Bible Heaven/Bible Heaven.iso/spurgeon/ps12.6

Text File | 1993-03-21 | 8KB | 151 lines

                           EXPOSITION.

        What a contrast between the vain words of man, and the
pure words of Jehovah. Man's words are yea and nay, but the
Lord's promises are yea and amen. For truth, certainty, holiness,
faithfulness, the words of the Lord are pure as well-refined
silver. In the original there is an allusion to the most
severely-purifying process known to the ancients, through which
silver was passed when the greatest possible purity was desired;
the dross was all consumed, and only the bright and precious
metal remained; so clear and free from all alloy of error or
unfaithfulness is the book of the words of the Lord. The Bible
has passed through the furnace of persecution, literary
criticism, philosophic doubt, and scientific discovery, and has
lost nothing but those human interpretations which clung to it as
alloy to precious ore. The experience of saints has tried it in
every conceivable manner, but not a single doctrine or promise
has been consumed in the most excessive heat. What God's words
are, the words of his children should be. If we would be Godlike
in conversation, we must watch our language, and maintain the
strictest purity of integrity and holiness in all our
communications.

              EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS.

        Verse 6.--"_The words of the Lord are pure words_," etc.
How beautifully is this verse introduced, by way of contrast to
what was said before concerning! Do sinners talk of vanity? let
saints then speak of Jesus and his gospel. Do they talk impure
words? then let the faithful use the pure words of God, which
like silver, the more used, the more melted in the fire, the more
precious will they be. It is true, indeed, despisers will esteem
both God and his word as trifling; but oh, what an unknown
treasure doth the word, the promises, the covenant relation of
the divine things of Jesus contain! They are more to be desired
than gold, yea, than pure gold; sweeter also than honey and the
honeycomb.--^Robert Hawker.

        Verse 6.--"_The words of the Lord are pure words_," etc.
They that purify silver to the purpose, use to put it in the fire
again and again, that it may be thoroughly tried. So is the truth
of God; there is scarce any truth but hath been tried over and
over again, and still if any dross happen to mingle with it, then
God calls it in question again. If in former times there have
been Scriptures alleged that have not been pertinent to prove it,
that truth shall into the fire again, that what is dross may be
burnt up; the Holy Ghost is so curious, so delicate, so exact, he
cannot bear that falsehood should be mingled with the truths of
the gospel. That is the reason, therefore, why that God doth
still, age after age, call former things in question, because
that there is still some dross one way or other mingled with
them; either in the stating the opinions themselves, or else in
the Scriptures that are brought and alleged for them, that have
passed for current, for he will never leave till he have purified
them. The doctrine of God's free grace hath been tried over, and
over, and over again. Pelagius begins, and he mingles his dross
with it: he saith, grace is nothing but nature in man. Well, his
doctrine was purified, and a great deal of dross purged out. Then
come the semi-Pelagians, and they part stakes; they say, nature
can do nothing without grace, but they make nature to concur with
grace, and to have an influence as well as grace; and the dross
of that was burnt up. The Papists, they take up the same quarrel,
but will neither be Pelagians nor semi-Pelagians, yet still
mingle dross. The Arminians, they come, and they refine popery in
that point anew; still they mingle dross. God will have this
truth tried seven times in the fire, till he hath brought it
forth as pure as pure may be. And I say it is because that truth
is thus precious.--^Thomas Goodwin.

        Verse 6.--The Scripture is the sun; the church is the
clock. The sun we know to be sure, and regularly constant in his
motions; the clock, as it may fall out, may go too fast or too
slow. As then, we should condemn him of folly that should profess
to trust the clock rather than the sun, so we cannot but justly
tax the credulity of those who would rather trust to the church
than to the Scripture.--^Bishop Hall.

        Verse 6.--"_The words of the Lord are pure words_." Men
may inspect detached portions of the Book, and please themselves
with some things, which, at first view, have the semblance of
conniving at what is wrong. But let them read it, let them read
the whole of it; let them carry along in their minds the
character of the persons to which the different portions of it
were addressed; the age of the world, and the circumstances under
which the different parts of it were written, and the particular
objects which even those portions of it have in view, which to an
infidel mind appear the most exceptionable; and they may be
rationally convinced that, instead of originating in the bosom of
an impostor, it owes its origin to men who wrote "as they were
moved by the Holy Ghost." Let them scrutinise it with as much
severity as they please; only let their scrutiny be well
informed, wisely directed, and with a fair and ingenuous mind,
and we have no fears for the issue. There are portions of it on
which ignorance and folly have put constructions that are forced
and unnatural, and which impure minds have viewed in shadows
reflected from their own impurity. Montesquieu said of Voltaire,
_Lorsque Voltaire lit un livre, il le fait, puis il erit contre
ce qu'il a fait_:" When Voltaire reads a book, he makes it what
he pleases, and then writes against what he has made." It is no
difficult matter to besmear and blot its pages, and then impute
the foul stains that men of corrupt minds have cast upon it, to
its stainless Author. But if we honestly look at it as it is, we
shall find that like its Author, it is without blemish and
without spot.--^Gardiner Spring, D.D.

        Verse 6.--"_The words of the Lord are pure words: as
silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times_." The
expression may import two things: first, the infallible certainty
of the word; and, secondly, the exact purity. First, the
infallible certainty of the word, as gold endureth in the fire
when the dross is consumed. Vain conceits comfort us not in a
time of trouble; but the word of God, the more it is tried, the
more you will find the excellency of it--the promise is tried, as
well as we are tried, in deep afflictions; but, when it is so, it
will be found to be most pure, "The word of the Lord is tried; he
is a buckler to all those that trust in him" (#Pr 30:5|); as pure
gold suffers no loss by the fire, so the promises suffer no loss
when they are tried, but stand to us in our greatest troubles.
Secondly, it notes the exact perfection of the word: there is no
dross in silver and gold that hath been often refined; so there
is no defect in the word of God.--^Thomas Manton.

        Verse 6.--Fry thus translates this verse:--

        The words of Jehovah are pure words--
        Silver refined in the crucible--
        Gold, seven times washed from the earth.

Zâqaq <02212> though sometimes applied to express the purity of
silver, is more strictly an epithet of gold, from the peculiar
method made use of in separating it from the soil by repeated
washings and decantations.--^John Fry, in loc.

        Verse 6.--"_Seven times_." I cannot but admit that there
may be a mystic meaning in the expression "_seven times_," in
allusion to the seven periods of the church, or to that
perfection, implied in the figure seven, to which it is to be
brought at the revelation of Jesus Christ. This will be more
readily allowed by those who admit of the prophetic
interpretation of the seven epistles of the Book of Revelation.
^W. Wilson, D.D., in loc.

                       HINTS TO PREACHERS.

        Verse 6.--The purity, trial, and permanency of the words
of the Lord.

        Seven crucibles in which believers try the word. A little
thought will suggest these.