Psalm 7 is the next in numerical
order and surely we will look at that psalm, but
I wanted to look at Psalm 8 due to the nature of our gathering
here today and the fact that we or come together specifically
on this particular day to remember the Lord's death until He comes
again in that fashion which He told us to with bread and wine. And Psalm 8 says, O Lord, our
Lord, how excellent is Thy name in all the earth, who has set
Thy glory above the heavens. Out of the mouth of babes and
sucklings hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies,
that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger. 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? For thou hast made him a
little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory
and honor. Thou madest him to have dominion
over the works of thy hands. Thou hast put all things under
his feet, all sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field,
the fowl of the air and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth
through the paths of the seas. O Lord, our Lord, how excellent
is thy name! in all the earth. And you know, that's quite a
fitting way for the psalm to begin and to end. And that is
really the gist of the purpose of the work that the Lord did
for us and in us is to bring us to that place that we might
worship Him. And you know, when men would
seek to have glory to themselves, that's an awful thing, because
there's only one that's worthy of glory. But when the Lord would
have glory to His name, it's a glorious thing, because He
is worthy. And in fact, He demands it. He
said, I'm a jealous God. The first commandment is, Thou
shalt have no other gods before Me. Why is that? Because He will
be absolute. He is absolute. He doesn't wait
upon men to make Him absolute. Now some people, you know, sometimes
they think they have discovered something when they discover
that the Bible teaches that God is sovereign. Well, that is a
glorious thing. It is a glorious revelation to
have that, but God has always been sovereign. You know, He
did not start being sovereign when men figured it out. He was
already sovereign when He started. And all things shall be done
according to His will in the army of heaven and among the
inhabitants of the earth. And there is none that can stay
His hand or say unto Him, What doest thou? And until and unless
a man comes to that understanding of who God is, he cannot know
who God is. Now, he does not have to be able
to sit down and write a treatise on the sovereignty of God. But dear brethren, you have got
to close your eyes to the Scriptures to deny that the Lord is the
Lord. I mean, He will do according
to His will. And He is going to accomplish
His purpose. And He is not going to be disappointed
in any way, nor is anything that He has ordained to come to pass
going to fail to come to pass. And everything that He orders
to occur is going to occur exactly as He would have it to. And thus
the psalmist says, O Lord, our Lord, See, we've been given the
privilege to fall down before Him and worship Him. Now, a lot
of people are in rebellion against Him. You see, all of the world
is set against the Lord except that the Lord in His mercy causes
them to fall down and worship Him. Now, the world is going
about in its way to try to come up with explanations for what
all this means. and what all this is. I mean,
how did we get here? And how old is the universe? And how far does it go? And all
of those things, which can't ever be answered by men, but
they've been plainly answered by God. He said, in the beginning,
God created the heavens and the earth. But it's in the beginning
God. See, if we didn't know anything
else, that would be the thing that we need to center our thoughts
on, is in the beginning God. He was already here. He is that
One who is absolute. And this is that One whom David
speaks of when he says, O Lord, our Lord, our Lord, we want to
worship You. We don't want to be in rebellion
against you. We want to fall down. And however
you want to reveal yourself to be is how we want to worship
you. If you slay us, if you destroy
us, if you cast us out, if after we have been what we call faithful
all of our lives and you determine that you would destroy us in
a moment, we will worship you. That's what it is to say He is
our Lord. Now when people say, and people
do say this from time to time, well, I wouldn't serve a God
like that. Well then, let me tell you, when
you say that, you are in a deep, dark place. Because God will
be how He will be whether you serve Him or not. It's not going
to make any difference what men do. Men can't do anything. They don't do anything. Now they
think they do. When a dog, sometimes they'll
get up in the middle of the night and howl at the moon. And I don't know what's going
on in their mind. Maybe the Lord made them to howl at the moon
as a means of worshiping Him. I don't know. But maybe in the
dog's mind he thinks he's going to do anything, do something
to the moon, make the moon go away. Maybe he can't sleep good
or something. You know, maybe the light says,
but what's he going to do about it? Nothing. Nothing at all. But you know, I rejoice in that.
I mean, what a comfort it is to know that what I'm doing in
this world doesn't amount to a hill of beans, but it doesn't
amount to a hill of beans because it's God's hill of beans. See? And whatever He determines
to be right and good and well is going to be accomplished and
He is going to be pleased with what He does And we can worship
Him by the grace of God as He reveals to us that He is that
One whose name is excellent in the earth. Something as excellent
as above all else. And that's the place where true
worship must begin. Who has set Thy glory above the
heavens. Now, we can take that as a question. Or we could take it as a statement.
Now, I believe it's a statement. He says, How excellent is thy
name in all the earth, who has set thy glory above the heavens.
