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Welcome to the

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Psalm Companion

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of 40 Minutes in the

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Old Testament. 40 Minutes

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in

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the Old Testament is a 1517 Podcast Network podcast. You can

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go to 1517.org podcast

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to check out all the other podcasts that are living over

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there. This episode we've got

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Psalm number eight. This

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is of course a Psalm of David.

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Yeah, it's a short Psalm, but it's important

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for a number of reasons. It's one of these Psalms, I like to describe

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these Psalms as forward and backward looking, so

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they look back to creation, as we'll see

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in just a second, but they also look forward to

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the new creation we have in Christ.

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And this Psalm in particular is significant

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because it gets quoted at length

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in Hebrews chapter two, in which

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he, in a rather unexpected sort

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of way, applies what

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initially seemed like it was a Psalm about Adam

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and humanity in general. The

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author of Hebrews applies it specifically then

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to Christ as the

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last Adam, the

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man in whom we have a new

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creation.

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So it's only nine verses.

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Let's read through the entire Psalm and then

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we'll quickly work our way

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through it.

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Oh Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your

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name in all the earth.

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You have set your glory above the heavens.

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Out of the mouths of babies and infants you

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have established strength because

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of your foes to still the enemy and

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the avenger. When I look

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to the heavens, the work of your fingers, the

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moon and the stars which you have made, what

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is man that you are mindful of him, the

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son of man that you care for him.

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Yet you have made him a little lower than

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the heavenly beings and

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crown him with glory.

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in honor. You have given him dominion

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over the works of your hands. You have put all things

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under his feet, all sheep and oxen,

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and also the beast of the field, the birds of the heavens,

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and the fish of the sea, whatever passes

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along the paths of the seas.

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O Lord our Lord, how majestic is

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your name in all the earth!" Kind

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of a nice usually called envelope

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structure where you begin and

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you end the exact same way. So that

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verse 1 and verse 9 are duplicates

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of each other.

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Back in the 90s they

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wrote an entire song based

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upon just the O

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Lord our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the

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earth. It was very repetitive. I can

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hear it playing in the back of my head. I was reading

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the song but I was hearing

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it playing. You almost started singing O Lord our Lord.

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It's a real banger back in the day. We used

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to sing that one.

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Sometimes we

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will, but people in our tradition

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of course will criticize

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worship music that's more

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contemporary for

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being very repetitive. Of course

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it is.

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But sometimes the Psalms are that way on

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purpose. You

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could probably sing O Lord our Lord, how

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majestic is your name in all the earth over and over

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again and God is probably just fine with it.

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Yeah, I mean especially when you consider

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all of the riches that are packed into it.

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So yeah it begins with of

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course just this exclamation

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of praise that God is it doesn't say how

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majestic is your name in Israel by the way. It

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doesn't say how majestic is your name in Jerusalem

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at the temple, all of which are true of course, but this

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is everywhere. And

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that's important because

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this is contrary of course

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to the typical ancient

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Near Eastern theology which held that gods

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and goddesses were geographically circumscribed.

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You had your God of here.

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you got a hedge of God up there and you

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is

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majestic, his name is majestic,

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everywhere

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in all the earth

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because he's the only

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God and so therefore everything

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is filled with with his price. You

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know majestic is there's

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a word that not a word that we use a lot

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but if we do use it I'm trying to think of it I

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was trying to think of a scenario

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in which I might use the word majestic right

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and usually it would

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be something like I think

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of maybe if you were like on top of you

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know a mountain and you could see

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all these I remember when

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I lived out in the northwest I

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went to the Cascades

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and you could just see forever and you just

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see the Cascade Mountains and and

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then you could see water over here stuff

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and it's situations like that where

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you'd be like and maybe you were describing

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to someone else you like dude it was absolutely majestic

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right it's yeah like awesome is not like

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a good enough word like there's something else

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there yeah

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it's awesome on steroids yeah I mean

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a

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lot of people have stood on the edge of the Grand Canyon

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that's what when I hear majestic that's what comes in my

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mind mountains yes but I mean even that

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kind of the the downward looking you can look

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up at mountains you go down in the canyon that's majestic

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too I mean it just seems surreal

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it's so incredibly

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awesome.

