Lord In Your Mercy, Hear Our Prayer

the following message by Alistair beg is made available by truth for life for more information visit us online at truth for invite you to turn with me to the 90th Sam and to follow along as I read Sam 90 a prayer of Moses the man of God Lord you have been our dwelling place in all generations before the mountains were brought forth or ever you had formed the earth and the world from everlasting to everlasting you are God you return man to dust and say return or children of man for a thousand years in your sight or but as yesterday when it is past or as a watch in the night you sweep them away as with a flood they are like a dream like grass that is renewed in the morning in the morning it flourishes and is renewed in the evening it fades and withers for we are brought to an end by your anger by your wrath we are dismayed you have said our iniquities before you our secret sins in the light of your presence for all our days pass away under your wrath we bring our years to an end like a sigh the years of our life are seventy or even by reason of strength 80 yea their span is but toil and trouble they are soon gone and we fly away who considers the power of your anger and your wrath according to the fear of you so teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom return O Lord how long have pity on your servants satisfiers in the morning with your steadfast love that we may rejoice and be glad all our days make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us and for as many years as we have seen evil let your work be shown to your servants and your Loree aspire to their children let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us and established the work of our hands upon us yes establish the work of our hands amen now make the book live to me or Lord show me yourself within your word show me myself show me my Savior and make the book live to me for Christ's sake amen well I have for a couple of weeks had it in mind to preach from the closing verses of the ninetieth Sam we were reading and praying through the ninetieth Sam in our staff prayer time two or three weeks ago and as we did so I made a note or two on the piece of paper that I had beside me and I thought well I must try and address that sometime and then as the time has elapsed and as we're now on the final day of the year I thought well surely this Sam is entirely appropriate for this closing segment if you like of our time and our life together there's something that is both solemn and enlivening about the hours which draw down the curtain on one year and bring about if you like the dawn of the new year it is customary I've noticed in America for people as soon as we've got through with Christmas to immediately begin saying to one another happy new year and so for about a week now people been saying happy new year I have to tell you that that is really alien to me even after 34 years living here because it isn't the new year and the new year only comes after midnight tonight and I have the strongest recollections of watch-night services where the minister was absolutely determined that his sermon and his prayer would and rate on the stroke of midnight so that he could be the first to say Happy New Year and there are all kinds of sort of superstitious traditions that are part and parcel of that in Scotland and I'm not commending to you I'm just explaining that it's part of my background things that are actually shared in parts of America I believe in Georgia and also in the country of Greece in Europe so the close of a year and the beginning of a new year has a dimension to it that is of particular significance and whether you find it helpful to sit this evening and watch that thing fall down in New York City or not it's entirely your own judgment but what I want to do is I want to suggest to you that we have here if you're like a five-fold prayer with which to end the year let me tell you the weather what the requests are teach us restore us satisfy us gladness favor us so that's the outline I want to show you that it's actually in the text and we will proceed from there Isaac Watts his famous hymn which we have sung part of this morning encapsulate the truth of the ninetieth Sam Oh God our help in ages past our hope for years to come Isaac Watts lived at the end of the 17th century he died in in in 1725 and what he was doing when he wrote that hymn was reflecting on the sum that we have here in which Moses you will see is reflecting I take it towards the end of his life or perhaps at the very end of his life he's reflecting on the Eternity of God and of the brevity of life and the frailty of man Lord you've been our dwelling place in all generations before the mountains were brought forth and so from everlasting to everlasting you are God and then but the fact of the matter is that you return men to dust and you say to children of man return to dust this is an inescapable reality everybody understands this however we try and make sense of it or react to it none of us can deny it my favorite atheist now gone Christopher Hitchens in his book hits 22 tells of how the reality of mortality struck him not in the death of his father which he says is a commonplace but in the on the occasion of the birth of his son and he wrote when I watched my son being born I knew at once that my own funeral director had very suddenly but quite unmistakably stepped onto the stage I was surprised by how calmly I took this but also how reluctant I was to mention it why is it that we have to die at all and why does the prospect loom so large and come on us so quickly the ninetieth son helps us with that kind of deep consideration and so I want you to follow the line that begins in verse 12 where Moses having reflected on these things to which we will allude immediately says to God God please teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom now this is not a request for a sort of increased ability with arithmetic he's not he's not asking God to teach people how to count no he is asking for lesson in theology he's saying God teaches so that we might understand that there is a direct correlation between our mortal tea and our sinfulness so that the context of verses 7 through 11 is the the the record in Genesis chapter 3 of the fall of man we are brought to an end by your anger by your wrath we are dismayed you remember how God speaks having made the world and all of its pristine beauty having said Adam