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- Let's take our Bibles and turn to Psalm chapter 1 tonight. Psalm 1 for a short message on Psalm 1, the gateway to the
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- Psalms, the first Psalm. Thank you, Tim, tonight for leading and Stephanie for playing.
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- I wanted to sing Psalm 1 from the Psalter and then preach Psalm 1 and then teach
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- Psalm 1 after. Next month, we'll do Psalm 2, Psalm 22 the month after that, probably
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- Psalm 139, some key Psalms. Basically, you can hear preached all the time, right?
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- How many times can you read Psalm 23 and think, oh, that still refreshes my soul? You can hear it preached often as well.
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- So we're gonna try to learn some Psalms by singing them and then by hearing them preached to help with added meaning.
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- One of the things that the Psalms, I think, do is they help us when things are difficult.
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- Is that not true? When you're really going through hard times, it seems like that Psalmist identifies with you.
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- He understands what you're going through. Conversely, when things are going really well and you're full of joy and happiness and things are going wonderfully and you're walking with the
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- Lord, you see the Psalmist heart reflect that as well. Alexander White said to his theological students, oh,
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- I envy you younger men with your ministry before you and especially that you have ahead a lifetime of explaining the
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- Psalms to your people. Isn't that good? I wish I could be younger and then preach these
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- Psalms to you. Full range of emotion and full types of Psalms from Davidic to praise, to lament, to confessional, to penitential,
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- Psalm chapter one tonight. A couple other intro things. I love this quote.
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- He that would be wise, let him read the Proverbs. Yeah, so far so good, yes.
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- He that would be holy, let him read the Psalms. And in a sense, Psalm one kind of reads like wisdom literature.
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- And it's going to show you tonight, dear beloved saints, the importance and necessity of meditating on the word.
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- It's going to show you the stability that comes from meditating on the word. It's gonna show you that none of us can live up to this and how we need the
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- Lord Jesus Christ. And if you think about it properly, you're gonna be thinking no one could live this way, but in fact, the
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- Lord Jesus Christ. Fesco writes about a world of choices. If you go into a computer store, you can purchase a computer and outfit it with numerous features and options.
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- You can tailor fit the product to meet your specific needs and demands. Millions of internet surfers have dozens, if not hundreds of websites they have bookmarked in their browsers that give them numerous choices for reading, entertainment, education, and productivity.
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- In this world of many choices, however, Psalm one presents a far different picture. Rather than give us multiple choices, the
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- Psalmist offers only two, the way of the wicked and the way of the righteous.
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- Fesco concludes, we often hear that the world is not black and white and there are many gray areas, but the
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- Psalmist entertains no such ideas. He presents the two ways and in a sense, introduces a conflict between them and the people who choose them through the rest of the
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- Psalter. Did in fact our Lord Jesus not say, there's a narrow gate and a broad gate.
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- Jeremiah 21 verse eight, you shall say to this people, thus says the Lord, behold,
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- I set before you the way of life and the way of death. Two different ways.
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- Now, how many Psalms are there? There are 150 in the Psalter technically and it's broken down in different books.
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- In this book one, we're looking at Psalm one, the, some people call it the foyer to the
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- Psalms, the mansion or the entranceway. We can call it the narthex to the
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- Psalms, except what's narthex really mean? Narthex has got that idea of you get whipped for your being impenitent and you have to have scourging done to you before you enter the sanctuary.
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- So I don't think I wanna call it the narthex of the Psalms. Let's stick with the foyer to the Psalms. It's called a front piece to the
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- Psalm. It's saying, you know what, all the rest of the Psalms can be seen through this grid. It's not an accident in other words, that Psalm one is
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- Psalm one. It just didn't fall out that way. And we shake it up and we got 150 Psalms. There's a way, even as the
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- Lord has arranged the canon that Psalm one is the fitting introduction. It's the gateway.
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- It's the way that shows the righteous way and the unrighteous way. Let me read
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- Psalm one to start and then we'll work through it. And I'm gonna ask you to do something interestingly.
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- Tell me what's missing in this Psalm as I read it. Not, don't tell me while I'm reading it, but after I'm done reading it, see if you can tell me what's missing in this
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- Psalm. And I'm gonna switch back between NAS and ESV today, ESV right now.
