Some time back I gave
some advice to another individual that he would profit by reading the Psalms
and memorizing passages in it that would help him. I ended up taking my own advice and began
memorizing passages that had special meaning to me and thought I would start
sharing them over time in a series of posts.
I begin with Psalms 1:1-2:
"Blessed is the man who walks not in the
counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat
of the scornful; but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and in His law he
meditates day and night." (NKJV)
To really get a good
grasp on a passage it is often good to read it from more than one translation
so I want to quote the passage here from two other versions—the New Revised
Standard Version and the New Living Translation.
"Happy are those who do not follow the advice
of the wicked, or take the path that sinners tread, or sit in the seat of
scoffers; but their delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law they
meditate day and night." (NRSV)
"Oh, the joys of those who do not follow the
advice of the wicked, or stand around with sinners, or join in with
mockers. But they delight in the law of
the LORD, meditating on it day and night." (NLT)
The Old Testament Hebrew
word translated "blessed"
or "happy" in this passage
("joys" in the NLT) means,
according to the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, happy or favored. The Hebrew can legitimately be rendered
"happy" according to most commentators. It is not a state of emotional ecstasy as in
"I am so, so happy" but a state of being in which one could say he has
been blessed by being saved from all the troubles and trials sinners bring upon
themselves unnecessarily by the lives they live.
It is the kind of
blessing or happiness that one can easily fail to recognize for it is related
to things like peace, contentment, and joy rather than the momentary and
fleeting ecstasy that a single solitary joyous event might bring on. It has permanence. It is an abiding quiet type of happiness that
lies deep within the soul.
There are things a godly
person will never experience which are wonderful blessings within
themselves. The godly person is not
going to experience the loss of love of a loving wife and children because of
his cheating on his wife. He is not
going to experience anger and bitterness against himself because of his
deceitfulness, lying, and slander. People
are not going to avoid him and disrespect him because of his vulgarity, his
foul mouth. He will not be known as an
unloving, unkind, and bitter man. Because
we do not walk in the counsel of the ungodly nor stand in the path of sinners
or sit in the seat of the scornful and we do follow God's counsel we miss the
trouble, pain, and sorrow that comes as a direct result of ungodliness.
If we want to enjoy this
blessing then we cannot walk in the counsel of the ungodly. Who we associate with and whose counsel we
take can make all the difference in the world.
"Do not be deceived: 'Evil
company corrupts good habits.'" (1 Cor. 15:33 NKJV) Good parents have always been concerned about
the company their teenage children keep and with good scriptural reason to back
it up. It is just a fact if you hang
around with the wrong people long enough and get into a close relationship with
them it is going to rub off on you. Run
with the wrong crowd, avoid the righteous, and it will catch up with you in due
time.
There are people out in
the world whose advice or counsel needs to be ignored for it is ungodly and
ultimately leads to suffering and sorrow.
Gross ungodliness is easy enough to recognize but ungodliness today is
often cloaked in what the world perceives to be a mantle of righteousness and
can easily draw the uninformed into its grasp.
Paul said, "And no wonder! For
Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his
ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness, whose end
will be according to their works." (2 Cor. 11:14-15 NKJV)
Homosexual marriage is
the latest such thing. The Bible is
clear that homosexual relationships are ungodly but the counsel of the wicked
says it is bigoted, unloving, and intolerant even unchristian to prohibit these
relationships. Two generations ago when
my grandparents were still living and my parents were yet young all recognized
this sin as immorality. Now days it is
unloving and bigoted to be critical and some mainstream denominations are
beginning to accept gay marriage as righteousness. We cast the word of God aside and say
society, not God, is the ultimate judge of godliness, righteousness, or
whatever similar term you wish to use.
It seems crazy but who can deny but what we are doing that today?
When I was growing up it
was still immoral and frowned upon for a person to leave their husband or
wife. Now days you can have 3, 4, or 5
marriages, all unscriptural, and nobody bats an eye. In fact, marriage itself is now optional,
just move in together. Adultery in
America means nothing to anyone except it seems to the spouse against whom it
was committed and to Christians who still refuse to take the advice of the
ungodly and who have not been deceived by the one who has transformed himself
into an angel of light.
What I am getting at is
that it is becoming harder all the time, especially for the young and immature,
to discern good from evil, godliness from ungodliness, in a secular and
politically correct world where these false ministers of righteousness have
gained sway over the public mind. I know
of one case where a woman who attends denominational services on a regular
basis, an educated woman, gave her son and his girlfriend a hotel room for the
weekend to relax. Can you imagine? But that is the world we live in today and
people do not seem to be able to distinguish godliness from ungodliness. Fornication is no longer considered to be ungodliness
or sin but just an accepted part of growing up in America in the times in which
we live.