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Now that's that's interesting

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because we both use examples from creation and yet

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here

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it's the creator

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who is majestic. Well I

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think the same with your name and all the area. Yeah I think

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with something being majestic as opposed

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to just being great or awesome and of course

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The Psalms will say that the God is

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great and awesome and they will use those those

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words as well but I think of majestic

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majestic is something that is

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So big it's so awe-inspiring

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that you that it makes you smaller Right.

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So like if something's majestic You

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end up feeling you're in all of it and

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you feel little and small

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which I think is really cool because

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He's gonna say Oh Lord your Lord our Lord

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How majestic is your name and all the earth and then talk about all

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the things he's done for this small little thing

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that he's created Which is man, right which

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is cool. Yeah

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Yeah, it's it's kind of the the Eurneus

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quote the glory of God is

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a man fully alive Yeah, God.

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Yeah, how does God show his glory? In

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saving us. Yeah, that's that's

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his his majesty is expressed

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doing things for what we deem to be

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small but in God's eyes are are

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Worth everything that he's doing or

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to quote my my friend Nicholas Hottman You

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have to remember that God

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does whatever he feels like doing

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and what he feels like doing is saving

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you Verse 2

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is quoted by Jesus In

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The context upon Sunday

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right out of the mouths of babies and infants you have

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established strength because your foes to

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steal the enemy And the Avenger I've always I've

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always thought that This is of course,

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you know the crowds are

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Singing Hosanna's and welcoming Jesus

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as he rides in and the religious

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leaders are complaining to Jesus, you know Don't

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you hear what they're saying? And

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Jesus doesn't know the one of these do

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you dudes not even ever read the Bible? situations

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Always like Have

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you never read? in the

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scriptures Where it says

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out of the mouths of infants and nursing babies you have

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prepared, praise. You guys don't

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even do the Bible.

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But I love the way

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the verse ends,

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to silence or to steal

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the enemy and the avenger.

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So the babies and the infants are praising

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God and they're doing this so

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they can shout down you guys,

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the enemy and the avenger, you guys who are plotting my

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own death, in fact, even as we speak.

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Yeah, there is something great

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about Jesus saying, do you guys even Bible?

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Because when He says it to those people,

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He's saying

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to people who really think they Bible.

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Yeah, it was their job. That's what they did.

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It'd be like saying to somebody today with a

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PhD in Bible, New Testament,

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Old Testament, whatever, he's like, do you know the Bible?

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Do you actually read the study of the Bible?

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So it's a top notch

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insult every time Jesus says it. Have

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you ever read the Bible? It'd be like if,

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honestly, if God came to you and I and

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we're like, do you guys even Old Testament? We'd be like, what?

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Yeah, it was

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pretty much a parallel. It's

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like, oh, what's what we do? What are you talking about? Yeah,

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that's what we're all about. Now

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verse 3 is where

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we have this transition to building

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on the majestic name of God. But

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we kind of place ourselves.

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This is the I speaking. So this is David

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speaking, but it's more than just David.

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I mean, it's us and it's

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also going to take us to Christ. When

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I look at your heavens,

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the work of your fingers, you know, this majestic

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creation,

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that reflection of your majesty. When I look at

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your heavens and work your fingers, the moon

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and the stars, which you have made,

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what is man

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that you are mindful of him,

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the son of man that

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you that you care for him? That

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that word mindful, by the way, is our

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verb remember Zakar. So

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what is man that you remember him?

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Yeah, that you act on his behalf?

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Yeah, that you act on his behalf, the son of man

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that you

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care for him. You know, I actually think about this.

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So he's

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looking up, but when I'm on an airplane,

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and I like down, especially when we're going

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over a city, and I just think everything

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is small, and you can't even see the people.

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Yeah. I'm just, you know, having a thousand

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feet in the air. But

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he's God looking down, and

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does he

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see us? Does he care? I mean, what

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are we compared to everything that he's made?

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Yeah, what's great about this is that

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David is saying, I'm outside looking, you'd

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imagine looking at the night sky or whatever. And

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he doesn't come to the conclusion that, wow, everything

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is so big and vast. God

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must not be mindful or

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care about me. No, instead,

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and this would be bad if you did come to that conclusion.

