Well let's turn to psalm number one this evening as we look at this wonderful psalm. As I said, no accident that this psalm is the first in the book of psalms. It's so crucial, so foundational, and it contains within its brief six verses so much, which is like a summary of the whole message of the scripture. And it starts in this way. Blessed is the man. Happy is the man. Fulfilled is the man. In a wonderful situation is the man. So the subject then of this psalm is a blessed man. Now, if you're anything like me, I grew up being taught the scriptures and reading them and having them read to me and hearing many sermons, but it was many, many years before I was saved. I once calculated that I thought I'd heard 4,000 messages in my life before I finally came to know the Lord Jesus Christ myself at the age of 16. And unfortunately that had the effect on me that I became a little bit jaundiced, a little bit inoculated against the Word. And if a preacher were to stand up and tell me a wonderfully exciting story, one of the narrative history accounts of the Scripture perhaps, then yes, I could listen. If someone were to stand up and come up with some fabulous illustration, very rich and exciting, then yes, I could listen. But if someone were to read to me a psalm, which didn't seem to have too much in it that was very exciting at first glance, and which had lots of religious words in it like blessed and law and righteousness and judgment, my tendency was to think, this might be a bit dull, this might be a bit boring. And I hope you don't feel the same way, but I understand if you do, because I myself would have felt that way myself once upon a time. But this psalm, Psalm 1, if you will just give me a chance, I will try to unfold it for you, I will try to show the deep and wonderful, thrilling excitement of these six verses. Now let's talk about a blessed man. What does a blessed man look like? What is the world's idea? What is your idea? What is the Bible's idea of a blessed man? Well, we might imagine a man who is quite elderly. He's in his 70s, 80s, 90s perhaps. He has a big grey beard and a head of shocking silver hair. But his health is still there, he's a strong man. And through his life he's built up a degree of property perhaps. Maybe he's been successful in business. Maybe he's been an influential man in his local town. Maybe he has a wife who still lives with him and is still healthy. A number of grown children, and his children also have been successful. They've gone to university and passed their exams and have very impressive careers as doctors and lawyers. and senior soldiers perhaps, and he has grandchildren. And maybe he has rocks and herds and properties and a home in Spain. Maybe he takes many holidays and is well looked up to. Maybe you'd say that's a blessed man. Well, maybe. Maybe. Maybe that is what this book has in mind when it says blessed. Certainly the person I've just described may be blessed in this context. But equally so, we could be talking about a six-year-old girl here. Blessed is the six-year-old girl. Or the forty-year-old widower. Or the teenager who has just come to know the Lord for themselves. Or even this blessed man could be someone who has lost everything, whose family has been taken away from him, whose property has been confiscated, whose months have been spent in prison and who is walking to the place of execution. Even such a man as that could fall under this description of blessed. We must understand what the scripture means by blessed. It can mean health and wealth and prosperity, of course. But it means far more than that. The first thing that it means, the most important blessing that any man could ever have, high above wealth and health and family, success and career, is salvation. This towers above everything else. If you do not have salvation, I don't want to see how you can possibly be called blessed. You could be the richest man in the world, but if you're going down to hell in a few years time, then you are not blessed. No way! Blessed is the man. We're talking about salvation here primarily, that is the key to this. But beyond that there are other blessings. There's the blessing of spiritual fruit. This man who is saved, this man who has had his sins forgiven and is on the road to heaven He's also seeing in his life the blessing of spiritual fruit. He reads his Bible and his Bible speaks to him. He prays to God in heaven and God hears his prayer. He works at the church and his work is fruitful. He prays for an improvement in character and he finds that he is characterized by love and joy and peace and long-suffering. This spiritual fruit is also a great blessing, but it cannot come without the blessing of salvation. Then there are the other blessings. They are far down the list, family blessings. It's wonderful to be blessed with children. If those children are healthy, if they are saved, of course that's a wonderful blessing. If you are healthy in yourself, if you don't have any financial worries, these things are all blessings as well. And they are blessings which God delights to give. but they are all very secondary to the primary blessing of salvation. Blessed is the man. Now this psalm is going to tell us what this man looks like, what he does not do and what he does do, what his life is like and where he is heading. But the psalm is also going to contrast the blessings of this righteous saved man with those of the ungodly. those who do not love God, those who do not serve God. So, first of all, we see in verse 1 here what this blessed man does not do. Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly. Let me explain. What is the counsel of the ungodly? Well, the counsel is simply the advice or the plan The tactics, if you like, of the ungodly. Who are the ungodly? Well, it's easy to work out who the ungodly are. If a man says to you, I don't believe in God, he's not very likely to be godly, is he? He's not very likely to be godlike. If a man says to you, I have no idea whether there's a god in heaven or not, again, that person is not a godly person. Those agnostics and atheists are very easy to spot. These are the ungodly. There are others, of course. There are others who are harder to spot because they claim to be religious. They claim to be followers of some religion or other. They talk about God as if they believe and follow him. But if you study God's Word, if you see what God's character is, if you become a student of these things, it's very easy for you to spot someone who is ungodly. Because they do not behave in the way God would like us to behave. And they do things which are offensive to God, and they delight in them. So these are the ungodly. And this blessed man does not walk in the advice, he does not live his life by the plan of people who do not believe in God. Now here we have to challenge ourselves. We have to ask ourselves the question, whose plan are we following in our lives? As we go about our day-by-day duties, as we have lived our lives over the last few years, whose advice have we been following? Who have we looked to for guidance? Who do we look up to? Who are our heroes? Who are our role models? Are they the ungodly? Or are they the godly? Because blessed is the man who does not have ungodly role models, who does not follow the world. Now, I don't need to tell anyone here that we live in an ungodly age. We know that all of the newspapers are written, 99.9% of them, by ungodly people. By people who are not Christians, who do not follow the plan of the Bible. We know that our politicians, very largely, do not love the Lord God. We know that the films that we watch, the cartoons that we watch, the books and novels that we read, for the most part, if we just go and randomly pick one off the shelf, will not be written by Christians. Now let's not be naive about this. These people show us a plan. They give us counsel, and they are ungodly. If you watch a film produced by Hollywood, you know what the hero is going to be like. He is going to have multiple partners. Hollywood is saying to us, this is good, this is fun, have lots and lots of girlfriends. That will make you happy. The hero may well be rich and wealthy. He'll wear spectacular clothes that cost a lot of money. He'll be dressed very neatly. He'll drive an expensive car. He'll live in a fabulous house. And that is the ungodly telling us that these things are good and healthy and wonderful. Now, are we going to walk in the council of those ungodly people? Are we going to say, yes, this is my route to happiness. Multiple relationships, a lovely home, a wonderful wardrobe. If I could be rich, then I would be happy. That is the counsel of the ungodly. You have a very stark choice. Are you going to follow God's way, or are you going to follow the world's way? They are so different. There are almost no similarities. And yes, by nature, we are going to go along with the world, because that's what everybody else is doing. We are going to be conformed to the world, as Romans puts it. We are going to become like the world. But this psalm, the very first verse in the book of Psalms said, blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners. Well the way, the road, the path of sinners is that broad way which leads to destruction, isn't it? We know that. The way of sinners is very heavily populated. In fact, if you stand in the way of sinners, it must be quite similar to standing in the middle of the M1 at rush hour, with all of those people rushing past you. The way of sinners is heavily populated. Are you standing in that way? Are you on that road which leads to destruction? Are you going with the crowds and with the flow? Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. There's a development here. You know, those ungodly people, they're just ordinary folks. They're not the worst ones. They're not the robbers and the pedophiles and the murderers. They're just ordinary unbelievers. And so, to take their counsel might not seem like a very bad thing, but it leads in a terrible direction. You see a development in this first verse, from walking to standing in the way of sinners. It's almost like you're having fellowship with these people now. You are comfortable rubbing shoulders with them. You enjoy their company. You go along with their conversation. None of it grates. None of it makes you feel uncomfortable. No, that's where you feel planted. That's where you feel at home, by standing in the way of sinners. But it leads further and further down the road away from God, until you get to this place where you're sitting in the seat of the scornful. These scornful ones are much worse. These are the ones who bang the drum of atheism. These are the ones that go out and form humanist societies and hassle religious people. These are the ones that actually lobby Parliament to get laws made. These scorners, they say that you believe in God? You fool! Religion is a virus. It's an opium of the people. Religion is a vile, foolish thing, outmoded and outdated. It's for prehistoric human beings. It's for pre-scientific age people. And anyone who still believes it now when the test tube and the Hansen burner and the microscope and all of the marvellous telescopes that we've built prove that there is no God. These are the scorners. What kind of state have you got to? if you sit down with them, if you listen to their foolish lies, if you listen to their ridiculous arguments, if you enjoy their company. Where have you got to if you sit before your television screen listening to the men laughing and joking about how foolish religion is, and it doesn't make you feel uncomfortable. If you're able to sit with those who blaspheme the name of God without feeling at all angry, or as though you want to leave their company immediately. No, blessed, saved, on the right track is the man who does none of those things. Can you see, in this one verse, the Lord, through his author of scripture here, showing us so clearly what a separation there needs to be. For the man who would be after God's own heart, For the one who would find the way of salvation, for the one who would please the God in heaven, he must leave behind the world, all its foolish philosophies. Even the simple ones of this world, who simply don't believe in God, they seem harmless enough. No, even those who must come away from their counsel, who must not walk in the road with them, who must not live our lives the way they do. Here is the great contrast there. in verse 2. But, contrary to these things that he doesn't do, this is what the blessed man does. Verse 2. His delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth he meditate day and night. Law? The blessed man is a lawyer, is he? Why is he studying the law? Well, this word law, as we know, It does mean, in its widest context, the whole of the word of God. But of course, when this psalm was written, there was no New Testament, there were none of the later prophets, there were mainly just the laws and the early books. But this blessed man had made it his task to study these things. He knew. It's the easiest thing in the world to go along with his neighbors and with the ungodly in his family, just to follow his society and see where that took him. But he had made a conscious decision that he was not going to do that. He wasn't going to follow the world's plan, he was going to follow God's plan. And where does he find God's plan? He finds it in God's law, in God's word. So he comes to God's word and he treats it with all diligence, with great care, and with great delight. And his law of God makes this blessed man happy. And he studies it day and night. He's not content with reading it once a day. He's not content with hearing it preached once on a Sunday, and maybe at a Bible study. No, he studies it day and night, and he meditates on it. When he's not actually reading it, he's thinking about it. When he's on the bus, on the way to work, when he's falling asleep at night, his mind is turning over the Word, the Law of God. in his head. He is remembering what God wants. He is trying to understand what God is like. He is fixing his eyes on what he ought to be like. He is reading God's plan and diligently following it. You can't follow both plans. You can't be in the counsel of the ungodly and follow in the counsel of the law of God. They are going in completely the opposite direction. And the blessed man chooses correctly. He chooses God's plan. Well, we've been studying, over the last few weeks in our Bible study, through Exodus. We've seen God's plan for his people as he took them out of Egypt. In the last couple of weeks, we've been looking at the Ten Commandments. And if you missed those studies, they are available on our website. But we saw very clearly that God's laws what he is like. And also, as well as showing us what he is like, they instruct us as to what we ought to be like. So, for example, when he says, thou shalt not bear false witness, thou shalt not lie, he is saying, I am a God of truth, and therefore I hate untruth. I am a God who keeps my promises, and therefore I hate those who break their promises. I am a God whose word can be trusted completely. There is never any lie to pass my lips, and I want you to be the same. And so he writes the law, thou shalt not lie. It shows us what he is like. It also shows us what we ought to be like. We ought to be those who abhor untruth. No exaggeration, no little white lies, no lying to be kind. That's what we ought to be like. This is God's law, his way for us. The ungodly though, they have a different plan. They say no lying is good. Lying is a helpful thing. Lying is kind