SERIES: Psalms, Cries of the Heart
The Cry of Futility
SPEAKER: Michael P. Andrus
Introduction: I heard on the radio last week that of the top ten most frequently prescribed drugs in the United States, three are anti-depressants. They are prescribed for a wide variety of ailments, but the most common is depression. Obviously, there are millions and millions of Americans who are confronted regularly with a sense of the futility of life. Even those who are not subject to depression are often baffled by the strange and random events of life that seem to have no purpose and no benefit. In fact, I think my faith is sometimes troubled as much or more by the little irritations of life as it is by the major tragedies.
One a Monday afternoon last winter I was planning to stay at the office since I had an Elder meeting at 7:00, but I got a call from my wife in the middle of the afternoon saying the dog had locked himself in our bedroom. Andy had put him in there, and while pawing at the door he had turned the knob on the deadbolt lock. You’re probably wondering what a deadbolt lock is doing on a bedroom door, but it was there when we bought the house. Unfortunately, what looked like a blessing turned into a curse.
I first tried every stray key in the house, then broke the lock apart, and even tried a knife and a credit card. Nothing worked. Finally, I decided to take the door stop off the jamb, realizing too late that this was a split jamb, and the stop was an integral part of the jamb. Before I knew it, I had destroyed a beautifully varnished doorway. Even after I succeeded in exposing the end of the deadbolt, I couldn’t get it to move because, as I discovered, a dead bolt has a notch in it that prevents it from being pushed back in—it must be turned back by the knob.
By now I was thoroughly frustrated and finally gave into the exhortation of my wife to call a locksmith. He said he would be there in 45 minutes and the charge would be $55. After an hour and a half, he still wasn’t there, so I called back and was told he was on his way and would be there in a few minutes. By now I was late for the Elder meeting, the dog’s been in the bedroom barking and scratching at the door for four hours, and still no sign of the locksmith. Three hours after I first called, I decided I had to get the dog out, so I cut a hole in the sheetrock between the family room and the bedroom—through two walls, mind you—large enough so the dog could get out and my son could get in to unlock the door.
I finally got to the Elder meeting about 9:30 (which isn’t as late as it sounds, since they’re usually just warming up by then), but I left at home a broken lock, a door jamb that needed to be replaced, a solid wood door scratched to pieces by the dog, a hole two feet by two feet in the walls of two rooms, and a dog I would pay someone to take. The locksmith never did arrive and never even called.
Now I have weathered some fairly significant crises in recent years, including a much more serious and expensive encounter with another four-legged creature, but I don’t think anything challenged my faith quite like this incident. The reason is that I could see no purpose, no value in it at all. It didn’t seem to be for chastisement; it didn’t build my faith; it didn’t result in a stronger marriage; it didn’t help me go in a new direction. It just happened. And it made me wonder, “What’s the point?”
The 90th Psalm wrestles with questions like, “What’s the point? Why can’t we see more meaning in life’s seemingly random events? Why is life so short?” This is the only Psalm attributed to Moses, though some think the next one, the 91st, may have been his as well. That means it was written about 300 years before the rest of the Psalter.
James Boice argues that the likely historical setting for this Psalm is the events recorded for us in Numbers 20, near the end of the 38 years of wilderness wanderings.[i] In that one chapter we encounter first the death of Moses’ sister Miriam, then the sin of Moses himself in striking the rock in the wilderness, and finally the death of Moses’ brother Aaron. Obviously, Moses had more reason than I to wonder about the futility of life.
The death of Moses’ sister was a harsh blow to him. She had not always been loyal to Moses, but for nearly four decades she had shared in the awful burden of leadership of the Israelites, and to see her die right on the doorstep to the Promised Land was a sad reminder of God’s judgment on that whole generation.
Even more troubling to Moses was his own exclusion from the Promised Land due to an error in judgment when he struck the rock in anger. You will recall that as Miriam died, the Israelites were crossing the Desert of Zin and ran out of water. The people began to complain against Moses and Aaron, “Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to die of thirst in this desert?” Moses went to the tabernacle and fell face down before the Lord, and the Lord told him to take his staff and speak to “that” rock, apparently the same rock that had produced water for them at Sinai many years before (and which they possibly carried through the desert as a reminder of God’s provision, (1 Cor. 10:4). God said that when he spoke to it, it would again pour out its water. So, Moses took his staff and gathered the people together in front of the rock, but instead of speaking to the rock, he spoke to the people,
“Listen, you rebels, must we bring you water out of this rock?” Then Moses raised his arm and struck the rock twice with his staff. Water gushed out, and the community and their livestock drank.