and Eve in the context of this beautiful garden having given very clear directions as to all that they are free to enjoy and then responding to the rebellion of Adam and Eve and this is what God says to Adam because you've listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you you shall not eat it cursed is the ground because of you in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you you shall eat the plants of the field by the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground for out of it you were taken for you are dust and to dust you will return in the day that you eat of this as God you will surely die so that the reason that we die is because of sin that we live in a fallen world we are mortal because God is angry and God is angry because we are sinful our worlds both individually and cosmically are broken but this particular message never actually registers with a man or a woman until God brings it home to us know the average person if you were to go out into the streets today and ask these questions would have all kinds of answers Calvin says although we know this we are stupidly tied to our transient existence imagining that we will live forever although we know in our hearts that this is the case we are so tied to the immediate and to the transient that we try and convince ourselves that although it has happened to other people it isn't going to happen to us you think about the preoccupation in Western culture with the now and with the immediate not simply in the golf swing in golf tournaments where it is important that you stay in the moment that you don't think about whether you're about to win you think only about what you're going to do with this four iron and so on that is perfectly understandable but it goes way beyond that so that man is preoccupied with the now and lives with enormous total disregard for the then now is so prevalent death is so distant despite the fact that 15,000 people died annually in the wilderness wanderings so that they could see the reality of death Moses says Oh God teach us to number our days in such a way that we gain a heart of wisdom Pascal in the 17th century in France says we run heedlessly into the abyss after putting something in front of us to stop us seeing it the graphic picture isn't it is they're about to run over the edge of the cliff and we know there is a cliff and we know we're going to go over it but we just have something put in front of us so that we can't see it oh the games people play it out every night and every day now never mean what they say no never saying what they mean and they wile away the hours in the ivory towers so they're covered up in flowers in the back of a black limousine nananananana now we laugh but you see the explanation is an unpalatable explanation but it is a logical explanation verse seven we are brought to an end by your anger by your wrath we are dismayed you sweep them away as with a flood there like grass renewed in the morning and gone in the evening I say that it is an unpopular perspective I know that it is when Watts wrote his him there were nine verses I went to check I think we sang for this morning there's six in most hymn books but the three that are missing in most all hymnody are the three verses that deal with verses 7 to 11 the idea of being swept away like a flood the idea of being like grass that is here in the morning and gone in the evening in other words the things that say exactly this that God has justifiably responded to man's rebellion by bringing death as the penalty for sin the wages of sin is death it always was it always is the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord this is the way it is said Paul is saying that in Romans chapter 6:23 which I've just quoted for you but this unpopular message is therefore watered down in pulpits and it is largely rejected in the pews we don't want to have to deal with the thought of a god of wrath with a God of anger with a God who is justifiably righteously indignant and so we remove it and when we remove it two things inevitably happen one men and women no longer fear God they no longer fear God now think about it think about just in a very simple way the way in which the name of God is abused in our culture yesterday in a place around here in a retail situation I find myself standing completely bemused and managing not to say anything which I regarded as a minor triumph although it might have been a it might have been a major failure I don't know but something had gone wrong in such a way that the person behind the counter just abused the name of God just out loud and profoundly and I stood there and I said to myself there is no fear of God there is no fear of God if you read and I don't think you will but if you choose to read how the Scots invented the modern world you will find this is not a funny book like the Irish one this is the real stuff but you will find that there is a chilling chapter in there in which a man is hanged for blasphemy in 17th century Scotland for taking the name of God in vain upon his lips when the notion of the righteous indignation of God is removed so that God becomes a kind of cosmic father Christmas a sort of nice person who's gonna be generally nice to everybody provided we all do our best when that becomes the prevailing notion then one men and women do not have any notion of the fear of God and number two in that context the death of Jesus Christ in the place of sinners is an absolute irrelevance why would there need to be the death of the son unless it involved the satisfaction of the father so he prays teach us we need talked secondly and more briefly restore us I'm using the word restore there you will see verse 13 is return or Lord the picture here again is of the people who have rebelled in the wilderness they are stuck in the wilderness there for a good long while God swore that they would not enter into the promised land on account of their rebellion what had happened was they had essentially turned their backs on God God had been gracious to them God had set them free brought them out of all the bondage of Egypt and very quickly they went off looking for other gods and other ideas they turned their backs on God and God turned his back on them it's inevitable and so they cry out to him return O Lord how long is it going to be like this have pity nursey upon your servants this is similar to what you'll find if you read some 80 turn again o God of hosts look down from