The 8th chapter of Psalms. I
want to begin here reading in verse 1, and read all of this
chapter. Psalms chapter 8. We begin here
in verse 1. Oh Lord, our Lord, how excellent
is thy name in all the earth, who hath 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 visiteth 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 beast of the field,
the fowls of the air and the fish of the sea. and whatsoever
passeth through the paths of the sea. O Lord, our Lord, how
excellent is thy name in all the earth. O Lord, our Lord,
O Jehovah, the God of heaven and earth, the self-sufficient
one. O Jehovah, our Lord, our Sovereign,
our sustainer, our master, our maker. Oh Lord, our Lord, my
Lord, my Lord. Happy is the man that can say,
God is my God. The God of salvation is my God. And what unity a man has with
God's children. What unity he has with the church
when he can join with her in saying, O Lord, my Lord, O Lord,
our Lord. You and I worship the same Lord,
and He is our Lord. O Lord, our Lord, how excellent
is Thy name in all the earth. David made this proposition here
in verse 1. And here's the way I want to
deal with this psalm. He makes this proposition. He
tells us in verse 1, the Lord's name is excellent in all the
earth. That's what he proposes to us.
And then he goes here in verse 3, and in this place he says,
one of the ways in which the Lord is excellent, is because
He is indeed the Creator of all things. And then, in the light
of verse 3, I want to see three things from this psalm. In the
light of our Lord being such a tremendous Creator, I want
to see these three things. What is man that God would be
mindful of him? And number two, the mystery of
the incarnation. Thou hast made Him. Who is that? That's the incarnate Son of God,
the Lord Jesus Christ. And then thirdly and lastly,
the means which God has used in this world for the most part
to spread the fame of His name. And that is through the most
simple and the weakest of men, out of the mouths of babes and
sucklings, in verse 2. And then he closes this psalm
after having proposed that the Lord has an excellent name in
this earth. Then after giving proof of it
in this psalm, then he closes this psalm as he began it. O Lord, our Lord, how excellent
is thy name in all the earth. When you and I talk about a name,
we don't mean to describe anything that's physical. We talk about
the name of our Lord, and we don't talk about the height,
of his stature. We don't talk about the color
of his hair or his complexion. But when you and I describe a
name, we describe a personality. We describe the character of
the Lord. His attributes. His name is excellent. That means His person is glorious. His wisdom itself. We describe
Him in His eternality, in His holiness, in His goodness, in
His mercy, and His grace. That's His name. Do you remember
when Moses said, Lord, show me Your glory? Show me Your glory. And God said, I'll make My name
to pass before you. And then His glory was in His
name. He passed by Him and proclaimed
the name of the Lord, and He said, the Lord God merciful.
and gracious and slow to anger, plenteous in mercy, forgiving
transgressions and iniquities and sin. What is the name of
our Lord? It's who He is. And He describes
unto us His work, especially in creation and providence and
in salvation. And when you and I think of that
name that's above every name, It's perfectly descriptive of
who He is and what He's done on our behalf. His name shall
be called Jesus, for He shall save His people. So when David
says, Your name is excellent in all the earth, who He is,
is excellent. And what He's done is excellent. So let's look at this, this morning,
just for a few minutes. And let's concentrate for a few
minutes on verse 3. And here's the proof that David
offers us, that the Lord has an excellent name in this earth.
And he says this in verse 3, When I consider thy heavens,
the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou
hast ordained, then I say, then I come to these conclusions.
When David says here, when I consider thy heavens, there's no doubt
that David didn't have a telescope. He didn't have the means of viewing
the heavens as they have today. But that's no reason for us not
to believe that he saw things concerning this galaxy that we
live in, and maybe outside this galaxy. He didn't really say
that I've seen thy heavens. But he said, when I considered,
I hadn't. And it seems to me, and I don't think it would be
a strange leap for us to believe this morning that the Lord opened
David's understanding to let him consider this vast universe
that God had made. The Lord can do things like that.
