Isaiah 19:2

"Handfuls of Purpose"

For All Gleaners

"I will set the Egyptians against the Egyptians." Isa 19:2

It should be understood that in many of these detached texts we avail ourselves of the practice of accommodation. Here is an instance which admits of accommodation of a practical kind. God has various ways of troubling men and bringing about the purposes of his providence. A man may be his own enemy. He may be as a kingdom divided against itself. Passing from the individual man to the social relation, it is possible for a man's foes to be they of his own household. Understand, therefore, that we are not always exposed to attacks from a foreign source, but that mischief of the deadliest kind may arise within our boundaries. The most deadly of all hatred is that between brothers. The most deplorable of all wars is civil war. Unanimity is shattered; natural alliances are rendered impossible; the councils that ought to be united are turned to confusion; and men know not when they hit out in the dark whether they are striking at friends or foes. It is instructive to notice that God claims all these ministries and engines of operation as distinctly under his own providence. God may be the author of civil war. God may employ evil in order to bring about good; not that he tolerates moral evil or looks with any degree of approval upon it, but he permits social evil, civil wars, misunderstandings, unnatural alliances, to concur in bringing about an evolution otherwise humanly impossible. Even the wicked are servants of God unconsciously. The wrath of man is under his control, and he makes it serve him. The great lesson which we have to lay to heart is not to be looking far away upon the horizon for possible foes, but to be looking into our own hearts, and into our own families and churches. When equals meet in contest what can the result be but destruction? Man was not made to be set against man. Families were meant to be united. Churches should be compact and unanimous, having the full use of their total strength for the propagation of good and the abolition of evil. Remember that God can bring up enemies from unexpected places.