November 11, 2012

Final Judgment - Nov 11, 2012

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SERMON:

Waiting is hard for human beings to do.
We find it annoying to wait for the webpage to load, even when it only takes a few more seconds than usual. When we check out at the grocery store we choose the line carefully, looking to see which is the shortest, or which is moving fastest. Once we're in line we look around, scanning to see if maybe we should jump ship. Maybe that line over there is moving faster.

Perhaps the human race has always been in a hurry. But it seems modern man is even less willing to wait. Even less capable of being patient. Whole industries have been built on the foundation of speeding things up. Why wait to get home, when you can have the internet on your phone. Post office!? Who uses the post office to send letters anymore, we've got instant email. And if that's not fast enough you can just text on your phone.

Why make a bid when you can "buy it now". Why wait for your music to be sent on CD, just download the mp3. Cooking? That takes time, just put something in the microwave.

The argument could be made that all these things are just time savers. They're not really making us impatient, they're just more efficient.

But the fact remains, waiting is hard for human beings to do. Stillness is contrary to our nature. We always have to be listening to something, tinkering with something, playing some game, reading something. Rarely do we make room for quiet contemplation and stillness.

We've all but forgotten the old saying, "Haste makes waste."

But sometimes slowing down and waiting is important, even crucial.

In high school woodshop our teacher taught us to measure twice and cut once. Simple repeated measuring catches many a mistake, and saves a lot of wood from the trash bin. Not to mention saving the carpenter from a lot of frustration.

Or how about the old fashioned advice of "sleeping on it". You know, waiting a day before sending out that email, or that letter, or making that angry call. Often in the morning you find that your words would have been out of place, inappropriate, hurtful, or permanently damaging. A little waiting makes things clearer and saves us from saying things we would have regretted.

There is a reason why they say, "Patience is a virtue".

We human beings tend to get a little too focused on things. We zero in on solving a problem, finishing a job, or winning an argument and lose sight of the bigger picture. Waiting helps us detach from this short-sighted focus and gain greater perspective.

In our sermon reading for today, Moses invites us to wait. To contemplate. To be still and ponder God's eternal nature as compared to man's temporariness. Moses invites us to be still and really consider our sinfulness and God's burning wrath over our sin. Lastly, Moses prays that God would help us to cling to His steadfast love, and give us perspective that will make our days meaningful.

Psalm 90 (ESV)

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, O children of man!”
      For a thousand years in your sight
are 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 set 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.
10     The years of our life are seventy,
or even by reason of strength eighty;
       yet their span is but toil and trouble;
they are soon gone, and we fly away.
11     Who considers the power of your anger,
and your wrath according to the fear of you?
12     So teach us to number our days
that we may get a heart of wisdom.
13     Return, O Lord! How long?
Have pity on your servants!
14     Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love,
that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
15     Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us,
and for as many years as we have seen evil.
16     Let your work be shown to your servants,
and your glorious power to their children.
17     Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us,
and establish the work of our hands upon us;
yes, establish the work of our hands!
Individual human beings have the tendency to think that the world revolves around them. We also tend to overestimate our contribution to the world.

Moses puts things in perspective for us by comparing mankind to God.

Moses says that God gave birth to the mountains. In the Pacific Northwest this imagery isn't lost on us. We've all seen that spot on south I-5 where you come around the curve and Mt. Rainier's hulking mass comes into view. It dominates the landscape, creating it's own clouds as the ocean air passes over it.

If we're adventurous we can hike the trails to Hurricane Ridge out on the Olympic Peninsula and be completely surrounded by massive peaks untamed by man's bulldozers. No shopping malls and endless parking lots there.

If we're really adventurous we can board a plane and seek out the highest peaks of the world. Peaks like K2 and Mt. Everest, that rise so far into the atmosphere that human beings have to take bottled oxygen to reach the top, or risk never coming back.

Next to the grand mountains which God has fashioned, Moses places mankind for comparison. What is man when compared to the mountains of God? Dust. Moses writes,

"You return man to dust and say, 'Return, O children of man!" (v3).

In the beginning God created Man from dust, and to dust we must all one day return.
Moses also speaks of time, in comparing mankind to God. Time doesn't effect God like it effects us. Moses writes,

"For a thousand years in your sight [O God] are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night" (v4).

But as for mankind, we struggle to reach a single century.
Moses compares us to the grass of the field. In the morning the dew nourishes the grass and makes it stand tall and strong. But as the day's sun beats down on the fields, the grass dries out, withers and fades by the time the evening comes.

It's like the old riddle: What goes on four legs in the morning, on two legs at noon, and on three legs in the evening?

Man throughout his life. First crawling, then walking, then walking with a cane.

God on the other hand, is eternal, strong, and unchanging in power and glory.
With these comparisons, and others, Moses uses the first six verse of Psalm 90 to simply describe mankind's frailty and mortality in a general sense. But at verse seven Moses makes it a little more personal. Look at verse seven again. Moses switches from his general description of the human race and draws in his listeners with the word "we". Look at verse seven again.

