So I want to continue with this psalm, beloved, and really I want us to think about verse 13 onwards with these words, return, O Lord, how long? So just in brief, if we can reflect on what we've looked at, we've looked at the eternality of God. Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations before the mountains were brought forth. Wherever you had formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, you are God. And we saw how man in contrast to God is but dust and he returns to dust. But with God, even a thousand years is like a watch in the night. Verse four. We see how God had set all of Israel's sins before them, even their secret sins. Verse eight. And again, the point that I made was without forgiveness and mercy, there is really no point to life. I mean, life is miserable and it's a miserable thing to live under the wrath of God. We saw that in verse eight to 10. Moses says, who knows the power of your anger for as the fear of you, so is your wrath, verse 11. And Moses and Israel saw God's wrath firsthand, and it caused them to fear God greatly. To that end, Moses said, in the light of the holiness of God, in the light of the perfections of God, and in the light of the people's sin. Verse 12, so teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom. In other words, Lord, help us to live with purpose. Help us to walk with you, to walk in wisdom, to number our days aright. So now we come to this next section of the psalm where Moses cries out to the Lord and he pleads with God to return to his wayward, obstinate people. Remember, he's setting before us a history of Israel and of their unfaithfulness and God's covenant faithfulness and God's protection, but yet Israel still continued to go astray. But in the light of even these things, Moses cries out for mercy. He prays that God would show mercy. Return, O Lord, how long? And one of the things that's really important for us to understand, beloved, is that Moses is no cynic. Yes, he's reflecting on the wrath of God. He's looking at the severity of God on the wickedness and the rebellion of God's sinful people, but he knows that God is merciful. He knows that God is merciful. And really what Moses does here is he appeals to God as a covenant making and a covenant keeping God. He's laid out how God has been Israel's eternal refuge and fortress. How God spared them and brought them out and set them apart. And at one time, God even said to Moses, Moses, get out of my way. I'm gonna destroy these people. And from your loins, I will raise up another nation. And Moses stood in the gap, as it were, like a foreshadowing of the mediator, right? And said, no, Lord, these are your people. What will the nations around you say if they're destroyed? And so he knows that God is a God of mercy, that God is gracious, And he pleads for God's goodness and God's mercy. And really beloved, what I mentioned last time is that it is God's goodness and mercy that leads to repentance. And he's crying out, Lord, please, how long? Don't delay. Don't let us continue to languish. Don't continue to allow your enemy to make a mockery of your name because of our sin. Exodus chapter 32, verse 12. Why should the Egyptian speak and say, he brought them out to harm them, to kill them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth. Turn from your fierce wrath and relent from this harm to your people. And really, if you think about it, Moses is not appealing to God on the basis of anything good in the people. He's appealing to God on the basis of God's character and of God's faithfulness. Have compassion on your servant. In fact, I like what the King James says here, it says, and let it repent the concerning thy servants. Let it repent the concerning thy servants. Take pity, Lord. Take pity. And this is interesting. Deuteronomy 32 verse 36, it says this, for the Lord will judge his people and have compassion on his servants when he sees that their power is gone and that there is no one remaining bound or free. heart of God, the compassion of God. You think of the old covenant and you think of the fact that Moses could appeal to the character of God. And you think of what we have in the new covenant, how we can play, plead with God on the basis of the suffering of Christ who bore all the wrath of God for our sins in his body on the tree. And we read now how God relented from destroying His people for their sin because of His covenant. Psalm 106 verse 45 says this, and for their sake, He remembered His covenant and relented according to the multitudes of His mercy. Even when God refrained from pouring out all of His wrath and He had every right to do so, it was because of who God was. and who He is, not because of anything the people did. I think what is very important for us to see here is that what's key is the covenant that God made with His people. Moses pleaded with God on the basis of that covenant. And beloved, I want to encourage you when it comes to prayer. When we think of the wrath of God, when we think of God dealing with sin, even as our brother Steve reminded us, what a privilege we're in as God's people that we have a better covenant. We have a covenant in the blood of His Son. And because of God's mercy to us, that God would even be compassionate to the wicked, that God would even spare His wrath upon the wicked. Have mercy, God. Have mercy upon them. You know, I was thinking of this word, let it repent thee. This is something that John Calvin said, and it's a very interesting thing. He said this, according to the not infrequent and well-known phraseology of scripture, God is said to repent when putting away men's sorrows and affording new ground for gladness. He appears as it were to be changed. That's a fascinating statement. We're talking about the immutable God, but he appears, as it were, to be changed. Now, beloved, we don't understand the intricate workings of God. The secret things belong to God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and our children. But there's something there that encourages us to lay hold of God. There's something there that encourages us, even though it seems as though it's written in stone, that judgment is coming to lay hold on God and to look to him and to trust him and to believe in his mysterious workings and in his infinite goodness to do. and to act according to his mercy and his grace. Then Moses, after pleading for God's compassion and mercy, I want you to notice how he pleads in this psalm. Oh, satisfy us early with your mercy, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. Just before I go into that, when I was thinking about this thing with Calvin, I was thinking of, I just read it today, with Abraham, where God said he's going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. And look at the heart of that man who pleaded, if there even be 10 righteous people, would you save the city? And God said, I