Psalm 8 explores the profound question of "what is man?" by contrasting God's infinite glory with human insignificance, as seen through David's perspective and modern scientific discoveries. The sermon highlights God's transcendence and yet His intimate involvement with humanity, exemplified by His use of the humble and His care for individuals. While sin has marred humanity's original dominion, the ultimate fulfillment of man's intended glory and dominion is found in Jesus Christ, who, though made lower than angels, is crowned with glory and honor, paving the way for believers to share in His future reign. The message concludes by emphasizing that true understanding of man's place and purpose comes through faith in God's revelation, particularly the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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beautiful inspired portion of Scripture is this question, what is man? And God willing tonight we will continue with a further study of what God tells us in answer to that burning question, especially in our generation, that's lost its moorings, lost its perspectives, lost its respect for the Word of God. Psalm number eight, divides into three movements of thought. Verses one and two, God's relationship to his universe, apart from which we can't even ask the question, what is man?
But then the depressing portion of this psalm is verses three and four, in which man sees himself apart from God's true and full revelation. How depressing that will be for many. But then the Psalm ends in God's perspective on his relationship not only to the universe but to man and how we therefore are to understand our relationship to him. And you see friends when the Psalm ends we have a repeat in verse nine of the opening verse number one.
And the point is We shall see a whole new perspective by the Holy Spirit of God and His illumination on the significance of that question and God's answer to it. What really is man in relationship to who God really is? O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is your name and all the earth who have set your glory above the heaven? out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants you have ordained strength because of your enemies that you may silence the enemy and the avenger there are several things in these opening verses friends that are very very difficult to understand however there's one thing I think that almost everybody in the so-called Christian world at least would understand and agree with and that is that God has set His glory above the heavens.
If you and I were to take a religious survey of people walking down the streets and sidewalks of the average American city and say something like this, please, sir, may I have just a moment of your time, I'm taking a survey, and I just have one question, please. If there's a personal living God anywhere in the universe, which direction do you think you look to find Him? And I don't think anybody would say, well, you look down. Or you look around. Or you look in here. Don't you think almost everybody would say, you look up there? Correct. But the big challenge to our imagination, friends, is this.
How far up there do you look to find God? Now, keep your finger here and turn to Psalm one hundred and thirteen for God's full answer to that one. psalm one thirteen verse four the lord is high above all nations and his glory above the heavens just like psalm eight says who is the lord who is like the lord our god who dwells on high now the amazing thing is this verse six who humbles himself to behold the things that are in the heavens and in the earth Our God, friends, is so infinitely above, beyond the universe in His transcendence and glory and majesty that He actually has to humble Himself to see the universe, like a scientist crouching over a microscope to see an otherwise invisible microcosm beneath Him.
And you say, well, that's the most discouraging thing I've heard about God, that He is so infinitely beyond us and He must be therefore unreachable. Well, the good news is in the rest of Psalm one thirteen that although God is infinitely transcendent and beyond the universe, He has humbled Himself all the way down to where you and I really are. Listen. Psalm one thirteen continues in verse seven, He raises the poor out of the dust and lifts the needy out of the ash heap that He may seek with Him princes with the princes of his people.
Ask Job about that, friends. And he grants the barren woman a home like a joyful mother of children. Ask Sarah about that, and Rebecca. Oh, friends, God is infinitely concerned, isn't he, about little people living on a little planet called Earth. Now, friends, this is so difficult to believe. because every gigantic human organization we know about or perhaps are a part of, and we are a part of at least one, is just the opposite of this. I was raised in the military. My father was a West Point graduate and his father was an Army surgeon and my father and I were both an only child and we were totally indoctrinated in military perspectives on everything.
Wars and battles and campaigns and strategy and tactics and enemies and weapons and all of this and and one thing really got through to me although I never made the army a career I was a soldier in the Second World War in Europe but I had no taste for that I'm sure my father was very disappointed but friends one thing we were taught constantly and that is that in an efficient functioning military system, the top person must deliberately detach himself from the lower and lower levels of the system. He can't preoccupy himself with what every individual soldier is doing down here on the bottom level.
The best he can do is to keep track of the people under him in the management pyramid of administration. and they in turn the people below them and below them and all the way down to the bottom. Well one day, a month after I came to know the Lord Jesus Christ as my Savior as a student at Princeton University, this was in February of nineteen forty three, I received a letter from the United States government. It said something like this, greetings. You will report for induction into the United States infantry at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. April the fifteenth. Well, I really, friends, don't exactly remember what I thought would happen to me, having been raised with high-ranking officers, and we were personally acquainted with so many generals and our next-door neighbor at Fort Benning, Georgia, and thirty-nine, forty, forty-one with General George Patton, under whom my father served as a chief of staff.
