How does God make me to know the measure of my days (Psalm 39:4)?

David here faces the exercise of considering both his present temptations and his eventual end. Because our words express what is in our hearts, he was concerned to guard what issued from his mouth, specially while the wicked were present (v. 1), for they know how to use a man's words against him. Keeping silence gave him occasion to think soberly, and this stirred up sorrow within him (v. 2). While musing the fire burned (v. 3. Is it not important that we too take time to meditate rather than letting our tongues loose?

However, the time comes to speak, but not at first to men, rather in prayer to the Lord: and what he says is a very important example for us, "Lord, make me to know my end, and what is the measure of my days, that I may know how frail I am" (v. 4). What a contrast to the many who want to pride themselves on their imagined energy and ability? if we think we are proficient, let us consider the measure of our days. Old age exposes the futility of our proficiency! And sickness often comes before old age, so that our frailty is always present, however strong we may think we are. As verse 5 indicates, our age is as nothing, supposing it is 100 years! — and "every man at his best state is but vapor," as is confirmed in James 4:14, "For what is your life" It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away."

He cries, then, to know his end, his days that are measured, and yet he knows not the measure. Alarmed at his frailty, he is alarmed also at how little he realizes his frailty. His days are handbreadths merely, and God has given them their limit, a short space which is really nothing before the Eternal. It is the common condition of man: take the most stable, what is he? a puff of air — a breath.

Verse 12 gives us the first request which it is easy to see, exerts a controlling influence on all the rest. We are but the feeble dying children of Adam, and much is gained if we only recognize that fact. For so long as we do not number our days aright, and consequently imagine ourselves to be something other than what we are, we apply our hearts to pleasure or money-making or sport or a hundred and one things of small importance. When we number our days aright and realize the plight we are in, we apply our hearts to wisdom, and the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord. But we have to pray to God to teach us to do this, for we shall not do it of ourselves.

In how many ways is God beseeching man to consider his own condition at least, if nothing else! In how many tongues is this "Adam, where art thou?" repeated to the present day! Every groan of a creation subject to vanity, whereof the whole frame-work is convulsed and out of joint, is such a tongue. And herein is Wisdom crying in the streets, even where there is no speech and no word, "So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom." This, man never does until divinely taught. "Wisdom is justified" only "of her children."

If we take to heart the serious lesson of the power of God's anger, which actually exceeds man's knowledge, this will instill in us a deeply reverent fear of God (v. 11), issuing in the appropriate prayer, "So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom" (v. 12). Since our days are short, we need grace from God to number them, that is, to keep them under close observation, so that we do not lose the lessons each day is intended to teach. It is such exercise by which we "gain a heart of wisdom."

When God turned our first parents out of Eden for their sin, He placed cherubim at the entrance to the garden, with a flaming sword which turned every way to keep the way of the tree of life. There was both mercy and judgment in this. It was mercy that he might know his feebleness and frailty, and learn so to number his days as to apply his heart unto wisdom. This is the burden of the "psalm of life," the Both psalm: his days are as a shadow; "We spend our years as a tale that is told." How can such a feeble creature fail to turn with true repentance to the only One in whom help and mercy can be found? Such at least was the evident purpose of God, and such the effect upon those who bow to the sentence of vanity upon the fallen creature: "O satisfy us early with Thy mercy, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days."

Had God said, as we have made Him say, "the soul that sinneth shall die the second death," they might have comforted themselves with the assurance that no one could know much about that, and written placid lies upon the gravestones, and lost the whole reality of the ruin they were in. Doubtless many did do so in spite of all, for light never yet opened eyes closed to it, but still God had borne witness, none the less, if they rejected it as men still reject, that they were fallen creatures, and who had confirmed by their own act and deed the original sentence under which they lay. Every white hair in a man's head, every wrinkle in his brow, was thus God's witness in a double way, a solemn appeal which one would think irresistible. Death was not that for which man was created; no, it was God "turning man to destruction." "Thou halt set our iniquities before Thee, our secret sins in the light of Thy countenance. For all our days are passed away in Thy wrath; we spend our years as a tale that is told… So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom" (Ps. 90:8-9, 12).

I want to speak as the Lord may help me of the importance of our days, especially having in view the ending of another year. One is desirous that the Lord may give us a distinct and prophetic touch which will help us in relation to our own days, giving us ability to number them according to the divine mind. The Psalm from which we read is the Psalm of the Man of God, whose words should impress those who hear them. The words of a Man of God are prophetic, and there is no doubt from the record of Caleb's movements that he was greatly impressed by words that Moses spoke. We do not know that he heard the words of Psalm 90.

We do well to be affected by these breathings of the Man of God, "So teach us to number our days …" One would desire that that holy breathing might underlie all that we are in these days. This is a matter in which God gives a lead. We do not progress far in the Scriptures before we see this feature coming to light in the movements of God. "The evening and the morning were the first day." The great matter of Creation, God moving in relation to men, the habitable earth, from the record of Scripture would appear to be encompassed by this great thought. The days are numbered. It is also said of Adam, "The number of his days were …"

There are at least two ways in which to number our days. I observe they can be numbered specifically and continuously. In Matthew, the numbering of specific days links on with the book of Kings, where one reads constantly, "This day …." and what happened on it. They were specific days numbered in the fear of God. Luke would give us the thought of continuous days and would link with Chronicles, giving the thought of cumulative exercises going on before God. So in Matthew we read, "Give us this day our daily bread." Every day needs its own specific sustenance. In Luke it says, "Day by day our daily bread." this would suggest exercises to be carried on to a moral conclusion. In Chronicles, the thought of "day by day" is seen.

Alive to the responsibility and privilege of such a power of that as calculation the Psalmist could pray. “So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom” (Ps. 90:12).

Let us not shun, then, the reality of things, he asks: let us profit by it: "so make us to number our days, that we may acquire a heart of wisdom." Here is the "beginning of wisdom" for here is the "fear of the Lord," which is that. Here the soul finds the need it has of Him, turns to Him, seeks to have Him turn to it: and so the psalmist: "Return; Jehovah" — not simply "Lord" now, but the nearer name of covenant-goodness, — "and let it repent Thee concerning Thy servants." For as soon as man repents, God has declared that He will repent of the evil that He thought to do to them (Jer. 18:8); and the story of Jonah and Nineveh is a precious illustration of His mercies in this way.

But to avert His judgment is comparatively a little thing. The heart truly touched longs after Himself. How can a creature be satisfied apart from his Creator? "Satisfy us with Thy loving-kindness in the morning, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days." This joy in God, how rarely is it to be found after this fashion! our days come generally clad in much soberer apparel than is implied in this. And yet this is not less than we may all of us possess, and should possess. Nay, the soul taught of God in His wondrous ways of grace, claims compensation even for the affliction it has known before. "Make us glad according to the days Thou hast afflicted us, and for the years in which we have seen evil." Think of compensation from a judge for just judgment inflicted! But rather it is a Father's heart that is free to show itself in wiping off the tears that for a time were salutary. It was a discipline which he prays now may be effectual, the "work appear," and His "glory" shine out after the storm is passed aye, and even "upon the children" afterwards.