for the glory of His grace. We were ruined by the fall, Adam's
sin defiles us all. By our deeds as by our birth,
we deserve the law's great curse. Helpless, hopeless sinners we,
never can our souls retrieve. But the blessed Son of God Came
as man in flesh and blood He fulfilled the law's demands And
in death stretched out his hands On the cross of Calvary Christ
redeemed and set us free In the time which God had set, Spirit
came for His elect to regenerate and pull from the ruined of the
fall. By His power and by His grace,
we were born for God's own praise. ? Now your purpose we fulfill
? ? Saved according to your will ? ? Sing this song of joyful
praise ? ? For the glory of your grace ? ? Blessed, holy, trium
God ? ? Hear our praise through Christ our Lord ? Please be seated. Will you turn with me in your
Bibles to the ninth Psalm, Psalm 9. Good evening. And we'll just read the first
11 verses. I will praise Thee, O Lord, with
my whole heart. I will show forth all Thy marvelous
works. I will be glad and rejoice in
thee. I will sing praise to thy name,
O thou most high. When my enemies are turned back,
they shall fall and perish at thy presence. For thou hast maintained
my right and my cause. Thou saddest in the throne, judging
right. That word is righteously. Thou
hast rebuked the heathen, thou hast destroyed the wicked, thou
hast put out their name for ever and ever. O thou enemy, destructions
are come to a perpetual end. Thou hast destroyed cities, their
memorial is perished with them. But the Lord shall endure forever. He hath prepared his throne for
judgment. and he shall judge the world
in righteousness. He shall minister judgment to
the people in righteousness." Had someone say something to
me this week that I've heard many people say, nobody's perfect. Nobody's perfect. And I was able
to say to them, yeah, but that's what God requires. He requires
absolute perfection. He's going to judge in righteousness.
Those that are not found in Christ will be judged in judgment. Verse 6, O thou
enemy, destruction are come to a perpetual end, and thou hast
destroyed cities, their memorial is perished with them, but the
Lord shall endure forever. He hath prepared his throne for
judgment. And he shall judge the world
in righteousness. He shall minister judgment to
the people in uprightness. The Lord also will be a refuge
for the oppressed, a refuge in time of trouble. And they that know thy name,
they that know thy name, this is a verse I want you to remember
for the message tonight from Psalm 8. They that know thy name,
will put their trust in Thee. For Thou, Lord, has not forsaken
them that seek Thee. Sing praises to the Lord, which
dwelleth in Zion. Declare among the people His
doings. His doings are perfect. Let's
pray. Our Heavenly Father, we rejoice
in being able to come into Thy presence. Know that we have an
advocate. the righteous one, the Lord Jesus
Christ, who stands in our stead and presents himself on our behalf,
and that being found in him, we are as he is, perfect. Lord, we pray that your works
would be exalted tonight, that you would speak to our hearts
and reveal to us the glorious name of thy dear son, and cause
us once again to find our refuge, our safety, our hope, and all
our salvation in him. For it's in his name we pray,
amen. For our second hymn, we'll sing
hymn number 125 from your hardbacked hymnal. Let's all stand together. Jesus paid it all. I hear the Savior say, thy strength
indeed is small. Child of weakness, watch and
pray. Find in me thine all in all. Jesus paid it all, all to him
I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain. He washed it white as snow. Lord, now indeed I find Thy power
and Thine alone Can change the leper's spots And melt the heart
of stone. Jesus paid it all, all to Him
I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain,
He washed it white as snow. For nothing good have I, Where
by thy grace to claim I'll wash my garments white In the blood
of Calvary's Lamb Jesus paid it all All to Him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain,
He washed it white as snow. And when before the throne I
stand in Him complete, Jesus my soul to save, my lips shall
still repeat. Jesus paid it all, all to Him
I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain,
He washed it white as snow. Psalm 8. Oh Lord, our Lord, how excellent
is thy name in all the earth. We know our God by his names. The names that he gives us in
his word tell us about his character. If I mentioned the name of someone
that you didn't know, you'd have nothing to attach that name to.
All you could do is think about the spelling of that name. But
if I said to you, Tom Toll, you wouldn't be thinking about how
to spell his name. You'd be thinking about Tom. You know Tom. You
love Tom. You'd be thinking about the person.
There's a lot of debates and controversies among men trying
to learn how to spell the names of God. But those who know him,
his names are given to us in his word in order to tell us
more of his character, more of his nature. Last Sunday we considered
why in our experience do we come to Christ? We come to him because
he's altogether lovely. And we know of his loveliness
by the revelation that he's made of himself in his word through
his names. And so David cries out, oh, Jehovah. You know, every time L-O-R-D
is in caps in the Old Testament, it's a reference to that name
that the Lord gave to Moses at the burning bush when he called
Moses to bring his people out of Egypt. Who shall I say sent
me? What is your name? Tell them
I am that I am." And we have that name as Jehovah in the scriptures. And it describes his essence,
his nature. It describes to us the fact that
he is self-existent, as we saw Sunday, The Sabbath was made
to meet the needs of man, not man for the Sabbath. Our God
is completely independent, self-existent, eternal, sovereign, omnipotent,
in and of Himself. And that's what this word, Lord,
tells us about Him. He's not created, He's not dependent,
He's not like us in any way. He's holy. He's other than we
are. And so David just in expressing
his praise and joy says, Oh Lord, my Lord. Now the second Lord
in verse one is the word Adonai and translated it means master
or owner. And the believer, when the Lord
is pleased to reveal the character of Christ as Jehovah. And that
name Jehovah relates to God the Father, it relates to God the
Son, and it relates to God the Holy Spirit. And when God's pleased
to make himself known through his name in our hearts, then
we say, my Lord. Oh Lord, my Lord, you're my owner. You're my master. I bow in worship
and in submission to thee. He says, how excellent, how excellent,
how terribly excellent is thy name. They that know thy name
will put their trust in thee. God's ever pleased to make his
name known to us, then we know that we've heard from him we
know that we know something of his name because we're brought
by the Spirit of God to put our trust in him. Most people take
the name of our God in vain and by that I don't mean that they
use it as a curse word although many people do. Worse than that
worse than that they take his name to themselves in vain. Now 46 years ago, Tricia took my name. And she's been Tricia Elmquist
ever since. Rowell is no longer her name. And she can go down to the bank
and whatever little bit of resources we might have down there, she's
got full access, full access to it. Why? Because that's her
name. If someone else went to the bank
and claimed to be Tricia Elmquist, they would be taking her name
in vain and they wouldn't have access to any of the resources
that are available to the right, Trisha Elmquist. A lot of people
take the name of our Lord in vain. They claim to be married
to one that they're not married to. And they have no access to
the things of God. You shall call his name Jesus.
How excellent is thy name for he shall save his people from
their sins. Our Lord's name describes him
as the successful savior. He didn't make an offer of salvation.
He actually put away the sins of his people in his sacrifice
on Calvary's cross. I was thinking about his name
today, because over the years I've met a lot of Jesus and I thought you know that just
shows you how disrespectful the Catholic Church is towards the
name of our Lord. If my parents gave me the name
Jesus when I was born, if the Lord was pleased with me, I'd
change my name. I'd change my name. I'm not worthy
of that name. But that's His name, isn't it?
And we rejoice in the excellence of His name. His name tells us
what He did, what He accomplished. And most of the folks that take
His name in vain are no closer to God than those Jesuses that
run around with the name of Christ. His name is excellent, excellent
to our ears. We love to hear about the Lord
Jesus, who is the Christ. He's our owner. He's bought us
with a price. We are not our own. We belong
to him and we rejoice in belonging to him. He's a, and he is the
Christ. He's the anointed one, isn't
he? He's the one whom God sent in the power of the Spirit of
God in order to accomplish the purpose for which God sent him.
And his word, the word, the Lord Jesus Christ, the living word,
did not return unto God void. When he said, I go and prepare
a place for you, he prepared the place by presenting himself
to the Father so that now we have an advocate with God, Jesus
Christ, the righteous one. He's called the high priest who
is able to sympathize with our weaknesses. He's touched by the
feelings of our infirmities. The veil has been rent and the
Lord Jesus Christ himself has gone into the very presence of
God and presented himself on behalf of his people. Oh, Jehovah. the self-existent one, my Adonai,
my Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth. Oh Lord,
when we speak your name, give us by your spirit some understanding
of what your name means and cause us to speak it reverently, cause
us to use it in worship. The Lord Jesus Christ is referred
to in the scripture as Jehovah Sidkenu, the Lord our righteousness. We have no righteousness before
God outside of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's like I said earlier,
people say, well, nobody's perfect and that's true. Somebody said
that to me recently and I said, no, there's one, there's one. But you know, everybody takes
comfort in the fact that, well, I'm not perfect, I know that,
but God's not expecting perfection. He just wants me to do my best.
No, that's not true. God requires absolute perfection. He requires absolute righteousness. He never said, do your best and
I'll be satisfied. He's satisfied with the Lord
Jesus Christ. He's the only one that met the
demands of God's law. He's the only one who was able
to put away the sins of God's people. and the Lord Jesus Christ. Here he's called Lord, the Lord,
our righteousness. David said, I'll speak of no
other righteousness other than thy righteousness, thy righteousness
alone. We must be found in him, must
we? And His name tells us about who He is in His righteousness.
