Life on the Seas of Death

0:00The Life on the Seas of Death Written in Red by Greg Morse Secular man may learn how to survive, but he does not know how to live, because he knows not why he lives, and his sin he grobes in the dark for meaning. He knows he can wreck any day now. He knows he will eventually hit the bottom. A forced sailor is born into this wild and raging sea of life he does not understand. He shudders to sink. He strives to stay aloft as long as possible. Yet he is moving, dragged towards somewhere, but where. He discovers what pleases him,

1:00and what makes time on these waters better or worse. Yet eating drink as he may, the question finds him under silent stars. Why am I here? The current of time murmuring something sends you on, ever on. Some sail slowly over decades, others, days, who decides? You don't know. All you know is that you awake and find yourself sailing through a passing life you know not why, toward a place you know not where. For a length of time you cannot tell. You wish for fair winds and a few friends before you disappear. You want someone to notice you when you're gone. While many of Adam's fallen philosophers close their ears to revelation higher than themselves, the God who made us did not leave us answerless. Moses, the man of God, climbs into our boat to help us navigate the way. In Psalm 90,

2:08he teaches a generation wandering in the wilderness on the brink of great promise, how to navigate by the heavens, directing them and us toward God, our own death, and a fitting prayer as we hasten to our end and a new beginning. He begins, Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or even you had formed the earth in the world from ever lasting to ever lasting, you are God. Verses 1 and 2. Moses reaches back before time, back before mountains towered toward the heavens, back before earth or wilderness or sea existed, back when only one could be found. God, from everlasting to everlasting, you are God. So many say without wisdom or

3:11purpose because they forget the God who outlives the seas, made the seas, placed us upon them. You will never find your purpose if you think you must invent it. You are a poor God, a fragile idol, a shabby alpha and omega. Should the thing created say to itself, I shall create my own purpose for being, mid voyage, Moses recalls the God of the seas, search all the way back, there he is. Fast forward to the very end and beyond, he sits enthroned. He was, is, and will forever be. To know who we are, we must start with who God is. The oceans are his art. The stars are his sermon. Man reflects his image. You do not just appear in a boat going nowhere.

4:11Currently, you float within the final chapters of an epic, can see from everlasting, extending to everlasting. When authored by God, featuring God's son and read to the eternal benefit of God's people. So Moses reminds us of God. He is, always is. Time cannot contain him. Moses introduces us to God and locates our little lives within the infinite bounds of his own existence. In him we live, in move and have our being. In this, in a unique way for his people, Lord, you have been our dwelling place. Next, he teaches us about life by teaching us about our death. Here we do not leave the first point, but further it. God ever lives, and we always die.

5:13For a man tick man, death is a fading upon the horizon, a descent below the waters, two lovers staring at each other as the ship sinks. Moses gives us another image in verse 3. You return man to dust and say, return old children of man. He continues. You sweep them away as with a flood. They are like a dream, like grass that is renewed in the morning, and the morning it flourishes and is renewed in the evening it fades and withers. For we are brought to an end by your anger, by your wrath we are dismayed. You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence. For all our days pass away under your wrath. We bring our years to an

6:13end like a sigh. The years of our life are 70, or even by reason of strength 80, yet their span is but toil and trouble. They are soon gone and we fly away. Who considers the power of your anger and your wrath according to the fear of you? Man's life was to be a connection, a fellowship, an enjoyment and glorifying of his God, but man chose sin and with it, death. In the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die. And so God returns man to dust. He dispels him like a dream, passes him away like a sigh. His anger causes man to fly away. The ship breaks. Fall in life is fragile and fugitive. We live in a day and we die in a day and then enter into a shoreless forever.

7:20What will become of us? Beneath Leviathan, above the God of Leviathan, who takes offense at you in your sin, we have no hope but for a gracious God. So we realize that our life, frail and fleeting, is found within the grand context of the life of God against whom we have sinned. Our death is not natural but judicial. An act of God's righteous decree, what shall we do? Moses's answer is to pray, but pray for what? Teach us to tell time. Verse 12, So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom. So much wasting of life, so much reckless living, so little thought of forever. We are men and women who spend all our energies

8:21trying to make the short trip comfortable. We forget where we sail. Sinners are so casual about their souls, so careless about the next life. We need God to instruct us on how to make the most of our days. We need His help to count our days, redeem our moments and keep pace with sprinting time. We need hearts that see God in all things and trust Him with our sin, our souls, our salvation, now and always. Jesus Christ, living a perfect life, dying in our place and rising from the dead soon to return is what hearts of wisdom chiefly believe in delight in. So Moses teaches us to tell time and then he prays for pity. Verse 13, return, O Lord, how long? Have pity on your servants. He teaches us to regard our Lord as a master

9:30indeed, drawing on the covenant name given to Israel, Yahweh. Apart from any gracious covenant, all that God can remember is how treacherous we've been toward Him and how He owes us immediate and unrelenting wrath. But He made a first covenant with Israel and He makes a new covenant with all who believe in Jesus Christ and repent of their sins. Before we return to dust, we must each cry out to the Lord to return to His servants with pity. We can safely ask Him to come to us only after we have gone to Him through His Son by His Spirit. Next, Moses teaches us to pray, satisfy our hearts. Verse 14 and 15, Satisfies in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all of our days. Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us,

10:38and for as many years as we have seen evil. These days can pass miserable and empty. We need satisfaction. We need it early and we find it if we find it in his steadfast love. No matter what our days contain, if they are contained within his love, we can be glad all our days. So many turn their vessel toward what they think will make them happy. But here, Moses makes clear what will make man happy. God, and He pleads with God to satisfy them as many days as He has afflicted them. Finally, we read that Moses teaches us to pray about our work. Work is such a toil when death approaches so speedily. What's the point as the sage in Ecclesiastes asks, born in futility, labor in futility, die in futility. But Moses teaches us to

11:48plead for more. Let your work be shown to your servants and your glorious power to their children. Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us and establish the work of our hands upon us. Yes, establish the work of our hands. We need God working in our working. Our work is cursed. We need his blessing. Our labor is futile. We need his favor. Moses teaches us to pray for it. Unless the Lord builds the house, those who labor, and vain. So Psalm 90 teaches us that we live our lives in reference to the everlasting to everlasting God. Our death is a consequence of our sin and Adam sin. Justice demands capital punishment. Yet Moses teaches us about life. He teaches us how to pray. We cry out to God for wisdom,

12:55for pity, for satisfaction, for him to establish his work in hours. Those who find themselves on board are not here by accident. We were placed on the sea, but we are not alone. We sail under God toward God. When we die, we return to God. And in the meantime, those who are wise, who have learned the secrets to living, will cry out to Jesus Christ. They are hiding place from the wrath to come. Then death will not prove to be the beginning of our miseries, but the beginning of our true life.