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Teach Us to Number Our Days: Living Before the Eternal God (Psalm 90) | Charles Spurgeon · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome to reformed thinking. I am your host and I am sitting
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  across the table from our resident theological analyst.
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  Glad to be here. We have some weighty material
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  today. We do.
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  Today. We are jumping into a deep dive
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  on a specific piece of scripture and we are filtering it through
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  the lens of Charles Spurgeon. Right, his massive commentary
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  set the treasury of David. Yeah, and you know, when we
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  usually think of the Psalms, we immediately default to David.
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  Oh, absolutely. The shepherd king, the harp, the
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  green pastures. Right, that is the default
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  setting for most of us I think when we flip open the middle of
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  our bibles. It is the default, sure, but it
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  ignores the roots of the book. Spot on, because today we are
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  going way back. We are looking at a text that
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  Spurgeon calls a monolith. It is older than David.
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  It might actually be the oldest piece of poetry in the entire
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  Canon of Scripture. And it is a few song.
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  A funeral song written by Moses. Yeah, so a funeral song by Moses
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  that sets a very different mood than something like The Lord is
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  my shepherd. We are looking at Psalm 90
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  today, and for anyone listening who holds to the Westminster
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  Confession like we do, the theology in this Psalm is just
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  incredibly robust. It is heavy.
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  It feels heavy reading through Spurgeon's notes on this.
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  It feels like standing at the edge of a Cliff.
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  It should feel that way. If you read Psalm 90 and you do
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  not feel a sense of Vertigo, you probably have not understood it.
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  You have to place yourself in the context.
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  So let's talk about that context.
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  Well, Spurgeon is adamant that this is mosaic authorship.
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  There are critics out there who argue otherwise, but the
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  internal evidence is overwhelming.
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  You mean the language itself? The language.
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  Yes, the Hebrew phrasing mirrors Deuteronomy almost perfectly,
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  But more than the syntax, it is the atmosphere.
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  This Psalm reeks of the wilderness.
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  It smells like desert dust. Let's set that scene for the
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  listener, because I think we lose the gravity of it if we
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  just read it as a nice poem. This is the 40 years of
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  wandering. Correct.
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  This is after the massive failure at Kadesh Barnier.
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  Yeah. Right where they refused to go
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  in. The people rebelled, they
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  refused to enter the promised Land, and God pronounced the
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  sentence. He said that the entire
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  generation, everyone 20 years old and upward, would fall in
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  the wilderness. They would not see Canaan.
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  So Moses is essentially leading a walking graveyard.
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  That is a grim way to put it, but it is entirely accurate.
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  For nearly 40 years, Moses is overseeing a funeral March.
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  Scholars estimate that if there were over 600,000 men plus women
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  dying over 40 years, you're talking about dozens of funerals
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  every single day. That is just, I mean, every time
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  they stopped camping, they were digging graves.
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  That is the background music of Psalm 90.
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  The constant thought of dirt hitting bodies that.
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  Context changes everything. It isn't just a general
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  meditation on oh life is short, it is a specific crisis.
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  But then right in verse 1 Moses does something shocking.
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  He doesn't look at the graves, he looks up.
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  He says Lord Tho has been our dwelling place in all
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  generations. It is a massive paradox.
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  Think about their physical reality right then.
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  Do they have a dwelling place? No, they're.
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  Nomads. They were in what the text calls
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  a howling wilderness. They lived in tents that they
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  had to strike and move constantly.
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  They had no walls, no foundations, no city.
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  And yet he calls God their dwelling place.
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  The Hebrew word there is Malone. They own.
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  It means a habitation, a den, a refuge.
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  It is the place where you live. And this is the radical insight
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  Spurgeon draws out here. Moses isn't saying God gives
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  them a home, OK? He isn't saying God provides a
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  shelter. He is seeing God as the home.
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  That's it. Sounds like a subtle
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  distinction, but I feel like there is more weight to it.
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  What is the difference between living with God and living in
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  God? It is the difference between a
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  guest and a resident. If I live with you, I am in your
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  house. I'm dependent on your physical
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  structure. But if I live in you, you are
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  the structure. Martin Luther had this brilliant
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  observation on this exact text. He said.