But the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not trust in me enough to honor me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them.” (Numbers 20:10-12)
It’s not hard to empathize with Moses and perhaps even feel that God was unfair to him. After all, Moses was almost 120 years old at the time, having governed this rebellious nation for forty years. He hadn’t even wanted the job in the first place, but God drafted him. He had been so patient, so solicitous with God on behalf of the Israelites, offering at times to have his own life taken if God would spare theirs. But now, his patience exhausted, he strikes the stupid rock. Not a major disobedience, mind you. Not like adultery or murder or anything like that. There’s not a one of us who wouldn’t have been tempted to do the same thing he did!
But you know something? God’s evaluation of sin is very different from ours. He views all disobedience as inexcusable, especially when it compromises His holiness, as apparently this did. In saying, “Must we bring you water out of this rock?”, Moses was taking some of the credit which belonged to God alone. God told him that because of his sin he would not personally enter the Promised Land.
And then Numbers 20 is capped off with the account of the death of Moses’ brother and right-hand man, Aaron. He, too, was judged culpable in the rock incident, and he, too, would not be allowed to enter the Promised Land. So, Moses was instructed to take his brother up on Mount Hor, remove his priestly garments and place them on Aaron’s son. Aaron died there and Moses himself buried him.
About thirty-seven years earlier the Israelites had sinned when they sided with the ten spies at Kadesh Barnea, who had reported the Promised Land was too dangerous to occupy. At that time God told them that only the two believing spies, Caleb and Joshua, would enter the land. Everyone else who was of age at the time would die in the wilderness. Miriam, Aaron, and Moses himself were the last survivors of that generation. Now Miriam and Aaron are gone, and Moses has been told that his own days are numbered.
I’m sure the thought crossed his mind, “What’s the point? You work your fool head off for forty years and then make one mistake, and it’s all for nothing! Talk about futile.” Some of you have had similar thoughts when you’ve been laid off after 30 years with the same company, or you’ve been served papers by your spouse after 25 years of marriage, or your stock goes south while everyone else seems to be getting rich, or even when a dumb dog locks you out of your own bedroom.
But in this great Psalm, Moses not only offers up the Cry of Futility—he also provides an answer. In fact, he starts with the answer and then comes back to it again after verbalizing the question.
The nature and character of God contrasts sharply with that of man. (1-6)
Moses starts with the eternal grandeur of God, informing us that He is the God of history, He is the God of creation, and He is the God of eternity. Here’s how he opens the Psalm:
“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.”
He is the God of history. The philosopher Hegel wrote, “If history teaches us anything, it is that history teaches us nothing.” His point was that man tends not to learn the lessons he should from his mistakes and therefore he is condemned to repeat them. Moses was keenly aware of this tendency and the vicious cycle of sorrow it produces in human history. But he was also keenly aware that there is something that is permanent and solid and foundational in life—and that is God’s presence. The person who is anchored in Him is eternally secure, and the one who trusts in Him has a secure “dwelling place.” Dwelling place means “refuge.” Deuteronomy 33 contains another song Moses wrote, and in verse 27 of that song he says something very similar, using the same word: “The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.”
He is the God of creation. “Before the mountains were born or you brought for the earth and the world….” This is, of course, only one of a multitude of passages in the Bible that speak of God as creator. This is not a popular concept in our schools and universities today, to say the least. An incredible conspiracy of intellectual dishonesty on the part of our culture’s philosophers of science has been uncovered in recent books by several brilliant scholars—Philip Johnson, Michael Beehee, Hugh Ross, and Michael Denton. What they reveal is that the scientific gurus of our day are accepting Darwinian naturalism as true, not so much because there is sufficient evidence for it, but because its only alternative, special creation, is “clearly impossible.” And why is it impossible? Well, if you even ask such a question, you demonstrate that you are incapable of serious scientific dialogue.
