Psalm 90:12 * November 11, 2007 * Last Judgment * Pastor Leyrer

Dear Friends in Christ,

If ever there was a man with the credentials to speak wisely and philosophically about life, it would be Moses, the author of our text for today.

Moses lived to be 120, and his life can be neatly divided into thirds. Let’s set the stage for our message this morning with a brief review of this great Bible history figure.

Moses’ first forty years were years of privilege. Even though he was part of the nation of Israel, which, at that time was enslaved by Egypt, he was the equivalent of the “celebrity adoptions” we see movie stars making today, and he grew up in the palace courts of Egypt as the grandson of the Egyptian pharaoh (king). There he was considered royalty. His every need was taken care of and he was surrounded by opulence and wealth.

The next 40 years would be just the opposite. Yes, Moses was raised in luxury. But he never severed his ties with his people. One day he witnessed one of his countrymen being abused by an Egyptian taskmaster, came to his defense and murdered the offending Egyptian. That act changed his lifestyle considerably. Celebrity status only went so far, so to avoid prosecution he fled to the arid land east of Egypt known as Midian. There he lived and worked as a shepherd for the next third of his life.

It was also there, at the age of 80, that God called him to the position for which most of us best know Moses: to lead the people of Israel out of the slavery of Egypt to the land God had promised them through their forefathers four centuries earlier. That job took up the last third of his life. Anyone with a working knowledge of Old Testament Bible history knows it was quite a journey. This was the context for the parting of the Red Sea, manna from heaven, the bronze serpent and other acts of divine providence.

Personally speaking, along the way Moses experienced euphoric highs and devastating lows. There were times when he personally met with God Almighty to the point that his own face glowed because of the radiance he experienced, and there were other times when he was so crushed and disappointed in the behavior of the Israelites that he wanted to throw in the towel. For every great action of providence, there was seemingly an almost equal and opposite reaction of ingratitude by the very people God was preserving. Such unevenness made much of Moses’ ministry hard.

So he had a realistic outlook on life as a member of God’s family. Psalm 90 is the only Psalm we have written by Moses. Because of its tone and sweep scholars generally understand it to come from his later years. It is a reflective psalm that recognizes God’s eternity and man’s frailty.

Moses talks about man’s mortality and the brevity of life. He reminds us that the real cause of death is not sickness or violence or “natural causes,” but sin. Man dies because man is sinful. And the wages of sin is death. But we know death for the believer is but the gate to life (thanks be to Jesus), and within this Psalm are also promises of hope.

A central theme in this Psalm is the matter of time. About two thirds of the way through it we find the short little prayer that serves as our text for today. On this Last Judgment Sunday, when we remember that Christ’s return to us as Judge or our return to Christ via the day of our death could come at any time, this passage provides us with a fitting framework for each of our lives from this point on. We might call this verse

A TIMELESS PRAYER AS TIME RUNS OUT

Moses suggests we pray for two specific things…

1. That we may learn to number our days aright

2. And that we may gain a heart of wisdom

“Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”

The first thing we are to pray for is that we “number our days aright.” What exactly does this mean?

First let’s talk about what it doesn’t mean. Did you know that there is a website entitled numberyourdays.com? There is. If you go there you can learn all kinds of interesting facts. For instance, did you know that as of today (November 11) it has been exactly 14,601 days since the U.S. population reached 200 million people? Or that it has been 679 days since the year the first baby boomer turned 60? Or that it is 1898 days until the date of the 2013 Presidential inaugural? That’s the kind of thing you can find there.

But you know what you can’t find there? The days each of us has left on this earth. Only God knows that. So when Moses tells us to number our days aright he obviously doesn’t mean “determine your last day on earth and then count backwards,” because none of us can do that. If we could, we would no doubt live our lives either in anticipatory fear or in a state of false security. So God doesn’t let us know how many tomorrows we have.

And that, of course, is the main message of Last Judgment Sunday. It is not a fearful message or a frightening one. It is simply a realistic one. Time is running out. When Jesus Christ ascended into heaven 40 days after that first Easter it was with the clear understanding that He will return. Every Sunday we proclaim as an article of our faith the one great event of the Christian message that has not yet taken place: “He [Jesus] will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead” (Nicene Creed), or “from there [heaven] he [Jesus] will come to judge the living and the dead” (Apostles’ Creed).

