Everything Changes but God

There are people in our churches today who are living with anger. They're angry because things are changing, and they take out that anger on themselves or on their family. And it's not always the older people. Often it is. I receive mail from listeners who are sure that we are in a state of apostasy because we make some changes. Mr. Epp asked us one day if we would get a new arrangement for the theme song, and so we got a new arrangement for the theme song. We listened to it, we liked it, and we broadcast it. And people wrote and said, "You must not have prayed about that."

Moses comes to grips with the problem of change in our lives in Psalm 90 and tells us why we fear it and how we can face it.

"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, even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God. You turn man to destruction, and say, 'Return, O children of men.' For a thousand years in Your sight are like yesterday when it is passed, and like a watch in the night.

"You carry them away like a flood; they are like a sleep. In the morning they are like grass which grows up. In the morning it flourishes and grows up; in the evening it is cut down and withers. For we have been consumed by Your anger, and by Your wrath we are terrified. You have set our iniquities before You, our secret sins in the light of Your countenance.

"For all our days have passed away in Your wrath; we finish our years like a sigh. The days of our lives are 70 years; and if by reason of strength they are 80 years, yet their boast is only labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away. Who knows the power of Your anger? For as the fear of You, so is Your wrath."

Now you'll notice in Psalm 90:12, he changes his approach.

"So, teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. Return, O Lord, how long? And have compassion on Your servants. Oh, satisfy us early with Your mercy, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days! Make us glad according to the days in which You have afflicted us, the years in which we have seen evil. Let Your work appear to Your servants, and Your glory to their children. And let the beauty of the Lord, our God, be upon us, and establish the work of our hands for us; yes, establish the work of our hands."

If Moses, who wrote this Psalm, were alive today, he would qualify for the Guinness Book of Records. Not because of the length of his life—others have lived longer—and not because of the miracles he performed—the editors would not accept those—but he would qualify for the book of records because of the job that he had. He could write to them and say, "Dear editors, I believe that my name should be in your book because for nearly 40 years, I led the world's longest funeral procession."

That's why he wrote this Psalm. That funeral procession is the background of Psalm 90. And Psalm 90 talks about change and the God who doesn't change. And Psalm 90 tells us how to face change and how to learn from change.

Now perhaps the best way to look at this Psalm is to take three different viewpoints. One, the setting. If you don't understand the setting of Psalm 90, you will get the impression that being a Christian is the most doleful thing in the world. I can imagine young people reading Psalm 90 and saying, "Well, if that's what the Christian life is, I don't want it." "Consumed by your anger, terrified by your wrath."

But you've got to understand the setting of the Psalm. Then once we understand that, I want us to look at the meaning of the Psalm. Because in this Psalm, there are three cries of woe. But we're not going to stop there. We're going to move on then to the living of the Psalm because for each of these cries of woe, there's a prayer, and God answers the prayer. And so when you come to the end of the Psalm, it's not doleful, it's not mournful, it's not defeatist. There's a quiet dignity and victory, and you're able to face change and no longer be afraid.

The setting of the Psalm comes from Numbers 13-14. Don't turn there, you know the story. After two years leaving Egypt through the Red Sea to Mount Sinai, Israel came to Kadesh Barnea. For two years, God had been guiding them. At Kadesh Barnea, he said, "Go in and possess the land." They appointed a committee, which is a group of people who individually can do nothing and collectively decide nothing can be done.

The committee examined the Promised Land for 40 days, and came back and gave a report, and their report was, "It's exactly what God said." What else would you expect? 10 of the committee members said, "We'll never take it, though. We saw giants, and we look like grasshoppers in their sight, and we saw walls around the cities, and we're just not able to do it." Two of the men said, "We can take it." Joshua and Caleb said, "God is on our side!" And the people said, "No, we're going to follow the majority." It's a good democratic way to get into trouble.

