Last Sunday we looked at verse
1 and 2, a prayer of a soldier of Christ. In his prayer he gave
all the glory to the Lord for his strength and stay in the
battle. For his skill in the battle,
he said, he's taught my hands to war and my fingers to fight. And so he gave and gives all
the glory in this Psalm to the Lord. And then in verse two,
he described what the Lord is to him. what he is to him. And he goes through this list
and he speaks of him as his goodness, his fortress, his high tower,
his deliverer, his shield, he in whom he trusted, the one who
subdued my people under me. In other words, he's everything
to me. He's everything. He's our all in all. He's what
the Lord is to us. He's our all in all. And then
he comes to verse three. Now I think when he has set his
mind upon the Lord, and he has looked at and considered what
the Lord is to him, this question came to his mind,
what's man? What is man that you take knowledge
of him? And that's more than just knowing.
his existence, that has to do with salvation, that you would
save him, that you would make a covenant with him, that you'd
be gracious to him, and that you would make account of him.
One of the words for that is esteem. I was watching a movie
here, it's been some time ago, and there was a battle going
on, and they were Vikings, this is back like Back in the 1500s or something,
you know, they were wallowing in the mud, cutting each other's
arms off and stabbing each other. And this thought came to me as
I was watching them wallowing around there in the mud and stabbing
each other and carrying on like that. I thought that. I thought,
what is man? I thought, what is he? You know, you look at him standing
there, they're fighting and killing and just wallowing around in
mud like a worm. And I thought of God's greatness
and God's glory. It just hit me. It just hit me
when I was watching the grovel there in the mud. What is a man
that God would even take notice of him? You know, this question is asked
in Job twice. So it's an important question.
It's mentioned four times in the Word of God. In Psalm 717,
the question is, what is man? I mean Job 7.17, in Job 15.14,
again, what is man? In Psalm 8.4 is asked, what is
man? Here in Psalm 144 in verse 3,
what is man? And then in Hebrews 2.6, the
writer of Hebrews quotes from Psalm 8.4, what is man? And then he makes reference to
the Lord Jesus Christ. And as I was reading today, and
as I came across Hebrews 2.6, I realized that if you leave
Christ out of it, this question can't be answered. In fact, it
wouldn't even be a question, because apart from Christ, God
wouldn't even consider a man. I won't get to that at the end
of the message, but the man Christ Jesus. Now, when we really understand
who that man is, THAT MAN TRULY CREATED IN THE IMAGE OF GOD.
THAT MAN IS TRULY, HE IS TRULY THE IMAGE OF THE INVISIBLE GOD.
AND THEN WE REALLY SEE IN CHRIST THE MAN, WHAT MAN WAS ACTUALLY
CREATED TO BE. GOD IN HUMAN FLESH. GOD BECAME
A MAN AND MADE US PARTAKERS OF THE DIVINE NATURE. THAT'S THE
ULTIMATE END OF IT. THAT'S THE ULTIMATE ANSWER TO
THAT QUESTION. But let's look at it here. And I know that the
two questions about man is this. What is man and how can a man
be just with God? Those are two questions that
have to be answered if we are going to be saved. They have
to be answered. And the Word of God deals honestly
with this question. What is man? It doesn't sugarcoat
it, does it? It does not sugarcoat it. Now
I know what man thinks of himself. I know what he thinks he is.
He thinks that he's basically good and does some things he
shouldn't, but that's not the truth, is
it? That's not the truth. Man is basically, he is evil
and sinful. If we can see sin, if we can
see human nature from where God is, if we can see it through
His eyes, so to speak, then we would see what humanity really
is. We would see what it really is. The Word of God tells us
the truth about man. It tells us the truth about man's
origin, about his original creation, not evolution. You see evolution
is a theory, creation is not a theory, it's a fact. It's an
absolute fact God created the heavens and the earth and God
created man. And we were born from Adam and
Eve. God created one man and he created
a woman and we were born from them. There was no such, there's no,
you know this, I'm wasting my breath telling you it's not evolution
because you know it's not. You know it's not. But I want
to look at what man was in the original creation. Then I want
to see what he became after the fall. I want us to look at that. And we're going to look at some
verses tonight, some scriptures tonight. And then I want us to
see what man, a man, is in the Lord Jesus Christ. Those are
basically the three points and the closing points that I want
to look at tonight. So let's look at this question
in the light of God's Word. Not in the light of human thought
and philosophy or logic. Man will never figure that out.
