Sermons from the Psalms, 1
By Clovis G. Chappell
"In whatsoever he doeth, he shall prosper." (Psalm 1:3)
I
Clovis G. Chappell: "HE shall prosper" - surely here is a word to bring us to our feet at eager attention. This psalmist is undertaking to point us to the path of prosperity. He is offering us a recipe for success. His message is, therefore, of vital interest. Everybody desires to succeed; nobody wishes to fail. In fact, we have very little time or patience for failures. But we are ever ready to honor those who have made good. Ours is, in a peculiar sense, a generation of success worshipers. Nor are our ideas of success always the highest. We do not always give first place to those whose prosperity is in the realm of the spiritual. We rather give it to those whose success is purely of the earth, earthly. Worse still, we often do this regardless of the price that these may have paid for their success. It may have been won at the price of their own honor. But caught under the spell of their winnings, we pass over these ugly facts as matters of minor importance. The big thing for us is success.
Now, the good news that this poet has for us is just this: Everybody may prosper. Everybody may be in the truest and highest sense successful. This may be so regardless of whether we succeed or fail as the world counts success and failure. We may invest wisely and have everything we touch turn to gold. We may have a palatial home in the city and a mansion in the mountains or down by the sea. Or we may trust the wrong enterprise or the wrong man and lose the pitiful little pittance that we have been years in piling up. We may have to live in a very humble cottage. Disease may lay its weakening hand upon us and steal away our health. Death may come and rob us of those we love. But in spite of all circumstances, whether good or bad, whether fraught with laughter or with tears, every one who meets the conditions will be in the truest sense successful.
II
What, then, are the conditions of success?
1. The first fact that the psalmist points out is that the road to prosperity is one that is shut within limits. There are certain things that the man who would make a success simply cannot do. This will be disappointing to some. We of to-day are especially impatient of restraints of any kind. We seem to have a veritable passion for doing as we please. But resent it how we may, the way to real success can only be traveled by those who are willing to make certain very definite refusals. The vessel sailing from New York to Liverpool must do this or it will never arrive. It will only become a derelict. The train going from station to station must do this or it will miss its destination and become a worthless wreck. Man must do this or life for him ends in disaster.
Esau is a pathetic illustration of this truth. He did not fail for lack of ability. His tragedy was that he was a profane man - that is, his life had no fence round it. He allowed his soul to become a common [i.e., open public area]. Any cloven-footed devil could romp across it at his pleasure. Every prosperous life is circumscribed by certain great refusals.
(1) The man who would make a real success must refuse to walk in the counsel of the ungodly. (Psa. 1:1) Who are the ungodly? They are the folks who reckon without God. They do not have to be dishonest or in any way crooked in their dealings. They do not have to be rakes or libertines. They may be as decent as decency. They may be as respectable as respectability. All they have to do is to ignore God, shut him out of their thoughts and out of their lives. The ungodly are the practical atheists, who, though they may recite creeds, live as if God were only a myth and a dream. To walk in their counsel is to take their advice and pattern our lives by theirs. To take this course, says the poet, is surely to miss success. No one can truly prosper who stubbornly ignores the facts of life. Certainly no man can hope for success who ignores the supreme fact which is God.
