"Brief Life Is Here Our Portion"
(No. 3414)
A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JULY 9, 1914.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.
"LORD make me to know my end and the measure of my days, what it is,
that I may know how frail I am." Psalm 39:4.
ACCORDING to the judgment of Calvin, and some of the ablest
commentators, there is a kind of pettishness in this verse. The context
appears to imply that David had grown impatient under the chastening
hand of God. Job, under similar circumstances, longed to accomplish as
a hireling, his day, and sought the repose of the grave. And so the
Psalmist inquires how much longer he has to bear the ills and griefs of
life, or when the goal shall be reached. But I am sure it is not for
any of us to upbraid the Psalmist, for what is his impatience compared
with ours? When I read of Elijah casting himself under the juniper
tree, saying, "Let me die, I am no better than my fathers!"–should I
wonder at the weakness of so great a man–it is only because he is
great! No doubt that kind of weakness has seized us all. We have, every
now and then, expressed a longing to depart–not so much, I fear,
because of our eagerness to be with Christ, as because we have grown
weary with the trials, the services and the sufferings of this poor
wilderness. Well, if we are the subjects of the same infirmity as these
godly men of old, we must flee where they fled for strength to grapple
with these infirmities and overcome them! We must look to the Strong
for strength and pray God to work in us that ripe fruit of patience so
rare and yet so precious, for it greatly glorifies God wherever it is
brought forth!
David here asks the Lord to be his Teacher. Observe the words, "Make me
to know.." That is to say, "Instruct me, let me be the scholar, and You
condescend to my ignorance and weakness, and teach me." What? But did
not David know his end? Did he not know the measure of his days? Was
his frailty a secret that he could not discover? We may be sure that he
knew it in part–knew it, perhaps, in that superficial manner in which
many of us assent to moral and spiritual truths, with little
understanding and no appreciation. But he wanted to know it after a
more perfect way–he would apprehend it with that spiritual
enlightenment which God alone can communicate. Upon the dishes at the
china factories you have, perhaps, seen an impression produced–the
inscription is to be there in the future–that is, like common
knowledge. Have you afterwards seen that piece of china when it has
passed through the oven, has been baked, and comes forth with what you
saw there, superficially baked into its very substance? Such should be
our prayer, that what we know as upon the surface may be burned into
our innermost consciences, may become indelibly a part of our own
selves. Lord, not only make me to know, but make me to know by Your own
Divine art–burn it into me–make me to know my end and the measure of
my days. Observe the condescension of God, that we are allowed to ask
Him to teach us such a lesson as our frailty! And mark the proof of our
own ignorance and our own forgetfulness that we cannot even learn this
lesson unless God teaches us! And must He make us know? We need that
our minds should be renewed, as it were, by a creative or a
regenerating process, else we shall fail to discern the very simplest
Truths of God. Confessing our ignorance, let us go to God with the
prayer of the Psalmist and He willanswer us.
There are, then, three things which the Psalmist wishes to know–his
end, the measure of his days and growing out of these, a just estimate
of his own frailty. May the Lord teach us to profit while we meditate
upon them!
I. "LORD, MAKE ME TO KNOW MY END."
Do we know this already? If you do, let your pure minds be stirred up
by way of remembrance. The certainty of your end–try to know that by
grasping the fact and letting the truth of it affect your souls. Yes, I
must die unless the Lord should come and I should be caught up together
with the saints in the air. I must reach the terminus of this mortal
life as other men, on the couch of weakness and the bed of death. I
must die. There is no discharge in this war. There is no possibility of
your having an everlasting life here. You don't desire it if you are
Christians! Neither could you have it if you did desire it–a time will
come when you must depart. Think, then, dear Brothers and
Sisters–common places will beuseful to you. Let it pass over your
soul, that for you the funeral bell must toll, for you the grave be
dug, for you the winding-sheet and the cerements of the tomb, for you,
"earth to earth, and dust to dust, and ashes to ashes," as sure as you
are a man. Being born mortal, you must die. The Lord make you to know
this! You must die, not another for you! You must gather up your feet
into the bed and, like old Jacob, pass across the stream, the narrow
stream of death. You, though now in the prime of life, or in the gaiety
of childhood. You who have escaped so many accidents and are now ripe
and mellow in the quietude of old age–the dearest friend and companion
cannot be a sponsor for you. When the call shall come, your pitcher
must be broken at the fountain, your wheel at the cistern and you, in
your own proper flesh and blood, must pass away–and your disembodied
spirit must stand before God. Forget not, then, the certainty, or the
personality of it!
