Well, if you would this morning, let's go back to Psalm 1, and I do plan on finishing this morning. I've just learned not to lie in the pulpit. Psalm 1, just by way of review, we've seen that the Psalms, it's not one book with 150 chapters, it's 150 individual songs. Jewish hymns. The Psalms are essentially the hymn book, for lack of a better term, of the Jewish people. And so it's actually divided into five books or five scrolls. Book one is Psalm 1 through 41. And the overall theme of the first book, Psalm 1 through 41, is human suffering and our need for divine deliverance and divine intervention. There's a lot of suffering in the world. And of course we know that we live in a sinful, fallen world. God made a perfect creation. He said it was very good. And of course we know that when Adam and Eve, or most specifically Adam, ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, it brought sin and suffering into the world. And we see the result of it today. And not only do we need divine deliverance from suffering, we need divine deliverance in order to save us from our sins. from the penalty and power of our sin. We're going to see this theme over and over and over again. And we've seen in Psalm 1 what sets the first psalm apart from the rest of the psalms is that in the ancient manuscripts it's actually not called Psalm 1. It's called an introduction to the psalms. And it gives us a lens by which to see the rest of the psalms. And I'm talking about the Word of God. If you come to this, just like any other part of the Bible, but I would say especially in the book of Psalms, if you come to it as the inspired Word of God, well, it's going to take on a whole new meaning. But if you come to it as anything else beside the Word of God, it's going to be nothing but a book of ancient Jewish poetry. I don't know how much comfort that's going to bring to the suffering and to the hurting. But when it's God's love there and it's His promise to us, it takes on a different meaning. Psalm 1 has really put a fork in the road. It's given us two distinct ways of travel. It's given us two ways to look at life and two ways to live. I'm talking about the difference between the lost and the saved. Between the believer and the non-believer. Between those who are in Christ and those who are outside of Christ. Those are two different ways to live and two different ways to look at life. And we're going to see that manifested in some allegories that David, as the inspired writer, puts onto paper here. And so we're going to be looking, if you were to give it a title this morning, we're going to be looking at the two ways put on display. And with that in mind, let's just read our text this morning. Just six verses in this first psalm, but it says, Blessed is the man. And we saw that blessed means, oh, how happy. And that's not just a vague, generic term. It is specifically tied to being happy and joyous because we're in a right relationship with God through Christ Jesus. We saw specifically in the Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew 5, Jesus used this same word nine different times to describe the state of the people that are saved. So blessed, O how happy is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful, but his delight is in the law of the Lord. And in his law doth he meditate day and night, and he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season. His leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. The ungodly are not so, but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away. Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we just come to you in Jesus' name. We're so thankful for this church, family. We're thankful for the visitors that are here. God, most of all, we thank you for salvation that's only found in Jesus Christ through faith in Him and His finished work. Lord, I pray if there's one here this morning that's lost, that doesn't know Jesus Christ and the part of their sins. For those that may be watching or listening on the internet, God, if that be the case, I pray that you would draw them to repentance and faith in Christ today. Lord, that they could be delivered from the power of sin and death. God, I pray for those that are struggling. Lord, even saved people struggle. Lord, even saved people worry and battle temptation and go through trials. And I pray that your word would be a comfort to us today. Lord, remove me from the way into me as sin itself and I pray that you just fill me with your Holy Spirit that only Christ would be magnified and that preaching would be powerful and clear. And it's in Christ's name I pray these things. Amen. So we're looking at the two ways put on display. We've already seen in the last couple of weeks in these first two verses He gives us some negative commands. And that is, don't heed ungodly counsel that goes against the Word of God. We saw in the second verse that a blessed man finds his delight in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth he meditate day and night. We made the distinction and said that to the Old Testament Jew, the law of the Lord was the writings of Moses, the first five books of the Old Testament. But to us, New Testament Christians, we can realize the more, I guess you could say the fuller counsel of God. There's a lot of things that are clarified in the New Testament that were somewhat vague and hidden in the Old Testament. Or as I like to say, the Old Testament is the New Testament concealed and the New Testament is the Old Testament revealed. And so basically what it boils down to is you can find Jesus Christ in every chapter of this book. It's all about Jesus. I think we saw that, didn't we? We saw it in the Old Testament. We