This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Psalms” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, August 16, 1987.

Tonight we are in Psalm 24. Psalm 24. The earth is the Lord’s and all it contains, the world and those that dwell in it. For he has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the rivers. Who may ascend into the hill of the Lord? And who may stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart. who has not lifted up his soul to falsehood and has not sworn deceitfully. He shall receive a blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation. Such is the generation of those who seek him, who seek thy face, even Jacob.

Lift up your heads, O and be lifted up, O 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 gates, and lift them up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord of hosts. He is the king of law. And then from Obadiah, that’s after Amos. Verse 21. Obadiah 21. will ascend Mount Zion to judge the mountain of Esau, and the kingdom shall be the Lord’s. Let’s pray briefly.

Father for your church, you have given order and rule and you have committed that rule to servants called elders among your people. Our God, your rule is reflected in them, and they should honor you in serving and not bring dishonor to the office. But we pray our God that though the office may be weakened by men, yet the office for your sake may stand, and your people revere the office nonetheless. O God, throughout the length and breadth of your church, you have raised up men to rule.

May they rule with fear and integrity. We ask our God that we might give them our respect. We pray our Father that they may rule wisely. Keep your people as you shepherd them according to your ordination. We pray this not only for the sake of this congregation here, but for all those congregations that look to you and wish to see your face. We pray it through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Psalm 24 is exquisite. so exquisite, in fact, that it does not lag behind in its beauty, in its significance. It does not lag behind any of the psalms, even the psalm that precedes it, Psalm 23. Now, of course, our spirits, our souls may quickly rush to Psalm 23 when they don’t to Psalm 24. Attracted as we are to the serenity and the wonderful peacefulness of that 23rd Psalm. Now, we have reviewed Psalm 23, and we have noted, as we did so, that the restfulness and the peacefulness of that psalm may well prove to be a trap, a snare, because in concentrating upon those features, we are liable to miss the power and the impact of that wonderful 23rd Psalm. To be sure, the images that leap out at us in that 23rd Psalm speak to us of serenity.

They speak to us of a tranquility. The images of a pastoral setting, the images of peace and rest abound. We can’t easily fly by green pastures or quiet waters. We are taken up by the table prepared before us, and our hearts are won by the mention of the house of the Lord in the final verse. All of these images speaking to us about a settledness. A settledness that breathes out, breathes out wonderful tranquility and contentment. But concentrating on those images and the settledness and even the permanence that they suggest can rob us of the deeper significance of this 23rd Psalm.

For you see, the major image of the psalm is not that of settledness at all. It is not the image of having set down your roots having found your plot of ground, and then sitting there peaceably beneath your vine and fig tree for the rest of your life. Not at all.

The dominant image of that twenty-third song, rather, is that of pilgrimage, wandering, as if you were a sheep as if you were part of a flock on the moon, as if you were the possession of a nomadic tribe, as if, being that flock-like people, the Lord himself is the only adequate and faithful shepherd.

You see, the thing that strikes us about this twenty-third Psalm is that it’s not written during the times of Israel’s wandering, but rather in the time in which she had taken up residence within the land. She had found a settledness, yet her confession is to be in the midst of that settledness The Lord is my shepherd, and I, like the sheep, am on the move. For I am a pilgrim and a stranger in the earth. Even beyond them, whatever quiet waters there are in Israel, beyond what green pastures there might be within Canaan, past all the tables that could be sat in peasant homes or in the house of the king, or even at the temple. There is a settledness, a permanence, an abode yet to be well by the sheep shepherded.

So you see what the confession of Israel is out of that twenty-third even in the midst of all of these testaments to my I am a pilgrim. I am a wanderer and the son of a wandering Aramaic. So was the confession that Moses articulated for the children of Israel in the book of Deuteronomy. It continues even here.

And what peace? What serenity? It is the serenity and the peace of the ultimate and final dwelling place of God with his people that is now comforting them in their journey. It is precisely in their journey that they receive the comforts and the peacefulness that is spoken of here in this magnificent 23rd Psalm. Well, that’s Psalm 23.

And you are lulled a bit by it. You are quieted in your spirit and soul, your mind seemingly at rest. Here you are reclining in some green pasture, a beautiful pastoral scene, and then comes the explosion of Psalm 24, rocking you out of your slumbers. No quiet waters here, and no descriptions of those tranquil green pastures. It’s as if you have been transported from those wonderful pastoral fields into a battlefield. And the shells are exploding all around you. For the dominant image of Psalm 24 is warfare. Its tone is strident and militant. In view is the battle. Now appropriately, as you begin the psalm, the king is identified. The Lord owns the earth. Everything in it and everyone in it. He owns it because he made it. He made it and triumphed over the waters of chaos in order to establish it. He founded it upon the tumultuous seas. He established it upon the unruly rivers. the Lord, he is the king.

The royal and warrior king. But having so identified the king and the central figure in the war, intruding into the psalm is a dissonant note. For lying beneath the surface of this psalm is the voice of rebellion, the voice of revolt. For while the Lord is king, and a warrior king to be sure, a king to be feared, not all fear him. In fact, it seems as if there is an extensive revolt and revolution against this one identified as the ruler. and therefore there shoots out across the sky like a lightning bolt, there screams across the heavens like a shooting star, a question, a question that comes in verse 3.

