Shall we turn, please, to Psalm 24? I think that's one of the greatest of all David's psalms. It's a Messianic psalm. Historically, it has to do with the bringing up of the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem, a special place on Mount Zion, prepared for it by David until it could be properly housed in a proposed temple on Mount Moriah. as the background of this psalm. The earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof, the world, and they that dwell therein. For he hath founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the floods. Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord, who shall stand in his holy place. He that hath clean hands and a pure heart, who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully, he shall receive the blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation. This is the generation of them that seek him. that seek thy face, O Jacob, O God of Jacob, Selah." By the way, when you see that little word Selah in the Psalms and elsewhere, you can translate it into the American, and translated thus, it simply means there. What do you think of that? The God of Jacob, Selah. What do you think of that? Lift up your head, O ye gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord, strong and mighty, mighty in battle. Lift up your head, O ye gates, even lift them up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord of hosts. is the King of Glory, Selah. There. What do you think of that? I hope by the time I come back next time you put a bigger pulpit up here. I've got to spread out and nothing but a little bit of space and a lot of bulwarks. A table? I've got to have something to hide behind. This lovely little psalm divides into three parts. In the first two verses we have the Lord's claim. In verses three to six we have the Lord's call. And in verses seven to ten we have the Lord's coming. Here is the Lord's claim. He says, The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. Now, of course, you understand that our Lord's ultimate territorial claims in space embrace very much more than that. All the vast stellar empires belong to him. He sits upon his throne and looks out across the vast reaches of space and time. countless stars and their satellites travelling at inconceivable velocities on prodigious orbits with mathematical precision. He sits there and rules across the galaxies, it all belongs to him. He sits there and you see him gazing out across those galaxies, a hundred billion galaxies in known space. He picks out just one of those galaxies. The one we call the Milky Way, our particular galaxy, with a hundred billion stars of its own in our own backyard. He picks out that galaxy. None of the others, just that one. A hundred billion stars. A hundred thousand light years from rim to rim, an inconceivable six hundred million, billion miles of stars. He picks out just one. It's our next door neighbor in space, it's the sun. A star. An ordinary star, but still a star. Thirty thousand light years from the center of the galaxy. He looks at that one star, the one we call the sun, and he sees it has given birth to some baby planets, and one of them, one of them, he says, is mine. That one, planet Earth, is the Lord's. He looks at that one little baby planet. C.S. Lewis, in one of his books, calls it the silent planet. He pictures all the suns and stars of space making merry music to their maker as they swing around the great white throne. All except one, he says, there is one world in space that has no song. It's diseased, it's quarantined. It has no song. It is a silent planet. If it was me, I don't think I'd call it the silent planet. It's anything but silent. I'd call it the sobbing planet. It's full of noise and dins and cries of agony and pain. He says, that one, that one is mine. Why should he bother? I mean, our little world is such a puny little place compared with the vastness of the universe. Just a little tiny speck of cosmic dust, so tiny and small and insignificant in relation to the galaxies that only an eye that had omniscient properties could gaze down through all the ages, only one who was absolutely God-omniscient, seeing everything, and only an eye like that could pick this planet out of space and say, that one is mine. It's such a puny place. so small, so relatively insignificant, why should he say, why should he announce to the angels and the archangels, to principalities and powers, to the rulers of this world's darkness, to wicked spirits in high places, to man riding his high horse across this planet, why, why did he say the earth is the Lord's? Well, it's like this, you see, this world is not important to God, because of its size, that has nothing to do with it. I'll give you an illustration from British history. I would be very happy to give you an illustration from American history, but I don't know any. They never taught that subject where we didn't consider it a subject. They certainly didn't waste time teaching it to us in school. this little tiny world of ours. So you'll have to have to ever pardon me if I give you an illustration from British history. By the way, we went when we picked up little bits of odds and ends of American history. We didn't like it anyway. Well, I could take the rest of the afternoon and explain it to you. Why did he say the earth is the Lord? Well, you