Sermon Tone Analysis

TEXT:  Psalm 90:1-12, NLT

TOPIC:  Live Long, Live Well, Live Wise

Pastor Bobby Earls, First Baptist Church, Center Point, AL.

November 13, 2005

 

            Luther Rice, pioneer missionary to India, wrote in his personal journal of 1836:

 

            “The Lord in His mercy has brought me to the beginning of another year.

I think I have made some progress in religion the past year, but far less

            than I ought.

God grant I may do better, should life be preserved through

            this year also.

I think it right to plan, act, and labor, as if I might have

            thirty years of service yet before me; for even in that period, I should not

            have reached the age of my ancestors; but also to live, plan, act, and labor,

            as though I might die soon, any day, or hour.”

When Rice wrote these words, he had no way of knowing that he had only nine months to live.

He died on September 25, 1836.

This morning I’d like to share with you a message I’ve entitled, “Live long, live well, live wise.”

Take your bible and open to Psalm 90.

I am reading the first 12 verses of that psalm and I am reading from the NLT version of the bible.

Psalm 90:1-12.

1             Lord, through all the generations

you have been our home!

2             Before the mountains were created,

before you made the earth and the world,

you are God, without beginning or end.

3             You turn people back to dust, saying,

“Return to dust!”

4             For you, a thousand years are as yesterday!

They are like a few hours!

5             You sweep people away like dreams that disappear

or like grass that springs up in the morning.

6             In the morning it blooms and flourishes,

but by evening it is dry and withered.

7             We wither beneath your anger;

we are overwhelmed by your fury.

8             You spread out our sins before you—

our secret sins—and you see them all.

9             We live our lives beneath your wrath.

We end our lives with a groan.

10            Seventy years are given to us!

Some may even reach eighty.

But even the best of these years are filled with pain and trouble;

soon they disappear, and we are gone.

11            Who can comprehend the power of your anger?

Your wrath is as awesome as the fear you deserve.

12            Teach us to make the most of our time,

so that we may grow in wisdom.

There are those who believe Psalm 90 is the only psalm to be written by Moses.

If this is true, then Psalm 90 would also be the oldest psalm in the Book of Psalms.

It is very clear from the internal evidence of the psalm that it was written near the end of the 40 years of wilderness wanderings by the people of Israel.

You may recall how Moses led the children of Israel out of the Egyptian bondage to Mount Sinai where he gave them the commandments of God and the Law before bringing them to the entrance of the Promised Land.

Here the people refused to follow the leadership of Moses and claim their Promised Land.

They halted in faith, refused to enter and spent the next 38 years drifting in circles in the desert.

Moses buried 2 million of his own generation that never saw the Promised Land.

Some have called Psalm 90 a psalm of death.

I call it a psalm of life.

Within these brief verses is contained the words of wisdom that teach us how to live long, live well and live wise.

Notice that this psalm like so many psalms is more than a song, it is a prayer.

Moses begins by asking the Lord to help us remember that our days are not long on earth, that we are to make the most of them, and that we are to live wisely.

There are two great truths you need to take home with you today from this psalm if we too are to learn to live long, live well, and live wise.

Some may call this a philosophy of life, or a culture of understanding.

It is the basic Judea-Christian viewpoint, a Christian worldview.

It begins with an awareness of the eternal nature of God.

 

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*THE ETERNAL NATURE OF GOD*

 

The person who wishes to live long, well and wise, acknowledges that God is and that God is eternal.

Look again at the first two verses.

/Lord, through all the generations you have been our home!

2      Before the mountains were created, before you made the earth and the world, you are God, without beginning or end.

/

 

            God is eternal with no beginning or ending.

It is the first and most basic premise of the Bible, “In the beginning, God….”

Some may wonder how that is possible.

May I just say, that’s the reason He is God.

Think about it this way.

We believe in time.

Time has no beginning or end.

It has always been and always will be.

We believe in space.

If there is a beginning to space, then where is it?

If we found the beginning or the end of space, what would be on the other side of it?

If we can believe in time and space without beginning or end, then why not in God who has no beginning or end?

God is eternal.

He is Sovereign, meaning He is in control.

We live in a world today where many people reject the concept or the reality of God.

But if you’d like to have some fun with someone who claims to be agnostic or atheistic, then try this with them.

Ask them, are you sure about that?

Are you absolutely certain there is no God?

Then say something like this.

Then if you are sure there’s no God you must be one of the smartest, most knowledgeable people who has ever lived.

In fact, to know there is really no God must mean that you know practically everything there is to know.

Would you say that?

That’s incredible.

Especially in light of the fact that knowledge and new information, facts, new data is doubling every 10 years in our lifetime.

It’s amazing how you keep up with all of it!

Well, would you say you know at least 90% of everything there is to know?  90% of all the history, facts, information, 90% of everything there is to know?

How about 75%?  Then maybe you know at least 50%?

Then if you agree that you don’t even know half of all the history, facts, truths and everything there is to know would you agree that just perhaps somewhere in the 50% of everything you don’t know, that God could very well be a part of what you do not know or understand?

To live wisely which leads to living long and well, you must begin with the knowledge that God is, and that God is eternal.

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*THE FRAIL NATURE OF MAN*

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The wise person, who lives long and lives well, is also aware of man’s brief, frail existence in this world.

Over against the eternal nature of God, Moses pictures the frailty of man in verses 4-9.