This week a woman who was a member of the church I pastored in Brisbane for 26 years died; though little in the eyes of the world, Margaret Sprinkhuisen shone brightly among God’s saints as one who faithfully plodded on through many challenges in her life. She had just turned 90.
Her passing reinforced my own thoughts lately regarding the need to be conscious that we are here for a limited time: then eternity – with, or without, Christ. Having passed my “seventy years” (Psalm 90:10) seven years ago, I am mindful that I may (or may not) have few years left. I feel more than ever the importance that those coming after me are aware of how brief a time you have, here upon this earth.
I was therefore challenged when Michael Boyd preached on Psalm 90 (or, as Michael called it: the first of “the hit songs of the Nineties”) last Lord’s day: the last for 2025.
Here is most of that message. If you want to listen it is here.
– by Michael Boyd
Just before the title for Psalm 90 is the bigger title Book IV: Psalms 90 – 106. There are five books within the bigger book of Psalms. It’s a bit hard to work out why the different Psalms have been arranged as they have. But there are some clues for Book IV.
The first Psalm in the book, Psalm 90, is a prayer of Moses. It’s the only psalm attributed to him. And many of the other psalms in this book look back to the time of the Exodus, or have themes that echo Exodus.
The Psalms were Israel’s song book. When the people came to worship they sang these songs. And they often did that as they gathered from around the nation to take part in the three Great Feasts of God: Passover, the feast of Weeks, and the feast of Tabernacles.
The feast of Tabernacles was the time when the people would put up tents or booths and for a week remember what it was like to wander in the wilderness for forty years. So it’s our best guess that these Psalms have been collected to help the people do just that. They sang songs that reminded them of those years and help them learn the lessons of that journey.
Also, the Psalms of the Nineties emphasise the greatness and majesty of God. Other Psalms are complaints to God, or cries of distress. These Psalms show how the whole earth belongs to God. All the nations will bow in worship. Even the sea and rivers and trees celebrate God’s rule in these psalms.
And these Psalms put humanity into that context. How do we relate to the majestic, all-powerful, eternal God? The Psalms of the Nineties cover all ranges of human emotion: from exuberant joy to deep sadness. From childlike trust to flaring anger. We can live our whole life within the soundtrack of these Psalms because they show us how we can experience all of life in the presence of God.
The Context of Psalm 90
Psalm 90 is by Moses, so it gives us some definite dates to work with. It can’t have been written after Israel entered the promised land, for Moses didn’t get to enter it. It doesn’t sound like it was written in the early days of the Exodus, because they were days of joy and victory and promise. The song Moses sang when they crossed the Red Sea is recorded in Exodus 15:
“The LORD is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation. He is my God, and I will praise him, my father’s God, and I will exalt him.”
God’s enemy, Pharaoh has been drowned in the Red Sea and God’s people have witnessed his victory.
But in Psalm 90 God’s enemies are ‘us’ – Moses and his people.
“We are consumed by your anger and terrified by your indignation.” (Verse 7)
It seems as though this Psalm was written after that terrible day at Kadesh Barnea when God said ‘Go’ into the promised land and the people said, ‘No we won’t.’ God vowed that the entire generation who refused will die in the wilderness. That’s over a million people! And in their forty years of wandering someone has done the maths and averaged it out at nearly ninety funerals a day for forty years.
As Moses sits at the door of his tent looking out over a stubborn and rebellious generation and hearing the constant wailing of the bereaved he is moved by the Holy Spirit to pen these words. Surrounded by death, knowing that when the forty years are up, so is he, he meditates on the brevity of human life.
But he begins with God.
The Eternal Nature of God
The first part of the Psalm focuses on the eternal nature of God. And he draws on three things that to us seem ancient and compares them to God.
The first one is in verse 1:
“Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations.”
I had the privilege of knowing both sets of my grandparents well into my teens before the first of them died. I have a photo of me as a baby sitting on my great-grandma’s lap. But I have no memories of her. I can’t tell you any stories of any great-great-grandparent. I don’t even know their names! My stretch back into history at a personal level got as far as the early twentieth century, with my grandparents’ stories. Great-great-grandparents seem off into the far distance, too long ago to remember.
But God has been God throughout all generations. He has remained unchanged for a thousand generations. His character and the way we relate to him is exactly the same as for Moses and for all his ancestors. He has been the dwelling place for his people from the garden of Eden. We might forget our ancestors but God knows them and was their refuge just as he is for us.
Secondly, in verse 2 Moses thinks of the mountains. Generations come and go, but the mountains seem constant.
One of my favourite spots in the Blue Mountains is Govett’s Leap. It’s an astounding view north into a huge valley with steep escarpments. Whenever I go there I’m struck by the realisation that I’m seeing pretty well the exact same view as Govett did when he first surveyed it in the 1820’s. The same as when Aboriginal peoples first came to it. A bushfire or two, a landslide or two, but pretty well the same.
But Moses says:
“Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the whole world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.”
We think the mountains never change; but from everlasting to everlasting you are God and you never change.
The third example is in verse 4:
“A thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night”.
Who is the longest-lived human? Methuselah.
How long did he live? 969 years.