Where, where might there be found a champion for the Lord’s cause? Who will arise as a champion for the cause of the Lord, the King. Who will take his side in the battle? Who might be found who is appropriate and qualified? You may think here that we are touching upon something that reflects upon the life of David. In that day, there was a revolt, a rebellion by the ferocious Philistines to the West. whose objective was the possession of the land of promise, and the usurpation of the throne that belonged to the Lord. But a small boy steps forward against the champion of these defiant usurpers. And he says, who is this Philistine dog that he dares defy the armies of the living God? Well, it may be of course that that event in the life of David stands behind what he asks here and speaks of. But the fact remains that it is David who is speaking.

So obviously, he is not looking to himself He is not looking to himself as magnificent as that experience of his youth had been, or any of his conquests since. He is not looking to himself. He speaks the question. Who might there be who can ascend the hill of the Lord and stand in his holy place? He looks beyond himself to someone much greater still. And so the answer is read out as if the heavens themselves have parted and the voice speaks, He who has clean hands a pure heart, that one who has not lifted up the center of his being to that which is false, who has not offered himself in any way to deception, that one who has not lifted up the name of the Lord to vanity, nor taken the name of the Lord. in vain. This one, then, not so much clothed with the strength of steel, this one not so much trained in the maneuvers of battle, this one armed with righteousness, this one armed with truth, this one armed with perfection and gloomy, beautiful holiness.

He ascends the hill of the Lord. He is the one who receives the blessing from God. He is the one who is vindicated from God who gives salvation. And such are they then who follow him. They benefited by his righteousness, his perfection. They after him seeking the face of God as that which is most cherished.

But this brings us to verses 7 through 10. And here it seems that most commentators want to change gears. They here want to surrender the strident and militant imagery of the psalm. They suggest to us that the image that dominates here is one of festal celebration as the presence of God is announced and he enters into the city and all rejoice.

The intifadal structure of these verses is meant to suggest them that the people who have experienced the delightful redemption of God have approached the city gates or even the temple gates, and they have spoken out, lift up your heads gates, open up for us, and they then hear in response the voice from within, possibly the voice of the priests. saying we have the king of glory if extracting from them a confession, so that a confession of the king of glory, the Lord of hosts is necessary for entrance into the city of God or into his temple prefect. But such an approach abandons the military imagery of the song and is not appropriate at all. It caves in because it doesn’t take into consideration the extent of the rebellion, the extensiveness of the revolt. How far widespread is this revolution, this revolt against the king? Let me tell you, not even Zion is there. for taking up their habitation within the city of God and within the sanctuary of God, taking up their habitation and claiming for themselves the throne that belongs to the king, are those who are his sworn enemies, and hostile to him and hostile to his people, who deny him and snarl even at the mention of his name.

So now you see the champion of the Lord has been found, and he ascends the hill of the Lord, and as he approaches the gates, and the hosts that have numbered themselves with him, they are with him as well. They come to the gates of the city, and they say, lift up your heads, O gates, be lifted up, ye ancient doors. It is for this purpose that we have come. And we will not be put off, nor can we be.

The King of Glory, Him to whom the rightful rule belongs, He shall enter in at the head of our force. Then comes the voice of hatred and enmity. You don’t say it right unless you put a snarl in it. Who is this King of Glory? Those who sit in Zion now are the haters of the King. and there comes the response. An affirmation of the glorious, regal, militant figure of the King, who in the battle will not be denied. The King, the Lord, strong and mighty. The Lord, mighty in battle. The Lord of hosts. He is the king of glory. Thus, the significance of Obadiah 21. You know the story.

Israel carted off to the east by Babylon, their land desolate, whose gloating Israel’s brother, Esau, the Edomites. And what have the Edomites done? They have swooped down from their mountain cradles, and they have taken up their dwellings in the habitations of God, and claim for themselves even violence. So now, the end of Obadiah intones, the deliverer shall ascend Mount Zion, and they shall judge Edom who has usurped the throne of God. And what can compare with the concluding statement of Obadiah?

And the kingdoms, and the kingdom shall be Do you see it, then, as you march through Psalm 24? Why, it’s the gospel. That’s what you see there. The king who rules, who owns everything, also achieves rule. through his champion, who ascends Zion not just to discomfit those who are enemies of the flesh, as if fighting some new and modern-day Philistine, as if doing battle against some new modern-day Edomite. But this one ascends the hill of the Lord and comes to heaven itself. And in coming there, he enters in and puts down every voice of hostility and enmity that bears voice itself. Why. Some twenty four. Is about David’s greater son. Jesus Christ. The Lord’s champion. The one with pure hands and a clear, clean heart.

Who has not lifted up his soul to vanity nor sworn deceitful. we follow in his train and we now with him and because of him enter into the heavenly places and no force of the flesh or of the spirit can keep us at bay. We are more than conquerors through him who loves us and has given himself for us. Amen. we as your people would not lose hold of the proper militant image of the Psalms, or this psalm in particular. We would rejoice in the magnificence, in the might, in the power, in the conquest of our Christ. For surely we are of his generation born again for a heavenly inheritance which he has cleaned and scourged and purified for us. O Lord, may we be content to live in his company and with you.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.