A Sermon by Nate Wilson for Christ The Redeemer Church Manhattan, KS 26 Apr 2015
1. A Psalm attributed to
David.
The land and that which fills her belong to Yahweh – the world and her
inhabitants.
2 Because it was He who founded her upon the sea and who set her up over rivers.
3 Who will go up on Yahweh’s mountain, and who will rise up in His holy place?
4 It will be innocent hands and a pure heart
which has not carried hope based on vanity and has not vowed for the purpose of
deceit.
5 He will carry a blessing from Yahweh, even righteousness from the God of his salvation .
6 This generation is pursuing Him. They are seeking Your face.
[This is] Jacob!
Selah
7 Heads-up, you gate[keepers] and be raised up, you ancient
[s]entries,
and the King of Glory will come.
8 Who this King of Glory?
Yahweh strong and mighty. Yahweh is the mighty-man of war.
9 Heads up, you gate[keepers], and rise up, you ancient
[s]entries,
and the King of Glory will come.
10 Who is he, this King of Glory?
Yahweh of Hosts, He is the King of Glory!
Selah.
· Psalm 24 has two sections, each ending with a Selah, but the first section can be divided into two sections as well, so I see the Psalm introducing God to us in three roles, that of Creator, that of Savior, and that of King.
· We are considering what it tells us about God in each of these 3 roles. Last week we looked at:
o How should we relate to God as Creator? And answered that we must acknowledge His ownership over ourselves and over our environment.
o And secondly, How should we relate to God as Savior? And the answer was to recognize that we are disqualified from holiness, confess our sin, and receive blessing and righteousness from Him.
· Now, this week, we are looking at how to relate to God as King.
· Before we get into the Psalm, let me tell a story which paints a stark contrast to the goal of Psalm 24, a story from C.S. Lewis’ children’s fantasy The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. In it, the new king of Narnia – Caspian, by name – has embarked on a sea voyage to find certain missing persons from his father’s court. One of his first ports of call is the capitol city of the Lone Islands, over which he is also king, and which was governed by a man named Gumpas who had forgotten that he was accountable to the crown. King Caspian’s visit to the governor’s castle is unexpected and does not go well. [Read excerpts from pgs. 56-59.]
· The end of Psalm 24 is intended to head off the kind of disaster that Governor Gumpas faced. In verses. 7-10 we are given
o advance notification of the coming of the King of Glory (so that we will not be caught off guard as Governor Gumpas was),
o and we are given notice of who this coming person is (so that we will not respond in an inappropriate manner as Gumpas did).
o We would do well to heed these advance notifications in God’s word:
· The wording is peculiar. There is no instance anywhere else in the Hebrew Bible of “gates” or “doors” “rising” or being “lifted,” (except for Samson carrying off the city gates of Gaza), and furthermore, nowhere else in the Bible are “gates” or “doors” called “ancient/everlasting.”
o The Septuagint translators (followed by the Vulgate) tried to make sense of it by flipping the subject and object, translating it “rulers, lift up your gates” which might be easy to envision in a medieval castle with a portcullis,
o but in the ancient middle-east, they didn’t build gates to go up and down (unless you have Samson to wrench them off their hinges and carry them up the hill).
o When you look at how the phrase “lift the head” is used in the rest of the Bible, it appears that most of the instances have to do with taking a census or showing evidence of being in a peer-to-peer relationship rather than a subordinate relationship. [Show instances on slide]
o What does this mean? Jewish commentators (Cohen, Kimchi) seem to interpret this as a way of showing honor to the incoming king.
o Augustine and Charles Spurgeon, in their commentaries, however, interpreted it as the resurrected Jesus ascending to re-enter heaven, triumphant, even though he sports wounds in his hands from the battle.
· Patach does not ever appear to refer to the doors in the gates of the city. This word does however, occur frequently in tandem with the Hebrew word for “gates,” and it appears to refer to the entryway around the gates, in which sentries or other servants were posted.
o Franz Delitzsch, in his classic commentary, suggested that this was a command for the entryway to be made bigger in order to admit someone of such grand importance.
o My guess is that the address is not to the physical stones and bars of the gates and entryways but rather to the people of the city who guarded the gates. Heads-up, guys, there’s somebody important about to show up at the gates.
o We just saw this in action next door over the last few weeks. The gates at Fort Riley were locked down to outsiders so that you couldn’t get in without a military ID. Then the FBI conducted a sting on a suspected terrorist while everybody at the gates was on high alert, and sure enough, they caught a guy trying to bomb Fort Riley.
o I think that David is saying that a very important person is about to visit the city, so the gatekeepers needed to be on the lookout for Him.
o “The King of Glory will come.” The preposition “in” is not explicitly there in the Hebrew so this coming could just as well be a “coming to” as a “coming into.”
