Psalm 90:12-17 So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts to wisdom.… I. WHAT IS IMPLIED. In order to make a just estimate of our days, let us reckon — 1. Those days, or divisions of time, in which we feel neither good nor evil, neither joy nor grief, and in which we practise neither virtue nor vice, and which, for this reason, I call days of nothingness; let us reckon these, and compare them with the days of reality. 2. The days of adversity, and compare them with the days of prosperity. 3. The days of languor and weariness, and compare them with the days of delight and pleasure. 4. The days which we have devoted to the world, and compare them with the days which we have devoted to religion. 5. The amount of the whole, that we may discover how long the duration is of a life consisting of days of nothingness and of reality; of days of prosperity and of adversity; of days of pleasure and of languor; of days devoted to the world, and to the salvation of the soul. II. CONCLUSIONS. 1. The vanity of the life that now is, affords the clearest proof of the life to come. 2. Neither the good things, nor the evil, of a life which passes away with so much rapidity, ought to make a very deep impression on a soul whose duration is eternal. 3. This life is a season of probation, assigned to us for the purpose of making our choice between everlasting happiness or misery. 4. A life through which more time has been devoted to a present world, than to preparation for eternity, corresponds not to the views which the Creator proposed to Himself, when He placed us in this economy of expectation. 5. A sinner who has not conformed to the views which God proposed to Himself in placing him under an economy of discipline and probation, ought to pour out his soul in thanksgiving, that God is graciously pleased still to lengthen it out. 6. Creatures in whose favour God is pleased still to lengthen out the day of grace, the economy of long-suffering, which they have improved to so little purpose, ought no longer to delay, no, not for a moment, to avail themselves of a reprieve so graciously intended. (James Saurin.) 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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