Two Destinies Series

The Wicked will Perish

In verses four and five, the author transitions to describe the wicked:

“Not so the wicked! They are like chaff that the wind blows away.” (Psalm 1:4)

Verse four begins with a double negative - not so, not so!

These people do listen to the counsel of the wicked, they do stand in the way of sinners, and they sit in the seat of mockers. They have no regard for God’s Word. They are self-sufficient and not like a tree. They reject God and have no love for His people or ways.

They are described as “chaff.” Farmers would harvest the wheat then, on the highest hill on their property, would have animals grind the grain. They would then take a shovel and throw it all into the air. The chaff, which is practically weightless, would blow away in the wind, leaving only the grain.

There is no value in the chaff, it is useless, only to be burned up in fire.

In Daniel 5, King Belshazzar was having a party and ordered that the articles they had captured from the temple be brought in. They drank out of the cups and praised the gods of gold, silver, bronze, wood, and stone.

Just then a hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall “Mene, Mene, Tekel, Parsin” which Daniel was able to translate:

Mene - God has numbered the days of your reign and brought it to an end.

Parsin - your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians.

Tekel - you have been weighed on the scales and found wanting.

Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, Pol Pot, Mao, Stalin, and Hitler were all the most powerful men in the world at one time. But now, in the end, they were chaff, just dust in the wind.

“Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.” (Psalm 1:5)

The wicked will appear at the judgment but they will not be able to stand because they will have no one to advocate for them.

Anyone whose name was not found written in the Book of Life was thrown into the lake of fire.” (Rev 20:15)

“And they will have no place in the assembly of the righteousness: After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice:

“Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.” (Rev 7:9)

There is no hope for the wicked.

If we go back to Psalm 73, Asaph gets a bigger perspective near the end of the song:

“When I tried to understand all this,  it troubled me deeply until I entered the sanctuary of God; then I understood their final destiny. Surely you place them on slippery ground; you cast them down to ruin. How suddenly are they destroyed, completely swept away by terrors They are like a dream when one awakes; when you arise, Lord, you will despise them as fantasies…” (Psalm 73:16-20)

A Comparison

The writer ends the Psalm with a comparison between the rightness and the wicked: