“The strong shall become tow, and his work a spark, and both shall burn together”--a vivid picture of the doom of transgressors, since the mighty man is made combustible, and his own act is that which kindles the flame.
(T. W. Chambers, D. D.)
The fire of judgment
The fire of judgment that consumes sinners does not need to come from without; sin carries within itself the fire of wrath. (F. Delitzsch.)
The tow and the spark
These terrible words of warning are not levelled--
1. Against low and vile people (Isa_1:23-26). Nor--
2. Against the avowedly irreligious. The people addressed performed a multitude of sacrifices (Isa_1:11), were punctilious in their attendance on the house of God (Isa_1:12-14), were full of apparent devotion (Isa_1:15). Nor--
3. Do they refer to the grosser forms of sin. These would, of course, come under the same condemnation. But spiritual sins, though more refined to our perception, are more fatal even than sensual sins. It is preeminently a spiritualism in root, however sensual in fruit, that is here arrived at. It is all summed up in the one evil, “forsaking the Lord” (Isa_1:28). Consider--
I. THE RADICAL CHARGE SIN WORKS IN THE CONSTITUTION OF THE SINNER. Sin, the prophet says in effect, has a disintegrating, deteriorating, degrading influence upon the man’s nature who yields to it. “Tow” is the coarse, broken part of flax or hemp--waste, refuse--It is used here in contrast to that which is strong--also as a pattern of what is inflammable.
1. Sin lowers the tone and tenor of our nature.
2. Sin, depraving and degrading the type and tenor of our nature, enfeebles our powers of resistance to the assaults of external evil. Sin is weakness as well as wickedness; weakness as the result of wickedness.
3. Sin imparts to us an increased susceptibility to evil--makes us more inflammable.
II. THE WAY IN WHICH THE SINNER AND HIS SIN COOPERATE FOR THEIR COMMON DESTRUCTION. Sin is ever multiplying itself between the sinner and his sinful deed. And the issue is irremediable ruin. “They shall both burn together, and none shall quench them.” The moral is, that if we would keep out of hell, we must keep out of sin. (W. Roberts, B. A.)
Sin weakens the strong
The Earl of Breadalbane planned the massacre of Glencoe, and carried it out in the most cruel and dastardly manner. Macaulay, speaking of the effects produced upon the mind of the perpetrator of this atrocious deed, says that “Breadalbane, hardened as he was, felt the stings of conscience, or the dread of retribution. He did his best to assume an air of unconcern. He made his appearance in the most fashionable coffee house at Edinburgh, and talked loudly and self-complacently about the important services in which he had been engaged among the mountains. Some of his soldiers, however, who observed him closely, whispered that all this bravery was put on. He was not the man that he had been before that night. The form of his countenance was changed. In all places, at all hours, whether he waked or slept, Glencoe was ever before him.” (Tools for Teachers.)
