For in Your sight a thousand years are but a day that passes, or a watch of the night. Sermons
Note - I. THE GROUND OF THIS ESTIMATE. It is the eternity of God. He who is from everlasting to everlasting - God, the Eternal. There never was a period in which he was not. He is more permanent than the most changeless things. 1. History teaches us this. Push back so far as we can into the remote past, there we find the sure proof of the Divine existence and work. 2. Science teaches it yet more powerfully. Whether we investigate the old rocks beneath our feet, or gaze upon the stars on high, both alike tell of vast ages, millenniums upon millenniums, in which they have had their being, and alike they proclaim God. 3. Revelation affirms the same. II. ITS REASONABLENESS. Human analogies help us here. For our ideas of time are: 1. According to our own length of life. To short-lived creatures, such as the insects, a day appears a vast stretch of time; but to us, the days of whose years are three score years and ten, and perhaps four score years, a day is scarcely any time at all. We think a great deal of half a century, but what would one like Methuselah have thought of it? Only an insignificant fraction of his life, not needing to be much counted of. The angels of God also, what are our centuries to them? Above all, God the Eternal, how could it be otherwise than that a thousand years should be to him as one day? 2. According to the magnitude and multiplicity of those matters which demand and occupy our attention. There are people who live in very limited spheres, and who have scarcely anything to do - the idle rich, and many more. Their one idea is how to kill time; they hardly know how to get through it - their days are miserably long. But take the man of affairs, who has large responsibilities resting upon him, the statesman, the merchant, the governor of wide areas and of great numbers of men; - these have so much to attend to that the days are all too short and too few, and are gone long before they can accomplish what they have to do. Apply this to the idea of God. How vast his dominion! how infinite the demands upon his thought and energy! To him, therefore, a thousand years would be as one day. 3. Happiness or misery also cannot but affect our estimate of time. The sufferer tossed with pain, the prisoner in his dungeon, the exile, the miserable ones of all kinds, - how long, how wearisome, are their days (Job 7:4; Psalm 130:6; Luke 16:23-25)! On the other hand, the happy ones, - how time flies with them! And God is the blessed God - "the blessed and only Potentate." All that. can contribute to his joy is present to him increasingly; the evil that exists is but the evolution of good. Why should he not be blessed? Our sad days of pain, therefore, which seem to us like a thousand years, he knows not, but only the joy which reverses such estimate of time. III. ITS BENEFICENT REMINDERS. All truths of Scripture have practical bearings, and this one assuredly has. 1. It deepens in us the spirit of holy reverence. (Psalm 8:3, 4.) 2. It loosens the power of this world over us. What poor things are all the world's gifts, when seen in the light of God the Eternal! 3. It bids us be patient, and not fret ourselves at the seemingly slow progress of good. 4. It ministers unspeakable consolation. We die, and leave our loved ones and our work; but God ever liveth, and they are in his charge. - S.C. For a thousand years in Thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night. 1. Let us set this truth before our minds: that which seems a long season to man seems a very brief season to God.(1) God has lived for ever. Farther back than our strongest thought can travel, farther back than our swiftest wing or fancy can fly, and there our God was. As a drop in the boundless ocean, so is a cycle of a thousand years in the view of Him who is alike without beginning of days and end of years.(2) If God estimates the years by the magnitude of His empire, by the multiplicity of His cares, by the wide sweep of His eternal purposes, then no wonder that with God a "thousand years are but as yesterday when it is past."(3) Our Father in Heaven has an unspeakable blessedness. He is infinitely wise, holy, and good. He is love. "His tender mercies are over all His works." He tastes for ever the perfect joy of creating bliss, and conferring it upon others. 2. I proceed to point out the practical uses of this truth.(1) It helps our deep awe and holy reverence. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, as surely as love to God is the very summit of perfection.(2) One way of keeping the world in its proper subordinate place is to more frequently fasten our attention on these subjects, — the power and grandeur of God, the eternity of His being, the perfection of His character, the boundlessness of His empire. These things have power to lift our minds on high.