His name tells us about how it is that He provides in another
place He's called Jehovah Jireh, the Lord our provider. He provides all our acceptance
before God. He provides everything that we
need in this life and in the life to come. He is our surety. A surety is one who gives, we
use that word to talk about a down payment, but that's not what
it means when it refers to Christ. He didn't just make the down
payment, he paid off the debt, paid it all off. He's Jehovah
Jireh, the Lord who provides, provides everything that we need.
He provides hope. He provides peace. He provides
forgiveness. He provides life, life eternal. In another place he's called
Jehovah Nisi, the Lord our banner. And the picture here is an army
going to battle and the flag preceding the army and the success
of the army is seen when that flag is flying. And there we
are, there we are following our commander as the scripture refers
to Christ. So many names that are excellent
about him. Lord, reveal yourself to me. For you said that they that know
thy name, they that know thy name will put their trust in
thee. The Lord Jesus Christ goes before
us in the battle against sin and he conquered, he conquered
sin, he conquered Satan, he conquered the grave. Paul said in 1 Corinthians
chapter 15, oh death, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin. And
the strength of sin is the law. Thanks be to God, through Christ
Jesus, I am free. He went as our commander, as
our banner, right into the holies of holies, and he put his blood
on the mercy seat, and he was accepted by God. And God said,
I pass by you, pass by you. The blood's been shed. The Lord
Jesus Christ has defeated the enemy and gotten the victory
so that the scripture says we now are more than conquerors
through Christ Jesus. Sin's already been conquered.
Now I know you struggle with it. I struggle with it. We've
got our flesh we're going to deal with as long as we're in
this life. But the truth is that before
God, It's already been put away. It's been nailed to the cross. It's been cast into the depths
of the sea, sewed up in a bag and cast behind the back of God,
that God sees it no more, separated from us as far as the East is
from the West. You say, well, and God says,
I remember it no more. He said, well, I'm reminded of
it every day. But the way God sees it is the
way it is, isn't it? That's the way it really is.
And here's our hope. The Lord has revealed himself
as Jehovah Nisi, our banner. He's conquered sin, he's conquered
Satan, he's defeated the enemy. And all those who follow that
banner go into glory with him. How excellent is thy name, Jehovah
Shalom. Now you know what that means,
the Lord who is our peace. We have peace with God through
the Lord Jesus Christ. There's no peace outside of Christ.
A man can't give you peace. Your circumstances can't give
you peace. You can't give yourself peace, can you? Not real peace,
not lasting peace. The Lord said, my peace I give
unto thee. My peace I leave with thee. Not
as the world gives. This isn't just a temporary reprieve
of happiness that the world has to offer. This is peace with
God. Everybody wants to experience
the peace of God. Don't worry about the peace of
God. Look to Christ for peace with
God. The peace of God is the byproduct
of having peace with God. You know, if we look for the
byproduct, we might miss the source. So look to the source
and the byproduct will come. If I know that I have peace with
God and the peace of God, the peace of God that passes understanding,
keeps my heart and my mind in Christ Jesus. Oh, Jehovah, my
Adonai, how excellent, how excellent. We don't speak these words, these
names that God has given us of himself in vain. They tell us
about who he is. And those that know his name
will put their trust in him. Lord, we would not at all be interested
in the description that we saw Sunday in Song of Solomon chapter
five, unless we had a desire for Christ. What did the daughters
of Jerusalem say? What is your beloved more than
my beloved? Nothing special about him. Oh
no, he's very special. He's not like anybody else. This
is who he is. This is how he's revealed himself
to us. And then the Lord reveals himself by Jehovah
Shema, Jehovah Shema. And that word means the Lord
is here. He's here. He said, I'll never
leave you nor forsake you. He said, you go on all the world
and lo, I am with you always, even until the end of the earth.
I'm here, I'm here. Where two or three are gathered
together, there I am, Jehovah, in the midst of them, Shema.
The Lord is here. His presence is promised to his
people. And he promised never to leave
them, never to forsake them. Oh Lord, my Lord, how excellent
is thy name in all the earth. The names of our Lord give us
pictures of his glory, don't they? What does he say in the
rest of this? Thy name is excellent in all
the earth, who hath set thy glory above the heavens. above the
heavens, above everything else, is the glory of our Lord. He calls himself the Alpha and
the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end. He's the one who authored our
salvation in the covenant of grace before the world ever began. David said, Although my house
be not so, yet he has made a covenant with me. And Isaiah said, men
go about trying to make their own covenant. We've made a covenant
with God. And with hell, we're in agreement.
