In this sermon, Pastor Chuck Smith emphasizes the vastness and beauty of God's creation. He describes the awe-inspiring sight of the sun setting into the Pacific Ocean and the experience of holding and watching sand fall to form reverse cones. Pastor Chuck then draws a parallel between the number of grains of sand and the countless thoughts God has for each individual. He also highlights the convenience and affordability of a reusable flash drive containing his Bible commentaries, which can be easily transferred to various devices for studying God's Word on the go. The sermon concludes with a blessing for the listeners to experience the power of God's spirit and grow in their knowledge of His grace through Jesus Christ.

Oh, let the Son of God enfold you With His Spirit and His love Let Him fill your heart and satisfy your soul Oh, let Him have the things that mold you And His Spirit, like a dove Will descend upon your life and make you whole Welcome to The Word for Today, the broadcast ministry of Pastor Chuck Smith of Calvary Chapel, Costa Mesa, California. Pastor Chuck is currently leading us on a verse-by-verse venture through the entire Bible and on today's edition of The Word for Today. We'll be continuing our look at God's plan for the wicked as we turn in our Bibles to the 7th Psalm, beginning with verse 10. And now with today's message, here's Pastor Chuck Smith. My defense, he said, is of God, which saves the upright in heart. So I am trusting in God. He is my defense. It is a glorious thing to have God as your defense. And the Lord will defend His people. And I have learned that if I commit my ways unto the Lord, if I will commit the situation to the Lord, the Lord will defend me. If I seek to defend myself, He'll let me. And I'll tell you, I have a weak defense when that happens. But the Lord will defend you. No weapon formed against you will prosper. This is the heritage of the children of the Lord, and it's so glorious to have the Lord as our defense. God judges the righteous, and God is angry with the wicked every day. And if the wicked will not turn from His wickedness, then He declares that God will sharpen His sword. God is against the wicked. He will sharpen His sword. He has bent His bow. That is, the arrow is drawn back. It is notched. He's ready to let it fly. He has made it ready. And He has also prepared for him the instruments of death. The Bible said, it is appointed unto man once to die. God is the one who has established that appointment and the very cause of death, the instrument of death. God has ordained for the wicked. He has bent His bow. He's made it ready. He ordaineth His arrows against the persecutors. Behold, He travaileth with iniquity. That is, the wicked. He has conceived mischief, and He has brought forth falsehood. You have the figure there of a woman who is giving birth to a child. The wicked give birth to iniquity. They are conceived in mischief, and they bring forth the fruit is falsehood. The wicked has made a pit. He dug it, and He has fallen into the ditch which He made. Now, as we move on into the 10th Psalm, David prays that they might fall into the pit which they have dug. It is so interesting that in life, God so often allows the wicked to be caught in their own snares. The very thing that they sought to trap or ensnare the child of God, they get caught up in it themselves. They set the trap, and they step in it. I think of the case of Mordecai, the cousin of Esther, and this fellow Haman, who had such hatred towards him and had built this gallows some 90 feet high to swing him on. And, of course, the edict finally came down that Haman was hung on his own gallows. He fell into the pit that he had dug for others. And so often is the case of the wicked. His mischief shall return upon his own head. His violent dealing shall come upon his own pate. That is the top of his head. I will praise the Lord. And so, he first of all begins this psalm, notice, asking God to justify him. He's putting his trust in the Lord. He talks about those that are persecuting him falsely, the false accusations that are being made. And so he asks the Lord to judge in righteousness on this. He speaks, then, of the judgment of God that will bring upon the wicked. And now, having seen it all, he said, I will praise the Lord according to His righteousness. And I will sing praise to the name of the Lord Most High, Yahweh Most High. Now, notice this psalm began with, Yahweh, my Elohim, my God. Psalm 8 begins with, O Yahweh, our Adonai. Now, you'll notice that the first Lord is all capital letters, which signifies that that is a translation of the Hebrew word for the name for God, the Jehovah or Yahweh. The pronunciation is not exactly known, but they figured that it probably is Yahweh. Capital L and then the small o-r-d in the Old Testament signifies that it is the word or title Lord, which in the Hebrew is Adonai. It's the title of your master. The first one is the name of God, Yahweh. O Yahweh, our Adonai. He is our master, our Lord. How excellent is thy name in all the earth. What name? The name of Yahweh. In Proverbs we read, The name of Yahweh is a strong tower. The righteous runneth into it and are safe. The name of the Lord. How excellent is that name. The Bible says concerning Jesus, which is Yahshua. It's a contraction compound with this Yah of the name of God, the becoming one, Yahshua. He has become our salvation. It says that God has given him a name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus or Yahshua, every knee shall bow, every tongue shall confess that Yahshua is the Kurios, the Lord. In the Hebrew it would be the Adonai, to the glory of God and the Father. So how excellent is thy name in all the earth, who has set thy glory above the heavens. For out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies, that you might still the enemy and the avenger. When Jesus made his triumphant entry into Jerusalem and the children were crying unto him, Hosanna, Hosanna. The Pharisees said, Lord, you better quiet them. That's blasphemy. And Jesus said, have you not read in the Scriptures that out of the mouth of babes and sucklings or the nursing child thou hast perfected praise? How beautiful is the child, his expressions of praise and worship unto the Lord. Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise, thou hast ordained the strength. And then the psalmist said, when I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers. I always love this. I have a love for astronomy. When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, and that always impresses me. I look at that vast universe. I realize that our Milky Way galaxy is only one of the billions of galaxies. I realize that within our Milky Way galaxy, our star is one of the only medium-sized stars. I realize the orbits of the stars, the orbits of the planets, the orbit of the moon, the order of the universe. I realize the various densities of the planets. I look at Betelgeuse out there in the left shoulder of the constellation Orion, and I try to fathom the size of that thing. I look at Arcturus. And again, the size of Arcturus and the speed at which Arcturus travels, 70 miles a second, some 80 times larger than our sun. And I marvel the work of his fingers. It is impossible for our minds to conceive the infinite God. He is beyond the capacity of our minds to imagine. The circuits blow fuses when you try to bring God within the grasp of your intellect. Total impossibility. The Bible says that he measured out the heavens with his span. The span is the distance between your thumb and your little finger. And we talk about the universe being 12 billion light years in diameter. Well, how big did you make the universe? He said, oh, there was a book written a while back, your God is too small. And however big you think God may be, he's bigger than that. This vast universe, when I consider thy heavens the work of thy fingers. The moon, the stars, which you have ordained. There is nothing that will cause you to feel smaller than to sit out in the desert on one of those crystal clear nights and look up into that vast sky above you. And start to realize that you are looking out into that space, into that universe that is filled with galaxies that stretches out as far as we can see with our telescope some 12 billion light years. Now, if you traveled for 12 billion years on a ray of light and you got out there, how do you know you're at the end? How do we know that you'd be at the end? What lies beyond that? How far can you go beyond that? Where does the sign say this is the end? Consider thy heavens the work of thy fingers, the moon, the stars, which thou hast ordained. Then what is man? I mean, here we are down on this little planet we call the Earth, that is only some 25,000 miles in circumference, 8,000 miles in diameter. Just a little speck of dust, not even the largest of the planets. Jupiter causes us to look like a dwarf. And here we are, Uranus is huge. And here we are spinning around this little ball of fire we call the Sun, which is some 865,000 miles in diameter and 93 million miles away. Just the right distance, incidentally, to support the life and the forms of life here upon the Earth. And when you look at the Earth and your relationship to the Earth, and I fly over and I look at all of the... And they say, you know, our Earth is getting overcrowded. Well, man, you haven't flown over Arizona lately. And I think when I look at that vast universe and realize that we are such an infantismally small part of it on this planet created by God with the capacity, that marvelous capacity to appreciate the God who created the universe. But what am I? Who am I? That the God who created and orders and governs that vast universe, who am I that he should ever be mindful of me? That's the amazing thing, that God thinks about me. But not just a passing thought. David said, if I should number thy thoughts concerning me, they are more than the sands of the sea. I love to sit on the sand watching the surf, especially at sunset. I love to watch that big ball of fire as it looks like it's being quenched as it drops into the Pacific Ocean. And then I love to just pick up hands full of sands and just let them drop and form the little cone, reverse cones. And as those grains of sand are falling, if I would count the number of God's thoughts concerning me, they are more than the sands of the sea. And I look up the beach, and I love these wide beaches, Huntington Beach, good wide beach, lots of sand. The Lord's got to be thinking about me continually. But then he goes one step further. The Lord said, I know my thoughts towards thee that they are good and not evil. And so go down and sit in the sand and realize that as many grains of sand that you can see there on the beach, that's how much God thinks about you. Oh, man, it makes me feel secure that God is thinking so many good thoughts about me, how fortunate I am. And so the psalmist here, what is man that you are mindful of him? Or the son of man that you should visit him? Now, this is the second of the messianic psalms. You remember