From Jeffrey R. Holland, President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles: from his book “For Times of Trouble” shared / taught:
Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or 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.
——————————————
Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.
Psalm 24. . . . is one of the most quoted—-and sung—-psalms in all the cannon of scripture. A.W. “Mickey” Hart put these words to music. That song has thrilled millions. It still thrills me today whenever I hear it.
The requirements for ascending “into the hill of the Lord” and standing “in his holy place”—as noted earlier, this is a different reference to the temple—must be many, but here the Psalmist sweetly reduces those requirements to two: purity and humility.
We sometimes hear that the Old Testament and the New Testament are at odds with each other, that they seem to have been written for different purposes to different people, They weren’t. In serious oversimplification, it could be said that much of the Old Testament was dealing with the outer man and the New Testament with the inner, but both are important and both must be addressed in our salvation. To come unto God we must be clean both externally (in our hands) and internally (in our hearts).
Consider the blessing of a baby, or partaking of the sacrament, or participating in temple ordinances. To the degree that we can achieve it, we should literally have clean hands (and clean clothes and clean countenances) for these sacred experiences. We ought to be as clean in appearance as we can be when we seek to stand in God’s holy presence. Again in an oversimplification, that might be considered something of an “Old Testament” requirement, but it is a requirement nonetheless.
But in addition to that outward evidence, we must be clean inside as well—pure, if you will—showing the inner state that gives meaning to our outward gesture. We must be clean in thought, innocent in motive, pure in our practices, with no vanity or deceit in us. We must be humble disciples of Christ. This might be considered the “New Testament” requirement of our worthiness to stand in God’s presence.
Indeed, purity inside and out may well be the first thing we recognize about the Savior when He returns to reign and rule on earth. As Mormon wrote to his son and the Nephite congregation of that day, “pray unto the Father with all the energy of heart. . . . that ye may become the sons [and daughters] of God; that when He shall appear we shall be like him. . . that we may be purified even as he is pure.” 81
James, the brother of Jesus, shared a lesson of life with us. He said, “The wisdom that is from above is pure, then peaceable.”82 What a precise, poetic description that is of the temple and the worthy temple attender. In our day—and with this great dispensation of temple building as a backdrop—we can more fully understand God’s determination to “reserve unto myself a pure people.” In the house of the Lord we can be sanctified by that which ye . . . received, and [then] ye shall bind yourselves in all holiness before [Him].”83
In times of trouble, we can go to the temple, and we must go with clean hands and a pure heart. We will find a “right spirit” renewed within us. `Jeffrey R. Holland, For Times of Trouble (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2012) p. 57-59
81. Moroni 7:48, 82. James 3:17, 83. Doctrine & Covenants 43:14, 9
