Preliminary
Observations
This Psalm divides all of humanity into two categories: the blessed man and the wicked man. This is a familiar division in the Scriptures.
The Bible knows
only 2 kinds of people
·
The
righteous and the wicked (as in our
Psalm)
·
children
of God and children of the devil
·
saved
and lost
·
light
and darkness
·
sheep
and goats
This division is as ancient as the offspring of the serpent and the offspring of the woman in Genesis 3:15.
We must hold to these two categories in our preaching and at the end of our sermon we must be very conscious as to what category we belong to. The theme of this Psalm is all about this distinction between the present and future blessedness of the righteous person, and the present and future misery of the wicked person.
The structure of this Psalm is very simple: it divides into two parts:
(i) 1:1-3 the blessed man, and
(ii) 1:4-6 the wicked man.
The blessed man stands, for he is firmly rooted. The wicked man, though he thinks he stands, will not stand up to the final judgement of God.
1 . THE
BLESSED MAN (1:1-3)
The word “blessed” (Hebr. ‘baruch’)
carries the idea of having a deep-seated joy, delight, satisfaction, and
contentment in God. It is a “holy happiness.” It is a happiness deeply rooted
in knowing our standing with God – hence my title, “Understanding your standing!” How then is it that a blessed man or woman finds themselves in this frame of
mind?
Negatively: V.1
What a godly, happy man does not do and where he does not go.
a.
“he does not walk in the counsel
of the ungodly” - the blessed
man is not a follower of the counsel or teaching of the wicked. The basis of our knowledge is very
important. What we listen to and what we believe leads to what we do and what
we become. (Epistemology always gives birth to ethics). When we begin in the wrong place we will end
up in the wrong place. Your starting point
is important. The place of departure for
a godly person is the counsel of God,
fuelled by the knowledge of God’s Word.
b.
“he does not stand in the way of
sinners” - the blessed man is
not one who desires to hang around with
the wicked, the sinners, the scoffers. This does not mean that he spends no time in their company - in that
case he would have to leave the world (1Cor.
5:10). It is just that he knows that the counsel of the ungodly is not
attractive to him. They find no fundamental agreement with them. With that in
mind the godly person will be careful as to what he/ she sees, where they go,
what their hearts desire and where they spend their time.
c.
“he does not sit in the seat of
scoffers” - A scoffer is one
who mocks and despises. Here the Psalmist has in mind
those that mock, despise and scoff at God’s Word, God’s cause in the world and
God’s people. A righteous person cannot sit around their fire. He cannot do
both, bless God and curse God. Peter tried to do that and found himself weeping
bitterly afterwards (Lk 22:62). It is impossible to bless God and curse God with
the same tongue. James wisdom asks, “Does
a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and salt water?“ (Jas.
3:11)
Please note that there is a downward
progression in verse 1: walk, stand, sit. You cannot help walking through an ungodly
world. You cannot avoid the wicked man,
the sinner and the scoffer. But when at
once you stand still and sit and camp among
ungodly people and when you begin
to take your direction for life from there,
then you will be tempted to
lose the experience
of blessedness. This however, we are assured, is not
where the blessed man finds himself.
Positively
(v.2)
a.
“his delight is in the law of the
Lord” - Again, please note that
apart from avoiding the company of the
ungodly, he also does not first seek the company of godly people,
as good as that may be. His first
companion is the God of the Word and the Word of God! Jeremiah writes: “Your words were found and I ate them, and your words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart.” (Jer.
15:16). Psalm 119 is a Psalm of delight in the Word of God: “How sweet are your words to my taste,
sweeter than honey to my mouth” (Ps
119:103). Delighting in God and delighting in the Word of God is
essential. What is it essential
for? For our salvation. If we do not delight in the Word of God at
all, we have no reason to believe that we are saved. To delight ourselves in
the Lord is essential for our happiness, for our fruitfulness, for our
perseverance, and for our prosperity (all in verse 3). The danger of
camping in the company of the godly, without being a healthy feeder yourself,
is that you live off the spirituality of others, and the danger is that when
they crash, you crash. You yourself must develop healthy feeding habits upon the Word of God, develop a robust relationship with the God of the Word,
so that you can say, “A thousand may fall
at your side… because you have made the
LORD your dwelling place, the Most High your refuge… no evil shall be allowed
to befall you…” (Psalm 91:7-10).
b. “on his law he meditates day and night ” - Here that thought is intensified. This man’s life is clearly directed by one Word! All the issues of life are settled for him by this one Word. He makes it his aim to be a man of one word. When you prick him, you will find that his blood is bibline. This was said of John Bunyan, author of Pilgrim’s Progress!
The man of God finds many challenges along life's highway. He faces the the wicked,
the sinner and the scoffer, and often he is wounded in his engagement with the world, but he finds himself returning (even after failure) to the law - the Word of God again and again.
c. “This man is like a tree planted
by streams of water….”. He is planted in an environment
that will produce fruit. This is true biblical prosperity (cf. Lk. 18:29). Dear friend if you
are rooted in Christ, if you walk daily with Jesus, even though you have forsaken all things in order to follow Him, you will
lack no good thing in this life and in the age to come, you will inherit eternal life and heaven will be yours.
2. THE
WICKED MAN (1:4-5)
With regard to this person we observe the
following …
a. He is
spiritually bankrupt. The wicked person’s greatest
deficiency is not only in the moral sense (he walks in the counsel of the wicked;
stands in the way of sinners; sits in the seat of scoffers); his greatest
deficiency is his absence of delight in
the law of the Lord (the Word of God).
b. The
consequence is that he has no
weight to hold him down when
the issues of life begin to unsettle him. The Psalmist says that “he is like chaff that the wind drives away
“ (1:4). The New Testament
analogy may be found in Matthew
7:24-27. This person’s foundations are woefully insufficient to
withstand the ultimate tests of life. He finds himself unable to stand because his insufficient foundations
cannot uphold him. A man or woman may be naturally strong, but when something
happens - a crisis moment, or
perhaps the day when their bodies will become frail, when they will be reduced to nothing, they will find themselves woefully unprepared for that final meeting with God whose law they have spurned in this life. This leads us to the next thought in 1:5.
c. The downfall of the wicked man: “the wicked will not stand in the judgement, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous “ (1:5). Two things are worth considering here: A wicked man (better described as a godless man), strong and capable as he was in this life, suddenly finds that he has no advocate before the Great White Throne Judgement of Jesus. He suddenly will find that he has no basis for admission into heaven. He has no place in the congregation of the righteous, for the righteous on earth ALONE will constitute the congregation of the righteous in heaven. The blood of Christ - the sign and seal of the eternal covenant, received by Grace ALONE through Faith ALONE provides for our access into heaven.
3. THE
BOTTOMLINE (1:6)
The Lord knows the destinies of both
– the righteous, blessed man and the
wicked man.
Everything begins with what we make of the law of God - and therefore, what we do with the God of the law - Christ being the end of the law.
If you love the world and worldly ways and worldly wisdom more, you will not stand before God in the judgement. You will not be found in the congregation of the righteous. But if you love the law of God and the God of the law – the end which is the Lord Jesus, you will stand in the judgement.
You will not be accused and you will not be eternally separated. You will not hear these words - “depart from me you evil doers, into the fire prepared for the devil and his demons…”. You will stand in the congregation of the righteous.
Who and what is shaping your thinking? Where is your heart rooted?
Your eternal destiny depends upon an accurate , honest answer to this question !
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