and loving. You can lie to your girlfriend and tell her that she looks nice, even when she doesn't. You can lie to your wife and tell her that you enjoyed the meal you've just eaten, even though you didn't enjoy it. These things are kind. You can lie to keep people from being hurt. That is the counsel of the ungodly. And it is the opposite of the law of God. These things are very simple and straightforward, aren't they? You either follow the world's way of doing things, or you follow God's way of doing things. And if you do follow God's way of doing things, then you will be like this blessed one. Whether you are a six-year-old girl or a 100-year-old man, you can be blessed in this way. But the way of being blessed is to delight in the law of God, to study it, to read it, to understand it. And if you are like this blessed man, Well, there is a wonderful blessing for you here in verse 3. You should be like a tree planted by the rivers of water. There are a couple of things you need to spot immediately here. First of all, that word planted, it actually means transplanted. This tree did not germinate by the rivers of water. It grew up in some other place, in a dry and dusty land where there was less water, where it was in an inconvenient situation. But it has been transplanted, put in a place where it will thrive and prosper and be much better provided for. And where is this place? By the rivers of water. Not just by one river, but by rivers. in a place where it will know all of its needs to be provided. How wonderful. Who transplanted that tree and moved it there? Who took it from the place where it was suffering to the place where it was prospering? Well, we know, don't we? This is salvation. This is a picture of our souls being woken up, being taken from captivity and being moved to places where we can be fed by the streams of living water, by him who called himself the living water, the Lord Jesus Christ. He shall be like a tree, planted, transplanted to the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season, his leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. What an extraordinary promise. Can this really be? Can it be that he will not only bear his fruit, and not only will his lease come out at the right time, not only will he know spiritual increase and advance in his religion, but whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. Does this mean that every time a Christian gets married and goes into a marriage, that marriage will prosper? Does it mean that every time a Christian starts a business, that business will flourish and prosper? Does it mean that every time a Christian becomes a parent, that their children will automatically be all saved and healthy and blessed? Is that what it means when it says, whatsoever he doeth shall prosper? Well, no, actually. Actually, it means something even better than those things. It doesn't mean that they'll prosper in health matters alone, or in finance matters alone, or in matters of the heart alone. It means Now you may say, oh you're just playing with words now. Now you're just twisting these things to say that a promise doesn't say what it means. I want to prosper in my business. I want to prosper in my family. Good, fine. But I tell you, you'll gain the whole world here, have the most wonderful children, have perfect health all of your life, you're still going to die at the end of it. Wouldn't you like something far better? Wouldn't you like eternal wealth? Wouldn't you like to have a body that was incorruptible, that lasts for all eternity? Wouldn't you like the riches of heaven? Wouldn't you like to rule with Jesus Christ? Wouldn't you like that perfect happiness which comes when Christ Jesus has wiped away the tears from every eye and there is no more sin or tiredness or disease? That bliss and happiness that we will experience in the next life is infinitely above any blessing we can see in this life. And please don't think I'm playing with words, because the Word of God says that all things will work together for good to those that love God. And this verse says the same thing. Whatsoever that blessed, righteous, saved man will do, will prosper, even if he goes out to preach the gospel in Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, even if he goes out to give a Bible to somebody in a land where the Bible is banned, and he gets taken into prison, and he gets executed, even that. Well, prosperity? You may not think so. You may say, well how can you possibly say that being thrown in a disgusting jail and beaten and maltreated and executed can be prospering by any sense of the word? Of course it is. Will the Lord be any man's debtor? Those martyrs, they do go to heaven. And they are blessed. And they do go and see their saviour, which is far better. They are prospered and they are used. But look at verse 4, the ungodly are not so. Here comes another contrast. Here we have the blessed man bringing forth his fruit in his season and being prospered in everything that he does, but the ungodly are not so. What are they like? They are like chaff, which the wind blows away. You know what chaff is? You go into the fields at the end of the summer, and you pick yourself an ear of corn, and