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TWO MEN
TEXT: Psalms 1:1-6 INTRODUCTION: A young paratrooper received 4 instructions for his 1st jump: 1. Jump when youre told. 2. Count to 10 & pull the ripcord. 3. If your main chute doesnt work, pull the emergency ripcord. 4. When you land, a truck will take you back to the base. The young soldier memorized these instructions & climbed aboard the plane. The plane climbed to 10,000 feet. The paratroopers began to jump. When a sergeant told the young soldier to jump, he jumped. He counted to 10 & pulled the ripcord. Nothing happened! His chute didnt open! So he pulled the emergency ripcord! It didnt open either! He was near panic. He thought to himself, Oh great, the truck probably wont be there either! The two men of Psalm 1 are placed in sharp contrast. y One man is OBEDIENT to Gods Word; One man is DISOBEDIENT to Gods Word. y One lives a God-centered life. The other lives a self-centered life. y One receives His blessings; the other is facing His judgment. The contrast is vividly seen by bringing together the first and the last words of this Psalm blessed and perish. y Blessed means happy to be on a road that leads to ultimate joy. y Perish means to be lost to be on a road that leads nowhere and to ultimate ruin. THE MAN WHO IS OBEDIENT TO GODS LAW 1. THE WALK: V. 1 Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. y Walking is a reference to the decisions that must be made all day long. Walking is a series of steps. y Standing is a picture of the commitments we make to various causes. y Sitting is a picture of the settled attitudes of the heart. y With each parallel there is an intensity with which the Blessed man lives. y Walk in the counsel----------------Eph 6:2 We are seated with Him in Heavenly Places y Stand in the way--------------------Eph. 6:11 We stand against the wiles of the Devil y Sit in the seat------------------------Eph 5:8 We are to walk as Children of the Light He does not live by the motto: everybody else is doing it. He rejects the thinking, the values, and the lifestyle of those who have left God out of their lives. Consider the meaning of the terms found in verse 1: WICKED: does not mean what we might think it means murderers, rapists, drug pushers, gangsters. It simply means UNGODLY: According to a recent Barna research poll, this characterizes 63% believe that cheating is alright if it will help you.

SINNER: This word, "sinner" means "to miss the mark." As Josh McDowell has pointed out in his recent book, Beyond Belief to Convictions, what you believe ultimately determines your values and your values drive your behavior. Since the ungodly persons values come from the world rather than the Word, he or she ends up missing the mark of Gods standards for life. MOCKER: A mocker is a person who goes even further. This is a person whose not only disobeys God, but he has come to the point where he is openly antagonistic and opposed to God (whom he claims does not exist). He laughs at everything that is holy and sacred. He ridicules people who believe in God. Our society is more and more filled with mockers. They are often the elite, influential people of our nation, who are hostile toward God and His Son Jesus Christ. They hate and oppose those who stand up for biblical morality. Many of them dress in the robes of justice, but mock righteousness and true justice and bring reproach upon our nation. Others dress in religious robes, but publicly ridicule the Bible and the standards of Gods Word. 2. HIS INFLUENCE: But his delight is in the law of the LORD, And in His law he meditates day and night. The godly man is influenced not by unrighteous people but by his meditation on the Word of God. Such meditation necessarily involves study and retention. This is possible only if he has a desire to do so, here referred to as a delight. The psalmists found direction, not drudgery, from the Law of God. 3. THE PAY OFF: He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers. The man who take their delight in living by Gods Word, there is prosperity. Under the image of a fruitful tree, the psalmist declared that whatever the righteous do will prosper. Two qualifications need to be noted. 1. The fruit, that is, the prosperity, is produced in its season and not necessarily immediately after planting. 2. What the godly man does will be controlled by the Law of God (1:2). So if a man meditates on Gods Word, his actions will be godly, and his God-controlled activities will prosper, that is, come to their divinely directed fulfillment. II. THE MAN WHO IS DISOBEDIENT TO GODS LAW I. THE WALK: The ungodly man, the self-centered man, thinks he can work out his life, independent of God and that the standards of Gods Word are not necessary. The Holy Spirit uses a graphic expression to describe the ungodly in verse 4: The ungodly are not so. They are like chaff that the wind blows away

3 The Hebrew word r is often translated wicked: can be refered to as GROSS EVIL. Here is what you need to see: A man described by r is not in a covenant relationship with God; he live according to his own passions. He is not godly. He may do kind and charitable deeds, but Gods evaluation of him is that he is without eternal merit. The psalmist compared them to chaff, the worthless husks of the grain blown away by the wind in the process of winnowing. Do you see the vast contrast with the fruitful, valuable, righteous person? That is Gods evaluation of a life that has no room for Him. It is like chaff. II. THE INFLUENCE: SATAN /WORLD That man may be impressive in the eyes of the world. He may have a beautiful home. He may drive a nice car. He may receive the applause of the world. He may be one of the rich and the famous in the world. But in Gods evaluation, his life is just wasted time; it is worthless like chaff that the wind drives away. Because he is not fulfilling the purpose for which God put him in this world. III. THE PAY OFF: 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. To Stand in the Judgment: means not able to rise above it, not able to make good. y y y Sinners: The guilty Congregation: Assembly Righteous: Just men

The basis for judgment is the knowledge that the Lord has of each man. 1. The LORD watches over (knows) the way of the righteous, is best understood by the antithetical parallelism, 2. The way of the wicked will perish. Salvation in the day of judgment is equated with being known by the Lord (Matt. 7:23I never knew youto learn to know a person through direct personal experience, implying a continuity of relationship). In Psalm 1:6 the way of the righteous is contrasted with the way of the wicked. The way means ones whole manner of life including what directs it and what it produces. The worthless life of the ungodly will not endure.