Turn back to Psalm 1. Psalm 1. I was thinking as we were singing
it reminded me this morning I woke up early
before before daylight. I didn't roll over. I know it
was before Doug sent me the text. That was about 5 o'clock, 6 o'clock. But anyway, I woke up and I was
thinking of our singing, singing praises
to Him. And I thought about the saints
that are before Him now singing His praises. And it just dawned
on me as I was thinking about that, that we sing to Him in
His presence now. We are no less in His presence
now. And it just really struck me
how that our singing is in His presence just as theirs is in
His presence. Like now, our worship here and
the preaching here is in His presence. Our Lord is present. And if we would have, and this
is what I thought of myself, I thought, John, if you would
have the right preparation of heart and mind When you go to
sing, you're singing not just having a congregational song.
You're literally singing to the Lord. And I thought, keep that
in mind. And when we come together to
worship, we are worshiping before the Lord. He's not off way out
there past a galaxy somewhere. He's here. And that is the preparation
of heart that we need to have when we come here to worship. We come here to praise our Lord
and He's present. We do it in His presence. But
I woke up thinking about that this morning and it just helped
me have a different frame of mind singing these songs. Singing it as unto the Lord.
Singing as unto the Lord. And not just singing a hymn.
Okay. Psalm 1. Let's talk about the
blessed man. That's the title. Let's talk
about the blessed man. There's a two-fold application
in this chapter, in this psalm. One is to the Lord Jesus Christ
first. If we miss Christ, we've missed
what true happiness really is. This true blessedness. If we
miss Christ, we've missed the truth of true blessedness. And
that's the first application is to Christ. The second application
is to us in Christ. Our happiness is in relationship
to the Lord Jesus Christ. That's where true, real true
happiness comes from. If you ask someone to describe someone that is blessed,
that's truly happy, most all the time. I mean if you just
go out the door here and just ask someone on the street, 99.9%
of the time they're going to speak of their wealth. They're
going to speak of their health. They will speak of their fame.
It'll all have to do with these earthly things. But real happiness
has to do with my relationship to God in Christ, my Creator. Remember now thy Creator in the
days of thy youth. Real happiness. Now listen, and
I've been thinking about this today. Real happiness, it's more
than a feeling. Because feelings come and go,
don't they? This real happiness, this real
blessedness here is a state of being. You can have real happiness,
you can have real joy in Christ even in the greatest sorrow. Because there is a foundation
there for your real happiness and joy in the Lord. Because you know it's of Him.
You know it's temporary. You know it's for your good,
and you know it's for His glory. And even in the midst of sorrow,
you can still find real happiness and joy. It's a state of being. It's not just a feeling. It goes deeper than that. Now,
to the world, it's a feeling. They just want to feel happy.
There was a song years ago, Don't Worry, Be Happy. I don't know
if you remember that song. It was back years ago. Don't
worry, be happy. Well, it doesn't work like that. Real happiness comes from knowing
God and the Lord Jesus Christ. It comes from that real union
of being made one with your Creator, your Redeemer, your Savior. That's
what it is. If someone mentions some material
gain or if they mention wealth and health, they've missed it.
They missed it. It's wrong. You're dead wrong. In the Sermon on the Mount, every
time the word blessed is used, Blessed are the poor in spirit.
Blessed are those who mourn." Every time the word blessed,
happy, happy to be poor in spirit, happy to mourn. Every time that
word is never used, never used in reference to anything material. It has to do with spiritual matters.
Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are those who hunger
and thirst after righteousness. These are the things that won't
perish. These are the things that will
not perish. Now, if these things are my real happiness, if I find
my real happiness in Christ, in His righteousness, in His
salvation, in His forgiveness, these things will not perish.
then my happiness won't perish. But if my happiness is found
in a car I drive, a house I live in, I'm going to be disappointed
in a little while. I'm going to be disappointed.
