Psalm 24, let's begin with verse
1. Verse 1 says, the earth is the
Lord's and the fullness thereof. Everything in the earth is the
Lord's. The Lord is Jehovah, the Lord
God, our Lord, our God. the one we trust. So it's all
His, it says. It says, the world and they that
dwell therein. So everybody in the world, not
only is the earth, the physical earth, but the people in the
earth. Everything in the earth called the world is the Lord's.
Everything is His. Verse two, for He hath founded
it upon the seas and established it upon the floods. It does seem
strange that God would establish the earth on the water. Verse
three, who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? Or who
shall stand in his holy place? to whom the earth belongs, the
one to whom all things in the earth belongs, he dwells in a
holy place. And the question is raised here,
who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord, or who shall stand
in his holy place? So it's a question put forth,
and the answer is going to be given first by the criteria required
of the one who is able to do this, to ascend into the hill
of the Lord and to stand in his holy place. Notice verse four.
This one who can do that is he that hath clean hands and a pure
heart, who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity. nor sworn deceitfully, it goes
on in the criteria, in that criteria in verse three and four, it goes
on in verse five to show what he will receive. He shall receive
the blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of
his salvation. So God is going to bless him,
give him righteousness and salvation. Verse six, this is the generation
of them that seek him, that seek thy face, O Jacob, Selah. Verse seven, lift up your heads,
O ye gates, and be ye lift 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. Lift up
your heads, O ye gates, even lift them up, ye everlasting
doors, and the King of Glory shall come in. Who is this King
of Glory? The Lord of Hosts. He is the
King of Glory, Selah. And as we've seen before, the
word Selah is best understood by understanding that it refers
to something that's high. And I say that because the word
Selah was a name given to a mountain among the Edomites. They trusted
in the mountains. but it was a high place and also
you can see because it's a high place, it's a place of consideration,
a place of meditation. So it's a place in scripture
that's indicated as something important to give great attention
to. It's a pause in the song to consider what has been just
said as important. Let's begin with verse one again.
The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof the world and
they that dwell therein. Now, the first thing we see here
is that God is God. The Lord is God over all. Everything
in this earth, in this world, belongs to Him. If we were to look at some scriptures,
there's one in Psalm 50, it says, the Lord says, if I were hungry,
I wouldn't tell you, for the world is mine and the fullness
thereof. So the Lord owns everything. The cattle on a thousand hills
are His. Also, and we could go on in this,
but in Romans chapter 11 it says, all things are of Him, through
Him, and to Him. And so we understand in this
first verse that the Lord is emphasizing His sovereignty.
He owns everything. and also his provision. We depend
on him for everything. It's all his. And therefore we
need to understand our, not only our dependence, but thank him. and be thankful to Him for giving
us what is His. So when we come to Him, we always
want to acknowledge the fact that everything we have belongs
to the Lord. We have nothing that He doesn't
give to us. We can't get it for ourselves.
God has to give it. If we have it, God gave it. Even
the young lions, it says in Psalm 104, They seek their meat from
God. So they're strong, and yet they
seek it from God. So they have enough wisdom, and
let us not be so foolish as to not do so. And then, so the first
question I have about this psalm is, who is the ones that are
addressed in this psalm? Who is speaking? And so we can
see in verse 1, the person who is being spoken of in this psalm
is the Lord. Verse 1 and 2, the earth is the
Lord's and the fullness thereof. He has founded it upon the seas
and established it upon the floods. So we see that it's about the
Lord, isn't it? And verse 3 says, who shall ascend
into the hill of the Lord? So now we see that the psalm
is also about someone who is going to, or if they are able,
can ascend into the place where God dwells. He goes on in verse
3, he says, Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? Who
shall stand in his holy place? Who is this? So this is the next
person this psalm is talking about. Someone who is able to
ascend into the hill of the Lord and to dwell in his holy place. This is a criteria describing
the man, actually, because we see that it has to be a man,
because it says he and his. Those are the pronouns used in
verse 3. It's not a feminine, but a masculine
person. and they have to have the ability
to ascend into the Lord, the Lord's place and stand in his
presence. He says in verse four, giving
more criteria about this man, he says, he that hath clean hands
and a pure heart who has not lifted up his soul to vanity
nor sworn deceitfully. And this man, also spoken of
here in verse 5, shall receive the blessing from the Lord and
righteousness from the God of his salvation." He's someone
who receives from God. God gives to him. He gives him
blessing, righteousness, and salvation. And then, in verse
6, we see that this psalm is also about a plurality of persons. He says, this is the generation.
