NEITHER CAST YOUR PEARLS BEFORE THE SWINE
The Preceding Classic is from the
November 1, 1862 edition of the publication “Signs of the Times” founded and
published for over 45 years by Elder Gilbert Beebe.
“Give
not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine,
lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.”
Matthew 7:6
This text is found in the closing part of what is familiarly
termed, “Christ’s Sermon on the Mount,” in which he taught them privately, and
gave them lessons of instruction, which are the greatest importance to the
saints in all subsequent ages. These instructions should often be examined and
re-examined by the children of God, as they are given for their special benefit,
and contain admonitions and precepts of the most vital importance. From the rich
cluster of golden maxims and rules laid down for the observance of the disciples
of the Redeemer in this sermon, we are requested to give our views on the text
written at the head of this article, to which we will call the especial
attention of the readers.
“Give not that which is holy unto the dogs.” The things which
were holy under the ceremonial law were the things which were especially
consecrated, or sanctified (set apart) for holy purposes, as were the
tabernacle, the ark, the altar and the consecrated things of the inner temple of
the Lord in Jerusalem, The tribes themselves, being solemnly set apart from all
the families of mankind, were ceremonially holy, and forbidden to intermingle
with the other nations of the earth, and as a consecrated and holy people they
were to live on consecrated and holy food; they were forbidden to eat that which
was common or unclean. Of all the beasts of the field, none but those which
divided the hoof and chewed the cud were set apart by the special enactment of
the Lord as the consecrated or holy sustenance of the consecrated tribes of the
Lord, and these consecrated things must not be polluted by contact with other
things which were not set apart; no mixture with anything else was allowed. All
this was undoubtedly to signify to us that God’s chosen and redeemed people, who
are born of God, receive from him spiritual and immortal life, which must be fed
and sustained on spiritual and immortal food. This lesson is taught us in all
the types and shadows going before. For instance, when God had created man out
of the dust of the ground, He provided that the food necessary for man’s
subsistence should grow out of the same dust of the ground. His nature and
composition being of the earth, earthy, his subsistence must, to be adapted to
the support of his earthly nature, be also earthy; and when man had transgressed
the law of God and fallen under the curse, the earth out of which he was to
subsist was also cursed for his sake, that it might be still adapted to his
nature as a fallen, sinful earthy man. So in the figure, we are taught that in
the spiritual creation in Christ Jesus, they who are born of the Spirit of God
must be sustained on spiritual things-, as their spiritual life is in God, so is
all their spiritual food and sustenance. The productions of the earth cannot
feed and sustain the inward man, nor can all the joys of the Spirit, which do
feed and sustain the new man, prevent the old man, the earthy nature, from
requiring its earthly nourishment. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and
that flesh is of the earth, earthy, and cannot be sustained without that food
which is produced from the earth, and he that is born of God, although he might
possess all the produce of the earth, would starve if he were not fed on that
bread which cometh down from heaven. Except we eat the flesh and drink the blood
of Jesus, we have no spiritual life in us, for spiritual life can live on
nothing else. Those who are thus born of God are a “chosen generation, a royal
priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people,” etc., chosen, consecrated and
set apart, “sanctified by God the Father,” “elect according to the foreknowledge
of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit,” etc., cleansed and
washed, purged and justified, they shall be called the holy people, and as a
holy, consecrated people, they are made partakers of the divine nature, and
qualified to eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of man, who is the
true bread which came down from heaven.
Then the things which are holy are appropriated exclusively
to a holy people, a people whom God has cleansed, and which, we are forbidden,
to call common. This sanctified people are called sheep, lambs and doves, and by
many other figurative names, but they are never called dogs or swine. A dog is a
very different kind of animal from a sheep or lamb; he neither divides the hoof,
nor does he chew the cud, he is therefore unclean. His disposition is also very
unlike that of the sheep or lamb; he is ferocious, quarrelsome, vicious, and,
like the wolf, it is his nature to worry, scatter and kill the sheep. His food,
or that on which the dog subsists, is not that which would feed the sheep and
lambs, nor can the sheep and lambs subsist on what the dog can feed upon. The
dog would starve in the richest pasture field, where the sheep would fatten, and
the sheep starve if fed only on what dogs delight to feed upon. Dogs are
dangerous animals, and we are admonished to beware of them. Some of them are
said to be dumb dogs that cannot bark; sleepy dogs, lying down, loving slumber,
and greedy dogs that can never have enough. In Revelation 22:15, they are
classified with sorcerers, whoremongers, murderers, idolaters, and whosoever
loveth and maketh a lie.