(3) Lastly and chiefly: the practical use of this text is to strengthen our patience, and to cherish in us the assurance that, however long delayed, the purposes of God will be accomplished, the promises of God will be fulfilled. () With the Deity, such a vast existence indicates only vast events. And these events must necessarily assume the form of a progress in which the present shall become the cause of the morrow, for any other method would either make eternity a monotone, or else a reckless succession like the results of chance, the throwing of dice, or the forms assumed in the kaleidoscope. In ages and centuries where the mind has become aroused into that action which is called civilization, it is utterly impossible to believe in God except as being the Supreme Activity. Assuming, then, this Divine activity, we may the more readily assert that the endless events of this God will assume the form of a progress. This assumption of a universal law is justified by the fact proclaimed in many special laws. The acorn passes to leaf, to twig, to bush, to sapling, to tree, to the great monarch of the forest. In its long life each year is a progress, each day being the cause in part of the next day. Its second year so multiplies the leaves that they breathe in a double quantity of air in behalf of the third year, and the roots of the second year so redouble the nutriment on hand that they also order an advance of the whole plant for the next springtime. All that we see around us in the organic form is acting under a law of progress, hence it does not seem hasty if we conclude that all the events coming from the Divine activity are occurring in the form of a progression, the present being a result of the past and a cause of the future. If, as we all believe, man is an image of the Creator, we may read in the human mind a confirmation of the idea that God is expressing Himself in a continuous series of events, for in such a career only does man, God's image, find happiness. The idea that God once acted should be crowded out by the idea that He is now acting. The world is a chain in which all the links are equally valuable, because each one is an inseparable part — a part without which there is no value in the chain. Hence you stand as much in the presence of God to-day as stood the earth when God was planting the Garden of Eden for the first sons of man. It may be that the external world, with all its forms and laws, is nothing else than the spiritual God, expressing Himself in visible and audible and tangible forms, in order that our souls may possess some outward revelation of the Deity. The light that makes myriads of colours, the sound that is divided up into music, the height and depth that are emblems to us of infinity, the grandeur of the "star depths," and the millions of years consumed in their orbits, may be the only ladders upon which our humble feet can climb to any belief in a God. The laws of the universe, instead of concealing a God, do reveal Him, for they are the footprints of One whose form cannot otherwise be traced As the delicate wire of Franklin revealed an agency of which he had only dreamed — as it became a Jacob's ladder upon which the invisible angels came down from the clouds — so the whole material world must be concluded as the path where God bursts from His invisible spirit-life out upon the sight of His children. Hence the laws of Nature are not indications that there is no God, or that there once was, but they are the places and the times when and where this Creator continually confesses His presence. The "thousand-year" day of God seems to argue that His children will not be limited to the earthly mornings and evenings, but will rise to where they can, like their Heavenly Father, see the past and the present, rise to where the love and memory dimmed by a few years have many returns to the souls torn asunder in this vale. If in God's sight the children of earth stand near together, so that Paul and Wesley mingle their eloquence, and Magdalen and Guyon mingle their love, and Lovejoy and Lincoln their liberty and blood, then this "thousand-year" day which so mingles things separated on earth should be man's day also beyond the tomb, that there, in blest companionship, souls may meet which toiled here for one end, but who never saw the faces about to follow them, nor saw the golden harvest destined to spring from their blood and tears. If to God the graves of Paul and Fenelon, of Magdalen and the Dairyman's Daughter, of Lovejoy and Wiberforce, are all close together; under the same flowers and same Divine presence, there should be a realm beyond where those sleeping souls should wake to consciousness of their blended lives. () People PsalmistPlaces JerusalemTopics Passes, Passeth, Past, Sight, Thousand, Watch, Yea, YesterdayOutline 1. Moses, setting forth God's providence
3. Complains of human fragility
7. Divine chastisement
10. and brevity of life
12. He prays for the knowledge and sensible experience of God's good providence.
Dictionary of Bible Themes Psalm 90:4 1140 God, the eternal
1655 hundreds and thousands
4903 time
4921 day
4978 year
9121 eternity, nature of 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 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 …
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