And the word generation means the posterity. Those who have
a distinguishing place, a class of people, God has designated
as this posterity. And so, this psalm is also about
the posterity. of these people who are referred
to here as those that seek the Lord. See, in verse six, this
is the generation of them that seek the Lord, that seek thy
face, O Jacob. So the one spoken of in verse
three and four is the one who is able to go into the presence
of God. The one spoken of in verse five
is the one who received the blessing of God's righteousness and salvation. And the one in verse six is a
plurality of people who are designated as a generation of the Lord who
seek Him. And then in verse seven, Through
verse 10, the rest of the psalm is talking about the king of
glory. He says, lift up your heads, O ye gates. So we could
include the gates there, the everlasting doors. So the psalm
is talking about this entrance into heaven, really. The everlasting
doors would be the entrance into glory. And he says, the king
of glory shall come in. So now we see the psalm is really
about the King of Glory, and in these verses, verses 7 through
10, it tells us who the King of Glory is. It's the one who
is also the Lord, Jehovah. He is mighty in battle, and he
is the King of Glory, the Lord of hosts. So let's go through
these verses now, considering these different ones the psalm
is speaking about. Verse 1, first of all, everything
is the Lord's. And the Lord made it. We know
he made all things. And who made all things? Well,
God did. In the beginning, God created
the heavens and the earth. But in the New Testament, it
reveals to us that it was the Word, the Word. that made all
things. In John chapter one, verse one,
it says, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with
God, and the Word was God, both distinct from God, as a distinct
person, and also one with God. He was with God, He was God.
It says all things were made by Him, and without Him was not
anything made that was made. There wasn't anything that was
created that He didn't create. That's John 1, verses 1 through
3. And then in Colossians 1, in
verse 16, it says of Jesus Christ that all things were made by
him and for him, so that everything belongs to the Creator, who is
Jesus Christ, the Word of God. So we see these things coming
together now, and we can see that the one who created all
things is called God. He's called Jehovah. He's called
the Word, and He's called Jesus Christ, the Son of God. So the
Son of God is God. He's Jehovah, one with the Father
and the Spirit. The Son of God is Jehovah God,
one with the Father and the Spirit. And He's also Jesus Christ. He
is the Word of God. The Word of God is God's mind. It's what God thinks. And he
is the wisdom of God, the logic of God. Everything that God thinks
about concerns his son. And he expresses that. He is the one who reveals God's
mind. So we see that he's the one who created all things. It
all belongs to him. Now in John, the Gospel of John,
in chapter 3, let me read to you a few verses here about the
One who created all things, who came into the world. Because
it says in John 1, verse 14, that the Word, the One who made
all things, was made flesh and dwelt among us. John 1, verse
14. But in John chapter three, in verse 35, he says, the Father
loveth the Son, God the Father loves God the Son, and he hath
given him all things into his hand. So now we see that the
one who is the creator of all things, who came into the world
as the Word made flesh, he is not only the creator, but he's
man. And because he's both God and man, as man, God has given
him everything. Everything has been put into
his hand. Look at John chapter 13. In John 13, in verse 3, I'll
read this to you. It says that this was just before
Jesus went to the cross, he's with his disciples, it's the
last supper. It says in verse 1, now, before the feast of the
Passover, when Jesus knew that the hour was come, that he should
depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own
which were in the world, he loved them to the end. If Jesus Christ
loves a man, he loves him to the end. And we know that he
loves his people to the end. He told some, I never knew you. He said of Judas, that he was
not, he was a son of perdition. So he wasn't of Christ, though
he was physically associated with Christ. He wasn't cleansed
by Christ. In the same chapter in verse
10, he says, he that is washed is clean every wit, but you are
not all clean. So Judas wasn't clean. And he
says, I know whom I've chosen, in verse 18, but the scripture
might be fulfilled, he that eats bread with me has lifted up his
heel against me. So he was speaking about Judas.
Judas was not chosen of Christ, not to be his disciple, but one
who would betray him, and he was not washed. Therefore he
was not loved, because Christ never knew him as one of his
own sheep. And so we see here that in John
13, he's speaking about those he loves. Verse 3, notice, John
13, 3, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into
his hand, there it is again, into Christ's hands, God the
Father has put everything. Now think about that. Everything
that belongs to God the Father has been secured, has been entrusted
to, has been put into the hands, into the authority of the Lord
Jesus Christ, who is the Son of God and the Son of Man. So
we understand now that God and man, the God-man, Jesus Christ,
is given everything by God the Father. And if we think back
of what we just read in Psalm 24, the earth is the Lord's,
and the fullness thereof, the world, and they that dwell therein.
He has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the floods.
The one who is God and made the world also gave everything that
was his to the God-man, to Jesus Christ, the Son of man. Look
at John chapter 16. The same thing is spoken of there.
I'm just going to read two more verses about this. John 16, verse
15. Jesus said, all things that the
Father hath are mine. Therefore said I that he shall
take of mine and shall show it to you. So the Spirit of God
reveals the things of Christ and everything that is the Father's
is Christ's. So there's nothing left out.