If all he ever does is look at another man and try to figure
out what is man, he's going to mess up. You can't figure out
what is man by looking at a man. You have to see who God is. You
know you can never understand what sin really is and what you
really are until you find out who He is. Because in His light
we see light. We really have a real understanding
of sin when God gives us a real understanding of who He is. That's
when we see who we are, what we are. Lord, He says, what is
man that thou takest knowledge of him, that you would even consider
saving him? Why would God even consider saving
me, a rebel? a wretch, or the son of man that
thou makest to count or esteem him. Man is like vanity, his
days are as a shadow that passes away. But what was man in his
original creation? Turn over to Genesis chapter
1. It's always good to go back to
the beginning, isn't it? I learned this when I get lost,
I've learned it. Just go back where you started
and try to figure it out again. It's always good to go back to
the beginning. In Genesis 1, look in verse 26, And God said,
Let us make man in our image after our likeness. He didn't say that about any
other part of creation. He said that about man. And let
them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the fowl of
the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over
every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created
man in his own image. In the image of God created he
him. Male and female created he them. And then down in verse 31 of
that same chapter, it says, And God saw everything that he made,
and behold, it was very good. There was no flaw in creation. There was no sin in creation.
There was no sin in Adam. There was no flaw in him. When God created him, He created
him in innocence. He created him in righteousness.
He knew no sin. He knew no sin. Man was made,
as we read here, Man was made, He was created in the image of
God. Now what does that mean? Because
God is SPIRIT! God is SPIRIT! Does that mean
that God looks like a man? No, He's talking about, here's
what He's talking about. First of all, He created Him
with I mean, we can't even begin to measure, you know, we measure
IQs. I don't think you could have measured Adam's IQ. I don't
think they could have measured it. He was created intelligent,
very intelligent. Adam named all the animals. He
didn't have a book to go by. Whenever a cow came before him,
he said, that's a cow. He not only named their names,
but he gave the meaning to those names. He named all the animals. His
intelligence was superior, not even comparable to anything else.
Not even comparable. His intelligence. He was created
to walk upright. God didn't create any of this
creation to walk upright like He has us. We were created in
His image. He was He was created with a
rational spirit. In other words, He could reason. Think about it. When you sit
down and you start to reason out why you're going to do something,
why you're going to buy something, or why you're not going to do
something, God gave you the ability to reason. No other part of creation
has that ability to reason like we have. HE COULD LEARN AND UNDERSTAND
VERY COMPLICATED THINGS. I THINK IT WOULD HAVE BEEN INTERESTING
TO SEE WHAT WAS ACCOMPLISHED BY ADAM THOSE FIRST THOUSAND
YEARS THAT WAS DESTROYED BY THE FLOOD. I THINK IT WOULD BE ASTOUNDING
WHAT WAS ACCOMPLISHED BY THEN. BUT HE COULD REASON, HE COULD
LEARN, HE COULD DO VERY COMPLICATED THINGS, HE COULD LEARN SCIENCE,
MATH, Very complicated math. Some people astound me. I mean,
with our sinful minds and brains the way they are now, and yet
there's such high-level math. He could learn music, instruments. David says in his psalm that
he's going to sing unto the Lord on an instrument of ten strings. You know whenever You know, Jason
plays the piano beautifully. And then when David's here, and
Mike, and they sing, and they play, no animal can do that. No animal can make music like
that. But you, we can. Man can. You'll have to excuse
my coughing. He can create. Look at the things that God has
allowed man to do. I mean, just in the last hundred
years, let me get a drink, just in the last hundred years, going
to space, you know, we used to watch a
cartoon called the Jetsons, now we are the Jetsons. We are. But we can create, nothing else
can do that. Nothing can do that. We can worship
God. We can worship God. Intelligently. I'll get to that in a little
bit. We can have vision. You ever
just see how you want something done, then you go at it? Animals
don't have vision. They don't see that. Wheel. Adam had a wheel. We have a wheel.
lost, depraved, but we have one. We have a will, conscience, the
law of God is written on the heart. We have a conscience. You know what's right and wrong.
