Psalm 24 — 1 Corinthians 10

0:00 All right, let's pray. Father in heaven, we know that we need you so much. Father, you know better than anyone else here how unworthy I am to take your words on my lips. Father, I just pray that you would use the things that are spoken today in the hearts of those who hear and in my own heart, that we would leave this place desiring more to follow you and obey you and to live according to your word. And we just pray these things in Jesus' name.

0:45 Amen. So last week, we did Psalm 23, and this week, we're gonna go to Psalm 24. So if you could open your Bibles to Psalm 24. This is a Psalm that presents God as the creator and the provider and the owner, most importantly, the owner of all things. And it's a psalm that teaches us that to be in the presence of God is a thing that is to be desired above all else.

1:27 But it also teaches us that it's only those who are pure and holy who can enter God's presence. It teaches us that those who are prepared in this way by being pure and holy, they will get to meet the great king, and it gives us a beautiful picture of what that will be like. And in the psalm, there's two big rhetorical questions that are asked that the psalm is centered around. The first is the question the psalmist asks in verse three, who may ascend into the hill of the Lord? And the second is the question that's asked several times, which is who is the king of glory?

2:12 So we're gonna talk about those questions quite a bit. So let's start reading the Psalm. Psalm 24 verse one. The earth is the Lord's and all its fullness, the world and those who dwell therein. For he has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the waters.

2:34 So primarily, these first two verses are about the Lord as the owner of all people and all things. The earth is the Lord's. So we're reminded here about the breadth of God's ownership. When it says the earth and the world, we are to understand that God's ownership extends to everything that we see, and we shouldn't imagine that when David said the the word earth or world that he was somehow imagining a spherical globe type shape. Based on when David lived, it's unlikely that that's what he was thinking of.

3:15 But the earth should be understood as opposed to the water. So it's the dry land or the inhabitable world. So the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. So the idea is that it extends to everything that we see. What does it mean when it says the fullness, all its fullness?

3:42 One psalm... Another psalm that says something similar is in Psalm 50 verse 12, where God is speaking of his unhappiness with the sacrifices that were just physical acts and didn't actually represent any spiritual reality of repentance or anything like that. So Psalm verse 50 verse 12, God says this, if I was... If I were hungry, I would not tell thee, for the world is mine and all the fullness thereof. So the idea of fullness tells us a little bit about God.

4:22 Not only does God own everything, but he is not a miserly owner of the world he created. He created it with fullness, and he has supplied the world with so many wonderful things that are for us. Interestingly, Paul quotes this verse in first Corinthians chapter 10, where he says this, and I'm gonna read a little bit of the context so you can catch the whole thing. He says, first Corinthians chapter 10 verse 23, All things are lawful for me, but not all things are helpful. All things are lawful for me, but not all things edify.

5:21 Food that had been sacrificed to idols. And he says, eat whatever is sold in the meat market, asking no questions for conscience sake, for the earth is the Lord's and all its fullness. So the logical consequence of God's generous ownership of all things is that we should accept what the earth supplies as if it is from his hands. We take it as a gift from him. That's how we're to take everything.

5:51 If we don't take it as a gift from his hands, if we imagine that it comes strictly from the earth, or as if it comes from some false god, or if it comes from our own hand supplying it, then it becomes dirty. But when we accept it as from God, that's when it's clean. The earth is the Lord's and all its fullness. But while God is a generous owner of the earth and all his... And all it provides, his ownership extends beyond all these things to the people, the world and those who dwell therein, is what the psalmist says.

6:28 The world and those who dwell therein. We are God's possession. First of all, because he has created us. But also, for those of us who have trusted in the Lord, we're also his because he has purchased us. Paul says in Corinthians, he says, do you not know that your body is the temple of this holy spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?

7:01 For you were bought with a price. Peter in first Peter says something similar. He says that we were not redeemed with corruptible things like silver or gold, etcetera, etcetera, but what we were... What were we redeemed with? With the precious blood of Christ.

