PERILS TO SHUN

“Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the LORD and shun evil” (Proverbs 3:7)

“Blessed 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” (Ps. 1:1)

Greetings to all of you in the Name of our LORD and Savior Jesus Christ from all of us in Shalom Family Enrichment Mission. We live in an age of foolishness. Wisdom is extremely important for this time. Bible is misinterpreted as to the fancy of the preacher so that he may attract people. TV has become so side-splittingly funny. It is literally like watching comedians. You have people teaching doctrine that is absolutely heretical and some people actually believe what they themselves are saying. “It isn’t God’s will for you to be sick”. “God intends for all believers to live with an abundance of money”. They preach that Christianity exists to make people happy.

But the Book of Psalms begins with instructions a man should follow, so that he could enjoy life to the maximum. So let us look at Psalm 1 and find out for ourselves. The first verse of this Psalm begins by saying, “Blessed is the man”. The word translated blessed is the Hebrew word ‘esher’ which means ‘how happy’. When we study the specifics of what causes one to be happy according to the verse, we do notice that the state of being blessed is not the result of having things. People are not happy because of their home, their car, their job. In fact, true biblical happiness doesn’t have anything to do with material possessions. It has to do with our relationship with God. This Psalm suggests that a righteous person will avoid three things. It may be raining heavily. But a little cup may not receive any of that water if it is turned in the wrong way. Similarly, God is willing to shower His blessings. But if we are not in the right attitude to receive it, we may miss it.

First, we are told that the man who is blessed of God does not ‘walk in the counsel of the wicked or rather avoids the way of the ungodly. The word counsel usually means ‘advice’. But in this context, it refers to the principle which determines one’s actions. If this is the case, the godly will not only reject the advice of the wicked, but also avoid the philosophical and moral principles which lead to such conclusions.

Second, the righteous do not “stand in the way of the sinners”. As discussed earlier, if the counsel of the wicked is a humanistic view of life, the “way of sinners” is a worldly lifestyle. So we should not think the way the wicked do, and also should not act as they do. Our life style should not imitate that of the worldly. Once I visited a Christian family. They were proud of their son, about three to four years old. They said that he was good in acting and they asked the innocent boy to imitate actor Rajinikanth. When he imitated him, they were very proud. Are we imitators of worldly people or as John says in III John 12, “Dear friends, do not imitate what is evil, but what is good”.

Third, the righteous do not sit in “the seat of mockers”. This means that the righteous will keep themselves away from the group of unbelievers. People who do not fear the LORD, when they assemble, they mock at others; they talk nonsense about others and they enjoy their fellowship. They create stories about others, and we come across such mockers in churches. Do you sit with them?

These three attitudes could be summed up as, “thinking, behaving and belonging”. In I Corinthians, we come across these three attitudes of the Corinthian church. When Paul sought to correct the evils in the Corinthian church, which had been reported to him(1:11,12), he first dealt with their errors in their thinking. The Corinthians were guilty of worldly reasoning rather than using godly wisdom. So Paul deals with the vast difference between merely human wisdom and the wisdom of God.

Then Paul moves on to their behavior. He talks about the man living with his father’s wife(5:1-5), the practice of taking fellow- Christians to court(6:1-11), as we witness couple going to court for separation, and then talks about marriage and divorce in ch. 7.

Then in chapters 10 and 11, Paul comes to the topic of belonging. He talks about forbidden (10:14-22) and undisciplined divine fellowships (Ch.11-14).

So, wrong thinking leads to wrong living and loose living ultimately hinders our worship, for we will ultimately seek our fellowship with fools, rather than with the congregation of the righteous, where genuine worship takes place.

To sum up, it must be pointed out that blessings come not only from what we do, but also from what we avoid. Prohibitions are not punishment, but a divine protection. Adam and Eve were given great liberty in the Garden of Eden, but they were prohibited to eat the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. But their fellowship with Satan made them break their relationship with the Father and thereby they lost their happiness and blessings. They feared the LORD; they hid themselves, and wore covering for themselves with fig leaves.

Joseph at the age of 17, shunned evil, saying, “How could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?” and he ran out of the house. He was put in jail. But God made him stand before Pharaoh at the age of 30, and the Pharaoh said, “All my people are to submit to your orders. Only with respect to my throne I will be greater than you!”

The Psalmist has taught the perils to shun. Let us examine ourselves and straighten our thinking, behavior and belonging and enjoy the blessings of the LORD.

PRAYER:

Lord, thank you for the warnings given in Psalm 1. Give me the right attitude to receive your blessings. Give me an attitude to think rightly, behave properly and to belong to your company. In Jesus Name I pray. Amen