NXR Podcast - SUNDAY SERMON - Who Is This King Of Glory? | Psalm 24
Aired: 2022-08-21
Duration: 54:02


=== Psalm Structure and Context (03:29) ===

[00:00:00]  Hey guys, real quick before we get started, I have a small request.
[00:00:03]  If you've been blessed by our content and you like this show, would you take just a brief moment and leave us a five star review?
[00:00:09]  This is quite possibly the most effective thing that you can do to ensure that this content gets out to as many people as possible.
[00:00:17]  Thanks.
[00:00:18]  To provide some framework for our psalm today, I want to do two things.
[00:00:23]  I want to talk about the structure of the text itself, but then I want to talk about the background, the context in which this particular psalm was written.
[00:00:32]  We don't have knowledge of the background for every single one of the Psalms that we find throughout the Psalter, but this one we do.
[00:00:39]  We know the purpose for which it was written.
[00:00:42]  We know the context in which it was written.
[00:00:44]  We know the emotions of the author and what he felt and what he experienced immediately prior to this Psalm being written and penned by his hand under the inspiration of the Spirit.
[00:00:56]  And so, by knowing the background and the context, I believe that it heightens the experience of the Psalm and heightens and strengthens our understanding of what's being conveyed.
[00:01:06]  But before we get into the background or the context for the writing of the psalm, let's briefly look at the structure, the textual structure of the psalm itself.
[00:01:15]  In your notes, I've written this.
[00:01:16]  Psalm 24 can be broken into three primary parts.
[00:01:20]  Number one would be verses one and two, which speak of God's sovereignty.
[00:01:25]  And number two, the second part, if you will, would be verses three through six, which speak of God's holiness and, by consequence, the holiness which he demands of his people as they worship him.
[00:01:37]  And then the third part of our psalm today would be verses 7 through 10, which speak of God's victory, God's triumph.
[00:01:45]  So the first two verses, part one, is God's sovereignty.
[00:01:49]  Verses 3 through 7 would be God's holiness and his demands, his prescription for holy and reverent worship.
[00:01:57]  And then the third part would be God's victory, God's triumph over his enemies, and his triumph in his act of redemption.
[00:02:07]  The primary focus of our exegesis.
[00:02:09]  Today will lie on the second portion of our text, verses 3 through 6, and primarily, even more specifically, verses 3 through 5.
[00:02:19]  Here we find two vital lessons for the Christian.
[00:02:22]  Number one, we find the necessity for true worship and for holy, devout, reverent worship.
[00:02:31]  And secondly, we find not only the necessity for true worship, but that true worship can never occur without Christ.
[00:02:38]  So we see the necessity.
[00:02:40]  For Jesus.
[00:02:41]  And finally, we'll briefly conclude at the end of the sermon today with a brief exegesis of the third part, verses 7 through 10, which reveal the glory of Christ in his accomplishment of our redemption.
[00:02:54]  Now, for the background, the context for the writing of our text today, Psalm 24.
[00:03:00]  Psalm 24 was written for a particular occasion, namely the event described in 2 Samuel chapter 6, where David, King David, went and brought up the ark of God from the house of Obed Edom.
[00:03:14]  To the city of David, namely Jerusalem, with rejoicing.
[00:03:18]  Now, in 1 Samuel chapter 4, during the time of Eli the priest, the one who trained Samuel as a boy, the Israelites were in rebellion against God.

=== Comparative Love and Hatred (05:25) ===

[00:03:30]  Eli committed the sin of complacency, he was complicit, he was spiritually apathetic.
[00:03:37]  One of Eli's greatest sins was not that he himself was not reverent towards the Lord, but that he tolerated irreverence in his sons.
[00:03:46]  He refused to discipline his sons.
[00:03:48]  He refused to set the record straight.
[00:03:51]  He bought into false narratives.
[00:03:53]  He was content to say, well, hey, you know, maybe there's a little sin here and a little sin there.
[00:03:59]  He wasn't willing to see the truth because it was painful.
[00:04:03]  Sometimes recognizing the truth hurts.
[00:04:06]  It's inconvenient.
[00:04:08]  It would require us to confront.
[00:04:10]  See, one of the chief reasons why people do not choose to see the truth as it really is is because the truth, when we see it, it demands something of us.
[00:04:20]  It requires something of us.
[00:04:21]  And almost always, what it requires is a confrontation.