And we played golf with generals and had dinner with colonels, and I don't know what I expected, but A burly sergeant welcomed me with several hundred other terrified recruits. He didn't ask me what I preferred to wear, what I preferred to eat, what I would like to indulge in in the way of hobbies or recreation. In fact, my personality was rubbed out and a chain was put around my neck with a number, a big number imprinted on a piece of metal. He was called, are you ready, a dog tag. I've never fully recovered.
But think of this. Great universities have to be like this. The president can't possibly know what each student is doing. One day we didn't believe this would ever happen, but our son Don actually graduated from Ohio State University. And there were four graduations a year. There were sixty thousand students. And on this particular graduation seventeen hundred students were rushing over the platform and given their diplomas and I thought of going up afterward and asking the president how Don did in school that year. Friends, he couldn't possibly even know who the administrators all were to say nothing of the professors and the students. Because if he was preoccupied with every single student, the whole system would collapse.
And that's true of governments, of great industries, of every gigantic human organization that's ever existed. But our God is the opposite. He is infinitely and totally involved with every human being every moment. Feel it. Even the hairs of our head are numbered. Not one sparrow can fall to the ground without our Heavenly Father. Not one fish moves through the seed. Nothing happens, not one snowflake, raindrop, nothing that my Father and yours in heaven is infinitely totally involved in. And unless we know that and believe that, nothing in the psalm makes any sense.
And as we shall see, David missed that point and sank into deep depression. But friends, that's not the only mystery in those opening two verses. Look at these statements. Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants, thou hast ordained strength because of your enemies, that you may silence the enemy and the avenger. This infinitely majestic, glorious, omnipresent God of the universe has enemies, and they're all on planet Earth. And friends, he has special instruments through whom he would defeat those enemies.
And they are amazingly described as babes and sucklings or nursing infants. You say, well, who in the world are these? Well, the Lord Jesus saw that one for us, didn't he, in the triumphal entry, as he was welcomed by tens of thousands of grateful Israelites who had been healed or helped or taught by him through those years, casting their garments before him, crying out Hosanna, blessed is he that comes in the name of the Lord. And all of a sudden lurking in the shadows on the side came voices, saying to him, Rebuke them. They don't know what they're saying. And Jesus turned to those enemies and said, Have you not read that out of the mouths of babes and sucklings God has ordained his strength?
The enemies were the leaders of Israel, and the babes and sucklings were humble people who trusted him. Paul said to the proud, arrogant Corinthians, something similar once, didn't he? For you see your calling, brethren, there are not many wise among you, or mighty, or noble, or call, but God have chosen the foolish things of the world. Friends, God reverses the order many times that we think about in terms of human relationship and the management and administrative structures of human systems. You see what God is saying about himself? Almost everything we think about the way things really operate in God's universe is the opposite of the truth.
And so you have to have verses one and two, or verses three and four will destroy you. Listen now. Verse three is a scene opens three thousand years ago on a grassy hillside near Bethlehem of Judea at night. There's a shepherd boy named David. He is deeply frustrated. His older brothers are all sleeping comfortably at home with Father Jesse and mother. And here the youngest of them all has a miserable task of tending a flock of sheep hour after hour after hour.
Nothing could be more frustrating, friends, because you couldn't even sleep out there because wolves had come along and bears and... lions and grabbed the animals and later remembered David reported to King Saul, I killed a bear and a lion with my own hands. I mean, risking his life to take care of father's flock. And it was cold and it was lonely and dangerous. But there was one compensation. A shepherd could occasionally lie on his back and look up into the vastness of the universe and see an estimated four thousand stars with an unaided eye on a clear night. And he was overwhelmed by God's creative wisdom and power, wasn't he?
I want you to know he was a biblical creationist. Now, no modern astronomer who values his career and reputation would dare say what David said about the heavens. Listen. When I consider your heavens the work of your fingers, modern astronomers are almost all atheists, friends. There is no God out there anymore for them. The moon and the stars which you have ordained. What is man that you are mindful of him and the Son of man that you visit him? And friends, stop there a moment now.
David believed in Genesis chapters one and two, didn't he? As we will study God willing this week together. He believed every word of it. He knew the Hebrew text. God was creator, yes, powerful, wise, beyond comprehension, correct. But his problem was, Lord, in all of the management and administration of the vast universe that I see, how can you possibly even know or care about poor little me down here, whether I'm alive or dead, or even whether I'm happy or sad, or good or bad? Mom and dad don't really apparently care that much, or my older brothers certainly don't. Do you even care? and he sank into despair.
And friends, if he had reason to be discouraged by contrasting the vastness of God's universe with his apparent insignificance, what do you think of modern astronomers who've discovered a universe so vast that David's mind would have been overwhelmed as yours and I are being overwhelmed? Why, in the A telescope in Mount Wilson, on Mount Wilson in California had a lens, one hundred inches wide, by which it was discovered that there were one hundred billion stars in the universe.