We were watching a program, these young couple wanting to buy a
beach house so they can go stay in it in the summertime. $750,000 was their budget. That
was their budget, to buy a beach house, a summer house. And I
said, yeah, when those payments start coming in, they ain't gonna
be too happy. After about a year, I said, I give them five years
or less, they'll have it sold. because that ain't too happy
when you keep making those payments. Real happiness, real happiness
is forgiveness that's priceless. Real happiness
is to be a child of God, son of God. Turn over to Psalm 32. In Psalm 32, listen, blessed,
happy is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. The sinner to whom God has made
Himself known to, he finds real happiness in the fact that God
has forgiven him of all his sins. If He's made you to know what
sin is and who He is, you're real happy that He's forgiven
you. Blessed, happy is the man into
whom the Lord imputes not iniquity. I have plenty of it. I have plenty
of sin. I have plenty of iniquity. And
He doesn't impute any of it to me. In Christ, I have no sin. I literally have no sin. And
in whose spirit there's no guile. Now turn to Psalm 65. Verse four, blessed, happy is
the man, listen, whom thou choosest. Election does not make a child
of God mad. Are you mad? Are you upset God chose you? Happy is the man whom thou choosest. Boy, when you find out that you
didn't choose him, but he chose you first, that makes you happy. And He calls us to approach unto
thee. He calls you to come to Him, that He may dwell in thy courts. That's where we'll be in a little
while. That's where we will be. There's not a day goes by I cannot
keep from thinking of Henry being there with the Lord. Just every
day, he's there with the Lord. He's rejoicing with Him. He's
alive and well. And I tell you what, this is
the first thing I text back to Paul. Paul told me he passed
away. I said this, he's happy now. He's happy now. "...Happy is the man whom thou
choosest, and causes to approach unto thee, that he may dwell
in thy courts. We shall be satisfied with the goodness of thy house,
even of thy holy temple." That's what we are satisfied with, the
things of God. That's what makes us happy, the
things of God. Now if that does not make you happy, you've got
a problem. You've got a problem. You might want to think about
it. Now we know this. We know that
the Word of God, in its first application, is concerning the
man Jesus Christ. Especially in the Psalms. It
is so much there written of Him and of us in Him. So it says
here in verse 1, The blessed man, or blessed is
the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth
in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful."
Do you know any man that that can apply to a hundred percent?
I know one man. One man. Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ never took counsel
from the ungodly. Now you and I have. You and I
have, in the past. In the past, we've taken counsel
from... In the past, I listened to a man preach a gospel that
was not the gospel. That's taking counsel from the
ungodly. The Lord Jesus Christ never took counsel from the ungodly. He received His counsel from
His Heavenly Father. As I hear, I speak. I speak. He has the tongue of
the learned. He's taught of God from his youth. When he was 12 years old, he
was teaching them in the temple. The Lord Jesus Christ never stood
with sinners in their sinfulness. In their way, He never stood
with them. When He sat down and He ate with
publicans and sinners, I assure you, He controlled that situation.
And when He sat down there, He was teaching. He was instructing. He was not caught up in their
jesting or any of that stuff. They were listening and He was
talking. That's what was going on. God sitting there with His
children and instructing and teaching them. This man receiveth
sinners and he eats with them. He fellowships with them. Aren't
you glad he does that? He wouldn't have anything to
do with us if he didn't. And our Lord never sat with those
who scorn and scoff. Some said these are the ones
who are ill-religious. They have no religion. He never scorned, did He? In
fact, it says when He was threatened, when He was reviled, He threatened
not. He never scorned. He was never,
and you notice here the progress of sin, how it goes down, down,
down. You take counsel, then you stand
with Him, and next thing you know, you're seated with Him.
That's the progress of it. And our Lord never went down
with any of them. He knew no sin. He knew no sin. This one man, the Lord Jesus
Christ, knew no sin. He never gave in to temptation. At one time, I said, you and
I took counsel from the ungodly. We stood in the way of sinners.
We ran with them. We ran with the ungodly. We sat
in the seat of the scornful. But now listen, not anymore. Aren't you blessed? Are you not
happy that God pulled you out of that mess? Are you not happy
that God plucked you like a bran out of the fire? This is what
makes us happy, that in Christ, He has saved us from this, from
this crowd, from being a part of this crowd. He has pulled
us out of it. At one time, we took counsel
with them. We stood with them. We sat with them. But no more.
