In our current study in Psalm 1, Alistair Begg is showing us that the Bible says the righteous will prosper and the wicked will perish. When we look around, it sometimes seems like the opposite is true. Why does it seem like the wicked are flourishing and the righteous are struggling?
Hear the answer today on Truth for Life. There in verse 2, this blessed one that ultimately is Christ himself who fulfills this, but the one who walks in Christ and follows the law of God finds that his delight is in the law of the Lord. It is important that we keep in mind that when we find the word law here, we ought not to think simply in terms of legality or even in terms of the specifics of the law of God itself.
All of the Church Fathers recognize the fact that it is the law, but since, if you like, the Scripture is ultimately an exposition of the law, then under the heading, we're dealing with God's instruction in its entirety. And so this man, this woman, this person, instead of their mind being filled with the counsel of the wicked, with a worldview that starts and ends with self, they find that each part of their life is being brought into harmony with the word and with the will of God. That's essentially what it means to delight in it.
It's something more than simply having a knowledge of it that is cursory, but a genuine desire for it and a delight in it. Now we delight in the things that we desire, and the things that we desire most fill us with that sense of contentment and satisfaction, and the importance of the distinction is clearly made not only in this psalm, but in the entirety of Scripture. And that delight is not some passing fancy, as the second positive statement reveals, because on this law of God, this instruction of God, the righteous person meditates day and night. Now interestingly, and this is something that I had to learn by reading, but the same word that is used here for meditates, if your Bible is open, is the same word that is translated plot in chapter one of verse two, in verse one of Psalm two. Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? So it is a meditation on the word of God day and night. It is a plotting in vain. In other words, what is described there is the exercise of the faculty of one's mind and emotions generated to a particular end. The end in view for the righteous person is a stated, the end in view for the opponents of the servant of God is a disastrous and a despiteful end. In fact, the word in meditating may also be translated in terms of murmuring. And when you think about it, we've only had Bibles for about 400 years, and therefore nobody could have been asked to go home and read their Bible because they never had a Bible to read. And when the truths of God were conveyed in the Old Testament, they were committed largely to memory.
And so it was not uncommon for people to walk around essentially murmuring the truth of God's word. And if someone has said, why in the world is that lady speaking out loud like that? What is she saying? What is she rehearsing? And the answer may come she is meditating on the word of God so that what may take place in private will be revealed in public.
In the 19th century, Plummer has a lovely little piece that I can pass on to you. He says the power of meditation distinguishes man from beast, the habit of meditation distinguishes a wise man from a fool, and the pious meditation, a saint from a sinner. And I'm sure there's something of that that is helpful to us.
So three negatives, two positives, and then a picture. This meditation, this encounter with God and his word renders the individual like a tree. It's a simile, isn't it? He is like a tree. And it sets up the contrast that is about to be found with verse four. The tree doesn't plant itself, the tree is planted.
If you like the divine gardener plants the tree, irrigates it with all that is essential for its fruitfulness. Those of us who have lived for a fair while within the Christian community and have enjoyed some of the songs of the past will have been remembering as we've gone through Isaiah, songs like, therefore the redeemed of the Lord shall return and come with singing unto Zion and everlasting joy will be upon their heads. That's kind of a golden oldie, even though it's not that old. And some of you also will remember the musical renditions of Isaiah chapter 61, the spirit of the Lord is upon me, appointed me to bring good news to the poor. And you know, of course, that this is the words of the anointed servant of God. This is the expression of the Messiah of God. And when Jesus steps forward in the synagogue in Nazareth, you will remember he turns deliberately to this passage of Isaiah in order to announce what it is he has come to do. And amongst all of the things that are described, and this struck me again because I think it was included in the song, although I can't remember it properly, but you will, you will note when you turn to it on your own that not only does he proclaim good news for the poor and comfort for those who are broken hearted and liberty for those who are in bondage and beauty for ashes for those who mourn and an oil of gladness and so on. But in all of this, here we go, that they may be called what? Oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified.
The very purpose of God in redeeming his people is in order that that which is described here and foreshadowed in Psalm one is actual in our lives. He will be like a tree planted by streams of water, yields its fruit in season and its leaf does not wither. That doesn't mean that when autumn comes, it stays beautifully green. It is in contrast, the contrast we read about some of us in Jeremiah 17, where the description of the wicked is there like shrubs in the desert, as opposed to like trees by rivers of living water. Well, then you have this little sentence in all that he does, he prospers, he prospers.
That's tough, isn't it? What is prosperity for a tree? How does a tree prosper?
Because it is a description of a tree, it's a simile, isn't it? How would you know that you had a prosperous tree? If you had an apple tree and it was prosperous, you would be able to get apples from it.
