Rev. Alan J. Meenan
I want to begin a new adventure with you this morning as we look to the start of a new series. We will continue over the next several weeks, every other week, to deal with our series on the Gospel of John. But today, I want to begin a look at the Book of Psalms with you, which I am calling Songs of Life. There is something very special about the Book of Psalms that makes it one of the most popular pieces of literature in the Bible for Christians. Some of the most well-worn passages are from the Psalms. There is something real about this book with which one can identify. On the one hand there is the praise of God, and on the other hand there is great lament, there is shaking one’s fists at God. There is a sense in which it’s real and we can identify with the psalmist, and we can articulate sometimes our own emotions and feelings.
We’re going to look at how we might nurture our faith in these coming months together as we look at the Book of Psalms. You will be relieved to know that I am not going to do all 150 of them, but I will do a fair amount of them as we go through them together. These are the most popular Psalms, so open your Bible to the Book of Psalms. We’re going to look at each verse in turn, and I’m going to invite you, as I read the first part of the verse, to read the second part back to me. Read it nice and boldly without reservation. We will see how you do as we go through this first Psalm. God is good. All the time. All the time. God is good.
Ok, take a moment to look at the Psalm. Read it and get the gist of it. What do you think of this blessed man or blessed woman? Do you think you might like to be like that person? Do you think there is something attractive about that person or that you would like to emulate that person? What is it that you capture when you read about this blessed person who bursts upon our consciousness as we first turn to this lovely Old Testament book and open its pages? Blessed, the word, occurs some 26 times in the Psalter. Psalter is what the church calls the Book of the Psalms. It comes from a verb meaning to go forth, to advance, or lead the way. So this little phrase, “Blessed is the man or blessed is the woman,” gives us a portrait of a joyous person that is pressing on life with clearly conceived ideas, goals, purpose and plans, doing what God wants for their life. Their eyes are upon God and his plan. For this blessed person, life is exciting. The serendipities of grace await each new day. No difficulty in all of life will be able to destroy the blessing that they have and they will be able, in every circumstance, to rise above it. Nothing can take away the blessing. Now I ask you again, is there anyone in this room who would not like to be like this man or woman? I suspect not.
Interestingly, when Paul writes to the church at Rome in the 5th chapter, he says, You know, we belong to Christ. We are a blessed person. Even when suffering comes your way and presses down on you, it will result in endurance pushing up against the suffering. That combination of suffering pushing down and endurance pushing up will work within your character, which will produce hope. That hope, says Paul, will never disappoint you because you belong to Jesus Christ.
It’s important to understand the difference between happiness and blessedness. I have heard many people say, You cannot use the word blessed anymore because nobody goes around saying blessed now. Except when you sneeze. Otherwise, you are never blessed. You have to sneeze to be blessed. Since nobody uses that word you are supposed to substitute the word happy. Happy is the man. Happy are the peacemakers. Happy is this that and the other. I want to object to that. Happiness connotes a feeling, but blessedness connotes a state. It’s possible for a righteous person, at times, to not feel happy but still to be in the state of blessedness. This man who is blessed. Blessed is the man. It should say blessed is the person, to be politically correct, because one wants hopefully to bless the women as well. Blessed is the person who invokes a sense of joy and gratitude, as this person lives out their lives in fellowship with God, devoted to God.
Let’s look at verse 1. You’ll notice that this person who is blessed does not do certain things. He does not walk in the counsel of the wicked. He does not stand in the way of sinners. He does not sit in the seat of mockers. That’s what scholars call synonymous parallelism—it’s very impressive, isn’t it? What that means is that these three things are three ways of saying the same thing. We’re not going to get into the intrigue of what it means to be walking, standing, and sitting because that’s not what the Psalmist has in mind here. All he’s saying is that the man or woman who is blessed does not identify with or seek the counsel of these people collectively who are unbelievers. In using these expressions, we’re saying that all unbelievers are generally people who have missed the mark. They have the wrong goals in life, and they are moving in the wrong direction. For whom every new calamity is further evidence of the dreary lot of their lives devoid of any hope, they live without any anticipation. Disbelieving people are all around us. Some of us live with them. Most of us work with them. Some of us number them among our best friends. What Psalmist is telling us is, Listen, unbelievers can influence your perception. It may not always be a bad perception, but maybe what you should see as white becomes gray. They have a way of discouraging you with their negative grim outlook on life.
