Timeless Biblical Truth.
Because when we compare our brief lives to God’s eternality, and especially so when death is premature because of God’s anger for sin, believers should [i] pray to God to be compassionate and [ii] show them how to use their time wisely so that they can lead a joyful and productive life.
- Contrast: God is eternal, we are temporal because of our sin (1-10).
- Our lives are fragile, and fleeting compared to God’s eternality (1-2).
- The eternal God brings our lives quickly to their end (3-6).
- God causes our lives to be brief because of His anger over sin (7-10).
- Because of God’s anger, believers need God to show them how to use their time wisely (11-12).
- Believers must understand the relationship between God’s anger and the fear of God (11).
- Believers must pray that God teaches them how to live life wisely (12).
- Because this life is short and troubled, believers need God’s compassion so that they may live a joyful and productive life (13-17).
- Believers may pray for God to turn and have compassion on them (13).
- Believers may pray that God gives them as much joy as they have had sadness (14-15).
- Believers may pray that God will both show His work but also establish the work that they do (16-17).
Questions for Second Milers
- How does Moses describe the existence of God (cf. 90:1-2 with Deuteronomy 33:27)?
- How does Moses contrast God’s nature with man’s nature and need?
- How does God respond to human sin? Why? Is God’s anger compatible with His love? If so, how?
- What does God require of us if we desire to experience His mercy?
- Which verse do you think would be a good one to use in your prayers to God today?
- Give your own short title to this Psalm.
“A general doctrine not applied, is as a sword without an edge, not in itself, but to the people, who by reason of their own singular senselessness and weakness, are not able to apply it to their own estates and conditions; or as a whole loaf set before children that will do them no good. A garment fitted for all bodies is for nobody; and that which is spoken to all is taken as spoken to none. Doctrine is but the drawing of the bow, application is the hitting of the mark. How many are wise in generals, but vain in their practical inferences!” Thomas Brooks: The Works of Thomas Brooks, 3:218.
“The danger is that the book which inspires should become a substitute for life rather than an extension or enrichment of life. . . They [i.e., some writers] have seen their own books become caves in which readers hide, instead of frontiers to new worlds into which they hoped their readers would penetrate.” Holbrook Jackson: The Reading of Books, 29.
“Teachers and students may be divided into two classes: (1) those who know enough already; (2) those who wish to learn more than they now know.” Augustus Hopkins Strong: Systematic Theology, 1:38.
Lanny Tanton is the Pastor at The Bible Church of the Lakes in Horseshoe Bay, Texas – just outside of Marble Falls. Pastor Tanton welcomes you to our website and hopes that you’ll enjoy reading these insightful blog posts. Please contact us if you have further questions!!
