I've read this short psalm to
you, and I want to begin the message by having you notice
two specific words in this psalm. It's the word that begins the
psalm, and then the second word is the word that ends the psalm.
You'll notice the first word is the word blessed. Blessed,
which means well off, fortunate, to be envied, and even the word
happy. In fact, if you took a concordance
and looked up the word happy, and then looked up the word blessed,
you'll find that they both come from the same root word. The first word that I would have
you notice is blessed. Blessed. And the word, and we're
not, we can't read Hebrew, but the word is in the plural. So
really it is in the original it would be blessedness. There
are many blessednesses to the people of God. We're blessed
with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places in Christ
Jesus. We were blessed in old eternity. We are even now being blessed. The blessings keep coming. The
blessings keep flowing to all of the children of God. And the
blessing shall continually come to us. The mercies of God through
the Lord Jesus Christ are abundant and they're glorious. And so
he begins, blessed is the man, blessed is the man. which, by
the way, leads me to give you the title of my message, Who
is the Blessed Man? It's not talking about a man
as opposed to a woman. It's talking about an individual. Blessed is the man. Blessed is
the individual. Because God gives his blessings
individually. All blessings come from God,
be they material blessings temporal blessings or spiritual blessings.
All blessings come from God. But all people are not blessed
equally. The Lord distributes his blessings
according to his own sovereign will and purpose. And David,
whom we presume is the inspired writer of this psalm, begins,
blessed is the man. Blessed, well off, happy, fortunate. One to be envied is a man. Blessed. And then notice the
contrast with the last word of the psalm. And the last word
of the psalm is perish. There are some who are blessed
and some who are going to perish. The word perish means to be destroyed. And I'll tell you an even stronger
word because I did a little research into the word today. It means
that while there are some who are blessed, there are some people
who are going to be exterminated. Well, that's a strong word there.
Exterminated. We have somebody who parks in
our parking lot who is an exterminator, pest control. You see, those
who finally wind up as enemies against God, who are never brought
into the fold of salvation, they are pests to our God. They care nothing for the Lord. They live and die in unbelief
and they will be exterminated. And God himself will be the exterminator. He is the one who will put them
away in a location where they will never be heard from again. So we immediately have in the
first Psalm, we have a contrast drawn between some people who
are blessed and some people who are going to perish. In fact,
in this first Psalm, we read of the wicked and the righteous. The righteous are those who are
made the righteousness of God in the Lord Jesus, our Savior. Righteousness is imputed to us. Righteousness is charged to us
or credited to our account. 2 Corinthians 5.21 says that,
God hath made Him, Christ, to be sin for us, who knew no sin,
that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. John Bunyan said,
how glorious it is to know that our righteousness is in one who
is seated at the right hand of God right now. He is the Lord,
our righteousness. So there are some people in the
world who are the righteousness of God, who are made the righteousness
of God. They're called righteous people.
And there are others who are wicked. They're born wicked. They live in wickedness. They
die in their wickedness. These are the two kinds of people. And while the one group, the
blessed group, while they are highly favored of God, the other
group is absolutely rejected by God. They have always been
rejected by God. A division was made by our sovereign
God before the world began. There will be two groups, God
said, as it were in His eternal covenant, the righteous and the
wicked, the elect or the remnant, and the rest. And the rest are
going to perish. If you are a believer in the
Lord Jesus Christ, And Peter says, give diligence to make
your calling and election sure. The only way you can know that
you're one of God's elect is if you've been called to faith
in the Son of God, called to believe Him, called to forsake
every other way that your mind and false religion has ever come
up with. Forsake the ways of the world,
the ways of false religion, and come to God by the one way. It's
God himself who put you in that way of grace because in old eternity
he made a distinction between you and others. Some are blessed and some must
perish. It's interesting that the book
of Psalms begins with the word blessed And it ends in Psalm
150 in verse 6 with these words, praise the Lord, which is literally
hallelujah. It begins with blessed and it
ends with hallelujah. I'm delighted to tell you that
before the world began, Our Lord chose many people unto salvation
out of the race of men who would fall in Adam. Though there was
no hope in ourselves for our salvation, God had already determined
that there would be a remnant according to the election of
grace. No wonder The Lord has David
to begin this psalm. Blessed is the man. And I like
the fact, and I read a sermon by Mr. Spurgeon today, which
was excellent, on this verse of scripture. And he made this
observation, he said, it just says, blessed is the man, not
the wise man, not the scholarly man, Not the charitable man. Not the man who's very kind. Not the man who's a deep thinker. Just blessed is the man. No qualifying
words. It's not blessed is the rich
man. Blessed is the man who studies. Blessed is the man who has memorized
much scripture. Memorizing scriptures is a wonderful
thing, but the blessing that is being spoken of here is a
blessing that comes from the very heart of God to those ordained
unto salvation. Blessed is the man. I can get
in on that. It doesn't say blessed are the well-known,
blessed are the talented, no, just blessed is the man. Blessed is the man. So now I
wanna answer the question that is in the title of the message,
who is the blessed man? Who is the blessed man? Can he
be described? Can she be described? Here are
five things I'm gonna give you. I could give you many from the
scriptures because there are a multitude of verses in the
Bible that talks about what it means the description of people
who are blessed, but I'm just gonna give you five tonight.
