New Park Street Pulpit · Sermon No. 59
Psalm 90:1-22
“Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations.
Yea Jehovah, WE, they children, can say that thou hast been our home, our safe dwelling-place. And oh, what joy, what peace have we found in his sacred bosom. No home like the breast of the Lord, to which, in all generations, true believers fly. Let me ask the unbelievers where their joy is. Where has your habitation been, ye sons of sin and daughters of folly?
“Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.”
And the same God too, loving His people, passing by their sins and remembering not their iniquities. Oh, beloved, let this thought cheer you, he was, he is, he will be God. Here change cannot climb, here mutation must not approach. For ever and ever he is God.
“Thou turnest man to destruction; and sayest, Return, ye children of men.”
How many this year have departed. Oh, where had we been had this been our case? Many of us can say, we should have been in bliss, and we should have returned unto God, but alas, many here would have entered the fires of hell and commenced their never-ending torture.
“For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.”
“Thou carriest them away as with a flood.”
Who are they who are carried away as with a flood? Yourselves, my hearers, and myself. Though we know it not, we are always in motion. The impetuous torrent of time is carrying us along like a mighty rolling river. We cannot stand against the force which drives us onwards. As powerless as the straw we are; we can by no means resist it. Whither are we going? Where is the river carrying us to? We cannot stem its torrens; we cannot escape its floods. Oh! where, oh! where, are we going!
“Thou carriest them away as with a flood; they are as a sleep: in the morning they are like grass which groweth up.
“In the morning it flourisheth, and groweth up; in the evening it is cut down, and withereth.
“For we are consumed by thine anger, and by thy wrath are we troubled.”
No man better understands this than the convinced sinner, when smarting under the rod of God. Truly our strength is then utterly consumed, and the troubles of our heart are enlarged.
“Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, our secret sins in the light of thy countenance.”
Hear that! “our secret sins.” Some of you bear hell’s mark on your forehead. Some of you, like Cain, have the mark of justice on your very brow. Your sins are beforehand with you in judgment. Ah! they are there to-night, blabbing out the tale of your sad, sad history. But there are persons here who have “secret sins.” Ye have not been found out yet. The night was too dark for human eye to se you; the deed was to secret for mortal to behold; but it is set somewhere. Just as we set a stone in a golden ring, so has God set your “secret sins in the light of his countenance.” Your sins are this night before the eyes of the infinite Jehovah.
“For all our days are passed away in thy wrath: we spend our years as a tale that is told.”
The Vulgate translation has: “Our years pass away like those of a spider.” It implies that our life is as frail as the thread of a spider’s web. Constituted most curiously the spider’s web is; but what more fragile? In what is there more wisdom than in the complicated frame of a human body; and what more easily destroyed? Glass is granite compared with flesh; and vapours are rocks compared with life.
“The days of our years are threescore years and ten;”
Mark, the Psalmist says, “the days of our years.” How seldom we think of that! Our years we think of, but not “the days of our years.”
“And if [it is a great “if” indeed, for how many die before they attain to it!] 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.”
Where do we fly to? Is it upwards that we wing our way, on more than eagles’ wings, to realms of joy unknown? Or is it downward that we sink with all our sins round our necks like millstones? Oh! shall we go down, down, till in hell we lift up our eyes, being in torments?
“Who knoweth the power of thine anger? even according to thy fear, so is thy wrath.
“So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.”
Here is heavenly arithmetic; an application of numeration seldom thought of even by the wise. May we, during the next year, so measure out our time, that we may apply our hearts to Jesus, who is the true wisdom.
Amen! Lord, may that be granted!
Now we will sing a verse of that solemn hymn—
“When thou my righteous judge shall come,”
and then the Pastor will make an evening’s prayer for you before he comes to speak with your souls on God’s behalf.