We read to you the eighth chapter
of the book of the Psalms, and so if you have that open, we'll
begin our message here. The writer here, the psalmist
David, says, O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is Thy name in
all the earth, who has set Thy glory above the heavens. And then in verse 3 he says,
When I consider Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers, the
moon and the stars which Thou hast ordained, it caused Him
to say this, What is man? that thou art mindful of him,
and the Son of man, that thou visitest him." In the light of
God's infinite greatness as God, those who know him are always,
I believe, astonished by his goodness and mercy, by his love
and by his grace toward fallen and sinful man. that he would
be mindful of us and that he would visit sinful man. Now the psalmist, against the
backdrop, I believe, of the glorious greatness of our God, asked this
question in utter amazement. What is man that thou art mindful
of him? Now we cannot, beloved, form
a right and proper view of anything in God's creation if we fail
to see the greatness and the glory of our God as it is revealed
and set forth in the Holy Scriptures. The root of all sin and the cause
of all unbelief and the source of all heresy in the world can
be found in one thing. In one thing, listen to me, all
men by nature have low views of God. All men by nature have
views of God that are so low that they feel that He is absolutely
insignificant and that there's no reason why they should hear
His word. There's no reason why they should
listen to the voice of God. And this Bible is the voice of
God in print. God speaks through this Word
and men feel that they need not listen to what God says because
they consider not His greatness. It reminds me of Pharaoh who
said, Who is the Lord that I should obey Him? He found out who the
Lord was, didn't he? He found out when the Lord slew
his army in the Red Sea and drowned his army in the Red Sea. He found
out who God was. Now then, all men by nature have
these low views of God. Satan could not persuade Eve
to sin until he convinced her that God was not as great as
she thought that he was. It was whenever he convinced
her that God just was not as great and as powerful and as
magnificent as she believed him to be that she succumbed to his
temptation. We would never doubt the Word
of God if we did not question the greatness of our God. Where
the Word of the King is, there is authority. And if we look
upon God to be King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the author
of this book, all Scripture being given by inspiration of God,
if we looked upon it that way, we would not doubt His Word.
We would not question His Holy Word. Men would never pervert
the Gospel. if they did not have very low
views of the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. They would
never pervert the gospel. They would never believe that
any man could ever approach into such a holy and magnificent God
as the great God of the Bible, except he would come through
a mediator. They would never believe that
any sinner could do anything that would please this God. when the heavens are impure and
those things that when God found fault even with the angels, they
sinned and God cast them down. My friend, men pervert the gospel
because they do not believe that God is holy and that he's the
awesome God that he pictures himself to be in the Bible. There
is one way to approach into this God and Jesus said, I am the
way. No man can come unto the Father
except by me. Paul said that there is one mediator
between God and man, and that is the man Christ Jesus. Beloved, only when we see the
greatness of God will we worship, will we love, will we trust,
will we honor Him as God. Anything that lowers God's character
or lessens His greatness is a lie of the devil. Now you listen
to what I'm saying. Anything that lowers God's character
or lessens his greatness is alive Satan. In our day and time we're
hearing those people say that there's no such thing as hell. There's no such thing as a place
where lost sinners go and spend all eternity in a lake of fire
with the lash of God upon them where the smoke of their torment
ascends up forever and ever and there's no rest neither day or
night. There is no place like that. the modern religionist
would tell us. But that, my friend, is an attack
upon the holiness of God. It's what that is. That's an
attack upon God because God is so holy that he must punish sin
and he will not. allow any sinner. He will not
allow any sinner. He will not allow any sin to
go unpunished. It's either punished in a substitute
or it must be punished in the sinner himself for all eternity. Don't let anyone tell you that
there's no hell to where sinners go and are separated from God
for all eternity. Do not tolerate. Let no doctrine
be believed. No sermon be heard, no song be
sung, and no thought be received into your brain, which in any
way detracts from the greatness and power and holiness of God. If you listen carefully, as our
brother read Isaiah chapter 40, you saw a great description of
God Himself set forth. And I would counsel you and tell
you to look at that chapter often. Anytime you're prone to question
the mightiness and the power of God, turn to that chapter
and behold your God. Behold your God. Look at the
great God of Scripture. He who is our God is the rock
of our salvation. He's the rock and He's the refuge
of our soul. It is the greatness of God which
inspires the faith of His people and gives us peace and comfort
and confidence and hope in this world of woe. My friend, great
beyond description, great beyond imagination, great beyond our
loftiest praise is the Lord our God. Let us praise Him and offer
unto Him the glory that is due unto His name. Now in the light
of God's greatness and glory as God, it is an astounding thing
that God should be mindful of man, especially when we see the
answer given in the Bible to this question, what is man? Man
is set before us in the Word of God as the peculiar and distinct
object of God's mercy, love, and grace. But what is he? Now
I say that he is set forth in the Word of God as the peculiar
and distinct object of God's mercy, and love, and grace. You remember that God provided
no redemption. for the angels. The angels that
sinned, they were cast down. There was no mercy for a fallen
angel. The fallen angels are reserved
right now in hell awaiting that day when God will judge them
for all eternity. They're waiting now. There is
no redemption. Angels never felt the joys that
our salvation brings. I'm telling you that man is the
peculiar and distinct object of God's mercy, love, and grace. But what is he? What is he? What
is man? Now anyone who knows and acknowledges
the greatness of God will also freely acknowledge the utter
insignificance of man. Now the problem with this generation
is that man is the object of adoration and worship and not
God. Man is being worshipped. Will
worship is very, very powerful in our day. Most religions of
the earth are worshipping the human will, the will of man. and they declare that man's will
is free. That's a lie from hell. There
is no truth in it. Every man's will is in bondage
to his nature. He cannot rise above his nature
and will to do anything that's contrary to it. There is one
free will in all of the universe and that is the will of God.
