round?" But when once
that word is spoken, there is no appeal. The Jewish people had become
sadly unfruitful; but a definite period was to intervene--three years
of Christ's ministry and thirty years beside--before the threatened
judgment befell. All this while the axe lay ready for its final
stroke; but only when all hope of reformation was abandoned was it
driven home, and the nation crashed to its doom.

Perhaps this may be the case with one of my readers. You have been
planted on a favourable site, and have drunk in the dews and rain and
sunshine of God's providence; but what fruit have you yielded in
return? How have you repaid the heavenly Husbandman? May He not be
considering whether any result will accrue from prolonging your
opportunities for bearing fruit? He has looked for grapes, and lo, you
have brought forth only wild grapes; He may well consider the
advisability of removing you from the stewardship, which you have used
for your own emolument, and not for his glory.

For all such there must be "wrath to come." After there has been
searching scrutiny and investigation, and every reasonable chance has
been given for amendment, and still the soul is impenitent and
disobedient, there must be "a certain fearful looking for of judgment
and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries."

The fire of John's preaching had its primary fulfilment, probably, in
the awful disasters which befell the Jewish people, culminating in the
siege and fall of Jerusalem. We know how marvellously the little
handful of believers which had been gathered out by the preaching of
Christ and his disciples were accounted worthy to escape all those
things that came to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man. But the
unbelieving mass of the Jewish people were discovered to be worthless
chaff and unfruitful trees, and assigned to those terrible fires which
have left a scar on Palestine to this day.

But there was a deeper meaning. The wrath of God avenges itself, not
on nations but on individual sinners. "He that believeth not the Son
shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him." The penalty
of sin is inevitable. The wages of sin is death. The land which
beareth thorns and thistles, after having drunk of the rain which
cometh often upon it, is rejected and nigh unto a curse, its end is to
be burned; under the first covenant, every transgression and
disobedience received a just recompense of reward; th