Everything that belongs to Christ belongs to the Father. Everything
that belongs to the Father belongs to Christ. Look at John 17. And
verse 9, Jesus said concerning those he was praying for, he
says, I pray for them. I pray not for the world. So
Jesus didn't pray for everybody. I pray for them, I pray not for
the world, but for them which thou hast given me, for they
are thine. The ones Christ was praying for concerning eternal
life and sanctification and these other things in John 17 were
those God the Father gave to him. They were His, they were
God the Father's, He gave them to Christ. And He says in verse
10, and all mine are thine, and thine are mine, and I am glorified
in them. Everything the Father has, all
the people, called the people of God, are Christ's, and all
the people of Christ are the Father's, there's no difference.
There's not one sheep belonging to Christ that isn't also a sheep
of the Father, and none of the Father's sheep are not given
to Christ. They're all given to Him. So
there's nothing different between the set of people called His.
The sheep that belong to the Father also belong to Christ,
and vice versa. There's no ambiguity here. There's
no one left out. Only those that are Christ belong
to the Father. And so he says in Hebrews chapter
1, just one more verse on this, in Hebrews chapter 1 and verse
2, notice what it's called, the Lord Jesus Christ, he says, in
these last days God has spoken to us by his Son, whom he hath
appointed, what? The heir. of all things. He's
going to inherit everything. So now we're seeing a big picture
here. God created everything. The one who created everything
is the Word. He was with God and He was God
in the beginning from before time began, from eternity. Nothing was made that He didn't
make. As the Son of God, as the Word of God, He is God. But as
the Son of Man, when He came into the world, God also deposited
into His authority all things that were His. As the Son of
God, the One who stood as Son of God on this earth, the Word
made flesh, was as man given all things. But while he was
on the earth, he had nothing. He said, the son of man doesn't
have anywhere to lay his head. He didn't have a home. The foxes
have holes, the birds have nests, but the son of man has not where
to lay his head. So while he was on the earth,
he was in a place of deprivation. He had willingly, voluntarily
laid aside his reputation as God, and he took on the form
of a servant, and he had made himself impoverished. It says
in 2 Corinthians 8, 9, for you know the grace of our Lord Jesus
Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became
poor, that you through his poverty might be made rich. So even though
he had all things, he gave up everything as man, he became
a servant. In fact, he became so low as
a servant that he took on the sins of his people and bearing
their sins, went to the cross and was obedient to his Father
as a man in order that he might die as a man with the sins of
his people and put their sins away and so fulfill God's eternal
will which was to save his people from their sins by the sacrifice
of himself made to God for them. He suffered for their sins. He
died for their sins. He was beaten for their sins.
Therefore, they are healed by His beating. They are made alive
because of His death, because their sins were put away. He
answered every just requirement of God for them. This is the
God-Man. And this is the one that Psalm
24 is speaking about. So, if you look back at Psalm
24 now, And you look at, we see that everything is the Lord's,
the one who made everything is not only God, but he's Jesus
Christ, all things were made by him and for him, and he is
before all things, and by him all things consist, and it pleased
the Father that in him should all fullness dwell, and in all
things he should have the preeminence. So if you look at this psalm
now, we're beginning to see here, in the beginning it speaks about
God, the Jehovah God, the Lord God. But he's really speaking
about in the triune God, he's speaking about not only God the
Father and God the Spirit, but he's speaking about God the Son,
who the one who made all things. It says in Ephesians chapter
three, verse nine, God the Father made all things by Jesus Christ.
So God made all things but specifically by Jesus Christ because he put
him in charge of everything. because he committed himself
to give himself to save his people from their sins according to
the will of God. And so now we can see, as he's
building up here, first we're introduced to the Lord, and then
in verse 3 he asks the question. And this question runs parallel
to what we read in Revelation chapter 5. If you remember, in
Revelation chapter 5 there's a search made John, the apostle
John is asking the question he sees in heaven, there's a book
as written within and without and sealed with seven seals and
he wept because there was no one found worthy to open the
book to read the seals, to open the book and to reveal what was
in it. and to accomplish the will that
was in that book. He knew it was God's book. It
was held in the right hand of the Father who sat on the throne
of glory. And so he wept much because no one in heaven or earth
was worthy. But then, when he was weeping, an angel said, weep
not. The lion of the tribe of Judah,
the lamb, has been found and he's worthy. And he went and
he took that book out of the right hand of him who sits on
the throne. And now what we're seeing is the parallel of that
event in Revelation 5 here in Psalm 24. Look at verse number
3, Psalm 24, 3. Who shall ascend into the hill
of the Lord? Or who shall stand in his holy place? Who can ascend
into heaven? Have you ever heard that question
raised in scripture? Who has ascended into heaven?
Has anyone? Well, no person born to Adam
has ever ascended into heaven. Look at John chapter 3. Jesus
stated the answer to this question in John chapter 3. Who shall
ascend into heaven? Jesus himself answered it. In
John chapter 3, Jesus is speaking to Nicodemus, this master of
Israel, and he said in verse 13, no man has ascended up to
heaven. Okay, so that's pretty clear.
