Introduction: Counsel of Ungodly

Transition from Psalm 51 to Psalm 1

0:00 The 51st Psalm We mentioned time after time in the course of our 16 or 17 studies in that psalm that no one will go far in his Christian experience who does not learn early in his experience how to biblically confess and sin and seek the restorative grace of God.

0:50 For the hard fact of Christian experience is that it is not long after the flush of our newfound joy of forgiveness that we as believers find to our shock and to our horror and to our grief that we are still capable of even the grossest forms of sin and uncleanness and yet having tasted the sweetness of the kiss of forgiveness and the reality of fellowship with God, we cannot be content in that state of barrenness and spiritual poverty that comes on the heels of our sin and we must know the way back. And so to master the principles of the 51st Psalm or a light psalm is to arm oneself with a tremendous weapon in spiritual conflict.

1:36 For if the enemy cannot get you to ignore your sin, then he'll get you wallowing in it. And if he can't get you wallowing in it, he'll get you just bypassing it. And by a quick, some kind of a little self-absolution, you'll say all is well. and you'll put some kind of a surface healing upon the wound of your own soul.

1:57 But neither of these courses is of God. The course of staying in the state of mourning or of self-absolution, there is a pathway of biblical repentance and confession, and I do trust that having completed our studies in that psalm, we have not ceased to study the psalm or to use it again and again in the exercise of our own walk with God. Now, what the 51st Psalm is, for the problem of how does a sinning saint get back into the place of blessing and forgiveness, the first Psalm is, in answering the question, how does one seek to walk so that he doesn't need to pray the 51st Psalm quite as often? The 51st Psalm is perhaps the greatest of the penitential psalms,

2:44 and the first psalm is perhaps, at least for a short psalm, the greatest, or one of the greatest, if not the greatest, of the what we call didactic psalms. Now, the word didactic simply comes from the Greek word, which means to teach, and so a didactic psalm is a psalm that is primarily concerned with teaching spiritual truth. A penitential psalm is concerned with the actings of a penitent heart, God word. A psalm of praise is concerned with the actings of a praise-filled heart, either Godward or manward.

3:19 But here, in the first psalm, you have not prayer directed heavenward, but instruction directed manward. Therefore, it comes under that class that we would call a didactic psalm. And I trust that as we applied ourselves to master the contents of the 51st psalm to know how to find our way back, we might apply ourselves with diligence and with prayer that God will help us to master the principles of the first psalm, that we might know how we ought to walk after we've gotten up off our knees having prayed through the 51st psalm. If you ever get to the place where all you feel you need is Psalm 1, you're missing it.

4:01 You never get to the place where all you need is Psalm 1. As long as you're in this body, you'll need the 51st psalm. But if your whole life is the 51st Psalm, I've got news for you. You have need of the first Psalm and its instruction.

4:14 And so taking these Psalms as sort of specimen Psalms of these great groupings, we are focusing upon them in somewhat of a detailed study, hoping that this kind of study will then be a key to unlock some of the Psalms in the similar categories. Dare I be so childish as to read the first Psalm? You say, well, that's Sunday school stuff. Maybe some have already thought that.

Theme of the Psalm: The Way of Blessedness

4:38 Say, well, pastor must be running around preaching at conferences too much if he's got to take a kindergarten psalm like the first psalm. Well, I'm sure any of you who've tried to teach the familiar and the so-called obvious realize that nothing taxes your powers of study and abilities to communicate than to try to master what is assumed to be so simple and then to present it in a way that will be helpful to others. So I shall read the first psalm as we begin our study tonight.

5:09 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.

5:39 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 as we approach this psalm tonight, as we did with the 51st psalm, I want us to sort of march around it before we actually plow into it.

6:12 And I think in so doing we will perhaps be better able to mine some of the tremendous truth embodied in this very simple and brief psalm. In the first place, I would ask you to consider with me what the theme of this psalm is. And the theme is introduced in the very first word, blessed or blessed. It could be translated or paraphrased, oh, the blessedness of the man, or blessedness belongs to that man.

