Well, let's jump in this Word. We're in the Psalms right now. We're up to chapter 20 in our reading, but that means we got a pile that we can work with. Let's start with Psalm 1. Psalm 1. It's got good news in it, huh? Well, it says, therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment. There's a bunch of, we just got through talking about the ungodly. Yeah, he mentions the ungodly four times in here. He starts off with it in verse number one, where he says, blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly. And that simply is those that operate and function every day without God. That's the idea. You can be a upstanding person in world standards, but still be ungodly just because you're without the Lord. And that leads into taking a stand with that which misses the mark with God and those who do, meaning, because you can't see rightly without the Lord. And you can get to the place where you become a mocker, a scorner. And this is levels. You see levels here. You see people without God, people who gonna do life their way, but they're not problematic people and not gonna cause you any trouble. And then they got the troublemakers who are gonna mock and scorn and attempt to overthrow those that don't stand with them. And then you see in verse four, the ungodly are not so. They're unlike the righteous, blessed man who is seeking after the Lord and delighting in the Lord. And there, and he tells us because they won't stand in the judgment. They won't have any room to stand and plead their cause or plead their, they have be without any kind of excuses. You know, they're gonna be driven away and cast away. They won't be able to celebrate, you know. Well, he does. He says, therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. So it goes on. He uses sinners twice, the ungodly four times, and he don't bring up the scornful again, but that once. But it includes all. If you're a sinner without God, you're ungodly. And if you are a scorner, you're a sinner, and without God. So it goes without saying, this implies to every one of them. Meaning, anybody without God is not going to be able to stand. So many people down today think that they can, well, I ain't really a bad sinner. I'm just a transvestite, you know. That's not, nobody's calling these things that we saw it there, sin. they'll talk about how bad it is or how they they don't want guys to play in girls sports and they don't want this but they just don't nobody just lets it down and say that's sin. And what you what you have is a misunderstanding and a misdirecting of what sin is and creating a standard that is based on personal preferences and opinions, but no real solid standard on what's right and what's wrong. So when somebody's doing something and they consistently doing it, they say, well, look, it's not that bad. I mean, I'm not harming anyone. This is just a personal thing for me. This is what I like and what I do, but it has no, I'm not hurting another person. I'm not stealing from another person. I'm not taking from somebody else. I'm not murdering people. I'm not antagonistic of other people. Just leave me alone and let me do what I want to do. And they say, from that perspective, their judgment of a standard is based on their own standards. And then when society standards keep slipping further and further away as a whole, you have no moral bearing to work from. And that's just how the enemy wants to do. Chapter 12 talked about it. Look in chapter 12, how he describes what goes on. And these first 20 Psalms, I mean, there's so much that describes just everyday living and life. And in chapter 12, notice how he says in verse number eight, The wicked, and we know what does that mean, the wrong, and why they're wrong? Because they're not right with God. What do they do? They prowl. It's like a lurking lion prowling to take advantage of a prey, a predator. The wicked prowl on every single side. They circle in the camp. When what? Vileness. is exalted among the sons of men. Now the sons of men are the ungodly. There's a difference between the sons of God and the sons of men. The sons of men are the ungodly. So among the ungodly, when vileness is elevated, which it is, I mean, like we talked about, you can't turn on the TV or radio or go to a theme park, whether it be Six Flags or Disney World or just walk through the streets of Sumter County or Kemper County or Lauderdale County, vileness is elevated. The word exalt means to lift up as a way of life. So when vileness is elevated, as a way of living, the wicked will prowl on every side. They just encircle that in just awaiting the pounce upon the opportunities that are ripe and right. It's kind of like a lion. You know, when you go to, these guys go over to the safari and they go on these hunts and they usually don't have a problem with the lions and things like that in the daylight. It's normally at night when they start creeping in and can slip in, but if a lion gets a taste of that freedom of attack and coming into a camp, he's going to keep coming back until they got to put him down. They're going to have to hunt him and find him because he's just going to keep killing. And that picture of how when they kill these antelope or they kill these wildebeest, you know, when they skin these things out, you know, they get rid of the carcass or go hang it somewhere else away from the camp. why that old stench from that rotten flesh is drawing in them hyenas and everything else, them cheetahs and all that are going to come in and if you kept that in the camp, that aroma is going to pull them in. They're going to fight to come in and get it. That's how they survive. We see the wickets like that, they prowling, they looking, they looking, they smelling the stench of vileness and the scripture is pretty clear for us and that's where Blessed is the