Ungodly are Like the Chaff

The point: When you encounter teaching that promises a shortcut around the daily wrestle with sin, refuse the product — it does not fit Psalm 1.

Martin tells of a young Christian taught the 'let go and let God' shortcut to blessedness who at 25 has terrible blood pressure and is in spiritual bondage — proof that any blessedness escaping the daily wrestle is counterfeit.

As a young Christian, earnest for all God had for him, he heard someone who told him, if you want blessedness, that old pathway of day by day wrestling with the world, the flesh, and the devil, That old pathway of denying yourself and cutting off right hands and plucking out right eyes, that's a legalistic way. I have the way. And so this young man began to seek this experience that would get him out of the pathway of conflict and struggle which led to blessedness. And as a result of it, this poor young man has been brought into a state of actual physical effect.

5:36 - 6:14 Read in full sermon

The point: Do not despise threats in Scripture as merely useful for sinners — saints need both the sweet promises and the sober threats to keep walking.

Martin imagines a sinner standing with his hands in his pockets responding to the promises of verse 3 with indifference — and sees God then 'getting behind' him with the threats of verse 4.

The blessedness of the righteous man described. And it's as though a man stands there with his hands in his pockets and says, All right, David, that's all right and well. The blessed man is this and that, but I'll just take my chances and I'll seek blessedness another way. It as though David turns and says All right if my positive disstatement hasn caught your ear the ungodly are not so but they are like chaff And then he moves into the sobering theme of the judgment of God that falls upon every individual who fails to find God way of blessedness Now that principle follows us right through the...

9:36 - 10:15 Read in full sermon

The point: Examine your past week against Psalm 1:1-2 as a job description: were you marked by refusing ungodly counsel and meditating on the Word?

One of Trinity's men spent the summer writing job descriptions; Martin says Psalm 1:1-2 is God's job description for the blessed man. Does it describe the man you were this past week?

That's supposed to be a description of you. One of our men has been working all summer on job descriptions writes up a description of the job what involved in it Now is this a description of you Listen Blessed is Miss So-and-So, Mr. So-and-So, who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly. This is the description of you now, is it?

19:45 - 20:10 Read in full sermon

The point: Refuse the modern pressure to blur the line between saved and lost — God knows only two kinds of people, and there is no neutral ground.

God's palette doesn't have a big blob of gray — only black and white. The contrast between blessed and wicked is sharp by divine design.

God's palette doesn't have a big blob of gray in it. God's palette has black and white. And we find that contrast painted here so vividly in the words of the psalmist. So we have in this statement of verse 4, this sharp contrast.

22:41 - 23:00 Read in full sermon

Martin walks through the Eastern threshing floor: grain and chaff thrown into the breeze, the heavier grain falling, the lighter chaff and dust carried beyond into a flattened windrow — Naomi knew Boaz was doing exactly this.

With this instrument, the mass of chaff, straw, and grain was thrown against the wind. The wind's blowing this way. It was thrown into the wind. Because there was generally a breeze blowing in the evening, this was the time when it was normally done.

24:07 - 24:22 Read in full sermon

Driving home: Hell is God's junk heap.

Once a year Caldwell residents drag their basement junk to the curb. Hell, says Martin, is God's junk heap — what no longer fulfills its design discarded as refuse.

We have cleanup day here in Caldwell, and the Caldwells once a year, and you're encouraged to go through your cellar and basement and any place else where junk collects and find everything that's useless. Be no good for the goodwill truck, no good for the Salvation Army. Absolutely useless. Put it on your street corner and let them come and pick it up and throw it in the junk heap.

33:37 - 33:58 Read in full sermon

Driving home: Hell is God's junk heap.

Christ's word for hell, Gehenna, came from Jerusalem's actual burning trash pit outside the city walls — God borrowed the word from the dump.

It's interesting that the figure Christ used for the doctrine of hell was taken from the junk heap outside the walls of Jerusalem. Jesus used the term Gehenna, which referred or was taken from. It refers to hell, but it's taken from the picture of the valley of Hinnom outside the walls of Jerusalem, where the refuse was dumped and where the dead bodies of common criminals were dumped and dead dogs and all refuse was poured out there, and there was this continual fire. It was the junk heap of the city of Jerusalem.

33:59 - 34:36 Read in full sermon

The point: Do not measure yourself by your own opinion — God's verdict alone is the true description of your soul tonight.

Psalm 37 describes the wicked man spreading himself like a great bay tree — and he passed away. The chaff thinks itself a tree until the wind.

In fact, one of these psalms describes the ungodly man that prides himself that he has spread himself like a great bay tree. He thinks himself a tree, spreading his great boughs of learning and self-sufficiency and morality. And God says, you're chaff. You're chaff.

37:38 - 37:57 Read in full sermon