The Word of God is publicly declared today from the very first of the Book of Psalms, so if you would be willing to stand for this public proclamation of God's Word. Psalm 1. Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers. But his delight is in the law of Yahweh, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away. Therefore, the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. For Yahweh knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish. May God bless the public reading of his word. You may be seated. Please pray with me as we begin today. May the word of God do the work of God, by the Spirit of God, in the people of God this day, and may I be out of the way. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Are any of you hikers or bike riders? We have a trail app on our phone and it has trails from all over the country and even all over the world entered into it. We can select a trail, for example, near Flagstaff, and we can drive to the trailhead, select navigate and start, and we will see ourselves as a little blue dot and the trail as a red line. So as we're hiking, if we deviate from the trail or the path, our blue dot will show that we're moving away and we're not on the trail anymore. The app shows that there are clearly two paths, one that's the right path that we selected and set out on, and one that is not. Over the next few years, when I have the opportunity to preach, we'll be making our way through the book of Psalms. Today, we begin our journey through the book by looking at Psalm 1, which many see as coupled with Psalm 2 as the introduction to the whole book of the Psalms. And in support of this, as we will see when we do come to Psalm 2, there are, in the future, there are many points of connection between Psalm 1 and Psalm 2. But for today's Psalm 1, Psalm 1 presents us with two clear paths and a picture of those on these two distinct and radically different paths, along with their eternal destinations. We are presented with the path of righteousness and those who are on it, and the path of the wicked and those who have made it their own. As we look at this Psalm this morning, I want us to consider which path each one of us personally are on at this time. So beginning with verses one and two, we see the righteous and the wicked presented and contrasted. The very first word sets the stage for this contrast, and that word being blessed. The righteous man is called blessed, and the wicked, by implication, therefore, is not blessed. The word blessed in this context conveys the idea Not of walking around with a feeling of happiness all of the time, but the idea is of a state of happiness that flows from a sense of well-being and rightness. This blessed state is what Adam and Eve enjoyed in the garden temple in Eden. Please turn with me to Genesis chapter 128, if you would. Genesis 128. We read, and God blessed them. And God said to them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over every living thing that moves on the earth." So we see God blessed Adam and Eve. But sadly, this blessedness was forfeited as a result of the fall into sin. And since that time, God has been providentially working to restore mankind to that original state of blessing. So for example, we could see him speaking to Abram in Genesis 12, one through three. Now Yahweh said to Abram, go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you, and I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. So this psalm, as we will see, gives direction on how to walk toward regaining that state that was lost, that state of blessedness that was lost as a result of the fall. And this is accomplished in the psalm first by contrasting the way, the path of the righteous versus that of the wicked. A negative contrast is presented first, followed by a positive contrast. So first the negative contrast. The righteous or blessed man, as we read in the rest of verse one, walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers. The first thing we see is that this blessed man, and the word here is a singular, is not carried along by the crowd of the wicked, the sinners, and the scoffers, which are all in the plural. So we see he does not go with the flow. He's not pressured into conformity. His way and path are distinct from most of those who are around him. His blessed state is a result of his not engaging in the activity of the wicked around him. We see this activity presented in what's termed a tricolon that pronounces blessing on people who distance themselves from evil. It makes use of Hebrew parallelism, which should ring a bell to those of us who are in our How to Interpret the Bible Sunday School class recently. Each of these colons, we could turn them A, B, and C, adds to the thought of the first colon. So thus we have, A, or walks not in the count of the wicked, what's more, B, stands not in the way of sinners, followed by what's more, C, nor sits in the seat of scoffers, each showing a progression in level of wickedness and a moving away from righteousness. We can see this progression as activity of the persons described. They start out by walking in the counsel of the wicked. In other words, they're taking the wrong advice. They're listening to the wrong people. Worse than that is standing in the way of sinners, which implies more than simply taking that path but standing firm in it. Or we could say they're acting in the wrong way. Even more harmful than this is sitting in the seat of scoffers. This implies not merely living their way, but coming to think the way the scoffers think. We could say they're becoming the wrong kind of person. This could be the description of a gradual progression