We're not going to hell. And God says, I will disannul
any covenant that you make. Any promises that you make are
not sufficient. Why? Because they're not perfect.
They're not perfect. The Lord said, I'm the Alpha.
I'm the one who promised to the Father before man was ever made
that I would do what's necessary to redeem those whom God chose
in the covenant of grace. And I'm the Omega. Not only did
I enter into this covenant promise with God to redeem them, but
I actually accomplished their redemption. And then I sent my
spirit. to make them willing in the day
of my power and not one of my sheep is gonna be lost. Every
single one that God chose, every single one that I died for are
going to come and they're gonna bow before me and say with David,
oh, Jehovah, my Adonai, my Lord, my master, my owner. He's the
alpha and the omega. He started it. and he's gonna
finish it. And what he started, he will
complete. He will complete. He's our kinsman
redeemer, isn't he? You remember what Naomi told
Ruth? He said, you sit right there. I know the man. I've seen
how much he loves you. And he's not going to rest until
he settles the matter this day. And the Lord Jesus Christ did
not rest until he settled the matter. Why? Because he loved
his bride and he was determined to redeem her. And that's what
he did. He's called the redeemer. He's
not making an offer of redemption. He actually redeemed. He actually
bought us with the price of his own blood. And God was pleased
with that blood. And God said, it's paid, debt's
paid. It's all full. It's done. It's finished. The Alpha and
the Omega. He promised to save. He actually
saved. And then he reveals himself,
regenerates us by his grace, keeps us from falling, keeps
us from falling away. You say, well, I fall every day.
Yeah, I do too. I'm talking about falling out
of grace, falling away from God, falling into a state of unbelief. That's not going to happen with
the child of God. Everyone that he gives faith to, they're going
to continue to believe to their dying breath. They're going to
believe. And then in the book of John,
the Lord Jesus Christ takes on the names of God, doesn't he?
And he says, I am. I am. Those Pharisees knew what
he meant when he said, when he took that name to himself. He said, Moses didn't give you
that bread. That bread that came down from
heaven, my father gave you that, and I am the bread of life. Those Israelites would have died
in no time at all had the manna not been given to them every
day. And the Lord said that we're to ask him for our daily bread. Lord, let your body be my meat,
be my meat indeed, that I would live on your life, the life that
you lived. And that's what Paul said, isn't
it? He said, I'm crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live,
yet not I, and not I, it's Christ that lives in me. The life that
I now live, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me
and gave himself for me. He's the bread of life. We're
not gonna survive without that manna, are we? And you're here
tonight because you need a fresh measure of manna, don't you?
The manna from yesterday never sustains a believing soul for
tomorrow. The believer always got to have
more manna. I need to know Christ again.
I preached Carol's memorial service, Mary's
mother, yesterday and Bert came up to me right after the message
and he said, He said, well, the Lord saved me. I said, first
time I ever heard the gospel. First time I ever heard the gospel.
Isn't that the way it is? When you get a fresh taste of
that manna, it's so alive that everything else, you know, I
don't know. I don't know if I was saved yesterday. I don't know.
But I know now. And that's what salvation is.
Salvation, you know, in religion, everybody's looking back to an
experience, aren't they? Well, I remember when I gave
my heart to Jesus, or I remember when I did this or did that,
or I prayed or whatever, and they're hanging the hopes of
their immortal soul on an experience, on a feeling. Faith has got to
be current. It's got to be right now. It's
got to be right now. We can't look back to yesterday.
If you're going to look back, look back long before you were
ever born. Look back to that covenant of
grace in eternity before time ever was. Look back to Calvary's
cross 2000 years ago and see that one hanging on the cross
as the hope of your salvation. The one who satisfied the demands
of God's justice with his precious blood. That's what we look, we
don't look back to our experiences, do we? Can't look back to yesterday.
You know, we just don't know. We don't know about our experiences.
The heart is deceitful. Who can know it? But we can know
right now. Lord, I believe you. Right now. I don't know about tomorrow.
I don't know about yesterday, but right now. That's what salvation
is. Salvation is a right now experience,
isn't it? That's what the Lord meant when
he said, today is the day of salvation. That wasn't just a
challenge for those who might be putting off the hope of being
saved for another day. He was saying right now, right
now. It's the only time you have.
Nothing's ever been done yesterday. And nothing's ever been done
tomorrow, has it? There's no yesterday and tomorrow.
Lord, cause me right now to come to you as the bread of life.
And then the Lord Jesus Christ said, I am the light of the world. Light is coming to the world,
but men love darkness rather than light. Why? Because their deeds are evil.
