WEBVTT 00:00:11.439 --> 00:00:17.920 Well, I want to thank you for the warm welcome that you've given me this morning, and it really is a pleasure to be here and open the word with you. 00:00:18.000 --> 00:00:21.280 And I'll ask you to turn in your Bibles to Psalm 90. 00:00:21.600 --> 00:00:22.960 Psalm 90. 00:00:23.679 --> 00:00:27.120 As you're turning there, I'll make an observation or two. 00:00:27.280 --> 00:00:32.479 This is a psalm written by Moses, the only psalm of Moses that we have in the Psalter. 00:00:32.880 --> 00:00:39.359 And also for that reason, probably the oldest of all the psalms in our Bible. 00:00:40.479 --> 00:00:41.359 Psalm 90. 00:00:41.439 --> 00:00:48.399 We'll read the entirety and then we'll ask the Lord to instruct us and give us understanding as we look into his word together. 00:00:49.359 --> 00:00:55.039 This is the holy and the inerrant word of God, so let us give it our full and careful attention. 00:00:55.359 --> 00:00:57.920 A prayer of Moses, the man of God. 00:01:05.519 --> 00:01:08.719 Even from everlasting to everlasting, you are God. 00:01:09.120 --> 00:01:19.359 You turn man back into dust and say, Return, O children of men, for a thousand years in your sight are like yesterday when it passes by, or as a watch in the night. 00:01:19.599 --> 00:01:22.879 You have swept them away like a flood, they fall asleep. 00:01:23.120 --> 00:01:30.319 In the morning they're like grass which sprouts anew, in the morning it flourishes and sprouts anew, toward evening it fades and withers away. 00:01:30.799 --> 00:01:35.040 For we have been consumed by your anger, by your wrath we have been dismayed. 00:01:35.200 --> 00:01:39.439 You have placed our iniquities before you, our secret sins, and the light of your presence. 00:01:39.599 --> 00:01:44.480 For all our days have declined, and your fury we have finished our years like a sigh. 00:01:44.799 --> 00:01:49.519 As for the days of our life, they contain seventy years, or if due to strength, eighty years. 00:01:49.680 --> 00:01:54.560 Yet their pride is but labor and sorrow, and soon it is gone, and we fly away. 00:01:54.879 --> 00:02:00.480 Who understands the power of your anger and your fury according to the fear that is due to you? 00:02:00.719 --> 00:02:05.359 So teach us to number our days, that we may present to you a heart of wisdom. 00:02:05.680 --> 00:02:10.400 Do return, O Lord, how long will it be, and be sorrow sorry for your servants? 00:02:10.560 --> 00:02:16.400 O satisfy us in the morning with your loving kindness, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days. 00:02:16.639 --> 00:02:21.039 Make us glad according to the days you have afflicted us and the years we have seen evil. 00:02:21.199 --> 00:02:24.639 Let your work appear to your servants and your majesty to their children. 00:02:24.800 --> 00:02:29.680 Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and confirm for us the work of our hands. 00:02:29.919 --> 00:02:32.319 Yes, confirm the work of our hands. 00:02:32.479 --> 00:02:33.599 Let's pray. 00:02:34.719 --> 00:02:44.000 Our Heavenly Father, we do come to you cognizant that we are slow to understand and to take to heart the things that are written. 00:02:44.080 --> 00:03:08.080 And so we pray now that you would quicken us with your Spirit, that you would give us your Spirit as our teacher, that we might behold wonderful things in your word, that we might take them to heart and believe them, that we might, even as we gaze into this text and we contemplate your eternal power and goodness, and as we contemplate our plight as sinners, that we would even have a fuller view of your Son Christ Jesus, who loved us and gave himself for us. 00:03:08.159 --> 00:03:14.719 And so we ask now that you would give us understanding, that we might take to heart all that we see and hear in this passage. 00:03:14.879 --> 00:03:16.159 We pray it in Christ's name. 00:03:16.479 --> 00:03:17.120 Amen. 00:03:19.120 --> 00:03:23.439 Your life is just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. 00:03:23.599 --> 00:03:31.120 These are the words spoken in James chapter 4, verse 14, and they're a sobering reminder of the brevity of life. 00:03:31.360 --> 00:03:35.439 That your life is like a puff of vapor smoke. 00:03:35.680 --> 00:03:46.879 And though we often marvel at how quickly time flies by, and perhaps we even remark on how quickly time seems to fly, it also seems at the same time as if we have all the time in the world. 00:03:47.199 --> 00:03:54.000 That time drags on when you're in the doctor's office, and yet when you're on vacation, time flies by, and there's this tension. 00:03:54.159 --> 00:03:57.199 Is time passing slowly or is time passing quickly? 00:03:57.439 --> 00:04:03.919 And I want to resolve that tension for you this morning on the side of brevity and say, it's flying by. 00:04:04.240 --> 00:04:07.360 If it seems long, that's a delusion. 00:04:07.520 --> 00:04:11.520 In fact, it is but a puff of vapor smoke. 00:04:11.919 --> 00:04:19.680 We need frequent reminders of how quickly life passes us by so that we can lay hold of that which really abides and remains. 00:04:19.920 --> 00:04:27.360 The temptation of fleeting life is to try to find permanence in the very things that themselves are fleeting and passing away. 00:04:27.680 --> 00:04:33.680 Job says in Job 14, 1 that his days are few and full of trouble. 00:04:33.920 --> 00:04:42.000 The reality is that life is short, life is often difficult, and we are soon, barring the return of Jesus Christ, going to die. 00:04:42.319 --> 00:04:52.879 But I was once asked by my financial advisor when we sat down and he was trying to build a risk tolerance profile on me, and he asked me the question: When do you plan to die? 00:04:54.879 --> 00:05:05.040 And uh I said to him, uh, I'm a Calvinist, and the Lord has appointed the day of my birth and the day of my death, and you know, before there was yet one of them, and I don't know. 00:05:05.120 --> 00:05:10.480 And his response was, I'm a Calvinist too, but I have to fill in the box, so when do you plan to die? 00:05:10.720 --> 00:05:14.000 Um, I understand his point. 00:05:14.240 --> 00:05:24.240 I'm trying to plan the day of my death so that I can end well and not end up blindsided and destitute, not having prepared for it. 00:05:24.639 --> 00:05:42.240 Ecclesiastes 3.11 says that God has placed eternity in the heart of every man, and whether your life is comparatively long or short, compared to eternity, it's short, and the eternity is not just the eternity of God, but even the eternity of the human soul, and yes, even the human body. 00:05:42.639 --> 00:05:47.040 And so how to live in this short and hard life. 00:05:47.360 --> 00:05:50.000 Jesus gives us instruction in Matthew 6.20. 00:05:50.079 --> 00:05:58.480 He says that we should store up for ourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, where thieves do not break in and steal. 00:05:59.120 --> 00:06:02.879 That we are trying to live this life and grab hold of something that lasts. 00:06:02.959 --> 00:06:12.959 We want our name to last, we want our works to last, we want our stuff to last, and the reality is that we don't have a promise in Scripture that these things are going to remain. 00:06:13.199 --> 00:06:15.279 They come and they go. 00:06:16.319 --> 00:06:24.319 In Psalm 90, Moses writes about a dwelling place to a people that, somewhat strangely, never really had a home of their own. 00:06:24.560 --> 00:06:33.839 He writes to a rootless and to a ruined people, people that had lived their whole lives in a foreign land as strangers, in borrowed houses and on borrowed land. 00:06:34.000 --> 00:06:39.759 Never could an Israelite point to his house or to his land and say, That's my home, that's my land. 00:06:39.920 --> 00:06:43.199 He was living there by the leave and the pleasure of Egypt. 00:06:45.120 --> 00:06:54.800 Moses tells them, though, that they are not for all that homeless, that God has been their dwelling place, even while they haven't had really a permanent dwelling place upon earth. 00:06:55.120 --> 00:07:12.959 But as he moves from a consideration of God as our dwelling place, he then descends, and this kind of comes through the middle section of the Psalm, into some to face us with some really grim realities, namely that life is short and that life is hard, and that we are all hastening on toward the grave, and that very soon. 00:07:13.600 --> 00:07:22.240 Finally, he lights the way back home, that we can in fact dwell with God in this life and the next, if we will take to heart the counsel that he gives to us. 00:07:22.399 --> 00:07:28.319 So I want to follow out Moses' Psalm in four observations, and these will form an outline for us this morning. 00:07:28.480 --> 00:07:31.199 First, an eternal dwelling, verses one and two. 00:07:31.680 --> 00:07:34.720 Secondly, a brief journey, verses three through six. 00:07:34.959 --> 00:07:41.920 Thirdly, a hard journey, verses seven through eleven, and then finally, the way back home, verses twelve to seventeen. 00:07:42.160 --> 00:07:48.639 Well, let's begin where the psalmist himself begins with an eternal dwelling, verses one and two. 00:07:49.680 --> 00:07:54.639 David begins, Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations. 00:07:54.720 --> 00:08:04.959 He's speaking now to God, and he's affirming that God has in fact been their dwelling place, that these people who were pilgrims upon the earth were not homeless people, God was their home. 00:08:05.199 --> 00:08:09.040 Now, right out the gate, that's a somewhat strange way to speak about a home. 00:08:09.199 --> 00:08:16.319 Normally a home is a somewhere, but here he says, for God's people, home is a someone. 00:08:16.639 --> 00:08:19.680 It's not as much a what as it is a who. 00:08:20.160 --> 00:08:23.759 You have been our dwelling place in all generations. 00:08:24.639 --> 00:08:34.559 We have a quaint saying that home is where the heart is, and people that are particularly rooted in a place they've been their whole life understand perhaps the meaning of this. 00:08:34.720 --> 00:08:45.039 But here's the reality: no matter how tumultuous your life in this world is, if your heart is with God, you have a home that cannot be taken away. 00:08:45.759 --> 00:08:49.360 Now it might seem somewhat strange, the language of the psalmist here. 00:08:49.440 --> 00:08:53.120 He says, You have been our home, our dwelling place in all generations. 00:08:53.519 --> 00:09:02.159 And yet, when we think about the patriarchs, for instance, we think of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and it seems to us that they had a home, namely in Canaan. 00:09:02.399 --> 00:09:10.960 And yet, in Hebrews 11, verses 8 and following, we're told that even in Canaan, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were not really home. 00:09:11.120 --> 00:09:16.399 When they got to Canaan, having left Ur of the Chaldees, they didn't get to Canaan and say, hey, everybody, this is it. 00:09:16.480 --> 00:09:21.679 There's not a passage where Abraham says to his household, hey everyone, this is home. 00:09:21.840 --> 00:09:22.960 We're finally here. 00:09:23.200 --> 00:09:29.919 They do get to the end of a journey on earth, but when they get to the end of the journey, they live like they're still traveling. 00:09:30.399 --> 00:09:39.039 In fact, the uh hotel where I stayed the last uh two nights, just here in Springfield, tried to deceive me, not high handedly. 