in one's life due to the deceitfulness of sin, or it could be a composite description of the wicked. And commentators come down on both sides of this, in either case, A lifestyle is described that's immersed and focused on association with all that is opposed to God. We also see a downward progression in the categories of the persons that are described. In Hebrew, the wicked are those who have been judged guilty in a court of law, or if they would be if they were brought to trial. The second term, sinners, denotes persons who have not just committed an isolated act of evil, but live lives dominated and shaped by their inclinations. We could say they're lifetime, lifestyle sinners. It represents the difference between a person convicted of a single crime compared to a career criminal. The final term mockers describes those who have gone beyond a few sinful acts and even a personal life marked by a lifestyle sinning. And as one commentator puts it, quote, they actively seek through their mockery to express disdain for right living and seek to belittle and undermine those who want to be righteous." These are seen as the worst in the progression as they are the least likely to repent because of the hardness of their hearts. Now, as a result of the fall of Adam and Eve into sin in the garden, no human has been able to be this kind of righteous man until the advent of the Lord Jesus Christ, whom this psalm points to as the blessed one. He's the perfect example of resisting the pressure of this wicked world to be conformed to their wicked way or path of life. We see him resist the insidious temptation of the wicked one in the wilderness in Matthew 4, verses 1 through 11. We see him throughout his ministry, not only not going along with a crowd of sinners constantly around him, but rather opposing and exposing sinful lifestyles in the lives of the masses that he walked among, as well as the religious leaders that he encountered. And although he endured extreme mocking from scoffers, as Pastor Pete has shown us in Mark 15, verses 16 through 20, at the hands of the Roman soldiers, and also in Mark 15, verses 29 through 32, By those present when he was hanging on the cross, taking to himself the sins of those whom the Father had given him and who had ultimately put their faith and trust in him for salvation, we never see our Lord displaying unrighteous or unjust mocking. By contrast, because of our being descended from Adam and thus coming into this world in a fallen state, And even if we are now new creatures in Christ, we still have the influence of sin and corruption remaining within us, although no longer reigning, and we are not able to perfectly emulate our Lord ourselves. Nevertheless, to walk the path of righteousness and not walk the path of unrighteousness out of gratitude for him, for what he has accomplished on the cross for us, and out of a desire to be more like the Lord Jesus, This should be something we strive for while we remain on this earth. So for the negative contrast. Secondly, the positive contrast, the righteous or blessed man, as we read in verse two, his delight is in the law of Yahweh, and on his law, he meditates day and night. The psalmist now turns to an alternative lifestyle or path that does lead to the blessing with which Psalm 1 begins. This transition is denoted by the conjunction but. It can be rendered but rather. But rather than associating with those who walk, stand, sit with the unrighteous, the psalmist says we are to be those whose delight is in the law of Yahweh. When we delight in something, how is that manifested in our lives? If we delight in something, we take pleasure in it. We desire it. We derive joy from it. It provides a sense of satisfaction. We value it. We want to spend time with that thing. This is how the man who would be blessed is to consider the law of Yahweh. The word law is used twice in this single verse. And from past sermons by our pastors, we can recall that by using word repetition, the author is emphasizing the importance of what is repeated. In this case, that is the law. So the law is essential to the one who would be blessed and seek to walk in a path of righteousness. By the law of Yahweh, most commentators agree that the psalmist means the Hebrew Torah, or the five books of Moses, with their laws and regulations. But also, as one commentator states it, quote, the Hebrew term connotes the history of God's acts to deliver his people and all of the instruction that he has given in his word, end quote. So in addition to his laws and regulations, the law of Yahweh includes all of the life-giving guidance and principles God has given to us, as well as his recorded acts on behalf of his people to redeem us following the fall. What are we then to do with this law that is so important and which we are to delight in it? We see from the second half of verse two that we are to meditate on it day and night. If you're like me, you've heard The term meditate many times maybe don't have a good handle on what it means, especially what it would have meant to the original audience, the original readers of the psalm here. The Hebrew verb used here is haggah, which as one commentator puts it, quote, imitates the sound of low voices murmuring or muttering as one reads scripture in a low undertone. It appears to have been normal practice at the time, To read out loud in a low voice rather than silently, the term can also mean ponder or reflect by talking to oneself. So if you hear your spouse going around the house muttering something that sounds like aga, aga, aga, aga, aga, aga, aga, aga, aga, aga, you should recognize and hope that he or she is simply delighting in the law of