The same One whose name is excellent is the One who set His glory
above the heavens. He is that One. Now, if we looked
at it as a question, who has set thy glory above the heavens?
Nobody did. We certainly couldn't have done
it. We couldn't add anything to His glory in any way, so He
had to be the One who set His glory above the heavens. And
here is a glorious thing, and this is that which is a blessing. As he goes on with the rest of
this psalm, and he asks the question, What is man that thou art mindful
of him? He says in verse 2, Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings
hast thou ordained strength. Now, you know, when we think
of babies, we think of something helpless. Isn't that right? I
mean the suckling child, he has no power, he can't do anything.
But yet the Lord has ordained out of the mouth of babes, out
of the mouth of the powerless, out of the mouth of the weak.
That's the ones from which He has ordained praise to come. That's why the Lord said in the
Sermon on the Mount, blessed are the poor, for theirs is the
kingdom of heaven. You see, those that are smart,
those that are the wise and the prudent, they are shut out of
the kingdom of God. But Babes and sucklings, He has
ordained strength. That is, He has ordained power
to come forth because of thine enemies that thou mightest steal
the enemy and the avenger. Now, it doesn't make a whole
lot of sense, does it? that if someone was going to
choose someone to go forth to perpetrate warfare upon his enemies,
that he would round up the weakest, most rag-tag bunch of folks that
there was. That just doesn't make any sense,
that he would do that. But yet, that's exactly what
he did, that he might steal the enemy and the avenger. Because
you see, the weapons of our warfare are not carnal. The fight of
the kingdom of God, the fight of the inhabitants of Zion against
the enemies of God is not a physical fight. The battle doesn't go
to the strong, but it goes to those who are in the Lord. And it's not their strength.
You remember how often it was that the Lord whittle down the
number of people that he would fight with. Now Gideon is a good
example. You know, Gideon was worried
about going out with the ones that he had, and the Lord said,
well, you've got too many. He said, what? He said, yeah,
you've got to whittle them down. He whittled them down, and then
he said, well, boy, we've got a little bunch here. And he said,
now I want you to whittle them down a little more. But you see,
the Lord's hand is not shortened, say, by many or by few. He can
do according as He sees fit with what He sees fit, and He chooses
to use the weak and the beggarly elements of the world to confound
the wise. I mean, the world cannot understand
how it is that weak and beggarly people are those who triumph. They hate it. In fact, they have
designed a message that perverts the gospel of Christ to tell
folks how strong they are. Well, you're strong. You can
do anything. You know, you can command God
to do something. You can demand. You just get
enough people together and pray and you can make God do something. No, dear brethren, that's not
the way the Lord works. That's a perversion of the truth. The Lord works when He shows
us we don't have any power at all. Not when we are lifted up
with power. When men think they have power
is when they have none. But it's when they understand
that the Lord has all the power. And they need the power that
He has, which is what a babe in a suckling would do, is it
not? I mean, you know, a little child, how often you see it.
And of course, you know, They get, as they grow up, they get
strong-willed and they start, you know, trying to go out on
their own. But you know, every little child, even one that's
just, he's strong-willed and he doesn't want his mom or daddy
to tell him what to do or whatever, there comes a time when he faces
a situation maybe that's just not quite to his liking, and
what's the first thing that he does? He calls out for Mama. You know, all of a sudden, He's
headed back over there because He knows from which His strength
comes. And so it is that babes and sucklings
are those whom the Lord chooses to work through. When I consider
Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers, the moon and the stars
which Thou hast ordained, All of these things, when I look
at these things, I mean, when you pause and consider the vastness
of creation, it humbles us in the dust. But
I'll tell you what really humbles me and just amazes me more than
the vastness of creation is the intricacies of creation. I mean,
just think about The ants, a little insignificant creature, but all
of these ants are doing all these assigned tasks and even those
ants can get a disease that is smaller than them that kills
them. Isn't that an amazing thing that
there is some kind of a microbe or something that is smaller
than the ant? that the Lord has designed for
that in it, and it just keeps that in itself, and it kills
the microbes. You know, it's an amazing thing,
but all of these things go to show us the work of His fingers. How is it possible? And I've had all these smart
guys tell me how it is, you know, but they didn't seem too smart
to me when it got through. They thought they were. But how
can these things, when we consider the work of His fingers, the
creation that we see around us... I mean, the Scripture says that
these things bear witness to men. And a man sees these things. These things are not hidden.
They are right there. How can a man look at those things
and not know that it is the work of His fingers? They do know
it. But the thing is, they rebel
against it. They hate it. See, they say,
we won't have this God to rule over us. It's not that they don't
believe He does it. They just don't want to believe
it. When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the
moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained, everything has
its purpose. in its place. Now, don't ask
me to tell you what the purpose is, because I don't always know.
