The Old Testament book of Psalms was the Jewish song book and book of prayer. It is the OT book most often quoted in the New Testament. Jesus was very fond of the book of Psalms, quoting from it while dying on the cross and insisting that many things in the Psalms referred to him: "Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms." (Lk. 24:44)

Over the next few weeks I want to study with you a select group of these Psalms beginning with the first two Psalms that together are understood to form an introduction to this book.

1:1
Note that the first word in this book is "Blessed..." Here is a book (along with the whole Bible) that points us to the blessed life and to God, the source of that blessing - the same God who made that great promise to Abraham, "Through your offspring I will bless all the families of the earth..."

The word blessed refers to the condition of someone under God’s favor, someone to whom some good or benefit comes from the Lord, someone who comes into the peace and contentment and happiness that God wish- es for his creation, someone in a condition to be envied or desired.
In the book of Psalms certain people fall into this category: They are in a very desirable condition. They are under God’s favor and receive particular good from him. They come to know the peace and happiness that God can especially give. They are blessed. Note who, according to the book of Psalms is blessed...

• Blessed is he that fears the Lord. (112:2)
• Blessed is he that considers the poor. (41:1)
• Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. (33:12)
• Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven. (32:1)
• Blessed are they who dwell in the Lord’s House. (84:4)
• Blessed is the man whom Thou chasteneth, O Lord. (94:12)
• Blessed are all they that put their trust in Him. (2:12)
• Blessed is the man who takes refuge in the Lord. (34:8)
• Blessed is the man whose strength is in the Lord. (84:5)
• Blessed are they who keep his testimonies, that seek him with the whole heart. (119:2)

1:1
Who is the person we can consider blessed? Negatively, this person:

1. doesn’t walk in the counsel of the ungodly. He doesn’t order his life according to the advice of the ungodly. Who are the ungodly? Simply those around us who live life apart from God and without much thought of God, who are not listening to God, who are not thinking about God, who are neglecting God. The ungodly can be otherwise quite good, respectable and decent people - friends and relatives we see everyday, but if they are ungodly, we are not blessed if we walk in their counsel, if we listen to their counsel and order our lives according to their advice. No one can hope to be blessed who ignores the supreme fact which is God. "He who walks with the wise grows wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm." (Pr. 13:20)
2. doesn’t stand in the way of sinners. A person walking along and listening to the advice of the ungodly is likely to stop walking and likely to soon be standing in the way of sinners. A teenager who starts listening to the lyrics of the ungodly (You know who those singers are) before long finds himself standing in the way of the sinners. He has gone from walking along listening to standing in the way. We are not blessed if we are standing in the way of sinners, if we run with people like that, if we frequent the places sinners frequent. "Do not set foot on the path of the wicked or walk in the way of evil men. Avoid it, do not travel on it; turn from it and go on your way." (Pr. 4:14)
3. . doesn’t sit in the seat of the scornful, the one who ridicules God and defiantly rejects his law. A person who walks in the counsel of the ungodly soon finds himself standing where sinners are. And the person who stands where sinners are soon finds himself sitting down with the most foul mouthed and smart mouthed of them. I like Peterson’s contemporary translation of the Psalms. He has these verses this way:

   "How well God must like you -
   you don’t hang out at Sin Saloon,
   you don’t slink along Dead-End Road
   you don’t go to Smart-Mouth College"
   

   God isn’t going to bless a life like that. That life will be the opposite of the blessed life. A man is known by the company he keeps. The person God is going to bless cannot help having some association with the wicked. That is the price of living. But he does not walk, stand or sit with such people as he does with his Christian friends. With whom do you walk, stand and sit?

1:2
"Instead you thrill to God’s Word,
you chew on Scripture day and night."

The blessed person reads the Bible. We often think of liberals and unbelievers as a great threat to the Bible. More dangerous may be Christians who simply neglect reading the Bible, who lay it up carefully on the shelf and leave it there.

The blessed person not only reads the Bible, he enjoys reading it. For one thing it is great literature. But infinitely more significant, it is God’s mes- sage to our souls. It is trustworthy advice for living, the accumulated wisdom of the ages. Blessed people trust the Bible for advice...

Thousands of years ago before the Bible was even complete, blessed was the man who enjoyed reading the Bible. Now that we have a complete Bible, this principle can be said to be even more true. The blessed man is the man who takes time to read his Bible and enjoys it.

The man whose life is like that pictured in the text is...

1:3
He is a person who someone has planted... He has a purpose and a reason for being.
He is a person who is nurtured and satisfied receiving constant water from God to satisfy his soul.
He is a person who is strong and stable. He has deep roots and is not easily moved.
He is someone who is useful, providing fruit and shade and blessing to people around him.
He is alive with the greatest life which is eternal life.
And he prospers, he succeeds, not in mere earthly things, but he succeeds in spiritual things, eternal things - which is the mark of true success.

