It does turn to God's Word in
that Psalm that we read, Psalm 8, directing you this morning to
the words that we find in verse 4, Psalm 8 and verse 4, What
is man that thou art mindful of him, and the Son of Man that
thou visitest him? How striking are these words,
what is man, We find such on two occasions here in the book
of Psalms later in the 144th Psalm we have a very similar
text to the one that we've just read there in verses 3 and 4
of Psalm 144. Lord what is man that thou takest knowledge of
him or the son of man that thou makest account of him man is
like to vanitin his days are as a shadow that passeth away
twice then here in the Psalms we have the question concerning
man and also we find that question twice in the book of Job in that
chapter that we read chapter seven And verse 17, what is man? That thou shouldest magnify him,
and that thou shouldest set thine heart upon him, and that thou
shouldest visit him every morning, and try him every moment. And then again later in Job chapter
15, and verse 14, what is man? That he should be clean, and
he which is born of a woman that he should be righteous. These
four occasions we have texts that set before us man, man in
all his great need, in all his great weakness, but also that
man who is so favoured of God. The fourfold question, what is
man? And in a sense we have a fourfold
answer. when we come to the New Testament,
where we read of Him who is truly the man, even the Lord Jesus
Christ. And it is in Christ, in His person,
and in His work that we see the great value that God has been
pleased to set upon man. But as we come to consider the
words in the 8th Psalm that I've read, this 4th verse, This morning
I want us to consider more particularly man's weakness and certainly
we are reminded of that with the passing of time as the days
and the weeks and the months come and go and so the years
pass away are we not reminded of man's frailty how life is
so fleeting We sang those words just now in what's his well-known
paraphrase of Psalm 9, Time like an ever-rolling stream bears
all its sons away, they fly forgotten as a dream dies at the opening
day. considering then, as our theme
this morning here in Psalm 8, something of the frailty, the
weakness of man. Think of that ministry that was
to be exercised by John the Baptist as he comes as the one who is
the forerunner of Christ, the voice of him that crieth in the
wilderness. And there in Isaiah 14, The voice said, Cry, and he said,
What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the
goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field. The grass
withereth, the flower fadeth, because the Spirit of the Lord
bloweth upon it. Surely the people is grass. The grass withereth, the flower
fadeth, but the Word of our God shall stand forever. Here is
the contrast. All we have before us that everlasting
Word, the Word of God, that that is written in heaven itself,
that that endures. And what does the Scripture teach
us concerning man? Does he not reveal to us all
that man is in his great weakness? We have many questions set before
us when we come to consider God's words. We have questions sometimes
put with regards to God himself. Back in Exodus, for example,
and there in the 15th chapter, remember how God had done remarkable
works in bringing out the children of Israel from the bondage which
was Egypt. And he had delivered them by
visiting terrible judgments upon their oppressors and then brought
them out and made a way through the Red Sea. He's bringing them
to Mount Sinai that there he might enter into covenant with
him. And here is Moses and his great
son in Exodus 15. And the questions he puts in
verse 11, Who is like unto thee, O Lord among the gods? Who is
like thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders? So many times these questions
are put with regards to God and the ways of God. Again, here
in the book of Psalms, in Psalm 89 at verse 6, For who in the heaven can be
compared unto the Lord? And who among the sons of the
mighty can be likened unto the Lord? God is greatly to be feared
in the assembling of the saints, and to be had in reverence of
all them that are about him. O Lord God of hosts, who is a
strong Lord like unto thee? Or to thy faithfulness round
about thee? Many questions And these questions
as they are put concerning God, they tend to have that effect
that they raise God in our estimation. We're brought to admire the greatness
of God and the goodness of God. And those remarkable words that
we find at the end of the prophecy of Micah, who is a God like unto
thee? that pardoneth iniquity, and
passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage. He retaineth not his anger for
ever, because he delights us in mercy. Oh, who is a God? Who is a God like unto thee? These questions then, when they
have regard to God, they exalt Him, or they should exalt Him,
in our estimation. But when the question is put
concerning man, what is man? Ebenezer Erskine says this is
a down-bringing question. What is man? God should never
take any account of man. All man must be humble to the
very dust before the glories that belong unto the Lord God,
that no flesh should glory in his presence. Well, let us come
to the words that we have here in our text this morning. I want
to deal with some three headings. First of all, to consider man's
weakness as a creature. Man's weakness as a creature. This is the context. Verse 3,
when I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the
moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained. What is man, that
