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From this declaration of judgment against a guilty nation we may gather some principles which are applicable to men as well as nations elsewhere, and indeed everywhere. We learn -

I. THAT SIN IS A WASTING POWER. "Wickedness burneth as a fire" (ver. 18):, Where sin abounds there desolation abounds. The longer a man (or nation) has lived under its dominion the more has power withered and possession decreased, the more has heritage been wasted and lost.

1. Sin first destroys the less valuable. "The brier and the thorn it shall consume" - the visible, the temporal, the pecuniary, the material, the fleshly.

2. Then the more valuable. "It shall kindle in the thickets of the grove." The reputation, the intelligence, the character, the influence for good, - these disappear under the consuming fires of sin.

3. Then it amounts to a conspicuous disaster. "They shall mount up in volumes of rising smoke." The ruin is so striking that attention is commanded; all surrounding nations must observe it; all neighbors must remark it.

II. THAT IT TURNS ITS HAND UPON ITSELF. Of the fire of human sin humanity itself is the fuel (ver. 19). This is palpably and painfully true:

1. Of the individual. He that sins against God wrongs his own soul, first and most (Proverbs 8:36). It is not only the drunkard and the debauchee who injure themselves by their iniquities. Look on far enough, or look down deep enough, and you will find that every transgressor is putting his own most precious interests, as fuel, into the devouring flame; every such man "eats the flesh of his own arm" (ver. 20).

2. Of the community. It is sin, the departure from the Divine will, which brings about

(1) faction in the state;

(2) contention in the Church;

(3) discord in the family.

Often, in its ultimate outworkings, it becomes remorseless and insatiable. "No man will spare his brother;" he "eats and is not satisfied" (ver. 19; see Galatians 5:15).

III. THAT THE WASTE OF SIN IS ITS DIVINELY APPOINTED PENALTY. "Through the wrath of the Lord of hosts is the land darkened." It seems to be in the very nature of things that sin, whether in the individual or the community, should consume and destroy; but so much has the Lord of hosts to do with the nature of things that those who thus suffer the consequences of their guilt may well feel that the punitive hand of God is laid upon them. And they will also do well to feel -

IV. THAT GOD HAS SOMETHING MORE TO SAY THAN HE HAS YET SPOKEN. "For all this," etc. - C.

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KJV: For wickedness burneth as the fire: it shall devour the briers and thorns, and shall kindle in the thickets of the forest, and they shall mount up like the lifting up of smoke.

WEB: For wickedness burns like a fire. It devours the briers and thorns; yes, it kindles in the thickets of the forest, and they roll upward in a column of smoke.