Behold His Grace

Behold His Grace

Psalm 90

Main Idea: God’s grace is sufficient to meet our every need, and we should respond by giving him glory and trusting his Word.

Psalm 90 gives us one of the clearest pictures in God’s Word of God’s eternal nature. It is the oldest psalm we have, written by Moses when the people of God were wandering in the wilderness. The contrast between Psalm 90 and our own perspective on time is striking.

Our lives are so consumed with the temporary, with what matters today. We’re focused on this moment, and we live in a culture that lauds pleasure in the moment. We want immediate, instant gratification. We’re so intoxicated by the temporary that we become blind to what’s going to matter ten trillion years from now. But life changes when you open your eyes to that reality, and the nature of God beckons us to see that.

I see four truths in Psalm 90; each one builds on the others. These truths lead to some massive implications for our lives.

Four Truths

God Is Eternally Glorious

Rather than speaking of something lasting “from eternity to eternity” (v. 2), we normally say, “from beginning to end.” However, God has no beginning. How old is God? is a wholly inappropriate question. God is different from us, for there was a day when we weren’t; then one day we were born. But God isn’t a certain age because he was never born. Even more mind-boggling than that is the fact that God has no end. Verse 3 says that man returns to dust but not God.

Verse 4 talks about God’s relation to time, and this will really give you a headache if you think about it! Psalm 90 teaches that God is Lord over time. Whereas we exist in time, God exists over time. Isaiah 57:15 says that God “inhabits eternity” (ESV). For him a thousand years are like a day, or like a “few hours of the night” (Ps 90:4). Think about all that happens in a thousand years: generations come and go, empires rise and fall, and to God it’s all like a short watch in the night. The United States of America has existed for 240 years, which is a matter of mere minutes in God’s perspective.

God is unchanging throughout time. From “eternity to eternity,” God is God. Unlike us, his attributes do not change with time. The way we look changes over time. The way we think changes over time. We grow in knowledge, and we change in skill over time. We’re able to do things at age forty that we weren’t able to do at fourteen—and vice versa. But God is totally different from us.

God is omniscient, which means he knows all things. God doesn’t forget anything over time, and he doesn’t learn anything over time because he has all knowledge at all times. And God is omnipotent—he has all power—which means God doesn’t weaken or strengthen over time. He has all power at all times.

The fact that God is unchanging throughout time is good news when you think about it. We don’t ever have to worry about God changing for the worse. Who God is today is who God will be tomorrow. But, we may think, wouldn’t it be good for God to change for the better? No, because if God changed for the better in any way, then that would mean God previously wasn’t the best possible being. And he is. God in all of his attributes is perfect at all times. He is just as perfect today as he was a billion years ago, and he will be just as perfect a billion years from now as he is today. God is eternally glorious!

If God is eternally glorious, then think about the awesome, even alarming, truths in Psalm 90 that flow from this reality.

Sin Is Eternally Serious

Moses reflects on God’s eternality in the first six verses, and then he turns immediately to man’s frailty in the next five verses. Why are we terrified by God’s wrath (v. 7)? Because none of our sins are hidden from God (v. 8), and each of those sins is eternally serious.

Psalm 90 is a potent reminder that sin robs us of life. This psalm takes us all the way back to the opening chapters of Genesis and the first sin. God created man and woman to live with him forever, but man and woman turned from God. According to Genesis 3, this rebellion led to God’s curse on creation, a truth that is reiterated in the “struggle and sorrow” resulting from sin mentioned in Psalm 90:10. This is the way sin works in our lives: it robs us of the life God has intended us to live.

Remember that Moses wrote this psalm during the Israelites’ wandering in the desert. The people of God had stood on the edge of the promised land, but then they turned back in sin. They didn’t trust God, and they disobeyed him because they didn’t think they could take the land. As a result, God told an entire generation of Israelites that they would wander in the wilderness until they died (Num 14:20-35). Thousands upon thousands of people missed out on the blessing of God in the promised land because of their sin.