No man has ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven.
even the Son of Man which is in heaven." Now, this ascension
to heaven doesn't just mean being resurrected by God, or like Enoch
and Elijah. Enoch was translated and Elijah
was taken up to heaven in a whirlwind. Remember those two? It's not
talking about either the resurrection or this translation from earth
to heaven. It's talking about something
else when it uses the word ascend here. It means a royal ascension. It means an ascension greeted
with heaven's doors and gates opened, and the one who ascends
in this way is crowned with glory and honor and given dominion
and power and glory. And so it says here, no man has
ascended up to heaven, Jesus telling Nicodemus, but he that
came down And we know that there was no man who existed in heaven
before and came down except one, who was who? Well, Jesus answers,
but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of Man, which is
in heaven. So only one descended, and that
one also ascended. He is the one who would ascend.
And he speaks about him as if he has already ascended, because
he says, even the Son of Man which is in heaven. So the Lord
Jesus talks about the ascension and descension and the enthronement
of the Son of Man in heaven. Not necessarily in the sequence
of time in which we would think of it. We would think of he would
start in time past, in the present, in the future. Let's see. He
descended when he came into the world. He suffered and died.
He rose from the dead and ascended and took his place in glory.
So we would have said, No man could ascend except he first
descend, but he doesn't use the words first here. He just says,
no man has ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven,
even the son of man which is in heaven. He almost lays time
out in eternity and speaks about things that are not yet done
as if they are done. because he's speaking about eternal
matters that he would fulfill on this earth, in this world.
Just like when John 17, when he says, I have finished the
work which you gave me to do. but he had not yet gone to the
cross. He hadn't finished the most significant work that his
father had given him to do, but he speaks about it as being done
already, because God calls those things which be not as though
they were. He speaks about future things as past events, because
he's God. Whatever God thinks is done. It cannot not happen. Jesus said,
Scripture cannot be broken. Heaven and earth shall pass away,
but my word shall never pass away. That's how certain God's
thoughts and words are. And so here, Jesus is saying,
there's only one who could ascend, the one who first descended,
and that one is the Son of Man, and He's already in heaven, because
He speaks about His work as being accomplished, and Him being given
the glory He had with the Father before the foundation of the
world. Look at John 17. In John 17, we also see an explanation
of Psalm 24, verses 1 through 3. He says in John 17, And verse two, or no, I'll read
verse one. John 17, one. These words spake
Jesus and lifted up his eyes to heaven. Jesus, the son of
man and the son of God, speaking to his father in heaven as man
and as the son of God. In this one person, he says,
he lifted up his eyes to heaven and he said, father, the hour
has come. Glorify thy son. that thy son
also may glorify thee." The object of his prayer was that he should
be glorified in order that the Father would be glorified by
his glorification. God the Father committed his
own glory, entrusted his own glory into the glorification
of his son. That's how much he trusted his
son to fulfill his will. It says in Hebrews 1.3 that Christ
is the brightness of his father's glory. And that's one of those
things that he was intrinsically equal with his father, his glory,
and yet it was entrusted to him to make it known. And so he says
here, glorify thy son. Lift him up to the place of the
highest honor, and make known his glory, because in glorifying
your Son, you will glorify yourself, because he who has seen me, Jesus
said, has seen the Father. When we look at the Son, we see
the Father, and we can't know the Father except through the
Son. It pleased the Father that in His Son, all of His glory,
all of His wisdom would dwell. And so, He is the Son of God,
He's equal with the Father, but as the Son of Man, it's all in
Him. Okay? And then He says, in verse 2,
notice, As thou hast given Him power over all flesh, that He
should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given Him. So out of all the world, all
flesh, there are those given by God the Father to the Lord
Jesus Christ and to those Jesus Christ gives eternal life. It
was God's will to do that. He says, you've given me these
and I give them eternal life. And notice in Psalm 24 verse
one and two, the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof.
Everything belongs to the Lord. the world and they that dwell
therein. Therefore, when Jesus speaks here in John chapter 17
verse 2, you have given him power over all flesh. That's speaking
about the world, right? The earth and the world belong
to Christ. God the Father has entrusted
it to him. Put it in the covenant. He's
put it in this agreement between him and his son. It's yours.
in order that you might give eternal life to all those God
the Father gave to you as your own. In verse 3, And this is
eternal life, that they might know thee, the only true God,
and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. Now that's the eternal
life. Notice in verse 4, I have glorified
thee on the earth, I have finished the work which thou gavest me
to do, and now, O Father, very significant, Glorify thou me
with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee before
the world was. So we see here that in eternity,
the Son of God and the Father both had glory together. In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. That's the
glory John the Apostle is conveying to us here in this gospel. And
we see also that when Jesus Christ came into the world, He was given
a work to do. And when He finished that work,
God the Father would glorify Him with the same glory He had
before He came into the world. Only this time, not as the Son
of God in His divine essence only, but also as the Son of
Man in our nature. So why would God do that? In
order that he might bring many sons to glory. It pleased the
Father that he would make the captain of their salvation perfect
through sufferings. It pleased the Father that in
making him the captain of their salvation, he would take their
flesh and blood and be their high priest in order to offer
himself and bring them to God. to take away their sins, to give
them His own righteousness, to sanctify and perfect them, and
reconcile and redeem them, and remit their sins, and to glorify
them, to give them the glory that He had. And so all these
things are wrapped up in the reason why God the Father chose
and appointed and anointed his son as Christ in order to send
him into the world to accomplish the salvation of his people.
