I love this Psalm 24. Read it – then how shall we respond to it?
First, obviously, in worship: `The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it` – Amen! And `The world – and all who live in it` – rightly so!
`For — He has founded it!` Yes: it is He, He who gives us air to breathe, food to eat, water to drink, landscapes and sunsets to enjoy… Thankyou Lord! ‘You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honour and power; for You created all things, and by Your will they [we!] were created and have their being!’ (Rev 4)… Amen!
Then, not only that: we worship Him because He is `The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle` (v8) – the One who can guarantee, in the words of the wonderful preceding Psalm 23, that throughout the coming months `Even though I walk through the darkest valley I will fear no evil, for You are with me!` — that there will somehow be a table spread for me, even in the presence of my most demonic enemies… Indeed, thank you Lord!, that `surely goodness and love **will** follow me all the days of my life` (23:4-6)….. And therefore `I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever!` (23:6, and see 27:4!) Thankyou God!
Yet this does raise a question, one (24:3) with which we can turn our response to this psalm onward into a different kind of prayer, about the preconditions for experiencing His presence now… `Who may ascend the hill of the Lord? Who may stand in His holy place?` Here’s God’s answer: `The one who has clean hands, and a pure heart; who does not trust in an idol, or swear by a false god…. Such is the generation of those who seek Him, who seek Your face, God of Jacob…`
Clean hands, pure heart: these things do matter massively. It’s possible to overemphasise the wonderful truth of God’s grace, that at bottom He loves His children enormously no matter what we do. He is indeed the God of enormous grace, God who loved, led, and changed even the trickster Jacob, for instance — but, if we want to experience God’s presence, we do need to seek Him for increasingly clean hands and a pure heart… `Blessed`, said Jesus, `are the pure in heart, for they will see God` (Matt 5)… `Holiness without which no one will see the Lord` (Heb 12:14)… Purity, holiness, these things really matter as major life-goals: the aim of life is not just that we be happy or fulfilled, but holy like God, people who can therefore experience His presence… Well, that’s another thing to turn into prayer as we consider what we really want, what we’ll really spend our energies for, in these coming months…
And then: His presence, says v4, is for `the one who does not trust in an idol`… We won’t develop that here, since it’s an issue we’ve focused in posts on Joshua (eg ch24) and Isaiah (eg ch54), and you may even want to go to one of those and turn it into prayer… But how about also using each of what follows for a meditation, from the very similar Psalm 15 (it’s worth musing on Isaiah 33:14-17 too, even if space here doesn’t permit):
`Lord, who may dwell in Your sacred tent?
Who may live on Your holy mountain?
The one whose way of life is blameless,
who does what is righteous,
who speaks the truth from their heart;
whose tongue utters no slander,
who does no wrong to a neighbour,
and casts no slur on others` [the new testament has much to say about gossip];
`who despises a vile person` [cf 12:8: `the wicked strut about when what is vile is honoured` – it’s not hard to think of contemporary examples of that in our media; may God help us stay unshaped by it all…]
`but honours those who —– fear the Lord;
`who keeps [their word] even when it hurts,
and does not change their mind;
who lends money to the poor without interest` [the righteous use their money for the good of the poor, and this is apparently a precondition for experiencing the presence of God…].
`Whoever does these things will never be shaken!` (NIV)
Lots to turn into prayer there… And then we can swing it back into worship: because only Jesus ever fulfilled all of these, and we worship Him for it; and, we rejoice too that these are where we’re going, because His Spirit is in us, reshaping us and predestining us (see Romans 8:29) to become just like Him…
And finally we can worship with the climax of Psalm 24. For there are two ways of looking at all this: we do seek in these coming months to come to Him, to experience His presence, to ascend His holy hill; but also in His love, He (the `King of glory` – think about that phrase) wants to comes to us, into our most guarded and central being – the thing to long for!…
`Lift up your heads, 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` [our Saviour, and also Companion, and Friend, the one who loves to come to us!] –
`He is the King of glory!`
Hallelujah!
PS There’s a great folk-rock setting of this on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7RF-Rz0hw0 .
