Brethren, please turn in your Bibles

to Psalm 1.

Our brother Craig said he felt inclined

to preach from this psalm last week,

but he didn't, because 
the week before that

Brother Nathan Rages

brought us a message on stability

or stay-bility.

And Craig felt that he didn't just use

this psalm as a launching point,

but kind of stayed here for quite awhile,

so Craig thought to move on,

but I think it's interesting

that three preachers in a row

have been impressed as I have as well,

even before Nathan brought that.

I've been thinking much about

the first psalm.

And I am inclined to take us there again,

even after Craig was 
done preaching last week,

I told Craig, I believe I am

going to deal with Psalm 1,

and, God helping us,

let's look at it.

Let's read it

in its entirety.

"Blessed is the man..."

And I'll tell you, if we know Scripture,

there are one in a thousand such men.

"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 the Lord,

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..."

In fact, in the Septuagint, this reads

as a double negative:

"Not so the ungodly." 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."

Churches here are mixed,

but as we heard in the first hour,

every church has at least one devil in it.

They're mixed here.

They won't be then.

"For the Lord knows

the way of the righteous,

but the way of the wicked will perish."

This is a psalm.

It's the first one.

In it, you saw it,

there's two men.

There's one called (v. 1) blessed...

is the man.

And then when you look down in v. 6,

"The Lord knows the way of the righteous."

There's one man - the blessed man,

the righteous man.

And then there's another man.

And you see him here.

V. 4 - "The wicked are not so."

V. 5 "The wicked will not stand..."

V. 6 "The wicked will perish."

We're all here.

All mankind encapsulated 
in this one psalm.

But see, I see a problem right off.

I mean, as I read this,

and I think about preaching it.

I recognize, you as you process this,

that man has a built-in disposition

to deny and reject that he is wicked.

Nobody takes that term upon themselves.

I know you've got certain crazy people

out there that delight in such things.

But I'll tell you, when 
really pushed to it,

as far as their eternal welfare,

as far as their standing before God,

men sarcastically will talk about

being wicked,

or in their pride,

they will try to outdo one another

in evil deeds,

but when they're pressed to it,

men say, well, in the depths of my heart,

really at the deepest level,

I'm a good person.

You see, I recognize 
there's a disposition.

Why?

Because the word just sounds too horrible.

Wicked.

It's too heinous.

It's just too bad to describe me.

And here's what happens:

So, men think to themselves,

Ok, I'm about to hear the righteous

compared with the wicked.

Well, I know I'm not wicked.

So somehow or another,

what's said of the righteous -

it has to describe me.

Maybe not perfectly,

but I'm in there somewhere.

Because I'm not wicked.

I know I'm not that.

So, somehow I've got to fit in over here.

What's said of the wicked man

can't possibly be true of me.

You see, men, men... presuppositions.

They're ideas about themselves.

In fact, what's interesting is how often

the Bible has to tell us who we are.

It's amazing.

It has to tell wicked people who they are,

and it has to tell the 
righteous who they are.

Why?

Because we have a real hard time

getting that straight ourselves,

even as Christians.

Think about how often

the New Testament is simply

telling Christians who they are.

We don't get it right.

As Christians, we tend to think less

of ourselves than we ought to.

And as lost people,

we tend to think far more of ourselves

than we ought to.

We have a real hard time

getting this straight.

And so God comes along

and over and over and over again,

He is telling us who we are.

What we are.

This is why the Bible goes

to all these lengths

to define us over and over.

And you know what?

There's nothing that tells us who we are

like this book tells us who we are.

Nothing describes us like this book.

So, here's the thing,

v. 4, the wicked are not so.

You know what?

If we could just tear that out -

we don't want to do that,

but if we did, if we just replaced it

with "the man of the world..."

intelligent, intellectual, wise,

independent, fun-loving,

free-spirited, free thinking, witty...

you know what,

we might get more people to be honest.