And that is the work, that is the body of work God the Father
gave him to do. And when he finished it, he said,
I have glorified thee on the earth. I have finished the work
you gave me to do. And now, O Father, glorify thou
me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee
before the world was. Make known yourself in me. Give me now, as Son of God and
Son of Man, all the glory I had with you before the world was."
And in so doing, God would make himself known in his Son. And
that's what Jesus said, I will give them eternal life. And this
is eternal life that they might know thee the only true God and
Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent, which they know in the Lord Jesus
Christ. Okay, so now back in Psalm 24,
he says, For he hath founded it upon the
seas and established it upon the floods." Now think about
this. When God first created the world, what does it say that
he did? It says that he divided things, remember? First he commanded
the light to shine, didn't he? It was the first day and he said,
well let me just go back to Genesis 1. I'm trying to remember it,
I'll slow you down. He says, the earth was without
form and void. Darkness was upon the face of
the deep. The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the water to
notice. God said, let there be light. And there was light. What
did God do? What was the first thing? He
sent the light into the darkness. Okay? The next thing. God saw
the light, that it was good. God divided the light from the
darkness. So he divided. He set the darkness over here,
as it were, and he set the light over here. He divided the two. And how did he do that? Well,
in creation, he called the light day and the darkness called night.
But you see right away that God is separating. He's making a
distinction between things. First, day and night, and light
and darkness. Let's go on. And then God said
in verse 6, God said, let there be a firmament in the midst of
the waters and let it divide the waters from the waters. And
God made the firmament and divided the waters which were under the
firmament from the waters which were above the firmament. And
it was so. God called the firmament heaven
and the evening and the morning were the second day. So God again
is dividing things. He's distinguishing. He's separating.
Notice in verse nine, and God said, let the waters under the
heaven be gathered together to one place and let the dry land
appear. And it was so. Now there was
no dry land, but until God made it, he separated the water from
the land. And he made a boundary so the
water couldn't pass that boundary, so that the dry land would be
the dry land and the seas would be the seas. The water was separated
from the land. Now go back to Psalm 24 and verse
2, he hath founded it upon the seas and established it upon
the floods. What did he establish on the
floods? What did he found on the seas? The world, the earth. Job said that he hung the world
on nothing. So we see, first of all, God's
power. I can't build things on water
and make them secure, but God can. And he established things
that were on unstable ground, which is water. And yet, what
we see here is something deeper, much deeper than just the fact
that God is powerful, and his word upholds things that otherwise
couldn't be done, like hanging the earth on nothing, and establishing
the earth on the seas, and founding it on the seas, and the foundation
of it, and establishing it on the floods. What is he talking
about here? Again, back to Genesis, we see
that God is separating these things, light, darkness, firmament
above, firmament below, and the land from the sea, from the water,
and he does this throughout. And God is emphasizing the fact
that he is a God who sanctifies. That's what it means. He sets
things apart for himself. Out of the mass, out of the totality
of things, he sets apart some things for himself. So he calls
certain animals clean and other animals unclean. And he chose
Israel out of all the nations of the earth. He set them apart
for himself. Out of the whole world, there
was a flood. Only Noah and his family were set apart by God
for himself. And you can see this throughout
scripture, God separating things. So what we see here in the first
two verses, the God who made all things also separated for
himself a people out of the whole world. And the world is referred
to as the waters and the floods. In Revelation chapter 17, let
me read this to you. There was this image of a harlot,
and let me see if I can find it here. In Revelation chapter
15, it says, I'm sorry, chapter 17 in verse 15, he said to me,
the waters which thou sawest, the waters which thou sawest
in this vision, where the whore sitteth are people's and multitudes
and nations and tongues." So now God is using the imagery
of waters to refer to people and to nations and to multitudes
and to tongues. In other words, all the different
people of the world. And it says that they were Where
the whore sitteth. Now the whore is, we know what
a whore is in our physical world, but what this is referring to
is spiritual harlotry. It means idolatry, antichrist
religion. The people of the world are subject
to the rule, the dynasty of Antichrist religion. That's what it's talking
about here, called Babylon. But now back in Psalm 24, what
we see is that God has founded it, the world, on the floods
and established it upon the water, the seas, and established it
upon the floods. And the separation that goes in Genesis, we see
that God is projecting, He's telling us that out of the world,
He has a people for Himself. They're reserved for Him. They're
going to be set apart, sanctified by God the Father, and preserved
in Christ Jesus, as it says in Jude chapter 1 verse 1. And God
is going to establish these people, as Jesus said in John 17, 2,
as the people God has given to him to save. He's going to give
them eternal life. He prays for them. He does not
pray for the world. Because all those that God the
Father has given him are his to save, and they are the same
ones that God the Father gave him to save. And he will save
them. There won't be any failure. And now we can see how verse
3 of Psalm 24 develops into the fact that not only is God speaking
about how he's going to separate a people for himself, in fact
he's going to establish them out of the mass of wicked humanity. He's going to take them out.
