I was really touched after I listened to a short video clip of Bishop David Oyedepo captioned, Caution! Caution! Caution!. In that video, Bishop Oyedepo was speaking about Psalms 1:1-6.
The book of Psalms 1:1 says, “blessed is the man Who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful, But his delight is in the law of the Lord, And in His law, he meditates day and night.
The opposite of being blessed is to be cursed, meaning that a man is cursed who chooses and decides to walk in the counsel of the ungodly, or stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful, and his delight is not in the law of the Lord.
Psalms 1:3 equally pointed out that a man who does not walk in the counsel of the ungodly, he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, and such trees bring forth its fruit in its season.
In reality, any tree planted by the rivers of water does bring forth its fruit in its season, and its leaves do not wither but are always green. As such, whatever that man does shall prosper. The ungodly are not so, But are like the chaff which the wind drives away.
Therefore, the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, But the way of the ungodly shall perish.
Of a truth, after listening to Bishop David Oyedepo spoke on especially on verse one, I had an unusual insight that made me consult the amplified bible version of the Bible.
According to amplified Bible, it rendered that verse thus, saying, “Blessed (happy, fortunate, prosperous, and enviable) is the man who walks and lives, not in the counsel of the ungodly [following their advice, their plans, and purposes], nor stands [submissive and inactive] in the path where sinners walk, nor sits down [to relax and rest] where the scornful [and the mockers] gather.”
According to Oyedepo, he warned of the need to be careful not to walk in the counsel of the ungodly or stand in the path of sinners or sits in the seat of the scornful.
It is walking in the counsel of the ungodly and standing in the path of sinners or sitting in the seat of the scornful that pushes the destiny of such a man to a corner, as many with enviable destinies has been pushed to a corner and forgotten because of heir walking in the counsel of the ungodly.
That is to say, the destiny of many people had been robbed or throttled by their walking in the counsel of the ungodly or by their standing in the path of sinners or by their sitting in the seat of the scornful.
For instance, look at the counsel of Jonadab to Amnon as seen in 2 Samuel 13. I. In 2 Samuel 13, it was said of Jonadab that he was a very shrewd man yet Amnon listened to his counsel.
Looking at 2 Samuel 13 starting from verse one which gave the story of how Amnon was having immoral thoughts about his half-sister Tamar. When Jonadab learned of it, instead of rebuking Amnon by telling him that it is immoral to sleep with his half-sister.
Rather, it was Jonadab that counseled Amnon on what to do to get his half-sister Tamar to sleep with him, an action that resulted in Amnon raping his sister Tamar.
The end result of Amnon is walking in the counsel of the shrewd Jonadab, he was later killed as a result. If you read 2 Samuel 13:32, you will observe that after Amnon was killed, it was the same Jonadab that went and reported about his death to David.
Apart from walking in the counsel of the ungodly, many destinies have been truncated or destroyed by their standing in the path of sinners. Standing in the path of sinners means associating with sinners, (dining and winning with sinners).
It is said, show me your friend and I will show you the kind of person you are. Bad friends and associations have dealt a deadly blow to many destinies, as many destinies were even cut short as a result of their standing in the path of sinners.
The next verse of Palm 1 said what robbed many of their enviable destinies, which are sitting in the seat of the scornful. When you meet the scornful, they can abuse God and the prophets of God with reckless abandon.
The scornful, you will see many of them on social media. Such scornful men and women can publish any false information about this or that man of God just to grow their social media followers.
The scornful, you can never see or hear them talk anything good thing about any of the true men of God. In fact, you always see them scouting for negative information about men/women of God.
However, Blessed are you when you choose not to walk not in the counsel of the ungodly. Walking or not walking in the counsel of the ungodly is our choice to make.
What is therefore your own choice? Will you be a blessed man/woman by not walking in the counsel of the ungodly, or standing in the path of sinners, or sitting in the seat of the scornful?
I really hope that you have gotten one or two things from the post? If yes, why not share the post with your friends and followers on social media and other platforms.
I am really counting on you to share this post and other posts with your social media followers. Until I come your way again, remember, “blessed is the man Who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly”. Shalom!.
