Sermon Central
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The Contrast Between The Godly And Ungodly
Contributed by Dr. Odell Belger on Mar 3, 2022 (message contributor)
Summary: In the world of Psychology, the psychologist divides mankind’s personalities into four temperaments. Every one of us falls into one of these four categories.
1. Choleric - easily irritated; inclined to anger; or angry; indicating anger; excited by anger.
2. Phlegmatic - hard to rouse to action; specifically sluggish; dull; apathetic; calm; cool.
3. Melancholic - one affected with a gloomy state of mind; one characterized by excessive gloom, mistrust and depression.
4. Sanguine - cheerful; optimistic; hopeful.
But while the world of psychology divides mankind’s personalities into one of these groups, God’s Word simply divides mankind into two groups.
• Godly
• Ungodly
Again, everyone here falls into one of these two categories. You are either one or the other in the sight of God.
When it comes to the ungodly, we know a great deal about them.
For example, every day:
• We read in the NEWSPAPERS about them doing all kinds of sinful things
• We hear through the TELEVISION news about all the ungodly things they are involved in
We know a great deal about the ungodly through these things.
But if you want to know about the godly, the newspapers and television will not tell you much about them. But the Word of God tells us a great deal about the GODLY and the UNGODLY.
For example, in Psalm 1, God’s Word gives us this comparison between the GODLY and the UNGODLY.
In this sermon let’s look at the life of the GODLY in FOUR ways. First, we need to consider:
I. THE PURPOSE OF THE SAINT
Look at Psa. 1:1 "Blessed is the man"
The word “Blessed” here is the Hebrew word, “Esher (Pronounced as “Eh'-sher”) which means happy.
This happiness comes from spiritual maturity. If a Christian is not spiritually mature, he does not know a thing about this kind of happiness.
We all know Christians that live their life and they are MAD AND SAD!!! They do not know a thing about the happiness that God wants us to have.
Illus: Let me ask you something suppose you were hungry and you wanted to find a restaurant to eat. But you drove up in the front of a nice looking restaurant and people were coming out of the front door puking up their meal. Would you go in there and tell the waitress give me what they had!
No, you probably would not even go inside!!!
The Christians who best represent the Lord to a lost world are Christians who have discovered God’s joy and everybody that knows them want what they have.
The only kind of happiness that some professing Christians know anything about, is when you talk about something of this world. That is, they are:
• Happy if you talk about eating at some restaurant
• Happy if they are talking about sports or entertainment
• Happy if they are talking about houses, cars, boats and campers
This is the only kind of happiness they know anything about.
If you want see the smiles wiped off their faces, start talking about the Word of God, or about the greatness of God. This is not what excites them!
WHY ARE THESE CHRISTIANS THIS WAY? It could be they are this way:
• Because the church they attend does not teach and preach the Word of God, and they are ignorant of this happiness that comes from serving the Lord
• Because they are backsliding
At one time they loved the Lord Jesus with all their hearts, but over the years, the devil has stolen their first love, and now the love of their life are the things of the world.
Because this is a problem, Colossians 3:2 says, “Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.”
The happiness that the Psalmist speaks of is a happiness we have in the Lord.
IT IS A BASIC FACT THAT WE CANNOT DELIGHT IN THAT WHICH IS GOOD, UNTIL WE FIRST DEPART FROM THAT WHICH IS EVIL.
Look at 1 Pet. 2:1-2, we read, “Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings, As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby”
• Notice, in verse 1 he talks about laying aside evil.
• In verse 2, we see that once we have laid aside evil, we can grow through the Word of God.
Again, I want to say, we Christians cannot delight in that which is good until we first depart from that which is evil.
We have too many professing Christians these days that are trying to hold on to the world with one hand, and the Kingdom of God with the other hand. Notice again, before we can CLEAVE TO THAT WHICH IS GOOD, we must first ABHOR THAT WHICH IS EVIL.
Look at Romans 12:9, we read, “Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good.”