In Galatians 1 chapter 4 he says, Christ gave himself for our sins
that he might deliver us from this present evil world. Remember
Galatians 1.4? Christ has, he gave himself for
our sins that he might deliver us from this present evil world.
And in Colossians 1.13 it says, the Father has translated us
out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of his dear
Son. So there's that separation. And it's a separation of people
that belong to God the Father, and they're put into the kingdom
of his dear Son. And Christ died for them in order
that he might deliver them from this present evil world. That's
Galatians 1.4 and Colossians 1.13. superimpose that over this now.
And remember what Jesus told his disciples, the gates of hell
will not prevail against my church. I will build my church. And so
we see these things that Christ is the king. He's king over the
world and everything in it, but he's put in charge of these things
to give to his people eternal life, and they're the ones who
are taken out of every kindred, tongue, people, and nation, out
of the waters of the world that are subject to false religion.
Christ is going to deliver them. Let me read to you in Isaiah
chapter 43 what this says here, in Isaiah 43. If you turn there
with me, you'll see the imagery of this throughout scripture,
this designation of a special people belonging to God that
he's going to redeem. Isaiah 43, he says, but now thus
saith the Lord that created thee, remember God created all things,
O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel, fear not, for I have
redeemed thee. I have called thee by thy name,
thou art mine. When thou passest through the
waters, I will be with thee, and through the rivers they shall
not overflow thee. When thou walkest through the
fires, thou shalt not be burned, neither shall the flame kindle
upon thee. For I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel,
thy Savior. I gave Egypt for thy ransom,
Ethiopia and Sheba for thee. Since thou wast precious in my
sight, thou hast been honorable, and I have loved thee. Therefore
will I give men for thee, and people for thy life." We can
see here, it's like the flood of Noah's day. God condemned
the world, but he saved Noah out of it. It's the same thing.
In fact, it blends into this in a later chapter of Isaiah
54. But here he says, in verse 5, Isaiah 43, verse 5. Fear not,
for I am with thee. I will bring thy seed from the
east and gather thee from the west. So here's God taking out
of the world all of his people. They're called his seed. I will
say to the north, give up, and to the south, keep not back.
Bring my sons from far and my daughters from the ends of the
earth, even every one that is called by my name, for I have
created him, for my glory I have formed him, yea, I have made
him." God created his people. They are called by his name.
They have his name on them, and that name is written in the Lamb's
Book of Life. These people were designated
before the foundation of the world to be gods. and He created
them. He not only created them in their
physical body and soul, but later, after they were dead in sins,
He created them in Christ Jesus. He formed them in Christ, and
He formed Christ in them. And then he goes on in verse
nine, bring forth the blind people that have eyes and the deaf that
have ears. So even though we were blind
and were deaf spiritually, God has given us eyes and given us
ears. Let all the nations be gathered together and let the
people be assembled. Who among them can declare this and show
us former things? Let them bring forth their witnesses
that they may be justified or let them hear and say it is truth.
You are my witnesses, saith the Lord, and my servant, whom I
have chosen, speaking of Christ, that you may know and believe
me and understand that I am he. Before me there was no God formed,
neither shall there be after me. I, even I, am the Lord, and
beside me there is no Savior. I have declared and I have saved,
and I have showed when there was no strange God among you,
therefore you are my witnesses, saith the Lord that I am God. Yea, before the day was, I am
he, and there is none that can deliver out of my hand. I will
work, and who shall prevent it? And so you can see that you can
read on in this. In fact, look at verse 15. I am the Lord, your
Holy One, the Creator of Israel, notice, your King. There you have it. The Creator
of Israel, the people of God, the people who are called the
children of promise. Those given to Christ, that belong
to God, chosen before time began, chosen in Christ, given to Christ
to save. And Christ would pray for them,
Christ would give them eternal life, He would save them, He
would do all that He did while He was in this world. which was
the will of God to deliver them from their sins. He gave himself
for our sins that he might deliver us from this present evil world.
This is our Lord, this is our Redeemer, our Creator, our King. And so we see here in Psalm 24
in verse 3, who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? He's
talking about a man now, the one who is God, who is the Lord.
who we prove from the New Testament is also man, the son of man,
who was the only one who could ascend. That's the one he's talking
about here. He is the God-man, the mediator. That's why he is, he's spoken
of here as both God and man, because we're gonna see he ascends.
Look at this in verse four, Psalm 24, verse four. Who shall ascend
to the hill of the Lord? Who shall stand in his holy place?
The answer is, This criteria, he has to meet this criteria.