What does the light do? The light of the gospel exposes
us for what we are. And the child of God rejoices
in that. You remember what the Lord told
Isaiah when Isaiah said, Lord, where do I start? Tell them they're
grass. Tell them they're nothing. Tell them they can't do anything.
Tell them they don't have anything. That'll be a comfort to them.
And it is a comfort to God's people, isn't it? That God's
not looking to me for anything. And the light of the gospel does
expose the fact that there is nothing in me that's good. Yesterday, one of the men that
was here, he said to me, he said, you know,
he said, you answered a question I've been dealing with all my
life. He said, he said, I've got a brother that's an atheist.
And he said, but he's the best person I've ever known in my
life. He's a good person. He said, but now I realize that
all that goodness is of no value. And that's true. It doesn't matter
if you're an atheist or some sort of committed religious person. The light exposes us for what
we are. Sinners. Sinners. That's why Job said after he
heard the gospel and God was pleased to speak through Elihu,
what Job said, behold, behold, I see something now that the
light has been turned on that I never saw before. I am vile. I had heard of thee by the hearing
of my ear, but now mine eyes have seen thee and I repent in
dust and ashes. It's what I am. What was me,
I'm undone. What did the Lord say? Why? To
the rich young ruler, he said, why do you call me good? I've
actually heard people use that passage of scripture to deny
the deity of Christ. When the Lord said to the rich
young ruler who said, good master, what must I do to inherit eternal
life? There's a problem with that question, isn't there? Number
one, you don't do anything to inherit something. The question
didn't even make sense. Inheriting something is something
that you get without doing anything. and he couldn't do anything anyway.
That's why the Lord said, keep the commandments. Well, I've
kept all these from my youth. But what did the Lord say to
him? Why callest thou me good? For there's none good but God.
There's none good but God. Do you know who you're talking
to? Do you realize that there's no goodness in you? I'm the light
of the world. The light has shined in the darkness. You know, there's one thing about
light and darkness. Darkness can never overpower
light. Light always overpowers darkness. It doesn't matter how dark a
room is. It doesn't matter how dim the light is. Where that
light is, it's going to push the darkness away. And that's the way it is with
the gospel, isn't it? Sometimes the light's real dim, but where
that light is, is pushing away the darkness, isn't it? The Lord
said, I am the light of the world. He's taking his name. The Lord,
our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth. And what
did they accuse him of? Blasphemy. You're taking the
name of God. How can you, being a man, make
yourself out to be God? And then when they did, bring charges against him. They
couldn't get, they couldn't get the false accusers to come to
agreement on anything and finally the high priest said we have
no need of any other, any of the other accusers. He's, he's
accused himself. I'm the door. I am the door to
the sheep fault. Now the hireling, They'll come
over the wall, but there's only one way to get into this sheepfold,
and that's through that door. And there is no other door. That
Old Testament tabernacle had one door going into it. That
was it. The holies of holies had one door. You know, we've
got, how many doors we have in this building? A bunch of them.
Come in or out of them a lot of different ways, can't you?
And that's the way people think about God. Well, there's a lot
of ways to get to God. No, there isn't. The Lord Jesus
Christ said, I am the way, I am the truth, and I am the life. No man can come to the Father
except by me. He's the only way. Oh, Lord, my Lord, how excellent
is thy name. Don't you love just talking about
him and his name and who he is? And we're not getting caught
up in some sort of theological debate trying to figure out the
proper spelling. We're talking about what these
names mean. About Him. About Him. He said, I'm the door. This sheepfold's
being guarded very carefully by God. No one's going to come
into the sheepfold unless they come by that door. And then He
went on to say, I'm not only the door into the sheepfold,
but I'm the good shepherd. And I know my sheep and my sheep
hear my voice and my sheep follow me. You know, I understand that
different shepherds would put all their sheep together out
in the pasture. And then at the end of the day, a shepherd would
come and he would call his sheep and call them each by name. And
those sheep that were all mixed up together out there in the
pasture, they'd all start separating themselves. And they heard the
voice of their shepherd and they went to their shepherd. The Lord
said, I'm the good shepherd. I laid down my life for the sheep. And then you remember when Martha
and Mary were grieving over the loss of their brother, Lazarus. And Martha said, Lord, I know
if you'd have been here, my brother wouldn't have died. And the Lord
said, your brother's gonna rise again. Oh Lord, I know he's gonna
rise in the resurrection. I believe in that day when the
dead will rise. And the Lord Jesus Christ moved
her from thinking of the resurrection just as an event, as a time to
being him as a person. He said, Martha, I am the resurrection
and the life. He's the first born among many
brethren, isn't He? God raised Him from the dead,
not allowing His Holy One to see corruption because of His
successful work as our Redeemer and His faithful keeping of the
promise that He had made to the Father before the world ever
began. And He raised from the dead. And when He raised, everyone
that He died for raised with Him. So He said, I am the resurrection
and the life. We were in our father Adam. You
read theology books, you'll read men talking about Adam being
our federal head. The President of the United States
is our federal head. That doesn't describe the full
relationship that we have with Adam. My father is my seminal
head. See, I was actually in him. I
came from his loins, I came from his genes, and we all were in
Adam as our seminal head. Before Cain and Abel were ever
created, we were in our father Adam. So when Adam fell, when
one man sinned, we all died in him. And in the same way, we're
all in Christ. So that when Christ died, all
those that he died for died in him. And when he was raised from
the dead, all those that he came to live and die for were raised
with him. That's why Paul said that I might know him and the
power of his resurrection. I just want to be, I want to
believe that when Christ was raised from the dead, I was raised
in him. Yeah, in my experience, I've still got to die physically
and I've still got to be raised physically and be given a new
body. And somebody told me recently,
he said, well, you know, we're going to be spirit beings in
heaven. No, we're going to, we're going to have a resurrected body.