thou art mindful of him, and the Son of Man, that thou visitest
him?" Here we see man as a creature. And the smallness of man, when
we think of the vastness of God's creation, In another psalm we read, Know
ye not that the Lord, He is God? It is He that hath made us, not
we ourselves. Are we those who are conscious
of our creatureliness? And as creatures we are those
who are so dependent upon God. He is the one in whom we live
and move and have our being. We are so indebted to God for
all things. It is the Lord God Himself who
has given us life. We are familiar with that account
that we have there in the opening chapters, the first two chapters
of Holy Scripture, in Genesis 1 and 2, how the Lord God makes
all things out of nothing. And then on the sixth day we
have the creation of man, spoken of there at the end of chapter
1. And then in the second chapter Moses goes into greater detail
with regards to that aspect of God's work of creation. How the
Lord God formed man out of the dust of the earth, and breathed into his nostrils
the breath of life, and man became a living soul. With regards to
his work of creation in general, we know that God acts by fear. God says. And it is so. That's how God works. By the
word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the host of them
by the breath of his mouth, he simply speaks. And creation is
brought into being. When it comes to man, the Lord
God forms him out of the dust of the earth. And of course the
very name that is given to him there in Genesis, the name Adam,
which means man, is derived from the word for the Red Earth. It
reminds us of how God made him, out of the dust. And so when
Adam sins, what is the consequence? well he was told quite plainly
concerning disobedience in the day that thou eatest thereof,
eatest of that tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt surely
die and so there in chapter 3 of Genesis he is told that he will
have to work now by the sweat of his brow until he comes to
die till thou return unto the ground says God for out of it
was thou taken for dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou
return." Oh, what is man as a creature? All go unto one place, says the
preacher. All are of the dust, and all
turn to dust again. Then shall the dust return to
the earth as it was, and the Spirit to God who gave it. Are we those friends who are
aware of these things, we know what we are, our frailty such
feeble creatures of the dust there in that chapter that we
read in Job chapter 7 what is man that thou shouldest magnify
him and that thou shouldest set thine heart upon him Job is speaking
and he utters those words in the midst of all his felt creatureliness. He was so sorely afflicted in
his body. And though he speaks of these
things in the context here of verse 5, my flesh is clothed
with worms and clods of dust, my skin is broken and become
loathsome. Here he is sitting and scraping himself with a potsherd,
covered from the sole of his feet to the crown of his head
with boils and sores. And so he goes on, my days are
swifter than a weaver's shuttle and thus bent without hope. Oh,
remember that my life is wind. Mine eyes shall no more see good.
The eye of him that hath seen me shall see me no more. Thine
eyes are upon me and I am not. as the crowd is consumed and
vanishes away so he that goeth down to the drive shall come
up no more he shall return no more to his house neither shall
his place know him anymore what is man? or what is man? Job knew it the Lord taught him
much those mysterious dealings of God with him, he was certainly
made to feel what he was, all his weakness, as one who was
but a creature. Oh, with those friends who are
brought to that, we feel our creatureliness. Man denies creation,
special creation. Man in his pride, in all his
sin, likes to dream up his own theories. What is a theory of
evolution? It is, of course, the very denial
of God and our dependence upon him as our creator. Oh, God,
teach us what we are, that we are but creatures. And as we
come to the end of the year, as the days are flying and our
lives fleeting away, do we not do well to stop and to consider
all of our weakness as those who are so utterly dependent
upon God in chapter 4 of the book of Job and verse 19 we find
these words them that dwell in houses of clay whose foundations
in the dust which are crossed before the moth. Again he is
speaking of man. And what is our body? It is but
a house of clay. The Apostle says something very
similar when we come to the New Testament. There in 2nd Corinthians
chapter 5 he speaks of our earthly house of this tabernacle. He
is speaking of the body that we are living our lives in. Her earthly house of this tabernacle,
says Paul, in which we groan. Or are we those who are made
to feel what we are? The reality of our creatureliness
before God? In words of that chapter, that
seventh chapter, is there not an appointed time for man upon
earth, asks Job, are not his days like the days of an hireling? Oh Lord, what is man? That we find later in the 144th
Psalm. Lord, what is man that thou takest
knowledge of him? Or the son of man that thou makest
account of him? Man is like to vanitin. his days are as a shadow that
passeth away here is the first great truth that we have to consider
and come to terms with with regards to ourselves if we would know
ourselves and it is vital that we know ourselves if we would
have that true knowledge of God remember how Calvin in the opening
part of his great work on the religious institutes a great
