[0:00] The Book of Psalms 90 The Book of Psalms 90 And we may read from the 10th verse.
[0:31] The Book of Psalms 90 reading at verse 10 The days of old years had these gold years and tens.
[0:47] And if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is there strength labor and sorrow.
[0:58] For it is soon cut off, and we fly away. Who knoweth the power of thine anger?
[1:11] Even according to thy fears, so is thy work. So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.
[1:35] And, especially the 12th verse. So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.
[1:58] There are two reasons, in the immediate context, for this prayer of the psalmist.
[2:21] First of all, the brevity of life.
[2:32] Our days, or the days of our years, are threescore and ten. And, if there be to some fourscore, yet, this extra number is but sorrow.
[2:57] Or, we soon fly away.
[3:09] That is the most expressed way of putting in. When man's departure from this earth, he flies away.
[3:24] As if he were in a hurry. Not caused by his own will. But as if he were being hurried on.
[3:37] He flies away. We appear for a little while.
[3:51] And then vanish away. And the other reason he gives is the wrath of God.
[4:02] Who knows the power of thy life.
[4:15] If there was nothing true life. But the cessation of existence on this earth.
[4:26] Then, many would decide death rather than life. There is nothing truly in this world.
[4:43] But which man should be so concerned. As that death would appear to him the greatest of all evils.
[4:59] It is not for what he leaves. Although, of course, that enters the picture. It is not what is in the fourth window.
[5:12] When man thinks of death. It is not what he leaves. But the question of what he is going to.
[5:24] It is appointed unto men once to die. And after that. The judgment.
[5:35] If it were just a question. Of dying once. And that will be the end. Well, we don't see any good reason that anyone should concern himself very much above death.
[5:49] The attitude to life then that would be best. Would be a stoical indifference. To whatever might come to pass.
[6:02] But. There is judgment. There is no why. Who knows the power thereof.
[6:14] And when we consider. The brevity of life. Its shortness. The fact that it is as an hands breath.
[6:25] And yet. Into this. Small. Comfort. Much. Far. Not. The. Best. Thought. As Paul reminds us in the epistle to the Roman.
[6:38] Does thou. O man. After. Thy. Hardness. And. Impenitance. Of. Heart. Thus. Thou.
[6:49] Thou. Thou. Thou. Thou. There's no judgment for thyself. What? Against the day of life.
[7:00] And the revelation. Of the righteous judgment. Of God. Because of this message.
[7:13] Because that there is. What? And of course because. Of God. That there is mercy to.
[7:25] But that is not what is. What is in the immediate context. Although that is always in the bathroom. Because of this soul. Teach.
[7:37] The West. To number. Our days. That we may apply. Our heart. Unto wisdom.
[7:48] Or that we may call. So heart. To come to wisdom. There is perhaps nothing. In which the folly of man.
[8:01] Makes itself. More manifest. Than in man's attitude. To time. The folly of his heart.
[8:16] Makes itself. Abundantly clean. The way he. Loops on. Tides. As you know.
[8:29] There is some. Something very. Miscereous. About time. Time. What is time? What is time? Well that is a question.
[8:42] That has engaged. The minds of philosophers. For hundreds of years. Time. What is it?
[8:53] What is our relationship? Truth. Some things of course are obvious.
[9:06] Time bears us. Along with it. But what is it? Some poet. As we remember.
[9:17] Man is a ship. On the breast. Of the river. Of time. But does that. A magical description. Is it even.
[9:29] An accurate description. Of man's relation. To time. We say. There are. Mysterious. Questions. Shopping a fear.
[9:44] But. It is good for us. That the application. Of our heart. To wisdom. Is not dependent. Upon.
[9:55] Our answer. To philosophical questions. What is time? We don't know. But this.
[10:07] We do know. It is possible. And we are not so rich. On the back of time.
[10:17] As we think we are. It is precisely here. The practical way. In which man spends time.