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  We do not just exist in the presence of God.
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  Our very being is enveloped by Him.
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  So practically speaking, for the Israelite in the desert, the
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  physical tent was just what furniture?
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  Spot on the tent was temporary furniture, the desert was just
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  the wallpaper. The actual location of the
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  nation of Israel was Yahweh, and Spurgeon points out that this
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  has been true for the church in every age.
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  He traces it all the way back, doesn't he?
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  He does. Abraham left his father's house
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  in UR. He became homeless.
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  Technically, he wandered. Isaac wandered.
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  Jacob wondered. But they were never actually
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  homeless. Because they carried their home
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  with them. Or rather, they were inside
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  their home, the whole. Time.
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  They were inside the home with a capital.
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  H Spurgeon uses this striking image of Rome.
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  He says, go to the Palatine Hill.
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  You can see the ruins of the palaces of the Caesars.
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  The imperial race that built them is gone.
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  The bricks are crumbled, the marble is cracked.
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  Because they built their dwelling places out of matter.
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  They built on the Earth. Right, but the imperial race of
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  heaven, the Church, has never changed its address.
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  We live in the exact same place Abraham lived.
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  That is a highly comforting thought, especially when you
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  feel unstable. We put so much effort into our
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  mortgages, our renovations, trying to make these boxes of
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  wood and brick permanent. But one bad storm, 1 fire, or
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  just enough time and it is all rubble.
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  It's all tents. Even the skyscrapers in New York
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  are just tall tents. They are coming down eventually.
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  The only permanent structure for the human soul is the Creator.
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  And Moses hammers this home in verse 2 by contrasting this
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  eternal home with the mountains before the mountains were
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  brought forth. Wherever thou hast formed the
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  earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou
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  art God. I love the biology metaphor
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  there brought forth. It sounds like labor pains.
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  It does. It suggests that the physical
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  world, even the things we think of as most stable like that,
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  ever had a birth date. There was a time when they were
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  not. The earth had to be formed.
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  It was labor, but God. Wasn't born.
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  Right. Notice the verb change.
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  It doesn't say thou came as to be, it says thou art.
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  It is the claim of absolute existence.
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  He is the great I am. Spurgeon calls the mountains the
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  elder giants, but compared to God, they are infants.
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  They are newborns. This touches on what we call the
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  immutability of God in Reformed theology.
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  That he does not change. Why does that matter here?
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  Why does Moses care if God changes or not?
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  Because you cannot dwell in something that is constantly
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  shifting. Imagine a house where the walls
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  move three feet every night, or the floor turned into liquid
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  every morning. You couldn't rest, you'd be in a
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  constant state of anxiety. So if God were becoming, if he
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  were evolving or changing like we do, he wouldn't be a safe
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  dwelling place. Absolutely we can rest in him
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  because he is the same yesterday, today and forever.
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  As the Westminster Confession states, he is without body parts
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  or passions immutable. So we have this rock solid
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  eternal God that is the backdrop.
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  But then in verse 3 Moses swivels the camera.
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  He points it at humanity and the contrast is well, it is violent.
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  Verse 3 says Thou turnest man to destruction, and sayest return
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  ye children of men. This is where we have to grapple
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  with something highly uncomfortable.
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  Yeah, the word destruction there and the fact that God is the
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  active one doing it. The Hebrew word can imply A
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  grinding to powder, crushing. And look at the active agent.
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  It isn't nature, it isn't fate, it isn't bad luck.
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  It is God thou turnest. Spurgeon does not shy away from
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  this at all. He insists that God is the
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  sovereign over the terminus of our lives.
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  He speaks the word return, echoing Genesis 3 Dust thou art,
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  and to dust thou shalt return, and man dissolves.
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  I have to stop you there because that is a hard pill to swallow
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  for a lot of people. Most people today, even in the
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  church, tend to view death as a biological glitch or maybe just
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  the sad result of a fallen world.
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  But we separate God from it. We say God wants you to live and
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  death is just this intruder. But Moses seems to be saying God
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  is the one executing the sentence.
