The Glory of Infants

Psalm 8:1-2 (NKJV)
How excellent is Your name in all the earth, Who have set Your glory above the heavens! 2 Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants You have ordained strength, Because of Your enemies, That You may silence the enemy and the avenger.

We begin our survey of the lessons taught by every member of the family of God with infants. We could, of course, begin earlier, with the little ones in the womb. But we’ll stick with the ones not hidden in the depths of the earth.

Babies are so cute and cuddly; so small and tiny and apparently so fragile. It always seems to first time parents as if the slightest rustle, the gentlest breeze may land our little one in the doctor’s office. We bundle them up, we scrub all the toys with disinfectant, we wash the food two or three times. They are so weak, so dependent.

And it is this very truth that strikes David as he considers the world about Him. The Lord’s Name, David tells us, is excellent in all the earth. After all, He has set His glory above the heavens. Day to day utters forth speech and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no language, nor voice where their tongue is not heard. Their line has gone out to the ends of the earth. The heavens tell the glory of God.

Having considered God’s wonder in creation, the first place David turns to behold this wonder, the wonder of God’s Name, is the mouth of little babes. Turn and look upon this child – crafted by the hand of God Himself, carefully knit in his mother’s womb, appointed by God to live and breathe and scream and eat – and in looking on this child behold the wonder of God’s Providence.

For God has not only crafted this child, this dependent child, but has provided food and nourishment for him in his mother’s breast; has not only given the food but given him, this teeny, tiny baby, a tongue that latches on to his mother’s breast so that he can drink his fill and be satisfied. God orchestrated this; God put it together. Behold the wonder and grandeur of God!

And so, David tells us, these little babes, so fragile, so small declare the praises of God, reveal the excellence of His Name, reveal His great power. God needs no rhetoricians; He needs no learned men to vindicate His Name. Every baby born into the world manifests His glory, His strength.

Chapman Cohen once remarked, “Gods are fragile things. They may be killed by a whiff of science or a dose of common sense.” Yet modern history has demonstrated that the gods are far more resilient than Cohen imagined, and the living God more so than the idols of the nations. We simply cannot escape His presence, cannot avoid reckoning with Him because all the sophisticated arguments of philosophers, all the conjectures of scientists, all the pontifications of sociologists, suddenly confront the hard reality of a little baby. And God says, behold My grandeur!

So have you looked at a baby recently and considered the strength that God has vested in that little one? We are reminded this morning to see with new eyes and to ask God’s forgiveness for failing to see His glory in the weakest of places. Let us kneel as we are able and confess our sins to the Lord.