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- 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.
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- But his delight is in the law of the Lord or Yahweh. And on his law, he meditates day and night.
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- He's like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season and its leaf does not wither.
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- And all that he does, he prospers. The wicked are not so. They're like chaff that the wind drives away.
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- Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. For Yahweh knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.
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- What do you notice about this Psalm? It's Sunday night, so you can just shout it out if you want. What's missing?
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- Say, well, a lot of things could be missing. If you read this again, you'll discover this Psalm doesn't tell you to do anything.
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- You're not gonna see one imperative in the Psalm. You're not gonna say, here's what I want you to do. This is a description.
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- This doesn't tell you to do anything. It is using descriptive language, describing something.
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- Now, one of the things that happens with Bible translations if you look at chapter one, verse one, blessed is the man.
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- How do you think liberals like to translate that? Blessed is the person.
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- Blessed is the cisgender. I don't know how they translate it. But it says blessed is the man.
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- And I think you're gonna want to keep that there because that in fact is the Hebrew word. But as church history has shown us,
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- Jewish and Christian keep Psalm one and Psalm two together. And we're gonna talk about how
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- Christologically unique Psalm one is. But it is a fact that Psalm one and Psalm two have gone together with Jewish commentators and Christian.
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- And you have to remember, look at chapter two, verse 12. Blessed are those who take refuge in him.
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- And then chapter one, verse one, blessed is the man. These two are to be taken as a literary unit.
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- There were not chapter divisions, of course, early on. Psalm one talks about the blessings that fall on this man are from this man.
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- Psalm two ends with the blessings that are found in those who take refuge in him.
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- Now certainly, well, I won't tip my hand yet regarding that.
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- Psalm one, verse one. Let's just work through it a little bit. The reason why I just brought that up just a second ago is because when we look at this, do we, is
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- Christ the man or is he not? Let's find out and I'll tell you what I think later. Psalm one, verse one.
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- Let's just kind of work through it and see what it says. And I think you're gonna see that this is a description of what we should be like, and it's also the ultimate description of the
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- Lord Jesus, the man, the last Adam. What a great way to start the
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- Psalms. Are you ready? How blessed. Oh, what a great introduction to the book of Psalms. From God's perspective, how blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked?
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- This word, asher, just means exactly that, to be blessed. It is a deep seated joy and contentment in God.
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- It can be translated envious. The man who's blessed by God, oh,
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- I'd like to be that man. I'd like to be that man who is loved by God that way. Envied is the man who has this blessing from God.
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- Everywhere you go in the Psalms, you see this kind of blessing language. Let me just read you a few verses and let them settle into your soul as I read them.
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- For it is you who does bless the righteous, Psalm five. Psalm 24, he shall receive a blessing from Yahweh.
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- Psalm 32, how blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven? How blessed is the man to whom the
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- Lord does not impute iniquity? Psalm 34, oh, taste and see that the Lord is good. How blessed is the man who takes refuge in him?
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- Praise the Lord, Psalm 112. How blessed is the man who fears the Lord? Psalm 146, how blessed is he whose help is the
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- God of Jacob? And to think that we all have deserved cursing, we get these blessings.
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- And by the way, the word blessed there in your English is singular. In the Hebrew, it's not singular, it's plural.
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- It's blessednesses, it's whole bunches of blessings over and over and over. Oh, the blessednesses, that's how
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- Spurgeon translates it. Kind of hard to say, by the way. I almost feel like I'm kind of like gonna speak in tongues.
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- Oh, the blessednesses, the blessednesses. So many of them, it has to be plural.
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- And it's not just happy, but it's this deep -seated joy that, of course, has happiness. And by the way, in the
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- Hebrew, it's got an exclamation kind of idea. It's called what, for the seminary students here,
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- I think, how many people here have learned Hebrew or learned it and forgotten it? Hebrew for Pradeep, Steve, Steve, and I know, where's
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- Bob Dunn? Bob, have you learned Hebrew and forgotten it? Okay, it's an intensive plural. And that just means it's got like an exclamation.
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- The very beginning of the Psalter, of all the Psalms, it just starts off with that first word, blessed, blessednesses, and with a good exclamation point.
