Wicked Counsel Is Destroying Your Future More Than You Know

What if a powerful politician or business owner approached you and said: if you do what I tell you to do, I will use all my influence and connections, money and power to guarantee that whatever you choose to do will work out and succeed like gangbusters. How much would that be worth to you? Imagine what you would be able to accomplish. Imagine the sense of achievement and pride you would feel. What might you attempt if you knew that were the case? If you were absolutely certain that whatever you earnestly tried to do would result in success, how different would your life look in a year, five years, ten years — if you kept earnestly endeavouring to accomplish things in relationships, in business, in your career, and everything you attempted was blessed with success because of your newfound friend’s power, resources, and connections making things work out behind the scenes.

The remarkable fact is that this is what our Christian Scripture in Psalm 1 offers to us.

I am Nathan Conkie and this is God’s World, God’s Way, sponsored by cr101radio.com in association with Grace Community School and Nicene Covenant Church. Visit cr101radio.com where you will find free Christian audiobooks, ebooks, and podcasts for the Christian who cannot accept the easy answers. My mission at God’s World, God’s Way is to help Christian men who feel stuck in life by moulding your thinking around God’s way for your life, so that you get unstuck and on your way to success through God’s unstoppable blessings.

The Promise of Psalm 1

Our scripture is Psalm 1, mainly focusing on verses 1 and 2, and a little bit on verse 3 as well.

Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. Verse 3 takes the biscuit though. He is like a tree planted by streams of water, that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does he prospers — or, as the King James has it: whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.

If you become the type of person Psalm 1 describes, if you do this — which you can do by God’s grace, my brother — the omnipotent God of the universe has promised that he will pull all the strings, make all the powerful connections at just the opportune moment, provide all the resources, provide the motivation and staying power, everything you need to take your God-inspired endeavours in business, investing, trading, healing, teaching, marriage — and make sure that it will not just work, but prosper.

Now this is not just a promise for church people, missionaries, or charity workers. This is for the working man, the businessman. In short, it is for you, no matter what you do for a living.

But what does that word prosper even mean? It is translated as advance — meaning to get ahead. And is that not what we want in life more than anything? To get ahead. To get ahead of the taxman who punishes you for every success, to get ahead of the rising cost of everything, from diesel to steaks to quality butter. This is a promise from God for those who do not just want to get ahead, but need to get ahead — to get married, get a house, put bread on the table, afford the medical treatment your wife or your children need. The Lord knows all your frustrations and longings.

A Binary Psalm

The problem in church circles is that material success, physical, tangible success, is taboo. Many churchmen would be horrified at anyone going to the Bible for answers to money problems or health problems. They would tell you that this is unspiritual, dangerous indeed — another gospel, a prosperity gospel. And if you are a tender-hearted Christian who wants to please their pastor, you will immediately begin to doubt the plain words of Scripture.

But let Scripture interpret Scripture, brother. You see, this is a binary psalm. We have two kinds of men, and this psalm is addressed to men — ish, blessed is the ish, the man — not just to mankind in general. This is your psalm, men.

The two kinds of men are the righteous and the wicked. And there are two outcomes. For the wicked: utter destruction, being literally blown away by the wind like chaff, the waste product of grain production. For the righteous: total flourishing.

How often are we told that the world is not ours, that we are just passing through, that it really belongs to the devil and his people? But this, the king of all psalms, reminds us that the earth belongs to the trees — that is, the righteous — not to the passing dust. The righteous are like a tree. The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away. We, the righteous, are the ones to whom, in Christ, the world belongs.

But there is another contrast here which answers the question of the pious clergyman who is sincerely worried about your soul. Not only are the characters binary, but the counsel — the advice — is binary too. The counsel that prospers: where does it come from? It comes from God and his law. The counsel that leads to defeat: where does it come from? The lips of wicked men.

Clergymen tend not only to fear talk of prosperity, but also mention of God’s law. And we love our pastors, we pray for them, we support them, we respect them — but we must cleave to every jot and tittle of Scripture like a husband cleaves to his wife. In fact, if anyone tries to knock a scripture out of your hand in the name of their personal opinion, or heartfelt concern for your life, or common sense, or Scripture seen through the lens of this or that philosophy — that person is, unbeknownst to themselves, simply passing along the whispers of wickedness. This promise of prosperity is yours, and no one can take it away from you unless you let them.

The Terms and Conditions

Now there is a cost to securing such an abundant, brilliant blessing. Let us look at the Lord’s terms and conditions.

Blessed is the man. The entire psalm, and the whole book of Psalms, starts with a blessing. That is how important blessing is to God. God starts his book with an incentive. He does not just tell us to be good or else. God is, in his very nature, a rewarder. So what are the conditions of blessing?

The first three conditions are negative. Who walks? Not. Nor stands. Nor sits. The Lord gives a string of three negatives. But let us remember that the Ten Commandments give us negative after negative. Thou shalt not, thou shalt not, thou shalt not. But this negative law, which is the law of Christ, is — as the book of James says — the perfect law of liberty. Once you obey those ten negatives, you are positively free in the whole of your life.

And let us remember what is at stake here: prosperity in all things, like a never-wilting tree, as against being like chaff in the wind. The Lord’s prescribed path for the pious is perennial prosperity. His way is that the wicked be utterly ruined. Should God accommodate his promises to our limited expectations? Or should we instead adapt our limited expectations to his superabundant promises?

Again, this promise is for you, brother. Not just for the missionary down the road. But what do these three negatives mean?

Who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful. We are talking about walking, standing, and sitting — in other words, everything we men do as part of our waking hours. It speaks of our lifestyle, and more particularly, our life and work. If we want that blessing, we need to be prepared to make radical changes in our workaday world. Not just in our religious affections. Not just when we are at prayer in our closet. These terms speak of everyday life.

The Danger of Wicked Counsel

But let us not miss the first negative. Walks not in the counsel of the ungodly. The ungodly are in the business of giving counsel, and they are in deadly earnest about it. But you might say: I do not ask the ungodly for counsel. The ungodly are so serious about counsel, however, that they do not just wait passively for you to come and ask them for advice. They are like the foolish woman of Proverbs 9, who has a lack of understanding and knows nothing, but sits at the doorway of her house on a seat by the high places of the city and calls to those who pass by, who are going straight in their paths. She says: “Whoever is naive, let him turn in here.” And she says: “Stolen water is sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.”

The world produces this foolish counsel on an industrial scale, with scientific attention to detail. It is encoded in their songs, it is threaded through their movies and the news media. But I would argue that these means are only supplementary. The basic counsel which shapes us most profoundly, and most early, shapes us all in the thinking of the wicked — in our schools, where very, very nice people indeed happily pass on wicked counsel: counsel from the United Nations, counsel from left-wing teachers’ unions, counsel from all kinds of godless NGOs.

Maybe it hurts to talk about your schools, maybe it is too close to home. But if you want the benefits of total prosperity from God himself, you have got to meet the terms and conditions — which means, first of all, not walking in the counsel of the ungodly. And in order to do that, you are going to have to break the patterns of your life. You are going to have to humble yourself and assess the decisions you have made, as well as those made for you early in life. You are going to have to break powerful social taboos if you want God’s sweet prize of favour.

The Hidden Warning in Verse 1

But there is a grave hidden meaning in verse 1 that contains a warning for Christians who are too timid to make the big changes and go against the grain of their family, maybe their church, their friends.

The law of first mention in the Bible states that the first use of a given word in the Bible sets the tone for all subsequent uses. Now, the word ungodly in verse 1 was first mentioned in Genesis 13. And the first use of the word sinners was in Genesis 18. Ungodly — rasha in the Hebrew — was used first to describe the Sodomites when Lot, Abraham’s nephew, because God had prospered them both with fertile flocks, had to find feeding grounds away from his uncle Abraham. Sinners — chatah in the Hebrew — is first used in Genesis 18, again of the Sodomites.

