In 1948, nobody expected Harry Truman to win re-election as president of the United States. But on election night, the first scattered returns showed Harry Truman leading over Thomas E. Dewey.
At about midnight, radio commentator H. V. Kaltenborn announced, “Mr. Truman is still ahead, but these are returns from a few cities. When the returns come in from the country, the result will show Dewey winning overwhelmingly.” At 4 a.m., Truman was over 2 million votes ahead, and at 11:13 a.m., Dewey finally conceded the race.
Stunned by his defeat, Dewey later said he felt like the man who woke up to find himself inside a coffin with a lily in his hand and thought, “If I’m alive, what am I doing here? And if I’m dead, why do I have to go to the bathroom?”
In 1948, everybody thought Thomas E. Dewey was THE MAN. They thought Harry Truman was washed up, but history tells a different story, and that’s often the way it is.
People tend to admire the wrong man. They envy the man with power, wealth and charm, but history often tells a different story. It is not the wealthy who are truly blessed. It is not the powerful or the beautiful that last. It is somebody quite different than what most of us think.
Do you want to know who the truly blessed are? Do you want to know who we should truly envy? And how you can be that person in the coming year? Then if you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to Psalm 1, Psalm 1, where we find out who is truly blessed.
Psalm 1:1 Blessed [O how happy! To be envied with desire] is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers.
Do you want to be truly happy? Do you want to be the true envy of the world? Then 1st of all…
SEPARATE YOURSELF FROM THE WORLD.
Don’t believe what the world believes – Don’t walk in the counsel of the wicked. Don’t behave the way the world behaves – Don’t stand in the way of sinners. And don’t belittle the people the world belittles – Don’t sit in the seat of the mockers.
There is a downward progression here. It starts when you listen to the advice of ungodly people. Then, before you know it, you are living the life of ungodly people and making fun of those who try to live for the Lord. The point is, Don’t even get started on that downward slope. Be careful who and what you listen to.
For generations, since the beginning of time, young and old alike sat together hearing the stories of their ancestors. The story tellers in the family passed their stories on from one generation to another, along with important life lessons, which influenced each succeeding generation. I can remember hearing stories of my extended family, which still profoundly influence me today.
Then TV was introduced to the world, and it became the most influential story teller in almost every family in the west. Children don’t listen to the stories of their ancestors anymore. They listen to the stories told by ungodly producers in Hollywood, who have profoundly influenced two or three generations already.
For example, John Furie, Jr., a media professor at the University of Southern California, spoke to the Chicago Tribune about the brutal and corrupt lead character on The Shield. He told them, “We say, ‘Well, he did a bad thing, a corrupt thing, an evil thing, a cruel thing. But on the other hand, he loves his autistic son and devotes himself to him diligently.’ That is a very human thing, but I think it tends to push us as an audience to not only forgive the errant ways of these characters, but to consider the things that they do when they’re behaving badly to be OK.” (“Cop Shows up the Ante for Anti-heroes,” Chicago Tribune, June 3, 2002)
Today, whole generations of people are being led to believe that bad is good, that there are no moral absolutes, and that one can be a scoundrel and a hero all at the same time.
It’s affecting even those of us in Bible-believing, evangelical churches. In his research, George Barna has discovered very little difference between the beliefs and behaviors of those in our churches compared with those in the world. The same percentage of young people growing up in our Bible-believing, evangelical churches believe that there are no moral absolutes as those who don’t go to church.
We are believing and behaving just like the world. And if we don’t watch it, some of us will begin to mock the very lifestyle we claim to support. We must be careful who and what we listen to on a daily basis, because it will affect our talk and well as our walk.
Nearly 10 years ago, Nur Malena Hassan, a 24-year-old woman from Malaysia, moved into a glass box. It wasn’t because she couldn’t afford to live in her home anymore. Rather, she was attempting to break an existing world record of 32 days in such an enclosure, held by a woman from Thailand. There was only one catch. Hassan's glass home included more than 6,000 scorpions.
