APPLICATION.--Learn--1. The horrors associated with strong drink; 2. The advantages of absolute temperance; 3. The value of these associations; 4. The encouragement for labours--staying curses, bringing down blessings; 5. The necessity of immediate decision; 6. The solemn importance of earnest prayer for the Divine benediction; 7. Let us avoid exaggerated conclusions. This is not the only evil; temperance not the only good. To all we say, "One thing is needful;" "Except ye be converted," &c.--_Jabez Burns, D.D., LL.D., Sketches of Temperance Sermons._ THE DOOM OF DESPISERS. v. 24. _Therefore as the fire devoureth the stubble, and the flame consumeth the chaff, so their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust: because they have cast away the law of the Lord of hosts, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel._ Shut God out of the heart, and _this_ is what it comes to at last. In Jewish history, we have a commentary on the judgments announced in the text, written in fire and blood. We have here--+I. God's merciful approaches to the soul.+ 1. God begins with _law._ In the present day there is a nervous dread of law, as if it were the offspring of severity rather than of grace.[1] But law checks, rectifies, and blesses in innumerable ways (Ps. xix. 7-11; cxix. 105, &c). 2. To His law, He adds His _word;_ His "word" of persuasion, exhortation, promise, and especially the great "word" of the Gospel. +II. God's merciful approaches rejected.+ "They have cast away the law," &c. Man meets God's law with resistance, His love with contempt. +III. God's merciful approaches giving place to indignation and wrath.+ "Therefore as the fire devoureth," &c. Law being resisted, and love despised, things cannot be as they were before; one of two things must happen--there must be either pardon or punishment. If pardon be rejected, only punishment remains. The images under which this is set forth in the text are most alarming. They show--1. _That at last God's anger strikes at the root of our being_--at the very substance of our life. The wrath of man at the worst rages only on the surface, but God strikes at the root (Luke xii. 4; Matt. x. 28). 2. _God's anger smites the blossom of our being._ All that constitutes the show, promise, and pride of our life, is scattered like dust. 3. _When God smites in anger, He smites suddenly and swiftly,_ "as the fire devoureth the stubble, and the flame consumeth the chaff." 4. _When God smites in anger, man can offer no resistance._ What power to resist a hurricane has a tree whose roots are not only rotten, but "rottenness"? How can the stubble withstand the fire, or the chaff defend itself against tongues of flame?--_J. R. Wood._ FOOTNOTES: