Finally, Brethren, Farewell — December 2025

The Bible is full of antitheses. Light and darkness. Righteousness and unrighteousness. Wisdom and folly. Christ and Belial. Church and world. Heaven and hell. Faith and unbelief. Election and reprobation. There is a road steep and narrow that goes to heaven, and there is a road broad and packed with people that goes to hell.

In Psalm 1:6 the antithesis is presented in the form of two ways: The way of the righteous and the way of the ungodly. The righteous man, the man walking in the way of the righteous, is blessed. He does not walk in the counsel of the ungodly; he does not stand, lingering, in the way of sinners; he does not sit comfortably in the seat of the scorners. The ungodly, those in the way of sinners, are not so, but they are like the chaff that the wind drives away.

Why? “For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous!” Yes, the way of the righteous is a way of sovereign grace. All along that way the bright light of God’s countenance shines from eternity to eternity. For Jehovah to know the way of the righteous is first to have chosen the righteous in love and to have appointed them a way. And having chosen them, to know their way was to justify them and from eternity to declare them to be the righteous.

On what ground? On the ground that the righteous one is Christ Jesus, the one whom God loved and in whom he knew his people from eternity as the righteous for Christ’s sake. That way of the righteous went through Golgotha and through the garden, where Christ was laid in the grave of Joseph of Arimathea. That way led up to the right hand of God, and from there that way led to Pentecost and then to the hearts of every one of God’s elect people, in whom God shed abroad his love through the Holy Spirit who is given to them. Christ gave to the elect his Spirit because Christ had justified them from all things from which they could not be justified in the law. Their righteousness and the righteousness of their way is Jesus Christ. That way then is also a way of peace with God through their Lord Jesus Christ. Oh yes, like a tree planted by rivers of water, so their lives are sustained by the inexhaustible fountain of grace and goodness that God opened in Jesus Christ. From that fountain they are sustained through all the troubles and tribulations that make many others wither, and they bring forth their fruits in their season. And whatsoever they do shall prosper. Yes, they can do nothing but what is an advance along that way toward their eternal home.

Marvelous knowledge of God. Saving knowledge of God. Boundless love of God!

But the way of the ungodly shall perish! That is God’s eternal word over them. Let them perish! Them he did not know but hated. Their whole way shall perish. It is a cursed way. Like the chaff they are. When they have served their purpose so that God’s wheat may grow, then the Lord shall send forth his angels to gather the harvest. And the wicked, like the chaff, shall be no more. They, their lives, and all their efforts, labors, and works shall perish everlastingly. They are the unrighteous, who are none of Christ’s. They shall not stand in the judgment nor gather in the congregation of the righteous.