Time is passing. And the beginning of a new year highlights the fact. Moses the man of God put it like this: “We spend our years as a tale that is told” (Ps 90:9). The telling of a story does not generally take long; it is told and then it is over. This is just one of a series of figures that Moses used to emphasise the brevity of time. Even when he reached the advanced age of 120, perhaps many years after he wrote the Psalm, he would still feel the truth of what he had said. We, in spite of all the medical advances of recent generations, are unlikely to reach such an age. And even if further advances are made which would make it possible to live to 120, we must still die. We must pass into the eternal world – into either heaven or hell.
How then should we use the few years that we are yet to spend in this world? (And we would be foolish to promise ourselves more than a moment of time, before we are swept away into eternity, where so many billions of souls have already gone, many of them taken away very suddenly.)
- We should make use of Moses’ petition: “So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom”. If the Lord will hear us and give us some spiritual wisdom, how will we number our days? We will come up with a very small number. As already suggested, we should be conscious that our lives may very swiftly be brought to a conclusion. We should always live with death in view, and what lies beyond.
In commenting on this verse, David Dickson refers to the human tendency to “look upon the indefiniteness of the time of continuance of [life] as if the duration of it were infinite, and our days were innumerable”. They most certainly are not. But fallen human beings refuse to focus on anything beyond the seen and temporal; they assume that there is no urgency about being prepared for death, judgement and eternity. Obviously, people will confess that their lives are unlikely to go on till, say, 100. But the fundamental problem lies in an unwillingness to recognise the evil of sin, or even the danger of it leading to a lost eternity. People want to go on enjoying themselves in sin and forgetting about the things of the soul as much as they dare; they assume that they would not feel at home with God and the things of God.
Yet it is our duty, and our wisdom, to keep in mind the fact that our lives will soon be over, “as a tale that is told”.
- We ought to apply our minds to the Saviour’s teaching on what should be our priorities in life. Having referred to the ordinary necessities of human life, such as food and drink and clothing, He added, “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness” (Mt 6:33). To seek a place in God’s kingdom and to be accounted righteous before God, through the saving work of Christ, is absolutely the most important matter that affects our well-being in time and in eternity.
If people point to their ordinary needs and the time and effort that must be spent in earning what will make it possible for them to obtain, for example, food and clothing, the answer lies in the further words of Christ: “All these things shall be added unto you”. If people seek salvation and find it, they become the children of God. And He undertakes to look after His children, so that they will have everything they really need, including food and clothing – to the extent that He, in His infinite wisdom, sees that it will be good for them. At last He will bring them safely to a better world where they will lack nothing. But we do not have long to seek salvation, for our lives are like “a tale that is told”. Unless we get right our priorities in life, it will soon be too late to seek salvation, which we so desperately need.
- Since our days are few, how concerned we should be to live every day to the glory of God. Our opportunities to do so in this life, before the world, will soon be over. In the words of Paul: “Whether . . . ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Cor 10:31). If our aim in life is to glorify God in all that we do – and that is how it should be – then we should recognise clearly that we must be serious about keeping from sin. For instance, we must do all in our power, in dependence on God’s grace, to avoid temptation. Such was the Psalmist’s attitude; he prayed: “Turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity” (Ps 119:37).
How conscious we should be that if we do not have spiritual life in our souls, if we do not recognise our weakness, and if we are not dependent on God to protect us, then we cannot begin to glorify God. If we trust in ourselves, we will fail. But “the Lord taketh pleasure in them that fear Him” (Ps 147:11) – that is, those who have a holy respect to His commandments and seek to obey them. And if God takes pleasure in such people, He is glorified in them, in spite of the fact that their obedience is imperfect. The believer’s life will soon be over, “as a tale that is told”. There is no time to be wasted; they must seek to mortify sin and grow in holiness.
This requires watchfulness and prayer. Thus the Saviour directed His disciples: “Watch and pray”. In particular: “Watch and pray, that ye enter
not into temptation” (Mt 26:41). Soon the believer’s life will be over; then their opportunities to glorify God before the watching world – to be “living epistles” that the world cannot avoid reading – will come to an end. Godly people have been described as “the world’s Bible”; they are Christ’s epistles (2 Cor 3:3) which make it known what it is to live, not in the ways of sin, but in the ways of God. They demonstrate that it really is possible to live a godly life in the midst of so many difficulties.
How easy to make huge blots in these letters through sin, perhaps making these letters largely illegible! That was true of Jonah when, in disobedience, he fled to Tarshish from the path of duty. He was sound asleep during the storm; he was not praying to his God. The seamen could not read the letter. How greatly believers need God’s grace to keep them, not only from public disobedience but even from heart sins! But Jonah looked again, by faith, to God’s holy temple, where sacrifice was offered for the sins of Israelites. And after being brought back to dry land, he carried out his commission to declare God’s revelation to Nineveh. It was again possible to see in the life of Jonah, as a living epistle, clear evidence of God’s grace. However imperfect he continued to be, he was again an example to those around him of how one should live to God’s glory, during his short life in this world.
George Burder, a minister in Coventry and London about 200 years ago, was preaching on Matthew 16:26: “For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?”. In his final point of application he asked his congregation: “Can the whole world make no amends for the loss of a soul? Then prize the world less, and the soul more. Learn to think of the world now as you will think of it on a dying bed. A dying man would give all the world for his soul. When in health, he does not so much as think of it. Whilst he is able, he will do nothing at all; and he would fain do all when he is no longer able to do anything. What a strange delusion is this!
“Will mankind never recover from it after so many fatal examples? Be moderate in your pursuit of the world. Be diligent in business, but take care to be ‘fervent in spirit’ also (Rom 12:11). Time is short. Eternity is long. Live for eternity. Show your regard for your souls by earnestness and diligence in all the means of grace. If you prize your souls, you will prize Sabbaths and the Bible and sermons and prayer and serious friends. Redeem then the time. Hear the voice of God while it is called today, for ‘now is the accepted time . . . now is the day of salvation’.”1
Look to Christ now, before it is too late, before the tale of your life – so short, especially in comparison with eternity – comes to an end.
1 George Burder, Village Sermons, vol 2, sermon 26, pp 11,12.