There is something in the psalm that is wonderfully striking and solemn, acquainting us with the profoundest depths of the Divine nature (Ewald). In contrast with the ever-passing, ever-changing generations, God is the Abiding, Never-changing One. Independent of all things that exist, God is before all, and is the absolute Creator and Controller of all. The mountains have ever been man's best image of the stable and permanent, yet he is helped to conceive of God as before the mountains, more stable than the mountains, more enduring than the mountains. "From everlasting to everlasting" is, poetically, "from hidden time to hidden." There are
time measures which we can use. There are
eternity measures of which we can only think; they are now beyond our mental grasp. The eternity measures alone can be properly applied to God. Two things are the subjects of meditation in the first two verses of this psalm - the Divine independence, and the Divine relations. God is the Absolute Being - the "I am." God is in gracious, voluntary, relations - the "God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob." Beyond us as the subject suggested may be, it does us good to try our minds with it, and fill our souls with the wonder and the glory of it.
I. GOD WAS BEFORE ALL THINGS. Philosophers try to persuade themselves that matter is eternal; or they fix upon the atom, or upon water, as the essential primary thing. They are always driven back behind their conclusions, and urged to say whence comes the atom or the moisture. There is no consistent thinking that does not bring us to the conclusion that there was some self-existent, immaterial Being, who was the absolute originator of all material existence, and still exists in complete and conscious independence of everything he has made. He is beyond and above all the chances and changes of his own handiwork.
II. GOD IS IN ALL THINGS. Separable from them, but voluntarily interested in them. The life and light of all this wondrous world we see. The poetical faculty discerns his presence. Human experience attests his practical working. The religious sentiment opens the eyes, and makes the recognition of God easy. When we say all things, we mean absolutely all, not merely those which we are pleased to call religious.
III. GOD WILL BE AFTER ALL THINGS. This can but appeal to faith. To us the time is inconceivable when things will no longer exist. Conceive the time when material things exist no longer, you must think of God as still the One Being. In the One who never passes, never changes, we may put the perfect trust. - R.T.
Thou turnest man to destruction; and sayest, Return, ye children of men.
I wish to point out our duty to the world of humanity; to the communities to which we belong; to the generation in which we live; to the great family of mankind, of which God has made us members.
1. What have been, what are men's thoughts respecting the race of man? We know not for how many thousands of years our race may have lived on this little planet, rolling and spinning "like an angry midge" amid the immensities of space; but, over a space of forty centuries at least, in the pages of many literatures, in the accents of many tongues, we find the opinions of men respecting man. They have been uttered, as freely as to-day, by the bards and prophets of races long since vanished, in language long since dead. Man has ever been a mystery to himself. "Who are you?" indignantly asked an irascible person, who had been delayed in his hurried progress by running against a modern philosopher in the streets. "Ah," replied the philosopher, "if you could tell me that — if you could tell me what I am — I would give you all I possess in the world." To-day, however, we do not want to enter into any transcendent mysteries; we only want to learn what men have thought of man in his moral, his spiritual, his religious aspect. And here, strange to say, we are confronted at once with a perfect chaos of conflicting judgments. According to some, man is a being so small, so intolerably contemptible, so radically unjust, mean, and selfish, that he is not worth working for; he is not only "a shadow less than shade, a nothing less than nothing"; not only "fading as a leaf" and "crushed before the moth"; not only like the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven; but also, as far as moral dignity is concerned, he is the mere insect of an hour; a creature essentially allied to the animal; a being who combines the instincts of the tiger and the ape; a blot on God's fair creation; a jar in the sweet untroubled silence; a discord amid the infinite harmony; "a flutter in the eternal calm." It is remarkable how cynics and sceptics in all ages have coincided in this view. Think of Diogenes, searching in daylight with a lantern to find a man in the streets of Athens; think of Phocion, whenever a passage in his speech was applauded, turning round and asking, "Have I said anything wrong, then?" think of Pyrrho the atheist, describing men as a herd of swine, rioting on board a rudderless vessel in a storm; think of La Rochefoucauld reducing man's virtues into mere selfish vices in thin disguise; think of Voltaire describing the multitude as a compound of bears and monkeys; think of Schopenhauer, condemning this as the worst of all possible worlds, and arguing that man is a radical mistake; think of the more serious voice which says, "However we brazen it out, we men are a little breed." But then turn to the other side, the grand and exalted opinions which man has entertained of man. Think of Shakespeare's, "What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving, how express and admirable! in action, how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a god!" Think of Henry Smith's, "When we turn our eyes upon the soul it will soon tell us its own royal pedigree and noble extraction by those sacred hieroglyphics which it bears upon itself." Or take Novalis, "Man is the true Shekinah, the glory-cloud of God. We touch heaven when we lay our hands on that high form."
