TEXT: PSALM 119:9; ISAIAH 10:5
"They continue this day according to thine ordinances: for all are thy servants.”
''O Assyrian, the rod of mine anger, and the staff in their hand is mine indignation.''
Every creature is God's servant: whenever God intends to express either His mercy or anger toward any of His creatures, especially, man, it is His policy to pick up any work of His hands to convey either of these. There is no one creature that stands not at the service of God, passively or actively; voluntarily or involuntarily; God has all under His dominion. Faith sees not the second cause, but the first, which is the sovereign God: as none could neither lift up his hands nor legs in Egypt except by Joseph's order, so no creature can stir without God. No goodness or evil can access the earth without God's permission. The sun, moon and stars cannot shine without God. It a defect on our knowledge of the sovereignty of God that often makes us to quarrel with creatures, when they seem opposed to us. When we see with the eye of faith and the knowledge of God's sovereign rule over creature, we would look upon enemies as mere instruments. To Job, the Sabeans, the Chaldeans; the fire from heaven and the wind from the wilderness, were but second causes, instrumentals in the hand of the first cause: hence, he concluded that God who gave was responsible for the cessation of his earthly goods. Joseph saw his brothers as instruments of his elevation for their good. Brothers, I give us to know, that God would use men sometimes to chastise His own; the heathen would be used as furnance to purify His gold and jewels. Often than not, men who are total strangers to Christ, are picked up as rods of God's anger towards His own. A saints that understands this, would keep mute under the smarting hand of providence. Beloved, there still remain in the best of saints dross and impurities of the flesh, that can only be removed by the furnance of fire: this fiery furnance could be anything or any creature. Begin, oh saints, to trust that men are but instrumentals in God's hands for our correction not for destruction. We lose nothing by any affliction but our dross and those weight that impede our swift flight upward. Quarrel no more with man, for he is but a rod of His anger and correction!