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  Doesn't that make God seem cruel?
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  It would be cruel if we were innocent, but we have to
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  remember the context. This is a penal situation.
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  The wages of sin is death. Moses is watching a generation
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  die specifically because of its judicial sentence from God.
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  Right, the rebellion in the wilderness.
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  But the application is universal.
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  We die because we are under a curse.
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  It is an accident. It is an eviction notice from
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  the body issued by the landlord. So God resolves and man
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  dissolves. That is the reality.
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  And to make us feel even smaller, Moses brings in the
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  relativity of time in verse 4. This is one of the most famous
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  verses in the Bible for 1000 years.
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  In thy sight are but as yesterday, when it has passed,
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  and as a watch in the night. We hear that and nod.
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  Oh yes, God is timeless, but let's try to actually grasp the
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  math for a second. 1000 years. That takes us back to the Middle
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  Ages. That is the rise and fall of
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  entire civilizations. To us it is an epoch, to God it
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  is yesterday and not even yesterday while it is happening,
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  yesterday when it is past. What does that mean exactly?
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  Think about yesterday. Right now it is gone.
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  It has no material existence. It is just a memory, is a vapor.
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  Spurgeon argues that to to God, a Millennium is just a blip of
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  memory. And then the watch in the night.
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  Look this up before we sat down. A watch wasn't even a full
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  night. No, it was a sentry shift,
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  usually about 3 or 4 hours. Imagine a Roman guard standing
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  on a wall in the cold. He stands there from midnight to
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  3:00 AM. He's cold, he is tired.
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  He is waiting for relief. Then the trumpet blows and he's
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  done. That is 1000 years of human
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  history to the eternal century. It really wrecks human pride,
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  doesn't it? We talk about our legacies.
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  We have billionaires trying to build things that will last 500
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  years. We talk about dynasties.
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  And God looks at the entire history of the United States or
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  the Roman Empire and says that was a 15 minute coffee break.
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  It exposes the absolute folly of living for time.
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  If you, as a listener right now are investing your soul in
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  something that lasts for a watch in the night, you're making a
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  terrible investment. Moses piles on the metaphors in
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  verses 5 and 6 to really drive this home.
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  He talks about a flood asleep and grass.
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  The flood imagery is terrifying. Thou carriest them away, as with
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  a flood. The idea is a flash flood in a
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  Wadi. You are camping in a dry
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  riverbed and suddenly a wall of water hits you.
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  You try to swim, you try to grab onto a rock, but the current is
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  too strong. Humanity is a drowning man being
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  swept away by time. And then the sleep.
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  They are as asleep. Or a dream.
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  Shakespeare likely borrowed from this when he wrote that we are
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  such stuff as dreams are made of.
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  Think about a dream. When you are in it, it feels
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  incredibly real. You are running, you are
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  fighting, you are winning, your heart is racing.
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  Then you wake up. And you realize none of it
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  happened. It had no substance.
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  Moses is suggesting that our earthly lives, our career
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  ladders, our accumulation of cars and houses, our social
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  status compared to the waking reality of eternity, are just a
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  fever dream. We're going to wake up one day
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  and realize we spent our energy on fandoms.
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  That is unsettling. It makes the world feel very
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  thin it. Is thin.
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  That is the point. And the grass metaphor is the
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  final nail in the coffin. Yeah, In the morning it
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  flourisheth, in the evening it is cut down and withereth.
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  Spurgeon captures the speed of this.
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  It happens in one day. In the Near East, you have these
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  hot desert winds. The grass can be green and lush
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  in the morning, Dee Spurgeon says.
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  Besprint with gems. That looks beautiful.
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  But then that Scirocco wind hits it.
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  By 6:00 PM. It isn't just dead, it is brown
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  dry hay ready for the fire. Spurgeon has that little rhyme
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  for this. How did it go?
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  He describes the history of grass and us as sown, grown,
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  blown, moan, gone. Sown grown, blown, moan gone.
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  It sounds like a nursery rhyme, but it is a Horror Story.
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  It is a Horror Story. If you think you are an oak
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  tree, if you admit you are grass, it is just reality.