He opened Solomon's understanding and gave him wisdom and he wrote
of all sorts of things. the fowls of the earth, and the
beasts of the field, and the fishes in the sea, and even the
creeping things, that no natural mind could ever know, as Solomon
did. The Lord sometimes opens men's
eyes in understanding that they may see things that the natural
eye cannot see, or the natural mind cannot attain to. You remember
Elijah's servant, when they were surrounded by their enemy, and
he was so fearful. And Elijah said, Lord, open his
eyes that he may see. And the Lord did that, and he
saw things the natural eye could not see, a host of angels encamped
around against him. When the Lord was going to show
Moses all the land of Israel, he took him upon Mount Nebo,
upon Pisgah, the highest point of Mount Nebo. And he saw all
the land of Israel. Now they tell me that it's impossible
to see all the land of Israel from this mountain. But I think
the secret of that is this, the Lord showed him all the land
of Israel. You see, when the Lord opens
your understanding, you can see things that you could not see
before. So when David here says, when
I considered thy heavens, Not only the moon and the stars,
but the heavens. The heavens. And I would say
here, brothers and sisters, that the Lord had to a degree opened
David's understanding and let him consider the heavens. And
what's the first thing we see here? The heavens. When you and
I think of the heavens, we think of immensity, don't we? How immense
the heavens are. I was reading a science article
a few years back, and it always stayed with me about what they
termed quasars. And this was outside of our galaxy. We live here in this small Milky
Way galaxy, but they've got telescopes now, and these satellites, and
these cameras, and they can see outside of our galaxy. And they
discovered what they termed quasars, and to qualify as a quasar, it
had to have its own sun. And the planets encircling the
sun, sort of like our galaxy does. And they've discovered
all of these quasars outside of our galaxy. And some of them
have suns that shine one trillion times brighter than our sun. Now isn't that amazing? When
you and I look up in the sky, we see this one bright spot in
the daytime, and that's our sun. And it's so bright that you can't
look upon it. Can you imagine a sun that would
shine one trillion times brighter than our sun? And yet when we
look out, we can't see it. It's way outside of our galaxy. And they have documented 13,000
of these quasars. And that just goes to show us
what a vast universe that you and I live in. How immense it
is. And David was considering these
heavens, this universe. If you just consider our galaxy
by itself, The little Milky Way galaxy that we live in is so
vast that they have just lately reached the borders of our own
galaxy. I was reading the other day and
it said the nearest star, and I forget the name of it. Some
of you kids better learn this in school. You'll be like your
pastor. You'll try to remember names
that you never learned. But they said the closest star to our earth is four light years
away. And if you calculate how fast
light moves, 186,000 miles, how long would it take you to drive
186,000 miles? You'd go around the world a few
times, wouldn't you? You know how long it takes light to travel
186,000 miles? One second. One second. And if you had a flashlight to
shoot from here to the nearest star, it would take you four
years to get there. It's over 26 trillion miles,
and that's to the nearest star. And what I'm saying is, you and
I live in a universe that's so vast, it's immeasurable. And
the Lord gave David some understanding, some insight of it, the immensity
of it. And he said, Lord, when I consider
these heavens and the moon and the stars that you've erected,
what is mine? That thou art mindful of him. Now, I want to consider five
things with you right quickly about this, about this universe. And look here at it in verse
3. Look here at the first thing
he says. Number 1 is this, when I consider thy evidence. Here's the amazing thing about
this boundless universe, it belongs to the Lord. It's His. Now, why do I emphasize that,
and why is it emphasized here? Well, we're often proud of our
boundaries of our property, aren't we? In the Old Testament, it
was against the law to remove the landmarks, the boundaries
of property. We like to brag about how much
we own. I remember when I bought the
little place out where I live now. I never, up to then, owned
so much property in all my life. I remember Brother Scott came
up one time, Joanna, to preach for us. And I took him out and
showed him my property line. 1.3 acres. The most property
I've ever owned in my life. I was down in Gregg Amquist just
last weekend. And Gregg took me and Donnie
out and showed us his back property line. They tore down the fence
and they was going to extend his property line 10 feet. And
he was just laughing. Something about owning property.
