Open your Bibles with me tonight
to the first Psalm. Psalm 1. Blessed is the man that walketh
not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners,
nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. This man is blessed,
only this man. The man that walketh not in the
counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth
in the seat of the scornful, but his delight is in the law
of the Lord. For in his law doth he meditate
day and night, and he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers
and water that bringeth forth his fruit in his season. His leaf also shall not wither,
and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. The ungodly are not
so, but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away. Therefore,
the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment. nor sinners in
the congregation of the righteous. For the Lord knoweth the way
of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish. Now, I must be honest with you. This Psalm gives me some trouble. This Psalm gives me some trouble.
If indeed that man and that man alone is blessed who is described
in this psalm I have reason for trouble and you have reason for
trouble the scriptures speak of men who definitely are blessed
of God and I can with some measure of confident faith in Christ,
with some measure of confidence because of my experience, I believe,
of God's grace, identify with those men. Turn over to Matthew
chapter 5. Matthew chapter 5, our Lord's
Sermon on the Mount. This portion of scripture commonly
referred to as the Beatitudes. Our Lord Jesus, seeing the multitudes,
went up into a mountain, and when he was set, his disciples
came unto him, and he opened his mouth and taught them, saying,
now watch this, verse three, blessed are the poor in spirit. That does not mean those who
are spiritually poor are blessed. Everybody is spiritually poor.
There's not anyone who has anything to offer God. No one has any
goodness, righteousness, merit, or wealth to offer God. No one
has something by which they can commend themselves to God. Being
poor of spirit, being spiritually poor, doesn't mean you're blessed
of God. But to be poor in spirit, that's
another story. To be poor in spirit is to know
your poverty. To be poor in spirit is to know
that you're empty, void of anything good, void of righteousness,
void of worth, void of meaning, void of usefulness, utterly poor
in spirit. That person is blessed for theirs
is the kingdom of heaven. Theirs is the kingdom of heaven. God's kingdom right now belongs
to them. Read on. Blessed are they that
mourn. Mourn. They shall look on me
whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him as one mourneth
for his only son. Those who mourn for their sins,
mourn for what they are before God Almighty, they indeed are
blessed of God, for they shall be comforted. If God ever makes
you to know what you are, You will be comforted, comforted
with the sweet grace of his spirit given by the merit of his son
in your soul, comforted with that blessed faith, that blessed
faith that God alone can give, which causes a man or woman to
walk before God with confidence of acceptance. Blessed are the
meek, the meek. I've told you many times, understand
it. When you hear men speak about
religious, spiritual things, when you read what men say about
religious, spiritual things, whatever you naturally think
about religious, spiritual things, whatever it is, whatever your
natural thought, your natural instinct is, it's dead wrong.
Every time, every time. People think about meekness and
they think about the fellow in India, Gandhi, some years ago,
you know, walk around and look so humble. Meekness is Moses
charging Pharaoh's throne in the name of God. Meekness is knowing whose you
are and who you are. I'm God's. I'm God's servant. That means I don't need to back
up for anything. And if I walk by faith in him,
I won't. That means I don't backpedal.
That means I don't have to guard myself or guard my words. That
means I don't have to court the favor of men. I belong to God. I'm God's servant. And if I behave
as such, that's meekness. I have nothing of my own. I own
nothing of my own. I claim nothing of my own. I
belong to him. Blessed are the meek, for they
shall inherit the earth. Blessed are they which do hunger
and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled. God is my witness. I hunger and
thirst after righteousness. I have no interest at all in
impressing men so that they will think I'm righteous. I have no
interest at all in causing men to look at me and brag on me
for being a good fellow. I have no interest. I hunger
and thirst for righteousness. having the righteousness of Christ
given to me, bestowed upon me, and imparted to me, I hunger
and thirst for an exact, complete conformity to my Redeemer without
sin or interruption of any kind. For they shall be filled." When I draw this last breath
with these nostrils, I shall be filled with that for which
I hunger and thirst. Blessed are the merciful, merciful,
for they shall obtain mercy. Those who've experienced mercy
are merciful and they obtain mercy. Those who've experienced
grace are gracious and they obtain grace. Those who've experienced
lovingkindness are loving and kind and they obtain lovingkindness. Blessed are the pure in heart. The pure in heart. Now, wait
a minute, Brother Don. Our hearts are anything but pure.
