ephesians 3:17, “That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith.” Christ lives spiritually in the heart of every believer. Knowing my own heart, I am so very thankful that between my stack of sins and guilt before a holy and just God is Jesus Christ.
Number your days. Make each and every day count for eternity. Don’t miss one day. Today is a day God has given you to cultivate faithfulness, to grow in godly wisdom, to know God better, to love and obey and serve Him with your whole heart. Not tomorrow but today. God gives us one day at a time.
You’ve often heard this but it still is true – tomorrow may be your last day. Tomorrow will be the last day for over one quarter million people on this planet, on this earth made by God. Are you investing your heart in eternity today? Proverbs 4:23 says, “Watch over your heart with all diligence, for out of it flow the issues of life.” You are taking your heart with you.
THE ONLY ULTIMATE SATISFACTION IS IN GOD HIMSELF
Psalm 90:13-17, Do return, O LORD; how long will it be? And be sorry for Your servants. [14] O satisfy us in the morning with Your lovingkindness, That we may sing for joy and be glad all our days. [15] Make us glad according to the days You have afflicted us, And the years we have seen evil. [16] Let Your work appear to Your servants And Your majesty to their children. [17] Let the favor (KJV beauty) of the Lord our God be upon us; And confirm for us the work of our hands; Yes, confirm the work of our hands.
There are three powerful thoughts in this last part of Moses’ prayer.
- “Satisfy us early with your lovingkindness.” How good to be called to Christ as a young person.
- “Let your beauty be upon us.” The word “favor” is “beauty” in the KJV. This could be applied to the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ imputed to the account of every believer. Isaiah 61:10 says, “He has wrapped me with a robe of righteousness.” To come to God requires not only the forgiveness of our sins but also the righteousness of Christ placed on us.
- “Establish the work of our hands.” Use us for eternal good.
Compare a life invested in God, in eternal values, in Christ, in living for Jesus Christ with a life wasted on self-centered pursuits, whether money or sex or popularity or alcohol or drugs or even man-made religion. A life invested in God is satisfied with nothing less than God Himself, experiencing the joys and pleasures that only God can bring. Where do you find your ultimate satisfaction? Augustine wrote, “God made us for Himself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in God.”
SO WHAT?
Psalm 90 brings us down to the nitty gritty fundamentals of life in God’s house. God put you here on earth. You’re leaving shortly. You’re taking your heart with you. You have this one life to believe in Christ, love Christ, and obey Christ. As Paul was preparing his heart to face imminent death by the Romans he assured Timothy, “Jesus Christ has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.”
When you finally die and fly away and the tombstone is set, will they say, “A life invested in eternity” or “A life wasted on this world?”