Psalm 90:12-17 So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts to wisdom.… I. WHO IS IT THAT TEACHES? It is God Himself. The mere record, as contained in the world which we see, or in the written Word which we read or hear, is not of itself sufficient. It is the letter, not the life: it cannot of itself convey a saving knowledge of the truths, of which it is nevertheless the chosen depository. Christ must be revealed in us as well as to us ere we can know Him as we ought. It was in Him, as the apostle tells the Galatians, that God was pleased to "reveal Himself." II. How DOES GOD TEACH? In many ways. By parents, ministers, friends. Also by outward objects — churchyard, storm, epidemic, etc. III. THE END OF GOD'S TEACHING. "That we may apply our hearts unto wisdom." Do you find this a hard lesson? The Israelites found it so, and their stiff-neckedness is written in an enduring record for your learning. The old world found it so; for they were "eating and drinking," etc. The foolish virgins found it so. Their lamps were gone out, they themselves were slumbering, when the bridegroom came and the door was shut. Are you wiser? Have you profited by these warnings? Have you been "taught"? Are you numbering your days with a consciousness of the relative difference between time and eternity? But what is wisdom? That is the practical question which so many never ask, though it concern them so vitally to learn the lesson; that is the question, too, which so many ask, but not of Him who alone can give them the true answer. What, for instance, did Moses himself esteem wisdom to be? Not all the learning of the Egyptians with which he was conversant, for he renounced it all, esteeming the reproach of Christ better than all the riches of Egypt. And what is Job's definition of wisdom (Job 28:28; 1 Corinthians 3:19). What did the great apostle pronounce is not to be, after he had ceased to sit as Saul of Tarsus at the feet of Gamaliel? And what does he say it is? First, the receiving of Christ by us as sinners; secondly, the adorning of the doctrine in our lives. (Bp. Sumner.) Parallel Verses KJV: So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.WEB: So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. |
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