Like one who removes a garment on a cold day or vinegar poured on a wound is one who sings songs to a heavy heart. Sermons
I. ABSTAIN FROM THE INOPPORTUNE. (Ver. 20.) It should require but a very humble share of delicacy to understand that what is very valuable at one time is altogether misplaced and unpalatable at another. We should carefully abstain from: 1. All merriment in the presence of great sorrow. By indulgence in it then we only add fuel to the fire of grief. 2. The discussion of business or the proposals of pleasure in the presence of earnest spiritual solicitude. When men are profoundly anxious about their relations with God, they do not want us to harass and burden them with talk about temporal affairs or about social entertainments; these are good in their time, but not at such a time as that. 3. Entering into the affairs of life in the presence of the dying. Those who stand very near indeed to the future world do not want to be vexed with matters which they are leaving behind for ever. Similarly, it is a mistake to be always or even often discussing death and the future with those who, while not unready for either, are charged with the duties and responsibilities of active life. 4. An urgent insistance upon spiritual obligations in presence of acute bodily suffering or severe destitution. The Christian course, in such a case, is to call in the doctor or the baker. II. CULTIVATE THE ACCEPTABLE. (Ver. 25.) How acceptable to the human heart is: 1. Good news from our friends and kindred when afar off from us. It is worth while to take much trouble, to a put ourselves quite out of our way," in order to convey this; it is one of the friendliest of friendly acts. 2. Society in loneliness; the kindly visit paid to the solitary, a conversation (however brief and simple) with those whose hearth is uncheered by companionship. 3. Encouragement in depression. The heart often aches and hungers for a word of cheer, and one very short sentence may lift it up from depths of disappointment and depression into the bracing air of hopefulness and determination. 4. Sympathy in sorrow. Grief does not crave many or fine words; it asks for genuine sympathy - the "feeling with" it; if it has this, it will gratefully accept any simplest utterance in word or deed, and will be comforted and strengthened by it. Real sympathy is always the acceptable thing. 5. Guidance in perplexity. When we do not know which way to turn, then the brief word of direction from one who has "gone that way before us" is valuable indeed. There is no kinder friend than the true and faithful guide. If we would take our part well and be to our brethren all that it is in our power to become, we must study to do the congenial and acceptable thing. The man who has acquired this art is worthy of our admiration and our love; we are sure that he will not go without our Master's commendation; for is it not he who is feeding the hungry, and giving the thirsty to drink? is it not he who is clothing the naked and healing the sick? While we do these two things, should we not also - III. BE PREPARED FOR EVERY POSSIBLE CONDITION? We may be sure that uncongenial and congenial things will be said to us, timely and untimely attitudes will be taken toward us; some men will aggravate and others will heal our spirits. The wise man will see to it that he is (1) rooted in those principles which never change but always sustain; (2) has his strength in the One "with whom is no variableness nor shadow of turning." - C.
It is the glory of God to conceal a thing. If God were to conceal everything from our view, it would be impossible that any glory could result to Him from the sentiments and actions of His creatures. It is by a partial communication of Himself that He has, in the highest degree, consulted His honour and manifested His wisdom. A temperature of mingled light and obscurity, a combination of discovery and concealment, is calculated to produce the most suitable impressions of the Divine excellence on the minds of fallen creatures.I. THE DIVINE BEING IS ACCUSTOMED TO CONCEAL MUCH. Specify some instances. 1. In relation to His own nature, and the manner of His existence. His essence is altogether hidden from the most profound investigation, the most laborious research, the most subtle penetration, of His creatures. We ascribe to Him attributes and virtues; but how He exists, in an essential and eternal nature of His own, no man can know. His perfections are impressed on the works of nature, but in such a manner that we learn them only by inference. 2. In relation to the structure and constitution of His works. The scenes of nature lie open to our view. But the mysteries of nature, with regard to the essences of things, and indeed to a multitude of subtle operations, are kept in a kind of sacred reserve, and elude the utmost efforts of philosophy to surprise them in their concealments, and bring them to light. Those that have devoted themselves to an investigation of the laws of nature perceive that the meanest work of God is inexhaustible; contains secrets which the wisdom of man will never be able to penetrate. 