Fourth Sunday Meditation: Taking Delight In The Eternal Word

Meditation

A painting by Jack E. Dawson

Psalm One has often been called, "The Preface Psalm"

because it begins with the benediction, "Blessed" much in the

same way of  the Lord's Sermon on the Mount.

"Blessed are the poor in spirit,  (the humble)

for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

Matthew 5:3

PSALM  ONE

Blessed is the man who walks and lives not in the counsel

of the ungodly, in the path where sinners walk, nor sits where

the scornful and the mockers gather.

But his delight and desire are in the law of the Lord,

and on His law, the teachings of God, he habitually

 meditates by day and by night.

And he shall be like a tree firmly planted and tended by the

streams of water, ready to bring forth its fruit in its season;

its leaf also shall not fade or wither; and everything he

does shall prosper and come to maturity.

Not so the wicked, those disobedient and living without God

are not so. But they are like chaff which the wind drives away.

Therefore the wicked shall not stand in the judgment, nor

sinners in the congregation of the righteous, those who

are upright and in right standing with God.

For the Lord knows and is fully acquainted with the

way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly, those

living outside of God's will, shall perish.

"Her princes in the midst of her are like wolves, rending 

and devouring the prey, shedding blood and destroying lives

to get dishonest gain."

Ezekiel 22:27

Unfortunately, in the United States of America 2017,

the 'counsel of the ungodly' has been gaining steady ground,

not just with the embrace of the ideals of secular humanism

and immorality within our post-Christian culture,

 but with the rise in more recent years of

an apostate Christianity movement in which

 the spirit of the Antichrist is flourishing,

not only with the removal of the cross from many

church sanctuaries, but, with the dropping of traditional

songs in defense of God's Word, like the one below,

from church hymnals.

The Bible stands like a rock undaunted

'Mid the raging storms of time;

Its pages burn with the truth eternal,

And they glow with a light sublime.

Refrain

The Bible stands though the hills may tumble,

It will firmly stand when the earth shall crumble;

I will plant my feet on its firm foundation,

For the Bible stands

The Bible stands like a mountain towering

Far above the works of men;

Its truth by none ever was refuted,

And destroy it they never can.

The Bible stand and it will forever,

When the world has passed away;

By inspiration it has been given,

All its precepts I will obey.

For the Bible stands every test we give it,

For its Author is divine;

By grace alone I expect to live it,

And to prove and to make it mine.

"He personally bore our sins in His own body on the tree

as on an altar and offered Himself on it, that we might die,

cease to exist to sin and live in righteousness. By His

wounds you have been healed.

For you were going astray like so many sheep,

but now you have come back to the Shepherd

and Guardian, the Bishop of your souls."

1 Peter 2:24-25

Sharin' The Light

Painting By Jack Dawson

"The grass withers, the flower fades, but the

word of our God will stand forever."

Isaiah 40:8

"The Bible Stands"

Words and Music by Haldor Lillenas

(1917)