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  OK, so we have established that we are temporary and God is
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  eternal. But this next section, segment
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  3, this is where the Psalm takes a darker turn.
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  We have to ask why? Why is death a thing?
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  Why are we swept away? And verses 7 through 11 give us
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  the answer wrath. This is the part of the Psalm
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  that modern listeners really struggle with.
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  We want a God of love. We want a God of affirmation.
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  But Moses presents a God of consuming anger.
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  Verse 7 says For we are consumed by thine anger.
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  And again, this links back to the wilderness generation.
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  They were literally dying because God was angry with them.
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  They were under a specific judgement.
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  But Spurgeon and the reformed commentators insist you cannot
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  isolate this. To them the principle is
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  universal. Death is the intrusion of God's
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  holiness into a sinful world. We are consumed.
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  The Hebrew ideas that we are used up like fuel in a fire.
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  And verse 8 explains the fuel. Thou has set our iniquities
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  before thee, our secret sins, in the light of Thy countenance.
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  This destroys the concept of privacy.
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  We all have secret sins. Things we hide from our spouses,
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  things we hide from our employers, thoughts we never
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  vocalize. We think they are safe because
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  they are in the dark. But Moses says they are in the
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  light of God's countenance. Spurgeon uses a brilliant
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  analogy here. He compares it to inspecting a
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  garment. If you look at a shirt by the
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  light of a candle, it might look clean, you might miss a stain.
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  But if you take that shirt outside and hold it up to the
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  noonday sun. You see every speck of dust,
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  every flaw. And God's face is brighter than
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  the sun. God is light, and in Him is no
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  darkness at all. So when Moses says our secret
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  sins are set before his face, he means they are exposed to the
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  most intense radioactive scrutiny imaginable.
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  That is terrifying. I remember reading in the notes
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  that usually when the Bible talks about forgiveness it says
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  God casts our sins behind his back.
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  Right as far as the east is from the West, but here there is no
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  forgiveness, yet here the sins are right in front of him.
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  It creates this unbearable sense of exposure, and it leads to
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  verse 9 where Moses describes what life feels like under this
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  kind of scrutiny. We spend our years as a tale
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  that is told. Now, tale here can mean a few
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  things, right? It can.
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  One interpretation is a story told around a campfire.
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  It captures your attention for a minute, the fire dies down, the
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  story ends and everyone goes to sleep.
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  It is fleeting. It has no permanence.
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  But there is a sadder translation, isn't there?
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  Yes, the Hebrew word hege can imply A groan or a sigh.
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  We spend our years as a sigh. That is bleak.
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  It sounds like Ecclesiastes vanity of vanities.
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  It is the soundtrack of a life lived under wrath.
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  You work, you struggle, you get sick, and at the end it is just
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  a long, weary exhalation, a sigh.
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  It implies a lack of substance, a lack of satisfaction.
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  And even if you are strong, verse 10 says the days of our
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  years are three score years and 10.
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  That is 70, and if by reason of strength they be 4 score years
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  80 yet is their strength labor and sorrow.
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  That is the bonus round If you win the genetic lottery and live
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  to be 80, what is the prize? Back aches, losing your friends,
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  memory loss, labor and sorrow. It is a heavy realism.
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  We idolize longevity. We are obsessed with Blue Zones
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  and living to 100, Moses says. OK, great.
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  You get 10 more years of Labor and sorrow, and then inevitably
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  it is soon cut off and we fly away.
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  Bead the Old English historian. Use that famous bird analogy for
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  this, didn't he? He did.
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  He pictured a King's banquet hall in winter.
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  It is warm inside, fire roaring. A little Sparrow flies in one
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  window from the freezing storm. It flutters through the warmth
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  and light for a few seconds that is our life, and then flies out
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  the other window back into the winter night.
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  We fly away, it is so fragile. And then verse 11 drops the
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  hammer. Who knoweth the power of thine
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  anger? It is a rhetorical question.
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  The answer is no one. But then he adds this tricky
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  phrase. According to thy fear, so is thy
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  wrath. That is hard to parse.
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  What does that mean? It is dense.