· The problem with this interpretation of the gates and entries being gatekeepers and sentries, however, is: How can a sentry be called “ancient/everlasting”?
o Of course the same problem can be said of a brick and mortar doorway, which is even less eternal than a human.
o The Hebrew word ‘olem however, can mean “eternity” or it can just mean “a long time.”
o I’ll admit that at the time of David there could have been ancient building structures in Jerusalem dating 1,000 years back to the time of Abraham, because Melchizedek was from around there.
o Alternately, some Jewish commentators suggested therefore that these “doors/entries” referred to something metaphysical, such as God’s holiness (Rashi) or to time itself (Hirsch)
o but others stick with interpreting them as the gatekeepers (Kimchi, Cohen) and interpret the question in v.8 as coming from them – a “Who goes there?” sort of challenge from the young soldiers defending the city as well as the wise old men who are supposed to keep the city safe –
o and maybe because the latter are so “ancient” they need help standing up, so the verb is passive at first in v.9 and then active in v.11 – which is the only difference between the two verses. Perhaps the old men are pulled up to a standing position by helpers and then they straighten themselves up the rest of the way, pondering, “Who is this King of Glory?” Do we want him in our city? If so, they have a welcoming job to do.
o I recently read a commentary recently by Dr. Kenneth Bailey, a Bible professor at a college in the Middle East who grew up in Egypt. He said it was common for villagers, when they knew that an important political leader was going to visit their city, they would be on the lookout for the approaching automobiles, and when they were sighted, they would all run out of the city to meet the dignitary. They would insist on having him turn off his car engine so that they could have the honor of pushing his car into the city!
o Another commentator I read – I think it was James Boice, who said he had seen oriental villagers actually take the gates off their hinges as a symbol of welcoming in a visiting dignitary.
o Many scholars (although by no means all) think that Psalm 24 is describing the time when David had the ark of the covenant moved from Kireath Jarim up to Jerusalem, and I agree that this fits in many ways: Can you imagine the pomp and ceremony of the excited populous of David’s city at bringing the special presence and blessing of the Lord into their gates for the first time ever? No wonder David danced like a madman!
· Now, this title, “King of Glory” is found nowhere else in the Bible, but the context of this Psalm tells us immediately that this is Yahweh, the LORD.
o And it is consistent with the way the rest of the Bible portrays Jesus as the one who is “coming” – notice that Jesus is always “coming” - in the Psalms (Psalm 98:9 For He is coming to judge the earth. With righteousness He shall judge the world...”, in the prophets, Malachi 3:1 “...the Lord, whom you seek, Will suddenly come to His temple, Even the Messenger of the covenant, In whom you delight. Behold, He is coming,” In the Gospels, John 20:19 “...the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled... Jesus came and stood in the midst, and said to them, ‘Peace be with you.’” and throughout the book of Revelation (1:4, 7) “...Grace to you and peace from Him who is and who was and who is coming... Behold, He is coming with clouds, and every eye will see Him...” (NKJV) “The King of Glory will come.”
o It’s interesting, however, that this plays out again when Jesus entered Jerusalem.
§ Because of the reference to creation in verse 2, it was traditional for the Jews to read Psalm 24 in the temple on Mondays, reminding people of new beginnings on the first day of the week. Now, since Jesus made His triumphal entry into Jerusalem at the beginning of Passover week, the priests may well have been chanting the very words of this Psalm in the temple as Jesus was entering Jerusalem! (Boice)
§ Outside the temple, the crowds that were welcoming Jesus came very close to calling Him the King of Glory when they said, “Blessed is the King who comes in the Name of the Lord.... glory in the highest!” (Luke 19:38).
· And I have to wonder if all this ties back to the question in v.3 and the dilemma of v. 4. “Who can ascend the hill of the Lord?” None of us are qualified, but here in v.8 we are identifying someone who is qualified. Jesus the Messiah can ascend the hill of the Lord because He has the necessary pure hands and pure heart! He is our hero! We will get behind him and enter into God’s presence in His train!