Please understand that the scripture is not intimating that we should isolate ourselves from unbelievers. Quite the contrary. Do you remember when our Lord Jesus himself was on earth? He was eating with sinners and the religious elite. The preachers and the teachers of the synagogue came over to him and asked, What is this? How can he possible be doing this? Eating with sinners. Jesus, who always answers so wonderfully, says, Isn’t it interesting that healthy people don’t need to go and see a doctor. I didn’t come to call the righteous people, I came to call sinners to repentance. So, my beloved, it is important that you love the Lord Jesus Christ, but keep association with unbelievers. If you didn’t, God help the world. The world depends on us. We are the only hope of the world. You need to risk your holiness on the unholy, for love of Jesus Christ. The Psalmist is emphasizing here that the man or woman who is blessed does not slow to walk in the counsel of unbelievers. In other words, if you really want to live the life of blessedness, you do not take the advice of people who live their lives without God. Now that makes a lot of sense. They may even be religious people. There’s a thought. They may even be Presbyterians. Now there’s a second thought. They may be people who have nominal adherence to faith in Christ. People who go through the motions of religiosity, but whose lives are really an empty shell. By contrast, the man or woman in Christ who is blessed is a person who we read in verse 2.
Let’s look at verse 2. The blessed man or woman is the one who delights in the law of God. Who delights to know it, and who delights to do it. The word that is used here is the word Torah, which also means instruction. Allow me to distinguish between revelation and religion. Revelation is that which comes from God for the purpose of helping you follow God’s will. That’s what revelation is. It comes from God for the purpose of helping you live your life in ways that accord with God’s will. Religion, by contrast, is what you do to try to put your life in some order and try to explain the meaning of life in a theistic context. The interesting thing about this lovely Psalm is that we read, blessed is the one who lives in accordance, not with religion, but with revelation. His/her delight is in the Word of God, so much so that he/she meditates upon it. Meditates upon it at every opportunity! On a cold January night the blessed person goes over and switches off CSI, opens the Word and delights in it.
You know, I have the best job in the world. I really do. I have the opportunity to spend hours each day in the Word of God. It’s absolutely marvelous. And I get paid for it. It’s wonderful. I hope people don’t wise up until I retire. It’s been interesting in preparation these days for the beginning of the Word is Out, which starts Wednesday night. I have been refreshing my mind again with the Book of Romans, the great Magna Charta of the Christian faith. A book that I know well and I love so dearly. Yet, every time I turn the pages, every time I read what God has done in Christ, I literally at times am so overwhelmed that I have to drop my pen. Amid tears, I reach out to God and say, God, how incredibly marvelous that you have done these things for me.
Oh, the person who knows the life of blessing is a man or woman who delights not only in knowing the Word, but in doing it as well. You will agree with me when I say whatever shapes a person’s thinking, shapes a person’s life. In other words, you are what you think. You notice I did not say you are what you think you are. You are what you think. You know this joke. If you get bald in the back of your head, you are a great thinker. If you get bald in the back of your head, you’re a great lover. If you get bald in the front and the back of your head, you think you’re a great lover. Whatever shapes your thinking, shapes who you are. You are what you think. If that is true, delight in his Word. Steep yourself in his Word that it may affect your thinking and ultimately, affect the person that you are.
Let’s read verse 3. The Psalter is not a tree planted by a wadi. A wadi is an intermittent stream, kind of like the Los Angeles River. In other words, what he is not is a tree planted by the Los Angeles River. He is a tree planted by the Colorado River whose water never fails. The imagery here is so marvelous because you have a picture of a tree absorbing the life-giving water from the stream that passes through its roots. The imagery of it bearing leaves and fruit symbolize the blessing and success of the life that is planted by the streams of the living water.
