Jottings

by Miller, J. | Category: Jottings | Feb 1954

In Psalm 76.10 Asaph says "Surely the wrath of man shall praise Thee." Earlier in the psalm we see one phase of the meaning of these words, for in the defence of His dwelling place in Zion it is said, "There He brake the arrows of the bow; the shield, and the sword, and the battle" (verse 3). Indeed the psalmist might well ask, "Who may stand in Thy sight when once Thou art angry?" Of that day that is to come, when the Lord rises in judgement to save His much afflicted people from the persecution and terrors of antichrist, it is said,

"And the kings of the earth, and the princes, and the chief captains, and the rich, and the strong, and every bondman and freeman, hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains; and they say to the mountains and to the rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of Him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: for the day of their wrath is come; and who is able to stand?" (Revelation 6.15-17).

Men whose wrath shall be poured out against the saints of God and against their God, men who will say, "Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us," shall find that their wrath has been turned to the praise of God.

It will be then, though in greater magnitude, as in cases of past deliverances God wrought for His people, as Asaph says,

"Thou didst cause sentence to be heard from heaven; The earth feared, and was still, When God arose to judgement, To save all the meek of the earth" (Psalm 76.8, 9).

The deliverance of Judah in the time of Hezekiah from the haughty and boastful Sennacherib well illustrates the import of these words. With his great army the Assyrian king had come against Jerusalem. Rabshakeh, the spokesman of Sennacherib, recounted the victories of his royal master and to these spoils of conquest he intended to add Jerusalem. The gods of Hamath and Arpad, and so forth, had failed to deliver their peoples and the God of Israel, Sennacherib thought, was as one of these. He had to learn that his wrath would be turned to the praise of God. God said,

"I will defend this city to save it, for Mine own sake, and for My servant David's sake" (2 Kings 19. 34).

The following verse (35) tells us of the judgement of that fatal night, when God caused His sentence to be heard from heaven:

"And it came to pass that night, that the angel of the LORD went forth, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians an hundred fourscore and five thousand: and when men arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses."

Byron in majestic lines tells how the Assyrians came

"The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,

And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold."

But the scene was changed over-night with the descent of the angel of the

LORD.

"For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,

And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed"

This deliverance by direct divine intervention was like that early salvation of the LORD which He wrought for Israel at the Red sea, whereof God said, "I will get Me honour upon Pharaoh, and upon all his host; and the Egyptians shall know that I am Jehovah" (Exodus 14.4). As the sea heaved lip the corpses of the Egyptian soldiers on the shore, Moses and Israel burst forth in a song of deliverance

"I will sing unto the LORD, for He hath triumphed gloriously:

The horse and his rider hath He thrown into the sea"

(Exodus 15.1).

Whilst we can point to occasions of deliverances which God wrought for His people, from Pharaoh, Sennacherib, and such like, as instances in which God made the wrath of man to praise Him (Psalm 76.10), we may view this verse in another way, a way in which God wrought in mercy, turning the wrath of men as a means of blessing to many, and to His praise in consequence.

Joseph's story well illustrates this. Joseph's brethren were a group of evil and wrathful men, men who hated their brother without a cause. They were determined to put an end to his words and to his dreams, so they sold him to the Ishmaelites, who in turn sold him to Potiphar the Egyptian. This they thought would be the end of both Joseph and his dreams of rule and greatness.

"Vain man is void of understanding,

Yea, man is born as a wild ass's colt" (Job 11. 12).

How foolish are man's thoughts in the light of divine purpose! "We shall see what will become of his dreams," said Joseph's brethren, but little did they think that their words would have a fulfilment far otherwise than they thought, for they were destined to see their brother the ruler of Pharaoh's house and of the land of Egypt, and the saviour and provider for a world's need, for "all countries came into Egypt to Joseph for to buy corn." Truly the wrath of man was turned to the praise of God, not only in Joseph's day, but as long as men read the entrancing story of Joseph and his brethren.

David too is another in whom the wrath of man was turned to the praise of God. Wrathful Saul, in his bitter and unreasonable jealousy, sought the life of David, the LORD'S anointed. In cave and mountain and wood David and his men found sanctuary in those days of persecution, and nearing the end of his unhappy life Saul confessed to David, "Behold, I have played the fool, and have erred exceedingly" (1 Samuel 26.21). Saul not only persecuted David, but, much worse than this, he fought against the purpose of God in the choice of David, and he did so knowingly, for he said, "Behold, I know that thou shalt surely be king, and that the kingdom of Israel shall be established in thine hand" (1 Samuel 24.20). "Saul said to David, Blessed be thou, my son David: thou shalt both do mightily, and shalt surely prevail" (1 Samuel 26.25). One might ask, Why, if he knew this, did he so act toward David? The answer must be, that the devil used the bitter jealousy of Saul's heart to try to break David and so frustrate God's purpose in him, but David won through.

"But he may smile at troubles gone

Who has the victor-garland on."

In none has the wrath of man been turned to the praise of God as in the Lord Himself. From the earliest days of His ministry, when it was said of those in the synagogue in Nazareth, "They were all filled with wrath in the synagogue, as they heard these things; and they rose up, and cast Him forth out of the city" (Luke 4.28,29), right on till they led him outside the city of Jerusalem to Calvary where they crucified Him, wrathful men bitterly opposed Him and sought His life. But as the sorrows of the Lord at the hands of men can never be measured by human minds, neither can the praise of God be measured, as age on age angels and men shall praise Him for the patient endurance of the Lord in His sufferings unto death, that lone and awful death of the Cross.

Can we ourselves not learn a lesson from this? If we are called to suffer shall we spoil the Image God is seeking to produce in us by the sharpness of our experiences by faithlessness or murmuring? We had not known the beauty of the Lord's character, but for His suffering. Neither Joseph nor David would have been the men they were, but for the suffering they endured.

Miller, J. | Feb 1954
Jottings