On August 21, 2004, the crowd at a shopping mall witnessed Hassan step into the box, showing no outward signs of fear. This was her second attempt. The first attempt, a few days previously, had failed due to a lack of scorpions. This time the glass box was filled with 6,069 such arachnids which quickly covered Hassan's body. Allowed to leave the box for 15 minutes each day, Hassan made the box home for 36 days.
She emerged on September 25, 2004 with the new world record. Not surprisingly, Nur Malena Hassan suffered 17 stings. (Woman Moves in with Scorpions, Reuters, 8-23-04; Malaysian Woman Reclaims ‘Scorpion Queen' Title,’ CHINAdaily.com, 9-28-04)
But that's what happens when you lay down with scorpions. And that’s what happens when God’s people lay down with sinners. They get stung.
Do you want to be truly happy in 2014? Do you want to be the envy of the world? Then separate yourself from the world. Don’t believe what they believe. Don’t behave the way they behave. And don’t talk the way they talk. Instead…
SATURATE YOURSELF IN THE WORD.
If you want to be truly happy, don’t listen to the world; listen to the Lord. Meditate on His word. Read and think about it often.
Psalm 1:2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. (NIV)
The truly happy person enjoys reading God’s Word. He delights in it. He finds pleasure in studying the Bible. So he meditates on it all the time – literally, he mutters it under his breath, constantly going over it in his mind.
Van Morris, of Mount Washington, Kentucky, loves to go treasure hunting. When he purchased his first metal detector over 20 years ago, the salesman, a treasure hunter himself, gave him two pieces of helpful advice.
First, he told Van Morris that once he found something buried in the ground, before filling in the hole, he should always scan the hole once again. He insisted that many times where there was one coin, there would be others. Van Morris says, “He was right, and I have proved this time and time again.”
Secondly, the salesman told Van Morris never to believe that a place had been “hunted out,” meaning that all the treasure had been taken. “For the patient hunter,” he said, “there will likely be another treasure waiting.” Van Morris says, “Once again he was right.”
Then he described an occasion where he was given permission to hunt the site of a home built in the late 1700s, a property that he was told had been hunted out. Van Morris started scanning early that morning and hunted for six hours without finding a thing. He was about to give up when he started getting signals – one right after the other. He dug out so many coins they were literally running out of both of his pants pockets. One of the coins he found that day was an 1865 3-cent piece, worth about $70.
So it is when we go hunting in God’s Word. We can find a host of marvelous treasures; and no matter how much we dig, it will never be hunted out.
I have a suggestion, for those of us who want to truly have a happy new year. Let’s commit ourselves to reading through the Bible in 2014. In your bulletins, I have given you a suggested Bible reading schedule, which takes you through the Old Testament once and the New Testament twice. It’s the schedule I use, which involves reading 3-5 chapters a day.
Read the Bible, then meditate on it. What I do is pick out a verse or two, then jot down a few notes so I can think about it all day long. I use the acronym S.O.A.P to organize my thoughts, and I suggest you give it a try (S-scripture, O-observation, A-application, P-prayer).
This is just one approach to reading and meditating on God’s Word. It is one that I have found extremely helpful during the last 5 or 6 years of my life, so I recommend it to you; but you don’t have to do it this way.
Whatever you do, though, I encourage you read some part of God’s Word every day. Meditate on it – i.e., spend some time chewing it over. Then turn your thoughts into prayers. Talk to God about the things he says to you in His Word.
If you will do just that, I guarantee, you will have a happier year in 2014, because that’s God’s promise. Blessed, happy, to be envied is the one who “meditates day and night” on the “law of the Lord.”
Do you to have a truly happy new year? Do you want to be the envy of the world? Then separate yourself from the world, saturate yourself in the Word. That way, you can…
SITUATE YOURSELF BY THE WATER.
You can put yourself in a place where you will thrive and prosper.
Psalm 1:3 He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers. (NIV)
This “tree” has an unending source of food and water, so that no matter what is going on around it, even if there’s drought, that tree finds itself standing firm and thriving. That’s the condition of the man who saturates himself in the Word. The Bible is his unending source of spiritual refreshment. Therefore, he can stand firm and thrive; he can persevere and prosper, even in times of adversity.
