Psalm 24, Psalm 24 this morning, before we hear the word, let us ask the Lord's blessing upon it. Our Father in heaven, now as we open your word, we recognize the world sees what we are doing now as foolish, but it is your power to break broke, to break hard hearts and to receive the wonderful truth of the gospel. And so, Lord, show us this Christ this morning. From this wonderful text in Psalm 24, show us this Jesus, may He penetrate and feed every weary soul here the wonderful truth that we are saved by grace alone, through faith alone. In Jesus' name, Amen. Psalm 24, let us hear the word of the Lord. The earth is the Lord's and everything in it, the world and all who live in it. For he founded it upon the seas and established it upon the waters. Who may ascend the hill of the Lord? Who may stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to an idol or swear by what is false. He will receive blessing from the Lord and vindication from God his Savior. Such is the generation of those who seek him, who seek your face, O God of Jacob. Lift up your heads, O you gates. Be lifted up, you ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty. The Lord mighty in battle. Lift up your heads, O you gates. Lift them up, you ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. Who is He, this King of glory? The Lord Almighty. He is the King of glory. There ends the reading of God's Word. Well, if there's anything that needs to be recovered among us, it is the recognition and sense of the utter holiness of God. There is no sense anymore of what it means to tremble before Him in all the earth. It's not as if, of course, we don't read these things throughout the scriptures. I think of something like Psalm 114, Tremble, O earth, at the presence of the Lord. At the presence of the God of Jacob. Or Psalm 99, verse 1. The Lord reigns. Let the peoples tremble. He dwells between the cherubim. Let the earth be moved. It was always the awesome and the utter holiness of God and His radiant beauty that made and compelled His people and in full integrity of heart to worship Him and the beauty of His holiness trembling before Him in the earth. There were lessons, of course, learned when people did not reverence Him in His holiness. One of the most profound, for me at least, in my preparation for gospel ministry, was coming to grips with just what happened in Leviticus chapter 10. A glorious scene it must have been before this awful tragedy struck the camp. All the congregation had gathered, and of course it was probably around a million strong, and they stood before the tabernacle of meeting, drawing close right into the presence of this holy God. The priesthood had just been consecrated for the very first time. They were prepared this new tabernacle. There was Moses, and there was Aaron. What an exciting moment, they must have thought. All of a sudden, the glory of the Lord appeared, and fire came out from the Lord, and from the heavens and it consumed their burnt offering right in front of them, we read that the people saw it and they shouted and they fell on their faces, trembling, of course, before the Lord. The glory of His holiness was put on display in a moment and we can only imagine the excitement. God had accepted our sacrifice for one of the first times, sending out fire from His presence, telling them that a way of atonement was made. What a reason to celebrate. All of a sudden, that joy turned into a moment of horror over the same God. The newly consecrated priests, Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, obviously in the excitement of the moment thought, well, we could add something to this worship service. And so they took their censers and they put fire in it. And we read they offered this profane fire before the Lord, which he had not commanded. And so in a moment of time, the very same fire that had come out from the Lord, that had consumed the sacrifice, now came out from the Lord again and consumed the priests. What a moment. And they died before the Lord. Moses, obviously looking at a very distraught father, you can almost get the sense of exactly how he said this, this is what the Lord spoke. saying, by all who come near to me, I must be regarded as holy. And before all the people, I must be glorified. We can only imagine that from that moment that their joy, at the height of joy and the height of excitement, turned to gloom. One question surfaced in their minds in the camp that day. Who can stand in the presence of this holy God? Who can? You see, if you understand the situation that happened in Leviticus chapter 10, you understand exactly the issue of Psalm 24. In verse 3, there's this question posed by the psalmist seeking an answer. And he asks this very pointedly in verse 3. Who may ascend into the hill of the Lord or who may stand in his holy place? In other words, who has the ability to come into the presence of this thrice holy God in the temple mount of His holy place, who is this unending, consuming fire? I submit to you that really is one of the most important