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- Happy, are blessed. That's amazing. Oh, the blessedness for these kind of people.
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- For what kind of people? In particular, it's the man, that man. Out of all the billions of men who have ever lived, it's like you're pointing to that one particular person.
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- It's that man. The picture that comes to my mind is there's all those people saluting Hitler in that picture, and then there's that one man who refused to salute.
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- You know, that little picture you see sometimes? Out of all those people who are saluting Hitler, that man right there, he's not.
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- There's one in particular that he's thinking about, that particular man, this kind of man, and no other kind of man.
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- What does this man do? Well, this is poetry, and so we have these stanzas, and these three stanzas don't talk about progression.
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- They just all say the same thing different ways. Who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers.
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- And so what you have with Hebrew poetry is you have kind of parallelism. Here's how I was taught the psalm.
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- If you start walking by wicked people, you might be fine, but if you walk by wicked people, and then you kind of stand around with the wicked people, before you know it, you're gonna be sitting with wicked people, this logical progression.
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- But the Hebrew is essentially just saying the same thing three different ways. The blessed man, oh, the blessednesses of this man, exclamation intensive plural, are not found in some kind of the closer you get to sin.
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- No, he gives these kind of people a wide berth, and just stays away from there.
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- That's what he's after. This is synonymous parallelism. It's a totality, just avoid it at all costs.
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- Don't walk, don't stand, don't sit, just stay away.
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- I don't know why in my mind when I say stay away, it's a Sunday night, I'll just tell you my radio mind just says stay away from KOA.
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- Camps across America, just stay away from those. The good thing about radio, you can edit it, right?
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- And I guess that's why we have Jonathan in the back. I'm gonna,
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- I receive these blessings from God, and this is the kind of man that says all these wicked, evil people and their philosophies,
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- I stay far from. And by the way, I don't want you to be thinking these evil people are people that smoke cigarettes, and these are the people that drink wine, and these are the people that vape, you know, these kind of like external things.
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- This is kind of internal wickedness. These are with the isms of hedonism, and materialism, and individualism, and relativism, and religionism, and works righteousness isms.
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- Proverbs 21, proud, haughty, scoffer are his names who acts with insolent pride.
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- When it comes to ungodliness, this blessed man avoids it all. And by the way, what's going through your mind right now?
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- Here's what's going through my mind. I want to avoid ungodliness and stay away from it, do you? Do you always?
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- Do I always? No, but I'm thinking about the one who always does avoid ungodliness, and who always is not tainted by sin.
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- I think one of the things we have to remember to do just as a side note, a pastoral note, you just need to learn how to say no.
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- I think some people can't tell their children no. I know people who can't tell their children no. And sometimes we have to say no to the culture so we can say yes to something else.
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- And what are we saying yes to? Verse two. I mean, we're gonna have to shun this worldliness, and then you saturate your mind with what?
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- Scripture. This is just this great song. It's just a small little song that describes this great blessedness that this man has.
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- But his delight is in the law of Yahweh. And in his law, he meditates day and night.
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- Now, when you think law, you should just think generally. This is instruction. This is God's law.
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- And there's this delight that this person has in that. He loves it. He delights in it.
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- He thinks about it all the time. This is actually the same word of Shechem, son of Hamor, had delight in Jacob's daughter
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- Dinah. Thinking about, pondering, going over, mulling it over in your mind, over and over and over.
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- Now, that word meditate is fascinating. And that word meditate is very onomatopoetic.
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- And it's in Hebrew, transliterated H -A -G -A -H.
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- Some of you have heard me preach this song before. To meditate is essentially saying that word over and over and over.
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- And you can kind of, it's like you're talking to yourself because you're thinking about that verse. And you're murmuring and you're meditating.
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- And you're so caught up in thinking about something. You don't even really want to talk, but it's just kind of coming out of your mouth.
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- Does that make sense? It means to mutter or to murmur.
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- It's like a sound of an animal moaning, a dove, lion growling, moaning for raisin cakes found in the
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- Bible. Here it says, one commentator strictly speaking, it means to utter a sound. And hence it's employed of an inner word utterance of the words a man speaks to himself and also giving open and loud expressions to thoughts.
