Psalm 1 Explained: The Path to a Blessed Life (Session 1)

Two roads show up at the very front door of the Psalms, and Psalm 1 forces an honest question: who is shaping your decisions? Reasoning Through the Bible starts a new, ongoing verse-by-verse study through the book of Psalms, explaining how these ancient worship songs are intentionally arranged into five books with repeating themes and a movement from lament toward praise. This isn’t a quick inspirational skim. As is our method, we slow down and read Psalm 1 carefully so its structure and its warning can do their work.

From the opening line, Psalm 1 is intensely practical. We talk about what it means to avoid “the counsel of the wicked” without retreating from the world, and why the verbs walk, stand, and sit describe a subtle slide from influence to identity. We also break down Hebrew poetry and parallelism so you can see why the psalm repeats ideas with different words and how that repetition deepens the message. Along the way, we point out the meaning behind LORD in all caps in the NASB translation is Yahweh, the covenant God the psalms call us to know.

The turning point of the psalm is meditation. We define biblical meditation as active, engaged thinking on Scripture, not emptying your mind, and we offer simple ways to build the habit through reading, listening, and memorization. Psalm 1 promises a kind of prosperity, so we clarify what that word means in a biblical sense: stability, contentment, and fruit in season, like a tree planted by streams of living water. We end with the stark contrast of chaff and judgment, then come back to the hope of choosing the right path while there’s still time. Subscribe, share this with a friend who loves the Psalms, and leave a review. What “counsel” do you need to stop trusting this week?

Transcript

How The Psalms Series Works

SPEAKER_00 0:17

Welcome to Reasoning Through the Bible. My name's Glenn. I'm here with Steve. We do verse by verse Bible teaching through the Word of God. We go chapter by chapter, verse by verse. You can find out more of what we do on our website, reasoningthruthebible.com. There you'll find teaching materials so that people can watch or listen to our program and then teach a lot of this in your church or small group. That's a lot of where our ministry heart is, is in being able to spread the teaching of the word of God. Today we're going to start the Psalms, but Steve, we have a little bit of a unique approach, I think, from what we normally do. How is were we planning to teach the Psalms?

SPEAKER_01 0:59

Well, we're still going to do our traditional style of verse by verse through each one of them. But because the Psalms has 150 in them, we knew that that was going to be too long to do it in one bite. So what we're going to do is we're going to take a psalm or a group of psalms, go approximately 30 minutes or so until we get through with whatever grouping we have. And then we will publish that as a session. And we'll do this periodically. Probably we will put them in between when we finish up one book. And before we start another one, we'll probably put a session of the psalms that are out there. So on our website, you will be able to find the psalms listed, just like all the other books, but it will be an ongoing study. And as we get to each of these psalms in our sessions, then they will be posted out on our website.

Hebrew Poetry And Couplets

SPEAKER_00 1:54

So the psalms are actually psalms. They are and were songs that were used in worship in ancient Israel. There's 150 of them, but what a lot of people don't realize is these psalms are grouped into five books. We have book one, that is from Psalm 1 to 41, and then from Psalm 42 to 72 is book two. Psalm 73 to 89 is book three. Book four goes from 90 to 106. And then the fifth book is from 107 to 150. And these are not just randomly sprinkled Hebrew poetry. They actually have themes to them. The first section starts out as getting people to meditate on the Word of God. Many of the early psalms talk about tragedy that's happened in people's lives, then solutions that happen. And towards the end, it increasingly, as the Psalms get towards the 150 mark, we get more and more praise Psalms to where we get to the final one, it's just all praising God. So there was a lot of thought that went into how they are organized. Again, they're not just a random pile of Hebrew poetry. For example, one of the things that you could find is the beginning of book four, which is Psalm 90, the very beginning of that psalm starts with, quote, from everlasting to everlasting, you are God, unquote. So that's at the beginning of book four. At the end of book four, the last part of Psalm 106 ends with the same idea. Quote, Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting. So there's a theme here that plays through, and the basic units of the poetry are fairly simple. But the more we look and the more we study them, the more very complex poetical structure there is. The early Psalms have a lot of lamenting, the later Psalms have a lot of praise. In the middle, there's a lot of crying out to the Lord and solutions from the Lord. I want to give a little bit of an introduction to Hebrew poetry. Hebrew poetry is different from the types of poetry you'll see in most languages. The basic building block of Hebrew poetry is called a couplet. A couplet is a two-line phrase that repeats the same idea, but uses different words. For example, in Psalm 1, verse 1, Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly. That's the first line. The next line says basically the same thing, but in a different word. The first line and the second line say basically the same thing, but it's repeated with different words. The different words are often very descriptive language that's very graphic. That's where the poetry comes in, is in these repeated words and repeated themes using poetical language. You'll see similar phrases like the first verse or two here in Psalm 1, walks not in the council of the ungodly, stands in the path of the sinners, or sits in the seat of scoffers. So there's walk, stand, and sit. So we have a very graphically poetic, literary way of teaching biblical ideas. Sometimes the couplets appear in double pairs. There's a lot of variation on the theme. For example, verse one talks about not walking in the path of sinners. Verse two has another couplet, but now it is focusing on what you do, which is delight in the law of the Lord. And again, there's another couplet, but his delight is in the law of the Lord. And then the second line, in his law, he meditates day and night. So there's a first verse couplet talking about not walking in the evil ways. And the second verse couplet is in indeed walking in God's ways. These are delighting in the law, and in the law, he meditates. There's these poetical threads that go through there. So, Steve, have you noticed this pattern? I mean, is the basic building block is fairly simple couplet, but it actually gets quite complex in some of the structure if we start looking at throughout the Psalms.