Yes, that's what we are by nature. Filthy. Filthy. And these hearts
of nature remain filthy. They don't get any better. They
don't get any better. But we have purified our hearts
by faith in Christ. Our hearts have been purified
by the sprinkling of the blood of Christ. Our hearts have been
purged from a guilty conscience by the blood of Jesus Christ,
our Redeemer, washed by the water of the word, washed by the power
and grace of the spirit, washed in the Savior's blood. Blessed
are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the
peacemakers. Peacemakers. men and women who
have obtained the peace of God and proclaim the gospel of God's
peace, by which peace is made between man and God and peace
between man and man. They shall be called the children
of God. Blessed are they which hunger, which are persecuted
for righteousness sake. Blessed are they who are persecuted
because of Christ's righteousness, because of the gospel of God's
free grace, which we profess to believe. For righteousness
sake, not persecuted for being good people. Nobody's ever been
persecuted for being good people. That's not it. No. Persecuted
for the righteousness of Christ. For the declaration that the
only access sinners have to God is in a substitute. The only
righteousness sinners have is righteousness bestowed upon them
in Christ Jesus. You have no other righteousness.
For theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when
men shall revile you and persecute you and shall say all men are
of evil against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice and be exceeding
glad for great is your reward in heaven for so persecuted they
the prophets which were before you. These things I can identify
with in some measure and I can rejoice to say with confident
faith Christ Jesus, my Savior, my Substitute, my Covenant Head,
my Mediator, my Redeemer, He is all to me, and I am a blessed
man in Him. But when I come to Psalm 1 and
read the description here given of a blessed man, I must conclude this is not talking
about me. This is not talking about me.
And I hope you conclude it's not talking about you. In this
instructive Psalm, it is our Lord Jesus Christ who is the
blessed man, the God-man who set before us as the blessed
man, the man who is blessed, who has earned blessedness, the
man who is blessedness, and the man who makes others blessed.
The title of my message tonight is The Blessed Man. I want us
to just focus on these six verses of this first psalm. If I read
the psalm correctly, and I am absolutely certain that I do,
the hymn book of the church begins with a shout of praise for Christ
the Redeemer. Oh, the blessedness, oh, the
blessedness of the God-man, our Savior. That's how the hymn book
of the church begins. As in all other portions of scripture,
the Psalms make the Lord Jesus preeminent. Jonathan Edwards
observed, here Christ is spoken of in a multitude of Psalms. I have just again finished reading
the book of Psalms. And all 150 Psalms, mark this
down, all 150 Psalms speak of our Redeemer. Each Psalm is either
a direct prophecy concerning the person and work of Christ,
or it is a declaration of God's grace and mercy in Christ Jesus,
or of the experience of the believer in the grace of God. The intent
of God, the Holy Spirit in these Psalms, is to reveal the Son
of God to his people. Like Psalm 1, there are many
passages in the Psalms that simply cannot, simply cannot be honestly,
strictly applied to any individual person other than the God-man,
Christ Jesus. The first word in the first Psalm
is blessed. The last word in the last Psalm
is hallelujah. That's a pretty good indication
of the message of the psalm. Praise be to God for the blessed
man. All of our songs in the Church
of God ought to be just that. Songs expressing praise to God
our Savior for his person, his work, his greatness, his glory,
and his grace. Psalms expressing praise to God
for our experience of his grace. They ought not be, they never
should be songs about grandma, grandpa, and my poor little boy,
and your mama and daddy, you know, stuff, religious sentiment. The songs of Zion are songs of
praise to God, as are these Psalms. Everything from the first word
to the last in the book of the Psalms reveals the blessedness
found in Christ's glorious person and in his saving work. Now let's
focus on this first Psalm. It has three obvious divisions. Verses 1, 2, and 3, God the Holy
Spirit describes the blessed man. Verses four and five give
us a clear sad but clear Contrast with those who are cursed and
then verse six gives us two things We are always to remember while
we make our pilgrimage through this world First look at verse
one Here's the blessed man Blessed is the man that walketh not in
the counsel of the ungodly. I nor standeth in the way of
sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. Now, anytime
we read a description of such perfection in the Word of God,
That perfection must be attributed and applied to and understood
as speaking of Jesus Christ, our Redeemer, that perfection
that's in him personally, or that perfection he bestows to
all who are united to him by the grace of God. The God-man
Christ Jesus is that man who walked on this earth in just