heaven and see this is the great mystery of salvation the great paradox of salvation it is in this that when we turn from God in rebellion as we do by nature our turning from him is our doing and our turning to him is his doing our turning from him is our doing I don't want a savior I don't want a king I don't want to Lord and then one day you say oh yes I do what in the world brought about that change was it just someone argued with you no you're mystified by it yourself aren't you you say what an amazing thing that I who was so stuck on myself so convinced I was right so assured in my own rebellion I found myself kneeling down beside my bed in my bedroom or sitting in my parked car somewhere in suburban Cleveland and crying out to God return to me restore me look down upon me in your pity I need you let your face shine upon that I might be saved on what basis can Moses make that request well the answer is in the next verse verse 14 on the basis of God's steadfast love that brings us to our third element satisfy us satisfy us here's the only ground of satisfaction in Moses day the people have begun to look to other gods Moses actually speaks to them you who find this around Deuteronomy 30 to 33 you read it for yourself and he says to them you know when you look to those other gods what did they ever do for you they actually left you high and dry they couldn't protect you they couldn't provide for you would you not turn to God and ask him to be your soul satisfaction you satisfied there's a sense in which I think Christmas is as good a time as any to reveal to us the futility of our ultimate search for satisfaction and I resist the temptation to go to the Rolling Stones it's just too easy it is it is so clearly the case you can see this even in the faces of your children or your grandchildren all of this anticipation for when they finally receive that thing for which they longed but it's three o'clock in the afternoon and it is already lying over here and funnily enough they'd begun to look at what somebody else got and begun to wonder whether that was the thing that they should have got because what they got didn't really give him the buzz that they thought they would get when they got it as this is me though you know this empty empty feeling is the same empty feeling when you get your exam results he was so keen to Gotham you to get them you got them and it didn't actually it was it was good but it wasn't one great cyntha Ferguson in his book on Christmas I bless him he can take this to a level most of us can only ponder singer actually acknowledges in his book that one Christmas wrestling with this feeling he actually rewrapped his Christmas presents and put them at the bottom of his bed to open them the next morning to see if the next morning it would give to him the same feeling that he had on Christmas morning but it was gone spent our whole lives if we're not careful growing up looking for the person looking for the place looking for the promotion that will actually grant us satisfaction if it isn't him maybe it'll be him if it isn't singleness maybe it'll be marriage if it isn't this house maybe it'll be there maybe if we could move somewhere else maybe if I could have gone into this office rather than that office the cry of Moses is the cry that needs to come from our hearts satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love the acid covenant love of God this word in Hebrew comes 125 times in the Psalter whereas the steadfast love of God made clearest to us where is it that God's steadfast love and his justice meet one another where does he where does he express his just reaction his righteous indignation to rebellious man and where does he reveal the magnificence of his love to that same rebellious man and you know the answer don't you it's in the cross of Jesus Christ Oh safe and happy shelter or refuge tried and sweet Oh try sting place where Heaven's love and heavens just smeet you know what I traced in place is traced in places where where lovers go together and they carved their initials on the on the bench or whatever it is and they say it was there it was there that we said were to we're in this for ever and ever amen and at the cross of Jesus Christ that is where you see God has poured out his righteous indignation upon his son in order that we who just Lee deserve that which his son takes upon himself may then know and a magnificent level a love that we had never before comprehended I love the fact that it says satisfiers in the morning with your steadfast love in the morning in the morning when I rise give me Jesus says Fernando I spoke to someone yesterday I said what are you going to do tomorrow they said well hey I'm going to church in the evening I said why are you going the evening why don't you go in the morning so I never thought about it I said well think about it start the day go there first make that the first place some of you are boys and girls here this morning you're saying pastors stop soon stop soon and I will stop soon but I want but I want to say this to you I was once your size I was once your size you are in the morning of your lives you are in the very morning of your lives and we so much want you to find in Jesus that which Jesus has come to do so that your little lung growing life's may find their satisfaction ultimately in him so that one day you will look back and you will say you know I was there on that morning and I heard the old guys say that and then something inside of me says yes I want that Jesus I want to find satisfaction in you I know my Christmas presents didn't fix didn't fix it I never knew why that was I think I know now I need you Jesus in the morning when I rise sad by me Jesus you see is the gift that keeps on giving gladness gladness this is penultimate second last 15 make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us make us glad a gloomy Christian is a contradiction in terms what a horrible thing it is when you see people walking out of church they look like a they look like a donkey that had been hit by a brick on the side of his head or something it's just a morose group of people it's a terrible thing you Robert Louis Stevenson in one occasion writes in his journal I have been to church today and I am not depressed it was such a significant event for him gloomy Christians make us glad for as many days as you've afflicted us this is not superficial stuff this is not saying everything's terrific this is saying we