May it please almighty God to
bless us together this morning as we meditate in his holy word. Let us turn to the book of Psalms
and Psalm 90 and we'll read verse 16. The book of Psalms and Psalm
90 and reading verse 16. Let thy work appear unto thy
servants. and thy glory unto their children. This 90th psalm is of course
the oldest psalm we have, written by Moses, who of course lived
many years before David and Asaph, etc. And yet it is perhaps the
most glorious psalm in speaking to us of the Lord's greatness
and the true desire that the Lord indeed would come and grant
the blessing and that his work may wonderfully appear. It's good to realise that here
we have God's servant Moses who was wonderfully blessed and wonderfully
used and of course as we know a large part of the Bible was
in fact written by Moses under the influence of the Holy Spirit
the first five books of the Bible were Moses so we're very thankful
that we have a record and we're thankful for the grace of God
that was given to Moses and we're told he was a most meek man and
yet he had to endure much opposition from the Israelites in those
40 years when they were passing through the wilderness. And also
it's good to just consider how the Lord graciously dealt with
him as a man, how he was born and saved from death by none
other than the king's daughter and brought up in the king's
house for the first 40 years of his life. Years of great influence,
obviously. And there he was taught and recognized
and realized all the laws of that nation and how to hold himself
and how to walk. And then we are told, of course,
that Moses thought then he was ready to lead the children of
Israel out from what was truly their captivity in that land
of Egypt. It had been a place of comfort
and blessing, but now it was the reverse. And they were captive
and they had to bear hard burdens. And Moses thought, under the
leading of the Spirit of God, that now he was the man that
God had called to lead them out. Well, it was true God had called
him, but not then. And Moses then had to go to what's
described as the backside of the desert, a barren place, very,
very different. from the comforts of the palace
of Pharaoh. And there he was to spend the
next 40 years. 40 years. being instructed by the Holy
Spirit of God and fitting him for that great work that God
had for him to lead Israel out of Egypt and across the wilderness
and virtually into the Promised Land and how he was to prove
the support strength of Almighty God and how he had proved and
would prove the work of God appearing for him. Well we're thankful
then for the record we have of Moses and we're thankful indeed
that he's able to commence this psalm with such a gracious statement,
Lord thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations. What a mercy that is to know
that God's been the dwelling place perhaps in the generations
of our families. Perhaps we can look back, perhaps
we can't look back, but it's good if we can look back to see
the Lord's wonderful blessings And the Lord has been the dwelling
place of generations. And then, of course, he goes
on to speak of the history of the world. And to tell us very
clearly, before the mountains were brought forth, wherever
thou hast formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting
to everlasting, thou art God. A very clear statement of the
eternity of God. and how good it is for us to
understand that is so. That our God reigns, our God
always has done, and our God always will do. God will not
disappear. God will not die. And we should
therefore realise what God has said and what God has spoken
is true. All the Word of God is true because
it is God's Word and it's good for us, especially young people,
to realise that we are wonderfully privileged to have the Bible
to read. We've got some thousand or more
pages of God's Word for our instruction and for our direction and for
our encouragement. What a blessing it is, and to
think that here we are today, able to read it, able to gather
together to worship, whereas there are billions in this world,
a large proportion in this world, by far are not privileged with
this. Many do not know anything about
the true God. Many have not heard about the
true God. They are taken up with false
gods. And so many then do not possess the Word of God at all,
in their own language at all. And so we should realise it is
an inestimable favour for us today to have the Bible to read. And therefore, let us not discount
it. Let us not think it is an irrelevant
book. Let us not think it is a boring
book. Let us never think it is an untrue
book. But let us always realize it
is the very Word of God. God spoke. God spoke into the
hearts of men. Some 40 men wrote the Word of
God. God spoke into their hearts and
they wrote as they were instructed by the Holy Spirit of God. If you just ponder that, it's
a wonderful thought because of the wonderful words which were
written, especially those prophetic words, influenced by the Spirit
of God. Again, a confirmation to us today
that these words were truly indicted by God into the hearts of godly