That judgment will not be on the basis of performance or deeds or how much money was given to charity. No, that judgment will be on the basis of where each person stands in relation to Jesus Christ. “God so loved the world that he gave His one and only Son that whoever believes in Him will have everlasting life.” As expressed in those beautiful Reformation phrases we considered last week, we are saved by God’s grace alone through faith alone in Jesus Christ alone. And because He did every thing for us, we have nothing to fear on that last great day; rather everything to look forward to.

But, again, we don’t know when that will be. And even if Jesus’ return is a long way off, we also have to think in terms of our personal day of judgment. Because that, too, could come at any time.

Headline news in the Milwaukee Journal yesterday was the tragic and untimely death of a prominent local physician. What made it newsworthy was the way it happened. His car was struck by a wheel that had come off a semi in the other lane of the freeway. It was one of those things that make you say to yourself, “you know, that kind of freak accident could happen to anybody.” The point, again, is that we can’t number our days. God does that for us. For some of us that will be sooner, for others of us it will be later.

So when Moses tells us to “number our days aright,” it has nothing to do with counting or the calendar. What he is telling us is that we are to rightly order all the days He graciously gives us. In other words, we are to use our time properly and purposefully. And, as Moses’ prayer goes on, “so that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”

This again, begs a question. What is “a heart of wisdom”? Or to contract it, what is a wise heart? Looking to the pages of Scripture we can come up with a number of different answers. Let’s consider just a couple of components.

A wise heart is a thankful heart. I have used this quote before and you’ll probably here it again somewhere along the line. That’s because it’s one worth repeating and incorporating into our consciousness as Christians. Speaking about Christians, the early Church Father Ambrose (spiritual mentor of perhaps a better known figure, Augustine) once said: “No duty is more urgent than that of returning thanks.”

When we as Christians concentrate on the blessings that God has showered upon us both physically and especially spiritually, there really is no other alternative than to be filled with thanksgiving. In fact, is it too strong a statement to say that, all things being equal, a heart overflowing with gratefulness ought to be the default position of every thinking Christian?

If this is not the case (and in our weakness we must all confess that we often fail in this area), it is only because we let we let the cares and troubles and stresses of this world crowd out the joys that accompany Christianity. And when we find ourselves focusing on the supposed negatives in our life, it would be good for us to remember the words of the Apostle Paul (who, by the way, was no stranger to cares and troubles and stresses): “I consider our present sufferings not worth comparing to the glory that will be revealed in us.”

A wise heart is first and foremost a thankful heart. And because it is, it is also a properly-ordered heart.

An interesting story is told about a missionary to Africa who had been faithfully witnessing to a certain individual. Following a conversation one day the African man whom the missionary had been working with placed a small statue and a silver coin on the table before him. Then he took two slips of paper and wrote something on each. Putting one beside the image and the other next to the money, he turned to the Christian worker and said, “Please read this.”

On the note by the idol were the words, “Heathen god.” On the note next to the coin was “Christian god.” From what he had observed in the lives of people from so-called “Christian” nations, he concluded that money was the object of their devotion.

I share that story with you not as indictment, but as a warning. We live in a very materialistic world. A world that subscribes to the creed that bigger equals better and more equals happier. A world that sees true fulfillment as just a winning lottery ticket away. A world that orders itself around externals and beckons each of us to buy into its way of thinking.

But it was in just such a world that Jesus asked the question, “What is a man profited, if he can gain the whole world and lose his own soul, or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?” Jesus also told us to store up treasures in heaven and reminded us that where our treasure is, there are heart will be also.

So a wise heart is a properly ordered heart. And at the heart of a properly ordered heart is Jesus Christ. He alone takes away the sins that disqualify us before a holy God. He alone is the One who gives us peace and rest and assurance and confidence and hope. He alone is the One who has written the final line to the story of our lives, no matter how big or how little a number is attached to the rest of our days on earth. And that final line is: And they lived happily ever after. In heaven with Jesus.

A wise heart is a properly ordered heart. A properly ordered heart is a Christ-centered heart. And the glorious result is that it then also becomes a joyful heart.

So on this Last Judgment Sunday let us be reminded – not scared, but reminded – that our days are numbered. Christ may come again at any time, as also may come the hour of our death. How shall we then live in the meantime? With this prayer on our lips and in our hearts:

Lord, for as long a time as we have on this earth, “Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” Amen.