SPEAKER_01 6:34

These are psalms that were put to music and they were there for a purpose. And so part of the reason why they're the way that you put structured, I think, is so that people could more easily memorize them. Not just the words themselves, but then the music that they would put to would help them learn them. So, yes. And I think that we also lose some of it because it's translated into English. Maybe words that would rhyme in Hebrew won't necessarily rhyme in English. But nevertheless, the wording that we get out of it, even in English, are so beautiful and meaningful that we're definitely going to be able to see the true meaning behind them and the reasons that they were written.

SPEAKER_00 7:23

Many times people love the psalms because they can come here when they're discouraged. There are several types of psalms, several themes that weave their way. There's psalms that are a call to worship, psalms that describe God's attributes or God's acts, victory songs, songs about worshipers as they approach the temple, psalms that are praising God and praising Israel. There's complaints from the people to God, psalms of thanksgiving, psalms about the king, psalms about wisdom that are similar to Proverbs, and there's psalms about the Messiah. There's a lot of really valuable teaching here, and it's couched in this wonderful descriptive language. Many scholars think that the psalms were most likely grouped into sections so that they could be read or sung along with readings of the first five books, the Pentateuch, the Torah, Genesis to Deuteronomy. So as these sections of God's word were being read in the Torah, there would be a psalm to go along with it. Psalm one, that we're gonna get to today, might possibly have been sung when Genesis one through three was being read, The Garden of Eden and the Fall, where Adam and Eve sinned for the first time. This first psalm is gonna present two paths: one that forgets God and goes its own way, and the other that follows God and is blessed. So, as usual, I'm uh really excited to get into this book. It's gonna be a wonderful teaching. Steve, any other ideas before we just jump right in?

Reading Psalm 1 Aloud

SPEAKER_01 9:01

Just one thing last to mention, Glenn, is that after the Passover of the meal that Jesus had with his disciples, it said they departed with a song. We know that there are a group of psalms that are sung at the end of the Passover, and they call them the ascending psalms. They were the ones that were sung whenever they were ascending up to the temple mount. So we'll come across those when we come to them, but it's those little details that we see in scripture that we will learn about when we get to those psalms, which will bring a little bit more meaning to some of the other scripture that talk about it and also quote the psalms and the uh teachings that they have.

SPEAKER_00 9:47

So, this first psalm, someone is talking about avoiding the things of the world and stopping to think about things of the world and starting to think about the word of God. That theme is obviously good, and it's here for a reason. It's at the first one because as you get into the Psalms, it's very good advice to stop thinking like the world and start to meditate on God's word. That's really the theme of this first one. So, Steve, rather short Psalm, can you just read Psalm 1?

Rejecting Ungodly Counsel

SPEAKER_01 10:22

Blessed is the person who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He will be like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither, and in whatever he does, he prospers. The wicked are not so, but they are like chaff which the wind blows away. Therefore, the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous. For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.

SPEAKER_00 11:10

The first verse tells us we are blessed if we don't walk in the counsel of the wicked. Notice there he's saying the counsel of the wicked. He's not saying never talk to an evil person. He's saying to don't walk in their path and don't take their advice. So, Steve, what difference would it make on the everyday life of someone if we don't hang around and walk with wicked people?

