Psalm 24 - Back To Eden

Podcast Transcript (Auto-Transcribed by Apple Podcasts)

Hello, and welcome back to Tabernacle Talk. It is a bit of a stormy day out here, time of recording, but we've got a great passage of scripture that we're gonna be looking at today. And we are in Psalm 24.

And the inscription for this Psalm reads this, a Psalm of David. Psalms 22, 23 and 24 are often referenced as the Messianic Psalms.

There are other Psalms that kind of deal with some prophecies about Jesus, but Psalm 22 with some very specific prophecies about what Jesus would endure on the cross and what he would endure in his suffering before the cross.

Obviously, Psalm 23, you have much of who Jesus is, some of the things that would take place with him, even in verses five and six, like his anointing, his actions that he would do, some of those things being encapsulated there.

And then Psalm 24 is kind of a back to Eden.

So Eden, obviously, is the very beginning story that we read about in scripture, where God, from nothing, from chaos, from emptiness, lifelessness in the world, Genesis one views it from the lens of a chaotic sea in which there was no life, where

there was only darkness, and God brought out light, God brought out land, and God brought out life and creatures to be able to live on the earth. And then Genesis two pictures it as a desolate wilderness where there was no life, and God brought

organization and order and all of the animals and everything into that lifeless wilderness, into a place that could sustain people. And in Eden, Eden, I think I've referenced this before, is talked about often in scripture as a mountain.

It was kind of the pinnacle. It was where there was that overlap between heaven, where the spiritual beings live, and earth, where the physical beings live.

And in the garden, you have this wonderful place where God wants the humans to then go out and make more and more of the earth into this kind of overlapping place.

We know in the book of Revelation that God himself is going to be the one that does this when he makes the new heavens and the new earth, and there's not really going to be that difference anymore.

But instead, the new Jerusalem will come down out of heaven, and we will enjoy having God live with us. It's not that we have to go to a specific place in order to find him. Instead, he will make his living with us.

So Psalm 24 kind of goes back to Eden to say, hey, we know what God's original design was, that God would partner with man intentionally and say, hey, I have these tasks for you to do, a mission for you to accomplish.

You're not going to do it on your own. I'm with you. I've created all of these things for you to then enjoy and participate in.

And I want you to increase this rule and order across all of the world. But obviously, mankind failed that. We, instead of bringing in God's rule, we tried to establish our own.

We tried to become spiritual beings. We tried to make that judgment call between good and bad, and we were horribly wrong. And so Psalm 24 then goes, okay, well, who can bring us back into where God's initial aim for humanity occurred?

How can we get back to Eden? If you'll remember the story, the garden was blocked off by one of the cherubim. That one of the angels with a flaming sword made it so that humanity couldn't go back.

We couldn't re-enter on our own terms what God had intended for us. So let's dive into Psalm 24 and see who it could possibly be. The earth and everything in it, the world and its inhabitants belong to the Lord, belong to Yahweh.

I think if you're a Christian, if you're listening, you know, about five minutes into this episode, you know that. You know that everything that exists, every person that exists belongs to God.

Verse 2 tells us why do all of these things belong to God. It says, for he laid its foundation, he laid the world's foundations on the seas and established it on the rivers. God's the one that created everything, and so everything belongs to him.

If I make a sandwich, it's my sandwich, to quote a very famous show. Verse number 3, who may ascend the mountain of the Lord? Who may stand in his holy place?

Who's going to go back into Eden? And kind of the story of the Bible is not just like one person getting there, like, okay, great, good job for you.

But who's going to lead all of God's people, all of the people that love God and follow God and want to be part of his kingdom and work? Who's going to lead us into that?

Verse number 4, the one who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not appealed to what is false, and who has not sworn deceitfully, he will receive blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation.

Such is the generation of those who inquire of him, who seek the face of the God of Jacob. Verse number 4, the one who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not appealed to what is false, and who has not sworn deceitfully. This is a tall task.

Who in the world could fit this description? Their clean hands, someone that could say, I genuinely have not done anything against anyone. I've done what's right.

I am not ceremonially. I am not morally unclean. My hands are clean.

No one can come up to me and go, hey, you did this. And while here, obviously, the indication is a perfect human will have to be the one that leads us in.

It doesn't take away an application that we could take for ourselves that as we seek to follow Christ, that we would want to have clean hands, that no one would be able to go up to you and say, hey, like you really messed up in this situation and you

didn't apologize. Or I told you that this was hurtful to me, what you did, or that you really dropped the ball here and I didn't, or sorry, and you didn't apologize for it. Like I came to you.