How many others live to over nine hundred? Six.
So in all of recorded history only seven people lived over nine hundred years. And no-one cracked it for a thousand.
But what does Moses say to God?
“A thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night.”
Even the longest-lived humans in history cover a span that seems like a day gone by to God.
And the rest of us? Verse 10:
“Our days may come to seventy years, or eighty, if our strength endures.”
We are nothing but a blip, a millisecond across the face of time.
The Fleeting Nature of this Life
And while that is true in the grand scheme of things, it feels that way too!
Verse 10 finishes:
“…yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away.”
Or verses 5 and 6:
“Yet you sweep people away in the sleep of death—they are like the new grass of the morning: In the morning it springs up new, but by evening it is dry and withered.”
As Moses looks out the door of his tent people are dropping like flies.
And the tragic thing for Moses is that for most of them their fleeting life is spent under God’s judgement.
Verse 7:
“We are consumed by your anger and terrified by your indignation.”
Verse 9:
“All our days pass away under your wrath; we finish our years with a moan.”
Moses couldn’t escape this: it was everywhere and constant. God had vowed to destroy this generation in the wilderness. And every day Moses saw that vow being fulfilled: plagues, disasters, death.
In one of the other hit songs of the Nineties, Psalm 95:10-11, God says,
“For forty years I was angry with that generation; I said, ‘They are a people whose hearts go astray, and they have not known my ways.’ So I declared on oath in my anger, ‘They shall never enter my rest.’”
Moses says in Psalm 90, verse 11,
“If only we knew the power of your anger! Your wrath is as great as the fear that is your due.”
This is grim reading. Why look at this Psalm when we should be looking forward to a new year? Where’s the motivation to take next year by the horns?
Well because we can get to the end of another year and feel the weight of what Moses is saying.
When I was a child the Christmas school holidays went on forever. Almost to the point – almost – that I was ready to go back to school.
But now a year flicks by before I’ve gotten ready to face it. I’m more and more aware of my finiteness. My frailty. And my mind seems better at remembering the things I don’t want to remember.
How do I relate to God when he is infinite and eternal and I am so finite and frail?
How can we relate to one who is from everlasting to everlasting?
Moses gives us two ways.
The first one is in verse 12:
“Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”
We need to first of all recognise our limitations. We have a finite time here on earth. We must use that time wisely.
In the good old days the way you used to tell whether milk had gone off was by smell. It was always wise to give it a sniff before you poured it over the rice bubbles in the morning. There were times when we stayed with my Grandma and the first whiff of the morning was a bit dubious. Matthew or I would say, ‘Grandma, I think the milk’s off.’ Grandma was raised on a farm during the depression and taught never to waste anything. And so she’d give it a sniff and always say, ‘It’s as sweet as a nut’ and make us use it. I can remember one morning Matthew grimacing as he poured out milk the consistency of yoghurt.
But now! The wonders of use by dates! Now I know when the milk’s off even if it does smell as sweet as a nut. Moses is saying that we need to realise that we have a use-by date. There is a finite number to our days on this earth. We need to live with that reality before us. We have been given today as a gift. Use it well!
The second thing that Moses says we can do is call upon God. He’s not as distant as he feels. From verse 11 on the tone of the song changes.
“Relent, Lord! How long will it be? Have compassion on your servants. Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days. Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, for as many years as we have seen trouble.”
Even in that time of discipline and judgement Moses knows that God remains loving. From everlasting to everlasting he is God. And his love is unfailing. He loves to show mercy to all who call upon him.
God’s ultimate commitment to his people is to have compassion. That we would sing for joy and be glad all our days.
This eternal, all-powerful God is not distant from the cries of his people. He hears and answers. He even changes the course of his actions when people repent! The final verse is full of hope:
“May the favour of the Lord our God rest on us; establish the work of our hands for us— yes, establish the work of our hands.”
Moses has spoken of God’s wrath and anger, but his final words look to God’s favour. Where God turns his face towards us to bring grace and peace.
This reflects Psalm 30:
“For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favour lasts a lifetime.”
And one of our salvation songs from Isaiah:
“In a surge of anger I hid my face from you for a moment, but with everlasting kindness I will have compassion on you.” (Isaiah 54:8)
That is God’s disposition towards his people. Favour for a lifetime and everlasting kindness and compassion.
As we turn towards a new year we pray for his favour and kindness knowing that is his intention for his people. He desires to be our dwelling place where we can be at rest.
Moses’ compatriots never entered God’s rest.
But that rest still remains for all who turn to him in faith.
The Lord Jesus has secured that rest for us
He invites us to come to him to find it:
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matt 11:28-30)
We might be looking at the coming year from a Psalm 90 perspective. Already weary, feeling the weight of our failings, all too conscious of our frailty. No matter what our age.
But even in that experience, this Psalm, and Moses, and Jesus, call us to find rest in God. To remember God’s eternal nature and find security there. To remember again that he is our dwelling place. Our identity and home is in him. And that our future, and our present, can be marked by his love and joy.
We move into an unknown year. But the one who is from everlasting to everlasting brings his unfailing love. Let us find rest for our souls in Jesus.
Closing prayer: Psalm 90:13 – 17