questions as a Christian you will ever ask. There are many questions, of course, of the Christian life. How then shall I live? Or what shall I do in this circumstance? Or what does the Lord expect of me here? Or what is His will? They're good and important questions. But I want you to see this morning that in the text, the psalmist really does present to us, at least in the whole scheme of things, the most important and relevant question of life. A question that does not ascend from the earth, but a question that descends from the heavens from God to us. Who may ascend into my holy hill of Zion? Who may stand in my holy place? And he asks this of us today. Who is able in this place to ascend to me? Let's see how he answers that question. The real challenge, of course, this morning is to understand the background of this psalm because the connection in the three stanzas, at least when you initially look at them, they really aren't that clear. Let's look at verse 1. The earth is the Lord's in all its fullness. Now this opening really doesn't seem to fit with what follows. The issue of who may ascend the hill of the Lord, and then in the third stanza, the description of this warrior king who comes and is radiant and strong for battle and mighty in battle. What is he doing here? Well, traditionally, this psalm has been understood as belonging to the historical setting of the Ark of the Covenant being transported on the cart from the house of Obed-Edom to Jerusalem to find its resting place. We really see this in the connection with the third stanza, of course, of the psalm, where he says, Lift up your heads, O you gates, and be lifted up, you everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in. The Ark, of course, was the visible representation of the presence of God as he was said to have dwelt symbolically between the cherubim and the seraphim. But that makes sense. But why this grand statement of God's unchallengeable dominion right at the beginning of the psalm? The earth is the Lord's and literally whatever is in it, the world and they that dwell therein. Well, under the inspiration of the Spirit, David wrote these things as the ark was ascending up the hill into Jerusalem. But if you know the history, and at least David knew the history very clearly, you know that two things happened as that before that ark ascended into Jerusalem and was set there. Two things that God had taught Israel that they never have the right to forget about him. What had happened in Israel with her relationship to the ark? Well, you remember some very important events were attached and happened with regard to the ark of the covenant. The first one that really does come to mind is what happened with the ark in 1 Samuel chapter 4 as Israel went out to battle against the Philistines. And instead of trusting in the Lord, what happened? Well, in 1 Samuel chapter 4 verse 3 we read, Let us bring the ark of the covenant of the Lord from Shiloh to us that when it comes among us, it may save us from the hand of our enemies. So the people sent to Shiloh that they may bring from there the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord of hosts who dwells between the cherubim. So notice this language of stressing just what they were doing. And right after that we read that those two wicked sons of Eli, Hophni, and Phinehas, they stood there by the Ark, so what do you have? God is self-contained in the Ark. With the Ark in front of us, it's just as if God were right in front of us and who can stand in the presence of his Ark? Let's put it right among us in the heat of the battle. It's sure to gain us the victory. Now you go forward and you read what happened in Israel. It was one of the greatest tragedies that ever occurred because of this. 30,000. What do we have here? Four, five hundred. 30,000 died because of this event. The ark, Eli hears about it. He dies. The ark is captured by the Philistines. Just a horrendous event occurred because of this. So now you have 80,000 children of Israel slain because of an improper treatment of the Ark. So the first error. God is contained here. He's with us. He's with us alone. He's not with the nations of the earth. He's only with us just because the ark's among us. We have the ark. So what was the second event? Well, the second event, what will be a little more fresh on David's mind, was 2 Samuel 6, when we read of them putting the ark of God on a new cart. In 2 Samuel 6, we read this, they say it's time to bring up the ark of God who is called by the name of the Lord of hosts who dwells between the cherubim. So we read, David and Israel, they played all these instruments before the Lord. And on that day of joy, for the Philistines had been defeated, the ark was ascending into Jerusalem. It was a glorious scene, you can imagine. But, all of a sudden, the oxen stumble. And we can imagine the tragedy of the ark tumbling down the mountain in shame. And so, Uzzah simply puts out, notice that language, his hand to lay hold of the ark. And in the next breath we read, Then the anger of