00:09:39.200 --> 00:09:46.080 No, I'm not gonna write a letter of complaint, but they they named the hotel Homewood Suites. 00:09:46.639 --> 00:09:48.399 But we had to check out this morning. 00:09:48.639 --> 00:09:50.159 In other words, it's not much of a home. 00:09:50.320 --> 00:09:54.960 Two nights, less than 48 hours, and I wouldn't point to it and say that's home. 00:09:55.039 --> 00:09:56.399 I would say that's where I'm staying. 00:09:56.480 --> 00:09:58.799 But here's the thing, we should say that about our houses as well. 00:09:58.960 --> 00:10:00.080 That's just where we're staying. 00:10:00.240 --> 00:10:03.360 That's how day that's how the patriarchs thought about the promised land. 00:10:03.679 --> 00:10:06.559 Listen to this language from Hebrews 11. 00:10:06.879 --> 00:10:15.919 By faith, Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance, and he went out not knowing where he was going. 00:10:16.480 --> 00:10:26.639 By faith he lived as an alien in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same promise. 00:10:26.879 --> 00:10:28.639 So I'll pause for one second. 00:10:28.879 --> 00:10:39.840 He gets to Canaan and he continues to live like a nomad, like a Bedouin, like he's on his way to somewhere else, because the reality is he is on his way to somewhere else. 00:10:39.919 --> 00:10:47.039 There's not a place in this world, there's not a place on planet Earth that he can point to and say, That's my forever home. 00:10:47.279 --> 00:10:53.440 Anywhere he happens to lay his head is just the place he's sleeping that night, even in Canaan. 00:10:53.679 --> 00:11:01.360 Verse 10, we're told, for he was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God. 00:11:01.919 --> 00:11:07.919 So we might think to ourselves, was he looking for God or was he looking for a city? 00:11:08.000 --> 00:11:14.240 And I want to propose, in one respect, that those two questions really aren't at odds with each other. 00:11:15.919 --> 00:11:31.279 When you read in Revelation 21, verse 22, John describes his vision of heaven, and this is what he says I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. 00:11:31.759 --> 00:11:38.559 There's a certain sense in which heaven, that most exquisite dwelling place of God with man, is only heaven because God is there. 00:11:38.720 --> 00:11:44.720 I think it was the Puritan Richard Aline who said, if God were not in heaven, I would not want to go. 00:11:46.559 --> 00:11:49.600 Heaven's an interesting place in terms of its decor. 00:11:50.320 --> 00:11:56.240 Perhaps you like earth tones, and heaven offers you shimmery translucence. 00:11:56.480 --> 00:12:02.159 If I came to your house, I doubt that, well, some of you might have that kind of taste, but I doubt that most of you have that exact taste. 00:12:02.240 --> 00:12:05.919 But the point is, it's not about taste, it's about amplifying the glory of God. 00:12:06.080 --> 00:12:14.720 Heaven is where we go to glorify and bask in his presence and in his glory, and it is designed to amplify the enjoyment of that holy presence. 00:12:14.960 --> 00:12:19.360 So the question, you have been our dwelling place, it's not a question of God or heaven. 00:12:19.679 --> 00:12:23.039 They, as it were, come together as a package. 00:12:23.279 --> 00:12:24.720 Back to our text. 00:12:25.039 --> 00:12:26.320 Back to our text. 00:12:26.559 --> 00:12:32.480 He says, Lord, you have been our dwelling place, and he says, not just for a while, but for all generations. 00:12:33.519 --> 00:12:40.080 Perhaps some of you live in a house that you inherited from parents, and so you're living now as adults in the house in which you grew up. 00:12:40.320 --> 00:12:42.240 Perhaps you even inherited a family home. 00:12:42.399 --> 00:12:46.080 Perhaps you're living in a house that your grandfather built. 00:12:46.399 --> 00:12:59.440 Recently, last year, we made a house move in the Philadelphia area where we live, and we we bought a very old home in which most of the occupants of that home have been long dead. 00:12:59.600 --> 00:13:00.879 It's that kind of house. 00:13:01.039 --> 00:13:08.480 And the homeowners were selling because they were moving a mile away to move into a family home that was fifth generation. 00:13:09.279 --> 00:13:12.159 Fifth generation under the same roof. 00:13:12.799 --> 00:13:15.679 A sturdy house built to last. 00:13:16.399 --> 00:13:18.000 But this is the thing about God. 00:13:18.240 --> 00:13:22.320 God is not God for a generation or two, or three or four, or five. 00:13:22.639 --> 00:13:25.200 God is a habitation for all generations. 00:13:25.440 --> 00:13:36.000 He is a house, a protection, a refuge that actually is the only one that permanently endures, that is sufficient to give refuge and comfort and accommodation to every generation. 00:13:37.039 --> 00:13:46.159 And so in verse two, staying with this thought of an eternal dwelling for a moment, he invites us to, in a certain sense, investigate our home. 00:13:46.480 --> 00:13:53.360 When you buy a home, it's customary to contract a home inspector to come and poke around at the home. 00:13:53.440 --> 00:13:57.200 And the first thing that the home inspector is going to ask is how old it is. 00:13:57.360 --> 00:14:02.559 That might tell him, in a comparative state of disrepair, how much work needs to be done. 00:14:02.799 --> 00:14:07.919 When we bought this older house, because it was the one that was in our price point and it was available, and we bought the old house. 