And therefore it is also the believer’s. The real fullness of the earth belongs to the Christian. “The meek shall inherit the earth.”
Psalms 24:1-2. The world, and they that dwell there in. For he hath founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the floods.
So, child of God, you are in your Father’s house even while you are down here on earth. Still, that question in the next verse is very suggestive. Albeit that the earth is the Lord’s, yet we do not want to stop in it for ever.
Psalms 24:3. Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord?
This is the portion of the Lord’s people to ascend the hill of the Zion that is above, to enter the New Jerusalem, and to stand in the immediate presence of God. But who shall ever be able to do that?
Psalms 24:4-5. 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 blood of his salvation.
The man who will go to heaven is the clean man, the man who has been washed from his sins in the blood of the Lamb; and he is clean just where he was most likely to be foul, he has “clean hands.” Grace has enabled him to touch the things of the world without receiving a stain from them, and to touch holy things without defiling them. This expression — “clean hands “ — refers to his outward life; but he is also clean inside, for he has “a pure heart.” If a man were clean as to his actions, but not clean as to his motives, he would not be fit to enter heaven, but the man described here is a true man. He has not followed after vanity, neither has he uttered a lie, but he has followed the truth, and he has spoken the truth. He is the man whom God will bless, but he has no righteousness of his own, so we read that “he shall receive the blessing from the Lord, and righteousness from the God of his salvation.” So he needed to be saved, and he needed a righteousness better than his own, and this God will give him.
Psalms 24:6. This is the generation of them that seek him, that see thy face, O Jacob. Selah.
It is a wonderful thing that Jesus Christ should take his people’s name but he does. He gives his Church his own name in that remarkable passage in Jeremiah 33:16, “This is the name wherewith she shall be called The Lord our righteousness;” and now, to make the union complete, he takes her name as his own, and Christ is here called Jacob.
Psalms 24:7-10. Lift up your heads, 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, the LORD mighty in battle. Lift up your heads, 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, he is the King of glory. Selah.
Now, if Christ is our Shepherd in the meadows down here where he makes us to lie down in the green pastures of his grace, he will also be our Shepherd in the heavenly pastures up there on the hill-tops of glory, where the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed us, and shall lead us unto living fountains of waters, and we shall delight for ever to “follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth.”
This exposition consisted of readings from Psalms 23, 24.