Are you ever overwhelmed with the feeling that life is futile? You can become filthy rich, only to be cut down in the prime of life. You can’t take it with you. You can work all your life looking forward to retirement, only to die and never enjoy it. Almost anything you choose to put your hopes and your efforts in can suddenly be brought to nothing through that great common leveler: death.

Moses was a man surrounded by death. He led Israel out of bondage in Egypt to take them to the promised land. But because of their disobedience, God determined that that generation should not enter the land, but die in the wilderness. Even Moses died; only Joshua and Caleb lived to enter the promised land. If God’s judgment applied to everyone 20 and older when they came out of Egypt, over 1.2 million men and women died during the 40 years in the wilderness (Num. 1:45-46). There were a lot of graves in the desert!

As Moses saw these people whom he knew and had worked with over the years dropping like flies, he reflected deeply upon the question, “How can this fleeting life have meaning and value?” Instead of being driven to despair and cynicism, as many are who reflect on this question, Moses, being a man of God, was driven to worship and prayer. The result is the majestic Psalm 90, the oldest of the psalms, the only one in the psalter known to have been written by Moses. 

The psalm falls into three stanzas:

1. God's Eternality (90:1-6)
2. God's Wrath (90:7-11)
3. God's Steadfast Love (90:12-17)

Discussion Questions

1. Do you think we give proper biblical emphasis to hell and its horrors? How can we do this in our secular culture?
2. Should we use the shortness of life and hell in witnessing? How? Biblically, which receives more emphasis in evangelism: Fear of judgment or the love of God?
3. How can we think profitably about the shortness of life without becoming morbid and depressed?
4. Does God get angry with Christians or is His wrath limited to unbelievers? Give biblical evidence.