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- I'm fairly tired today. And no, I don't really want to kind of put on some big show tonight or anything like that.
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- But it's like a person who just, he's underneath his breath. Maybe there's a particular crisis in your life and you're just thinking, the
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- Lord is my shepherd, the Lord is my shepherd, the Lord is my shepherd, the Lord is my shepherd. And really what I'm saying is the
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- Lord is my shepherd, but I'm so caught up in what I'm thinking about. It's coming out of my mouth and I'm not even thinking that I'm saying it.
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- Does that make sense? I don't know why I'm sweating while I'm doing that, but I'm usually, I'm brooding over God's word.
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- It's so in me, it's just kind of coming out. I'm meditating. Joshua 1, the law of the Lord shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night.
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- Over and over and over. Some of you, I know, love music, pop music.
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- Some, like Pastor Steve, love it more than others. I can just poke
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- Steve and pop music songs come out. I could also poke Steve. It's true, can't
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- I? But with Steve also,
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- I could poke him and Bible verses come out, right? It's just this kind of, you know, it's kind of what you think of, knee jerk.
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- And so there's this negative influence with these ungodly people, but this blessed man, this ultimate blessed man, we too wanting to follow that kind of man and be that kind of man by the grace of God and learn from that ultimate man.
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- We want to meditate on God's word. It just needs to be in us and it needs to be, what does Colossians 3 say?
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- Let the word of Christ dwell what? Richly in you, that you're just thinking about it. And by the way, it's not going to be in you kind of by osmosis, right?
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- You just can't lay on the Bible and somehow think it's going to get into your soul. You have to read it, right?
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- You have to memorize it. And how often should you do that? What's the text say? This is poetry, remember?
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- Day and night. That's an idiom. That just means not just day and night, but everything in between, day and night, all the time.
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- We say pray without ceasing. This is meditate day and night. One man said, read it often, read it much, think over it, meditate over it, meditate on the word day and night.
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- When you're awake at night, think of a helpful verse. When you get up in the morning, no matter how you feel, think of a verse.
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- So you're just thinking about the word over and over and over as it changes your mind, as it directs you. No wonder
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- Psalm 119 says, the law of thy mouth is better to me than thousands of gold and silver pieces.
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- How sweet are thy words to my taste, yes, sweeter than honey to my mouth. No wonder
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- Jeremiah said, the words were found and I ate them. Thy words become a joy for me and a delight of my heart.
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- Job 23, sounds good to me. Just delight in the word that you're just laughing and having great joy.
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- The blessedness is with intensive plural Hebrew nouns and verbs. Job 23,
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- I have not departed from the command of his lips. I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my necessary, the blessednesses of this meditation.
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- Well, let's just keep kind of working through and then let's talk about how we think about the Lord Jesus here at the end.
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- Psalm 1 verse 3, what's the result? The state of blessedness or happiness.
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- Was it worth it? Is it worth it? And he will be like a tree, firmly planted by the streams of water, which yields its fruit in its season and its leaf does not wither and in whatever he does, he prospers.
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- That's pretty amazing. That's pretty amazing when you think about it, no matter what kind of trouble you're going through, this type of person, verses one and two, this is the result.
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- I think we all say, yes, in fact, it's worth it. Now, by the way, if you think like a
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- Jewish person, think like an Israelite person, have you been to Israel with me? If you haven't, you can go in 2021 in February.
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- We'd love to have you. And off we go to the Rome extension maybe afterwards. When trees are in Israel, you should be thinking vitality.
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- You should be thinking fruitfulness. You should be thinking the arid terrain of Israel where there's tons of desert and tons of just kind of lack of moisture.
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- When you see trees, you should be thinking fruitful, planted, cultivated, rich, well -fed, prospering.
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- What's the other option? Verse four, the wicked are not so. You're gonna see the contrast, how awful this is.
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- Spurgeon says, it only takes two words to describe the life of the ungodly. Not so, not so.
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- Why? They're led by the counsel of the wicked. They stand by sinners.
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- They sit by scoffers. They're not meditating on the word. They're not like a tree firmly planted.