SPEAKER_01 11:37

Well, in here it says the counsel of the wicked. So it's not just being with them, but it gives the sense that you're listening to something that they're trying to influence you about. So he says, don't have any type of counsel with them or listen to them what they say. And the the verb there of walk, that to me connotes that it's something that you're doing on a regular basis. You're not just passing by them, but you're walking with them, listening to their counsel. This verse here is telling us don't be associated with the wicked in that way, and don't get into the position where you're being counseled by the wicked.

SPEAKER_00 12:20

It mentions three names here. And again, the Hebrew poetry, it'll say similar things with slightly different phrasing. That's part of the Hebrew poetry. But verse one talks about the wicked, sinners, and scoffers. So obviously, wicked are dedicated to evil. Sinners are people that just live in sin. And the scoffers are the ones that sit back and just sort of criticize about anything godly, and they're always finding fault with God and with godly things. Verse one is telling us do not hang around, do not walk with these people, and don't take their counsel. So, one of the questions, Steve, I think we have to answer, and each of us that have to answer this for themselves. If I'm hanging around wicked people or hanging around with scoffers, do we have a positive influence on them? Or are they having a bad influence on us? And so, what's the tone here of the psalm regarding that?

SPEAKER_01 13:21

That's really what it's saying is it's warning us to not be influenced by these three groups of people. They don't want to have anything to do with God. And in fact, verse two tells us the proper thing that we should do. We shouldn't be associated with these people because they're not thinking of godly things. They're not wanting to associate themselves with God. And the ones that are scoffers there, they're the ones that make fun of, they make derision of. They're the ones that are skeptical of God's word and God Himself. Those types of people, if you want to be a godly person, meaning that you want to have a relationship with God, then these are not the group of people that you want to be around. So this really just seems to me very much of a practical verse as to somebody that wants to have a relationship with God as opposed to somebody that doesn't want to have a relationship with God. If you want to have a relationship with God, don't hang around the ones who don't.

SPEAKER_00 14:26

I think you're absolutely right. With the three groups of people he mentions there, he's covering a lot of ground, the writer of this, in this sense, there are people in the world that are blatantly evil. We look at them and we know that they are blatantly evil. They do evil things. There's other people that may be, from the world standpoint, an upstanding citizen. They pay their taxes, they generally follow the law, but they're just not a godly person. They don't take God's advice when they make life decisions. And this verse covers that person too. Yes, we should avoid the blatantly evil person, but he's saying don't take counsel from people that just don't follow God's ways. If there's somebody out there, maybe even a successful business person or somebody that from the outside seems to be going rather well in life, if they're not basing their decisions on God and his ways, then we need to not take their counsel. We need to not walk in their path. This psalm is saying don't take advice from people who leave God out of their lives, no matter how successful they may seem from the outside. When we get counsel from people who are making decisions on their own, not taking God for guidance, it will not end well, especially for us as Christians.

SPEAKER_01 15:52

You have something that makes sense, but you need to be reminded of it every now and then. You know, there's an old little rhyme that we were told many of the older generation said, don't smoke, dip, or chew, or go with girls that do. It was a cute little way of telling the young children that those were things that you didn't want to do, and you also didn't want to associate with people that did that as well. So these little type of rhymes and these little type of ways to remind people of doing things that are ungodly or the way that you don't want to go, that this is something in a similar way.

Progression From Walk To Sit

Engage The Word Through Meditation

SPEAKER_00 16:34

Again, verse one how blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the path of sinners, nor sit in the seed of scoffers. Notice the progression or the degression, I guess, is really the way we start out walking with people who just leave God out of their decisions. Then we end up standing with sinners. That's people who actively do wrong things, and then we end up sitting with scoffers. We're not doing anything, we're just sitting around and being critical and skeptical. That's the progression. If you start out walking with people that just leave God out, you end up standing with sinners, and you'll ultimately end up sitting around with scoffers, and you become one of them as well. That's the pattern here. Our actions should be to avoid it at the first place. Don't walk, stand, or sit with them. In the New Testament, there's several verses that command us to give answers to people. So that this isn't saying we shouldn't interact with them at all. It's saying don't take counsel from them, don't walk with them, don't sit with them. 1 Peter 3:15, give an answer to these people. Jude verse 3, give a defense to the scoffers, to correct them so that they might become Christians, 2 Timothy 2.25. It's not saying never engage them, it's saying just the opposite. We engage them to correct them, but we don't base our lives or get counsel from people that aren't following God's ways. We are called to be a separate people. We should separate ourselves from the world by not following the worldly ways. What does a separated life look like? Well, this is going to tell you it's someone that that engages the law of the Lord and follows the Lord's ways. And if we do that, it gives a blessing. Blessed is the man who does this. If you don't walk, stand, or sit with scoffers, you'll be blessed. And then, contrast to that, verse two, the person who meditates on the word of God. Steve, what benefit do we get from meditating on the word of God? Meditation means to engage my mind and put my mind in gear to actively think about godly things and actively contemplate the word of God. What benefit do we get from that?