we told you that Psalm 2 was a messianic psalm. This is the second of those psalms that is a prophecy of the Messiah. The next one that we come to will be Psalm 16, the next of the messianic psalms. But when did God visit man? What is man that you are mindful of him? Or the son of man that you should visit him? God visited man when Jesus Christ came and walked upon the earth. When Micah prophesied the birthplace of Jesus, he said, and thou Bethlehem, though thou be little among the provinces of Judah, yet out of thee shall come he who is to rule my people Israel, whose going forth has been from old, from everlasting. Or the eternal God is going to be born in Bethlehem. He's ever existed. He's existed from everlasting, and yet he's to be born in Bethlehem. In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God, and all things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made. And the Word became flesh, and he dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. But what is man that God should visit him? Who am I that God should visit me? Who am I that God should listen to my prayer? Who am I that God should love me? Who am I that God should desire that I should spend my eternity in the glory of his presence, as he bestows upon me the riches of his grace? What is man that thou art mindful of him? And then speaking of Jesus, and this is prophetic, because in Hebrews, we have the commentary on this, and in the commentary on this passage, it makes this applicable to Jesus. For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and we are told that the reason why he was made a little lower than the angels, that he might die for the suffering of death, as an angel, or as God, it could not be. So he made him a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, and you have crowned him with glory and honor. You made him to have dominion over the works of your hands. Going back to Psalm 2, ask of me and I'll give you the heathen for your inheritance, the uttermost parts of the earth for your possession. Thou hast put all things under his feet. Now the Bible says that though God has put all things under his feet, we do not yet see all things. But we see Jesus made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor. So he is now at the right hand as he awaits for the fulfillment of the promise until God makes all of his enemies his footstool. And thus this messianic psalm referring to Jesus and is quoted as such in the book of Hebrews. We'll return with more of our verse-by-verse venture through the Bible in our next lesson as we continue our look at Praising the Lord in Creation. And we do hope you'll make plans to join us. But right now, I'd like to remind you that if you missed any part of today's message, or perhaps you'd like to order a copy for that special friend or loved one, you can do so by simply contacting one of our customer service representatives, and they'd be more than happy to assist you with the ordering details. Simply call 1-800-272-WORD. And phone orders can be taken Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Pacific Time. Once again, our toll-free number is 1-800-272-9673. And for your added convenience, you can order online, anytime, when you go to TheWordForToday.org. And while you're there, be sure to browse through the additional resources that include Bible studies, commentaries, CDs, DVDs, and so much more. Once again, that's The Word for Today online at TheWordForToday.org. And for those of you who still prefer to write, you can use our mailing address, which is The Word for Today, P.O. Box 8000, Costa Mesa, California, 92628. And be sure to include the call letters of this station with your correspondence. And now, on behalf of The Word for Today, we'd like to thank all of you who share in supporting this ministry with your prayers and financial support. And be sure to join us again next time as Pastor Chuck Smith continues his verse-by-verse venture through the Psalms. That's right here on the next edition of The Word for Today. ♪ Now, once again, here's Pastor Chuck Smith with today's closing comments. May the Lord bless you and keep His hand upon your life as you walk in fellowship with Him. May you be strengthened day by day by the work of His Spirit within your life. And may you begin to experience His victories, His power over sin. May the love of Christ and the peace of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit rest and abide with all of you while we are absent from each other. And may God draw us together again that we might grow in our knowledge and understanding of His love and grace through Jesus Christ. ♪ Come and study the Bible with Pastor Chuck Smith as he teaches from Genesis through Revelation on a new digitally remastered audio edition of Pastor Chuck's Bible commentary. That's 323 audio MP3 files of Pastor Chuck teaching through the entire Bible, all on an 8-gig reusable flash drive. Now you can easily listen to Pastor Chuck's Bible commentaries when you insert this key into your computer's USB drive. Then you can transfer all of these audio Bible studies to a smartphone or any listening device to learn and study God's Word on the go. And not only that, you can reuse this flash drive that easily fits onto a key ring for even more mobility at a fraction of the cost. What a great way to study and learn God's Word. For more information, please call the word for today at 1-800-272-9673 or visit us online at thewordfortoday.org. This program has been sponsored by The Word for Today in Costa Mesa, California.