We're going to have the same kind of body that the Lord Jesus
Christ had in his resurrection. That's why he said to the disciples,
touch me. Got some food? Bring the food.
I'm gonna eat right here in your presence. This is not a ghost.
This is not a spirit being. This is a resurrected body that
I have. And this body is a picture of
what everyone's gonna look like. Everyone's gonna look just like
him. We're gonna have the same kind of resurrected, sinless
body in glory. He said, I am the resurrection. Oh, what hope we have in that,
ain't it? And then finally he said, I am
the true vine. A lot of false vines out there.
A lot of false vines. But the branches that are not
attached to this vine are gonna be cast into the fire. The branches
that are attached to this vine are gonna be pruned by the vine
dresser. And the Lord knows exactly how
to do that, doesn't he? He knows how to ordain our circumstances. He knows how to work in our hearts.
He knows what to say to us. He knows what to give you ears
to hear when I stand up here and preach. And everybody hears
something a little bit different, don't they? Because that's the
spirit of God pruning us that we might bear more fruit, more
fruit. I'm the true vine. Touched with the feelings of
our infirmities, passed into the heavens, he's prepared a
place for us. We have a hiding place, a hiding
place where the law cannot touch us. He's referred to as that
city of refuge, isn't he? And we've got the avenger of
blood that's always pursuing us. And even as believers, we
always have these thoughts, you know, God's going to get me,
the law's going to get me, oh no, and what do we do? The spirit
of God causes us. He puts out, you know, in Israel,
all those cities of refuge had signs pointing to them all over
the place so that, you know, if a person was fleeing for their
life, they wouldn't get lost in trying to find a city of refuge.
Those signs were very well marked. And that's what the Lord's done.
He just keeps pointing us to the city of refuge. He keeps
pointing us to Christ. All right, go back with me to
our text of Romans chapter two, Psalm chapter eight. Oh, Jehovah. The creator and sustainer of
all of life. The one who was not created the
one who exists within himself. Be my master. Be my owner. My Adonai, for your name, your
name is excellent. It's perfect. It's glorious. In all the earth, it's lifted
above the heavens more than anything that this world has. The name
of the Lord Jesus Christ is the one that I'm drawn to. And they
that know His name will put their trust in Him." Now look at verse
2, out of the mouth of babes and sucklings has thou ordained
strength because of thine enemies. Now, the triumphal entry of the
Lord Jesus Christ in that last week of His earthly life here
before the crucifixion He, first of all, he cleansed
the temple. He cast out the money changers.
And he said, you've turned the house of prayer. And that's what
the church is. I hope we're all praying right
now in our hearts. Lord, speak to me. That's all
we can do is pray. All we can do is cry out. We're
not here to do anything else but to pray. Lord, you've turned
the house of prayer into a den of thieves. You're selling the
gospel for profit. You're making man made for the
Sabbath. You're denying who I am as Jehovah,
as the self-existent I am, and you're telling men that they've
got to bring something in order for me to be able to save them.
You've turned the house of prayer into a den of thieves. And then
he went out through the city and all the people started saying,
Hosanna, Hosanna. Now that word just simply means
save us now. Save us now. That's what Hosanna
means. Hosanna, son of David. Everything that David represented
was a picture. of what the Lord Jesus Christ
would successfully do. And the Pharisees said, do you
not hear what they're saying? And in Matthew chapter 21, the
Lord quotes from Romans chapter eight. And he says to them, have
you not read how it says in the scriptures that out of the mouth
of babes and sucklings, God has ordained strength against his
enemies? So the Lord quotes this verse
in that experience when they are saying to him, do you hear
what they're saying? Aren't you going to stop them
from saying Hosanna? How are you going to save them?