SPEAKER_01 19:01

It says right there in the first few words that it brings delight to us. It sets our spirit in such a way that we are getting closer to God. We're building that relationship with Him. And how do we find out about His relationship? We find out through His Word. Here it's using the law, the Torah that was active at that time that this was written. Now we have the law of Christ that is written on our hearts in this era and this age. So all of that, getting closer to God, getting into his word, meditating on him and his ways, that brings the light to us. And then one thing that we want to bring out as we continue here anytime that we see the word Lord written in all caps, L-O-R-D, the word behind that is Yahweh. So as we go through these Psalms and these other verses, here another way to put it would be in verse two, but his delight is in the law of Yahweh. So we should always keep in mind there's a God behind that, and it is Yahweh, the God of Israel.

SPEAKER_00 20:13

The word of God can indeed turn our lives around if we meditate on it, actively think about it, and actively contemplate it. That's what it's saying here. The word of God can convict us of our sin, it can increase our faith, it can empower us to live the Christian life via the Holy Spirit. The real godly people will be in the word of God. And here's where we would give testimonies of people those lives had been turned around simply because the word of God has helped us. Notice that when this was written, much of the Old Testament and all of the New Testament had not yet been written. So the law here is really the Mosaic law. And we think the Mosaic law is the merely the sacrificial system, and that's only a piece. The rest of it is the things that tell us how do we treat people on a regular basis? How do we worship God? How do we live on a daily basis? Steve, the first two verses here is contrasting very drastically. Avoid the worldly ways and meditate on God's ways. So, what's the difference between how the world tells us to live and how the word of God tells us to live? What are some of the categories of things? Is the word of God restrictive? I always talk to non-believers and they think, well, you know, if I become a Christian, I'm gonna have to give things up or keep me from having fun. And it's not really like that. There's a great contrast between the world's ways and God's ways. So when we see this, what goes through our minds?

SPEAKER_01 21:52

What goes through my mind, Glenn, is having a proper relationship with God is liberating. It's not restrictive. The opposite of that. What I mean by saying that is that through Jesus Christ, we find out in Hebrews and other epistles that Paul wrote, Colossians and Galatians, we see that we are liberated from sin, that we are no longer slaves to sin. Sin means to miss the mark. But yet when we have a belief and trust in Jesus Christ, we are liberated from that. We are counted as righteous. We are counted as complete. We are presented to God as being complete. God the Father sees us through the light of Jesus the Son and his death, burial, and resurrection. That gives us a liberating relationship with God. We're no longer separated from God. Now we can have a relationship with Him. So it's the exact opposite of what people think that they have, that their lives are going to be restricted here on earth. Really, they don't even realize that by not having a proper relationship with God, their lives are restrictive. They just don't know it. So believing in Jesus Christ, having that proper relationship with Him and building it is one of liberation.

Tree By Water And True Prosperity

SPEAKER_00 23:19

So in Psalm 1, the first verse says, avoid the worldly ways. Don't walk, stand, or sit in the world's ways. Verse 2 says, instead, we should delight in the law of the Lord, in God's word. If we ask ourselves, what are some practical ways of doing that? Well, the first one that comes to my mind is to memorize the word of God. If you memorize it, then you can indeed study it. It says here day and night. Somebody's going to say, I'm bad at memorization. It's okay, don't worry about it. Just read it more often. Listen to it more often. And if you do, it will sink in and the Holy Spirit will bring it to mind in the future. But if we stay in the Word of God and we meditate on it, then He will bring these things to mind. That's the way we can renew our mind, it says in the Bible. In verse three, it gives us the benefits of what will happen to this person who meditates on the Word of God. What does it say, Steve? Will be the benefits.

