THE timeless existence of Jehovah as contrasted with the transitoriness of man’s life is the subject which Moses, “the man of God,” deals with in the 90th Psalm. The thought of the Lord’s timeless existence as he viewed the passing away of the generation which he had led out of Egypt came to Moses’ mind with an impressiveness that was solemnising and commanding. When he turns his thoughts to the God who had been the dwelling-place of His people in all generations, the timelessness of His existence is set forth in the impressive words:—”Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting thou art God. . . . For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.” Then he turns aside, and another sight meets his gaze; it is that of a generation of men passing hence, carried irresistibly forward, as by a flood, to the great and never-ending Future—”Thou carriest them away as with a flood; they are as a sleep; in the morning they are like grass which groweth up. In the morning it flourishteth; in the evening it is cut down, and withereth.” The flood conveys to the mind the irresistibleness of death and “sleep,” the utter helplessness of men before this overmastering power. Yet solemnising though this may be, what gives added impressiveness to it is the fact that behind this overflowing flood there is sin—”We are consumed by thine anger, and by thy wrath are we troubled. Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, our secret sins in the light of thy countenance. For all our days are passed away in thy wrath: we spend our years as a tale that is told.” The transitoriness of man’s life and the fact that the Lord will judge men—even their secret iniquities being set before Him—calls forth a prayer from one profoundly impressed with the view of the solemnities upon which he has been meditating—”So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.” This is a prayer that is peculiarly appropriate at all times, but it has a special appropriateness at such a season when we are passing from one year into another with its joys and its sorrows, in the infinite wisdom of God, hidden from us.
In many houses such a season will bring home the fact with renewed sorrow that there are places vacant that will never be filled up in time. We, as a Church, too, have to mourn the loss of many faithful men and women whose vacant places have left a blank in our congregations that bring home to us impressively the solemnising words of Scripture—”All flesh is as grass and all the glory of man as the flower of the grass.” There is nothing permanent here—youth and age are passing hence—and God is calling home the gifts He gave for a season to His Church, so that His servants may rest from their labours. And we have no doubt that the thoughts of our readers will be turned to the great loss they have sustained in the removal from his work here below of the Editor, who, since the inception of this Magazine, so ably conducted it that he became to many who had never seen his face a beloved friend. We mourn his loss with that of the goodly company of God’s people who have passed to their rest during the year that has passed forever with all its joys and sorrows.
Much might be said at such a time in reviewing the state and condition of things in the world generally, but our present theme is not so much this as the timelessness of God’s existence and the transitoriness of man’s brief life. It is this, as we have seen, with the knowledge that men after their course here—whether it be long or short—is finished will be judged by God that calls for the prayer—”So teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.” In view of what is before them men ought to live wisely and soberly, but it is not in them to do so. Hence the need of the prayer that the God before whom we must appear should teach us and make us wise in redeeming the time because the days are evil. What an unspeakable blessing it would be for old and young to have a Friend that sticketh closer than a brother, then the years that rob parents of their children and children of their parents, husbands of their wives and wives of their husbands, and God’s people of the fellowship of those with whom they had long, happy companionship, would not be able to break the tie that binds us to Him. The believer of the New Testament dispensation has not only his thoughts turned to the timelessness of God, but also to the unchangeableness of Him who is the same yesterday, to-day and for ever. And with such a hope they may well be said to be a happy people.
The timelessness of God’s existence which arrests our attention in the opening verses of the 90th Psalm is a theme of awe-inspiring sublimity. To God there is no Past or Future—there is only the Present. Time, as applied to His existence, has no meaning. “One day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (2 Peter iii. 8). The inspired messengers of God when they rose to the height of their great argument in setting forth His glorious character often dwelt on this theme. The Psalmist sees change in everything around him—even the heavens and the earth are to pass away, but He that laid the foundation of the earth is the same and His “years shall have no end.” This is the God who has been the dwelling-place of His people in all generations in the past, and will be in the future. The timelessness of God’s existence and the transitoriness of man’s life are set forth impressively in the concluding verses of one of the metrical versions of the 102nd Psalm:—
“They perish shall as garments do,
But thou shalt evermore endure;
As vestures thou shalt change them so;
And they shall all be changed sure:
But from all changes thou art free;
Thy endless years do last for aye,
Thy servants, and their seed who be,
Establish’d shall before thee stay.”