Revelation 8:10-11 And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp… Commentators say that the star Wormwood of my text was a type of Attila, king of the Huns. He was so called because he was brilliant as a star, and, like wormwood, he embittered everything he touched. A more extraordinary character history does not furnish than this man, Attila, the king of the Huns. The story goes that one day a wounded heifer came limping along through the fields, and a herdsman followed its bloody track on the grass to see where the heifer was wounded, and went on back, further and further, until he came to a sword fast in the earth, the point downward as though it had dropped from the heavens, and against the edges of this sword the heifer had been cut. The herdsman pulled up that sword and presented it to Attila. Attila said that sword must have dropped from the heavens from the grasp of the god Mars, and its being given to him meant that Attila should conquer and govern the whole earth. Other mighty men have been delighted at being called liberators, or the Merciful, or the Good, but Attila called himself, and demanded that others call him, "The Scourge of God." The Roman Empire conquered the world, but Attila conquered the Roman Empire. He was right in calling himself a scourge, but instead of being "the Scourge of God," he was the scourge of hell. Because of his brilliancy and bitterness, the commentators might well have supposed him to be the star Wormwood of the text. Have you ever thought how many embittered lives there are all about us, misanthropic, morbid, acrid, saturnine? The European plant from which wormwood is extracted, Artemisia absinthium, is a perennial plant, and all the year round it is ready to exude its oil. And in many human lives there is a perennial distillation of acrid experiences. Yea, there are some whose whole work is to shed a baleful influence on others. There are Attilas of the home, Attilas of the social circle, Attilas of the Church, Attilas o! the State, and one-third of the waters of all the world, if not two-thirds of the waters, are poisoned by the falling of the star Wormwood. It is not complimentary to human nature that most men, as soon as they get great power, become overbearing. The more power men have the better, if their power be used for good. The less power men have the better, if they use it evil. Some of you are morning stars, and you are making the dawning life of your children bright with gracious influences, and you are beaming upon all the opening enterprises of philanthropic and Christian endeavour, and you are heralds of day. Keep on shining with encouragement and Christian hope! Some of you are evening stars, and you are cheering the last days of old people. But are any of you the star Wormwood? Do you scold and growl from the thrones paternal or maternal? Are your children everlastingly pecked at? What is your influence upon the neighbourhood, the town, or the city of your residence? I will suppose that you are a star of wit. What kind of rays do you shoot forth? Do you use that splendid faculty to irradiate the world or to rankle it? Are your powers of mimicry used to put religion in contempt? Is it a bunch of nettlesome invective? Is it fun at others' misfortune? Then you are the star Wormwood. Yours is the fun of a rattlesnake trying how well it can sting. But I will change this, and suppose you are a star of worldly prosperity. Then you have large opportunity. You can encourage that artist by buying his picture. You can improve the fields, the stables, the highway by introducing higher style of fowl and horse and cow and sheep. You can endow a college. You can build a church. You can put a missionary of Christ on that foreign shore. But suppose you grind the face of the poor. Suppose when a man's wages are due you make him wait for them because he cannot help himself. Suppose by your manner you act as though he were nothing and you were everything. Suppose you are selfish and overbearing and arrogant. You are the star Wormwood, and you have embittered one-third, if not three-thirds, of the waters that roll past your employes and operatives and dependents and associates. Are we embittering the domestic or social or political fountains, or are we like Moses, who, when the Israelites in the wilderness complained that the waters of Lake Marah were bitter and they could not drink them, their leader cut off the branch of a certain tree and threw that branch into the water, and it became sweet and slaked the thirst of the suffering host? Are we with a branch of the Tree of Life sweetening all the brackish fountains that we can touch? What is true of individuals is true of nations. God sets them up to revolve as stars, but they may fall wormwood. Witness Thebes, Tyre, Nineveh, Babylon, and Imperial Rome. (T. De Witt Talmage.) Parallel Verses KJV: And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters; |
    |