Ungodly are Like the Chaff

Review After Several Months: The Psalm's Structure

0:00 In light of the fact that it has been several months since we left off our study in this psalm, I shall read the entire psalm, spend a few minutes bringing into focus the main thrust of its teaching, and then we shall particularly focus upon the teaching of verse 4. 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. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water

0:47 that bringeth forth his fruit in his season. his leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. 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.

1:13 For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish.

1:24 We have stated on numerous occasions that the theme of this psalm, which is a didactic or a teaching psalm, is basically that of describing the way of blessedness. Who is the person who in this life finds true blessedness? All men seek for blessedness, but all men do not find blessedness. And the reason simply stated is that they seek blessedness in a way which God never intended to give blessedness.

1:55 And here in this psalm we have a description of the man who is blessed. For the psalm could be rendered, oh the blessedness of the man that, and then the description goes on and unfolds before us. We have seen that the general setting of the psalm is setting forth the way of blessedness by a contrast. In verses 1 to 3 you have the positive statement of the blessed man and then in verses 4 through 6 a negative contrast of the man who is not blessed who is called in this context the ungodly or the wicked.

2:33 We spent some weeks on the positive description in verses 1 through 3 of the man who finds the way of blessedness. He is marked in the first place by what he does not do, verse 1, verse 2 by what he does do, and verse 3 by what he experiences as the fruit of what he doesn't do and what he does do. Blessed is the man that walks not in the advice of the ungodly. He doesn't stand in the way of sinners, that is, identify himself in their course of rebellion to God and indifference to his law.

3:10 Nor does he sit in the scornful, seat of the scornful, that is, he has the mind of a disciple, subject to reveal truth. He does not stand as a judge over the word of God, but as a disciple and student beneath the word of God. His delight is in the law of the Lord, and in that law does he meditate day and night. He has a source of continuous direction which is found in nothing else or nothing other than the word of the living God.

3:42 Then the promise of what he will be like, stability, fruitfulness, even in the most unlikely periods, his leaf does not wither, he brings forth fruit in his season. And so I submit to you, as I have on numerous occasions in the course of this study, anyone who seeks blessedness by any other course than that described in Psalm 1 is going to end up in frustration. Whether it's the wicked who seek blessedness in the ways of sin, or whether it's Christian people who seek blessedness in some kind of shortcut to spiritual power. One of the greatest temptations that comes to an earnest Christian who wants all that God has for him, is to think there's some shortcut to that old pathway

4:28 of refusing the counsel of wickedness, dealing with sin day by day, subjecting one's mind to the Word of God, mumbling in the Scriptures, conforming one's life to the Word by the power of the Spirit. The temptation is to think there must be some shortcut. There must be an easier way to blessedness. And so when someone stands up and says, I have the secret, and says by one leap of faith you come to blessedness, someone else says I've got the experience.

4:58 If you have this experience and this manifestation, then all your days of struggle are over, all your days of conflict are done. Mark it well. Any blessedness that promises that you can attain it by passing Psalm 1 verses 1 and 2 is a way of blessedness that can only lead to frustration and disappointment and be something other than a way of blessedness, many times a way of cursing. I was so forcibly struck with this when in Scotland three weeks ago, a young man came to me one night, deeply disturbed in spirit, and in essence his story was this.

5:36 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.

6:15 His blood pressure is such that even at age 25, he couldn't get insurance if he wanted to. He's come into terrible bondage, and he tells of a friend of his who came under the same teaching, who for two years has been sitting in his room at home, waiting for the Lord to give him this experience and to begin to lead him. Oh, beloved, with all the winds that are abroad today, teaching on the Christian life that sounds so good because it purports to be the way of blessedness, never forget Psalm 1. And when the teacher's all done, you walk up to him and say, Now, mister, there's a lot you said I don't understand, but tell me, where does Psalm 1, 1 and 2 fit into your system?

6:53 And if he says it doesn't, you tell him you don't want his product. Now, that's pretty practical, isn't it? If it can't fit into this, then it's somehow something other than the way of blessedness taught in Holy Scripture. So we have, then, And the positive declaration of this way of blessedness set forth in verses 1 to 3.