have lived through affliction all the ups and downs of life take the last 12 months in our congregation the challenge is the overwhelming and daunting prospect some days the feeling deep inside of us that we weren't even going to be able to make it through the day let alone make it through the week that if this happened then it would all be over and it happened and it isn't and here we are looking back now over time gladness now make us glad with the blessings that are more than equal to the time of our affliction for the years in which we have been so aware of evil make us glad some 16 isn't it in your presence there is fullness of joy when Paul writes looking over his shoulder is it where he says in 2 Corinthians 4:4 our light and momentary afflictions or troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all there's something far better at the end of this story when I was small as you know I learned lots of songs most of which are never sung anymore probably understandably so but as I wrote down in my notes gladness I I went immediately to a song from Sunday school which began come leave your house in grumble Street and move to sunshine square because that's the place where Jesus lives and there is gladness there or you asked me why I'm happy and I will tell you why because my sins are gone and when I meet the scoffers who asked me where they are I say my sins are gone there underneath the blood of the cross of Calvary as far removed as darkness is from Dawn in the Sea of God's forgetfulness that's good enough for me praise God my sins are gone in other words picking up Hebrews 10 the Holy Spirit says I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more you see the great and daunting prospect in the face of death is not death itself but it's the fact as you will see in verse 8 you have said our iniquities before you our secret sins in the light of your presence not just the things that are obvious and clear but my secret sins you have set before you they are there in the light of your presence if you're as old as I am now you remember when you were small the idea that God could know everything was a concept but it just didn't seem like how could anybody know everything but that was before Google and now we realize that there's somebody up there somewhere who actually does know everything who isn't God but God does know everything so here's the question how can I then stand before a holy God in my sin what am i planning to say while I was doing my best I was I was there's only one thing to say to say what the man who was beside Jesus on the cross must have said at the gates of heaven when they said to him what are you actually doing here and he said well the guy says well let me ask you I mean were you a church a tender sauces no so how are you with the law of God did you keep the law no I broke the law well what you world are you doing here What did he say he said the man on the middle cross said I can come on what basis but the man on the middle cross bore his public and his secret sins thereby giving to him a gladness of heart that is ultimately irrepressible favor us is his last request make us glad let your work be shown to your servants your glorious parts or the children let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us you see the brevity of life may actually cause us to despair of ever accomplishing anything you think about that is it that the the the faster it all keeps going you say to yourself I better get I better get going here I mean I'm running out of time I mean even just think about Isaac Watts you know he was 51 when he died he brought 750 hymns I made a note to call Getty and let him know hey he hadn't done nothing yet boy 700 750 hymns and that wasn't the totality of his life so the very brevity of life the frailty of life may cause us to despair to despair that our work is actually doing anything that is of worth worth at all and that's why he says here let your work be shown to your servants and your glorious power to their children in other words the work of God will endure and with his a saying so - so - will the work of our hands the work of God will endure and with his blessing so - will the work of our hands that's why says let it let let your children let our children see your glory that's the lasting legacy for our kids it doesn't matter how fast they can run 100 meters unless they know Christ that they were accepted into a very good university unless they know their sins to be forgiven that's what we mean we'll be talking about passing the truth from one generation to another so that the children may actually look around and say this is amazing let the favor of our Lord be upon us establish the work of our hands establish the work of our hands repetition there is a Hebrew way of saying God make our work succeed a lot make our work succeed a lot there's a work for Jesus that number you can do make your work succeed Allah that's what he's praying how does the work of God progress on what basis on the basis of His grace on the basis of His grace let's pray we thank you our gracious God for all the years that your love has kept and guided has urged and inspired us and cheered us on our way we confess freely that we are on our best day unprofitable servants that our inclination is to turn our backs upon you to run from you to go charging into the abyss with something in front of us so as to deny the reality that we face thank you that the warnings of your word are there because of the immensity of your love that it is impossible for us to fully understand the love that you have shown to us in Christ without an understanding of your righteous indignation against our sinful and empty rebellion and so now in these closing hours of this 2017 we pray Moses prayer and we ask that you will grant us favor both as individuals and as a church that you will establish the work of our hands and that our children might live to see your glorious power for we pray in Jesus name Amen this message was brought to you from truth for life where the learning is for living to learn more about truth for life with Alistair beg visit us online at truthfortheworld.org

Channel: Alistair Begg

Views: 29,918

Rating: 4.8830895 out of 5

Keywords: Truth For Life, Alistair Begg, Psalm 90, Character of God, Christian Thinking, Effects of Sin, Grace, Grace of God, Salvation, Theology

Id: ZTBF32dMoXQ

Length: 36min 30sec (2190 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 03 2018