· “Strong” and “mighty” are terms repeatedly used of God, picturing Him as a military champion, for instance, Deuteronomy 10:17 “For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome...” (NKJV).
· To say that God is a “strongman” or a “mighty-man” is not to say that God is “man-like” but is a metaphor in human terms which gives a glimpse of a characteristic of God, the characteristic of being the sort of person that you feel safe around because you are confident that He could beat the snot out of anybody that threatened you.
· “The repeated pronouncement of ‘glory’ in demand, question, and answer has the effect of exalting the glory of the divine king, Yahweh,” even more. (GHW)
· In v.10 “The Lord of Hosts” continues the military imagery from verse 8. Not only is He an individual champion, but He is also the leader of an army-host.
o while Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemane, he claimed to have some 80,000 angelic warriors at His beck and call who could swoop in and kill all His enemies if He wanted. To put that into perspective, that’s more than three times the total number of soldiers at Ft. Riley, and that’s probably not His entire army – that’s just His quick-response team! King Jesus is an awesome power not to be trifled with.
o In the Book of Revelation, we once again see Jesus riding down from heaven leading an army, this time perhaps of people instead of angels. [Note 14th century Russian painting of Jesus as the leader of hosts of angels as well as men – soldiers as well as saints.]
Interestingly enough, this Psalm ends with the question somewhat unresolved as to whether or not the city will welcome this King in, raising the question for us, the readers, “What will you do?” How will you respond to this intelligence message?
· Do you really want this King to invade your life? Kings have a tendency to be bossy. They don’t do what you tell them to do. They require submission and loyalty. Are you up to that?
o In C.S. Lewis’ story, governor Gumpas was not willing to welcome Caspian when he came to claim his rightful place as King there, so Gumpas was kicked out of power. Will you be a Gumpas and say, “King of Glory, I don’t want you right now; I’m busy.” That would be the most tragic judgment call you could ever make.
o Unlike any other king in history, Jesus is the creator of the universe who owns the body you live in and the ground you stand on. How are you going to respond to that? If you decide to ignore Him, you will eventually find that He isn’t the type you can ignore. If you decide to resist Him, you will find that He is the “strong and mighty” champion that never looses a fight.
o Rev. 3:14-22 paints a similar picture of Jesus knocking at the door – it is a similar warning that the church of Laodicea is going to have an encounter with the coming King of Glory which could result in shameful rejection or royal fellowship. What is the proper response according to Revelation 3? Opening the door involves submission to Him as King: not being self-centered, but recognizing that you are rather needy, allowing Him to make the rules and judge and discipline you, by repenting from rebellion against Him and seeking medicine and clothing from Him, becoming a dependent on Him. Are you willing to take that attitude?
· By the way, there are other wannabe rulers who would like you to roll out the welcome mat for them instead. The call of Psalm 24 is not merely whether or not to open yourself up to the leadership of the Lord Jesus, it is also whether or not to reject the impressive offers of leadership offered by other people who are in competition with Jesus.
o A couple hundred years after Psalm 24, during the reign of King Hezekiah, the Assyrian army delivered a very similar message in front of the gate of the city of Jerusalem. It is recorded in Isaiah 36: “Then Rabshaqah stood and called in a great voice - in Judean - and said, ‘Listen to the words of the great king, the king of Assyria! Thus said the king, “Do not let Hezekiah deceive you, for he is not able to deliver you. And do not let Hezekiah incite you to trust in Jehovah by saying, ‘Jehovah will surely deliver us; this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.’ Do not listen to Hezekiah, for thus says the king of Assyria, Make a blessing with me and come out to me, and eat each of you of his vine and each of his fig-tree and drink - each of you - water out of his cistern, until I come and take you to a land like your land, a land of grain and juice, a land of bread and vineyards.’” (Isaiah 36:13-17, NAW) Sounds like an attractive offer by a very powerful and wealthy king, doesn’t it?
o The residents of Jerusalem under Hezekiah’s leadership had a choice: would they follow the Lord’s instructions to wait on the King of Glory to come and deliver, or would they open their gates to the Great King of Assyria and accept his terms of peace and deportation? Thankfully they waited on the Lord, and the mighty king of Assyria ran home with egg on his face.
o We too are faced with these kinds of choices throughout our lives. The world, the flesh, and the devil make attractive offers that seem to be our only viable options. Will we open the gates to these impostors and their enticing offers of comfort and joy under our control, or will we wait and worship God alone?
o In the book Lord Foulgrin’s Letters, author Randy Alcorn portrays a senior demon named Lord Foulgrin writing to a junior demon about how to go about his job influencing a man by the name of Fletcher. (Yes, it’s a re-make of C.S. Lewis’ Screwtape Letters). Because he’s a demon, he calls God “the Enemy” or “the Tyrant” instead of “the Lord,” and he calls humans “vermin.” [Read excerpts from pages 134-136.]