the Lord and meditating on scripture. How often are we to meditate on the law of Yahweh? The end of verse two says day and night. So once in the morning, once at night. No, the author's making use of Amirism. For those of you, again, who attended our Sunday School class, How to Interpret the Bible, you remember that Amirism presents two extremes with the expectation that it's recognized that everything in between is included as well. So a modern example would be maybe in saying, we have it covered from A to Z. or a biblical saying, maybe from the time of King David. Everyone from Dan to Beersheba was called to Jerusalem. Everyone from Dan in the north to Beersheba in the south, and everybody in between was called to Jerusalem. Applying that here, we see that we are to meditate on the law of Yahweh constantly, day throughout the day. Not every waking second, but repeatedly throughout our day. This should bring to mind this verse from Joshua 1.8. This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written within it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. Meditate on it day and night. Or the verses we find that follow the Jewish Shema, please turn with me in your Bibles to Deuteronomy chapter six, if you would. Deuteronomy chapter six, verses four through seven. Deuteronomy 6, 4. Hear, O Israel, Yahweh our God, Yahweh is one. You shall love Yahweh your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise. So parents, Grandparents, great-grandparents, these verses are a challenge to us to talk with our children, our grandchildren, our great-grandchildren about the things of the Lord when we are walking with them, when we are sitting with them, riding in the car with them, playing games with them before bedtime, when they get up in the morning at the dinner table, at times of discipline, and during regular devotional times. in doing so will be helping our children learn to delight in the law of Yahweh and to meditate on the things that the Lord of the Lord from an early age and boys and girls and young people please look up here there's something to say to you from these verses too are you looking are you listening If your daddies and mommies or your parents do not talk to you about God, about the Bible, about Jesus, or have been forgetting to maybe lately, you ask them to. Say, daddy or mommy, or mom and dad for the young people, grandpa and grandma, I want to hear more about God and the Bible and Jesus. Please tell me. I guarantee you that if you ask them, they'll tell you. So ask them, okay? Will you do that? Great. Verse two of this psalm probably also brings to mind such verses as Psalm 119.1, blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of Yahweh. Or even more familiar, Psalm 119.105, your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. We see how important the word of God is to the walk of the righteous. Not only are those blessed who walk according to that word, but it is a lamp to keep our feet keep us from stumbling on what is at our feet and over everyday obstacles but it also is a light to our path to light to help us to see where we're going so that we stay on the right path. So the blessed one will delight in the law of Yahweh and meditate on it day and night. This is exactly how I imagine Adam and Eve were in the garden temple in Eden, they were hanging on every word that their creator God shared with them. They delighted in hearing from him and meditated on what he revealed to them, probably in wonder and awe at the wisdom of their creator. But all that changed after the fall. Now, if you're like me, you might see this as a real challenge to delight in the law of Yahweh and to meditate on it day and night. Even when reading some portions may seem boring, or have no seeming relevance to my current situation, or when what I'm reading seems to be contradicted by what's currently going on in my life, or when what I'm reading, I don't like what the scripture tell me I should be doing. And when it comes to meditating day and night, to do so even when I'm seemingly too busy to do so, or when the distractions of the world are too loud to allow it, or when I'm too tired. At times like this, I need to again remember the perfect example we have in the Lord Jesus Christ while here on this earth. If there was any human who could have given excuses for being too busy, too distracted, or too tired not to delight and meditate on the law of the Father, it would have been Lord Jesus. But do we see him ever making such an excuse? No. We see him over and over again in the scriptures that he was stealing away to spend time with the Father. He was up late at night and early in the morning spending time in prayer and meditation. So as with walking the righteous path, we cannot attain to this perfection in this life, but that doesn't mean that we should not try, because we absolutely should try. Asking for the grace and help of the Holy Spirit to do so, it will profit us not only by occupying our time, with one of the best things that can be occupied with, obviously, the Word of God. But in doing so, it feeds and conforms our hearts and minds in such a way that we are kept on the path of righteousness. And as we will see in the coming verses, that path is a path that leads to life. Moving on then to verses three and four of our passage today, we see contrasted the fruitful tree and the fruitless chaff. First, the fruitful tree in verse three, He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and as leaf does not wither, in all that he does, he prospers. Here we see that the one who does not walk, stand, or sit with the ungodly, but who delights in the love of the Lord and meditates on it day and night, is like a fruitful tree placed in a fertile environment. Again, doesn't this sound like the psalmist is giving us a picture of the Garden of Eden and the trees God planted there? We see in Genesis 2, 8 through 10, and Yahweh God planted a garden in Eden in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground Yahweh God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers. The prophet Jeremiah gives us the same picture as the psalmist in Jeremiah 17, seven and eight. Blessed is the man who trusts in Yahweh, whose trust is Yahweh. He is like a tree planted by water that sends out its roots by the stream and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit. The psalmist makes use of a figure of speech called a simile here. A simile is a comparison of two things, introduced by the word like or as. By use of the simile of the fruit tree, the psalmist provides substance to the more abstract notion of what it means for the righteous man to be blessed. A tree, especially in the arid Middle Eastern climate, needed to be planted by streams of water to receive the nourishment that it needed to produce fruit in season, no matter how hostile the environment might be. Without those life-giving streams, it would not thrive, And if it did not thrive, it would not produce leaves. And if it did not produce leaves, it could not produce fruit and might even die. In a similar manner, the righteous man must be providentially planted by our God, the master gardener, you could say, on a path where he can receive the nourishment needed to be fruitful. This person needs to be firmly rooted and nourished by walking a path that avoids evil and delights in the life-giving water of the word of the Lord and so doing he or she will thrive producing leaves and therefore producing fruit." In addition this verse states that this person will prosper in all that he does. What is this? Is the psalmist presenting some kind of prosperity gospel to us here? No, not at all. The term translated as prospers here has a sense of being successful or bringing to successful conclusion or attaining one's overarching goals. Material prosperity may be a secondary blessing, but that's not the primary goal here. In the phrase, in all that he does, he prospers, we have another point of contact with Joshua 1.8. When Joshua was being commissioned by Yahweh God to assume the command of the armies of Israel and conquer the promised land. He's told that if he meditates on the book of the law day and night and is careful to observe, to live according to all that is written in it, then he will make his way prosperous and he will have good success. We know that this was the case for Joshua as he entered and conquered the promised land, but it pointed to a greater Joshua who is to come, the Lord Jesus Christ, the commander of Yahweh's armies. Again, we must consider the Lord Jesus Christ, who was the fruit-bearer par excellence. Because He perfectly delighted in and was firmly rooted in the word of His Father, He was able to and did bear fruit wherever He went. Whether it was teaching in the synagogues, teaching His disciples in private, healing those afflicted with diseases and demons and disorders, encouraging the doubting and the weak challenging the proud and the self-righteous, forgiving sins. Indeed, in every word he spoke and in every action he took, he was bearing fruit for the kingdom of the Father. You might say, but what about that part about prospering and all that he does that we see at the end of verse three? Wasn't Jesus despised, rejected, mocked, scorned, beaten, and crucified? Yes, he was. But remember the sense of the word prospers as attaining one's overarching goal. All that Jesus endured was bearing fruit toward and prospering in, bringing about the supreme goal as our conquering king of redeeming his people, hear that, us, from slavery to our sins. All that he endured was to bring that to fruition. We see there's much packed in this single verse. What should we take away from it? I think it's simply this. Wherever we have been providentially planted, we should sink our roots deep into the stream of life that flows from delighting in and living out the word of God, and strive to be fruitful in the work that we have been given to do. Thus we see the fruitful tree. Now moving on to the unfruitful chaff in verse four. The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away. How so? Are the wicked not so? Instead of continuing with the image of a tree, we have a new image presented here in this verse that is the chaff. And notice again, we know that's the case because the simile is used like chaff. As probably most of you know, chaff was the byproduct of the process of winnowing grain before the time of combines, that is. When this winnowing was done by hand, The process was performed on the grain that had been harvested from the field with a scythe or a sickle and stacked in heaps. The heaps of the grain would be beaten, and on a sufficiently windy day, the winower would take a pitchfork full of the beaten grain from the heap and throw it up into the air. The wind would blow away the lightweight grain husk or the chaff that had been broken loose from the grain during the beating, leaving the heavier kernels of the grain to fall to the ground where it could be collected. and used. Why the change of image here? The most likely explanation is that the image itself is of only secondary importance to the contrast that the psalmist wishes to make. And in fact, the change brings it out even more sharply. We see this sharp contrast presented with what has been described for the fruitful tree. Here, the wicked, that is, those who