man that don't walk in that same council. A council would be the advice that the ungodly give. And that's why we have to be careful of the intake, what we put in, because what we put in is gonna get out. It's like seed coming into the body, it's gonna grow. And everything's competing to grow. So the ungodly, those that without God, the scripture says the blessed man is the one who doesn't walk or live according to his counsel, the advice that they give as a way of life, meaning never seeking the Lord, never seeking the Lord. Another Psalm which is way in the book, but 119, notice how all these things help for us to get a view. 119, 155, which is something we reference pretty often because it says so much, it speaks, Remember, the wicked are those who are not right with God, and it's as simple as it, you can make it, they're wrong. Doesn't mean they can be harmful, but they are, even though they don't think they are, because what they're doing, they are telling other people that it's okay to live life without seeking the Lord, that you can live life without depending upon the Lord. are going to Him, and that's dangerous. See, but they don't think that's dangerous. Why? Because they don't think nothing's wrong with the way that they live. So he says here, salvation, and that is deliverance. Anything associated with salvation. The saving work, the grace of God, the delivering. Salvation is far from the wicked. That is, there's nothing associated with salvation that is connected to those that are not right with God. You just don't see God on them. You don't see the effects of what grace does in our life. You know, grace teaches us to run to the Lord, to depend upon the Lord, to trust in the Lord, to call on the Lord. Grace teaches us to say no to us and say yes to Jesus. Those things are associated with salvation. Forgiveness. Remember, God forgives us that we will fear Him and we'll give place to Him. That's in Psalm 130 and verse 4. So when you don't see people fearing God, that's somebody functioning in life without the forgiveness of God. And when there's no forgiveness, there can't be any fruitfulness of the Lord. You don't see no fruit coming off of their life that would identify with the works of God's salvation in their life. So he's telling us, you can recognize the wicked and the righteous because the righteous, remember, he's like a tree. planted by the rivers of water. And his leaves produce. He's an evergreen. because he's tapped into a water source. And his leaves shall come forth in their season. Whatever they do, they prosper in that walk. But here it says salvation is far from the wicked. Why? As a way of life, they do not seek your statutes. They just don't seek the Lord. That is not connected to them in their journey. You just don't see it. Right. There's that love's not working. What's in the world? What's what's the world? What does he say? The lust of? Right, right. You see, and that's, you don't see the associated work of the Father at work in those people's lives. Now, our flesh is still connected with this old world. So there's still gonna be a battle with us, but see, the wicked don't have the battle. There's not a war going on within them that's constantly teaching them to say, no, that has an appeal to the eye, but God's got another way for us. David talked about it in Psalm 18. Look in Psalm 18. how he said God was separating him from his transgressions. That's that associated work of saving grace. Psalm 18, look in verse number 20. I'll just start reading there. When somebody thinks about David, what do they normally say? A man after God's own heart. He was known because he sought God. That's a righteous man. known for seeking the Lord, not flawless, sinless life, but a single-minded life that even when they fail, they were seeking God. And as the scripture says in 37, the steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, and though we fall, God picks him up. Here's David, he says in verse 20, the Lord rewarded me. according to my righteousness." Now David is going to tell us in mid he didn't have any righteousness of his own his righteousness come from the Lord that is he rewarded him for his faith. That's the idea because remember faith is accounted as righteousness in God's world when you believe him that's righteousness, that's the blessed man. where he says, according to the cleanness of my hands. Why? Because who was keeping him clean? Who was doing this work? God was doing this. Notice, he has recompensed me. That is, he's blessed me with light. He's blessed me with his life. He's shown me the path. Verse 21, for I've kept the ways of the Lord and have not wickedly or wrongly departed from my God for all his judgments were laid before me. That is, he gave me his ways and I did not put away his statutes from me. I was also blameless before him and notice I kept myself from what? Okay, readily admitting that he still had iniquity, that inward motive to do wrong in him. but God gave him light and instead of yielding to himself he took a hold of God's light and walked in it. That's the war, that's the battle every believer deals with on a daily basis. You got the natural man wanting to push you and then you got the Spirit wanting to guide you and fill you and David says God put His ways before me, and instead of yielding to myself, now there were times He yielded to Himself, and God dealt with Him on it, but characteristically, what did He do? He took a hold of what God had before Him. And that's what He goes on to say, verse 23, I was also blameless before Him, and I kept myself from my iniquity, therefore the Lord has recompensed me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands. So you see that what he's finding there is that he had issues that he knew he had weaknesses that were within him, like everybody. But