Even human wrath will praise You; You will clothe Yourself with their remaining wrath.. (Ps 76:10)
Doctor John Witherspoon.
If you’ve been enjoying the last several posts, then you’ll enjoy the “American Devotional Series | Part One: The Revolutionary War!”
“The American Devotional Series” is designed to reinforce the way our Founders revered God as the Author of our Rights and Freedoms and how our history is frequently punctuated with bold and definitive references to Christ and the Power of God’s Word.
Click here to order it on Amazon!
He was a preacher born in Scotland in 1723. Briefly imprisoned during the Highlander uprising in 1745-1746, his was a strong and articulate voice recruited by Benjamin Rush in 1766 to preside over the then struggling College of New Jersey which would later become known as Princeton University.
The good doctor would publish The Dominion of Providence Over the Passions of Men, a sermon he preached at Princeton just two months before he signed the “Declaration of Independence.”
In his sermon, he elaborated on Psalm 76:10 by saying this:
The truth, then, asserted in this text, which I propose to illustrate and improve, is, That all the disorderly passions of men, whether exposing the innocent to private injury, or whether they are the arrows of divine judgment in public calamity, shall, in the end, be to the praise of God: Or, to apply it more particularly to the present state of the American colonies, and the plague of war, The ambition of mistaken princes, the cunning and cruelty of oppressive and corrupt ministers, and even the inhumanity of brutal soldiers, however dreadful, shall finally promote the glory of God, and in the meantime, while the storm continues, his mercy and kindness shall appear in prescribing bounds to their rage and fury.1
In other words, there is no Power or Plan that can succeed against the intended Purpose of God – even to the point where the most diabolical scheme, however unjust or forceful it might be – it will be Divinely routed in a way where the end result will ultimately translate to something good (Ps 78:34-35; Is 26:8-9).
This is what the Psalmist meant when he said that “Even human wrath will praise you.”
It’s because every nuance of the human experience is ultimately subordinate to His Will that you can engage every aspect of your life from a position of Strength. Witherspoon emphasized that point later in his sermon by saying, “If your cause is just—you may look with confidence to the Lord and intreat him to plead it as his own.”2
Whatever challenge you may be facing today, you can confront it with the confidence founded on the Power and Sovereignty of God.
“If your cause is just…”
…look with confidence to the Lord.
1. “1776: Witherspoon, Dominion of Providence over the Passions of Men (Sermon)”, “Online Library of Liberty”, https://oll.libertyfund.org/page/1776-witherspoon-dominion-of-providence-over-the-passions-of-men-sermon, accessed January 23, 2023
2. Ibid