the Lord was aroused against Uzzah, and God struck him there for his heir. And he died there by the ark of God. And we read, David was afraid of the Lord that day. How can the ark come to me? He asked. So David would not move the Ark of the Lord with him into the city of David. But do you see what happened? If we really summarize those two events, they had no regard for his holiness. They put the Ark on a new cart which was not commanded. Those unlawfully touched the Ark, and the Lord's instructions were clear, which totally were profaned, and this profaning of him, this disregard for him, brought down his wrath and anger. Profaning his name and lowering him to their ideas and their desires. Sound familiar? I mean, we just do this all the time, don't we? To the Lord. So the ark became a death trap. Later, David would bear up the ark to Jerusalem and it was upon that occasion that this psalm was written. So now we understand a bit of what David was doing here. When we come back to verse 1, the earth is the Lord's in all of its fullness. The world and those who dwell therein, here we're taken right up into the heavenlies, if you will, and our little thoughts of God are extinguished by His glory. The psalmist is giving us grand and glorious thoughts of God as we are raised up, if you will, to entertain the highest thoughts of Him, of this thrice holy God whom we cannot contain. He has unchallengeable dominion. And the opening verse really does speak to what Chronicles described. But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the heavens of heaven cannot contain you. Who can contain you? The earth is the Lord's, do you hear it? And everything in it, it belongs to Him. We do not possess Him, He possesses us. And Israel as a nation tells us the very clear story that we have this natural tendency, this natural impulse, this incessant desire to make God into something or someone who exists for our benefit instead of the fact that He owns us and that we are His creatures created for His glory and for the advancement of His purposes. And so the opening words of the psalm draw us away from ourselves to His sovereignty and His ownership of all things as a sort of warning to remind us, As Israel was reminded, we are not to toy with or entertain thoughts of God that are unworthy of who He is as the Creator and the Sovereign of the universe. Jeremiah 23, Can anyone hide himself in secret places? So I shall not see him, says the Lord. Do I not fill heaven and earth, says the Lord. You see, this morning, the psalmist knows that when we are filled with these high and these glorious thoughts of God and the beauty of His holiness, We are struck with the fact of his infinite perfections and then our wretched states as children of Adam, lost and dead in sin. And so the psalmist lifting us up into these grand and glorious thoughts of God as the possessor of all things, the only sovereign, he breaks into the most important question that he could ever ask a fallen sinner. Who may have sinned? The hill of the Lord. who may stand in his holy place. Boys and girls, there stands a mountain in China. They've labeled it as K2, Savage Mountain. It stands over 10,500 feet high and it just drops almost straight down on every side and storms rip through the mountain like nothing we have ever known. Few people have been able to climb it but not without great aid and great help, oxygen. But no one has really done it in their own right. The Lord comes to us today in Psalm 24. He comes to us and He asks us in His accommodative way, who can ascend the hill of the Lord? Who is able to climb my savage mountain? Covered in radiant glory. The hill of the Lord, of course, is Mount Zion. It's the city of the king. It's high in the heavens. And there is the holy place where Revelation describes as lightnings and thunders and voices that descend and come down and shoot out from all around this mountain. And he says to us today again, Who can come into my hill? It's a daunting question, isn't it? It's a chilling question. It should be. David asked the question, how can the ark of God come to me? I think he learned that was the wrong question. The question the Lord asked us is, how can you come to my ark and behold it? How can you come to me? The sense of the question in this context is something like this. Who dares to come into my presence? Who has the ability to come before me and not be consumed by my glory and the fury of my wrath? Who can stand unashamed and unafraid of my glorious presence? He's consuming fire. Who can come? See, nobody here today can come to a question like this in this psalm without a deep searching of the heart and a beginning of it asking the question, Is it I? You remember that. Jesus told all the disciples one night, One of you will betray me. And all of them went around and Jesus asked the question, And they ask the question to him, Is it I, Lord? Is it I? Will I betray you? And here the Lord asks, Who may ascend into my holy hill of Zion? And we're struck with that question. Is it I? Am I able? However, every