see, I don't suppose that prior to a certain Sunday morning in the year 1815, I don't suppose anybody had ever heard of a place called Waterloo. Waterloo was just a little tiny village in the vast empire of Napoleon. It was so small, so totally insignificant, it was hardly worth putting on the map. And yet it was at that place, at that time, that the armies of the Iron Duke of Wellington met and mastered the armies of Napoleon and changed the course of history from that day to this. Thus, you see, Waterloo assumes an importance in the thinking of the historian out of all proportion to its size. Its size has nothing to do with it. It's important because of what happened there. And thus it is, you see, with this little world of ours in space. It's nothing to do with whether it's big or little. God's not concerned with trivialities like that. He's beyond being big or little, he's infinite. And so it's got nothing to do with its relative size, it has to do with what happened here. You see, because sin entered into the world, sin did not begin on earth by the way it began in heaven. It was not discovered First of all, in the heart of Adam, it was discovered in the heart of Lucifer, the son of the morning, the anointed cherub, choirmaster of heaven, the one who was brilliant beyond all compare. It began in his heart. And when God began to make it quite evident to the powers that be in the galaxies and the universes beyond our ken, when he began to go back to Waterloo. This world is important to God not because of its size, but because of what happened here. Because it was on this planet, you see, Satan came down here full of malice, eager to wreck and ruin this world as he had already apparently tampered with the solar system and other parts of the universe. What Satan didn't know when he came into the Garden of Eden and dragged our first parents into sin, and then turned around and smirked into the face of God, what he didn't know was that God had chosen planet Earth, that when the mystery of iniquity would eventually raise its head in the universe, He would deal with it at one place in the entire creation, and that place that He chose was planet Earth. So you see, when Satan came into the Garden of Eden and dragged our first parents into sin, he was falling into an ambush. which had been prepared for him from before, the foundation of the world. And so here's the Lord's claim. He says planet earth is the Lord's. That's his private property. It belongs to him. And so this world spins through space, carrying with it its human load of sin and grief and pain and agony. staggering on its way one colossal graveyard, but it hasn't been abandoned, it's been chosen. So he says, the earth is the Lord, which invites us to consider the Lord's call. When we look at our Lord's territorial claims in terms of this world of ours in space, we notice first of all that he says the earth is the Lord, but there is one place on this planet to which he lays special claim, and that's the nation of Israel. The Palestinian Arabs say it belongs to them. It doesn't belong to them and never did. It belongs to him. The earth is the Lord's. He says, Israel is my land. That's my land, he said. It's my land. And let nobody forget it either. Those powers that range themselves against him and his land will pay for it in terms of time and ultimately in terms of eternity. That's his land. You leave it alone. Don't you be messing with my land, he said, or with my people for that matter. And so the earth is the Lord's. And the nation of Israel is the Lord, that's His land. And then you come into the nation of Israel, you find again there's one place to which the Lord lays special claims, and that's the city of Jerusalem. The United Nations says it belongs to them. It doesn't belong to them. It belongs to Him. It's His city. It's called the city of the great King. That's whose city it is. When you go into the city of Jerusalem, you find from our psalm, Psalm 24, that there are two places to which the Lord lay special claim. One is called the holy place, the other is called Mount Zion. The holy place and the hill. The hill, of course, was Mount Zion. It was that where the Jebusite fortress had been. You remember how Joab had taken it away from them, made a present of it to David, and it became the heart of his empire. He set his throne there upon Mount Zion, and he ruled across the nations from that geographical center. That was the hill, that was Mount Zion. There is another place to which he laid special claim, and that's called the holy place, that's Mount Moriah. Now Mount Zion stands for all the dynamics of secular power. David ruled from there, one day the Lord Jesus will rule from there. Secular power all centered there on the hill. Mount Morion speaks of all the dynamics of spiritual power, that's where the temple was to be. And so the Lord lays claim to these two particular places, the place that represents all the dynamics of secular power and all the dynamics of spiritual power. He says, here's the Lord's call, who would like to have a share? Who would like to have a share in everything that one day will happen on the hill? And who would like to have a share in everything which will happen in the holy place? That's quite an invitation. Magnificent offer. I'd much rather go in for that than being President of the United States, let