Verse 4: A Fact Stated, Conclusion Drawn, Reason Given

7:12 Now we come to verses 4 to 6 where we have the negative contrast beginning with the words, The ungodly are not so, but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away. We have in verse 4 a fact stated. The ungodly are not so, but they are like chaff. Verse 5, we have a conclusion drawn.

7:36 Therefore, because of the statement of verse 4, this statement of fact, a conclusion drawn in verse 5, Therefore, the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. And verse 6, we have a reason given. For, why is it that the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous? For, here's the reason, The Lord knoweth the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish.

8:07 So a fact stated, a conclusion drawn, and a reason given. Now we come to verse 4, and we will limit our consideration to that statement this evening.

Why the Contrast? God Uses Both Promises and Threats

8:20 Now, let's ask the question at the very outset, why does the psalmist give this contrast? Isn't it enough to say as he does apparently with a full heart, Oh, the blessedness of that man. And then he describes him. He walks not, he stands not, he sits not, but he delights in the law of God.

8:40 Then he describes the issue of his life like a tree planted by the rivers of water. Why does he then move into this contrast, the wicked are not so? I believe we have a very vital principle here that's found throughout the length and breadth of Scripture. And it's this. There are times when the positive, beautiful descriptions of godliness and the blessedness of godliness are not sufficient to entice men into the way of godliness.

9:12 So God then, as it were, gets behind them to drive them with his threats and with the terrible statements of the curse that is upon the man who does not walk in the ways of God. God woos us and draws us with his promises. There are other times when he pushes us and drives us with his threats. And so you have that theme in this song.

9:36 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 entire Christian life.

10:15 Not only do sinners need the threats and the promises, but we as God's saints need them both. It's wonderful when we're in such a spiritual frame that the positive, sweet promises of God draw us ever and increasingly into the way of godliness. But there are times when the only motive that works with us are the threats of God. There are times when the only reason I don't sin is I fear the consequences.

10:44 Now, thank God for those times when my heart is so full of love to Christ that the thought of sinning against him is shocking. That's a powerful motive and a higher motive. But there are times when in our spiritual state or the oppression of the devil or the world or the flesh is such that no motive catches us but the motive of fear. And that's a very legitimate motive.

Who Are the Wicked? Sharp Contrast with No Neutral Ground

11:06 And so we find the psalmist using it here in this description. So much, then, for that introductory word. Let's look at this fact stated in this contrast of verse 4. First of all, we notice that there is a sharp contrast, and then we'll look at a very vivid simile.

11:27 A sharp contrast. The ungodly are not so. The word ungodly here, now why the King James translators translate it this way, I will never know. It's the word translated dozens and dozens of times in the entire Old Testament for wicked.

11:45 It's the general word used for a wicked person. It's used dozens of times in the Psalms, in Proverbs, in the Prophets. There are probably several hundred usages of this word in the Old Testament, and almost invariably it's translated wicked. It's only translated ungodly, I think, about six or eight times.

12:06 So perhaps in the day of resurrection, if some of those translators are in heaven, I'll just have to ask them why they translated it this way. It's the general word for a wicked person. Here's the contrast now. The blessed man and the only other alternative is to be a wicked man.

12:25 Now, who are these wicked people? Are they necessarily immoral people? Are they necessarily irreligious people? Are they necessarily people who, as it were, stop their ears to the law of God and run headlong in disobedience to all of his precepts? No. The wicked are all men and women, fellows and girls, who are not described in verses 1 to 3.

12:53 You see, the contrast here is the contrast between those people who are blessed and those who are the wicked, and there is no one in between. So that these wicked people encompass or includes all those who by the Spirit of God have not been brought into the way of blessedness by the grace of God. All those who have not seen themselves as sinners by nature and practice. All those who have not been quickened by the Holy Spirit to faith and repentance.

13:32 All those who are not refusing the counsel of ungodliness. Who are not refusing the way of sinners. Who are not refusing the seed of the scornful. Who are not delighting in the law of the Lord.