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  There are two main ways to look at it. 1 is that the only people
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  who really understand God's wrath are the people who fear
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  Him, the believers. A St. actually understands hell
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  better than a Sinner because a St. understands how holy God is.
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  That makes sense, but there was another view from a preacher
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  named Henry Melville that I found fascinating.
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  Yes, Melville's mirror. He suggests that fear acts like
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  a magnifying glass. You know how when you were
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  scared of something, say a spider or a strange noise at
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  night, your imagination runs wild?
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  You make a monster out of a shadow?
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  Sure. Fear exaggerates.
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  Usually yes. The reality is usually smaller
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  than our fear, but Melville argues that when it comes to
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  God's wrath, the dynamic is reversed.
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  Even your worst nightmare, your most terrified hallucination of
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  judgement, does not even come close to the actual reality.
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  Wow, so you cannot over exaggerate the wrath of God.
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  Impossible. Because God is infinite.
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  His opposition to sin is infinite.
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  Our finite minds cannot construct a horror big enough to
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  match the reality of a holy God confronting evil.
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  The reality is always greater than the reflection in the
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  mirror of our fear. That is heavy.
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  If the text ended here, I think we would all just go crawl into
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  a hole. We are dust, we are sinful, we
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  are under wrath, and it is worse than we can imagine.
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  It would be a Pagan Greek tragedy, but this is scripture.
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  It doesn't end here. In verse 12, the entire ship
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  turns around. Moses stops complaining and
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  starts praying. So teach us to number our days
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  that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.
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  I have heard this quoted a million times.
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  It is on calendars. It is on coffee mugs.
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  But let's actually unpack it. Number our days.
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  Notice what he does not ask for. He doesn't ask for the exact
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  number. He doesn't say, Lord tell me I
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  will die on February 20th, 2045. We would probably live
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  differently if we knew the date, but not necessarily better.
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  Right. He isn't asking for arithmetic,
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  he is asking for moral arithmetic.
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  He wants to know the value of the days.
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  And he says, so teach us. That is the key.
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  We cannot learn this naturally. We are naturally delusional
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  about time. We live as if we have an
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  infinite supply. We treat time as cheap when it
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  is the most limited resource we have.
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  We count our money down to the penny.
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  We count our stocks. We count our followers, but we
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  do not count our days. We waste them, we kill time.
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  We need divine instruction to realize that every sunrise is a
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  withdrawal from a finite account that will hit 0.
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  The goal isn't just to be morbid.
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  It isn't just to think about coffins all day.
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  It is to apply our hearts unto wisdom.
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  Wisdom is the destination. And notice the anatomy.
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  It doesn't apply your brain. It doesn't apply your ear.
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  It is the heart. It reminds me of The Apprentice
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  imagery. Applying yourself to a trade,
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  yes. You have to force your heart
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  into this mold. It takes effort.
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  And in the reformed view, true wisdom is always linked to the
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  fear of the Lord and preparation for eternity.
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  Augustine said we should number every day as if it were the
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  last. If I really believe today was my
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  last day, I probably wouldn't be worried about the things I was
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  worried about this morning. The petty grievances would
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  vanish. The obsession with trivialities
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  would vanish. You would focus on what matters.
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  That is wisdom. So once we have this wisdom,
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  once we realize our position, Moses launches into a plea for
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  mercy in segment 5, verse 13 says return, O Lord, how long
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  and let it repent Thee concerning my servants.
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  This is a bold prayer. Think about the audacity.
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  God has turned away from them in anger.
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  He has turned his back and Moses the intercessor yells.
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  Turn around. Come back.
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  And the phrase, let it repent thee.
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  We have to be careful here. Does God repent?
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  Does he change his mind? The Westminster Confession says
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  God is immutable. Correct, God does not change his
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  character or his eternal decrees, but this is what we
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  call anthropomorphism. It is God speaking or Moses
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  speaking to God in human terms. So we can understand the
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  relationship is like a father getting down on the floor to
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  play with his toddler. He changes his posture, but he
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  hasn't ceased to be an adult. So Moses is asking for a change
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  in administration, Yes. Change your posture from
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  judgement to pity and notice the basis of the plea concerning thy
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  servants. Even though they are under
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  wrath, even though they are dying in the desert, Moses
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  claims the covenant bond. We are still yours.