You knew that what you did was wrong and yet you did not apologize. Let's seek to be those that have clean hands. And it might be very often that we have to go to God and say, God, I need you to clean my hands.

I need you to make me new. It might be that we go to people and say, hey, I'm really sorry for doing this thing, for saying this thing, for thinking this thing, for not accomplishing this thing that I said that I would do.

Let's seek to be those that have clean hands. The one who has clean hands and a pure heart. Man, that is a tall order.

That is the emotions that you have. It is the intentions that you hold. They are free from selfishness.

They're free from pride. They're free from sin. There's really no way, humanly speaking, that we could have a pure heart.

But through Jesus, through God, making us new, we can continually ask God, God, please show me my heart. Show me the wrong intentions and emotions that I am having towards people, towards what I can get from others.

God, help me to have a pure heart with pure intentions. This is who is not appealed to what is false. That we're not given over to speaking untruths.

We're not reliant on false things, false gods, false hopes, and false basis for what we're doing in life. We haven't appealed to those. Instead, we rely on God.

Verse number five, He will receive blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of His salvation. That God is the one that gives us blessing. God is the one that gives us a right standing.

It's not ourselves. It's something that God gives to us. I think of the verse in Proverbs.

Every man will proclaim his own righteousness, but a faithful man who can find. Verse number seven, then declares, who is this person that is leading us back into Eden? Lift up your heads, you gates.

Rise up, ancient doors. Then the King of Glory will come in. Who is this King of Glory?

The Lord, strong and mighty. The Lord, mighty in battle. Lift up your heads, you gates.

Rise up, ancient doors. Then the King of Glory will come in. Who is he, this King of Glory?

The Lord of Armies. He is the King of Glory. Here, David is giving this prophecy about the fact that Jesus would come, that God would physically dwell among his people.

That was something that was not known during the Old Testament. It was, God was a spiritual being, and so he occupied just an entirely different realm than everyone else. He wasn't a physical being, he was a spiritual being.

But even as we look many times throughout the Old Testament, there were these pictures of, okay, God might actually come and be a part of what's going on. It won't just be a normal everyday person that's the Messiah. No, no, he's going to be special.

And as Scripture went on and was continuing to be written, that theme became clearer and clearer as time went on.

You have the very beginning promise in Genesis 3.15, that the serpent, that the snake that deceived Adam and Eve, that he would be crushed by the descendant of the woman.

And you can look even later on, David was promised his descendant would be the Messiah, the one that would reign forever and ever.

You can look in the Book of Isaiah and see the prophecy that was given about a young woman, a virgin, that would conceive and bring forth a son. And his name would be called Emmanuel, God with us.

And that child would be called wonderful counselor, the mighty God, everlasting father, the Prince of Peace, the one that would rule forever on the throne of David.

You have the prophecies that are given even in Micah 5 2 that he would be from the tribe of Bethlehem. There was this realization God is going to come and he's going to come physically. We'll be able to see him and interact with him and he will rule.

So there are many other things that we could talk about with Jesus, but this Psalm reminds us of the fact like Jesus did come and he came to accomplish God's original purpose.

God didn't give up on his plan A of let's have Eden, let's have God and man together and accomplishing his work. God didn't give up on that plan. He's bringing it back around.

But the only way that we could get back into Eden, back into that state of great perfection and wonderment with God is through Jesus, through God himself coming and making us righteous, the one with clean hands that were pierced, with a pure heart

that was stabbed with a spear and blood and water poured out. It is only that person, that one who never had any falsities, any sin, any wickedness that could bring us back to God. So today, will you choose to follow him? He paved the way for you.

He adopted you into his family. He loved you. He saved you.

He reconciled you to God. Will you follow his actions and his commands for your life today? Today, will you love people genuinely?

Will you have those clean hands that would say, okay, I'm not going to do wrong by people when or if I do wrong, I'm going to make it right. I'm going to ask for forgiveness. I'm going to ask God to show me my intentions and the motives of my heart.

And I'm going to try and do things out of genuine love for people, out of a desire to benefit others and not just what I can get from people. Hope those thoughts would be encouragement to you today. Thanks for tuning in.

We are, let me see, we got one more day in the week and we are in Psalm 25. So looking forward to that time together. I think I have a song for today.

I believe it's from Passion, the group Passion Ministries. And I believe it's called King Of Glory. And it's a great song.

So thanks for tuning in and see you tomorrow.