Psalm 24
This is Psalm 24 beginning at
verse 1. It says, A Psalm of David. The earth is the Lord’s
and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein. For he has founded it upon the
seas and established it upon the rivers. Who shall ascend
the hill of the Lord and who shall stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a
pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false
and does not swear deceitfully, he will receive blessing from
the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation. Such
is the generation of those who seek him, who seek the face of
the God of Jacob. Lift up your heads, O gates,
and be lifted up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come
in, who is the King of glory, the Lord strong and mighty, The
Lord mighty in battle, lift up your heads, O gates, and lift
them up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in.
Who is the King of glory? The Lord of hosts. He is the
King of glory. Amen. Let’s pray together. Our
God, we pray that by your spirit you would open wide the gates
of our hearts, that we would receive the glory and the presence
of Christ in each of us as we hear from this wonderful passage,
this wonderful ancient piece of poetry that explains the greatness
and glory and majesty of Christ. We pray that our hearts would
have great room for him as he desires to enter and dwell in
each of us. In this we pray in Christ’s name,
amen. It has been since June of 1953
since we have had the coronation of a monarch,
and that would be Queen Elizabeth in England. It’s been, what,
63 years or something like that. But if you look back in the history
of the coronations of kings and queens in England, The coronations
or the ascension to the throne happened much more often because
people got poisoned, they got their throat slit, they got killed
in battle, all kinds of other reasons. In some cases, there
were two to three coronations in a year’s time. So we have
63 years since. the last great coronation. And
so, probably very likely that many of us in the room have no
recollection of the last time a great monarch under the British
crown has been crowned king or queen. But we
have seen a royal wedding or two and that may be quite similar.
But these are ceremonies with quite a bit of pomp and circumstance. Lots of grand music, lots of
trumpets blaring, lots of royal and grand music is played. Now when someone is crowned king
or queen, there’s usually a great processional of dignitaries into
the capital city. There are seats which are at
a premium within the place of the coronation. But the people
invited must be not only of the right stock, but they also must
have the right clearance or invitation to sit there. And so as we look
at Psalm 24, that’s an earthly picture of the heavenly picture
we’re reading of. Israel always had the promise
of the presence of a king. There’s a book that I just purchased. It’s one of those that’s pretty
dear to my heart. It’s one of those that maybe
some of you know, preachers you sleep with under your pillow.
But it’s about the glory and the majesty of the King, and
it explains how all the Bible, all the whole purpose of the
Bible is to show the beauty of King Jesus, to show the beauty
of Almighty God. And so this is a passage that
gives us a glimpse of that. It’s a passage that shows us
that the presence of God the King, that His entrance into
the great city of Jerusalem, that Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem
itself with the triumphal entry, and especially Jesus’ entrance
after His death and resurrection and ascension into heaven is
a great and wonderful event, worthy of pomp and circumstance.
Now think about God and His presence in Israel in the past. How did God personally show up
in the presence of his people? Well initially, and this is aside
from all theophanies and coming to Moses in the burning bush
and Abraham outside his home place, this would be coming to
the people of God. He first would come in the presence
on the ark. Remember the ark, the top of
it was the mercy seat and he was enthroned between the cherubim
on the top of the ark. We see stories and instances
in the Bible where the glory of God came down and it filled
the temple. We see it filling the tabernacle
before there was a temple. And then we see, of course, Jesus
coming in the person of Jesus, or we see God coming in the person
of Jesus, and he enters physically with his triumphal entry into
Jerusalem, God in the flesh. Now it’s very interesting. This is a little bit of a guess,
but It’s a pretty good guess. When Jesus was entering Jerusalem,
the triumphal entry, it is very likely that Psalm 24 was being
used liturgically in the temple. You know how every, what is it,
we have about a four week rotation here where we do the Apostles’
Creed, we do the Nicene Creed, we do the, what’s today, the
Westminster Creed, next week we’ll do the Hebrews 1 and Philippians
2 thing. We rotate our creeds. We rotate
our Gloria Patri, our Majesty, or what else is it we sing? We
kind of rotate through the songs that we sing and the creeds we
use. Well, they did that in the Old Testament, too. And it was
very likely that on the day that Jesus made his triumphal entry
into Jerusalem, the priest, the ones who later that week would
crucify him, the ones later that week who would have him put to
death, it was very likely that while Jesus was coming in to
the meager cries of children and common people who knew who
he was, Hosanna, son of David, blessed is he who comes in the
name of the Lord, they were in the temple singing or chanting
Psalm 24. But little did they know who
was actually outside on that little bitty donkey, coming quietly,
coming meekly, coming humbly, into the city. It’s interesting
how God in his providence uses his word in all kinds of ways.