Israel’s example serves as a warning to us. We should look at any sin we’re holding on to, particularly secret sin we’re trying to hide, and realize two things. First, it’s utter foolishness to try to hide your sin from an eternally omniscient God. Second, that sin, any sin we’re holding on to, is serious. It is robbing us of the life God has given us to live. Sin is robbing us of the hopes and plans and dreams and love and peace and satisfaction the God of the universe has designed for us to know.

Don’t treat sin lightly because ultimately sin results in death. Again, think about the context of Israel’s wandering in the wilderness for forty years. They wandered until an entire generation had passed away. Can you imagine that? Every day, another death. Funeral after funeral after funeral. So it makes sense for Moses to write, “We are consumed by your anger” (v. 7); “We end our years like a sigh” (v. 9); “They [our years] pass quickly” (v. 10).

Why are we consumed by God’s anger? Why do we end our years like a sigh? Why do we have only a relatively small number of years on this earth—whether it’s seventy or eighty or seventeen? Why do we experience such pain and hurt and heartache through death in this world? The definitive answer the Bible gives is sin. We all die because we’re all sinners.

Do we realize how serious sin is? If sin robs us of life, and if sin results in death, then why do we treat it so casually? May God help us realize that he is eternally glorious, which means sin against him is eternally serious. This realization leads to the third truth in Psalm 90.

The Wrath of God Is Eternally Real

Over and over again, Moses speaks of God’s wrath and anger: “For we are consumed by your anger; we are terrified by your wrath” (v. 7); “For all our days ebb away under your wrath” (v. 9); “Who understands the power of your anger? Your wrath matches the fear that is due you” (v. 11). In verse 11 the psalmist is basically asking the question, “God, if you are eternal in all of your attributes, then who can imagine the eternality of your wrath?” If God is eternally glorious, then all of his attributes, including his wrath, are eternal.

Whenever we see hell described in God’s Word, it is never described as a temporary place. God’s wrath is described as lasting “forever and ever” (see Rev 14:11; 19:3; 20:10). It’s as if “forever” was not sufficient to get the point across, so God adds the words and ever. Hell is never-ending. George Whitefield used to speak with tears in his eyes of

the torment of burning like a livid coal not for an instant or for a day, but for millions and millions of ages, at the end of which people will realize that they are no closer to the end than when they first begun, and they will never ever be delivered from that place. (Hofstadter, America at 1750, 240)

I can’t even begin to comprehend what hell is like, but according to the Word of God, it is real. The fact that there is eternal wrath awaiting sinners confronted by a holy God helps us understand Moses’s words in verse 13: “Lord—how long? Turn and have compassion on your servants.” In other words, “Have mercy!”

Notice the contrast between verse 14 and the previous verses. Moses has contemplated the eternal wrath of God, so now he pleads for the eternal love of God. He asks to be satisfied with God’s “faithful love” (chesed), which, because of God’s covenant, never comes to an end. This leads to a fourth and final truth in Psalm 90.

The Salvation of God Is Eternally Satisfying

The mercy, grace, and love of God are eternally satisfying for all who turn from sin and trust in God, and this is only possible through the gospel. This is where Psalm 90 points us forward to Jesus, for this eternal God has made a way for us to be saved from the eternal consequence of our sin through the life, death, and resurrection of his Son. And the love of God toward all who trust in him will never end. It is eternally satisfying.

Many Christians have a view of heaven that’s pretty boring. They picture believers just sitting around for all eternity singing on clouds. If that’s what you think, then I have good news for you—heaven is not a never-ending choir practice in the clouds! No, heaven is a physical place where we will dwell with one another in God’s presence forever. There are a lot of things we don’t know about heaven, but this we do know: for all of eternity, we are going to enjoy more and more and more goodness in God. For if the goodness of God is eternal and infinite, then a thousand years from now there will still be more goodness in God for you and me to experience and enjoy. The same will be true ten trillion years from now—there will still be more goodness to explore, more satisfaction to experience in God. This means our joy will increase more and more with each passing day, and this will go on forever. There will never be an end to more and more joy in God!