00:14:08.080 --> 00:14:13.360 Almost the first question everyone got when they heard how old it is is, is it in any what kind of shape is it in? 00:14:13.440 --> 00:14:15.679 They were alarmed almost at the age of it. 00:14:15.840 --> 00:14:17.200 So he wants to know how old it is. 00:14:17.279 --> 00:14:21.200 And then they usually ask, when did it get its new roof? 00:14:21.440 --> 00:14:22.799 When were the windows replaced? 00:14:22.879 --> 00:14:35.919 Then they get down to the foundations and they recommend that you move some of the foliage away from the house a little bit because that brings pests, and then they look for termites, and then where we are, they test for radon to see whether it's leaking up into the house. 00:14:36.000 --> 00:14:37.120 We want to know a couple of things. 00:14:37.200 --> 00:14:40.879 We want to know, is this house habitable and is it going to fall down? 00:14:41.039 --> 00:14:44.639 Is a, you know, is someone gonna come and hoff and puff and blow it over? 00:14:44.879 --> 00:14:46.799 How sturdy is this thing? 00:14:47.039 --> 00:14:54.960 When you buy a house, you want to know that you're buying something that's gonna last, that isn't gonna fall down on your head a day or two or ten years later. 00:14:55.679 --> 00:14:56.960 So what about God? 00:14:57.600 --> 00:14:59.360 Humans live in some old places. 00:14:59.519 --> 00:15:03.679 I thought last year when we moved into this house that we'd moved into something that was immovable. 00:15:03.759 --> 00:15:06.399 I have never felt that house move with a big gust of wind. 00:15:06.559 --> 00:15:09.120 The storms haven't touched it, the rain hasn't moved it. 00:15:09.279 --> 00:15:23.440 On Friday morning at 1023, that's two days ago, I stood in my living room in the Philadelphia suburbs, and my house, the one that doesn't move, was moving and making noises. 00:15:23.919 --> 00:15:25.360 The floors creak in this house. 00:15:25.519 --> 00:15:31.279 But the house doesn't make a sound, the house structure itself doesn't make a sound until Friday morning at 1023. 00:15:31.519 --> 00:15:33.200 Some of you know why. 00:15:33.679 --> 00:15:44.159 About 50 miles away from us, there was a 4.8 earthquake in New Jersey, which I'm told is the biggest earthquake in New Jersey since the 1750s, which is well before my house was built. 00:15:44.320 --> 00:15:50.559 In other words, what happened to my house on Friday is that it just went through the biggest earthquake that we know of in its existence. 00:15:50.879 --> 00:15:53.919 And I have to tell you, my confidence factor dropped a little bit. 00:15:54.000 --> 00:15:56.080 I thought, you know, this house could come down. 00:15:56.399 --> 00:15:57.440 This house really could. 00:15:57.759 --> 00:16:02.559 It's been here a long time, but you know, it occurred to me, it struck me, I just don't have any guarantees. 00:16:02.720 --> 00:16:04.080 I went and I checked all four floors. 00:16:04.159 --> 00:16:06.240 I went to the basement, checked for a gas leak. 00:16:06.399 --> 00:16:12.399 When I get back after this weekend, I'll probably just do another walk around to see if we've got any cracks or what's happened to this house. 00:16:12.480 --> 00:16:15.200 Because here's the thing about these houses, they don't last forever. 00:16:15.440 --> 00:16:17.200 There are some that have lasted a long time. 00:16:17.360 --> 00:16:21.919 The Westminster Abbey, the nave of the Westminster Abbey, has been standing since 1050. 00:16:22.320 --> 00:16:31.679 The pantheon in Rome was constructed over 2,000 years ago and has been in continuous use, first as a pagan temple and then as a Roman Catholic Church, to this very day. 00:16:31.840 --> 00:16:38.080 This calendar date in Rome, there were Catholic services in the Pantheon, which has been standing as a dome for 2,000 years. 00:16:38.320 --> 00:16:43.120 We kind of marvel at this, especially in our in us here in the frontiers of America. 00:16:43.279 --> 00:16:47.919 We marvel at these houses and these things that last, but even they come down. 00:16:48.639 --> 00:16:50.320 Even they fall. 00:16:50.480 --> 00:16:51.759 What about this one? 00:16:52.159 --> 00:16:55.120 If God is your dwelling place, how sturdy is it? 00:16:55.360 --> 00:16:56.559 I want to say a couple things about him. 00:16:56.720 --> 00:17:02.639 The first thing I want to say about him is this if God is your dwelling place, your house is not well built. 00:17:03.360 --> 00:17:04.559 Follow me carefully. 00:17:05.440 --> 00:17:07.839 Because your house isn't built. 00:17:08.880 --> 00:17:10.240 Your house just is. 00:17:10.880 --> 00:17:13.839 If God is your dwelling place, he's not well made. 00:17:14.160 --> 00:17:15.519 God isn't made. 00:17:15.759 --> 00:17:18.480 God is the maker of all, not the one who's made to be. 00:17:18.640 --> 00:17:26.799 If you invest your heart in God and you call him your dwelling place, you are not talking about a house that is made, a house that comes and a house that goes. 00:17:26.960 --> 00:17:29.920 You're rather talking about one that is eternal, timeless. 00:17:30.079 --> 00:17:32.720 It's even a strange question to say about God. 00:17:32.880 --> 00:17:33.599 How old is he? 00:17:33.759 --> 00:17:37.440 God isn't, I guess I want to say he's not that kind of thing. 00:17:37.759 --> 00:17:40.160 He's not new and he's not old. 00:17:40.240 --> 00:17:40.640 It's true. 00:17:40.720 --> 00:17:46.880 Daniel calls him the ancient of days, but I think that has more to do with he's revered above all ages, is more the idea. 00:17:47.119 --> 00:17:49.920 God isn't aged, time doesn't pass with God. 00:17:50.079 --> 00:17:54.480 God isn't moving along some kind of chronology or time frame. 