walk, stand, and sit, as we have seen in verse one, and do not delight in the law of the Lord and meditate on it night and day, as we see in verse two, do not flourish Eden-like as the tree described in verse three. On the contrary, rather than being planted and rooted by life-giving streams of water as chaff, they have no root at all. Rather than producing fruit as chaff, they're the refuse of the harvesting of fruit. Rather than producing leaves as chaff, they have nothing green and living in themselves at all. And as chaff, they do not and cannot prosper. They are blown away and amount to nothing. So we have that with life contrasted with lifelessness. We have fruitfulness contrasted with fruitlessness. We have permanence contrasted with fleetingness. We have value contrasted with worthlessness. Prosperity contrasted with utter failure and barrenness. Considering the current path of your life, Which side of this contrast do you find yourself on today, a fruitful tree or chaff? This brings us to the final contrast found in verses five and six of today's passage, that of the two contrasting paths and their resulting final destinations or ends. Verse five, therefore, the wicked will not stand in the judgment nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. The psalmist picks two of the three categories of the unrighteous from verse one, and based on the contrast between these and the righteous presented thus far in the psalm, makes an equivocal assertion that the wicked will not stand in the judgment or in the congregation of the righteous. There is some question among commentators whether the judgment referred to here is that to be rendered in a court of law or by a king or whether it is the final judgment of the Lord. Based on the word choice of stating the judgment and the congregation of the righteous together with the context of verse six being one of judgment by Yahweh, I side with those believing that this judgment is referring to the final judgment of the Lord at the end of the age. The word stand, what the wicked will not be able to do is variously translated as stand, rise, survive, or arise. Thus, when faced with the judgment of the righteous judge Yahweh, the wicked will not be able to take their stand or stand up confidently, withstand, or even survive that judgment. Up to the point of judgment, the unrighteous may seem to have it all going their way. They're the media darlings seen by the world as able to dispense wise counsel. There are those who are standing strong in their ways, those sitting in what seem to be established seats, even seats of power. But at judgment time, they will, as the old saying goes, not have a leg to stand on. Being as chaffed, they will be blown away, as it were. The judgment will make clear to all that they were living in self-delusion. Because the unrighteous cannot stand a judgment, they cannot and will not stand. in the assembly of the righteous that the verse mentions, who will by contrast at judgment be vindicated for taking the right path and standing tall because of the work of God on their behalf. So we come to the final end of the wicked as we read in verse 6b, but the way of the wicked will perish. The way of the wicked will perish or as in some translations will lead to destruction. The sense of the word way here is a chosen life path that, left unchanged, determines the final destination of all those who are on it. This should cause a hyperlink in our minds to Jesus' New Testament teaching concerning two ways and the Sermon on the Mount. Turn with me to Matthew 7, verses 13 and 14. Matthew 7, 13 and 14. We read, enter by the narrow gate, for the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction. And those who enter by it are many, for the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life. And those who find it are few. Do you see the two ways contrasted here? As we will see when we look at the first part of verse six, the way of the righteous is cared for by Yahweh. that is not the case with the wicked. They are left to themselves to continue on their chosen easy path that will lead in the end to perishing and to doom to all those who are on that path. We get a New Testament picture of the fate of the wicked in Matthew 3 verses 7-12. John the Baptist when condemning the Pharisees and Sadducees were coming to the Jordan River to be baptized by describes the future coming of the Lord Jesus Christ in judgment. If you will, turn to Matthew 3, verses 7 through 12. Matthew 3, beginning in verse 7. But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, you brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not presume to say to yourselves, we have Abraham as our father. For I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children of Abraham. Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree, therefore, that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand. and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire." Note the similarities in the pictures between these verses and what we've seen in Psalm 1. We see the wicked presuming themselves to be just fine. We see trees. We see fruit. We see winnowing. We see chaff. We see destruction. This is conjecture on my part, but I have to believe that John had Psalm 1 at least partially in mind as he penned these verses. So we see the way of the wicked will perish, and as a consequence all that are on that path will perish or come to destruction. The contrast with the righteous and those on that path is emphasized even more starkly by the psalmist in that, as we see here, the very last word of the psalm, the end of verse 6, is ominous word perish is contrasted with the very first