7:16 So if we have trusted him, we are his twice because we're created by him and also because he has purchased us. But you know that God's ownership has logical consequences for our lives. And Paul immediately follows his statement in Corinthians that we just read. He follows it up with this. He says, so you were bought with a price.

7:48 Therefore, glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's. So the thing the thing owned doesn't say to its owner, well, you can't use me that way. We're we're owned by God, and one of God's chief concerns and desires for us is that he would be glorified by us. And glory is one of the primary messages and words in this psalm, is that word glory, the king of glory. But but is God's glory selfish?

8:22 I mean, isn't it somehow inconsistent with his moral character of God that he should be, you know, so stuck on himself that he would want us to give him glory, and that would be one of his chief desires of us. The answer to that is definitely no. Because you see the picture that's given to us in this psalm is a picture of celebration and joy in God. I really like the way Colossians state this states this. It says this, for by him all things were created, that's by the Lord Jesus, by him all things were created that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers, all things were created through him, and this is the part that I wanna bring your attention to, and for him.

9:20 He created us with a purpose. He created us with a purpose. And God's ownership of us is intimately connected to that purpose. So why would we imagine that fulfilling our purpose would somehow be a boring or a painful duty? God desires that we would glorify him by enjoying him.

9:46 And I love what John Piper says so beautifully. If you've ever read any of John Piper's materials, this is what he says. He says, God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him. God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him. Now we have to discuss this statement about the founding of the Earth upon the seas.

10:14 I know as as a as a scientist, when I first read this thoughtfully several years ago, being kind of perturbed by it, like, what what is what is what is David saying here? I don't think that David David may not have been aware of the globe or of a spherical Earth. I don't know exactly how David would have envisioned the Earth, but I I don't think that he's literally suggesting that the Earth sort of floats upon the... On top of the water. I don't...

10:52 Remember, this is a poet... This is poetry. So the the... I think the idea, again, is that the the Earth is to be understood as as separate from the water, and upon is to be understood as the idea of above, that the rocks and the land itself is somehow above the waters. And perhaps in a poetic sense, in using the word upon, he's suggesting sort of the oddness that the Earth doesn't sink into the water.

11:36 And I think... And he's possibly suggesting what his own observation is, that if you just go out and take a big rock and drop it into the water, it goes down to the bottom. And even today with our... All of our scientific accomplishments, we may know the... All the shape of the surface of the Earth.

12:00 We have some idea of the the valleys and the mountains that come up, and we may have some idea of how the water, you know, is in in these deep valleys. But I think it should be somewhat remarkable to us, the fact that why isn't the Earth completely covered by water? If if there had just been a little bit more water on the Earth, the Earth would have been covered. If the shape of the Earth was just a little bit smoother, the Earth would have been covered by water. If there was more, like, volcanic activity and geological activity as there is on many planets out there, it would be, you know, massive waves continually covering the Earth with water.

12:48 So I think it's that idea that we can we can take from it, and it's suggestive of the fact when we begin to think about that that the Earth is especially prepared for life, that somehow God has especially prepared the earth for life. And in fact, Genesis one shows us this because one of the days was devoted to actually raising the earth and separating it from the water. And it is God's... Again, an example of God's miraculous and powerful preparation of the earth for man to live upon it. And so so far we've discussed that the earth has the purpose of being created for mankind, and that mankind was created for God, and that fulfillment in life consists in enjoying God by glorifying him.

14:38 Who shall dwell in thy holy hill? So there was no temple when David wrote this psalm. This is a psalm written by David, and if you'll remember, the temple was built by Solomon. It it may have been that David had already purchased the the land for the temple and perhaps had in his mind a future temple that would be there. We know that that was one of, as you as you read through the the stories about David, that that was one of his his great dreams was the building of a temple.

15:15 So it may have been already in David's mind, and maybe this was part of what he was writing the psalm about. But certainly, the idea of the the hill of the Lord or the holy place was this place where God, whether it be the tabernacle or the temple, where God had... Was to manifest himself in a special way, where people could actually go and enter into the very presence of Almighty God. So the real the real question is, who can go and meet with God? Who can ascend into the hill of the Lord?

