If you would turn with me back to our last scripture reading, Psalm 36. Psalm 36. As we turn there, you'll notice that in the superscription, we're given no historical data other than that this is a Psalm of David. But as you look at the end of the Psalm, you recognize that David is in that all familiar condition now, a man who is persecuted. We don't know, of course, the specific historical moment, but we know the life of David. We know that often the Lord God in his providence called David to the heavy providences of being like an animal, hunted over and through the wilderness. At other times at court, but plotted against. And you can work through the history of David's life and you find that often it is just one moment of persecution quickly followed by another. In any of those contexts, our psalm might have been written. What I want you to notice friend is that as our persecuted psalmist finds himself under such a difficult providence, he is a man who is very clearly thinking about dichotomy, about binaries. He has two classes of people in front of him. two classes of people that really constitute his meditation in the psalm. As you notice in the psalm, we begin the first four verses with a description of a man, the wicked man. And then as you come in the subsequent verses, verses five to nine, you see then that the psalmist turns to praise. He turns to the Lord God and he extols him for his faithfulness and for his righteousness. And then at the end of the song, the last three verses, verses 10 to 12, he falls to prayer. where again, we find that the man is persecuted. I suppose at first brush, you and I might think that this is a composition that's rather disjointed. He first describes the wicked man falls to praise and then to prayer. But friend, again, as you look at this psalm in its totality, you'll notice that that which unifies the psalmist's meditation is that his focus is on two classes of people. The first is given to us again in the first four verses. He's referring first of all to the wicked. And I want you to notice that he was referring to the wicked man in the singular, the pronouns, his, he, himself. He, as it were, has one wicked man in view. That's one class of men. But then you see in verses five and following that, As he falls to praise, you really do see another man emerge. Of course, that other man is the psalmist himself. Yes, of course, what we have here is a genuine and an inspired pattern for our praise of Jehovah. What you also see is the heart of the psalmist. A man diametrically opposite the man first described for us in the first four verses. What you begin to see is especially you look at verse 10 is that that's precisely all the psalmist is thinking about the world around him. There are two classes of men. There is that class that is signified in that one described in the first four verses. And then the psalmist himself in verse 10 describes himself as belonging to another class, namely to those that know the Lord. And for them, he prays that God would show his loving kindness to them continually. Again, in verse 10, when referring to the wicked, he talks now about them in the plural. So what do you see in the psalm? What you see here is that the psalmist begins, this persecuted man, he begins to think about the great binaries of scripture. Two classes of men. The seed of Seth, that of course, would be called the sons of God against the seed of Cain, the daughters of which would be called the daughters of men. A distinction that God makes between the house of Israel and the rest of the nations. A distinction that is clarified in the Exodus. A distinction between Israel and the Canaanites. And then in the prophets, that distinction between those who are sons of Belial and those who truly fear God. A distinction that continues in the New Testament to those who are in the kingdom of darkness and those who have been translated into the kingdom of light. Those are the classes of men that the psalmist has in view. The people of God over and against the wicked. But friend, what you notice here is that as the psalmist presents to us these as meditations, yes, he is making petition as we see at the end of this psalm, but principally, principally, he is anatomizing these classes. He's setting before us a picture that really, friend, bears back as it were, the facades, and it shows us what is the fundamentals of both kinds of men. He gives us an anatomy of the wicked in the first four verses. And then, friend, even in his praises, he shows us something of an anatomy of his own heart. And while he anatomizes both classes of men, he also, he calls to attention the fact that they are distinct. as well in their ends. They have distinct anatomies, distinct hearts in life, but they also have a distinct conclusion. And so in this very brief psalm, just 12 verses, the psalmist drives us as the spirits penman to reflect on the great binaries of scripture. The great and the only two classes of men that the scriptures hold forth in the world. The people of God and the wicked. And the theme friend that you and I will meditate on this evening with God's blessing as our prayer is that the people and enemies