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- They don't bear the fruit. Not so for the ungodly, not so. They're like what? Chaff, which the wind drives away.
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- They're worthless. They have zero net worth. Trash, disregarded, discarded.
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- How terrible that would be. How awful that would be. Not so the wicked. Two negatives in the
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- Hebrew to make a really emphatic negation. No, no, no. This is not the right thing.
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- The wicked are like chaff. You can just picture that threshing floor and the grain and crushed by the animals and throwing up that husk.
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- Chaff flying off. Proverbs 29, where there is no revelation, the people cast off the restraint, but blessed is he who keeps the law.
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- Verse five, I'm thinking in my mind as I'm reading verse five.
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- In verse four, about those who pay the penalty of eternal destruction away from the presence of the
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- Lord, 2 Thessalonians 1. Therefore, the wicked will not stand in judgment nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.
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- How interesting this is in providential. Therefore, the wicked will not stand in judgment. What have we sung all day today?
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- Let us, what before his face? The song this morning. Let us stand before his face. These are not going to stand.
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- Why? Because how can you stand in his presence and his glory and his holiness when you have sin?
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- These wicked will not stand in judgment. This is language that was said to King Belshazzar and Daniel.
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- You have been weighed in the balances and found what? Wanting. This is
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- John the Baptist language. The ax is already laid at the root of the tree. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
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- This is judgment. They're not going to be acquitted. Ecclesiastes 12, God will bring every act of judgment, everything which is hidden, whether it's good or evil.
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- Is it worth it to follow the Lord Jesus? Is it worth it to be that righteous man? Verse six, for the
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- Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.
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- I think you probably understood over the years that there's only two kinds of people, godly and ungodly.
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- Saints are those who aren't saints. Christians, non -Christians. There's an outcome to life.
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- There's an outcome to unbelief. There's an outcome to belief. And the Lord God Himself knows.
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- He knows the way of the righteous. He's looking. Of course, He knows intellectually because He never learns anything, but He's got
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- His eye toward them. He's got His eye on them. He's minding their way. He's correcting their way. He sees their way.
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- He understands their way. He knows the hairs on their head. He loves His children in an intimate relationship type of way.
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- I know my sheep as my father knows me, the Lord Jesus said. But the way of the ungodly, it's like when
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- Jesus said, depart from me, you lawless. I never what? I never knew you. This has nothing to do with I learned something.
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- This is I don't know you personally. The way of the wicked will perish. No wonder
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- Isaiah 57, the wicked are like tossing sea. It cannot be quiet. There's no peace as my
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- God for the wicked. Remember Jonathan Gershner one time saying in hell, the wicked would do anything and more just to make the weight of their sin one less because the punishment for one sin would be so awful.
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- Just one less sin, one less sin. Proverbs 10, the hope of the righteous is gladness, but the expectation of the wicked perishes.
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- But for the believer, there's no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus. That's amazing.
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- Now let's think about this just for a moment. What about is this man
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- Jesus? Well, there's different ways to look at the Psalms and think Christologically about these Psalms.
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- Psalm two certainly is about the Lord Jesus. Do you see in chapter two, verse seven,
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- I will tell of the decree. The Lord said to me, you are my son, today I have begotten you. Ask of me,
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- I will make the nations your heritage and the ends of the earth your possession. This is where we get the great commission in Matthew 28.
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- This idea, you shall break them with the rod of iron. Verse 10, therefore, O kings be wise.
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- Verse 11, serve the Lord with fear. And then verse 12, kiss the son lest he be angry and you perish in the way.
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- So the question really is, who is this righteous man? Now, I think every one of us would say, we don't study the
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- Bible like we should. We don't delight in God's law as we should. We don't avoid the counsel of the wicked as we should.
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- And so we need the Messiah. I think we'll all say that. But is this really of the
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- Lord Jesus, the blessed man? Well, let me read you a couple commentaries and we'll just work through it.
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- Goldsworthy said, in the final analysis, the righteous Torah or law -oriented person is the object of God's care and provision and is a foreshadowing of the righteous man for us,
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- Jesus Christ. We need to make that connection because the Psalms typically speak of the ideal that in our experience is unattainable apart from the experience of being justified in Christ.
