It must not be thought that the counsel given by the young men was the counsel of God, or that the answer given by the king was dictated by the Lord. God is a God of kindness and wisdom, but the words of the king were those of hardheartedness and folly. God disposes man to sympathy and charity, not to resentment or malice. But the Lord does bring men to judgment by permitting them to reap the fruit of their own perversity. Neither Solomon’s sins nor Rehoboam’s rashness and imprudence were from the Lord. Both were wrong, and both proceeded from a source alien to God. But the Lord in His wisdom permitted a course that punished sin with sin and folly with folly. The Lord does not, as a rule, work a miracle that counteracts the results of human passions, anger, pride, perversity, and arrogance. Without interfering with man’s free will as far as personal salvation is concerned, and without influencing causatively evil deeds on the part of unholy men, God guides wisely the courses of men and nations and accomplishes His will. Thus He makes the wrath of man to praise Him.