of God are distinct in their hearts and lives. The people and enemies of God are distinct in their hearts and lives. The psalmist presents this to us in various ways. And the first way friend that we encounter is in their sustenance, what they live upon. As again, going back to verse one, we have the description of, as it were, the representative wicked man. The psalmist says, the transgression of the wicked saith in his heart, there is no fear of God before his eyes. In the Hebrew, this is a very difficult text, notoriously so for translators. But the sense of the AVs is really, really, friend, what I think we ought to see. In summary, it is that as the psalmist looks at the sinfulness of the wicked, he says, their sin tells him, the psalmist, that they do not fear God. That's the idea. Whatever they might profess, whatever they might say with their lips, the psalmist, as he reads their lives, he says, they have no fear of God before them. The psalmist, as it were, sees past their words and sees lives of those who do not fear God. And then as you come to verse four, you notice, friend, that he talks about them as a people who are applauding people. They deviseth mischief upon his bed. The sense there is that they make a career of sin. In a sense, it's their livelihood. This is the pattern. This is, as it were, the character of their very existence. He said it himself in a way that is not good. The word there carries with it the idea that they take a stand upon evil. They make it their platform and their paradigm. This is the wicked man according to the scriptures. But take that in contrast with what you have in verse five. Thy mercy, O Lord, is in the heavens. That's a statement that is objectively true. But friend, remember that you and I also are seeing here the pattern and really the experience of the psalmist himself. It is God's mercy in which he delights. In his fifth verse, though he's persecuted, his mind and his heart cannot remove itself from the loving kindness of God, such as his love for the grace of God. Then he extols God's faithfulness, his righteousness, his judgments. And again, he goes back to the grace of God. How excellent is thy loving kindness, O God. Well, these are two very different men. In verse seven, the psalmist describes the godly as those who put their trust in the shadow of God's wings. What does that mean? It means that they live upon God's loving kindness. This is the sustenance of their life. And he clarifies this even more when he says, with thee is the fountain of life, and in thy light shall we see light. Friend, the contrast really couldn't be starker, could it? Here you have the wicked man of the first four verses pitted against the man who extols the grace, the righteousness, the justice of God, even in the midst of persecution. One who plots and really characterizes his life in mischief. The other one who lives upon the loving kindness of God. And what he shows us in these first several verses is then that man, he either lives upon sin or he lives upon God. Once again, we're taken back to the great binary. These two classes of men. And he shows us in this song. One lives upon sin while others live upon God. What is it to live upon sin? Well, again, the psalmist, he describes it to us in so many ways, doesn't he? He shows us that it's their motivation. It's that which drives their life. It's the principle of their actions. So much so that he says they make a career of it. They go to bed with it fastened in their hearts and in their minds, and they're always plotting. When next, they will fall. And friend, what emerges in those first four verses very clearly is that all of this is very determined. All of this is very determined. He shows us just briefly what it then means to live upon sin. It means to be motivated by sinful ends and sinful desires. It means to make a career of iniquity. It means to be determined, premeditated in your continued opposition to God. These are those who live upon sin. But what are those who live upon God? What do you notice first of all? When you notice that first the psalmist, his thoughts turn to the love of God. That is God's love to him, but not exclusively, just the mercy of God. It is the psalmist's love for God's righteousness, his justice, and his grace that hold as it were his heart captive. That's what it is to live upon God. To live upon him, friend, is really to rest upon his grace. to love and count precious His mercy, to delight in His righteousness. The psalmist shows us again the contrast in two great ways. And you see here, I think it's right for us to remark that the psalmist, he can delight both in the grace and in the righteousness of God. On the one hand, the legalist can't do that, can they? Because to him, grace is something contemptible. And the antinomian, on the other hand, can't rejoice in the righteousness of God. He can only delight in grace because he would live lawlessly. But in our text, the psalmist, he loves and extols both the grace and the righteousness of God. Here we have a man who is an evangelical God-fearer. That is one who, who loves both the righteousness and the grace of God as a man-regenerator. It was Ralph Erskine who put it thus, he said, when a man gets any sensible grace, sensible good affections, melting of heart, any inclination to what is good, any gifts or graces, they, that is the legalist, they admire these things and are not so much taken up with Christ himself, but the person that is evangelical by what he gets, he's led to the giver. In other words, he loves both the grace and the righteousness of God. He extols both and he lives upon both. And so friend, as we leave this first point this evening, the question of course is one of examination and the whole Psalm really is set before us as a series of infallible marks to determine which class of men to whom we belong And so the first point of examination from these verses is, friend, are you plotting sin? Is sin something that you plot? You determine, you premeditate, you organize your life so that you can engage in it. The righteous fall seven times a day, but it is striking, isn't it, that that's the language that's used, he falls. The man in our text, he plots, he devises. There's a very real difference, friend. And one needs to be very careful, but this is, friend, a point that ought to be raised, especially in our generation. And is it, is sin something that you are settled in and determined in? That you plot for, that you devise? Is it something that secretly on your bed at night, in your waking thoughts throughout the day, it is something your heart is clearly set upon? Friend, I want you to notice you're not described in the latter part of the psalm. that belongs to the first class of men, the man of the first four verses. But secondly, friend, we have to ask the question, are you lightly esteeming grace? The legalist will. The legalist will rejoice perhaps in the righteousness, but not so much the grace of God. Just like the antinomian, he will rejoice in the grace of God, but not the righteousness. Well, the psalmist says you live upon both if you're the godly. You love both and you extol both if you're of that second class of men. So therein is the question. And how do we see ourselves in this text? Well, all of us in this room this evening belong to one of these two classes. And the scriptures give us infallible marks in this text to answer that question. The second point I want us to notice, first of all, is the satisfaction of both classes of men. And for that, turn back to verse two, if you will, where we have the wicked described for us where he says that he flattereth himself until his iniquity be found to be hateful. Again, this is a notoriously difficult text in the original to translate, but one way to take it, and this also comes out in our translation, is that he flatters himself with the fruition of his work, that work that should shame him, that should be hateful to him, that work he flatters himself in. In verse four, we're told he abhors not evil. That is, he is satisfied as his sin prospers. He flatters himself as his sin prospers. What of the godly? Verse eight. They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house. The river of thy pleasures, the psalmist describes, is their inheritance. They shall be satisfied with God himself. Friend, here you have a man who says that it is with God and not with the pleasures of sin or the world that he expects true joy. true pleasure. One satisfies himself as his sinful designs are executed. The other one says, I find only satisfaction with God and only with the blessings that flow from him. And so friend, you see here again, the contrast could not be starker. Not only do they live upon different things, but they're satisfied ultimately in different things. The godly, we're told in this text, are satisfied in God. It's striking the language that the psalmist uses. They shall be abundantly satisfied. The word in the original is striking. It means to be satiated. It means to be filled to excess. This is how the psalmist describes the lot of the godly. And friend, obviously in this text, that comes to us as a promise, as this is the word of God. But I also want you to notice that this is an expression of the psalmist's expectation as well. It's to be the model of our expectation. Where, according to this one, where will you find true pleasure, true joy and satisfaction? It is with God himself. His loving kindness as the psalmist as we sang, is better than life. That's the persuasion of the godly. You know friend, as far as the onlooking world is concerned, I mean, you know this as well as I do, they look at the Christian as a kind of austere creature, an emaciated creature who flogs himself for any kind of pleasure, but that's not the Christian of our text, is it? It's not that he is averse to pleasure, but that he knows where true pleasure is to be found, where true delight and true satisfaction is to be found, and it is in God. His appetite has changed. That's the characteristic of the psalmist. Friend, he's taught then that the Lord's love is better than life. He's taught that the blessing of God, it adds with it no sorrow. And he's taught that the Lord Jesus Christ is fairer than the sons of men. The world says, do you want pleasure? Do you want joy? And our psalmist says, I find it