The Prayer of Moses in the Wilderness
Book of Psalms Chapter 90
We all know that as we grow older, we become weaker, and life becomes more real!
We look back on our lives and wonder where all those years have gone.
Time does seem to fly away!
Some of us have things we have wanted to do all our lives, but we have gotten too old to do them now.
Psalm number ninety tells us how Moses felt, as he too felt he was getting too old to do the tasks God wanted him to do.
Moses forgot that it is from God that we get our strength and most of us do the same thing.
We forget any power we have comes from the Lord Jesus.
Php 4:13 I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.
Many of us will shed tears of regret over words that were not spoken or words that were spoken.
Many of us will shed tears over things we have done or things we did not do.
In fact, these may be the tears that the Lord will wipe away when we see Him face to face.
This is the only Psalm that was written by Moses!
Since this Psalm was written by Moses, it makes it the oldest Psalm in the Book of Psalms.
It is believed that Moses wrote this Psalm when Israel was wandering aimlessly in the wilderness.
We must acknowledge God's care and God's love for us.
We must recognize the problems of human mortality.
We must appeal to God for His mercy and God's help.
*****Psa 90:1 A Prayer of Moses the man of God. Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations.
Psa 90:2 Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.
Moses assures us that God existed before the world, which is His creation.
God will not lie to us.
Heb_6:18 That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us:
We must never put much faith in those who say our world is billions of years old.
Moses uses the word earth to distinguish it from the heavens.
Only Earth is an inhabited, fruitful land, a land fitted for habitation.
There has not been another place found that is like this earth!
As the Children of Israel traveled in circles in the wilderness, Moses realized how little our earthly home matters.
Israel was a nation of nomads, wanderers, travelers, people on a journey.
Every mile they had traveled, they had been cared for and protected by God Himself.
That forty-year travel came because of their unbelief, but at the end of those forty years, most of them were made aware of the truth of God.
Those who refused to believe after witnessing marvelous miracles in Egypt and as they traveled, had now died off.
In that forty years, they became a nation.
Jehovah God had become their dwelling place in those forty years.
They were truly strangers and pilgrims upon this earth.
It is the same for the Church today!
We are not citizens of this world!
God is our home because God is our everything!
It is this same God, Jehovah, who gave birth to this universe we see today.
God is our home now and throughout eternity, which means forever and ever.
For the saint of God, He has always been our dwelling place.
This being true and it is, we can understand that the miseries that we have had in our lifetime were not of God but was of ourselves.
God can only do good to His saints!
God can only do righteousness.
God is our refuge.
God is our security.
God is our shelter.
We can abide safely and peacefully in Him all the days of our lives if we have trusted the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior!
*****Psa 90:3 Thou turnest man to destruction; and sayest, Return, ye children of men.
Psa 90:4 For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.
We must understand that our life is but for a day, compared to God who lives in eternity.
We must also understand that it is our God who is the giver of the life that we have!
Gen 3:19 In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
Psa 103:13 Like as a father pitieth his children, so the LORD pitieth them that fear him.
Psa 103:14 For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust.
Psa 103:15 As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth.
The sentence of death is just as a wage or a payment for our sins.
Every one of us is going to die!
We will die and return to the dust we are made from, or we will be Born Again and live with the Lord forever.
Rom 5:12 Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:
Rom 6:23 For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Each of us has an inescapable appointment with death!
Heb 9:27 And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:
We just do not know the day this thing will take place.
This is the very reason we must prepare in advance for our day of death and also for the judgment that follows after death!
If we were to live for one thousand years it would still be less than one day to God.
Some say Moses was eighty years old when he wrote this Psalm, but he lived to be one hundred twenty years old before God took charge of his death.
No doubt that we should look back over our years from time to time and if you are a saint of God, you will not see anything in those years that will make you want to go back to that life.
The Israelites divided the night into three watches.
Jdg 7:19 So Gideon, and the hundred men that were with him, came unto the outside of the camp "in the beginning of the middle watch"; and they had but newly set the watch: and they blew the trumpets, and brake the pitchers that were in their hands.
The middle watch shows us there were only three watches.
It was the Romans who had four watches.
To God there is no before and after; no past and future; all is present.
*****Psa 90:5 Thou carriest them away as with a flood; they are as a sleep: in the morning they are like grass which groweth up.
Psa 90:6 In the morning it flourisheth, and groweth up; in the evening it is cut down, and withereth.
Moses compared death to being swept away in a flood.
A flash flood comes suddenly, and it will carry away almost everything that it touches.
