The End of the Wicked

Psalm 1:4

Opening Remarks

Last week Dean did a fantastic job of preaching through verse three, which gives us the positive description of the righteous; that he is like a tree planted by streams of water, that yields its fruit in its season, its leaf does not wither, in all he does he prospers.

As well as being enlightened by the teaching I really think there was something prophetic for us as a church in what Dean shared. That we have been planted, this is deliberate. Our little fellowship has always been part of God’s providential will for this city, what an encouragement. What God plants, He will tend. For just as Jesus describes the Father as the vinedresser in John 15 and is Himself mistaken for a gardener by Mary Magdalene we can be assured that the God who has planted us will nourish us until we bear fruit that pleases Him. That we will yield fruit in season - There is a season for fruit and a season for deepening roots. This is a season for being planted and putting down roots. Let’s embrace the season we’re in! Just as a deciduous tree can’t prevent autumn from coming we can’t change the season we’re in, we can simply embrace it, enjoy it and trust God in the process.

This week’s verse marks the beginning of the second part of Psalm 1; the part that deals with the wicked. As Spurgeon reckoned this verse itself divides neatly in three; firstly there is a negation, then a comparison and finally a dreadful prophesy.

In dealing with this passage we are going to come face to face with some pretty sobering realities; the helpless condition of the sinner, the wrath of God and His final judgement of those who reject Him.

This is precisely the reason that in this church we practice expository preaching, which is simply the excercise of going verse by verse and allowing the scriptures to speak for themselves. Last week we heard about the promises and blessings that belong to us as children of God, this week we hear about the dreadful estate of the ungodly.

As a pastor my job isn’t to be God’s PR consultant, to try and make these uncomfortable truths more palatable, but my job is simply to preach these truths every bit as much as I would John 3:16 or Romans 8:28. Simply because these truths are fuel for our worship! God’s fearsome wrath against the sinner is glorious. Why? Because the Bible says it is. I might not find it easy to swallow but there are an awful lot of verses devoted to God’s wrath and judgement, therefore if it is true then it is for worship since God is looking for worshippers who will worship him in Spirit and in Truth.

Not so...

When I spoke a few weeks back on verse two I spent the whole session on the word but. Why? because it is there to emphasise the gulf between the righteous and the wicked. Now this chasm is emphasised even more emphatically.

You know, in the Bible the only kind of privilege we find is the privilege bestowed upon the elect to become children of God, not because of anything in them but because of the grace of God. Any kind of idea of privilege that doesn’t utilise these parameters is an unbiblical view of privilege. The elect consist of black, white, Asian every nation, God doesn’t distinguish between skin colour, there will be people of every nation in hell too. The idea that a white Christian owes his or her black brother in Christ repentance because of the colour of the their skin is a racist and antichristian philosophy with no place in the church. Neither should the black believer consider themselves less than because of the colour of their skin, they too are the privileged according to scripture, and the privilege of election is not something we are supposed to apologise for but we give thanks for it. Do Black lives matter? Yes! Absolutely, but the roots of the BLM movement is neo-Marxism masquerading as social justice and it will corrode any church that embraces any notion of white privilege, white fragility, power dynamics, black power, intersectionality and racial reparation. 

Septuagint with Logos Morphology Chapter 1

οὐχ οὕτως οἱ ἀσεβεῖς, οὐχ οὕτως

The Greek septuagint (the Old Testament in Greek used commonly by the writers of the NT) contains a double negative here to drive the point home; ‘not so the wicked (ungodly), not so.’

Alexander Maclaren

Nothing could more vividly suggest the essential nothingness of the “wicked” than the contrast of the leafy beauty of the fruit-laden tree and the chaff, rootless, fruitless, lifeless, light, and therefore the sport of every puff of wind that blows across the elevated and open threshing floor.

God’s people are planted. The have been purposefully placed in a location chosen by God. Their place and positon in life is completely guided by God’s divine providence. This is such an underused comfort for may believers. God’s providence is His guiding of all things that come to pass, it’s His sovereignty in action. It’s God’s providence that you are sat here hearing these words today. We don’t believe in fate, or in a formless future of unlimited possible outcomes, we believe that God orders the universe and not a hair falls to the ground outside of His sovereign decree. When you experience pain, disappointment or confusion what greater comfort is there but to know that God has you here because He has something to establish in this moment, there is a purpose even in your pain. Not so the Wicked! The ungodly are not planted, they arent rooted but they are blown about by the wind.

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers 1.9: Saint Chrysostom: On the Priesthood, Ascetic Treatises, Select Homilies and Letters, Homilies on the Statues Homily VIII

For even as chaff lies exposed to the gusts of wind, and is easily caught up and swept along, so is also the sinner driven about by every temptation.

