Psalm 8 in your Bibles. Find our place there together in the pages of God's Word. What a wonderful, wonderful psalm that we have to study tonight. And trust that you are reading right along with me through the psalms and you should know pretty much where we're at from time to time as we finish up the different psalms and we preach through them. And tonight we're in Psalm 8. Psalm 8. Notice in Psalm 8 and verse number 1, the psalmist said, 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 steal the enemy and the avenger. When I consider the heavens the work of Thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which Thou hast ordained, What is man that thou art mindful of him? What is 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. Oh Lord, our Lord, how excellent is Thy name in all the earth. What a wonderful, wonderful statement that is. You know, a lot of people when they read this psalm, they key in at verse number 4 and they ask the question, what is man? As if this psalm is all about man. And it's not. It's a psalm that in reality is all about God. That's what you find. It's really a psalm about God and man's relationship to God. Now, it reminds you, behind every psalm is a story. And while we're not told here the exact occasion and story that's behind this psalm, we do know some things. from the divinely inspired title that it's a psalm of David. We know that David is the human penman. He's the man that was inspired by the Holy Spirit in this psalm of praise. And to add this hymn to the Hebrew book of praises that was sang in worship and adoration to his God in preparation for the temple one day that was in the heart of David to be built. And to the chief musician, the choir director, to sing this anthem of praise to our God and to talk about the excellency of His name. Notice that little word, Gidath. Did you see that? To the chief musician upon Gidath. I wonder what that means, Gidath. Well, it's an interesting word. These are what I would consider obscure terms. They're not terms that we find used over and over and over again in the Bible, usually only a few times, if sometimes only once. We'll see that again next week in Psalm 9. But the word giddeth, some believe it was an eight-stringed guitar-like harp that was associated with gath. there in Philistia, whether that's true or not, I have no idea. But here's what I do know, that this word, giddeth, is associated with a wine press. It was a means by which grapes would be put in a great big vat. They would be trampled by the feet of servants, and the juice would run out through a conduit into a lower vat. It was called a wine press. The grapes were pressed, so to speak. They were mashed with the feet of men or animals. The juice runs out. And whenever that happened, that was a harvest time, and it was a hugely joyous occasion in Israel when they were reaping the harvest in that agricultural society because it was a symbol of the blessing of God upon the people. And so here's what I do know, that this psalm is at a high note. It's a joyful tune and was sung to it. to a joyful tune on joyous occasions, and it was a joyful song. It's a song about God. By the way, when you sing it about God, it ought to be joyful. Wouldn't you agree with that? We don't know when He wrote it. We're not told. It may have been in the early years of David, maybe a shepherd boy. Maybe he was just a young man there, maybe a young teenager, maybe even younger, there guarding his sheep. And he's looking up into the dark hue of the Judean night skies that shone with the brightness of a billion stars. And it's as if they were dancing on parade that night. And as he stared in the vastness of heavens, his mind went to the One who was beyond the heavens. And he got so caught up, not with the stars, maker of the stars, and he said, Oh Lord, our Lord, how excellent is Thy name in all the earth. It could have been at the very beginning of his life, or it could have been in the latter years of his life, maybe toward the end. Maybe he's an old man and he's reflecting about the goodness of God and the victories of God in his life, and he was looking back over the course of where he was and now where God brought him to. Maybe he stepped out on the veranda of his palace and began to look into the skies, And you know, we could say, David, you're a great man, but he said, let me tell you something, I'm caught up with somebody that's greater. What is man that's not mindful of Him? We don't know the occasion, but here's what I do know. Whatever it was, David is looking into the expanse of the universe, and there he senses the greatness of God and the smallness of man, and he gets caught up. with the One whose glory was greater than the heavens that he was staring into. I believe at that moment, David was overwhelmed by God. I wrote that at the title of my psalm in my Bible, Overwhelmed by God. And it begins to burst out in Holy Spirit-inspired praise to the God of the universe. Let me just ask you a question. When was the last time that you were overwhelmed by God? When was the last time that you were so caught up with God that everything else paled in comparison? That you just couldn't help but burst forth in praise to the God of heaven? Psalm 8 is one of the first of what we would call the nature psalms, if you're taking notes, the nature psalms. You're going to find Psalm 19, 29, 65, and 104. Psalms 19, 29, 65, and 104 go with Psalm 8, and they make reference to the created world. It's interesting, in verses 1, 3, 5, 7, and 8, David is talking about creation, the created world around him. And so we call it a nature psalm, but yet I believe, and as I was studying, here's what came to my heart, it is a God-saturated psalm. While it talks about man and it talks about the creation, its subject is God. And David's overwhelmed by God. Let me tell you what he's overwhelmed with tonight. First of all, he's overwhelmed with God's splendor, with the splendor of God. Look at verse number 1 again. He said, O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is Thy name in all the earth! Notice that exclamation point. The Holy Spirit said, in all the earth! Do you see that? who has set Thy glory above the heavens." From the very outset, David is going to bring us into the presence of God. Have you ever noticed that? How often the Psalms, I mean, they just bring us right into the presence of God. Note two different Hebrew names that are going to fall from David's lips as he's saying the splendorous nature of his God. The first one, as we know of, is the name Yahweh or Jehovah. Oh Lord! Do you see that? Oh Lord! It's the personal, proper name for God. It's the most frequently used name for God in the Old Testament. Over 5,300 times you're going to find this divine name of God used. It was a holy name. It was a magnificent name. It spoke much of the gloriousness. It was so glorious and so awesome. that an Old Testament Jew refused to pronounce it lest he take it in vain. He would substitute the second name for God that's found in our text, and we'll notice that in a moment. But let's stick with this name, Lord, as we're talking about the splendor of God. And it speaks of God's underrived self-existence. It was God manifest Himself in this way as the great I am God, there to Moses at the burning bush, and there as Moses would see the bush that was on fire. But yet, the bush was not consumed. It was a self-existent flame. And God spoke to him out of the bush, and He said, slip the shoes from off your feet, Moses, because the ground's your own holy ground. It was there that Moses met the great I Am God of the universe. And here David speaks of the one who is, the one who was, the one who is, the one who will forever be the great Yahweh, the great Jehovah God of the Old Testament. Oh Lord, our Lord. Here's our second name for God. It's the name Adonai. Adonai. It means sovereign Lord or Master. We would say it this way. Oh Yahweh our Master. That's basically what he's saying. My Lord! My Master! My King! I just want to ask you tonight, is He your Master? Is He your Lord? Is He your King? Have you bowed in humble submission before Him in giving your life back to the One who has saved you? And are you living your life in obedience to the God? Listen, Jesus said, you call Me Lord, Lord, yet you do not the things that I say. How terrible it is to call Him Lord and then don't do what He asks us to do. Oh Lord, our Lord, how excellent is Thy name in all the earth. Notice that word excellent. Would you look at that? It means majestic. That's the idea of extremely good or outstanding. It encompasses the majesty and the magnificence of God. It says something to us of His radiant splendor, His glory. David's saying there's nothing and no one like unto our God. That word glory, we've talked about that habit. That's the essence of all that God is. It's what makes God, God. You remember? And it's for His glory, right? Because only God deserves glory. He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. Isn't that what we learned on our first Sunday as we dealt with the new theme here in our church? That it's the essence of all that He is. And notice, if you would, that God didn't just set His glory in the heavens, but they are above the heavens. Did you catch that? Who has set Thy glory above the heavens. Can I tell you, God's glory is greater and more majestic than anything that the universe itself will ever portray. Oh, we look up at the sun, moon, and stars. We look at the vastness of our universe and we catch our breath and we say, oh my, that's from the hand of my God. My God did that. My Savior did that. My Lord did that. Look at what he did, but listen. No, David's looking beyond all of that, and he says, I want you to look at who He is. We get beyond the creation to the Creator. That's what we're doing. The heavens and the earth can only partially express His excellence because the Creator remains far greater than what He creates. Isn't that something? That He's far greater than what He creates. That heaven and heaven of heavens, Solomon said, cannot contain Thee. That God's greater than the universe itself. He begins by being overwhelmed with God's splendor. Oh Lord, our Lord, how excellent, majestic, and marvelous is Thy name in all the earth, who has set Thy glory above the heavens." And then he moves from there to not only is he overwhelmed with God's splendor, but now he moves and he's overwhelmed by God's strength. Look at verse number 2. He said, "...out of the mouth of babes and cyclings hast Thou ordained strength." because of thine enemies, that thou mightest steal the enemy and the avenger." Did you see that? When you and I think of strength, we think of might. We think of a mighty warrior. That's what we think of. We think of someone, maybe a Goliath-like person that's stacked with muscles and strength and might and skill and battle, and we think of the greatness of strength, but no, God doesn't need our strength. Did you notice that? He said, it's out of the mouth of babes and sucklings. Suckling infants hast thou ordained strength. God doesn't need an army. God doesn't need a valiant warrior. God doesn't need a mighty man. God said, listen, all I need is a babe and a suckling. That's all I need to defeat my enemies. Isn't that amazing? Truth is, God doesn't need us. We need God. God doesn't need me. God doesn't need you. We need God tonight. God uses our smallness, not our greatness. We get the idea because somebody's talented, somebody is intelligent, somebody is this or somebody is that. Boy, God can really use them. Oh no, God doesn't have to have talent and intelligence and all of those things. God doesn't have to have that. God said, no, you just give me a suckling. All I need is a babe. I don't need something great. I just need something small. Because see, when we're great, we get in God's way. It's when we're small that God can do something in our lives. You know what that tells me? Victory doesn't depend on me. Victory in your life doesn't depend on you. Could it be that David is an aged king? Could it be that David is reflecting back to the day that he went and he fought against Goliath? Could it be that? That he was going and and maybe thinking about a great victory, great armies, or whatever it might have been. I think back maybe when he was facing Goliath as a young man, and you remember Goliath, he was 9 foot 9 inches tall, decked out in an armor of brass, a mammoth formidable figure down in that valley, a man of war from his youth. and he's there in the valley of Elah and the armies of Saul are on one side and the Philistine armies are on the other side and every day for forty days that Philistine would step up and defy the armies of the living God and ask for a man to come down and fight with him and he would curse them and he would mock their God and it went on for day after day after day. The Bible said David heard that. And there that shepherd, young man, probably in his mid-teens, the Holy Spirit struck something in his heart and he said, wait a minute, who does this guy think he is talking about my God like that? What in the world is going on? Why don't somebody go down in that valley and fight with that man? Why don't somebody go down there and show them who's God? Who's in charge? Of course, we know nobody would. You remember David, he said, I'll go and fight with the Philistine. And the Bible said in 1 Samuel 17 that David went to face the Philistine and said, Thou comest to me with a sword and with a spear and with a shield. I come to thee in the name. Listen, friends, we don't have to have shorts and shields and spears. Hey, we have a name that you and I can march in and march to and depend on. Isn't that amazing? I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom thou hast defied. He said, this day the Lord will deliver thee into mine hand, and I will smite thee and take thine head from thee. Can you imagine this? I don't know. What if David was 5'8"? What if he was 5'10"? What if he was 6'0"? What's that to 9'9"? Think about Goliath. He stands in a regulation basketball goal and his head's in the net. Imagine playing ball against somebody like that. Flat-footed, he can put his hand on the backboard. I mean, think about it for a moment. His spear's like a weaver's beam. He's got a man in front of him with a great shield. Sword. David doesn't have a sword. He's got a sling and some rocks. And he walks down in that valley, and he said this day, he said, I'm going to take thine head from thee, and I'll give the carcasses of the host. I'm not only going to take you out, buddy, I'm going to take out the whole army. This day unto the fowls of the air, to the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth might know that there's a David. Is that what he said? No, he said that there's a God. Mouth of Baban suckling. And all this assembly shall know that the Lord saveth not with sword and spear, for the battle is the Lord's, and He will give you into our hands." What a statement of faith. What a statement of courage. What a statement of dependence upon God. The mouth of babes and sucklings. Can I just tell you, friend, listen, you don't have to be great for God to use you. And you don't have to be mighty for God to use you. And you don't have to have high intelligence for God to use you. You don't have to be highly gifted. Listen, friend, if we just make ourselves available, God takes ordinary people and does extraordinary things like He did in the life of David. And you say, preacher, we're living in a world, and what can I do to change America? What can I do to make a difference? Friend, can I tell you, listen, you and I can't do anything, but when we make ourselves available to God, God through us can do anything that God desires and wants to do. One person with God is a majority because God is the majority. You say, preacher, can God change America? Absolutely. Will God change America? I have no idea. I don't know that America wants to be changed. But if America ever wants to be changed, then there's a God in heaven that can change America. Hey, we're going to have a liquor by the drink vote coming up in November. We are. It's coming right here to King. What are we going to do about it? Are we going to sit back? Are we going to say, oh, we've already lost? Are we going to sit back and say, well, everybody drinks? Or are we going to take a stand as a church and let God out of the mouths of some babes and sucklings take a stand for what's right in our day and try to save our city