[10:31] That. The folly of a car. In a. In a most. Conspicuous way. Conspicuous way. Comes to life.
[10:43] How careless. We are of time. As if we had plenty of it. How often. We hear that. That way. We have plenty of time.
[10:55] Or what that may be. True of something. Is. True of everything. True of everything. True of everything. True of everything. But it is certainly. Not true of everything. If we use.
[11:06] That term. Term. Meaning. But we have plenty of time. Forever. That we have plenty of time.
[11:17] That we have plenty of time. That we have made a dream mistake. God. God.
[11:28] Messes. Time. With the same. Accuracy. And the same. Precision.
[11:40] As he messes. Everything else. Shall we put it like this. Every man.
[11:52] Has a work to do. God sent. No one into the world. To stand by. I do. Every man.
[12:04] Has a work to do. Whether he do it. Of course. Is another question. But. He has a work to do. And his work.
[12:15] And his time. And measure. With divine activism. So that. If he needs.
[12:25] To do the work. He must. Use the time. God gives him. And there's none to say. There's none to say.
[12:41] There's none to say. Knowing this. Connection. No wonder. This harm is facing. Lord.
[12:52] Teach them. Earth. Here is a confession. Of ignorance. Teach them.
[13:03] Words. In relation to this. Now you will have noticed. Especially in the reading of the New Testament.
[13:15] That two special days I'll mention. There's what we may call. Our day.
[13:30] We have our day. Allowed it to us. Our day. For the days of our years.
[13:44] Whether you apply to it. The singular or plural. It makes no difference. It is our day. But there's another day for us.
[13:54] And that is. The day of the Lord. Note the difference of this.
[14:07] It is extremely difficult. To express it. Accurate. But the difference. Is. To be found. Somewhat along these lines. Note.
[14:18] In only. Within the limits. Of our nature. We have scope.
[14:33] And opportunity. To show. What spirits we are on. Enough scope is given to every man to show what he is, to prove what he is.
[14:55] This is his day. It is a day which we sit within certain limits, which he uses as his own, which he spends, or which he misspends, which he uses, not which he abuses.
[15:21] That's his day. It is to show man what he is. But then there is to be of the Lord.
[15:35] And this is to show what the Lord is. That which was obscure, or rather that which man deliberately hid from himself, will be made abundantly clear in the day of the Lord.
[16:01] Now it is to this day that Paul refers in the chapter of the Red. In fact, he refers much to it in both his epistles to the Thessalonians.
[16:14] The day of the Lord will come. And it will come as a thief in the night.
[16:26] This day. This day is true. It is well marked, shall we say, on the calendar of God.
[16:39] There is no possibility of its being overlooked. The day of the Lord will come.
[16:52] And will come as a thief in the night. Now this is the context. For when they shall say, peace and safety.
[17:10] That is, when they still go on in their erroneous ideas and applications of time.
[17:23] When they say, peace and safety. That is, as things are today, so they will be tomorrow. When they say this.
[17:35] Then sudden destruction shall come upon them. And they shall not escape. When man's thing goes on.
[17:50] In his own paradise. Regarding time. This is the philosophy of the human heart. In respect to time.
[18:02] As things are today. So will they be tomorrow. And much more abundant.
[18:14] As things are today. That is the principle of thought. That regulates the thinking of man and God's time.
[18:30] Things will go on just as they are. Or they will be improving as they go on. As today, so tomorrow.
[18:41] And much more abundant. To get away from this. To be put right.
[18:52] At the heart of when this contrast appears. In man's difference of thought. From God's perspective time.
[19:03] The psalmist takes. To be told. To be told. To be told. How to know the. How to know the. How to know the. How to know the. How to know the. How to know the. How to know the.
[19:17] How to know the. How to know the. How to know the. How to know the. How to know the. How to know the. What does he mean.
[19:28] Well he has this anyway. Thou has already known the other. How to know the.
[19:42] Know. How to know. And the universe can alter that. They are numbered. To the hours, to the half hour, to the minutes, to the seconds.
