TWO ADDRESSES ON PSALMS 90, 91 AND 92
THE TITLE TO LIVE FORFEITED
From an un-dated leaflet
Psalm 90: 1, 2; 91: 14-16; 92: 12-16
In the millennium everybody will be subject to the rule of Christ, and they will know God. The glory of God will fill the world as the waters cover the sea, but the way of happiness then and the way of happiness now is just the same. One might have said to Job, See what God has done. He has given you twice as much as before; but I think I can hear Job saying, That does not constitute my blessing - I have learned to know God - that is the substance of blessing. It is not change of circumstances which constitute our blessing - we want to be changed - it is an inward thing. If you come under the rule of Christ and into the knowledge of what God is, it will make you profoundly happy. Psalm 90 is the prayer of Moses, the man of God, and stands at the head of the fourth book of Psalms. A very valuable introduction it is, too, and full of moral principles which I shall endeavour to apply to ourselves. Moses, the man of God, voices the cry of the man who has forfeited his title to live, but before doing so it is most blessed to see that he states in the first two verses what God is. In this lies our refuge. “From everlasting to everlasting, thou art God”. Then in verse 3 he begins to tell us about ourselves - he states what man is now. His days are shortened. No matter what I attain to in the way of position or understanding, I must die, and we must face it. Moses voices the cry, and he gives us the reason why man’s days are shortened.
It is a very interesting fact that it was God's intention in scripture that a man should live 1000 years. God is God, and He is going to have His way after all. Meanwhile the thought has been frustrated and man’s days are shortened. In Genesis 11 you find that in the days of Peleg the age of man went down from 500 to 250 years at once. Men divided the land at that time, and, it seems to me, God had to shorten their days because they grew so selfish. I think it is a great mercy that man’s days are shortened, because of what he is. “The days of our years”, says Moses, “are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away”, Ps 90: 10. I have no doubt it was written in connection with the shortening of their days in the wilderness. If Moses voices the cry of the man who has forfeited his title to live, yet at the close of the psalm there is hope, and the hope is found in what God is. This is the ground of hope in verses 11 to 17, founded on verses 1, 2. He states what God is. It all has reference of course, to Israel, but there are great principles to which I desire to call your attention:-
I. The fear of God.
II. The mercy of God.
III. The work of God.
IV. The glory of God.
V. The beauty of God.
These are the five things set forth in this psalm.
Read verse 12: “So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom”. I think that is the first great principle. You number your days - you recognise the fact that as a man you have forfeited your title to live, and that should lead you to apply your heart to wisdom, and the first thing in the way of wisdom is the fear of the Lord. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom”, Prov 9: 10. If we start feebly on that point we shall be weak all along the line. The first great work of God in a man’s soul is that he begins to fear God. I think men are getting very much weaker now as to the public acknowledgment of God; people do not fear God as they used to - they are drifting. There is a great lack of the fear of God, and where that is so individually, you may depend upon it there is a very poor foundation in a man’s soul.
The beginning of wisdom is to fear God. That is, you have no sense in your soul of what is due to God. Take the work of God in the thief on the cross. He had to number his moments. But what happened to him? The Spirit of God was producing a work in his soul. There was a divine Person by his side doing a work for him, and there was another divine Person doing a work in him. The first mark of a divine work in his soul was that he said to his fellow, “Dost thou not fear God?” &c., Luke 23: 40. It is a great thing to fear God. That is, that you have in your soul a proper sense of what is due to God. I think that is the great mark here, and they begin by saying, “So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom”. (v 12)
The next thing is the “mercy of God”. Read verse 14: “O satisfy us early with thy mercy; that we may rejoice and be glad all our days”. The fear of God always leads you to a sense of your need of His mercy. If there is the fear of God you must in the very nature of things appeal for mercy, because you are made to feel how unsuitable you are to God, and that you are a subject for the sovereign mercy of God. We are here to-night, the fruit of the sovereign mercy of God. I think that is a very safe thing because it gives you ballast. Sovereign mercy is good ballast for your ship. I well remember, years ago, listening to an aged servant of Christ. He said, ‘Keep your ship well ballasted with humility’, and a sense of the sovereign mercy of God produces this. There is such a thing as growth, but it is well for us to have a deepening sense in our souls that we are the subjects of sovereign mercy.
