Homilist Psalm 90:12-17 So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts to wisdom.… Life must be measured by days — I. BECAUSE A DAY IS A DIVINE DIVISION OF TIME. 1. This division of our time by God into periods whose coming and going must be felt, is a beneficent arrangement. Without it the voice of time would be a monotone in which we should sleep, not listen; or, even if we listened, it would make no impression on us. "Days should speak." 2. God has given us, in the arrangement of "days," striking symbols of the lifetime they unitedly compose. Each day is an epitome of a life. Morning paints our childhood, noon our manhood, night our death. II. BECAUSE OF ITS BREVITY. We do not attempt to reckon our mortal life by centuries, scarcely by years; for they are so uncertain, and at best there are so few of them. Only then do we realize that the sum of life demands, and will repay, careful calculation, and that a blunder in it is of immense mischief. III. BECAUSE OF ITS WORTH. Gold-dust and diamonds shall be weighed by grains, not by tons. So, because of its preciousness, "Time is dealt out by particles," and we number it, not in decades or in years. Life, as a whole, is of such untold worth, that every portion of it is priceless. IV. BECAUSE OF ITS IMPERCEPTIBLE DEPARTURE. Its final departure is marked and emphatic enough. The agonies of bereavement, the mysterious process of dying, make that known and felt. But it is equally and more solemnly true, that life is always departing. It ebbs from us with every breath. (Homilist.) 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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