god's anger a reason for turning to him.
Ps. xc. 11, 12. JVho knoweth the power of thine anger P even according to thy fear, so is thy wrath. So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.
THIS psalm is entitled, *' A prayer of Moses the man of God." It seems to have been written by Moses on account of the judgment denounced against the whole nation of Israel, that they should die in the wilderness ^. It had been already executed to a great extent, God having consumed multitudes of them in his anger '' : and the period of man's life was then reduced to its present standard of seventy or eighty years ^ From this awful demonstration of God's displeasure, he is led to this reflection; *' Who knoweth the power of thine anger ?" And
then
* ver. 3. '' ver. 5 — 7. " ver. 10.
898.] god's anger a reason for seeking him. 307
then he prays, that the whole nation might be induced by the shortness and uncertainty of their lives to seek without delay the favour of their offended God : *' So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom."
In accordance with our text let us also contemplate,
I. The inconceivable weight of God's anger —
Of course, in speaking of God's anger we must divest it of all those tumultuous feelings, which agitate the minds of men ; and conceive of it as manifested only in his dispensations towards the objects of his displeasure. Let us contemplate it then, 1 . As it appears in this world — [The whole world bears the evidence of behig under the displeasure of an angry God. The creation itself, even the animal and vegetable, as well as the rational parts of it, is greatly changed since it came out of its Creator's hands. A curse has been inflicted on it all, on account of sin. Storms, and tem- pests, and earthquakes, and pestilences, and diseases of every kind, and death with its antecedent pains and its attendant hor- rors, are all the sad fruits of sin, and the effects of God's anger on account of sin. Death has obtained an universal empire, and " reigns even over those who have never sinned after the simili- tude of Adam's transgression," as well as over the actual trans- gressors of God's law.
But the anger of God is yet more strikingly visible in those particular judgments which God has executed upon men from time to time. Behold the plagues in Egypt, the destruction of the Egyptian first-born, and of Pharaoh and all his host in the Red Sea ! behold the awful judgments inflicted on Corah, Dathan, and Abiram, and on the myriads, who, by their lewd- ness, their unbelief, and their murmurings, drew down the wrath of God upon them'' ! behold fire and brimstone rained down from heaven upon Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities of the plain 1 yea, and the whole world, with every living creature except those contained in the ark, swept away by one universal deluge ! — these serve as awful proofs of God's indignation against sin, and his determinatioy: to punish it according to its deserts.
There are other proofs, less visible indeed, but not less real, of God's anger, which may be found in the horrors of a guilty conscience, or the distresses of a soul that is under the hidings of his face. Hear what was Job's experience under a sense of
God's
•* 1 Cor. X. 8—10.
308 PSALMS, xc. 11, 12. [398*?^^
'God's displeasure : " The arrows of the Almighty are within me ;
'the poison whereof drinketh up my spirit : the terrors of God do
'set themselves in array against me^." To the same effect the Psalmist also speaks, when describing the anguish of his own
*^inind : " Thine arrows stick fiist in me, and tliy hand presseth me sore. Tliere is no soundness in my flesh because of thine