A child, I mean from a child when it's growing up, that child
knows what's right and wrong. The law is written on the heart. you know when they grow up you
can go where you can go to the darkest place on this earth where
the Bible has never been and the gospel has never been preached
or they've never had the Ten Commandments and they KNOW it's
wrong to kill they know it's wrong to murder they know it's
wrong to steal they know adultery is wrong they know that you know
why they know it? God wrote it on the heart that's
why they have no excuse they know it They can feel, they can laugh,
they can cry. Man was made in the image of
God. He's made intelligent, he's rational, and he's responsible.
He's responsible. God told him to have dominion
over the fish of the sea, the fowl of the air, and the beast
of the field. He made Adam a king over his creation and made him
responsible for it. That's why when he fell, all
creation fell with him. He was told not to eat of the
tree of knowledge of good and evil, for in the day he ate,
he would die. Death was a penalty for disobedience, and we know
the consequences. Adam disobeyed God willingly. He knew exactly what he was doing. Eve was deceived, but Adam was
not deceived. He knew exactly what he was doing. He's responsible. God made man
a responsible creature. And when He created Adam, He
created him immortal. When God breathed into his nostrils
a breath of life, he became a living soul. And you know, if he hadn't
of sinned, he'd still be alive on this earth right now, if he
hadn't of sinned. He'd still be alive. Sin bringeth
forth death. Death entered because of sin. And he was innocent. As I said
earlier, he was righteous, he knew no sin, no flaw in his creation. As David said, I am fearfully
and wonderfully made. Especially Adam in his first
creation. Of course, we know that applies
to Christ, but Adam in his first creation was fearfully and wonderfully
made. What a creation of God! Nothing to be compared to it! not in this creation. And the last thing, you know
I thought about this before coming out, I thought the last thing
God created when He created the heavens and the earth, the last
thing God created was His own image. That's the last thing
God created, His own image, a man. A representative man, a federal
head, and a type. The first Adam was a type of
the Lord Jesus Christ in his original creation. But now, what
is man now? What is he now? He's a marred
image of God. He can still think. He still
has intelligence. He still knows the difference
between right and wrong. You can still have a vision,
you can still do math and science, but that image is so marred by
sin it's hardly unrecognizable. He's fallen. That glorious man, it would have
been something to have seen Adam and Eve. We're talking, to me now, it's
not that long ago, 6,000 years ago. I know scientists like to
throw out millions and billions of years. 6,000 years ago, according
to the scriptures, there was a perfect man and a woman. And
this earth right here, where we're standing, was perfect.
Perfect. And then he fell. And he took
the whole human race down with him. The whole human race. And now He's fallen, He's dead,
He's spiritually dead in trespasses and sins. It says in Ephesians
2, 1 through 3, And you hath equipped
them who were dead in trespasses and sins. You know what the Scripture
says, Man drinks iniquity like water. Wherein in time past you walked
according to the course of this world, According to the prince
of the power of the air, the spirit that now worked in the
children of disobedience, that same spirit at one time worked
in me and you. It worked in us. It owned us. We were slaves to it. That's the truth. We were slaves
to the spirit of disobedience. Disobedience to God. Why do you
think people just naturally hate authority? People do, they just
really naturally need authority. Just tell them what to do. We
don't like to be told what to do because we have that natural
disobedience. We don't like to be told what
to do. We got that from Adam. Among whom also we all had our
conversation, our lifestyle, we all did. Nobody's exempt.
