Psalm 90

[Al Moak]

Psalm 90

The backdrop for this psalm is Israel's wandering in the desert between the Red Sea and Canaan, plus a time of waiting to enter the Promised Land.  We need to try to imagine the situation.  They were living in tents, consuming a very limited diet, and were subject to the same dry, hot environment that is to be found in that land today.  It was a nomadic existence without many comforts, so it shouldn't surprise us if the people occasionally became frustrated and impatient (wouldn't you?). 

It was at such times that Moses their leader needed very much to be aware of God, their true but inseen leader, because he needed very, very often to go to Him in prayer.  During such meditation and communion (along with petition) he needed often to be reminded of God's majestic character, of His calm, timeless eternality. A God like that isn't hurried or anxious as the time-bound people of Israel were. 

During such times of communion with God Moses would have been reminded, first, of the fact that though they hadn't yet entered the promised land, yet they were not homeless - God's presence and providence, along with His mercy and goodness, made any physical location a home.  So he says here, "Lord, YOU have been our dwelling place in all generations."  When they had previously been in Egypt, during the famine in Canaan, and even before that during the years of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob - God had always been present and had always made His presence known.

Moses sums it up by saying, "Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever You had formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God."  Moses could see that to such a God, "a thousand years in Your sight are like yesterday when it is past, and like a watch in the night."

Only with such thoughts in mind was Moses ready to think clearly about the situation at hand, a situation in which he was charged with shepherding a million people through endlessly dreary days and dreary surroundings.  It was a situation that could easily be supercharged with impatience and complaint.  It required wisdom and coolness that could only come from communion with the holy Lord God.

The difficulties of the situation, of course, existed because the people had sinned, because they had come to the Promised Land, sent out the 12 spies, and then rebelled in view of their report.  Two of the spies had told them they could and should enter the land, since God would uphold them and fight for them.  But when the other spies gave a fearful report, a report that made them believe they couldn't survive war with the Canaanites – then, in unbelief, they refused to go. 

So God sentenced them to remain in the desert for 40 more years!  The cause for the delay was always in their minds.  They had to say, "For we have been consumed by Your anger, and by Your wrath we are terrified.  You have set our iniquities before You, our secret sins in the light of Your countenance.  For all our days have passed away in Your wrath; we finish our years like a sigh.  The days of our lives are seventy years; and if by reason of strength they are eighty years, yet their boast is only labor and sorrow."  They knew they had sinned, and now they must live with the consequences for forty years in a wasteland!

And Moses had to be the leader for these disappointed, frustrated people during all those years – a difficult task indeed!  One part of his response had to be much prayer.  The first and main focus of such prayer would have had to be petition for continual restoration of spiritual life and joy in God.  But he also needed to pray that he – and the people – might learn the necessary lessons.  He would pray that both he and they might - "number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom."  In other words, he would find it necessary to ask that they might be aware of eternity, that they might realize that whether out in the desert - or in the land flowing with milk and honey - still they must reckon with eternity.  They would all eventually die, so they must always seek the only wise and all-encompassing goal: a good relationship with the God of eternity.

Secondly, Moses would have to pray the obvious - that God's anger might end as soon as possible, that His mercy might return, that they might actually enter the land sooner than might be expected.  He says, ". . . have compassion on Your servants.  Oh satisfy us early with Your mercy, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days!"

Finally, he would find it necessary to pray that when that mercy came it might convince the next generation of the fact of God's glory. He says, "Make us glad according to the days in which You have afflicted us, the years in which we have seen evil.  Let Your work appear to Your servants, and Your glory to their children.  And let the beauty of the Lord God be upon us."  He's praying, in other words, that this long and dreary chastisement would be followed by so much blessing that future generations might learn from it to love and obey the Lord their God.

Finally, he would have prayed that much blessing might flow from that lesson.  He would surely pray that they might labor and grow in that beautiful promised land in a very satisfying way.  He says, "And establish the work of our hands for us; yes establish the work of our hands."

Like Israel, we too sin.  We too rebel against our God, even in the face of promised blessing.  We too must often be chastised, sometimes very painfully.  Oh may we realize that eternity is much greater than all our chastisement and trials, and that our God is the God of eternity.  May we too therefore pray often and much, taking our troubles and pains to a God Who hears us.

And finally, may we too pray that whatever happens to us will benefit ourselves and our children and glorify our God.  Then and only then can trials and chastisements truly be a blessing.

[Jenny]

Here I am Pastor 

You referred to this Psalm today on NEM., thereforfe I have called in her to this quiet spot.

Basil Hume got me thinking again...He usually does. What a dear man of God he was. Such humility and love for others, especially the downtrodden.

I can't decide if this is a sad psalm or a happy one.  I think I will stay with 'happy' because now we know the end from the beginning thanks to Jesus.

I am impressed with your description of them being between the Red Sea and Canaan.  Isn't that part of our experience, sometimes feelings of drowning and desiring to move on but being land-locked. Thats me at the moment. I have a desire and am waiting on the Lord for the fulfilment of His promise to me.

We ask the Lord to establish the work of our hands too and sometimes we do n ot see the fruits of our labours...only in Heaven will things become clear. d.v.

"We spend our years as a tale that is told."v9...that sounds so sad but for Christians the story is not over for us although the Book is finished.

I can associate with the "Wilderness" experience Al.  I am sure you can also. Please God "Make us Glad according to the years that you have afflicted us." Amen.

[Jenny]

Al, in your "Pastorship" please can you expound on v 11 for me.  I am reading it in K.J.

"even according to Thy fear so is thy wrath."?.

[Al Moak]

Jenny - if we are truly Christians, then God the Holy Spirit has done a remarkable work in our hearts - He's awakened us from our normal complacency to become aware, in a very new way, of His Godhood, of His almightiness, of His Majesty and greatness.  We've become at least a little aware of Who and What He is.  That's new.  It's called, in Scripture, the "fear" of God.  We absolutely must have it.  If we don't have at least the beginnings of it, there must be doubt that we know Him at all.

So we have a new and deep sense of awe in His Presence.  We are indeed filled with real awe at His Almightiness, includiing His sovereign power and His cool but immense wrath.  But we must come to realize that - no matter howe great our awe is, yet His actual power and Judgement are even greater than our awed estimate of Him could ever be.  In other words, we come to realize that He really IS as great as, or greater than our estimate of Him.  So the psalmist says, "as the fear of You, so IS Your wrath."

I think that's what the psalmist is expressing at this juncture.

[Jenny]

Brilliantly expressed.That did answer my query...That's why you are a Pastor  ...I am a bit slow on the uptake.

Thanks so much Al.

Jenny.

[Al Moak]

Dear sister!  You may be slow on the uptake - but at least you have an uptake!  I thank our Father for that!

[Jenny]

Ah thank you Pastor.  A dear brother Pastor Alexander,  said to me.."Jenny you are still in the race"

Thank-God "the race is not to the swift"....ha ha.......

"Onward and upward" as Iain always says.