The admonition of the Lord in our text then clearly means
that his disciples shall not give, nor minister the gospel, or its provisions,
its promises, its comforts, its ordinances, or any of its commands, to any who
are thus designated dogs, or who are in nature, disposition, practice or
appetite as unlike the regenerated and spiritual people of God as dogs are
unlike and inimical to the sheep and lambs. The gospel is food to the saints,
because it is Christ; the preaching of the gospel is preaching Christ, and it is
food to the spiritual, and hence the ministers of the gospel are commissioned to
feed the sheep and feed the lambs; to feed the flock of God which he hath
purchased with his own blood, but charged to give not that which is holy (and
the gospel and all its ordinances are holy) to dogs. Dogs have no use for holy
things, they can do them no good, for they are not adapted to their nature or
suited to their appetites; besides, it is a desecration of holy things to give
them to dogs or to swine. It is true, that the Gospel is to be preached to every
creature, to all nations, and in all the world, for a witness to all nations,
but only those who have ears to hear can hear what the Spirit saith to the
churches. The ministers of Christ have nothing but the Gospel to preach, and
that they must preach wherever God is pleased to open a door for them to preach,
and its effect will be to discriminate between the living and the dead. All who
have been pricked in the heart by the life-giving power of the Spirit will
gladly receive the Word, as did the quickened on the day of Pentecost, while all
others will mock and reject the testimony. But what we understand as being
intended by this admonition, is that we are forbidden to attempt to Christianize
unregenerated men, by teaching them the letter of the Word, and applying to them
the ordinances of the Gospel as a means of salvation, by Catechisms, Bible
classes, Sunday Schools, etc...as though we could so improve their carnal minds
as to make them acceptable to God, without being born of the Spirit.
According to our understanding of the subject, every effort
to apply the things of the Spirit of God to unregenerated men, is to give that
which is holy to dogs. Theological institutions for giving ministerial
qualifications to graceless youths for preaching, and to unrenewed children and
adults for church membership, and for evangelizing the world by humanly devised
plans and schemes, is an attempt to give that which is holy to the dogs, and is
clearly a transgression of the authority of our Lord, and an open violation of
the words of our text: “Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast
ye your pearls before swine.” It is not in the nature of swine to appreciate the
value or beauty of pearls any more than it is the nature of dogs to relish the
rich pasture on which the sheep feed. The children of God are in possession of
jewels of inestimable value, which none but the children of God can appreciate
or enjoy. Their spiritual privileges, their Christian love and fellowship, their
gifts and graces, their experimental joys and peculiar exercises, their
knowledge of divine things, are all pearls of great value to them, but their
excellency cannot be known or appreciated by those who know not God. There is a
fitness and utility in exhibiting these pearls among those of like precious
faith, but those who have never possessed them would rudely trample on them if
cast before them, as swine would trample upon the most costly and precious
jewels.
Christians are greatly edified and comforted by speaking
often to each other of all the way in which the Lord has led them; they can talk
freely one to another of their joys and sorrows their conflicts and victories,
but should they make these things the theme of their conversation in the streets
and market places, or in the synagogues of Satan, they would be treated roughly;
infidels, Arminians, will-worshipers, like swine, would trample them under their
feet, and turn and rend the child of grace. The psalmist said, “Come and hear,
all ye that fear God, and I will declare what He hath done for my soul.” They
who fear the Lord can understand the language, they know too well the value of
such precious pearls to despise or trample on them. But those who have only
religion of the world neither divide the hoof nor chew the cud and like swine ,
serve only their swinish appetites, their god is their belly and their glory is
their shame. The swine seem to have but one desire, and that is the
gratification of their ravenous appetite-, cast before them the most costly and
splendid gems, or pearls, and as they cannot eat them, they have no other use
for them, and they would as soon trample on them as on the most common earth,
and they will turn again and rend you, determined to obtain something that they
can eat; so when the Christian attempts to display the glorious things of the
kingdom of Christ to unbelievers, they will sometimes be surprised to find that
those with whom they labor cannot appreciate those experimental things of which
they speak. Expostulate with them, and demonstrate what you say by the most
clear and positive Scripture authority, and they will disregard your testimony
and your Scripture, and trample both under their feet, and then assail you again
with as much vigor and determined violence as though you had not exhibited to
them your pearls.
Sheep, swine and dogs are not suitable companions for each
other, they cannot live in good communion together, nor should unnatural
amalgamation be attempted, but let the sheep be associated with sheep, and let
them “beware of dogs,” and avoid the society of swine, and they will be more
pleasantly and comfortably situated. The great and good Shepherd has told his
flock, Ye “are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.” He has chosen
them out of the world, and called them to be a separate people. Let us then heed
the admonition of our Lord, and give not that which is holy unto the dogs,
neither cast our pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet,
and turn again and rend us.