There's no one exempt in this. in this situation, among whom
also we all had our conversation in times past in the lust of
our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind,
and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others." You know, you who believe, you
know this. You look at somebody and you
say, set by the grace of God, there go I. There's nothing that'll shut
your mouth up like grace. I'm no better, I'm no better,
not in any way, shape or form. Children were by nature children
of wrath, even as others. In Genesis 6, 5, and God saw
that the wickedness of man was great in the earth. And that
every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. He didn't just see the actions,
but the continual thoughts of evil. They're just continual,
he said. God said that there's not a break.
There's not a break in his evil thoughts. Now I know that the
natural man listens to this and he just disagrees with it. This
is why this gospel is not popular. It's offensive. It offends man's
thoughts of himself. Man is morally corrupt and wicked
and it hasn't changed. We haven't gotten better over
the last hundred years. The education system hasn't made
us any better. In fact, our education system
is a mess. It's really getting into a mess.
You know, I've noticed this over the years that the higher the
education, the further away from God. You just mark it down. The higher the education, the
further away from God that person will go. And then man's guilty. He's guilty. He's guilty. For all have sinned
and come short of the glory of God. The glory of God's perfection. It's gotta be perfect. He said
it must be perfect to be accepted. We've all come short of that
perfection. In Romans 3, 12, they are all
gone out of the way. They are together become unprofitable. There is none that doeth good.
No, not one. The Bible does not paint a pretty
picture of humanity. Anyone I mean now the billions
and billions it's lived It doesn't pay one pretty picture of anyone
That's why it's not popular. We were watching Vicki and I
were watching something the other day and this man was doing a
great service chair charitable service and They had him on his
TV program and he was getting a lot of you know recognition
for it. I And I was telling her, I said, this is so subtle. I said, there's no way we would
condemn that. I mean, that's a good service,
what he's doing. I said, he's doing a great service.
But God wasn't mentioned one time. God didn't get any credit
in any way, shape, or form for what he was doing. I mean, what
he was doing was great, but where was the Lord? And here's what I know, and here's
what you know, and this is the truth. Lord, pull back your hand
from that man. And then let us see who's who. See, these are the things that
fools humanity. They see these good things on
the surface. They're good things and charitable
things. But God gets no credit. There's a lawyer, I've seen his
commercial, you've probably seen this. They'll give a check, a
$2,000 check to somebody about once a week, but he's standing
there with his great big old long check, and then they're
standing there with the group that's getting it, and he's standing
there advertising his law firm. Has great PR, and has a great
tax write-off. And God is not mentioned at all,
ever. Satan is so subtle, he's so subtle,
It'll make you feel embarrassed by saying anything about it. But you see, I know you see,
I see, I see what's behind all that. I see if God lets humanity
be exactly what it is, it'll be just what the devils are.
You know, it says that the Lord's gonna cast the wicked into hell
that was made for the devil and his angels. And the reason He's
gonna do that is because they're just like Him. You're going to
put them in the same place because they're just like Him. Man's guilty and man is sin,
that's what he is. He doesn't just sin. He doesn't
just do some things wrong. I don't just do some things wrong.
You know, when the Lord saves a sinner, He may use a particular
sin to convict you of sin. But He's gonna lead you to the
place where you see what you are. What you are. I am seeing. I am seeing. I am seeing. Not innocent anymore. It's the very nature of the beast. It's the very nature of the beast.
And then he's miserable. He's miserable. You could take
a man, you could take somebody that's making a billion dollars
a year, and they're miserable. You'd think, how could you be
miserable? They are. They're literally miserable.
And not only are they miserable, they're disease-ridden. I've seen him a couple times,
and I know some men in the family, they had some money. And I've
seen a sickness come in the family and about drain the bank. And
they had the money, but, well, it just about drained the bank.