the manner that's described here in Psalm 1. The holiness and
perfection of that blessed man, spoken of in these first three
verses of Psalm 1, cannot be applied to any fallen son of
Adam, not even with the smallest shadow of truth. The language
of this verse is much stronger than our English translation
gives it. Let me give you a more accurate translation. Now, please
understand when I say a more accurate translation. When you
translate from one language to another, it is impossible to
give a precise translation without giving some commentary. It's
impossible to precisely translate one statement in Greek or Hebrew
or French or Spanish into English and not lose something if you
don't have some explanatory statement. Some of the modern translations
will tell you they give you the dynamic sense of the text. And that's good enough in its
way. But understand the dynamic sense
of the text is a paraphrase. It is a man translating the scripture
or a group of men translating scripture, giving an expanded
translation to give you the meaning. That's what I mean when I say
here the language of the original is so strong, so emphatic, that
I want to give it to you just exactly as it would be read if
you were to spread it out a little bit, give the dynamic sense of
it. Oh, the blessedness. Oh, the happiness. Oh, the honor
of that one adorable man who has never walked in the council
of the wicked, who has never stood in the way of sinners and
has never sat in the seat of scorners. Who is that man? You don't need to ask, do you?
That man is Christ Jesus, the Lord. He is that one who never
walked in the counsel of the ungodly. He is that one who never
stood in the way of sinners. He is that one who never sat
down in the seat of scorners, the hurtful ones. No son or daughter
of Adam could ever say such a thing concerning himself. No son or
daughter of Adam could ever apply such a thing to himself. When
we read these words, we must understand their description
of that man who is perfectly holy. Here is that holiness. that holiness without which we
cannot see the Lord. Jesus Christ alone is this holy
man, this faultless, undefiled, harmless one, totally separate
from sinners. The first man, Adam, went astray
after the counsel of the wicked, transgressing the command of
God. Christ, the last Adam, though
tempted to do so, never did. Our God-man mediator came into
this world to save sinners. He took sinners into the arms
of his grace. He took us into his heart. He
took the place of sinners. He died in the womb instead of
sinners. He bore our sins in his body on the tree. And yet
he never sinned. And he never stood in the sinner's
way. He knew no sin. He did no sin. Neither was guile found in his
mouth. and he never sat in the seat of the scornful. He took
the place of the lowest. He served the needs of our souls,
that he might save us by his obedience unto death, that he
might, as our representative and our substitute, bring us
into everlasting righteousness. It is he who said, lo, I come
in the volume of the book. I delight to do thy will, O my
God. Christ is the man. who is truly
happy, truly blessed, because he alone is the perfect man.
Christ is the man who has all blessedness in himself. He is
the man by whom, with whom, for whom, and in whom we are blessed. This blessed one, this blessed
man is that man in whom we walked before God just like this. God demands that we walk before
him and be holy. God demands that we walk before
him and be perfect. Who shall enter into heaven?
Who's going to glory? Who is it? Hold your hands here
in Psalm 1 and look at Psalm 24. Let's see, let's see what
the book says. That's what the book says. I've
told you from this pulpit for 33 years. In order to enter into
heaven, you got to be as good as God. You've got to be perfect. Matthew, do you understand that?
You've got to be perfect. Perfect. Not the best you can
do. That's acceptable to Mark and
Regina, not to God. They've got to be perfect. Perfect. No sin. No iniquity. No fault. No failure of any kind. Perfect. Let's see what the book says.
Look at Psalm 24. Verse 3. Who shall ascend into the hill
of the Lord? Or who shall stand in his holy
place? He that hath clean hands and
a pure heart, who hath not, who hath not, who never at any point
in time, who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor
sworn deceitfully. Who? The person whose hands are
clean. Never committed any offense to
God or man. Never committed any evil work.
Anybody qualify? Who? The person whose heart is
pure. Pure. No corrupt thought. No evil intent. No vile lust,
pure. Never deceitful, never hypocritical,
never insincere, pure. Who's entering into glory? He
that hath clean hands and a pure heart and the man, the woman
who has never lifted up his soul unto vanity. Who's never set
his heart on a vain thing. Who's never given his attention
to vanity. What's that? Vanity of vanities. All this vanity, saith the preacher. Doesn't have any attraction for
you. Your land, your property, your house, your car, your clothes,
your name, your reputation. Vanity. Who's entering in? Those who have never sworn deceitfully,
never spoken a lie. He shall receive the blessing
from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation.
