x. 7-15. _Howbeit He meaneth not so, &c._
"Man appoints, but God disappoints," "Man proposes, but God
disposes," are proverbs which sum up a good deal of human experience.
We are often reminded of their truth even when we are striving to be
on the side of God, and to be co-workers with Him. There will be
great differences between what _we_ "mean" and "think," and what _He_
has determined in reference to the same actions.[1] But more
frequently we see this in the case of men who, like the Assyrians,
are constructing their plans in direct opposition to God, fully bent
on carrying out ambitious and rapacious schemes. All the while they
are only agents in effecting Divine purposes; they do what they never
"meant" to do.
+I. Man's purposes are often godless.+ In the sense, 1. Of being
formed _independently of God_ (vers. 11, 13, 14). Men forget that God
is inseparably connected with us and all our movements (Ps.
cxxxix. 1-12); they never ask whether God will approve of their
plans, nor what will happen should He frown upon them; they assume
that they have only to plan and execute, forgetting the lessons of
experience. Their conduct is as foolish as it is irreligious;
irrational because it is atheistic (Jas. iv. 13-15). 2. Of being
formed _in defiance of God._ Men harden themselves against the
appeals and warnings of conscience and Scripture, and deliberately
engage in enterprises upon which they know they cannot ask God's
blessing, upon which they know must rest God's curse. Amid all their
dark designs there is the torturing thought, which they would fain
banish, but which clings to them still, that there _is_ a Sovereign
Lord whose counsel shall stand. +II. God knows how to use man's
godless purposes for the furtherance of His glorious designs.+ This
is done, 1. _Sometimes by making an evil purpose the very means of
continuing and spreading His good work._ How often is this seen in
the history of persecutions! (See Acts xviii. 1, 2. The Pilgrim
Fathers. Tyndale's Bible. Martyrdoms, &c.). The means which men take
for putting out the light are used by God for spreading it.
2. _Sometimes by allowing the evil purposes to work on up to the
point when its success appears certain, and then bringing about a
totally different result._ The device of Joseph's brethren only
needed time to effect God's purpose. Haman; enemies of Daniel. There
is no stage of a wicked design safe from the chance of utter
confusion, and even the last act that was intended to be a triumph
may turn out a tragedy. 3. _Sometimes the evil purpose is allowed to
do all that was intended, and yet God effects through it His highest
designs, even when human wisdom would declare that the case was
hopeless._ The crowning example of this is to be found in the
suffering and death of our Lord Himself. Every step of that malignant
crime, which was thought to be a step towards the utter destruction
of the Saviour's mission, was but helping on the triumph intended in
the counsels of Eternal Love (John xii. 32).
Learn, 1. _The folly of leaving God out of our plans._ To plan
without Him is presumptuous arrogance (vers. 15). It is to invite
defeat, our knowledge being so limited and so certain to leave out
some disturbing influence that will frustrate all our anticipations.
A godless plan always means defeat in proportion to its apparent
successes. The choice that really lies before us is to work _with_
God as His children, or _for_ Him as his slaves, His tools, His
instruments. Our choice will be left perfectly free; but if we choose
to reject His paternal guidance, we shall find that all we have
secured for ourselves is merely the contemptible honour of figuring
in our small way as reprobates (Exod. ix. 15). 2. _The dignity of
human life generally,_ as being comprehended in the supreme plans of
God (Gen. xlv. 8).[2] 3. _How to regard the disappointments of life._
When things turn out differently than we "meant" or "thought," it is
useless to fret and fume against them. Instructed by God's Word, let
us humbly and reverently acquiesce in our disappointments as forming
part of a plan of God, conceived in paternal love, which is unfolding
moment by moment: each event, whether bright or dark, having its
mission from Him, and clothed with the grandeur of an unerring
counsel. If our purpose has been a righteous or beneficent one,
though it may seem for a time to have been utterly set aside, yet in
the _end_ we shall find that God has used it to further results more
important and glorious than it entered into our mind to ask or
think.[3]--_William Manning._