Psa 1:1
I. The blessed man is described in this verse by negatives. We are told what he does not do. It so happens that we cannot understand some of the very highest things in life except they are put to us in precisely this way. There are more ways of saying "Thou shalt not" than there are of saying "Thou shalt."
II. But a man who is thus instructed in negatives occupies a very peculiarly perilous position. Man has energies; he must be doing something, must be affirmative, practical, energetic. Therefore we await some further instruction as to the way in which to direct our life. We have it in ver. 2: "His delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law doth he meditate day and night." God does not destroy our powers; He does not quench our aspirations and turn us into nonentities. He lays His hand upon the strength we are misusing and says, "You must use this strength in another direction and for another purpose." What is the happy man doing? He delights in the law of the Lord.
III. What will be the consequence of this delight? "He shall be like a tree," etc. Beauty is always associated with righteousness in the highest quarters. Then there comes the great promise, "Whatsoever he doeth shall prosper." The great principle of the text is right as honour, truth as crown, goodness occupying the throne.
IV. "The ungodly are not so," etc. The sinner has a brief day. There is no life in the ungodly that abides; there is surface, there is no vitality; there is an outward attitude and display of comfort and enjoyment, but there is at the heart that which will give way under pressure.
Parker, City Temple, vol. iii., p. 289.
References: Psa 1:1 . E. C. Wickham, Wellington College Sermons, p. 203; A. Mursell, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxvi., p. 269; C. C. Bartholomew, Sermons chiefly Practical, p. 245.
Psa 1:3
The spiritual plant of God is placed by the running waters; it is nourished and recruited by the never-failing, the perpetual, the daily and hourly, supply of their wholesome influences. It grows up gradually, silently, without observation; and in proportion as it rises aloft, so do its roots, with still less observation, strike deep into the earth. Year after year it grows more and more into the hope and the posture of a glorious immobility and unchangeableness. What it has been, that it shall be; if it changes, it is as growing into fruitfulness, and maturing in its fruit's abundance and perfection. Nor is that fruit lost; it neither withers upon the branches nor decays upon the ground. Angels unseen gather crop after crop from the unwearied, never-failing parent, and carefully store them up in heavenly treasure-houses. The servant of God resembles a tree (1) in his graciousness; (2) in his fruitfulness; (3) in his immobility.
J. H. Newman, Sermons on Various Occasions, p. 243.
References: Psa 1:3 . H. P. Liddon, Old Testament Outlines, p. 100; Homiletic Magazine, vol. vii., p. 73; G. Matheson, Moments on the Mount, pp. 79, 122; G. Orme, Christian World Pulpit, vol. x., p. 334; E. Johnson, Ibid., vol. xx., p. 347. Psa 1:3 , Psa 1:4 . H. Macmillan, Two Worlds are Ours, p. 203; A. Blomfield, Sermons in Town and Country, p. 313. Psa 1:4 . Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. v., No. 280.
Psa 1:4-5
I. Let us, first, find out who are the characters intended in our text. An ungodly man is simply a man who tries to get through the world without God. All he has to do to earn the title is to leave God out of his love. (1) A man may be most moral and yet most ungodly. For one that is dragged down to perdition by the millstone of vice, there are hundreds who are taken in the meshes of the net of a Christless virtue. (2) A man may be most religiously active and yet be ungodly.
II. Notice the description given of them. They are the very opposite of all that a godly man is. You have simply to take the picture of the saved man and then after every particular write, "The ungodly are not so." (1) Look at the first word of the Psalm. The Christian is "blessed," but the ungodly are not so. (2) The godly are like trees planted. A Christian is an evergreen; his joys in Christ last, though all his other pleasures be taken from him. But the ungodly are not so.
III. Notice the end of the ungodly. "They are like the chaff," etc. (1) There will be separation from the righteous. (2) Notice how sweeping and irresistible is the ruin. What can a feather-weight of chaff do against the wind? That great wind will catch all excuses from your lips, and before you have time to give God one of your paltry lies you, with them, will be swept with the speed of a hurricane into perdition. There will be only one thing that will stand that mighty tempest, and that will be the soul that rests upon the Rock, Christ Jesus.
A. G. Brown, Penny Pulpit, No. 767.