13:45 no matter how religious, no matter how polite, no matter how kind, no matter how knowledgeable in the things of the Scriptures, if they are not those who fit into the description of verses 1 to 3, they are wicked people. There is this sharp line of division in this psalm because in the reckoning of God all men are blessed or they are wicked and there is no neutral ground whatsoever. More specifically, notice verses 1 and 2 for a description of the wicked. The blessed man is the one who walks in the counsel of the ungodly.

14:23 The wicked person is the one who does walk in the counsel of the ungodly. Now, how do ungodly people counsel us? Do they tell us, go on out and all get drunk? Go on out and all break the law of God?

14:35 Some of them do. But the greater part of them, they counsel us this way. Be nice people. Be good citizens.

14:42 Be kind to your neighbor. Oh, you don't need to take the place that those old dusty, musty, Puritan preachers say you have to take, that of a sinner, a publican, beating your breast, crying, God, be merciful and be a sinner. Be nice, be good, God is loving. Accept our counsel.

15:01 All will be well if you're a nice person who loves your neighbor and does good in your community. Isn't that the counsel of the ungodly? Well, you walk in that council and God says you're a wicked person.

15:16 The wicked person is the one who stands in the way of sinners, who identifies himself with the course of living that marks sinners. Now, what is that course? Oh, in some cases it's immorality, granted. In some places it's open irreligion.

15:31 But much of the case, at least the kind of people to whom I minister here in the Trinity Church for the most part, The way of sinners is the way of self-sufficiency, the way of materialism, the way of pride, the way of self-praise and self-adulation, the way of complacency and indifference to spiritual values. A wicked person is the person who stands in that way of sinners. Every man or woman, fellow or girl here tonight, who simply stands with other men with no deep sense of your dependence upon God and His grace, with no deep awareness of your sinfulness and your need of the atoning work of Jesus Christ as the basis of approaching God,

16:17 you're standing in the way of blind sinners who do not know the state of their own hearts. And God says, you're a wicked person. And so you can follow that right through in this entire description of the blessed man, and anyone who doesn't fit that description is, in the terms of the Word of God, a wicked person. One commentator has said, the wicked man is simply a person who does not live the way God demands, one whose thoughts and purposes and conduct are not in harmony with God's laws, who does not live to please God.

16:59 Now that's hard for us to think of wickedness in that definition, isn't it? Because we usually use the term when someone has gone to a very deep measure of outward rebellion against the law of God and we say, oh, he's a wicked person. We wouldn't say that about that neighbor who's so sweet to us and always smiles nicely and when they get extra tomatoes they pass them over the fence to us and when we have a problem or children are sick they're always there to help. Maybe after living with them for five years and talking with them it's obvious they have no sense of their need of Christ.

17:37 Their standards are the standards of the world. Their ambitions the thing that frames them and shapes them is the counsel of ungodliness. We might say oh they're unconverted they don't love the Lord they're not believers but we would never say they're wicked would we?

17:53 God does. The wicked are not so. And anyone who doesn't fit that description of the first two verses is a wicked person. Why?

18:04 For they are living in utter disregard of the claims of the God who made them. If the blessed man is known essentially by verse 2, that his whole life is governed by the will of God, his delight is in the law of God, and in his law doth he meditate day and night, then wickedness comes to its highest expression when creatures made in the image of God, made to know God, made to live to the praise of God, are found living indifferently to the very end of their existence. You see, we're so man-centered in all of our thinking that we even measure wickedness in terms of the standards which we have

18:50 rather than in the light of the standard which God has set. Wickedness is to live any other way than the way which God demands to live a life for any other motive than to please the living God. Now let me ask you a very simple yet pointed question. I have a number of visitors with us here tonight and I would not be impudent or brash that as a servant of Christ I would deliver my soul of the responsibility of ministering to you as well as to our regular folk.

19:25 Are you a wicked person? As you sit where you sit tonight, how would God describe you in terms of Psalm 1? Do you fit this description? Am I describing you, some of you men, when you change jobs, you write up a prospectus, you know, you tell what your experience has been, what you've done, your training, your gifts and all the rest.

19:45 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?

20:10 During this past week, your life has been marked by a deliberate refusal to shape and mold your habit and ways of life by the advice of wicked men. You've been deliberately refusing it. In how you spend your time, your money, your friends, your associations, what you see and don't see on the TV, there's evidence that you are refusing to walk in the counsel of the ungodly. Is that a description of you?

20:35 Is this a description of you? Nor standeth in the way of sinners. Does this describe your life over the past week? as sinners all around you have been walking in their way of indifference to God's law, His precepts, His glory, His salvation, His Son, you have been the fish swimming against the stream.

20:56 You have been that rock by God's grace standing against the waves of the way of ungodliness. Is that a description of you in the hospital, in the shop, in the school? Is that a description of you? You've been refusing to stand in the way of sinners.

21:14 And you've refused to sit in the seat of the scornful, the man who has the sneer, the lifted corner of the mouth, who comes to the word of God with a mocking attitude. Have you been refusing in any way to be identified with that? Has this been your life, delighting in the law of the Lord? And in that law, meditating day and night, seeking to have the entirety of your life, personal, social, in the home, in the shop, framed by the Word of God, I ask you very personally, is that a description of your life?

21:52 If not, in some degree, then God calls you a wicked person.

21:59 That's pretty serious, isn't it? God says you're a wicked person. There's only two kinds of people known in the sun. The blessed man described in those terms, the wicked who are not so.

22:15 I trust we see that sharp contrast because in our day there has been such a tremendous pressure, even within the evangelical church, to blur the line of demarcation between the saved and the lost, the wicked and the righteous. And we have all this fuzzy gray. You don't dare call it wicked, but you don't dare call it righteous. And I say that God is not the author of that fuzzy gray.

22:41 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.

The Winnowing Simile Explained: Agricultural Background

23:00 Now notice in the next place this vivid simile, a figure of speech in which one thing is likened to another. The ungodly are not so, but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away. Now we live in a day when it's difficult for us to catch the figure of this, because our bread and foodstuffs made of different grains come to us all prepared in the package. we don't even see the raw grain.

23:32 But living in a day when you didn't have sunshine bakeries and Wonder Bread and all the rest, this really conveyed something. Every average Palestinian had seen what the psalmist is talking about. And reading from a book called Manners and Customs in Bible Lands, I want to read a paragraph or two dealing with this subject of winnowing grain that I hope will help open up the figure of the psalmist. Winnowing was accomplished by the use either of a broad shovel or of a wooden fork which had bent prongs.

24:07 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.

24:22 So Naomi said to Ruth concerning Boaz, Behold, he winnoweth barley tonight in the threshing floor, Ruth 3.2. When the Bible speaks of the farmer's fan, it does not mean that some instrument was used to increase the wind. Rather, the fan was the shovel or wooden fork used when unseparated grain and straw was thrown against the wind.

24:47 The prophet Jeremiah tells of God using a fan to winnow his people Israel. I have winnowed them with a fan in the gates of the land, Jeremiah 15, 7. When the grain and straw, not as yet separated, are thrown into the air, the wind causes the mass of material to fall as follows. Since the grain is the heaviest, it falls beneath the fan.

25:09 The straw is blown to the side in a heap, and the lighter chaff and the dust are carried beyond into a flattened windrow. This gave the psalmist his figure, The ungodly are not so, but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away. The chaff is burned, as scripture often indicates. The flame consumeth the chaff, Isaiah 5, 24.

25:33 John the Baptist was familiar with the winnowing process and the burning of the chaff when he said, whose fan is in his hand and he will thoroughly purge his floor and gather his wheat into the garner but will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. Now put yourself in the place of one to whom this was as common as an occurrence as getting into your car and cranking up your ignition. You see, we would use figures of speech commensurate with our 20th century way of life. We might say the guy's dead is a dead battery and poor David would scratch his head if he were reading such a statement and say, I don't understand the figure.