SPEAKER_01 24:17

He says that we're going to be like a tree planted by the stream of water, and that the leaf will never wilt. What happens whenever a tree is living by water? It doesn't have to go very far in order to always find that source of water. It's always there. Its roots can easily get access to it. It's not inhibited by times of rain, drought, or other things. It has a constant source of water through that stream that is there. So it tells us that that tree will bear fruit in the seasons and that the person will prosper in all the things that he endeavors to do. So how is it that we find to be prosperous in God? It's meditating on him and on his word. That's how we find to be a prosperous person, giving fruit and yielding fruit in the proper seasons of our life.

SPEAKER_00 25:15

Water is a symbol of life. Without it, nothing will live. So the tree, if it's planted by not just some water, but a stream of water, it has this constant flow of life. And the tree will grow. It will grow quickly, tall and strong and bear fruit. And that's what it's saying here in verse three. So just like a tree that's planted near the source of life that will bear fruit. We in our lives, if we're planted near the word of God and we get that in us, then we will grow and we will be strong and bear fruit. The Spirit of God gives life to us. If we stay in his word and study it, it's like a stream of life that will flow up into us, into growth, strength, and bearing of fruit. How wonderful this is. It says that a person who meditates on the word of God will prosper. Whatever he does prospers. So one of my questions is Is this true? How far can we take this? Does this mean he's going to get rich? Or what does it mean by prosper?

SPEAKER_01 26:17

I think prosper really means, Glenn, just to be content with what God provides to you. We see the writer of Hebrews, as he's signing off his letter, one of the things that he tells them, uh, the people that he's writing to in chapter 13, is for them to be content, for them to not be carried away with materialism, take pleasure in what the Lord gives them, because he will never fail them, he will never leave them. That's what the writer says. So I think that that is a way of prospering in the Lord, is to take the things that he gives, the blessings that he gives to us, and to be content with them and to follow him and again build that relationship with him, that in itself is being prosperous. It doesn't necessarily mean material wealth. Although there's nothing wrong with material wealth, but if your motivation is nothing but to achieve material wealth, then that becomes a problem. I think simply prosper means being content with the blessings that God gives us.

Chaff Judgment And God’s Care

SPEAKER_00 27:24

Being content with his blessings and doing his will. Again, look at what it's saying. Verse one, avoid the ways of the world. Verse two, meditate on the word of God. Verse three, if you do that, you're gonna be just like a tree planted by the source of life that's gonna grow and bear fruit in its season. The person that is in the word of God, whatever he does, he prospers. Why? Because if you're in the word of God, you're gonna do godly things. When you do godly things, then you're gonna prosper. Think of it this way: an apple tree prospers when it makes apples. That's what apple trees are for. If an apple tree does what it's supposed to do, it's going to make apples. If a creation of God, in this case, a man or a woman, is created by God to do godly things, well, we prosper when we're doing godly things. If we're plugged into the source of life, then we're going to be happy in what we do, and we're going to be successful in what we do because we do godly things. He's not talking about, I'm going to go live like the devil and make a lot of money. That's not what he's saying. He's saying whatever he does, he prospers because he's doing godly things, bearing godly fruit in the lives of himself and those around him. How wonderful this is. What type of fruit should we expect? Godly fruit. Biblical prosperity is an indicator of happiness. Are they content in the Lord? Are they satisfied in the Lord? Are they living righteously? Are they helping others? Are they worshiping God? It's not talking about financial prosperity. The difference between biblical meditation and a type of other meditation, like an Eastern religious meditation, is profound. When it says here, biblical meditation is to engage your mind and to focus on things, to have a godly idea that's presented in the scriptures, to actively think on that and to mentally chew on it and turn it over in your mind and define it, define all of its parts and how it applies to you. Eastern meditation is just the opposite. That means to empty your mind and try not to think of anything. So when it says meditate here, think on it, it's talking about engaging your mind. It is not teaching Eastern meditation, it's teaching biblical meditation. Verse 4, Steve, if the godly person learns from the word of God and prospers, what happens to the wicked?

SPEAKER_01 30:05

It says there, the wicked are not so. They're not going to prosper. And it gives a comparison of chaff. Chaff is the part of the kernel of wheat and other type of grains that falls off and dries up and is blown away as the person harvests it or winnows the grain. It is blown away because it's dry. He compares that to a wicked person. They're not planted by the streams that are getting that constant source of living water. They're like the dried up part of the grain that is blown away with the wind.

