“For a thousand years in Your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night. You sweep them away as with a flood; they are like a dream, like grass that is renewed in the morning: in the morning it flourishes and is renewed; in the evening it fades and withers. For we are brought to an end by Your anger; by Your wrath we are dismayed.” Psalm 90:4-7
Devotional Thought For The Day
The psalmist, Moses, writes poetically about our “return to dust,” comparing it with the daily cycle of plant life during the blazing heat of summer. He speaks of the numerous human deaths that occur each day as “a flood” sweeping mankind off the face of the earth – and God is the One doing the “sweeping.” In consequence, we might conclude that the entirety of a human life is “like a dream” – that there is virtually nothing of substance to our time here on earth. Is it true that our existence is as “ethereal” as a dream, as light and inconsequential as a puff of air? Well, in comparison to God and His eternal being and existence this is true – and Moses is attacking the myopic and arrogant tendency of fallen mankind to self-deify and puff ourselves up to absurd proportions. Included in this is a grotesque ignorance of our sin and wickedness, self-delusion in regard to defining our goodness and importance and our power to self-determine. All of this is preposterous and a hideous corruption of what God intends for human life and being, absolute rejection of a life of faith, reverence for God, and love. So it is that His wrath and anger brings us to an end and dismays us – and appropriately so!
However, the reality for those who are connected to God through faith in Jesus Christ is quite different. Though we are by nature and constitution no different than other human beings, and humbly acknowledge our utter and complete dependence upon God, we have already “died” and our life is “hidden with Christ in God.” [Col. 3:3] We are joined to Him Who is “the resurrection and the life,” and so through faith in Jesus we already have “eternal life.” Though we too will go through the process of physical death, we know that “precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of His saints” [Ps. 116:15] and that our lives have been made meaningful and consequential and of enduring worth and value by God Himself, for His Word asserts “blessed are the dead who die in the Lord . . . and their works do follow them.” [Rev. 14:13] Moses is not denying any of this, but rather warning us against arrogance and unbelief – so that through repentance and faith we may avoid futility and vanity and participate in God’s great redemption and salvation – and actually be what God intended for us from the beginning and created us to become – to the praise of His glorious grace [Eph. 1:3-6].
These are the only two options that we have – to live in the futility of impenitence, unbelief, arrogance, independence from God, selfishness, self-righteousness, self-determination, and self-deification; or to repent and believe the Gospel, to humbly join ourselves to God in His gracious forgiveness and mercy, and to receive the eternal life which He grants to all who believe in Jesus Christ, so that we are [the meaning of our existence] “to the praise of His glorious grace.” We should be grateful to Moses for bringing this contrast so poignantly and forcefully to our hearts and minds, and even more grateful to God for His love, mercy, forgiveness and salvation graciously given to us in Christ Jesus – by which we are freed from futility and renewed and fashioned for His eternal glory.
In regard to the point Moses makes about God’s view of time [“in Your sight”], and how Peter makes the same observation [2 Pet. 3:8], it is important to note that these servants of God’s Word do NOT equate the two periods of time – a day/a thousand years, but rather draw our attention to the fact that time is an aspect of God’s creation, and that He is above, over, and outside of creation, and hence not subject to experiencing time the same way that we do. The observation reveals something about God, His nature, and not about the age of the earth or the reckoning of the history of God’s creation. The fact that God views time differently than we do does not mean that time is relative, or that we can define it however we want to. No, we are bound by time, just as we are bound by God’s Word, and to think otherwise – to think that we can redefine time, redefine God’s Word, or refute and ignore God’s Word, is precisely the arrogance that Moses is writing against in describing our life as but a “dream” in comparison to God, Who is the ground of all reality. So let us beware how the evil one cleverly taps into our innate sinfulness and foments even greater rebellion against God and His Word. The point of God’s Word, and how it makes plain the differences between men and God is clear: “God is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.” [2 Pet. 3:9] How blessed we are if His Word and His Holy Spirit are able to work this miracle in us!
Scripture Cited
Eph. 1:3-6 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace, with which He has blessed us in the Beloved.”
Prayer For The Day
Dear Lord Jesus, thanks and praise be to You for rescuing us from the futility of our sin and rebellion against You, and for enlightening us to the dangers of our innate arrogance, that we might be restored to sanity and life through repentance and faith. Strengthen and sustain us in humble dependence upon Your Word, Holy Scripture, that we continue to be renewed in faith and love – to the praise of Your glorious grace! Amen.