2 Kings 9:31

Had Zimri peace, who slew his master?

Divine purposes and human agencies

These are not the words of the Spirit of God, but of that wicked witch Jezebel, wife of the idolatrous Ahab. Nevertheless, there is a truth implied in them which it shall be our present business to expound and illustrate. “Had Zimri peace, who slew his master?” What did she mean by this? The answer is in the story of Zimri told in the sixteenth chapter of the first Book of Kings. Elah, son of Baasha, has reigned over Israel but two years, when in a drunken revel, in the house of his steward, he is slain by Zimri, captain of half his chariots, and his throne usurped by the traitor who had thus shed his blood. But for Zimri there is indeed no peace; the seven days of his reign are days of terror and of blood. Tirzah is speedily besieged by the army under Omri which hastens from Gibbethon; and when Zimri sees that his usurped power is gone, he betakes himself to the palace, where, kindling a fire around him, he perishes in the midst of the flames. That Divine purposes are sometimes accomplished by wicked agents; but that this in nowise excuses the agents themselves, or shields them from merited punishment.

I. By many facts in human history.

1. Look at facts in the history of nations.

2. Look at facts in the history of individuals.

There is Jacob concerning whose relation to Esau the prophecy stands that “the elder shall serve the younger”; yet how utterly detestable the means;--the lies, the trickery, the fraud, by which the end is attained, for the purposes of God I have respect, and I know that they shall stand, but for the means used by Jacob and his mother, I have the utmost abhorrence and contempt.

II. In the great central fact of Christianity. I mean the Crucifixion of the Lord. Here, the divinest purpose works itself out by the most satanic agency. The noblest deed of love ever wrought by the great God of love Himself, combines with the meanest, foulest, deed of hatred, ever wrought by man, in the great agony of the Cross. “Him,” says Peter, “being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye by wicked hands have crucified and slain.” And yet one step further--“I wot that through ignorance ye did it.” So that here the chosen channels through which Divine wisdom and Divine love pour themselves upon us are human ignorance and wickedness! “O the depth of the riches,” etc. And here, I merely remark, that to the sentence,which states the principle we are discussing, I might add another member:--namely, That if those wicked agents who, consciously or unconsciously carry out Divine purposes, repent of their sin, they are not excluded from participation in the good they have been instrumentally, and sinfully, accomplishing.

III. In the dissemination of the gospel. Means in themselves inconsistent with the spirit of the Gospel, are in the order of Divine providence, indirectly employed. (J. W. Lance.)