00:17:54.880 --> 00:17:55.839 God just is. 00:17:56.480 --> 00:17:58.960 The mountains are old, but even they began to be. 00:17:59.359 --> 00:17:59.920 Look at what he says. 00:18:00.079 --> 00:18:05.039 Before the mountains were born, or you gave birth to the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting, you are God. 00:18:06.880 --> 00:18:10.559 How durable, so to speak, is your home if your home is God? 00:18:10.640 --> 00:18:18.240 And the answer is completely, completely immutable, unchangeable, and eternal. 00:18:19.039 --> 00:18:35.680 If you want permanence amidst impermanence, if you want that which is going to last that isn't going to come and go, then listen, get hold of God, invest your heart in Him, seek Him as your home and dwelling place, and you will have a dwelling place that will not fade away. 00:18:37.119 --> 00:18:48.000 In Psalm 102, verse 25 and following, the psalmist writes this Of old you founded the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands, even they will perish, but you endure. 00:18:48.240 --> 00:18:57.920 All of them will wear out like a garment, like clothing, you will change them, and they will be changed, but you are the same, your years will not come to an end. 00:18:58.960 --> 00:19:04.559 Let's go to our second observation, a brief journey, verses three to six, a brief journey. 00:19:04.960 --> 00:19:10.640 If it's the case that God's years will not come to an end, the same cannot be said of your years. 00:19:11.119 --> 00:19:16.559 God's years don't begin, they don't end, God just is, but that's not how it is with us. 00:19:16.720 --> 00:19:20.640 And in fact, our years are hastening by as we move toward the grave. 00:19:20.799 --> 00:19:26.960 Verse 3, you turn man back into dust and say, Return, O children of men. 00:19:28.000 --> 00:19:29.279 Return, O children of men. 00:19:29.440 --> 00:19:31.359 We hear an echo of the curse in this. 00:19:31.599 --> 00:19:38.400 Genesis 3.19, God says, Because of the sin of Adam and Eve, for you are dust, and to dust you shall return. 00:19:40.160 --> 00:19:43.839 There's a bit of reversal going on in this curse. 00:19:44.079 --> 00:19:47.839 Adam was given the job to cultivate and to keep the garden. 00:19:47.920 --> 00:19:58.400 In other words, he was supposed to subdue the ground and bring forth life from the ground, but because of his sin, the ground will now subdue him and take his life from him. 00:19:58.640 --> 00:20:04.400 So rather than subdue the ground and bring forth life from it, the ground will subdue him and take his life from him. 00:20:04.640 --> 00:20:06.319 And the reason is because of sin. 00:20:06.400 --> 00:20:09.359 The wages of sin, Romans 6 says, is death. 00:20:10.480 --> 00:20:16.960 And God says, return, O children of men, or children of Adam, would be another way of putting it. 00:20:18.160 --> 00:20:24.880 Sometimes people say to console themselves in the face of death, you know, death's just a part of life. 00:20:26.799 --> 00:20:30.880 It's it's exactly not that. 00:20:31.119 --> 00:20:33.200 If I can be so bold. 00:20:33.519 --> 00:20:42.160 Death is exactly not a part of life, it's the cessation of life, it's the end of life, it's life you wanted that doesn't go on. 00:20:42.720 --> 00:20:46.000 And the reason is not because things break down. 00:20:46.240 --> 00:20:50.559 We try to console ourselves by thinking that death is somehow natural. 00:20:51.279 --> 00:20:54.400 Just because it's universal doesn't mean it's natural. 00:20:55.279 --> 00:20:59.119 Death is because God has consigned man to a grave on account of his sin. 00:20:59.599 --> 00:21:04.079 The reason we go to funerals is because someone sinned. 00:21:04.640 --> 00:21:11.920 But the reason that we mo mourn at a graveside is because there's sin in the world and there are consequences for it. 00:21:12.480 --> 00:21:17.039 Charles Spurgeon says the frailty of man is thus forcibly set forth. 00:21:17.279 --> 00:21:21.839 God creates him out of the dust, and back to the dust he goes at the word of his creator. 00:21:22.160 --> 00:21:27.519 God resolves and man dissolves, a word created and a word destroys. 00:21:27.920 --> 00:21:33.440 Now he opens this up in three illustrations, just uh compactly put together here in the next few verses. 00:21:33.680 --> 00:21:42.079 If you look at verse 4, there he says, For a thousand years in your sight are like yesterday when it passes, or as a watch in the night. 00:21:42.319 --> 00:21:46.240 A millennia to God is like what yesterday is to you. 00:21:46.799 --> 00:21:58.640 Now, the and I think the reason he uses this retrospective knowledge is because when we think about times past as opposed to the times that we anticipate in the future, the past seems to us shorter than the future does. 00:21:58.880 --> 00:21:59.759 If you could just go back. 00:22:00.160 --> 00:22:09.599 Two days to Friday, I'll bet Friday, I'll bet Saturday the 6th seem longer to you from Friday the 5th than it does in memory to you on Sunday the 7th. 00:22:10.079 --> 00:22:14.799 Monday feels like it's going to be a longer stretch of time than the Saturday that just passed us. 00:22:14.880 --> 00:22:19.759 But the reality is, while memory tends to compress the past, it's not actually shorter than the past. 00:22:20.240 --> 00:22:22.160 The future is also that short. 00:22:22.880 --> 00:22:32.960 You plan a week's vacation and it feels like it's going to be a long week, and then Saturday, at the end of vacation, you're driving home, and somebody almost imbarriably says, Boy, that week sure flew by. 00:22:33.359 --> 00:22:36.960 And the point here is, actually, it's your whole life. 00:22:37.200 --> 00:22:39.279 Your whole life is just flying by. 00:22:39.519 --> 00:22:43.920 Your whole life is like the compressed memory of yesterday. 00:22:44.079 --> 00:22:46.559 And then he says, or as a watch in the night. 00:22:46.880 --> 00:22:50.640 A watch in the night could be something like three to four hours of the nighttime. 