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Brethren, please turn in your Bibles
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to Psalm 1.
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Our brother Craig said he felt inclined
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to preach from this psalm last week,
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but he didn't, because
the week before that
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Brother Nathan Rages
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brought us a message on stability
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or stay-bility.
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And Craig felt that he didn't just use
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this psalm as a launching point,
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but kind of stayed here for quite awhile,
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so Craig thought to move on,
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but I think it's interesting
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that three preachers in a row
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have been impressed as I have as well,
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even before Nathan brought that.
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I've been thinking much about
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the first psalm.
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And I am inclined to take us there again,
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even after Craig was
done preaching last week,
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I told Craig, I believe I am
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going to deal with Psalm 1,
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and, God helping us,
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let's look at it.
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Let's read it
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in its entirety.
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"Blessed is the man..."
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And I'll tell you, if we know Scripture,
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there are one in a thousand such men.
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"Blessed is the man
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who walks not in the
counsel of the wicked,
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nor stands in the way of sinners,
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nor sits in the seat of scoffers.
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But his delight is in the law of the Lord,
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and on His law, he
meditates day and night.
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He is like a tree planted
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by streams of water,
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that yields its fruit in its season,
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and its leaf does not wither.
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In all that he does, he prospers.
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The wicked are not so..."
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In fact, in the Septuagint, this reads
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as a double negative:
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"Not so the ungodly." Not so.
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"...but are like chaff,
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that the wind drives away.
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Therefore the wicked will not stand
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in the judgment,
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nor sinners in the congregation
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of the righteous."
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Churches here are mixed,
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but as we heard in the first hour,
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every church has at least one devil in it.
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They're mixed here.
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They won't be then.
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"For the Lord knows
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the way of the righteous,
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but the way of the wicked will perish."
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This is a psalm.
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It's the first one.
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In it, you saw it,
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there's two men.
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There's one called (v. 1) blessed...
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is the man.
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And then when you look down in v. 6,
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"The Lord knows the way of the righteous."
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There's one man - the blessed man,
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the righteous man.
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And then there's another man.
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And you see him here.
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V. 4 - "The wicked are not so."
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V. 5 "The wicked will not stand..."
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V. 6 "The wicked will perish."
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We're all here.
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All mankind encapsulated
in this one psalm.
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But see, I see a problem right off.
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I mean, as I read this,
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and I think about preaching it.
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I recognize, you as you process this,
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that man has a built-in disposition
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to deny and reject that he is wicked.
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Nobody takes that term upon themselves.
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I know you've got certain crazy people
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out there that delight in such things.
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But I'll tell you, when
really pushed to it,
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as far as their eternal welfare,
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as far as their standing before God,
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men sarcastically will talk about
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being wicked,
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or in their pride,
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they will try to outdo one another
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in evil deeds,
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but when they're pressed to it,
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men say, well, in the depths of my heart,
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really at the deepest level,
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I'm a good person.
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You see, I recognize
there's a disposition.
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Why?
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Because the word just sounds too horrible.
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Wicked.
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It's too heinous.
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It's just too bad to describe me.
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And here's what happens:
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So, men think to themselves,
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Ok, I'm about to hear the righteous
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compared with the wicked.
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Well, I know I'm not wicked.
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So somehow or another,
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what's said of the righteous -
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it has to describe me.
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Maybe not perfectly,
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but I'm in there somewhere.
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Because I'm not wicked.
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I know I'm not that.
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So, somehow I've got to fit in over here.
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What's said of the wicked man
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can't possibly be true of me.
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You see, men, men... presuppositions.
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They're ideas about themselves.
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In fact, what's interesting is how often
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the Bible has to tell us who we are.
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It's amazing.
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It has to tell wicked people who they are,
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and it has to tell the
righteous who they are.
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Why?
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Because we have a real hard time
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getting that straight ourselves,
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even as Christians.
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Think about how often
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the New Testament is simply
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telling Christians who they are.
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We don't get it right.
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As Christians, we tend to think less
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of ourselves than we ought to.
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And as lost people,
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we tend to think far more of ourselves
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than we ought to.
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We have a real hard time
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getting this straight.
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And so God comes along
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and over and over and over again,
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He is telling us who we are.
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What we are.
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This is why the Bible goes
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to all these lengths
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to define us over and over.
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And you know what?
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There's nothing that tells us who we are
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like this book tells us who we are.
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Nothing describes us like this book.
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So, here's the thing,
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v. 4, the wicked are not so.
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You know what?
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If we could just tear that out -
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we don't want to do that,
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but if we did, if we just replaced it
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with "the man of the world..."