26:11 So he'd have to read a book, Strange Customs of Twentieth Century Americans, and then he would understand what we were talking about. Well, since we're not called upon to write the Bible, but David and others were, we've got to understand what was common to them. And so he was simply taking a common everyday experience of this winnowing process in which men were found throwing this mixture into the breeze, the chaff would be seen driven away, the wheat would be there in a pile. Now notice what he says about the wicked.

In What Sense Like Chaff? Identifying the Point of Comparison

26:45 They are like this chaff which the wind driveth away. Now I'd again love to be able to ask the psalmist, now David, in what sense are they like the chaff? Now, that's what we've got to find out. If we said of a man, he's like a dead battery, what do we mean?

27:07 Is he black, full of water, empty, acid all over him? What do we mean? You see, there are all these different problems. We can say he's like a dead battery, but in what sense like it?

27:19 A battery has lots of qualities. It has weight, it has color, it's supposed to have water in it, has all of these things. Well, you see, chaff had lots of characteristics. Well, what particular characteristic did David have in mind?

27:32 Now, see, these are some of the problems of biblical interpretation. I'm just taking you behind the scenes into my preparation and letting you know some of the questions that one must ask himself. Well, I believe in the context it's obvious that one similarity that he had in mind is that the end of chaff is to be burned. For notice he says in the next verse, Therefore, because they are like Chad, they shall not stand in the day of judgment.

28:00 That does not mean they won't stand in judgment. Oh, they will stand in judgment, but they shall not stand in the sense that they will not pass through the judgment unscathed. It's said of Israel she could not stand before enemies. She was consumed.

28:15 So they shall be consumed by judgment and allowing Scripture to interpret Scripture. certainly the thought is here of future judgment. He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. But I don't believe we are warranted in limiting the figure simply to this particular reference to its future, namely to be burned, but by contrasting it with verse 3, we see that the figure of chaff probably has several other connotations, and I want to suggest several.

28:50 He has said that the righteous man, the blessed man, is like a planted tree. It has rootage. Wind can blow upon it and it's not stayed. The heavens may be shut up so there's no rain.

29:04 It doesn't wither and die because its roots are by the river continually drawing life. The whole picture of stability, the picture of permanence, of fruitage, of that which is worthwhile, It simply isn't there cumbering the ground, but it's bearing fruit. Now, by contrast, the wicked are like chaff. The tree, a beautiful picture of stability and fruitfulness.

29:31 Chaff, a picture of fickleness, of lifelessness, and of uselessness. And I believe the contrast is more to be found in verses 3 and 4 as we seek to understand the meaning of this simile this figure of speech When one had stood and watched chaff blown by the wind throughout many years of his life he could not help but think of how little a zephyr would blow the chaff for feet or yards or even further. There was a fickleness of the chaff. The moment it was exposed to any breath of air, it had no stability.

Chaff as Fickleness: No Stability, No Rootage

30:14 Unlike the tree that planted by the rivers of water could stand the blast of storm and hurricane, chaff just a breath, and it's driven away. It's fickle and unstable. And what a picture of the ungodly, of the wicked. A little breath of temptation, and it's driven into sin, whereas the child of God, by the grace of God, beautifully pictured throughout Scripture, whether it's a Joseph resisting the enticing advances of Potiphar's wife, whether it's a David standing by the grace of God, refusing to move from the course of the will of God in his kingship, whether it's an Abraham when everything in him would tempt him to refuse to offer up his son,

31:04 determining to do the will of God. The picture of the righteous, blessed man is that of stability, the picture of these ungodly and wicked fickleness. Temptation driving them on to sin. Adversity driving them out to curse God.

31:22 Prosperity driving them out to prosperity, to pride, and to self-sufficiency. The ungodly or the wicked are like the chaff. They are fickle. There is no rootage to them.

31:36 Whereas the blessed man, having been savingly brought into relationship to God in Jesus Christ, is pictured as the branch that is vitally joined to the vine. He is pictured here as a tree planted by the waters. Then, of course, lifelessness. Chath had no life.

Chaff as Lifelessness: No Vital Union with God

32:00 The tree planted by the water is marked by its life. Even when it isn't bearing fruit, the psalmist says, its leaf never withers. There is the continual evidence that this thing is alive. Whereas chath has no life, whatever.