6:46 So the theme of the psalm is introduced in the very first word. The theme is blessedness. We're going to have a description in this psalm of the way of blessedness, the way of happiness, the way of contentment, the way of fulfillment, of fruitfulness, of security now and in the world to come. Now, by nature, man is concerned about happiness and blessedness.

7:15 In fact, it's our nature's end and aim to find blessedness, the cage of blessedness. And that's the theme in this psalm. Let me speak to you young people. Aren't you interested in blessedness, barring being cut off before your three score and ten?

7:35 What are you concerned about in life? Well, you want to find the path of blessedness. You want to choose the path in life that will bring blessedness, fulfillment, enrichment, happiness, delight, security into your life. I don't believe there's a young person here who, looking down, The next 40 years is, I want to mark out the path that every day of my life is going to bring misery.

7:57 I want to deliberately set my face to find a way I can bring the most misery to myself and others. I'm set upon the way of misery. Is that what you're concerned about, Bill? Gary? Dave? No.

8:12 Every young person here would admit that this is the thing, if you think about it at all, that you're concerned about. I want the way of blessedness now and in the days to come. This is true of every adult, young but old, those of you in the twilight years of your life. This is true of every man by nature.

8:28 He wants to experience the way of blessedness. Well, this psalm speaks to that very point. And in that sense becomes a key to the whole unlocking of the rest of the psalms, which enlarge upon the way of blessedness as God has described it for us.

8:46 One of the old commentators has said, the psalmist has said more to the point respecting happiness and blessedness than all the philosophers while they beat the bush. David has put the bird in our hand. Isn't that a beautiful picture? You see the philosopher all the time beating the bush of his own insights and human wisdom to find the secret of blessedness.

Structure of the Psalm: Contrast and Outline

9:11 And here David doesn't need to beat the bush. God has put the bird in his hand and he puts it in ours and says, here is the way of blessedness. Now, this is the theme of the psalm. But now, how does this theme unfold?

9:25 Well, it unfolds under the general structure of a contrast. It's one thing to describe the way of blessedness in the abstract, but it makes it more concrete and real if you contrast it with the way that is not the way of blessedness. And you will notice that this is the way this psalm unfolds. For having described the blessed man in the first three verses, we read in verse 4, The ungodly are not so, but they are like chaff which the wind drives away.

9:58 They shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. And then you have this contrast summarized in the sixth verse, For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish. So the theme is the way of blessedness, and the way that theme is unfolded is under the general structure of a contrast. You have on the one hand the godly man seeking blessedness God's way and actually finding it.

10:30 That's the first three verses. The godly man seeking blessedness God's way and finding in vital experience now and hereafter the way of blessedness. By contrast, you have the ungodly man also seeking blessedness, but seeking in his own way and therefore never finding it.

10:54 Never finding it. And that contrast makes the teaching all the more vivid. You want a quick lesson on how to make a flop of your life, young people? It'll just be what's described in verses 4 and 5, that's all.

11:10 You want to find how to mark out the path of misery? Here it is, the prescription's right here. Right here for you, there's the contrast. Blessedness to the godly man God's way, or misery to the ungodly as he seeks to find blessedness in his own way.

11:30 Now in a very real sense, the only truly blessed man who meets the requirements of this psalm 100% is the God-man, our Lord Jesus Christ. In fact some of the old commentators debated this matter as to whether or not this should even be primarily applied to blessed men amongst the sons of men such as we are or whether this should almost exclusively be applied to our Lord Jesus Christ And in the unfolding of this theme of blessedness, we want to continually keep before our mind's eye that one who alone, in the truest, most literal sense, delighted in the law of God day and night, who never once was affected by the advice or counsel of the ungodly,

12:18 who never once stood in the way of sinners, nor sat in the seat of the scornful, the one who in the truest sense had no withering, but new, perpetual, and...

12:32 be redundant to say continual, but unceasing, fruitfulness, the one to whom the Father has said he shall see of the travail of his soul and be satisfied. Well, you say, if that's true, if only the Lord Jesus can attain this in the fullest sense, why should we bother to study it? Well, because he is our model. And he that saith he abideth in him ought himself so to walk, even as he walked.