God's will is absolutely and totally free. Man is exalted
and God is made to be insignificant. When will the Lord's people rise
up? When will God's preachers lift up their voice against this
foolishness and declare the truth that man is not to be worshipped?
His will is not to be worshipped. Man is to bow before God and
submit himself to the will of God. As long as Adam was in the
garden, when God put him there, he was to submit himself to God's
will. He was to obey God. He was to
do that which God ordered him to do. And as long as he did
that, Adam had a free will. But when he chose to disobey
God, whenever he declared that he would rather die than live,
that's what he said, I'd rather die than be in submission unto
God. I don't want to live my life
in submission to God. I'd rather die than go to hell.
That's exactly what Adam said until he was converted, of course.
I believe he was finally converted. But in the Word of God and among
the people of God, let me say it's the other way around. We
do not believe that God is insignificant. We believe that man is insignificant. That's what God's people believe,
those that are informed on the teaching of the Word. The fact
is it is impossible for anyone to have both great views of God
and great views of man. It's impossible. Oh, if you have
a great view of man, your views of God are going to be low. If
your heart's filled with great views of the great God, then,
beloved, man will be low. Those who know that God is great
know that man is insignificant. God and man. Here is greatness
and littleness. Here is grandeur and nothingness. Here is excellence and corruption. Here is majesty and meanness. What is man? The Word of God
gives us many answers to the question, and none of them, might
I say, are very flattering. All flesh is grass, and all the
glory of man is as the flower of the field, and the grass withereth,
and the flower thereof falleth away, but the word of the Lord
endureth forever." That's flesh. Barely ever man at his best state. He is altogether vanity. Psalm 39 and verse 5. That's
at his best state. Man in his best state is altogether
vanity. What is he? In his worst state,
my friend, he's lighter than vanity. Men are a lie. Psalm 62 and verse 9. It says this, surely men of low
degree are vanity and men of high degree are a lie. To be
laid in the balances they are are altogether lighter than vanity. That's what man is. He's a lie.
Whatever he appears to be, he's not really that. He's not that. You say, well, at least he appears
to be okay. Well, he's not okay. You see,
you think he is, but he's a lie. Every man is a lie. That's what
he is. He's not really what he appears
to be. There's not a person in this
building that don't put on airs and don't have a little varnish
on them. Everybody in here is varnished up to the high heavens. Nobody knows exactly what we
are. Man is a lie, I'm telling you,
and we need to be aware of it. He's a shadow. He's just dust. He's a vapor. He's vanity. He's
nothing. All the human race lumped together
in one huge mass of humanity is described by God as being
counted to Him as less than nothing and vanity. What is, man? Don't ask the philosophers. Don't
ask the educators. Don't ask the scientists. Don't
ask the psychologists. Ask God. Ask God who made us. Now, it was back during the Depression
soup lines all over the United States, especially in the large
cities, where people that were hungry would come to get a handout,
get something to eat. And in one particular soup line
that I read about, there was a gentleman that came every day,
and he had on a very expensive suit And it was a little bit
weathered and tattered a little bit, but you could tell it had
been a very expensive suit when it was purchased. And there was
a man there that was dishing out the soup, and he happened
to notice this fella, kind of standing back and kind of waiting
back in the line. And so when he finally got up
to where the man was dishing out the soup, he said to the
man, he said, I've seen better days. I've seen better days. And beloved, let me say to you
that man has seen better days. We read right here in the scripture
this morning, what is man, but you're mindful of him, for thou
hast made him just a little lower than the angels, and you crowned
him with glory, and you crowned him with honor. Thou madest him
to have dominion over the works of thy hands. Thou hast put all
things under his feet. And so the Lord has made man
and put him in this, he hadn't always been just like he is now,
you see. Man is fallen now. And God declares in this book,
this book that we esteem highly, this book for which we would
die, This moment, by the grace of God, he declares in this book
that man is fallen, that man is depraved, and that man is
sinning, that he's sinful, that he's cursed, he's condemned,
he's helpless, he's just dying flesh. That's all that he is. Men are grasshoppers before him. Men are the dust of the earth
and no more. Man is a lump of clay. He's a
puff of smoke. He's a mist of vapor. He's a
drop in the bucket. That's what man is. Man is insignificant. And if you ever hear anything
that this preacher's got to say, you hear that. Based on the greatness
of God, man is insignificant. You're nothing, and I am nothing. No matter how many of us nothings
you put together, nothing added to nothing is still nothing.
God teach us to know our nothingness, that we may look to Christ, for
everything. Only Christ my friend will do. Only Christ will do for people
like you and I. Now in the book of Hebrews chapter
2 we find basically the same words that we find back here
in the psalm but we find something else also and I'd like for you
to just look at Hebrews chapter 2 if you would And then I begin
reading here with verse 6, I just read a few verses. But one in
a certain place, this is Hebrews 2, testified saying, what is
man that thou art mindful of him? Now he's talking about the
psalmist of whom we just read. or the son of man that thou visitest
him. Thou madest him a little lower
than the angels, you crowned him with glory and honor, and
didst send him over the works of your hands. Thou hast put
all things in subjection under his feet, for in that he put
it 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, in verse 9, we see Jesus, who was made
a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, in
other words, he took upon himself our nature, the nature of man,
in order that he might be able to suffer the death of Calvary,
crowned with glory and honor, that he by the grace of God should
taste death for every man, for every one whom the Lord would
choose and give to Christ in the covenant of grace. Christ
tasted death on their behalf. Now, beloved, the thing that
I am moved right now to point out to you that in thinking of
the greatness of our Lord, in Psalm 145, verse 3, it says,
Great is the Lord, He's greatly to be praised, and His greatness
is unsearchable. And then in the eighth verse
of that 145th Psalm, it says, The Lord is gracious, He's full
of compassion, he's slow to anger, and he's of great mercy. When I read these words, I thought
of scripture characters whom God had been pleased to be mindful
of, to think of, and they're the worst sort. Not that they
have any seed of sin in them that we don't have in us, but
they were out and out sinners. But yet God visited them. God came down and had mercy on
them. And I want to just mention a
few of these in order that you might be able to see. how that
there is hope, even if we be nothing, and even if we be sinners,
and we are, and even if we now are cursed with a curse, there
is hope for all of those who finally come to the Lord Jesus
Christ. Now the glory of God's greatness
and grace shines forth most, I think, when we see the unworthiness
of those whom God has saved. Manasseh over in 2nd Chronicles
33, you can read this sometime, verses 1-13. He was 12 years
old when he became king of Judah. He reigned for 55 years and he
was perhaps the most barbaric monster ever to sit upon the
throne in Jerusalem. He sacrificed his own children
to the power of his pagan gods. He filled Jerusalem His sacrilegious
indecencies perverted the whole nation. He was not content to
mock alone, you see. He led all of Judah into such
moral and spiritual corruption that even the heathen would be
embarrassed to mention some of the things that he was responsible
for. Yet the grace of God. There was
a day when the grace of God came down. There was a day when God
visited this old sinner and touched his heart. He humbled him. He
humbled him greatly. He allowed the Assyrians to come
upon him and to take him and to bind him and to take thorn
bushes and whip him with thorn bushes. And he was greatly humbled
and brought down and brought low. And the Lord revealed Himself
to this man, to Manasseh, and He saved him, He forgave his
sin, and He made him an heir of heavenly glory. How wonderful! How marvelous! This man, he humbled
himself greatly. And the Scripture says, he come
to know that the Lord, He is God. That's what he come to know.
