In 2008, my stepfather-in-law was diagnosed with an incurable brain cancer. He is a deacon at our home church in Texas, and one Sunday as he was set to give the offertory prayer, he took a minute to speak these words to the congregation: “Recently, I was diagnosed with terminal cancer. But I want you to know something: we are all terminally ill.” There is great wisdom in those words. If a doctor gives you a terminal diagnosis, basically what he has told you is that you are going to die, but you don’t know when. But we who have not received such a diagnosis should not be fooled into thinking that our situation is all that different. We too know that we are going to die, and we just don’t know when.
The Scripture teaches that the wise person is one who lives in light of his own mortality. We see this teaching in the book of Ecclesiastes, in Psalm 90, and we see it here in Psalm 39. It is impossible for us to identify the specific occasion that gave rise to this lament, which is attributed to David. What we can know from the content of the psalm itself is that David was enduring suffering of some kind. Furthermore, his mention of the wicked being in his presence in verse 1 implies that he is experiencing anguish on account of the prosperity of the wicked, and it was perhaps a prosperity that came to them at his expense. What we see here is a man in anguish before God, one who learns to see from a new perspective as he seeks the Lord in prayer. That new perspective is one that we must learn as well if we are to live wisely as God’s creatures in God’s world. So what, specifically, is that new perspective that David learns here and that we must learn as well? It is this: Learn to see through the lens of death. Allow the certain reality of death to inform the way you think and the way you live. As Moses prayed in Psalm 90, “Teach us to number our days, that we may get a heart of wisdom.” The wise person will reckon with the certainty of death. So let us reckon with it this morning. As we do so, I want to draw your attention to two broad ways that this new perspective should inform our thought and lives:
First,
We see in the beginning of this psalm David’s resolve to remain silent. He is determined not to say a word while the wicked are in his presence. Apparently, David sees his own suffering in comparison with the prosperity of the wicked, and decides that if he speaks he is likely to run his mouth to the point of calling God’s justice into account. So he determines not to say anything at all. And as he holds his peace, his anguish only grows. A fire burns within his heart until he cannot help but speak, according to verses 2-3.
So what does David say when his heart reached the boiling point? Does he call God to account? Does he summon God to appear before him to give an answer for himself? Or even worse, does he dispense with the trial altogether, declare God guilty, and then curse him? No. In verse 4 David prays for a new perspective on himself: “O LORD, make me know my end and what is the measure of my days; let me know how fleeting I am!”
Why this prayer? How could this possibly relate to the anguish that David is feeling? That is a puzzling question, but I think the answer is this: David knows that his vision will clear up when he sees what he is before God. And what he is is a frail creature of dust.
Immediately after he voices his request for the knowledge of his own mortality, David begins to answer his own question, not only with regard to who and what he is, but also with regard to humanity in general. He does this in verses 5-6, and here I want to draw out three truths about ourselves that we learn in light of our own mortality.
Verse 5 reads, “Behold, you have made my days a few handbreadths, and my lifetime is as nothing before you.” A handbreadth is equal to the width of four fingers placed together. It was one of the smallest units of measurement in ancient Hebrew society. In our day, David might have said, “Behold, you measure my life out in inches.” Our paltry 70, 80, or 90 years do not even begin to compare with eternity. We are, as James says in his New Testament letter, like a vapor that appears for a moment and then is gone.Thus, David says at the end of verse 5, “Surely all mankind stands as a mere breath!” That word translated “breath” is the same word that is used famously in Ecclesiastes to mean “vanity.” From the perspective of death’s certainty, humanity is vanity. We are nothing before God’s eternity, immortality, and immutability. That is the first truth.
Verse 5 focuses more on what we are, whereas verse 6 shifts focus to what we do:“Surely a man goes about as a shadow! Surely for nothing they are in turmoil; man heaps up wealth and does not know who will gather!” From the perspective of death’s certainty, all of our activity becomes empty bustling about, meaningless noise. We go here and there like a shadow. The word translated “shadow” is actually the same word that is used to refer to the image of God in Genesis 1:26 when God makes man. In fact, I think David may have selected that word in order to make a point of irony: we who are so dignified to be created as the unique image-bearers of God are, under the curse of death, nothing but a passing image, a fleeting shadow, and death puts an end to all of our ambitions. A man labors his whole life to amass his fortune, and then death takes him away from it in an instant, and he is clueless about what will become of the fruits of his labor. By this point David is beginning to see that his heart reached a boiling point for no good reason. If he allows the prosperity of the wicked and his own sufferings to consume him to such a degree, he has allowed wicked men to assume more importance in his mind than they are warranted. Why get all worked up over the temporary fortunes of fleeting shadows? Seeing through the lens of death, David acknowledges that we are nothing and that we ultimately toil for nothing. These are the first two truths about ourselves.