body of divinity makes it plain that there are two great fields
of knowledge that we are to familiarize ourselves with that is the knowledge
of God and the knowledge of ourselves and we can only really know God
as we are brought to that knowledge of ourselves and the first thing
I say that we have to know is the truth of our creatureliness
And what we are as creatures, dependent, weak, feeble, frail,
men and women, creatures of a dying. But then, with regards to man,
he's not only a feeble creature, he is also a foul sinner. And
so in the second place, man's weakness as a sinner. Fallen
creatures, fallen creatures, that is really what we are. We are those who have transgressed,
those who have fallen short of the glory that belongs unto God. We do not conform to that image
of God in which our father Adam was created. We sin in Adam,
we have partaken from him of a fallen nature, we sin in our
own person. And so that question is put later
in Job chapter 15. This time it's Eliphaz who speaks. What is man? That he should be
clean. And he which is born of a woman
that he should be righteous. How much more abominable and
filthy is man which drinketh iniquity like water. Oh, how
plain God's word is. How God tells us quite clearly
concerning what our condition is. There's much wisdom there
in the language of Eliphaz. I know that the friends of Job
in many ways were such poor comforters and yet they say some most profound
things. And what we have there of course
is part of the record of Holy Scripture. concerning what man
is very similar to the language that we have from the lips of
the Prophet Isaiah when he says we are all as an unclean thing
and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rats and we do all
fade like a leaf and our iniquities like the wind they carry us away
we can sometimes learn these verses we do learn these verses
I trust and we can trot them off the end of our tongue but
ought to feel what we are as sinners, to feel our sin. That's a great thing, is it not?
To be brought to understand that we're not only mere creatures,
so dependent upon God, but the very creatures who have rebelled
against that God, who has made us, that God who sustains us,
that at heart we're those who are rebels. or to cease in smart
but slightly to old with lip confession is easier still, but
all to feel cuts deep beyond expression." Says good Joseph
Hart. All to feel these things. What
is man? Well look again at the language
that we have here throughout the Psalms. In Psalm 62, In verse 9 we find this statement,
"...surely men of low degree are vanitin, and men of high
degree are a lie, to be laid in the balance they are altogether
lighter than vanitin." Men of low degree, men of high degree,
all sorts of men. altogether lighter than vanity. But what do we read there in
particular with regards to those of high degree? It says, such
are not just liars, but they are a lie. The evolutionists, does he not,
live a lie constantly. All those who are deniers of
God, the atheists, they live a lie. The multitudes live a
lie when they say there is no God and it's the manner of their
living that is declaring that awful idea of there being no God at
all. The fool has said in his heart
there is no God. Or man is not only a liar, he's
a liar. Again, in the language of the
73rd Psalm. So foolish was I, says the psalmist,
and ignorant, I was as a beast before them. And yet, when we
look at that verse more closely, we discover that it's not really
a similar. That's how it reads in our authorized
version. I was as a beast. before them and yet we see that
the word has has been introduced indicated by the use of the italics
literally he says I was a beast before them yes man is a beast
but man is worse than the beast when he denies God or man's condition
as a sinner how his state is one in which he is altogether
undone His state is that that he's helpless. He is so impotent,
he can do nothing to deliver himself. This is what we have
to learn as sinners. We have to be brought to that
where we're really, completely, utterly at the end of ourselves. This is the way in which God
saves the sinner, is it not? By bringing him to that. where
he is made to feel the awful doctrine of his total depravity. In the book of Ezekiel, there in
chapter 16, we have that that speaks of the
impotence of those whom God is pleased
to have mercy upon. And the image is that of the
newborn babe, unwanted and cast out, rejected in the open field. What does it say there? You can read the opening verse,
it's a long chapter, it's Eccles 16. But then at verse 5, none I pitied
thee, to do any of these unto thee, to have compassion upon
thee, but thou wast cast out in the open field to the loathing
of thy person in the day that thou wast born, and so forth.
And he speaks to us quite clearly of how the condition is so desperate,
no hope. Here is the baby, it can do nothing,
it must die. There, abandoned in the open
field. Set before us, man in all his
sinful weakness, rejected. It is God and God only who can
save him. And that's the imagery that we
have, how God is pleased to come and to grant salvation to such
sinners. What is man that thou art mindful
of him, and the Son of Man that thou visitest him? For there
it is, friends, God is pleased to visit man, and to visit man
in all his great weakness. It is such that God is pleased
to come and have mercy upon. Now who God addresses the man?
This man who is so much of the earth. As we said, the very name
Adam reminds us of that. But that's a very striking verse
that we find again in the book of the prophets, in Jeremiah.
