Proverbs 22:12

MAIN HOMILETICS OF Proverbs 22:12

THE PRESERVATION OF KNOWLEDGE

I. God preserves knowledge by preserving the man who possesses the knowledge. The preservation of the life of the man of science who has discovered some secret of nature is a preservation of the knowledge that he has gained. If the discovery has been made by him alone and he dies before he has revealed it, the knowledge is lost to the world. When a physician is acquainted with a special remedy or method of treatment for a certain disease which is known only to himself, the preservation of his life is the preservation of this special knowledge. If he leaves the world without imparting what he knows to another man, his secret dies with him—the abstract knowledge is not left behind when the man who possessed it is gone. All knowledge is preserved to us from age to age by its being communicated from one human being to another, as one generation succeeds the other, and the hand of God is to be recognised in its preservation. But this is especially true of the knowledge of God. In the days of old, God long preserved a knowledge of Himself in the world by preserving the life of Noah, of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob. They stood almost alone in the world in this respect, and were like lighthouses on a dark and stormy ocean, sheltering and preserving a moral light in the moral darkness. If the lighthouse is destroyed the light goes out; and if these men had died without transmitting to others the light which they possessed, the world would have been left in ignorance of God. As the ages have rolled on, there have been more of these spiritual lighthouses, and God has always preserved a sufficient number upon the earth to bear witness of Himself.

II. God has preserved knowledge by causing special care to be taken of His written Word. Holy men of old wrote as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, and the record of the truths which were revealed to them is with us until this day. The knowledge of the way of salvation through Jesus Christ has thus been preserved for nearly nineteen centuries, and to-day we can become as familiar with the events of the Incarnation, and with the teachings of the Apostles, as if we had lived in the first century of the Christian era. Although many efforts have been made to destroy the Scriptures of truth, they are with us still, preserved by the providence of their Divine author, in order that men may not be without the means of becoming wise unto salvation through believing the truths which they contain. There have been dark days when the living guardians of Divine truth were hardly to be found; but if they had quite died out after the Bible was written we should still have had this source of spiritual knowledge with us, like a seed-corn, preserving within its husk the living germ, ready to burst forth and grow when it found a congenial soil. God, as the preserver of the knowledge of Himself, has made its safety doubly sure by not only committing it to the living man, but by causing it to be committed to the written page.

III. The preservation of knowledge by the Lord counteracts the evil and false words of wicked men. Acquaintance with truth concerning anything overthrows all false ideas and teachings concerning it. The coming of the morning light scatters all the darkness of night, and with it many false conceptions as to what is around a traveller on an unknown road. So a knowledge of Divine truth scatters error, and overthrows false conceptions concerning God and godliness, and convicts their enemies of falsehood, thus rendering them powerless to do harm. Our Lord, by His knowledge, thus overthrew the words of a great transgressor in His temptation in the wilderness, and it is by the spread of this knowledge of God which He has Himself preserved to us that the final overthrow of evil will be accomplished.

OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS

There is still another sense of the words,—which they may bear; though by some, perhaps, it may be regarded as fanciful:—“The eyes of the Lord keep knowledge:”—they retain it. What He sees, be it but for a moment, does not, as with our vision, pass away. It remains. We see, and, having seen, what passes from the eye passes also from the memory. Not so is it with God’s vision. The sight of His eye is no uncertain or forgetful glance. It is unerring and permanent. All that His eyes have ever seen is known as perfectly now as when it passed before them,—as when it existed or happened!—And in the exercise of this permanent and perfect knowledge, “He overthroweth the words of the transgressors.” All their evil desert remains before Him. They can neither elude His knowledge, nor bribe His justice, nor resist His power. They shall all be made to learn by fearful experience, “whose words shall stand, His, or theirs!”—Wardlaw.

When knowledge seemed on the eve of perishing, a single copy of the Scriptures, found as it were accidentally, preserved it from utter extinction. (2 Chronicles 34:14). For successive generations the Book was in the custody of faithful librarians, handed down in substantial integrity. (Romans 3:2) When the church herself was on the side of the Arian heresy, the same watchful eyes raised up a champion (Athanasius) to preserve the testimony. Often has the infidel transgressor laboured with all the might of man for its destruction. Often has Rome partially suppressed it, or committed it to the flames, or circulated perverted copies and false interpretations. Yet all these words and deeds of the transgressors have been overthrown.—Bridges.

The eyes of the Lord are His knowledge, and it is in Him, in His knowledge that knowledge is preserved. That is the bottomless treasure of it; from thence issue out all the veins of knowledge, wherewith the world is enriched. It is He that preserveth knowledge for the seekers of it, it is He that preserveth knowledge in the teachers of it.… His eyes shall watch over it, and though blindness put out the eyes of many, yet in Goshen it shall shine and bring comfort to His people.—Jermin.