REFLECTIONS
How often do the very plans of bad men counteract their own designs! How frequently hath it been known, that the schemes of the ungodly to oppress the righteous have ultimately proved their very means of deliverance? Little did the tyrant of Egypt think when he issued the cruel edict for the murder of his harmless subjects, that his own daughter should be made the unconscious instrument of rescuing the very one whom the Lord would raise up to destroy his empire. Little did the Jews in ages after this event, imagine, that when they had nailed the Lord Jesus to the cross, that that very cross should become the means of accomplishing the reverse of all that they intended.
My soul! learn from such astonishing instances, in which the wrath of man is made to praise the Lord, by fulfilling the sacred purposes of his will, to commit all thy concerns with implicit confidence into the Lord's hand. If thou art his, (this is the grand point to be interested about), depend upon it he will take care of his own. And let this be an everlasting maxim, for the truth is unquestionable, that the man who by grace is led to watch the Lord's providences, will never want for the Lord of providences to watch him.
Reader! dismiss not this interesting Chapter before you have once again remarked, how the cries and groans of the Lord's people called forth the Lord's attention unto them. Men may cry under trouble and groan under oppression. But in all this there is no concern for sin which is the cause of it, and consequently no cry to God to be delivered from it. Job describes such in lively characters. By reason (says he) of the multitude of oppressions they make the oppressed to cry, they cry out by reason of the arm of the mighty. But none saith, Where is God my Maker, who giveth songs in the night? Job 35:9-10. Reader, how stands the case with you? Are your cries the cries for sin? Do your troubles lead the heart to God? And is the language of your soul, where is God my Father, my Saviour, who knows my sorrow, and to whom alone I look for deliverance? Pause over the subject, and may the Holy Ghost be your teacher!