If you had a vine tree and so on, an olive tree and so on. So the very notion of fruitfulness is an indication of prosperity. But you, if you again have lived and been around long enough will know that this is a go-to verse for the health, wealth and happiness folks who suggest to people that the Bible really guarantees us all of those things. And then indeed if we take this Sam in a moralistic way, and if we don't do this and don't do that and don't do the next thing and do that and do that, then this will happen and hey presto, we'll all be phenomenally prosperous. But we know that doesn't work.
And furthermore, it gets even worse. Because when we read the Psalms, what do we discover? Well the Psalmist says it's a problem, but I'm telling you, I've seen a lot of pagans that are stinking rich and I've seen a lot of followers of Jesus who are as poor as church mice. Psalm 73, he's honest enough to say, I was envious when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. In other words, it sets up a real conflict in his mind. He knows that the promise of God is that we will be as this, that there will be fruitfulness in the lives of those he has planted. That the wicked have this as their destiny and yet he says it doesn't look like that at all.
It doesn't look like that as you go to attend various parties and events that have to do with your business. And so we have to read the Psalm in order to be helped as the Psalmist was helped. Because remember how he resolves it. He says I was envious when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. He said when my heart was bitter, when I became envious, when I began to think incorrectly, then I was like a brute beast. Then he says, I went in to the sanctuary of God. I went among the assembly of God. I went among the congregation of the righteous. And then he said, and only then I discovered their end.
I discovered their end. You see, the Bible is really clear about the brevity of life, its frailty, its finality and also about the reality of eternity. One of the reasons that the Council of the Wicked says to us again and again in various forms in our world tonight that you don't have to worry about dying. There's nothing in dying. There's nothing after dying. It doesn't matter. You didn't know anything before.
You won't know anything after at all. Just forget it. Go to sleep.
Eat, drink, be married. Tomorrow you die. Who cares? So what? That message comes again and again and again. And it doesn't sell because everyone deep in their hearts knows that there is an eternity. Because the very creator who has revealed himself in the glory of the firmament has said eternity in the heart of a man, in the heart of a woman. And everybody knows. And the desire to suppress the truth is as real in dealing with the prospect of death as it is in trying to make sense of life.
The righteous will prosper ultimately and the wicked will perish. You see, we're only getting to the second main point now. Yes, yes we are. But don't worry. Don't worry. Not so, not so the wicked.
That's what it says. The wicked are not so. They may appear to be set for life but they are clearly unprepared for death. The picture there of winnowing is picked up by John the Baptist perhaps with this in mind when he speaks of the winnowing fork being in the hand of the servant of God. As the grain is picked up by the fork and thrown up into the air, the grain of value settles to be retained and the husks and the bits and the pieces and the chaff just blows away in the wind. From dust we came, to dust we will return.
But not so fast because look at what the balance says. Chaff that the wind drives away, therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment. In other words, God has not finished this story. The Bible makes clear what this psalm introduces, namely that God has appointed judgment for the unrighteousness of man. The expressions of his judgment are revealed not only in the end but are revealed all the way through life. In fact, when you read Romans chapter 1, it speaks clearly about the fact that as man has turned his back on the righteous standard of God, as women have done as they have done, they bear in themselves the evidences of God's righteous response to this in his judgment upon them.
It's not politically correct any more than the thought that we are not just passing away, but that we're moving to a day that God has established. That's what Paul was brave enough to say when he spoke to the intelligentsia. You would think if he was just going to take them on at philosophy, he wouldn't descend to this or rise to this, but he does.
He moves directly there. He says, and in light of all that I have said, you should know this, that God has set a day, appointed a day, when he will judge the world by the one he has appointed, namely Jesus, the risen Jesus, and he has given proof of it by the fact that he has raised Jesus. And as it has become almost a truism for me, and perhaps you too, we say to ourselves, this day that God is appointed of judgment will be absolutely fair because it will be executed in righteousness. No possibility of mistakes.
It is absolutely fixed. The day has been appointed and it is absolutely final. And what makes it so galling is that verse five makes clear that those who are wicked will not stand in the judgment. The righteous do not stand in the way of sinners, verse one, and the wicked will not stand in the judgment. I think it may well mean this, that when on that day God assembles that great company, when he separates the sheep from the goats, as Jesus said he would do, which in itself is a metaphor, the wicked will be separated.
How else do we make sense of the parables told by Jesus, the parable of the wedding banquet, and of the importance of being clothed in the wedding garments, emblematic of the robe of righteousness which Jesus gives, and those being left out and the door being shut. It is a dreadful and a horrible and a real picture. And what you have in the close of this psalm is this eternal separation between the friends of God and the foes of God. Parting is hard. Saying goodbye is hard.