me tell you. You're not likely to ask me. In fact, you're not fair at all. You've legislated against me. I couldn't be a president of this country even if I wanted to be, and even if they wanted to be. They'd have to change all the laws because I wasn't born here. Well, I was born in a much better place than this. And so he issues his invitation, who would like to have a share in all the dynamics of secular and spiritual power in the crowning day that's coming by and by? You remember on one occasion the Lord received a visit from Mrs. Zebetee and her two sons. He saw her coming of course and saw her two boys with him and he knew perfectly well what she was going to say. He knew her very well indeed, she was his aunt you see. It's astonishing how many of the Lord's disciples, if you study it out, were actually related in some way to him. And James and John, of course, were his cousins. And Mr. Zebedee and Aunt Zebedee, they were real close relatives to the Lord. And he saw her coming and he knew what she was going to say. And sure enough, she said, I should like to ask you something, my Lord." He said, yes, Mrs. Eberdie, what is it? Oh, she said, I should like my two sons, James and John, in the day of your power when you come and reign and sit upon the throne of David and rule from the river to the ends of the earth, I should like my two boys. One to sit on your right hand, one to sit on your left hand. And the Lord Jesus looked at her and he said, request denied. He might have added an explanation, he didn't, but he could have. He could have said, well you see Mrs. Zebedee, that is not mine to give. That is a reward. And rewards have to earn, have to be earned. And so I'm very sorry, I can't grant your request. And the disciples got hot under the collar, they got mad as hornets about this whole business of James and John trying to steal the march on them and stake a claim for the highest spot in the millennial kingdom. And who knows where in the endless kingdoms to come in ages not yet born. I'm very sorry, request denied. And the disciples were very upset about all that, but nevertheless, those were the Lord's terms. Now he comes to tell you exactly what you want to do if you want to become a recipient of this reward. There are three things. First of all, it says who shall ascend, who shall stand. He that hath clean hands and a pure heart. Clean hands, that's your outward life. A pure heart, that's your inward life. Who shall ascend? Who shall stand? He that hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity. Vanity. Who does that remind you of? Well, it reminds me of King Solomon towards the end of his misspent life. He had, by the time he had finished with the city of Jerusalem and the surrounding countryside, he'd pretty well turned Jerusalem into Babylon. It was the hold of every unclean and hateful bird. It was a place where on every high hill Solomon had built a shrine to this God and a temple to that God and a special place for this God. And even down in the dark valley of Moloch, he had an image to that vicious god. It was made of brass and had a hollow interior. And they would, on state religious occasions, they would heat that image until it was red hot, until it glowed. like a furnace it had become and it roared and crackled and burned away and then they would get the drummers to beat the drums and they'd start beating the drums louder and louder And there would be a little boy over here, a little boy about six maybe, or a little girl over here about three or four. And they would take that little child and as the drums beat to drown out the screams and the cries, they would place that little one on the red hot lap of Moloch. And Moloch would lean back and down it would go into the belly of that monster. To think that Solomon had put a thing like that in Jerusalem. God was outraged. He didn't send a prophet. He didn't send an angel. He came himself, and he saw for himself, and he said to Solomon, if it wasn't for David's sake, I'd do it right now. But for David's sake, I'll wait until you're dead. But I'm going to tear your kingdom all to pieces. Solomon sat down after God had come and gone. The second person of the Godhead had told Solomon what to expect and had disappeared as quickly as he had come. Solomon tried taking measures to prevent that prophecy being fulfilled, but he should have had more sense. But he had become a silly old man by this time, a wicked old man. I see as he leans back in his library and pulls down a book. perhaps not caring much what book it is, somebody would take his mind off this recent encounter with the living God and flips it open and it opens at Psalm 69. And it's Psalm 39. And it was a psalm that had to do with vanity, vanity, vanity. all the way through. And Solomon seized upon that. He said, there's one thing I can do, God helping me, I can maybe help undo some of the damage I've done. Perhaps I could write a book and maybe in that book spell it out for people what happens when they turn their back against God. And he did. He wrote the book of Ecclesiastes. It was a wail of despair over a misspent life. He had spent the latter part of his life living for the wrong world. And now he's writing about it, and every time he dips his pen in the ink, it seems to write one word. Vanity. Start again. Vanity. Vexation of spirit. Vanity means