Scripture References: Psalm 8
I. God’s Praise
These verses open and close the same: “O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is Your name in all the earth!” I’ve heard and read many who call this an “envelope psalm.” It starts and finishes the same way, and the truth is wrapped up in between. Come to the end, and you reach the start. The psalm goes on in an eternal cycle of emphasis on the glorious excellence of God’s name. Here is the praise of the Lord God. It is almost as if the psalmist were unable to express God’s glory, and all he could do was add an exclamation point. Sometimes it appears that the name of God is not acknowledged in all the earth, but His name is indeed acknowledged as excellent in the hearts of all of those who have known Him.
There are millions of Muslims who claim Allah as their god. There are millions of Buddhists who bow before altars and shrines to Buddha. There are millions of Hindus who grovel before myriads of idols. There are still millions of communists and atheists who claim there is no God, yet they worship their ideologies as gods, and yet there are countless millions of others who testify with their words that God does exist but who live as if He does not. In spite of how people ignore the reality of God, the truth is that the name of God is majestic and excellent in all of the earth.
All across the world, millions claim the name of Jehovah God of the Old Testament. Emmanuel (“God with us”) is the name He was given in the New Testament (Matthew 1:23). Jesus (“Jehovah is salvation”) is Immanuel, and the whole creation is full of His glory. There is no place where God is not. He is omnipresent. Everywhere He is seen. Many people argue, “I don’t see him and I’m not alone, many others don’t see Him either.” Let it be understood: you can never, with rational processes, understand God, but when you come to Him with faith, He is perfectly understandable, but only through faith in Christ. You can never, with reasoning, ascertain the veracity of the Word of God, but when you approach it with faith, it reveals itself to be absolutely truth. You see only what you want to see.
If you choose to receive Christ in faith, that is your choice. If you choose to doubt, that is also your choice. A major problem is that many people who attend church say, “Prove Yourself to me, God.” In doubt, they demand that God prove Himself to them. That is exactly like the Pharisees of Jesus’ time; “show us a miracle from heaven and we will believe.” If that is your selfish desire, God will never do it. Remember Jesus’ account of the rich man and Lazarus (see Luke 16:19–31). They both died, and the rich man went to hell. In torment he lifted up his eyes, and he saw Lazarus in Abraham’s bosom, and he cried, “Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.” That was not possible because of the “great gulf,” the wide chasm, between them, and so the rich man had another idea.
“I beg you therefore, father, that you would send him [Lazarus] to my father’s house, for I have five brothers, that he may testify to them, lest they also come to this place of torment.” Remember Abraham’s solemn reply, “They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them. . . . If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rise from the dead.”
To Be Continued
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD 