Wicked men used by God as instruments for working out his purposes.
The psalmist declares the wicked to be "God's sword" (Psalms 17:13). In a later chapter Isaiah calls Assyria "the rod of God's anger" (Isaiah 10:5). Nothing is more clearly set forth in the prophetical writings than the fact that—
I. CONQUERING NATIONS ARE RAISED UP BY GOD TO CHASTISE THE NATIONS THAT ARE HIS ENEMIES.
1. Assyria was "the axe" with which God hewed down offending peoples (Isaiah 10:14), "the rod' wherewith he smote them. God exalted her, in order that she might "lay waste defensed cities into ruinous heaps" (Isaiah 37:26). This was her raison d'etre, the purpose of her existence (Isaiah 37:26). She was sent against one openly wicked or "hypocritical nation' after another, and given a charge "to take the spoil, and to take the prey, and to tread them down like the mire in the streets" (Isaiah 10:6).
2. Babylon was raised up for the castigation of Tyre (Ezekiel 26:7), of Egypt (Ezekiel 29:19, Ezekiel 29:20; Ezekiel 30:10-26), and of Judah (Jeremiah 25:9).
3. Media and Persia were raised up to work the will of God upon Assyria and Babylon (Isaiah 13:17; Isaiah 21:2; Jeremiah 51:11, etc.).
4. Greece and Macedon were raised up to punish Persia and Media (Daniel 8:5-8); and so on. Each of these nations was ungodly—full of impurity, pride, selfishness, greed, cruelty. Yet God made use of them for his purposes, and does not scruple to call their rulers "his servants," "his shepherds," "those who performed all his pleasure" (Isaiah 44:28; Jeremiah 25:11; Jeremiah 27:6, etc.).
II. BAD MEN ARE EXALTED TO POWER TO CHASTISE BOTH NATIONS AND INDIVIDUALS. Samson, Sennacherib, and Nebuchadnezzar seem to have been rather instruments for punishing nations and states. But such men as Joab, Jehu, Hazael, effected God's purposes mainly with respect to individuals. God made use of them, and of their sinful tempers, to execute vengeance upon certain special offenders. Jehu was anointed king by God's prophet to punish Jezebel and the house of Ahab (2 Kings 9:2-26; 2 Kings 10:1-11). Fired by ambition, he rushed into crime, and "the blood of Jezreel" was afterwards avenged upon his house (Hosea 1:4). But for Joab the crimes of Abner and of Absalom would probably have gone unpunished. He may be viewed as God's instrument to requite their ill deeds; but as he punished the one treacherously and the other against his king's commands, their blood, or at any rate that of Abner, "returned upon the head of Joab" (1 Kings 2:33). Hazael's case is like that of Jehu, only not set before us with such distinctness. He was "God's sword" to the wicked Benhadad; but not thereby excused. God turns the wickedness of men into particular channels, making it effect his ends; but it is wickedness none the less.