15:54 Who can actually go and meet with God? There may have been many Israelites who were maybe physically able to go and enter the tabernacle, but could they really actually meet with God? You know, the tabernacle and the temple, they were both filled with symbolism about the divide between man and God. There would... If you wanted to go into the holiest place, you had to first pass through the outer gates.

16:24 And not just anybody was allowed to pass through the outer outer gates. You know, you look in in... At the Levitical laws, Leviticus 21, there's there's like all... You had to be basically a perfect, a pretty normal specimen of humanity. You couldn't have any blemishes or faults, and that's a picture, not that God was actually concerned about those things.

16:47 Certainly today, there's no requirement of being a perfect physical specimen to have a relationship or to meet with God. Those are a picture of what God thinks of sin, that have to... If you want to enter into his presence, you have to be perfect and holy. And you had to pass through those gates, and then you could pass into the holy place, but who could actually pass through that veil that separated the holy from the holiest place, and actually where the ark was and where God's presence was centered over the ark? Who could do that?

17:30 Well, it was only one priest once a year who would go in there with a sacrifice. And there's that that symbolism all throughout the tabernacle that shows us that God is separated, distinct, and distant from man, separated because of our sin. Now, I believe that there are maybe several aspects of the presence of God that we should think about here. One is the the... Or in application of this idea of meeting with God.

18:06 One is the presence of God that we can enter into down here in this life, that we can experience his presence. And the other is the wonderful thought that someday we might actually get to spend eternity with God in a very physical way that is perhaps more real than we will ever experience here. And it is written into our very being to desire God's presence. But the psalmist asked this deep question, who can ascend into your holy hill? Who can pass through those gates and curtains to meet with him?

19:20 Then these hands are are not clean, are they? And have I ever taken my heart and thought... A thought that was impure? Well then my heart is not pure, is it? And have I ever lifted up my soul to an idol?

19:36 Well, maybe not literally, but I certainly have at times put things or money, education, put things in front of God. Have I ever sworn deceitfully? Certainly, I've told lies before. So how can I enter into the presence of God? Have any of you done those things?

20:08 It's not hard to answer that question. Who can enter into his presence then? Who can actually ascend into the hill of the Lord? Can any of us meet with God when God has said about us that there is none righteous, no, not one? Well, I am glad to tell you that I do know someone who can ascend into the hill of the Lord and stand in that holy place.

20:38 Jesus lived a perfect life. And, you know, the wonderful thing is that if our hands are dirty and our heart is impure, then we are exactly the kind of people that he came to save. And by coming to him with a repentant heart and simple trust and faith, we too can be cleansed and forgiven and made pure like him. And, you know, it was David himself in Psalm 32 who said this. He said, Blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute sin.

21:16 So David was well aware when he was writing these verses that God could declare an unrighteous person to be righteous. I love the verse in Ephesians three twelve where it says, in him and through faith faith in him, we may approach God with freedom and confidence. Other translations use the use the the word access. We have access. We can...

21:47 Have the opportunity through faith in his name to actually enter in to the presence of God. Some remarkable thing. You know that the curtain in the temple that separated man from God, when Jesus died, that was ripped into, showing us that the way was open, that we could enter into his presence. We know that we can enter into God's presence. We know, first of all, that the Lord Jesus has promised to never leave us or forsake us.

22:20 So we know that we are always, in some sense, in God's presence. We know that we can enter into his presence through prayer. We know that when God's people meet together, that he is there. We know that when we die, we will spend eternity with him. The presence of God, we can enter it because of the work of the Lord Jesus.

22:40 But we also know that there are multiple aspects to the holiness which God demands of us. There's our position in Christ, we receive because of the death of the Lord Jesus, but there's also the practical reality of our life, and the practical reality of our life should reflect the inner work of God, and the guiding principle of the Christian's relationship with God is that we have been adopted. So once we were in God's courtroom, we had a judge. Now we're in God's family room. We have a father.