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- I'm gonna read that again. We need to make that connection because the Psalms typically speak of the ideal that in our experience is unattainable apart from the experience of being justified in Christ.
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- The canonical placement of this Psalm at the beginning of the collection that makes up the five books of the
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- Psalter may be significant. Some commentators see it as evidence that whatever the use of the
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- Psalms in the temple, the finished book as we have it was framed as a compendium of instruction.
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- Here's what we do know. If you look at this, can't you say Jesus met these requirements in terms of not walking, not standing, not sitting, but delighting in the law of the
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- Lord, delighting in His word day and night? And He's like a tree planted by the streams of water and everything that He does,
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- He prospers. Could you not say that about the Lord Jesus? Absolutely true. Could you say that about other people?
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- I remember Harry Ironside. I was thinking about Harry Ironside today. Lewis and Dallas Brown were here at the church and Dallas is going to be here when,
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- Kim, next? 28th? And Lewis would always tell me that he's gonna be a dispensationalist for as long as he lives because he was in the elevator once with Harry Ironside and Harry Ironside put his hand on Lewis's shoulder and said, you know, good morning, son or whatever.
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- So he's always a dispensationalist. So we fired him and he moved to Texas. Harry Ironside tells this story about a man who went to Palestine years ago and his name was
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- Joseph Flax. And he was gonna talk to a lot of Jews and Arabs about Psalm 1.
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- And he read Psalm 1 and then he said, who is this blessed man? Who's the man that never walked in the council of the wicked, stood in the way of sinners, sat in the seat of mockers?
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- Who's the sinless man? Nobody said anything. Flax said, was it our great father
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- Abraham? Man said, of course it can't be Abraham. He denied his wife and told a lie about her.
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- We learned about that today in Genesis 12. He not only did that one time, but two times. What about lawgiver
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- Moses? Someone said, it can't be Moses. He killed a man. He lost his temper by the waters of Meribah.
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- Somebody said, well, what about David? Silence. Then an elderly Jew arose and said, brothers,
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- I have a little book here. It's called the New Testament and I have been reading it. And if I could believe this book, if I could be sure it is true,
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- I would say that the man of the first Psalm was Jesus Christ of Nazareth. And then
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- Eric Costa says, literally speaking, there's only one person who thoroughly fulfills
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- Psalm 1, whose delight is fully in the law of the Lord, who never walked in the counsel of the wicked, whose works always prosper, who is in himself the way, the truth, and the life of the righteous.
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- Eric writes, this is encouraging because if I look at Psalm 1, then look just at myself, then look back and forth a few times,
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- I begin to wonder whether I can truly consider myself among the congregation of the righteous. But if I looked at Jesus Christ with faith as the one who fulfilled
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- Psalm 1 for me, then in him I have the full assurance of the benefits mentioned in the
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- Psalm. If I look at my life and consider the guilty charge rightly pronounced upon me for my sin,
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- I have no claim to be the blessed man of Psalm 1. Then I see the one who fulfills
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- Psalm 1, the blessed man, Jesus Christ, who loved his God with all his heart, soul, mind, and strength at the cross, guilt due to me for violating
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- God's law and not delighting in it. It fell upon him. He was punished in my place.
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- He was made to be the curse that I might receive the blessing. Isn't that so good?
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- I mean, I want to say I love God's word and I want to meditate it, but truth be told, who could ever live up to this?
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- And truth be told, there was a man who did live up to it. And even if you want to say this points to, it shows my need for, or this is the ultimate man, the last
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- Adam, I think every way you preach this and think about it, you have to be saying to yourself, thank you for the
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- Lord Jesus Christ. So short 30 minute message on Psalm 1.
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- We're going to now sing Psalm 1 one last time, and then we're going to have a little dessert.
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- Let's pray. Father in heaven, we are so thankful tonight for the
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- Lord Jesus Christ. He certainly is the blessed man. And we're thankful that in light of his living that life, it's now our desire to do the very thing that's told us here in this
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- Psalm. Please give us an internal delight for your word. Help us to meditate on your word.
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- And we know you bless your people and you bless through the word because that's how the Holy Spirit works.
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- So help us to be a people of the book, understanding, learning, growing, and meditating.