From verse 1, 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, even from everlasting to everlasting, you are God. You turn man to destruction and say, return, O children of men. For a thousand years in your sight, like yesterday, when it is past. And like a watch in the night, you carry them away like a flood. They are like a sleep in the morning. They are like grass which grows up. In the morning it flourishes and grows up. In the evening it is cut down and withers. Verse seven, for we have been consumed by your anger and by your wrath we are terrified. You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your countenance. For all our days have passed away in your wrath. We finish our years like a sigh. Verse 10, the days of our lives are 70 years, and if by reason of strength, they're 80 years. Yet their boast is only labor and sorrow, for it is soon cut off and we fly away. Verse 11, actually we'll read to 12, not just verse 11, but verse 11. Who knows the power of your anger? For as the fear of you, so is your wrath. And then verse 12. So teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom. So I wanna talk about this Psalm, and I've been thinking about it quite a bit for quite a while. And I have a lot to say about this section, but particularly I wanna focus on verse 12. So teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom. Now, what I want to say, folks, is really just some scattered thoughts. There's probably a lot more that could be said about that. Sure, there is a lot more and I am approaching it from a particular angle. But I find I found this psalm very instructive to my soul as I've been meditating upon it. We've already considered in the psalm of Moses the importance of the eternality of God. Moses says, Lord, you have been our dwelling place. in all generations, before all creation, and even if the earth gave way, God will be our God, for he is the everlasting God. Then Moses compares the eternality of God to the transience, the temporariness, or the way man is just temporal and frail, and and fragile, just like the grass. He is made from dust and he returns to dust. He is a creature born in time. He lives a short period of time. But time means nothing to God. Time does not affect God. God created time and he's outside of time. for a thousand years to God is but like a day. So man is like the grass that grows quickly and withers away in the hot wind and the heat of the day. I was thinking of verse five and six and just remembering the sites of what I've seen in Asheville and in Chimney Rock where the text says you carry them away like a flood. You see those houses just swept away. You hear these tragic stories of a family sitting on a roof and the grandparents and their grandson, son of this woman just swept away, just like that. It just really does give you the perspective and understanding of how frail we are, how fragile we are. And I want us to consider this. Moses begins to talk about man in relation to God and he speaks particularly in the context of Israel and Israel's history with God and how Israel rebelled against God under the covenant that God had made with him, the covenant of works. And it just again reminded me how men cannot please God. because of sin. Look at verse seven to nine. For we have been consumed by your anger and by your wrath we are terrified. You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your countenance. For all our days have passed away in your wrath. We finish our years like a sigh. It's a very, it's a very bleak picture, isn't it? And Moses, this man of God, saw firsthand how men cannot keep the covenant of works. They cannot, in their flesh, truly, really obey God. Israel provoked God to wrath because of their unbelief. And they were a people who were constantly given to idolatry and rebellion. And Moses saw how God judged the people. Miriam, he saw the rebellion of Miriam. This grieved him greatly. And Aaron. And Miriam was struck with a leprosy. And God judged these people with curses that made even the pagan nations tremble. That's what God said to them. If you don't obey me, even the pagan nations will shake their heads. And God exposed all of Israel's sin, their open sin and their secret sin. And that yoke was crushing upon them. They finished their years like a sigh. But you know, beloved, this is the description of fallen men, right? This is the path of all fallen men, except men do not see what Israel saw for God, has left them in their sin. God had a special relationship with Israel. God revealed to them his ways. God exposed their sin to them. And yet they continue to rebel because all of it was external. And so Israel was in this covenant relationship with God and God dealt with him according to all of his promises and his curses. He made promises to them, wonderful promises, but he also threatened them with curses. And they mostly came under his curses because their hearts were hard and they refused to walk by faith. This was their witness. Look at verse 10. The days of our lives are 70 years, and if by reason of strength they are 80 years, yet their boast is only labor and sorrow. Labor and sorrow. And so under this old covenant, which I think is the covenant works, their lives were a burden, for they would not believe God. They would not live by faith. They hardened their hearts. And you think about how short life is. And you think about what Moses is saying here. What a burden if you live in rebellion against God. What a cursed existence. They live for themselves and they died in their sin. He says in verse 11, who knows? I mean, this is what Moses saw. This is his testimony. Who knows the power of your anger? For as the fear of you, so is your wrath. You think about how Israel had been exposed to the wrath of God. They could have had the love of God, but again, in their flesh, they rebelled against God, they didn't live by faith, and they saw the wrath of God. They saw the mountains smoldering with fire. They prayed for Moses, or they pleaded with Moses that God wouldn't speak to them, that He would rather speak to them. They had seen and experienced the fiery serpents who afflicted them, and thousands upon thousands of them died in the desert. They rebelled against God, and only their descendants, only their children entered the promised land. And God terrified them in His judgment and curses. And so they asked, or Moses asked in the light of this, who knows the power of your anger? For as the fear of you So is your wrath, verse 11. And you know, beloved, it just struck me. I just thought about this as I was thinking about this text. It is not the power of God's anger that leads people to repentance. In fact, what happened is they hardened their hearts even more and they went on even further and they rebelled even more. Psalm 81 verse 11 and 12 says, but my people would not heed my voice and Israel would have none of me. So I gave them over to their own stubborn hearts to walk in their own counsel. So the fear of God or the wrath of God does not lead to repentance. What does lead to repentance? What leads to repentance? The goodness of God. The goodness of God. It is the goodness of God that leads to repentance. Romans chapter 2 verse 4. I remember somebody saying, and I think it's true, God's judgments are a strange work. The Lord takes no delight in judging the wicked. God would rather show mercy. They wouldn't listen to God's mercy, and they wouldn't