Consumed by Your Anger
A few days after the atomic bomb destroyed Hiroshima, the Reverend Kiyoshi Tanimoto was summoned to the deathbed of a parishioner suffering from burns and radiation sickness. Mr. Tanimoto, himself suffering from the shock and fatigue of dealing with the widespread misery, offered an Old Testament reading from his Japanese-language pocket Bible: “For a thousand years in Thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night. Thou carriest them away as with a flood; they are as asleep… For we are consumed by Thine anger and by Thy wrath are we troubled…”532
Isaac Watts used these words from Psalm 90 to convey a New Testament message in one of the greatest Christian hymns ever written:
Our God, our help in ages past, Our hope for years to come,
Our shelter from the stormy blast, And our eternal home.
A thousand ages in Thy sight Are like an evening gone;
Short as the watch that ends the night Before the rising sun.
Time, like an ever rolling stream, Bears all its sons away;
They fly, forgotten, as a dream Dies at the opening day.
Our God, our help in ages past, Our hope for years to come,
Be thou our guard while troubles last, And our eternal home.533
This hymn gives a masterful portrait of our mighty Lord and of his perspective on time and humanity. From his viewpoint our lives truly go by in a flash, and, on Earth, we are quickly forgotten. However, this hymn goes further to highlight another facet of God’s character. God loves us and provides an eternal home for us to be with him. Through his Son, he gives us the sure way to forgiveness, peace, and everlasting life. The degree of our pain and hardship in this life no longer matter. We can find comfort in God’s perspective and in the hope that he gives us for the future.
I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.
—John 5:24