Blessed is the man who does not…
Psalm 1 starts off in an interesting way. Instead of saying what to do to be blessed, it tells you what not to do. “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the way of sinners nor sits in the seat of the scornful.” As a parent, I understand the logic of this. We try to impart the same wisdom as the psalmist does to our children. We want them to understand the blessings of missing the heartaches that the “way of sinners” can cause.
Through the psalmist, our heavenly Father gives us three things about which to be wary. These warnings can be viewed as a description of a believer moving farther and farther away from God. Note the posture of such a man. First he is walking, then he is standing, and, finally, he is sitting. This succession of increasingly sedentary positions shows us the steps of someone becoming more and more at home with the world.
It is not that God is sitting in heaven eagerly waiting to punish those who step away from Him. It is actually the opposite. He longs to bless those who follow His ways. That is the point of this psalm: it is a description of the man whom the Lord blesses. However, part of that description includes what not to do.
Departure by degrees
As we examine this person, we notice that he starts with the simple, perhaps even innocent, mistake of heeding worldly advice rather than following God’s guidance. Just as incorrect driving directions result in the wrong destination, following the advice of the ungodly leads a person down the wrong path in life and brings about many painful ends.
One of the problems with taking advice from an unbeliever is that we are heading in opposite directions. A believer should have different priorities, goals, and desires from the unsaved. All the unbeliever sees is this world, so his vision is limited. He can’t help but lead us down the wrong path. He will guide us to a place we don’t want to be.
Once we succumb to worldly advice and follow worldly directions, the next step is to do things in a worldly way. Our spiritual life stagnates. Instead of moving forward—or even moving back to where we are supposed to be—we end up stalled in our Christian life. We stop and look at how the world does things. Slowly we begin to adopt its methods and habits.
At this stage, the man hasn’t fully given in to the world, but he is well on his way. He does many of the things that the world does, but still tries to maintain Christian standards.
The final stage of departure is to sit right down and make our home in the world. We see things as the world sees them. The world’s advice has been followed; the world’s ways have been adopted; and now the world’s outlook has been accepted.
The example of Lot
When considering this passage, I cannot help but think of the story of Lot. When we first meet him, he is tagging along with Uncle Abraham. But when they part ways, Lot’s backsliding begins. In Genesis 13:10-11, we read:
“And Lot lifted up his eyes, and beheld all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere, before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, even as the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt, as thou comest unto Zoar. Then Lot chose him all the plain of Jordan; and Lot journeyed east: and they separated themselves the one from the other.”
Abraham and Lot were coming out of the land of Egypt, a biblical picture of this world. Their two companies of people and livestock were too large to keep together, so Abraham suggested they part company and gave Lot the first choice of direction. “Lot…beheld all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered every where.” Verse 11 says it was “like the land of Egypt.” Conventional wisdom would say to go that direction—it was just like what he had seen in the world.
The world also says to look out for yourself first. Abraham shunned the world’s way and gave Lot first choice. Lot, following the counsel of the world, put himself first and chose the land that looked the best. The only problem was that it faced toward Sodom and Gomorrah. He chose to walk into a life of worldly influences. Then we see those fateful words, “He pitched his tent toward Sodom.”
The next time we see Lot, he has stopped journeying and is residing in Sodom (Gen. 14:12), a town that could be categorized as “the way of sinners.” Consequently, he is captured, along with the rest of the citizens of Sodom, and has to be rescued by Abraham.
Finally, we see Lot in Genesis 19. Not only is he living in Sodom, he is sitting in the gates of the city (Gen. 19:1). His presence at the gates indicates that Lot seems to have become completely acclimated to the world and its ways. During Old Testament times, people who sat at the gates of the city were considered to be leaders of the town, something like a city council. Some have suggested he was there to warn naïve travelers of the dangers of the town, but, more likely than not, he was there in a governing capacity.
This downward progression is a cautionary tale. In the end, Lot lost his wife as well as his sons-in-law. His daughters that remained caused him heartache. This man who had so much potential for the Lord missed out on great blessings by following and living in the world.
The way of the righteous
It is interesting to note that each time Lot comes into view in Genesis, Abraham is being blessed in some way. After Lot chose Jordan, the Lord blessed Abraham. When Lot is rescued from Chedorlaomer, Melchizedek, priest of the Most High God, blessed Abraham. Just before the Lord sent His angels to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, He stopped and blessed Abraham.
In the end, Lot is left stripped of his possessions and living fearfully in a cave. Abraham, on the other hand, continues to grow in blessing. He fathers a child when he is one hundred years old. He becomes like the tree in Psalm 1:3: “And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he does shall prosper.”
Too often, believers view the “restrictions” of Christianity in a negative way. They fail to see that even the prohibitions are blessings—protection against needless pain and suffering. Christianity isn’t about what we don’t do; it is about what we have. James writes, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning” (Jas. 1:17). O the blessings of avoiding the heartaches of sin! O the joy of walking daily with Him!