saw it in the prophets. We're going to see it in the Psalms. We've seen it in the New Testament. This book isn't about us. It's not about you. It's not about our best life now. It's not about every day being a Friday. This book is about Jesus Christ and the redemption of His people. That's what this book is about. That's what it's about. But where it picks up in our text today, we're specifically going to be dealing with verses 3-6. David, as the writer of this inspired psalm, he gives some word pictures. He gives some allegories to be able to better understand not only the difference in how lost and saved people live, but also how lost and saved people die. There's a difference there. There's a lifetime worth of difference, but there's also an eternity's worth of difference. And so I want to pull out a few contrasts in these two ways from this text this morning. What are some of the characteristics of these two ways as sent as this text? Number one, I want you to know that the blessed life is a fruitful life. The blessed life is a fruitful life. Let's begin in verse one for context and then I'm really going to focus in on verse three. Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth he meditate day and night. And because of that, because we love the law of God, because we love the word of God and meditate on it day and night, verse 3 it says, And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season. His leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. The blessed individual who lives by the Word of God. And they do that because they love the God of the Word. They are like a tree that has been planted by the rivers of water. Now I want to really focus on that word for a second, on planted. That's not something that happens by accident. It was planted, it was placed in a specific location right there by the rivers of water, the streams of water where there was plenty of nutrients. This shows intentionality. And we know, I talk about this all the time, we know that God is sovereign over the salvation of sinners. We know that. And yet, God calls all men everywhere to repent, and to believe the Gospel, to believe His Word, to reject ungodly counsel for the godly counsel of the Word of God and the message of the Gospel. And as Christians, we are commanded to get into the Word of God. It's not a suggestion. We're commanded to seek the Word of God as a babe desires milk. As a newborn babe desires milk, we're supposed to desire the milk of the Word of God and the meat of the Word of God. Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God. That is Jesus in the New Testament quoting from Deuteronomy in the Old Testament. Again, we see how this fits together. It's that important. We're commanded to do that. And none of these things happen by accident. You're not going to accidentally grow in the grace and the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. You're not going to accidentally, I mean, you're not just going to use the Word of God like a pillow and go to bed at night and just soak it up through osmosis. You can't do that. You've got to study to show yourself to prove unto God a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of Truth, which tells us there's also a wrong way to divide it. rightly dividing the Word of Truth in its context with authorial intent. In other words, we don't take our ideas to Scripture and try to cram it in there. We come to Scripture as an empty slate and an open book and we let the Bible speak for itself. That's how you rightly divide the Word of Truth. What is being said here? What's the point? And if what this says goes against my beliefs and my presuppositions, we ought to change our beliefs and our presuppositions. And so, the Word of God is that important, and none of these things happened by accident. This tree was planted by the rivers of water. Now, I know there's, in different cultures and different parts of the world, they may read about these trees planted by the rivers of water, and they're going to have a different mind picture than I do, but I'm going to tell you about what I know, because when I tell you about what I know, it's going to make more sense than me trying to talk about something that I don't know about. And, you know, where I come from, over in Alabama, to me, it's some of the prettiest trees in the world. Prettiest woods, prettiest forests. It is beautiful to me. I love it. It's like a blanket. I felt so weird when I came over here and you could just see for miles and miles and miles. You just can't do that over there. And but I think about a couple of things when I think about this mine picture. I used to hunt there in the Talladega National Forest and it's been under the federal control for I think since the 1940s and they never did allow the harvesting of these big hardwood trees. I mean you could go down there and there would be water oaks and white oaks and I mean, trees that you couldn't even wrap around. Two or three people couldn't even wrap around them. I'm talking about hundreds of years old, beautiful. And I used to turkey hunt in a spot where I knew there was a creek that ran through there and a bottom, and all those big trees would feed off that water, and that's where we would go turkey hunting. It was beautiful, these big, mighty oak trees. And also, even like at Little Sandy, where I pastored at, That church was founded in 1836. They've had a cemetery out there since the 1830s. Big black wrought iron fence all the way around with a gate and there was trees there hundreds of years old. And there was a tornado that came through in 2014 and knocked down most of those trees. And the tree that was right next to it actually fell on