12:55 And as we keep our eye to our Lord, two things will happen. We will see what it means to meditate in the law of God day and night. He will become our perfect model, the ideal. and then looking unto him, we shall draw from him the strength to be, by his grace, that which he was as he walked amongst us.

13:18 For we read in 2 Corinthians 3 that we are transformed into that same likeness as we behold in a mirror the glory of the Lord. We are transformed into that likeness even by the Lord the Spirit. So much then for the general theme and structure of the psalm. Now, to think your way through it, let me give you an outline.

13:40 I hope this is not too tedious for you. As you finish the 51st Psalm, I hope you could think your way back through it. And when we're done our study here, I hope you'll be able to do the same. And the outline of the first Psalm is very simple.

13:54 In fact, I almost wish now I could push the footer to the side and just stand down there. Maybe I ought to do it. And just say, now, what do you see as the outline? And let you give it to me.

14:04 It's right here, very obvious. You have, first of all, a description of the righteous man who is the blessed man in verses 1 to 3. Notice how that description unfolds. First of all, negatively, blessed is the man who walketh not, who does not stand, who does not sit.

14:21 Then positively, but his delight is in the law of the Lord. There is a description of the blessed man as to his walk. Then verse 3 gives us a description of the blessed man as to the results of his walk. He'll be like a tree planted, his leaves will not wither, whatsoever he does shall prosper.

14:40 So the first section of the psalm is a description of the blessed man, considered in his walk negatively, positively, and in the fruit of that walk under three basic descriptions. Then in verses 4 and 5, you have a description of the wicked who is not blessed. The ungodly are not so. In the present, they are like chaps, speaking of the thing that is unstable and in some senses even worthless.

15:07 Then it speaks of the future of the wicked. Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. And then in verse 6, you have the third main division of the psalm. You have a summary of the whole psalm and a reason for what that psalm has taught.

15:26 For, here's the reason for all of this. The Lord knoweth the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish. 1 to 3, a description of the righteous man. 4 and 5, a description of the wicked.

The Negative Precedes the Positive in Scripture

15:39 Verse 6, the ground and reason for the condition and destiny of both of these categories. All right, we've looked at the main theme. We've considered the basic outline or structure of the psalm. Now let's look at the first verse as we begin to consider God's description of the blessed man.

16:05 Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel or the advice of the ungodly, nor standeth in the where 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. We will notice in the first place that as we consider this description of the blessed man as to his walk, and we'll just begin to touch on that tonight, we have first of all the negative statement of verse 1, and then the positive statement of verse 2. Now that order is the order that is found throughout the length and breadth of the Scriptures, that holiness, blessedness, the righteous man is marked by this continual cycle of negatives and positives.

17:02 Now, there are many in our day that just are negative on being negative. They're negative about nothing else but being negative. Everything about them is positive unless somebody gets negative, and suddenly they're terribly negative on being negative. And they would like to expunge and purge from Christianity and Christian teaching and evangelism and in teaching of the Christian life anything that's negative.

17:27 They say, that's foreboding, that's puritanical, that leads unto bondage. Let's be positive. Let's get people so enamored with the positives that there'll be no need for the negatives. Well, I don't want to be wiser than God.

17:41 And that's not the way God has approached us in his word. And more often than not, God not only combines the negative and the positive, but you find them in disorder. The negative comes first, and as it were, clears the way for the planting of the positive. It's as though as God is going to plant the trees of grace, He's got to pull out all the weeds and metals that would encumber the ground and keep those trees and those plants from being fruitful.

18:09 Let me just illustrate from several passages in the Old and several in the New at random and show how this principle is established in the whole breadth of Scripture. The God who says in Isaiah, for everyone that forstedth come ye to the waters in that great gospel invitation is the God who says later on in that 55th chapter of Isaiah let the wicked forsake his way and let him return unto the Lord. Forsake his way, negative return unto the Lord, positive. You find the same principle in Isaiah 1 where he says cease to do evil learn to do well the negative and the positive.