In chapter 22 and verse 29, O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of
the Lord. What a word is this that God
should address unto the earth. And this is Marius. Three times,
earth, earth, earth. Hear the word of the Lord. Oh,
that God is pleased to come and to speak to sinners. That's our
comfort as we come together this morning, as we come under the
sound of God's word. Is that what we anticipate? That God will speak to us? That
we will yet hear the voice of the Lord? and that that Word
of God might be brought home to our own hearts, that it won't
just sit before us on the page of Holy Scripture, but the Spirit
Himself will come and grant that gracious application of the Word,
that we might feel it, that we might be those who are so humbled
before God that we're brought to receive it with meekness.
Think of the language that we have there in the book of James,
With meekness, he says, receive the engrafted Word. Or as the
margin says, the implanted Word that is able to save the soul. Isn't that what we stand in need
of? That the Spirit who first gave that Word of God should
come and make an application to our souls. Or we need God
to speak, to apply it. the words of the Lord Jesus he
says quite clearly no man can come to me except it were given
unto him of my Father all we cannot come except it's given
it is written in the prophets says Christ they shall be all
taught of God every man therefore that has heard and learned of
the Father cometh unto me now we need to hear that voice the
words of the Lord speaking to us in all our weakness, all our
impotence where the word of a king is there is power and we need
that powerful word see the great thing in this text that we have
this morning is this that ultimately the whole passage directs us
to the man he directs us really to the Lord Jesus Christ See
how the apostle takes up the words of this psalm there in
that second chapter of the epistle to the Hebrews. That chapter that speaks to us
of Christ and His coming, His incarnation, His appearance. Hebrews 2 verse 6, One in a certain
place testified, says Paul, saying, What is man that thou art mindful
of him? or the Son of Man that thou visitest
Him. Thou madest Him a little lower
than the angels. Thou crownest Him with glory
and honor, and set Him over the works of thy hands. Thou hast
put all things in subjection under His feet. For in that He
put all in subjection under Him, He left nothing that is not put
under Him. But now we see not yet all things
put under Him, but we see Jesus. who was made a little lower than
the angels, for the suffering of death, crowned with glory
and honor, that he by the grace of God should taste death for
every man." Oh, what is man? And then we come to this, but
we see Jesus. And Jesus is the man. How striking are the words that
even his human judge Pontius Pilaratus, when he presents him
to the Jews there in John chapter 19, he says, Behold the man. Oh, this is the man. Even the
man Christ Jesus. We spoke about Adam, the first
man, you see, but a creature made of the red earth. And Adam,
we're told, in Romans chapter 5, is the figure. of Him that
was to come. Adam, the first Adam, is a type
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And Christ is the man. Again, Paul takes up these things
in the 15th chapter of 1 Corinthians. The first man, Adam, was made
a living soul. The last Adam was made a quickening
spirit. The first man is of the earth,
the second man is the Lord from heaven. All by nature we are
all in the first Adam. We all descend from Adam and
Eve. We all send in Adam because he
is a representative person, the head of the human race. but the
Lord Jesus Christ is that one who is also a public person and
he is the head of the body of the church. Surely friends, the
important question for us this morning is which Adam are we
in? Or are we those who are only
by nature in the first Adam? Or are we by grace those who
are found in the last Adam? In the man? Or what is man? that thou art mindful of him
and the son of man that thou visitest him is this what we
look to, is this what we examine ourselves concerning we want
to know the truth concerning ourselves that dreadful truth
of our sinnership as well as our creatureliness we're not
just those who are creatures but we're creatures that have
rebelled against God We're in that state of alienation from
God by nature. We're those who are brought to
feel our real need. And our only hope can be found
in Him who is the man, the man Christ Jesus. The friend of sinners,
the savior of sinners. We often sing those words in
the 89th hymn. When Adam, by transgression,
foul and conscious, fled his maker's face, linked in clandestine
league with hell, he ruined all his future race. The seeds of
evil, once brought in, increased and filled the world with sin
but love. The second Adam came, the serpent's
subtle head to bruise, he cancels his malicious claim, and disappoints
his devilish views, ransoms poor prisoners with his blood, and
brings the sinner back to God." And he goes on, it has those
remarkable words, "...though all are sinners in God's sight,
there are but few so in their own." Who are we, those friends,
who feel our sinnerships? The sinner is a sacred thing,
it says. The Holy Ghost has made himself. Or do we desire that God would
make us to feel what we are and our great need that we might
know that great salvation that is in the Lord Jesus, the last
Adam. Man's weakness. Man is weak,
I say. He's but a creature, ever dependent
upon his Creator. But man is weak as a sinner. And man is foul as a sinner,
dead in trespasses and in sins. But what of those who are side
sinners? Well, finally this morning to say something with regards
to man's weakness as a believer. Man's weakness as a believer. Isn't this a mark of those who
know the grace of God? that they feel their weakness.