from a greater scourge of alcohol? You say, well, it might bring something good in. You tell me what good alcohol has ever brought in anybody's life. All it does is brings greater carnage, brokenness, devastation into people's lives. I just determined that I'm going to stand. I'm going to let God use me hopefully and prayerfully to make a difference in our community. Are you going to let God use you to make a difference in your community? Are you going to stand or are you going to wilt? Well, we've got some questions to answer, don't we? By the way, it's amazing, and I wasn't planning on getting here, but it's in my mind, so we're just going to go ahead and let it all out while we're at it. We're living in a day when the average church and the average Christian no longer sees a problem with it. Everybody's doing it. Well, I tell you what, I know somebody that ain't. I know a few that I'm sure ain't. I can just promise you that you say, well preacher, I don't have a problem with a little bit of moderation and social drinking and this, that and the other. You're going to be real uncomfortable under my preaching. I can promise you that. Because I'm not going to let anybody get comfortable there. Because it's the only sin. It's the only sin. If there's a such thing as drinking in moderation, it's the only sin you can do in moderation. Because you can't commit adultery in moderation. You can't murder in moderation. You can't lie in moderation. You can't be bitter in moderation. Can I remind us tonight, it's not the wise. And by the way, you say, well preacher, what if the other pastors in the area don't stand? I'm not worried about what they do. I'm not interested in what they're going to do. I'm interested in what we're going to do. I can't control what the pastor down the street or across the road or whatever else does. I can't control that. But what I can do is I can control me. and where I'm going to stand. And we're going to do it with the right attitude, but we're going to stand. I'm going to meet with our deacons about that here in just a couple weeks, a couple Thursday nights. It's going to be our first time just sitting here talking about what we're going to do as a church and how we're going to lead this thing and how we're going to reach out to pastors in our area. You say, preacher, why in the world did you get from Psalm 8 to that? I have no idea, but it sure has been fun. Because I believe we're coming back to that you say, well, what if the majority is for it? Well, I know a minority that's going to stay against it. And I'm going to keep preaching against it. Because it's not the wise and the mighty and the noble that God uses. He's chosen the foolish and the weak and the base and the things that are despised. His strength is made perfect in our weakness. Paul said, Our God is more than sufficient to empower the weakest of saints. Can I tell you this? Don't you listen to me, Christian. In Him, you're more than a match for whatever the world, the flesh, and the devil throws at you. You don't have to be overtaken by sin. You don't have to be defeated by your flesh. You don't have to be overcome by the devil. In Christ, we have the victory tonight. Listen, our God, not only is a God of excellence and a God of majesty and a God of marvelousness, but in verse number 2, He's a God of might. The Bible said that He can steal the enemy and the avenger. That He's a God of victory. Now, He's more than a match for anything that ever comes against us. Do you know that verse number 2 is messianic in its scope? You say, Bridget, what do you mean by that? Well, it's actually a messianic prophecy. You're going to find that the Lord Jesus is going to quote these very words in Matthew chapter number 21. You remember He's making His way in Matthew 21, the triumphal entry. He goes into the temple, and He cleanses the temple, and there's some children there that they're saying, Hosanna in the highest to David! Blessed is the King that cometh in the name of the Lord! And Hosanna! Hosanna! Praise! Praise! And the Pharisees, they're all upset and they're mad. And they said to Jesus, Why don't you make them hush? And He said, Have you ever read in the Bible, Thou of mouths of babes and sucklings, Thou, Lord, ain't strength? God, if you're not going to praise me, I know some children over here that will. Don't let it be our children that has to stand for what's right. Let you and I determine to stand for what's right. But if we won't, then one day God will use a suckling or a child to do that, what we won't do. He said, if these will hush, the very rocks will cry out. I remember that's when God called me to preach one night. I remember it was in a revival meeting, and God had been dealing with my heart for some time about preaching. And I remember it was my granddaddy's church, and I was a senior in high school, and I'd been determining what the Lord wanted me to do. Just, you know, Lord, make it real in my life." And that night he preached on the triumphal entry. And he said this, he said, there's some of you in here, there's somebody in here, he said, if you don't do what God tells you to do, the rock's going to take your place. But that's all I needed. I said, I don't want a rock taking my place. It may sound a little bit funny. I went right down there, I said, listen, God's called me to preach. That was over 37 years ago. out of the mouths of babes. Let me give you one more and I'm going to quit. We're only going to get just a little bit of it. Not only is he