Lord, You have been our dwelling place throughout all generations.

Before the mountains

were born or You brought forth the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting You are God.
Psalm 90:1-2
Who knows the power of Your anger? For Your wrath is as great as the fear that is due You.
Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.
Psalm 90:11-12
This Psalm, at the beginning of the fourth book in Psalms is introduced as a prayer of Moses the
man of God. Moses was the prophet who was the type of the coming Christ. It was he that all of the
people of Israel looked back to as the one who brought to them the leading and the revelation of God.
In Deuteronomy 18:17-18 we read Gods promise to Moses regarding the coming Messiah.
The Lord said to me: What they say is good. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from
among their brothers; I will put My words in His mouth, and He will tell them everything I command
Him.
This promise was given through Moses to the people of Israel and became the foundation upon
which their faith and lives were based. It is this Moses, a type of the Lord Jesus Christ who prays for the
people of Israel in Psalm 90. His prayer, which is prayed to God while the people of Israel were
wandering in the wilderness, on their way to the promised land, but living under the judgment of God
on account of their unbelief. The prayer is filled with Biblical realism and wisdom and as a result it
becomes for us an example of the type of prayer which the Lord Jesus Christ is praying for us as He sits
at the right hand of God Interceding for us.
Someone has said that the problem that the people of Israel faced in the exodus was that they
were traveling with an absolutely holy God. Who would protect them from Him? How would they
survive their encounter with Him? It is this reality that we see clearly in the account of the exodus. As
they travel out into the wilderness the corruption of their sin is clearly exposed. Don Garlington has
written that the wilderness is a place of testing and judgment; it is a place to determine whether
Gods people will be obedient for the sake of their relationship with Him. It is as they are in the
wilderness being tested and living under the wrath of the holy God that Moses finds himself interceding
for them. Will they come to God in faith, believing His promise and relying on His grace or will they
come to Him in unbelief trusting themselves to their own devices?
Moses intercedes for Gods people asking that they will be given two things. These are the
ability to rightly number their days and that they be given a heart of wisdom. They must rightly and
humbly number their days, knowing who and what they are and seeing clearly that they are on their
way to judgment. Hebrews 9:27 & 28 puts it this way. Just as man is destined to die once, and after
that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and He will
appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for Him. The
first verse confronts us with the nature of our lives and our destiny which is to die once and stand
before God giving an account of our lives. The second verse shows us Gods gracious provision for us in
the cross of Christ in order to redeem us from sin. That is our hope. As Moses prays for Gods people
confesses the reality of their life under the wrath of God but then calls upon God to turn from His anger
and to be gracious to them. What Moses appeals to is not the peoples own goodness as if they deserve
the blessings of God. He appeals to Gods own gracious redeeming love for His people. It is because
God love us that He promised and sent Christ.
Moses asks that Gods people might be given Biblical, Godly wisdom so that they can
understand what God is doing among them and in faith come to Him receiving His grace and entering
into fellowship with Him. This is the invitation which the Lord offers to us today. It must be received
through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. There is no other way.