[00:04:25]  At minimum, a confrontation of ourselves, that we must confront our own flesh.
[00:04:30]  We must confront our own idols.
[00:04:31]  We must confront our own sin.
[00:04:34]  You cannot repent of that that you don't even acknowledge, that you're not willing to even confront.
[00:04:40]  And often, a recognition and acknowledgement of the truth requires us not only to confront the sin in our own lives, but to confront the sin in the life of others.
[00:04:51]  It propels us and demands of us, it requires that we step into those uncomfortable contexts relationally with other people.
[00:04:59]  Eli refused to do this with his own sons.
[00:05:03]  And according to scripture, Eli hated his sons.
[00:05:06]  See, that's what it is.
[00:05:07]  Remember, Jesus with the rich young ruler, I've said it many times, so I'll say it briefly.
[00:05:11]  But the text actually says that he looked at him and loved him, and then put his finger on his sin.
[00:05:17]  In the rich young ruler's case, namely the sin of greed.
[00:05:20]  But the text actually says that before he called him out for his greed, it says he looked at him and loved him.
[00:05:26]  So immediately after loving him, he convicts him of sin.
[00:05:33]  Which tells us necessarily the conclusion is.
[00:05:36]  That to convict someone of sin is one of the most loving things that we can do.
[00:05:41]  It is to follow in the example of the standard of love, the Savior.
[00:05:46]  And according to Scripture, to spare the rod, that is to neglect confrontation, is to hate.
[00:05:52]  It is to hate.
[00:05:52]  The Bible uses the word to hate the child.
[00:05:56]  Now, certainly we see that with discipline with our children, but we see that as a general principle beyond merely our own household, our own children.
[00:06:03]  We see that in relationship with our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ.
[00:06:07]  Of fathers in Christ and sons and daughters in Christ, spiritual sons, spiritual daughters, spiritual fathers and mothers, spiritual brothers and sisters, that when we neglect to confront, we hate.
[00:06:20]  And we hate in the same way, we could say, or at least in a similar way, that God loved Jacob but hated Esau.
[00:06:28]  Now we know that in God's common grace, He has compassion on all He has made.
[00:06:32]  The Psalms say He has compassion on all He has made.
[00:06:35]  There's always been this debate.
[00:06:36]  I don't know if you've noticed in the Reformed camp, this debate of does God love everybody?
[00:06:41]  And the answer is yes and no.
[00:06:44]  Right?
[00:06:44]  God does not possess a fatherly love for all people.
[00:06:48]  Not everyone is a child of God.
[00:06:51]  You're a child of God by virtue of adoption, which only comes by grace through faith in Christ.
[00:06:56]  And not everybody gets that.
[00:06:58]  God is determined before the foundation of the world to elect some, not all, for salvation and to be adopted as his children.
[00:07:06]  So God possesses fatherly love for some, not all.
[00:07:10]  But God possesses a benevolent love of the Creator.
[00:07:14]  For all his creation in a universal sense, he has compassion on all that he has made.
[00:07:21]  So, in his common grace, he is a benevolent God, even toward the unbeliever.
[00:07:27]  God is loving even towards those who are not his children in that sense.
[00:07:33]  And so, Eli refused to obey the Lord, he refused to love his sons.
[00:07:41]  And that hatred spare the rod, hate the child that hatred, just like what the word of God says in regards to.
[00:07:48]  In regards to Esau and Jacob, in Romans chapter 9, verse 13, it says, For Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.
[00:07:54]  It's a comparative love and hatred.
[00:07:57]  By comparison to my love for Jacob, my elect love, my fatherly love, my salvific love for Jacob, the compassion, the general common grace, benevolence that I have for Esau looks like hatred.
[00:08:13]  It looks like hatred.
[00:08:14]  And so, too, when we fail to love others by not confronting them, what it really is is it's comparative hatred and love.
[00:08:22]  Meaning, this.
[00:08:22]  Well, what does it compare to in that instance?
[00:08:25]  It's compared to the love that you possess for yourself.
[00:08:28]  I love myself and my comfort and my ability and opportunity to avoid discomfort that comes by confrontation, to somehow preserve convenience in my life.
[00:08:40]  I love myself so much and my comfort and convenience that by virtue of comparison, my refusal to confront you looks like hatred for you.
[00:08:51]  And this is what Eli does he hates his sons.