[19:55] They are numbered. And they are numbered by God. He has already numbered. No teach the word, says the psalmist, to do the same.
[20:12] He knows how to put in the same way. God has numbered them. And he knows the exact moment at which the number is up.
[20:28] We don't know that. Not that we're supposed to know that. Yet, we are to number the ways. When we do not know when the end is to be.
[20:45] Let us number them. And what's next? Well, in this sense. First of all, there's no time for that.
[20:56] No time for childish play. No time for that which is detrimental to our well-being.
[21:16] There are no days for that. Teach thou as to number all days. That is, to put them all on the right side.
[21:29] However short or however long they may be. May they all be on the right side of the ledger, so to speak.
[21:41] But what's right side is there? That all of these may be spent in glorifying God.
[21:55] This is the numbering of the days. This is the numbering of the days. Which is not only legitimate. But which is incumbent upon man in this present day.
[22:07] Teachers, how to number them. Now this is no easy matter. No easy matter. Now in the numbering, suppose you have so many days.
[22:25] The Lord has given you so many days. In the sense of which we have already indicated. Now when you number your days. You cannot say like this day.
[22:37] Well, I'll give this day to the Lord. I'll treat the other one for myself. I'll use this one in this way. And use this one in that way.
[22:49] No, no. You can't number them like that. You have to number them thus. God is. Lord, the day is.
[23:00] They are these. In the most absolute sense. And the numbering of them. On my part. Would consist. In giving them.
[23:11] True things. Lord. The day is thine. Says the sun. The night does go is thine. The day is thine.
[23:25] And the night is thine. You remember how Paul argued in that epism? For in that chapter of the Thessalonians, 1 Thessalonians we read, he says the day of the Lord is coming.
[23:42] But we are not in the dark. That this day should take you unaware. Why were they not in the dark? Why? Because they had numbered them.
[24:01] They had numbered them. numbered them through the Lord. They were not in the dark. They were in the dark as much as other ways.
[24:12] As to when that day would come to pass. Yes. But it was in view of that day that they had already dealt with their days.
[24:30] Because this day was coming and is coming, they had numbered their days in the life of them.
[24:44] Hence they were not in the dark as others were. They were not of the night or of the darkness.
[25:00] And it tells us the difference between the night and the day. They that sleep, sleep in the night. They that are drunken, are drunken, in the night.
[25:24] They are still in the night. They haven't come to the light. The light of day. The light of the day of the law.
[25:35] As it's cast, so to speak. It's beams. Before. It actually, when it comes to the night. The night.
[25:50] Yet not in the darkness. Or in the night. We have known to do this. But have you. Teach thou us.
[26:03] To number. Our days. This, we repeat. This by no means. Uneasy thing.
[26:15] Nor does it come to man naturally to do this. Far from it. The whole bent of his nature. Is in an opposite direction.
[26:29] Or the nature is then. Of divine teaching. And what teaching is? It is teaching of course.
[26:43] In the truth. By the truth. Teach thou. Us. It is teaching.
[26:54] That only the Lord can give. Because he only. Can reach the heart. It is the teaching that.
[27:06] Takes root. In the heart. It is not something that flows. In an easy manner. In the heart. It is teaching that takes.
[27:18] Old. In other words. Teaching that governs and regulates. The whole man. Do those teachers.
[27:37] Teachers. Teachers to believe. I don't know how you find it by then. But some of us find it very difficult.
[27:48] Sometimes. To believe it. To believe it. To believe it. We say we believe it.
[28:01] Yes. That's easy. But when we look for it. The fruit of it. The fruit of it. The fruit of it. The fruit of it. The fruit of it.
[28:11] The fruit of it. And why is it not there? Is it not in the last analysis? Because. Because. The fruit of it. We really believe it. Do you believe this?
[28:25] For instance. And this should be a very simple question. In one way of this. Do you believe? That. If you may be called.
