Aug. 22

Charles Spurgeon · Faith's Checkbook

WRATH TO GOD'S GLORY

   "Surely the wrath of man shall praise thee: the remainder of wrath
   shalt thou restrain" Ps. 76:10

   Wicked men will be wrathful. Their anger we must endure as the badge of
   our calling, the token of our separation from them: if we were of the
   world, the world would love its own. Our comfort is that the wrath of
   man shall be made to redound to the glory of God. When in their wrath
   the wicked crucified the Son of God they were unwittingly fulfilling
   the divine purpose, and in a thousand cases the willfulness of the
   ungodly is doing the same. They think themselves free, but like
   convicts in chains they are unconsciously working out the decrees of
   the Almighty.

   The devices of the wicked are overruled for their defeat. They act in a
   suicidal way, and baffle their own plottings. Nothing will come of
   their wrath which can do us real harm. When they burned the martyrs,
   the smoke which blew from the stake sickened men of popery more than
   anything else.

   Meanwhile, the Lord has a muzzle and a chain for bears. He restrains
   the more furious wrath of the enemy. He is like a miller who holds back
   the mass of the water in the stream, and what he does allow to flow he
   uses for the turning of his wheel. Let us not sigh, but sing. All is
   well, however hard the wind blows.