00:22:50.799 --> 00:22:54.079 And you know how time passes when you sleep, or perhaps you don't. 00:22:54.160 --> 00:22:57.440 The perception of time's passage when you sleep is very strange. 00:22:57.599 --> 00:23:00.000 You lay your head down on the pillow at 11 p.m. 00:23:00.960 --> 00:23:08.319 and you toss and turn a little bit and you think to yourself, you know, I've been laying here for 10 minutes and I can't fall asleep. 00:23:08.480 --> 00:23:11.279 And you look over at the clock and it's 3 a.m. 00:23:12.480 --> 00:23:19.359 You close your eyes, you open them, and 25% of the day is gone. 00:23:20.000 --> 00:23:23.039 He's saying it's actually your whole life that's like that. 00:23:23.279 --> 00:23:25.519 Your whole life is like a watch in the night. 00:23:25.680 --> 00:23:28.319 In fact, not just your life, a millennia. 00:23:28.880 --> 00:23:32.559 Many lives are like a watch in the night. 00:23:32.880 --> 00:23:35.359 Such as the question, when do you plan to die? 00:23:35.519 --> 00:23:36.880 Let's return to that briefly. 00:23:37.119 --> 00:23:40.000 Your answer should be, very soon. 00:23:40.559 --> 00:23:43.920 Like blinking my eyes very soon. 00:23:44.240 --> 00:23:46.640 He changes the illustration then in verse 5. 00:23:46.880 --> 00:23:50.400 You have swept them away like a flood, they fall asleep. 00:23:50.640 --> 00:23:56.960 Here, what he is saying is this that God sends judgment and God sends a flood, and this is actually your life. 00:23:57.119 --> 00:24:02.720 It's not that your life has moments of upheaval, your whole life is like a flash flood. 00:24:02.960 --> 00:24:13.200 From cradle to grave, from forceps to stone, your life is passing by like a flash flood. 00:24:13.599 --> 00:24:18.400 In a flash flood, the things that seem to remain don't. 00:24:18.720 --> 00:24:28.000 Perhaps you've watched YouTube videos of a flash flood, and you know, around the corner, the water comes tearing around the corner, carrying a car or the roof of a house. 00:24:28.160 --> 00:24:39.039 And you think to yourself, cars are the sort of things that are pretty, I mean, go into the parking lot and try to lift a car, it's pretty hard, but put enough water under it, and it can be in the Atlantic Ocean by early afternoon. 00:24:40.640 --> 00:24:43.200 Same thing is true of the houses that we build. 00:24:43.440 --> 00:24:46.079 The water comes and takes them away. 00:24:46.319 --> 00:24:48.480 And this is what he's saying to us. 00:24:48.960 --> 00:24:55.599 Right now, you're living in the middle of a flash flood of divine judgment, and that flash flood is called your life. 00:24:55.839 --> 00:25:00.079 And he says, they have swept away like a flood, they fall asleep. 00:25:00.160 --> 00:25:03.920 Now it could be that they fall asleep at the end of the flood, or it could be that they're sleeping through the flood. 00:25:04.000 --> 00:25:09.359 If we can take the second point as a possibility, I want to say this your life is a flash flood. 00:25:09.759 --> 00:25:11.039 Are you awake? 00:25:11.279 --> 00:25:14.160 If you're not alarmed, I want you to be a little bit alarmed right now. 00:25:14.319 --> 00:25:15.680 You're about to die. 00:25:17.440 --> 00:25:18.400 Wake up. 00:25:18.960 --> 00:25:21.119 Wait, now hold on, there's a lifeline coming. 00:25:21.200 --> 00:25:23.519 But still, before we get to the lifeline, wake up. 00:25:23.759 --> 00:25:31.599 This life, that this thing you call life that feels like it's dragging by, it's actually just a vapor before you stand in the day of judgment. 00:25:31.759 --> 00:25:34.400 Eternity is about to dawn upon you. 00:25:34.799 --> 00:25:43.039 And you've got to do something about it right now, and right now is a flash flood of judgment under the hand of God. 00:25:44.720 --> 00:25:45.839 You will wake up. 00:25:46.079 --> 00:25:54.000 You will wake up from this, and you will wake up from it right now by hearing the word of the gospel, or you will wake up when you stand in front of God and are dismayed. 00:25:54.079 --> 00:25:55.680 We'll come to that text in a second. 00:25:56.000 --> 00:25:59.119 He changes the illustration once more to keep them coming. 00:25:59.279 --> 00:26:02.240 In the morning, they're like grass which sprouts anew. 00:26:02.480 --> 00:26:04.480 In the morning it flourishes and sprouts anew. 00:26:04.640 --> 00:26:07.039 Toward evening it fades and withers away. 00:26:07.279 --> 00:26:17.039 This is an illustration that for those of us on the East Coast doesn't quite have the same connection for us when the grass comes up and turns green about this time of year. 00:26:17.200 --> 00:26:22.079 We expect there to be enough rain to keep the grass green until well into the fall. 00:26:22.319 --> 00:26:29.759 Whereas in this part of the world in which Moses is living, green grass might spring up in March, but it's dead and gone by June. 00:26:29.839 --> 00:26:35.279 If you go to California and you get green grass in March, it's crispy golden brown by the middle of June. 00:26:35.440 --> 00:26:38.880 It comes and it goes, and it's also quick. 00:26:39.279 --> 00:26:40.640 It's also quick. 00:26:40.960 --> 00:26:43.359 Charles Spurgeon says this. 00:26:46.240 --> 00:26:52.000 He says, blooming with abounding beauty, till the meadows are all bespent with gems. 00:26:52.559 --> 00:26:54.720 The grass has a golden hour. 00:26:54.880 --> 00:27:06.480 Even as a man in his youth has a heyday of flowery glory, the scythe ends the blossoming of field flowers, and the dews at night weep their fall, and then Spurgeon says, Here is the history of grass. 