Most of the time as Christians, we openly abhor sin and may not like to engage in it, whiles subtly we may be tolerating it. This tolerance of sin may lead us through some graduation and in the end destroy us. How do we identify this danger? An analysis of Psalms 1:1 will help us.

Psalms 1:1 “Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers,”

The verse above (Psalm 1:1) talks about three (3) levels of graduation of sin;

1. Walking,

2. Standing and

3. Sitting

We will take a look at each of the stages.

Walking

Let us start with the first stage, Walking.

When a person walks it means you are not stable, not static at a particular place, always on the move. Such a person is not settled in his mind, has not made up the mind on certain important issues, may see nothing wrong with certain wrong doings. When you are walking, you alternate between sin and righteousness. The danger of walking is that there is the problem of graduating to the next stage of sin, Standing. The scripture says that we are supposed to be equipped and built up in Christ to the extent that “…we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming.” (Ephesians 4:14).

Christ did not save us to become religious liberals but to serve God wholeheartedly.

Standing

Let us now look at the second level of the graduation of sin, which is ‘Standing’.

To stand means, to be immovable, stationary, not yet settled. In the verse above (Psalms 1:1) to stand in the way of sinners can mean a lot of things; one is that, if you stand in the way of someone you might be blocking the person from going to do whatever they want to do. But to look at the use of “stand in the way” in context of the verse it can’t mean that, so let’s look at the second view. The verse said “Blessed is the one who does not… stand in the way that sinners take” which means it is not a positive thing to stand in the way that sinners take. To stand in the way of sinners means you want to also take or walk on that road. After walking and tolerating them (sinners) for a time, you now stop (stand) and contemplate whether you want to do what they are doing or not. You are now in a dilemma, neither doing good or bad but weighing sides. The danger is that the pressure to walk the road is very high. The good thing is that since you haven’t started walking along that road but you are still standing, you can walk away from it. The temptation is that you were not supposed to even walk to that place but now because of your tolerance you find yourself there. The scripture says “My son, if sinners entice you, do not consent.” (Proverbs 1:10). They may not force you but entice you, in all this do not give in to them.

“Do not present your members (body) to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members (body) to God as instruments for righteousness.” Romans 6:13.

The above scripture gives a lot of responsibility to the individual. It admonishes the believer to take an active part in the Christian faith. Words like ‘do not present’ and ‘present’ are action words which requires the individual to do something.

Yes the Holy Spirit helps, but you have a part to play too.

Sitting

Finally we look at the last stage of the graduation of sin, which is ‘Sitting’.

To sit in the company of a group of people is to be so identical with them that people cannot differentiate between you and them; you are the same as them. To sit signifies immobility, stationary or to settle. After ‘Walking’ you get to a place where you ‘stand’ to consider some things. As we’ve learnt, one good thing about standing is that you can walk away but if you don’t, you will settle (sit). From the psalm 1:1, Mockers are people who make fun about anything or idea about God. It is different from atheism, though the mocker can gradually become an atheist. The atheist believes there is no God, but for the mocker, he may believe God exists but see it as stupid for people to worship him. He does not end there but goes to the point of laughing at people who worship God or do something in the name of God.

A perfect description of a mocker is given in Romans 1:21, 25 which says “For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened… They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.”

In other terminology the one who sits with the mockers can be said to have backslidden. The reason why the verse above (Psalms 1:1) admonishes us not to sit means that it is not a passive thing and also it is not the last thing that can happen to you. It is an active thing we do; it is not as if we don’t have part to play in getting there. Though we can be brought back from that state but to not get there is better than getting there and having to reverse the whole thing. The next time we will look at how we can walk away should we find ourselves among mockers so that their company do not become our permanent home.

For this reason the scriptures says “Set a guard over my mouth, Lord; keep watch over the door of my lips. Do not let my heart be drawn to what is evil so that I take part in wicked deeds along with those who are evildoers; do not let me eat their delicacies.” Psalm 141:3-4.

Jesus is willing and able to help us walk the Christian life. Believe and live.