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  We are your servants. Treat us as such.
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  Then we get this beautiful request in verse 14.
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  O satisfy us early with Thy mercy, that we may rejoice and
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  be glad all our days. Satisfy.
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  That implies a hunger. The human soul is a craving
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  thing. We are always hungry.
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  We are gaping mouths. We try to fill that void with
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  money, sex, power, success. But those things do not satisfy.
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  They're like salt water. Moses knows only one thing fits
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  the God shaped hole, Mercy, specifically covenant love has
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  said, and he asked for it early. That can mean quickly, right?
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  Like hurry up Lord. It can mean speedily, yes, but
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  it also has a temporal application.
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  It means in the morning, in the morning of life.
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  It is a prayer for youth. Well that is good, asking God to
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  satisfy us with mercy while we were young.
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  If you find satisfaction in God in your 20s, you were spared
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  decades of chasing empty cisterns.
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  You don't have to have a midlife crisis where you buy a sports
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  car to find meaning, because you found meaning in the morning.
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  And the result is joy. Rejoice and be glad all our
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  days. Note the distinction.
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  We don't ask for satisfaction and wealth.
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  We don't ask for satisfaction in perfect health.
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  We ask for satisfaction in mercy.
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  Because if you have mercy, you can have joy even in the
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  wilderness. You can be glad even when the
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  grass Withers. But Moses is a realist.
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  He knows they have suffered, so He prays for balance in verse
• 21:08
  15. Make us glad according to the
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  days wherein thou hast afflicted us, and the years wherein we
• 21:14
  have seen evil. This is the compensatory
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  principle of the Christian life. Moses is asking for proportion.
• 21:20
  He says. Lord, we have had 40 years of
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  funerals. We've had deep valleys of
• 21:23
  sorrow. Now give us mountains of joy
• 21:25
  that are just as high. So the suffering digs out the
• 21:28
  capacity for the joy. That is a beautiful way to put
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  it. The excavator of sorrow digs a
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  deep reservoir in the soul, and Moses prays that God would fill
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  that reservoir to the brim with gladness.
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  It suggests that our suffering is not wasted.
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  It is preparation for a corresponding weight of glory.
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  That brings us to the final movement, Segment 6.
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  The horizon expands here. Up until now, Moses has been
• 21:53
  looking at the present misery, but in verses 16 and 17 he looks
• 21:57
  to the future. He looks at the work and the
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  legacy. Verse 16 Let that work appear
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  into thy servants, and thy glory unto their children.
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  There is a shift in focus here. In verse 10 he was complaining
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  about our work being labor and sorrow.
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  Now he asks to see God's work. That is the relief.
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  As long as we look at our work, it is frustrating, it is dust.
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  But when we look at God's work, His redemption, His Providence,
• 22:20
  His plan, we find stability. Moses wants the people to stop
• 22:24
  looking at their own shovels and start looking at God's.
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  Hand, and he prays for the children, and my glory unto
• 22:28
  their children. This breaks my heart honestly.
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  You have to remember Moses knows he is going to die in that
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  desert. He knows his generation is
• 22:36
  doomed. They are never going to taste
• 22:38
  the milk and honey. They messed up too bad.
• 22:39
  They did, but Moses prays. Lord, don't let the penalty stop
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  with us. Let the next generation see the
• 22:46
  glory we missed. It is incredibly selfless.
• 22:49
  It is a parent willing to endure the wilderness so their children
• 22:52
  can have the promised land. It is covenant theology in
• 22:55
  action. The promise extends to the seed
• 22:57
  of the believer. We may labor in a wilderness,
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  sowing seeds in hard, dry ground just so our children can reap a
• 23:04
  harvest we will never see, and Moses is content with that.
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  Then comes the benediction, verse 17.
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  And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us.
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  Beauty. What is the beauty of God?
• 23:14
  It isn't physical attractiveness.
• 23:15
  Luther called it a deluge of grace.