Showing people our property line. Can you imagine if the Lord took
us and showed us His property lines? The earth is the Lord's,
but not only that. The heavens are the Lord's, and
everything underneath it, the prophet said. He owns all of
this. It's His. It's thy heavens when
I consider thy heavens. Behold, the heaven is the Lord,
and the heaven of heavens is the Lord our God. That's amazing. That's amazing.
And secondly, when we consider this, that He not only owns it,
but He made it. He made it. He made it. You and I purchased our property. He made His. He made His. He created His. That's what He
said, wouldn't He? When I consider thy heavens the
work of thy fingers. You know what I don't like about
these evolutionists, the scientists that promoted evolution? They're
not honest. They're just not honest people.
I was watching a program not too long ago, and this scientist
was telling about this large committee. They got some world-famous
scientists together, and one of the most famous scientists
among them was a Russian scientist. And the committee signed this
Russian scientist and his group to study as best they could to
get the age of the earth. And they did an extensive study
on the age of the earth, and they reached the conclusion that
this earth was very young. It was somewhere between 6 and
10,000 years old. And they took their findings
to the committee, and the committee immediately rejected it. And
said, go over your figures again. So he said they did that, and
they came up with the same conclusion. So they took it back to the committee,
and they dismissed it again. Well, come to find out, they
dismissed it for this reason. If the earth is between 6 and
10,000 years old, that means it had to be created. This marvelous
universe and this earth that we live on could not have evolved
in six to ten thousand years. It would be impossible. They'll
acknowledge that. See, what the aim, I imagine,
what the aim of these evolutionists, scientists is, is to prove evolution. But that's not the aim of the
devil. He has a higher aim than that. His aim is to disprove
the divine God has created all of this. And they're not being
honest about it. Honest scientists will tell you
that evolution is a theory. And being a theory is subject
to constant change. I don't like that, do you? I
don't like things that are subject to constant change. I feel great
liberty this morning, brothers and sisters, and I trust you
do too, to leave this so-called science with its theories and
go to the Bible to find something that's infallible, something
that's unchangeable. And when I want to know how this
world and how the universe came into being, I can go here to
the Word of God, and it tells me how it was created. The fingers
of God created it. You get the picture here David
paints for us. The fingers of God. You go by
a house that a man's working on, and you see him out there
remodeling his house or building the house, and he's cutting the
timbers, And he's nailing them all together and he's setting
up walls. What's he doing? He's using not
only his power, but his skills. You've heard the saying, the
man's good with his hands. That means he's skillful with
his hands. And that's the picture that David's painting here of
our Lord creating this universe. You see him out there with his
hands creating the star. The innumerable company of stars.
And over here, He's created these planets. In a way out here, outside
of this galaxy, He's created more planets. All of these worlds
that He's created that you and I know nothing about. And David
said it wasn't only by His power, it was by His wisdom, His understanding,
His fingers created all this. The Lord made it all. The churches
always believed this. The churches always believe this.
They've always worshipped the Creator. Somebody said one time,
we have some Christians today that believe in evolution. No,
we don't. There is no such a monster. David said, I'll lift up my eyes
unto the hills from which cometh my help. My help cometh from
the Lord who made heaven and earth. The early church got together
to pray in the time of their trouble, and they all lifted
up their voice with union and said, O Lord, Thou art God, which
hath made the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and all that
in them is. Lord, when I consider Thy heavens,
the work of Thy fingers. Thirdly, when I consider not
only that the Lord has made them, and when I consider they're His,
but when I consider this, that He fills this immense universe
with Himself. Ain't that amazing? Ain't that
amazing? We've never found the bounds
of this universe. There probably is a bounds to
it, no doubt. But when you find the bounds
of it, and you step outside the bounds of this vast universe,
there you'll find God. Someone said that God was not
in this universe. This universe is in God. Do not
I fill heaven and earth, saith the Lord? Where shall I flee
from His Spirit? Where shall I go from His presence?