18:50 You find this in the Annunciation of the gospel by our Lord and by his apostles. Repent, that's the negative, and believe the gospel. Mark 1 and verse 15. You find this in the teaching of the apostle Paul in Ephesians 4 on the Christian life. Put off. And then he mentions those things that we must put off. And then he says put on. And then he mentions the things you must put on. In Romans 6, reckon yourself to be dead. Negative. But alive unto God. Positive. You find in his teaching to young Timothy. Flee also, youthful lust, but follow after righteousness and all these other virtues. Flee, negative, follow, positive. Reckon yourself dead, negative, but alive, positive. Put off, negative, put on, positive. Lay aside every weight, Hebrews 11, run with patience,

19:41 the negative, the positive. You can't escape it. It's there as if we're on every page of Scripture. So if you would be a blessed man, if you would be the blessed woman, if you would be the blessed young person and teenager, then lay it down as a principle that you've just got to face and learn to live in the light of it, like the law of gravity, as much as you don't like it, you just learn to live with it.

20:05 If you don't, you're going to have some problems. You get up tomorrow morning and say, well, you know this law of gravity, I'm sick and tired of living in bondage to that thing. I never was given an opportunity to vote about it. I was never even given any notice that it was going to be in effect, and I'm sick and tired of having to pick my heavy legs out of the bed in the morning and pick my heavy head off the pillow.

20:29 So I'm just going to float out of bed tomorrow morning. Well, wonderful. Just try it. When you say you're tired of that rearing process of going down and up the stairs, you're just going to float out the front window.

20:39 Well, you try it. and I'll be having a day you called out of the emergency room at the Mountainside Hospital. So what do you do? Whether you like it or not, you just learn to adapt all of life, adapt all of life to this law of gravity.

20:54 Well, in the same way, whether the bent of your nature and the rest is such that you don't like negatives, you just better face up to the fact that if you're going to live the life that is the blessed life, you're going to have to live in the light of the negatives of Psalm 1 and verse 1. Now that's not all. Verse 2 will follow, but it follows and does not negate verse 1, but is built upon the principle of verse 1. So I hope if any of you have an aversion to the negative, you realize that there's no place for it in the Christian life. The blessed man is one who faces squarely the negatives of God.

The Counsel of the Ungodly: Its Aggressive Nature

21:31 All right then, what is that negative that we meet at the very outset? Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel or the advice of the ungodly.

21:49 The blessed man is the one who has learned to insulate himself against the advice of the ungodly. Now the psalmist infers here in the first place that the wicked or the ungodly have advice which they are quite ready to give. You see, the ungodly are very evangelistic and zealous in the propagation of their opinions and views as to the way of messiveness.

22:21 I don't need to remind you teenagers of that. The ungodly are very aggressive and evangelistic in trying to persuade you as to the way of blessedness. Every young couple is aware of it by the tremendous pressures that come to us through the advertising media and all of the rest. That the way of blessedness is the way of the accumulation of things and longer vacations and higher wages and all the other garbage that goes with it.

22:50 No, the world is very aggressive and evangelistic. In its advice, Eve didn't sit on the tree somewhere and whistle for the devil to come and tempt her. He was right there taking initiative in the whole business.

23:06 He took the initiative in the whole business to come and spit out his heinous lies about God and cast aspersions upon the truth and veracity of the word of God. He was there taking the initiative, and he always is. And the world is the same way. This world system is not content to live and let live and declare that there's a whole area of no man's land.

23:26 You go your way and I'll go my way. No, no. Not on your life. For behind this world system and behind the thought patterns and value systems of the ungodly there is a personal devil who is aggressive in his attempt to blind and delude deceive and destroy all the sons of men

23:47 He doesn't take vacations.

23:52 So that we can have this advice, but they are quite ready to go. And there is an illustration that I found across that was a great help to me. and lest I fail to get it to you clearly using my memory I'm going to read it to you.

24:12 A certain ministry recalled the fact that while we were careful to do our utmost to protect great buildings from fire and tempest yet all the while those buildings are liable to another peril certainly not less severe the subtle decay of the very framework of the structure itself. You call that dry rot. You know what dry rot is? The wood just seems to lose all of its strength and just seems to become light and loses its substance and solidity and it just crumbles in your hand.