ear should be open to such a question. He gives us the answer to this, doesn't he? He says in verse 4, He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not lifted up his soul to an idol or sworn by what is false, he shall receive blessings from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation. Do you hear what the Lord is saying here? Here's the way. Here's the way for you to climb up Zion's holy hill. Here's the way that you can come directly right into the holy place of the Most High. And so we hear that and our ears are attentive and we say, Tell me, Lord, how should I do it? and I will do it. He says, first you have to have clean hands. Then you have to have a pure heart. In all of your outward actions of life, there must absolutely be unstained from any sin if you want to come. You must be perfect, as your Heavenly Father is perfect. If you want to ascend Zion's holy hill, then everything that comes out of your mouth, it must be completely pure. And there must be no defilement at all. Further, if you're going to come into the presence of this thrice holy God, you must be an absolute, pure worshiper of God, having no other gods before him, no idols of the heart. Further, you must never swear deceitfully. In other words, you must have a perfect love of neighbor and self. And if you are completely pure on the outside, and you are completely pure on the end, you have a right to come to the hill of the Lord and you may ascend right into His holy place and commune with Him. So we ask the question again, who may ascend the hill of the Lord? Who may stand in His holy place? Is it I? See, the beginning seat of grace to a lost sinner is first the soul-breaking fear of recognition you can't climb this holy hill. Had not Israel learned this? Oh, Israel had learned it very well. The horrid reality for them is they had tried to climb Zion's holy hill and they ended up trusting in the piece of gold rather than the God of heaven and earth. Than what the ark represented. They had thought their clean hands could carry that ark up and bear it right up into Jerusalem. And one of them reached out his hand and he grabbed hold of the Ark. And he was consumed. Not because anything, but the fact that all of them were defiled sinners. Israel had learned something completely different, hadn't they? For some reason, we just don't get this. There are many who read this and they think within themselves, well, I will set myself to have clean hands and I will set myself to have a pure heart then I will climb right up into Zion's holy hill. And much of the preaching today will do that. They'll give you the five steps to climbing Zion's holy hill. But they've left out the question. Do we really have clean hands? Do we really have a pure heart? It's interesting that it's this very thing that surrounded the whole discussion with Jesus and the Pharisees, wasn't it? You remember that encounter in Matthew chapter 15? Then the scribes and the Pharisees who were from Jerusalem came to Jesus saying, Why do your disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat bread. They misunderstood something, didn't they? I think they misunderstood Psalm 24. And Psalm 24 said that very thing. If you have clean hands, you can come up Zion's holy hill. Clean hands had nothing to do with removing dirt, didn't it? It had everything to do with this transformed life and a changed heart. And so Jesus took it right to the heart. Why do you transgress the tradition to commandment of God because of your tradition? You hypocrites. You have no room for people like this. It's no surprise that Jesus went to the heart. But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart. And they defile a man, for out of the heart proceeds evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These are the things which defile a man, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a man. And so here we come to the essence of true and false religion. All false religions do have one thing in common, don't they? They are desperately trying to work their way right up to God in some way or another. That's why boys and girls climbing Jacob's ladder is not a theologically right song. They're trying to contain God while profaning His holiness as they climb to Him. And they attempt to approach Him with what they have to offer. I just read the other day, and I'm still amazed. I've read this numerous times, but every time it just gets me. The Hindus, every single year, in one of three rivers, 40 million Hindus will gather, I think the largest is the Yuma River in East Asia, and they believe that by stepping into the river, they will wash away their sins. The Aztecs, every year, would climb up those steppe pyramids, and they would walk right up those steppe pyramids, and they would grab an obsidian knife, and they would literally cut out a man's heart, and they would hold up that heart to their gods, hoping that it would please the gods. The same mentality is in the Muslims today. This is exactly what Paul had to come to grips with in Philippians, wasn't it? When he said, concerning the righteousness which is in the law, blameless. When it came to my outward actions, all of my works, I was blameless before men. I was the best. No one trumped me. But he said, I was not blameless before God. What things were gained to me, I've counted as loss for Christ, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ. The righteousness which is from God by faith. And when we understand that, we come to real meaning in this life. The fundamental difference between those who travel the wide path and those who travel the narrow path, as Jesus described it, is that those who are on the narrow path have come to grips with exactly the meaning of Jeremiah 17. The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? Who can know it? And the reality is that from my heart springs only evil continually. And I see it. And it weighs me down. And so we begin to feel the weight of God's righteous demands and we begin to confess who then can ascend the hill of the Lord and who can stand in my holy place for surely, O Lord, I cannot. That's a Christian. I'm undone. I'm a man of unclean lips. You are too lofty. You are too high. And you are too lifted up. And my heart and my hands are unclean. Now we're provoked to despair. This onus has provoked us. He's left us with a silah. Pause. Reflect. Meditate on this. A question has been posed and an answer has been given that is an impossibility to us. No one can come to the mountain of God. This is the same story again and again presented in the Bible. This was the very thing John fretted for over in Revelation chapter 5. Then I saw this strong angel, he says, proclaiming with a loud voice, who is worthy to open the scroll and to loose its seals? And no one in heaven or on the earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to look at it. So I wept much, because no one was found worthy to open and to read the scroll or to look at it. But one of the elders said to me, do not weep. Behold, the lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David, has prevailed to open the scroll and to loose its seven seals. and I looked and behold in the midst of the throne and of the four living creatures and in the midst of the elders stood a lamb as though it had been slain having seven horns and seven eyes which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. Then he came and took the scroll out of the right hand of him who sat on the throne. No one was able with clean hands to take the scroll of God's law. No one had a pure heart to take the law. And God's requirement of his presence was a pure heart. And there was found no one. And John left until the lion of the tribe of Judah came. And he laid hold of that scroll. And he opened it because he has clean hands and a pure heart. And now the moment has really been prepared in the psalm at least. The answer comes from heaven. And you see, it's as if the psalmist has come to finally this understanding. There is one who is worthy. And so he breaks into the third stanza, verse 7. Lift up your heads, O you gates. Be lifted up, you everlasting doors. And the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty. The Lord mighty in battle. And so do you see what's presented here. In the last stanza we're asked, who may ascend the hill of the Lord and who may stand in his holy place? And so two very daunting and chilling questions are posed to us. And now he comes back with two answers. Who is this king of glory? Two questions. Who is this king of glory? Twice repeated. You see, the very gates of heaven here are personified as lifting up their heads. And we see a door open this way, but they're lifting up their heads and the doors are flying straight up off their hinges for this king of glory to come in. To come right into Zion. Because whoever this king is, he's worthy. He is the one who has clean hands and a pure heart. He is the one who has not lifted up his soul to an idol. He is the one who has never, ever, and did when he walked this earth, swear deceitfully, who is this king of glory? The Lord strong and mighty. The Lord mighty in battle. He's the king of glory. See, David had come to realize something that day. even though he had said after the Lord struck Uzzah, how can the ark of God come to me? He had realized something else about the ark. As he danced that day in that linen he fought, and as he was shouting and the trumpets played, and it's just a glorious scene, he had come to see that the entering of the ark into Jerusalem to find its resting place in Jerusalem foreshadowed another scene. Years later, the King of Glory would enter Jerusalem. I want you to picture this. You know for a fact, Psalm 24 was always used in worship on the first day of the week. Jesus, after climbing the hill of the Lord, entered Zion on our Sunday. He walks in, palm branches are laid at his feet. People are chanting, Hosanna, Son of David, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. And as this was going on the outside, we have this documented. On the inside, the priests