word of the psalm in 1.1 that we saw earlier was blessed so we see the perishing way of the wicked back in our psalm and lastly today we see the final end of the righteous as we read in verse 6a for Yahweh knows the way of the righteous The psalmist tells us that Yahweh knows the way of the righteous. This is the first mention of God in the whole psalm. It's as if the psalmist is saying, here at the end, Yahweh comes on the scene to sort out everything, or more to the point, to sort out everyone in judgment. But really, he's been involved in the way of the righteous from the beginning, just in the background. The Hebrew verb translated no carries with it more than just the idea of intellectual or factual knowledge about someone or something. It has a sense of watching over or an intimate care of in the context of a relationship. It's the same word we see used in scripture in describing the intimacy of a marriage relationship. So here we see it as Yahweh intimately cherishing, watching over and caring for the way of the righteous and those who travel that way throughout this life. The righteous in this verse are the same ones who comprise the congregation of the righteous, in verse five, those who will be standing at the day of judgment. The fact that the Lord is watching over the righteous means that there can be no question that they will be safe. They'll be able to exclaim with the Apostle Paul in Romans 8.31, what then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? What an encouragement that should be to those of us who are striving to live a righteous life. So this morning we have seen the righteous and the wicked presented and contrasted, the fruit of the righteous and the wicked presented and contrasted, and the paths and the resulting end of the righteous and the wicked presented and contrasted. We've seen if we want to begin to realize the blessedness that Adam and Eve enjoyed and lost in the Garden of Eden, and that our Lord Jesus Christ enjoyed while he walked on this earth, and that we will one day, by his grace, fully realize in glory, then we need to walk in the way of righteousness now, today, meditating on the instructions of Yahweh and bearing fruit. Is this the way we should expect then every moment of our lives on this earth to be then happy and blessed? I'm sure you would agree with me that there are times, even though we are by the power of the Spirit striving to walk on the righteous path, that it sure doesn't feel like we are experiencing that happy and blessed state. We need to remember Again, what we learned in our How to Interpret the Bible Sunday School class, that wisdom and poetic literature, of which the book of the Psalms is an example, as presented in the Bible, is idealistic. But even though idealistic, it is completely true and accurate nonetheless. The righteous, as described in this psalm, will surely be joyfully prosperous and blessed, whereas the wicked surely will not. We know by our experiences that this is true only partially in this lifetime, but by faith, we can be confident that it will be true fully, ideally, in the life to come. So in closing, which path are each of you present here today traveling? There are only two. To the unbeliever, the one who is not yet in Christ by trusting in him by faith and salvation, You are on the path of unrighteousness, whether you realize it or are willing to admit it. I urge you do not continue on this path, ignoring or rejecting the word of Yahweh any longer, because this is the path that leads ultimately to destruction without exception to all those who remain on it. Turn from this path of unrighteousness. Heed the words of Yahweh. Repent of your sins and put your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ alone for your salvation. and your eternal well-being. To my brothers and sisters in Christ, considering our lives, how much time do we spend walking, sitting, or standing with the wicked or engaging in pursuits that do not promote righteousness? Conversely, how much time do we spend delighting in the law of the Lord in comparison, not grudgingly, but delighting and meditating on and in it and so bearing fruit of righteousness? Going back to our trail by our actions, is the blue dot that is us? Is it moving away from the line, which is the path, the trail of righteousness? If so, I urge you to turn back to the path of blessed righteousness. And if we are pressing on our way, and the blue dot that is us is right in line with the path of righteousness, or at least in close proximity to it and not deviating from it, take courage in knowing that even though the wicked seem to thrive around us, the Lord will ultimately judge between those on these two paths presented in this psalm. Look to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and see how He did what we often fail to do and strive to imitate Him by being men, women, young people, boys and girls, of the Word of the Lord. And with the help of the Holy Spirit, let us read, study, listen to, meditate on, memorize, share with, teach others, and live this Word, having characters that clearly set us apart from the wicked, sinners, and mockers, and so unswervingly walk the blessed path that leads to life. Amen. Please pray with me. Our God, we pray that you would help us. Lord Jesus, we pray that you would help us to be more like you. To be those who walk the path of righteousness. Those who delight in the word of your father and meditate on it day and night. Those who produce fruit during our time in this world. Those who stand against the wicked the sinners, and the mockers. We ask for your help, O Holy Spirit. We are weak. Help us, we pray, in Jesus' name, amen.