· Let me offer one additional application which can only be inferred from this Psalm: What else happens when a King is welcomed into a city? His army is entertained by the city too!
a. To let the King in necessarily includes welcoming into fellowship and showing hospitality to all the soldiers who are travelling with Him.
b. What happens when you recognize Jesus as the King of Glory and submit to His leadership? You also are welcoming Jesus’ people into your life! To become a Christian necessarily means entering into fellowship with the church. Jesus will have none of this nonsense of, “Well, Jesus, I accept you into my heart, but none of Your followers.” It’s all or nothing.
c. It is a glorious fellowship that you enter into when you become a follower of King Jesus. Sure, the other soldiers in His ranks have wounds or at least aches and pains, or at least personality quirks. That’s to be expected; but they are your brothers and sisters under the common lordship of Jesus, and you can’t have Him without them.
d. That’s why the second command after “Love the Lord” is “Love your neighbor”/“love one another.”
·
Will you recognize that Jesus is the
King of Glory?
Will you submit yourself to Him?
Will you reject the distractions of other leaders?
And will you accept fellowship with fellow Christian soldiers?
· Let me close with the words of Charles Spurgeon, “We know the might of Jesus by the battles which he has fought, the victories which he has won over sin, and death, and hell, and we clap our hands as we see him leading captivity captive in the majesty of his strength. Oh for a heart to sing his praises! Mighty hero, be thou crowned for ever King of kings and Lord of lords.”
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PSALM 24 |
NAW |
KJV |
NKJV |
ESV |
NASB |
NIV |
LXX (23) |
Brenton |
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7 שְׂאוּ שְׁעָרִים רָאשֵׁיכֶם וְהִנָּשְׂאוּ פִּתְחֵי עוֹלָם וְיָבוֹא מֶלֶךְ הַכָּבוֹד: |
7 Heads-up, you gate [keepers][1] and be raised up, you ancient [s]entries[2], and the King of Glory will come. |
7 Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in. |
7 Lift up your heads, O you gates! And be lifted up, you everlasting doors! And the King of glory shall come in. |
7 Lift up your heads, O gates! And be lifted up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. |
7 Lift up your heads, O gates, And be lifted up, O ancient doors, That the King of glory may come in! |
7 Lift up your heads, O you gates; be lifted up, you ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. |
7 ἄρατε πύλας, οἱ ἄρχοντες[3] ὑμῶν, καὶ ἐπάρθητε[4], πύλαι[5] αἰώνιοι, καὶ εἰσελεύσεται ὁ βασιλεὺς τῆς δόξης. |
7 Lift up your gates, ye princes, and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors; and the king of glory shall come in. |
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8 מִי זֶה מֶלֶךְ הַכָּבוֹד יְהוָה עִזּוּז וְגִבּוֹר יְהוָה גִּבּוֹר מִלְחָמָה: |
8 Who this king of Glory? Yahweh strong[6] and mighty. Yahweh is the mighty-man of war. |
8 Who is this King of glory? The LORD strong and mighty, the LORD mighty in battle. |
8 Who is this King of glory? The LORD strong and mighty, The LORD mighty in battle. |
8 Who is this King of glory? The LORD, strong and mighty, the LORD, mighty in battle! |
8 Who is the King of glory? The LORD strong and mighty, The LORD mighty in battle. |
8 Who is this King of glory? The LORD strong and mighty, the LORD mighty in battle. |
8 τίς ἐστιν οὗτος ὁ βασιλεὺς τῆς δόξης; κύριος κραταιὸς καὶ δυνατός, κύριος δυνατὸς ἐν πολέμῳ. |
8 Who is this king of Glory? the Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle. |
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9 שְׂאוּ שְׁעָרִים רָאשֵׁיכֶם וּשְׂאוּ פִּתְחֵי עוֹלָם וְיָבֹא מֶלֶךְ הַכָּבוֹד: |
9 Heads up, you gate[keepers], and rise up, you ancient [s]entries, and the King of Glory will come. |