24:44 This is what he's talking about. The tissue of the wood silently and mysteriously deteriorates and a calamity dire as a great fire is precipitated. Many people think they are right because they are not committing outbreaking sins. While the counsels to which they are listening and the associations to which they are lending themselves are really undermining all of their spiritual strength.

25:09 The fiber of will and conscience and feeling is secretly eaten away, and someday they awake to find they no longer possess the faith, the sensibility, and the resolution of other days. No swift and violent assault of world or flesh or devil has torn or stained them, But it has been like a moth fretting a garment. In the physical world, sunshine is the sure antidote to dry rot. So the only antidote to the counsels of the ungodly is to turn from them to the beans which fall from the sun of righteousness.

25:46 Happiness does not lie in the counsels of the ungodly, but in fellowship with the children of light. The blessed man is the one who does not walk in the counsel of the ungodly. And not only is that counsel comes in its more gross, overt way, most of us are quite sensitive to that kind of advice. If there was an announcement in the Caldwell Progress and in the New York Evening News that some man who was driven over to blatant unbelief and to a life of absolute materialism and sensuality was going to hold a lecture at which time he was going to seek to convince you that being a Christian was the most foolish thing in the world.

26:27 having the Christians value systems based not upon time, but eternity, based not upon the world of the flesh, but the world of the spirit, based not upon the world that can be seen, but that unseen world of spiritual reality, if such a lecture was announced, I got you, Buddha, and if you were there, you certainly would be there with all your biblical defenses up, fully immunized by the truth of God, merely to expose yourself with a view to carrying apart such fallacious teaching. Now, we're pretty well guarded there. The concern that's been upon my heart that has caused this psalm to be working in my own spirit for some weeks now, as we've been memorizing it in our own family devotions as a family, has been my deep concern that there is a subtle form

27:16 in which the advice of the ungodly comes to us in such an imperceptible way that in following that advice we may think we are following the advice of God or may not even be conscious that we are following that advice. So in order to understand and be able to recognize the advice of the ungodly, we've got to understand something about it. So we've considered in the first place that the wicked have advice which they are ready to give. And now in the second place, let us consider what is the basis of the advice and the counsel that wicked men give.

The Basis of the Counsel: Man Apart from God

27:54 The Lord willing, next week, we'll look at the means by which the counsel of the wicked is communicated. But now, what is the basis of the advice that wicked men give? When you ask a wicked man, what's the path of blessedness? He's got an answer.

28:11 Now, what is the basis of his answer? Upon what basis does he frame an answer? There are people who claim to be prophets to our generation, telling us that the way of blessedness is the way of absolute anarchy, break out from all the structures imposed upon us by our forefathers in every realm. Mr. Shepard said as he saw the hippies playing a card room the other night with no rules, those of you that were there, what a graphic illustration.

28:41 And they had no rules. And when the one guy wanted to put a card down, he put it down. If he wanted to put down two, or if he wanted to go twice, he did. And the other fellow, and at one point, one of them wanted to pick up the kitty, so he picked it up, or we had Mr. Shepherd ask him, Well, when's the game end?

28:56 Well, it just ends when it ends. Well, who wins? No one wins. No rules.

29:00 You see, absolute chaos. But strange thing enough, they did have some rules. They were both playing, as he pointed out, from the same deck of cards. What would happen if one suddenly started to use his shoe for a card?

29:12 And you see, even though they thought that the way of blessedness was absolute anarchy and no rules, without even knowing that they imposed a few rules or there had been no card grain. It had been, you couldn't distinguish a card grain from eating spaghetti, you see.

29:28 But this is the way of blessedness that's being offered to us in one form or another, to one degree or another. Now, what's the basis of that kind of advice? How did anyone ever come up with that? The way of blessedness that's being offered to you wage earners?

29:41 is the blessedness. The paychecks, shorter hours, longer vacation, more security. That's the blessedness. So we'll stink up the city and run the risk of infesting it with rats.

29:57 Because that's the way of blessedness. More benefits, more wages.

