[0:00] Now I'm sure that the theme of the psalm is defined for us in the refrain, which we have in verse 1 and also in verse 9.
[0:11] O Lord, O Jehovah, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth. It's a psalm about the glory of Jehovah, but that glory is shown in three different directions.
[0:28] It is shown, first of all, from the mouth of babes and sucklings. I don't profess to understand the precise meaning of those words in verse 2, but that is certainly their context.
[0:44] In some way, God's name is proclaimed and glorified and made excellent out of the mouths of babes and sucklings.
[0:54] And then secondly, it is made glorious, according to verse 3, in the heavens, the works of God's fingers, those things which God has ordained.
[1:08] In other words, the creation itself in all its vastness and all its beauty is bearing its constant testimony to the glory of God and to the excellence of his name.
[1:21] But then thirdly, God's excellent name is proclaimed in and through the glory and dignity of man himself.
[1:33] In some great and complex way, man himself, in all that he is and all that God has done for him, is himself a testimony to the excellence of the name of God.
[1:53] Man is the supreme tribute to God's creativity and to God's glory. Man is the supreme tribute to God's glory.
[2:30] Man is the supreme tribute to God's glory. Man is the supreme tribute to God's glory. Man is the supreme tribute to God's glory and the glory of God's glory. So the whole psalm is in its dynamics in its movement is concerned with the excellence of the name of God.
[2:46] That name's excellence is shown by babes and sucklings. It is shown in the glory structures of our cosmos. but it is shown above all in what God has done for man in creation and in redemption.
[3:06] Now I'm going to extract from the psalm one of those themes. That is the question asked in verse 4, what is man?
[3:18] The psalm, I say again, is not about man. The psalm is about God. But man comes into the psalm because man himself is a great word about God.
[3:34] And I want to extrapolate this section that deals with man. And to focus on this very narrow question, what is man? How does the Bible see him?
[3:47] How does the word of God portray this great creature man? Well, at one level, of course, the Bible emphasizes the sheer insignificance of man.
[4:01] Man's poverty and man's puniness and man's frailty and man's vulnerability, man's insignificance. And it does so in a whole variety of ways.
[4:15] It does so in the psalm itself by reminding us of the quantitative insignificance of man. When I look, he says, when I look at the heavens.
[4:27] And when I look at the moon and the stars. When I look up into the vastnesses of space. When I see those innumerable heavenly bodies.
[4:41] Then I say, what is man that thou art mindful of? Because man is quantitatively. In his stature, in his numerical significance.
[4:54] He is nothing compared to the vastness of this world in which God has placed him. Now David could go only by his own observation.
[5:07] He didn't have telescopes and all those instruments we have today. And we know, even more emphatically than David did.
[5:19] The tremendous contrast between man and the universe in which man lives. We know that our earth is only one tiny entity in an enormous galaxy.
[5:35] And we know that quantitatively in that galaxy. Our earth, in its mass, in its volume is nothing.
[5:48] And we know furthermore that even our galaxy. In the whole system of the cosmos is again nothing.
[5:58] And that is the picture that the psalmist has from his own very much more limited point of view. We know even more than he did.
[6:11] Just how small man is in relation to this great cosmos. We know that the cosmos is beyond our computation.
[6:22] We've been inclined to think that it is a constantly expanding universe. Moving at least for the present.
[6:34] Ever further and further outward. And in that context, don't we have a tremendous reinforcement of this picture?
[6:46] That man is nothing. He is a creature clinging to a speck of dust on the edge of an insignificant galaxy.
[7:00] And it's in that context that the psalmist asks, What is man? Why should God care for a planet so small?
[7:13] In a galaxy so small? And why should man have any special place? In the care and attention of a God with such a multiplicity of concerns and diversions and responsibilities.
[7:31] It is a great window into this staggering fact that we are quantitatively so utterly insignificant.
[7:42] But then the Bible would also say that we are insignificant in our ephemeralness. Man is so few days.
[7:56] Our lives pass swifter than the weaver's shuttle. One day we're here. The next day we are gone.
[8:08] Suppose we live. We're told in Psalm 90. Suppose we live 70 years. What's that? Suppose we live 80 years.
[8:19] What is that? We spend our years as a tale that is told. And that's all. And what is true of man the individual is three of the rest collectively.
[8:33] If I may be so bold for the moment as to look at it from the point of view of the paleontologist, the geologist.
[8:44] And if I accept with other Christians, the chalmers and Hugh Miller, that it is perfectly possible that this world is millions of years old.
[9:01] And you said against that background of the geologist, the extent of man's tenancy upon this planet.
[9:14] Man has been here, say, 10,000 years. And what are those 10,000 years compared with those everlasting hills, as the Bible calls them?
[9:29] We are so insignificant in our own opportunity to acquire wisdom in one individual lifespan.
[9:40] But we are even insignificant in our ability to acquire wisdom collectively in our collective lifespan. Because we have been here so short a time in this universe of extended geological and astrophysical time.
[10:02] And let me add to this. Not so often our own individual lives are so insignificant in their achievements.
[10:19] Insignificant, as I said, first of all, in terms of a mathematical or arithmetical stature. Insignificant as those who are ephemeral creatures of the day.
[10:34] But insignificant also in the achievements of our own lives. And they are not gifted, understanding men.
[10:46] And they are able to make impact on their own generations. Sometimes on succeeding generations. And some men, by the common grace of God, have built enduring monuments to human skill and to human creativity.
[11:09] But for the most part, we come and we go. And the sands of time close over us.
[11:20] And we leave no mark. Maybe for a year. Maybe for a generation. Maybe in exceptional circumstances for more than one generation.
[11:36] But we all of us know, in the depths of our hearts, in the truth in Shakespeare's observation, that our lives are tales told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
[11:55] I think that I am dreadfully reluctant to accept that. I think all that is in me protests against it.
[12:10] But it is the terrible truth about most human existences that in the last analysis, that is, that has been, their significance.
[12:25] It is true even of the race collectively. when one reflects that for 10,000 years, we have been addressing ourselves to elementary sociological problems, to the problems of crime, and the problems of stress, and the problems of breakdown, and the problems of violence, and the problems of war, and the problems of poverty.
[12:53] And here we are, in the closing decades of the 20th century. And we are still in that very same situation we had in Genesis 4.
[13:08] The earth is still full of violence. We have our slums. We have our poverty. We have our tremendous accumulation of psychiatric problems.
[13:21] We have been wrestling with all our collective skill for centuries and millennia. With all those age-old problems. And they are still there.
[13:34] We have made no significant impact on those problems that really matter. I remember enough, Powell, in a TV interview, saying many years ago, that he came into politics confident in his power to change things, and sustained and fired by the ambition that he might leave human society better than he found it.
[14:07] But he learned that one could adjust the problems, one could move the problems about on the great chessboard. But he had seen the great men come and the great men go.
[14:22] He had seen the churches and the athletes, and they had faced the problems, and that could face the problems with all their energy, all their intellects. And yet, when they had gone, the world was the same as it was before they came.
[14:38] With only one great possible qualification of that, and that is that the world was no worse. And I'm utterly convinced that the most we can hope to achieve by the most consummate political expertise, by the most stringent application of our own collective wisdom, even by the application of our charisma to us Christians, pervading that society, functioning the world as salt and light, I have not the least confidence left in our collective power to improve things.
[15:19] I have only confidence in our power to prevent them getting worse. And that is all. You go back again to the Lord's own analogy.
[15:31] We are the salt of the earth. And that is the most that we are. The salt doesn't improve the quality of the food.
[15:42] It only prevents it from putrefying. And I'm convinced that the greatest political genius and the most skillful political generation and people under heaven can hope to achieve no more than that.
[16:02] It's simply to keep the world from getting worse. And there is a man in all his vanity and yet in all his insignificance.
[16:13] He is so small. He is so ephemeral. And above all he is so meaningless even in his collective achievement.
[16:26] But I go beyond that. There is one great way in which the Bible underlines and endorses and gives terrible emphasis to the fact of man's degradation.
[16:41] that is in the affirmation that God drove man out of the garden. We're told afterwards it repented the Lord that he had made man.
[16:59] There is almost the divine disgust were this creature made in his own image. and God expels out of the garden of Eden.
[17:16] You remember the great picture in Milton's Paradise Lost in his closing verses where the poet against the background of a setting sun describes for us Adam and Eve hand in hand with wandering step and slow through Eden made their solitary way with their backs to paradise and their faces towards the great unknown and all they knew was that God's curse lay upon the world that was before them and that was all.
