Homilist Psalm 90:1-17 Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.… I. IN THE SAFE GUARDIANSHIP OF GOD (ver. 1). 1. In other places God is represented as the dwelling-place of human souls (Isaiah 4:6; Deuteronomy 33:27; Psalm 91:9). Human souls want a home, a place where they can rest in confidence, sheltered from the storm, protected from the burning rays, and shielded from every danger and every foe. 2. What a dwelling-place is God! (1) How safe! The combined armies of hell cannot enter it; the strongest storm in the universe cannot affect it. (2) How happy! In it there is everything to charm the imagination, gratify the love, delight the conscience, transport the whole soul in raptures of joy. (3) How accessible. Its doors are open to all. Untold millions have entered it, and yet there is room. (4) How enduring! The strongest castles rumble before the breath of time, and the material universe may be dissolved, but this "dwelling-place" will stand for ever. II. IN PHYSICAL CONTRAST TO GOD (vers. 2-6). Here is the Eternal in antithesis with man the evanescent, the absolute in contrast with man the dependent. 1. Man is mortal. Dust we are and to dust we must return. But this event occurs not by accident, or disease or fate. No. "Thou turnest man to destruction." There are no accidental deaths in the world. 2. Emblems of the brevity of human life. (1) A "watch." This, according to Hebrew chronology, was only one-third of the nocturnal season. Life is spoken of, not as a year or a month, but as a third part of a night, so brief it is. (2) "Sleep," "Sleep ceases," says Luther, "ere we can perceive it or mark it; before we are aware we have slept, sleep is gone." When the oldest man, as he is about passing away, looks back on his past life, the whole seems only as a vision of the night. (3) "Grass." What are men? Merchants, warriors, emperors, armies? Grass, nothing more. The wind passeth over them and they are gone. Oh, what is man to God? (Homilist.) Parallel Verses KJV: {A Prayer of Moses the man of God.} Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations.WEB: Lord, you have been our dwelling place for all generations. |
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