Psalms 9:10.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. David begins with the exclamation, “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Your name in all the earth, who have displayed Your sple… How should a believer in such a job view it? Consider the exaltation of the humanity in the Divine purpose. 287. Jesus replied by quoting this verse (21:16), “Yes, have you never read, ‘Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies You have prepared praise for Yourself’?” James Boice explains (Psalms, Volume 1 [Baker], p. 68). IV. P. Chown, Contemporary Pulpit, vol. But there is another consideration which helps to impress the thought of our insignificance. We see the essential difference between physical sovereignty and moral control. A. Years ago, there was a famous explorer named William Beebe. There is a certain intellectual and moral vulgarity in attaching such importance to mere material magnitude. Is our house greater than God's heavens, that He cannot be trusted with it? References: Psalms 8:4.—Homiletic Magazine, vol. Psalms 10:4.—Preacher's Monthly, vol. But the Son of man, in whom the original pattern is more fully realized, reflects this same glory far more perfectly.”. In this case, the author is David, and he’s reflecting on nature. 9:20; 90:3; 103:15). To try to comment on verse 1 is kind of like commenting on the splendor of the Grand Canyon. Thus. When the Psalmist looked up to the heavens, he was at first overwhelmed with a sense of his own littleness; but, on second thoughts, David bethought himself that this was an entire misconception of the matter, and that man could not be inferior to the heavens, for God had, in point of fact, made him only a little lower than the angels—"than the Elohim," is the word in the Hebrew. On Palm Sunday, as Jesus rode the donkey into Jerusalem and then healed the blind and lame in the temple, little children saw these things and cried out, “Hosanna to the Son of David” (Matt. What would he have thought if he knew what we know! That wonderful name was revealed to Moses at the burning bush. There are some aspects of nature which sometimes make it difficult to believe that there can be any real communion between the Creator and ourselves. Psalms 9:1.—Spurgeon, Morning by Morning, p. 304. Look, first, at the text in the light of Old Testament Scripture. 2273; Expositor, 3rd series, vol. He also interpreted their praise as praise not of a mere man, which a mere “son of David” would be, but of God, since the psalm says that God has ordained praise for himself from children’s lips. J. R. Macduff, Communion Memories, p. 51. It would save us from misery sometimes if we could only regard our afflictions as having this disciplining and corrective end. The psalm goes on to tell what happened to the people of Israel when they stopped listening to God. Some think it refers to Gath, and may refer to a tune commonly sung there, or an instrument of music there invented, or a song of Obededom the Gittite, in whose house the ark rested, or, better still, a song sung over Goliath of Gath. It is in glorified human nature that Christ there lives and loves. The first word translated “Lord” is the Hebrew word, Yahweh, God’s personal covenant name. God is revealed to man as He is revealed to no other of His visible creatures, not as God merely, but as our God, the personal God of His personal creatures. What right have I to separate myself from the creatures to which I am so closely related? You just need to get out of the way and let people see it! Your eyes have about 100 million receptor cells in each retina, which also contains four other layers of nerve cells. “That’s right! (1) God has laid bare to man the splendid vision by prophecy. It pumps about 3,000 gallons of blood per day. How Excellent is Thy Name: An Exposition of the 8th Psalm The Book of Psalms served as a hymnbook to the Hebrew people. Each verse begins with a different letter of the Hebrew alphabet. II. And yet, strange to say, our very doubts and misgivings may themselves serve to reassure us; for is not the capacity to reflect upon our position and to speculate about our destiny a witness to our greatness? Register! If man is a being so precious, so unique in his origin and destiny, if God has bestowed such manner of love upon him as Christ bids us believe, then what an appeal is made to him to live up to his unspeakable dignity! We could paraphrase David’s address, “O eternal covenant God, our personal Sovereign!” Although God is eternal and totally separate from His creation, He has graciously condescended to enter into a covenant relationship with His people as their Sovereign Lord. Psalms 8:5.—H. In the light of the Bible man can tell whence he cometh and whither he goeth. 