Through God bringing him down, through the afflictions that
God brought upon him, he come to know God in His greatness,
and he was humbled, and he was gloriously saved. Now this is
an illustration of God visiting the sons of Adam. That He is
mindful of man, and that He comes and touches man, and delivers
him. And you've all heard of old Saul
of Tarsus. You can read about him in Acts
9. He was the most bloodthirsty persecutor of God's church the
world could have possibly produced. This monster of a man lived only
to destroy God's little lambs, God's sheep. His thirst for violence
and murder was insatiable. His rancorous heart was filled
with hatred for Christ, His gospel, and His people. He was bent upon
the annihilation of Christianity. Never did a man live who, in
the opinion of human judgment, was more certainly a reprobate
than was Saul of Tarsus. Yet this godless, implacable
wretch of a man He is now with Christ. He is now with Christ
in heaven. He is in heaven as a trophy of
the grace of God. Can you believe that? Can you
believe that? God did visit this old sinner
on the road to Damascus. He struck him down. and saved
his soul and blinded him and brought him into the light of
the gospel. Marvelous, marvelous conversion. Paul said later,
he said, God did this as an example to show forth all longsuffering,
to show forth that he could be longsuffering to the worst sinner
on earth because he's already saved the worst sinner on earth
when he saved me, Paul said. And so, beloved, you see an example
of how that God has visited Man now in the book of Corinthians
1st Corinthians chapter 6 and verses 9 through 11 It tells
us about these Corinthians, and they were not very very good
people They were like the people we've been talking about they
were like all of us. They were like all of us and
They were the most sensual, profligate people of the ancient Roman world.
That's what they were. They were the most vile of the
vilest age in the annals of human history. That's the Corinthians. Yet through the infinitely tender
mercies of an ever gracious God, a multitude of them today are
robed in white and they're crowned with glory. They're in heaven
with the Lord, robed in white, they have on those wedding garments,
they have on the garment of salvation woven from the top to the bottom
by the doing and dying of the Lord Jesus Christ, and they are
white and clean before God, because God has taken account of them,
and He came down and He visited them, and not until He visited
them was there a change in their lives. Now, a few minutes ago,
I mentioned Ephesians 2 about how those that were dead in sin
hath God quickened, how he made them alive. And you know, you
cannot ever exhaust the Scripture. The Scripture has many, many
applications, and it never spends itself on just one situation. The Scripture is alive. The Word
of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged
sword. And when God says, You hath He
quickened who were dead, He means that those that He saved, those
that He visited, That He visited them just like they were already
in their coffin, like they were already in the grave, like they'd
already been back into the dust of the earth. That He visited
them when they were absolutely, totally unable to assist Him
in any way, shape, or form. He visited the dead! And He raised
them out of their death of sin into the life of the gospel. He gave them life for their death. And that's exactly what happened.
Well, there was a boy. nearly fifty years ago, who was
without hope, without God. He was an out-and-out sinner.
He lived for nothing but his own pleasure. He broke the law
of God without thought. He had learned to tell dirty
jokes and off-color jokes, and to curse and swear as bad as
any child of the devil that lived on the face of the earth. But
God put his hand of grace into that young man's heart, revealed
Christ in him, forgave his sin, and adopted him into his family,
even into the family of God. Grace made that wretched creature
a preacher of God's gospel, and grace enables him now to say,
I am not what I ought to be what I want to be or hope to be, but
blessed be God, I'm not what I once was because God was pleased
to come down and visit this sinner. He visited this sinner. I'm here
to tell you that God visited my soul just like I was the only
person alive on the face of the earth. There was a time when
God touched me. and He must touch you the same
way. You see, it's between you and God. Between you and God.
Oh, my daddy and my mother take care of my other religion of
the family? It'll never do, my friend. It'll never do. You,
as an individual, must be visited by God. Oh, God. He comes down. He comes down. And He visits the sons of men. He visits them and delivers them
out of their sin. Only by the grace of God are
we what we are. Well, how can you account for
all of this? Well, these people that I've
mentioned, these people, they were unable to assist God. They were called by God's effectual
grace. by the greatness of His power,
by the condescending love and the mercy, they all learned that
this God is God, and they were brought to worship Him and bow
before Him, and they're not like the religious world out here
today. Out here in the religious world
today, men say, well, I accepted, I prayed, I decided, I went forward,
I joined, I was baptized, I did this or that or something of
the other. Well, where is the grace of God
in all of this? Well, is there anything to talk
about in all of this? This is not the confession of
a true believer, although it's the general profession and testimony
of the religionist in the world. Note, my salvation does not emphasize
me. But He, the Lord Jesus Christ,
He loved me, He lived for me, He died for me, He called me,
He saved me. Our salvation does not emphasize
us, it emphasizes Him. It is not when I did something,
but when He did something. He chose me before the foundation
of the world. In the fullness of time, He was
sent forth to redeem me by the blood of His cross. And when
it pleased God, it revealed His Son in my heart through the preaching
of His gospel by the messenger that He had sent. And note, the
what is what He did. The what is what He did in living
under the law to establish a perfect righteousness for me. And what
He did in His death, putting my sin away. He put it away. He did it all. for us. It is
not what I'm doing now, but what he's doing now at the right hand
of the throne of God as my great high priest who ever lives to
make intercession for me and to keep me eternally. Now, I want you to think a little
bit. Any salvation, I say to keep
me eternally, any salvation that does not provide us with eternal
security is no salvation at all. None whatsoever. They'll say,
well, you know, I like that salvation where Jesus pays the down payment
and where we pay installments on it until we die. They say,
the religion that says that, that's the kind of salvation
that they like. Well, I don't like that kind
of salvation. I don't like it. You miss one installment and
you're lost. You're lost. That's not Bible
salvation. That is not Bible salvation.