=== The Ark and Obedience (14:46) ===

[00:08:55]  And the problem persists in his sons.
[00:08:57]  And the people begin to follow his sons.
[00:09:01]  That's the point.
[00:09:01]  That's the result is that the nation, not just Eli's two sons, but that the nation begins in turn to follow his sons' example.
[00:09:09]  The sons were stealing the choice pieces of meat that were not for them right off of the altar and eating it.
[00:09:17]  The sons were committing temple prostitution, manipulating weak willed and weak minded women who were coming in to worship God, manipulating them into bed.
[00:09:28]  The sons were, what they were doing is they were perverting worship.
[00:09:33]  They were perverting worship.
[00:09:34]  It wasn't just in their private lives.
[00:09:36]  It was at the temple, the place of worship, in the act of worship.
[00:09:41]  That is what they were perverting.
[00:09:42]  They were not fearing God.
[00:09:45]  There was a complete absence of reverence.
[00:09:47]  And as these two sons of the priest exemplified an irreverent worship, the people began to follow.
[00:09:55]  And as the nation followed that example, within Israel, the problem began to be created, which the problem was this there was no fear of God before their eyes.
[00:10:05]  There was no reverence in worship of a thrice holy God.
[00:10:10]  And they thought, here's the ticket, they thought that God would be faithful to them, that they would experience the benefits of God so long as they had his presence, even if they didn't obey.
[00:10:26]  And so, what they did as they were being attacked in a raging battle with the Philistines is that the people went into the temple and took the Ark of the Covenant.
[00:10:35]  The Ark of the Covenant represented a tangible presence of the Lord on earth.
[00:10:41]  And they thought that if they had God's presence with them, as they went into battle, they would be victorious.
[00:10:48]  But they were defeated.
[00:10:50]  Why?
[00:10:51]  Because even though the presence of the Lord was with them, they weren't obedient.
[00:10:57]  And it's not merely the presence of the Lord, a superstitious view of the presence of God with us, that ultimately brings about blessing.
[00:11:06]  No, it's obedience to what the Lord has objectively commanded.
[00:11:11]  So to say, I have God's presence for this reason and that, but I'm not obedient, it doesn't benefit you.
[00:11:20]  It's obedience that brings about the blessing of the Lord, not superstitious rituals and practices surrounding the presence of God, but rather obedience to God that guarantees the blessing and the victory.
[00:11:32]  So the Israelites, in a superstitious manner, they take the Ark of the Covenant with them into battle, yet they have not turned back.
[00:11:39]  To the Lord in their hearts.
[00:11:41]  They have not repented of their irreverence in worship of Yahweh.
[00:11:46]  And so they walk into battle.
[00:11:48]  They march into battle with the Ark of the Covenant, but with disobedient hearts.
[00:11:53]  And they're slaughtered.
[00:11:56]  They're completely destroyed.
[00:11:58]  And one of the most tragic things that happens is the Ark of the Covenant itself is actually captured by the Philistines.
[00:12:04]  It falls into enemy hands.
[00:12:07]  And when the news of this gets back to Eli, the priest, who ultimately, by his complacency, is responsible, he's the ultimate person in all of Israel who's responsible for the whole nation's sin.
[00:12:20]  Not because he himself engaged in these acts of irreverence, but because he let them go on.
[00:12:26]  He let them go on.
[00:12:28]  And it says that Eli was a fat man.
[00:12:30]  He was a fat man.
[00:12:32]  And it says that when he got news that the ark had been captured and that his two sons in the battle had been slaughtered and killed, he fell over backwards in his chair and broke his neck.
[00:12:43]  And even the size of him, even the Bible depicting his physical stature as a fat man falling over out of his chair, not being able to stop himself and breaking his neck.
[00:12:52]  Even that, I believe, symbolically signifies this.
[00:12:55]  It was the idol of comfort.
[00:12:58]  That was Eli's MO.
[00:13:00]  Comfort is what kept him in complacency and kept him from disciplining his sons.
[00:13:05]  And comfort is also what caused him to be overweight.
[00:13:09]  And in a brutal sense of divine irony, all of his idolatry and its effects gathered together in one moment and broke his neck.
[00:13:17]  And that's the story of Eli.
[00:13:20]  And that's the story of how the ark of the covenant of God fell into the hands of the Philistines.
[00:13:24]  Now, the Philistines captured the Ark because it represented their victory not only over Israel, but in their minds, a perceived victory over the God of Israel.
[00:13:33]  And so they took the Ark of the Covenant back with them to their Philistine city, particularly the Philistine city of Ashdod.
[00:13:41]  And in Ashdod, they had a pantheon, which basically is a temple for many gods.
[00:13:46]  They were polytheists.
[00:13:47]  And in their pantheon, to all their gods, they put the Ark of the Covenant, the presence of God, the one true God.
[00:13:55]  In the temple, in front of one of their greatest gods, which was Dagon.
[00:14:01]  And what happened is that the priest, the Philistine pagan priest, the next morning, after the ark had spent a night in the temple, they positioned it intentionally in front of Dagon in such a way that it looked like the God of Israel was bowing down, paying homage in subjection to Dagon.
[00:14:20]  And when the priest, the pagan priest of the Philistines, came back into the temple the next morning, Dagon was toppled over.
[00:14:28]  In a prostate position in front of the ark.
[00:14:32]  And then the next night, they do it again.
[00:14:34]  They stand Dagon up.
[00:14:36]  And the next morning, they come back in.
[00:14:37]  And this time, Dagon is toppled over and his arms and head have been broken off.
[00:14:43]  In the same way that the priest Eli's neck had been shattered, so the neck of Dagon had been broken to pieces because of the presence of God that dwelt before him.
[00:14:54]  And then all of a sudden, the implications began to spread beyond the temple to the whole city of Ashtok, a capital.
[00:15:00]  City, one of the five capital cities in all the Philistine country.
[00:15:04]  And the implication was this that the people began to be inflicted with tumors, cancerous tumors, and they died.
[00:15:11]  Many of the people were slaughtered.
[00:15:12]  And so, what the Philistines did was they said, We must take the Ark of the Covenant to another place, to another city.
[00:15:18]  And the same thing happened there.
[00:15:19]  And they did this multiple times to where each city in Philistine, wherever the Ark went, the people were plagued with tumors and death.
[00:15:28]  And eventually, the priests got together and they said, Far be it from us, woe to us, we cannot tolerate the presence of God.
[00:15:35]  Because, see, here's the thing, brothers and sisters.
[00:15:37]  The presence of God for Philistines, just like it was for the Israelites when it was captured, they were defeated in the first place.
[00:15:44]  The presence of God is not a blessing to the disobedient.
[00:15:47]  The presence of God is a thing to be feared when your heart is not in submission to his commands.
[00:15:54]  The presence of God is not a blessing to the disobedient, but a curse.
[00:15:58]  And so they say, We must rid ourselves of the ark.
[00:16:01]  We must somehow get the ark away from us.
[00:16:04]  And they were afraid at that point even to touch it.