It shall be conclusive, "Make me to know my end." It shall not be a
halt, but a finale. Not a starting on the road, but a termination of
the great journey of life. "My end," my end for all things beneath the
sun, the end of my sin as far as this world is concerned and the end of
my service of Almighty God! The end of all my opportunities of doing
good, of my occasions of getting good. My end so that whatever after is
done under the sun, I shall have no share nor interest in it. The
living know that they must die, but the dead know not anything! Other
saints walk over their graves, nations rise and fall, convulsions shake
the most solid empires, all things change–but there, beneath the sod,
they slumber on. Their memory and their love are lost alike–"unknowing
and unknown." Certainly we shall come to an end. Certainly I, myself,
shall come to that end, and when my death comes, it will, for this life
and this mortal state, be a veritable end which I cannot pass.
While musing on our end, the accompaniments of our end may well excite
passing reflection. In all probability, Brothers and Sisters, though we
know not what may come to us, our departure out of this life will be
attended with the same languor and prostration we have witnessed in the
case of others. We may expect the sick bed, the days of pain and the
sleepless nights which are the premonitions of decease. We may imagine
for ourselves what we have so often seen among our kinsfolk and
acquaintances–the family gathered in silent watchfulness and the
weeping children summoned to give the parting kiss–while the hot tears
fall on the blanched cheeks of the departing. We can picture it all to
our minds. It may be well we should, and make a rehearsal of it, too,
for it is probable enough that so it may come. We are not sure that we
shall take so deliberate a leave of the world. It may happen to us in
the crowded streets. Our end may come to us as we go by the way. That,
however, rather strikes us as the course of Nature, when there is the
taking down of the tent, the folding up of the canvas, the putting away
of each pin and pin-hold, and so we shall be removed as a shepherd's
tent. Then will come a leaving of all earthly things–your shutters
will be put up by somebody else–your books will be no more kept by
you–you will have struck the balance for the last time. Some other
hand must go out to earn the children's bread, now that the father is
gone. Some other woman's tender care must watch over the little ones,
now that the mother is no more. And the time must come when the rich
man shall bid farewell to his parks and lawns, when he must bid
farewell to his mortgages, to his bonds, his deeds and his estates. And
the poor man, who may, perhaps, find it as hard, must bid farewell to
the cottage and the hearth, and all that made life dear to him. There
will be a parting time for each of us, and we pray the Lord make us to
anticipate it! In connection with this, it is probable there will be
many regrets to all of us. I hope when we come to die it will be no
question as to whether we are saved or not. But even to a saved man,
there arises this thought, "Oh, that I had glorified God more! Oh, that
I had devoted of my substance, and of my time, and of my talents, more
to my Master's service! I can no more feed the hungry, or clothe the
naked, or teach the ignorant. Oh, that those golden opportunities had
been seized more eagerly, and employed more industriously by me! But
now my time for service here is over, and I am mourning the scantiness
of my life-work–and I cannot amend that which is faulty, or supply
that which is lacking." Our end, Beloved, will be the end of all our
Christian labor here below. No going to your Sunday school class any
more. No coming, again, of the preacher to his rostrum. No standing
here to admonish or to console. No more will the corner of the street
listen to your voice, my Brother, in your earnest evangelizing. No
longer can your hand be outstretched to distribute the Word which tells
of the great Savior and the good Shepherd–our Lord Jesus Christ. On
that bed you will be taking leave of all your Christian service and if
anything has been left undone, there will then be no opportunity to
complete it. Depend upon it–and it is wise to look forward to the
event–our end will be no child's play. We may often smile and sing
about death and long for evening to approach, that we may rest with
God, but it is, at the same time, a most solemn thing. The best way to
deal with it is to die daily, to go down to Jordan's brink and bathe
every morning in that death stream, till death shall be as familiar as
life, till you shallcome to think of it with daily expectation! Yet at
times we almost wonder that we are lingering here, for we are expecting
to be called away to dwell in the land of the living, where there is no
more death, nor sorrow, nor sighing.