3. In the dispensations of His providence. By which is meant that series of actions which the Divine Being is continually carrying on in the government of the world which He has made. There exists such a decided connection between well-doing and happiness on the one hand, and between wickedness and misery on the other, as sufficiently to show, even independently of revelation, that the Divine Being is the patron of rectitude and the enemy of vice. But the natural course of things is frequently interrupted and suspended by incidental causes; so that particular exceptions are continually occurring to the ordinary rule. God conceals the design for which many events are permitted to take place. And He is accustomed to throw much obscurity over the future. The most important events of human life, on which our happiness greatly depends, are, for the most part, concealed from our view. 4. In the economy of grace and redemption. The revelation contained in the Scriptures extends only to facts, not to the theory of those facts, or their original causes. The most important truths are communicated in a dogmatic, not a theoretic, manner. II. THE DIVINE BEING PROMOTES HIS GLORY, BY SUCH A TEMPERATURE OF LIGHT AND SHADE AS THAT WHICH DISTINGUISHES ALL HIS DISCOVERIES OF HIMSELF, AND HIS DISPENSATIONS TOWARDS HIS CREATURES. 1. The concealment of things tends to glorify Him, as it is, in part, the necessary consequence of His infinite superiority to all finite beings in wisdom and understanding. His purposes and designs cannot be adequately scanned by the wisdom of men. 2. It evinces His entire independence of the wisdom, counsel, or co-operation of any or all of His creatures. He may, with infinite safety and propriety, retire within Himself, into the secret recesses of His own essence. 3. Such a degree of obscurity as attends the partial manifestation of the Divine will, the progressive development of the Divine purposes, is eminently adapted to the state, exigency, and condition of men. The prophetic parts of Scripture are proverbially obscure. By not explaining His doings, God trains us to submission, and cultures humility and vigilance, while at the same time exciting to diligence and exertion. While there are many things which God conceals, and thereby advances His glory, He has made manifest all that it is essential for man to know. And among the things fully revealed is the placability of God, His readiness to receive the chief of sinners who repent of their sins and believe the gospel. (Robert Hall, M.A.) 1. There are mysteries in the Divine nature and government that bear direct witness to the glory of God's person. The silence He maintains is a sign of His self-sufficiency. As a matter of privilege, God may permit us to enter into sympathy and co-operation with Himself and His work. But He does not need our help, and by the stern reserve in His revelations He asserts the separateness and the sufficiency of His own mighty power. If He employ us at all, it is for our good. His power is separate, sufficient, solitary. God conceals many things, to remind us of the gulf that separates the glory of His nature from the dimness of all finite natures. Man is destined to more exalted and intimate communion with his Maker than any other being in the universe, and yet there are limitations upon his privilege necessitated by the very supremacy of God. There are secrets we cannot enter, counsels we cannot share, age-long problems, the solution of which we are not permitted to see. God conceals many things, so that throughout the successive stages of our destiny He may bring into our contemplation of His nature and works elements of inexhaustible freshness. Reservations that are determined by motives of this type have an intimate relation to the glory of the Divine name. The revelations of the life to come will be gradual and progressive. If God's revelation were a revelation of exhaustive fulness, a revelation with no reserved questions in it, the very enchantment of God's nature would be gone. 2. God is glorified by mystery, because mystery has its place in the discipline and exaltation of human character. The veiled truth sometimes calls out a higher faith, a more chastened resignation, a more childlike obedience in God's people, than the truth that is unveiled. God conceals many things, so that He may be magnified through His people's trust in darkness and uncertainty. No genuine spirit of trust can spring up in ignorance. In God's dealings with us, profound silence and ringing oracle, the hidden and the revealed, the mystery and the defined truth, alway alternate with each other. It is "the glory of God to conceal a thing," because by the very shadows in which He hides it we are cast with a more pathetic dependence upon His sympathy and care, and come into truer and more childlike contact with His spirit. God conceals many things, so that He may protect us from needless pain and fear, and magnify His own gentleness. Many a thing must be hidden from a child, and the more sensitive he is, the stricter must be the concealment. God conceals some things from us to excite us to nobler and more strenuous endeavour in our search after the truth. There are truths that we shall come to know through our own thought and struggle, and deepening spirituality of life, temporary mysteries that it is best for us to know through conflict, experience, sustained contemplation. God hides many things from the world, so that He may have secrets with the custody of which He can honour His own chosen servants. And He conceals some things from us, so that He may impress us with the solemnities