a Nation Purged of Dross by Disaster
The great lover of our souls does not abandon His people even when they spurn the first overtures of His appealing pity. Though they refuse to yield to them, He refuses to cast them off; and sets Himself by the cleansing judgments of His providence to wean them from the evil ways they have chosen and to win them back to Himself. If only Jerusalem had now listened to Isaiah's earnest pleadings, she would never have been carried away into the seventy years' captivity in a land of strangers. This is the cleansing fire referred to in Isaiah 1:25. Their ground of confidence, whether in themselves or their allies, would be destroyed, Isaiah 1:29-30; the ringleaders of the evil which had brought them to desolation would be exterminated; and there would emerge a new and purified people as in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah. Let us thank God for the cleansing fires in national and personal experience. Let us not fear them when plied by the hand of love. See Malachi 3:3 and John 15:2-3.