CRITICAL NOTES.—
Proverbs 15:26. The words of the pure are pleasant, or “pure in His sight are pleasant words.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF Proverbs 15:26
WICKED THOUGHTS AND HOLY WORDS
I. A present power of the wicked man—he thinks. The ideas and purposes which fill his mind concerning himself, his fellow-men, and God, are the result of a mental process just as the potter’s vessel is the result of a certain manipulating process. His thoughts are the result of the exercise of a God-given power, just as the potter’s vessel is the result of a power which has been given to him by God. From the same source comes the power to think and the power to turn the wheel. But although the power to think comes from God, it rests with man as to what kind of thoughts shall be the outcome of that power. God holds him responsible for the use which he makes of the power given him. It would be useless for the potter to say that the vessel which leaves his hand took its form by chance—we hold him responsible for the shape which the clay assumes under his hands. And it is equally vain for a man to say that he has no power over his thoughts. God holds him guilty if he thinks thoughts of sin.
II. The thoughts of the wicked are abhorred by God.
1. Because of the harm they do to his own soul. If the body is held bound under the sway of a deadly malady it becomes weak and unable to fulfil the end of its creation, and if it continues long under its influence it dies. So soul-disease and moral death are the result of the rule of evil thoughts to the man who thinks them. He becomes incapable of fulfilling the high spiritual destiny for which God called him into being.
2. Because of the misery they inflict upon others. All the evil words and deeds that have ever been done in the world were once thoughts. While they were only thoughts the harm they inflicted was confined to the thinker of them, but as soon as they became words or deeds the moral poison spread, and others became sufferers from them. God hates whatever will increase the misery of his creatures, and therefore the thoughts of the wicked—those fruitful germs of sin and suffering—must be an abomination to Him.
3. Because they are utterly at variance with God’s thoughts and purposes. The thoughts of God towards the wicked themselves are opposed to the thoughts and purposes which they have concerning themselves. God’s thoughts towards them are “thoughts of peace and not of evil” (Jeremiah 29:11). He desires that “the wicked forsake his way” and “return unto Him.” He declares that His thoughts even concerning sinners are as much higher than their thoughts concerning themselves as “the heavens are higher than the earth” (Isaiah 55:7-8). This is one ground of God’s quarrel with the thoughts of the wicked, that they cross His gracious plans for redeeming them. But—
III. The words of the pure are pleasing to God. Likeness of character draws men together—the pure delight in those who are pure, and the words of a pure man are pleasant to the ear of another man of purity. Pure men are like God in character, and He must find pleasure in those who reflect His own image, and who are one with Him in sympathy. Delighting in them, their words are pleasant unto Him. He delights in them when they take the form of prayer (See Homiletics on Proverbs 15:8, page 407). The “prayers of saints” are as sweet incense to Him (Revelation 5:8; Revelation 8:3). They are well-pleasing when they take the form of praise. He has commanded men to render honour where honour is due (Romans 13:7), and when it is rendered to Himself the most worthy to “receive honour and glory and blessing,” it is a most acceptable sacrifice (Leviticus 7:12; Hebrews 13:15). The words of the pure are pleasant to God when they are spoken to console and bless their fellow-creatures. (On this subject see Homiletics on chap. Proverbs 12:18, page 275.)
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS
Pleasant words are pure. (See Critical Notes.) This is the Scripture ethics. If we desire to know whether “words are pure” (and, words here, for Eastern reasons, mean actions as well as words; nay, really mean the whole round of conduct; see Job 20:12; Isaiah 10:7), if we wish to know whether a man’s whole life is pure, all we have to ask is—Is it kind? It is the plans of mischief that are the abomination of Jehovah.—Miller.
How lightly do most men think of the responsibility of their thoughts! as if they were their own, and they might indulge them without restraint or evil. One substantial sin appals men, who quietly sleep under the mighty mass of thinking without God for months and years, without any apprehension of guilt. But thoughts are the seminal principles of sin.—Bridges.
“Words of pleasantness are pure”—the gracious words that seek to please, not wound, are to Him as a pure acceptable offering, the similitude being taken from the Jewish ritual, and the word “pure” used in a half ceremonial sense, as in Malachi 1:11.—Plumptre.
The words of the pure are pleasant words. Such as God books up, and makes hard shift to hear, as I may so say; for He “hearkens and hears” (Malachi 3:16).—Trapp.
God seeth that Himself is not in all the thoughts of the wicked, and what can it be but abomination to God where God is not? It is God in all things that is pleasing to Himself, and it is the absence of God in anything that makes it to be abominable. But as for the thoughts of the pure, they are words of pleasantness, wherein they sing and make melody in their hearts to the Lord. In them they sweetly converse to themselves, by them they heavenly converse with God. Pleasant they are to themselves by the joy they have in them, pleasant they are to God by the delight He taketh in them. The wicked, though alone, and though doing nothing, yet are doing wickedly; for even then their thoughts are working, and working so naughtily as to be an abomination to the Lord. There is no need of company to draw them into villany, they have always a rout of mischievous thoughts on hand to give them entertainment. And as great is the pleasure which themselves take in them, so great is the abomination which God hath of them.—Jermin.