of the unknown. God never conceals what may be necessary to furnish His people for the work and service of life. Let the revelation inspire your faith, and let the mystery awaken your awe. (Thomas G. Selby.) II. THE GREAT PRINCIPLE CONTAINED IN THE TEXT. The text is a whole. One part must be taken with reference to the other. The wise man says it is the glory of God to do that which is not the glory of kings to do. Government is necessary to the very existence of society. There can be no government without law. It is the glory of all governments to frame wise and salutary laws for the well-being and true happiness of society, to guard these by sanctions, and by all the majesty of power. Governments do not originate that which is moral in law. They do not create the distinctions between right and wrong, good and evil. Magistrates are the representatives of law. They are to see that it is respected and maintained, and they are to punish law-breakers; if not, it is because offenders baffle pursuit, and hide themselves. If kings do not search out a matter, it is because they are indifferent to the conduct of their subjects, and care not whether they are virtuous or vicious; and then the hour of revolution is at hand; the kingdom will fall. The glory of God is the very opposite to the honour of kings. God is a law-giver. His will is the law of all morals. His being is the foundation of all law. And yet He has made provision for pardoning men. He hides, He conceals their sins. He does this by an atonement. It is the glory of God to save men by the death of Christ, because by saving them thus He may magnify His own law, and honour His own government. Governments have no gospel for criminals. God forgives sins. (H. J. Bevis.) You know as much as is good for you, for it is with the mind as with the senses. A greater degree of hearing would incommode us; and a nicer degree of seeing would terrify us. If our eyes could see things microscopically, we should be afraid to move. Thus our knowledge is suited to our situation and circumstances. Were we informed more fully beforehand of the good things prepared for us by Providence, from that moment we should cease to enjoy the good we possess, become indifferent to present duties, and be filled with restless impatience. Or suppose the things foreknown were gloomy and adverse; what dismay and despondency would be the consequence of the discovery; and how many times should we suffer in imagination what we now only endure once in reality! Who would wish to draw back a veil which saves them from so many disquietudes? If some of you had formerly known the troubles through which you have since waded, you would have fainted under the prospect. But what we know not now we shall know hereafter.(H. G. Salter.) Machinery boxed in goes round and accomplishes its work as well as if it were all exposed to view. At one extremity the raw material goes in, and at another the manufactured article comes out. This is all that the visitor sees. For once, and to instruct a stranger, the master may take the covering off, and lay bare the intricate accumulation of cylinders and wheels; but soon he shuts the door again. Thus has the Author of salvation in the case of some opened up in the processes of His providence, which are usually conducted in secret.(W. Arnot, D.D.) People Hezekiah, SolomonPlaces JerusalemTopics Acid, Clothing, Cold, Garment, Heart, Heavy, Makes, Melody, Nitre, Poured, Sad, Singer, Singeth, Sings, Soda, Songs, Takes, Taketh, Taking, Troubled, Vinegar, Weather, WoundOutline 1. observations about kings8. and about avoiding causes of quarrels Dictionary of Bible Themes Proverbs 25:20 4306 minerals Library An Unwalled City'He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down, and without walls.'--PROVERBS xxv. 28. The text gives us a picture of a state of society when an unwalled city is no place for men to dwell in. In the Europe of today there are still fortified places, but for the most part, battlements are turned into promenades; the gateways are gateless; the sweet flowers blooming where armed feet used to tread; and men live securely without bolts and bars. But their spirits cannot yet … Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture God's Glory in Hiding Sin Good News That a Man Should not be a Curious Searcher of the Sacrament, but a Humble Imitator of Christ, Submitting his Sense to Holy Faith Epistle xxxix. To Eulogius, Patriarch of Alexandria. Epistle Xlii. To Eulogius, Patriarch of Alexandria. Wherefore Christ Undertook a Method of Setting us Free So Painful and Laborious, when a Word from Him, or an Act of his Will, Would Alone "Boast not Thyself of To-Morrow, for Thou Knowest not what a Day May Bring Forth. " Love in the Old Covenant. The Old Testament Canon from Its Beginning to Its Close. How the Silent and the Talkative are to be Admonished. God's Glory the Chief End of Man's Being Christian Behavior Appendix v. Rabbinic Theology and Literature The History Books The Ninth Commandment Proverbs Links Proverbs 25:20 NIVProverbs 25:20 NLT Proverbs 25:20 ESV Proverbs 25:20 NASB Proverbs 25:20 KJV Proverbs 25:20 Bible Apps Proverbs 25:20 Parallel Proverbs 25:20 Biblia Paralela Proverbs 25:20 Chinese Bible Proverbs 25:20 French Bible Proverbs 25:20 German Bible Proverbs 25:20 Commentaries Bible Hub |
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