The axe. This is judgment; destruction. The axe is not for planting, or pruning, or dressing, or propping, or protecting, but for cutting down. It is spoken of as used for trees; for the carved work of the temple; for towers; for a whole forest; for a battle-axe. In all cases for overthrow, utter overthrow. The axe against Israel was the Roman host, and many such axes has God wielded, age after age. ==Every judgment is an axe; pestilence is God’s axe; famine God’s axe; adversity God’s axe. At Christ’s second coming will be the uplifting of the axe against antichrist, against Christendom, against every false church. There is a great difference between the axe and the pruning knife. Yet some of God’s judgments are both in one. An axe to the ungodly; a pruning knife to the saint. It is God’s axe, not man’s; its edge is sharp; it is heavy; it will do its work well. ==
Horatius Bonar, Gospels