00:27:06.799 --> 00:27:10.559 You came to church this morning for the history of grass, so here it is. 00:27:11.119 --> 00:27:16.960 Here is the history of grass, sown, grown, blown, moan, gone. 00:27:18.559 --> 00:27:21.119 That's that's a pretty quick history. 00:27:22.559 --> 00:27:24.480 Sown grown, blown, moan, gone. 00:27:24.640 --> 00:27:28.960 And the reality is that's actually not just the history of grass. 00:27:30.160 --> 00:27:31.759 That's the history of you. 00:27:32.240 --> 00:27:33.519 You just got here. 00:27:33.839 --> 00:27:35.759 You were just a youth. 00:27:36.000 --> 00:27:38.960 You just had, you know, your children just went off to college. 00:27:39.119 --> 00:27:40.960 You just finally paid off your mortgage. 00:27:41.119 --> 00:27:43.839 You just, and now we're saying farewell. 00:27:45.759 --> 00:27:47.440 Sown, groan, blown, moan, gone. 00:27:47.519 --> 00:27:50.319 Spurgeon goes on, the history of man is not much more. 00:27:50.559 --> 00:27:54.160 Natural decay would put an end to both of us in the grass in due time. 00:27:54.480 --> 00:28:03.039 Few, however, are left to experience the full result of age, for death comes with his scythe and removes our life in the midst of its verder. 00:28:03.519 --> 00:28:06.559 How great a change in how short a time. 00:28:06.799 --> 00:28:11.200 The morning saw the blooming, the evening sees the withering. 00:28:12.480 --> 00:28:16.720 With that, we come to our third observation that this is a hard journey. 00:28:16.960 --> 00:28:19.759 A short journey, and also a hard journey. 00:28:19.920 --> 00:28:21.920 Job's words again from Job 14. 00:28:22.160 --> 00:28:26.559 My days have been few and full of trouble. 00:28:27.119 --> 00:28:29.359 Short days, hard days. 00:28:29.519 --> 00:28:31.759 Look with me at verse 7, if you would. 00:28:32.720 --> 00:28:38.079 For we have been consumed by your anger, and by your wrath we've been dismayed. 00:28:38.240 --> 00:28:42.480 You have placed our iniquities before you and our secret sins in the light of your presence. 00:28:42.720 --> 00:28:45.599 Let's take those verses for a few moments. 00:28:46.319 --> 00:28:50.160 Moses seems to be turning his attention now to the plight of the people of Israel. 00:28:50.319 --> 00:29:00.079 You can see that in verse 7, where he says, We have been consumed in your anger, and he's probably referring to himself and the generation of Israelites that he led up out of Egypt. 00:29:00.240 --> 00:29:06.640 And when you think about the history of the Israelites during the wilderness sojourn, it's a history of death. 00:29:07.200 --> 00:29:10.559 It's a history of sometimes cataclysmic deaths. 00:29:10.640 --> 00:29:18.000 It's a history of divine judgment sporadically breaking out against the people of Israel, following one rebellion after another. 00:29:18.240 --> 00:29:26.960 In fact, as Israel waits for Moses to come down from Mount Sinai, just literally a few months after they had left Egypt, they're camped at the bottom of Sinai. 00:29:27.039 --> 00:29:34.960 Perhaps you remember this, and the Lord asks them in Exodus 19 whether they will do all that God commands, and they say, Yes, we're going to wait here and do all that God says. 00:29:35.039 --> 00:29:36.240 You know, go get the law. 00:29:36.319 --> 00:29:39.440 And he's gone for a few days, and they become very impatient. 00:29:39.759 --> 00:29:41.119 The time is hastening on. 00:29:41.200 --> 00:29:43.680 This Moses, we don't know what's become of him. 00:29:44.559 --> 00:29:51.359 They fashion a golden calf, they say, This is your God, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt, and they play the harlot with the golden calf. 00:29:51.440 --> 00:29:53.119 It's an act of idolatry. 00:29:54.160 --> 00:29:57.359 Moses comes down, you remember the event, he breaks the tablets. 00:29:58.240 --> 00:30:06.319 The Levites rally to his cause and they put thousands of their fellow countrymen to death by the sword that day because of their idolatry. 00:30:06.559 --> 00:30:08.079 It's not the only time this happens. 00:30:08.240 --> 00:30:19.039 Later on, just shortly after this, they're about to enter the promised land, and they send in twelve spies, and ten come back and say, basically, the walls are too high and the people are too big, there's no hope. 00:30:19.119 --> 00:30:33.359 And they lead the people to distrust the promise and the power of the Lord, and the people will not believe Yahweh, and Yahweh says that he's going to judge them, that every person, 20 years and older except Caleb and Joshua, are going to die in the next 40 years before they enter the land. 00:30:33.920 --> 00:30:41.200 This is a time when people live to 120, and the 20-year-olds are being told that they're not going to make it past 60. 00:30:41.440 --> 00:30:47.200 God, as it were, cuts the lifespan of most of the population in half. 00:30:53.039 --> 00:30:55.200 This is not the only time, other times as well. 00:30:55.359 --> 00:31:03.599 You think of Korah's rebellion, in which the ground opened and swallowed whole families alive with all of their belongings down into the belly of the earth. 00:31:03.839 --> 00:31:09.519 Another time in which 20,000 were killed by a plague in one day because of their idolatry. 00:31:09.680 --> 00:31:16.640 Israel grumbling, Israel complaining, Israel's sins open in the face of God, Israel dismayed at the judgment of God. 00:31:18.480 --> 00:31:25.039 A short journey and a hard journey, consumed by your anger, dismayed or terrified in your wrath. 00:31:25.440 --> 00:31:32.799 In the baptism that we witnessed just a few moments ago, these words were read from Psalm 130, verse 3. 00:31:37.440 --> 00:31:39.759 It's fitting, these words. 00:31:39.920 --> 00:31:41.039 That's what he says here. 00:31:41.200 --> 00:31:45.119 You have placed our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your countenance. 