Series: Psalms
Title: Why the Mouth of Babes?
Text: Psalm 8: 1-2
Date: November 10, 2011
Place: SGBC, New Jersey
We have probably all heard someone use the expression, “Out of the mouth of babes.” Perhaps we have used the expression. But who are God’s babes? Who is the strength of God’s babes? Why does our Lord chose to establish and bring this strength out of the mouth of babes? Those questions are answered in the scriptures. Those questions will be our outline tonight.
Titled: Why the Mouth of Babes?
Divisions: 1. Who are God’s babes?; 2. Who (and what) is the strength of God’s babes?; 3. Why does the LORD our Lord establish and bring this strength out of the mouth of babes?
When we think of a nursing infant, we cannot think of anything weaker, as helpless, or as dependent upon another as a nursing child. That is what the believer is--God’s babes, his sucklings—who desire the sincere milk of the word that we may grow thereby.
I. WHO ARE GOD’S BABES? GOD’S BABES ARE THOSE IN WHOM GOD HAS ORDAINED STRENGTH--Psalm 8: 2: Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast THOU ordained strength…
The word “ordained” means established, founded, perfected!
· By God sovereignly choosing whom he would in Christ
· By Christ finishing the work of redemption on their behalf
· By God sending his gospel directly to each one
· By the Holy Spirit giving his babes a new heart to believe on Christ!
· By God keeping each one immoveable in Christ Jesus
When of God Christ is made the Power and Wisdom of God, the Spirit of God makes us ignorant and poor—as needy for God to save us as a suckling depends upon its mother’s breast. The Excellency of the power is of God not of us! True God-given faith stands in the power of God not in the wisdom of men. Through that same gospel by which God teaches who Christ is and gives us faith to believe on Christ, God also grows his babes in grace and knowledge of him.
· Matthew 11: 25-26; 9-27
As the wise and prudent rejected Christ, babes believed and Christ rejoiced. Why? Because he saw the wisdom of the Father in hiding these things from the wise and prudent and revealing them unto babes. David is rejoicing the same way in Psalm 8. And I rejoice.
In the local church, God works this wisdom--uniting the hearts of his people with Christ and with each other more and more! The more our eye of faith is focused on Christ, the more God grows each of us in knowledge and understanding of the glory of God in Christ Jesus, the more he makes us to desire the gospel of our Redeemer and the closer he unites us with each other. Rejoice!
So we see that first, God’s babes are those in whom God has ordained strength--Psalm 8: 2: Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast THOU ordained strength…
II. WHO IS THE STRENGTH OF GOD’S BABES?
The Psalm is praising God our Savior for the LORD our Lord is our strength and our praise.
Psalm 8: 1: O LORD our Lord…
Jehovah our Lord Jesus Christ. Immanuel, God with us.
Psalm 8: 1:..How excellent is thy name in all the earth!
God has manifest his name under heaven in all the earth by the Son of God coming down joining himself with the nature, not of angels, but with the nature of his elect children! How excellent is thy name in all the earth! He is the Power and Wisdom who first began to speak to us in these last days and confirmed his word unto us by his babes and sucklings
· Psalm 8: 3-6; Hebrews 2
Acts 4: 12: Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.
The Power and Wisdom—the Strength—who is our Righteousness--by whom God’s babes are made perfectly righteous—not by our deeds but by Christ’s obedience.
Love is the fulfillment of the precept of the law. Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believes because Christ fulfilled the law for his babes because he loved God and his brethren so much that he was willingly made sin that Christ Jesus might declare God just and Justifier of his brethren and at the same time justify us from our sins—that is the righteousness my Lord is.
Psalm 8: 1: Who hast set thy glory above the heavens.
God set him above the heavens. He is seated in the throne. The Lamb who is God. God has set His Glory— CHRIST JESUS his Son, far above all heavens—
Ephesians 1: 21: Far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come: 22 And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, 23 Which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all….4:10: He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things.)
The Power and Wisdom who sent the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, who gives his babes one spirit, who adds to the church daily such as should be saved is Christ the Power and Wisdom of God!
So we saw that first, God’s babes are those in whom “God has founded strength, praise”. And secondly, the strength—the Power and Wisdom of God’s babes—is Christ the Power and Wisdom of God--the name we praise and declare: in prayer, in song, in the gospel we preach—is this how excellent is thy name in all the earth! Who has set thy glory above the heavens!