[00:16:06]  And so what they did was they put the ark on a cart that had never been used.
[00:16:10]  And they took two oxen that had never carried any yoke, any burden.
[00:16:13]  They had never been used to drag or to carry anything before.
[00:16:18]  And they made five golden statues, images of the tumors, and five golden statues of rats as a sacrifice to pay homage to Yahweh so that perhaps he would lift his punishment, his judgment from among their nation.
[00:16:33]  And they loaded the ark up, or the cart up behind the oxen with the ark of the covenant and these five golden images of tumors and five golden images of rats.
[00:16:42]  And they said to themselves that if the oxen do not go to the right or to the left, but go straight on the path without any person persuading or leading them, Will know that our sacrifice to Yahweh is acceptable and that the curse, his judgment, has been lifted.
[00:16:59]  And sure enough, wouldn't you know it, the oxen go straight and they go all the way to an Israelite city.
[00:17:06]  They go all the way to a city named Beth Shemesh.
[00:17:11]  It's the first Israelite city that the ark comes to after having been captured by the Philistines.
[00:17:18]  But the men in that city here's the problem the Israelites, the people of God, They exemplify the same level of irreverence as the pagans.
[00:17:31]  And what they do is they actually open up the Ark of the Covenant.
[00:17:35]  And just like Indiana Jones style, it's a face melter.
[00:17:40]  They open up the Ark of the Covenant and God struck, the Bible says, He struck 70 of the men.
[00:17:45]  And the whole village begins to weep because God struck such a severe blow.
[00:17:50]  He killed, God put to death 70 men.
[00:17:56]  Then the men of Beth Shemesh say, Who was able to stand before the Lord in his presence?
[00:18:01]  This holy God.
[00:18:04]  Lastly, the ark ended up staying in Kirjath Jerim and had stayed there for a hundred years.
[00:18:12]  In 2 Samuel chapter 6, picking back up with the narrative now, once David had assumed the throne and become king of Israel after King Saul, he was determined to bring the ark finally back to Jerusalem where it rightfully belonged.
[00:18:26]  And we see that when they came to the threshing floor of Nakon, as they're taking the ark from this place where God has struck people, Beth Shemesh, and then it went to Kirjath Jerim.
[00:18:36]  It was there for 100 years, and now the ark is going from Kirjath Jerim to Jerusalem.
[00:18:41]  And David is leading a host of armies, a host of Israelite people, priests, and warriors and musicians to take the ark of the covenant from Kirjath Jerim all the way to Jerusalem.
[00:18:53]  But there's a fatal flaw with David's strategy.
[00:18:58]  With the practice that he employs.
[00:19:01]  See, what David does is this He has the men put the Ark of the Covenant on a cart again to be carried by oxen.
[00:19:10]  He does the same thing that the pagans do.
[00:19:12]  The difference between Israel and the pagans is razor thin if there's any difference at all.
[00:19:18]  I mean, that's the tragedy.
[00:19:19]  The tragedy is that the people of God possess no more reverence for God than the pagans who hate him.
[00:19:26]  And so they put the Ark of the Covenant of God.
[00:19:28]  The people of God do this, Israel does this.
[00:19:31]  David, a man after God's own heart who should know better, does this.
[00:19:35]  He treats the Ark of the Covenant in the same way that God's enemies do, the same way Philistine did.
[00:19:40]  He puts it on a cart.
[00:19:42]  And there's a point in which the path gets rough, and the wheels and axles of the cart give, and the ark begins to slide off the cart as though it's going to fall into the ground.
[00:19:54]  And a man named Uzza stretches out his hand to save the ark, to save the presence of God from being defiled, from falling into the grime and the dirt.
[00:20:05]  But the problem is that Uzza, in the sin of arrogance and presumption, He believes that somehow his hand would be an improvement from the dirt.
[00:20:17]  But the reality, as I said, I believe last week, dirt, physical dirt, has never defiled the presence of God.
[00:20:24]  Remember, even what God says in his theophany, in the burning bush, his encounter with Moses, he says, Take off your sandals for you're on holy dirt.
[00:20:34]  The dirt's fine, Moses, the problem is you.
[00:20:38]  The dirt's fine, David, the problem is your men.
[00:20:41]  The problem is Uzzah.
[00:20:43]  Uzzah reaching out and touching this ark.
[00:20:46]  That's not just dirt.
[00:20:47]  That's the dust of the ground that was made into man and raised up his fist in defiance of God.
[00:20:53]  Dirt has never rebelled against God, dirt has never disobeyed his commands.
[00:20:57]  Even Jesus himself said, If these people don't cry out, Hosanna, and worship me, then the rocks themselves will cry out and worship.
[00:21:05]  The dirt worships God.
[00:21:06]  The mountains sing his praise.
[00:21:08]  The sky echoes his glory and majesty.
[00:21:11]  All of creation is singing the testimony and the witness.
[00:21:15]  Of the glory of God, it is man and man alone that fails to do this.
[00:21:20]  The dirt's not the problem, Azza is the problem, and Azza sadly is just an example that represents this corporate problem in all of Israel.
[00:21:29]  Fear, fear grasps the heart of David, and they leave the ark at a nearby place, the home of a man named Obed Edom.
[00:21:39]  The ark stays there for three months, and then David decides, Let's try again.
[00:21:45]  Now, part of the reason that he Worked up the courage to go and try again to bring the ark now from Obed Edom's household to Jerusalem.
[00:21:53]  Was that for those three months the Bible said that God blessed Obed Edom?
[00:21:58]  And for the first time in over a hundred years, if you've been following the narrative, for the first time in over a hundred years, the presence of God brought about blessing rather than death because Obed Edom feared the Lord.
[00:22:13]  And David realized that's the ticket.
[00:22:15]  The problem is not the presence of God, the problem is the way that we're.
[00:22:19]  The way that we're treating the presence of God.
[00:22:22]  The presence of God is truly, in its truest sense, a blessing.
[00:22:28]  But it's not a blessing for those who do not fear Him and worship Him as He truly is.
[00:22:35]  And so David goes back, but this time he does it right.
[00:22:37]  He consults the law of God.
[00:22:40]  And he remembers that in the law of God, one of the precepts in carrying the Ark of the Covenant was that no man should touch the Ark and that it should never be carried on a cart, but rather it should be carried by men by poles, acacia poles.
[00:22:55]  And so he gets the priest, the right people and the right garments, the right clothing, the right attire, the right poles, the right wood, the right manner, the right practice, the right posture, everything.
[00:23:04]  And he puts before the priest, where you have the musicians and they're singing.
[00:23:07]  And David, all the way from the house of Obed Edom all the way to the city of Jerusalem, him and a host of Israel, they walk only six steps and then stop and they slaughter an animal and sacrifice to the Lord.
[00:23:24]  Now, the number six represents the number of man.
[00:23:27]  It's a number of incompletion.
[00:23:28]  Seven was thought to be a divine number because, really, what it represents more than divinity, it represents completion.
[00:23:35]  And so, what David is saying by taking six steps and then stopping the whole host of Israel to sacrifice to the Lord is this.

=== Six Steps to Joyful Worship (15:43) ===

[00:23:41]  They're saying, We cannot move one more step.
[00:23:44]  We cannot complete anything apart from making atonement for our sin.
[00:23:52]  We're not worthy.
[00:23:53]  We're not worthy to go seven steps to complete this task apart from being reminded once more that you're holy and that we have fallen short and that the only hope of reconciliation that we have. Is the death of a substitute, the blood of another.
[00:24:12]  That's the only way that we can continue.
[00:24:15]  The only way that we can continue to the kingdom of God, to the house of God, the only hope that we have in progressing is with blood, is with atonement, is with forgiveness of sin.
[00:24:31]  And David continues this practice, six steps, and then slaughtering an animal, so that there was a river of blood all the way from the house of Obed Edom all the way to Jerusalem.
[00:24:42]  And he continues this ritual, and as he gets into the gates of the city, he is dancing with all his might.
[00:24:49]  And he's not naked, as some people said, or in his boxer briefs.
[00:24:52]  That's not what the text is saying.
[00:24:54]  But what he's done is he's removed his royal garments, his robe, outer royal robe.
[00:24:58]  It signifies authority, royalty, because he's recognized there's only one king in this scenario.
[00:25:06]  And so he's wearing clothes just as much as you and I, but he's not dressed in his royal garments.
[00:25:12]  He removes those royal garments, and not.
[00:25:15]  Not a way to defile himself, not in a way that would be promiscuous or foolish, but in a way that portrays humility.
[00:25:26]  And the Bible says that he dances with all his might.
[00:25:30]  And his wife, the daughter of the previous king, King Saul, Mikael, she sees him from the window and despises him.
[00:25:40]  She despises him.
[00:25:41]  And the reason she despises him is, as any good wife knows, your reputation is tied up with your husband.
[00:25:48]  If he's a doofus, you're embarrassed.
[00:25:51]  He embarrasses you?
[00:25:52]  And for David to strip himself of his garments that represent royalty and to be dancing with all his might in front of all of the people of Israel to see he wasn't acting kingly.
[00:26:06]  I mean, it's kind of like a Donald Trump move.
[00:26:10]  It's like, I know you're the president and I think you're right in your content, but your presentation is just not presidential.
[00:26:16]  Goodness gracious, this guy, I love his policy.
[00:26:18]  Could we take away his phone from 12 a.m. to. 5 a.m., and you know, and now big tech and their breach of the First Amendment and freedom of speech have done it for us by banning them off of every social media platform.
[00:26:32]  But, which I think is wrong, but the point is he's not acting, David's not conducting himself with dignity in the mind of people, in the carnal view of man.
[00:26:44]  But he is conducting himself exactly the way that is pleasing to the Lord.
[00:26:49]  He strips himself.
[00:26:52]  Of royalty to show a posture of humility.
[00:26:55]  And he dances with all his might and sacrifices an animal every six steps and follows the law of God to the T and the way that they carry the ark and the procedures that they follow.
[00:27:05]  All of this is because reverence finally has come back to Israel.
[00:27:12]  Eli let it go, not because he himself was irreverent, remember, but because he refused to discipline irreverence in others.
[00:27:21]  But David brings reverence back.
[00:27:24]  And notice, David isn't content to be reverent towards the Lord while others are not.
[00:27:28]  He uses his authority in the way that Eli should have.
[00:27:30]  He commands that all of Israel do what's right in the sight of the Lord.
[00:27:35]  All of Israel take six steps.
[00:27:37]  It's not David took six steps and then fell behind the rest of the procession and stopped and sacrificed himself.
[00:27:43]  No, I'm doing this and everyone else is doing it too.
[00:27:47]  As for me and my house, we will fear the Lord.
[00:27:52]  He doesn't give them a choice, he uses his vested authority to command reverence for the thrice holy God.
[00:28:00]  That's what he does.
[00:28:02]  And the Lord is pleased.
[00:28:03]  And the ark finds its way back to Israel.
[00:28:07]  And one of the songs for this long procession, where every six steps they have to stop and make a sacrifice, one of the songs that was written by King David himself for this extended long worship service was Psalm 24.
[00:28:26]  David wrote Psalm 24 to be used as a part of the liturgy for the procession of Israel as they carried back with reverence.
[00:28:35]  The Ark of God to the city of Jerusalem.
[00:28:42]  See, the one thing that is clear from the chronicle of the Ark in the Old Testament is this God is not to be trifled with.
[00:28:52]  He is a holy God who demands holiness from those who offer him praise.
[00:28:57]  In Leviticus chapter 10, verse 3, God says, By those who come near me, I will be treated as holy.
[00:29:06]  And before all the people, I will be honored.
[00:29:09]  And Hebrews 12, verse 28 says that if we want to serve God acceptably, we must do it with reverence and godly fear.
[00:29:18]  See, we live in an age of casual worship.
[00:29:20]  Statistics show that the vast majority of people who profess to be followers of Christ claim that a church's style of worship and song selection is the number one determining factor for whether or not they will choose to be a regular attender at that church.
[00:29:34]  Today, it has become commonplace.
[00:29:37]  Normal, expected for Christians to make demands on worship without ever stopping to ask or consider even if God, the one who is being worshiped, has demands for worship.
[00:29:52]  See, this is not a biblical approach to worship.
[00:29:55]  In the same way that it was physically deadly, think of Azza and the 70 men who opened the ark, in the same way that it was physically deadly to approach worship of the presence of God in a trite, Lighthearted manner in the Old Testament, still to this day, it is spiritually deadly, and in some instances it was physically deadly.
[00:30:18]  In the case of Ananias and Sapphira, that's New Testament, but certainly spiritually deadly in the New Covenant, in the New Testament, for us to approach worship in a trite and lighthearted way today.
[00:30:31]  See, worship is meant to be reverent.
[00:30:33]  Now, listen, don't make this mistake.
[00:30:36]  This is not to suggest that our worship is to be grim and gloomy.
[00:30:41]  Reverence and depression are not synonyms.
[00:30:47]  Reverence is not synonymous with gloominess.
[00:30:53]  It doesn't mean that our worship should be grim and gloomy.
[00:30:56]  See, there is a tremendous amount of the deepest kind of joy in true worship from a pure heart.
[00:31:05]  This is why David danced before the Lord.
[00:31:08]  He wasn't just weeping and miserable, he danced.
[00:31:12]  However, he did not dance flippantly.
[00:31:15]  He danced with all his might.
[00:31:18]  It was the kind of serious joy.
[00:31:21]  Now, that seems like an oxymoron, but it's biblical, it's right, it's good.
[00:31:24]  When we approach God's presence in worship, we approach Him with a serious joy.
[00:31:31]  Not a serious sadness, but also not a flippant, trite, lighthearted, happy, clappy joy.
[00:31:38]  So it's not happy, clappy joy, and it's also not serious depression.
[00:31:43]  No, it's serious joy.
[00:31:46]  When we approach the Lord with serious joy, it's the kind of joy that David had.
