Wednesday 12 May 2010

Psalm 1. A bit of Hellfire and Brimstone preaching.

The Way of the Righteous and the Wicked

Psalm 1

1 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;
2 but his delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law he meditates day and night.

3 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.
4 The wicked are not so,
but are like chaff that the wind drives away.

5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;
6 for the Lord knows the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked will perish.

I don’t know if you do this but I often look at the world round me and despair. I despair at the attitude the world seems to have to life. We have a bunch of people who claim God does not exist. They claim that we are stupid to believe in God and mock us openly. Religion is the enemy as far as they are concerned and they laugh at the very idea of God. Then we have people that we know who believe they are Christian because their parents are. Or because they live in a Christian country. Worse we have Christians who breeze through life with the idea of God as a heavenly insurance policy not something we have to bother with day to day but as long as it is there to save us at the end of the day.

We seem to have developed this idea that God lets our bad behaviour away with a nod and a wink. We seem to have an idea because we have read the stories in the Bible that judgement is instantaneous that if God has not struck us down then we have not done anything wrong and God is happy with our behaviour. The Bible is clear that this is not so. Psalm 1 is one place where we find the truth is anything but what we think. There are two categories here the righteous and the wicked. That how God will categorise us when we are judged. “Judgement!” You say “we did not know about judgement” well verse five mentions judgement. Let’s look at the two categories.

The Righteous

2 but his delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law he meditates day and night.

The righteous man here is not just waiting around for the end of time like he has become a Christian and that’s it, just wait till i die and then off to heaven because i have nothing to do ,it is all about Jesus. Do we delight in the Bible and finding out more about God? What are we doing to make our relationship with God grow? The righteous man is working hard to become closer to God he has not stopped. He is not just waiting for death to take him. But far from being a job to do he delights in reading Gods law he meditates on it daily. Are we coasting along just waiting for the day or are desperate to learn more about God? Do we live in his word and delight in getting to know him? Please let me be clear on what i am saying. Yes salvation is a FREE GIFT of God bought at the price of Jesus dying for our sins but let us also be clear that is not the end otherwise we may as well die now and go to be with God. We should want to get to know God more and be reading his word and meditating daily on it. This is not to get salvation, that is a free gift, but we should be sufficiently grateful for our salvation that surely we should want to find out more about our saviour.

The wicked by contrast.

4 The wicked are not so,
but are like chaff that the wind drives away.

5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;

Verse 5 is truly terrifying think about what it means to not stand in the judgement. Let’s make it really simple. The righteous because of Christ and the relationship we have with him will have Heaven and an eternity with God The wicked will be guilty. They have no saviour and though we think that God has let us pass by with a nod and a wink the truth we will find out is that that is not so. A guilty verdict means Hell and an eternity without God. It is incredibly important for us to work out which camp we are currently in. If you are in the wicked group then know that the road you are taking leads to death.

1 comment:

Lorna's Ark said...

I can't believe I can live with some one and not know all these things about you!

My prayers have been answered without me even knowing it.

I'm speechless and don't know what to say