I think we evangelicals have sometimes made a mistake in being too dogmatic on such issues as the young earth, 24-hour-creation days, and the geologic implications of the Noahic flood. We need perhaps to be a little more humble in recognizing that there is a lot we don’t know—even from Scripture—about the process God used to bring the earth into existence. But there is no reason—spiritual or scientific—for us to be mealy-mouthed about the fact that our God brought the earth and the world into existence by His great power. He is the God of creation.
He is the God of eternity. (2) “From everlasting to everlasting, you are God.” This is the very first Scripture verse we taught our boys, partly because it is short, but also because it is so basic. From one end of eternity to the other, if ends there are, God was and will be there. He is unlimited by history, by space, or by time. That’s where Moses begins this Psalm. But quickly he turns to the stark contrast between this kind of God and the nature and character of man.
Mankind is a creature subject to death and his tenure on earth is very brief. (3-6) In contrast to the eternality of a creator God, man is a creature who is here today and gone tomorrow.
You turn men back to dust,
Saying, “Return to dust, O sons of men.”
For a thousand years in your sight
Are like a day that has just gone by,
or like a watch in the night.
You sweep men away in the sleep of death;
they are like the new grass of the morning—
though in the morning it springs up new,
by evening it is dry and withered.
We are about to enter a new millennium. This is a really big deal. For years now companies and organizations and even the government have been using the turn of the millennium as a stimulus to re-evaluate and come up with Vision 2000 or Goals 2000. Futurists and religious prophets are predicting apocalyptic consequences. Parties are already being planned for New Years’ Eve two years from now, and fireworks orders are already being placed.
But as huge as the turn of a millennium is for us, Moses says it’s insignificant to God. A millennium is just like a day in God’s sight. You will perhaps recall that the Apostle Peter quotes this verse in his second epistle: “With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.” (2 Peter 3:8). Peter’s point is that though it seems to us that God has been very slow in keeping His promise to send Jesus Christ back to this earth, the fact is He has only been gone a couple of days in divine time. And the delay is for the purpose of giving people time to repent of their sin and come to faith.
Moses uses an analogy to explain man’s brief tenure here on earth, an analogy that all of us can relate to—grass turning brown in the blazing daytime sun. When I left for Venezuela on the fifth of July our lawn was the lushest green you could imagine. It had been quite cool in June, with lots of rain, and Andy was cutting the grass about every five days. When I returned from Venezuela three weeks later the lawn was a disaster. There were brown patches all over and even what was still green had quit growing. Our lives are like that. A person can be at the height of his career, enjoying family and friends, thriving on all kinds of success, and the next day he can get a diagnosis of inoperable liver cancer or have a heart attack or lose his job. In the total scheme of history, a man’s life is just the wink of an eye.
Now that Moses has contrasted the nature and character of God with that of man, he is ready to reveal the cry of his heart that generated this Psalm:
The futility of life is evident in both its quantity and its quality. (7-11)
Listen to the pathos in the Psalmist’s words in verses 7-11:
“We are consumed by your anger
and terrified by your indignation.
You have set our iniquities before you,
our secret sins in the light of your presence.
All our days pass away under your wrath;
we finish our years with a moan.
The length of our days is seventy years–
or eighty, if we have the strength;
yet their span is but trouble and sorrow;
for they quickly pass, and we fly away.”
The Psalmist has already spoken of the brevity of life, but here he elaborates by reminding us of something that has been true for at least the last 4,000 years—probably since the great flood of Noah. The expected lifespan of a human being is about 70 years, 80 if you’re fortunate. Now there are exceptions. The oldest person in our generation just died at the age of 122. Moses himself was 119 or 120 when he wrote this Psalm. But that is highly unusual; 70 to 80 is normal.
Now 70 or 80 years is a long time, but only to those who are young. Time, you know, picks up speed as it goes along. I have commented before on a strange phenomenon. In the 1950’s Christmas came only once every two or three years. Now in the 1990’s it comes every four or five months! That’s what the perspective of age does to you.
