The teaching of Scripture on the character and end of the scornful is a solemn study.

There is but one other reference to the scorner in the Psalms:--

The Book of Proverbs, on the other hand, speaks of the scorner no less than

eighteen times. The last reference is in chapter 24: 9: "The scorner is an abomination

to men."

Psa. 1: 1 is expressed negatively: "Blessed is the man that walketh not, nor

standeth . . . . . . . nor sitteth."  While a negative attitude is not ideal, let us not

under-estimate the fact that, although to do good is more blessed, to abstain from evil is

blessed also. Those who are timid should be encouraged by this verse. What though

your strength is small, and the way you have traversed a negligible quantity? What

though you have not yet reached the height of walking worthy of your calling, or of

walking worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing? Is it not something to have refrained your

foot from evil? To have entered into the blessedness of not walking with evil, is but the

prelude to the further and fuller blessedness of walking with God. If we cannot yet look

upon our stand for the truth with any sense of approval, let us not miss the blessing that is

assured to those who do not stand in the way of sinners. If we have not reached, in our

experience, the realization of our position as "seated" in heavenly places--which is

blessing raised to its superlative degree--we may still experience the blessedness that

attends those who have not sat in the seat of the scornful.

Positive statements immediately follow what we get in Psa. 1: 1, but the verse itself is

negative. The next verse completes the story with its "delight in the law of the Lord",

and meditation therein "day and night" (Psa. 1: 2).

We have already seen the blessedness of confession and of confidence. We now see

the blessedness of consistency, another of the blessings of the Lord that make rich, and

bring no sorrow with them.