[00:31:52]  It's the kind of serious joy that's only possible to come from someone who has first understood the fear.
[00:31:59]  That David felt when Uzzah was struck dead for mishandling the presence of God.
[00:32:05]  See, you might say that it was the death of Uzzah that prepared David for this moment.
[00:32:13]  It was the tragic death of Uzzah that was used by God in his providence to instill back in the heart of King David a reverence and fear for his presence.
[00:32:27]  See, many people do not approach the Lord with reverence, they do not possess serious joy.
[00:32:33]  In worship of this holy God, because they've never experienced the fear of God that David did.
[00:32:41]  They've never witnessed what a terrible thing it is to fall into the hands of the living God, as Hebrews says.
[00:32:49]  I've said before that I believe that the love of the Lord has been wasted on a generation that has not been taught the fear of the Lord.
[00:32:59]  Because the love of God is small if we don't see His holiness.
[00:33:03]  I preached that just last week.
[00:33:05]  It's the gap between a holy God and sinful man.
[00:33:08]  When that gap is not in real objective terms, but in our perception and our understanding and our theology, as that gap is widened, because we come to see more of the holiness of God and more of our own sinfulness, when that gap is widened, then for the Christian, what fills the gap?
[00:33:24]  It's the love of God.
[00:33:25]  So the love of God doesn't get smaller as we see more of his holiness and more of our own sinfulness.
[00:33:31]  The love and mercy of God, the cross of Christ that bridges the gap, it gets bigger.
[00:33:36]  So, when we see more of the holiness of God, we understand more of the mercy of God.
[00:33:41]  We see more of the love of God.
[00:33:42]  And as 1 John 4 19 says, as we see more of God's love for us, we come to love Him more.
[00:33:48]  And if we love Him, as Jesus says, we'll obey Him.
[00:33:51]  How do you grow in obedience?
[00:33:53]  Grow in love.
[00:33:54]  How do you grow in love?
[00:33:55]  Come to see more of His love for you.
[00:33:57]  How do you see more of God's love for you?
[00:33:59]  See more of His holiness and your sinfulness and the gospel that bridges the gap.
[00:34:05]  This is what happened.
[00:34:06]  In the heart of David, he saw the holiness of God and the sinfulness of man put on display in the death of Azam.
[00:34:16]  And then he approached the Lord with fear and trembling.
[00:34:22]  But notice the appearance, the posture of his fear and trembling.
[00:34:27]  It's in the form, and don't miss this because it's a beautiful truth.
[00:34:31]  His fear and trembling, King David's fear and trembling, it comes in the form of dancing.
[00:34:39]  It is a joyful fear, a happy trembling, a serious joy.
[00:34:47]  The kind of deep, profound, and genuine joy that many people who profess Christ today, I'm convinced, they've never even experienced.
[00:34:57]  They don't even know that joy exists.
[00:35:00]  They think they have joy, but what they have is a lighthearted, trivial, happy, clappy, shallow joy.
[00:35:10]  And they look at churches like ours and they would compare and contrast and say, you guys, yeah, you get reverence, you get holiness, but you don't get joy, brother.
[00:35:20]  No, you don't get joy.
[00:35:23]  This is not our substitution for joy.
[00:35:26]  This is our experience and practice of the truest kind of joy.
[00:35:32]  A serious joy.
[00:35:33]  A deep joy that doesn't just cause us to weep and mourn and wail.
[00:35:39]  It causes us to dance, but with all our might.
[00:35:43]  Not flippantly, but with everything we have for the Savior who loves us.
[00:35:51]  So that's the necessity.
[00:35:54]  For a right view of the holiness of God and therefore a right practice of worshiping God.
[00:36:01]  That's the necessity.
[00:36:03]  I said the structure of the text was verse 1 and 2, the sovereignty of God.
[00:36:06]  We're not hitting that at all because we've hit that at great length as we've worked through the Psalms.
[00:36:10]  See verses 1 through 6 of Psalm 19.
[00:36:13]  See Psalm 16.
[00:36:14]  See Psalm 2.
[00:36:15]  We've already hit that.
[00:36:16]  So, verse 1 and 2, this idea, the theme of the sovereignty of God, his power, his authority, we've dealt with that.
[00:36:22]  And we'll deal with it again.
[00:36:24]  But this morning, verses 3 through 5.
[00:36:27]  We see the necessity for right worship.
[00:36:30]  Really, what we could say is we see right here, we see on display, not through prescription, not a prescribed, a prescriptive text, but a descriptive text, if you will.
[00:36:40]  We see a descriptive text in the Old Testament for the principle, the regular principle of worship.
[00:36:47]  To worship according to what God prescribes.
[00:36:49]  You don't get to carry the Ark of the Covenant however you feel like.
[00:36:53]  Well, we think a cart will work.
[00:36:55]  Dead.
[00:36:59]  No, I said acacia poles.
[00:37:01]  Well, this is going to be a really long.
[00:37:03]  I mean, think about every road trip you've taken.
[00:37:05]  Think about your kids.
[00:37:06]  Can I go to the bathroom?
[00:37:06]  Can I go to the bathroom?
[00:37:07]  Six steps?
[00:37:08]  Imagine that.
[00:37:10]  Every six steps, we've got to stop for a sacrifice break, a divine potty break.
[00:37:15]  Every six steps, we're never going to get there.
[00:37:18]  But it's right.
[00:37:21]  And notice, it doesn't drain David, it doesn't burden him, it doesn't weary him.
[00:37:28]  He dances with all his might, it fills his heart with joy.
[00:37:33]  David probably looked back on this experience for the rest of his life as one of the most wonderful, sweet moments in the presence of God that he had ever experienced.
[00:37:43]  He views it fondly.
[00:37:48]  It's a beautiful thing.
[00:37:49]  It's what Christ says all who are weary and heavy laden, come to me and I'll give you rest.
[00:37:54]  Why?
[00:37:54]  Well, because with the entrance of the new covenant for New Testament Christians, for Jesus, he's gotten rid of God's moral law and he gives rest because he doesn't require all those commandments that the Old Testament God required.
[00:38:05]  And so, The rest is it basically comes because he just expects very little and it's really restful.
[00:38:10]  No.
[00:38:12]  No, Jesus didn't abolish the law, he fulfilled the law.
[00:38:14]  When he says, Come to me, my yoke is easy, my burden is light, I'll give you rest.
[00:38:18]  It's not because he has no burden at all.
[00:38:20]  It's not because he has no yoke at all.
[00:38:21]  It's not because he doesn't have any more commandments for his people to follow.
[00:38:25]  It's because through obedience to his commandments comes joy.
[00:38:30]  Because you're always going to obey someone.
[00:38:33]  Everyone is a slave, everyone has a master.
[00:38:37]  At best, your master is sin.
[00:38:42]  You're a slave to yourself.
[00:38:43]  You're a slave to your flesh if you're not in Christ.
[00:38:47]  Your master is the world, the culture.
[00:38:50]  The culture has commands for you.
[00:38:53]  There is a reigning orthodoxy of secularism, but it's so burdensome.
[00:38:57]  It's so exasperating.
[00:38:59]  Their commandments change every five seconds.
[00:39:02]  The woke can't keep up with the woke.
[00:39:06]  The most leftist person in the world.
[00:39:09]  Will be a conservative in 15 or 16 days from now.
[00:39:14]  Obama is viewed as, he's not progressive enough.
[00:39:18]  The guy's kind of closed minded, right?
[00:39:21]  He was a president like five seconds ago.

