Isaiah 10:15 Shall the ax boast itself against him that hews therewith? or shall the saw magnify itself against him that shakes it?… This passage is most humbling to that pride of man which leads him to say, "I am my own; I can do as I please with my own powers and life." That pride it breaks down by saying," Not so; you are not your own; you are God's; he made you; he gives you all; he uses you for his own high purposes." The proudest, wealthiest, mightiest man on earth may seem to be something. In reality, what is he? An axe, a saw, a staff in the hands of God, to work out his will. How foolish for the axe to boast against the workman, or the staff to resist the living man who uses it! The truth which we propose to illustrate is, that man can never be other than the instrument of God, used by him for the accomplishment of his Divine purposes. We can find nothing else that God has created which is without a purpose and end for its being. Winds and waters, metals and rocks, flowers and trees, sunshine and showers, summer and winter, day and night, disease and death, all are God's tools. Not one insect hums in the summer evening but has received its commission from the Lord of heaven and earth. Not a flower opens its tinted bosom in the hedgerow but is obeying the voice of God. Not a bird fans the air with its waving wing but hastens to do the Lord's bidding. The world is full of tools in the hands of God. As we ascend in the scale of creation we only find that higher beings have higher work to do; they are more subtle tools, set to do more skilful work, but they never cease to be tools. Man may be the crown of creation, but he is only a creature, and set to do God's most delicate and particular work. So far as we can understand the history of our world, we can see that great nations have been raised up to do certain things for God, and they have done them, either with their wills or against them. Egypt was raised up to educate the childhood of God's chosen people. Assyria was raised up, as we see in this chapter, to be the rod of God wherewith he might punish his people for their sin. Babylon was commissioned to guard the years of Jewish captivity. Greece was exalted to show the world that "the beautiful" is not, of necessity," the good." Rome proved to the world that "restraint of law" can never take the place of the" liberty of righteousness." The Gothic nations were commissioned to overthrow a debased and worn-out civilization. France shows how the passion for "glory" can lead men astray. America illustrates the principles of self-government. England tells what can be achieved under the inspiration of duty. Every prominent man, who stands conspicuously out from his fellows, is a tool of God. Of Pharaoh it is said, "For this cause have I raised thee up, to make known my power in thee." Of Cyrus, who was appointed to arrange the return from captivity, it is said, "I girded thee, though thou hast not known me." Every man's individuality is precisely arranged for God's purpose in him. It becomes a most oppressive thought that each one of us is not only a tool, but a tool of a specific kind, and shape, and weight, and force, and keenness, adapted and attempered for that precise work which God wants to do by us. What, then, shall we do with this fact, that man is the instrument of God? In what relation shall we stand to it? I. WE MAY DENY THE FACT, AND MAKE THIS SUPPORT OUR REBELLION. Perhaps no one ever did, soberly and thoughtfully, say, "There is no God." Men say it in the bragging of their pride, as excuse for their wrong-doing; and by the self-pleasing of their lives; but Scripture reveals their secret when it says, "They do not like to retain God in their thoughts." The difficulty is moral, not intellectual. Even a bad man would hardly dare to say, "Even if there be a God, he has no rights in me; I am my own; I rule myself; I shall take care of myself forever." And yet many a man's life does, in effect, say, "I am no axe, no saw, no staff, of God's; I will not be." "The axe boasteth itself against him that heweth therewith, and the saw magnifies itself against him that shaketh it." Scripture refers to such men. Nebuchadnezzar; Jonah; Assyria; Herod at Tyre. And what must always follow when the "potsherd strives against its Maker?" II. WE MAY ACCEPT THE FACT, BUT PERVERT IT, AND SO MAKE OURSELVES INDIFFERENT TO MORAL DISTINCTIONS. A man may say, "Yes, I am a tool of God's; my life is all planned out for me; it is all fore-ordained where I shall be, what I shall do; therefore there can be no real difference between right and wrong; whatever I do I cannot help doing, I was intended to do; I am only the axe or the saw; the virtue lies only in him who uses me, and whose power I cannot resist." We are all exposed to the temptation of treating this sublime fact of God's relation to us in this most mournful and mistaken way. Losing the distinction between right and wrong out of our lives, we are in peril of losing God altogether as a moral Being, and transforming him into the "cloud-compelling Jove" of whom the pagans dreamed. Cannot we see that when God speaks of men as his axe or his saw, it is as using a symbol, which answers only in part? Man is not according to the nature of the axe or the saw; but his intelligence, his powers, his will, come into a relation of dependence on God and service to him, just as the saw does to man. God's higher will takes into account man's will, and would even work out its gracious plans through that human will. III. WE MAY RECEIVE THIS FACT, AND MAKE IT NOURISH A DAILY OBEDIENCE. Was the life of the Apostle Paul a free, noble, blessed life? He was but a tool in the hands of God. "Go thy way; thou art a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my Name before the Gentiles." He did not resist; he did not let the fact that he was God's tool lead him to indifference. He cheerfully accepted God's will for him; he fitted his will to God's will, and said, "Yes, the very best thing for me is just the thing that God requires of me, that I should go and preach to the Gentiles." Is there moral glory in the life of the Lord Jesus Christ on the earth? It comes out of the fact that even he, in his earthly manifestation, was a tool in the hands of God, and liked to be a tool. He fitted his mind into the mind of God so as to say, "Lo, I come to do thy will, O God;" "My meat and my drink is to do the will of my Father who is in heaven." The truth before us, in this our text, staggers and crushes us if we attempt to resist it. It is one rich indeed in comfort and help if we will accept it, fit our will and pleasure into God's will and pleasure for us, and say, "God's plan for me is my plan for myself. God's place, God's work, God's difficulties, God's sorrows, God's helps for me, are the very things that I would have chosen for myself, if I had wisdom enough to choose." The truth of the text will be a stumbling-block to us until we truly know God. Then it becomes to us a glory and a boasting. Why should the infant of a day be set to steer the vessel when the Lord of winds and seas is on board? Why should a stranger lead himself through the trackless forests of life when the all-seeing, all-knowing Father-God offers the guiding hand? What can be better for us than to be axe, saw, staff, in the hands of him who is good, wise, loving, strong, our Almighty Father? - R.T. Parallel Verses KJV: Shall the axe boast itself against him that heweth therewith? or shall the saw magnify itself against him that shaketh it? as if the rod should shake itself against them that lift it up, or as if the staff should lift up itself, as if it were no wood. |
    |