So when the angels came to save Lot and destroy Sodom, the use of ungodly and sinners intertwines Lot and Sodom. And this is sealed by the verse: “nor sits in the seat of the scornful.” What do we find in Genesis 19:1? It was Lot sitting at the gate of Sodom. This does not just mean he was there in his chair — it means he was a civil ruler in Sodom. And what characterised Sodom but a scoffing at God’s law? They paraded their sin. They were sexually deviant to the last man, and they were proud like Satan, filled with idleness, scoffing at God’s dominion. Even the best of their men — their daughters’ husbands — when Lot spoke to them of imminent judgement, Genesis 19 says: “He seemed as one that mocked to them.”

Now, if we find ourselves scoffing at either God’s punishment in time for sin, or his reward in time for righteousness, we are playing for team Sodomite. But the gravest warning for me is that of Lot — who was called Righteous Lot, who was always personally pious — but who was persuaded that he could prosper when he stood in the path of sinners and walked in the counsel of the wicked. All his gain, all his wealth, was literally blown away like chaff when Sodom was destroyed. And his legacy was not just accursed, but was itself a curse, when his daughters committed iniquity with him. Two great enemies of God’s people were born of that union — Moab and Ammon.

The Path to Genuine Prosperity

So what is the work that God requires? Go to church more? Give more money to missionaries? It is more difficult than that. It is the work of delighting in something which almost everyone discounts, derides, dismisses, and even despises — sadly both in and out of the church. But if you want exceptional blessings, you have to be the exception in the way you view this thing that God loves. What is that thing? It is the law of God, plain and simple.

Step one is to reject the counsel of the wicked. Step two: we must reprogram our minds — which have been stuffed full in school, listening to the news media, watching movies, TV, YouTube, with the counsel of the wicked — with another programme, which is the law of God. Not just the Bible in general, but the law of God in particular. Now the word used in Psalm 1 is Torah — meaning the well-worn path of obedience to the Ten Commandments and all their subordinate commandments. We have to do the work of turning from detesting that law, and deriding it, to delighting in it. That is where God sets the bar.

God himself, the Holy Spirit himself, says: those who delight in the law of the Lord and on that law meditate day and night. It is not good enough to say: I believe that the law is good in principle. It is not just good enough to read books about the law of God. Delight in God’s law is the standard held up in Psalm 1 that helps unlock blessings that are almost absurd in their abundance.

But many say: I love God, I love to worship God, I love to listen to worship music all the time, I love to go to church. This is all well and good. But what does the Lord say? He says: if you love me, keep my commandments. It is impossible to truly love God if we do not delight in his commandments, delight to do them. This is the true way, the approved way, and the blessed way of the redeemed man. Anything else is a halfway house at best, or at worst a counterfeit.

You will know for certain that your life is going to be transformed when the fire in your heart is kindled that cries out in earnest: Oh how I love thy law, it is my meditation all the day. And I will run the course of your commandments, for you shall enlarge my heart.

Practical Next Steps

Where do you start to love and keep God’s commandments? Start with the Ten Commandments. Meditate on them, think about them as you go about your day — particularly your working day. Ask the Lord to show you if you are coming up short on some commandments, and then keep on reading the portions of the Bible, along with your other meditations on God’s Word.

But what does it mean to meditate as the righteous man of Psalm 1 does on God’s law? Meditate means to moan, growl, muse. So the path to inheriting God’s blessings, as outlined by God in this king of the Psalms, is personal. You moan and growl to yourself and to your spirit. You learn God’s law and learn to live it out by having an ongoing conversation with yourself, where you take God’s Word and speak it to yourself. This is the work of the truly pious man, the man who would be blessed by God. You do not need to change careers to be a missionary to prosper. You need to speak the law-word of God to yourself. When? Someone tells us: day and night. Your mind was created to think God’s thoughts after him. It is only as you are constantly meditating on God’s Word that your mind will come to be at peace, your life truly established, and your undertakings prosper.

So the stakes are high, my Christian brother — total prosperity, or complete failure. And it all hinges on whether your mind is saturated and your life directed by the counsel of the wicked, or whether you will fight through all the taboos to love, and then meditate on, and then apply to your life, every word of God. Choose life, my Christian brother, not death.

As always, if you have any questions or comments, contact me at questions@godsworldgodsway.com.