[17:58] And we find just to intensify it all that terrible picture of the flaming sword that turns every way to guard the way to the tree of life.
[18:11] And that's what we are tonight by nature creatures expelled from paradise and there is no way back.
[18:26] Man with his wistful backward look even in his fallenness looking back to God thou hast made us for thyself and your heart is restless till it rest in thee that great God shaped void that need of God that need to get back to paradise and yet that divine sentence of expulsion and at a more elemental of symbolic level still the many many futile ways in which man wishes he could get back to paradise back to its war and back to its security I think that in so many ways in our own society there are so many symptoms of man's futile wish to get back to that glorious
[19:33] Eden sometimes we dream of quitting the rat race and going back into what we fondly imagine is an idyllic Hebridean existence maybe that's our Eden maybe that's our paradise maybe we think we can escape back into a great primitive pastoral society and there find fulfillment and find your humanness or maybe we wish we could go back into the marvelous securities of Victorian society with all its optimism and all its confidence and all its tremendous assurances to ultimate realities there was no doubt there were no empty churches we seemed on the face of it to lack so many of today's social problems on the face of it and we so often look back wistfully to that
[20:38] Victorian paradise in the same way as Adam but looked back to Eden and what is more agonizing still we live today in the shadow of nuclear holocaust we have in our collective fiendish wisdom and then to those terrible weapons of war one Polaris submarine with sufficient armaments to wipe out 40% of the population of Soviet Russia and we want the capability a thousand times in excess of that one submarine to blast in the submarines such a world as its weaponry may leave and so many in our society want to go back into a pre-nuclear paradise to dismantle the weaponry forgetful of the fact that they are part of our collective memory there is no way back to paradise there is no way back to our lovely
[21:49] Hebridean summers there is no way back to Victorian security there is no way back to the days when men fought wars with swords and sabers and cannons there is a flaming sword that turns every way and we are committed to this terrible century and all this appalling technology and we have to face those things with all the courage and all the realism we can muster we are part of a technological age of an industrial society of a violent century that's what man has made that is what man has made of God's universe then say I what is man he's a creature so small he's a creature so ephemeral he's a creature so meaningless in his achievements he's a creature who is captivated and enthralled by the vision of an impossible paradise that's what he is a paradise which is there to torment him a God he needs and a
[23:05] God he hates a memory of imagined security that is absolutely and utterly unattainable and he must live this existence now in an age of expanding urbanism of impossible cities an age of moral decline an age of violence he must live with his rockets and his weapons and all that appalling technology that's what he is that's what he lives and yet there is only half the picture it's not even half the picture of his great son yes man is small and man is ephemeral and man is meaningless and man has pathetic and neurotic obsessions but there is more than that there is the glory of man the glory for this reason thou art mindful of
[24:12] God remembers him and all that goes back into man's creation this tiny planet this tiny speck of dust in God's great and expanding cosmos but it was to be man's home and because it was to be man's home God bestowed upon it special pains and God imparted to it all those elements and all those forms and all those constituents that man needed for his survival God made it abundantly productive God made it beautiful how marvelous it is and we'll read the description of paradise that we are told first of all that God filled it with trees which were pleasant to the eyes
[25:12] God formed it for man and today God visits it and God waters it God makes it fecund and God makes it productive for man still this tiny planet and yet God remembers it is the home of this creature man and God remembers man upon it and God makes a covenant with man upon it that great Abrahamic covenant in thee shall all the nations of the earth be blessed not only Abraham but all the nations of the earth God remembers God is in covenant with all the nations with all the peoples of the world they may be insignificant compared to all the planets and all the galaxies but God is in covenant with man remember furthermore God's care for particular men
[26:15] I am poor and needy but the Lord thinks upon me I'm sure I overwork that text and yet a tremendous it is in the context of this magnificent psalm this vast universe this expanding universe dynamic pulsating explosive creation creation of God this tremendous confused coordination of color of contrast of harmony with so much happening all the time throughout its vast riches and yet God looks on me the very hairs of your head are numbered the Lord is my shepherd this great governor of the universe to whom every galaxy is answerable and his command every electron obeys this great
[27:18] God is my shepherd this God feeds this God cares this God leads this God protects what is my the wonder to the psalmist is not the smallness of man adrift almost in cosmic agoraphobia lost in the vastnesses of space the glory to the psalmist is that this creature is so precious to God that God remembers God has their names engraven on the palms of his hand God is a book which keeps a record of where they are what they are why they are they are so precious to him God remembers what is man that thou art mindful and again this what is man that thou visitest this great concept of God visiting man you go back again into the depths of the Old
[28:22] Testament where God visited all those patriarchs he came to Abraham and he came to Isaac and he came to Jacob and they could recall where they met God and they called those places after God and they said there is Bethel the house of God one day God visited me God came to see me at this place at this rock this tree and they knew where God had come and God had come to talk and God had come to promise and God had come to help and God had come to deliver this God with the whole cosmos dependent upon him this great cosmic premier this great cosmic sovereign this king came and he visited man because beyond that into the great glories of the incarnation when God came not only to man in terms of objective visitation but God came into the race itself
[29:32] God to girl flesh God to girl humanness God to girl physicalness God to girl psychology God to girl dependence God to girl frailty God to girl on an ability and God lived among us God built his tent there the tabernacle of God was with man God came with a visit he came to be with his people came into that manger in Bethlehem into all that poverty and into all that rejection all those symbols of man's tyranny and man's political incompetence God came there God visited man in Bethlehem God visited man under the heel of oppression God visited man in the grip of appalling economic deprivation and degradation it was a marvelous visitor you could find this great visitor in the manger of Bethlehem you could find this great visitor on the shores of the sea of
[30:36] Galilee you found on the mountains of Judea he was there among his people but one day you found him on the cross of Calvary between two thieves God was on a visit God was with man between those two great typical men because that's what they were two great symbolic figures symbols of man's rebelliousness symbols of man's hopelessness and symbols of man's failure symbols of man's outrageous they were perpetrators of iniquity but they were also the victims of iniquity trying by their own misguided methods to redeem their own situation and God was with them God was between them God was listening them in their anathema and in their curse
[31:38] God didn't do it for the angels when they fell God didn't go to see them on a mission of redemption God didn't bear their sin God didn't take their nature but God came in man's nature and God came onto man's cross into man's darkness into man's lostness into man's anathema into man's alienation what is man that God would visit him would God to see him on Calvary would go into the anathema to visit him and to deliver him why would God do it God remembers him and God visits him whatever And man is glorious too.
[32:24] In the way that God made him. Glorious in that God remembers him. Glorious in that God visits him. Glorious in that God made him.
[32:38] Our little Lord and the angels. You remember the marvelous narrative of man's creation. Which we have in Genesis 1 and 2. How that great progress of creation.
[32:54] Which we have in the early part of Genesis 1. How it moves on and moves on. With its own inherent force. And to that point where God pauses and God says.
[33:08] Let us make man. There is a great pause. God had said. Let the waters bring forth. And God had said.
[33:19] Let the earth bring forth. But now God pauses. And God says. Let us make. And not let anybody bring him forth. This is something special.
[33:32] This is worth a pause. And this is worth deliberation. Because here is something momentous. And God does not delegate.
[33:43] That event. By which man will emerge. God does not delegate it to anybody. But God says. Let us make him. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In all the glory of our own wisdom.
[33:55] Our own power. Our own love. Our own care. Let us make. Let us sovereignly create. Let us form and fashion artistically.
[34:09] Let us manipulate. Let us caress. This great creature. Let's caress him. Into being. Like the potter at his wheel.
[34:21] Trying to fashion. Something special. Some great vessel to honor. Let us caress. Let us mold. Let us fashion. Let us make him. Into being.
[34:33] Let us build him. He says. Let us build the woman. Let us breathe. Into his nostrils. The breath. Of life.
[34:44] All the immediacy. Of God's involvement. All the care. Of God's involvement. All the artistry. Of God's involvement. And what emerges.
[34:56] Is a work of art. Something that is the creation. Creator's masterpiece. That's what we are. And above all. Made in God's image. And you see the glory.
[35:08] Of this passage. If I can be. For a moment more explicit. Thou hast made him. A little lower than the angels. Now in the Hebrew text. What we have is.
[35:20] Thou hast made him. A little lower than God. But little lower than God. The Septuagint. Rendered that word.