Number one, who is the blessed man? Turn to Ephesians chapter
one. The blessed man is the man, is
the person chosen unto salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ. Look at Ephesians. Chapter one,
who is the blessed man? The blessed man is a man chosen
unto salvation. Here at Ephesians one, we see
the foundational blessing. There are a multitude of blessings,
there's no question about that. But the very beginning of the
blessings that come forth from the purpose of God and the heart
of God is that of being chosen unto salvation in Christ. That's the foundational blessing. Notice in verse 3, Blessed be
the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed
us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ.
Now, when the Bible talks about blessed be God, blessed be the
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, it's the idea of praising
Him. Literally, the original word
is eulogize God. It's like at a funeral, somebody
oft times will get up and speak for the family and give a eulogy. try to find some good things
to say about the departed one. And maybe they can find some
things. I hope that they can. But that's
what a eulogy is. Well, to eulogize God, to say,
blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, is
to note the greatness of His person and who He is in all of
His glory. And this God who blesses us with
all blessings, He is Himself to be blessed to begin with,
blessed by us. Now, we can't add to His glory.
We cannot contribute to His greatness, but we can honor Him for who
He is. We can utilize Him. In every
message, every Sunday school lesson, In the lesson or in the
message, we've got to brag on God. My soul shall make her boast
in the Lord. We don't boast in self. We don't
boast in our labors. We don't boast of our gifts.
We boast of our God. He is to have all of the glory
in the Trinity of His persons. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ. And now he begins
to go into specific blessings. According as he had chosen us
in Christ, before the foundation of the world that we should be
holy and without blame before Him. Election or God choosing
us to salvation is the foundational blessing. That's where it all
begins. And you'll notice as you read
through chapter one, and we've all read through this chapter
many times, after mentioning the foundational blessing, then
he begins to branch off to predestination. What a blessing, we're predestinated
under the adoption of children by Jesus Christ himself. And
then from there, he goes on to redemption. For we're redeemed
by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, in whom we have redemption
through his blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches
of his grace. From election, then we have predestination
to be his children. From predestination, we move
on to redemption. We have to be redeemed. There's
a price on our heads. There's a price that the law
of God demanded for us to go free, to be at liberty. That's the blood of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And then as you read through
the rest of this first chapter of Ephesians, we find an additional
blessing is that we have an inheritance. We're predestinated to that.
