Psalm 76:10 “The wrath of man shall praise thee”

“the wrath of man” – This expression, “the wrath of man,” imports the weakness and impotence of it; it is but the wrath of Adam, or of red clay.  How contemptibly doth the Spirit of God speak of man, and of the power of man, in Scripture?  “Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils; for wherein is he to be accounted of?”  The wrath of man, when it is lengthened out to its utmost boundaries, can only go to the length of killing the body or of the breaking the sheath of clay in which the soul lodges, and then it can do no more.

“shall praise thee” – God turns the wrath of man to the praise of his adorable sovereignty.  Never have the Lord’s people had such awful impressions of the sovereignty of God, as when they have been in the furnace of man’s wrath.  It is then that they became dumb with silence.  When the Chaldean and Sabean robbers are let loose to plunder and spoil the substance of Job, he is made to view adorable sovereignty in it, saying, “The Lord gave, the Lord hath taken away: blessed be the name of the Lord.”  It is in such a case as this that God says to his own people, “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the heathen.” 

What work of God about the church is advanced by the wrath of men?

1. His discovering (revealing) work.  By the wind of man’s wrath he separates between the precious and the vile, betwixt the chaff and the wheat.  In the day of the church’s prosperity when quiet hypocrites and true believers are mingled together like the chaff and the wheat on the barn floor, the Lord, like the husbandman, opens the door of His barn, and puts the wind of man’s wrath through it, that the world may know which is which.  O, sirs, much chaff is cast up already, both among ministers and professors, and the wind and sieve of God’s wisdom and power may cast up much more yet ere all be done.
2. God’s purging work is advanced among his own children by the wrath of men.  There is much of the dross of corruption cleaves to the Lord’s people while in the wilderness.  Now, the Lord heats the furnace of man’s wrath, and casts his people into it, that when He has tried them, He may bring them forth as gold.
3. God’s uniting  work is thereby advanced.  In a time of peace and external tranquility, the sheep of Christ scatter and divide among themselves.  But when God lets loose the dogs upon them, the flock runs together; or like pieces of metal cast into the fire, they run together in a lump.
4. God’s enlarging work, or his work of spreading the gospel, is sometimes advanced by the wrath of man (Acts 8:1-5).  The gospel is like chamomile: the more it is trodden upon, the more it spreads.

Adapted from comments by Ebenezer Erskine provided in The Treasure of David