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Don't look at whatever incredible,

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majestic thing you're looking at and think, man,

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with all this, I bet you God is not

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mindful of me. He probably doesn't really care about

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me. Look at all this creation. He's

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got to be so much more. He's got to be way

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more proud of this than he is of anything else. And

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that's not the conclusion. David comes to you. He is struck with

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awe, but he struck with awe that he's like, he

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know, is it's a, I know that you're

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mindful of me and I, and I know that

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you care for me. And that

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is wild. Yeah.

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Yeah. In fact, you, so you've

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made me, well,

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this can be translated two ways, a little

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lower or for a little while

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lower. Both

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the Hebrew and the Greek can be translated that way.

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So you have made me, you have made him rather

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for a little while lower or a little lower

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than the Elohim, which

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some translations will render as God.

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ESV has heavenly beings.

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The Septuage in the Greek translation has angels,

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which is what is quoted in Hebrews.

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So I think that's probably the best way to surrender this.

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You made him for a little while

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or a little lower than the angels

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and crowned him with glory

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and honor. You've given

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him dominion over the works of your hands. You put all

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things under his feet. This of course is all Genesis 1

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language where God is made Adam and

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Eve to be those who bear his image

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and likeness, which in the ancient Near East to bear the

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image and likeness of God was usually

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confined only to

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royalty.

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So the king was the image of God. So

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if you thought of the image of God in the ancient Near East, you thought of the king. Well,

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a similar thing is happening in Genesis except

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humanity, all the humanity. They are

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regal. So crown him with

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glory and honor.

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So for a little while lower

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and then lifted up

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to show our true place

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even above these heavenly beings. Now

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here's where things get really cool because when

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you go to Hebrews

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chapter 2,

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this is where you see the

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author apply this directly to Christ. So

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the person he's talking about here, the author

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Hebrews will say, is Jesus himself. You

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made him for a little while lower,

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but then you have exalted him to his

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rightful place. Crown him with glory and

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honor. The beauty of that is that you

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see Genesis

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alongside the ministry of Jesus in the Gospels.

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You see everything kind of come together. Yes,

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I mean in Genesis, God didn't make humanity

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a little bit lower than the angels. Crown him with glory

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and honor, but then you see humanity now

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taking a different form coming to its

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God-ordained purpose in the incarnation where

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God actually becomes man. And

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then the Father lifts him

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up, crowns him with glory and honor, and

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places him as King of Kings at his

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right hand so that he rules over all

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things.

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Yeah, this is the way that creation

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works. So God, imagine

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that... God creates everything and

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of course he creates man last and

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it's almost as if God creates

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everything that is and then says now

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who am I gonna give this to

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because that's how God is. God

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is, that's what he likes to do. He

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likes to give gifts. And so he's

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created everything and says

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who am I going to hand this over to? Who

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have I created this great gift for? I know

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I will create someone

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to give it to and this is

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exactly what he does. I mean like when he creates

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Adam and Eve and says I got

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something for you it's everything. All

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of this is yours and of course they're

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like well we'll

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screw it up badly and and

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then of course Jesus comes

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and you know and

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God becomes his

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creation and now all of this

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is handed over to Christ but

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then again also returned to us who

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are in Christ.

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Yeah, yeah everything comes to

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I don't know if you want to call it full circle and when

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it comes to its telos it's God or day and end.

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Yeah, you see Eden restored.

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You see humanity. It's sometimes

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called the Oh Happy Fall. See this

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culpa because we

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received more in Christ than we lost in Adam. Yeah. So

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we're at a higher place in Christ than we were in

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Adam. So the whole psalm in

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this nine verses you've

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got creation, you've got incarnation, you

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got redemption, you got the ascension, you

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really have the end

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times in view where all of this becomes visible

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in new heavens and the new earth and David

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is able to pack this whole biblical theology

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into a mere a mere nine verses.

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Yeah, of course ends with the way he

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began right which is

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what how creation works

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is that ends with a Lord

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our Lord how majestic is your name in all the earth. thing

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that you do. Alright, well

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alright, that is Psalm number

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eight. We will be back next week

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to tackle another one. Chad,

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I will see you there. See you then.