It was so beautifully designed, friends, that as the Earth rotated this way, the telescope would rotate this way and keep a perfect fix hour after hour on those very, very faint lights that were exposed on highly sensitive photographic plates. And they prepared sky atlases. And finally they discovered that there was a light that was pulsating out there in what looked like a gas dust blob that they thought was a cloud. They called it a nebula for that reason. And comparing several months apart, they discovered that it got brighter and dimmer. and went through a cycle and it turned out therefore to be a Cepheid variable star which is a measurement of distance you see because if the star is very bright it will pulsate very slowly but if it is pulsating very slowly and looks very dim it's very far away and thus this gas dust cloud turned out to be a universe of a hundred billion more stars.
They called Andromeda, two million light years beyond our little local galaxy which only has a hundred billion stars. Then they found other galaxies and other ones and they went on forever and ever and ever with a two hundred inch telescope on Mount Palomar and then more and bigger ones since then and one that's now orbiting the Earth called what? Hubble out there. Well, Hubble was told recently to focus just on that little space inside the ladle of the Big Dipper and to see what was beyond. And guess what? Thousands of galaxies came to light that no one knew were out there, and friends, they go on forever and ever.
And that's exactly what God said to Jeremiah. If you ever measure my universe, I will cast off Israel from being my people forever, which means you can't measure the universe. In fact, you can't even imagine getting to the edge of it, because if you did, what would be the other side? To us it's infinite in magnitude. To God it's infinitesimal. Now friends, that's why modern astronomers are very discouraged people. Do you know why? Because the bigger the universe is, the smaller we seem to be. In fact, one astronomer whose name was Carl Sagan wrote a whole book called Pale Blue Dot.
That's what he called planet Earth. In other words, that's all we look like even from an outer planet in the solar system. Therefore, what do we amount to in the vastness of the universe? And the answer he came to is nothing. We're just cosmic specks of dust cast up on the shores of time from nowhere, going nowhere, and meaning nothing. And when students in great universities begin to learn these kinds of atheistic perspectives, they want to go out sometimes, dig a hole in the lawn, crawl in and die. Suicide is very high among university students today, maybe second only to psychologists.
Friends, just think of where we are on the edge of despair. the great Russian cosmonaut who first circled the Earth, came back to the Kremlin and reported to his comrades, I saw no God, no throne, no angels, no saints, nothing. And someone is reported to have asked him afterward. You did not see God? Nyet. No. Oh, you could have. All you had to do is step out of your spacesuit and you would have met him in one minute. Correct. Because it is appointed unto men once to die, and after that the judgment.
But friends, it's too late then. You don't demand of God, I want to see you on my terms, through my telescope. You will never see out there a cosmic bumper sticker saying, God loves you and God is coming to help you. No. It is only through this inspired, precious, unique word that we'll find him. He that cometh to God must believe that he is and that he's a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God, the exclusive channel through which the triune God reveals himself to men today. Not telescopes, scripture.
And that's why we can turn to Psalm eight and say, Thank you, Lord. You've written a third part of this song. And now we know something we could never learn through science, and we're not despising science. We're just saying it is tremendously limited, friends, compared to special revelation in Scripture on what's out there, how it got there, and where it's going, and why we are here, and where we're going. So let's turn to part three. Ready? Psalm eight, verse five. For you have made him, that's man, a little lower than the angels. Literally the word Elohim, God. But angels took on such glory at times that to men they were not sure whether it was God or an angel.
Like John, you remember in the book of Revelation, twice made that mistake. But they had a divine glory and authority about them. But to man was just a little bit lower than angels. You've crowned Him with glory and honor, and you've made Him to have dominion over the works of your hands. You put all things under His feet, all sheep and oxen, even beasts of the field and birds of the air and fish of the sea that pass through the paths of the seas." You see, there's something strange though about that passage. It doesn't describe us anymore. Did you notice that? You know why? All of this glory was lost when man sinned.
What you just read was a description of Adam and Eve before the fall. They had the dominion. They had the glory. They were sinless. They were in harmony with God and angels. And friends, paradise is lost. You say all this is, then it's just sort of a tragic, nostalgic flashback into a paradise that will never again be restored. And now I have good news. Very good news. In spite of what mankind deserves, God has unveiled a new plan for lost people called the gospel.
The good news. It's unexpected, undeserved. It's surprising, astounding, and shocking that God sent His own beloved Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, as His gift, free gift, to die for us, to pay in full the penalty we could never pay, to rise from the dead, to demonstrate to His people that He had won the final victory over Satan and death, and that really was finished when He said, on the cross, it is finished. And now, dear friends, all we need to do is just accept that gift, and instantly and forever that whosoever believeth in Him She'll not perish, go to the lake of fire forever, but have right now, not at death, but have now everlasting life.