there are some grains in there, and those grains are useful and healthy, and they can be made into bread and other products, but they are surrounded by husks and dry things. which you cannot eat, so you rub your hands together, and as you rub your hands together the chaff and the husks are separated and the seeds come out, and the seeds are heavier, so you blow your palm of your hand, and the chaff, the horrible bitty bits that would get caught in your teeth if you were to eat them, they blow away. Those things are useless, they are worse than useless, they're a nuisance, and you want to be rid of them, and you blow them away and all that remains is that healthful, youthful fruit. useful fruit, the corn, the grains themselves. That's what the ungodly are like. They are not the valuable grain. They are the useless, worthless, chaff, lighter than air, good only to be thrown into the fire or to be scattered to the fair winds. You see the contrast here? This blessed man is full of fruit. spiritual fruit. How many times did the Lord Jesus Christ come and see a tree and explain that he is looking, using this metaphor, at a fruit-bearing tree. We are here to bear fruit for him. But the ungodly are not fruitful. They are rubbish. They are waste products. They are things which need to be thrown to the wind. Could there be a greater contrast? Which would you rather be, my friend? Blessed and fruitful? or ungodly chaff which the wind driveth away. So we see the nature of the ungodly. But what is their end? There it is in verse 5, this is where they are heading. The ungodly shall not stand in the judgment. Why? Well it says at the beginning of the verse, therefore, because they are chaff, because they are not valuable fruit, they will not stand in the judgment. They will not stand in that congregation of the righteous. What is this congregation of the righteous? Well, on the last day, there will be all of those who have put their trust in Christ. There they will be rejoicing on their lips. They will see their Saviour and their voice will go up and they will be gathered amongst the saints up into heaven. But the ungodly will not be in that congregation. That congregation of the righteous, who are righteous through the Lord Jesus Christ. They will be in another congregation, in that congregation of Satan, who are going down into the pits for all eternity. That is their end. They will not stand on the day of judgement, says verse 5. They are worthless to God. For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous. Doesn't he know the way of the ungodly? Yes he does. But that's not what this verse means. It means something more just than understanding and seeing. We spoke this morning about how God sees the work of all men. He looks into our hearts because he is the one who has the fire in his eyes. But this knowing the way of the righteous is much more intimate. This is our friend, our saviour, the one who loves our soul, our God who cares for us. He is our partner in many ways. He hears our prayers. We have been united with him. We are heirs with Christ, joint heirs with Christ. And so, when that verse 6 there says, the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous, that is a wonderful blessing. If you are one of these righteous, the Lord knows your way and you know him. You know the Lord Jesus Christ. That's one of the phrases that we sometimes use to mean born again. Do you know the Lord? Does the Lord know you in that special way? But the way of the ungodly shall perish. all of those tricks that they employ in this world to get us to see things their way. Well, by nature, we are like them until the Lord changes us. But that way, that way of the ungodly is the way which leads to perishing, to judgment, to the eternal death. My friend, which way are you walking? Are you following the counsel of the ungodly? Do you drink in the television programmes? Do you copy your colleagues at work and at school? Do you follow the fashions of this world? Do you read the magazines to see how you ought to be behaving? Do you look to your unconverted relatives? Do you live the way the ungodly live? Or do you search God's word day and night There's that wonderful verse which I've already quoted in Romans. Be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. And how is your mind renewed? By the reading of God's Word. By the application of the Holy Spirit. That is the way of salvation. As you read God's Word, you see that you are a sinner. You see that nothing you can do can be acceptable to him. But you can stand in the congregation of the righteous. How? If the Lord takes you and, as it were, transplants your soul, moves you from being a sinner and an ungodly one to being a righteous one. Nobody by nature delights in the law of the Lord. Everyone wants to follow the way of the ungodly. But if you come to the Lord Jesus Christ this evening and ask him to change your life, he will make that fundamental switch. And you can become one of these blessed men or women or boys or girls. a wonderful life, fruitful, bringing forth your fruit in your season and being prospered in all that you do. Isn't that so much better than the way of the ungodly which shall perish? Amen.