Amos 4:11

Ye were as a firebrand plucked out of the burning.

The firebrand plucked out of the burning

A large portion of the sacred writings sets forth God’s exhibitions of kindness towards men as their Protector. Men in every age should study to preserve in their memory the Divine procedure, both in providence and in grace, as being adapted to secure their highest welfare. Here God magnified His mercy by interposing when justice appeared about to consummate its work in their destruction. “I have overthrown some of you, as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and ye were as a firebrand plucked out of the burning.” Those who are the subjects of God’s grace under the Gospel may properly be thus addressed.

I. Here is indicated a fearful danger.

1. This danger in its nature. It arises under the moral government of God consequent upon the character of man as a sinner. Man in his original state is everywhere under the Divine displeasure, condemned and exposed to punishment. The punishment does not extend merely to the infliction of temporal calamity and sorrow, it extends also to the life which is to come. The punishment incurred through sin is illustrated in the text by the metaphor of fire; the figure being taken from the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. The Bible representations of future punishment set forth the intensity of that punishment. They are not to be interpreted literally; they are intended to denote most powerful and supreme intensity of mental suffering; the recollections of the past, the consciousness of the present, and the anticipations of the future, being united in one unmitigated torment and agony.

2. Its imminence. It is represented as being on the eve of consummation. The firebrand is spoken of as being close upon the element that is to consume it, nay, as being already seized. There are few metaphorical expressions more adapted to set forth extreme imminence and exposure to danger. All men, without exception, are in imminent danger of the doom appointed as the consequence of sin, because of the fact that their state of sin constitutes a moral fitness and preparation for it; because of the fact that they are condemned in their sinful state already; and because of the fact that their lives--the season of their probation and trial--are evanescent, frail, and uncertain.

II. A delightful rescue. The source from which the rescue is derived. They are not saved by themselves, or by any finite agency whatever. The only Deliverer of the human soul from the burning is God. And the deliverance is wrought out by a sublime redemptive scheme, the agents being the Divine Son and the Holy Spirit.

III. The characteristics by which this deliverance is distinguished.

1. Observe the freeness of it.

2. The permanence of it.

3. The blessedness of it.

4. The powerful effect which the contemplation of the rescue from the danger should secure.

In this contemplation there will be involved astonishment, gratitude, and compassion for those who are still in the place of burning. (James Parsons.)

A fast sermon for the fire of London

I. The severity of the judgment. “I have overthrown some of you, as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah.” Observe--

1. The nature and kind of it. The suddenness and unexpectedness of it; the force and violence of it; the sad train of circumstances which attend and follow it.

2. Consider it in the series and order of it. It comes in the last place, as a reserve, when nothing else would do any good upon them.

3. The causes moving God to so much severity in His judgment. These are the greatness of the sins committed against Him. But it is not enough in general to declaim against our sins, we must search out particularly those predominant vices which by their boldness and frequency have provoked God thus to punish us. Three sorts of sins are here spoken of. Luxury and intemperance; covetousness and oppression; contempt of God and His laws

4. The Author of the judgment. God challenges the execution of His justice to Himself, not only in the great day, but in His judgment here in the world. When God is pleased to punish men for their sins, the execution of His justice is agreeable to His nature now, as it will be at the end of the world.

II. The mixture of his mercy in it. “Ye were as a firebrand plucked out of the burning.” Note--

1. The nearness they were in to the danger. Like a brand, the greatest part of which is already consumed by fire. This shows the great difficulty of their escaping.

2. The unexpectedness of such a deliverance. They are not saved by their own skill and counsel, nor by their strength and industry, hut by Him who, by His mighty hand, did pluck them as firebrands out of the burning. Though we own the justice of God in the calamities of this day, let us not forget His mercy in what He hath unexpectedly rescued from the fury of the flames. Let us then not frustrate the design of so much severity mixed with so great mercy. Let it never be said that neither judgments nor kindness will work upon us. We have cause enough for mourning and lamentation. Let us meet God now by our repentance, and return to Him, by our serious humiliation for our former sins, and our steadfast resolution to return no more to the practice of them. (Bishop Stillingfleet.)

The fire of iniquity

Many figures are employed to represent the evil of sin. But even the most suggestive are inadequate. “Fire” is very suggestive.

I. Both fire and sin are involved in much mystery. No inspection, or speculation, can determine the weight, colour, consuming power, etc., of fire. Thus with the “fire of iniquity,” there is much that is unaccountable connected with its origin, constitution, and processes of ruin; but none can doubt the terrible fact of its existence.

II. Both find ready and abundant food for the flames. Matter universally possesses the property of heat in various degrees. Human nature is morally of an inflammable character, and universally so. It is only a question of time in the instance of every life, when the hidden properties of sin develop in active, visible form.

III. The most disastrous fires are often from smallest beginnings. A sweeping conflagration that in two hours transformed an American town into a waste of smoking ruins, had its beginning in an unseen flame in a small upper storey. It is in the apparently harmless beginnings of impure thoughts, and unholy desires, and little sins that the desolating fires of iniquity have their rise.

IV. Superior worth of objects does not exempt from attack and ruin. Everything succumbs to fire. This is as sadly true of the fires of sin. It would seem that the brightest genius, the noblest heart, and the most promising talent were the especial victims of the arch-fiend. Satan is no respecter of persons, for the rich and poor, high and low, ignorant and intelligent, useless and useful are drawn upon as fuel to feed his merciless flames.