The conclusion that David appears to be driving at is that we who are nothing before. God, whose days can be measured out in handbreadths, who go about like fleeting shadows during our brief existence, are entitled to nothing from God. Does God owe us a life full of peace and comfort? Are we entitled to a bed of roses? Do we have a right to expect immunity from suffering? And furthermore, when we suffer and see wicked people prospering, are we entitled to an explanation from God about his ways? Do we have a right to demand complete understanding of everything that God does? Clearly, the answer is no. God does not owe us anything. Instead of calling him to account for something that he does not owe us, the wise response is to submit to his sovereign authority and trust in his goodness, even when his ways are mysterious to us.
In the light of our mortality, we can see that we are nothing, that we toil for nothing,that we are entitled to nothing. And we live in a society that constantly seeks to rob us of this biblical perspective. In twenty-first century America, God is not the ultimate reference point by which we learn to measure who are. Self has become the ultimate reference point. From the time they are small, our society trains children to believe that the most important thing they can do is be true to themselves, to follow their hearts, in short, to be their own gods. And a society full of so many gods is a society that will be reluctant to face the reality of death. D. A. Carson has said that death is the last taboo in our culture. We have overcome most other taboos. Now we will talk about almost anything in public, except death. We have an entire industry committed to helping you mask the effects of aging. Medical technology has enabled us to prolong life to a point that we can always, if we choose, continue to put off facing death openly and honestly. And when we suffer, when these little gods face tragedy of some sort, we demand answers. When massive natural disasters strike, the news cameras flock to the religious leaders of the day, demanding some kind of justification for God’s behavior. And, unfortunately, far too many Christian ministers are ready to justify God by saying he had no part in it. It wasn’t his fault. God doesn’t do these kinds of things. David begs to differ. Look again at verse 5: “Behold, you have made my days a few handbreadths.” God is sovereign over life, and he is sovereign over death. If we do not take him as our ultimate reference point to understand who we are, we will constantly find ourselves sitting as judge and jury, making him the defendant. But if we see ourselves biblically, we will know that we are made of dust, and to dust we shall return. Therefore, what right do we have to call God to answer to us? What the first half of this psalm teaches us is the same thing that Job had to teach his wife when she urged him to curse God and die: “Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?” Only a wise man who sees his own frail, mortal nature before the majesty of God could utter such a faith-filled sentence.
And so we must view ourselves in the light of our own mortality. As we come to the second half of this psalm we learn, second, that
For almost six years I pastored a small church in rural northern Kentucky. It was an old church with a cemetery in its backyard. In that cemetery were buried some of the founding members of the church, some of whom had lived through the American Revolution. Many of the headstones were so old and weathered that the names on them had become illegible. I could only wonder how many names from that church’s history were now gone from present memory because of the effects of time. You see, bodies are not the only things that decay. Even cemeteries do too. And one day, when you are long gone, and everyone who knew you is long gone, and even the headstone that marks your grave has long since faded, you could almost say that it was like you were never here at all. If death has such power to wipe away not only ourselves but also the memory of us, do we really have any hope at all? Yes, we do, and this will bring me to three important truths about God.
David says here, “And now, O Lord, for what do I wait? My hope is in you.” In the verses immediately preceding he has said that we are fleeting shadows who toil for nothing. All of our earthly pursuits will be brought to nothing. But here, at the turning point of the psalm, he acknowledges that there is one eternal good to be sought: God himself. God will not succumb to the effects of time. He will not grow old or die. He will not decay or wear out. He will not be left to others when death claims us. He alone is our hope in the light of our own mortality. That is the first truth.
David mentions his transgressions in verse 8. He acknowledges that he has no answer to give before God’s judgment in verse 9. He mentions God’s “stroke,” and the “hostility” of God’s hand, as well as his “discipline” in verses 10-11. David is a man who knows he has offended God with his own sins, and he knows that he is suffering as a result.
