27 Depart from evil and do good,
[i]So you will abide forever.
28 For the Lord loves [j]justice
And does not forsake His godly ones;
They are preserved forever,
But the [k]descendants of the wicked will be cut off.
29 The righteous will inherit the land
And dwell in it forever.
30 The mouth of the righteous utters wisdom,
And his tongue speaks justice.
31 The law of his God is in his heart;
His steps do not slip.
32 The wicked spies upon the righteous
And seeks to kill him.
33 The Lord will not leave him in his hand
Or let him be condemned when he is judged.
34 Wait for the Lord and keep His way,
And He will exalt you to inherit the land;
When the wicked are cut off, you will see it.35 I have seen a wicked, violent man
Spreading himself like a luxuriant [l]tree in its native soil.
36 Then [m]he passed away, and lo, he was no more;
I sought for him, but he could not be found.
37 Mark the [n]blameless man, and behold the upright;
For the man of peace will have a [o]posterity.
38 But transgressors will be altogether destroyed;
The [p]posterity of the wicked will be cut off.
39 But the salvation of the righteous is from the Lord;
He is their strength in time of trouble.
40 The Lord helps them and delivers them;
He delivers them from the wicked and saves them,
Because they take refuge in Him.
Verses 32-33 remind me of a story I just read, where a woman was in danger of losing everything because a criminal was suing her for an accident he was in with her son (when they were both teenagers). When the case was about to go to trial, the woman read a verse that put her at peace. She knew God would take care of things, and the next morning she got the call to confirm that the case had been settled.
The woman posed the question, does God always wait until the last minute to rescue His children? David had certainly experienced this, and there were some very close calls, like the time when Saul and his army were just on the other side of the mountain, and David had nowhere else to run. All of a sudden, Saul got a message that an enemy was attacking, and packed up his whole army and was gone.
David tells us that God will not leave the righteous in the hands of the wicked, but there’s still just one niggling thought. What do we say of Christians who have been martyred at the hands of wicked rulers and governments, sometimes even those masquerading as Christians themselves? Truly, they were never in anyone’s hands except God’s own.
Later in Psalms, David would write, “what can man do to me?” Because when we are in God’s hands, there is no fear in death. It is only the end of this journey, and the beginning of the rest of our lives. God only knows what the future holds, but I do know this. The trials we go through on this earth are only temporary. God will never leave us, He will never let us go. We are safe and secure in Him, nothing and no one can change that fact. He is the rock of our salvation, and our strength in times of trouble.