And God spoke and said, "All right, you don't believe me, do you? From the day I brought you out of Egypt to the day I brought you to Kadesh Barnea, you haven't believed me." "But we're afraid for our children, we're afraid for our young people." "No," he said, "don't be afraid for them. I'll tell you why. Everybody 20 and under is going to live. The rest of you are going to wander around, wander around, and die."

Now at the beginning of the book of Numbers, we're told that there were 603,550 men 20 years and older. That's a lot of people. And in the next 38 years, they were all going to die. Assuming that there were at least that many women, they were going to die. It averages out to about 86 people a day. Can you imagine getting up in the morning and saying, "I wonder who's going to die today?"

The young people didn't have to worry. Teenagers would wake up and say, "Hey, another great day today." The children would wake up and say, "Isn't it wonderful to be following the Lord?" Mother would say, "Get that smile off your face. Your father might die today."

And Moses led the world's longest funeral march. For 38 years graves, graves every day. Nearly 90 people dying and being buried until finally that whole unbelieving generation was wiped out. That is when Moses wrote Psalm 90. "Teach us to number our days."

How old are you? 40? Boy, you might last till 80. Then again, you might not. How old are you, 30? Well, you got 40 years. You might last till 70. It's all here in the Psalm. People were counting their days. Because they knew they were going to die.

By the way, ever since the day you were born, you joined a funeral procession. They at least had one advantage. They knew where the terminus point was. We don't know. One of us could be gone today. So, Moses here is saying, life is something like a funeral procession. We're on a death march. Now, that's not the whole story, but that's what he's saying. That's the background of this.

Now the meaning of the psalm. Did you notice that he cries out to God, and he says, "Lord, life is brief." That's Psalm 90:1-6. Life is brief. And then he says, "Life is difficult." That's Psalm 90:7-11. And then in Psalm 90:12-17, he says, "Life seems so futile." Let's look at those three cries. I don't doubt that at one time or another, some of us have cried out that way.

"Oh, Lord, life is brief." Occasionally people ask me, "Why is it the older you get, the faster life seems to go?" Do you ever think about that? Some of us are getting up in years. I'm older now than I was when I first came to Gull Lake. When I went from age 9 to age 10 that one year, that was just 1/10th of my life. That's a big part of time, 1/10th of your life.

When I went from 19 to 20, that one year was a 20th part of my life. A little shorter. Recently when I went from 59 to 60, that's a 60th part of my life. It goes much faster. It's not the portion. It's the proportion. And the older we get the faster life seems to flow. Life is brief.

Notice the pictures. He gave some beautiful pictures here. In Psalm 90:3, life is just man going back to dust. The NIV says, "You turn man back to dust." That's what the Hebrew says. "You're turning us back to destruction. We came from dust, we're going back to dust."

A little girl learned that in Sunday school and she was looking under the bed one day. She said, "Mama, there's somebody here who's either coming or going." And we use all kinds of art as embalmers, but we still turn to dust. The cosmetician does his best, but we still turn to dust.

In Psalm 90:4, he compares life to yesterday when it's passed. Like a watch in the night, the changing of the guard. Like a flood that just sweeps in and takes everything with it. Sometimes life quietly changes like turning over the calendar. Sometimes life dramatically changes like a flood coming in. Or like just going to sleep and waking up. "Oh, I'm so tired. Did I sleep long?" "Yeah, about 8 hours." Doesn't seem like it. Just seems like that. Or like mowing the lawn. Next time you mow the lawn, just think of Psalm 90:6. The grass grows up, and then it's cut down.

We cry out and say, "Life is brief." But against the background of the brevity of life, notice Psalm 90:1-2. "Lord, You are the unchanging God." On the stage of life, the characters are changing, but the script is the same: birth, life, death. On the stage of life, things are in flux, but the background, oh no, the background doesn't change.

God, our dwelling place in all generations, the unchanging God who made the mountains and stands stronger than they do, who created the world. We make the statement, "Oh, it's as sure as the world." Nothing is more unsure than the world. "Heaven and earth shall pass away." But here is the unchanging God, and our lives seem so brief on the stage of life. But there in the background, from everlasting to everlasting you're God.

He goes on to say that life is not only brief, but life is difficult. The well-known psychiatrist Scott Peck has written a fascinating book called The Road Less Traveled, which he opens by saying, "Life is difficult. And when you accept that fact, it becomes easier." That's true. He's saying here life is difficult. Why? Because we're sinners.

In the first section of the psalm, here is the eternity of God and the frailty of man. Here is God eternal and man temporal. Here is God from everlasting to everlasting, and here is man the brevity of life.

Now, in the second section, here's a holy God—a holy God and a sinful man. And life is difficult. In fact, those years of wandering must have been terribly difficult, counting the days knowing that when they died they died because of their unbelief and their rebellion against God.

"Labor and sorrow," he says in Psalm 90:10, "Even if you do live for 80 years, all you've got to brag about is labor and sorrow." Again, it sounds doleful. It sounds so, to use a big word, lugubrious. But it isn't, he's just facing facts. And his first cry, life is so brief. His second cry, life is so difficult because I'm a sinner. Now don't get the impression from Psalm 90 that all God does is sit in heaven and wait for us to do something wrong so he can zap us. Oh, no. Moses is presenting only one side of the picture from the experience of Israel.

In Psalm 90:12-17 he cries out and says life seems so futile. That's what Solomon wrote about in Ecclesiastes. Life is so futile. "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity." The Hebrew word for vanity means that which is left when a soap bubble breaks. Nothing. Our work. We're doing our work, it's gone. We get smart enough to know how to live, we're gone. Three cries: life is brief, life is difficult, life seems so futile.

But let's move now to the living of this psalm. Because in parallel to these three cries are three prayers. Perhaps you want to mark these three prayers in your Bible. Psalm 90:12, "Teach us." Psalm 90:14, "Satisfy us." Psalm 90:17, "Establish us."

Life is brief. "Teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts to wisdom." We don't number our days, we number our years. You stop and say, "Wiersbe, how old are you?" You could figure it out from the video, I'm 60. But that's years. If I numbered my days, I'd be 19,000 and 11 days old. But nobody counts that way. We're supposed to. You don't live a year at a time, you live a day at a time. I know in the dentist's office, it seems like a year at a time, but it's a day at a time.

Life is brief. Teach us to number our days. You are the eternal God. You have planned our lives. Now, in Jesus Christ, teach us to number our days. We're abiding in him. We know him as our Lord and our Savior. One of the hardest things for us to do is accept the fact that we're dust. We think we're steel. We're not, we're dust.

The older we get, the more artificial we become. I have artificial eyes, trifocals. Some people have artificial ears, I'm getting to the place where I need them. Some people have little things that keep their heart going. Blessed are the pacemakers. Some of you are wearing artificial hips. The older we get, the more artificial we become.

And here is the changeless God who says, "Number your days." Not in a negative sense, in a positive way. Here is a new day the Lord has given me. My times are in his hands. The eternal God has asked me to drop my little days into the great, big ocean of his life, and those days are important because I belong to him.

Life is brief. Teach us. How does he teach us? Through the unchanging word. God's word doesn't change. "Heaven and earth shall pass away. My word shall not pass away." And so when I open my Bible, God opens his mouth, and I know that because he's the unchanging God, every promise is still true, every warning is still standing, everything he says to me I can trust, and though all around me changes, I can go to the unchanging God and the unchanging word of God. Teach us to number our days.

Then he prays in Psalm 90:14, "Satisfy us early." That word "early" means in the morning. Satisfy us in the morning. God did satisfy them in the morning. Every morning, early, the manna came down, fed them. I wouldn't have done it that way. That bunch of rebels, I wouldn't have done that. Imagine, you walk out the tent door, and there's your breakfast from heaven, angel's food. I wouldn't have done that. But God's gracious and kind. Satisfy us.

