Which Path Should I Take? Part 2 Series

Which Path Should I Take? Part 2

Psalm 1:4-6

- Last week, we looked at the first part of Psalm 1, and started by comparing the paths of the righteous and the wicked.

- We saw that both those paths have companions, and that both paths have a direction.

- This week, we’re going to look at the second part of Psalm 1 and learn a little more about the unrighteous path.

- Then, we’re going to look at the destinations of both paths.

- When I think of a good path and a bad path, 2 pictures come to mind.

- The good path is kind of like one of the paths over at the Moosehorn National Wildlife Refuge.

- It’s a nice, paved path that takes you through about ½ mile of woods and has a couple of spots with benches for you to sit on.

- That path is well taken care of.

- The bad path is nothing like that.

- It’s a muddy path, with weeds growing and huge potholes…

- It’s not taken care of at all.

- Obviously, there’s a huge difference between a good path and a bad one.

- So let’s look at 3 more things about these paths tonight.

I.) The Unrighteous Path is Worthless- Vs 4

- One of the tv shows I like to watch is called 19 Kids and Counting.

- It’s about a man named Jim Bob Duggar, his wife Michelle, and their 19 kids.

- They live in Arkansas and love to go around to different places and find fun things to do with their kids.

- In one episode, they went to the Crater of Diamonds State Park in Arkansas.

- The kids had a blast, going around, digging in the dirt and mud, trying to find diamonds.

- One of the older kids named John David likes to play practical jokes on his family, so he decided that he was going to hide a huge, fake diamond in the mud for his brothers to find.

- Well of course, when they found it, they were super excited.

- They showed it to their dad who looked surprised, and thought it was real at first.

- But then, when John David started laughing, it became obvious that it was fake, and they all had a good laugh about it.

- Obviously, even though that diamond looked like it was precious and worth a lot of money, it actually was worthless.

- That’s kind of like the description given here in vs 4…

- “The path of the ungodly does not lead to a blessing, like the righteous who become like a fruitful tree planted by water…instead, they are like the chaff which the wind blows away…”

- In the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint, the difference between the godly and ungodly has a more forcible description…

- “Not so, the ungodly, not so!”

- So, all these good things that can be said about the person on the righteous path cannot be said about the person on the unrighteous path.

- He is compared with chaff.

- Chaff is the fine, dry, scaly, protective casings of the seeds of grain…

- It’s worthless, it is dead, it is unserviceable, it is without substance, and it’s easily carried away.

- Adam Clarke gives a good description of the way chaff was separated from the wheat in ancient times.

- “They either throw [the grain] up in a place out of doors by a large wooden shovel against the wind; or with their weights or winnowing fans shake it down leisurely in the wind. The grain falls down nearly perpendicularly; and the chaff, through its lightness, is blown away to a distance from the grain.”

- So the ungodly person on the unrighteous path might think they’re just fine while they’re still part of the grain, but once they’re separated, they find out quickly that they’re dead.

- Think about humanity for a moment…

- All men and women who live on this earth need air to breathe…

- That air comes from God Almighty, and He’s providing it for the godly and the ungodly.

- All men and women who live on this earth needs there to be enough gravity so that we don’t go flying off the earth as it spins in orbit.

- That gravity comes from God Almighty, who provides that gravity for the godly and the ungodly.

- All men and women need our world to stay just close enough to the sun that we don’t freeze to death, but also just far enough away that we don’t all burn up and die.

- The distance the Earth is from the Sun was determined by God, and is kept that way by Him, and He does it for the godly and the ungodly.