Because the problem is,

as soon as the word wicked comes up,

oh, that's not me!

But you know, if we 
redefined it a little bit,

and put it in more acceptable terms,

people would let their guard down.

But that word wicked...

what about that?

It makes us think of wicked witches.

The wicked - like the devil.

But notice the simplicity of it all.

Look at v. 4.

"The wicked are not so."

Just think about that.

Think about the simplicity of that.

The wicked are not so.

There's no horns.

There's no pointed hat

and black cats here.

They don't torture people 
in their basement.

What is it?

What's true of the righteous...

not so.

That's the wicked.

They're not pedophiles.

Pedophiles are wicked,

but you get my drift here?

This is just: show me

what the righteous man is;

the wicked man is just not like that.

He doesn't have to run around

being an axe murderer.

He's just not like the righteous.

You see, there's only 
two categories here, folks.

And if you're not in the righteous,

the blessed man category,

you're in the other.

You're just not like the righteous.

That's it.

That's the wicked.

We need to see this for what it is.

The wicked are not so.

Brethren, this is God's teaching.

That's what Psalm 1 is.

What we come to right here -

it was spoken by David in the beginning,

but this is no invention of man.

This is inspired language.

This is God defining humanity.

There are only two alternatives here.

You see it.

Men are so disposed

to think in degrees.

Right?

It's not just black or white.

We like to think in degrees.

We like to think

somewhere in the middle.

That there's other alternatives.

But we're not given that.

There's no middle ground somewhere here.

See, we tend to think,

well, come on, are you 
righteous all the time?

Well, you know, I'm a sinner,

but I'm not that bad.

I'm not wicked.

So, I'm somewhere in the middle.

Scripture doesn't allow that.

We tend to think that way,

but Scripture doesn't allow this

thinking in degrees.

It's pretty radical.

Boy, how often does Scripture do this?

It's everywhere - in the Old Testament

and in the New. Everywhere!

That Scripture comes along and says

Bang! Bang!

Two camps.

You're in one or the other.

Radical. No in-between's.

That is such the language of Scripture

over and over and over.

Only two men in this psalm.

No middle ground.

Either you're one or the other.

We're looking at two men.

Just two.

You're like one.

Or you're not so.

So, let's consider this.

Let's consider the first four words.

"Blessed is the man..."

I've got five "P's"

that I want to use to describe just this.

Blessed is the man.

The first is this.

The first "P": Plurality.

There's a plurality of blessednesses.

Martin Luther points out,

and I needed somebody else to tell me this

because I can make my way through Greek,

but Hebrew is out there.

Luther says in the Hebrew,

the word "blessed" is plural.

It's literally blessednesses.

All blessednesses are the portion

of this blessed man.

All things are well

with a man like this.

Spurgeon calls it

the multiplicity of blessings.

You want to be this guy.

This means everything is good.

Everything is blessed.

Blessednesses.

The second "P" is

the propensity towards blessedness.

What do I mean by that?

Propensity.

The desire.

We desire this.

All men desire this.

Brethren, as was mentioned by Craig

last week, happy, blessed,

blessed is the man.

There are places such as Deuteronomy 33:29:

"Happy are you, O Israel!

Who is like you?

A people saved by the Lord."

Yes, this word can be translated

directly: "happy."

The happinesses - it's plural.

All the happinesses of the man

that's described here.

And here's the thing.

You think with me here.

Of all that God could have done

in starting out the book of Psalms,

the very first one,

the very first line,

He hits us with the thing

that all men have a propensity for;

that all men long after:

happiness.

We are all anxious to be blessed.

When we hear Esau,

remember how he was?

With his father Isaac?

"Bless me, even me also, O my father!"

Bless me!

That's how we all are.

We want it!
We want it!

See, he was faced with the fact

that he was losing it.

And he was desparate.

Bless me!

We all want that blessing.

And you know what gives man

even the ability to make it

from one day to the next

is hope that ultimately,

he will receive that.