The apostle says in Timothy, “I obtained mercy” (1 Tim 1: 6) that I might be a pattern of what God could do in that way. The sovereign mercy of God reached out to the chief of sinners. Although he had a full and deep sense of the purpose of God, which was connected with the ‘top’, he never forgot that he was a subject of the sovereign mercy of God. Going back to the thief on the cross again, he said, “Lord, remember me” - pitifully consider me. That is an appeal for mercy. So it always has been and always will be in the history of a soul, that is, that the fear of God is first known, and then there is an appeal for mercy. One could say a great deal about it. There is no doubt that Moses had a very lively sense of it. God said to him, “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy” (Rom 9: 15), and then in Numbers 14 Moses pleads with God on the ground of His sovereign mercy, at the very time, I think, when this psalm was written, or composed.
In Romans 11, where the apostle by the Spirit sets forth the faithfulness of God to His people Israel on the ground of righteousness, he points out that they all come in on the ground of mercy. Immediately the note is struck, the apostle bursts out, “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!”, v 33. The key to the whole chapter is the mercy of God. In other words, “From everlasting to everlasting, thou art God”. He is rich in mercy. They cry for mercy here, “O satisfy us early with thy mercy”, Ps 90: 14.
Let me for a moment again allude to Timothy. The apostle speaks of the gospel in connection with his need in the first epistle. “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief”, 1 Tim 1: 15. When he is writing the second epistle he presents the gospel from another side (2 Tim 1: 9), that is, in connection with the purpose of God. On the one hand, I want to see how He has reached me on the side of my need and that He has pitifully considered me according to His sovereign mercy. On the other hand He would have us see that Christ reached us at the bottom, because He wanted us at the top. “According to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began”. While we want to keep the even balance of this in our souls, and I am sure you will admit the truth of it, I desire to press that the fear of God always leads to an appeal for mercy and He “satisfies them early with his mercy”.
Now in verse 16 He says, “Let thy work appear”. What is involved in that is the work of Christ. There are two things seen in the death of Christ: 1st, God’s own absolute and abiding answer to all that I find in myself that is unsuitable to Him; and, 2nd, the setting before my delighted heart the infinite blessedness of what God is. In the death of Christ, I have lost myself and found God. Some one has said that that which was the witness of the judgment of God - death - has become now the everlasting witness of the love of God.
Another side is that the Spirit of God has come and dwells in us in order that we may realise, enjoy and enter into the blessedness of it all. There is the work of Christ for us in death, and the work of the Spirit in us to make good what is set forth in the death of Christ.
In verse 16 we see that what is connected with the work of Christ is God's glory. “Let thy work appear unto thy servants, and thy glory unto their children”. God glorifies Himself in displaying Himself. He does what He does because He is what He is, and in doing what He does, He sets forth what He is. He glorifies Himself by making Himself known.
An eternity of bliss is summed up in two remarkable sentences:-
God all and God in all.
God all to you in revelation, and in all in response - that is, there is an everlasting throb of response, a universe throbbing back to God. What is one’s happiness now as a Christian? That God is revealed to you and there is a response in you. You may be conscious how feebly you are in it, but if you are a Christian you love God, the work of Christ has appeared to you, and there is an answer in your heart to what God is. It will be so in the millennium. God will see it there, although it may not be in its fulness and completeness. Men will love God and will love their neighbour.
Read verse 17. In the interpretation this psalm has nothing to do with us, but in the application it has. Now they say, “let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us”. Is not that a beautiful conclusion? If His glory shines, there will be a reflection. Do you think anything will die that has the beauty of the Lord upon it? I want you to get in your souls a sense of the moral necessity of death; but nothing that bears the beauty of the Lord will die. He has put that beauty upon us. I shall not die as a Christian. Death will not overwhelm me - “whosevever … believeth in me shall never die”, John 11: 26. Death will not interrupt my joy. It will overwhelm the man who has never feared God and has not felt his need of the mercy of God. If I had to die to-night at 12 o’clock I should be like another man in this respect, I should leave sorrowing hearts behind, but I should not die out of the love of God. I am getting younger - the inner man is rejuvenated day by day. The beauty of the Lord will be upon them and they will live out their days - l000 years - and they will be transferred from the millennial earth to the eternal earth, part of that universe of bliss when God shall be all in all.
Now how is it all going to be brought about? I wish you could see the beauty of scripture. Look at the next psalm. Moses wrote Psalm 90, but I do not know who wrote the next. It was probably written many years after and yet by the Spirit has been placed directly after this psalm. It speaks of Christ. Christ is God's answer to everything. In verse 2 you are introduced at once to the Lord Jesus Christ - “I will say” - Jesus speaks - the Messiah - the Son of God in incarnation - His voice is heard. “I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust”. (v 2) Do you see that Christ is our rest? How could you have the hopes expressed in Psalm 90 fulfilled except in Christ. God says, Look at My Son - in Him is the Yea and Amen - you are immediately introduced to Christ.