Nobody can forgive man of sins except God. Yeah, that's right. And that's exactly who I am. And that's exactly what I came
to do. And the mouths of babes and sucklings That's what we are, aren't we?
We're just babes. And we like being a babe, don't
we? You know, in religion, everybody's
competing to see who's more mature and who's more exalted in the
eyes of man. And the Lord said, lest you become
as a little child, you should not enter the kingdom of heaven.
Suffer little children to come unto me, for such is the kingdom
of God. Lord, I'll just be a babe at
your feet, out of the mouth of babes and sucklings. And so by
your words, you shall be justified, what you say about Christ. And
by your words, you shall be condemned. And so the calves of our lips
is what the scripture calls our confession. The calves were those
things that were sacrificed as a type of Christ. And the sacrifices
of praise are the sacrifices of our lips. What do we say? What do we say? We say, salvations
of the Lord. We say, he gets all the glory.
We say, he's done it all by himself and he gets all the praise. And
so he says, Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou
ordained strength because of thy enemies that thou might steal
the enemy of the avenger." He came to set the captive free. The Lord in one place, I think
it was in Matthew Chapter 12, he said, how can you enter that
when they called him Beelzebub? He said, he's casting out demons
by the name of Beelzebub. And the Lord said, that doesn't
even make sense. How can a house divided against itself stand?
If Satan cast out Satan, that doesn't work. That would just
destroy his kingdom. He said, how can a strong man, how can you enter into a strong
man's house until first you destroy the strong man? Then you can
spoil his house. And that's what the Lord Jesus
Christ came to do. He came to destroy the works of the devil.
He came to set the captives free. And that's what he did. Of righteousness because I go
to my father and of judgment because the prince of this world
has been judged. That's what Christ came to do.
In Isaiah chapter 49, the scripture says that the prey will be taken
from the mighty. Now that's P-R-E-Y, and that's
what we are by nature. We are prey to Satan and been
taken captive by him. And the Lord Jesus Christ came
to destroy the power of Satan and to give deliverance to those
who are captive. That's why he said the gates
of hell are not gonna be able to prevail against this gospel.
I'm going to go into the very depths of hell and I'm going
to pull my children out of hell. You know, people say, well, I
don't want to be a, I don't want to be a slave to anybody. I'll
be my own man. You're either a slave to sin
or you're a slave to Christ. It's just one or the other. There's
no in between. All men are slaves. All men are
slaves. You're either in bondage to your
sin, unable to believe, or you cannot not believe. You just,
you cry, oh Lord, my Lord, how excellent is thy name in all
the earth. Look at the, look at the next verse, verse
three. When I consider the heavens, the work of thy fingers, the
moon and the stars which thou hast ordained, And we don't get,
in our modern day, we don't get to see the stars like they really
are. You get out in the middle of the ocean or some place where
there's no artificial light and, well, the sky just lights up
with them, doesn't it? And so David's probably lying
on his back somewhere in a pasture, looking up into the night sky,
that when I consider, and how much more we know about, the
universe and the sky that we look at, and the stars, and even
David did. When I consider those things,
Lord, what is man? What is man? Lord, you made all that. Why
would you be mindful of me? Why would you show any interest
at all in me? Now I know something about the
excellence of His name when I've been brought by the Spirit of
God to be amazed first and foremost that He would save me. Does that
not amaze you? Out of everybody that there is
for Him to save in the world, why would He choose you? What
do the religionists say, those who think that God is obligated
to save everybody? When we talk to them about election
and about particular redemption, we talk to them about what Christ
was successful in doing for his elect, what do they say? That's
not fair. That's not fair. Why would not
God save everybody? If I was God, what they're saying
is, if I was God, I'd save everybody. No, you wouldn't. You would not. You'd send a lot of people to
hell, wouldn't you? If you were God. But they don't know his
name. They have perverted view of God.
What's the believer say? Lord, why would you save anybody?
