OUT OF THE MOUTH OF  BABES

We can’t help but be totally amazed as we contemplate the majesty of God’s creation,  whether the infinite vastness of the heavens or the beauty of the setting of a mountain lake or the delicate intricacy of a wild flower. David, the psalmist,  wrote: “O LORD, our Lord, How majestic is Thy name in all the earth, who  hast displayed Thy splendor above the heavens!” (Psa. 8:1).  Interestingly, in the very next verse, David switches from his observation of God’s awesome universe to the words that often come from the mouth of a little child, writing: “From the mouth of infants and nursing babes, You have established strength, because of Your  adversaries, to make the enemy and the revengeful cease.”   Children were nursed up to 2 1/2 – 4 years old, so they were talking.  How often we hear praise for God coming from the lips of a child. The simplicity of a child can silence the complexity of man.  In Matthew’s gospel, he recorded Jesus talking to His Father, saying,  “I praise you,  Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned and revealed them to little children” (Mt. 11:25).   From nursing babes to heavenly bodies, God is Lord of all!

During our worship service yesterday, Lucas, who just recently turned four kept putting his fingers in his mouth and wouldn’t stop when his mom asked him to, so she grabbed  his hand and “ushered” him down the aisle (from up front where his family sits) and down the back stairs, at which point he began crying. She knelt down, looked him in the eye and asked him why he was crying? “Are you afraid you are going to get a spanking for disobeying?” Lucas responded: “No, I’m afraid  we’ll have to go sit out in the van and I will miss pastor Dave’s  message and Sunday school!” (We have our Sunday school classes after the worship service)  Not quite the words you expect from a little four-year-old boy.  Would that we all had that much desire to be in God’s house to learn of Him. I remember when our children were in the nursery Sunday school class at Montavilla Baptist in Portland, Oregon they had a teacher, Mrs. Forsman, whom they just loved, and if one of them was sick and couldn’t go, they too cried.

About five weeks ago Lucas was having trouble getting settled when he was tucked into bed.  Finally his mom went in and asked him what the problem was. Lucas said, “I don’t  want to be bad anymore. I want to be good.”  His mom said,  “Well, Jesus wants you to be good too, and He would help you if you ask  Him.” At that, Lucas stood up on his bed, put his hands around his mouth as if he was going to call out to someone at a distance, and screamed out  “Jesus, help me!”  And then he said, “Mom, it worked. He’s here. He came to live in me.”   The next Sunday when his family got to church, he came up to me and said, “Pastor Dave, I have Jesus in my heart!”  “Out of the mouth of babes!”  I like Psa. 8:2 in the Living Bible:  “You have taught the little children to praise you perfectly. May their example shame and silence your enemies!”   

The Sunday before Lucas cried out for Jesus to help him, two of his siblings were in a Sunday school class where one of the ladies in our church came in as a guest to tell a  Bible story. She related the story of the blind men who were sitting by the road near Jericho. When they heard that Jesus was passing by, they  “cried out, saying, ‘Lord, have mercy on us, Son of David!'” (Mt.  20:30).  When she came to the part in the story where they cried out, she loudly, screamed out “LORD, HAVE MERCY ON US, SON OF DAVID!”  Her voice is normally very soft, so when she screamed out, she really got the children’s attention!”  Lucas wasn’t in that class to hear the lesson, but he too “cried out” unto God.  Now, we don’t have to shout to get God to hear us, but our heart does need to “cry out to God.” At some point in our life we needed (or need) to cry out like the tax-gatherer of Luke 18:13: “But the tax-gatherer, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating  his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, the sinner!'”  The account goes on to say, “I (Jesus) tell you, this man went down to his house justified…” (v. 14).   

Have you ever “cried out” to God, saying, “God be merciful to me a sinner?”  Have you ever trusted Christ for eternal life?  He is the only One who can “make you good.”   The Bible says “There is none righteous, not even one…There is none who does good, there is not even one” (Ro. 3:10,12). There is only One who is righteous. There is only One who is good, and that is God. When you invite Christ (who is God) into your life as your personal Savior, you then have His righteousness, His goodness.  “But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption” (I Cor. 1:30).  “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the  righteousness of God in Him” (II Cor. 5:21).   Does He live in you?  If not, cry out to him today, acknowledging that you are a sinner, and ask Him to come in and be your righteousness.

Forever His,

Pastor  Dave