This idea that whatever he or she does fosters prosperity is not an idea of great wealth in the sense of financial resources. Rather, it is the great wealth of God’s blessing upon a human life. It is success in the proper and fullest understanding of the word success, and not success for its own sake. This blessing comes as a by-product of Godliness. The Psalmist is making an important theological point here. He is saying that the state of blessedness is not a reward, it is the result of a particular type of life, the type that drinking the life-giving waters of God through his Word. The type planted by rivers that never fail, the river that flows past you, the rivers of pardon and grace.
The Psalmist is also saying that there is fruit of joy, love, peace, long suffering, gentleness and patience to be had. All the fruits of the spirit. The leaves of this tree will never wither. Isn’t that a lovely picture? Ultimately everything you put your hand to for the glory of God will not fail. Who again would not like to live this life of blessedness?
Growing up in my Methodist church in Ireland, we sang one song a lot. One verse is: See the streams of living water, springing from eternal love. Well supplied thy sons and daughters and all fear of want removed. Who can faint while such a river ever flows their thirst to assuage. Grace which like the Lord the Giver never fails from age to age. Grace which like the Lord the giver never fails from age to age.
Let’s move on to verse 4. How different is the end of the unbeliever? Not so the wicked. They are like chaff. That which is light, that which is useless, that which does not have any real substance, and that which does not have any intrinsic worth. Chaff. Chaff is that which is separated during the process of the winnowing of wheat. The old way of the farmer, who would get the harvest of the wheat. He would go in there with his pitchfork, and he would throw it up in the air. The wind would blow away the chaff, and the kernels of wheat would fall to the ground. That is what the unbelievers will be. As the Farmer throws the chaff to the afternoon breeze, the breeze will take them away. Their place will never be remembered anymore. What a great contrast that is to the well-rooted tree.
The Psalmist tells us that these people who are the chaff, unbelievers, are people who live for themselves. Even in death they will be hurried away. In verse 5 he says, Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment. The wicked, the unbelievers, will not stand in judgment. If a person chooses to live their life without Jesus Christ, they can be certain that they will live apart from Him for all eternity. Unbelievers will not stand in the judgment. The Psalmist has forced us to see the danger of walking, standing and sitting with unbelievers. As for the company of cynics and mockers, he now turns to tell us of their fate.
Psalm 1 affirms there will be a judgment. Psalm 1 does not bargain. This Psalm reminds us that life is made up of choices, choices between life and death, blessing and cursing, rewards and judgment. The unbelievers will not stand in the judgment. Nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous. Nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. All congregations on earth are mixed, mixed with saints and sinners. This congregation this morning is a mixed congregation, saints and sinners. We’re all sinners. This is a place for saints, but my beloved, this is also a place for sinners. If you’re here as a plain, ordinary sinner today, you’re incredibly welcome. Come back. We love your being here, because it is our prayer that the day will come, maybe today, when you will become a sinner saved by grace. We do need to remember that there will be no sinners in Heaven, except those saved by grace. Verse 5 tells us that specifically. It tells us that there is no middle ground. There are two roads only: two roads. This is the very pith and quintessence of Christianity.
If I might quote Robert Frost in his famous poem, I shall be telling this with a sigh, he says, somewhere ages and ages hence that two roads diverged in a wood and I took the one less traveled by. And that made all the difference. Verse 6. For the Lord watches over the ways of the righteous. I do actually know something about the ways of the wicked. The way of the wicked runs out and is lost in the woods. When the Psalmist talks about the way of the wicked perishing, the idea is used of a road that comes to nothing, a road that comes to ruin, a road that dead ends in the middle of the woods. You don’t know which way to go because there is no more way to go. The idea is one of a life that is filled with hopes, dreams, and plans that have been frustrated, of creatures that have gotten lost, of human achievement that ultimately and finally has come to nothing but grief. Two roads diverge in the woods. Two roads here in verse 6 that part forever. There is no third road.
Jesus himself spoke of two roads. He said there was a broad road that would lead to destruction and that there was a narrow road that would lead to life. He added that there are so few people that find the narrow road. It is my prayer that every single person in this room today would find the narrow road. It is the way that leads to life. For I can see Jesus weeping over the broad road as I see him weeping over Jerusalem that lovely night of pathos when the tears were trickling down his cheek. He said, Oh Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered you? How often would I have gathered you like a hen gathers her brood under her wing, but you wouldn’t come.
