For the LORD watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.
Psalm 1 v.6
Reviewing the Psalm we have walked with this past week, we have noted the blessings of the man who eschews evil and roots himself in God’s word and the polar opposite end of the wicked. And in this final verse we have the explanation.
FOR the LORD watches over the way of the righteous. However to make sense of this we need to define the ‘righteous’ and the ‘wicked’.
In the context of this Psalm the ‘righteous’ are those who keep God’s law, enshrined in the Ten Commandments while the wicked do not, and indeed go further and proclaim that ‘there is no God’. More than that the Spirit inspired Psalmist adds and that ‘there is no one who does good…… there is no one who does good not even one. Psalm 14.1-3. Old Testament truths picked up and used by Paul in Romans 3 to remind us that we are not righteous by birth or any other means as we are born sinners.
However God in his grace and mercy provided a way for the people of the OT era to be made righteous through the sacrificial system and in that sense ‘watched over the righteous’. Further and infinitely more wonderful through the death of Jesus on the Cross sinners who bow to him as Lord and Saviour are declared righteous and Jesus says of them
‘I give them eternal life and they shall never perish: no-one can snatch them out of my hand.’ John 10.28
The last verse of Psalm 1 sets before us a binary choice. God’s loving watchful care or perishing.
If you are the person described in v.1-3 you are secure and cannot perish.
Rejoice therefore in the wonder of the Lord’s watchfulness over you but make every effort to warn the wicked for it is never too late for man or woman, boy or girl, young or old, to do an about turn – to repent – and find forgiveness at the cross.
Again, as we come to the end of this Psalm let us be sure that we are recipients of God’s blessing, because delighting in his law, we have found Christ as Saviour and let us go out to bless the world as our lives point others to him.