"The words of The LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times." [Psa 12:6]
Imagine yourself sitting with a ruler of this world, one of the great princes. You don’t know if he is for you or against you, who can tell what’s in his heart. And imagine he sets before you some food to eat. This is the scene that Proverbs expounds upon, saying,
“When thou sittest to eat with a ruler, consider diligently what is before thee: and put a knife to thy throat, if thou be a man given to appetite. Be not desirous of his delicacies: for they are deceitful meat. Labour not to be rich: cease from thine own wisdom. Wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not? For riches certainly make themselves wings; they fly away as an eagle toward heaven. Eat thou not the bread of him that hath an evil eye, neither desire thou his dainty meats: for as he thinketh in his heart, so is he: eat and drink, saith he to thee; but his heart is not with thee. The morsel which thou hast eaten shalt thou vomit up, and lose thy sweet words.” [Prov 23:1-8]
This applies not just to a man sitting with a ruler, but could be applicable to any situation wherein another is offering you either food to eat, or something more intangible to “eat,” such as an idea, doctrine, or plan of action. Solomon advises us by God’s wisdom to take heed and guard ourselves. As those who are born of God, we should exhibit a lifestyle of guarding ourselves, not being as it were, a city without walls. “We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not; but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not.” [1 Jn 5:18] And, “he that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down, and without walls.” [Prov 25:28] And so, in keeping with this, The Holy Spirit tells us through Solomon, “consider diligently what is before thee: and put a knife to thy throat, if thou be a man given to appetite.” Like the man before the ruler, or the man before the salesman, or as the king and his winetaster, so too we should be vigilant, not naively consuming all that is put in front of us.
We may take the best admonition from this, however, when we apply these things spiritually. When presented with spiritual truth, we are not to blindly consume these things. But we are to “believe not every spirit, but test the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.” [1 Jn 4:1] We ought to be as the Bereans, who “received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” [Acts 17:11] May we not be deceived by the “delicacies” of the world or of the flesh, but may we take heed; for if we are given to the appetites of the flesh, we should give ourselves right then. Let us be careful to guard ourselves with God’s word, which is “sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit…and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart,” [Heb 4:12] and which is able to discern between what is true and what is not.
Having seen how we should guard ourselves, even guarding our souls from spiritually deceptive or bad food, let us contrast this with God’s word. For God’s word is not as the delicacies of the world, nor is it as the doctrines and ideologies of men. No, but it is the pure and good word of God. As the Psalmist writes, “thy word is very pure: therefore thy servant loveth it.” [Psa 119:140] God’s word, the food that He gives us, is not to be taken with caution, for it is His word. It is pure, lovely, and good. We do not have to be as the winetaster, testing to see if it might be poisoned. We do not have to relate to The LORD’s word as with the salesman or the ruler: for God’s intentions and heart toward us are good, and His word is very pure. As The LORD promises us, “for I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith The LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.” [Jer 29:11] His word is as our verse says, utterly pure: “the words of The LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.” We can therefore take God’s word into our lives and our hearts with confidence and joy, obeying it, and knowing that it will produce good fruit; knowing that it will not be bad for my soul but only good.