32:18 Of course, the New Testament commentary on this would be Ephesians 2. and you hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins. The ungodly, the wicked, dead. There is no living relationship to God.

Chaff as Uselessness: Fit Only to Be Burned

32:33 There is no vital life union with him. They are cut off from the life of God, as we read in the fourth chapter of Ephesians. And then in the third place, chaff was useless. How often the psalmist had seen the chaff blow away, not to be gathered up and used for a footpath, Not to be gathered and used for some useful byproduct, as a useful byproduct.

32:58 Absolutely useless. It was fit for nothing but to be burned. Not edible, not adaptable to another use. Chaff like the salt that has lost its savor of which Christ spoke, which was good for nothing but to be thrown out and trodden underfoot.

33:17 This is one of the saddest images in all of Scripture. that a creature, for remember he's talking about men and women made in the image of God, should be considered something absolutely useless. When something's useless, where do you throw it? You throw it in the junk heap.

33:37 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.

33:59 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.

34:37 And this is one of the saddest pictures of the judgment of God, that hell is God's junk heap. good for nothing but to be cast out on the junk heap. The psalmist said, The wicked are like chaff which the wind driveth away, fickle and unstable, lifeless, dead, absolutely useless. A creature made to know God, to worship God, to praise Him.

35:05 And if that creature determines to go on in its course of rebellion and indifference indifference to the very purpose for which it was made, and the time of probation ends, it's as though God says, and I trust I'm not irreverent, you've become junk for the junkie.

35:25 Since you'll not fill the place for which I made you, you've become trash and refuse, like the chaff which the wind driveth away. That's a frightful picture, isn't it?

Closing Application: Tree or Chaff?

35:42 So if the psalmist has been unable in describing the blessedness of the righteous, that man who's been brought by the grace of God to see himself a sinner and to lay hold of God's salvation and by the work of the Spirit has had his rebel will subdued and now seeks to walk in the ways of God by the strength of God, if that picture of him as a planted tree, a fruitful tree, a tree that never loses the flush of its green leaf, if that has been not enough to entice us to seek the way of blessedness in Jesus Christ. Oh, I trust that the contrasting description of verse 4 will strike terror to our hearts. For if we are not that blessed man, we are the wicked set forth under this vivid simile of chaff.

36:36 which the wind driveth away. You and I are nothing but chaff by nature, but the marvel of the grace of God is that it can make us trees planted by the rivers of water. Chaff has no power to make itself anything other than chaff, but blessed be God, God in His grace can take chaff and make it planted trees. If you sit here tonight honestly confessing that you can't fit into the description of verses 1 to 3?

37:11 You say, if I have to be honest with judgment day honesty, that's not me. Then the only other conclusion to draw is that you fit into the description of verse 4. And this is a fact about you. You are like chaff.

37:23 You may not think yourself to be chaff. It doesn't say the ungodly think themselves to be chaff or acknowledge themselves to be. This is the fact they are chaff. Whether they acknowledge it or not, they may think themselves great swelling trees.

37:38 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.

37:57 until we are the planting of the Lord, until grace has awakened us to flee to Christ, and we have embraced Him, and by the Spirit have been brought into the path of blessedness, we are not but chaff. But thank God the God of grace is able to take chaff and make of it planted trees. Which are you tonight?

38:21 Which are you? Are you that blessed person or are you chast? God grant that you'll honestly face the issue. And if you cannot say by His grace, I am the planted tree, may I urge you to seek the Lord Jesus Christ and His mercy.

38:41 Seek Him in a way of repentance and faith. Plead with Him that He might take out the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. make you his child, set you in the way of blessedness. For any who are here tonight who can say, by God's grace, that does describe me.

39:01 Oh, that it describe me more. Oh, that I were more like that. But at least in measure, I'm that blessed person. There are many who would rise to their feet and testify that the only reason they are is that God in grace took chaff and made it planted trees.

39:18 And that same God speaks to you in the Gospel and bids you to come to Him that He might do that work in you. Let us unite in prayer.

39:49 Thank you.