I look into the stars that you've created. I look into the majesty
of your glory that shows forth in your creation. What is man
that thou art mindful of him? Why would you show any interest
in anybody? And most especially, why would
you show any interest in me? I'm just, I'm amazed. I'm amazed
that you would save me. Or the Son of Man. Now, the writer
of Hebrews makes it clear because this passage is quoted in Hebrews
chapter 2. The Son of Man being made a little
lower than the angels. Now that word little doesn't
have to do with size, it has to do with time. And so David
is speaking prophetically about the son of man who is also the
son of God. But in his humanity, he's been
made for a little space of time lower than the angels. Why would
you do that? Why would you come off of your
throne? and make yourself to be lower than the angels, to
be dependent. Angels aren't dependent on the
things that the Lord Jesus Christ was dependent on as the son of
man. As the son of man, he hungered, he tired, he was restricted to
time and space and angels didn't have that. Angels are true spirit beings,
aren't they? Limited, why would you take the
son of man and make him for a little space of time, lower than the
angels? This is a reference to the condescension
of the Lord Jesus Christ, that God would be made in the likeness
of sinful flesh, that God would be made like us. that we would,
that men would look at him and not see any difference. Here
he was, God incarnate, the fullness of the Godhead bodily walking
this earth and men looked at him and thought he was just another
man. Wasn't anything angelic about him. He wasn't walking
around with a halo over his head. He didn't stand out as if there
was something special about him. The only moment in time where
God lifted the veil of his humanity and allowed some of the glory
of his deity to shine forth was on the Mount of Transfiguration,
wasn't it? And Peter, James, and John couldn't look on him. They had to bury their faces
in the dirt. His radiance was so brilliant.
And that was just a glimpse of his glory that shined forth out
of his humanity. But here David's saying, Why
would you take the Son of Man and make Him lower than the angels? Well, the answer to that is because
men needed a man, and we have a man, the Son of God, between
us and God. A man, the only man, the only
man who's able to touch God and not be destroyed and able to
touch man and not be defiled. He's the only one. And David's
saying, the Son of Man? Why would you visit us with Him? You came into our presence. God
was made flesh. and dwelt among us. And we beheld
now through the eyes of faith, we beheld His glory as the glory
of the only begotten of the Father, the one and only one who's full
of grace and all the grace that we need to be saved is in Him
and full of truth. There's no truth outside of Christ.
You know that. You see that, don't you? Everything
this world has to tell us about God, When man by wisdom knew
not God, God, through the foolishness of preaching, was pleased to
save them which believe. Man, by all of his wisdom and
all his abilities, can never know God. God visited man, and
we beheld his glory as the glory of the Father, full of grace
and full of truth, For thou hast made him, verse 5, a little lower
than the angels, and crowned him with glory and honor. And
that's where he is in the hearts of God's people, in the hearts
of his own people, is he's crowned. We sing that song, Crown Him.
And he is, he's crowned in our hearts, isn't he? As King of
Kings and Lord of Lords. And we worship him. Why? Because He's Lord. He's Jehovah. You're only going to worship
a God that you're completely dependent upon. A God that needs
you to do something in order for Him to be able to save you
is not worthy of worship. He's not worthy of worship. That
God needs to be worshiping you. And that's exactly why people
are religious. They want a God that bows to
them. They honor him with their lips.
They say they're worshiping God. They say they're bowing to God,
but their hearts are far from him. They don't trust him. They don't know him. The Lord
reveals himself by his name and those who know his name will
trust him. And now David's saying, thy marvelous
name, why would you come and visit us? Verse six, thou madest
him to have dominion. And this passage is dealt with
in Hebrews chapter two. He has dominion over the works
of thy hands. Thou hast put all things under
his feet, all sheep and oxen, yea, and all the beast of the
field, the fowls of the air and the fish of the sea and whatsoever
passeth through the pass of the sea. Everything is subject to
him. Oh Lord. Our Lord, O Jehovah,
my Adonai, how excellent is thy name in all the earth. Everywhere we go in this world,
His excellence is the same, isn't it? It's the same. Let's pray. Our merciful Heavenly Father, we pray that for Christ's sake,
you would be pleased to make yourself known to our hearts
and to cause us to be able to say in truth, oh Lord, our Lord,
how excellent is thy name in all the earth. We pray it in
Christ's name. Amen. Number 42, let's stand together. ? Let us praise the name of Jesus
? ? Prophet, priest and sovereign king ? ? To him render adoration
? ? Lord and homage to him bring ? ? Let us praise the name of
Jesus ? God incarnate from above Came to save His chosen people
Sent by God in covenant love ? Let us praise the name of Jesus
? ? Who upon Mount Calvary ? ? Shed his blood and sealed our pardon
? ? Died for sin to set us free ? ? Let us praise the name of
Jesus ? risen conquering, gracious friend, advocate and mediator,
all our hopes on him depend. ? Let us praise the name of Jesus
? ? For he brought us to his fold ? ? Come exalt his name
and worship ? ? May the Savior be extolled ? ? Let us praise
the name of Jesus ? Till we see Him face to face, Then throughout
the endless ages, Praise Him for His love and grace.