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Psalm 39 - `What is man?'

An old friend of ours:

A few months ago he and a number of his friends were watching a film of a wedding they had attended 20 years earlier.

`Look there you are!'

Then silence.

They were aware of the passage of time.

No longer the young adults they once were.

`We were all aware of the fleeting nature of life - v. solemn moment.

That is the subject of this Psalm

- but, although rather melancholy - it does point to the final great purpose of human life which New Testament fills out.

First briefly refer to another psalm.

Psalm 8: `When I look at the stars and consider the vastness of the universe - filled with awe.

What is man that you care for him?

Answer given in that Psalm: 

•        Image of God,

•        authority to care for all the natural world.

Now this psalm asks the same Q but David is in a different mood.

He is ill!

What has prompted his thoughts is not the wonders of nature but his own frail condition.

Seems also to have financial problems.

His burning Q is: `Why should God bother to discipline such a frail and fleeting creature as man?'

Why doesn't he leave me alone?

Reminded of Job 7:17-21

17        "What is man that you make so much of him, that you give him so much attention,

18        that you examine him every morning and test him every moment?

19        Will you never look away from me, or let me alone even for an instant?

20        If I have sinned, what have I done to you, O watcher of men? Why have you made me your target? Have I become a burden to you?

21        Why do you not pardon my offences and forgive my sins? For I will soon lie down in the dust; you will search for me, but I will be no more."

(NIV)

The answer is only hinted at here.

N.T. gives the full answer.

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Have you ever been really perplexed about your relationship with God?,

especially when feeling down or ill?

•        Oh God, what is this all about?

•        What is to become of me?

•        Is God punishing me?

•        Why should He be so interested in me to bother disciplining me?

•        - the whole universe is His to worry about.

This is exactly how David is thinking.

Yet he does not want to voice these thoughts in public, in the hearing of unbelievers.

•        Disloyal to God.

•        It would be a sin.

So he keeps silent for a while.

But, thoughts are still there and he has a burning desire to express them somehow.

Ps 39:1 I said, "I will watch my ways and keep my tongue from sin; I will put a muzzle on my mouth as long as the wicked are in my presence."

2          But when I was silent and still, not even saying anything good, my anguish increased.

You and I may have perplexing thoughts,

but not want to express them to our non-Christian acquaintances

- incase our thoughts are disloyal to God.

So we hold them in.

So David holds his thoughts in until he can contain Himself no longer.

Then he speaks.

3          My heart grew hot within me, and as I meditated, the fire burned; then I spoke with my tongue:

To whom does he speak?

God Himself.

Pours out his perplexing thoughts with real frankness, honesty and feeling.

Marvellous thing about Scripture is v. v. human book - especially the Psalms.

All our human emotions expressed there.

Yet through these very human words we hear the Word of God!

Bible is both human and Divine at the same time!

Jesus Himself was really human

but when men and women came face to face with Him - aware that they were in the presence of God.

David is dismayed by the fleeting nature o f life - v. human - many of us may have felt the same.

Ps 39:45

4          "Show me, O LORD, my life's end and the number of my days; let me know how fleeting is my life.

5          You have made my days a mere handbreadth; the span of my years is as nothing before you. Each man's life is but a breath.

(NIV)

  "Doc, how do I look?"

  The doctor said, "I have good news and bad news. Which do you want first?"

  The man said, "Let me hear the good news first." The doctor said, "Well the good news is, you have twentyfour hours to live."

  That's the good news?" the man gasped. Then, what's the bad news?"

  The doctor replied, "The bad news is I was supposed to tell you yesterday."

The great actor Sir Lawrence Olivier was asked on BBC TV, "What is your attitude to death?"

Ans.: "Very very angry that I have to die."

Yet here David wants to learn. He says in verse 4: "Show me, Oh Lord, my life's end". "Let me know the number of my days".

`Let me learn to face the facts and come to terms with them'.

Deliberately facing unwelcome facts can become a great strength!

Facts he learns are:

1.       Life is but a handbreadth.

Billy Graham: Greatest surprise of his life:

`Brevity of life'

•        Young - life is very long.

•        Old - life has been short. I've only just started and here I am old already.

Even a small illness - enough to teach me that I cannot take my life for granted.