praising and overwhelmed with God's splendor and overwhelmed with God's strength, but he's overwhelmed with God's sovereignty. Look at verse number 3. When I consider thy heavens the work of thy fingers, The moon and the stars which thou hast ordained." God owns the heavens and the moon and the stars. Say, preacher, why? He made them. They belong to Him. Thou hast ordained God. And notice, did you notice something? That creation, the heavens, were the work of His finger. Just the finger of God stretched forth the universe. Just His finger. But isn't it amazing that it took all of Him to die for us? Isn't that something? A finger could create the universe. It took all of Him to redeem us from sin. Wow. David's looking up into the night skies. Vastness of all of it. And he said, Lord, when I look at that and I consider it just the work of Your finger, his breath catches. I can sense it. He's standing in awe of the sovereign Creator God of the universe. He's overwhelmed. God, you're so great. God, you're so magnificent. God, you're so marvelous. God, you're so majestic. And God, I'm so small. Look what he says, verse 4. What is man that thou art mindful of him? You know that word man is a real interesting word. You ought to write this down in your notes. That word, what is man, is not an ordinary word for man. It's the word for man that speaks of man's mortalness, his weakness, his frailty. Who we really are. It's amazing that he's going to talk a little bit about how God's given us some dominion over the work of His hands. Sheep and oxen and beasts of the field. That word, beasts of the field, that would be your lions and tigers, your non-domesticating animals. Sheep and oxen would be your domesticated. Then verse 8, the beast of the field be the wild animals. Verse 8, the fowl, the birds of the air, the fish of the sea. You ever notice how that man can take... I mean, they can tame lions, make porpoises and killer whales, you know, do tricks. That's why people pay good money to go down to Sea World and watch stuff like that. Isn't that true? And they can make elephants do stuff, and they can train dogs, and they can train cats, and train all kinds of stuff. There's some dominion there. Wives can train husbands. I know that. I'm almost trained. I'm getting there. Ain't it amazing how you got to be married? You know, it takes her over 30 years. You know, I thought about how stubborn I am, I must be. But anyway, we can tame things. But you know what? You're going to find that not everything's put under him. We're going to show that. Do you know that we lost that dominion? We did. We lost it because of Adam's sin. There's still things we can't control. We can't control tornadoes and hurricanes, disasters, storms. We can't control all that. Can't change it. Can we? You know what God's saying? God's saying, you don't have dominion over it all. What are you? Just a little, weak, finite man. What am I compared to the rest of the universe? Can I tell you what you and I are? We're an insignificant speck. But yet the same God that made the heavens, the moon, and stars, the same God that made you, and the same God that made me." Verse 5 is going to tell us we're a little lower than the angels. You know, it's amazing that man's not a little higher than the animals, like Charles Darwin would claim. We're a little lower than the angels. We were the crowning act of God's creation. But unlike the angels, because we're talking about man and creation right here, Man was creating the image of God. Nowhere do you read that angels were creating the image of God. We were made to fellowship with God and given dominion over the created earth, the created world. Did you know that? What is man? God didn't just create you, but I want you to know tonight He's interested in you. Because it goes on to say that they aren't mindful of Him. Do you know you're on God's mind all the time? All the time. He said, I've written your name with the palm of my hands. Isn't that interesting? God's always thinking about you. Oh, the sum of his thoughts for us. What am I? Can I leave us with this thought tonight, right here, as we're going to close? We'll come back and get the rest of it, because we've got a lot to unpack out of this verse and some New Testament passages that go with it. But if I could go away with something tonight, if I could, I would want to go away with this thought right here, that God, You're great and vast and majestic and sovereign and splendorous and mighty. And I'm just a speck out of seven and a half billion people on a little tiny planet in the galaxies of a universe. And you're thinking about me. And you're interested in me. And you care about what's going on in my life. And you care about the decisions I make. And you care about where I go in life. God, you care about me. Listen, if nothing else ought to move you tonight, that should. What a mighty, mighty, mighty God that we have. And David was overwhelmed that that God would be interested in him. And you and I tonight ought to be overwhelmed that God is interested in us and the very smallest matters of our lives. Isn't that an amazing thing tonight? Oh Lord, our Lord, how majestic, how excellent is Thy name in all the earth. Boy, isn't he amazing tonight? Let's just ask God. Maybe you need to make this your prayer. God, overwhelm me with Yourself. Overwhelm me with Yourself this week. God, I want to get caught up with who You are and lose sight of who I am. That's an amazing way to be. Let's bow our heads in prayer.