The Lord Jesus said, I've given to them my sheep eternal life,
they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out
of my hand, and my Father which gave them me, this woke me up
during the night, I'm gonna say it, my Father which gave them
me, listen to it, is greater than all, greater than all, and
no man can pluck them out of his hand. No man. Now that's
eternal security. And I'm here to tell you that
any salvation, don't fix it up so that you're secure for all
eternity from the time God saves you, is no salvation at all.
You don't have any. If it don't save you for all
eternity, you don't have Bible salvation. You got Bible salvation
when the Lord saves you. Now this is the sum of the testimony
of this sinner. That the Lord put me in his hands
and I'll be there regardless, whatever, and I'm not worthy
to be there. God knows I'm not. And neither
are you, but we're there by the grace of God, and we're in that
hand that is greater than all other hands. We're talking about
the greatness of our God. We did all the sinning, and God
in Christ did all the saving. He visited us. He came down and
visited our souls. Horatius Bonar told a story about
an awakened soul in Scotland many years ago, who in the bitterness
of his spirit set himself to work and to pray in order to
get peace. He doubled the amount of his
devotions, saying to himself, surely God will give me peace
if I do this. But the peace did not come. So
he set up family worship, saying, surely God will give me peace
because of this. But the peace came not. And at
last, he befought himself of having a prayer meeting in his
house And as a certain remedy, he fixed the night and called
his neighbors and prepared himself for conducting the meeting by
writing a prayer and learning it by heart. As he finished the
operation of learning it, preparatory to the meeting, he threw it down
on the table saying, surely that will do. Surely that will do. God will give me peace now. In
that moment, A still, small voice seemed to speak in his ears saying,
no, that will not do. That will not do, but Christ
will do. Straightway the scales fell from
his eyes and the burden from his shoulders and peace poured
in like a river. Christ will do was his watchword
ever after. Now my friend, would you rather
have a narrow bridge that would go clear across the river, that
narrow bridge being Christ, or would you rather have a wide
bridge that only went halfway across? Now, everybody's trying
to save themselves. Everybody's trying to work their
own salvation out. Everybody that's trying, everybody's
trying to go to heaven. Let me tell you something, they're
on that wide road. Only goes halfway across, it'll never get
you home to glory. But that narrow bridge, Christ,
it goes all the way over. It goes all the way to glory.
All the way. My friend, if you're on that
bridge, praise God, it will stand the test. Even if you'll be weak
of faith, it'll stand the test. It'll stand the test of all God's
living family. Get on that bridge and you stay
on that bridge. Stay on Christ. Stay on Christ. It's what He's done. It's what
He's done. The emphasis is not on me, it's
on Him. And may God give us the ability
to become worshipers of the living and the true God. We have two
lessons to learn, it seems to me. One of them is full of pain,
and the other is full of pleasure. First of all, that I could know
nothing but by divine teaching. Secondly, have nothing but by
divine giving. Thirdly, and be nothing but by
divine making. Those are lessons we need to
learn. One is painful, but the other
is precious and full of pleasure. Father, in the name of Jesus,
we commit to you this congregation and each heart And we do pray
that Thou would our Father take Your Word, it was Your Word that
was preached, it was Your greatness that was exalted, it was Your
holy arm that was declared to have the victory. And so Lord,
save sinners and bring even the hardest heart here to a place
of repentance, where they'll cry out to God for mercy, find
them a place, and seek the mercy of God. Lord, thank you for your
great work that you've done in the souls of those that have
believed savingly on Christ. Oh, deliver, deliver, and bless,
and cause the testimony of this church to be effectual. We pray
it in Jesus' name, for his sake. Amen.