Every parting is actually ultimately hard when you want to be together. That's what makes death so hard, because it separates once and for all. But the prospect of an eternal separation, to which we are introduced not only in Psalm 1, but in the entirety of the Bible, is absolutely frightening. It is phenomenally fearful. The Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.
Loved ones, we can have only half of the equation. We can't take to ourselves, as it were, the promises of God and say that there is no reason for anybody to be concerned about the warnings of God. The warnings and the promises live together. Kiss one another, as it were. The Lord knows our way.
It's a wonderful thought, isn't it? I met a little girl this morning. I think her name was Maria. I alluded to her in one of my prayers because she had a nice little purse, and in our purse she had a little creature. And I said, who is your creature? And she said, this creature is called Precious. And she was with her grandpa, and I said, you know, Maria, that is what you are to your grandpa. But you know what, Maria?
That is what you are to God in the Lord Jesus Christ. And as much as you love to carry that wee thing, lifeless as it is, around in your pouch, as it were, the Lord knows your way. He knows when you sit down and when you rise. He knows the diagnosis that comes our way. He knows our fears and our failures. He knows our past disappointments. He knows the times when we have come cataclysmically close to absolute destruction. And he has watched over us all of the way. But look at this, in direct contrast, the way of the wicked will perish. Surely one of the most dreadful statements that is put into the lips of Jesus, again in the Sermon on the Mount, isn't it? Many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, we did a lot of stuff for you.
We were preaching, we were singing, we were evangelizing, we were doing all kinds of stuff. Some of us actually cast out demons in your name. And the Lord will say, depart from me. I never even knew you.
I never knew you. The Lord knows the way of the righteous. The way of the wicked will perish. That's why as we began this morning, we said we must allow the scriptures to frame our thinking in such a clear, definitive way. There are only the righteous and the wicked.
There is no middle territory. And the call to the righteous with which we ended this morning, seek the Lord while he may be found. That is the call to the wicked, I should say. Seek the Lord while he may be found. Call upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way.
The unrighteous man his thoughts. And let him return to the Lord. And he will have mercy upon him. And to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. He will have mercy. Mercy. See the confidence of the righteous is not injustice.
Do you remember Portia and the merchant of Venice? She says if justice be thy plea, consider this. That in the course of justice, none of us should see salvation. We do but pray for mercy.
For mercy. Let me quote a hymn. But sinners, filled with guilty fear, shall see God's wrath prevailing. For they shall rise and find their tears are wholly unavailing. The day of grace is past and gone. They trembling stand before his throne, all unprepared to meet him.
You find yourself in that category this evening? Then listen to Isaiah 55. And come to the one who beckons you to forsake the wicked way.
To turn from unrighteousness and be caught up in the warmth of his embrace. And here's the other hymn. It's the hymn that begins, Jesus thy blood and righteousness, my glory are my something dress.
I think it's Zinzendorf, I didn't check. But here are the two verses. Lord, I believe thy precious blood, which at the mercy seat of God, pleads for the captives' liberty, was also shed in love for me.
When from the dust of death I rise to claim my mansion in the skies, this then shall be my only plea. Jesus has lived and died for me. What did the man on the cross have to say in his defense?
Absolutely nothing. His one defense, his righteousness, found in Jesus. And we, like him, rest in the truth of God's word. Because of him, writes Paul, you are in Christ Jesus, who has become to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption. I wonder, do you know what he says immediately after that?
What comes after the soul? It's quite striking. So, let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord. How would you ever be prepared to stand up and say, you're in the company of the righteous, unless you had been embraced by the one who bore all of our unrighteousness and clothed us with all of his goodness. And that God, in and through the Lord Jesus, by the Holy Spirit, is the one who knows our way.
That is Alistair Begg, reminding each of us that we find our righteousness only in Christ. You're listening to Truth for Life. Well, with the new year just around the corner, I'm excited to let you know that beginning January 1st, you can spend a few minutes each day meditating on God's word by listening to a short passage of scripture, followed by a reflection from Alistair's teaching. These are brief audio meditations taken from the book Truth for Life 365 Daily Devotions. You'll be able to listen on our website or using our mobile app beginning January 1st. You can also subscribe to these daily audio devotions through popular podcast platforms like Apple Podcasts or Spotify, YouTube or Amazon. Simply search for Truth for Life Daily Devotions and choose the subscribe option.
Now, our offices are closed until Monday, December 30th, but you can still make a year-end donation securely online at truthforlife.org slash donate. And when you do, don't forget to ask for your copy of the book Every Moment Holy, Volume 3. Thanks for studying the Bible with us this week, and I hope you'll be able to worship with your local church this weekend. Join us again Monday when we'll learn how two simple words, but God, can completely change our perspective. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.