Now how does that explain Psalm eight then? Well turn to Hebrews two, which explains Psalm eight in the light of the gospel. Hebrews chapter two. And here I notice an amazing thing in verse four. don't you? That angels that now dominate the world system and the governments of the world, including the government of Israel and America, friends, sad to say, although righteous angels are sent forth to be ministering spirits to those who shall be heirs of salvation, angels are in constant activity today as invisible world rulers.
But you know what's going to happen when the kingdom comes? Look at verse four. Excuse me, verse five. For he has not put the world to come, of which we speak, that's the thousand-year millennial kingdom, in subjection to angels. They'll all be gone. All the wicked ones will be cast out, and the righteous ones will doubtly enter into a richly deserved retirement program. especially my guardian angel. Well, then who's going to rule the world in the coming kingdom? You will, and I will, if we're born-again believers and members of his body.
Even the most unworthy, born-again Christian, and how many worthy ones are there, like those of Corinth, for example, Paul said, no you not, that you will rule the world. In fact, you will judge angels. Jesus said, if you're faithful in a few things, you'll rule over a few cities. If you're faithful in many things, you'll rule over many cities. Yes, we shall be kings and priests with Christ for a thousand years ruling over the world, not replacing those who are on the earth with mortal bodies in sin natures who will survive the tribulation and become the teachers, you see, of the Gentile peoples, but the glorified ones.
who maybe occasionally will appear, like at the inaugural millennial banquet program, and occasionally perhaps at the tabernacle feast, will nevertheless rule over the world under Christ as kings and Melchizedekian-type priests. Yes, that day will come, dear friends, in which we shall fulfill the purpose and the predictions of this marvelous eighth psalm. But notice how the book of Hebrews goes on to tell us more about who these world rulers will be in the kingdom. You ready? Verse six. But one testified in a certain place saying, What is man that you are mindful of him?
Or the son of man that you take care of him. You have made him a little lower than the angels. You have crowned him with glory and honor and set him over the works of your hands. You have put all things in subjection under his feet, period. End of quote. Psalm eight. Now notice. For in that he put all in subjection under him, under man, he left nothing that is not put under him. In other words, take Psalm eight literally. World dominion was designed by God for man. But now, now we do not yet see all things put under him. Surely the understatement of the New Testament, friends. Just look around. You know what you and I are?
the targets and the victims of every hostile force in the universe designed on our early soon destruction. From cosmic radiation to viruses and microbes and germs of almost infinite variety and effectiveness, and wild animals and wild people and crime, murderers, wars, thirty-eight million Americans have now been murdered by their own mothers before they were born. Friends, just think. How many of us even live to be one hundred years old when God designed us to live on His earth forever?
Oh, the awful ravages of sin and depravity under demons and Satan. Yes, not yet, see. Not yet has He put... in subjection all things to man. But we see Jesus, He's the exception. He's the only human being now glorified in the whole universe. There are hundreds of millions of dead saints whose spirits are there, but He's the only one that has a body glorified. Only one. But notice, keep reading, though He was temporarily made a little lower than angels for the suffering of death. He's been crowned with glory and honor that he, by the grace of God, might taste death for everyone, for it was fitting for him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, and bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through suffering.
There's hope, friends. One human being now has fulfilled Psalm eight, just one. And in his name, by his mercy, by his love and grace, A vast army of people who deserve the opposite will be joined with Him in heaven forever. And now we can read Psalm eight with a whole new light, can't we? We can look at that final verse in Psalm eight and say, yes, yes. Oh, Lord, our Lord, how excellent is your name in all the earth? Because now we know, in the light of the New Testament revelation, now we know what verse two means. out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants.
You have ordained strength because of your enemies, that you may silence the enemy and the avenger, because when the second person of the Triune Godhead became a permanent member of the human race by virgin conception and incarnation, he found himself as a babe and a suckling in the arms of a Jewish mother in a little town called Bethlehem. And he was the secret weapon of the living God from whom Satan will never recover. Oh, you mean God has a plan. You mean he will win at the end. You mean there is hope. Thank you, Lord. Thank you.
Now we know more than David ever knew or could have known in the progression of revelation that fills and thrills our hearts. with eternal joy. Do you know him? Is he your Savior? Let's pray. Dear Father now, how excellent indeed is your name in all the earth, and I trust in every one of our hearts at this hour. And if there be anyone who is in the sound of this voice that does not know personally the Lord Jesus Christ and the price he paid, And the distance he had to come from the third heaven to reach us in our awful plight.
May this moment be the moment when darkness gives way to light and spiritual death gives way to eternal life. For I pray in Jesus' great and glorious name and for his sake.