When we are asleep, in a sense, time has stopped for us until we wake up in the morning, but if that morning does not come, we will wake up in Hell or Heaven.
Jer 51:39 In their heat I will make their feasts, and I will make them drunken, that they may rejoice, and sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake, saith the LORD.
Jer 51:57 And I will make drunk her princes, and her wise men, her captains, and her rulers, and her mighty men: and they shall sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake, saith the King, whose name is the LORD of hosts.
These were the enemies of God's people which makes them the enemies of God.
I do not ever want to be an enemy of God again!
We are like the dreams we have, that come to us in our sleep and fade away into the night.
We are like the grasses that grow. Here today and withered away by tomorrow.
*****Psa 90:7 For we are consumed by thine anger, and by thy wrath are we troubled.
Psa 90:8 Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, our secret sins in the light of thy countenance.
Human life is brief and uncertain, and we do things that make our life even shorter.
Death is the wages of sin. What did God tell Adam?
Gen 2:16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:
Gen 2:17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
Adam had disobeyed God by partaking in the fruit that Eve had given to him.
Adam was so taken up with Eve, that he would rather die with her than be left alone again, not thinking that God would supply his needs.
Even Moses knew that man was not a victim of his circumstances.
We do not deserve compassion, but a penalty, when we go against any part of the Word of God.
A swift life and a swift death are not by accident in most cases, not at all, it is God's wrath against sin.
All the Israelites that had rebelled against God in refusing to go into Canaan land were made to stay in the wilderness for forty years until the last one died off, and their children went into Canaan without their parents and grandparents.
Even secret sins are known by God! They may be secret to all others, but not to our Holy God!
Even the angels that sinned know the power of God's anger.
Everyone in Hell today is a believer, but it is too late for them.
Those in the world today who mock God do not know the power of God's wrath!
When the Apostle Paul reflected on the time of Moses and the children of Israel, he could come to but one conclusion.
Rom 3:23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.
And from the time of Adam, we get the whole truth.
Rom 5:12 Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:
The truth is, nothing changes with God's wrath until we have a Savior!
*****Psa 90:9 For all our days are passed away in thy wrath: we spend our years as a tale that is told.
Psa 90:10 The days of our years 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.
It does not take us long to figure out that human life is short and uncertain and that we need a Savior.
The lives of the Israelites are still under the cloud of God's Wrath because they rejected Him, but it will not be long before this wrath turns to blessing.
We know that Moses lived to be one hundred and twenty years old, so when he says three score and ten it seems strange.
Aaron lived to be one hundred and three years old.
Miriam was probably older than Moses when she died.
Those that perished in the wilderness were all those over twenty years old and most of them did perish around seventy years old and a few of them made it to eighty, but they truly struggled with life every day.
Many of us in this class can say that we do not really enjoy these days when we have so much pain and misery, but we can also say we will serve the Lord all the days He allows us to live.
Ecc 12:1 Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them;
The Lord knows what we all are going through young and old.
One thing is certain, if we have a personal relationship with the Lord, then one day will truly fly away!
There is not much pleasure in this life in those years past seventy.
In fact, my greatest pleasure in this life is now my great-grandchildren and trying to put a lesson together for every Sunday.
*****Psa 90:11 Who knoweth the power of thine anger? even according to thy fear, so is thy wrath.
There is no one upon this earth or in Heaven, who can know the "power of God's anger"!
It is not so important how long we live, but at the end of our life at our death, will be the result of God's "wrath" or God's "grace"?
Rom 3:23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;
No matter who we are, we should have great fear of God's power!
God is perfect and He will execute His wrath in perfection!
God will exercise His justice against sinners according to His fierce anger against sin!
We see all these problems that come to the sinner, but God the Holy Spirit gives us the good news that comes in the same Bible.
Jesus Christ solved all these issues of sin, "for us"!
Jesus removed the sting of death to us, and He also conquered death!
1Co 15:54 So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.
1Co 15:55 O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?
The Lord Jesus will destroy the Devil who had the power of death over God's people!
Heb_2:14 Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil;
The generation that is living upon this earth at the return of Christ will never die and will join with all those who have gone on before us.
Joh 11:25 Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:
Joh 11:26 And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?
1Th 4:17 Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.
Those words "caught up" give us the meaning of the word Rapture.
We will be yanked out of this world before anyone realizes what is taking place.
We need for God to teach us to make what time we have left to be useful in the work He has given us to do.
*****Psa 90:12 So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.
We should understand that human life is uncertain.
Even those with enough money to buy a hospital and the best doctors are still subject to God's timing of their death and there is nothing they can do about it.
