Teach Us To Number Our Days

Psalms 90:10-12 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. [11] Who knoweth the power of thine anger? even according to thy fear, so is thy wrath. [12] So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.

Throughout the Book of Psalms you will find Moses, the Man of God mentioned by name in only eight verses. Psalm 90 has the distinction of being the only Psalm actually a Prayer – written by Moses.

Psalms 90:1 A Prayer of Moses the man of God.

Look at that statement. Moses a called “THE man of God”. Moses loved the Lord, and proved his love by how he lived his life. He is “THE man of God” because this is “A Prayer of Moses”. Moses prayed. He spoke to God more than once. He was continually looking to God. As THE Man of God Moses understood that every day of his life was a gift from God.

1 Life Is A Gift From God. Live Your Lives So As To Please God, For He Is The Source Of Life.

Moses, more than any other person of his day, realized that life is a gift from God.

When Moses was born he shouldn’t have been born. His mother and father were Egyptian slaves, and hated by the Egyptians. Just as the Arabs hate Israel today, Moses’ people were hated. Enslaved, beaten, treated harshly, at one point the Pharaoh decreed:

Exodus 1:16 (ESV) When you serve as midwife to the Hebrew women and see them on the birthstool, if it is a son, you shall kill him, but if it is a daughter, she shall live.

The midwives – believing God is the Author of Life – refused to do this. So Pharaoh decreed to all (Exodus 1:21) “every son that is born to the Hebrews you shall cast into the Nile”. Moses should have been drowned in the Nile. But his mother, believing life is a gift from God, refused to drown her son. She cast Moses into the Nile, but not until she made a little Ark and put him in it (Exodus 2:3).

Life is not to be wasted.

When Moses was forty (40) years old (Acts 7:23) when he learned that he was a Hebrew who grew up in the Egyptian palace. At 40 years old Moses killed an Egyptian Taskmaster who was beating some Hebrews. He ran away into the desert of Midia, and when he was eighty years old (80) (see Acts 7:30 & Exodus 7:7) when God called him out of the Burning Bush to go and speak unto Pharaoh.

EIGHTY Years Old!

Now when we think of EIGHTY years old, we think “that’s pretty old”. Moses prayed …

Some people live to be three score years and ten (that’s 70 years old) and others fourscore years. Some don’t even come close to that. In my time as a Pastor I have buried people who were 0 years old (yes, zero) and as old as 102 years old. It is GOD Who gives life. As Job said:

Job 33:4 The Spirit of God has made me, And the breath of the Almighty gives me life.

We live because God gives us life. It is God Who sustains us:

Acts 17:25 … {God} Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things;

It is God Who sustains us, and gives us one more day on this earth.

Deuteronomy 32:39 ‘See now that I, I am He, And there is no god besides Me; It is I who put to death and give life I have wounded and it is I who heal, And there is no one who can deliver from My hand.

Every day, every moment of life is precious, and we should continually praise God for that which He has given. The doctors and hospitals and “ObamaCare” can sustain life to a certain point. It is God Who gives life.

Moses spoke of life being upwards of eighty years old – then being cut off suddenly so that we “fly away”. Yet Moses was called to serve God when he was 80 years old. Do you know how old Moses was when he died?

Deuteronomy 34:5-7 … So Moses the servant of the LORD died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the LORD. And he buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, over against Bethpeor: but no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day. And MOSES WAS AN HUNDRED AND TWENTY YEARS OLD WHEN HE DIED: his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated.

Do you know WHY Moses died at 120 years old, and not 140 or 160 or (as Methuselah was) 969 years old? Because the first Generation of Israel refused to follow God into the Promised Land. Because they refused God made them wander in the wilderness for 40 years, until that generation died∫. Moses wandered with them. Moses could have gone into the Promised Land, but

Moses failed to honor God at Meribah

Rather than do as GOD said Moses cried out at the people,

Hear now, you rebels, must WE bring forth water?

God told Moses, THE Man of God,

Numbers 20:12 “Because you did not trust in me enough to honor me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them.”

By the way, God told both MOSES AND AARON this same thing. Aaron could have helped Moses, but didn’t, so he died outside of the Promised Land. Listen Beloved,

God is the Source of Life.
Honor Him with the life that He has given you.