men to write these words and then to have it translated into
our names today. Again mostly of course as you
know through William Tyndale, that man of God who was greatly
blessed and strengthened to spend hours and weeks and years in
translating the Word of God from the Original language is not
all of it. Of course, we know but a large
part and what a debt we owe Therefore to men like him and others who
were raised up for our benefit Through we should always realize
the mercy of God we could easily have been born into a country
of that is atheistic, a country that worships false God, never
have come under the sound of the gospel. And therefore, what
a privilege it is for us. And may we therefore truly be
very thankful that we have such a God who has been so kind and
so gracious to us. And a God then who tells us,
through Moses here, about our little life. He says, for all
our days are passed away thy wrath. We spend our years as
a tale that is told. Manages away our little life. When we're young, we think our
life's long before us. Well, it may be. But it's not
very long. And when we get older we realise
it can't be very long. And so what a blessing it is
to realise we have this God. And Moses of course was instructed
then in those days to tell us the days of our years are three
score years and ten. And if by reason of strength
they be four score years, yet is their strength labour and
sorrow, for it is soon cut off. And we fly away. Well, we've
seen the evidence, haven't we, of our lives being cut off. Frank's life was cut off, wasn't
it? I know he was old and not particularly
well, but it was cut off. And so we should realize the
truth of that statement. And so Moses then comes and says,
so teach us, you and me, to number our days that means to realize
we may not have many days on this earth and to instruct us
that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom and that of course
means heavenly wisdom that means spiritual wisdom we're not to
spend our time just striving for natural wisdom there's nothing
wrong with learning of course we have to learn and God's given
us ability to learn But the great blessing is to realize the need
we have of heavenly wisdom to actually learn the great and
glorious truth of God. And then he comes and instructs
us and says, Oh, satisfy us early with thy mercy. I wonder, I wonder
if all of you here have come before God and prayed for mercy. The truth is that every true
believer will pray for mercy, without any doubt, because all
of us need the mercy of God. And you may say, well, why is
that? It's quite clear because all of us have offended God.
All of us have disobeyed God, that great and holy God. And
because of that, what we've done is we've sinned, And because
of that, we need our sins to be taken away. We need our sins
to be forgiven. Every one of us, all of our sins,
not some sins, not some things that we perhaps may conclude
they are sins. Every evil thought, every wrong
word, every wrong action, are sinful and we need forgiveness. And if we need forgiveness, we
need mercy. Mercy. from Almighty God. You may remember, in the New
Testament, the Lord Jesus gives a wonderful example of two men,
a Pharisee and a Republican, who is of course a tax collector. And the Pharisee was very pleased
with his religion, but it was a false religion. And the The
public, on the other hand, recognised how bad he was and he came with
this very simple prayer. It was this, God be merciful
to me, a sinner. Well, I wonder if we can all
say this morning, I know what he meant because I've been shown
my condition I have been shown that I am a sinner before a holy
God and I need mercy and I believe you know that short and simple
prayer doesn't get out of date because we continue in our poor
little life to sin and we need God's mercy again and again and
so we have this statement by Moses who no doubt realised it
himself. Oh, satisfy us early with thy
mercy. And then he says that we may
rejoice and be glad all our days. And that means that we have the
spiritual evidence that God has heard our prayer for mercy and
that he's directed us to the great and glorious way of forgiveness
and salvation to the Lord Jesus Christ. And when the Holy Spirit
does that, the effect will be like we read here, and be glad
all our days. What a mercy it is when the Holy
Spirit has drawn us and directed us to the one thing needful,
the Lord Jesus Christ and that we have fled to him as that refuge
for sinners and we pleaded for forgiveness and we pleaded therefore
for mercy and as the Lord comes to us and we should not be satisfied
until that does occur until we do have the evidence that God
has forgiven us because be very clear No unforgiven sinner will
ever enter into heaven. It's not just a theory. It's
a great reality. And so may we experience this
blessing. We may rejoice and be glad all
our days. The effect of forgiveness may
abide with us. And may we rejoice in the great
and glorious work of the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. and to
