The Pulpit Commentary — Amos — Section 72

of profession, and destroys the fruit of well-doing. In a. little no function of life i8 possible, and all its uses are lost. To cut it down is all the husbandman ca.n do, aTHl to burn it follows in the natural course. 2. Brought eo the flames. There a.re no prairie fires in God's domain. What is burned is first prepared, a.nd then bound i 11 bundles (Matt. xiii. 30) and then set fire to. There is no e.ccident anywhere. The man by bis ill-doing makes himself tinder, and God in his providence uses him for the only purpose he suits. 3. Oombusti'ble. Fire seeks out and feeds on what is most inflammable. 'l'here is an affinity between the two tl1ings that does not fail to bring them together. So with God's avenging fires and the fuel they consume. The vultures of his judgments spy out, and alight upon the carrion of tho sinner's lnsts. Every transgression of the written Law is a transgression also of the unwritten law of the nature of:, things, and brings punishment on and through the instrument ui the sin. Ill. THE BURNING THAT SOATHEI! WITHOUT CONSUMING. "Plucked out of the burn- ing." This language implies: 1. A narrow escape. The brand had been in the fire, and actually alight. A little while and it would have been inextinguishable. The fires of judgment ha.d been. around Israel, and around her close and long. If she bad been, in them but a little longer she could not have come out alive. 'l'he narrowness of her escape was a fact charged with the double influence of fear as to what might have been, and gratitude for what actually was. 2. An escape with a certain amount of injury. The brand that has been alight has suffered. Its fair surface has been scathed and charred. It can never be its original self again. Such a thing was Israel "Once it .had been green, fresh, fragrant, with leaf or flower; now scorched, charreii. blackened, all but consumed. In itself it was fit for nothing but to be cast back into. the .fire whence it had been rescued. Man would so deal with it, a re-creatiou. a.lone could restore it. Slight emblem of a soul whose freshness sin bath withered, thea God's severe judgment had half consumed; in itself meet only for the everlasting fire. from which yet God withdraws it" (Pusey). 3. An escape managed for an important purpose. God tries all means before going to extremities. He threatens, menaces, sets fire to, and scorches, yet after all delays to consume. (1) This gives the sinner a ft,naf. opportunity of r=idering his relation to si1~ It is possible that a last chance of reformation may be embraced for the very reason that it is the last one. The pro,pect of death is a new factor in the problem of a man's relation to the Prince of life, and is likely to modify the solution. (2) It gives him a chance of viewing sin in lhe light ef its, effects. The charred brand knows the taste of the fire. The ultimate like the i=ediate punishment of sin is burning (Mark ix. 43, 44). The plagued sinner has tasted the firstfruits of his terrible retribution. He can argue from it what the harvest will be. This is all in favour of his profiting under the dispensation. . IV. THE NATURE THAT WILL CONSUME llEFOBE IT WILL MELT. Israel had not repented, and was not going to repent. Rescued from the flame in unspeakable mercy for n season, the brand would h11,ve to be thrust in again and burned. This uncon- querable hardness was that: 1. Of a nature that had strayed. The hardest sinner is the. apostate. He sins against light, against favours received, against eXperil'ncti enjoyed, against .gracious influences felt. To have beaten down, and sinned in ~piic of all.these deterrents, argues a hardness. and determination that the stranger to graci,,us influences has not had an opportunity of acquiring. Paul tells us that those who hava so. sinned cannot be "renewed to repentance" (Heh. vi. 4-6). 2. Of a nalure that bad been hardened by .punishment.. There is a degree of induration in the back that has experi,enccd the 111,sh, The brand put into the fire and taken out again is hardened by. the process. The criminal often leaves the prison more callous than he ent.ered iL So-.with the subjects of Divine judgment. If they are not melted by it they are indurated., Hatred .to God and love to the sin a.re intensified, rebelliousness is stirred up, self-will is put on its mettle, nnd so moral.insensibility is increased by the process of resistance. 3. ,Of a natuni in which sin_ is supreme. In most natures there is a struggle .betw.oen good and evil. It is largely a question of circumstances, which w,U prep0nderate &t any.given time. 'l'emptation is resisted sometimes, and.sometimes I_ielded to, according to our mood and the, mnnner in which it is brought to bear. '!'his indicates a state. of war between the law in the members and the law in the min,1, victory inclining .to Isra.ol or to amalt:k as the hand:. of coW!cience are upheld. But  '12 THE BOOK OF AMOS. [cu. IV, 1-13,