Life is difficult. Satisfy us. I confess to you that when things are going tough, my first prayer is, "Lord, how can I get out of this?" It should be, "Lord, what can I get out of this?" You know why? God's building character. The purpose of life is not for me to have my way. "The purpose of life," said Phillips Brooks, "is the building of character through truth."

And God drops me into the furnace, and life is difficult. But every time God puts me into the furnace, you know what he does? He keeps his hand on the thermostat and his eye on the clock. He knows how long. He knows how much. And he hasn't made a mistake yet.

"Lord, life is difficult." "Yes, it is. That's the way it's going to be." But what life does to you depends upon what life finds in you. "And if there's faith in Jesus Christ," says my Father in heaven, "I can satisfy you." That's a glorious way to live. It's a glorious way to live.

Say, "Nobody can do that." Oh, yes. Two men were doing it in the camp, Caleb and Joshua. They had not sinned in rebellion. God said they're going to make it. And so Caleb would see Joshua, and he'd say, "How many funerals you go to today?" "Oh, just three or four. I'm not worried about it. I'm not going to die. I'm going to be in Canaan land." Those two would get together and talk about Canaan land. They were being satisfied by the goodness of the Lord.

Even if we do die, that shouldn't make life miserable for us. Jesus said, "I'm the resurrection and the life. He that believes in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. And whoever lives and believes in me shall never die." We may never die. He may come today. Life is brief. Teach us to number our days. Life is difficult. Satisfy us with yourself, not with circumstances, with yourself.

Psalm 90:17, "Establish us." Life seems so futile, but it isn't. It isn't. "Let the beauty of the Lord, our God, be upon us." Though the outward person is perishing, the inward person is being renewed day by day, and we're be being made conformed to the image of his Son. And when we get to heaven, it's not going to be important how comfortable we were on earth. It's going to be very important how conformable we were on earth.

Oh, teach us. Satisfy us. Establish the work of our hands. "He who does the will of God abides forever." And the work goes on. John Wesley used to say, "God buries his workmen, and he continues his work," and he does.

You know why we're afraid of change? It reminds us of death. You know why we're afraid of change? We want to control everything. A lady wrote me a letter and said, "I wish everything were back to 1950." I wrote back and said, "I'm glad it isn't. I wouldn't be married, wouldn't have four children, seven grandchildren." "Backward, turn backward, oh Time, in your flight. Make me a child again just for tonight." Nostalgia is wonderful for memories, it's no good for life.

Life is brief. Teach me to number my days and help me to use those days for your glory. Life is difficult. Satisfy me, O God. Every morning satisfy me. Life seems so futile. Lord, establish the work of our hands. Just use what we're doing to accomplish your will. You see, we don't have to be afraid of change, life or death, if we're plugged in to the eternal God.

Right now, we are living in eternity. Right now, eternal life is not just endless life, it is a quality of life from God. We are living in eternity. Therefore, we don't have to worry about change because our God never changes. "From everlasting to everlasting, thou art God." "Oh Lord, you have been our abiding place in all these generations." "The eternal God who is unchanging is our refuge and underneath are the everlasting arms."

Therefore, don't go around complaining because everything's changing on the outside. Just make sure that everything's changing on the inside. Though the outward person perishes, the inward person renewed day by day, conformed to the image of his Son. Who can be afraid of life or death when you know the unchanging God, whose word never changes, whose love never changes, whose power never changes, whose purpose never changes, and underneath are those everlasting arms?

Jesus said, "I have come that they might have life and have it more abundantly." Do you have that life? Is your faith in Jesus Christ? Is your life lost in the ocean of the unchanging God who never fails?

Let's pray together. Thank you, Father, that we are not in a funeral march, spiritually, for we're marching in triumph with our Lord Jesus, heading for glory. Forgive us when we've complained about things on the outside. Help us to major on things on the inside. Thank you. Thank you. Through Jesus Christ, our Lord, amen.