Then, again, it will be well for us to be made to know our end in all
its results. Although it is called our end, yet surely it is, strictly
speaking, a great beginning! A more true beginning, I was about to say,
even than our first birth. The moment a man dies, he then enters upon
the most solemn part of his existence. Make me, Lord, to know what it
will be after this, my departure. What will then happen to me? Come,
let me reflect. My soul must wing her way without the body up to the
Throne of God, and there, at once, receive the preliminary sentence,
the forecast of the sentence of the Last Tremendous Day. "Committed for
trial," to lie in durance vile without the body till the Resurrection
trumpet, or be admitted into Glory, such as that Glory can be without
the body, until the Lord Jesus Christ shall descend from Heaven with a
shout, and the trumpet of the archangel, and the voice of God! Which
will it be with me? Ask this, dear Hearers, and ask your God to make
you to know which it shall be–your spirit rejoicing in the Presence of
Christ, your Savior, far from the world of grief and sin, eternally
shut in with God–or shall it be your spirit mocking among kindred
condemned in the Pit that has no bottom, where the iron key is turned
and through the door of which there can be no escape? Which shall it be
with you? When you think of your end, remember one of these must be
your portion–Heaven or Hell! Then comes the Day of Judgment and of the
Resurrection. The clarion, clear and shrill, shall be such as wakens
man, not for battle, nor sleepers for the fray–it shall wake the
long-buried from their silent graves and they shall rise from sea and
land an exceedingly great multitude! Then shall the Great White Throne
be set and the books be opened! This is the end God will have you to
know. Oh, seek to know it! When that book is opened, and Christ shall
read with eyes of fire, and with a voice of thunder, what shall the
Lord award you? Will He turn to the page and say, "Blotted out with My
blood are all the transgressions that were once recorded here and,
therefore, there is nothing now to read except that which is the award
of My chosen. I was hungry, and you gave Me meat; I was thirsty and you
gave Me drink; sick and imprisoned, and you ministered unto Me! Come,
you blessed!" Or will it be to see the page turned over and to hear the
voice declare, "I was hungry, and you gave Me no meat; thirsty and you
gave Me no drink"? Will it be a record all of sin, and not of virtue,
with the accompanying sentence, "Depart, you cursed, into everlasting
fire"? "Lord make me to know my end," and let not my end be to be
banished forever with the wicked! Gather not my life with sinners, nor
my soul with bloody men! Cast me not away from Your Presence! Banish me
not from Your mercy! Shut me not up in the lowest Pit! Condemn me not
to eternal destruction from the Presence of the Lord! "Make me to know
my end," and let this be the end–to be with Christ where He is, to
behold His Glory, the Glory which You gave Him from before the
foundation of the world!
It seems to me that when David prayed that he might be made to know his
end, he well knew these were the accompaniments. But the way in which
he wished to be made to know them was that he might be made to believe
in them firmly, so as to realize them vividly, look upon them not as
fictions, myths and traditions, but as realities–that he might be made
to know them, so as to meditate upon them, to have his mind exercised
constantly about them–that he might be made to know them so as to be
prepared for them and to set his house in order, because he must die,
and not live, preparing to meet his God. And, above all, that he might
know his end by having a full assurance of being saved in Christ Jesus,
so that his end should be everlasting peace! "Mark the perfect man, and
behold the upright, for the end of that man is peace." Oh, that we
might, while mentioning such men, become such men ourselves–and know
that our end shall be peace through Jesus Christ! Now, in the second
part of the prayer, David says–
II. "MAKE ME TO KNOW THE MEASURE OF MY DAYS."
It is a very humbling thing to recollect that our days have a measure.
