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[ Silence ] [MUSIC] ♪ We'll touch till it breaks ♪ ♪ By and by the hollyhocks ♪

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♪ And the time of rebuke ♪ ♪ We shall come ♪ ♪ We shall come ♪ ♪ Rejoicing ♪

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♪ Bringing in the sheep ♪ ♪ Bringing in the sheep ♪ ♪ Bringing in the sheep ♪ ♪ We shall go on ♪

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♪ We'll go on singing ♪ ♪ Ooh ♪ ♪ Ringing in the sheep ♪ ♪ Ringing, ringing ♪

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♪ The sheep ♪ [choir singing] continue our sermon series based on the book of Psalms. Today we come to the 90th Psalm, Psalm number 90. First and second verses. Lord thou has been our dwelling

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place in all generations before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God. The subject, harvest of the heart,

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harvest of the heart. This is a season of the year when we focus our attention on harvest, gathering in of the crop, time of in gathering, reaping that which has been sold

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And there is not only a harvest as we think of it in the world of nature, but there is a harvest in the realm of the spirit. We sow and we reap. The harvest of the heart has to do with our thoughts, our feelings, our goals, our achievements.

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It is the harvest of the heart that the Apostle Paul has in mind when he says, "Brethren, heart's desire and prayer to God for Israelis that they might be saved. Psalm 90 is a song of faith. It's a hymn of assurance, expressing trust in God. It is attributed to Moses. In fact it is the only poem in the Psalter that is said to

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have been written by Moses. This hymn may be called a prayer, a petition, a lament. I like to think of it as a soliloquy of the soul. It is as if we have gained entrance into the heart and are permitted to witness the musings of a saint.

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We are participants in the meditations of the heart. We engage in a journey of the spirit. The pilgrim of faith looks behind and before and praises God for his goodness. Thou has been our dwelling place in all generations.

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This particular psalm was often used on the day of prayer when throngs entered the temple court, fasting in sackcloth, expressing their humility and penitence in the presence of the Creator. The priest, a man who might have been ripe with years, with gray hair, with furrows in

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his face, with feeble knees and trembling voice, would lead the prayer of lamentation on behalf of the entire congregation. role was like that of the minister who gives the pastoral prayer in our worship services today addressing, confessing, thanking, and petitioning God for

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everybody. Lord thou has been our dwelling place in all generations. This prayer expresses adoration and praise. Lord thou has been our dwelling place in all generations. Now a little earlier in this service we sang a hymn, "O God our Help in Ages Past written by Isaac Watts. And I'm sure that you noticed that that particular hymn

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which we sang is based on the 90th Psalm. It was from the inspiration of this particular Psalm that that Watts gave us this hymn which has been sung by churches all over this world. "Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place, O God, our help in ages past. Our hope for years to come, our shelter from the stormy blast and our eternal home.

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As we think of the harvest of the heart, we are concerned about where the heart has its home. Men, said the scripture, look at the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart. Before the mountains came forth from the womb of mother earth, Lord, you were here.

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You have been with us through all generations. You've been our home. Generations come and go. say a generation composed of some 20 years, 25 years, and it's very impressive

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for us to see several generations within a family all gathered together at the same time. But we are aware of the fact that generations come and go. They are on the scene for a short time. One generation passes off the scene, another generation comes on the scene but Lord thou has been our dwelling place in all

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times in good days and in bad days in our joys and in our sorrows in sickness and in health in our successes and in our failures Lord you've been with us You were present before we arrived on the scene. You were with us in all of our journeys. You are that constant presence that remains from age to age the same.

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You Lord are the theme, the main theme in all of our doing. You know the symphony has a central theme, and even though the symphony has various movements, It is said that that theme is constant, that it runs throughout the symphony. So when we think of the symphony of our lives, if we are to have harmony, if we are to have meaning,

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if we are to really have lasting value in our lives, there has to be that central theme. God has to be with us all the way through. So thou has been our dwelling place even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God, from one end to the other and all between.

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We need you. So as we think of the harvest of the heart, it is the eternal that provides that continuity in our history. It is the eternal that provides that presence that is always with us, that remains from

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age to age the same, from everlasting to everlasting. Lord, you have been our home, our permanent dwelling place. So in the musings of the heart, the petition takes us, rather the petitioner takes us on pilgrimage which spans the entire sweep of human history. Thou has been our

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dwelling place in all generations. So when we think of the heart, the very core of our being, the harvest of the heart, we're concerned first of all as the petition that focuses on the transitory and the eternal. Both of them appear before us. There is the carnal and there is the spiritual. The psalmist here

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looks at our origin, the source from which we have come, and the goals toward which we strive and then he says you know we are on our way to dust we have come from dust and we own our way to dust and said dust thou art to dust returneth and then the last thing that the minister says out there is ashes to ashes and dust to dust.