the sanctuary. I counted 280 rings and it wasn't even the biggest tree out there. It was almost 300 years old. I thought, man, what if those trees could talk, some of the things they could share, some of the things that they had seen. And I'm amazed by that stuff. But the thing about it is those trees didn't get that way overnight. There was growth for years and years and years. They spent years steadily drinking from the stream. By the way, even those trees there at Little Sandy, the reason the church was called Little Sandy is because it was right next to Little Sandy Creek. So they were feeding from that water source. years growing. They continued to drink through the storms and the heat and the cold, and they continued to grow until one day they were able to bear fruit to feed and sustain others. In the case of an oak tree, they bear acorns. And an oak tree is not going to bear acorns until usually about 20 years of growth. And in fact, max growth for an oak tree is between about 50 and 80 years. That's a long time of growing and feeding and drinking and being nourished and just being steady. I think about that old saying, steady as the oak. It took time. We live in a microwave society. Y'all know that. I mean, we want everything just like that. Instant. Instant. That can be true in our own spiritual growth. It can be true in our prayers for others and maybe their salvation and the changing of their heart. It can be true in several aspects of our lives, but it usually doesn't happen that way. And I can say this, one of my life's greatest regrets is that as a younger man, I know I'm not old, I'm 38, but I was at one time a younger man. But as a younger man, I was much more short-sighted than I am now. I wanted things to happen fast. I wanted immediate gratification. I'm not even talking about necessarily sinful things. You know, you can desire good things. before it's God's time to give you those things in which case it's a bad thing. The right thing at the wrong time is the wrong thing. And I didn't get that. I didn't understand that. But now as I am getting older and I have learned a few things and my wife would confirm to you it's only been a few things. But I have learned a few things is that if I could go back in time and talk to my 17-year-old self, I know exactly what I'd say, play for the second half. And what I mean by that, my football coach used to always tell us if we were going to play a tough team and he knew it was going to be a 60-minute game, he'd always tell us play for the second half. Fight hard in the first half, keep it close, but you're playing to give yourself a chance in the second half. And so, what we need to do is play for the second half. You know, in the first half of our life, I mean, physically, we're on our prime, right? I mean, the athletes, the professional athletes, I mean, you know, to an NFL football player, to like some type of boxer or fighter, you know, 35's getting pretty old and 40's ancient. It's a very small window. But in the second half, that should be when you have more wisdom, and more knowledge, and more life experience, and in the natural course of things, probably more resources by which to serve God, by which to share the Gospel, by which to reach others and to help others. And so play for the second half. Learn as much as you can. Get in the Word of God. Memorize Scripture. Grow in the grace and the knowledge of Jesus Christ. Play for the second half. play for the second half. That's what the oak tree does. The question that we really all need to be asking is, are we consistently drinking from the stream of God's Word? We find this allegory about the Word of God several times in Scripture. Ephesians 5 and verse 26, it tells us that Christ sanctifies His bride, the saved, by the washing of the water by the Word. John 17, 17, when Christ is praying to God the Father, He said of believers, sanctify them through thy truth, thy Word is truth. Listen to this. How much growth could you have as a Christian? How much fruit could you bear? If you just committed to just daily studying and applying the Word of God to your life over the course of 10, 20, 30, 40 plus years. We're in this thing for the long haul. This isn't a sprint. This is a long distance race. And some might say, well, you know, why should I care? Well, the blessed man or woman cares for two reasons. Number one, it's because we love the Lord. And number two, it's because we love our neighbor. At least we should. Jesus said in John 15, verse 8, Herein is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit, so shall you be my disciples. I don't know about you, but I want to live a life that's pleasing to the Lord, don't you? We said right here, my Father is glorified by you bearing much fruit. The only way that we can bear fruit is if we're constantly feeding from the source. Constantly plug in, constantly feeding the source. In fact, I get asked a question sometimes, and I'll be honest, I'm usually at a loss for how to answer that. And that is, you know, how long did you have to study for that one sermon? Well, I mean, I could say, I guess, the amount of hours that it took within that particular week that I was studying for that particular message, but it's really not accurate. Because you can't measure that in hours. You have to measure it in years. Years. I think about what Martin Luther said. Martin Luther said the three things that make a theologian is prayer, constantly thinking in the presence of God, in other words, meditating in the Word of God is what that means, and trials. That's the three things. You have to measure it in years. And our growth is not measured in just this study, or this week, or not even this, it's