2. Which, then, are we to follow of these diverse judgments? By which are we to be guided in our own dealings with our fellow-men? I answer with all my heart, take the nobler and better view of mankind. Adopt it, not as a voluntary illusion, but as a sacred fact, as a living faith. Good and evil without end may be said of man; and both be amply borne out by history and by experience. That is due to the fact that man is a composite being; that he partakes of two natures — the animal and the spiritual; that he is swayed by two impulses — the evil and the good; that he has in him two. beings — the Adam and the Christ; that "the Angel has him by the hand, and the serpent by the heart"; that our little lives are kept in equipoise by balance of two opposite desires — the struggle of the impulse that enjoys, and the more noble impulse that aspires. Hence we may say of man, in the same breath, "How poor, how rich, how abject, how august, how wonderful, how complicated is man." "Glory and scandal of the universal," says Pascal, "the judge of angels, a worm of earth; if he exalts himself I smite him down, if he humbles himself I lift him up." But is there no practical reconciliation of these antitheses? Yes, there is: not in the world, not in nature, not in philosophy; but there is in religion, there is in Christ..
3. I would urge you, then, not to give up faith in God or in man, or in God's doctrines for man, nor sweetness, nor charity, nor invincible hopefulness. To lose faith in man is to lose faith in God who made him; to lose faith in man's nature is to lose faith in your own. Depend upon it, that the man who begins by saying, "Mankind is a rascal," will soon add the words, "The world lives by its scoundrelism, and so will I." It makes all the difference in the world whether you judge man from Thersites or from Achilles, from a Nero or from a Marcus Aurelius, from a Marat or from St. Louis; from living men like one or two whom one could name, or from the depraved, wife-beating sots and brutal burglars who are the festering curse of the lowest dregs of the population; from living women like some whom one could name, or from those unmotherly mothers and unwomanly women who nigh turn the motherhood to shame and womanliness to loathing. Oh, judge mankind from its highest and its best!(1) Let us try to believe that there is a good side in every man. Man, it has been said, is like a piece of Labrador opal. It has no lustre as you turn it in your hand till you come to a particular angle, and then it shows deep and beautiful colours. We sometimes read with amazement how some one, who seemed to be past all remedy in abandoned vileness, suddenly, touched by the glory of heroism, will rise to a great act of self-sacrifice. Look at the battle of Waterloo; look at the trenches of Sebastopol; look at the charge at Balaclava; look at the burning of the "Goliath"; look at the wreck of the "Birkenhead"; to see how the commonest and coarsest of men can recognize the invincible claim and sovereignty of duty, even at the cost of life. Man's nature may often look like the dull chill blank of the Alpine mountain side, darkened only by the shadows of its black and stubborn pines, but let the dawn blush in the vernal sky, and the south wind breathe, and the sun fire to the high tops of those mountain pines, and the snow will melt and vanish under their soft and golden touches, till at last it rushes down in avalanche, and then where yesterday was snow, to-day shall be green grass and purple flower.(2) And as another way to help us in retaining our faith in human nature, let us sometimes turn away from the thought of bad men altogether, to that galaxy of heaven, wherein shine the clustered constellations of saintly lives. The saints in the long ages have not been few. To these have been due the progress, to these the ennoblement, to these the preservation of the world. Among all the bad passions, among all the disordered lives of men — amid all their meanness, and littleness, and emptiness, and egotism — it is as water in the desert to come in life and more often among the records of the dead on these natures "pure as crystal, active as fire, unselfish as the ministering spirits, strong, generous, and enduring as the hearts of martyrs." Look on these; think of these; do not think of the heartless and aimless crowds that vegetate without living, but read the lives and actions of these fine children of the light.(3) But above all, as the best of all rules, think constantly of Christ; and fix your eyes on Him. "Of what account after all are the saints compared to Christ? They are," said Luther, "no more than sparkling dewdrops of the nightdew upon the head of the bridegroom scattered among His hair." The only measure of a perfect man is the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.
4. And oh, lastly, the most sure way to justify our faith and hope in human nature is to justify it in ourselves. If you would raise others, live yourself as on a mountain; live yourself as on a promontory. Say with the good emperor of old, "Whatever happens I must be good"; even as though the emerald and the purple should say, "Whatever happens I must be emerald, and keep my colour." That is how men widen the skirts of light, and make the struggle with darkness narrower. To do this is a worthy object; it is the only worthy object of our lives.