=== Serving the Cruel Master (02:39) ===

[00:39:25]  You want to talk about burdens that are heavy, yokes that are binding, that break the back, that weary the soul?
[00:39:34]  Go to the world.
[00:39:36]  And you might say, well, the world's not my master.
[00:39:38]  Well, you want a master that's even more taxing?
[00:39:40]  Go to yourself, go to your flesh.
[00:39:44]  It's cravings.
[00:39:45]  You know how painful it is when you have an idol in your life and you watch it.
[00:39:51]  You're watching it.
[00:39:52]  Destroy your spouse.
[00:39:55]  You see its direct effects on the people you love most, and you can't stop yourself.
[00:40:01]  And you know, you know that it's killing you, and it's not just killing you, it's killing your kids, it's killing your wife, it's killing your friends and your family, and you know it.
[00:40:11]  And you watch it, and you still, as a dog returns to its vomit, go back and back again because you're enslaved.
[00:40:21]  The culture, the world is a cruel master.
[00:40:23]  The flesh.
[00:40:25]  Our sin, idolatry is a cruel master.
[00:40:29]  Here's the reality freedom, in terms of autonomous freedom, being your own master in a positive, non taxing, non exasperating way, is a myth.
[00:40:41]  Everyone's got to serve somebody.
[00:40:44]  A prophet once said, Bob Dylan, everybody's got to serve somebody.
[00:40:52]  See, the thing about Jesus is not that he has no commands, it's not that he has no reigning orthodoxy, it's not that he has no prescribed worship.
[00:40:59]  And it's not that he's not a master, and it's not that those who follow him are not his slaves, his bondservants.
[00:41:05]  No, it's just that he's the only good master.
[00:41:09]  He's the only kind master.
[00:41:11]  He's the only master who doesn't just burden his followers, but actually took upon himself our burden and carried it for us.
[00:41:19]  He's the only master who will command us in his holiness that is not to be trifled with, and in the very same breath will address us as friends.
[00:41:31]  That's what he says to his disciples.
[00:41:33]  No longer do I call you slaves, servants, but I call you my friends.
[00:41:43]  And so, verses 3 through 5 of our text, it shows us, it gives us, it's a descriptive text for the regular principle of worship.
[00:41:50]  That we worship God with fear and trembling.
[00:41:52]  We worship him according not only to spirit, David possessed that, right?
[00:41:56]  Spirit, zeal, passion.
[00:41:58]  He danced with all his might, thrown off clothes, right?
[00:42:01]  Spirit's there, but he also worshiped.
[00:42:03]  Him in truth.

=== Grace Meets Progressive Righteousness (04:28) ===

[00:42:04]  It's not spirit at the expense of truth, but it's also not dead, crusty, lifeless, cold orthodoxy at the expense of spirit.
[00:42:13]  It's both.
[00:42:14]  It's zeal and law, it's spirit and truth, it's serious joy.
[00:42:23]  Serious joy, reverent happiness.
[00:42:28]  That's what David possessed.
[00:42:30]  And it did not burden him, it infused him with life and energy.
[00:42:35]  It rejuvenated his soul.
[00:42:37]  The law of God, remember, we preached this.
[00:42:39]  Psalm 19, we saw the law of God, it restores the soul.
[00:42:48]  But there's not just a need, brothers and sisters, moving quickly now, there's not just a need for reverent worship, to worship God in spirit and in truth.
[00:42:59]  Because despite your best efforts to be as reverent and as zealous as you possibly can be, It'll never be enough.
[00:43:12]  Our best work done in ourselves, our righteousness is what?
[00:43:19]  Filthy rags.
[00:43:22]  And so, although we need progressive righteousness in terms of sanctification, our deeds, our words, our actions, progressive righteousness isn't a hill of beans without the positional righteousness.
[00:43:40]  Of justification that comes by grace through faith in Christ.
[00:43:46]  In order to grow in the righteousness of sanctification in our deeds, we must first be declared righteous, not on the basis of our deeds, but on the basis of the obedience of another.
[00:44:01]  See, in the end, in the final analysis, did you know that no one will ever be saved apart from works?
[00:44:09]  Everyone's saved by works.
[00:44:09]  The heart of the gospel is just that it's the works of Christ.
[00:44:16]  God pardons us on the basis of mercy, but there's a sense in which God pardons us on the basis of justice.
[00:44:22]  It would be unjust, not just a lack of grace or kindness or mercy.
[00:44:27]  No, it would actually be unjust for God not to commune with you when you run to Him.
[00:44:35]  Why?
[00:44:37]  Because you were saved by works.
[00:44:39]  Your salvation was bought, it was paid for, it was earned.
[00:44:46]  Not with a lowering of the bar.
[00:44:48]  Everything that God demands to love the Lord your God with everything in every moment for all of your life, with your heart, your soul, your strength, your mind, all of that.
[00:44:58]  It was not lowered.
[00:45:00]  The standard was not compromised.
[00:45:02]  No, it was met by Christ on your behalf.
[00:45:08]  And so God pardons you and communes with you on the basis of both mercy and justice.
[00:45:14]  And justice.
[00:45:15]  And so, although the regular principle of worship is such an important principle that the church in America has forgotten, it still is not enough in and of itself.
[00:45:27]  Right worship without right standing is lethal.
[00:45:36]  It's lethal.
[00:45:38]  Right worship in spirit and in truth, but without right standing, being first clothed in the righteousness of Christ through faith.
[00:45:49]  It means nothing.
[00:45:51]  It's filthy rags.
[00:45:51]  It's actually an offense to God.
[00:45:53]  It's actually an offense because it presupposes that you could somehow possess the power to please God and that the sacrifice and work of His Son was redundant and unnecessary.
[00:46:10]  So we need right worship.
[00:46:12]  We need obedient actions in our sanctification, progressive righteousness.
[00:46:19]  But the only way that counts is if we first have right standing before God.
[00:46:23]  In our positional righteousness by grace through faith in justification, the righteousness of Christ.