Even the wicked are incorporated into God’s providence as Romans 9 illustrates, God creates vessels of mercy and vessels of wrath, but they aren’t able to take hold of the promises of God that all things work together for good for them. Since they aren’t planted, they arent tended, they aren’t watered, they don’t receive the blessing of being pruned and taken care of.

They don’t yield their fruit in season like the Godly do. They are like the fig tree that Jesus encountered on His way into Jerusalem, it was in full leaf, giving off the appearance of fruitfulness but when Jesus looked for figs there were none and He cursed it. Is it possible even for those who reject God to do good things? To give to charity, to be kind, to love? Yes of course, they are made in the image of God just as we are, God has given us all a conscience and the ability to make moral choices. That said, it is impossible for a Godless person to produce fruit that is pleasing to God, therefore the curse is coming, it is only a matter of time. ‘Well, I’m certainly not Godless’ we might say, true enough, but didn’t John the Baptist rebuke the Pharisees telling them to bear fruit in keeping with repentence? Certainly it’s possible to be very religous and still be Godless at the core. We may love to do church, to listen to the preach, to read the Bible even but is there a love for God in our hearts? A desire to be with Him? A warmth in us when we read the Bible?

Like Chaff

Chaff

Synopsis

Husks of wheat or other cereal. It was separated from the grain by threshing, whereupon it usually blew away, as it was lighter than the grain. Sometimes however, it was burned as fuel. The wicked are frequently likened to chaff in Scripture.

Grain was threshed on outdoor threshing-floors to separate the chaff

See also Ho 13:3

Hosea 13:3 (ESV) — 3 Therefore they shall be like the morning mist or like the dew that goes early away, like the chaff that swirls from the threshing floor or like smoke from a window.

Characteristics of chaff

It is blown by the wind

It is light

It is useless

The wicked are compared to chaff

They will disappear as chaff is blown away

Their end will be like chaff which is burned

Mt 3:11–12

Matthew 3:11–12 (ESV) — 11 “I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 12 His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

This is not a favourable comparison. The wicked aren’t compared with a wild tree or something else that could potentially have some value or use but chaff, which was good for nothing except destruction.

The New Park Street Pulpit Sermons, Vol. V The Chaff Driven Away (No. 280)

See, then, your value, my hearers, if you fear not God. Cast up your accounts and look at yourselves in the right light. You think, perhaps, that you are good for much, but God saith you are good for nothing. You are “like the chaff which the wind driveth away.”

This kind of stuff is what exposes the error of the sort of preaching that puts mankind at the centre of the universe as though God’s sole aim and purpose was to glorify mankind. No, God’s ultimate purpose is not to glorify man, but Himself. The cross isnt a picture of our worth as Todd White and others have it, it’s a picture both of our sin and of God’s extravagant love towards sinners.

For a while the chaff lives alongside the kernal, it’s difficult to tell them apart. The chaff can’t discern it’s end while it and the kernal live side by side, there’s no winnowing fork, no east wind to speak of.

Driven away

The wicked may grow complacent, they mock those who trust in God’s word for saying that there will be a reckoning day. Just as they mocked Noah as he built the ark. Thomas Payne famously predicted that the Bible would be virtually out of print within 50 years of the publication of his book ‘the age of reason’, that was in 1794.

The Bible says their end will come quickly and all it will take is wind, a picture of God’s breath.

After harvest, the harvesters would throw the grain encased in the chaff into the air and the wind would separate the two. The separation happens in a moment, the valuable is separated from the invaluable, the harvest is separated from the waste.

Jonathan Edwards, the puritan preacher warned of this swift and coming judgement of sinners in his famous message ‘Sinners in the hands of an angry God.’ Based on Deuternomy 32:35 ‘Their foot shall slide in due time’ the message was about the sinner’s inevitable descent to hell, the only thing keeping them from this fate was God’s grace, persevering with them. It was this preach that begun a great revival in Edward’s town! Imagine that, a preach about nothing but sin, wrath and judgement causing a revival.

We may not see the winnowing fork or feel the east wind but it will come and it will come swiftly. Let’s prepare ourselves. Let’s examine our hearts, let’s seek God without restraint, let’s call people to repentance, let’s tell people about Jesus! Because outside of grace, this end would be ours too.

The New Park Street Pulpit Sermons, Vol. V The Chaff Driven Away (No. 280)

My mother said to me once, after she had long prayed for me, and had come to the conviction that I was hopeless, “Ah,” said she, “my son, if at the last great day you are condemned, remember your mother will say Amen to your condemnation.”