Robert Schuller tells the story of an Idaho potato farmer, who doesn’t do what all he other Idaho potato farmers do. After the potatoes are harvested, most of the farmers spread them out and sort them in order to get the maximum market value. They divide the potatoes according to size – big, medium and small.
There is one farmer, though, who never bothers to sort his potatoes at all. Yet he seems to be making the most money. This puzzled some of his neighbors, so one of them asked the farmer, “What’s your secret?”
The farmer said, “It’s simple. I just load up the wagon with potatoes and take the roughest road to town. During the 8-mile trip, the little potatoes always fall to the bottom, the medium potatoes land in the middle, while the big potatoes rise to the top. (Robert Schuller, Rough Times Never Last but Tough People Do)
That’s what happens to the man who separates himself from the world and saturates himself in the Word. He rises to the top on rough roads. He thrives even in times of adversity. He prospers in “whatever he does.” That’s the promise here in Psalm 1.
Now, just so nobody gets the wrong idea, this is NOT talking about instant, material prosperity. Notice, verse 3 says, it “yields its fruit IN SEASON” – not immediately after planting. The fruit of our labor doesn’t often come right away. In fact, most of the time we have to wait for it; we have to wait on God’s timing.
Furthermore, the word “prosper” means to succeed in whatever you set out to do. Well, the one who separates himself from the world and saturates himself in the Word does NOT set out to become rich. That is NOT the goal of his life. No. The goal of his life is to please God. The goal of his life is to accomplish God’s will, and his time spent in God’s Word helps him do just that.
Let me tell you, there is no better feeling than to get to the end of the day and know that you have accomplished everything that God asked you to do. The Apostle Paul, when he got to the end of his life, said, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day” (2 Timothy 4:7-8). Even as he faced death, Paul was the happiest man alive, because he knew he had accomplished God’s will for his life.
Do you want to have a truly happy new year? Then separate yourself from the world, and saturate yourself in the Word. That way, you can situate yourself by the water.
OTHERWISE, YOU WILL BE SIFTED LIKE WHEAT.
You will be blown away by the winds of adversity, and you will not stand in the Day of Judgment.
Psalm 1:4 Not so the wicked! They are like chaff that the wind blows away. (NIV)
They are like the stuff that comes out of the back of a combine. They are like the stuff that gets in your eyes at harvest time before the wind blows it away.
Psalm 1:5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous. (NIV)
Those who disregard God’s Word will not be able to get up after falling down. They will not be able to “stand” with the righteous.
Psalm 1:6 For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous [lit., the Lord KNOWS the way of the righteous. He is intimately acquainted with their way, and chooses them for special favor]. But the way of the wicked will perish.
Several years ago (October 2007), Steffi Krause, age 17, and her 19-year-old friend were in a German juvenile detention center for stealing. The 19-year-old was about to be released, but Steffi had more time to serve. But Steffi couldn’t wait any longer to get out, so the two friends devised a clever plan for getting her out. They decided to put Steffi in her friend’s suitcase and let her friend wheel her out of prison to freedom.
Their plan worked! The prison guards noticed that the suitcase was extremely heavy, but no one thought to open it and see why.
Steffi had outsmarted the guards, but she was too smart for her own good. Though she was on the loose, she was not free. She was a fugitive from the law, and when she was caught, she ended up with more prison time to serve than she ever had to begin with. Had she stayed put, things would have been so much better, because the time left on her jail sentence was a mere two weeks. (Teenager escapes prison in suitcase, Reuters, 10-30-07)
You see, even when they succeed, the wicked fail. They simply cannot stand.
Do you want to be truly happy in the coming year? Then I encourage you: separate yourself from the world, and saturate yourself in the Word. That way you can situate yourself by the water. Otherwise, you will be sifted like wheat.
I like the way John Maxwell once put it. He said, “When confronted with a difficult situation, a person with an outstanding attitude makes the best of it while he gets the worst of it. Life can be likened to a grindstone. Whether it grinds you down or polishes you, depends on what you are made of.” (Attitude 101, Thomas Nelson, 2003)
My dear friends, please spend time in God’s Word this year. It will change your attitude, and you will become a polished jewel, reflecting the glory of God.
