Psalms 1:5

The ungodly shall not stand in the judgment.

The day of judgment

1. None will deny that the law of God, which is holy, just, and good, explicitly condemns the sinner, and consigns him to the second death. By the law can no man be justified. It contains no provision for pardon.

2. He will not be able to stand in the last trial, because all the witnesses will be against him. His companions in sin will testify against him. The example of the righteous will testify against the impenitent. The sinner’s own awakened conscience and memory will testify against him. So will the sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ.

3. The eternal Judge will be inflexibly strict in interpreting and upholding the law. And

4. The impenitent sinner at God’s bar will have no advocate. (A. Dickinson,.)

The ungodly rising to judgment

They shall not rise in the judgment, this is more than St. Paul would have said himself if he had been in the prophet’s place, for who ever thought the ungodly should rise in the judgment, who are sure to fall in the judgment, seeing their judgment shall be to condemnation and not to deliverance? To rise to the judgment is to be brought to public trial, and this is the general resurrection that we believe; but to rise in the judgment is upon trial to come off with credit, and, by the sentence of the Judge, not only to be justified, but advanced. And who ever believed this rising to belong to the wicked? (Sir Richard Baker.)

A congregation in which sinners cannot stand

And as there shall be a general judgment, in which the ungodly shall not rise, so, after the judgment, there shall be a particular congregation of the righteous, in which sinners shall not stand. And, indeed, what society can there be between a tree and chaff? or who can think it fit that trees and chaff should be made companions? And as there is no reason that the ungodly, having made others by their counsel to fall here, should rise themselves in judgment hereafter, so there is no reason, seeing the righteous could not be suffered to stand here in the way of sinners, that sinners should be suffered to stand hereafter in the congregation of the righteous. And here now a multitude of reasons seem assembled, as it were, to make it good, that sinners neither can nor ought to stand in this assembly. It is a congregation which none can make but the righteous; for sinners are all rebels, and would make it a rout. It is a court where all must be neat and clean; and so are none but the righteous; for sinners are all lepers, and would make it a spital. It is a company that makes a communion, and that can none do but saints, for sinners seek everyone their own, and are all for themselves. They must be all God’s friends; at least, such as He knows; and such are only the righteous, for sinners are all mere strangers and aliens from God. (Sir Richard Baker.)

Failure in judgment

And now let the great men of the world please themselves, and think it a happiness that they can rise in honours, can rise in riches and estimation in the world; yet, alas! what is all this, if they fail of rising in the judgment to come? (Sir Richard Baker.)