30:02 If we've got to bring the plague upon ten million people to do it, we'll do it. That's the way of blessedness. That's what's behind all of this.

30:12 Better understand it. The ungodly may not, but we ought to understand why they do. Let me suggest in the first place that the basis of the advice of the wicked, and this is why the blessed man will not walk in that advice, is this. It's man viewing life apart from God.

30:30 The psalmist says of the wicked that God is not in all their thoughts. The advice that the wicked man gives is advice that is rooted in his view of life. Apart from God. He thinks he can stand in the midst of his world.

30:46 And looking out into his world, he can rightly interpret his world. He thinks that looking within, with eyes unaided by the scripture and by the light of God's analysis of himself, he can understand himself, what he's here for, what he ought to do with his appetites.

31:02 Sure, I've got sex, I don't know how to handle it, I'm a mature man. So I look within and I see how I think I best ought to handle it. And so that becomes my philosophy of morality and sex. You see, the advice of the ungodly is based upon man viewing life apart from God.

31:22 And that is the motivating factor in his counsel, in his advice, in his value standards, in his judgments. Now you see how totally opposite that is to the Christian, for who is the Christian? He is the one who has learned that he views no part of life without reference to God. God is creator.

31:43 God is sovereign. God is judge. God is lawgiver. That's what it means that a Christian is one who walks in the fear of God.

31:51 What's it mean to walk in the fear of God? It should be this, that in every area of my life I have an eye to the claims and the will and the glory of God. what you mean to live to the glory of God essentially the same thing and so the scripture says whether you eat or drink in those activities when you're most like your little pet dog for we are most like the beast when we're eating do you ever look at people eat?

32:21 you've got a sense of humor do it once in a while don't let them know you're watching them just watch people eat it's the strangest exercise it really is if you just focus in now and just watch the fork coming up to the mouth and chomping away and the rest. We're most like the animals when we eat. And yet what does God say? Whether he eat or drink, even in those insignificant activities, when you're most like the animals, do what?

32:47 Oh, with reference to the end of your creation, the glory of God. For we were made to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. So you see, the whole basis of the advice of the ungodly is diametrically opposed in its source to the way the godly man looks at life. The blessed man refuses to walk in the advice of men who view any part of life apart from the glory of God, the rule of God, the claims of God, the rights of God.

33:22 The Christian is one who says this is God's word. God made it, and He put me in it, and that God alone can tell me what this world is all about, why I'm in it, how I should conduct myself in it, so in the totality of life, He regards the will of God. I'm already hinting at verse 3, you see. In contrast to this, He meditates in the law of God day and night, in every activity, night and day.

33:46 God has something to say. What does God say? My life must be governed by the God-centered perspective instead of by the man-centered perspective. So the basis of the advice of the wicked is such, man viewing life apart from God, that the blessed man refuses to walk in that advice.

The Basis of the Counsel: Man Actively Opposed to God

34:05 In the second place, the basis of the advice of the wicked is man actively opposed to God. In Romans 8, in verse 7, that text, it, if you haven't memorized it simply because of the many times I've quoted it over the past six years, then I'd say your case is hopeless as far as memorizing anything.

34:31 Romans 8 and verse 7, because the carnal mind, the mind of the flesh, man as he is in Adam, that which is born of the flesh is flesh. John chapter 3, our Lord's words to Nicodemus. The mind of the flesh is enmity against God. It is in active hostility against God.

34:55 For it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be. So then, they that are in the flesh cannot please God. Upon what basis do the ungodly give advice? where they give advice not only on the basis of viewing life apart from God, thinking they can understand it of themselves, but they view life with a disposition that is in active opposition and hostility to the rule and to the will of God This idea that there are real bad people called atheists who hate God and real good people called Christians who love God and then in between a lot of neutral people who really not form their beginning,

35:43 you won't find that founded in Scripture. Jesus said, He that is not with me is what? Against me. He that gathereth not with me scattereth.

35:55 This text says that the carnal mind, whether it's found in an atheist, expressing its opposition to God in ways that are discernible to all, or whether it's found in that lovely neighbor you've got. Oh, she's the sweetest person, or he's the nicest guy. If you wanted someone to take care of your kids when you went away for a few days, you'd love to have them at home. They're sweet people.

