O Lord, who shall sojourn in your tent?
Who shall dwell on your holy hill?
2 He who walks blamelessly and does what is right
and speaks truth in his heart;
3 who does not slander with his tongue
and does no evil to his neighbor,
nor takes up a reproach against his friend;
4 in whose eyes a vile person is despised,
but who honors those who fear the Lord;
who swears to his own hurt and does not change;
5 who does not put out his money at interest
and does not take a bribe against the innocent.
He who does these things shall never be moved.
Psalm 15 calls us to live blamelessly, doing what is right and not just in our external life, but in our hearts, in the inner man as well. Not only do I understand why that isn’t what we want to think; I also know how easy it is to tell yourself a story so as to convince yourself of what you want to be true instead of what is actually true.
But like it or not, we are to believe what the Bible actually says about both the present and the future. This question of; Who may sojourn in the tent of the Lord and who may dwell on the Lord’s holy hill, is invariably answered by commanding us to live a certain way.
We are to “Believe,” “repent,” “love justice and hate iniquity,” “be baptized,” “sell all you have and give to the poor,” “take up your cross”, “deny self” etc. God puts the question forward…he puts the moral, eschatological question into the human heart and He answers the question clearly…I am just not so sure we like the answer.
Let me put this another way, and this right out of the text: The question is asked and there is an undeniable implication within the question. It is a hill, a mountain, and it has to be climbed. Some translations capture this a bit better by asking the question: who may ascend the hill of the Lord.
Mountains are to be ascended…that is they are to be climbed…you have to go up. Patrick Henry Reardon writes on this: “If the goal described is one of abiding and resting, the process thereto is called climbing: “Who shall ascend the mountain of the Lord?”
Many of you have read Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, the story written in 1678 of a Christians difficult and tumultuous journey from this life to the celestial kingdom, that is, heaven. Perhaps you did not know that in 1843, author Nathaniel Hawthorne, wrote a short story called The Celestial Railroad, which picks up where Bunyan’s allegory left off…only now, some years later.
In Hawthorne’s story, no longer do so-called Christians have to travel the difficult way by foot through trial and difficulty to get to the Celestial City, now, a railway has been built that will transport people to heaven in comfort and ease. The burden that Pilgrim had to carry, his sin, is no longer required either, rather, the burdens of the travelers are stored underneath in comfortable compartments…I mean why mess with those awful, heavy burdens?
You get the idea. There is no longer anything that would make the trip to heaven uncomfortable or difficult. Instead, there are smooth words and comfortable accommodations; Hawthorne’s critique of Christianity in his day. What would he, or Bunyan say about our day, I wonder?
We know that going up is more difficult than going down. Therefore, we should be suspicious of any answer to this question that would even slightly suggest a downhill, coasting ride to the holy hill of Yahweh.
What Reardon means is that doing what comes naturally…doing what is easy for us, what we want to do, that is, what we want to do in our flesh…this is never going to be the path to ascent. To “go with the flow” or to “coast”, to adopt the status quo, is invariably to go lower, not higher, away from the Lord, not up to the Lord.
Whatever the answer to the moral question, then, we can be certain that it will involve stern effort, struggle, suffering, testing, and adherence to irrevocable duty. It will at times test our resolve, we will find ourselves questioning if this is really what we want…is this really the answer.
This journey up, is not going to be easy, marked as it is with suffering, trial, the world, the flesh and the devil. Getting to the journey’s end is not a cake walk, or a stroll through the park. And that is THE lie that Xns have bought, as though, the Christian life is about them.
Perhaps you have read of the more recent defections from Christianity by so-called leading leaders within Christian circles. Josh Harris, who at 21 gained fame by writing the book, I Kissed Dating Goodbye, and who became a leading advocate for the Christian purity movement, has come out and said he is no longer a believer.
And then shortly after that we read of Marty Samson of Hillsong, also denouncing the faith, which led another popular Christian artist to question if the problem isn’t that the life Samson wrote about, sang about and promoted, that this life is great and easy with Jesus on your side…Christianity is all about being happy…simply proved false.
It could be that those walking away from the faith have realized that the Celestial Railroad, that they thought was Christianity is a lie, and when this reality hit, they came to grips with the fact, that this is not what they signed up for this is not what they imagined in their minds it to be, namely, that it is not about them.
So, it is not surprising that in Holy Scripture the mountain of God is spoken of in terms of distinct moral obligations, of course it is. It is not surprising, that the ascent is marked by duty, faithfulness, repentance, and a humility that sees self so clearly that clinging to Jesus is not just a good idea, but is a matter of life and death. There must be dogged determinism to stay loyal to the King…and to stay loyal…no matter what…and there must be a to the bone conviction that He is our Hope and there is no other.
In the Sermon on the Mount, it is from the top of the mountain that the voice of Jesus declares the conditions necessary to its climbing. He says there are certain statutes with respect to poverty of spirit, meekness, mourning, mercy, peacemaking, purity of heart, as well as hungering, thirsting, and suffering persecution for the sake of righteousness (see Matt. 5:3–10).
It is from this very mountain, that the Lord sends out His disciples to tell all nations “to observe all things that I have commanded you” (Matt. 28:20). It makes perfect sense that from the holy mountain of the Lord, and from the tabernacle that Moses had patterned for him from the mountain of the Lord, that there comes forth for us, the remaining lines of Psalm 15 in answer to its original question: Who shall sojourn in the Lord’s tent? Who shall ascend His holy mountain?
He who walks blamelessly…
He who works righteousness…
He who speaks the truth in his heart, nor deceives with his tongue…
He who does no evil to his neighbor and brings no disgrace on his friends; before whom the vile person is scorned but who honors those who fear the Lord;
He who pledges to his neighbor and does not fail him; who gives no money at interest, and takes no bribes against the innocent…He who does these things shall never be shaken.”
It might not be the answer you wanted, but it is the answer the Lord had given. So…what are you going to do now? We are going to joyfully receive His word, knowing that we are sanctified, that is made holy and set apart by and for Him, we are sanctified by truth, and His word is truth.
We are going to humbly confess that we will so live, but that we cannot in ourselves and therefore trust and rely upon the provision of our God, that we might be nourished for our uphill climb…for our ascending.
This is what the Lord gives to you and me, that WE might be able to live as his brothers and sisters, that we might be those who sojourn in his tent and dwell on his holy hill.
Prayer: Father, You have ordered my days and it is my deepest desire to be faithful with the time that has been set for me. Keep me from sin, both those that come to me and those that come from me. Give me a heart that wants to redeem the time and honor my Savior who has loved me with an everlasting love. I know that I am not my own, give me a rejoicing spirit this day to the honor and praise of my God and King, in Jesus name, Amen.
Hymn: Benedictus