And we're predestinated to be illuminated. And we're predestinated
to be raised from the dead, quickened, born again. The same power that
raised our Lord Jesus from the dead, and the original word is
our English word, energy. The same energy that raised our
Lord Jesus from the dead, that's the same kind of energy it's
gonna take to cause us to live spiritually. It's gonna take
more than somebody's supposed free will. It's gonna make more
than a decision for Jesus. The work of God, the power of
God has to energize in the heart and create life where there was
only death. But the foundational blessing
is election. We praise God. We bless Him. for electing grace. David said in Psalm, in fact
I want you to turn over now to Psalm 65. Look at Psalm 65. I know there are some people
who profess to be Christians who refuse to believe and bow
to the truth of election unto salvation. But really, all the
other blessings, they flow from this original
one. Our names were written down in
the Lamb's Book of Life. Well, when did that happen? Before
the world began. Did God look down through the
halls of time and then choose us or write our names down in
the Lamb's Book of Life because of that which He saw we would
do? And the answer is, of course,
no. Out of the freeness of His own
grace, He eternally chose a people unto salvation for the glory
of His grace. He did the choosing, therefore
He did the predestinating, therefore He did the redeeming, therefore
He did the regenerating. For all things in salvation are
of God, just like all things in creation are of God, and all
things in providence are of God. Look at Psalm 65. And I'm going to get to verse
4, but I want you to look at verse 3 first of all. Verse 3. The psalmist says, and it's a
song of David, Iniquities prevail against me. Iniquities are mighty. I'll tell you, if the Spirit
of God ever gives you spiritual eyesight and perception and understanding
to see your own depravity, you'll see that your iniquities are
mighty, such as you can't put them away. But then he says, as for our
transgressions, thou shalt purge them away. Thank God for purging
grace. You remember reading in Hebrews
chapter one concerning our Lord Jesus Christ, when he had purged
our sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting for
his foes to become his footstool. Iniquities prevail against me. As for our transgressions, thou
shalt purge them away. And then he says this, now we're
trying to answer the question, who is the blessed man? Who is
the blessed man? Blessed is the man whom thou
choosest. Don't deny election unto salvation. You do so at your own peril. Because you're refusing to bow
to the Word of God. Blessed is the man whom thou
choosest and causest to approach unto thee, that he may dwell
in thy courts. This is the blessed man. We shall be satisfied with the
goodness of thy house, even of thy holy temple, which is Zion,
as we've been studying. This is the blessed man. The
Lord has brought us nigh. He exposed our ears to the gospel. We heard the truth. And then
the Lord did an operation in the heart. The word operation
in Colossians chapter two, and I wrote a article on that for
the bulletin this coming Sunday. It is the word energy. Nobody
else, no surgeon ever operates on a dead man. Surgeons operate on people who
are living with the hope, with the aim, if the case is desperate,
if it's very serious, with the hope of extending life, correct? Surgeons operate on people who
are living. But our Lord operates on people
who are spiritually dead. Who can do that? Only the great surgeon of sinners,
the Lord our God. He causes us to approach unto
Him. That we may dwell, that we might
abide in Zion. Who is the blessed man? The blessed man is chosen of
God. Number two, who is the blessed man? He's the person who trusts
the Lord Jesus Christ. Look at Psalm 34. Psalm 34. It's one of my favorite psalms. I hesitate to say I have a favorite. They're all They're all a blessing,
but I often read this to, if I'm visiting somebody in the
hospital or in the nursing home or in their home, I often read
from Psalm 34. Look at Psalm 34, verse eight.
Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man that
trusteth in him. And that E-T-H is very important. because it indicates something
that is going to continue. It won't end. Blessed is the
man who believes and continues to believe our Lord. You see, learn this. Trust in
Christ is a gift. Faith is a gift. To the Philippians,
Paul wrote, it's given to you to suffer for Christ's sake,
and to believe him. You don't have faith within you
that you just need to fan the flames of that faith and then
it'll burst forth into roaring fire in which you believe the
Lord. No, it's a gift. For by grace he is saved through
faith, and that not of yourselves, it's the gift of God. Not of
works, lest any man should boast. Who is the blessed man? He's
a man who trusteth in the Lord. Trusteth. It's the one who continually
seeks the refuge for their soul. Trusteth. It's the person who
continually flees to the Lord Jesus Christ, the only Savior
of sinners. It's the person who hopes in
the Lord. Psalm 84 verse 12 says, Lord
of hosts, blessed is the man that trusteth in thee. And notice here in verse 5. Oh, I'm getting ahead of myself.
Go to Jeremiah. I'll get to a verse five in Jeremiah. Jeremiah 17. Look at Jeremiah
17. Jeremiah 17, verse five, I'll
begin and read to verse seven. Jeremiah 17, five. Thus saith
the Lord. Well, what did the Lord say?
Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, that maketh flesh his
arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord. Sometimes you
hear preachers today on the television or on the radio, if you listen
to some of that religious garbage, they'll say, just believe in
yourself. Well, the Scripture says the
person who believes in themselves is cursed. Why would you believe
in yourself when yourself is a sinner? When you have no spiritual
strength at all? Who are you to be trusted? The
arm of flesh will fail you. And it says here in verse 5,
Cursed is the person who maketh the flesh his arm, whose heart
departed from the Lord. For he shall be like the heath
in the desert, which is a little plant kind of dried up, and shall not see when good cometh,
but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness in a
salt land and not inhabited. I don't want to be like that.
Forsaken? Receiving no water from the Lord? But verse seven, blessed is the
man, however, that trusteth in the Lord, whose hope the Lord
is. Who is the blessed man? Well,
he's chosen of God. And he or she is a person to
whom God has granted faith. So I don't have much faith. It's
not how much faith you have. In whom are you trusting? See,
it's trusteth in the Lord. I may not have much faith. Sometimes
my faith is stronger than other times. Sometimes, quite honestly,
I wonder if I have any faith at all. Do you ever feel like
that, just being honest with you? But my confidence, my trust is
not in myself. It's not even in my faith, because
actually it isn't my faith. It's the faith of God's elect. If I trust in the Lord, If you
trust in the Lord, those of you who are watching, if you trust
in the Lord, in Christ himself, the son of God who loved us and
gave himself for us, if you say, I have no other trust, I don't
trust myself, I don't trust my will, I don't trust my works,
I don't trust my worth because I'm not worth anything. My trust
and my hope is in Christ only. Well, then you have a good hope.
You have a good hope by grace. The Lord has gifted you to believe
the Lord. Those who are blessed to trust
in the Lord give thanks for the gift of faith. You wouldn't be
here tonight and you wouldn't have any interest in the gospel
of Christ, the gospel of grace, were it not for the Lord being
at work in your heart. It's not how much faith you got.
Who do you trust? Who do you trust? Who is the
blessed man? Well, the blessed person or man
is chosen of the Lord and they trust the Lord. And I'll tell
you something else, Psalm 128. Look at Psalm 128. I'll tell you who the blessed
man is. The blessed person is not only chosen in grace unto
salvation, and not only blessed to trust the Lord, to believe
the Lord Jesus Christ, a person is blessed when they
fear the Lord. Psalm 128, look at verses one
and two. Blessed is everyone that feareth
the Lord, that walketh in His ways, not your ways, but in His
ways, in the way of truth, in the way of grace, in the way
of Christ Jesus Himself, who identified Himself as being the
way, the truth, and the life. is everyone that feareth the
Lord, that walketh in his ways, for thou shalt eat the labor
of thine hands. He says happy. Remember, that's
one of the definitions of the word blessed. In fact, if you
were able to read Hebrew, that word blessed in verse one and
that word happy in the second verse, they are identical. You see, really, the only people
who have a right and a reason to be happy are those who are
blessed. Blessed to be among the number
of the chosen of God, blessed to trust the Lord, and blessed
to fear the Lord. Where the fear of the Lord is
the commanding principle of your heart, You will worship the Lord. You will seek to honor the Lord.
You will seek the glory of God. You will seek to be faithful
to the cause of God. You'll love the Word of God because
you're made to fear the Lord. Of the wicked we read, and Terry
read this back in the study A little bit of Go, he didn't know what
I was gonna preach on, but he read from Romans the third chapter,
verse 18. There is no fear of God before
their eyes. That's the man of the world.
That's the wicked. That's the one who unless God
invades the heart, those are the ones who are going to perish.
But for the Lord's people, for those chosen unto salvation,
those granted faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. We have a reverential
affection for our God. We honor God as the governor
of all things. We do as the creator of all things,
as the sovereign of his creation. But we also We fear Him. We respect Him. So a lot of things
that I enjoy, I enjoy humor. Some of us were talking about
humor before the service began. I do enjoy clean joke. I enjoy humor, but I don't like
humor when it comes to the name of God or the things of God.
I don't like humor about heaven. I don't like humor about hell.
There's nothing funny about heaven or hell. I really don't find
any humor in death. And you go to a funeral home,
you won't find any humor there. When it comes to the subject
of God, be reverent. Be respectful. Fear the Lord. It's the beginning of knowledge.