9 Lift up your heads, O ye gates; even lift them up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come [in]. |
9 Lift up your heads, O you gates! X Lift up, you everlasting doors! And the King of glory shall come [in]. |
9 Lift up your heads, O gates! And lift [them] up, O ancient doors, [that] the King of glory may come [in]. |
9 Lift up your heads, O gates, And lift them up, O ancient doors, [That] the King of glory may come [in]! |
9 Lift up your heads, O you gates; X lift [them] up, you ancient doors, [that] the King of glory may come [in]. |
9 ἄρατε
πύλας, οἱ
ἄρχοντες ὑμῶν,
καὶ ἐπάρ |
9 Lift up
your gates, ye princes; and |
|
10 מִי הוּא זֶה מֶלֶךְ הַכָּבוֹד יְהוָה צְבָאוֹת הוּא מֶלֶךְ הַכָּבוֹד סֶלָה: |
10 Who is he, this King of Glory? Yahweh of armies, He is the King of Glory! Selah. |
10 Who is X this King of glory? The LORD of hosts, he is the King of glory. Selah. |
10 Who is X this King of glory? The LORD of hosts, He is the King of glory. Selah |
10 Who is X this King of glory? The LORD of hosts, he is the King of glory! Selah |
10 Who is X this King of glory? The LORD of hosts, He is the King of glory. Selah. |
10 Who is he, this King of glory? The LORD Almighty— he is the King of glory. Selah |
10 τίς ἐστιν οὗτος ὁ βασιλεὺς τῆς δόξης; κύριος τῶν δυνάμεων[7], αὐτός ἐστιν ὁ βασιλεὺς τῆς δόξης. X |
10 Who is this king of glory? The Lord of hosts [lit “forces” cf. Aq. “soldiers”], he is this king of glory. X |
[1] When you look at how the phrase “lift the head” is used in the rest of the Bible, it appears that half of the instances are speaking of taking a census (all of them in the book of Numbers), and then, a few times it refers to showing special recognition of someone (Gen 40:13 & 20, 2 Ki. 25:27 cf. Jer. 52:31), and a couple of places where the phrase is used as in “rearing up your head in opposition” (Psalm 83:2 and Judges 8:28) – or as the opposite of being ashamed and disgraced (Job 10:15 and Zech. 1:21). The latter meaning seems to go with Psalm 3:3 about God lifting up David’s head, although the verb in Psalm 3 is the Hebrew synonym rum rather than nasa which is the verb here in Psalm 24. (There’s also a couple of times that nasa rosh means to chop someone’s head off, but I think we can rule that meaning out for Psalm 24). Augustine even imagines Jesus, commanding Satan, the prince of the power of the air to open the gates of deception which kept men from believing Jesus, which may occur, but is not exegetically derived from this Psalm.
[2] Patach does not ever appear to refer to the doors in the gates of the city. That is a different Hebrew word (delet). This word does however, occur frequently in tandem with the Hebrew word for “gates,” and it appears to refer to the entryway around the gates, in which sentries or other servants were posted. However, cf. Job 38:17, “Have the gates of death been revealed to you? Or have you seen the doors of the shadow of death?” Kimchi, Cohen, Stott, JFB, and Leuphold thought that Psalm 24 is about the time when the ark of the covenant was moved to Jerusalem (Delitzsch preferred a later re-entry of the ark after a battle and Boice preferred it as a prophecy of Jesus’ triumphal entry). Also cf., “Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible... be honor and glory forever...” (1 Tim. 1:17, NKJV)
[3] Aquilla follows the Masoretic here with kefalaV “heads,” but Symmachus and Theodition follow the LXX which switches the subject and object of the Hebrew.
[4] Sym. ‘uywqhtwsan “set yourselves away/aside?”
[5] Aq. anoigmata “openings/doorways”
[6] These are terms repeatedly used of God, picturing Him as a military champion: “strong” (Psalm 78:4 & 145:6) and “mighty” Deuteronomy 10:17 “For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome...” (NKJV, also Isa. 42:13, Jer. 20: 11 & 32:18, and Zeph 3:17).
[7] Aq. stratiwn