And they had to go to work. And when they're older years. No, I tell you that he's miserable
and he's waiting to die while he lives. Isn't that what everybody's
waiting on? Everybody, every person on this
earth knows they're gonna die. They'll spend every dime trying
to get one more day out of it, and that's fine. Yeah, I'll go
take it with you. But man, he's miserable. He's miserable. All you gotta
do is go over and read Ecclesiastes 12, and you read the decline
of the body and the decline of the mind as you get older. And then he's an enemy of God
to top it off. To top it off, he's an enemy
of God. Colossians 121 and you that were sometimes alienated
and enemies in your mind by wicked works That's the way you were
sometime before God saved you you were enemy in your mind yet
wicked thoughts of God You're hostile toward God at
war with God and Greedy greedy Man's like the ocean never full
never full He cannot be satisfied. Never enough. Have you ever heard
a rich man say he's got enough? Well, I haven't. I personally
haven't. In Psalm 2720, hell and destruction
are never full, so the eyes of man are never satisfied. Ecclesiastes
1.8, all things are full of labor. Man cannot utter it. The eye
is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.
It's just never enough. Discontent. The most discontent
thing in creation is a human being. And as it says in verse 4, he's
a shadow that passes away. His life is very brief and very
empty. Vain, he says. Vain. He accomplishes
a few things and he's gone. And his glory, he says, will
not descend after him. This is the true picture of man.
This is it. And it says he's vain, vanity. Any of you ladies own a vanity
mirror? Or is there a reason why it's called that? Vain. I had to write that down. And he's lost. He's lost. My soul, he's lost. Having no
hope and without God in the world, unless God saves him, he's lost.
But thank God for the man, Christ Jesus. Thank God it doesn't end
like this. It ended like that for the angels
that fell and for Satan. It ended with no hope. And without
God in the world, there's no hope for them. ZERO! God did
not provide them a Savior. But thank God for the man, Christ
Jesus. now we can answer the question
what is man that they are mindful of him this is the one he's been
mindful of this is the one he's mindful of throughout all eternity
this is the one through whom man not every man but God's going
to save humanity but not everyone not every human is going to be
saved but heaven is going to be filled with a multitude of
sinners human beings saved by the grace of God He's going to
save them. So in that sense, He's going
to save humanity, but not every human. And He's going to do so through
the man, Jesus Christ. And that man, that man, Jesus
Christ, who is God in human flesh, was created in the image of God,
in reality. You see, Adam was made from the
dust of the ground. THE BODY OF CHRIST WAS NOT MADE
FROM THE DUST OF THE GROUND, IT WAS CREATED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT
IN THE WOMB OF THE VIRGIN. THERE IS NO SIN ENTERED IN THAT
MAN, THERE IS NO SIN ENTERED IN THE FIRST ADAM, BUT HE SINNED
AND FAILED. NOT BY GOD'S CREATION, NO SIN
ENTERED INTO HIM BY GOD'S CREATION. BUT THIS MAN, THIS MAN IS GOD
IN HUMAN FLESH. GOD, THIS IS THE BEAUTY OF IT,
GOD partook of our nature that He might enable us to partake
of His nature. We could not do that through
Adam. That was not possible to do that through Adam. We would
have been born from Adam and Eve, had they not fallen, we
would have just been innocent and righteous, but we would not
have been a real partaker of the Divine Nature. That which is born of the Spirit
is Spirit. It's Spirit. It's the same nature
of God. That's what Scripture teaches
us. You see how much higher level, what a higher level we have in
Christ, the second Adam, than we had in the first Adam? And
our standing in the second Adam is complete and we cannot fall. We can't fall. We're not even
subject to falling away. What is man in Christ? He's a
NEW CREATION! Therefore, in 2 Corinthians 5,
17, Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a NEW CREATURE! A NEW CREATION! Old things are
passed away, behold, all things are become new. In Christ, you and I are heavenly
beings. We are really and truly heavenly
beings. because he says that which is
born of the Spirit is Spirit. A man in Christ is spiritually
alive to God now. He has the life of God in him. Christ said, if any man loves
me, I'm going to paraphrase, it's in John 14, 23. If any man
loves me, my Father will come and we will make our abode in
him. It doesn't feel like God's in
me, does it feel like God's in you? I know what you feel like
is in you, sin. That's what I feel like is in
me. That's what I feel. But I have God's Word on it,
and I have the witness of His Spirit. You know when the Gospel
is preached from time to time that His Spirit bears witness
to your spirit that you're a child of God. And you rejoice in the
Gospel, you love it, you rejoice in it. And then you're reconciled to
God in Christ. We at one time were enemies,
in our mind were wicked works, we were children of wrath by
nature, even as others. But now we're restored to a right
relationship to God. We have a right relationship
to Almighty God in Christ, in that man, Jesus Christ. Romans
5.10, For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by
the death of His Son, Much more being reconciled, we shall be
saved by His life. By His life. Not by our acceptance
of His life. We're saved by His life. He rose
again for our justification. Delivered from our offenses and
rose again for our justification. 2 Corinthians 5.18 All things
are of God who hath reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ.