nothing, nothing, nothing. Living for nothing. Vexation of spirit. Chasing the wind. Living for the wrong world. Who shall ascend? Who shall stand? He that has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not lifted up his soul unto vanity, living for this world when with just a few short years of life to invest for eternity. Vanity, vexation of spirit. Who shall ascend? Who shall stand? clean hands and pure heart, he who has not lifted up his soul unto vanity, he who has not sworn deceitfully." In other words, he will be looking for people he can trust. People who, when they say, well, I'll do that, that's an end of it, you don't have to worry about it, it'll be done, they've said, they've pledged their word, they would rather do anything than break their word, it wouldn't occur to them to break their word. They've said, I'll do it, I'll do it, no matter how inconvenient it becomes. And so we have the Lord's claim and the Lord's call. Which brings us to the Lord's coming, verses 7 to 10. Now five times in these closing verses, Jesus is referred to as the King of glory. Five times. Twice the challenge goes forth that the gates of glory might be lifted up so that the King of glory can come in. Once the question asked is simply the Lord of hosts. he's the king of glory the other time the question asked is the Lord strong and mighty the Lord mighty in battle and that raises an interesting question because why in the space of two or three verses should the Lord Jesus be called king of glory all those many times and why should Why should he not go on acting in the way he should? The Lord hosts. He is the King of Glory. The Lord is strong and mighty. He is the King of Glory. Now you say, what does it all mean? Well, to understand those verses, you have to put them into perspective. Two thousand years ago, The Son of God stepped off the throne of the universe. He came down here to this planet and lived a life such as no man had ever lived. He was the Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle. He vanquished Satan every time. Satan tried to get him in the wilderness. He dangled before him the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life, those primeval and prevalent temptations with which he makes so many captives on planet Earth. He tried it on the Lord, but he got nowhere. And I have a suspicion that when it was all over, he was only too glad to get out of there before the angel came. He was the Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle. He tried to get at him through his mother. on one occasion, and on another occasion he tried to get at him through bringing together the sharpest and brightest minds in the country and get these lawyer fellows to try and trick him with questions that had a punishment in them. And he was unable to interest the Lord in things like that. He was up against the Lord, strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle. And so all through his life, from little boyhood days up through his manhood, he defeated Satan every time, not once in thought or word or deed, not once as a babe, as a child. as a teenager, as a man, whether in the school, or in the home, or in the classroom, or in the synagogue, or tramping the highways and byways of his native land. Not once did Satan win, even so much as the ghost of a victory. He was up against the Lord, strong and mighty, the Lord mighty and battled, and in any case he had picked the wrong place to Pick this fight, this was the very place where God had determined before the ages began that the Lamb should be slain before the foundation of the earth. Everything centered around planet earth and he had chosen to come down here and interfere with it and he realized what a fool he'd been. Halfway through the cross he realized that and he didn't say it, he had the people say it, but it was their voice, but it was his words. They said to him, come down! Come down! Come down from the cross and we'll believe you. Come down. He never even bothered answering them. They had already been answered in the words of Nehemiah, he said, when the Samaritans asked him to come down, come down from the wall, come and have a chit-chat with us. He said, I am doing a good work. Why should the work cease while I leave it and come down to you? And thus it was with our blessed Lord, the Lord strong and mighty, mighty, mighty in battle, he could win no victory over him. And on the very day that the Jewish people in the synagogue were tuning up their hearts to sing the psalm for the day, it was the resurrection morning, if you please, and they were singing psalm. 