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People
PsalmistPlaces
JerusalemTopics
Bruised, Contrition, Destruction, Dust, Makest, Mortal, O, Return, Sayest, Saying, Sons, Turn, TurnestOutline
1. Moses, setting forth God's providence3. Complains of human fragility7. Divine chastisement10. and brevity of life12. He prays for the knowledge and sensible experience of God's good providence.Dictionary of Bible Themes
Psalm 90:3 4050 dust
5061 sanctity of life
5081 Adam, life of
6203 mortality
Psalm 90:1-10
5067 suicide
Psalm 90:2-6
5204 age
Psalm 90:3-6
5004 human race, and sin
5535 sleep, and death
Psalm 90:3-10
6142 decay
6155 fall, of Adam and Eve
6200 imperfection, influence
Library
The Cry of the Mortal to the Undying
'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.--PSALM xc. 17. If any reliance is to be placed upon the superscription of this psalm, it is one of the oldest, as it certainly is of the grandest, pieces of religious poetry in the world. It is said to be 'A prayer of Moses, the man of God,' and whether that be historically true or no, the tone of the psalm naturally suggests the great lawgiver, whose special …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy ScriptureThe Present Life as Related to the Future.
LUKE xvi. 25.--"And Abraham said, Son remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things; but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented." The parable of Dives and Lazarus is one of the most solemn passages in the whole Revelation of God. In it, our Lord gives very definite statements concerning the condition of those who have departed this life. It makes no practical difference, whether we assume that this was a real occurrence, or only an imaginary …
William G.T. Shedd—Sermons to the Natural Man
The Glorious Habitation
This first verse will derive peculiar interest if you remember the place where Moses was when he thus prayed. He was in the wilderness; not in some of the halls of Pharaoh, nor yet in a habitation in the land of Goshen; but in a wilderness. And perhaps from the summit of the hill, looking upon the tribes of Israel as they were taking up their tents and marching along, he thought, "Ah! poor travelers. They seldom rest anywhere; they have not any settled habitation where they can dwell. Here they have …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 1: 1855
Moses, the Mighty Intercessor
Intercessory Prayer is a powerful means of grace to the praying man. Martyn observes that at times of inward dryness and depression, he had often found a delightful revival in the act of praying for others for their conversion, or sanctification, or prosperity in the work of the Lord. His dealings with God for them about these gifts and blessings were for himself the divinely natural channel of a renewed insight into his own part and lot in Christ, into Christ as his own rest and power, into the …
Edward M. Bounds—Prayer and Praying Men
Life a Tale
We spend our years as a tale that is told. Psalm xc.9. We bring our years to an end like a thought, is the proper rendering of these words, according, to an eminent translator. But as the essential idea of the Psalmist is preserved in the common version, I employ it as peculiarly illustrative and forcible. It will be my object, in the present discourse, to show the fitness of the comparison in the text;--to suggest the points of resemblance between human life and a passing narrative. I observe, …
E. H. Chapin—The Crown of Thorns
The Eternity of God
The next attribute is, God is eternal.' Psa 90:0. From everlasting to everlasting thou art God.' The schoolmen distinguish between aevun et aeternum, to explain the notion of eternity. There is a threefold being. I. Such as had a beginning; and shall have an end; as all sensitive creatures, the beasts, fowls, fishes, which at death are destroyed and return to dust; their being ends with their life. 2. Such as had a beginning, but shall have no end, as angels and the souls of men, which are eternal …
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity
The Opinions
Of the Hebrew Doctors on the great Day of Judgment, and of the Reign of the Messiah then to come. Carpentarius, in his Commentary on the Alcinous of Plato, p. 322, asserts, that "the seventh millenary was called, by the whole school of the Cabalists, the great day of judgment, because then they think that God will judge the souls of all." He means, by the name of Cabalists, (if I am not mistaken,) the Talmudic doctors, according to whom, in more than one author, that tradition is found to be recorded. …
Joseph Mede—A Key to the Apocalypse
The Inner Chamber
Gerhard Ter Steegen Ps. xc. I My Beloved, from earth's many voices Welcome me to Thy seclusion sweet-- Let me still, and restful, and adoring, Sit with Mary at Thy blessed Feet-- In Thy secret place, alone with Thee, None beside to hear, and none to see. Led by wnadering gleams o'er fen and moorland, What are we, outwearied at our best? For the heart amidst the world's allurings Craveth evermore for God and rest-- God and rest--all else the weary load Of a toiler on an endless road. Blessed he, …
Frances Bevan—Hymns of Ter Steegen, Suso, and Others
The Circumcision of Christ: a Hymn for New Year's Day. So Teach us to Number Our Days, that we May Apply Our Hearts unto Wisdom.
