December 16

The word of the Lord is tried. - 2 Samuel 22:31.

EVERY thing truly excellent and valuable admits of counterfeit; therefore, to determine the genuineness and value of a thing we bring it to the touchstone. Thus, silver and gold are tried in the fire. Experience signifies a knowledge derived from trial, and is, contrary to theory, founded on facts, not on conjecture. There is a knowledge which necessarily precedes faith, for how can we believe that of which we know nothing? But there is a knowledge which follows faith, of which the apostle, in referring to his experience, says, “I know whom I have believed, and that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.” Let us apply this to the case before us.

The word of the Lord comes to us with a peculiar recommendation: it comes to us as a tried word; it has been tried now for nearly six thousand years. It has been tried by millions. Numbers now in heaven have tried it, and numbers now in hell, and numbers living upon earth. It was tried by our first parents in the garden of Eden. They yielded to the temptation, and tried the truth of the Lord; and they soon found, in the corruption of their blood, in the mortality of their bodies, in the loss of communion with God, in their expulsion from Paradise, that the word of the Lord is true. How did the Jews try it! How they mocked the messengers of God that came to them with promises if they would believe and obey, and with fearful predictions if they continued to rebel against God! And did they not rebel? and have not the predictions been verified in their becoming a reproach, and a by-word, and a proverb, and a hissing among all the nations of the earth? and can we see a Jew at this very day without being reminded that the word of the Lord is true and faithful altogether?

We may take another view of this, and refer to the enemies of the church of Christ. There have been enemies who have used fraud and force in order to destroy Christianity; but they have not been able to do this, even by their combined efforts; and we learn the folly of suffering our hearts to tremble for the ark of God, seeing its destruction is impossible. “For God is not a man, that he should repent.” Eventually, every thing that opposeth the truth shall be destroyed. At his coming it shall be said, Babylon is fallen! Amen. The Lord hasten it in his time. It has been tried by the servants of God: many of them are now bearing their testimony to its faithfulness. Before they ever made the trial, they read that it was good to draw near to God, that the way of the Lord was strength to the upright; and they have tried it since, and can bear their testimony to the truth as well as to the grace of all this, and can say to others,-

“O ye despairing sinners, come,

And trust upon the Lord.”