23:18 Does sin still separate us in some sense from our father? You bet it does. So we need to live a life, a repentant life, if we want to live our lives in the presence of God. And if we don't live a repentant life, it might be worth considering whether it's truly Christian life at all. Verse five, he shall receive the blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation.

23:49 Who is this one that receives blessing? It's the one who has a pure heart and clean hands, who's been forgiven. That's the one who receives blessing from the Lord. God's glory is his alone, but his grace is immensely generous. We cannot ultimately come to God in a posture of contributing to him.

24:11 We come to God to receive his blessing. And one of the blessings that it talks about here is righteousness. We understand that the righteousness that we have, the clean hands and the pure heart, it's not really ours, is it? It's ultimately a gift from God. Verse six.

24:43 This is Jacob, the generation of those who seek him, who seek your face, Silah. You know, not every Hebrew person who hears David's psalm belongs to the true line of grace. Not all of them were truly descendants of Jacob. It's those who have clean hands and a pure heart, and those who seek after God's face. Those are the ones who are truly in the line of Jacob in that generation.

26:09 It's the the countenance. So it was sin that separated us from the presence of God. It was sin that caused us to hide ourselves from his presence, to fear his presence. There's another verse that describes the longing of God's presence, which is found in Psalms. It says, my heart says of you seek his face.

26:35 Your face Lord, I will seek. Do not hide your face from me. Do not turn your servant away in anger. You have been my helper. Do not reject me or forsake me, God my savior.

26:47 Though my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me. That great expression of the desire to be in God's presence, or to use the term face, to be... To seek the face of God. I like what Spurgeon said about this. He said, even seeking has a sanctifying influence.

27:17 What a consecrating power must lie in finding and enjoying the Lord's face and favor. To desire communion with God is a purifying thing. Oh, to hunger and thirst more and more after a clear vision of the face of God. This will lead us to purge ourselves from all filthiness and to walk with heavenly circumspection. He who longs to see his friend when he passes takes care to clear the mist from the window, lest by any means his friend should go by unobserved.

27:55 Really awaken souls, seek the Lord above everything, and this is not the usual desire of mankind. They constitute a generation by themselves, a people despised of men, but beloved of God. So now, to motivate us in our search for God's face, and to fill us with the desire that will only be a partial fulfillment here on this earth, David paints for us a poetic picture of how we can enter into the presence of God. So in the picture, in the picture, we've entered into that holy place, and now the king is coming, and it's time for a celebration. So let's start with verse...

28:50 Let's read verse seven. Okay. Lift up your heads, O you gates, and be lifted up everlasting doors. The King of glory shall come in. Who is the King of glory?

29:05 The Lord, strong and mighty. The Lord, mighty in battle. Lift up your heads, oh you gates. Lift up you everlasting doors, and the king of glory shall come in. Who is the king of glory?

29:20 The lord of hosts. He is the king of glory, Selah. So the poetic picture is one where there is such an atmosphere of welcoming and joy that even the inanimate gates are pictured as standing a little straighter and bursting open for the king of glory. We know that there is one who has clean hands and a pure heart, and this one has ascended into the holy place, and we can be with him. But who is this king of glory who has ascended?

30:06 Who is this king of glory? Is it a mere man that the psalmist is speaking of? No. He says, this king of glory is the Lord, Yahweh, Jehovah. So last week we read the twenty third Psalm, and one of the things I I I like in reading about the twenty third Psalm is it says, the Lord is my shepherd, And yet when we turn to the New Testament, who is the good shepherd?

30:36 It's the Lord Jesus. Right? So it's that we see the wonderful truth that Jesus is Jehovah. Jesus is the Lord. And here we read, who is the king of glory?

30:52 It's Jesus. Right? But it's also the Lord Jehovah. Jesus is Jehovah. But when we turn to the New Testament, I think we can argue that the king of glory really is Jesus.

31:23 It shows up over and over again. You know, glory is the central theme, one of the central themes of the bible. You... And you'll quickly discover if you start looking up that word that the word glory is almost inseparable from the presence of God. Whenever God shows up, you start reading in the old first five books of the Bible over and over again.

