"Therefore The Ungodly Shall Not Stand In The Judgment."

A man may be most religious--

and yet be most ungodly!
 (Archibald Brown, "The Ungodly and Their End!" 1874)

"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." 
Psalm 1:4-5

The ungodly--who are they?

I know full well who are uppermost 

in your minds. I no sooner mentioned 

the text, and spoke about the doom 

of the ungodly, than you began to think 

of the vile and the brutalized characters 

whose deeds of cruelty make up that 

shameful list of 'crimes of violence' now 

appearing in our papers day by day. 

And side by side with them, you doubtless 

thought of the drunkard, pouring down 

his throat the liquid fire to better qualify 

himself for the devil's work! 

And you thought of brazen-faced 

harlotry and open immorality and 

of those who are steeped to the lips in sin--

and of those who live, as they say, 'for time--

and let eternity look after itself'. 

These are the characters you pictured 

when we read the word 'ungodly'. Well, 

you are right, they are ungodly.

But I am certain that all I have mentioned 

fail to compose one-tenth part of those 

who are legitimately to be included 

in the catalogue of the ungodly. 

Remember this: 

that a man may be ungodly, without being 

any of the characters that I have mentioned! 

An ungodly man is simply a man who tries 

to get through the world without GOD. It is 

not necessary for a man's life to be a shame 

and a disgrace, for him to be ungodly. It is 

not necessary for him to be steeped in all 

sorts of vice, in order to be without GOD.

I will go further, and venture to assert 

that a man may be most moral--

and yet most ungodly. While vile 

immorality has slain its thousands; 

a godless morality has slain its tens 

of thousands! 

And for one that is dragged down 

to perdition by the mill-stone of vice--

there are hundreds who are taken in 

the meshes of the net of a Christless virtue. 

A man may be honest in all his transactions, 

pure in his language, chaste in his thoughts, 

an honorable man in all his business dealings--

just the very one you would like to trade with--

his word may be his bond, and all his actions fair--

and yet come under the designation of the ungodly. 

It is with him, simply morality, skin deep; 

there has been nothing of regeneration 

within, without which it is impossible 

for a man to enter into the kingdom.

Look into his character, and you will find 

that he is ungodly in every part of his life. 

Inspect all his motives, and you will find 

that he never does a thing for GOD'S sake. 

There is no fear of GOD before his eyes; 

there is no reverence for GOD within his heart. 

He may be gentle, amiable, moral--

a good sort of man as far as this world's 

goodness is concerned. He would be all right, 

if a man could be all right without GOD--

but he belongs to the ungodly.

We will go one step further, and say 

that a man may be most religious--

and yet be most ungodly. I can conceive 

of a man being a most talented preacher--
and yet being ungodly. It may be that he has 

a natural liking and gift for speaking; and he

may, perhaps, take a very great deal of 

interest in the increase of his denomination 

and the outward mechanism of his church--

but for all that he is totally devoid of the life 

of GOD within his soul.

Oh, pass the question around, I beg you--

you who have made profession of the LORD 

JESUS CHRIST for years. Have you got 

something more than the mere name 

to live? Are you yet--

(oh, can it be?)--

ungodly, though a professing Christian--

ungodly though once immersed 

in the name of CHRIST--

ungodly, though your life is almost 

a pattern for the very best of Christians? 

The question is, have you GOD or not? 

For my text is not about the immoral, 

the profane, or the criminal--

but about those who, whatever else 

they have, possess not GOD.

"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." 
Psalm 1:4-5

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You may want to read the whole of Archibald Brown's sermon, "The Ungodly and Their End!"