I. THE HEART OF THE GOOD MAN. "He loveth pureness of heart." Not merely does he love the pure in language, in manners and habits, in outward deportment, but the pure in heart. Pureness of heart in man's case implies —

1. A moral renewal.

2. An urgent necessity. Without pureness of heart there is no true knowledge of God, or fellowship with Him.

II. THE SPEECH OF THE GOOD MAN. "For the grace of his lips the king shall be his friend." By "the grace of his lips" we are to understand something more than grammatic accuracy, or elegant diction — something more than logical correctness or strict veracity. It means speech that is morally pure — pure in sentiment, pure in aim. It is said of Christ that the people wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of His mouth. The man of a pure heart will have lips of grace. "If the tree is made good, the fruit will be good."

III. THE INFLUENCE OF THE GOOD MAN. "The king shall be his friend." Solomon here speaks probably of his own determination. He meant to say that he would give his friendship to such men. "This," says Mr. Bridges, "had been his father's resolution" (Psalm 51:6; Psalm 119:63). This character smoothed the way to royal favour for Joseph (Genesis 41:37-45), for Ezra (Ezra 7:21-25), and Daniel (Daniel 6:1-3, 28). Nay, we find godly Obadiah in the confidence of wicked Ahab (1 Kings 18:3, 12; 2 Kings 13:14). So powerful is the voice of conscience, even when God and holiness are hated! Such alone the great King marks as His friends. Such He embraces with His fatherly love (Proverbs 15:9). Such He welcomes into His heavenly kingdom (Psalm 15:1, 2; Psalm 24:3, 4).

IV. THE BLESSEDNESS OF A GOOD MAN "The eyes of the Lord preserve knowledge." Three different interpretations have been given to the expression.

1. That the Lord vigilantly watches over His truth in the world. This is a truth, although we are not disposed to accept it as an interpretation of the passage.

2. That what the eyes of the Lord see He remembers for ever. "The eyes of the Lord preserve knowledge." He retains His knowledge. We do not preserve our knowledge. We forget far more than we retain. But we are not disposed to accept this as the idea of the passage.

3. That the Lord exercises a protecting superintendence over those who possess His knowledge. That it means, in fact, the same as the expression elsewhere. "The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous." This we accept as the true idea. Whilst the Lord keeps the good man, He overthroweth the words of the transgressor.

(D. Thomas, D.D.)

     5842   eloquence

One Lion Two Lions no Lion at All
A sermon (No. 1670) delivered on Thursday Evening, June 8th, 1882, at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington, by C. H. Spurgeon. "The slothful man saith, There is a lion without, I shall be slain in the streets."--Proverbs 22:13. "The slothful man saith, There is a lion in the way; a lion is in the streets."--Proverbs 26:13. This slothful man seems to cherish that one dread of his about the lions, as if it were his favorite aversion and he felt it to be too much trouble to invent another excuse. …
C.H. Spurgeon—Sermons on Proverbs

The Formation of Habits.
School Sermon. Proverbs xxii. 6. "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." INTRODUCTION.--There is a district, high up in the Black Forest, where the ground is full of springs. It is a plain some nine hundred feet above the sea. Thousands upon thousands of little springs gush out of the soil; you seem to be on the rose of a vast watering-can. Now, from this great source flow a good many rivers, and they flow in very different, nay, opposite directions. …
S. Baring-Gould—The Village Pulpit, Volume II. Trinity to Advent

The Christian Business World
Scripture references: Proverbs 22:29; Romans 12:11; Psalms 24:1; 50:10-12; Haggai 2:8; Psalm 49:6,10,16,17; 62:10; Matthew 13:22; Mark 10:23,24; Job 31:24-26; Proverbs 3:9; Matthew 25:14-30; 24:45-51; 6:19-21; Luke 12:16-21. THE IDEAL IN THE BUSINESS WORLD There is often a wide difference between the methods actually employed in doing business and when they should be. Good men who are in the thick of the battle of competition and rivalry with other firms in the same line of trade, are the quickest …
Henry T. Sell—Studies in the Life of the Christian

Philip and the Emperor
Seest thou a man diligent in his business? he shall stand before kings; he shall not stand before mean men.--Prov. xxii. 29. Kallias stayed a fortnight under the hospitable roof of Olympias, and during those days he had the pleasure of seeing how greatly his honest and genial simplicity brightened the thoughts both of his hostess and of his friend. The general outline of his own future seemed now to be approximately settled. Like Philip, he had acquired an incurable disgust for Constantinople, with …
Frederic William Farrar—Gathering Clouds: A Tale of the Days of St. Chrysostom

He Accuses Abaelard for Preferring his Own Opinions and Even Fancies to the Unanimous Consent of the Fathers, Especially Where He Declares that Christ did Not
He accuses Abaelard for preferring his own opinions and even fancies to the unanimous consent of the Fathers, especially where he declares that Christ did not become incarnate in order to save man from the power of the devil. 11. I find in a book of his sentences, and also in an exposition of his of the Epistle to the Romans, that this rash inquirer into the Divine Majesty attacks the mystery of our Redemption. He admits in the very beginning of his disputation that there has never been but one conclusion …
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux—Some Letters of Saint Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux

The Baptismal Covenant Can be Kept Unbroken. Aim and Responsibility of Parents.
We have gone "to the Law and to the Testimony" to find out what the nature and benefits of Baptism are. We have gathered out of the Word all the principal passages bearing on this subject. We have grouped them together, and studied them side by side. We have noticed that their sense is uniform, clear, and strong. Unless we are willing to throw aside all sound principles of interpretation, we can extract from the words of inspiration only one meaning, and that is that the baptized child is, by virtue …
G. H. Gerberding—The Way of Salvation in the Lutheran Church

"But Seek Ye First the Kingdom of God, and his Righteousness, and all These Things Shall be Added unto You. "
Matth. vi. 33.--"But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." The perfection even of the most upright creature, speaks always some imperfection in comparison of God, who is most perfect. The heavens, the sun and moon, in respect of lower things here, how glorious do they appear, and without spot! But behold, they are not clean in God's sight! How far are the angels above us who dwell in clay! They appear to be a pure mass of light and …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

We Shall not be Curious in the Ranking of the Duties in which Christian Love...
We shall not be curious in the ranking of the duties in which Christian love should exercise itself. All the commandments of the second table are but branches of it: they might be reduced all to the works of righteousness and of mercy. But truly these are interwoven through other. Though mercy uses to be restricted to the showing of compassion upon men in misery, yet there is a righteousness in that mercy, and there is mercy in the most part of the acts of righteousness, as in not judging rashly, …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

Proverbs
Many specimens of the so-called Wisdom Literature are preserved for us in the book of Proverbs, for its contents are by no means confined to what we call proverbs. The first nine chapters constitute a continuous discourse, almost in the manner of a sermon; and of the last two chapters, ch. xxx. is largely made up of enigmas, and xxxi. is in part a description of the good housewife. All, however, are rightly subsumed under the idea of wisdom, which to the Hebrew had always moral relations. The Hebrew …
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament