I'll read it first and then it will be our text, but then we will move to our New Testament text, which is found in Hebrews chapter two. So put your finger in Hebrews chapter two, be looking at verses one through 18 of Hebrews chapter two. And here, first of all, Psalm 8, our Old Testament reading. Hear the word of the Lord. To the choir master, according to the Giddeth, the Psalm of David. O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth. You have set your glory above the heavens. Out of the mouth of babes and infants, you have established strength because of your foes to steal the enemy and the avenger. When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon, the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you're mindful of him and the son of man that you care for him? You have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands. You have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beast of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas. O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth. And then from the New Testament in Hebrews chapter 2, I'll be reading the entirety of the chapter of Hebrews chapter 2. Therefore, we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, And every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution. How shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was declared at first by the Lord and it was attested to us by those who heard. While God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit, distributed according to his will. who is not the angels that God subjected the world to come of which we are speaking. It has been testified somewhere. What is man that you are mindful of him and the son of man that you care for him? You made him for a little while lower than the angels. You've crowned him with glory and honor, putting everything in subjection under his feet. Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not see everything in subjection to him, but we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God, he might taste death for everyone. For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist and bringing many sons to glory, shall make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering. For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers, saying, I will tell of your name to my brothers in the midst of the congregation. I will sing your praise. And again, I will put my trust in him. And again, behold, I and the children God has given me. Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. For surely it is not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham. Therefore, he had to be made like his brothers in every respect so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service of God to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted. This is the word of God. You may be seated and let's pray. Father, we thank you for the reading and the hearing of your word. Lord, let it be that means of grace to us that's precious by your illuminating Holy Spirit. Lord, that your word heard would settle in our hearts and bear fruit in our lives. Now, Lord, we come to the preaching of your word. You've called men to the gospel ministry. You have equipped them with gifts. You have set them apart by the laying on of hands of the presbytery in order to proclaim the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. And yet Lord, your servants, every single one of us have feet of clay. We are earthen vessels. And yet you delight to hide a treasure in earthen vessels, especially in the preaching of the Word of God, that your name may be glorified and praised. So Lord, grant the unction and strength of your Holy Spirit to your servant and the proclamation of the gospel for your namesake and for the edification of your people, we pray. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, as I said this morning, when I chose this sermon series in the evenings to walk through the Psalms, just like the pericope I picked for the Sunday morning series when I would be here, I really thought I would have more opportunities than I've had. You remember there was delay on the phone because of sickness. And it seemed like every time I was scheduled to be here, I was unable to come as I battled upper respiratory issues in the early months of the year. But the Lord has given me healing from that. I don't have any residual issues from it, and I'm thankful for that. But it's shortened my time, especially when so quickly we've called a pastor. and he will be here. And so I'm gonna have to wrestle with how I'm gonna tie up the strings of these two series over the next couple of times that I'm here with you. But the last time I was here in the evening, we looked at Psalm 2. After the time before, we looked at Psalm 1. And one of my burdens in preaching this is to, as we come to a psalm, to set it where it is in the flow and the arrangement of the Psalms in the Psalter. Up until a little over 10 years ago, I didn't see this arrangement. It was Dr. O. Palmer Robertson and his watershed book, The Flow of the Psalms, that opened my eyes in significant ways, and I've done the deep dive into the Psalms over the last 10 years, and I'm convinced that Dr. Robertson is right. The whole of the Psalter, inspired by the Holy Spirit, is carefully arranged. And so, I'm not going to have time to really unfold it like I would like here among you, but as we come to Psalm 8, still in Book 1, we remind you that we follow Dr. Morales' breakdown of the five books. And if you don't remember, the Psalter is made up of five books. You can see it in your Bible itself. Book 1, Psalms 1-41, Dr. Morales has said the rising of the Davidic Kingdom. Book 2, Psalms 42-72, the glory of the Davidic Kingdom. Book 3, Psalms 73-89, the collapse of the Davidic Kingdom. Book four, Psalms 90 to 106, the absence of the Davidic kingdom. That corresponds with the Babylonian captivity. And then book five, Psalm 107 to 150, the return of the king. We're still in book one. Psalms 1, Psalm 2, and Psalm 8. And I want to play Psalm 8. I want to try to show how the particular Psalms I've chosen contribute to that progression. But I don't have much of an answer with Psalm 8. And this is something else you're going to see when you do the deep dive in this. If you follow my counsel to do so, and I would encourage you to do so, not every Psalm fits in such a way that you can say, aha, this is why this Psalm is here. And I've really struggled to find why is Psalm 8 where it is. The only thing that I can offer to you is an observation by Dr. Robertson. And that is that in Book 1, Psalms 1-41, there are several acrostic psalms. You know what an acrostic psalm is? That's a psalm where each succeeding verse in the Hebrew begins with the next letter of the Hebrew alphabet. And there are several of them. But this is an observation Dr. Robertson made. In all of those acrostic psalms in book one, save the last one, the psalm that immediately precedes it is Creation Hymn. And that's the case here. Psalm 9 is an acrostic psalm. Psalm 10 is an acrostic psalm, probably originally written as one psalm because the acrostic continues from 9 through 10. And that brings us to the one that precedes it, Psalm 8, our psalm. It is clearly a creation hymn. Now, why is that? Well, my answer is the same as Dr. Robertson. I don't know. I can't figure it out. Maybe you can. Maybe someone can. If you do and you say, well, maybe this is why the creation hymns come before the acrostic psalms in Book 1. If you find the answer, then email me or give me a phone call and let me know. And Dr. Robertson is now retired in Winston-Salem, and he's preached at our OPC mission work there on a number of occasions. I'll get that information to Dr. Robertson too, if you can find the answer to that. I really can't. So why am I preaching Psalm 8? Because I want to. I love the psalm. And the psalm is about Christ ultimately. And I love to preach the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is a glorious creation hymn that points us to Christ Jesus. Now, I want to confess something. When I preached this psalm a couple of years ago at Yorktown, I made a mistake. I was driving to this part of Virginia to preach at Peninsula Reform Presbyterian Church. And I discovered, not while I was driving, but at a stop, that Dr. Sinclair Ferguson had preached a sermon on this psalm. And I thought, well, I'll just listen to Dr. Ferguson's sermon. My sermon all prepared, ready to go, and then I listen to Dr. Ferguson, and I say, why did I do this? If you're not familiar with Dr. Ferguson, in my opinion, he's probably one of the top five preachers on the planet today. It's a great sermon, and I would encourage you to look it up on Sermon Audio, Dr. Ferguson. And I'm not going to copy his sermon. I really thought I could just push a button and then lip sync the sermon. But his Scottish accent and my not having a Scottish accent would give me away. I just don't think that it would work. But there's one illustration that he used that I found really profound, and I'm going to use it up front here. He gave an illustration of a time when he was visiting a friend of his in Scotland who was a pastor. He called his name, I didn't quite recognize the name, can't remember it now because it's been a couple of years ago. But this pastor of, I think, a very sizable church and strong church, was known for the fact that every time he prayed a prayer in public worship, he addressed God in exactly the same way. Used the same address. And everybody knew what it was. Now, he said what it was, but I can't remember exactly what it was. It was our dearest heavenly father or something. But he began at the address the same way every time. Even Dr. Ferguson knew it, and he was just visiting the congregation. But on that particular occasion, he didn't do that. He bowed his head. The people bowed their heads. He said, your majesty. Now think about it, we're talking about the United Kingdom here, where they understand what monarchy is. Of course, this was the time when the queen was still living, and this is the way queens and kings, and there's monarchies, are often addressed with a bow and your majesty. When you're talking about Almighty God, does that not fit? Your majesty. Think about that. I'm not saying next time you pray, say to God, your majesty. I'm not telling you not to either. I'm telling you to think about that. That's how David begins the psalm. It's how David ends the psalm. Look at what he says. Oh Lord, our Lord. Oh, look at it. Capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D. I've probably already told you this. The Hebrew word being translated there is Yahweh, God's covenantal name. by which only God, the one true God is called in Scripture, Yahweh, our Lord, Adonai, capital L, lowercase r, o, lowercase r, lowercase d. Yahweh, my Lord. How majestic is Your name in all the earth. Your majesty. If we came into the worship of God, thinking of God and all of His glorious attributes, thinking of His majesty, how humbled would our hearts be before God? I know in the broader evangelical church, things are oftentimes very much more informal. Well, God loves us just the way we are. I'm not telling people how to dress or anything like that. I'm talking about an attitude and a demeanor. Your majesty. That should impact your demeanor before the presence of God when you come into the assembly. You don't take Him lightly at all. How majestic is your name in all the earth. It's manifest in creation. We see that, of course, in this creation hymn. He continues, you've set your glory above the heavens. I think here he's talking about the heavens