[35:30] Angels. And that's why we have it here. But what the psalmist. Was saying was. Thou hast made him. But a little lower than God. No psalmist.
[35:41] Must answer for his own language. Don't ask me to answer for it. But that is what the psalmist said. Man must make him. A little lower than the angels. We are back to this great doctrine. Of man being made. In the image of God.
[35:54] He is the closest thing to God. In the whole creation. God makes him. In the image of his own personalness. God gives him a mind.
[36:07] And God gives him a conscience. And God gives him self-consciousness. And God gives him creativity. And God gives him the capacity. To form words.
[36:18] And to communicate. With his fellow men. And to even communicate. With God himself. To come into this marvelous reality. That in God himself. There is word. In God himself.
[36:29] There is logos. In God himself. There is speech. And God makes man. In his own image. Man is a speaking creature. Man can speak to God.
[36:40] Man can listen to God. Man can hear God. And man can speak to man. And man can hear man. Man can listen to man. That is the glory of it. And man is made in the image.
[36:52] Of God's finalness. In the image of God's togetherness. In the image of God's withness. In God's capacity for fellowship. For communication. That is what man is. And man is made in the image.
[37:03] Of God's creativity. Man can take things. And man can make things. Man can caress things into existence. Man can build things. Man can conceive things.
[37:15] That is the glory of man made. A little Lord and God. You have the marvelous contrast. Which Pascal brings home to us.
[37:26] A man is but a reed. But he is a thinking reed. And not so beautifully put here.
[37:38] You see in verse 3. What this man says. When I consider thy heavens. The work of thy fingers.
[37:49] I say, what is man? Lord mindful. There was no creature on earth. Could have done that.
[38:01] But man. None could have spoken to God. And said, thy heavens. None could have expressed. A sense of wonder and adoration.
[38:12] But man alone. Man could say. Lord, there are thy heavens. Our father, there are thy heavens. Man alone could say that.
[38:24] And man alone could ask. What is man? No beast could say. What am I? No beast could ask. Where am I? No beast could ask.
[38:35] Why am I? But man could say it. Man could say it. Himself. Man could say to God. He is a thinking reed. He is made.
[38:48] But little lower. Than Elohim. Little lower. Than God. Ah yes. We say that's how it was. But that's not how it is.
[39:03] And of course it is so. It had been so tragically true. That man has lost. So much. And man has marred the image. But I do not want us to lose sight of the fact.
[39:17] That the Bible still maintains. That. That's did she. That image is still there. The holiness has gone. We can look at the human being.
[39:29] Or we can say. About. The glorious departed. We can look at all the glories. Of human achievement. And say as Robert South. He said.
[39:41] Long ago. He said. Aristoteles. But the. Rule of an Adam. And Athens. But the. Rudiments of paradise. The glory is gone.
[39:53] But I have a terrible fear. That a generation is pushing. That whole mentality too far.
[40:07] I am desperately anxious. That we should not in an uncontrolled way. Emphasize the lostness of that image. And the totalness of that depravity.
[40:21] Because the moment we do so. We are on the road to Auschwitz. On the road to the gas chambers. And you can't shovel the bodies into annihilation. Because you have lost your respect.
[40:34] For man made. In the image of God. And I want us back. In that ordinance of God to Noah. He that sheds man's blood.
[40:44] By man shall his blood be shed. Because. In the image of God made he him. I want us back. Our James is a terrible word.
[40:55] With regard to the sinner slander and libe. With the tongue we bless God. And with that same tongue we curse man. Who is made in the image of God.
[41:09] And I don't want us. Tonight you will lie yourselves. With that terrible denigration of man.
[41:20] Which lies at the basis of so many of our social problems. We are to remember. In whatever form we meet him.
[41:31] There vestigially is the image of God. There is a man. There is a man. With the same anatomy as Jesus Christ.
[41:43] And the same physiology. And the same psychology as Christ. Despite his degradation. Despite his degradation. Despite his capability. For all sin.
[41:54] Even for the sin of deicide. We must cling. We must reinstate. In all the thinking. Our generation. We must reinstate.
[42:05] The biblical humorous son of a man. John Calvin. He knew all about man's depravity. But he always knew. That man.
[42:18] Was the rules of an Adam. And that he bore the image of God. But I give you more than that. That image may be lost.