24. Vainly they watch His bed, Jesus our Savior. Vainly they seal the dead, Jesus our Lord. Up from the grave He arose with a mighty triumph for His foes. He arose a victor from the dark domain and He lives forever with His saints to reign. He arose, hallelujah, Christ arose. Now he stayed around for 40 days and 40 nights at the end of that period. By many infallible proofs he had so convinced the disciples that he was alive from the dead, that it was truly him back again in glorious victory. And he was now ready to take them out to the Mount of Olives. What a sight it must have been, that little band of excited disciples walking with a resurrected man. through the cities of Jerusalem, down across the Kedron Valley, up past the Garden of Gethsemane, on to the Brough of Olivet. And then something happened that is so significant to the divine historian that there are no less than thirty, thirteen different references to it, to this particular event. Twenty distinctly different words are used to describe it. They stood there and saw him ascend toward heaven. And you can see them as they're straining their back now, looking higher and higher. They can see the print of the nails in the soles of his feet. Then he's gone. Cloud has come. He's gone. Now, the disciples didn't see what happened next. But Jesus did. David did. David saw what happened next. As he stepped into the cloud, all of a sudden David's psalm would come to mind. He saw the Lord Jesus ascend the star road to glory. He stood at last before the gates of the celestial city. Lift up your head, O ye gates, and the King of Glory shall come in." And they said, Who is this King of Glory? He said, The Lord, strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle, He is the King of Glory. He showed them the battle scars. Now we could almost hear Him say, Now get these gates open. And then he came, he knew his way, I don't know whether it was street or streets or however you want to cut that piece of pie, but I see him go down Hallelujah Avenue around by Amen Square and up by Beulah Boulevard and now he's arrived at the great white throne of God. And then amazing mystery, wonder of wonders, he sat down. on the right hand of the majesty on high, sat down. Gabriel announced himself, he said, I am Gabriel that stand in the presence of God. This one sat down. The writer Hebrew says every priest standeth but this man sat down. Sat down and finished work. The battle scars He sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high and he did so because he had every right to be there because he was God over all, blessed forevermore. Now between verse 8 and verse 9 of this psalm, you have to put a gap. And David didn't know that, of course, because David, like all the other Old Testament poets and prophets, they knew nothing whatsoever of the church and its place in the eternal councils of God. And all this long time, between verse 8 and 9, Jesus has been sitting on his Father's throne in heaven. He's been watching with the keenest interest. The Holy Spirit moves to and fro across the face of this earth, bringing people to Christ, one at a time, sometimes. Here, a young child at mother's knee, there an old man with one foot already in the grave. And they are coming from all parts of the planet, north and south and east and west, thousands upon thousands of them every day. I doubt if there's been a day since Pentecost when there have not been at least 3,000 people saved. Multitudes of men and women, boys and girls, whose names are written down in heaven, whose hearts have been cleansed in the precious blood of Christ, standing around his throne. And there he sits, watching as the Spirit of God goes to and fro across the face of the earth. It's already a mighty church. It was transcending all space and time, rooted in eternity. Terrible as an army with banners. He's watched every meeting like this, he's watched and somebody comes forward, he says, Father, here comes another one. And then two or three come, Father, here comes some more, here comes some more. The Spirit's doing a good job, here comes another one, here comes some more. And now at last the number is complete. The very last one has come. And the father says to his son, now then, son, go and get him. And he gets up off his father's throne and he comes down the star-spangled banner, specter of the sky, and he cries out across the planet, Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away! And the dead in Christ rise first, and we who are alive and remain caught up in clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And now it is a multitude that no man can number, the angelic hosts of darkness fall back in array and disarray, as the mighty King of Kings and Lord of Lords comes with this great, countless multitude of people, all bearing the mark of the seal of the Spirit of God upon them. They arrive at last outside the gates of the celestial city. And once again there's a watcher there peering through, and the voice rings forth, open up these gates. Lift up your head, O ye gates, and the King of glory shall come in. The watcher gazes through and he can see this enormous multitude of people stretching away into space. He says, who is this King of glory? And this time the Lord says, the Lord of hosts. The Lord of hosts. He is the King of Glory. Once again, he sits himself down upon his father's throne on high. He says, now then, gather round, my friends. We're going back. He said, you see, my friends, the moment our back was turned, all hell was let loose on that planet. And I'm going back. Are you coming with me? I'm going to get up off the throne of my father in heaven, and I'm going to go down there, and I'm going to sit upon the throne of my father David, and I'm going to put an end to what they're doing on planet Earth. That's my world! We're going back, and I'm going to start an empire the like of which the world has never seen. Now gather round, my friends. I'm going to need some helpers. Let me look at your hands. Let me look at your heart. Tell me, which world did you live for? Let me ask you, could you be trusted? Selah.