Have you ever enjoyed a new gift, but then after a while it starts to get old and not as enjoyable? It’s similar to when my kids get a new toy and play with it all the time for about a week. Then they ask, “Can I get a new toy?” We do the same thing as adults. We’re constantly on the quest for something newer, better, or nicer, and it’s because everything in this world eventually fades. But not God. He never fades; he is eternal. You will never be bored by an eternally good God. Stephen Charnock put it this way:

When we enjoy God, we enjoy him in his eternity without any flux. . . . Time is fluid, but eternity is stable; and after many ages, the joys will be as savory and satisfying as if they had been but that moment first tasted by our hungry appetites. When the glory of the Lord shall rise upon you, it shall be so far from ever setting, that after millions of years are expired, as numerous as the sands on the seashore, the sun, in the light of whose countenance you shall live, shall be as bright as at the first appearance; he will be so far from ceasing to flow, that he will flow as strong, as full, as at the first communication of himself in glory to the creature. God is always vigorous and flourishing; a pure act of life, sparkling new and fresh rays of life and light to the creature, flourishing with a perpetual spring, and contenting the most capacious desire; forming your interest, pleasure, and satisfaction; with an infinite variety, without any change or succession; he will have variety to increase delights, and eternity to perpetuate them; this will be the fruit of the enjoyment of an infinite and eternal God. (The Existence and Attributes of God, Discourse V: On the Eternity of God, part IV, Use 2, paragraph 3)

Because God is eternal, our delight in him will be eternal and our lives will be marked by infinite enjoyment of him!

Two Exhortations

Based on the four eternally important truths we’ve looked at in Psalm 90, we should be asking how these truths change our lives today.

Live Today for What Lasts Forever

Psalm 90:12 says, “Teach us to number our days carefully so that we may develop wisdom in our hearts.” When you know God is eternal and you know your time on earth is limited, then you make each day count for that which will last in eternity. You realize that how much money you make doesn’t matter; what matters is what you do with the money you make. You realize that the people around you are far more important than the things on your to-do list. You realize that, as a parent, the most important thing in the lives of your children is not the clothes they wear or the sports they play or even the grades they get; what’s most important is that they know God.

In your own life you realize that knowledge of God and obedience to God are far more important than the achievements you accomplish and the positions you attain. You also realize that every person in your life—at home, at work, in your neighborhood, in your city, and around the world—is either headed to an everlasting heaven or an everlasting hell, and the only difference is what they do with Jesus. So you speak about Jesus. That’s how you live today for what lasts forever.

Hold on to Hope Because You Know God Is Your Home

Even in a world of sin and suffering, or as the psalmist puts it, “struggle and sorrow” (v. 10), we can live with hope. Recall that Moses, the author of this psalm, was wandering in the wilderness, and he began with these words: “Lord, you have been our refuge in every generation” (v. 1).

Christian brother or sister, the eternal God of the universe is your dwelling place forever. Moses didn’t have a physical home, so he looked up to the eternal God and said, “God is my home, both now and forever.” For all who trust in Christ and what he did at the cross, know this: pain, sorrow, trials, and trouble in this world are always temporary. The eternal God of the universe loves you, and nothing can separate you from his love. A day is coming when he will remove all your pain, sorrow, trials, and trouble. This eternal God is going to personally wipe every tear from your eyes (Rev 21:4); his love toward you is never going to end.

Reflect and Discuss

1. What temporary needs seem most pressing in your life right now?
2. Why is the fact that God has no beginning or end good news for us?
3. List some ways God’s unchangeableness can be a comfort for Christians.
4. What are some examples from Scripture that teach us about the seriousness of sin?
5. Many Christians treat sin casually. Why is this so dangerous?
6. “God is loving, so he would never be angry.” What’s wrong with that statement?
7. Why do you think many Christians are not thrilled at the prospect of heaven?
8. What are some specific areas of your life that might change if you took an eternal, God-centered view of life?
9. It’s inevitable that we have to focus on temporary things in this life. At the same time, what are some signs you might be focusing solely on things that are temporary?
10. How can God’s eternality give us hope in the midst of suffering and opposition? How could you use this truth to counsel a fellow church member?