III. WHY HAS THE LORD ORDAINED THIS STRENGTH OUT OF THE MOUTH OF BABES?—
Psalm 8: 2:…Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength, BECAUSE of thine enemies, THAT THOU mightest STILL the enemy and the avenger.
The enemy and the avenger is one whose heart is enmity against God. He is wise and prudent so he despises God’s means, he despises God’s babes, he despises God! The enemy and avenger avenges—his own name rather than the Excellent Name of the LORD our Lord. He justifies himself while accusing Christ and his babes.
But God ordained strength in the mouth of babes that HE—THE LORD our Lord might still the enemy and the avenger! Each of us here in whom God has ordained strength—were once enemies in our minds by wicked works—those very wicked works that the wise and prudent esteem so highly. But God stilled that old wicked flesh through the gospel spoken by the mouth of one of his babes.
Our faithful Father sent one of his babes to cross our path with the gospel of Christ and God would not allow his babe to be turned by us. Our faithful Father founded strength and praise within us unto his excellent name by forming Christ in us and making us a new creation.
1 Corinthians 1: 21 For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. 22 For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: 23 But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness; 24 But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God. 25 Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
But something else happens: two things always happens when the gospel is set forth—when Christ receives all the praise and all the glory! Our Lord subdues his babes of grace and makes us more and more dependent—this gospel is a savor of life unto life.
Yet, the LORD uses the same strength and praise, out of the mouth of babes to “still” those who refuse to bow to God and his Christ, to the gospel we preach—they are stilled—left confounded and brought to nothing.
1 Corinthians 1: 27: But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; 28 And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: 29 That no flesh should glory in his presence.
In Matthew 21 we see that the final straw for the self-righteous, will-working, God-hating, vainly religious men was when they heard those they deemed beneath them rejoicing and praising the name of the most High God, Christ Jesus our Lord—the LORD our Lord. Here they were wise and prudent in their own eyes and they did not get the respect from Christ they felt they deserved! Yet, Christ even rebuked them—“Hast thou never read”…
Matthew 21: 15 And when the chief priests and scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying in the temple, and saying, Hosanna to the Son of David; they were sore displeased, 16 And said unto him, Hearest thou what these say? And Jesus saith unto them, Yea; have ye never read, Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise? 17: And he left them, and went out of the city into Bethany; and he lodged there.
As far as I can tell in the scriptures, Christ never lodged in Jerusalem, until the night he came as the Passover Lamb.
John 14: 23 Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. 24 He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings: and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father’s which sent me.
One of two things always happens when men hear the Voice of our Lord—the old enemy of our flesh is stilled by his grace and we confess him to be the Son of God come in human flesh—Or—the enemy and avenger is stilled by being put to confusion and silence.
Application: The enemy, the avenger is always looking to find fault. But God’s babes are always looking to show mercy.
The avenger wants to avenge his own name--God’s babes grow more and more to avenge the Excellent Name! and to justify our fellow babes and show one another mercy. It is the Spirit of Christ in you, who esteemed others better than himself. Who laid down his life? That God might receive all the glory and his brethren be saved.
God’s babes do not impress the wise and the prudent—the Pharisee’s were galled that mere babes were glorifying Christ. Yet, to a babe in Christ, his fellow brethren are miracles of God’s grace. The more we grow in grace, the less we see ourselves as wise and prudent and at the same time the more highly we esteem our brethren as miracles of God’s grace—like we deem a newborn infant as a miracle of God’s grace.
The means God uses—the gospel praise that comes out of the mouth of God’s babes—does not impress and is not even deemed necessary by the wise and prudent. Yet, to one who has been made to taste God’s grace, the feet of “them” who God uses to preach the gospel are beautiful because the feet of “him”—Christ who speaks through them—is beautiful.
The strength which comes out of the mouth of babes—our gospel—Christ and him crucified—praise to the Excellent Name--is a savor of death unto death unto some, and life unto life unto others--it stirs up the enmity in the heart of the wise and prudent, yet makes babes and grows those babes ever more strong by making them more dependent entirely upon Christ. God uses our fellow babes to do that.
It is praise out of the mouth of babes—whereby God makes his babes and sucklings and stills the enemy and the avenger—how wise—that is why God ordains strength out of the mouth of babes—that he might receive all the glory and no flesh shall glory in his presence.
Let’s read Psalm 8: 1-2.
Amen!