So I ask the question as I move to my conclusion. What I want to say now is very important. Who is this blessed man or this blessed woman of Psalm 1 who sets the bar for the remaining Psalms of life that we will be looking at in subsequent weeks and months? It is anyone that sinks their roots deep into the well spring of God’s love and God’s Word. For the safety, security, promises, and blessings of this Psalm are available to everyone who comes to Christ for salvation. We’re not talking about a person who is immune from life’s trials, suffering and difficulties, not one whose roots are in himself, but one who is rooted and grounded in Christ alone. We read verse 6. For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, or The Lord knows the way of the righteous. One marvelous thing is that He also knows the ways of the wicked. The really marvelous thing is that the future is in the hands of God’s knowledge. God knows the way of the righteous, and God knows the way of the wicked. He watches over the ways of the righteous, but there is no watching over the way of the unbeliever. Because when God knows the way of the righteous, he not only knows, he cares. He protects and rewards his own.
A beautiful illustration of that is found in one of my favorite books in the Old Testament, the 2nd book of the Bible. As the curtain opens up, you have a story of great sorrow and sadness as the people of God are in bondage in Egypt. There in the opening chapters, God speaks home to the heart of his people. He says, I have heard your crying. I know your suffering. It was because of that knowledge that the whole marvelous, magnificent story of the exodus begins a story of love, redemption and deliverance. The Lord knows the way of the righteous. My beloved, the Lord knows what you are going through. He knows if you’re experiencing clouds of life. He knows when the storms are beating upon your soul. He knows. He cares. He protects. He provides. He rewards. Because he knows the way of the righteous. He watches over the way of the righteous. The Lord knows the way that I take. When I am tried, I will come forth like gold. The way of unbelievers will perish. The way of unbelievers will lead to nothing. It will go nowhere.
Two roads diverge in the woods. Which road will you travel? There is not a third road. One road leads to destruction, the other to life. As Joshua once said to the people of God, so I say today to you the saints and sinners of Hollywood Presbyterian Church. Choose you this day whom you will serve. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.
I want to begin a new adventure with you this morning as we look to the start of a new series. We will continue over the next several weeks, every other week, to deal with our series on the Gospel of John. But today, I want to begin a look at the Book of Psalms with you, which I am calling Songs of Life. There is something very special about the Book of Psalms that makes it one of the most popular pieces of literature in the Bible for Christians. Some of the most well-worn passages are from the Psalms. There is something real about this book with which one can identify. On the one hand there is the praise of God, and on the other hand there is great lament, there is shaking one’s fists at God. There is a sense in which it’s real and we can identify with the psalmist, and we can articulate sometimes our own emotions and feelings.
We’re going to look at how we might nurture our faith in these coming months together as we look at the Book of Psalms. You will be relieved to know that I am not going to do all 150 of them, but I will do a fair amount of them as we go through them together. These are the most popular Psalms, so open your Bible to the Book of Psalms. We’re going to look at each verse in turn, and I’m going to invite you, as I read the first part of the verse, to read the second part back to me. Read it nice and boldly without reservation. We will see how you do as we go through this first Psalm. God is good. All the time. All the time. God is good.
Ok, take a moment to look at the Psalm. Read it and get the gist of it. What do you think of this blessed man or blessed woman? Do you think you might like to be like that person? Do you think there is something attractive about that person or that you would like to emulate that person? What is it that you capture when you read about this blessed person who bursts upon our consciousness as we first turn to this lovely Old Testament book and open its pages? Blessed, the word, occurs some 26 times in the Psalter. Psalter is what the church calls the Book of the Psalms. It comes from a verb meaning to go forth, to advance, or lead the way. So this little phrase, “Blessed is the man or blessed is the woman,” gives us a portrait of a joyous person that is pressing on life with clearly conceived ideas, goals, purpose and plans, doing what God wants for their life. Their eyes are upon God and his plan. For this blessed person, life is exciting. The serendipities of grace await each new day. No difficulty in all of life will be able to destroy the blessing that they have and they will be able, in every circumstance, to rise above it. Nothing can take away the blessing. Now I ask you again, is there anyone in this room who would not like to be like this man or woman? I suspect not.