that are a part of the visible creation. When God created, I think, on day one, the heavens and the earth, the reference to heavens there is of the invisible heavens, or what's sometimes called the third heaven. The invisible heavens that God created, inhabited with angels, and set his thrones. It's where God decided to dwell in his creation. But it is invisible, as are its inhabitants. God himself and the angels and the church triumphant now that are in his presence. Of course, the Lord Jesus Christ is raised and seated at the right hand of God in those invisible heavens now. But the Bible also references what we would call maybe the second heaven. And that's what we see with our eyes, the stars that are in the sky, the sun and the moon, we typically call that the second heaven. And I think that's what's in view here, because this is what he goes on to expound. God's glory is above these heavens. And I want you to think a minute about the vastness of those heavens. I've been told that with the naked eye, probably if you're at a place where there's no ambient light, you can see even more, but that you can see 4,000 to 5,000 stars with the naked eye. I don't know that's true or not, that's just what I've been told. But then as telescopes began to be invented, and earlier telescopes that didn't have the technology and power of modern day telescopes, they began to see clouds. And then as telescopes were perfected, they could see even further. No, these are not clouds. These are galaxies. And the number of stars are not numbered in billions or trillions, but the number of stars in the universe. are numbered in a number that I don't even know what you call it. That's how vast the visible creation is. I also heard someone, about the time that I heard Dr. Robson, but I don't think it was him, I mean Dr. Ferguson in that sermon, I don't think it was him, who made a comment, and it makes sense to me, that when you think of the vastness of the universe, that the universe had to be this vast, this immense, this big in order for all of the natural forces of gravity and of temperature and of elements. to exist in such a way, in this order that God put in place for there to be a speck of dust that revolves around the speck of dust. The little speck of dust is called the earth. The speck of dust around which it revolves is called the sun. We call it the sun. For temperature, for gravity, for the elements, for everything necessary for life. in the universe at some place and in God's purpose and providence it's here for the history of redemption to be worked out where God saves the people for himself and displays the glory of his grace. You just think of the immensity of the heavens. Isaiah says it this way, with the span of the hand, he meted out the heavens, about that big, boom. If the heavens are immense, how much more immense even is God Himself? Infinitely more. This is the majestic God that we worship, who has entered into covenant relationship with us through His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. It's extraordinary how vast it is. with the span of the hand. And we know that's anthropomorphic language because God is spirit and doesn't have a hand. But that's just the picture. Well, about this big. Boop. To show the immensity of God himself. You see his majesty. There's nothing wrong with looking at the stars and seeing their majesty. Or looking at the mountains. Uh-oh, you don't have any mountains. I live in the mountains on the other end of the state. They're majestic. Of course, I've never visited the Rockies. They say, you don't know what majesty is when it comes to mountains, comparing our mountains in southwest Virginia with the mountains of the Rockies. But those with Mount Everest could say to the Rockies, no, come over here and look at what God did. Look at this mountain. There's nothing wrong with looking at creation and seeing its own majesty. But when the believer looks at creation, the believer looks beyond creation to its maker. Looks higher to your majesty. That's the God who has redeemed you in Christ Jesus. That's the God that we serve. You see why I wanted to preach Psalm 8? I can't help myself. And then we have something extraordinary that happens. It almost seems out of place. We're talking about things that are big and vast and God is bigger still. He turns to talk about babies. But that's what he does. He says, out of the mouths of babies and infants, you have established strength because of your foes to steal the enemy and the avenger. That seems quite confusing when we hear it. First of all, why would he go from the stars in the sky to helpless little babies? Nursing babes. You see, God is not only transcendent above the heavens, He's imminent in creation. even to the smallest of things. But there's more here. He speaks of the strength of these babies, of these nursing babes. They're able to steal our foes and the avenger. They're able to defeat our enemies. We don't think of babies that way, do we? But maybe we should. You'll remember that in the New Testament, Jesus actually quotes that verse. He tweaks it a bit, but he quotes this verse. It's Matthew 21. I'm not going to turn there because I don't have time. But in Matthew 21, remember when Jesus was making his triumphal entry, all of the people were singing his praises. They were taking off their cloaks. They were putting it in his path. They were waving palm branches. We call it Palm Sunday. They're waving their palm branches in the air as Jesus made his triumphal entry into Jerusalem. along the way. Does anybody remember the song they sang? I'll tell you, it's Psalm 118, the end of Psalm 118, which is the last psalm in a group of psalms that are called the Hillel of Egypt. They're the psalms that were and are to this day sung in relation to the Passover service or to the Seder service. They end with Psalm 118. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna! O thou Son of David, save! O thou Son of David. But as they made their way into Jerusalem, and again, I'm going to let you know, we'll just let Tim solve these problems. We'll let him answer these questions for you when he gets here. Who is most accurate? Is it Matthew and Luke or is it Mark? Because there seems to be a discrepancy. There's not. You have to realize they didn't care that much about chronology anyway. The Semitic mind didn't care about that. They have things they want to communicate by telling the truth and by putting forth the things that they select from history to record. But it seems, when you read Mark, that Jesus made his way entered the temple, saw what was there, then went back to Bethany and spent the night, and then came the next day to cleanse the temple. Now, that can be interpreted in such a way that's consistent with what we seem to see in Matthew and Luke, where he seemed to make his triumphal entry, go straightway to the temple, and cleanse the temple. But the point I want to make here is when Jesus cleansed the temple, just imagine if you'd have been there. You start hearing cages crash, tables overturned, Tyrian coining, rolling across the marble floor, slapping up against the wall, Jesus with whip in hand, fire in his eyes, cleansing his father's house that you've made a den of thieves. He incited religious leaders against him in that. Everyone could see the tension that was there once he cleansed the temple. What did Jesus do? He sat down and started to heal people. That's what he did. He sat down and people started to come to him. He laid his hands on them. They were healed. They'd go away healed. Religious leaders could not say anything, but they were seething in anger. Then I want you to remember something. Somebody started to sing to Jesus. It's the children. The children start to sing to Jesus. Perhaps the adults were intimidated by everything, but not the children. No one's going to stop them from singing to Jesus. And of course the religious leaders come to Jesus and say, stop them! Listen to what they're doing! He says, have you not read? Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings, God has perfected praise. Don't overlook the strength of the littlest members of the covenant. This is when it's good to be reformed and Presbyterian. Their prayers are powerful. I'll give you an example of people that you care about. I remember when we were beginning, just in the early stages of the Bible study in Suffolk. And Charles Biggs, some of you remember Charles Biggs who came and did the evangelism conference here with Jeremiah Montgomery. Charles was following me around that weekend. He was trying to figure out what does it mean to be a regional home missionary. He's a regional home missionary in Mid-Atlantic Presbytery, and I am in this presbytery. So he followed me around all weekend. We went to short pump, to initial meeting there, we went to Yorktown, we went to All Saints. I taught a Bible study at All Saints. Charles was there and he was observing. At the end of it, in those early days, there were just kids everywhere. Of course, they've got the kids now. We need more families with kids here at RPC. But the children were sitting in the floor at my feet. I don't know how many of them were there. And at the end of the Bible study, I'll never forget, I said, let's pray. Let's pray for God to establish his church in this place. And I said, I'll start the prayer. And Charles, would you end the prayer? He's sitting on the other side. All these kids in between us on the floor. So I started the prayer. A couple of adults prayed, sort of starting a little bit tentatively. I can't remember which one of the kids began to pray. But one of them prayed. I said, anybody can pray. And then the adults didn't have an opportunity to pray. Because the kids started praying one after the other, on their knees, pleading with God to establish his church in this place. It was profoundly powerful. And when finally Charles was able through tears to close the prayer, I look up and tears are streaming down his face. And Charles is an emotional man, if you know it. So was I. I oftentimes will say to the children, remind mom and dad to pray for this or that. Because mom and dad often forget, kids don't. The Bible tells us that the least in the kingdom in the new covenant is greater than John the Baptist who is the greatest of the old covenant on the precipice of the new covenant. I think that this is what this verse is pointing to. Children pray with faith. We saw it. that day at All Saints. That was, I think, before we called it All Saints. It's not out of place. Power in the Kingdom is not the way the world sees power at all. It's upside down. Not the kingdom of Christ. The kingdoms of the world are upside down. And then we see David continues to reflect, when I look at your heavens and the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have set in place. Look at what he says here, the work of your fingers. The heavens, it's finger painting to God, do you see? It's nothing for Him. The majestic God. But David does what we should often do when we consider the vastness of the heavens and how vast God is. What is man that you're mindful of him? And the Son of Man. And I think here we see really three things that are going on. I think when he says, what is man in the first place? Because he goes on to talk about how God gave to man to Adam dominion over the creatures. He wants us to think about Genesis 1. He wants us to think first about Adam. But then the son of man, that is, the son of Adam, I think in the first place here, David's thinking about himself. He's the son of Adam. He is king over Israel, but he is the son of Adam. Why are you mindful of me? Why