Friday, November 11, 2011

A Thousand Years ... (Ps. 90:3-6)

You turn man to destruction,
And say, “Return, O children of men.”
For a thousand years in Your sight
Are like yesterday when it is past,
And like a watch in the night.
You carry them away like a flood;
They are like a sleep.
In the morning they are like grass which grows up:
In the morning it flourishes and grows up;
In the evening it is cut down and withers.

(Psalm 90:3-6, NASB)

Sometimes—oftentimes—I read verses, and I think I understand them … but I’m not quite sure. I’m certainly not a theologian, and I’ve never been to seminary. That’s why I love having access to commentaries. One of my favorites is the Matthew Henry Concise Commentary on the Whole Bible. When reviewing today’s verses, Henry wrote:
When God, by sickness, or other afflictions, turns men to destruction, he thereby calls men to return unto him to repent of their sins, and live a new life. A thousand years are nothing to God's eternity: between a minute and a million of years there is some proportion; between time and eternity there is none. All the events of a thousand years, whether past or to come, are more present to the Eternal Mind, than what was done in the last hour is to us. And in the resurrection, the body and soul shall both return and be united again. Time passes unobserved by us, as with men asleep; and when it is past, it is as nothing. It is a short and quickly-passing life, as the waters of a flood. Man does but flourish as the grass, which, when the winter of old age comes, will wither; but he may be mown down by disease or disaster.
So what does this mean to me? Or to you?

We serve a wonderful God. He is beyond time. And He woos us to Him, and He offers redemption.

We also learn that time is fleeting, and what we do on earth quickly passes. It’s only those things we do for eternity that really matter.

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