Can an axe boast?

Shall the axe boast itself against him who chops with it? Or shall the saw exalt itself against him who saws with it? As if a rod could wield itself against those who lift it up, Or as if a staff could lift up, as if it were not wood! – Isaiah 10v15

Sometimes the word pictures of scripture really stir up the mind. I think about the illustrations of the body and its many parts in 1 Corinthians. I love the image of ‘were the whole body an eye.’ It really drives the point home with a few simple words.

There is the same kind of picture here. ‘Can an axe boast itself against the one who chops with it?’

Don’t you love the image? I wish I was a cartoonist. Imagine a lumberjack out chopping a tree with his axe. Suddenly, in mid swing, the axe stops and says ‘Wait just a second. I am tired of doing what you want me to do! I want to go over there and chop down that pine tree. The wood is much softer over there. Chopping these hard woods is killing me!’

Can you imagine the look on the lumberjack’s face? Those kinds of things just don’t happen. The ass talking to Balaam is one thing, an axe talking back to a lumberjack would be quite another.

Though God is dealing with Assyria here He does make a point that all of us need to take to heart. All an axe can do is yield to its user’s control. Axes and saws don’t rebel. It makes no more sense for man to rebel against God and try to tell God what to do.

In a specific sense for us who claim to serve Him. We are to be tools in His hand, doing what He wants us to do and don’t saying like that imagined axe, ‘Awe come on, let’s go over to that tree!’

It makes much more sense to just yield to His control and let Him use us.