"For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish" (Psalm 1.6). Why will the righteous stand before God while the wicked cannot? Why does God know the way of the righteous while the wicked perish? The answer is found in what their lives produce.
We stand in one of two places, in the path of sinners or in the judgment with the righteous (all will face judgment before God, but the righteous will be welcomed into His presence forever.). Where we stand, how we live, determines what our lives produce. The reason the righteous can stand is because his life produces fruit that is fit to be offered to God.
"He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in its season and its leaf does not wither; and in whatever he does, he prospers" (verse 3). He will be like a tree firmly planted by water which yields its fruit. The life of the righteous has something good to show for it. It produces fruit that is useful, and pleasing to God. It produces something that can be presented before God, and it is offered by cleansed hands that can present the offering. The righteous stand because they have something good to show for their lives.
Salvation is not based on works; I know that this could sound that way. A man is not made righteous because he does good things on earth. The fruit is only produced because the righteous man is rooted in God (more on this in the next post). The fruit that is fit to be offered to God is only able to be produced in a life that has been cleansed and redeemed by Him. The Bible says in Isaiah 64.6, "For all of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment; and all of us wither like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away." If you've read Crazy Love you'll know that the phrase "filthy garment" in the original Hebrew refers to menstrual rags, used tampons.
A life that has not been cleansed and forgiven by God cannot produce anything good enough the cleanse itself. No amount of good deeds can cleanse the stain of sin. It is only by the blood of Christ that we are forgiven. And that forgiveness, the new life that it produces, the being transplanted from a confining pot to good soil by a water source (another garden post is coming soon), results in good works, fruit fit to be offered to the King.
James 2.26 says, "For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead." Without action faith is useless. Without producing apples, an apple tree is worthless. When we enter into righteousness by the blood of Christ, when the sin and wickedness is pruned, and when we are transplanted, we begin to produce fruit in our lives.
But the life of the wicked doesn't do that. "The wicked are not so, but they are like chaff which the wind drives away" (Psalm 1.4). The life of the wicked produces nothing fit to be offered to God. In fact what the wicked produces is nothing more than the husk that is beaten off of the kernel and blown away by the wind. It cannot be offered to God because it is unfit for any use. And without the redeeming blood of Christ to sanctify it, every deed is nothing more than chaff to be carried off by the wind.
The righteous stand because they have fruit worthy to offer to the King, and clean hands to present it. The wicked have nothing to offer, except some worthless dirty rags they have tried to clean up.
"I have been young and now I am old, yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken or his descendants begging bread."
To God alone be the Glory!
Peace be with you
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