In the Latin there is a proverb, "As poor men count their sheep." And
it is only because we are so poor in life that we are able to measure
our days. God's days are not to be counted. "Your generations, who can
tell, or count the number of Your years? From everlasting to
everlasting You are God." "The measure of our days." Ask in prayer that
you may be made to know this. I will just give some outlines, like a
drawing-master's sketch on the blackboard. How insignificant the
measure of my days–what a very little time I have to live after all.
If 70 years is my term, of what small account they are! Perhaps you
have sometimes stood by a sand-cliff, as I did the other day, looking
at alternate layers of shells, one above another. I should think at
least one hundred feet thick of shells of a modern sort succeeded by
thin layers of sand! Now, this must undoubtedly have been formed by the
gradual deposit of some ancient sea, but how long must it have taken to
have composed a rock of one hundred feet thick of white shells and
sand? Well, but that is only a comparatively small layer of this earth.
We go a little deeper andwe find sandstone and limestone which must
have taken, if the laws of Nature have been at all in other times as
they are now, not thousands, but even millions of years to form by the
gradual deposit of the ocean! You go deeper, still, and at last you
come to rocks made by fire, and the geologist is most reasonably led to
the conclusion that this world, as it now stands, must have existed
several millions of years, because it has taken so long a time to
collect these various deposits. I know as I stood poking my stick into
this sand and shells, I felt as if I had shriveled into a little ant
and less even than a tiny animalcule which had scarcely come into this
world when it was driven away and there were these rocks looking at me,
and saying, Where were you when we were formed? When the waving ocean
was washing up these shells, where were you? But now take your mind
away from this world and recollect that some beings dear to us are
older than this world, for when this world was made, the morning stars
sang and shouted for joy! Oh, you angels–what infants we must seem in
comparison with your age! Where were you when Gabriel first flew upon
his errand, swift as lightning? Where were you when sin made Lucifer,
Sun of the Morning, descend swift beneath the wrath of God into the
shades of darkness which are reserved for him forever? What is your
life when once compared with the period of life which cherubim and
seraphim have seen? Oh, but what are cherubim and seraphim compared
with God? When, in this great world, sun, moon and stars had not begun,
God was as great and glorious as He is now! And when the whole of this
Creation shall be rolled up like a worn out scroll, He will be the
same–no older in a myriad myriad years than He is now, for with Him
there is no time–
"He fills His own eternal Now, And sees our ages pass."
All things are present to Him! We are carried away as with a flood, but
He sits serene, neither age nor time change Him! "Lord, make me to know
the measure of my days." Help me to fall down in my utter
insignificance before Your Throne, adoring Your eternal majesty–
"Great God, how infinite are Thee, What worthless worms are we! Let the
whole race of creatures bow, And pay their praise to Thee."
While seeking to know the measure of our days, let the great importance
that attaches to them stand out distinctly before us, for on this link
our everlasting destiny is hung. It is this life which, as far as we
are concerned, decides the next. In this life a Believer, then a life
of Glory, happiness, and immortality! In this life an unbeliever, then
in the next life, in the world to come, everlasting punishment from the
hand of God! This thought makes even this little life swell to
won-drously great proportions! Here is a man next door to a worm and
yet next door to God–born but yesterday and yet his existence will go
on perpetually with God, for man shall not die! So momentous, and yet
so insignificant! So magnificent, and yet so minute is the measure of
my days!
"Lord, make me to know the measure of my days"–the certainty of that
measure. God has appointed that you shall not die before the time–you
shall certainly not live beyond it. That thread shall be cut off in its
due season–
"Plagues and death around me fly, Till He wills, I cannot die."
While I admonish you to remember the certainty, let me urge you to
reflect upon the uncertainty of it, as far as you are concerned. You
may live another twenty, thirty, or forty years–or you may not live as
many seconds! You may be spared for the next 50 years, and still taking
part in life's battle. Or it may be that before the clock has ticked
again, you may be like a warrior taking his rest. Certain to God, but
uncertain to you! It is well, in thinking of our days, to remember they
will be quite long enough for us if God helps us to use them well. Life
is very short, but a great deal may be done. Our Lord Jesus Christ, in
three years, saved the world! Some of His followers in three years have
been the means of saving many and many a soul. It was a short life that
Luther had to do his great work in. If I remember rightly, he was hard
upon 50 before he began to preach the Truth of God at all! This is a
hopeful sign for some of you who have wasted your young days! There
have been men of 60 that have yet achieved a life's work before they
had slept and gone their way. After all, time is long or short as you
like to make it so. One man lives a 100 years and dies a worldling. And
yet another man, through God's Grace, puts forth as much energy in two
or three years as if he were a thunderbolt launched from the hands of
God! And he leaves his name among imperishable memorials. Your life
will be long enough to achieve great things if God will help you to
remember, in measuring your days, that they will be quite short enough
for the enterprise you have in hand. You will only have finished the
picture when the master palsies the arm and makes you drop the pencil.