It won't last forever.

verse 12 `I am an alien - a passing guest on earth.'

Feast of Tabernacles - was to teach Israel that lesson.

It taught the Israelites that not only bodies insecure but also wealth.

Suffering can loosen our grip on this life and therefore make us seek to be ready for that which is beyond. Not that God loves suffering, but He can use it for our eternal good.

Ps 39:6

6          Man is a mere phantom as he goes to and fro: He bustles about, but only in vain; he heaps up wealth, not knowing who will get it. (NIV)

A Jewish proverb states, "If the rich could hire people to die for them, the poor could make a wonderful living."

I read somewhere that money will buy

·        books but not brains;

·        food but not appetite;

·        a house but not a home;

·        medicine but not health;

·        luxuries but not culture;

·        amusements but not happiness;

·        religion but not salvation;

·        a passport to everywhere but heaven.

Someone else defined real failure as:

  "...living without knowing what life is all about, feeding on things that do not satisfy, thinking you have everything, only to find out in the end you have nothing that matters."

Ps 39:7 "But now, Lord, what do I look for? My hope is in you. (NIV)

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The second fact he learns is:

11b `You consume their wealth like a moth'

 Reminded of Jesus's words:

`Lay not up for yourselves treasure on earth where moths and rust destroy .. '.

`Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moths nor rust destroy nor thieves break in and steal.'

One of the founding fathers of USA defined the rights of man as:

Right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.

But what is happiness?

If we do not believe in God and therefore we do not know what is the purpose of life, then happiness will be for each person calls happiness.

This is bound to cause conflict.

And without belief in heaven or hell, - this pursuit of happiness is carried out in the few short uncertain years before death.

So life becomes a hectic frantic search for happiness leading to quarrels, anxiety and fear.

The pursuit of happiness in this life alone, is bound to lead to the opposite - unhappiness.

Jesus told the parable of the rich fool, stored up his wealth and said to his soul: `Take your ease'.

His soul was not at ease.

Luke 12:2021

20        "But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?'

21        "This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God."

(NIV)

Jesus then concludes with this advice:

Luke 12:2223

22        Then Jesus said to his disciples: "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear.

23        Life is more than food, and the body more than clothes.

(NIV)

3.       He learns that God does discipline.

Ps 39:11

11        You rebuke and discipline men for their sin ..

Yet the Q is `Why should God bother disciplining me?

Life is just puff of smoke.

Why should the Creator bother so much to discipline me?

Too low opinion of himself.

An old atheist friend said to me:

Man is such a banal useless thing - God can't be great either'.

But in God's eyes we are precious.

`Fearfully and wonderfully made' (Psalm 139).

Only our own sin that has spoiled us and brought suffering.

David seems to recognise this for in verse 8 he prays:

`Save me from my transgressions'

God does value us.

He values us like a father his children.

His purpose is to remake us in His image.

The purpose of our existence is to be sons and daughters of Almighty God

- to be like Christ. forever.

God uses the pain that we have brought upon the world to fashion us and re-make us.

Centred in His Son Jesus.

He actually bore our sin and pain and died for us after only 30 fleeting years of life,

and then God raised Him from death.

God draws us nearer to Christ so that we share in His resurrection.

That is why our life is a mixture of joy and pain.

God cares so much for us that He wants us to be fit for Eternal glory after we die.

This psalm does not tell us this - written 1000 years before Christ.

But it contains the seed within it:

The whole psalm is written to God as a child to Father -

- perfectly frankly expressing perplexity.

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The end of the psalm is puzzling and interesting.

David gets near to the heart of God, he realises he is unworthy and so says:

"Depart from me".

Ps 39:13

13        Look away from me, that I may rejoice again before I depart and am no more." (NIV)

In N.T. Peter suddenly becomes aware of the fact that he is in the presence of the holiness of Jesus and says:

`Depart from me - for I am a sinful man.'

The Lord in His mercy knew how to respond to that request.

`Follow me and You will bring others into my kingdom'.

So when you and I feel how fleeting our life is.

Let us not be afraid,

Let us not turn to an ever more frantic search for happiness,

rather let us turn to the Lord

•        - tell Him our problems,

•        confess ours sins,

•        and He can then fashion us so that we belong to Him forever.

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