It's the beginning of wisdom. When you begin to have a reverence
for the Lord, it's an evidence that He's working in your heart,
because the natural man has no fear of God, he has no reverence
of God. The wicked don't fear God, for
they envision God as like a Santa Claus in the sky, not one to
be feared. God is not the God, the God of
glory is not the God that most people imagine Him to be. A God whose will can be manipulated
by man cannot be and will not be the
object of reverential fear. But you find out that God does
his will in the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of
the earth, and none can stay his hand or say unto him, what
doest thou? If God the Spirit teaches you
what that means, that's when you'll have a reverential fear
of the Lord. Who is the blessed man? Well,
let me give you another verse here real quick, Psalm 32. So the blessed person is chosen
unto salvation, they trust in the Lord, they fear the Lord. And number four, Psalm 32, who
is the blessed man? It's a forgiven man. It's a forgiven
person. Look at Psalm 32, one and two. Blessed is he, here's a blessed
person. Blessed is he whose transgression
is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom
the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is
no guile. That is, he deals honestly with
himself. He deals honestly with the gospel. He deals honestly before God. You'll notice here three words,
transgression, sin, and iniquity. Blessed is he whose transgression
is forgiven, which means lifted off, carried away. That's what Christ did at the
cross. He lifted off our transgressions and carried them away. And then
sin. Sin are offenses against God. But sin has been covered, concealed,
can't see it. What happened to it? It drowned
beneath the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. And then iniquity,
iniquity. Not equal to perfection. Think of inequity when you read
iniquity. Not equal to perfection, but
Christ Jesus is our righteousness. We have perfection in him. Look at this. Transgression,
sin, iniquity. It's like an unholy trinity. And none could deal with this
unholy Trinity save the Trinity. And our Lord has dealt with transgressions
and sin and iniquity. Blessed is the forgiven man. And then who is the blessed man? One more, I'm gonna give you
real quick. Luke 7, Luke chapter 7. Who is the blessed man? Well,
a blessed person has been chosen unto salvation in Christ Jesus,
chosen in Christ before the world began unto salvation. The blessed
man trusts in the Lord Jesus Christ. He believes Him and doesn't
believe Him like he ought to. None of us do. We don't believe
Him like we're going to, but we do believe Him. We do believe
Him. Who is the blessed man? He fears
the Lord. He has a reverence for the Lord.
He respects the Lord. He respects the Lord's word.
He respects the Lord's gospel. He respects the Lord's servant.
He respects the Lord's people. But mainly we respect our God. Who is the blessed person? Forgiven. Forgiven. That bumper sticker, probably
you've seen it before. It says, Christians aren't perfect,
just forgiven. Actually, Christians are forgiven
and perfect. We are perfect. Because the righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ has been imputed to us. Who is the
blessed man? Well, Luke chapter seven, And
I'll just read one verse here. I don't have time to read the
whole context. The Savior said, and blessed
is he. Okay, now I wanna know what he
has to say. He's talking about somebody who's
blessed. And he whom our Lord says is blessed is blessed indeed. And blessed is he whosoever shall
not be offended in me." So long as the world stands,
Christ and His gospel will be offensive to proud, religious,
self-righteous men. It's offensive to their sense
of self-worth. To tell them they're poor and
needy and lost, they're condemned, that offends their sense of self-worth. It offends men's sense of pride
to tell them that they're utterly helpless and incapable of saving
themselves. In fact, you can't even contribute
to your own salvation. It's offensive to our self-righteousness
to be told that we have to be justified by the righteousness
of another, even the Son of God. It's offensive to our sense of
dignity and superiority to be told that we must enter the kingdom
of heaven right alongside of the publicans and the harlots
and the sinners. And it's offensive to our sense
of personal intelligence to be told. The gospel of the grace
of God has to be revealed to you. Has to be revealed. This is the blessed person. Chosen, trusts, fears, Forgiven. And the gospel doesn't offend
you. Does this offend you? That's
what our Lord asks those people in John 16. Does this offend
you? Doesn't offend me. Used to. Doesn't
offend me anymore. Well, I'm gonna come right back
to Psalm 1, the Lord willing, next Wednesday. Well, let me
see what the next song is. 32.