And you will only have completed the day's work when the shadow shall
have fallen and you shall go Home to your rest. Work with all your
might, but don't work despondingly–there is time enough for your soul
to glorify God! Do your piece of the great work, though it be but a
hair's breadth you are allowed to perform, and though it is as nothing
in the presence of Him whose mighty deeds are shown through all
generations. Shall I need to say anything more about measuring our
days, except that it may be a painful recollection for us to remember
that if they are not longer days, it is the prevalence of sin that made
it necessary to shorten them! We might have lived to the age of
Methuselah but the Antediluvian fathers so filled the earth with
violence that God sent a flood and swept them all away! It is great
mercy that men don't live too long. Where were progress if the old men
of 200 years ago were here to obstruct it? Where the chance for reform
if the vested interests of avarice were permitted to accumulate without
any check? Now, however, the old blood is constantly superseded by
fresh blood and the stream of life is kept purer by the passing away of
the old conservative element, which when here, was exceedingly good in
its season, but must give place to the influx of a spring tide more
adapted to the growth of the times. Thank God, the great infidels don't
live forever–who would have wished to have a Voltaire forever stalking
about this world! What a mercy that his was but a short life! What
would you think if you had a Tom Paine blustering against Almighty God
500 years at a stretch? A mercy it is that even good men don't live
here forever, because their temptations would so accumulate in the
recollection of years of service, that self-righteousness would become
inveterate, hero worship an established idolatry and dogmatism a
nuisance without abatement! I grant you experience might come in to
modify some of the evils, for so the Grace of God can do anything–but
there would be at least a natural tendency to perpetuate corruptions.
We don't measure, I am afraid, our own years, in some respects, as we
are known to do those of others. Some have to thank themselves that
their lives are short–sins of their youth lie in their bones! And as
we remember our days, we may provoke very painful recollections as to
past sin, be checked as to all future folly and desire henceforth to
walk in holiness and fear in the service of God until our days are
ended. To number our days seems to me to mean, "not let them run away
and be wasted." Hours ought to be counted–we sleep too much, some of
us–we spend too much time at the table, too much in idle talk. Lord,
help us to measure out our days, count them as they fly, and even the
odd five minutes–those little pieces of time which we think we may
idle away–much may be accomplished with them if we really set our
minds as in the sight of eternity to employ the scraps for God. "Lord
teach me to know the measure of my days." But my time has failed and,
therefore, I must have but one or two words about the third point.
David prays that he might know his frailty–
III. LORD, HE SAID, "MAKE ME TO KNOW THAT I HAVE AN END, THAT I MAY
KNOW MY FRAILTY."
I must come to that end soon. I am coming to it now. Lord, make me to
know that I am so frail that I may die at any time–early morning,
noon, night, midnight, cockcrow. I may die in any place. If I am in the
house of sin, I may die there. If I am in the place of worship, I may
die there. I may die in the street. I may die while undressing tonight.
I may die in my sleep. I may die before I get to my work tomorrow
morning. I may die in any occupation. But God, grant I may never die a
blasphemer! I may die with the cup of Communion at my lips. I may die
preaching. I may die singing. In all, grant I may die as I wish to
die–doing Your service for the love of Christ and by the power of Your
Spirit. Perhaps, as I stand here and readily speak, the arrow is on its
way–soon may the hand be stretched and dumb the mouth that lisps this
faltering strain! Oh, may it never intrude upon an ill-spent hour, but
find me wrapped in meditation and hymning my great Creator, or serving
my fellow man with love to God, or in some way so laboring that it
shall not come to me as a thief in the night, but shall find me
watching, ready for His Advent! And this is what David meant, "Make me
to know my end." It may come at any time, but let me always be ready
for it. Make me to know the measure of my days with the same object. My
days are measured. These days may be few–they may be very few–I may
have come to the last one. The pilgrimage of life is a very solemn one.
