Psalm 1

This is post 1000 on my blog...

There is a difference between the wicked and the righteous. If we have heard the message of grace through Christ and the cross we will not deny this distinction. The cross is about the righteousness of God just as much as it is about the mercy of God. God demands perfect righteousness and He provides that righteousness in Christ. The death of Jesus paid our penalty. God's mercy comes to us through the satisfaction of His righteousness in a perfect Substitute.

How is it that we can talk about anyone else being righteous besides Jesus Christ? How could Job have been called righteous? How could Simeon, who held the infant Christ in his arms be called righteous in Luke's gospel? Job sinned, and so did Simeon. All have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God. Some repent and and believe in the provision of a divine Substitute. Others do not. This second group is called “the wicked,” and Psalm 1 tells us that there is a great difference between the wicked and the righteous.

The righteous man is called “blessed” at the opening of this psalm. In the deepest sense of the word, the righteous man is a happy man. This does not mean that he has no sorrow. The Messiah himself was a Man of Sorrows, yet He was deeply happy in His God. This blessedness or happiness of life does not require a man to deny evil, but to own up to it. The happy man sees the results of the fall and is grieved.

He lives in the Word of the Lord, and that Word insists that he have an accurate appraisal of both the present trouble and the future hope. Because he believes in the Word, he is able to walk in the blessedness of the Lord even through the most evil day.

The alternative to life in the Word of God is continually before us. There is another counsel available to men. It is called here the “counsel of the wicked.” To follow that counsel is to ignore the most basic distinctions that are necessary for happy living. Is there a good and a bad way, or is that too simplistic? If we will not call anyone or anything evil, we will quickly drift into a dangerous life of sin. Though that life is laced with enticing sensation, it is not the way of happiness. Drunkenness and infidelity are not the good life. Someone who walks that road needs to see it for what is and turn away from it. God is so merciful! There is a way out of the deepest ditch through the pathway of faith even at the last hour of life. Why stay even one more minute in the counsel of sinners when the way of happiness through the Word of God is open to you in Jesus Christ?

The blessed man will discern by that Word that there are some things that people consider to be funny that are not worth laughing at. The more he schools his heart in what he knows to be right, the more his delight will be in the instruction of heaven. He will want to think about that Word day and night, not because anyone is forcing him to do that, but because he has learned that this is where he finds solid joys.

The life of the man who is happy in God is very fruitful. In the visions of heaven contained in the prophetic oracles of the Old and New Testament, God tells us about a river of life which is the Spirit of God. God can plant you today right next to that good River, so that the root of your life will be healthy. He serves you His Spirit-inspired Word and you eagerly drink because you thirst for His righteousness.

This will make a difference in your life now. If God plants you next to that River you will have healthy leaves and abundant fruit all the time. Everything you do will prosper. Will everyone applaud your prosperity? No, some things that God calls gain will be seen by many to be the worst loss. The cross of Christ was the greatest prosperity of the only Man who was righteous entirely in Himself. Look at the riches of the cross: the defeat of death and hell which has become the hope of millions in every era and every land. Through the cross, Christ set firmly in the heavenly Zion the most precious Stone of mankind, and God is now raising up a beautiful temple of those who are righteous in that one Cornerstone. True prosperity lasts beond the grave.

The wicked are not like the righteous. They may seem to have happiness and they may accumulate buckets of precious gems, but the wind can take it all away in the twinkling of an eye. In the day when the trumpet sounds, and the wheat is seperated from the chaff, there will be nothing left of all that they accumulated. Only that which is done in Christ is solid and eternal.

Psalm 1 is very plain in this conclusion: The wicked will not stand in the judgment. There is judgment coming when the Lord returns or when you are suddenly brought before Him at the moment of your death. Some will be part of the congregation of the righteous, but others will perish. There is nothing more important than traveling on that pathway of true happiness, hearing the Word of the Lord, repenting, believing, serving Him fruitfully, and building a life of godliness and contentment that will last forever.

Christ is the Cornerstone of that righteous life. The difference between the righteousness of Jesus and the righteousness of everyone else who would ever be happy in Him is this: He needed no substitute. For all of the many who are declared righteous in Him, our life in the Word must begin by responding to His call to repent and believe.