36:18 They're nice, high moral standards, good sense of family cohesion. Lovely people! the unregelable, strangest embrace. The scripture says the carnal mind is enmity against God, even in that lovely neighbor, in that sweet person.

36:34 Now, in common grace, the expressions of that enmity are not as gross as in the atheist and the libertine and the one who's kicked over the traces of all decency and what is right and just lives consistent with the basic disposition of his heart. But it's there nonetheless. So that Paul says such people cannot please God. So viewing life with that basic hostility to the law of God, what kind of advice will they give?

37:01 Their advice will always be governed by this disposition of antipathy, of hatred, of opposition and rejection of the claims of God, the rule of God, the law of God. Psalm 2 is a beautiful but tragic amplification of this. So if you still have Psalm 1 before you, just look down to the second Psalm. What is the cry of unregenerate man?

37:27 Coming to its fullest expression in this passage in the leaders of the nations. Here it is, verse 3. Let us break their bands asunder and cast away their cords from us. We want to be free from the law of God.

37:45 We want to be free to be real men.

37:49 And so in seeking the way of blessedness in a so-called freedom, they bring upon themselves misery in the bondage of their sin. Whereas the blessed man, seeking liberty under the law of God, comes out into true freedom. So the advice of the ungodly will always be governed by this attitude. The law of God, I'm a gimme it.

38:20 I want to break its bonds, its constriction, its restraining. I'm going to cast away his cords from me. Now see, a blessed man is not going to walk in advice that's rooted in that kind of an attitude, is he? an attitude that utterly rejects the authority of God, utterly rejects the law of God, that is in open hostility to the rule of God.

38:44 And that's the basis upon which the ungodly advise.

The Basis of the Counsel: Man's Assumed Self-Sufficiency

38:50 And then I've already hinted at this. The third thing in which the advice of the ungodly is rooted is man's assumption that he can make it on his own. not only can he interpret life without God, he can make a true life on his own. It's a sign of weakness to look outside of himself for his answers.

39:15 That's his philosophy. But you see, the blessed man, having come to a true discovery of what he is as a creature, never made to go it on his own, and having come to the double discovery that he's a sinful creature, with his faculties blunted by sin, He meditates in the law of God day and night. He acknowledges, oh God, I can't interpret anything apart from the illumination you give by your word. I can't understand anything about myself, the world, life now, life to come.

39:46 See the opposite? Two totally opposite perspectives. Young godly assuming.

39:54 As those who've had a couple of weeks under Dr. Van Til at the seminary would say, man's autonomy, which simply stated means I can make it on my own. I can make it on my own. Make it on my own. Now that's the basis of the advice of the wicked. You got it? Number one, man viewing life apart from God, man actively opposed to God, man assuming He can make it on his own.

40:26 Now, how does that advice come to us? Well, it comes to us in some overt ways. You know what they are. If you pick up Playboy magazine, you are getting an overt expression of the advice of the ungodly.

40:42 Where a man by the name of Hugh Hefner, who is the apostle of the Playboy philosophy and those men whom he has gathered around him, viewing life with a heart that hates the law of God, with an attitude that says I can interpret this area of life, namely sex and the relationship of a man and woman apart from God, has come to this conclusion.

41:06 That the chief end of man is to titillate his sexual organs. That's it. That's the playboy philosophy in simple, blunt terms.

41:17 That's it. That's the chief end of man and woman. Morning, mood, and night. That's right.

41:26 No reference to the dignity of a human being, to family life, to children. No, that's it. Now, most of us have got sense enough not to stand under that kind of advice. I've never walked into any of your homes and found Playboy magazine in your magazine rack.

41:44 I hope you don't have it out of sight where I can't see it either. I hope it's not there for you. Now, that's the overt way that it comes. And it comes in other very overt ways, in the salacious literature, in the much of that which is propagated in the modern movie.