But none of this describes the wicked.

1:4-6
The wicked are like the chaff in the wheat, good for nothing really. They may be rich now, famous now, good looking now, but their lives are frankly speaking good for nothing. Time will blow them away. Nor will they have a pleasant time of it in the judgment. They will not be standing then defying God with their heads up high. They will be on their faces then, pleading for mercy and another chance then.

1:6
Over and over the Bible compares two ways of life, two pathways to walk. One is the way of the sinner, the other is the way of the righteous. One is the broad way, the other is the narrow way. One way ends in destruction, the other way ends in life. And over and over God reminds us that we must choose one of these pathways. Over and over he pleads with us to choose the right way, the narrow and difficult way, but the rewarding way, the blessed way.
"God charts the road you take.
The road they take is Skid Row"

PSALM 2 2:1-3
When we read these Psalms, it is best to read them from the perspective of the writer when first written. It seems that in the days when this Psalm was written, maybe by David, there were plenty of nations and governments and leaders and peoples who conspired and plotted ways to get free of God and all those confining rules of his that restrain us from doing whatever we please. In their minds God was like a prison master and living according to his rules was like living in a sort of prison.

"Why the big noise nations?
Why the mean plots, peoples?
Earth-leaders push for position,
Demagogues and delegates meet for summit talks,
The God-deniars, the Messiah-defiers:
‘Let’s get free of God!"

I think a more accurate description of modern political and social life could not have been written. And actually, this Psalm, even though written by David, came to be known as a Messianic Psalm that described world conditions under the Messiah (the Anointed One) whom we know as Jesus Christ. David is not the only Anointed One to have problems in a world of evil nations and rulers and peoples. The Messiah Jesus, the ultimate subject of this Psalm, was murdered by such powers that be and his people continue to have the same problems.

Kings and Presidents and whole nations (even the United Nations) often conspire against Jesus and against the church to rid the world of the unpleasant parts of the Christian message, that there is a God and humans have been made in his image, that its wrong to take the lives of innocent unborn babies, that humans are of more worth than animals, that there is more to life than our own selfish pursuits and preferences, that we are all sinners going to hell unless we come to Jesus, that God has ancient standards for marriage and sexuality and the home and for men and women that we must obey or else...

Nothing is more obvious than that the forces and powers that be in our own generation conspire and plot against the Lord and his Anointed, saying "Let us break their chains!"

1:4
At first God is amused at such defiance. The very idea that people would think they can defeat God. But then, God gets good and angry about it. In Texas they have signs against littering that read "Don’t Mess With Texas." In this text it is like God is saying, "Don’t mess with me or with the one I have installed as king." He was first of all speaking of his King David. But ultimately, he was speaking of his King Jesus. When Presidents and Kings and Nations gather together to fight God and to fight Jesus, God doesn’t take kindly to it. First, he laughs, then he gets angry.

David proceeds to relate the decree of the Lord:

1:7-9
Here are words spoken first to David but repeatedly applied to Jesus in the New Testament. (Mtt. 3:17; Acts 13:33; Heb. 1:5; 5:5)"Today is your birthday. Ask me and I will give you a birthday present..." You remember what God said at the baptism of Jesus. And here is the sort of birthday present God gave to his Son Jesus... Jesus’ rule would extend to the ends of the earth and ultimately his rule would be with a rod of iron. This is how the New Testament writers interpret this passage. Jesus is a King whose dominion will spread across the face of the earth and whose power will ultimately and totally control all the nations of the earth.

It is great news and encouraging news when it often seems to us otherwise on the home front.

1:10-12
What a bold warning to all the big shots and world powers that be who so defiantly conspire and plot and fight against the Christian God and his Son Jesus - and what a word to spur our spirits when it sometimes seems that we are losing some battles.

The warning to all Presidents and nations is this: Serve the Lord with fear... lest he be angry and you be destroyed in your way for his wrath can flare up in a moment.
"So, rebel kings, use your heads;
Upstart judges, learn your lesson.
Worship God in adoring embrace..."

"Blessed are all who take refuge in him."

"If you make a run for God, you won’t regret it!"

We return to the theme of these introductory psalms. Here again is the man the Lord blesses. God will bless the one who turns to him for protection and strength. Those who make a run for God won’t regret it!

In life God offers two possibilities. There is the possibility of blessing. And there is the possibility of cursing. Your life can be blessed or it can be cursed. And God says it is your choice.

Deut. 11:26-28; 30:15-20