So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom. O Ewigkeit, o Ewigkeit [56]Wülffer. 1648. trans. by Catherine Winkworth, 1855 Eternity! Eternity! How long art thou, Eternity! And yet to thee Time hastes away, Like as the warhorse to the fray, Or swift as couriers homeward go, Or ship to port, or shaft from bow. Ponder, O Man, Eternity! Eternity! Eternity! How long art thou, Eternity! For ever as on a perfect sphere End nor beginning can appear, Even so, Eternity, …
Catherine Winkworth—Lyra Germanica: The Christian Year
And for Your Fearlessness against them Hold this Sure Sign -- Whenever There Is...
43. And for your fearlessness against them hold this sure sign--whenever there is any apparition, be not prostrate with fear, but whatsoever it be, first boldly ask, Who art thou? And from whence comest thou? And if it should be a vision of holy ones they will assure you, and change your fear into joy. But if the vision should be from the devil, immediately it becomes feeble, beholding your firm purpose of mind. For merely to ask, Who art thou [1083] ? and whence comest thou? is a proof of coolness. …
Athanasius—Select Works and Letters or Athanasius
Table of the Books of Holy Scripture According to Date.
HISTORICAL BOOKS. PROPHETIC AND POETICAL BOOKS. B.C. 4004 1689 Genesis 1529 Job Psalm lxxxviii. by Heman, the Ezrahite, (See 1 Chron. ii. 6) 1491 Exodus 1491 Leviticus 1451 Numbers Psalm xc. and (perhaps) xci 1450 Deuteronomy 1451 1427 Joshua 1312 Ruth 1120 Judges 1171 1056 1 Samuel Psalms, certainly vii, xi, xvi, xvii, xxii, xxxi, xxxiv, lvi, liv, lii, cix, xxxv, lvii, lviii, cxliii, cxl, cxli, and many more 1056 1 Chronicles Psalms, certainly ii, vi, ix, xx, 1023 Psalms …
Charlotte Mary Yonge—The Chosen People
Old and New Year 445. O God, Our Help in Ages Past
[1699]St. Anne: William Croft, 1708 Psalm 90 Isaac Watts, 1719 O God, our help in ages past, Our hope for years to come, Our shelter from the stormy blast, And our eternal home: Under the shadow of thy throne Thy saints have dwelt secure; Sufficient is thine arm alone, And our defense is sure. Before the hills in order stood, Or earth received her frame, From everlasting thou art God, To endless years the same. A thousand ages in thy sight Are like an evening gone; Short as the watch that ends …
Various—The Hymnal of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the USA
Wesley's Reasons for his Long Life
Saturday, June 28.--I this day enter on my eighty-fifth year; and what cause have I to praise God, as for a thousand spiritual blessings, so for bodily blessings also[ How little have I suffered yet by "the rush of numerous years!" It is true, I am not so agile as I was in times past. I do not run or walk so fast as I did; my sight is a little decayed; my left eye is grown dim and hardly serves me to read. I have daily some pain in the ball of my right eye, as also in my right temple (occasioned …
John Wesley—The Journal of John Wesley
Letter cxl. To Cyprian the Presbyter.
Cyprian had visited Jerome at Bethlehem and had asked him to write an exposition of Psalm XC. in simple language such as might be readily understood. With this request Jerome now complies, giving a very full account of the psalm, verse by verse, and bringing the treasures of his learning and especially his knowledge of Hebrew to bear upon it. He asserts its Mosaic authorship but is careful to add that "the man of God" may have spoken not for himself but in the name of the Jewish people. He speaks …
St. Jerome—The Principal Works of St. Jerome
Covenanting Provided for in the Everlasting Covenant.
The duty of Covenanting is founded on the law of nature; but it also stands among the arrangements of Divine mercy made from everlasting. The promulgation of the law, enjoining it on man in innocence as a duty, was due to God's necessary dominion over the creatures of his power. The revelation of it as a service obligatory on men in a state of sin, arose from his unmerited grace. In the one display, we contemplate the authority of the righteous moral Governor of the universe; in the other, we see …
John Cunningham—The Ordinance of Covenanting
Jesus Discussed in Jerusalem.