[28:39] To account. Before this day. So. Do you believe that? Do you believe.
[28:53] That. You may be someone from time to eternity. Before this weep is of. Do you believe even that?
[29:05] That may be true of you. That the summons may come to you. Which you must. Obey. That it may come before this year is it.
[29:19] This is the first Sabbath of another year. Now before the last comes. Where shall we be? Do you believe that?
[29:30] Is you? Let alone everyone else. Do you believe that? Is you? And every time the last year of you back.
[29:44] We say. Oh yes we believe that. But do we? I say no. No. We don't believe it at all. It doesn't matter what we listen.
[29:58] There is something lurking at the back of the mind. As the old man. As the old man used to put it. The fool in the heart. Say no.
[30:10] That may be true of others. And not of me. I think I told you before the story. Of two men who were. At the general. They were looking into the open grave.
[30:24] And one said to the other. Do you believe that? You are coming here to start. No. He said. I don't. But I believe you are. Yes.
[30:37] That is the natural. That is the natural reaction of the heart. Not me. Where does everybody ask? Yes.
[30:48] But not me. Or you say. But I believe I may. Yes. But if you really believe it. Do you think? You could dismiss it so easily. Do you think you could get away from it.
[31:04] So easily. Although you. If you really believe this. If you were taught. To apply.
[31:16] You have. To withdraw. Oh. What a difference it would be. What a difference it would be in the world. What a difference it would be.
[31:28] To ourselves. Now this is the first thing. Or one of the first things. That the Lord teaches. When he makes men and women wise to salvation.
[31:42] He teaches them. The uncertainty of time. We know not.
[31:55] What a day or a now. Maybe. Hence. There is activity in the soul. That things may be put by.
[32:07] Before it is too late. It is. There are hundreds. It is my friend. Thousands. A million. years. People. People. People. And.
[32:23] They rest quite comfortably in this. Oh well, you see, things aren't today what they should be, we know that. But we hope things will be alright before the end.
[32:35] We hope that things will be alright before the end. We're hoping for something. What is the back of that reason, given this?
[32:46] We have much time. There is, there are lots of times. That's what lies behind. Something will happen before the end.
[32:58] And of course, in that thinking, the end is so far away. Like anything in Disney has. But of course if the end is near.
[33:09] It is near in anything. It is much nearer than you think too. But what? It is so nearer.
[33:20] That you may be at the very edge of it. Ready to fall into the deep. That is, it returns.
[33:32] Lord, teach us. All my hands will much be right. Lord, teach us.
[33:44] Teach us to number, O ladies. To number them in this way. As if each, as if each one were here, man.
[33:58] For this very purpose. The purpose of eternal. Today. The day that we get.
[34:09] Should be spent. Should be numb in this way. In this way. It is a day. It is a day. For which we must give a call.
[34:20] All hope is in the end. In our lavish prodigality. Of tithe. It is a period.
[34:31] To be given tithe. To be in the stream of tithe. It is a most period. And does it not bespeak. The callousness of our hearts. That we should be so unconcerned about tithe. And the man who has to realize. To be in the stream of tithe. It is a most period. And does it not bespeak.
[34:42] The callousness of our hearts. That we should be so unconcerned about tithe. And the man who has to realize. The so callousness. In this respect. Is the man who sees. Lord, teach us. Teach us. Teach us. To number our days.
[35:10] To number our days That we may apply our heart To wisdom What is wisdom?