No one else. Who is that? That's Jesus Christ,
the Lord. Who is this? It's the King of
glory, the Lord of hosts, God in our nature. He is the blessed
man. Read on. Back here in Psalm 1,
verse 2. But his delight is in the law
of the Lord. And in his law doth he meditate
day and night. Every believer, every regenerate
person can honestly say with the Apostle Paul, I delight in
the law of God after the inward man. Every believer does. None who don't. There are none
who don't. But it can't well be said of
you and me. Our delight is in the law of
the Lord and in his law we meditate day and night so that his law,
the will, the revelation, the word, the law of God is constantly
that which is the focus of our hearts. Again, these words can
only be applied to our Savior. In the day, he went about fulfilling
his father's will. When he lay down at night, his
holy heart was still set upon the salvation of our souls by
his obedience to his father's will. In the daytime, he said
to his mother, I must be about my father's business. And in
the night of his life, he said to his father, not my will, thy
will be done. This is our Savior's true character. This is his true character. He delights in the law of God. He delights in the commandment
of God. Yes, sir. He delights in the
purpose of God. Yes, sir. He delights in the
revelation of God. Yes, sir. He delights in the
will of God. Yes, sir. He delights in what
God has put in his hands to do. There it is. His delight is in
the law of God. He, Jehovah's servant, who's
given a commandment from the Father that he must obey. It
was his delight to do so. And that commandment is the laying
down of his life for his sheep to redeem and save his people. He delighted in it. He delighted
in it. So that the Lord Jesus, the God-man,
our mediator, walked on this earth in complete obedience to
God, never once living after the counsel of sinners, the ungodly,
the scornful, never being influenced by them, never being like them,
never in any way being among them, one of them. His delight
always in obeying God's will. Always in obeying God's will
in every detail. But most specifically, delighting
in God's will for him. For him. God's will for him. That which he knew God had created
him. He is that man created in the
virgin's womb for this purpose, to save his people from their
sins. God created you for purpose. Do you understand that, Mark?
He created you for purpose, to serve his interest, his kingdom,
his glory, and what God's will for your life is, is the absolute
best thing for you. Whatever it is, but our Savior
delighted in it. Even in the midst of sorrow in
Yosemite's agony, even in the midst of sorrow, like no man
can describe when he was made sin for us. He, for the joy that
was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame. What joy? Lord, what joy did he ever find
on this earth? What joy? We read that he wept,
many that he laughed, What joy did he ever find? The joy set
before him was the joy of honoring the triune Jehovah in the saving
of our souls that we may be with him for his glory. He said, I
come, I delight to do thy will. Oh, my God. Oh, what a marvelous
view of our Savior this is. This is his true character. And
he is made of God unto us. Wisdom and righteousness and
sanctification and redemption. He is the word by whom God makes
himself known to men. He is our wisdom. He stood as
wisdom on our behalf in covenant mercy before the world began
His delights with the sons of men. He is our righteousness,
our only wisdom, our only righteousness. We have none except Him. We claim
none except Him. Bless God, we want none except
Him. He is our sanctification, all
our sanctification, all our holiness. He's come and put his nature
in us so that now there is in the heaven-born soul a new man
that does indeed delight in the law of God. We are made of Christ,
to have in Christ wisdom and righteousness and sanctification,
and he's made of God unto us redemption, deliverance. The word redemption as it's used
in 1st Corinthians 1 is not limited to, though it certainly includes
blood atonement at Calvary. The word redemption is deliverance.
Deliverance by price and by power. Complete deliverance from the
fall of Adam. complete deliverance from sin,
complete deliverance from the law, complete deliverance from
the curse, complete deliverance from the ravages of Satan, complete
deliverance by his blood, by his power, by his grace. That's
what Christ is to all his people. God has made him such by his
obedience as our representative. You see, this man is a man of
infinite worth. and infinite merit. This man
is God. And while he walked on this earth,
delighting in God's law, meditating in God's law day and night, doing
God's will in all things, always about his father's business,
finally having fulfilled all that the father commanded of
him and all that the prophets wrote of him, he cried, it's
finished. And the work was done. But it
was not done for him. It didn't benefit him anything.