No more. I do not enjoy running with unbelievers. Do you? I don't enjoy it at all. I'm not saying, I'm friendly
with them. I'm friendly with them. I've worked with men that
didn't believe the gospel. I was friendly with them, talked
with them. But I didn't, they were not my company. They were
not my company. But His delight, listen here,
speaking first of the Lord Jesus Christ, then of me and you in
Christ. Because as He is, so are we in
this world. But His delight, that which gave
Him pleasure and delight, is in the law, the Word of the Lord. And in His law, in His Word,
does He meditate day and night. Look over in Psalm 40. Look at verse 8. I delight to do thy will, O my
God, yea, thy law is within my heart. And over my margin it
says, thy law is in the midst of my bowels. It's like he just
ate it up, digested it. No man, no man delighted in the
Word of God more or even close to as much as the Lord Jesus
Christ delighted in the Word of God. He said, it's my meat. Look at Psalm 119. Psalm 119. Look at verse 97. There's a bunch
of verses in here that I have written down, but I'm only going
to look at, I'm just going to look at this one. Verse 97. Oh, how love I thy law. It is my meditation all the day. Now, there's no one here, and
there's no one that I know, that has been able to meditate on
the Word of God all day and all night. But Jesus Christ did. He did. He absolutely thought
upon, meditated upon. And this word, listen, I came
across this today. This word meditate also means
to speak of. It means to speak of. And our
Lord spoke of the Word of God continually. How many times did
He say, it is written? He was always speaking the Word
of God, always referring to the Word of God, always meditating,
thinking upon the Word of God. Continually. Continually. Now to the believer, to those in Christ, we too delight
in the Word of God, don't we? We delight. It is our meat. We
find in this Word Christ who is the children's bread. We find
in the Word of God the promises of God. We find in the Word of
God the hope of salvation. The Lord Jesus Christ. Look over
in Job 23. Now listen to this. This is a
child of God. And it's really a child of God
that's matured, but we're always maturing. We mature until we
go to the grave. But this is growing in grace
here. "...Neither have I gone back
from the commandment of His lips. I have esteemed the words of
His mouth more than my necessary food." And in the margin it says, I
have hid or laid up the words of his mouth more than I have
laid up my food. More than my necessary food.
There was a time, now I believe every believer in here can say
this, there was a time this book meant absolutely nothing to you. For years and years, I never
opened this book one time. For years, this book was nothing
but a mystery. Nothing but a mystery. And now,
I open this book and it's food. It's food. It gives understanding. It gives light. By the Holy Spirit,
it does. It's living. You know, this book
right here, the words of this book is living. If the Spirit
of God quickens your heart, He quickens His word in our hearts.
It works in you. It works in you. There's no other
book works in you like this. You know, there's not a book
that I read in school that worked in me. But this one does. This one does. And the believer finds in the
Word of God comfort. Comfort. It says over in Romans
15, look over in Romans 15. If we're going to talk about the
Word, we need to turn to it. In Romans 15, in verse 4, For whatsoever things were written
aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience
and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope." Comfort of
the Scriptures. Where do you find comfort? Where
do you really, really find comfort? The Word of God. The promises
of God. That's where you really find
comfort. Then he says in verse 3, "...and 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." Jesus Christ is the
tree of God's planting. He is the tree of life planted
in the covenant of grace. He's a tree of life planted in
paradise over in Revelations 2-7. He's the tree of life. And He shall bring forth fruit.
He shall. The Lord Jesus Christ shall bring
forth fruit. What is the fruit He brings forth?
You. You are His fruit. Every believer
is a fruit of Christ. And it says, "...he shall bring
forth fruit in his season, in his time." There's a time to
be born and there's a time to die. There's a time for every
son of God to be born of God. I mean down to the second. It's
time to be born. "...and whatsoever he doeth shall
prosper." It is written in Isaiah 42, "...my servant shall not
fail." He shall not fail. And Isaiah 53 10, the pleasure
of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. What looked like failure
to his disciples, remember Peter last week said, Lord, far be
it from you, you can't go to the cross and die. It looked
like failure. It was actually him prospering. It's the wheat
falling into the ground so that there'd be much more of it, just
like it. Now the believer is like a tree planted. The believer
is planted in Christ the vine. He said, I am the vine, you are
the branches. Look over in John 15. John 15. It says in John 15, verse 1,
I'm going to read 1 through 5. I am the true vine, and my Father
is the husbandman. Every branch in me that bears
not fruit He takes away, and every branch that bears fruit
He purges it, that it may bring forth more fruit. Now you are
clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. Abide
in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit
of itself, except it abide in the vine, no more can you, except
you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches.
He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth
much fruit. For without me you can do nothing." You are a fruitful people. You are a fruitful people. You
bring forth fruit. What is the fruit? It's the fruit
of the Spirit. Love, joy, peace, kindness. It's the fruit of the Spirit.
That's the fruit you bear. And it says over in John 15 that
He has ordained all our works. He's ordained all of our fruit.
You're going to bear fruit. Here he is. If something's alive,
it's going to bear fruit. But, now there's a flip. Now there's a flip. If there's someone in here that
does not believe the gospel, here's what applies to you. The
ungodly are not so. You know what he's saying? None
of these things apply to the unbeliever. None of them. They are not happy. They think
they are sometimes. Sometimes they get a little giddy.
They get a little happiness. You know, they get a little money
and they get a little happiness. They get a little this, a little that.