If I go to heaven, He's there. If I make my bed in the grave,
He's there. If I go to the uttermost parts
of the sea, He's there. He's everywhere. He fills this
vast universe. That's amazing, isn't it? That's
amazing. Lord, when I consider that you
fill heaven and earth. And fourthly, consider this,
when I consider something else, that the Lord upholds this universe. He preserves the universe. Turn
with me over to your left in Nehemiah. Look over in Nehemiah. Old Psalms chapter 8. And look
over in the book of Nehemiah. Chapter 9. It's just over to
your left. You go to the book of Job. Just
keep turning over and you'll find it. Go by the book of Esther.
You'll find Nehemiah. Look in chapter 9. Nehemiah 9. And look here, in
the last portion of verse 5 and in verse 6, Nehemiah 9. I was reading and looking at
some pictures of all the planets and the stars just a few days
ago, and the amazing thing about our galaxy that you and I live
in, is all of these stars and these planets, they travel at
different speeds. And they have different orbits
that they follow. Some are almost a perfect circle
as they rotate around the sun. But others are oblong. They're
going in an oblong orbit. And they're all mingled up together.
And you wonder sometimes, what keeps these things in order?
What keeps them from running into each other and total chaos
in this galaxy that we live in? Well, Nehemiah tells us the reason
for that. In the last portion of verse
5, Stand up and bless the Lord your God forever and ever, and
blessed be thy glorious name, which is exalted above all blessing
and praise. Verse 6, Thou, even thou art
the Lord alone. Thou hast made heaven, and the
heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth, and all things
that are therein, the seas, and all that is therein, and Thou
preserveth them all." The Lord, the Host of Heaven, worshipeth
thee." Who do we worship? The Creator of all things, and
the Preserver and Upholder of all things. He keeps this universe
in order, as vast as it is. Things which we've never seen
today, with all our enormous technology, the Lord created
it, and He sustains it, and keeps it in order. Oh, when I consider
thy heavens, the works of thy fingers, the moon and the stars
that you've erected and that you've preserved. And fifthly,
David would say, when I consider that someday you're going to
dissolve all of these things and you're going to change all
of these things. What a great God He is. Look
with me over the New Testament for just a minute. Look in Hebrews
chapter 1. Look at this. This shows us something
about the immensity of our God. Look in Hebrews chapter 1. He's
speaking of this very thing. Look in Hebrews chapter 1. And
look in verse 10. When David considered that someday
the Lord would change all of these things and make them new. Hebrews 1 and 10, And thou, Lord,
in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth, and
the heavens are the works of thine hand. They shall perish,
but thou remainest. And they all shall wax old and
doofy garments, and as a scarf, a wrap, a vesture, shall thou
fold them up, and they shall be changed." Ain't that amazing? This vast universe is no more
to God than a mere wrap that you and I would throw around
our neck to keep our heads warm. And someday He's going to just
fold it up, and He's going to change it. He's going to dissolve
it with firm and heat, and He's going to make a new heaven and
a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. O Lord, our Lord,
when I consider Thy heavens, the immensity of them, that You
created them, You own them, and You fill them, and You're going
to change them, Oh Lord, our Lord. Turn back over to our text one
more time. I want you to keep your Bibles
handy. I want to show you one or two
more things. In the light of what we've just
said about His creation, look back over in Psalms chapter 8
again. Look here in verse 3, When I
consider thy heavens the work of thy family, the moon and the
stars which thou hast erected, what is man that thou art mindful
of him?" What is man? Man is seen and estimated, David
said, in the light of who God is as a Creator. You can get
just a glimpse, a degree, of how important man is, how significant
he is, if you look at him in the light of this Christ. I've
been reading a book by Hawkins, I forgot his first name, on the
history of time. He's a very, very brilliant man. And he said, this galaxy that
you and I live in is so small, in regard to the universe. He
said if this galaxy suddenly was dissolved and did away with
completely, it would have the same effect upon the universe
as one leaf fallen from one tree would have upon an entire forest.