measured in years. What God collectively brings forth in our life, in our study, and how we apply it to our trials and the things that we go through, that's how Christian growth is really measured. And the Lord is pleased when we bear much fruit for His name. Now I know that's not popular, and that's not selling anything, and that's not telling you about God being some kind of genie, and if you just rub the lamp the right way, He's going to give you all your wishes, and how you just name it, claim it, and all your wildest dreams come true. Did I tell you this book went about you? It's not about me. It's about Him and His glory. And when we bear fruit for Him, it brings Him glory. It does bring us good. Absolutely. And so, we want to do it because we want to glorify the Lord. But also, you know, through Scripture-saturated, fruit-bearing Christians, the world is helped. I know the world likes to slander Christians and likes to you know, slam God-fearing people, but I got news for them. Did you know that God blesses this nation through and because of His people? If you don't believe that, look at the story of Joseph. He was a Hebrew dog to the Egyptians. And I'm sure they probably talked about him. I'm sure they probably slandered him, but I got news for them. God blessed Egypt and saved the world because and through Joseph. They need to understand that, and we need to understand that. And if you think about this image of trees planted by the rivers of water, if you somehow, by chance, maybe you get in a survival situation out in the middle of the desert, I don't recommend you try that. But if you did, I'm going to give you some advice. Go to the highest point you can find, and you know what you need to look for out in the desert? Trees. Green trees. Because you know what the green trees mean? They're drinking water. And so even in that dry desert situation, you can't see the water, but you can see the trees that are drawing from the water. How does this lost and dying world see Christ? Through fruit bearing, green tree Christians that have been drawing for years from the rivers of water. You may be the only missionary and you are all missionaries. You may be the only missionary in a place like this that somebody ever comes in contact with. You may be the only one that communicates the Word of God. You know what I love about living here, more so than living over there, is the fact that almost without exception, when I share the gospel with somebody here, I can tell it's the first time they ever heard it. And for all eternity, I get to go down in the record books as being the first person to share the gospel of grace with them. Isn't that a wonderful thing? Those young ladies that were here the other night, just so compassionate, asking such great questions. I really believe in my heart that's the first time they heard the gospel of grace. What a great opportunity. What a great mission field we live in. Galatians 5.22 doesn't even let us guess what these fruits are. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, that's patience, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance, that's self-control. Against such there is no law. But again, we can only bear fruit if we are drinking from the living streams and plugged into the vine. Christ said in John 15, apart from me you can do nothing. You can't grow anything if you're not tied into the vine. Did you know that fruit is actually an overflow of the sap that's flowing through that tree or that vine? Well, they get that from constantly feeding from the nutrients in the soil and the water. And so fruit is an overflow of being tied into the source. So the more we're tied into Jesus, the more we're in His Word, the more we're in prayer, The more we're meditating on these things, the more we're tied in, the more we're receiving, and the more that we're growing. These things are foreign to us. These things are not natural, they are supernatural, which is why we have to be rooted and grounded in Christ and His Word. But one last thing, I am moving on and my last two points will not be this long. I do want you to get this though, this is really good to know this. But when it says in verse 3 in the last part of it, and it says, Whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. Now that word prosperity to us in our Western culture, we tend to think more about monetary things, about money, prospering financially. That's not what it would have meant to a Jew. An Old Testament Jew, the word prosper is a lot more broad, and it really means general success in different things. And I really find this interesting. This is really good stuff. The only time that the word success is used in the King James Version is in Joshua chapter 1 and verse 8. The only time you'll find success anywhere, Old Testament, New Testament, and I just want to read it because it's tied into exactly what we're talking about. In the context, the children of Israel have been wandering around for 40 years and they're finally going to get to go into the promised land. And Moses can't go, but he's passing the torch on to Joshua. And this is what Moses says to Joshua in chapter 1 verse 8. He said, This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein. For then shalt thou make thy way prosperous, and then shalt thou have good success. So success and prosperity scripturally comes from being obedient to the Word of God. Something else you need to know in the context because it goes perfectly with the first part of Psalm 1. But whenever Joshua 1-8, when Moses says to Joshua, this book of the law, he gave him the book of the law, almost all scholars agree that Moses wrote the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Old