If fire break out.
Responsibility for actions
In the twenty-second chapter of Exodus the rights of property are defended, and the text before us may be considered as the law of fire insurance under the Mosaic dispensation. The law was a constant lesson to the people on their vast responsibility for the consequences of their conduct. God’s law thus showed that Omnipotence identified itself with every just claim, and would insist on compensation for every wrong inflicted.
I. This ancient law brings into view the general doctrine of liability for the consequences of our actions and neglect. Nothing is more difficult than to raise in most men’s minds a vivid sense of the widespreading results of their own character and conduct. They readily acknowledge the responsibility of others, but not their own. Men never take so modest a view of their own individuality, as when the object is to set forth the insignificance of their own contribution to “the evil that is in the world.” But such calculations are founded on a gross delusion. The most commonplace sinner has a power of mischief in him which might sadden the blessed as they look at it.
II. The dormant sense of liability for the consequences of our conduct ought surely to be awakened by considering how we hold other men responsible in common life.
II. The right conception of judgment to come is the bringing to the consciousness of the finite the knowledge of the infinite in this regard. “This, hast thou done.” He who subverts the faith or the conscience of one soul subverts in effect the faith and conscience of all souls, and “their blood will I require at the watchman’s hand.”
IV. These considerations should impress the mind with a new sense of the infinite bearings of our thoughts, words, and actions; and should make us “swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath.” Let to-day be the day of salvation by becoming the day of judgment, for “if we would judge ourselves, we should not be condemned with the world.” (E. White.)
The penalty of carelessness
Learn--
1. To be careful of your neighbour’s material, intellectual, and spiritual interests, and do not damage them by a careless word or action.
2. In order that these interests may not be invaded, put a strong check on those loose and vagrant so-called interests of your own.
3. In order to prevent any possibility of the transgression of these interests, see that those passions of avarice, envy, and revenge which cause so much mischief in the world, are quenched.
4. If these interests are invaded, render a frank, manly, and ample restitution.
(1) Confess your fault.
(2) In the case of loss make it up.
(3) In the case of injury to character, let the acknowledgment be co-extensive with the slander.
(4) Let those who have been injured forgive as they hope to be forgiven. (J. W. Burn.)
No trifling with bread
This is right. The Bible really builds upon granite bases; there is nothing merely fanciful in this legislation. This is sound common-sense, and common-sense in the long run wins the esteem and confidence of the world. No man may trifle with bread. Bad enough to burn down any kind of property; but to consume stacks of corn is to commit murder with both hands; to light the standing corn when it waves in the fields is to thrust a knife, not into one heart, but into the very life of society. How can restitution be made? It cannot be made. You cannot replace corn; money bears no relation to corn; corn is not an arithmetical quantity. Destroyed bread is destroyed life. Who destroys bread? He who makes poison of it; he who turns it into a drink that takes away the reason and deposes the conscience of men. He who holds back the bread-stuff until the time of famine that he may increase his own riches by an enhanced market value is not a political economist, unless, under such circumstances, a political economist is a heartless murderer. And if it is wicked to set fire to corn, is it a light or frivolous matter to set fire to convictions, faiths--the bread-stuff of the soul? Is he guiltless who takes away the bread of life, the bread sent down from heaven? Is he a pardonable incendiary who burns down the altar which was a stairway to the light, or reduces to ashes the Church which was a refuge in the day of storm? (J. Parker, D. D.)
Who kindled the fire
This statute had a peculiar necessity in such a hot, dry country as Palestine, where there was a peculiar danger from accidental conflagrations. If a man burned over his stubble field, it was necessary, before the dry grass was lighted, to see that the wind was in the right quarter, and every precaution taken that the flames should not kindle upon the property of a neighbour. The sound principle that underlies this law is that men must suffer for the evil they do through thoughtless recklessness, as well as for what they do with malicious intent.
1. If I invite a group of young men in my house to surround a card-table, I may simply design to furnish them an hour’s amusement. But perhaps a lust for gambling may lie latent in some young man’s breast, and I may quicken it into life by my offer of a temptation. There is fire in that pack of cards. And I deliberately place that fire amid the inflammable passions of that youthful breast. On me rest the consequences of that act, as well as upon him whom I lead into temptation. The motive does not alter the result by one iota.
2. Among social virtues none is more popular than that of hospitality. When bountifully practised toward the needy, it rises to the dignity of a Christian grace. And ordinary hospitalities may be set to the credit of a generous spirit. But here is the master or mistress of a house who spread their table with a lavish provision for the entertainment of their evening guests. Among the abundant viands of that table the lady of the house places the choicest brands of Madeira wine, and on a side-board she sets out a huge bowl of inviting punch. And among the invited guests of the evening comes a man who has promised the wife of his early love that be will never again yield to his awful appetite, and turn their sweet home into a hell. He sees the tempter in that accursed punch-bowl, and is pressed very courteously to “take a glass.” The fire “catches in the dry thorns” in an instant. He drinks. He goes reeling into his own door that night, and his whole household is in a flame of excitement and terror, and agony and shame. Now, who kindled that fire? Let her who put the bottle to her neighbour’s lips make answer.
3. The artillery of this Divine law against incendiarism has a wide range. It is pointed against that social nuisance, the slanderer. “Behold how great a matter his little fire kindleth.” The utterance of evil reports may be well likened to playing with fire.
4. This law against incendiarism applies to every utterance of spiritual error and infidelity. He who utters a devilish suggestion to corrupt the innocence of chastity sets fire to passion, and becomes the incendiary of a soul. He who scatters a pernicious literature comes under the same condemnation. He who sows scepticism, by tongue or pen, sets fire to the “standing corn” of righteous opinion. Beware how you play with the sparks of falsehood. Beware how you play with the fire of wicked suggestion, that may kindle a blaze of sin in another’s heart. (T. L. Cuyler, D. D.)