Well, there’s three nice little sections to the psalm to look
at, and two of them have to do with the city. If you look at
verses 3 through 6, it tells us who can come into the city
to be with the king. The second section, verses 7
through 10, tell us about God coming to the city But verses
one and two, where we’ll start, speak to us about the king’s
property. Look at verses one and two, it
says, the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the
world and those who dwell therein. For he has founded it upon the
seas and established it upon the rivers. There’s a little
book that we’re reading at night at our house, Patrick and I are
reading, and it’s called Little Lord Fauntleroy. Have y’all read
that as a kid? You know the story of little
Lord Fauntleroy. He’s a seven-year-old and a lawyer is sent from England
to New York to fetch him and bring him over to England where
his grandfather, the wicked Earl of Dorincourt is what he’s called,
has lost all three of his sons who were the heirs to Dorincourt,
this vast estate with a great castle and many lands. So this
little seven-year-old is brought over in a desperate attempt to
have an heir, to be the next Earl of Dorincourt. But one day
they’re out riding their horses, they become great and fond friends
and all the rest and they’re out riding together and the Earl
of Dorincourt looks at his grandson and he says, do you know that
everything that you see is mine and someday it shall be yours?
And that is what God is saying in this passage. He’s saying
the earth is mine and everything in it, the fullness thereof. If you look at the little footnote,
it says the earth and all that is in it, all that fills it.
It is all God’s, every land, every realm, every content. and
those who dwell in also belong. For God has founded it upon the
seas and he has established it upon the rivers. He’s the creator,
he’s the filler, he’s the sustainer, he’s the owner. He is the Lord
of the land and we are his servants. And he has made us, as Genesis
chapter one and two tell us, and you’re one of the fellows
who comes to the men’s study, You recognize from our book that
He has made us underlords over all that He has made. But what
is He saying here in verses 1 and 2? This is my property. This
is my vast dominion. This is the realm of the Creator,
King of the universe. And it doesn’t explain a lot
about the universe, but we know that it is splendid. We know
that it is vast, it is deep, it is wide, it is intricate.
We go to the planetarium and look at the stars and the universe.
We go to the laboratory and look through the microscope and we
see all the little tiny, tiny things he’s made. We go to the
zoo. For a walk in the forest, we go out to Grand Canyon or
we go to the Rockies, we go across the world and we see the world
and everything in it is quite amazing. And this is the king’s
property. He took a chaotic, he took what
was formless and void and made it formed and filled. Now here’s
an interesting little thing to consider. In the old, or in the
ancient Near East when this psalm would have been written, every
other nation surrounding Israel did not have a worldview that
the world was a created order, created by God, and was orderly,
and purposeful, and majestic, and beautiful, and fit together
to serve the purposes of God. They thought that the world was
chaotic. They thought that the world was
gonna fly apart someday. They thought that the gods who
hated mankind ruled it and reigned over it. And so people were often,
or always, afraid of the sea and the land. everything. They
were afraid of the beast, but not so with God’s children. And
so we have a very different understanding of the king’s property. Now remember
this as well. What did God always promise to
his people? He promised them land, right? The blessing of the covenant
is land. The blessing of Obedience to
God is to have a place that is your own. What does Jesus say
in the Sermon on the Mount? The meek shall inherit the earth. And we ultimately understand
that land promise, that land covenant blessing, to be the
new heavens and the new earth, where God will take all that
is broken and make it new. And so there’s the king’s property.
Look at the second little part, though. It speaks of the king’s
city in verses three to six. It says, Who shall ascend the
hill of the Lord? Who shall stand in his holy place?
He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his
soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully, he will
receive blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God
of salvation. Such is the generation of those who seek him, who seek
the face of the God of Jacob. So there’s this question, it’s
much like Psalm 15, who can enter the presence of God? Here it
says, who can ascend the hill of the Lord? Who can walk up
into Jerusalem? Who can enter the city? The king
is gonna have a ceremony, he’s gonna enter and the question
is, who can come, who can be present? So it says something
about the worshiper of God. It says they have clean hands.
They have a pure heart. They do not bow to idols. There
is no deceit on their tongue. And it basically follows two
patterns we understand. One is the inside and the outside.
It reveals who we are inside by what we do outside. If you
have clean hands, what do you most likely have? A pure heart,
right? And then also what is the great
commandment? We’re to love God. and to love neighbor. And so
you’ve got idols and deceit. We love God and worship him,
no idols. And we love our neighbor and
we don’t lie to them. And so who gets security clearance?