Testament. that he wrote those during the 40-year wilderness wanderings. And right before Moses' death when he is passing everything off to Joshua, he gives him the Pentateuch. So when he says the book of the law, you know the Jews, a lot of times they would combine certain books, what we would call books, and they just called them one book. Well the book of the law to the Jews, we saw this last week, is the writings of Moses, the first five books. And so this is what he is giving him and says, hey, he did this. A blessed person have good success in the eyes of God. And so the blessed life is a fruitful life that pleases God and leads others to the living waters of salvation. That's number one. Let's bull through these last two here. So the number two. A life of sin and selfishness is a fruitless life. That's what I want you to know. A life of sin and selfishness is a fruitless life in contrast to the blessed life which is a fruitful life. Look at verse 4. The ungodly are not so. Are not like what? They're not like that tree planted by the rivers of water. The ungodly are not so, but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away. Now, notice the contrast to the blessed life. The ungodly are not so. Instead of being a fruitful tree planted by the rivers of water, they are like the chaff that the wind takes away. Now, this is a great picture. We really need to get this. But in this time period in Israel, and even now in certain parts of the world, They would do what was called threshing and winnowing. They would actually have what they called a threshing floor. You see an example of this in the book of Ruth. And what they would do, this is really interesting, there's a lot of great videos on this, a lot of great pictures online you can see of these. But a threshing floor is a place usually in an open field or at the top of a hill, but the point was it had to be consistently windy. and they would put down stone or brick, usually in a big wide circle. And when they had gathered the wheat harvest, They would put the weed out and they would beat it on that floor. That's called threshing. They would beat it. And when they beat it, it would separate the grain from the chaff. And after they had done that, then they would take it and they would toss it up in the air. That's called winnowing. They would toss it up in the air and the chaff is a lot lighter than the grain. So the chaff would fly away and the grain would fall to that threshing floor and they could harvest it. That was the way to separate it. And so this is the picture that is given here. The moral to that story is that the blessed life has substance. It has some weight to it. It has some nourishment for others spiritually, but the life of sin and selfishness, it's empty and vain. It's worthless. They literally just threw the chaff up to the wind to let it blow away because it was worthless. It had no value at all. So what does it matter? if a person has amassed fame and wealth if they haven't lived for Christ. They aren't prepared to meet God. The people that don't know Christ, they're not prepared to meet God. And they can't take any of it with them when they die. Whatever you amass in this life, you cannot take it with you. The chaff was there, but it was worthless. And Jesus said, what does it profit a man if he gained the whole world and loses his own soul? That's Mark 8 and verse 36. When I think about this, I've given this illustration before, usually around Christmas time, and I know it's not Christmas, but man, we sure are, this year is flying by. But I absolutely love Charles Dickens' A Christmas Story. Obviously, it's not scripture. We know there's some things that are rabidly unscriptural about it, but man, it's got such a great overall moral to the story. And I love it because, you know, Ebenezer Scrooge, he gets the chance to see how wasted his life was. He was so wealthy. By man's standards, he had everything that the world says that you need, but he was miserable. And he was given the opportunity not only to see how worthless his life was, but how horrible his judgment would be. And all he begged for was another chance, and man, I just love it when he wakes up and he realizes that he's still here, and he throws open the window and he asks that boy in the street, is it Christmas Day? You know, and he knows he has another chance. That's just like salvation, isn't it? We see how sinful we really are. How worthless and selfish that our lives have been every single day up to that point. When we saw how wicked and sinful we are and how glorious and how holy and just that He is, and oh, have mercy on me, Lord, a sinner. And we realize from that day on, we've got another chance not to live for self, and not to live to the lust of our flesh and to the desires of our mind, but to live for a sovereign Savior and a King who died on the cross to save us from our sin. There's nothing better than that. What else could we live for that has any more worth and value than that? In fact, If we're not living for Christ, we're not really living for anything because only what we do in the service of Christ has any eternal value. The ungodly are not so, but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away. So a life of sin and selfishness is a fruitless life. But then thirdly and lastly, and this ties into this last point here, not only, third, not only do the blessed live differently, They also die differently. Look at verses 5 and 6. Therefore, because of the two different paths they chose, because of the two different lives they lived, the two different gods they served, whether Christ or self, because of that, it says verse 