=== Gates Open for the King of Glory (06:51) ===

[00:46:33]  And that's what we see.
[00:46:36]  See, because Psalm 24 at the surface level is a song that King David wrote for carrying the presence of God, the ark, from Obed Edom's house to Jerusalem.
[00:46:49]  But in a prophetic, much, much deeper and eternal sense, Psalm 24 doesn't speak to King David and it doesn't speak to the earthly city of Jerusalem.
[00:47:01]  No, it speaks to the celestial city and it speaks to the King of all kings and the Lord of all lords.
[00:47:07]  And so, in conclusion, here's my brief exegesis of verses 7 through 10.
[00:47:13]  The messianic prophetic sense, the Christ centered truest meaning of Psalm 24.
[00:47:20]  On the surface, verses 7 through 10 of our text describe the cries of David and his men as they approached the gates of the city of Jerusalem while carrying the Ark of the Covenant.
[00:47:30]  And yet, in a much deeper sense, This is a prophetic song that describes the majestic scene of heaven directly after the ascension of Christ.
[00:47:40]  For the first time in the history of history, a man actually approached the ancient doors of heaven.
[00:47:48]  And this man did not humbly request that he might be granted permission to enter the celestial city.
[00:47:54]  Rather, he cried out with absolute authority, demanding that the angelic beings who guard the doors of heaven with swords of fire open those ancient doors for the very first time.
[00:48:06]  Time.
[00:48:07]  And as those doors opened, every angelic being that has ever been made immediately fell prostrate before this man and began to scream and wail, saying, Bring the ancient diadems, crown him, crown him with many crowns.
[00:48:23]  Our text asks one of the most important questions in all of the universe Who is this King of Glory?
[00:48:30]  The scripture proclaims that this man is not ultimately King David, it is none less than the God man, Christ Jesus.
[00:48:39]  He is the king of glory.
[00:48:41]  He is the one who earned entrance as a man for the very first time into the celestial city.
[00:48:50]  Men have weeped and wailed with gnashing of teeth.
[00:48:54]  Think of all the parables for those who are disobedient, for those who do not listen to the message of the gospel.
[00:49:02]  What happens to them?
[00:49:03]  It says they'll be thrown out of the gates.
[00:49:06]  That's part of the reason why Jesus wasn't crucified in the city, he was crucified outside the gates at Golgotha.
[00:49:13]  Outside the gates, because he bore the curse on our behalf.
[00:49:16]  And part of the curse, right, the wages of sin is death, but it's not just death, it's utter rejection.
[00:49:21]  It's being cast out.
[00:49:22]  Jesus was cast out, accursed for us outside the city gates.
[00:49:26]  And it's the same language that Jesus uses in his parables.
[00:49:28]  He says, For those who do not listen, for those who don't receive the invitation to the wedding banquet of the king, what's going to happen?
[00:49:37]  Eventually, a time will come where the invitation is no longer on the table.
[00:49:40]  The deal is done.
[00:49:42]  And those who have not responded, the gates are closed.
[00:49:45]  And the wedding banquet, it begins.
[00:49:48]  Without them.
[00:49:49]  And no matter how hard they try, it'll be too late.
[00:49:52]  Think of the parable of the ten virgins.
[00:49:54]  Five were wise.
[00:49:55]  They brought extra oil for their lamps because the bridegroom may come in the middle of the night.
[00:49:59]  They needed to see so that they could follow him to the wedding.
[00:50:03]  But five of the virgins were foolish.
[00:50:05]  They did not bring enough oil in their lamps.
[00:50:07]  And wouldn't you know it?
[00:50:09]  They ran out of oil.
[00:50:10]  They can no longer see.
[00:50:12]  And the bridegroom appears and they want to come in.
[00:50:16]  They want to be a part of the banquet.
[00:50:17]  They want to be a part of the feast, the celebration, but they can't.
[00:50:21]  And what is the language that Jesus uses multiple times in his parables to describe those who are outside the gate?
[00:50:29]  There is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.
[00:50:33]  We might say, at least in a symbolic spiritual sense, the gates of the celestial city, those pearly great gates of heaven, the outer side of the gates are marked with claw marks from men who forever regret that they rejected the Son of God.
[00:50:53]  Weeping and wailing and gnashing their teeth, wishing that they could have another chance, wishing that it was not too late.
[00:51:00]  Many have tried, brothers and sisters, to get through those gates, but they couldn't.
[00:51:08]  They had failed.
[00:51:10]  Their righteousness was not sufficient.
[00:51:13]  But for the first time in the history of history, when the God man Christ Jesus came before those gates, he cries out.
[00:51:20]  He doesn't ask.
[00:51:22]  It's not a request for any permission, any favor.
[00:51:26]  He demands.
[00:51:28]  He commands, open up, you ancient doors.
[00:51:33]  Be lifted up, you gates, for the King of glory will come in.
[00:51:40]  I've earned it.
[00:51:41]  It is my right.
[00:51:43]  And he walked through those gates.
[00:51:46]  And with him, in union with him by grace through faith, we too will walk through those gates as well.
[00:51:54]  On the basis of mercy and on the basis of justice, what Christ has earned.
[00:52:01]  For us, those gates, we don't have to weep and wail and call and gnash.
[00:52:08]  We're not cast out, rejected where there's utter darkness.
[00:52:11]  We will experience, all those who are in Christ will experience eternal communion with God on the basis of Jesus, who has opened the gates for us on our behalf.
[00:52:25]  Let's pray.
[00:52:26]  Father God, we thank you for Jesus.
[00:52:29]  We thank you for his work.
[00:52:30]  We thank you that the gates that separate a sinful man.
[00:52:34]  And a holy God that they've been opened through the work of Jesus Christ.
[00:52:39]  We thank you.
[00:52:40]  Likewise, we could say that the veil, that the veil that separates the Holy of Holies and sinners like us, it has been torn.
[00:52:50]  And it was ripped from top to bottom.
[00:52:52]  Even that is symbolic, as though God Himself ripped it all the way down to earth.
[00:52:58]  Jesus has removed the dividing line between God and man.
[00:53:04]  And through Him, we have sweet fellowship.
[00:53:09]  And confidence before you.
[00:53:12]  We thank you for this.
[00:53:13]  And now, Lord, we pray that you would empower us to worship him in spirit and in truth through song.
[00:53:18]  We pray this in Jesus' name.
[00:53:21]  Amen.
[00:53:22]  Big news, really big news.

=== Fellowship Through Jesus Christ (00:36) ===

[00:53:25]  Our next Right Response Conference is in the works.
[00:53:28]  We've got a number of things already lined up and organized.
[00:53:31]  This is what we've got so far the whole conference, three days long on post millennialism and theonomy.
[00:53:39]  And the speakers Dr. James White, Dr. Joseph Boot, Gary DeMar, and of course, yours truly, Pastor Joel Webbin.
[00:53:47]  We've got a great lineup.
[00:53:49]  We've got great topics.
[00:53:50]  If you want to find out dates and location and registration and anything else, go and visit our website, rightresponseconference.com.