Interestingly, when Paul writes to the church at Rome in the 5th chapter, he says, You know, we belong to Christ. We are a blessed person. Even when suffering comes your way and presses down on you, it will result in endurance pushing up against the suffering. That combination of suffering pushing down and endurance pushing up will work within your character, which will produce hope. That hope, says Paul, will never disappoint you because you belong to Jesus Christ.
It’s important to understand the difference between happiness and blessedness. I have heard many people say, You cannot use the word blessed anymore because nobody goes around saying blessed now. Except when you sneeze. Otherwise, you are never blessed. You have to sneeze to be blessed. Since nobody uses that word you are supposed to substitute the word happy. Happy is the man. Happy are the peacemakers. Happy is this that and the other. I want to object to that. Happiness connotes a feeling, but blessedness connotes a state. It’s possible for a righteous person, at times, to not feel happy but still to be in the state of blessedness. This man who is blessed. Blessed is the man. It should say blessed is the person, to be politically correct, because one wants hopefully to bless the women as well. Blessed is the person who invokes a sense of joy and gratitude, as this person lives out their lives in fellowship with God, devoted to God.
Let’s look at verse 1. You’ll notice that this person who is blessed does not do certain things. He does not walk in the counsel of the wicked. He does not stand in the way of sinners. He does not sit in the seat of mockers. That’s what scholars call synonymous parallelism—it’s very impressive, isn’t it? What that means is that these three things are three ways of saying the same thing. We’re not going to get into the intrigue of what it means to be walking, standing, and sitting because that’s not what the Psalmist has in mind here. All he’s saying is that the man or woman who is blessed does not identify with or seek the counsel of these people collectively who are unbelievers. In using these expressions, we’re saying that all unbelievers are generally people who have missed the mark. They have the wrong goals in life, and they are moving in the wrong direction. For whom every new calamity is further evidence of the dreary lot of their lives devoid of any hope, they live without any anticipation. Disbelieving people are all around us. Some of us live with them. Most of us work with them. Some of us number them among our best friends. What Psalmist is telling us is, Listen, unbelievers can influence your perception. It may not always be a bad perception, but maybe what you should see as white becomes gray. They have a way of discouraging you with their negative grim outlook on life.
Please understand that the scripture is not intimating that we should isolate ourselves from unbelievers. Quite the contrary. Do you remember when our Lord Jesus himself was on earth? He was eating with sinners and the religious elite. The preachers and the teachers of the synagogue came over to him and asked, What is this? How can he possible be doing this? Eating with sinners. Jesus, who always answers so wonderfully, says, Isn’t it interesting that healthy people don’t need to go and see a doctor. I didn’t come to call the righteous people, I came to call sinners to repentance. So, my beloved, it is important that you love the Lord Jesus Christ, but keep association with unbelievers. If you didn’t, God help the world. The world depends on us. We are the only hope of the world. You need to risk your holiness on the unholy, for love of Jesus Christ. The Psalmist is emphasizing here that the man or woman who is blessed does not slow to walk in the counsel of unbelievers. In other words, if you really want to live the life of blessedness, you do not take the advice of people who live their lives without God. Now that makes a lot of sense. They may even be religious people. There’s a thought. They may even be Presbyterians. Now there’s a second thought. They may be people who have nominal adherence to faith in Christ. People who go through the motions of religiosity, but whose lives are really an empty shell. By contrast, the man or woman in Christ who is blessed is a person who we read in verse 2.
Let’s look at verse 2. The blessed man or woman is the one who delights in the law of God. Who delights to know it, and who delights to do it. The word that is used here is the word Torah, which also means instruction. Allow me to distinguish between revelation and religion. Revelation is that which comes from God for the purpose of helping you follow God’s will. That’s what revelation is. It comes from God for the purpose of helping you live your life in ways that accord with God’s will. Religion, by contrast, is what you do to try to put your life in some order and try to explain the meaning of life in a theistic context. The interesting thing about this lovely Psalm is that we read, blessed is the one who lives in accordance, not with religion, but with revelation. His/her delight is in the Word of God, so much so that he/she meditates upon it. Meditates upon it at every opportunity! On a cold January night the blessed person goes over and switches off CSI, opens the Word and delights in it.