00:31:45.279 --> 00:31:48.720 The things that we thought were secrets, God deals with openly. 00:31:48.960 --> 00:32:04.640 Hebrews 4 says that the word of God is active, sharper than any two-edged sword, and God is the one before whom we stand naked and laid bare, before the eyes of him with whom we have to do, and God is dealing with their sin, and their days are being shortened as a result of it. 00:32:04.960 --> 00:32:07.119 Hidden faults aren't hidden to him. 00:32:07.680 --> 00:32:10.400 Verse 9, it continues, stay with us a few moments. 00:32:10.640 --> 00:32:13.599 For all our days have declined in your fury. 00:32:14.160 --> 00:32:15.839 Stop there for just one moment. 00:32:16.160 --> 00:32:27.279 Can you imagine the number of funerals that were being conducted every single day over that 40-year journey in which literally millions of people were laid into graves in the wilderness and never entered the promised land? 00:32:27.359 --> 00:32:30.000 It was almost like a culture of death. 00:32:31.839 --> 00:32:36.880 And then he says, We have finished our years like a sigh. 00:32:37.200 --> 00:32:43.200 The Puritan Thomas Watson says, We come into the world with a cry, we go out of it with a groan. 00:32:44.079 --> 00:32:54.079 I think we have perhaps in our Western culture tried to shield ourselves from the brutality both of birth and of death. 00:32:54.319 --> 00:33:16.400 In older generations, previous to our own, it would not have been uncommon, not only for parents, but even other family members to have witnessed a live birth and the violence of it, and the first cry of a child, which is not a quiet coup, as I recall, having been there a few times with my wife, the cry of birth and then the sigh at the end of life. 00:33:16.480 --> 00:33:24.799 And what we have done is we tend to just sort of console ourselves to not look at sort of the precariousness of human life. 00:33:25.039 --> 00:33:31.279 We pull a curtain over it and we say, family only, and we don't look it square in the face. 00:33:31.519 --> 00:33:37.920 Born in hospitals, dying in hospitals, out of sight, out of mind, living for now. 00:33:38.160 --> 00:33:40.720 He says, but we go out with a sigh. 00:33:41.119 --> 00:33:44.240 There's a breath, actually we have the word for it, expire. 00:33:44.400 --> 00:33:47.119 To inspire means to breathe in, to expire means to breathe out. 00:33:47.200 --> 00:33:50.960 And when you expire and it doesn't get followed by an inspire, you're done. 00:33:51.359 --> 00:33:52.480 You know how this goes. 00:33:52.640 --> 00:33:56.400 I know milk has an expiration date, but that's just a metaphor because milk doesn't breathe. 00:33:56.480 --> 00:33:57.440 But you do. 00:33:57.680 --> 00:34:05.599 You literally have an expiration date, borrowing the return of Christ Jesus, in which the last breath will leave your body. 00:34:06.319 --> 00:34:08.239 The last breath will leave your body. 00:34:08.719 --> 00:34:10.000 Cue the sigh. 00:34:10.159 --> 00:34:10.960 Thank you. 00:34:13.199 --> 00:34:15.679 And then he reckons with this in verse 10. 00:34:15.920 --> 00:34:21.840 As for the days of our life, they contain 70 years, if due to strength, 80, but their pride is labor and sorrow. 00:34:21.920 --> 00:34:35.519 People think, I'm gonna live a long life and I'm gonna live a happy life, and so you work hard and you save up and you plan to have your golden years of leisure and retirement, and perhaps you don't even make it to your golden years, or if you do, something happens to your body. 00:34:35.760 --> 00:34:44.320 There's a certain, there's something about the pleasures of life, you know, as they there's something about the pleasures of life that are more suitable to youthful bodies. 00:34:44.480 --> 00:34:45.679 I guess I want to put it this way. 00:34:45.760 --> 00:34:50.000 Um, your body begins to fall apart before you die. 00:34:50.159 --> 00:34:54.559 It's almost like kind of like getting you ready for the real decomposition when soul leaves body. 00:34:54.719 --> 00:34:57.519 The body begins to sort of break down. 00:34:59.920 --> 00:35:20.639 Some years ago, about eight years ago, I was in Rome and I went to a Capuchin crypt, which is a Franciscan order of friars, and in the Capuchin crypt they have these ossuary rooms which are decorated with the skeletal remains of thousands of dead Capuchin friars. 00:35:22.400 --> 00:35:24.159 Morbid is the only word to describe it. 00:35:24.239 --> 00:35:25.280 It's a fitting word. 00:35:25.519 --> 00:35:38.800 And as you move through room after room, which are all ornamented with the configurations of human remains, you are just moving through room after room of death. 00:35:39.199 --> 00:35:57.199 And then you come to the end of the uh ossuary, the bonehouse, and there's a saying over the door just before you exit, and it says, As you are now, we once were, as we are now, you soon will be. 00:35:58.639 --> 00:36:02.719 It's my family can attest to this. 00:36:02.800 --> 00:36:06.880 I do have a thing with graveyards and just thinking about death. 00:36:07.119 --> 00:36:08.159 It's quite a grim reminder. 00:36:08.239 --> 00:36:23.119 I mean, the exit into the gift shop wasn't so fitting coming under that sign, but up to that up to that point, it's you're looking at it and you're thinking, these were humans who lived a life who spoke and loved and lived like I did, and they were here and they're gone. 00:36:23.199 --> 00:36:26.559 And listen, far more have died than are currently living. 00:36:26.960 --> 00:36:29.679 Life coming, life going, declining. 00:36:29.760 --> 00:36:32.480 And you think, when I get old, it's gonna be great. 00:36:32.800 --> 00:36:34.719