Therefore I will take back my grain in its time, And my new wine in its season, And will pluck away my wool and my flax which should have covered her nakedness.
And will recover My wool - God “recovers,” and, as it were, “delivers” the works of His Hands from serving the ungodly. While He leaves His creatures in the possession of the wicked, they are holden, as it were, in captivity, being kept back from their proper uses, and made the handmaidens and instruments and tempters to sin. God made His creatures on earth to serve man, that man, on occasion of them, might glorify Him. It is against the order of nature, to use God’s gifts to any other end, short of God’s glory much more, to turn God’s gifts against Himself, and make them serve to pride or luxury or sensual sin. It is a bondage, as it were, to them. Whence of them also Paul saith, “The creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly; and, all creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now” Romans 8:20, Romans 8:22. Penitents have felt this. They have felt that they deserve no more that the sun should shine on them, or the earth sustain them, or the air support them, or wine refresh them, or food nourish them, since all these are the creatures and servants of the God whom themselves have offended, and they themselves deserve no more to be served by God’s servants, since they have rebelled against their common Master, or to use even rightly what they have abused against the will of their Creator.