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when we look at our feeble frame we are made of dust and we are going back to dust and one renowned theologian philosopher said in an address I heard a few months ago said when the Lord put us here on this earth put us in this world to remain for a given time and he said after a while he's gonna kill us all

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because that's what really what it sounds rather strange but in the end we said about time is out and we go back to out to the dust so in the harvest of the heart the Psalmist thoughts on the transitory and the eternal for you see we live in a world of fading flowers, withering grass, moth that corrupts, buildings that

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crumble, systems that have their day and pass away, and the psalmist thinks on these things. As one poet thought about it, he said, "Art is long and time is fleeting, and our hearts, stout and brave, still like muffled drums are beating, funeral marches to the grave. In other words, brothers and sisters, we ain't got long to stay here. And so the

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psalmist here is doing some serious thinking. You know, a lot of times people don't want to do any serious thinking. You know, we like to think about the moment. We don't like to think too much about when we are not going to be here in the body. But he's doing some serious thinking and all of us need to engage in this kind of soliloquy of the soul. All of us need to recognize that we are on a pilgrimage

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and we only have a short time to be here. We're on a journey from this mundane shore to heavenly heights that we have the privilege to engage in flights and this is only made possible through the wings of the Spirit and here the psalmist is doing some serious thinking. Paul takes a flight like that

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when he says that I know a man three years ago that was caught up into the third heaven so it's the harvest of the heart. Harvest of the heart has to do with that which is is temporary and that which is eternal. And where is your heart today? Many times people have focused their heart on things that are very very temporary. And

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And many times we use our time and we let it consume so much of our energies on things that really don't matter. You know, when I was in college, I used to sit up practically all night playing bridge.

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You know, you play one rumba, some of y'all know what I'm talking about, you can say amen to that. And then you'll play another.

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But finally dawned on me, you know, that when you get through, you spend a whole lot of time. And there are a whole lot of things that are far more important

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than not sitting up all night playing bridge. I may not miss heaven doing that, but there are a whole lot of things that are far more important,

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that ought to have a whole lot more priority on your agenda than that. And the psalmist is taking a real serious look at life. And when you take a real serious look at life,

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you rearrange your priorities. You know, I've talked to a number of friends that have become seriously ill and they thought they were gonna die.

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And one of the things that has come out of that experience in most instances, Reverend, I'm rearranging my agenda. Because when you really come to that point, you recognize that much of what you've been doing

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really isn't worth the time that it's been consuming. And so the Psalmist here, as he engages in a soliloquy of the soul, is taking a real serious look at life. And he looks at those things that just so easily pass away

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and those things that remain. you look at your life, it's good for each one of us to do that today, and see whether our life is focused on something that's going to pass away. You know sometimes we focus on clothes, and no matter how many of them we've got, and how much we pay for them, in

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a little while they're out of style. If they don't get out of style, they get old, they get threadbare, they rot, they ruin and we focus on many material things but the real important thing in this life the Psalmist recognized is something that is not made with our hands and he recognizes that that that which is

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lasting is in God. In other words, he said, "Lord, you've been our home, and home has to do with relationships, and so whether one is really at home with God depends upon whether we are rightly related to the eternal so that we can say, 'Lord, you've been with me all the way, and I've been rightly related to you.'" That's what he's saying. So the psalmist here, Moses, knew the value of a permanent

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dwelling place. Oh Moses had led the children of Israel from Egypt on the journey toward Canaan. They had sojourned in the wilderness, they say, they wandered, we say in the wilderness for some 40 years, they had no permanent resting place, constantly on the move, they pitched their tents for a time, and then they moved from one place

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to another. But God is that what really matters. He's the subject of all that has lasting value. It was God who cared for them because he was their provider, he was their shelter, he was

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their refuge, he was their support in all of the times that they faced. Even before the mountains, God was there. And you see, the individual who cuts himself off from God inhabits a world that is morally corrupt, a world that is filled with sickness and violence. The person who

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cuts himself off from God is lifted up in his own selfish pride. He trusts in himself, he tries to be independent of the source of his being, and that's what Adam did. That's what Adam did when he disobeyed God, and that's what happens when we trust in ourselves we stew in our own juice and so the psalmist is

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concerned about a harvest of the heart a harvest of security well we're not secure without God a harvest of rest and we can only experience spiritual and moral rebirth through the birth pangs of suffering sometimes it takes a crisis as I alluded to a crisis just a few moments ago, sometimes it takes a crisis and we have to

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suffer for us to recognize what the psalmist is talking about. Because the crisis affords us an opportunity to be born again. The crisis affords us an opportunity to be made new, to experience spiritual renewal. You see, there's a suffering, kind of suffering,

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that we might call redemptive suffering. A person sinks lower and lower and lower until he recognizes that he can't do anything to redeem himself.