[42:29] That holiness may be gone. But in Jesus Christ. There is a promise of its return. We are being renewed.
[42:44] According to the image of him who created us. We are being transformed. By the renewing of our minds. In other words. In Christ.
[42:56] The possibility. Of having that image restored. The capability. For clear thinking. The capability.
[43:09] Of true fellowship. The capacity. For fellowship. With God himself. To be conformed to the image. Of his own son.
[43:21] In other words. That image may be tarnished. But tonight. Before all of us. There is a great possibility. Of that image being restored.
[43:32] Being restored. In Christ. And the manless possibility. That one day. We shall be faultless. In the presence of God's glory.
[43:43] With exceeding joy. So man is glorious. Because God remembers. Man is glorious. Because God listens to him. Man is glorious.
[43:54] Because God made him in his image. And God offers. To remake him. And to remake you. In his own image. And then there is this.
[44:05] Thou madest him to have dominion. Over the works of thy hands. Man is glorious. In the dominion that God gave him. God told him.
[44:17] To subdue the earth. To control his heritage. To control his animal population. To exploit his resources.
[44:29] To subdue. To dominate. With his own intelligence. And his own creativity. And his own skill. The environment in which God placed him. Man was told to replenish it.
[44:42] He was told to colonize it. Man was given great horizons. Man could see from the garden of Eden. That great land of Havilah. In which there was gold.
[44:53] He could look out. From the standpoint of his paradise. And see the great fertilities. Of the world before him. See its rivers.
[45:03] And see its mountains. And see its beauty. See all its attractions. And he was told. Colonize it. Move out. I don't believe man was meant to stay indefinitely.
[45:15] Even in that localized garden of Eden itself. He was supposed to replenish the earth. The whole world was to be his garden.
[45:26] The theater for his adventurousness. And his creativity. And his exploration. He wasn't meant to be immobile. He wasn't meant to be simply reflective and meditative.
[45:37] He was meant to move. He was meant to change. He was meant to dominate. He was meant to dream. And we're meant to dream. To dream great industrial dreams.
[45:50] And great political dreams. And great theological dreams. And great dreams for the church of God. That's what we're meant to be. God said. Subdued.
[46:00] God said. Dominated. God said. Replenished and colonized. That's what God said for man. God said. God said. And today we made some progress.
[46:13] Today we stand. On an incredible pinnacle of achievement in technology. And the understanding of pure science.
[46:24] God said. And yet we also stand embarrassed. By the rubbish and the implications of our own discoveries.
[46:37] We have used our creativity. To create arid wildernesses. And gigantic slag heaps. We have used our intelligence.
[46:50] To build enormous arsenals. In the shadow of which no man can sleep soundly. And how true is the word of Hebrews 2. We do not yet see all things but under him.
[47:06] He has spawned nuclear weaponry. And he has dominated by it. He is a prisoner of it. For so long as the earth shall last.
[47:18] That horrid shadow. Shall be the context of our existence. We don't see the world under Christ.
[47:29] Under man. But we do see one thing says Hebrews. We see Jesus. Crowned with glory and honor.
[47:40] We see this great promise fulfilled already. In the man in Christ Jesus. Now you remember. The implications of that.
[47:52] What do I mean? Do I mean simply. That in heaven Christ controls heaven. Gosh I mean that. Christ will dominate the world to come.
[48:08] But I also have another vision. A vision which is no dream. A vision which indeed if it were a dream would be a great dream.
[48:19] But as it's no dream. It's an astonishing reality. And it is this. That the world as it is. Is tonight dominated by man in Christ.
[48:34] The dust of the earth. On the throne. Of the majesty on high. He's got the whole world. In his hands.
[48:44] All things are his. All that weaponry. And all those who make those decisions.
[48:57] I'm not saying to you that I cannot stop to live from that. And say that I sleep so humbly. Because I can see good reason. Why God in Christ.
[49:07] To use all that weaponry for our judgment. Not on a cosmic. But on a low cost scale. I am not saying. That because Christ is in control.
[49:19] We have nothing to fear. But I am saying. That because he's in control. Then my fear. Is modified. By the knowledge of his wisdom.
[49:31] And the knowledge of his love. And the knowledge of his power. He controls. The world as it is. But I have another vision. A vision of another world.
[49:43] And another age. Of a new heaven. And a new earth. And I see in that other universe. Arising. Out of the ashes of the present one.
