October 10, 2001

Reading: Psalm 8 ff

 

“O LORD, our Lord, how excellent is Your name in all the earth” (1)

 

Have you ever thought about the difference between God and man? The more we think about God and learn about Him in His Word, the greater we discover Him to be. At the same time we begin to realize how small and puny we are. David begins and ends this Psalm with an acknowledgment of the excellency of our LORD and, sandwiched between he stands in wonder at the comparison between God and man.

He says of the Lord:

1.      That He has set His glory above the heavens (1)

2.      That He silences His enemies by His strength (2)

3.      That the moon and the stars are the work of His fingers (3)

4.      That He made man a little lower than the angels (5).

 

He says of man:

1.      That we are weak and helpless like babies (2),

2.      He is lower than the angels in the realm of creation (5).

 

David looks at man and sees:

1.      His weakness – like nursing babies (2)

2.      But made strong by God to defeat his enemies (2)

3.      Created lower than the angels, but crowned with glory and honor (5)

4. And given dominion over all animals, birds and fish (6-8).

Isaiah makes a similar comparison: “It is He who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers, Who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in” (Is: 40:22).

What a contrast! There is no comparison. When we begin to get ‘full of ourselves’, and think that we are really something, remember the God who made us. Remember that He made us out of the dust of the earth.

I remember when I was in Bible College on the south coast of England, standing one night and looking into the cloudless sky. It was ablaze with stars, thousands of them. I remembered reading that the light from the closest star takes thousands of years to reach earth. I tried to think about the galaxies beyond that of our own, of a universe without end, for if it came to an end, what lay beyond it?

Can you conceive endlessness? Can you imagine eternity? Many times since that day I have looked into the heavens and stood amazed at the glory of God in creation, and every time I am conscious of how inconspicuous I am compared to creation.

We are forced into asking the same question as David, “What is man that you are mindful of him? And the son of man that you visit him?” (4).

God, the Creator of all things, visited this earth in the Person of His Son, Jesus Christ. He lived and walked among us ‘grasshoppers’ as one of us. He allowed Himself to be put to death by those He created so man could be redeemed of his sin and God could dwell permanently in His people in the Person of the Holy Spirit.

“O Lord our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!”