It reminds me of a caravan proceeding forward in a track–some know it,
some of the travelers have forgotten it–but on the road which they are
pursuing, there is a deep gulf or chasm, and some in the front part of
the caravan have already fallen into the gulf. Others are proceeding.
In some cases they can hear the shrieks and cries of those who have
fallen into the chasm on ahead. But here in the darkness, in the rear
of the caravan, there may be many others indulging in such sparks of
fire as they have kindled. They are sounding the tabret and the cymbal,
and still making merry–though everyone of them is going onwards
towards the same precipice over which their comrades, who led the way,
have already fallen! There they go–onward, onward, onward in the
darkness, till they come to that fatal step which will plunge them into
the world unknown! God has led you to this tabernacle well in health
and strong, but your next step may be into eternity! Beware, then, that
you lay hold on the hand which was once crucified lest, whenyou slip,
there be none to hold you up! And, when you fall, there be none to
rescue you, and you fall through the black and cheerless darkness
forever and ever, lost, lost, lost, beyond hope of rescue! God forbid
this for His mercy's sake. Amen.
EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM90.
"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 and trustful about it. If it is the prayer of
Moses, it is the prayer of a man of God.
Verse 1. LORD, You have been our dwelling place in all generations.
Your chosen people have dwelt in You. You are 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.
2. Before the mountains were brought forth–Before they were born like
infants, gigantic as they are.
2. Or ever You had formed the earth and the world, even from
everlasting to everlasting, You are God. Everything else changes. You
do not. We lose our comforts. We dwell, as it were, in tents which are
taken down and removed, but there is no change in You. Beloved Brothers
and Sisters, you know this Truth of God, 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 who cannot die and
cannot change–that is, and always is, God. Oh, He is our confidence
and joy! As for men, what are they?
3. You turn man to destruction and say, return, you children of men. He
has only to speak–no need to take the scythe and mow us down. He does
but say, "Return, you children of men," and we go back to the dust!
4. For a thousand years in Your 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 always lives, all the age of the
world must seem but as the twinkling of an eye! What are a thousand
years to You, You glorious One, before whom the past is present, and
the future is as now?
5. You carry them away as with a foot. 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, do You carry men away as with a flood!
5, 6. They are as a sleep: in the morning they are like grass which
grows up. In the morning it flourishes, and grows up; in the evening it
is cut down and withers. 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 flourishes; in the evening it is cut down."
7. For we are consumed by Your anger, and by Your wrath are we
troubled. Whenever God's anger breaks 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.
8. You have set our iniquities before You, our secret sins in the light
of Your 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 doesbelong to you–"You have cast all my
sins behind Your back." He has not set them in the light of His
Countenance, but He has cast them into the depths of the sea and,
Beloved, you stand acquitted, justified! 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! Yes, the blood of Jesus shall blot out your sins
and you shall rejoice!
9, 10. For all our days are passed away in Your 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 are fourscore years,
yet is their strength, labor 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 forever and ever!
11. Who knows the power of Your anger? Even according to Your fear, so
is Your wrath. Dreadful 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?
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 worked 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?
13. Return, OLORD, howlong?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?"
13, 14. And have compassion on Your servants. O satisfy us early with
Your mercy: that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. If they are
but few, help us to live happily in them. Grant us the art of Your
Grace of knowing Yourself, the source of happiness, that we may drink
ofbliss to the fullest.
15. Make us glad according to the days wherein You have 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!
16. Let Your work appear unto Your servants, and Your 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 Your work appear to us–Your Glory to our children."
17. And let the beauty of the LORD our God be upon us and establish 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 the work of
our hands upon us."
17. Yes, the work of our hands establish. It is my daily prayer. My
heart often goes up to Heaven 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. "Yes, the work of our hands,
establish."