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Until he recognizes that he really can't make it without God. And then when he gets down there, as low as he can go, and he recognizes his nothingness,

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and he cried out to God. And God is always there. That's the crisis of suffering. And that crisis comes, that crisis comes.

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God provides it in such a way that he comes to our rescue. And so you see, the harvest of the heart has to do with what are you gonna harvest? It's all out there.

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Whether we will harvest that which is temporary, whether we will harvest that which is eternal. Now the heart is really made for that which is eternal. Saint Augustine says,

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thou hast made us for thyself, O God, and our hearts are restless until we find rest in you. In other words, we really can't be ourselves and we really can't have that rest and that harmony

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and that security until we rest in you. That's what he's saying. Then he says, that,

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let the beauty, let thy beauty be upon us, as we read that Psalm, the beauty. What are we harvesting?

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In our hearts. Oh, we look, we look good this morning on the outside. We've dressed up. But God looks at the inside.

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and in the harvest of the heart. In other words, in our thoughts. What are we harvesting in our thoughts? You know, you can just sit up and think of things

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that fill your mind with that which is evil. Or you can think of those things that are good. Someone has said you sow a thought and reap an act. You sow an act and reap a habit.

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You sow a habit and you reap a character. You sow a character and you reap a destiny. But all of it has to do with sowing and reaping and harvesting, you see.

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You're sowing the harvest of the heart. If we focus on those things that are temporary, that which decays, that which looks beautiful now, but it will rot and ruin, it becomes ugly,

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are we focused on that which has lasting value? which is beautiful, and to focus on God, to focus on truth, to focus on that which is lasting and meaningful is to have a good life.

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It is to focus on that which is altogether lovely. That's what the psalmist is saying. And when we do that, we are seeking to avoid the wrath of God.

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For the wrath of God is bent toward destruction. But God's creative purpose is to make us aware of the impermanence of our existence on this earth so that we might engage in a good harvest. So the harvest of the heart is that which we may hold on to.

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Harvest, right relationships, harvest, to inherit eternity. The harvest is somehow to have highest value and to have security, to have that real meaning in life. So, give God your heart.

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The dust is going to come, the body is going to return to the dust, but give God your heart. For with the heart, man believeth into salvation and with the mouth, confession is made. And to give God the heart is to give to the one who is able to be with us not only now but always.

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And that harvest is a wonderful harvest when you give your heart to God and have harmony and meaning and strength and security in your life. That's what it means to hold on to God. Go Lord.

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Thou has been our dwelling place in all generations. Yes. So hold to God's unchanging hand. [music]

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[MUSIC] [ Music ] ♪ Time is filled with splendor and sunshine ♪ ♪ Now the earth, the moon, and sky ♪

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♪ Fill the hopes of days eternal ♪ ♪ Oh, the gods of change and light ♪ [MUSIC] ♪ For the world to you ♪

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♪ That's an astounding fact ♪ ♪ He'll know some things he can't ♪ ♪ For the world to you ♪ ♪ That's an astounding fact ♪

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♪ Trust in him who will love you ♪ ♪ God so loved them with an ear ♪ ♪ Ever in the earth of the sky ♪ ♪ Still on those hills full of glee ♪

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♪ Oh God I want you more ♪ ♪ God's done changed it now ♪ ♪ Oh brother, won't you hold to God's unchanging hand ♪ ♪ In your hope someday's eternal ♪

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♪ Oh brother, won't you hold to God's unchanging hand ♪ ♪ When your journey is completed ♪ ♪ Give to what you have been told ♪ ♪ Let the morning glory ♪

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♪ Your new rapture song will be heard ♪ ♪ Oh brother won't you hold me ♪ ♪ God's unchanging hand ♪ ♪ To the water ♪

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♪ Rocks and shaking heads ♪ ♪ Millions of stars ♪ ♪ In the air ♪ ♪ And the little ones ♪

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♪ Rocks and shaking heads ♪ ♪ Head ♪ ♪ Head ♪ (audience laughing)

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[ Silence ]