But the short quantity of life is not the only thing that produces a sense of futility; so does the qualityof life. Now let me preface this by saying that probably there has never been any generation in any nation of the world’s history that had a higher quality of life than we have today. When it comes to convenience, health care, climate-control, ease of food production, mobility, communication—we have it all. We easily forget that there are many people today (and certainly it was the norm in Moses’ day) who live from hand to mouth, who lack personal freedoms, who never travel more than 100 miles from the place they were born, who are in constant danger of violence from their enemies, and who lack the basic dignities we take for granted. For such people these words ring very true: “Yet the span of our years is but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away.” Even for many of us, despite our privileges and conveniences, there is more than enough trouble and sorrow to go around.
I don’t think Moses is a pessimist. He’s just realistic. Life is the pits sometimes. Why? Well, there are two reasons for this futility he experiences—an immediate cause and an ultimate cause.
God’s wrath is the immediate cause. (7) Verse 7: “We are consumed by your anger and terrified by your indignation.” Verse 9: “All our days pass away under your wrath; we finish our years with a moan.” Verse 11, “Who knows the power of your anger? For your wrath is as great as the fear that is due you.” Moses is saying that much of the futility in his life is due to God. He’s not about to blame the devil for all his trouble. He certainly isn’t going to blame bad luck. Life isn’t a game of chance to Moses, a game that some win and some lose. No, Miriam died, and Aaron died, and he himself is going to die on Mt. Nebo within sight of the Promised Land, and it’s because of God’s anger, wrath, and indignation.
Now it’s easy for us to misunderstand the wrath of God. Ray Stedman writes,
“Many think invariably of some sort of peeved deity, a kind of cosmic terrible-tempered Mr. Bang who indulges in violent and uncontrolled displays of temper when we human beings do not do what we ought to do. But … the Bible never deals with the wrath of God that way. According to the Scriptures, the wrath of God is God’s moral integrity. When man refuses to yield himself to God, he creates certain conditions (not only for himself but for others as well) which God has ordained for harm. It is God who makes evil result in sorrow, heartache, injustice and despair.”[ii]
And friends, let’s face it, a lot of the trouble and sorrow we experience in life is due to this same source. Even when trouble isn’t directed at us by a sovereign act of God, it is at least allowed by Him. In other words, He could have prevented it but didn’t. God is a key player in the futility we experience. But there is another cause that we must also take into account, if we are going to avoid drawing the wrong conclusion and getting angry with God.
Our sin is the ultimate cause. (8) Verse 8: “You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence.” God’s anger is not capricious; it is a response to sin in our lives. You know something? I am convinced that God chastises His people differently today than He used to. In OT times He often acted directly and swiftly. I think of Uzzah and Ahio, who were executed on the spot when they touched the Ark of the Covenant; of Nadab and Abihu, who lost their lives for offering strange fire before the Lord; and of Ananias and Saphira, who experienced sudden death in the NT when they lied about their giving.
I don’t see much of that kind of discipline from the Lord today, but does that mean He doesn’t discipline? Is it not possible that today God is allowing the natural consequences of our sin to bring judgment upon us? Is it not possible that much of the emptiness and depression and futility that so many are experiencing today is itself the discipline that the Lord is using on His people to wake them up to their sin and turn them back to Himself?
Well, quickly I want us to move from the problem to the solution, for that is where Moses takes us beginning in verse 12.
Only God can redeem us from a sense of the futility of life. (12-17)
“Teach us to number our days aright,
that we may gain a heart of wisdom.
Relent, O LORD! How long will it be?
Have compassion on your servants.
Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love,
that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.
Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us,
for as many years as we have seen trouble.
May your deeds be shown to your servants,
your splendor to their children.
May the favor of the Lord our God rest upon us;
establish the work of our hands for us—
yes, establish the work of our hands.”
We are dependent upon Him for perspective. (12) “Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” A heart of wisdom is the highest goal anyone could have. When Solomon was told by God that he could have anything he desired—money, fame, pleasure—he chose wisdom, and his wisdom gained for him money, fame, pleasure. Unfortunately, he prostituted that gift eventually, but the fact remains that he made the right choice in asking God for a heart of wisdom, a proper perspective on life.
Well, how do we get a heart of wisdom? Numbering our days aright will produce it. Dr. Bruce Waltke, my esteemed Hebrew professor in seminary, decided to take this exhortation literally. In his Day Timer he wrote down the number of days he had left, based upon 70 years minus what he had already used. Each morning (and he was about 35 at the time) he would cross out the number he had written down the previous day, 12,775, and write one less—12,774. That was a visual way of reminding himself that the day he had just lived could never be recovered. It was gone, so each day needed to count for God.