SPEAKER_00 30:43

The chaff is the part that's no good to eat. It's not fruit. It's the, as you said, dried up husk of a wheat kernel. It's broken and blown away and thrown away or burned. It's the waste product. The people that meditate on the word of God bear fruit. Those that don't dry up and are blown away and are a waste product. The wicked, it also says in verse 5, will not stand. We live in a day where many people that we run into don't think there will be a judgment. But this verse here, it says the wicked will not stand in the judgment. It's not saying they won't be judged. In fact, just the opposite. It's saying they will be judged. And during the judgment, they're not going to be able to stand. They're not going to be able to stand in defense of themselves before the great judge. They won't be able to give a defense or a case in the judgment. They will fall. They will be convicted. Today, people don't believe that's going to happen, but when they are called before the judge, they won't have a case. The middle of verse 5 says the ungodly won't stand in the assembly of the righteous. Steve, have you ever noticed that truly ungodly people can't stand to come to church?

SPEAKER_01 31:58

Yeah, they don't want to have anything to do with God, and they certainly don't want to have anything to do with people that are worshiping God. I think also, as I mentioned earlier in the session, they just don't know about godly ways. They don't know how the spirit can be quickened again and how they can be freed and liberated from the slavery of sin. So therefore, they just don't want to have anything to do with the people that are celebrating and worshiping God. So yeah, I can see what the author is saying is that the sinners will not stand in the judgment nor in the assembly of the righteous because they just don't want to have anything to do with God. They don't want to meditate on God's word.

SPEAKER_00 32:44

I've been in situations around unchurched, ungodly people just being there made them uncomfortable because I didn't cuss, I didn't run around like them. Because I wasn't living like them, it reminded them of their own sin and it made them quite uncomfortable. I wasn't purposely speaking against them, I just wasn't participating. That makes them uncomfortable. It says here at the end of verse 5 the sinners will not sit in the assembly of the righteous. People don't like to be reminded of their sin. They have to be convicted by the Holy Spirit. This is really an answer to the question: how can a good God send people to hell? Well, if the unrighteous can't stand to spend one hour a week in church, what kind of a God would force them to go to church for all eternity in heaven? Heaven will be worshiping God all day. Many people don't like that. They find it uncomfortable. The door to hell is locked on the inside. They don't want to be around godly people or godly things. Ungodly people hate it when they're around God. They have to be changed from the inside out. They have to be regenerated by God. The last verse in this first psalm, God watches over the way of the righteous. What can we learn, Steve, from verse six? What does this tell us about God? Does he know about our ways and does he watch over us?

SPEAKER_01 34:14

That's exactly what I get out of this last verse, Glenn, is that the Lord knows the way of the righteous. Well, how does Yahweh know the way? It's because we have a relationship with him. He knows that we want to worship him. He knows that we want to find out more about him. If we're meditating on him and his word, then that again is building up a proper relationship with him. Look, whenever you want to have a relationship with any other human being, what do you want to do? You want to get to know them. You want to know the things that they are happy about, you want to know the things that they want to try to avoid. All of those types of things. That's a process of getting to know the other person. Well, it says here that if we're doing all of these things of meditating on God and His Word, following after Him and staying away from the wicked, the sinners and the scoffers, then He's going to be able to know us, and we're going to be able to know Him. So again, this is part of that liberation from sin, from the slavery of it, and getting to know God is through this action of knowing Him and Him knowing us.

SPEAKER_00 35:31

So this psalm presents two paths, two groups of people. One path is the path of the wicked, and that path ends up walking in the path of sinners and ultimately ends up sitting with scoffers and accomplishing nothing. The other path meditates on the way of God. Ultimately, it grows and bears fruit and prospers. My friend, as long as we're still breathing, as long as you can still hear the sounds of my word, we can still take the correct path. How? By listening and studying the word of God. And it will increase our faith and help us to be on the right path. We'll stop here. That's the end of the first psalm. And it'll be very good study as we go through these, as we said intermittently. But Steve, it's going to be great studying the Psalms.

SPEAKER_01 36:21

It is going to be great because it's an area where a lot of people really don't spend much time in. And being able to go through them verse by verse, I think is going to bring a new meaning to us.

SPEAKER_00 36:32

So we trust that you'll keep tuning in as we continue to reason through the Bible. Thank you so much for watching and listening.

SPEAKER_01 36:39

May God bless you.