They know that they have no stock of grace, but they have to live
that life of complete and utter dependence upon God from day
to day. They stand in need, they need
grace for grace. But the wonder is, you see, as
we read in Scripture concerning God, He gives us more grace.
He gives us more grace. nor the comfort of God's Word
where sin abounded, says Paul, grace did much more abound. Oh, with those friends who would
live that life of complete dependence because we know we know ourselves
and we know what we are by nature. Oh, that proud man that pharisee,
that son of a pharisee, that man who thought he lived a righteous
life when he lived the life of a pharisee Saul of Tartus was
brought to know all his weakness and it was of course as a believer
that he came to that when he writes there in that seventh
chapter of the epistle to the Romans he is writing as a believer
as a child of God and what does he say? I know that in me that
is in my flesh there dwelleth no good thing there is nothing
in himself nothing at all in himself he is altogether dependent
upon the Lord for everything and so when we come to the end
of that chapter in which he is constantly confessing the conflict
the warfare that is taking place between the old nature and the
new nature What does he come to at the end? I thank God, through
Jesus Christ our Lord. This is the believer, he is always
dependent upon the Lord. He needs the Lord to keep him,
he cannot keep himself, he is kept. But he is kept by the power
of God, through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed at the last
time. all his dependence upon the Lord
Jesus Christ. Paul speaks of him there in that
first chapter, that remarkable opening chapter of the epistle
to the Ephesians, where we see salvation as the work of God,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the electing love of the Father,
making choice of the people in Christ, the great redemptive
work of Christ, how He came in the fullness of
the time to accomplish all that was necessary to the salvation
of His people and then He goes on to speak of that blessed sealing
of the Spirit how all that the Father purposed and all that
the Son procured must be brought home and sealed in the sinner's
heart by the Holy Spirit, salvation so evidently demonstrated there
to be of the Lord But look at what he says concerning the work
of Christ. There in Ephesians 1.7, "...in
whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of
sins according to the riches of his grace." Now, we do well
to observe the tenses. He doesn't say, "...in whom we
had redemption in his blood." He doesn't speak in the past
tense. Paul, under the inspiration of
the Spirit of God, deliberately speaks in the present tense,
in whom we have redemption through his blood. Oh, we have it. We
need it. We need it now. We need it every
moment. The efficacy of that precious, cleansing blood of
the Lord Jesus Christ cleanses us from all the foulness of our
sins. All the believer feels his need
of it. He feels his weakness. This is what Paul is constantly
brought to in his own experience. That man who is a pattern to
them which should hereafter believe. As we've said many a time, he's
the typical believer in so many ways. And this is why as he writes
in his epistles, it's not only doctrine and practice that we
have but he speaks of experience he speaks of his own experiences
not because he has a big ego and he wants to project himself
he doesn't want to do that no he says be ye followers of me
even as I am of Christ but when he speaks of himself what does
he say there in 2nd Corinthians 12 at the end of verse 11 though
I be nothing that's what Paul is brought to or that proud self-righteous
pharisee and nothing, a zero, a cipher. And so he can say also as having
nothing and yet possessing all things. That's a believer, he
has nothing. He is nothing in himself. But he is and has all
things in the Lord Jesus Christ. He lives this life, you see,
this life in which he feels himself to be all weakness, but there
is all strength in the Lord. When I am weak, he says, then
am I strong. It's that life of dependence.
The Hymn writer says, thy whole dependence on me fix, nor entertain
a thought thy Work the schemes with mine to mix, but venture
to be naught. Oh, what a venture, the venture
of faith, to be a nothing, and to know it, and to feel it, and
to find that the Lord is all, and Christ is all, in all to
the believer. Oh, what is man that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man that thou
visitest him." Man is weak. Man is weak. He's weak. He's
a creature. He's a sinner. And when God in his mercy comes
to save that sinner, how he learns increasingly the truth of his
own weakness. And yet, at the same time, there
is the great worth of man. as I said at the beginning. The question is put four times
here in the Old Testament, twice in Psalms, twice in Job. What
is man? And then when we come to the
New Testament, God answers the question fourfold. He gives us
a fourfold gospel and we see the worth of man in the person
and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, the Lord's willing
will return to the text this evening and consider more particularly
man's worth. The Lord be pleased to bless
his word to us.