5, Therefore, the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish. Hebrews 9 and verse 27 says, It is appointed unto man once to die, but after this the judgment. Now here we have to get this. When it says in our text that the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, It does not mean that they won't stand before God in judgment because yes, they will. It means they won't be able to withstand it. I believe we sang that exact line in our hymn this morning. They wouldn't withstand the judgment of God. When it says that sinners would not be allowed in the congregation of the righteous, the Jews would have understood this to mean that sinners could not enter into the temple, into the presence of God, without a blood sacrifice, without a blood atonement. That's true now. Nobody's going to get to God's heaven without the sacrifice of Jesus Christ being applied to their account. Nobody is going to be good enough to enter into God's perfectly, ferociously holy presence without the sacrifice of Christ. Because it's not about being good enough to get to heaven, it's about being perfect and nobody has ever gotten there. God cannot wink at one sin. He cannot sweep one sin under the rug. It has to be paid for by the blood of Jesus Christ. Verse 6, when it says that the LORD Yahweh, the LORD there is in all caps, every letter, that means Yahweh, that's the covenant name of God in the Old Testament. For the LORD knoweth the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish. Now this word KNOW, again, a little bit deeper meaning, a little bit narrower than the way we use it. This is not just saying that, oh God has a knowledge of the righteous. Are we going to say that he doesn't have a knowledge of the unrighteous as well? Does he not have a knowledge of the ungodly? Of course he does. This word here, sometimes it means an intimate love. And that's exactly what it means here. He loves the way of the righteous. But in contrast, the way of the ungodly shall perish. Now, this word perish here, It does not mean complete destruction. It does not mean to go out from existence. It means a continual destruction, a continual perishing. When the lost person dies without Jesus Christ, they go to hell for all eternity. Their soul will spend eternity in hell, and at the end of all things, Christ will raise the bodies of the damned, of the lost. Body and soul will come together for the great white throne judgment, and from there they will be thrown into the lake of fire, which is why we need the gospel. You don't have to be there. You don't have to do that. You don't have to go there. The Bible says that whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. For by grace are you saved through faith, and not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. He commands all men everywhere to repent and to believe the gospel. I'm not going to heaven because I'm good. I'm going because Jesus Christ is good, and because He paid for my sins on Calvary. He was punished for my sin, and because He saved me by faith. His righteousness has been imputed to me. I am covered in the righteousness of Christ. 2 Corinthians 5, verse 21 says that He became sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. We are clothed of your Savior, clothed in the righteousness of Christ. God sees us as if we had lived the life of Christ. And he's able to do that because he punished Jesus as if he had lived our life. I'm going to say this in closing. Listen. I've preached countless funerals in my life. I've preached the funerals of those who were clearly saved. They clearly bore fruit of salvation. They had a clear testimony of salvation in Christ. They lived for the Lord. And I'm going to tell you something. It's a beautiful thing. Precious in the sight of the Lord are the death of His saints. I mean it really is a celebration. I mean you miss them, but I mean they made it to the end. They fought a good fight. They finished their course. They've run their race. And it is a celebration. It's a wonderful thing to be able to preach in that kind of atmosphere. You can just let her rip, tater chip. I'll translate that for those that maybe need help afterwards. But I've also preached the funeral. of those that at the very best, you don't know. And at worst, you do know. And it ain't good. And then I preach the funeral of those that you just know because they told you before they died. You just know. And you know where that is in a situation like that. I have to walk a line where I don't want to be mean. I want to try to comfort the family. I want to try to give them the gospel. That's a tight rope to walk. I've never preached somebody like that into heaven. I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to do that. I went to a funeral one time and probably about 150 people there. And there was a so-called Methodist pastor. that got up there, and understand the deceased, I mean, they openly rejected God. Openly rejected God. Their whole life. And this so-called Methodist pastor looked out at everybody in the crowd, and not only did he say that the deceased was in heaven, but that every one of you will meet them shortly in heaven. And if the situation, it wasn't the right situation, but I was this close afterwards to walking up to him and saying, how did you come to that conclusion? I would really like to know that. It is appointed that the man wants to die, and after this the judgment. Not only do lost and saved people live differently, but they die differently. And if you died today, where would you spend eternity? What fruit did you bear for the Lord in this life? We have seen the two ways on display. Which road will you choose? You have a choice before your life and death. Choose life.