1433 - Psalm 90

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Welcome to On the Way with Tony Crisp. Each weekday, Dr. Crisp will be discussing biblical passages, people, places, and prophecies. Tune in daily to start your day right and deepen your understanding of how to better walk the way and enjoy the journey. Here's your host, Dr. Tony Crisp.

SPEAKER_00 0:21

Welcome to On the Way. This is Tony Crisp, and this is Podcast 1433. Today we're in the Song of Moses, Psalm 90. Now Moses also pinned under the inspiration of God two other poems, that's what I would call them, in Exodus 15 and Deuteronomy 32. But I believe this is his magnum opus. This is his great volume, as it were. Lord, you have been our dwelling place, the place where we live in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world. Even from everlasting to everlasting you are God. He is the all present one. He is the one that Moses met at the burning bush, that the bush was burning, it was on fire with the glory of God, but it was not consumed. So much was the presence of God in that bush that he called out to Moses, get your sandals off, Moses. The ground all around here is holy because I'm here, the everlasting one. You turn man to destruction and say return, O children of men, for a thousand years in your sight are like yesterday when it is past, like a watch in the night. Now this is very informative for us. You see it doesn't matter whether a person lives one year, ten years or a hundred or even a thousand. The moment that we close our eyes in death, it is as though it were an instant, because no matter how long we live in comparison to God, it is but a watch in the night and not even that. But a thousand years a man lives a thousand years and a millennium, yes, and even that is just like a person who is dying at one hundred, dying at fifty, dying at thirty. It is a breath away, it doesn't matter who you are, how old you are, you and I are a breath away from being in eternity, either with God or without Him. You carry them away like a flood, and there again is that imagery. Someone is here one moment, the floods come rushing down, and all of a sudden they're gone. And I have seen places just recently in the floods of North Carolina and East Tennessee, I have actually seen places along the Nolachucky River that it is though there was nothing ever there. There's no foundation. The foundation was even washed away, and it is just bare ground. You see, many will live and live for decades, and they will suddenly be washed away and there will be no trace that they ever lived. You carry them away like a flood. They are like a sleep. In the morning they are like the grass which grows up. In the morning it flourishes and grows up, and in the evening it is cut down and withers. I'm reminded of the passages in the great volume of Isaiah chapter forty. All flesh is grass, and all its loveliness is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades, because the breath of the Lord blows upon it. Surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever. This is a comfort. It is what God spoke through Isaiah to comfort his people. As a matter of fact, Isaiah chapter forty begins with comfort. Yes, comfort my people, says your God. Speak comfort to Jerusalem and cry out to her that her warfare, her captivity, her exile is ended. And her iniquity is pardon, for she has received from the Lord's hand double for her sins. Why? Because she was in a covenant relationship with God. She knew better. But God in his great mercy, even though she sinned and sinned and sinned, God would not forsake her. So he asked his prophet to speak comfort to his people. But all of us, all of us are as grass. We have our season in the sun, and then it's over. So Moses said in verse seven for we have been consumed by your anger, and by your wrath we are terrified. You have set our iniquities before us, and our secrets, our secret sins is the sense, in the light of your countenance. For all of our days have passed away in wrath, we finish our years like a sigh. Now think about that. When you say your last words and you take your final breath, it's this and it's over. And it doesn't matter how rich you are, it doesn't matter how poor you are, it doesn't matter where you live and what your pedigree is, what are your credentials, or even how you die, it's this. And it's over. It's over. One sigh and it's done. And so we are to glean some things from that. God sees everything about us. He knows our secret sins, those things that are behind closed doors. I often say when a man gives his life to Jesus, he has to come lock, stock, and barrel. God doesn't want nine acres of a ten acre heart. God doesn't want nine rooms out of a ten room home. God wants the keys to everything, the keys to the living room where you live, the kitchen where you eat. He wants to be involved in that, in the bathroom where you bathe. He sees it all. And he sees what's done in the closet. He sees what's done on the computer. He sees what's done on the phone. He is in every way. When you're relaxing on the porch, then he sees you. He wants to control the house. You've heard me say it, those of you have heard me preach over the years, God doesn't want to just be a part of your life. God wants to be your life. The apostle Paul said, For me to live is Christ. For me to live is Christ. It's not me, it is not I who live, but Christ lives in me. For me to live is Christ, to die is gain. And so he says we finish our years with a sigh. For the days of our lives are seventy years, or if by reason of strength they're