be led into all truth as it is in Jesus, things perhaps which
we never understood. And the reality is, you and I
don't really understand the spiritual blessing and the things of God
until the Holy Spirit comes and opens our eyes, our spiritual
eyes, so that we understand the truth of God's work. What a mercy then today if we
have the understanding of God's work. And so the Lord says then
through Moses, make us glad according to the days wherein thou hast
afflicted us and the years wherein we have seen evil. And then comes
to the 16th verse. Let thy work appear unto thy
servants and thy glory unto their children. Well, the Lord knows
our hearts and it's only God who knows our hearts. Yes, you
and I can look at other people and we can make our assessment
of what they're like and what they're thinking and what they're
believing. But it's only God who knows about us. It's only
God. who blesses us with evidence
of his work in our hearts, in our spiritual lives. This of
course does have a double application. The work of God we need naturally,
the work of God we need spiritually. The greater need is that the
work of God appears for us spiritually. But nonetheless, we do need God
to appear for us in our natural life. We need God to appear for
us. Again, you young people in your
school days and your college and university days and when
you start work, you need God. You need God to appear. You need
God to help you. It's a wonderful and glorious
testimony if when we're young, We seek for God's help. And when
God gives that help, we're able to acknowledge that God's work
has appeared for us in helping us, helping us in our exams,
helping us perhaps to walk rightly in a difficult world. And school
days are difficult days. College days perhaps are more
difficult days and work days don't become less. And so we
need God's work to appear for us, to help us, to stand by us. You see, we do have a God who
is a prayer hearing and a prayer answering God. And it's a wonderful
blessing when the Lord directs us to seek unto him, to pray
unto him, with this great desire, Lord, let Thy work, it's not
my work, no, it's the work of Almighty God. What a good thing
it is, you know. We can read in the Gospels, and
in the Gospel of Luke, we can read the grand truth of this
wonderful fact, and it's good to know that we have a great
God. who tells us indeed of this wonderful
truth in the 18th chapter of Luke, I think it is, and verse
27. This is what we're told. And the Lord said, the things
which are impossible with men are possible with God. Again, sometimes we come into
situations naturally which seem It may be again in our school
days or university days, there may be problems and questions
which just seem too difficult. We just don't seem to be able
to see the way through. We don't seem to see the answer. Well, let's remember this. The things which are impossible
with men appear to be impossible with you and me. possible with
God and that has of course again a double application not only
of natural things but also of spiritual things Let thy work
appear unto thy servants let thy work appear appear unto me,
O God." It's a wonderful blessing and it's a wonderful consideration
to have this work of God naturally in our lives because we need
God to appear for us throughout our life. School days, university
days, work days. We need God to appear for us
with regard to husbands and wives and bringing such people into
our lives to direct us and to see how God's hands go before
us, to see how God indeed appears for us in providing accommodation
for us, then perhaps providing families for us. It's all of
His work. It's all of His work. Never think
you and I are in control of our lives. We're not. We're not in
control of any of it. It may sometimes appear that
we are, but it's all of God's grace. His free, unmerited favor. And again, it's good to realize
that because sometimes it's possible for us to rely on our own natural
ability. You may think, well, I can work
that out. You know, I understand how to
do that, and I can do this, and I can do that. But it's just
good to realize that it's God that gives us our natural understanding
gives us our natural ability to solve problems so that it
is of the Lord let thy work appear unto thy servants there's so
many, many ways that you and I need this to appear in our
natural lives and of course so importantly in our spiritual
lives So just leaving aside then really our natural life, which
is not unimportant, because it is an encouragement to you and
me to realise the Lord has heard my prayer, the Lord has appeared
for me, the Lord's given me the wisdom, the Lord's prospered
me as He sees good, not as you and I perhaps may have wanted,
may have desired, and let us be very clear of this the Lord
works in such a way that you and I would have to acknowledge
it is God's work it's God's work because when you and I are directed
in that way it's then you see that God receives the honour
and the glory and we desire to thank God for the help for the
direction for the guidance for the instruction for his work
on our behalf. Let thy work appear unto thy