It was all done for us as our representative. Let us ever seek
to follow our Lord's example. Walking in his steps, seek children
of God. Seek always. Seek always to live
as he lived. Oh, God, give me your spirit. To bottle my tongue. to reign
my heart, to govern my thoughts, to govern my passions. Give me
your spirit to sweetly force me, force me to live as my Redeemer
lived. But let no child of God ever
imagine to think that he lives in such a way. You don't. And if you need me
to tell you you don't, there's something bad wrong with you.
You don't. You don't. If we say we have
not sinned, we make God a liar and his words not in us. Everybody
here has been sinning since you came into this building tonight.
Everybody here, including the preacher, everybody here, we
can't do anything without sin. That's not possible. Our only
righteousness, our only sanctification is Christ our Redeemer. All right. Then he tells us about our Savior
says he should be like a tree planted by the rivers of water.
This tree of life planted in the garden of God by the rivers
of water that bringeth forth his fruit in his season. This is a tree planted of God,
this tree of life, and it brings forth fruit in his season all
the time. Now, some of you folks have orchards. Y'all remember when we used to
have an orchard out here? We had pear trees and apple trees
and plum trees and peach trees. Oh, we had an orchard. It was
wonderful. We got apples about every third
year. And they were pretty good. We
got peaches about every third or fourth year. And they were
real good, but there wasn't many. We got them every third or fourth
year. And we got plums about every third or fourth year. And
we found out it wasn't worth the bother because they would
bear fruit occasionally. Here's a tree planted by the
river of God in the garden of God that brings forth his fruit
in his season. The Lord, we're told in Acts
chapter 2, added to the church daily, such as should be said. Now let me tell you something.
He still does. He still does. God saves exactly
who he purposed to save from eternity every day. He adds to
the church daily such as should be saved so that the appointed
season in due time God calls out his elect his leaf also shall
not wither Now this is not talking about a pine tree. It's not my
tree with leaves Leaves for the healing of the nations it shall
not wither that's not talking about a man our tree withers
a lot And whatsoever he doeth, it shall prosper. The pleasure of the Lord prospers
in his hand. God gave him the reigns of the
universe as our mediator to give life eternal to as many as the
Father has given him. And the pleasure of the Lord
prospers in his hand. We are but branches graft into
the tree. The tree is Christ himself. Now
look at the contrast, verse 4. The ungodly are not so. The ungodly are not like this
tree planted. Fir cannot be uprooted. This tree that brings forth fruit,
the ungodly are not so. The ungodly are not blessed.
The ungodly are not blessed. Read the 92nd Psalm sometime
when you think about blessings. How often we use the word so
casually? We say, well, boy, he sure is
blessed of God. Look, oh, God blessed his business. God may be cursing his business,
making him wealthy. Good health may be a curse. It
may keep you from seeking God. Prosperity in this world may
be a curse. It may keep you from God. It
may be God planting the word in your heart so you can't find
God. Oh no, God only blesses his people. The ungodly are not blessed.
The ungodly are cursed. The fall comes and Brother Bailey
back yonder will have a calf. And he'll go, he's had his eye
on it all spring. And he's picked it out a long
time ago, but about six or eight weeks before Thanksgiving or
somewhere along there, whenever he decides to slaughter, he'll
take that one calf and put it in a stall, and give that calf
everything it wants. Just give it grain, and grain,
and grain, and grain. Oh, that calf, all he's got to
do is just stand there and eat and drink. That's all he's got
to do. He's just, oh, he's treating, he's blessing that calf. And
all the other cow, cattle standing outside, all the other calves
might look at that calf and say, oh, I wish I could get in there.
Not if you knew what was coming. He's fattening him for the slaughter.