11-12, in The Summit Journal, April, 2007.) Thus it may refer to a psalm for the grape harvest (such as the Feast of Tabernacles); to the ark’s journey from the house of Obed-edom the Gittite to Jerusalem (2 Sam. When we take this view, we see that man has been placed in this world in the midst of concentric circles of Divine attributes, which become charged with deeper interest as they press in closer towards him. The moral significance of this is plain. 1, 387; H. P. Liddon, Old Testament Outlines, p. 101. "Made a little lower than the angels, crowned with glory and honour. Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation, Steve served as the pastor of Flagstaff Christian Fellowship from May, 1992 through his retirement in December, 2018. Beyond this, there is the fact that little children often praise God. "Thou hast put all things under His feet." How bright this glory shines even in this lower world! The sheer vastness of outer space and the coordination of it all is astounding. Can man take in the vision? Sir Isaac Newton had an exact replica of our solar system made in miniature. That drown out enemy talk, and silence atheist babble. And yet, all of these accomplishments are tainted by sin. John Piper has said, “You cannot worship and glorify the majesty of God while treating his supreme creation with contempt.” (http://www.desiringod.org/ResourceLibrary/Sermons/ ByScripture/1/860_What_Is_Man/) Christians must oppose all racism. III. It is possible, after all, that God may be mindful of me, and that God may visit me. The placenta has stored the nutrients the baby needs for this exact moment. 8 O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! If He has lavished so much pains and skill upon a universe of death, what may we not anticipate for one of life? But if it waited too long, it would suffer brain damage. Jupiter 1,300 times as large. "Now we see not yet all things put under him; but we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour," etc. II. Psalm 8. With a few more breakthroughs, we can cure all our diseases and live forever! Questions to Begin. What is man in presence of the overwhelming display of creative power? v., p. 169; G. Bainton, Christian World Pulpit, vol. The Peculiar Mark of Majesty, Part 2 Easter Sunday. Man's apparent activities are limited to the domains of time and sense. 1:18). A. In other words, God’s name refers to who He is and what He has done, as revealed in His Word. Psalm 8[ a] For the director of music. Where is the biblical balance? According to gittith. But if we must not indulge this feeling, the tendency of which is to quash every aspiring thought and to reduce us from the rank we hold to the level of the brutes, our alternative is another which, without checking any noble emotion, at once imposes a restraint upon presumption, and leads us to estimate more rightly than otherwise we should the consequences of our present course. Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou established strength, Because of thine adversaries, That thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger." As the Puritans emphasized, every legitimate occupation is a God-given vocation. Here, again, it is humanity exalted on the throne of final reckoning—the Man Christ Jesus. The whole scheme of Holy Scripture from the beginning to the end is one continuous record of God's love and care for man in creation, government, redemption; and as such it is a revelation, not for this or that age alone, but for every generation of mankind, as our best and truest safeguard against an error into which human thought in every age is very prone to fall. (1) The mind of man receives a further dignity when we turn from its power over the material to its capacity in the moral world. All of these balls and cogs and belts and gears just happened to come together and wonder of wonders, by chance they began revolving in their set orbits and with perfect timing!” His unbelieving friend got the message! Scripture: Psalm 8. There is far more going on that we don’t understand. Psalms 9:16.—Congregationalist, vol. They knew it as majestic (Psalm 8:1), as their protection (Psalm 20:1), as their source of help (Psalm 124: 8), as their refuge (Proverbs 18:10), as their pride (Psalm 20:7), and as worthy of praise (Psalm 113:3). Words really can’t do it justice. 344; Preacher's Monthly, vol. It is able to conceive and to reason from those distinctions of truth and falsehood, right and wrong, good and evil, which underlie and govern the spiritual world, as the laws of mathematics do the material. What then is that connection? Sorrowful and confused as his earthly life is and has been all these thousands of years, still in the light that shines from Scripture it shows like a stormy day that had a splendid rise and that shall yet have a glorious sunset. 3608. The forefront of the Israelite tithe and slaves the Tower of Babel, proud modern man uses His breakthroughs! 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