What will become of
those who give ungodly counsel? "Woe to those who call evil good, and good
evil; Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; Who put bitter for
sweet, and sweet for bitter!" (Isa. 5:20 NKJV) If you can make wickedness look good and make
it seem to be the charitable and reasonable thing to do and make the Bible
appear to be outdated, bound to ancient societies long since buried in history,
leaving the word with little to no applicability for today then it is all the
easier to get people to walk in ungodly counsel, especially the young who lack
life experience. People today are being
poisoned against God's counsel.
Anything that draws
boundaries that makes a clear cut line between right and wrong is considered
judgmental today no matter how many scriptures you can quote to uphold a
doctrine. Why? Because Satan has done his work and
discredited a conservative reading of the scriptures. People have lost faith that the word of God
means what it literally says or that they will have to give an account to a God
who will hold them accountable. "Why do the wicked renounce God? He has said
in his heart, "You will not require an account." (Psalms 10:13
NKJV)
The only way to know
what constitutes ungodliness is by knowing what the Bible says and believing it
but when people reach the point that their faith has been destroyed in the word
what then? "If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?"
(Psalms 11:3 NKJV) I find it interesting
that the Psalmist David left the question unanswered for I think we all know
instinctively the answer. We are getting
close to the point in America where the foundations will have been destroyed in
terms of faith in the word of God as having any real meaning for us as a guide
for daily life.
The great desire in our
time is to have every religion known to man serve as a route to eternal
salvation. That is why the Bible can no
longer be accepted by modern liberal thinkers for it says, "Nor is there salvation in any other, for
there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved."
(Acts 4:12 NKJV) We have gone from one
church is as good as another, which was never true as Christ only built one
church, to the point now where one religion is as good as another. Where does it end? Again, I think we all know the answer to that
question as well.
Note the progression
towards ungodliness in this passage in Psalms 1. First you take counsel of the ungodly, next
you become one with him taking his side, standing with him, and finally you
become scornful of righteousness, you are now the one giving out ungodly
counsel yourself. As the expression goes
"who woulda thunk it" when you first started down that road. Ungodliness leads to more ungodliness. Paul says, "But evil men and impostors will grow worse and worse, deceiving and
being deceived." (2 Tim. 3:13 NKJV)
One can become hardened
by the deceitfulness of sin. "But exhort one another daily, while it is
called 'TODAY,' lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin."
(Heb. 3:13 NKJV) This passage has always
scared me for it tells me such a thing can happen and if it happens to a person
what then? You no longer care. How can you repent?
At the close of this
first Psalm David says, "Therefore
the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of
the righteous. For the LORD knows the
way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish."
(Psalms 1:5-6 NKJV)
The good news is there
is a blessed man in this Psalm, the one who ignores the wicked and ungodly, who
will not take their advice, nor stand with them, nor sit in their seat, "But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and
in His law he meditates day and night." (Psalms 1:2 NKJV)
People who are not faithful
Christians cannot understand how a person could delight in the law of the Lord
nor how a person could be interested enough to meditate on it day and
night. When my Dad died he did not leave
me a book he had written to me, for me.
I wish he had. If I had such a
book I would rejoice in it and read it and reread it and reread it again and
think about it often. I would find great
joy in that.
God our eternal father
has left us all a book and while that book is for all mankind it is also
personally written to each one of us as individual children of his, or at least
we can be his children if we will. This
is his letter to us, his way of communicating with us, the only thing we have
that truly contains his thoughts, tells us of his love, reveals his nature, and
tells us what he wants us to do, and what our future will be like.
God is going to take
care of you and make you eternally happy, at least that is his desire. Why would you not want to read about that and
meditate on it? Why would you not take
an intense interest in what he has to say to you in his word? Why would you not delight in it? Speaking on a personal level it is the one
place I have found peace in my life. I
cannot tell you how that works, you will have to get to the point where you
experience it for yourself, but there is peace to be found in reading and
meditating on the word of God.
There is no space here
for me to go on for there is too much to say about the value the word of God
has to every man who is willing to reach down and pick his Bible up and begin
the long journey of learning about God.
The 119th Psalm will tell you all about the word and its value. Read it.
But, until you have time to do that remember there is a blessed man in
the world—the one who heeds Psalms 1:1-2.
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