Bible Commentaries

A WONDERFUL CLEANSING

‘Sins … as scarlet … white as snow.’

Isaiah 1:18

A florist told me that the flowers for which he had the largest sales were white flowers, as these were very fashionable. Have we not had a winter which harmonises with the prevailing fashion? For weeks the snowflakes have been going and returning.

I. If you want to realise the whiteness of the snow, try and paint it.—Take a few flakes, and make of them a snow-study and then open your paint-box. You will find you have no paint white enough to perfectly represent the purity of the snow.

II. Why is snow white?—Snow is composed of a number of tiny points of ice, which are transparent, but when these are united together to form snow, though each particle may be transparent, the mass is opaque (not transparent) and reflects the light instead of allowing it to pass through. For instance, a pane of glass is transparent like a slab of ice; but pound the glass and you will have a white powder which is not transparent. If you take one of the tiny particles of glass you will find it is transparent, while the little mass together is, like the snow, not transparent.

III. Snow is an emblem of pardon.—Scarlet is one of the colours of deepest dye and is called a fast colour. I asked a friend if he had ever dyed a piece of scarlet cloth white; as you can imagine, he looked astonished at such a question; presently he admitted that the scarlet dye might be extracted from the cloth, but that in the process the cloth would be destroyed.

Now, sin is in our hearts, and is corrupting our entire lives. Sin has become a part of us just as a fast colour has become part of a piece of cloth. My text says that our nature, which has been dyed with sin, can become perfectly pure. God can remove sin without injuring us. God can change the crimson of sin into the purest white. There is nothing more wonderful in the world than the transforming grace of God.

If we would lose sin, with which we are dyed, and be clothed with purity, we must by faith accept the great sacrifice of Christ’s blood, and live by the Lord Jesus Christ.

THE SINNER AND HIS WORKS DESTROYED

‘And the strong shall be as tow, and the maker of it’ [his work] ‘as a spark, and they shall both burn together, and none shall quench them.’

Isaiah 1:31

There are those who glory in outward greatness. They are (they think) ‘strong as the oaks,’ but that strength, when not supported by righteousness, is only like the coarse, unwoven flax, easily broken and easily consumed. Wickedness shall perish, though it sit on thrones. ‘An empire based upon the wrong is rotten through and through.’ The lesson of the text is, that the sin of the evil-doer becomes his scourge. The work of the strong shall be as a spark of fire to him, and both shall burn, and burn inextinguishably. The words look at the Advent of the Lord purely on the side of judgment.

I. It is God’s law that wickedness shall be destroyed.—(1) History of nations proves this, and all such history is a prophecy of the Great Judgment. The Jewish nation has been effaced from history as a nation. See the fate of the empires of all the past—Egypt, Nineveh, Babylon, Greece, Rome. Think of Napoleon I, and his successor in the empire. (2) History of individual men. Have you ever seen it? Say not ‘Where is the promise of His coming?’ for every such instance is a promise.

II. It is God’s law that a man’s own sin shall be his destruction.—‘His work is as a spark.’ Ambition lights up the penal retribution of one man; sensuality is the spark to the tow of another; and avarice works the ruin of a third. Our pleasant vices are made our scourges (Psalms 9:16; Psalms 28:4).

III. It is God’s law that this destruction shall be irretrievable.—‘They shall both burn together, and none shall quench them.’ There is a time when even tears and penitence would seem to be vain.

Illustration

‘The principle in this passage teaches us the following things: (1) That the wicked, however mighty, shall be destroyed. (2) That their works shall be the cause of their ruin—a cause necessarily leading to it. (3) That the works of the wicked—all that they do and all on which they depend—shall be destroyed. (4) That this destruction shall be final. Nothing shall stay the flame. No tears of penitence, no power of men or devils shall put out the fires which the works of the wicked shall enkindle.’