only, expect it only from God. Thirdly, as we close, the psalmist at the end of this composition, he draws our attention, not to the present, but to the end. And verse 12, he again takes us back to the wicked where he tells us that there, There are the workers of iniquity fallen. Where, where are they fallen? Well, the place of sin. The place where they've enacted their persecution, where they've plotted and executed their sinful designs. There, at the very stage of their iniquity, there they are fallen. That's the place of their sin. That's the place of their fall. Then he says this, he says, they shall not be able to rise. Again, the language is full of meaning. The idea is that this is something that is perpetual. They shall never rise again. Theirs is a perpetual misery of everlasting destruction. What are the godly? Verse 10. The psalmist prays, continue thy loving kindness unto them. The word continue there is to draw, to drag even as it's used elsewhere, to pull it along, to attach it to the godly and cause it to follow them continually. And again, he says, and they shall be abundantly satisfied. You see, friend, how the psalmist draws our attention to the ends of both classes of men. One, he says, shall be perpetually miserable, and the other perpetually satisfied. One, the object of everlasting wrath, the other, the inheritor of eternal bliss. And friend, you can't miss this either in the psalmist's immediate experience. Separation had not yet taken place because the psalmist is persecuted by the ungodly. But what he shows us here is that one day there shall be a full and a final separation made. And in the midst of persecution, In the exigencies of fleeing for his life or dealing with the plottings at court, the psalmist, he draws his meditations to a close on this. There are not only two classes of people in terms of their lives and their hearts, but there are two classes of people in terms of their everlasting destinations. Friend, what you notice here is that the psalmist His faith is fixed. He says, there are the workers of iniquity fallen. It's a certainty that he holds by faith. Why do I say that? I say that because of course, in the present, the psalmist doesn't experience this and he doesn't see that, he's persecuted. He has yet to see the collapse of the ungodly regime, those who were his persecutors. But note how certain he is. There they are fallen, he says. So certain is he that he may describe a future event when the present ends. And friends, so it is. There is a certain separation coming where the ends of these two classes of men will be clearly on display for all to see. And so as we close, friend, God's people and his enemies are distinct. in terms of the sustenance of their lives, in terms of the source of their satisfaction, in terms of their final separation and judgment. There are two classes of men in the world. Friend, this is a text that, again, gives us infallible marks by which to examine ourselves. And the calling, of course, is to make use of the psalm to that end. These anatomies there are not only, friend, for our information, they are for our use. We are to take and make use of these descriptions as we find them. Friend, also for you who are in Christ, these marks, friend, you're to use them also to mortify the remnants of indwelling sin. Even you who have been converted, you'll notice friend, that in those first four verses, there are parts of your lives that are exposed and require still mortification. Friend, what we're told from those first four verses is that's not to characterize your life. And more and more you are to be dying to that way of life. So make use of the Psalm to that end as well. Also friend, positively, this psalm presents to us a pattern. This is to show us what we are to delight in, what we are to live upon, even in the midst of the greatest of exigencies, of the most severe persecutions. The psalmist sets before us the pattern, doesn't he? He sets before us the idea that you and I were to delight, we're to live upon the grace of God, the loving kindness of God, his righteousness and his justice, that these things are to sustain us even in the darkest of providences. And so this is also to be taken as our pattern positively. Finally, friend, for you who are in Christ, see again what is yours in this text. Psalmist is certain that he will be satiated, filled to access with the pleasures of God. Those blessings that God adds, but adds with it no sorrow. God himself shall be his everlasting delight. Remember back to our scripture reading from the Song of Solomon in chapter two. The bride, the church militant at the time. There was a time where she says, I am sick of love. Filled to access as it were. with a loving kindness of her God. A friend as you read through the Song of Solomon, that's only for a moment. That embrace is transitory, it's momentary. What is described for us in our psalm is everlasting. To ever be in the embrace of Christ. To eternally feed on the pleasures of God. Friend, that is the psalmist's meditation, even in the most heavy of providences. And should it not be ours as well, may the Lord make us such a heavenly minded people ourselves. Amen.