• 23:17
  It is the beauty of holiness. It is the reflection of God's
• 23:20
  character. Think about how light transforms
• 23:23
  a landscape. A rugged, ugly desert can look
• 23:26
  stunning at sunrise. Moses is praying that the favor
• 23:29
  and presence of God would rest on this ragged, dusty band of
• 23:33
  pilgrims and make them beautiful.
• 23:35
  And the final request, this is the capstone.
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  Establish thou the work of our hands upon us.
• 23:40
  Yeah, the work of our hands. Establish thou it.
• 23:43
  This brings us full circle. Remember where we started.
• 23:46
  Man is grass, Man is dust. Man is asleep.
• 23:50
  Everything we touch falls apart. Sown grown blown, mown gone.
• 23:54
  But here Moses prays for the impossible.
• 23:57
  He asks the eternal God to take the work of grass people and
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  make it like granite. He asks God to establish it.
• 24:03
  How does that work if I am dust? Isn't my work dust?
• 24:06
  Not if God establishes it. Jarchi, a Jewish commentator
• 24:10
  Spurgeon cites, thinks Moses prayed this specifically when
• 24:13
  the Tabernacle was finished. Think about that structure.
• 24:16
  It was a tent in a desert. Which should have been destroyed
• 24:18
  by the wind in a week. We're buried in sand.
• 24:21
  Exactly. It was made of goat hair and
• 24:22
  wood. It was fragile, but because it
• 24:24
  was God's design, and because God establish it, that tent
• 24:27
  became the center of gravity for the universe.
• 24:29
  It became the place where glory dwelt.
• 24:31
  So the principle is your life is short, your life is a vapor, but
• 24:36
  if your work is in the Lord, if you are building His Kingdom,
• 24:40
  raising children in His fear, serving His church, that
• 24:43
  separates from your mortality. The worker dies, but the work
• 24:48
  endures. The grass Withers, but the Word
• 24:50
  of God and the work done for that word stands forever.
• 24:54
  It solidifies. It outlasts the Roman Empire.
• 24:56
  That is a highly encouraging hope.
• 24:58
  So let's recap this trajectory. We started with the eternity of
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  God, the dwelling place. We walk through the valley of
• 25:05
  human frailty, the terror of the grinding to powder and the
• 25:08
  exposure of our secret sins. We face the reality of wrath.
• 25:11
  We didn't dodge it. Then we climbed up the steps of
• 25:14
  prayer, asking for moral arithmetic, asking for early
• 25:17
  mercy, and finally we stood on the summit looking at the beauty
• 25:19
  of the Lord and the established work of his hands.
• 25:22
  It is a complete theological arc.
• 25:24
  It takes us from the depths of despair to the heights of hope.
• 25:27
  But notice, and this is crucial, the hope is never in US.
• 25:31
  It is never in our strength. It is never in our ability to
• 25:34
  live a long time. It is all in the Lord our God.
• 25:36
  That is the Reformed comfort. Our stability is not in our
• 25:40
  lifespan. It is not in our health.
• 25:42
  It is in our election and our union with the eternal God.
• 25:46
  We are safe because He is our dwelling place.
• 25:48
  That brings us to a final thought for you, the listener to
• 25:51
  Mull over. We talked about life being a
• 25:54
  tale that is told. Yes a story and I want to ask
• 25:57
  everyone listening if 1000 years or but a watch in the night to
• 26:00
  God and our lives are a mere sentence in a long book.
• 26:04
  What kind of tale are you currently telling?
• 26:07
  Is it a tragedy of vanity? A story of chasing wind.
• 26:11
  Or is it a chapter in God's eternal work?
• 26:14
  Is your story woven into the story of His glory?
• 26:17
  Because the first story ends in dust, the second story ends in
• 26:20
  established beauty. That is the question.
• 26:22
  We encourage you to number your days starting right now.
• 26:25
  Don't wait for a crisis. Apply your heart to wisdom
• 26:27
  today. Amen.
• 26:28
  Thank you for joining us on this deep dive into Psalm 90.
• 26:31
  It has been a heavy conversation, but hopefully a
• 26:33
  grounding one. We hope it drives you back to
• 26:35
  the drawing place. Indeed, until next time.
• 26:38
  Goodbye and God bless.