I don’t think a person has to be quite so mathematical about “numbering his days.” In fact, it could be dangerous to do what Waltke did if you came to believe you were guaranteed 10,000 more days or 5,000 or even 500. But somehow we need to grasp the truth that “only one life, twill soon be past; only what’s done for Christ will last.” Many young people are notorious when it comes to assuming they are immortal. They will drink and do drugs and drive like idiots, giving little thought to the natural consequences that have taken the lives of so many of their peers. They don’t even number their decades, much less their days.
But this is not a problem just for the young. I know people in their 60’s who still live as though eternity were a mirage. Their time is spent selfishly, their money is horded, and they fail to come to grips with the fact that their last day on earth is rapidly approaching. The rich fool of Luke 12 bragged, “I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I’ll say to myself, ‘Self, you have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.’” He was apparently in the prime of life, not nearly 70 years old. “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’” We are dependent upon God for perspective. It is only He who can teach us to number our days aright.
We are dependent upon Him for compassion. (13-14) “Relent, O Lord! How long will it be? Have compassion on your servants. Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.” If you are going through a time of trouble and you’re feeling that life is futile, then do what Moses did—go to your Father in heaven and plead with Him to let up. In a passage from Luke that we will study next month Jesus asks, “Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Luke 11:11-13)
We are dependent upon Him for fairness. (15) “Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, for as many years as we have seen trouble.” Life is not fair, and we are not guaranteed so many blessings to make up for so many sorrows. But God is a just God. In eternity He will balance the books, rewarding the righteous and punishing the wicked. Even in this life it is OK to appeal to Him for fair treatment—not to demand it but to request it. If you feel that you have had more than your share of trouble, pray that God will give you some relief, some joy to balance it out. We are dependent upon Him for fairness; we certainly cannot depend upon anyone else.
We are dependent upon Him for insight. (16) “May your deeds be shown to your servants, your splendor to their children.” I think what Moses is asking for here is simply discernment. He knows in his heart that God is a sovereign, just, wise, and good God. But he often cannot see the justice, the wisdom, or the goodness in the events of life as they unfold. So, he prays that he and his children might have insight into God’s ways.
We are dependent upon Him for meaningful labor. (17) Moses ends with these words: “May the favor of the Lord our God rest upon us; establish the work of our hands for us—yes, establish the work of our hands.” Nothing leads to more of a sense of futility than the feeling that we are insignificant. We long to know that we are making a difference, that our being here makes the world a better place. We gain feelings of significance, worth, or value from family, from friends, from sports, from various achievements. But mostly our significance comes from work. Work is one of just four divine institutions: the home, the church, government, and work. Every human being was made to work, and if we do not learn to work, we miss out on one of the great blessings of life.
But what many of us fail to acknowledge is that we are dependent upon God to establish the work of our hands. We can, and should, give ourselves wholly to our work—whether that be rearing children, serving God, going to school, or working for a company—but all the effort in the world will not make us successful if God is not in it.
Another Psalm, written by Solomon, that speaks of the futility of life is Psalm 127. Let me read just verse 1:
“Unless the Lord builds the house,
its builders labor in vain.
Unless the Lord watches over the city,
the watchmen stand guard in vain.”
Please note that Solomon doesn’t suggest that the laborers don’t have to work or that the watchmen don’t have to guard. He simply says that they do it in vain if God is not involved.
Conclusion: For centuries this great 90th Psalm has been read at funeral services. It is easy to see why. It recognizes the shortness of life and the sense of loss we all feel when someone is taken before his or her prime. But this is not primarily a funeral Psalm. It is one written for the living that we might live better, in greater dependence upon a great and good God, who loves us. He is the answer to the feelings of futility that touch all of us from time to time and overwhelm some of us on occasion.
Of course, the greatest antidote to a sense of futility is the confidence of having sins forgiven and a personal relationship with the God of the universe. That is available only through the sacrifice of Christ for our sins.
DATE: August 24, 1997
Tags:
Futility
Death
Wrath of God
Character of God
Perspective
[i] James Montgomery Boice, Psalms, Vol. 2, 740.
[ii] Ray Stedman, Folk Psalms of Faith, 245.