He that has clean hands and a pure heart. Hands are what you use
to do things. The heart is what you do to think. The heart and the mind in scripture
are the same thing. We think with the heart. We will
with the heart. We love with the heart. All those
things are activities in our mind. and this part up here somewhere
in our body. I don't know exactly where it
is. The mind is in our thinking part. You can chop off an arm,
you're still you. You chop off your leg, you're
still you, but you can't chop off your head, otherwise you're
no longer alive. So, that's a diversion, but the
point is, is the hands is our work, the heart is our mind,
our will, our love, the desires we have, the motivations, our
thoughts. So he says, who has clean hands
and a pure heart? Who has works that are clean? Who has ever done what is clean? Who has ever thought and had
pure motives? Who has ever had a heart like
God's heart? Keep that question in mind. He
says, who has not lifted up his soul to vanity nor sworn deceitfully. Not only does he have a pure
works and pure motives and a pure will and love in his heart, but
he also has never lifted up his soul to vanity. He has never
sought out another God. Vanity, unlike the people in
Romans 1 who gave themselves over to vain imaginations, this
man has never done that. He's never sought help or trusted
in another god. He's never sought after false
doctrine, never believed it. He's not lifted up his soul to
vanity, nor sworn deceitfully. He has always done what he said
he would do. He never committed to do something
and didn't do it, didn't fulfill it. And he never swore deceitfully. He never was a hypocrite. He
was always true. Always true. Who is the one who
is faithful and true in all of scripture? Who is the only one
who ascended up? Well, we know the answer. Obviously,
it's the Son of Man, the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's why
he's talking about a singular person here in verses 3 and 4.
One person. He's not talking about a group
of people, a plurality. He's talking about one. Only
one. Only the Lord Jesus Christ, the
Lamb of God, was worthy to take the book from the hand of him
who sits on the throne and open the seals thereof. Right? It
says in Psalm 24, verse 5, this one who is able to ascend up
to the hill of the Lord and stand in his holy place, who has clean
hands, pure heart, not lifted his soul up to vanity, not sworn
deceitfully, this one shall receive notice, the blessing from the
Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation. Did the
Lord Jesus Christ need blessing? You might wonder, how is it that
he received blessing? If it's talking about him, how
does this fit in? Did he need righteousness? Did
God give him righteousness? Did God save him? What is this
talking about? Well, remember that as the mediator,
as we read in John 17, God gave all things to him for what purpose? that He might give eternal life
to as many as God had given Him. So when God speaks of blessing
the Lamb in Revelation 5, verses 10 through 13, giving Him blessing
and honor and glory and all these things, He's speaking about the
reward he would give him for fulfilling God the Father's will
and saving his people. But more than that, he's also
talking about the righteousness and the salvation that God the
Father would give him, and in giving it to him, he was giving
it to those with him. In other words, God the Father
gives nothing to His people that He didn't give them by first
giving it to the Lord Jesus Christ and then Christ giving it to
us. It's all given to us from Christ.
Everything is put into His hand. Remember in Egypt, Pharaoh dreamed
a dream. He ended up, he found Joseph. Joseph interpreted the dream.
Pharaoh rewarded Joseph. He gave him a golden chain. He made him the second in command
over the whole nation. He put everything in Egypt under
Joseph's control. And when the people ran out of
food, they came to Pharaoh and they said, we don't have any
food. And he said, what? Go to Joseph. That's what God the Father did.
He gave everything to his son and he tells us, go to Christ. Go to Christ. All the blessings
of God are in Him and in Him alone. You won't find it anywhere
else. Jesus said, I'm the way, the
truth, and the life. That's everything. No man comes
to the Father but by me. And so God the Father gave him
blessing and righteousness and salvation that he might give
to his people. Righteousness and salvation and
blessings in him, you see. Ephesians 1.3, God has given
us all spiritual and heavenly blessings in Christ, in heavenly
places. And we could go on and on. Romans
5.17, God gives us righteousness. It's a gift. And how did He give
it to us? He gave Christ the work to do,
He worked it out, and He gave that righteousness that He gave
Christ to work out to us through the Lord Jesus Christ. He that
believeth on me has everlasting life. God gave us eternal life
by giving it to us from the hand of his Son, our Lord and Savior,
Jesus Christ. That's why Jesus said, him that
cometh to me, him that cometh to me, coming to me all you who
labor, I will give you rest. It's told the woman at the well,
if you knew the gift of God and who it is that says to you, give
me to drink, you would have asked Him and He would have given you
living water. Everything is Christ, given to
Him by the Father, all blessing and all righteousness and salvation.