41:59 And I don't know, but that's our problem. But, beloved, the advice of the ungodly comes in some very subtle and covert ways. And it's in this area that I feel we as God's people are being affected far more than we realize. I just want to mention several tonight, and I hope this will sort of bait you to come on back again.

Preview of Covert Channels: Education and Mass Media

42:20 And I hope that's legitimate, especially when I can't preach all night. I've already used up my 45 minutes. I want to deal one night with how the advice of the ungodly comes to our own children six hours a day in the public school system.

42:38 Oh, you say, well, I have a Christian school. I know what's coming. Oh, wait a minute now. Don't turn me off until you come.

42:44 I want to demonstrate to you that the philosophy of education that shapes and molds and governs the public school system is the very thing we're talking about here. That he rules out God. I'm not talking about the fact that they said no more prayer and Bible read. That has nothing to do with it.

43:04 They could institute two hours of prayer and Bible read and still be utterly opposed to God in their philosophy of education. and I want to show how the reason we are seeing our own young people drifting and wondering why the influence of the home and the church is being nullified. This is it. This is one way.

43:26 Another way is through the tremendous pressures that come to us by what I would call the mass media, the influence of the television upon us, the influence of the newspaper, the influence of the radio, You know me well enough, and I'm not going to stand up and condemn televisions and radios, but I want to show you how the advice of the ungodly comes to you, that you might begin to be aware of it. Then I want to show some of the other more subtle ways that the advice of the ungodly comes to us. And then, the Lord willing, we shall move then into the second verse, which gives us the antidote, how we may be immunized to and become aware of this advice and be able by the grace of God to turn from it and instead have our lives shaped and molded by the word of God.

Closing Application: The Way of Obedience

44:14 But in conclusion tonight,

44:18 may I just sort of bend the nail over of some of these random thoughts by way of introduction that we've considered tonight in this first phrase on the advice of the ungodly to seek to set before you that which is so clearly stated by the psalmist that there is but one true prescription for happiness And that is, you've got to mind the Lord.

44:40 You've got to mind the Lord. Like the old Methodist minister kept saying to his people, now mind the Lord. Now mind the Lord. The way of blessedness is the way of obedience.

44:50 And that's always been true. After Moses reiterated the law in Deuteronomy, he said, I set before you the way of what? The way of blessing, the way of cursing. The way of life, the way of death.

45:03 And now we find it right here in the first psalm. Blessed is the man whose walk is governed by the Lord God and not by the ungodly and by the wicked. The path of blessedness is the pathway of implicit obedience. And may God grant that as our hearts yearn for blessedness, we may cry to the Lord that he will show us individually where, apart from our knowing it, and many cases certainly not willfully, we have actually been walking in the counsel of the ungodly and standing in the way of sinners and sitting in the seat of the scornful.

45:40 Will you not pray that as we come into this psalm that the Spirit of God will illuminate your own mind, shed light upon the dark areas, bring them to the surface, and show you where you have been walking in this counsel. For the blessed man, and certainly you long for blessedness, do you not, is the one who does not walk in this council, nor stand in that way, nor sit in that seat, but who meditates in the law of God day and night. And then for those of you who've never entered into the way of blessedness, this psalm doesn't tell you clearly how you get in the way of blessedness. Well, you've got to get in it the same way the psalmist did.

46:18 For by nature, the psalmist and you and I and every one of us are in that way of ungodliness, in the way of sinners. and the only way to get into that way of blessedness is to experience the regenerating work of God so that you can say with David, I delight to do thy will, O my God, yea, thy law is within my heart. You need to come in that pathway of turning from your sin and looking to Jesus Christ who alone can set you in the way of blessedness. This psalm is not telling you how to get into the way of blessedness.

46:54 It's describing more the blessedness of the man who is in the way and how he may develop in that way. And I certainly don't want to assume because I do not believe that everyone who hears my voice tonight is in the way of blessedness. And there's only one way to get in it. That's to get out of the way of sinners.

47:13 And the only way to get out of that way is by him who is the way, the truth, and the life. To repent of your sin and to flee to Christ. To cry to him that by his Spirit he might make you his bondservant and enable you to experience the blessedness that is the portion of his own. Let us unite together in prayer.