2 Teach Us To NUMBER, Not SQUANDER, Our Days. Do you realize that in an average lifetime:

You spend an average of 25 years sleeping
You watch television 9.1 years (2 of which are watching commercials)
You spend 2.5 years cooking and 3.6 years eating
You drive a car 4.3 years
You walk a total of 110,000 miles (4 times around the world)
You spend 1.1 years cleaning

God does not waste His life (which is limitless) – so why would we waste our lives? Moses prayed:

Psalms 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.

God is so infinitely creative. God does not squander time, but makes time and uses time for His glory. Though science will not acknowledge God and His Creative power it recognizes God in the BIG BANG, and notes that space is ever expanding.

God has a plan, a purpose, and is never aimless. We are all products of His Grace! God is …

Our dwelling place in all generations (verse 1)
Creator “before the mountains were brought forth” (verse 2)
Eternal God “from everlasting to everlasting” (verse 2)
Timeless “a thousand years are like yesterday” (verse 4)

but compared to God, we are …

Destroyed and distressed at a word from God (verse 3)
Like grass, growing in the morning but withering at night (verse 5-6)
Temporal, living on this earth 70 or 80 years

We are weak – God is strong. We squander our lives when we do not live our lives in God for His glory. Israel squandered their lives looking backward. When the going got tough on the way to the Promised Land they looked BACK instead or UP. They complained. They grumbled. They found fault. We squander our lives when we grumble and look backward.

You cannot sail a ship on yesterday’s wind!

Our Jesus said:

“Whoever puts his hand to the plow and looks back
is unfit for the Kingdom of God” (Luke 9:62).

Our strength is found not in squandering our lives, but in living our lives unto the Master.

If Adam had lived his life unto the Lord our race would not be fallen
If Cain had lived his life unto the Lord he would not have been marred for life
If Moses had lived his life for the Lord he would have entered the Promised Land
If David had lived his life for the Lord he would not have lost his baby by Bathsheba
If Iscariot had lived his life for the Lord he would not have died hanging by his own hand

The best life is the life lived with God.

There are people tonight squandering their lives watching reruns of the Simpsons instead of coming together to worship the Lord as His Church.

There will be people this Sunday who – like many other Sundays – refused to take time to worship the Lord Who made them.

They will spend more time planning a vacation at the beach that planning what happens when “they fly away” from this earth.

For there will be a day when we “fly away”, as Moses called it. We will “fly away” to meet the God Who made us. What will we find Him to be?

Psalms 90:11 Who knoweth the power of thine anger? even according to thy fear, so is thy wrath.

When we “fly away” what state will we find God in? Will He be filled with wrath? Will He be angry? Moses prayed for Israel as that nation wandered forty years, praying that God would forgive His people.

3 Teach Us To Number Our Days In The Presence Of God. As Moses concluded his prayer he said:

Psalms 90:13-15 Return, O LORD, how long? and let it repent thee concerning thy servants. [14] O satisfy us early with thy mercy; that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. [15] Make us glad according to the days wherein thou hast afflicted us, and the years wherein we have seen evil.

The first thing Moses asked for was the Presence of God. He said “RETURN, O Lord”.

Psalms 16:11 Thou {O God} wilt shew me the path of life:

in thy presence is fulness of joy;
at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.

We need the Presence of God bringing MERCY. We all fail God, but He remembers we are but dust. We cry out for mercy. We cry out for His Presence. Satisfy us EARLY with mercy, that we may REJOICE and be GLAD all our days.

Help us to remember that GOD IS FAITHFUL even when life deals us the harsh blows.. Make us glad even when the bad stuff happens. I do not know why the bad stuff happens to good people, but I do know if we walk with God then His Word says:

Romans 8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

Finally Moses prayed:

Psalm 90:16-17 Let Thy work appear unto thy servants, and Thy glory unto their children. 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.

What we do is not useless. It is God’s work. Let us live for Him, love for Him. Moses prayed that the Israel he led would be a part of God’s greater work. It is what we do for Jesus that lasts.

Illustrate In the old John Wayne movie Angel and the Badman a cantankerous cattleman named Frederick Carson blocks his neighbors from drawing water from a stream that ran through his land. John Wayne – playing the gunman Quirt Evans – goes to the cattleman and demands he allow his neighbors have some of his water. Understanding who Quirt is Mr Carson relents. When Mr Carson meets his neighbors and tells them he is letting the water through he says something very interesting. He said to Quirt:

You know I was scared to death when I made that speech to the people.

I’m glad you made me do it.

It makes me feel good.

You choose how you live your life. Number your days. Live your life for Jesus, not for yourself or for your selfishness. Live for Him!

May God touch your hearts with his Word.