We are in a right relationship with God now. And then we have a right disposition
toward God now. At one time we had a natural
enmity in our minds. Now we have the love of God shed
abroad in the heart and we love God. And we love God because
He first loved us. But we do love God. Peter said,
Lord you know all things. You know I love you. And you know there's a time I
didn't love you. And I know that. But you know I love you. We have
a right disposition. Verse John 5 too, by this we
know that we love God, we love the children of God when we love
God and keep His commandments. Our Lord said His commandments
are not grievous, you don't find His commandments grievous, do
you? You know why? Because you love Him. If you
didn't love Him, they'd be grievous. Any commandment somebody gives
you that you don't love is grievous. And that this man in Christ is
holy, he's as holy as God is. Boy, that's a statement now,
that's a powerful statement. For someone like me, like you,
we know our sins, we know something about them. And to say that we
are holy, there is a holy nation on this earth, it's the church.
It's the church. There is one nation under God,
it's the church. It's His elect. And then in Christ, man is exalted
to the right hand of God. There is a man seated at God's
right hand. And everyone whom God has chosen
and shall save are seated there right now in that man. We're
right there in Him and soon to be with Him. Ephesians 2 verse 6, And he hath
raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places
in Christ Jesus, right now. Right now. Apart from Christ,
man is hopeless. In Christ, He's as holy and accepted as
God's dear Son and as loved as He is. Now last of all, what's
the future? What's the future of this man
in Christ? Now if I asked you what's the
future of man right now, it would be about as bleak as this could
be, wouldn't it? I mean, you know, I watch things on YouTube, because
that way I can just click on a five-minute snippet and be
done with it. But there is so much of this,
oh, we're going to collapse, this is going to collapse, this
is going down. If I didn't know the gospel,
if I did not believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, it would drive
me crazy right now. It would. But let me tell you
what the man's future, the man or woman who's in Christ, here's
our future. We will dwell with the Lord forever,
never to be separated by sin and death again. We have a good
day coming. We have a good day coming. 1
Thessalonians 4, verse 17, Then we which are alive and remain
shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the
Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord, never
separated again. What happened in the Garden of
Eden will never happen again. Sin has been dealt with and put
away. And then we are free to worship God without sin, free
to worship Him in spirit and truth without our minds wondering,
without any interruption, to have pure, pure worship. And then we'll enjoy the full
perfection of that new body. And that new body, that new man
that has no sin no more, no sinful thoughts, no tears, no sorrows. If you want to know the future,
read the Bible. Yes, it's the future. And then we'll enjoy
the presence of God uninterrupted. And God said He'll be, we will
be His people. He'll be our God. And it's just,
it's hard to imagine. I know, I know it's hard to imagine,
but in a little while, we're going to walk right beside the
Lord Jesus Christ physically. I mean, Not in this sinful body
here, but a new body. We're going to walk and talk
to Him just like they did on the road to Emmaus. And our hearts will burn within
us. We will rejoice like we've never
rejoiced before. What is man? What is man in creation,
original? What is man in the fall? What
is the man in Christ? And that's the only way it can
be answered. Outside of that, you can't answer it. All right.