And that's exactly what God says He does with the wicked in the
92nd Psalm. The ungodly are not so. They
are not blessed. We who are Christ, we're blessed,
eternally blessed, and blessed forever with Christ the Son,
accepted in Him. But the ungodly, they're like
the chaff which the wind driveth away. And God says, what? is the chaff to the wheat. The chaff? Meaningless. Insignificant. Don't matter. Don't matter. Verse
5. Therefore, the ungodly shall
not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of
the righteous. In the great day of judgment
when God shall winnow his floor, he gathers the wheat into his
garner and burns the chaff with unquenchable fire. For now, he
tells us to let the tares and wheat grow together. Let the
tares and wheat grow together. Why is that? Because you can't
tell one from the other. I keep reminding myself of this
so I can remind you of this. You don't have the ability to
know which is tares and which is wheat. I don't have that ability. We ought to quit trying. It's
none of our business. The Lord Jesus says, let them
go together. Let them go together. My dear friend, Brother Harry
Graham said, he said to me when I was just a boy, he said, he
said, Brother Don, you know how to tell tares from wheat? And
I said, no, Harry, how? He said, you can't till harvest
time. At harvest time, the wheat bows its head and the tares stand tall. That's
the only way to know the difference. And so it is with tares and wheat
spiritually. But God is now gathering the
tares for the burning and gathering his wheat into his garner. He
sends his angels in the end of the age, talking about gospel
preachers. And by the preaching of the gospel,
he makes his word and his messengers a saver of life unto life to
some and a saver of death unto death to others, so that he causes
his word either to bring life or to bind up the tares for the
day of burning in judgment. Now, look at these two assurances,
and I'll wrap this up. Verse six. The Lord knoweth the
way of the righteous. Our Savior said, I am the way. And the Lord knows and approves
of this way. He's the way. How are you going
to heaven, Christ? Well, what else? Just Christ.
That's all. Just Christ. But what have you
felt? Christ. But what have you experienced? Christ. What do you trust? Christ.
Christ is the way. I have no other hope before God.
Just Him. Just Him. Not anything I think,
know, or feel. Just Him. Just Him. Christ is
all. And the Lord God approves of
this way. He knows the way of the righteous.
The foundation of God stand assured, having this seal, the Lord knoweth
them that are his. Being in the way, we are accepted
of God. But the way of the ungodly shall
perish. The way of seducers, the ungodly
waxes worse and worse and shall perish forever. I'm going to
tell you something about the way of the ungodly. There is
a way which seemeth right unto a man. We're told twice in the
book of Proverbs. There is a way which seemeth
right unto man. And it's talking about religious
ways. Talking about religious ways. There is a way which seemeth
right unto a man. I take that to mean, Lindsay,
that all the different ways are just one way. There is a way
that seemeth right unto a man. Doesn't matter whether it's Buddhist,
Baptist, Papist, Pentecostal, Presbyterian, Legalist, Freewill,
Arminian, doesn't matter, Calvinist, doesn't matter what it is, doesn't
matter what it is. There is a way that seemeth right
unto a man. It's the way that makes something
depend on you. It's the way that makes something
depend on you. Your feelings, your will, your
works, your obedience. Ah, now, now I know I'm saved
because, see what I've done? See how I've behaved? The end
thereof are the waves of death. Then God did not say, they shall
not stand, but they shall surely perish. Let us ever remember
then that Christ alone is our righteousness. As we look up
to him in the holiness of his character, which set before us
in this Psalm, let us delight and rejoice to tell God, our
Father, of our Savior's perfection, of his righteousness. of his atonement, of him, of
him. John Bunyan once wrote, he said,
I one day saw when Satan was accusing me, my Lord Jesus standing
at the right hand of God. And I said, Satan, you got nothing
to say. Yonder's my righteousness. That's all. Let us delight to
tell God of him, the blessed man. In whom alone we are blessed
now Now I read this psalm Let's look at it again Blessed is the man that walketh
not in the counsel of the ungodly Nor standeth in the way of sinners
nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful But his delight is in
the law of the Lord, and in his law doth he meditate day and
night. He shall be like a tree planted
by the rivers of water that bringeth forth his fruit in his season. His leaf also shall not wither,
and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. And I look in the mirror. And I said, there I am. I am
that blessed man. I am that blessed man, for I
am one with Christ. One with Christ. One with Christ. In all he is, in all he does,
in all he did, in all he possesses, one with Christ. Now, how do
you know? A letter just this past week,
a fellow asked me, he said, how do you know you're one of God's
elect? How do you know Christ died for
you? You preach limited atonement and you preach election. How
do you know God's predestinated you to be saved? It's your name
written in heaven. I said, I believe his son. I believe his son. I trust Christ. That's all. And faith, only faith, is the
evidence of things not seen. Believe on the Son of God and
go home with this confidence. You are the blessed one of God. Amen.