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These terrible words of warning are not levelled —

1. Against low and vile people (vers. 23-26). Nor —

2. Against the avowedly irreligious. The people addressed performed a multitude of sacrifices (ver. 11), were punctilious in their attendance on the house of God (vers. 12-14), were full of apparent devotion (ver. 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" (ver. 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.)

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KJV: And the strong shall be as tow, and the maker of it as a spark, and they shall both burn together, and none shall quench them.

WEB: The strong will be like tinder, and his work like a spark. They will both burn together, and no one will quench them."