A saved man is a godly man.
A lost man is an ungodly man.
Psalm 1 addresses both of these men, the
godly and the ungodly.
I believe if you live your life by
Psalm 1, friend, you can't go wrong.
I highly recommend committing it to memory.
It was the first scripture I memorized as
a new Christian, and it's gotten me through
all my life.
Psalm 1 is delineated by four categories.
The godly man's defense.
The godly man's delight.
The godly man's description.
The ungodly man's destruction.
We read in verse 1, He
turns away from bad decisions.
He is a man on guard against sin.
He is mindful of the temptations of the
world, the flesh, and the devil.
And he is careful to avoid evil in
any way, shape, or form.
He is employing good defensive strategies against the
opponents who can bring him down into the
ditch of compromise and sin.
He is a man girded with the Christian's
armor from Ephesians chapter 6.
He knows his enemy, and he knows himself.
And he is aware that he must put
on the whole armor of God that he
may be able to stand against the wiles
of the devil.
Verse 2 speaks of our second category.
The godly man's delight.
Verse 2 declares, But his delight is in
the law of the Lord, and in his
law doth he meditate day and night.
So we see that the godly man of
Psalm 1 delights in his Lord and delights
in his word.
He is regularly hiding God's word in his
heart and living in accord with its principles.
And because of this he is a blessed
man.
That word meditate has the connotation of a
cow chewing its cud over and over again.
And this godly man reads the word of
God and contemplates on it.
He turns it over and over again in
his heart and mind until God's word is
a reality in his life.
In fact, he will memorize a verse of
scripture and then ask God in prayer to
make that verse a practical reality in his
life.
Back when I discipled men in my home,
one of our most profitable exercises was to
memorize scripture on a weekly basis.
I believe those men got more out of
that discipleship group than anything else was hiding
God's word in their heart.
The man of Psalm 1 is a man
of the book.
We see similarities in 2 Timothy 3, 16
and 17, which reads, All scripture is given
by the inspiration of God and is profitable
for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction
in righteousness, that the man of God may
be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.
Next, we see the third category of the
godly man's description.
In verse 3 we read, 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.
This makes me think of Joseph in the
house of Potiphar where God still prospered him
in all he did and gave him favor
because he was a godly man.
The godly man of Psalm 1 is a
blessed man, a prosperous man, because he derives
his hope and strength from a power above.
I like the imagery used here, friends, of
a tree planted by rivers of water yielding
its fruit in its season and always being
in a prospering condition.
For the godly man, Jesus is the living
water.
Jesus is the source of that river.
Jesus is the force of that river.
Jesus is the course of that river.
In John 7, 37 and 38, we read
these living water.
In the last day, that great day of
the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If
any man thirst, let him come unto me
and drink.
He that believeth on me, as the scripture
hath said, out of his belly shall flow
rivers of living water.
Now, we come to the fourth and final
category of Psalm 1, and it lies in
stark contrast to the other three.
Oh, it's terrible, friends, to even think about
it.
For the man of this fourth category has
different desires, different behaviors, and a different destiny
than the other man.
His course of life has him set for
destruction.
We see his sad description in verses 4
-6.
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.
There is only way, only one way, friends,
for the godly man.
And there is only one way for the
ungodly man.
The one way for the godly man is
the narrow way, which leads to life.
The way of the ungodly man is the
broad way, which leads to destruction.
Jesus is the only way, friend.
You gotta get on that way.
You gotta get to Jesus.
You must get to Jesus.
Jesus said, I am the way, the truth,
and the life.
No man cometh unto the Father but by
me.
Which man are you, friend?
Are you the godly man, or are you
the ungodly man?
Be a godly man for Jesus.