You know, I have the best job in the world. I really do. I have the opportunity to spend hours each day in the Word of God. It’s absolutely marvelous. And I get paid for it. It’s wonderful. I hope people don’t wise up until I retire. It’s been interesting in preparation these days for the beginning of the Word is Out, which starts Wednesday night. I have been refreshing my mind again with the Book of Romans, the great Magna Charta of the Christian faith. A book that I know well and I love so dearly. Yet, every time I turn the pages, every time I read what God has done in Christ, I literally at times am so overwhelmed that I have to drop my pen. Amid tears, I reach out to God and say, God, how incredibly marvelous that you have done these things for me.
Oh, the person who knows the life of blessing is a man or woman who delights not only in knowing the Word, but in doing it as well. You will agree with me when I say whatever shapes a person’s thinking, shapes a person’s life. In other words, you are what you think. You notice I did not say you are what you think you are. You are what you think. You know this joke. If you get bald in the back of your head, you are a great thinker. If you get bald in the back of your head, you’re a great lover. If you get bald in the front and the back of your head, you think you’re a great lover. Whatever shapes your thinking, shapes who you are. You are what you think. If that is true, delight in his Word. Steep yourself in his Word that it may affect your thinking and ultimately, affect the person that you are.
Let’s read verse 3. The Psalter is not a tree planted by a wadi. A wadi is an intermittent stream, kind of like the Los Angeles River. In other words, what he is not is a tree planted by the Los Angeles River. He is a tree planted by the Colorado River whose water never fails. The imagery here is so marvelous because you have a picture of a tree absorbing the life-giving water from the stream that passes through its roots. The imagery of it bearing leaves and fruit symbolize the blessing and success of the life that is planted by the streams of the living water.
This idea that whatever he or she does fosters prosperity is not an idea of great wealth in the sense of financial resources. Rather, it is the great wealth of God’s blessing upon a human life. It is success in the proper and fullest understanding of the word success, and not success for its own sake. This blessing comes as a by-product of Godliness. The Psalmist is making an important theological point here. He is saying that the state of blessedness is not a reward, it is the result of a particular type of life, the type that drinking the life-giving waters of God through his Word. The type planted by rivers that never fail, the river that flows past you, the rivers of pardon and grace.
The Psalmist is also saying that there is fruit of joy, love, peace, long suffering, gentleness and patience to be had. All the fruits of the spirit. The leaves of this tree will never wither. Isn’t that a lovely picture? Ultimately everything you put your hand to for the glory of God will not fail. Who again would not like to live this life of blessedness?
Growing up in my Methodist church in Ireland, we sang one song a lot. One verse is: See the streams of living water, springing from eternal love. Well supplied thy sons and daughters and all fear of want removed. Who can faint while such a river ever flows their thirst to assuage. Grace which like the Lord the Giver never fails from age to age. Grace which like the Lord the giver never fails from age to age.
Let’s move on to verse 4. How different is the end of the unbeliever? Not so the wicked. They are like chaff. That which is light, that which is useless, that which does not have any real substance, and that which does not have any intrinsic worth. Chaff. Chaff is that which is separated during the process of the winnowing of wheat. The old way of the farmer, who would get the harvest of the wheat. He would go in there with his pitchfork, and he would throw it up in the air. The wind would blow away the chaff, and the kernels of wheat would fall to the ground. That is what the unbelievers will be. As the Farmer throws the chaff to the afternoon breeze, the breeze will take them away. Their place will never be remembered anymore. What a great contrast that is to the well-rooted tree.
The Psalmist tells us that these people who are the chaff, unbelievers, are people who live for themselves. Even in death they will be hurried away. In verse 5 he says, Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment. The wicked, the unbelievers, will not stand in judgment. If a person chooses to live their life without Jesus Christ, they can be certain that they will live apart from Him for all eternity. Unbelievers will not stand in the judgment. The Psalmist has forced us to see the danger of walking, standing and sitting with unbelievers. As for the company of cynics and mockers, he now turns to tell us of their fate.