V. Means of defence are provided against the ravages of this monster. Fire-engines, fire-escapes, etc. Neither has God left humanity destitute of means for the defence of the soul exposed to Satan’s flames. A fountain has been opened, the waters of salvation, the means of grace, the Church, and the Holy Spirit, all these are given us in liberal provision, that the fires of sin may be quenched. Have we been rescued? There are many others yet enveloped in the flames of sin. “Pulling them out of the fire” is the work of next importance. God demands this at our hands. (W. G. Thrall.)

The strange parallel between fire and sin

All nature has its lessons. Fire is a most expressive emblem. What is there in the moral world to which it answers? It is a terrible agent; it is all activity. It tends to consume and to ruin whatever it touches. All life perishes when involved in it. But before that end comes it inflicts the keenest torture. And its inherent tendency is to spread. Let it alone, and with a field before it, its ravages will be terrible and complete. It must be resisted, fought with, mastered, and over come. One thing in the moral world answers to it. Sin against God, sin in a man’s life.

I. The analogy between fire and sin.

1. You cannot weigh fire in the scales. You cannot grasp it. Yet you would call the man absurd or a fool who should deny its existence. So it is with sin. You cannot take hold of it, but you can see the desolation and the ravages it makes. It is a fact which no man can dispute.

2. Fire sometimes becomes almost invisible. At noonday its flame grows indistinct, but the pillar of cloud rises over it and marks the spot. So it is with sin. Some, in the glare and noonday of their busy life, fail to see it. The dimness of religious truth to their minds is a terrible monitor of what sin is doing in their hearts.

3. Sin is like fire in its attractions. A little child loves to play with fire, careless or unconscious of the danger. So it is that men toy with sin. They see its brilliant forms, its beautiful but deadly blaze, and fall in love with it. The moth loves the flame. Men are drawn to sin by its pleasing, winning aspect. It has indulgence for appetite; mirth, wit, and humour, to amuse and gratify; feasts for gluttons; splendour for pride; revelry for the reckless.

4. Sin is like fire in its consuming power. In a short time the flames will turn the grandest and most imposing fabric of human hands into a heap of smouldering rubbish. Sin will do the same thing, only it burns down men. The soul cannot be burned. But what no furnace seven times heated can do, sin will. It can burn the soul down to an eternal ruin. It has done it. It can set it all ablaze with unholy desires; with lust, envy, pride, selfishness, avarice, malice, and all manner of iniquity. It can burn out of it all the elements of reflection, sensibility, principle, and reverence for God. And it is not gross passions alone that will burn down the soul. You can kindle with shavings as well as with pitch and tar. You can desecrate the soul by vain and selfish thoughts as well as by criminal deeds.

5. Sin is like flame, because it spreads, and tends to spread. One spark is enough to kindle a fire that would burn down all London. And so one wicked thought, or evil suggestion or temptation, has been the spark that has kindled the fires of sin in the soul till it glowed like a furnace, or has set the whole community in a blaze of passion. A bad man is always going on from bad to worse.

6. Sin is like fire in the pain it inflicts. What bodily smart or anguish is like that of fire? It is the most perfect of all kinds of torture. Lay a wicked deed on a man’s conscience, and how it blisters it! It burns, and stings, and agonises its victim. It overwhelms him with anguish and remorse. Nothing can make a man so unhappy as his sin.

7. Sin is like fire, because it defaces whatever it touches. Everything fair and beautiful withers before fire. So sin blights the fairest landscapes.

8. Sin is like fire, because it must be resisted. Sin is an evil to be contended with in heart and in life. It must be resisted, or it will consume the soul.

9. Sin is like fire, because if you wait too long before you attempt to bring it under, the attempt is useless. The time comes when fire gets the upper hand. So the soul may be left till sin has got the mastery.

II. It is the sinner that is the fuel

1. A firebrand is a combustible material. It could be burned. So it is with the sinner’s heart. It can burn with unhallowed passions.

2. A firebrand has been already exposed to the fire. So is the sinner’s heart. Unruly desires and unhallowed aims have burned into it, and you can find no one who has not sinned.

3. A firebrand has offered no effectual resistance to the flames. And the sinner has not resisted the fires of sin as he should have done.

4. A firebrand is ready to be kindled anew, even after it has been once quenched. And a spark of temptation may set the sinner ablaze again. It needs to be kept and guarded well.

5. A firebrand is already in the process of being consumed, and a little longer time will finish it. So with the sinful heart; the progress of the fire has been rapid, and its work will soon be done.

6. A firebrand needs only to be let alone, and it will burn to ashes. Leave the soul in its sin--leave it to the ruinous, consuming power of its own lusts, and its ruin will be complete.

7. A firebrand is a dangerous thing if its sparks and coals come in contact with anything else; and so Scripture declares that one sinner destroyeth much good.

III. But even firebrands may be saved. Desperate as their condition is, they are sometimes plucked from the burning, and their flames are quenched. So it is with sinners. How were they delivered? Did they save themselves? As well might the firebrand put out its own fires. The work is God’s. The converted soul is a miracle of grace. He interposes. It is by His Word enlightening the mind, His Spirit convincing of sin, and His grace renewing the soul that the work is accomplished. (E. A. Gillett.)