listen to his wrath, and they just went into destruction. And that's why there needed to be a new covenant. There needed to be a covenant where their hearts would be changed, where God would put his spirit in them, where God would give them a heart of flesh, And God promised it. But I want you to think about the goodness of God leading to repentance. I want you to understand the desire of God was not God's desire. It was not God's pleasure to destroy them. Isaiah 30 verse 18 says, therefore the Lord will wait that he may be gracious to you and therefore he will be exalted that he may have mercy on you. And then it says, for the Lord God is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him. And what struck me is this, we love the first part of this. The Lord will wait that he may be gracious to you and therefore he will be exalted that he may have mercy on you. That's glorious, that's grace. But then the next part of this verse says, for the Lord God is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him. There needs to be justice. There needs to be judgment on sin. Right? This is the way God shows us mercy to deal with our sin, to judge our sin. And if you think about this, God is a God of justice. He will judge sin and indeed he has judged sin. How did he do it? He did it in his son. He sent his son, the promise that was all along pointing them from every one of those sacrifices, someone is coming who is going to bear the judgment of God. You think about what Moses says here, verse 11. He says, who knows the power of your anger? For as the fear of you, so is your wrath. Now let me say this to you, beloved. The Christian, the sinner who has been forgiven, knows more, and this is probably gonna strike you as, maybe you disagree with me, but the sinner, the child who has seen Christ, and seen what Christ has suffered in their place with sin, knows more, I think, than Moses and Israel about the wrath of God, because of the cross. because of the cross. Because, beloved, it is at the cross where our hearts are well and truly instructed about God's judgment upon sin. On the cross, God showed us how serious he is about sin, that he crushed even his own son, that he consumed even his own son, that we read in 2 Corinthians that he who knew no sin became sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God. It was for us in that Jesus cried out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Now, I want you to think about this. Think about Moses' question. At the end of this history of Israel, who knows the power of your anger? Well, I would again submit to you You can only truly know the power of God's anger when you think about what God did to his son, that he consumed his own son with all the wrath that every sinner on the planet deserves. Jesus drank that cup of wrath completely to such a degree that Paul writes, there is therefore now no condemnation for those who love God and believe in Him. And so the next part of Moses' statement, in light of Jesus becoming sin for us, bearing all of God's wrath for us, is really instructive. At least, I hope you see what I'm seeing here, but it was instructive for me because it says, for as the fear of you, so is your wrath. In the light of that, in the light of God's wrath upon His Son, I think we can truly, truly understand what it is to fear God. Because there, justice and mercy kiss. Because there we see the wrath of God, but at the same time, we see the love of God. This is where we learn godly fear. This is where we learn what it is to truly fear God. that God's own son suffered and bore God's wrath on his body for me. Psalm 130 verse four says, but there is forgiveness with you that you may be feared. That's the true fear. The fear that leads to godliness, the fear that is clean. This is what Psalm 19 says. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. You see, beloved, it's looking at that cross and seeing the wrath of God being poured out upon His Son that truly makes us hate sin and see it for what it is. To see that sin is against God. against you and you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight. That's where the heart is broken. This is what Paul writes in 2 Timothy 2.19. Nevertheless, the solid foundation of God stands having this seal. The Lord knows those who are his and that everyone who names the name of iniquity names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity. And everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity. How can you hold on to that for which God crushed his son over for your sin? How can you not tremble in the presence and the reality of that? And I want to say, friends, it is the fear of God that causes us to live soberly and righteously in this world. For it shows us how holy God is. His holiness also shows us how perfectly he loves us. For he is a jealous God. And he spared not his own son. And on his son, he judged our sin. And he is committed to purifying us and perfecting us and making us spotless Romans 8, 31 and 32 says this, what then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he with him also freely give us all things? And I wanna say that in the light of God's wrath and in the light of his judgment upon his son for our sin, When we see that and we realize the jealous love of God for us, does that not press upon us truly the words of Moses? Look at verse 12. So teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom. Teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom. Psalm 39 verse four says, Lord, make me to know my end. Make me to know my end and what is the measure of my days that I may know how frail I am. That I may know how frail I am. Only the gospel can cause us to live lives that are meaningful and fruitful. Because we are living with the hope of eternity in our hearts, and we are seeking to live lives that are worthy of our God. Listen to what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5-9. Therefore we make it our aim, with the present or absent, to be well pleasing to him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ that each one may receive the things done in the body according to what he has done, whether good or bad. Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men, but we are well known to God. It is when we come to the Christ beloved and we see Christ bearing our sins in his body that our heart should tremble and we should realize what God has done for us that we may live righteous and godly lives that we may live lives that are worthy but that we may live in the hope of eternity. and at the same time realize that there are people all around us that don't know this hope, that don't know this mercy, that don't know this great God, and they will meet Him one day. But it should be our desire that they would meet Him in Christ, safe in the arms of Christ, in His righteousness, accepted in the beloved, rather than meet Him without Christ. and suffer the eternal judgment and condemnation of God. Again, you think of these words that Moses writes here, where he says this, who knows the power of your anger? For as the fear of you, so is your wrath. May God give us grateful and thankful hearts for the hope we have in the gospel. And may he give us grace to continue to live in a way that is pleasing to him and may always enable us to hold forth the word of the gospel, the word of life to those who are perishing. So let's go to the Lord and let's seek his face in prayer.