You see, after David has gained a new perspective in verses 4-6 about the transient nature of human life, the prosperity of the wicked is not a big deal anymore. Now that he sees himself in the light of his own mortality, what is David’s biggest concern? It is his relationship with God. He sees clearly now that of all things, what he should be most concerned about in order to give his short life meaning is being in a right relationship with God. So his mind goes immediately to the fact that he has sinned and has, therefore, rightly merited God’s displeasure. David’s only hope is God, and yet the God who is his only hope is the God whom David has spurned with his sin. And for that, David now suffers under the Lord’s discipline.
And how heavy a discipline it is! Note verse 11: “When you discipline a man with rebukes for sin, you consume like a moth what is dear to him.” The discipline of the Lord consumes our desires, consumes our deepest held treasures that we were trusting to give meaning to our short lives. It consumes them just like a moth eats through clothing. And as the discipline of the Lord eats through our idols, we are reminded again of what we truly are. Note the last part of verse 11: “Surely all mankind is a mere breath!” David has already made this point in verse 5, but now he says it again: we are vanity, nothing, a mere vapor that appears for a moment and then is gone. If God is our only hope, and yet we have offended God with our sin, is there a way out of this dilemma? The answer is yes. That brings us to our third truth about God:
David lifts up requests to God in these three verses. In verse 8 he prays, “Deliver me from all my transgressions. Do not make me the scorn of the fool!” The very God whom he has offended is the God to whose mercy he entrusts himself. David must believe, or else he would not make such a prayer, that God loves those who are ungodly.
Then in verse 12 he says, “Hear my prayer, O LORD, and give ear to my cry; hold not your peace at my tears!” His prayer is actually a cry soaked in his own tears. David is pouring out his heart to God, and he is looking for a response of mercy. Notice here that the inevitability of death does not lead to a resigned Stoicism on David’s part. David does not talk himself into an emotionless state of mind, resigned to an impersonal Fate. Rather, he pours out his heart with passion to the God whom he knows is his only hope.
And then notice at the end of verse 12 the basis of his prayer for mercy: “For I am a sojourner with you, a guest, like all my fathers.” This is a surprising statement. David was an Israelite with a claim of ownership in the land of Israel. He was not literally a sojourner. And yet, in light of the transient nature of his life, David realizes that he has no permanent claim on the land that he owns. God owns the land, and David is only there for a short time. In fact, God had commanded the Israelites in Exodus 20:21: “You shall not wrong a sojourner or oppress him, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.” David identifies himself rightly as a sojourner, a guest in God’s land, and he does so because he knows that God has a heart for the stranger. David’s hope is that God’s mercy will extend to one who has no claim upon it.
David’s final request is given in verse 13: “Look away from me, that I may smile again, before I depart and am no more!” This is something of a pessimistic ending. David is saying, in effect, “Turn your wrath away from me, so that I may have at least some relief before my short life is over.” He is a man who is still in anguish, but he has a new perspective on himself and on God in light of his own mortality. He ends the psalm as a man who is trusting in the Lord through life and death.
This is a psalm that brings the certainty of death to bear upon us heavily, and yet it also provides hints to us that with God there is hope beyond death. We who live now on the other side of the cross can see that in Christ God has sought out the stranger—the sojourner like you and the wanderer like me—in his mercy, and has promised us a permanent dwelling place. The author of Hebrews may have had verse 12 in mind when he wrote of the Old Testament saints in Hebrews 11:13, “These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.” We who live on the other side of the cross can see that in Christ God has indeed looked away from us and turned his wrath upon his Son in our place. We who live on the other side of the cross can see that in Christ God has reversed the curse of death and has assured us of eternal life in the day of resurrection.
We are all terminally ill. If we are wise, we will reckon with that truth. But death is not the final word. On March 22, 1758, Jonathan Edwards, one of the leaders of the First Great Awakening, the greatest theologian ever from the North American continent, and the newly elected president of what would later become Princeton University, lay dying on his bed at the age of 54. He had contracted smallpox from an inoculation. Most of his family had not yet moved with him to Princeton, so he gave instructions to those with him about what messages he intended to send out. After that he looked around the room and said, “Now where is Jesus of Nazareth, my true and never-failing friend?” Death is certain for us all. But equally certain is the faithfulness of Jesus Christ to bring you through it into everlasting life. If you are outside of Christ today, you have no hope in the face of death. Your death on this earth will only give way to what the Bible calls the second death, an eternity in Hell under God’s wrath and away from his favor. Do not remain outside of Christ for another second. Turn to him. Believe that he died and rose from the dead for your salvation, and rest in all that he has accomplished for you. If you are believer today who is trusting in Christ, then let us come to the table now and celebrate our victory over death in him.