he knew where his strength was at. His strength was in the Lord and the Lord's way. So he dealt with the issues just like we all deal with them. Now the neat thing about it is that Jesus was tempted and he never yielded. David yielded. We've all yielded. Jesus never yielded. Right, that's the thing here. Right here He's telling us that there were times I didn't repent but God's rewarded me trusting Him, me believing in Him and me taking His way rather than my way. Jesus never gave in to the temptation and therefore, his victory over the test then is applied to our life because we're flawed. We have not 100% perfectly overcome the temptations. We yield to it but see his example, what was Jesus' example? Exactly what David did. What did David do? He turned to the Lord. What did Jesus do? He stayed with the Lord. He never had to turn away from the Lord, because he never turned away from him, never had to turn back to him, but he stayed with him the whole time. We turn away and we got to turn back, back to his example again. So all these Psalms, when we pile them together like that and begin to look at them in all these different angles, man, they speak. They help us. They give us a view of men, Notice in 17, look in Psalm 17, look in verse number 13. Notice how he describes this. 17, 13, and 14. To me, this is such a vivid picture. He says, arise, O Lord, confront him, cast him down, deliver my life from my sin. the wicked with your sword. Deliver my life from the wicked. Okay, we know who that is, the wrong. With your hand from men. Okay, that's the wicked, men. From the men of what? Men of the world who have their portion in this life. Verse 14, 17, 14. with your hand, meaning deliver me, my life with your hand from men, from the men of this world. And what does he describe them as? The wicked. Deliver me from the wicked. Who are they? They're men. Who are these men? They're men of the world. Who are they? They're sons of men. Who are they? They're the ungodly. They're without God. They are sinners, they could be scornful and then again they may not be but the point is they're not right with God and I need you to deliver me from them. I don't need to walk in their council because you've already told me that the blessed man is the one who delights in your law and meditates upon it day and night, not the council of a world functioning without you. So help me recognize and discern your work in somebody's life so I'm not just taking anybody's advice on life because I'll miss out on you if I take men's advice who are functioning in this world without you. I need you. Now can we learn from all of that? Sure we can. Can we learn from our sin? Yes. Can we learn from our mistakes? Yes. Greatest example of learning is looking under Jesus. How did he live? How did he get through it? You know, and then not only is He our substitute but He's also our example of how to walk with the Father and how to walk through this world and when we fail praise God He didn't and when we fail praise God we can come back to Him and then look to Him and say Lord show me how you did it, show me how you did it. Show me again how you walk through this world. And that's just the life of the believer. Because we're gonna stumble. We're gonna do that. We're gonna miss the mark. But we know who we're walking with. That's the neat thing about it. And he'll keep us and preserve us. But I just, that thought right there. Men in this world, without the Lord, we have to be delivered from. That's what he says. the men of this world who have their portion where? In this life. We've read about that in Ecclesiastes. They're all about us. They're everywhere. Oh, this world's full. Everywhere we turn, yeah. Run from it. But when vileness is exalted, then the wicked begin to prowl. So the only way we can stand is to stay in God's path. We've got to stay with Him. Like Psalm 16 says, you'll show me the path of life. You'll show me what right pleasures are. You'll show me where your peace is at. You'll grant all that to me, but it's looking to Him, you know. And you recover from the fall. You just get back up and keep looking back to Him when you fall, when we let our flesh take advantage of it, because we will. And that's why He says those things, the world functions on what it sees, what it can feel, and what it wants. That's that lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, that instant gratification that the eyes is what I see something, I want it, I want something because I think I need it and then I can't live without it. And that's how the world functions in that and we don't, we're not to live that away. We want the Lord navigating and guiding our journey for us and turning back to Him on a consistent basis when we fall. So, man, I love that Psalm 1, blessed is the man, blessed is the man. We may look at a couple of these things. Of course, it'll be for everybody, but we'll give some advice to Hunter today on, and I may take each one of these Psalms if we have the time to do it and just pull out a principle out of each one that this world we live in, including our flesh. We'll try to attack and challenge and even crush our proper view. And it's just a steady fight to keep the right view of God's view on all these things. Amen? All right, well, let's roll guys. Won't you close with a prayer, Brother Shannon? Father, we thank you for being with us this morning and watching over us. And we thank you for the Psalms that you have created for us to read and to understand. We ask you to put the right words in Brother Nick's heart this morning so that we can all hear and understand. And we ask you to be with Hunter and lift him up. And that this is a blessing day for him. And we shall all be proud to be in church this morning because you're here with us guiding us in that name. Amen. Amen. Well, wait.