"For we are brought to an end by your anger; by your wrath we are dismayed. You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence" (v7).

"Secret sins" could refer to sins that we somehow thing God doesn't know about. Or it could refer to the sins which we have done, but don't even recognize as sins. Like the writer says in Psalm 19...

"...who can discern their own errors?
Forgive my hidden faults" (Psalm 19:12 NIV).

Whichever way we understand "secret sins" in Psalm 90, the fact remains that God knows all our sins, even if we don't. They are set before His eyes like items on a list. Everything is disclosed to God, nothing can be hidden from His judgment.

Even this shows man's frailty. We don't even know all the wrong we've done.
In addition to not knowing all our sins, we also downplay the consequences of our sins.

Don't we all harbor a little doubt when it comes to the concept of eternal punishment in hell? Don't we all have a bit of hope in the back of our minds that hell really doesn't exist? That surely our sins aren't THAT bad, that God would consign us to eternal suffering apart from Him?

Moses was human just like us. He knew how we think. In verse 11 Moses writes,

"Who considers the power of your anger, and your wrath according to the fear of you?" (v11).

The obvious answer to this rhetorical question is, "Nobody". Nobody really grasps how great the Holy God's wrath is because of our sins. We, God's own blessed creatures, the crown and caretakers of all that was created, have pushed Him away by our sins. We have scorned His clear and loving commands and chosen our own ways instead.

Mankind says things like, "The woman, YOU put here with me, she made be do it." Man says things like, "I was born this way, YOU made me like this". We take the blessings of God, misuse them in any way we want to, and then we put the blame back on God.

As it says in Proverbs...

"Every way of a man is right in his own eyes,
but the Lord weighs the heart" (Proverbs 21:2 ESV).

"There are those who are clean in their own eyes
but are not washed of their filth" (Proverbs 30:12 ESV).

Like ants on a hill, we scurry around doing what we will, totally oblivious to the greatness of God above, and totally oblivious to the wrath that hangs over our heads because of our sinful choices.

Only when God educates us by His Holy Word do we become wise. Seeing our sin clearly, and the punishment for our sin.
In the middle portion of Psalm 90, Moses makes it clear that the reason life is full of toil and trouble is because of sin. And because of sin we must all one day face death. Moses describes it like this. He writes...

"Four all our days pass away under your wrath; we bring our years to an end like a sigh" (v9).

But there is one exception to this rule. One human being who did not end His days with the weak exhale of one final breath. One human being who did not suffer because of His own inborn sin and His own outward choices. Jesus Christ.

When God's Son suffered on a Roman Cross some two thousand years ago, He was not suffering because of God's wrath over His own sins. He had no sins to suffer for. He was suffering for ours.

And when Jesus finally died, His years were not "brought to an end like a sigh". In the Gospel of Matthew we read that before Jesus died He cried out with a loud voice saying, "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!" (Luke 23:46 ESV).

The Roman Centurion who was standing by, overseeing this execution was amazed. Of all the deaths he had seen in his many years of campaigning for Rome, no one had died like this. This was no final frail exhale of defeat, this was the cry of a champion.

It was as Jesus had said,

" 14 I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, 15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep. 16 And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. 17 For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. 18 No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again" (John 10:14-18 ESV).

Because Jesus suffered God's great wrath over your sins and mine, we don't have to. Because of Jesus, our sins stand forgiven. This is what we must cling to as we think of the end of our days, and the great final judgment to come. This is our salvation, the work of God, His gift to us - forgiveness in Christ.

God wants us to be still and ponder His greatness. God wants us to be quiet and think about our sins. But God wants the wave of salvation through Christ to crash in after these thoughts and lift us up on the wave of joy and praise.

Like it says in the book of Lamentations,

"The Lord is good to those who wait for him,
to the soul who seeks him.
It is good that one should wait quietly
for the salvation of the Lord" (Lamentations 3:25-26 ESV).
In the final verses of Psalm 90, Moses prays to the Lord on behalf of his fellow believers. He prays that God would teach us to "number our days", that is, to have perspective on our great need of God in our lives. He prays that God would come to those meditating on their sins, and longing for His grace. And Moses prays that God would make His work known to his servants and their children so that their lives will have meaning and purpose, and that we will be ready for the great day of final judgment, through faith in the promised Savior.

We close our mediation here by praying those words again.

Prayer:    Psalm 90:12-17 (ESV)
12     So teach us to number our days
that we may get a heart of wisdom.
13     Return, O Lord! How long?
Have pity on your servants!
14     Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love,
that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
15     Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us,
and for as many years as we have seen evil.
16     Let your work be shown to your servants,
and your glorious power to their children.
17     Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us,
and establish the work of our hands upon us;
yes, establish the work of our hands!

We pray these things in Jesus name, Amen.

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