"And after these things Jesus walked in Galilee: for He would not walk in Judaea, because the Jews sought to kill Him. Now the feast of the Jews, the feast of tabernacles, was at hand. His brethren therefore said unto Him, Depart hence, and go into Judaea, that Thy disciples also may behold Thy works which Thou doest. For no man doeth anything in secret, and himself seeketh to be known openly. If Thou doest these things, manifest Thyself to the world. For even His brethren did not believe on Him. …
Marcus Dods—The Expositor's Bible: The Gospel of St. John, Vol. I
A Startling Statement
TEXT: "The wicked shall not be unpunished."--Prov. 11:21. There are very many passages of Scripture which ought to be read in connection with this text; as for example, "Fools make a mock at sin" (Proverbs 14:9), for only a fool would. Better trifle with the pestilence and expose one's self to the plague than to discount the blighting effects of sin. And, again, "The soul that sinneth it shall die" (Ezekiel 18:4). From this clear statement of the word of God there is no escape. Or, again, "Our …
J. Wilbur Chapman—And Judas Iscariot
Aron, Brother of Moses, 486, 487.
Abba, same as Father, [3]381; St. Paul uses both words, [4]532. Abel, [5]31, [6]252, [7]268, [8]450. Abimelech, [9]72, [10]197. Abraham, seed of, faithful Christians also, [11]148, [12]149, [13]627; servant's hand under his thigh, [14]149, [15]334; poor in midst of riches, [16]410. Absalom, David's son, [17]4, [18]5; type of Judas the traitor, [19]4, [20]20. Absolution granted by the Church, [21]500. Abyss, or deep, of God's judgments, [22]88; of man's heart, [23]136. Accuser, the devil the great, …
St. Augustine—Exposition on the Book of Psalms
Works by the Same Author.
Crown 8vo, cloth, price 7s. 6d. each. THE PSALMS. VOL. I.--PSALMS I.-XXXVIII. " II.--PSALMS XXXIX.-LXXXIX. " III.--PSALMS XC-CL. IN THE "EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE." "The work of a brilliant and effective teacher. He writes with real power and insight."--Saturday Review. "Dr. Maclaren has evidently mastered his subject with the aid of the best authorities, and has put the results of his studies before his readers in a most attractive form, and if we add that this commentary really helps to the better …
Alexander Maclaren—The Life of David
Boniface, Apostle of the Germans.
BONIFACE, or Winfried, as they called him in Anglo-Saxon, born at Crediton in Devonshire, in 680, deserves to be honoured as the father of the German Church, although he was by no means the first who brought the seeds of the Gospel to Germany. Many had already laboured before him; but the efforts which had been made here and there did not suffice to secure the endurance of Christianity amongst the many perils to which it was exposed. Christianity needs to be linked with firm ecclesiastical institutions, …
Augustus Neander—Light in the Dark Places
The Christian's God
Scripture References: Genesis 1:1; 17:1; Exodus 34:6,7; 20:3-7; Deuteronomy 32:4; 33:27; Isaiah 40:28; 45:21; Psalm 90:2; 145:17; 139:1-12; John 1:1-5; 1:18; 4:23,24; 14:6-11; Matthew 28:19,20; Revelation 4:11; 22:13. WHO IS GOD? How Shall We Think of God?--"Upon the conception that is entertained of God will depend the nature and quality of the religion of any soul or race; and in accordance with the view that is held of God, His nature, His character and His relation to other beings, the spirit …
Henry T. Sell—Studies in the Life of the Christian
The Wrath of God
What does every sin deserve? God's wrath and curse, both in this life, and in that which is to come. Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire.' Matt 25: 41. Man having sinned, is like a favourite turned out of the king's favour, and deserves the wrath and curse of God. He deserves God's curse. Gal 3: 10. As when Christ cursed the fig-tree, it withered; so, when God curses any, he withers in his soul. Matt 21: 19. God's curse blasts wherever it comes. He deserves also God's wrath, which is …
Thomas Watson—The Ten Commandments
The Poetical Books (Including Also Ecclesiastes and Canticles).
1. The Hebrews reckon but three books as poetical, namely: Job, Psalms, and Proverbs, which are distinguished from the rest by a stricter rhythm--the rhythm not of feet, but of clauses (see below, No. 3)--and a peculiar system of accentuation. It is obvious to every reader that the poetry of the Old Testament, in the usual sense of the word, is not restricted to these three books. But they are called poetical in a special and technical sense. In any natural classification of the books of the …
E. P. Barrows—Companion to the Bible
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