In other words, it would have no effect at all if this universe
was suddenly dead away. I heard the dean of astronomy,
there at Chattanooga, preach a message. A man wanted me to
go listen to him, and I wouldn't hear him. And he said at that
time, if we had If we had the means to go to the nearest star,
that star I was talking about, and set up the most powerful
telescope that they had at that time, and point back in the direction
of this earth, he said we couldn't even see it. We could not even
see it. If you had to identify our galaxy
in proportion to the entire universe, it would be a speck so small
that you couldn't even see it. Our galaxy that we live in is
so small and minute to the universe, it's so insignificant. And then
when you come to earth in comparison to the rest of the planets, it's
so insignificant. And then here you find us. You find poor fallen man up on
this little tiny earth. He's so insignificant. He's nothing and less than nothing. And David said, oh God in heaven,
oh everlasting Lord, what is man that such a God, such a true
God, such an everlasting Lord could even look upon such a heart. And be mindful of Him and care
for Him. Oh, brothers and sisters, what
can we do before such things as this? What can we say when
we think of these things? But just fall before Him, our
Creator and our Savior, and wonder at His greatness, and marvel
at His goodness. That such a God in heaven who
created this vast universe and fills it would be mindful of
us and give us our life and our breath and our food and seasons
and fill our hearts with gladness. But even more than that, would
visit us by His Holy Spirit and convince us of sin and righteousness
and judgment to come. and reveal to us the Lord Jesus
Christ, our Savior, and that salvation that's in Him. Oh,
what can we do when we think about these things? But just
utterly cast ourselves upon Him, in absolute dependency upon Him,
such a God. What is man that thou art mindful
of Him? Do you see from this why we despise
free will so bad? Can you see from things like
this how ridiculous free will is? That men have God's hands
tied? That God can't do anything unless
you let Him? How utterly ridiculous. Who is
man? that thou, the eternal God, O
what free grace, O what unearned mercy of God. Here we see something
else, brothers and sisters, and it's this, and we find it in
verse 5, and that's the mystery of this incarnation. The mystery
of the incarnation. He says this, Thou hast made him a little lower
than the angels, and crowned him with glory and honor. Thou madest him to have dominion
over the works of your hands. You put all things under his
feet." Now, who's he talking about? Well, in general, he's
speaking of Adam, the first. But in particular, he's speaking
of his son. The Lord Jesus Christ. I want
to show you that. You look with me over in Hebrews
chapter 2 where this is quoted. I want you to see that. See who
he's talking to. You remember Hebrews chapter
2. You remember when God created
Adam and said let him have dominion. over the fishes of the sea and
over the fowls of the air and over all the creeping things
and all the things in the sea. He gave him dominion, in general,
over everything that he had. But you know something? He lost
that dominion. Man doesn't have dominion over
anything today, does he? What does he have absolute dominion
over? If he goes fishing, he has to use bait. Shane goes to
catch some fish, he has to coach a fish to get on his hook. Why
are we so afraid of lions and bears? Afraid they're going to
eat us. Why are we afraid to play with
snakes if we have a decent? Afraid they're going to bite
us. I was in an area the other day where they have these fire
ants. Acres and acres of mounds, big mounds of fire ants. If you
think those car ants are under your dominion, stick your hand
in there and you'll find out they're not. Whatever dominion
the Lord gave us over these things in the beginning, we lost it. By sin, we lost it. But there
is one. There is another man. There is
a second Adam that has been given dominion over not only those
things, but things in heaven too. And that's the one David's
talking about. And the writer of Hebrews tells
us that. Look at it here. Hebrews chapter 2, look in verse
6. This is my text that I read over in Psalms 8. 1 And a certain
place testified, saying, What is man, that thou art mindful
of him, or the Son of man, that thou visiteth him? 2 You made
him a little lower than the angel, you crowned him with glory and
honor, and you set him over the work of thy hands. And he 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, since the fall, we see
not yet all things put under him. Probably coming a day when
the glorified saints will have everything under their subjection
again. But they don't have it now, do they? But look at this,
verse 9. But we see Jesus. We see Jesus. Where do we see Him at? We see
Him in the Word, don't we? We see Him in these Psalms now.