eighty, they're yet their boast is in labor and sorrow. Now don't take this as seventy is the goal age of life. It's not. That's not what it's saying. It's just simply saying that if a man's days, he lives a thousand years. If a thousand years in your sight is like a day, it's nothing with God. It is to us, but not with him. But uh the days of our lives, if there's seventy years, if by reason of strength God gives us eighty. Yet what they talk about is the sorrow. I'm hurting here, I have this pain here. It's so hard to get up, it's so hard to sit down, it's so hard to get up when you sit down, and my feet ache and my back aches and my headaches and and it's aches and pains. And at that age you begin to see all your friends dying. Many, many that I've talked to in their 90s, in their mid and late nineties that I've ministered to over the years. Often I have heard them say, All my friends are dead. Most of my family's dead. At that age, many have outlived their children as mothers and fathers, and the sorrow that they've experienced is beyond imagination. It's beyond anything you could ever imagine. Verse 11 says, For who knows the power of your anger, O God, for as the fear of you, so is your wrath. And there is a conclusion here. So teach us, so teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom during these ending of days that we live. May God give us his perspective. May we understand that he is God, and that he's the one that has us in his hand, and that there's things that we can make choice about and change, and there's other things we cannot change. We cannot change our spouse. We cannot change our children. We cannot change our mom and dad. We cannot change our grandchildren and our friends. We learn very quickly that only God can change the heart. We might talk them into something, but the devil will send someone right along to talk them out of it. If God does the work, then it's forever. If he doesn't do the work, then it's just temporary and it will be reversed. Only God can change the heart, and how many of those of us who are dads and moms and grandfathers and grandmothers that have prayed for our children, and our hearts have been broken, but yet our hearts have been revived and blessed in so many ways because of the goodness of God. And as the song says, I have lived, I have lived to see the goodness of God toward me and toward my family. We've had heartaches, most of which we've brought upon ourselves, but God in his great sovereignty and mercy and forgiveness and kindness and graciousness and generosity has blessed beyond anything we could ever imagine. So Lord teach us to number our days, that we would gain a heart of wisdom of looking at life from your perspective. How long, O Lord, return, O God to us, and have compassion on your servants. O satisfy us early, that is early with your mercy, in our early days, in the early part of our latter days. Whenever it is, O God, satisfy us with your mercy, that we may rejoice and be glad all the days of our life. Make us glad. Make us glad according to the days in which you've afflicted us. Does that sound a lot like anything you've heard from another prophet? This was Moses. But doesn't that sound like Joel? Oh God, will you restore the years that the locust and the canker worm have eaten? And God says I will restore the years to you that you lost, and I'll even go beyond that, and I will give you more than you asked for. Isn't it wonderful that God in his great, rich mercy has done that? Make us glad according to the days in which you've afflicted us, the years in which we have seen evil. Let your work appear to your servants. Look at this, and your glory to their children. Oh how we long for our children to walk with God. There's no mom or dad that I'm talking to, that you have not longed for your children to walk with God in ways that perhaps you didn't. Far beyond what you did, oh God, bring them to a point to where all they want is you, where they see that you're all that they need. Lord, would you bring them to that point? What father and mother has not prayed that? And let your glory appear to your servants and your glory to their children. Let the beauty of the Lord, the Lord our God be upon us, and oh God, would you establish the work of our hands for us? Yes, establish the work of our hands. This is my prayer for you, for every man of God that's listening to this. May this be our prayer for one another, and for our wife, our husband, our children, our grandchildren, that God would establish the work of our hands. Only He can do it. Yes, establish the work of our hands. Oh God in heaven, would you look down from heaven upon those that are listening to this podcast? And would you bless them with contentment in their life? God, wherever they are, would you meet them in their place of need? Would you meet them where they are and take them to where they need to be? And oh Father in heaven, we pray that the beauty of your face would rest upon us and our children and grandchildren, and that you would establish the work of our hands for us. We can't do it. Only you can. Yes, establish the work of our hands. Amen and amen. For on the way, this is Tony Crisp.

SPEAKER_01 14:03

Thanks for listening to On the Way with Tony Crisp. Tune in every weekday for information on biblical passages, people, places, and prophecies. Fridays are for your questions. Email your questions to questions at TonyCrisp.org. Then just listen for your question to be answered on Friday's podcast. That's questions at TonyC R I S P dot org. Thanks for listening and have a blessed day on the way.