are you mindful of man, of mankind? Why are you mindful of me? Do you ever feel that way when you consider the vastness of the heavens and how God is even more immense? Are you mindful of me? The answer comes screaming, yes, I'm mindful. of the babies, of the nursing babies. I'm mindful of you. That's what David longed to know, that God, Almighty God, is mindful of him, and He is mindful of him, and He's mindful of you. That's not hard for him. The heavens are finger-painting It's not hard for Him to know you, to know you by name. To know the number of hairs on your head. Doesn't have to count very far with me. To know you're coming and you're going. To love you. This is the God we worship. But we know the text goes beyond Adam and mankind. It goes beyond David, the son of man. The text is talking about Jesus. And we know that because of what we read in Hebrews chapter 2, the text that we read for our New Testament reading. I want to turn there briefly. I could go on and on with this for a long time, and already have. I can see the clock. But the writer of the Hebrews quotes this text to talk about Jesus. And in the context, what is he teaching us? He's teaching us that Jesus is greater than the angels. That's what he's teaching us. Oh, the angels, these angelic beings. Jesus is greater than the angels. Just like we're going to learn Jesus is greater than Moses. In fact, you can say, Hebrews, is that Jesus is greater than everything, book. That's what he's doing here. And then in verse 5 he says of chapter 2, for it was not to angels that God subjected the world to come, of which we're speaking. He didn't subject the world to angels, no. He subjects the world to someone else. It has been testified somewhere, and we know where, Psalm 8. What is man that you are mindful of him? Or the son of man that you care for him? You made him for a little while lower than the angels. I'm reading the ESV. If you have the New King James Version, it translates this more in line with the Hebrew of Psalm 8. A little lower than the angels. I actually think, typically I like the King James Version a little better, but I think in this case the ESV has the heart of what the text is saying here. The writer of the Hebrews, inspired by the Holy Spirit, is tweaking the text here. It may even be, if I recall, reflected in the Septuagint translation. made him for a little while lower than the angels. This is speaking of his incarnation. When he took to himself a human nature. When he came into this visible creation by taking to himself, the second person that God had, taking to himself a human nature. Remember, there's only one Lord Jesus Christ, only one him, but he has two natures, a divine nature, which is he has been from everlasting, and a human nature that he took to himself through the conception in the Virgin Mary. A human nature, he came for a little while lower than the angels in order to be exalted above. You made Him for a little while lower than the angels. You've crowned Him with glory and honor, putting everything in subjection under His feet, that is, under the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ. And putting everything in subjection to Him, He left nothing outside His control, including the angels, you see, and the ascension. But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, in case you haven't gotten it yet, he's talking about Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God, he might taste death for everyone. He is crowned because he died. He died for sinners. He's obedient to the Father, even to the point of death, death on the cross. We saw that this morning as well. So the writer to the Hebrews takes this text, which is first about Adam, secondly about David, and shows us it's ultimately about the Lord Jesus Christ and his incarnation. This text points us to Jesus. We know that. The Holy Spirit told the writer to the Hebrews that this is about Jesus. What is man that you are mindful of him and the Son of man that you care for him? You've made him a little lower than the heavenly beings. The Hebrew there is actually Elohim. But it's the Septuagint that shows us it's talking there not about gods with a small g. It's actually talking about heavenly beings. It's talking about the angelic host here. and crowned him with glory and honor. You gave him dominion over the work of your hands. You put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, beasts of the field, birds of the heavens, fish of the sea, whatever passes on the paths of the sea. Now we're back to Genesis, where God gave dominion of Adam over the earth and over the creatures that are upon the earth. A little lower than the angels, but God's intent was always to exalt man above the angels. That was the promise held out to Adam had he kept covenant. A communion bond with God, confirmed in righteousness. But Adam broke covenant. All hope is gone. No. God's a God of grace. And God the Son took to himself human flesh, for a little while was lower than the angels, submitted to death, death on the cross. Therefore God exalted him, as we saw this morning, above the angels, with dominion over all things. The text goes on to say in Hebrews, we don't yet see all things in subjection to him. It doesn't mean they're not in subjection to him, they are. He is King of Kings and Lord of Lords now over everything. But foolish, willful people don't acknowledge it and bow the knee to Him. The question is, will you? Do you bow the knee to King Jesus? He gave Himself for you. God's exalted Him. And those who are in Him through faith, He will exalt us as well. Thanks be to God. And then the psalm of course ends as it began. Your Majesty, O Lord, O Yahweh our Lord, our Adonai, how majestic is your name in all the earth. Let's pray. We thank you for your word and for the gospel it teaches and for the Lord.