Who gets an invitation seat? How many of you have ever been
invited to the presidential box in Washington when there’s going
to be a what do we call it, not a coronation, inauguration. Probably none of us. But with
God, that’s not the case. We all get invited with a seat
in heaven. But what gives us clearance?
Well, it’s blessing and it’s righteousness. We read in verse
five, this person who has clean hands, pure heart, no idols,
doesn’t swear deceitfully, he will receive blessing from the
Lord and righteousness from the God of salvation. Now, in a day
where we’re not supposed to be exclusive, we’re supposed to
be inclusive, we have to be reminded that God is a very exclusive
God. Remember in Revelation, he says of the heavenly city,
the New Jerusalem, he says it’s gonna have walls that are thick
and high and gates that are big and strong, and those who are
unrighteous will not enter in. And so heaven will keep out the
unrighteous from the presence of God, but also to protect the
people of God, the saints of God, any future harm. Now, you know Galatians and the
fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,
faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Well, that’s our New Testament
fruit of the Spirit. Here we have a little glimpse
of maybe what might be considered the Old Testament fruit of the
Spirit. The one who is blessed by God and has been given the
righteousness that comes from God and his salvation, verse
5, you kind of go back up the ladder in verse 4. What is the
fruit of that righteousness? What is the fruit of that blessing?
Clean hands, pure heart, does not lift up his soul to what
is false, and does not swear deceitfully. So the righteous
man in the Old Covenant is justified, he’s blessed, and his righteousness
is made manifest in his action towards God and towards neighbors. who can enter the presence of
God is the one who is found righteous in Christ, and then who ultimately
bears the fruit of that righteousness. And then finally there’s the
king’s entry. There’s the king’s land, the king’s city, but now
the king’s entry. And this comes in the last part
of the psalm. Think about Handel’s Messiah. Have any of y’all ever
listened to the whole thing? Not the little highlights. Okay,
our music guy, one or two back there. Okay, it’s worth going
to see. In fact, somebody ought to check
into finding some tickets and we load up the car and go together
and eat supper together sometime. It’s worth it. It’s a majestic
retelling of the story of redemptive history put to amazing music.
But Handel’s Messiah puts Psalm 24 at the ascension when Jesus
enters ultimately the heavenly sanctuary, the heavenly city.
Some might put it at the triumphal entry, others may put it maybe
even at a coronation of a king like David or Solomon. But in
some way, shape, or form, it applies to all of these grand
events in the life of the king, but ultimately into the ascension.
But this is a psalm that was meant probably, most likely,
we’re not 100% sure, for some sort of antiphonal calling response
setting where a chanter or a choir master may have called out, who
is the king of glory? And a choir would have answered,
the Lord strong and mighty. And there might have been some
back and forth and back and forth. And then someone representing
the king may have said, the king of glory, the Lord strong and
mighty, he enters, he draws nigh. And so it would have been, probably
something in a setting where there were balconies, there were
people down low in a commons area, and where a king would
come in and present himself high up above others. The music would
have been quite grand, but it would have been something like
that that would have had a building momentum and it would have manifested
fully in a climactic ending with the last verses, the Lord of
hosts, he is the king of glory. That would have been quite an
experience to have been present when this psalm was used in the
life of Israel, but even in the heavenlies when Jesus made his
return. But we see that everyone and
every person in the city cries out to Almighty God. And this
is a good reminder of who Jesus is. Notice all the titles. Who
is the King of Glory? He is Yahweh, the Lord. He is
strong. He is mighty. He is great in
battle. He is the King of Glory. He is
the Lord of Hosts. That’s the Yahweh Sabaoth, the
King of all the armies of heaven. He is the King of Glory and that
is who Jesus is. That is who Jesus is as the King
of Kings and Lord of Lords. He is the divine warrior. And the great blessing that we
have and that we know is that he wants to be in our midst and
he wants us to be in his presence. And so you think of the great
lengths that our King Jesus has gone to to draw us into his presence
with his own suffering and death his resurrection and his ascension.
And so maybe you ask the question, what will heaven be like? It
will probably be a lot like this song, where God will remind us
how great he is and that he’s included us in it. But here’s
the real question. Here’s the real question, is
do you have room in your heart for this Jesus as the King of
glory? That’s the big question, isn’t it? Have you made room
for him that he might enter your heart? Because he can enter heaven
easily, but will he enter your heart by faith because you have
made room for him? Let’s pray together. Our great
God and heavenly Father, we thank you for this glimpse of King
Jesus and his beauty and majesty and we do pray father that you
would Bless us with your presence bless us with your might bless
us with your glory And that we would bow our knees and that
we would serve you as king forever and ever we pray in Jesus name
Amen