servants. Well, we then need to of course
move on to this great and glorious work of God's salvation. His work, the work of grace,
the work of his unmerited favour to our souls. You may be in that
position this morning. You may be earnestly pleading
that God will come and reveal yourself as you are before a
holy God and himself to you as the glorious Redeemer. Well, the Lord tells us, I will
be inquired of by the house of Israel to do these things. So
don't be disappointed. things don't appear to be occurring
and answered as you desire, you see the Lord has his way and
the Lord has his time and be sure of this, the Lord works
in such a way that you will have to give God the honour and the
glory. You will have to acknowledge
it is the Lord The Lord has heard my prayer. His work has appeared
in my life. What a blessing that is. What
a wonderful favour it is. And also then as this work of
the Holy Spirit, which it is, The work of the Holy Spirit then
gives us a spiritual understanding of the great plan of salvation. In the days of Nehemiah when
Israel returned out of captivity and Ezra and Nehemiah were instructed
to teach the people and they preached long sermons and they
read long portions to the people And the great concern they had
was that people might have a spiritual understanding. What a good desire
that was. And so it is today. Surely our
concern is there might be in each of our hearts a spiritual
understanding. It's not just an historical account. It is an historical account we
have in the Word of God, but also the blessing is to understand
spiritually and that spiritual understanding we need to be applied
to our hearts through the Bible we have so many glorious pictures
of God's work let thy work appear unto thy servants and the work
of God through the Bible directs us to that one great and glorious
Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. And all the pictures that we
have, and there are very many, direct us to the death of the
Lord Jesus Christ and show to us that Lord Jesus Christ died
in order to take away our sins. It's a great truth. And I hope
you young people understand that you and I cannot save our souls. We cannot redeem our souls. We
have sin which must be removed, which must be washed away. And
there's only one way. And that's set forth, again,
right from Genesis, about the glorious work of the Holy Spirit
of God. And it's through the shedding
of blood. and that shedding of blood it
set forth, the shedding of blood of the Saviour, the Lord Jesus
Christ. The picture is, throughout the
Word of God, the Lamb of God. As John the Baptist said, behold
the Lamb of God. that taketh away the sin of the
world. My friends, how important it
is that each of us have a spiritual understanding. Thy work, the
work of God appearing to our souls, that this work is a culmination
of all the prophecies in the Word of God directing us to the
finished work of the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. He came
to save sinners. My friends, what a blessing if
again the Holy Word of God directs us to the Saviour and we have
this. It's not just a natural understanding. It's when the
Holy Spirit comes and applies His Word to your soul and my
soul in a specific, in a personal way, so that we have the realization
that Jesus Christ came into this sinful world to die upon that
cross at Calvary to take away my sin. Oh, when the Holy Spirit
applies that great truth. What does it do? It shows to
us that we are freed from the condemnation from our sin. We are free. Just God. We are free. What a relief. What
a wonderful favour. What a glorious blessing it is
to come to that spiritual understanding that none less than the Son of
God the second person in the Trinity came into this world
specifically to save your soul and to save my soul so that we
do have then the evidence that our names are written in the
Lamb's Book of Life and therefore to know that it is eternally
well with our soul. Let thy work appear unto thy
servants. Well, if you haven't prayed it
before, perhaps you'll pray it now, that God would indeed come
and appear unto you and reveal to you that you are one of his
children, that he has come. He has died to take away your
sin. He has shed his precious, invaluable
blood that you might be forever washed, forever cleaned, and
therefore when you come to die, to go on to be forever with the
Lord. It's a wonderful consideration. It's a great and glorious prospect
for the Church of God. And that's what you and I should
be thinking about, moving on to our eternal home. Here we
have no abiding city. Yes, this world will soon be
burnt up. You and I will soon vanish out
of it. We will be remembered no more. Sometimes think, you
may go around London, you may see many statutes, many placards
speaking about people. Who are they? They mean nothing
to us. Nothing to us. They're forgotten. And you and I will be that soon.
We shall come and go. We will be forgotten. People
won't remember us. Our families might. Your family
at the moment might. You look back over the generations.
