Scripture Reading: Psa. 8; Heb. 2:5-9; 13:15; Psa. 22:3; 119:164; Acts 16:25
Ⅰ
Psalm 8 speaks of the heavens, the earth, babes and sucklings, man, three categories of enemies, and the Lord's incarnation, human living, death, resurrection, and ascension, the Body of Christ, His coming back, and His kingdom—cf. Matt. 6:9-10; Gen. 28:12-17; John 1:51.
Ⅱ
Psalm 8:2-5 shows us how the babes and sucklings are produced:
A
In order to produce babes and sucklings, God has visited man—v. 4:
１
God visited man by becoming incarnated, by putting on humanity and becoming a man to be a little lower than the angels—v. 5a.
２
God visited man also by living on earth, dying, rising up from the dead, and ascending to the heavens to be crowned with glory and honor—v. 5b.
３
God visited man through the long journey of His process to become the life-giving Spirit to reach us and to enter into us—John 1:14; 1 Cor. 15:45b; 6:17; cf. 1 Pet. 2:12; Luke 1:68, 78.
４
The incarnated One has become the life-giving Spirit, and it is this One who produces babes and sucklings.
B
We become babes and sucklings in the initial stage through regeneration:
１
We are remade, re-created, through regeneration—cf. Matt. 18:3; 19:14.
２
Regeneration reduces our natural activity.
３
The proper, genuine salvation stops our human doing and makes us babes and sucklings to praise the Lord.
C
The process of producing babes and sucklings continues with sanctification, renewing, and transformation—Heb. 2:11; Rom. 12:2; 2 Cor. 3:18.
Ⅲ
The Lord has perfected praise, or established strength, out of the mouths of babes and sucklings for the purpose of stopping His adversaries, the enemy, and the avenger—Psa. 8:2:
A
God overcomes His enemy through babes and sucklings, the youngest, smallest, and weakest among men; this is the Lord's recovery and victory— cf. 1 Cor. 1:26-31.
B
All things will be ruled over by Christ with His Body, and all things will be subjected under His feet—Psa. 8:6-8.
C
The perfected praise of the babes and sucklings is the ultimate consummation of the Lord's work of incarnation, human living, death, resurrection, ascension, and coming back to rule on earth:
１
We may praise the Lord, but our praise needs to be perfected; through transformation we are perfected in praising the Lord.
２
The perfected praise is the praise for the Lord's incarnation, human living, death, resurrection, ascension, and kingdom.
３
In order to praise the Lord, we need to see Jesus, turning our view from the messy earth to the bright heaven—Heb. 2:9; 12:1-2.
４
The perfected praise is the strength out of the mouths of babes and sucklings, the praise that defeats the adversaries, the enemy, and the avenger—2 Chron. 20:22; cf. vv. 12, 20-21.
D
"Through Him then let us offer up a sacrifice of praise continually to God, that is, the fruit of lips confessing His name"—Heb. 13:15:
１
We must give our praises through Him; in other words, our praise must be composed through Him, composed with Him, and must be constituted with our experience and enjoyment of Him—v. 15; Psa. 50:23:
ａ
We must pass through Christ, experience Christ, partake of Christ, and enjoy Christ to have the adequate praise of Christ—45:1-2.
ｂ
When we praise the Lord, this is the highest experience of our enjoyment of Christ—22:3; cf. 1 Thes. 5:16-19; Eph. 4:30.
２
The principle of offering up a sacrifice is based upon loss; God wants us to praise Him in the midst of our loss:
ａ
If we have not learned to praise God every day, it is hard to have the kind of sacrifice of praise spoken of in Hebrews 13—Acts 16:25; Psa. 119:164.
ｂ
We should praise Him simply because He is worthy of praise—18:3; Rev. 4:11; 5:4, 9, 12.
ｃ
God desires His children to praise Him in everything and through every situation—Psa. 146:2; 48:1-2.
ｄ
The Lord is good and is never wrong, even though we cannot always understand what He is doing—25:8; 100:5:
⑴
God's heart toward us is always good; under His sovereignty even our mistakes work for good—cf. Gen. 50:20; Psa. 51:15.
⑵
The good is our gaining more of Christ, having more of Him wrought into our being, that we may be transformed and conformed to His image—Rom. 8:28-29.
E
Christ meets with His brothers in the church to praise the Father with and in the brothers in the midst of the church—Heb. 2:12; cf. Psa. 48:1-2:
１
The intrinsic nature of praise is to magnify, manifest, and express God— cf. Phil. 1:20.
２
Whatever we speak, pray, sing, and do with the resurrected Christ as the content is a praise to the Father because it magnifies, manifests, and expresses Him.