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intelligent, intellectual, wise,
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independent, fun-loving,
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free-spirited, free thinking, witty...
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you know what,
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we might get more people to be honest.
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Because the problem is,
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as soon as the word wicked comes up,
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oh, that's not me!
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But you know, if we
redefined it a little bit,
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and put it in more acceptable terms,
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people would let their guard down.
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But that word wicked...
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what about that?
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It makes us think of wicked witches.
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The wicked - like the devil.
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But notice the simplicity of it all.
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Look at v. 4.
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"The wicked are not so."
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Just think about that.
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Think about the simplicity of that.
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The wicked are not so.
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There's no horns.
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There's no pointed hat
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and black cats here.
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They don't torture people
in their basement.
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What is it?
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What's true of the righteous...
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not so.
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That's the wicked.
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They're not pedophiles.
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Pedophiles are wicked,
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but you get my drift here?
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This is just: show me
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what the righteous man is;
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the wicked man is just not like that.
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He doesn't have to run around
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being an axe murderer.
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He's just not like the righteous.
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You see, there's only
two categories here, folks.
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And if you're not in the righteous,
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the blessed man category,
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you're in the other.
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You're just not like the righteous.
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That's it.
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That's the wicked.
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We need to see this for what it is.
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The wicked are not so.
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Brethren, this is God's teaching.
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That's what Psalm 1 is.
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What we come to right here -
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it was spoken by David in the beginning,
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but this is no invention of man.
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This is inspired language.
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This is God defining humanity.
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There are only two alternatives here.
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You see it.
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Men are so disposed
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to think in degrees.
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Right?
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It's not just black or white.
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We like to think in degrees.
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We like to think
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somewhere in the middle.
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That there's other alternatives.
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But we're not given that.
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There's no middle ground somewhere here.
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See, we tend to think,
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well, come on, are you
righteous all the time?
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Well, you know, I'm a sinner,
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but I'm not that bad.
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I'm not wicked.
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So, I'm somewhere in the middle.
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Scripture doesn't allow that.
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We tend to think that way,
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but Scripture doesn't allow this
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thinking in degrees.
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It's pretty radical.
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Boy, how often does Scripture do this?
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It's everywhere - in the Old Testament
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and in the New. Everywhere!
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That Scripture comes along and says
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Bang! Bang!
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Two camps.
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You're in one or the other.
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Radical. No in-between's.
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That is such the language of Scripture
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over and over and over.
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Only two men in this psalm.
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No middle ground.
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Either you're one or the other.
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We're looking at two men.
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Just two.
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You're like one.
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Or you're not so.
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So, let's consider this.
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Let's consider the first four words.
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"Blessed is the man..."
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I've got five "P's"
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that I want to use to describe just this.
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Blessed is the man.
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The first is this.
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The first "P": Plurality.
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There's a plurality of blessednesses.
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Martin Luther points out,
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and I needed somebody else to tell me this
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because I can make my way through Greek,
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but Hebrew is out there.
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Luther says in the Hebrew,
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the word "blessed" is plural.
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It's literally blessednesses.
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All blessednesses are the portion
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of this blessed man.
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All things are well
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with a man like this.
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Spurgeon calls it
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the multiplicity of blessings.
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You want to be this guy.
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This means everything is good.
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Everything is blessed.
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Blessednesses.
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The second "P" is
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the propensity towards blessedness.
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What do I mean by that?
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Propensity.
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The desire.
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We desire this.
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All men desire this.
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Brethren, as was mentioned by Craig
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last week, happy, blessed,
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blessed is the man.
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There are places such as Deuteronomy 33:29:
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"Happy are you, O Israel!
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Who is like you?
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A people saved by the Lord."
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Yes, this word can be translated
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directly: "happy."
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The happinesses - it's plural.
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All the happinesses of the man
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that's described here.
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And here's the thing.
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You think with me here.
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Of all that God could have done
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in starting out the book of Psalms,
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the very first one,
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the very first line,
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He hits us with the thing
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that all men have a propensity for;
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that all men long after:
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happiness.
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We are all anxious to be blessed.
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When we hear Esau,
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remember how he was?
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With his father Isaac?
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"Bless me, even me also, O my father!"
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Bless me!
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That's how we all are.
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We want it!
We want it!
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See, he was faced with the fact
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that he was losing it.
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And he was desparate.
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Bless me!
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We all want that blessing.
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And you know what gives man
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even the ability to make it
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from one day to the next
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is hope that ultimately,
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he will receive that.