You never remember, do you? Those generations past. Great,
great, great, great this and great that. You never remember
them. They're just history. And so it will be for you and
me. We'll just be history. What a
blessing it is if we then are eternally with the Lord. That's why we need God's work
to appear. That's why we need his evidence
of his work in our hearts. Clearly that's why Moses was
so concerned. And you only have to read, surely,
Moses' concern as he spells it out in that book of Deuteronomy,
written, as we know, shortly before he died. And the great
concern for Israel, that they might know the work of God. That they may know the evidence
of it. My friends, we need the same work and the evidence of
it today in our songs. Let thy work appear unto thy
servants. So if we have not prayed it before,
may we begin today praying that the Lord will show us his work
toward us. And remember, it's a finished
work. It's a finished work. And why
is it a finished work? It's because the Lord Jesus Christ,
on that cross at Calvary, the last words he spoke, It is finished. The Lord Jesus completed the
wonderful work that God had given him to do. It wasn't an easy
work. Never underestimate the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Never underestimate the cost
of your salvation. Ponder it. Think about it. Meditate
upon it. And bless God for his grace,
for his free unmerited favour, to such an utterly unworthy sinner. And so says Moses, let thy work
appear unto thy children and thy glory unto their children. So what does this word glory
mean? Well I believe it really means
this, to set before us the magnificence of our God. and the majesty of
our God. We have kings, don't we? We understand a little bit about
kings. We understand a little bit about
King Charles and the position he occupies and the eminence
that he has. But he's only an earthly king. There have been very wonderful
kings in the past. We can go back, can't we, to
King Solomon, the wisest and most wealthy king that ever existed. There have been others very great
and important kings. But my friends, we have in King
Jesus the King of kings and the Lord of lords. And my friends,
he wears the crown of glory. He has done his father's will.
He now sits on that eternal throne with his Father in glory. He is indeed that great and wonderful
Saviour. And so here Moses desires, let
thy glory appear unto their children. Well it's good when you and I
and we desire our children may have a view understanding of
the magnificence and the majesty of Almighty God to realize that
we on this earth are standing before the King of Kings and
Lord of Lords who looks upon us and knows every single thing
that's happening in your life and my life every single thought
Every single thought that you thought today, every thought
you sat upon here, you sitting in chapel, what you thought today,
the thoughts known to you and known to God. Is that an embarrassment? Is that an embarrassment? if
God was suddenly to take those thoughts and to put them on a
screen that everyone could see would you be embarrassed? oh
would you say oh I wish I hadn't thought that I wish I'd concentrated
on the things of God well it's good if therefore we have a right
view of the magnificence and the majesty which sets before
us the glory of God. Isaiah had a little view, and
this is what he tells us. I saw the Lord high and lifted
up. Oh, he saw a little bit, a little
view of the greatness of Almighty God. My friends, what a blessing
it is if you and I have a right appreciation of the greatness
of God. The Psalms that we read display
something of the wonder and the greatness of God and I never
weary and I hope you never weary of having the Lord Jesus Christ
lifted up and exalted in our hearts and in our spiritual understanding. The psalmist says in 44, we have
heard with our ears, O God, our fathers have told us. And that's
a good testimony. The hopeless fathers, we are
able to tell our children what work thou didst in their days
and in the times of old and then he just goes on and tells us
how thou didst drive out the heathen with thy hand and plants
them how thou didst afflict the people and cast them out for
they got not the land in possession by their own sword And again,
coming back to what I said earlier, to realize that we haven't done
things with our own ability. It's what God has done. And then
he says, Thou art my King, O God. Well, this morning, is King Jesus
our King? Is He our King? Do we truly bow
down before Him? Do we desire to acknowledge that
He is our King, that He is our Lord? And he is the one who's
our master, the great God, and yet, amazing and wonderful and
humbling to think that great God is still our friend. I often think that's the most
amazing truth, to think that God, so great, condescends to
be called the friend of sinners. To realize he's the one that we can come to that we can
go to. Yes, and further on in this psalm,
we can't go through it, but in the eighth verse he says, in
God we boast all the day long and praise thy name forever and
ever. I wonder how true that is in
our lives. We boast of God and what he's
done, not just occasionally, just once in our life, but all
the day long. And praise thy name forever and
ever. Well, my friends, we have a God
who is worthy to be praised. I hope you realize it and how
we desire to lift him up and to recognize how great he is
and how wonderful it is to have the evidence of his work in our
lives, naturally, and spiritually and able to continue to pray
this prayer, Prayer of Moses. Let thy work appear unto thy
servants and thy glory unto their children. Amen.