Reading: Psalm 8; Colossians 3:12-17

There is nothing in ourselves that makes us worthy of the great honour that God has bestowed upon us, that we are made almost like God, crowned with glory and honour. That we are created in God’s image.

Created in God’s image, that means that we received gifts which no other creature received from God. One of those gifts is the gift of the word. The communication. God speaks to us and we speak to God. Lord’s Day 3 of the Heidelberg Catechism says about that, that we know God our Creator and live with Him in eternal blessedness!

That is the most important part of the relationship between God and us: that we receive His Word and respond to that with our words of praise and thankfulness. That was what God created us for. That was why He put this entire creation under our feet. So that man would use it to serve God and glorify Him. And that he would do so while living within that relationship with God, that the covenant is.

Through the fall in sin, that communication with God was broken. We used the word not to praise God anymore, but to curse God and to gossip and slander and malign and fight each other. The good gift of the word and the communication became the weapon of Satan who is the father of lie, and now he uses the word to twist the truth. But also now, through the work of salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, now Satan and every and any enemy of God can be stilled and will be brought to silence through the Word of God, which is the truth. Even if that Word is spoken by little children, babies, and infants.

Then here, on the one hand, we have those who put their trust in science and find it hard to believe what God says in His Word about His creation, and they ridicule all those who have a childlike trust and faith in God, because they don’t know science and they should not talk about things they don’t know, about evolution and all that kind of things.

But then we have there, on the other hand, the believer, little children and also adults with a childlike faith, who believe what God says in His Word, and who say: God’s Word is true, even though the whole world may seem to believe the opposite. What God says is the truth. And even the greatest scientist will not be able to take this faith away. Because the Word of God is powerful and sharper than any double edged sword. At the end, it will be the scientist who boasts in own knowledge, who will be put to shame. And it are all those who put their trust in themselves, who will be humiliated and it will be those who trust in God with a child like faith and humble themselves like the little children, who will be vindicated.

God does not need the strong and the wise men of this age. He does not need those who build for themselves great palaces or those who find their strength in human wisdom or institutions. Those who build their wealth on this earth. At the end, all that they use to make themselves important is created by God. It is all God’s possession and when they die, they can not take it with them and they will stand before God with empty hands and burdened with the sins of their arrogance and pride.

Imagine that children, babies, and infants, are building a strong bulwark, against which the staunchest atheists and godless people cannot do anything. They cannot even start to tear it down, not even one brick. Children, as soon as they start speaking, they can speak about God, and their words are powerful. David connects these words out of the mouths of little children, with the vast creation, the firmament, the moon and the stars in the sky.

It is important for us to remember that when we have the task to raise children. It is important to remember that, even as grandparents in our contact with our grandchildren. How important is it, especially in those first years, to sing with them. Don’t wait until they go to school before you start practicing the psalms and hymns with them. They can do it way before that. God desires to establish strength from the mouths of babies and infants. They also are covenant children. They also live in a relationship with God. God gives them His promises and He wants their response. Even though it is in very simple words, or words of which they don’t know the real meaning. But it is God’s desire to establish strength out of their mouths.

And when they grow up, don’t stop singing with them. Not only when the children are young, but also when they grow up, go to high school, or even become adults. Through little children, God decides to still the enemy and the avenger. That does not mean that it is only little children who can do so. But it means that we all have to become like children if it comes to faith and we all have to sing wholeheartedly for God, like the children do.

There is so much filthy talk in this world, so much cursing, so much idle talk. So many mouths being used by the devil. And the devil loves to hear that. What the devil does not want to hear, that is the singing of God’s children. And godly talk of the believers. Therefore, let us sing, let us rejoice in the Lord, let us praise His name. Even in situations that others don’t hear us. We don’t always understand how our songs can silence the enemy and the avenger, if they are not there to hear our singing. But every time when a child of God sings a song to the glory of God, the angels in heaven will hear it and rejoice with us, and the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places, and all around us, will hear it and be discouraged.

As Paul says in Colossians 3: Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another, in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the LORD.