He was looking for something personally, and then realized more people than himself could use what he’d discovered. Was that what the ancient songwriter-king David found also, a pretty intimate time with God that he cherished and then thought others should hear? “Give Us Clean Hands”, the worshippers of David’s time would have cried, as the ark of the covenant was carried into the Temple (as seen here in this 15th Century work), or perhaps as they later commemorated that occasion. So, it was no accident when Charlie Hall opened his bible some 30 centuries later and found some insight into approaching God, since this God doesn’t change and asks those who want to draw near Him to do what the worshippers at the Temple did so long ago. Purity…such a hard thing to acquire. Charlie found the words of the psalm were convicting. Ready to practice some submission?
Charlie Hall was doing one day (sometime around the year 2000) what he’d done on numerous other occasions: bible study. He indicates in an interview that he was looking for God to speak, to provide something to spur a change in his heart. Why Charlie thought he needed a heart-check is not clear, but perhaps he wasn’t any different from others who come close to God just to find that undefinable something that seems to be missing. Psalm 24 jumped off the page (or off the screen) for Charlie, who says he wasn’t aiming to write a song. It was just a few moments in which he needed to be alone with Him, singing back to God what He was saying to him in scripture, a kind of prayer. And then he read what David wrote (v.6 of Psalm 24) about a ‘generation’ of would-be worshippers. Perhaps this was when Charlie realized that his personal moment could resonate with others. Everyone needs to ‘bow..hearts and bend..knees’, to be ‘humble’ before the Holy Creator. Consequently, all things ‘evil’, and especially ‘idols’, need to be cast aside. Not only ‘clean hands’, but ‘pure hearts’ are the decontamination that is a part of the separation from idols, of making God the one and only being toward whom worship is directed. David’s ‘generation’, and Charlie’s three millennia later, sought God’s ‘face’, the visage of this ‘God of Jacob’. That’s quite a thing to say to this Holy One…to be submissive to Him, and try in one’s own imperfect way to be pure before Him, and then say you want to see His face. Are you and I really ready for this?
That goal, to see God’s face, is really an aspiration that none of us will truly realize until Eternity dawns. Moses, too, asked to see Him and was denied by the merciful God (Ex. 33:18-23) – God wasn’t quite ready for Moses to die; He wanted him to do more. Those of David’s time did not yet have Jesus, and those of us in Charlie’s time have only an artist’s conception of what the God-Man might have resembled physically. But, I can sense what’s in my own heart, see whether my hands have engaged in wrongdoing, and admit when I am a bit too close to earthbound things. Those are the three things I can put on my daily agenda to try to rectify, if I am honest and really do want to meet Him face-to-face one day. Just weigh these things on your spiritual scales, including how long they will last…earthly habits and attitudes for something like 80-90 years (?), versus what He can give me in the afterlife that never will end. What’s your scale’s readout suggesting to you?
Watch the song story recounted here: https://www.worshiptogether.com/songs/give-us-clean-hands/ (New Song Café) …Based on Psalm 24 by David (story on video from beginning to 2:09 mark (appx)
See some information here also, including a brief recitation of the story: https://hymnary.org/hymn/LUYH2013/628
See here for the song’s copyright date: Give Us Clean Hands (arr. Joshua Chandra) Sheet Music | Chris Tomlin | Piano, Vocal & Guitar Chords (sheetmusicdirect.com)
NIV Study Bible, Zondervan Bible Publishers, 1985, and accompanying notes re: Psalm 24’s background also provided details.
Find the image of ark here, along with public domain status of the picture: File:Folio 29r - The Ark of God Carried into the Temple.jpg - Wikimedia Commons This work (The Ark carried into the Temple from the early 15th century, Pol, Hermann and Jannequin de Limbourg (1370s–1416); Jean Colombe (c. 1440–93)) is in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 100 years or fewer. This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published (or registered with the U.S. Copyright Office) before January 1, 1928.
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