In Psalms 42, 43 and 44 we get another cry - it is like the falling barometer - they cry an exceeding bitter cry; but God's answer to the cry is Christ, as in the psalm before us. So Psalm 45 commences, “My heart is inditing a good matter: I speak of the things which I have made touching the king”, v 1. Christ is the Yea and Amen. How my heart rejoices in it. Everything is secured for God and for us in the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ. We poor creatures have been nothing but a “nay“ to God, but God has got His “Yea”. David had to say, “Although my house be not so with God; yet he hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure”. Why? Because in Him is the Yea and Amen - the blessed Christ of God.
It thrills one’s soul to see the marvellous structure of scripture. Who but a divine author could put things together like this? Read Psalm 91: 1. I want now to speak a little about the “secret place”. There is a secret place, a place of shelter for your soul, which has been discovered by the Lord Jesus Christ.
In the first two verses of Psalm 91 there are three names which God has been pleased to reveal Himself by in the Old Testament:-
Most High,
El Shaddai (Almighty God),
Jehovah.
As the Most High He is possessor of heaven and earth. (See Gen 14: 18-22). That name sets forth the absolute supremacy of God. He will be known as the Most High God in the millennium, when all evil shall be put down. He is the possessor of heaven and earth - that also goes with the thought of the Most High God.
In Genesis 17: 1 He is spoken of as the Almighty God, which indicates that He is absolute in power. In Exodus 6: 1-3 He assumes another name - Jehovah, and this means that He is the unchangeable One.
To us He is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. You could not get that in the Psalms, because it is not in keeping with the line of things there presented; but He is supreme, absolute in power, and the unchanging One who is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is the Almighty God to us. How? He raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead. He is the possessor of heaven and earth, for “The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into his hand”, John 3: 35. He is the unchangeable One. Who? Our God and Father. These three names have their full force and meaning in the name to us familiar and whereby we know God - the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, in Matthew 11. I will shew you the “secret place”, v 25. This is the answer to the psalm.
“At that time Jesus answered and said”. Answered what? He gives an answer to His God and Father in the circumstances in which He was found, namely, John was offended because of Him, and the cities had cast His love in His teeth, “ For my love they are my adversaries”, Ps 109: 4. It was the darkest moment for our Lord, but He is found in the “secret place”.
Many times have I said, Lord, give me to know that secret place, that my heart may in some measure answer back in all the circumstances, all the pressure I have to meet with here; that my heart may give the answer that Thy blessed heart gave back in such perfection.
“I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth [He is the Most High God], because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father: for so it seemed good in thy sight”, Matt 11: 25, 26. There is the secret place - the bosom of the Father. The affection well known to Him, consciously known to me. You have a secret place; I pray that you may know it. If you do you will be silenced, for there is not the movement of will in that secret place - absolute rest, your will cannot work there. Oh, what a spot! The Lord is in it here, in absolute submission to God. “Even so, Father: for so it seemed good in thy sight”. It is the answer that His heart gave back to the Father from the secret place.
Read verse 27 to the end. He stands in the secret place and says, “Come unto me!” He, the blessed Son in the secret place, invites poor, heavy laden ones to come into that secret place to find that they are loved where He is loved.
There is nothing more wretched than a Christian being out of the secret place, and judging God by his circumstances. ‘It was too painful for me’. (See Ps 73) Why? He was out of the secret place.
He bids you come back to the secret place, where you can find rest for your soul. He dwells in that place.
I do pity people who judge God by their circumstances, by what they see with their eyes, but the moment they come back to the sanctuary (Ps 73), or the “secret place”, everything is seen in its true light. You are made to understand that you are not to judge God by your circumstances here.
“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest”, Matt 11: 28.
Rest! Where? In the secret place. How? In the knowledge of the Father's love. You come to Me, says He, I will be your Teacher, I will reveal the Father to you, I will let you know that He loves you as He loves Me. That is “rest”. (v 29) Now, He says, keep company with Me, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me”, &c. I pray God that we may know the secret place! Never mind about having your head filled. It is one thing to have your mind filled with the word, but it is another thing that you sincerely desire and seek the blessedness of the thing day by day.
It is very beautiful to see that we go from a cry to a song. We have a “Song on the Sabbath day”, Ps 92. What a sabbath day it is when our hearts rest where Christ is!
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