I don't know hardly anything about it. But I know it is according
to its purpose. And then he asks this question,
What is man that thou art mindful of him? Now, there are those that tell
us that man is of such great worth that the Lord had to do
something. I mean, He created this wonderful
creation. He created this creature man,
and He gave him dominion over this and all this, and then man
messed it all up. And then the Lord had to figure
out some other way to solve this problem, because after all, I
mean, He made this creature, and now He's got to do something
for him. But that's not what the psalmist
says, is it? He said, when you think of the vastness of creation
and the intricacies of creation, what is man? Why did the Lord choose to redeem
men? Now, the great philosophers tell
us because they're worth something, but the Scriptures tell us they
were no worth at all in them. And the psalmist says, I can't
figure it out. He said, what is man? I mean,
of all the creatures on earth, man is the most unthankful. He's the most unkind. He's the
most diabolical. I mean, he's figuring out ways
to kill people day after day. He's figuring out ways to gain
the ascendancy. He's figuring out ways to help
himself. The animals, they just go about
doing what they do. A lion, he doesn't think of conquest. He just thinks of getting something
to eat when he kills something. He's not trying to put together
a great entourage or something. He's just trying to survive.
But men are the complete opposite of that. And why would God be
mindful? And why did the Son of Man visit
people? Why would He do so? Why would He come and tabernacle
among us? Why would He do that? For thou
hast made Him, speaking of man, but speaking also of Christ.
Because Christ was made lower than the angels. and has crowned Him with glory
and honor. Now, this is a two-fold thing. First off, I think that it is
primarily in the application here, speaking of, and in the
context of what he is saying, speaking about man and the place
God has given him. Now, the Scripture says that
we are created in God's image. Now, a lot of people take that
to mean that there is like something godly in man. that God made them
godly. I don't think that's at all what
Scripture means when it says we're made in God's image. What
I think that it means is that He made us like Him in the sense
that He gave us dominion over the creation. He has dominion
over His creation, but He put man in the earth and said, rule
over it. What man do? He's messed it up
every time he's got the chance to do it, but he's made in the
image of God. He has been given the dominion
over the works of his hands. That's put all things under his
feet. Now, there's a lot of smart animals
in the world, but there's never been an animal in the world that
men have not been able to figure out a way to kill or destroy
or something. Why? Because man is given that
power over this creation by God. He is made in God's image in
that way. And so it is that this is ordained
of God. All sheep, oxen, yea, the beasts
of the field, the fowl of the air and the fish of the sea.
Men figured out ways to catch the fish. Fish never figured
out a way to catch men, did they? You don't ever see a fish trying
to catch a man, do you? Now, they do catch men sometimes,
but it's because man got in the place where they were. They didn't
come to where the man was. In other words, they didn't get
a taxi and go uptown and try to catch a man. But see, a man,
he can devise a way to catch the fish. And so it is, the fowl
of the air, the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through
the seas. But the greater lesson in considering
that is to consider that the Lord Jesus Christ came into this
world made lower than the angels to taste death for men. Now that's a glorious thing,
dear brethren. And that's really the whole purpose of what we
would gather here today, to remember. It is an amazing thing that the
Lord would be mindful of men. Just that He would take notice
of us is one thing, but that He would send His only begotten
Son to redeem sinful, rebellious creatures such as we are. to
make Him lower than the angels, the angels that He created by
His own hand, the angels that worship Him. Yet He made them
lower. He took on Himself, not the nature
of angels, but He took upon Himself the nature of men. Now is that
preposterous? I'll be the first one to tell
you, in thinking of the natural man, that's about the most preposterous
tale that you could ever tell. And I am never amazed that people
don't believe that to be true. Because they can't. You couldn't
either. Not one of us in here would ever
believe that these things were true apart from the grace of
God showing us that it is so. But oh, what a glorious thing
it is that we come today to remember the Lord's death until He comes
again. Now that in itself, just those
words, the Lord's death, He who is life itself. He said, I am
the way, the truth and the life. But what is it that He told us
to remember? He said, remember my death. Why? Because it is such an amazing
thing that He who is life itself would undertake death For us. And would have us to remember
it. Because He would have us to give glory to His name. Because
He would be worshipped. Because His name is excellent
in the earth. And so we come today to remember
that, what He did. Why did He do it? There's explanations we can give,
but really and truly, we can't really say. We know it's because
He loved us, but why did He love us? See, that's the question
that can't be answered. I mean, we know that He came
because He loved His people, but what we can't answer is why
did He love His people? That's the question that will
ever remain unanswered. We'll never know the answer to
that question. Because that is the very thing
that will cause us for the ages to come to worship Him. To know
that we had no ground or basis, no reason why He should rescue
us. But He did. And may we be ever
praising Him, giving Him glory, because He is worthy of such.