31:44 Glory. Glory. I remember being taught at one point that glory was defined as the essence of uncreated light, which I I suppose that that maybe is true in some sense, and possibly sort of linked to the etymology and the actual literal meaning of the word, is that it has that idea of light in it. And we see that over and over again. There's that shining, brilliant light that shows up when God's presence is manifested in a physical way.

32:28 And we see that with Jesus when he's on the Mount of transfiguration, and his face starts to shine. And I see that in the Old Testament over and over again. But I think that that shining forth of light is a physical manifestation of something that's even bigger. And when we... So when we see the term glory, I think we need to think of a whole bunch of similar words.

32:59 So like great or famous, awesome, majestic, powerful, incredible, maybe even fearful. Those are the sorts of terms that should go right along in our thinking with the with the word glory. But certainly, the presence of God is always one of glory. For example, Isaiah six verse three is a good verse. I like this.

33:30 That's that passage where Isaiah has that incredible vision of the Lord, and the angels are standing around, and they're saying to one another, it says, and one cried out unto another saying, holy holy holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory. The whole earth is full of his glory. Inseparable from God's presence is this notion of his glory. God is alone in majesty.

34:07 There is no one like him, and he tells us in no uncertain terms that he will not share his glory with another. The psalmist invites us to look up into the incredible greatness of the stars. I believe we did this psalm a few weeks back. Psalm chapter eight verse one. Psalmist says, oh, Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth.

34:32 Who has set thy glory above the heavens? You look up into the stars, so majestic and incredible and great, And the psalmist tells us, even higher than that, bigger than that, is God's glory. Brighter, shining brighter than all that, is God's glory. The departure of God's glory from a place is an incredibly sad thing. We see that multiple times in the Old Testament, like when the ark was stolen from the children of Israel, and you see that I'm saying the glory has departed.

35:49 We read that the word was God. The word was God and then we skip down to John one fourteen and it says, and the word was made flesh. The one who was God became man and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory. The glory as of the only begotten of the father, full of grace and truth. Who's the king of glory?

36:22 It's Jesus. And John did behold his glory, possibly in a way that we will never see in this life, didn't he? On that mount of transfiguration, Jesus' face shining in this incredible brightness. John says, we we saw it with our own eyes. John 17 verse five, and now, father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world began.

36:54 That's an incredible verse, isn't it? So just stop and think about that for a minute. What that means is that God's glory is a static attribute of himself that is independent of all humans. You go back back in time, all the way before there was people, before there was a world, there's just a father, son, and holy spirit. There they are, and they were glorious.

37:23 They didn't need us to be glorious. And... But we also know there's other verses that say things like, give glory to the Lord, the glory due his name. So we know not only is it a static attribute of God, but it's also something that God demands of us that we give him, speak of him as the glorious one that he actually is. John seventeen twenty two, and the glory which thou gavest me, I have given them that they may be one even as we are one.

38:01 It's amazing verse. John 17 verse 24, father, I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory which thou has given me for thou loves me before the foundation of the earth, before the foundation of the world. That they may behold my glory. That they may behold my glory. That about sums up the greatness of our hope.

38:39 Because someday, we are going to enter into his presence, and we're going to get to spend eternity in his presence beholding his glory. And the reason why we can do that is because we have pure hands and a clean heart if we've trusted in him and repented and turned to him. So who is this current king of glory? It's the Lord Jehovah, and it's my savior, Jesus. And this Jesus who was meek and lowly, who died on a cross without a fight, is the same one about which this psalm says is the lord of hosts, which means he's the lord of a great army.

39:35 And it's the same one about which this psalm says he is mighty in battle. Someday, he's gonna take everything that's messed up in this world, and he's gonna fix it. We know that this is true because God's word says it. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we come to you.

40:39 But we thank you so much that your son has already done the work bringing us forgiveness and that someday we're gonna be in your presence and that someday you're gonna straighten out this world. And, father, we just pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.