[49:55] I see in that universe. Men. Made perfect. I see men in that universe. With glorified bodies. And I hear. The republication of those glorious mandates.
[50:09] Subdued. Dominated. And colonized. And I see. And I think I do not dream. I see that one day. Man in Christ.
[50:20] In the church in Christ. Will hear God saying to it. To him. To them. On that great day of resurrection. That great day. The parangenesis.
[50:32] The regeneration of heaven and earth. God will say. Look. There is a new Eden. And here is a new paradise. Here is a new glory. And I want you to subdue it.
[50:46] And I want you to dominate. I want you to move. Over its mountains. Its hills. Its streams. And rivers. I want you to have dreams. About it. I want you to explore it.
[50:59] I want you to worship me in it. And to worship me through it. I want you to be my priests. In it. And for it. I want you to reign.
[51:12] With Christ. Though I must close. I am saying at last tonight this. There are two men.
[51:22] There are two mankind. And I am asking. What one do we belong to? There is man. As he is of the earth.
[51:34] Early. With downcast look. With material. And economic. And earthly obsessions. He minds.
[51:46] Earthly things. Earthly things. He never looks up. He never speaks to God. About thy heavens. Probably never asks.
[51:58] What is man? He lives. He grows. And he dies. His life is often full.
[52:09] Of sound and fury. And it signifies nothing. It is a tale. It is a tale. It is a tale. It is a tale. The place which knew them.
[52:22] No some no more. He is simply. Gone. He is gone. Where is he? He is gone. Where is he gone? He is gone. And that is all.
[52:35] On the broad road. Was the majority. Heading. Heading. And not for life. And not for meaning.
[52:46] Not for creativity. But heading for nothing. For nothing. And not even nothing. But everlasting destruction.
[52:58] From the presence of the Lord. Then say. What is man? And I say. I can't answer simply.
[53:08] There are two kinds of men. There are men. And they are on the road to hell. They are on the road to lostness. They have downcast looks. They have earthly orientations. They live.
[53:19] By bread alone. And they are on the road to destruction. That is what some men are. And there is man in Christ. God remembers him.
[53:31] God visits him. God transforms him. God makes him Christ like. God says to him. Subdue. God says to him.
[53:43] Dominate. God says to him. Replenish and colonize. God says to him. Rule for me. Come again to. The language of.
[53:56] A modern French. From a Catholic theologian. Who is. Most respects. Totally unreliable. But he spoke of one great thing. He said. Christ is the omega point.
[54:09] God goes through. This tremendous process. Of creation and redemption. God says. Let there be light. That is the alpha point.
[54:20] That is the beginning. And God moves through. All those other points. Until. God says. Let's make man. Man. And then. God says. Let us make man.
[54:31] In Christ. Let's. Fashion a body. For my son. Let's make him man. Let us become man. God becomes man. And there is a great.
[54:42] Omega point. Man in Christ. Christ. And I wonder tonight. I'm just asking. Which way are we going? Are we moving. Into nothingness.
[54:54] And into insignificance. And into destruction. Or are we moving. Towards God's. Omega point. In Jesus Christ. Are we moving upwards. Until our life is filled.
[55:05] With Christ and God. Are we moving upwards. Until all things are under our feet. Until we are conformed. To the image.
[55:16] Of his son. And I say to you. It's your choice. The choice.
[55:26] Of two. Humanities. You ask yourself. What is man? There is man. As he is in Christ.
[55:41] And we have to choose. Alone humanity. Whether to belong. To the community. Of entropy.
[55:52] Of dissolution. Bewilderment. And meaninglessness. And destruction. Or the community.
[56:03] Of life and growth. Adventurousness. Expansiveness. Exploringness. Creativity. That life.
[56:15] Which is hid with Christ. And God. It is enough choice. Let us pray. O Lord.
[56:29] We ask thee. In grace. To have pity upon us. That those of us. Who are. Men. In the first Adam. May by grace.
[56:41] Become men. In the last Adam. That we know. The life. And the breadth. And expansiveness. The new humanity.
[56:51] Of that new humanity. The Lord. Help us choose wisely. Take from us all our sin. For Jesus seeking. Amen. Amen.
[57:03] Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.
[57:17] Hey. Amen. Amen.