They get a satisfied little bit of lust of the flesh. Makes them
happy for a little while. But it's not lasting. It's like
soap bubbles. They're not happy. They are not
blessed. They may be rich and increased
with goods. That does not mean you are blessed
of God. That is no indication that you
are blessed of God. The fact that you believe on
the Lord Jesus Christ and He's all your hope, that is your blessing
of God. That's the indication you're
blessed of God. The ungodly are not so. No matter what they have, none of
these apply to them. They are like the chaff which
the wind drives away. Here today, gone tomorrow. Gone forever. Gone into eternal
punishment. Gone, gone, gone. No substance to them. Good for
nothing. And like chaff, listen, they
are not planted. You know, over in Isaiah, let
me see here, I had it written down in Isaiah that the Isaiah
61.3. It says that the righteous are
the... they are the trees of righteousness.
The believer are trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord. Orders
Isaiah 61.3. But here chaff is not planted. It has no root. It's not rooted
in anything but sin. That's what it's rooted in. Dung.
Rooted in dung. That's what it's rooted in. That's
what human nature is rooted in. Dung. That's why Paul said, I
count everything but loss. I count everything but dung.
That's all it is. It's chaff. No substance to it. It's good for nothing. Not planted.
They will not stand in judgment. They have no place before God. What did our Lord say in John
14? I go and prepare a place for
you. And if I go and prepare a place
for you, I will come again and receive you to myself, that where
I am, there you may be also." The wicked have no place before
God. No prepared place. When they
meet God, they're going to meet a consuming fire. And what is
chaff before consuming fire? Unconverted sinners, unbelievers,
someday will be separated from the saints of God. Remember we
saw this in Matthew 15. He said the angels are going
to come and they are going to separate the tares from the wheat. There's going to be a final separation
and there's going to be some And this to me is an awful thought. It's a thought that I don't meditate
on. But there are many that's going
to actually perish. And there are many already there.
And I think, here I am standing here, reading God's Word, believing
God's Word, preaching God's Word, and I could be, I could be one
of those chaff. I was born with the same nature.
Born with the same nature. Born with the same enmity in
my mind against God. That ought to give you and me
a spirit of worship, shouldn't it? He saved us, the scripture
says, from the wrath to come. Separated from God forever. Now it says in verse 6, The Lord
knoweth the way of the righteous. And that means He continually,
continually knowing. He continually knowing the way
of the righteous. He continually looks over His
people. You are the apple of His eye. He never takes His eye or attention
off of any of His children. Not for a second. He's constantly
knowing their way, guiding them, instructing them. You don't even
realize the lessons He gave you today. I don't. Guidance, instructing, teaching,
directing. And then 20 years down the road,
I'll look back and I can see the hand of God. I can see how
He... I can look back right now. Here
I stand in Spring Lake, North Carolina, which is a place I
never thought of being in my life. It didn't cross my mind.
And yet I can look back now and see some things that happened
in my life, in mine and Vicki's life that brought me to this
point. I didn't see it then, I see it
now. And the things that have gone on today and the things
that are going to go on, if I live another 10 years or 20 years,
I'll look back and I'll see the hand of God in it. I'll see the hand of God in it. The Lord knoweth the way of the
righteous. It is written in Psalm 139.15, and this concerns Christ
first, and us, and Christ. He said, My substance was not
hid from thee when I was in the womb. You knew me. You knew me. He
told Jeremiah, When you was in the womb, I knew you. I ordained
you. I tell you what, the doctrine
of predestination, I love it. I love it. I'm glad God has ordered
all things. Do you know anybody wiser? Oh,
like us? Oh, like let me do it? I have
to have GPS to go anywhere around here, and you want me to order
anything? It's like, come on, think it
out. Think it out. There's none wiser
than God. And He's our God. He's our God. He knoweth the way of the righteous.
You know why He knows our way? Because He's it. I am the way,
the truth, and the life. He knoweth the way because He
is the way. He knows our way of righteousness. It's His. He
knows our way of life. It's His. He knows our way to
God, Him. Him. He came into this world,
took upon Him flesh, in order that He might lead us back to
home, back to Himself. To bring us back to Himself. But the way of the ungodly, now
listen, shall perish. It'll perish. His way of salvation, free will
work, shall perish. His way of thinking shall perish. His way of life shall perish. I wrote an article in the bulletin.
I think it was in this bulletin. Everybody will be penniless one
day. Everybody. Whatever way of life someone
may have, and they may have been very prosperous in it, but one
day they'll be penniless. I thank God for that blessed
man when he came into this world. He did not walk in the counsel
of the ungodly. He did not stand in the way of
sinners nor sit in the seat of the scornful. He's our representative. He's our Lord. He's our God.
He's our Savior. I thank God for that blessed
man. And I thank God He's blessed us in that man. The Lord Jesus
Christ.