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I. WHAT STATE THIS METAPHOR REPRESENTS.

1. A smoking flax represents a state in which there is a little good. The margin is "dimly burning flax." It is burning; but it is burning very dimly. There is a spark of good within the heart.

2. You are like smoking flax, because your good is too little to be of much use to anybody. What could we do with a smoking flax if we had it here to-night, and the gas was all out?

3. Smoking flax, then, has a little fire, but it is so little that it is of small service, and, what is worse, it is so little that it is rather unpleasant.

4. Though the good of it is so little that it is of very little use to other people, and sometimes is very obnoxious, yet there is enough good in you to be dangerous in Satan's esteem. He does not like to observe that there is yet a little fire in you, for he fears that it may become a flame.

II. WHEN ARE SOULS IN THAT STATE?

1. Some are in that state when they are newly saved — when the flax has just been lighted.

2. Sometimes a candle smokes, not because it is newly lit, but because it is almost extinguished. I speak to some Christians who have been alight with the fire of grace for many years, and yet they feel as if they were near the dark hour of extinction. But you shall not go out. The Lord will keep you alight with grace.

3. Sometimes the wick smokes when worldliness has damped it.

4. At times a wick burns low because a very strong wind has blown upon it. Many men and women are the subjects of very fierce temptations.

III. WHAT DOES JESUS DO WITH THOSE WHO ARE IN THIS STATE? He will not quench the smoking flax. What a world of mercy lies in that word!

1. He will not quench you by pronouncing legal judgment upon you.

2. He will not quench you by setting up a high experimental standard.

3. He will not judge you by a lofty standard of knowledge. The Lord has some of His children whose heads are in a very queer state; and if He first puts their hearts right He afterwards puts their heads right.

4. The Lord will not quench you by setting up a standard by which to measure your graces. It is not, "So much faith, and you are saved. So little faith, and you are lost." If thou hast faith as a grain of mustard-seed it will save thee. Come along, you little ones,-you trembling ones! Jesus will not quench you. He will blow upon you with the soft breath of His love till the little spark will rise into a flame.

( C. H. Spurgeon.)

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KJV: A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench: he shall bring forth judgment unto truth.

WEB: He won't break a bruised reed. He won't quench a dimly burning wick. He will faithfully bring justice.