Psalm 1 affirms there will be a judgment. Psalm 1 does not bargain. This Psalm reminds us that life is made up of choices, choices between life and death, blessing and cursing, rewards and judgment. The unbelievers will not stand in the judgment. Nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous. Nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. All congregations on earth are mixed, mixed with saints and sinners. This congregation this morning is a mixed congregation, saints and sinners. We’re all sinners. This is a place for saints, but my beloved, this is also a place for sinners. If you’re here as a plain, ordinary sinner today, you’re incredibly welcome. Come back. We love your being here, because it is our prayer that the day will come, maybe today, when you will become a sinner saved by grace. We do need to remember that there will be no sinners in Heaven, except those saved by grace. Verse 5 tells us that specifically. It tells us that there is no middle ground. There are two roads only: two roads. This is the very pith and quintessence of Christianity.
If I might quote Robert Frost in his famous poem, I shall be telling this with a sigh, he says, somewhere ages and ages hence that two roads diverged in a wood and I took the one less traveled by. And that made all the difference. Verse 6. For the Lord watches over the ways of the righteous. I do actually know something about the ways of the wicked. The way of the wicked runs out and is lost in the woods. When the Psalmist talks about the way of the wicked perishing, the idea is used of a road that comes to nothing, a road that comes to ruin, a road that dead ends in the middle of the woods. You don’t know which way to go because there is no more way to go. The idea is one of a life that is filled with hopes, dreams, and plans that have been frustrated, of creatures that have gotten lost, of human achievement that ultimately and finally has come to nothing but grief. Two roads diverge in the woods. Two roads here in verse 6 that part forever. There is no third road.
Jesus himself spoke of two roads. He said there was a broad road that would lead to destruction and that there was a narrow road that would lead to life. He added that there are so few people that find the narrow road. It is my prayer that every single person in this room today would find the narrow road. It is the way that leads to life. For I can see Jesus weeping over the broad road as I see him weeping over Jerusalem that lovely night of pathos when the tears were trickling down his cheek. He said, Oh Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered you? How often would I have gathered you like a hen gathers her brood under her wing, but you wouldn’t come.
So I ask the question as I move to my conclusion. What I want to say now is very important. Who is this blessed man or this blessed woman of Psalm 1 who sets the bar for the remaining Psalms of life that we will be looking at in subsequent weeks and months? It is anyone that sinks their roots deep into the well spring of God’s love and God’s Word. For the safety, security, promises, and blessings of this Psalm are available to everyone who comes to Christ for salvation. We’re not talking about a person who is immune from life’s trials, suffering and difficulties, not one whose roots are in himself, but one who is rooted and grounded in Christ alone. We read verse 6. For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, or The Lord knows the way of the righteous. One marvelous thing is that He also knows the ways of the wicked. The really marvelous thing is that the future is in the hands of God’s knowledge. God knows the way of the righteous, and God knows the way of the wicked. He watches over the ways of the righteous, but there is no watching over the way of the unbeliever. Because when God knows the way of the righteous, he not only knows, he cares. He protects and rewards his own.
A beautiful illustration of that is found in one of my favorite books in the Old Testament, the 2nd book of the Bible. As the curtain opens up, you have a story of great sorrow and sadness as the people of God are in bondage in Egypt. There in the opening chapters, God speaks home to the heart of his people. He says, I have heard your crying. I know your suffering. It was because of that knowledge that the whole marvelous, magnificent story of the exodus begins a story of love, redemption and deliverance. The Lord knows the way of the righteous. My beloved, the Lord knows what you are going through. He knows if you’re experiencing clouds of life. He knows when the storms are beating upon your soul. He knows. He cares. He protects. He provides. He rewards. Because he knows the way of the righteous. He watches over the way of the righteous. The Lord knows the way that I take. When I am tried, I will come forth like gold. The way of unbelievers will perish. The way of unbelievers will lead to nothing. It will go nowhere.
Two roads diverge in the woods. Which road will you travel? There is not a third road. One road leads to destruction, the other to life. As Joshua once said to the people of God, so I say today to you the saints and sinners of Hollywood Presbyterian Church. Choose you this day whom you will serve. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.