Now notice the next verse in verse 6. This is the generation. This is the posterity. These
are the people of the Lord. These are the Lord's people,
this class of people designated as a special group out of all
the rest. This is the generation of them
that seek him, that seek thy face, O Jacob. We would have
expected it to say, Oh God, or Oh Christ, but he says, Oh Jacob
here. Because he's emphasizing the
fact that when we seek the Lord Jesus Christ, we come to him
as the one who stood before God as our surety, as our substitute,
and he offered himself in our place, and he bore our sins in
his own body on the tree. He was put to shame that he might
save us from shame before God and give us the blessings of
God. He was identified with us so intimately that he took our
nature and bore our sins. That's why he took our nature,
that he might die and save us from the death we deserve for
our sins. And that's why he's called here,
O Jacob, because Jacob is associated with someone who's shameful,
a manipulator, a tricker, someone who tricks to get things. And
now notice, having described the criteria for Christ to ascend
to heaven, he had to have clean hands, a clean heart, not lift
up his hands to vanity, arm his soul to vanity, not swear deceitfully. And what else? He had to first
descend. The Lord had to become a man. He had to, the word had
to be made flesh. He had to be made under the law
and fulfill it too. He says here, now that the Lord has done this,
now that there's a generation of people that He has given these
blessings and righteousness and salvation to, He says, lift up
your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lift up, you everlasting doors. Open wide the gates of glory. Why? Because the King is coming,
the one who triumphed over our sins, now takes his rightful
place, and he takes his place at the right hand of the Father,
on the Father's throne. He holds the scepter of righteousness,
and it is the Lamb slain, the one who gave himself for our
sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world.
and save us from all iniquity. That's the King of glory. That's
the Lord Jesus Christ. Notice how all the hosts of heaven, And heaven itself is ringing
out. A demand is made. A command is given. Open the
gates. He says, lift up your heads,
O ye gates, and be ye lift up, you everlasting doors, and the
King of glory shall come in. The holy access to God has been
made by the blood of the Son of God, and He opens it for us. He comes in, he receives glory,
and he brings with him all of his people because they're one
with him. He says in verse 8, who is this king of glory? The
Lord, strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle, the one
who comes into heaven as man is the Lord of heaven. Verse
9, lift up your heads, O ye gates, even lift them up, you everlasting
doors, and the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King
of glory? The Lord of hosts, the Lord of
armies, the Lord who all the armies of heaven are at His beckon
and His command. He's the captain, the champion,
the forerunner. Everyone is subservient to him. He has the preeminence and they
love to have it so. The armies of heaven are not
constrained by some kind of an outward bondage to submit to
Him. They love to see Him glorified. They want Him to be glorified.
And so they submit to Him gladly. These are the people the Lord
saved. The armies of heaven, they're the people the Lord saved.
How did they overcome? How did they conquer the enemy?
What does it say in Revelation 12, 10? By the blood of the Lamb. by the word of their testimony,
by the gospel, in other words. And they didn't love their lives
even to death. They cared nothing but what they had in Christ.
The king has come, and his armies are victorious. How? Because
he conquered for them, and he gave them the victory. You see
the glory here, the Lord Jesus Christ. Now one more verse, and
then I'll close. 1 Corinthians chapter one. I'm
gonna look at this one verse here, and you'll see the significance
of this verse in light of Psalm 24. He says this in Psalm, I'm
sorry, 1 Corinthians chapter one and verse 30. Of Him are
you in Christ Jesus. Of God the Father are you in
Christ. Who of God, Jesus Christ, of
God is made unto us, and I'll enumerate what God enumerates
here, but really it just means everything. Wisdom, righteousness,
Sanctification and redemption. Are there any greater blessings?
Wisdom, righteousness, sanctification. We're set apart by God for God. We're redeemed by Christ's precious
blood, released from all bondage, set free to serve God with a
redeemed body and soul. And He is our wisdom. All that
we need to know, we know by knowing Him. And he says, he's our righteousness,
all we need to stand before God, accepted as Christ is accepted,
we have in Christ. He goes on. Now, these things
are true, that according as it is written, he that glorieth,
let him glory in the Lord. And a little later on it says,
the princes of this world would have known it, they would have
never crucified the Lord of glory, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord
and King of glory. We are given these things in
Christ, the blessings of righteousness, all blessings, righteousness
and salvation, and God is our God. because Christ has obtained
them for us when He, as the Son of God, descended as Son of Man,
in humiliation fulfilled the will of God in our salvation,
ascended and received all glory from God, and took the throne,
and God gave Him the glory He had before the world was as Son
of God and Son of Man, and gave Him all blessings for His people,
and He gives those blessings to them. and their blessings
of righteousness, blessings of salvation, and wisdom, and sanctification,
and redemption. In order that, we would glory
in none but Christ, and that He would receive it all. Let's
pray. Thank you, Father, for the Lord
Jesus Christ, the King of glory. We pray, Lord, that our hearts
would be so united to Him that we would want no glory. We would
despise, we would disdain any thought of taking confidence
in ourselves or finding honor in ourselves, but we would give
all praise and honor and glory to the Lamb on the throne and
to God the Father by Him. We would truly know you by knowing
your Son, and we would be truly saved by Him, by His sin atoning
work, by His life in this world in humiliation, doing the will
of God and fulfilling it in every part, in perfection. Give Him
all praise and glory and honor and give us this grace also to
sing there around the throne in glory with your people. In
Jesus' name we pray. Amen.