were singing Psalm 24. Lift up your heads, O you gays. And lift them up, you everlasting doors. That the King of glory may come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty. The Lord mighty in battle. Who is this King of glory? He is the Lord Jesus Christ. who was battled and fought and won the victory for us traveling right up Golgotha place of the skull conquering sin and death conquering the grave for us and his soul was as exceedingly sorrowful unto death this conquering warrior went to death battling for our souls from the cross and the grave by his own right he ascended right up the hill of the Lord the pure one enter the eternal throne room for us and the pearly grates of the new Jerusalem flung open unto him. The doors flew off their hinges in the heavens when he ascended that day. The glorious gates of righteousness as we sing that we might now have the same right as adopted children by grace. See when we come back to the question of the psalm there's only one answer. Who may ascend the hill of the Lord? Who may stand in His holy place? Who in his own right dares to ascend this hill and stand before the Lord? The only answer is Jesus. And when I am found in Him, and when I embrace Him and I rest in Him in true faith, what is said of Him becomes true of me also. When my pride has been shattered and I stop trying to fight against Him and I have come to Him with a broken and contrite heart, I am taken into Christ and the glorious news for me is is that the very same description of his perfections become mine imputed to me by faith. The Christian life is a lesson of one truth. Really, in the whole scheme of things. Let me decrease that Christ would increase. A full recognition that without him I can do absolutely unequivocally nothing. verse 5 he shall receive blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation so that as Jesus had clean hands and he had a pure heart I do in him as Jesus never lifted up his soul to an idol ever once and the father sees that as true of me too in coming to him just as he loved God and neighbor perfectly the father sees that of me too the reality henceforth is that what a wonderful gospel isn't it the question that we're left with here is really what the issue in the middle of the psalm poses are our hearts wide open to him this is Jacob the generation of those who seek him Jacob our Christ identified himself with sinners do we seek him do we seek his face have you sought this Jesus who has been identified with sinners as the only one worthy to travel up who has prevailed to travel up and open the scroll and travel up Mount Zion I close with this the other night I spoke with a man who was a non-believer he asked me so what do you do all day as a pastor I often get that question it came from one of my parishioners I probably wouldn't be very happy I told him I write sermons and he said what are you preaching this Sunday I said Psalm 24 what's that about he said in one sentence I have two sentences I had to sum up everything I've just said to you I said Psalm 24 describes for us the simple truth that Jesus Christ is the only one by whom we have access to the Father if you are not found in him as a broken and dead sinner you will forever be lost in hell. Silence. Silence. Now if I stand up and preach this message to you Jesus has ascended this hill for us does that leave us silent? The psalmist calls us to make a way right for Him into our hearts. That we might have life. he has climbed Zion for us. We can't be silent. I've been crucified with Christ, said Paul, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. And the life which I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. He gave himself in climbing that hill. If you are not in him today, if you reject the callings, know this, the gates of heaven are only open so long. He has flung them open now. But not for much longer. You must come to know Him in this day of grace, in this day of mercy. He will do battle with those who have not come. Just as the ark did battle, He will do battle with those who do not come to Him on that day as they fly headlong into hell. But in coming to Christ, being nourished today on the good words of faith, go forth. This is an exciting life now in Christ. Go forth recognizing that your very status as a justified sinner who stands acquitted before the judgment seat of God now and forever as a believer. Never to have that status changed. Go forth knowing that you have been brought from dust to glory through the righteous one who has ascended the hill of the Lord for you. Amen. our father in heaven we rejoice in our hearts today for a wonderful wonderful message that you have given to us in psalm 24 a message that permeates and prevails throughout all of the scriptures you have posed the question to us we have answered with broken and contrite hearts we are not able to climb but we embrace the one who has climbed for us thank you for sending your beloved son in whom is all of your delight thank you that he brought forth justice in Jesus name we pray Amen