Israel's life today is still under the wrath of God, and this will not change until the Rapture of the Church.
We need a heart of wisdom to cope with this wicked world and still be useful to God!
Deu 5:29 O that there were such an heart in them, that they would fear me, and keep all my commandments always, that it might be well with them, and with their children for ever!
Deu 32:29 O that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end!
There is a right way to use our time and there is a wrong way to use the time that the Lord has given to us.
One thing is certain as we grow older, we look back on our lives and see all the time we wasted doing trivial things that were truly a waste of time.
It is the things that we cannot see that become important to us.
Even as we grow old and having experienced a good life by our standard, we need to pray for God to teach us how to use our time better.
The only remedy we can have in this life is "faith"! Faith in the Word of God and this is not blind faith but faith in the truth of God!
What are the facts?
1) Life is short.
2) Death comes speedily.
We would be far better off to devote our time to true wisdom!
Hear some of the wisdom from Job:
Job 32:7 I said, Days should speak, and multitude of years should teach wisdom.
Job 32:8 But there is a spirit in man: and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding.
Job 32:9 Great men are not always wise: neither do the aged understand judgment.
Job 12:12 With the ancient is wisdom; and in length of days understanding.
The next thing on the Lord's calendar is the Rapture and then the return of the Lord Jesus Christ to this earth.
We will meet the Lord in the clouds!
This is wisdom!
*****Psa 90:13 Return, O LORD, how long? and let it repent thee concerning thy servants.
Psa 90:14 O satisfy us early with thy mercy; that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
Psa 90:15 Make us glad according to the days wherein thou hast afflicted us, and the years wherein we have seen evil.
We find in the Bible three things about repentance:
1) A complete change of mind.
2) A complete change of purpose.
3) A change in the way we live.
In the military, the term "about face" gives us an idea of repentance.
We have to have a sense of guilt and our sinfulness.
We must understand God's mercy is in Jesus Christ.
We must have an absolute hatred of sin.
It seems today that we have the attitude some sins are not that bad and others are terrible, but this is not the way of God.
We must have the same hatred that God has toward all sin or any sin!
Does God ever repent?
We must understand that only those who have sinned can repent.
God has never sinned therefore He has nothing to be repentant of.
God commands all sinners to repent, and this would include all mankind from the time of Adam till the very last soul that is sent to Hell.
The time to repent is that time we are alive.
The evidence of repentance is faith, humility, prayer, and obedience.
Zec 12:10 And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn.
We should know that there is nothing that bothers God.
There is never any uneasiness with God.
God is never sitting around wondering what He is going to do.
Nothing upon this earth can a create disturbance in the mind of God!
God has a just and holy displeasure against sin and sinners.
The reason we can be saved is that God has more "mercy" than He has "hatred" and He loves to show all sinners His "grace" which comes from the Lord Jesus Christ.
God does not hate mankind, or it would go against what He teaches us.
We are to hate the sin but not the sinner!
For us to learn true wisdom we must pray for Divine intervention, and we must beg to be taught by the Holy Spirit.
We should also pray for the "mercy" of God because God has more "mercy" than He does wrath.
Instead of going about our days wasting precious time, we need to pray for the forgiveness of our sins and seek an inheritance in Heaven that is gained by telling those who are lost about the Messiah, the Savior.
Psa 126:5 They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.
Psa 126:6 He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.
God will never fail us because His love will never fail!
*****Psa 90:16 Let thy work appear unto thy servants, and thy glory unto their children.
Psa 90:17 And let the beauty of the LORD our God be upon us: and establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it.
In this passage, the word beauty means favor, grace, and pleasantness.
As long as God's favor is upon us, we will be successful in this life that we have now and gain an inheritance in Heaven.
When we confess our sins and repent of our sin, God "promises" to forgive us and cleanse us of any unrighteousness.
1Jn 1:9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
1Jn 1:10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
We must be careful and not call God a liar.
Oftentimes when we say we do not believe in some passage God has given to us, we are in fact, calling God a liar when it is impossible for God to lie.
When we sin, we should immediately appeal to God for His "mercy" and His "grace" and His help, and it always helps our own forgiveness by praying for all others who have done the same thing.
Compassion and forgiveness are two of the greatest traits of our God.
The Lord Jesus expressed these two traits many times in that little time He was upon this earth.
Mic 7:18 Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? he retaineth not his anger for ever, because he delighteth in mercy.
Mic 7:19 He will turn again, he will have compassion upon us; he will subdue our iniquities; and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.
We can see that along with the many things we know of Moses we also know that He was a prayer warrior.
I love you, Lord Jesus.
Amen