[35:24] The beginning of wisdom At the beginning of knowledge Is the fear of the Lord The fear of the Lord is the very beginning of it The most distillery beginning of it In applying your heart to wisdom We apply ourselves To the fear of the Lord And see how that Attains Into what we have in the New Testament What people say for instance Spend the time of To sojourn fear In fear Not the slavish fear That would make light a misery But spend it In the fear of the Lord Spend it In the clear consciousness
[36:26] Of being responsible unto Him And therefore With the full purpose Of being acceptable With Him Acceptable unto Him And accepted of Him To apply your heart To wisdom in this sense Is to spend our days On God And not on ourselves Others To be successful Yes It is not something That you can Feed yourself into Or argue yourself into There are so many There are so many obstacles There is so strong opposition against it Yes Nevertheless There is no getting away
[37:28] There is no getting away From this fact That this is the only The fact of Spend in your life Applying your heart To this sense Applying it to the fear of the Lord Therefore to the knowledge of the Lord And to the relationship between Him and us That He created us For Himself Now there is a question That might arise here Or rather an objection That might be put forward What kind of a life that would be?
[38:12] Oh well Some would say That would be a very miserable life indeed That's hard to be the truth Not only is this the only The right way But this is the only way Of enjoying life But this is the only way Of enjoying life But this is a paradox It is And will always Always will be The natural of mind More than a paradox At last contradiction But it isn't so It is all the life That is a life of God Is the life that is spent In the heart being applied To wisdom This is the theorem Indicates that That we may apply our heart to wisdom While everything else is holy
[39:14] And holy And holy and misery And holy and misery Are in separation Holy and misery go together But wisdom and joy go together also It is that which is in wisdom That must have a cup And joy of the Lord And joy of the Lord And that's the only thing What happened after all Those of the witnesses Could be called To verify this Apply your heart To wisdom To wisdom It is of itself Applied To all It delights in error It delights in mission
[40:17] Or in location To apply to mission And how is this to be thought about? And with that we are done Well we remind ourselves To the truth And the truth Is the truth Of the truth While we remind ourselves Once more Of what this wisdom is For now part It is the fear of the Lord In the revelation of God's heart It is Christ To apply our heart to wisdom Is to apply our heart to Christ And those who know anything about it Know That that is certainly The most blessed thing That we can have this time Of eternity The heart that lies And to Him Rest in Him Join in Him As they brought this strength This strong tower And that He Apply your heart to wisdom But unto us must say For who believe Thanks is the power of God
[41:23] And the wisdom of God And the wisdom of God And the wisdom of God And the wisdom of God For Lord teach us As what does harm is to us To number our days That we may apply our hearts To Christ To Christ To Christ And the wisdom of God And the wisdom of God For Lord teach us As what does harm is to us To number our days That we may apply our hearts To our days That we may apply our hearts To our hearts To our wisdom Amen Let us pray Oh, blessed Thou only canst teach us To prophets And we pray that we may have this teaching Which is from on high The teaching which is one of the blessings of the covenant
[42:26] For it is written That thy children are all taught of thee And therefore that great is their peace They are emancipated from the fear Of things of time in as far as they rest in thee O Lord grant that thou soest That thou soul may rest in thee That we may realize that thou life is not on all That thou wisdom That thou wisdom That thou may spend it not for our selves But know something of that resolution That gracious and blessed resolution of thy servant When he said that the life he lived in the flesh
[43:29] Was lived A life of him From the son of God who loved him And gave himself for him We are ignorant We are wicked O blessed Save us Make of us Make of us what thou wouldst have us be Take away our sins and accept of us For Christ's sake Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen The 90th The 90th
[44:44] At verse 11 Who knows the power of thy wrath? According to thy fear According to thy fear so is thy wrath Lord teach thou us our ended mind to bear And so to count our days That we our hearts may still apply to learn thy wisdom and thy truth That we may live That we may live dead by Turn yet again to us O Lord How long thus shall it be?
[45:19] Let it repent thee now For those that servants are to thee O with thy tender mercies Lord as early satisfied So we rejoice shall all our days And still be glad And still be glad Indeed We shall sing these four verses Of Psalm 90 From the 11th verse Who knows the power of thy wrath?
[45:52] So of patience By必 On favour defeated To suit darkness O And Lord, thank you, I hear.
[46:19] Lord, thank you, I hear. Lord, thank you, I hear.
[46:39] Lord, thank you, I hear.