Psalm 90

by G.H. MUTIMER. | Category: General | Mar 1959

This Psalm is "A prayer of Moses the man of God," who wrote it probably towards the end of his long and eventful life. During the 120 years he lived he saw many changes, but one thing at least remained immutable, even the faithfulness of Him, who is God from everlasting to everlasting.

The infant Moses was born at a most inopportune time according to human reasoning, but in answer to the prayers of his godly parents, and their wise action, his life was divinely preserved from destruction, whilst his people were passing through the furnace of affliction in Egypt. These parents had trustfully committed their child into the hands of God. No hands are so tender, safe and strong; thus all was well! Let the faithfulness of Almighty God to them encourage parents today to do likewise with their children. One danger was miraculously averted but many others lay in the pathway of this little boy. His godly parents were alive to those more subtle dangers that would face their growing lad as he walked the court of Pharaoh. With what diligence and care did his mother, providentially given to be his nurse, saturate the developing mind of her son with the knowledge of the only true and living God! His mind must of necessity also imbibe all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and he became mighty in his words and works. Yet the knowledge of God that he had learned at his mother's knee had taken such root in his young mind, that when the vital day of decision arrived, he chose aright. He chose "rather to be evil entreated with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; accounting the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt : for he looked unto the recompense of reward" (Hebrews 11.25, 26). Once again let parents take note and be encouraged in their duty of instructing their children in the knowledge of the God of the Bible. If our children have been well grounded in early years, they will be fortified when they must need, like Moses, receive instruction in the wisdom and knowledge of other things, under the educational system of our own day.

We hope that all our readers have made the same wise choice that Moses did. It was made after careful accounting. In the same way the Lord Jesus urges us to count carefully the cost of renouncing all that we have, to become His disciples. Moses accounted wisely when he decided to yield his life into the hands of God. A wonderful life resulted. For the remainder of his life he walked in fellowship with God. How highly God speaks of him! "My servant Moses

is faithful in all Mine house: with him I will speak mouth to mouth, ... and not in dark speeches; and the form of the LORD shall he behold" (Numbers 12. 7, 8). Moses has already seen something of the majesty and glory of Christ, whose reproach he shared (see Luke 9.29-31), and he will fill an honoured place in His coming glorious kingdom.

This is the Moses who has written Psalm 90. We shall do well therefore to heed carefully what he has written under divine inspiration.

In the Opening words he reminds his fellow-travellers in the wilderness that they, like their fathers, were to find a dwelling place in God. In God they were secure. For God is a refuge safer than any fortress. He shelters, comforts, protects, preserves and cherishes all His own. Foxes have holes, but the saints dwell in their God. Kings' palaces have crumbled into ruins and the occupants themselves have returned to dust, but Jehovah is the everlasting dwelling place of His people. We are safe there.

"Abide in Me," said the Lord Jesus, and John 15 tells us something of the resulting peace, joy and fruitfulness. The beloved apostle knew this experimentally and wrote further, "He that keepeth His commandments abideth in Him, and He in him" (1 John 3.24).

Long before the mountains existed the great Creator God was there, and after they have been dissolved, the everlasting God will remain, the dwelling place of all who have put their trust in Him.

What a contrast to the everlasting God is poor puny man! How frail and transient he is! His body returns to dust. God created him from the dust and at the word of his Creator back to dust he goes.

A thousand years are a long stretch to us. How much may be crowded into it-the rise and fall of many empires, the beginning and end of many elaborate systems of men! But to the everlasting God a millennium is "but as yesterday when it is past."

As a torrent rushes down the river bed, carrying all before it, so does death bear away each succeeding generation of men at the rate of more than 100,000 every day! Man is like grass. In the morning of youth he flourishes, but in the evening he is cut down.

Why must this be? It is not accidental. Sin has come and has provoked the LORD to anger. What a painful sight for Moses to see the whole nation perishing in the wilderness because of sin Seventy or eighty years is the normal limit of life for man, and their pride is but labour and sorrow. This is still true in things natural today, but in contrast our Lord Jesus has "abolished death and brought life and incorruption to light through the gospel." Death is changed in its aspect to those in Christ, and is no more a judicial execution. Love and mercy now conduct us to glory. The risen Christ has the keys of death and Hades, and soon the cry of triumph from the countless host of redeemed ones will be heard :-

"0 death, where is thy victory ? 0 death, where is thy sting? "

"Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Corinthians 15.55, 57).

Moses goes on to say, "Thou hast set our iniquities before Thee, our secret sins in the light of Thy countenance." But today we can rejoice, we who by God's abounding grace find a place under the New Covenant, as we hear God saying, "Their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more."

The aged Christian is mellowed by hallowed experience and by a certain hope. The sunset for him is calm, for earth's little day leads not into a dreary night, but into eternal day.

Moses says further, "Who knoweth the power of Thine anger?',

Praise God again for the Man, Christ Jesus, who died, crying from the cross, as it were in the language of Jeremiah,

"Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto My sorrow, which is done unto Me, wherewith the LORD hath afflicted Me in the day of His fierce anger" (Lamentations 1. 12); or in the Psalmists' words,

"All Thy waves and Thy billows are gone over Me" (Psalm 42.7).

"My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" (Matthew 27.46).

"Jehovah's righteous anger dire,

Fell on His only Son;

He bare the brunt of all God's ire,

And thus our peace was won."

But woe to those who reject this Saviour! One day they will tremble before the wrath of Almighty God.

In view of the brevity of life, Moses, the man of God, prays, "So teach us to number our days." May we set store by time and use diligently what is left to us to the glory of God! One honoured servant of God said, "We have not enough time at our disposal to waste a single quarter of an hour."

Return, 0 LORD ! " cries that noble intercessor, pleading again as he did at Sinai. Thank God for the Greater than Moses, who ever liveth to make intercession for us, His failing people.

"0 satisfy us in the morning with Thy mercy." What a mercy indeed it is to be saved when we are young! that throughout the rest of our brief life we may be glad and rejoice in God our Saviour. He only is able to gladden our days in this dry and weary land, blighted by sin and sorrow.

"Let Thy work appear unto Thy servants," pleads Moses as though anticipating the words of Paul to the Philippians, "For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to work, for His good pleasure"-"and Thy glory upon their children." Moses had known the hallowed experience of coming out from the presence of God, His face shining with the glory of God. "But we all, with unveiled face reflecting as a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord the Spirit" (2 Corinthians 3.18). "Let the beauty of the LORD our God be upon us." With all the subsequent revelation of God given since Moses' day, we can breathe no more lofty prayer. So may it be. So can it be, as we spend more time in the presence of our Beloved, beholding His lovely character, as it is revealed in the Scriptures, and allow the gracious Holy Spirit to reproduce Him in our heart and life. Only thus will our witness be effective and our work established.

"Sogrant, I pray Thee, Lord, that by Thy grace The fragrance of Thy life may dwell in me; That as I move about from place to place

Men's thoughts may turn to Thee."

G.H. MUTIMER. | Mar 1959
General