Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Adult Sunday School Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/bb/bb20060129.htm

RELISHING THE ESSENCE AND ATTRIBUTES OF GOD
Part III: The Nature Of God
D. Treasuring The Eternality Of God
(Psalm 102:12-14; 90:2)
  1. Introduction
    1. When God relates to His creation, He exposes His nature, the combination of His essence and attributes, and a key aspect of that nature revealed in Scripture is that He is eternal in great contrast to His creatures!
    2. For us humans who are so transitory due to our sin (Romans 3:23; 6:23), this aspect of God's nature causes either great relief or dread depending on whether one harbors sin or cleaves to God in faith re: it:
  2. Treasuring The Eternality Of God, Psalm 102:12-14; 90:2.
    1. In both Psalm 102:12-14 and Psalm 90:2, God is presented by the psalmists as being eternal (as follows):
      1. God will endure in the FUTURE forever according to Psalm 102:12.
      2. However, in addition, Psalm 90:1-2a,b reveals God existed in the PAST as God before the mountains, the earth and the world had been made.
      3. Indeed, as Psalm 90:2c sums it up, "God is from the vanishing point in the past and reaches to the vanishing point in eternity future" to cite J. Vernon McGee in his book, Thru The Bible , vol. II, p. 815.
    2. The context of both of these passages reveals this ETERNALITY of the believer's good and great God provides him salvation from the dreadful effects of sin and mortality when he trusts in God:
      1. Both of the contexts of Psalm 102 and Psalm 90 initially present God's followers in states of trouble or weakness due to their own mortality and weakness caused by sin that is in them and in the world:
        1. In Psalm 102, the psalmist's author presents himself (1) near death and in poor health and depressed, and that in part due to the oppression he faces from his foes, Psalm 102:3-8. Also, (2) he faced God's wrath for apparent personal sin of his own doing, Psalm 102:9-11!
        2. In Psalm 90, the man, Moses relayed how hopeless is man's earthly existence if considered by itself apart from any outside divine intervention: (1) Moses had seen God's great power in the plagues of the Exodus (Deut. 34:10-12), His great wrath in destroying a whole generation of sinful Israelites who had left Egypt (Num. 26:63-65) not to mention his own promised demise in the wilderness due to his own sin (Num. 20:12-13; 27:12-14; (2) reflecting on all of this, Moses noted that (a) God is man's only refuge from trouble in history (Ps. 90:1-2), (b) but that man's earthly life is very short due to sin (90:3-6) (c) since God's righteous wrath dictates that he die for his sin (90:7-11)!
      2. Accordingly, Moses' troubling summary of the futility of man's existence in his earthly life led him to ask God to teach his hearers to evaluate their lives that they might apply their hearts to wisdom that leads to blessing that offsets such trouble, Psalm 90:12.
      3. This is accomplished by the author of Psalm 102 as well as by Moses who penned Psalm 90 as follows:
        1. The author of Psalm 102:12-28 realized the ETERNALITY of His good and merciful God supplied the source of hope for him and Israel: in contrast to vulnerable, weak, sinful men, Israel's God was ETERNAL, and so would apply His faithful promises to the Abrahamic Covenant one day to restore Jerusalem and cause the entire world to worship the Lord, Psalm 102:12-22 (Gen. 12:1-3)!
        2. In Psalm 90:13-17, Moses (1) called on his merciful God to have compassion on His hopelessly sinful servants and (2) to bless them (90:14-17a); (3) most of all, Moses repeatedly asked God to establish the work of their hands so those works would transcend their short earthly lives, 90:17b,c.
        3. (4) Remarkably, in MOSES' case, God abundantly answered this request: (a) the Law God gave Moses to give to Israel now forms the backbone of Western Civilizations (Edward McNall Burns, Western Civilizations, p 100; (b) though Moses died outside the Promised Land in this life, he appeared with Elijah and Christ IN that land in glory in Luke 9:28-31 to prefigure his union with the land in his resurrection! (c) God will thus fulfill Moses' request beyond his mortal comprehension!
Lesson: God's ETERNALITY, when applied through His attributes of infinite righteousness and love, produces IMMENSE DOOM for the faithless but MASSIVE BLESSING for the BELIEVER!

Application: May we (1) trust in Christ as Savior to receive eternal life (John 1:11-13) and (2) heed God's will that HE might BLESS us and make our temporal works of ETERNAL value, 1 Jn. 2:16-17.