We never saw Him there if the Hebrew writer hadn't told us
this was about Him. We see Him through the eyes of
our understanding. We see Him through the eye of
faith. We see Jesus, who was made a little more than the angels
for the suffering of death. He was made. He was made of man. He was made of a woman. He was
made flesh. He assumed our human nature. Why? For the suffering of death,
crowned with glory and honor, that he by the grace of God should
taste death for every man. For it become him for whom are
all things, and by whom are all things. What in the world did
he just say? He's saying this Jesus of Nazareth
is the one that created everything. Thy whom are everything. And
it's for his glory that he created it. He's the man that now has dominion. Don't the scripture tell us that?
He's ascended into heaven, and He's seated there at the right
hand of God. Angels and principalities and
powers are subject unto Him. All power is given to Me in heaven
and in earth. He's the real man. He's the real man. And David
said, Lord, when I think about this, when I think about You,
the Creator, And that you've come down to this earth and you
were made a man. You assumed our nature. And in
our nature, you went to the cross and ransomed us from the curse
and the bitterness of death. Oh, what is man! What mercy! What grace! What grace! Our Creator became our Savior. That's what He said. And as the
man Christ Jesus, everything now is under His rule and under
His dominion. It does not yet appear that it
is. Most things seem out of order.
Most people are in rebellion against Him. But he is reigning,
and someday he will put his foot on the necks of all his enemies. And all will look up to him and
say he is Lord of all. And then he will appear as he
really is now. He is the reigning King, the
reigning Lord, Jesus of Nazareth. Now, lastly, in conclusion, what
did David say, and how did he say the Lord's fame was spread
abroad in this earth? In our text, verse 2, out of
the mouths of babes and sucklings, as thou perfected praise. How
does he spread his name? Psalms, chapter 8, verse 2. How
does he spread his name? Uses babes, doesn't he, and sucklings? He'll take a poor, old, ignorant
man that's full of darkness himself, that has no spiritual understanding,
and he gives him light in his soul. He enlightens his understanding. And he goes around not figuring
out God, but simply proclaiming Him. I
haven't figured out anything this morning, no. I ain't able
to put these pieces together. That's not my business. All I'm
doing is proclaiming what I've seen and heard myself. Thou hast hid these things from
the wise and the prudent. You know who the wise and prudent
is, don't you? They've got to put all these pieces together.
A prudent man means he's putting all these pieces together. He's
got to figure everything out. He's got to have his system and
everything fits into his system. And the Lord just passes by those
men. And He reveals Himself to the
babes. Who are the babes? They just
believe what you tell them. That's what the babes do. And
the sacraments. They don't have to figure it
all out. They just look in the Word and believe what's written,
and they rejoice in it, and they proclaim it to others. Who are
you, Clarence? You're a 63-year-old baby. I'm a 56-year-old baby. I just
believe what God says. And He gets glory from that,
doesn't He? And He stops the mouths of the enemy. Here the
devil is, trying to overthrow the church. Trying to overthrow
the church. What's God going to do? What's
God going to do? Oh, He's going to raise up some
smart men, some brilliant men, some great theologians, and they're
going to defend the church. No, that's not what He does at
all. He calls a bunch of ignorant, non-learned fishermen, and He
stuffs them out with hail. And what did they have to say?
We cannot help but speak the things which we've heard and
seen. That's all they had to say. We're not looking for new
things to know. We're just simply trying to believe
what we already know. God's a great creator, and our
God became our Savior. and took to Himself our humanity,
and went to the cross and bore our load and our shame, and redeemed
us. And He seeded about the man Christ
Jesus into heaven, and everything is under His dominion. I'm not
trying to figure that out. I just want to believe Him. Just
believe Him. That's all. Let's pray.