would save it. And then once again, you see where Lot is is fleeing from Sodom and Gomorrah and Lot pleads with him, can I go to Zohar? And God says, okay, go to Zohar. I'll spare the city of Zohar. But God had in mind to destroy all of that. And again, beloved, what that does is it just, it brings us into this understanding of the great compassion of God, of the unwillingness of God, you know, of the desire for Him, the unwillingness of Him to show wrath and vengeance, but His willingness to show compassion and mercy. But anyway, let me move on. Oh, satisfy us early with your mercy, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. I mean, think about this. Israel is teetering on the precipice. And since they must die and die soon, Moses pleads with God, don't delay. We need your mercy now earlier rather than later. Lord, we need you to act expeditiously according to your mercy. If we're going to be spared, do it now, do it speedily. There's a desperation. There's an urgency. If we have a heart to pray, beloved, let me encourage you. We will not cease. We will lay hold of God. We will plead with him. We'll beg with him. Now, Lord, don't delay. The only thing that will satisfy the Lord's people is his favor. And, you know, you think of the illustration of manna, how God fed the people of Israel with manna. He fed them with manna every morning. He fed them with manna the first thing in the day. And we need the Lord's mercy. We need his mercy early. We need his mercy often. We need his mercy frequently. This is a short life we live. We can't afford not to live in the mercy and the grace of God. We must plead for it. And we must understand that God is willing to give it. That we may rejoice and be glad all our days. Verse 14. Again, I've spoken about the joy of the Lord being our strength. And you think about what our Lord Jesus said to his disciples, even though they were going to go through great turmoil, he told them, everything he told them was for the fullness of their joy. God wants us, even in the midst of this world of darkness and chaos, even in the midst of the struggles with sin, God wants us to know his joy and the fullness of his joy. And I really do believe Moses teaches us how to pray. And he teaches us how to be expectant of the goodness of God, even when God seems to be unleashing his judgment. Psalm 85 verse six says, will you not revive us again that your people may rejoice in you? Think of Habakkuk when God was pouring out vengeance upon his people with the Sabians and the Chaldeans. What did Habakkuk cry out for? Lord, in your judgment, remember mercy. Think of David, when David said, let me fall into the hands of the Lord for there is mercy with him. And even while God was in the midst of bringing judgment on his people, he relented. Beloved, I wanna say when the Lord refreshes us with his presence, Our joy is such that no one can take it from us. And when we plead with him for his joy, we plead with him for his joy for the sake of his glory and on the basis of everything his son has done for us. Moses says, make us glad according to the days in which you afflicted us. the years in which we have seen evil, verse 15. And I want to say this, our child may have been many, and many of our woes been self-afflicted, and we may have lamented and mourned many of them, and we may look back on our lives and just hang our heads in shame. But I think what this does show us, at least it shows me, As we must never forget as terrible as our failures have been, as numerous as our valleys have been, and as deep and as dark as some of us have gone through deep valleys, God is able to bless us even more than we ever have been afflicted. And he often does. Listen to what Spurgeon says, God who is great in justice, when he chastises, will not be little in mercy. When he blesses, he will be great all through. Let us appeal to him with unstaggering faith. William Cowper put it this way, behind the frowning providence, God hides a smiling face. Deuteronomy 8 verse 2 says this, And you shall remember that the Lord your God led you all the way these 40 years in the wilderness to humble you and to test you and to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. God is working all things out for our good and for his glory, friends, even our weaknesses. Verse 16 and 17 says, let your works appear to your servants and your glory to their children and let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us and establish the work of our hands for us. Yes, establish the work of our hands. I think it's interesting to see here that Moses dwells on the word servants. And you know, beloved, think about that. That is as far as the law allows him to go, servants. But when you come to the new covenant, Jesus no longer calls us servants, but friends, heirs, co-heirs. And if we truly are in him and we love him, we will use that wonderful freedom that he's given us wisely. And we'll use it often. And just as Moses longed for the descendants of Israel to see and remember God's power and glory to his people, for the furtherance of godly posterity and future generations. How much more, Bill? How much more should we pray for our children? that they would see the grace and the mercy of God in us, that they would see our trust and our love in Christ, that they would see God's goodness. I mean, think about this. Would we not be prepared to suffer all manner of difficulties and challenges if we knew that through those testimonies that our children would see the goodness of God and that they would know the mercy of God all the more? Let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us. And I was thinking about this, and I know we need to go to prayer, but as we live and walk in the presence of the Lord Jesus, one of the things that's gonna mark our lives is the beauty of holiness. Beauty is going to adorn our path. But that's only gonna happen, beloved, if we are beholding Our father's glory in the face of his son, Jesus Christ. That's only going to happen if we're in fellowship with him. If we're seeking his face. Establish the work of our hands. You know, Jesus said that even if we give even a cup of cold water in his name, It is though we were giving him that cup of cold water. And I think that what he's saying here, at least as we can apply it to ourselves, is these are those treasures laid up for us in heaven, where neither thief, moth or anything destroy. These are the precious jewels of trusting and living for Christ and serving him. Second Timothy chapter four verse eight says this. Finally there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness which the Lord the righteous judge will give to me on that day and not to me only but also to all who have loved his appearing. Establish the work of your hands and God will establish the work of his hands. Christ will one day present us to the Father spotless and without blemish.