Job 38:22; Proverbs 25:11
Hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow?
A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.
ROBERT HAWKER (1753-1827): This is an elegant figure to represent the golden fruit of the gospel set forth by the word of the Spirit.
H. A. IRONSIDE (1876-1951): One day, I once witnessed a most unusual occurrence in the largest orange-growing district of southern California; something, indeed, that none remembered as having taken place previously. A fairly heavy fall of snow occurred during the height of the orange harvest. The trees everywhere were covered with the silvery down. As the lovely view spread out before me, and I noticed the great yellow globes hanging among the whitened boughs and leaves, I exclaimed, “Apples of gold in pictures of silver!”
C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): I remember how God once preached to me by a similitude in the depth of winter. The earth had been black and there was scarcely a green thing or a flower to be seen. As you looked across the field, there was nothing but blackness—bare hedges and leafless trees and black, black earth, wherever you looked. On a sudden God spoke and unlocked the treasures of the snow and white flakes descended until there was no blackness to be seen—all was one sheet of dazzling whiteness. It was at that time I was seeking the Saviour and it was then I found Him. And I remember well that sermon which I saw before me—“Come now and let us reason together; though your sins are as scarlet they shall be as snow, though they are red like crimson they shall be whiter than wool,” Isaiah 1:18.
A. W. PINK (1886-1952): Where in the New Testament is there a word, which—for pure grace, exceeds “though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow?”
C. H. MACKINTOSH (1820-1896): “Can you tell me of anything that is whiter than snow?” asked a teacher, who was addressing a Sunday school. “The soul that has been washed in the blood of Jesus,” was the satisfactory answer of a little girl…Is there any way by which a crimson sinner can be made whiter than snow? Yes—in Christ Jesus, and through His blood.
EDWARD PAYSON (1783-1827): I think how many souls there are, and have been, and shall be, in the world. Think of the innumerable criminals of the most abandoned kind—the murderers, robbers, conquerors, and blasphemers, adulterers, harlots—the impious, hardened wretches who neither fear God nor regard man, that have been, and still are, to be found among mankind. What an ocean of mercy is necessary to wash away their sins, to make the deep crimson white as snow. What an omnipotence of grace is requisite to fit such wretches for admission into a heaven of spotless purity, and make them holy as God. Yet all such Christ invites, all such He is able to save, all such He would save, would they come to Him. Who then can describe, who can conceive the ten thousandth part of that grace and mercy which must be in Christ; or of the love which renders Him thus willing to scatter that grace and mercy round Him upon the worthless and undeserving.
GEORGE WHITEFIELD (1714-1770): It is not the greatness or number of our crimes, but impenitence and unbelief, that will prove our ruin—No, were our sins more in number than the hairs of our head, or of a deeper die than the brightest scarlet; yet the merits of the death of Jesus Christ are infinitely greater, and faith in His blood shall make them white as snow—Having much to be forgiven, despair not; only believe.
C. H. SPURGEON: Is the Holy Spirit making you conscious of sin? He does so that you may be conscious of pardon! Do you feel condemned? The Lord condemns you, now, that you may not be condemned with the world! Are you evil, foul and vile in your own sight? It is that you may wash and be whiter than snow through the Lord Jesus!
JOHN NEWTON (1725-1807): ’Tis the work of God alone;
An emblem of the pow’r
By which He melts the heart of stone,
In His appointed hour.
H. A. IRONSIDE: If you are ready to come now into the presence of God, you must come with all your sins upon you. You can not get rid of them otherwise. You cannot cleanse your own heart. Job says, “If I wash myself with snow water, and make my hands never so clean; Yet shalt thou plunge me in the ditch, and mine own clothes shall abhor me,” Job 9:30,31. It is absolutely impossible for you to cleanse yourself, to wash out the stains of sin. But thank God, if you are ready to come to Him in repentance—and repentance involves a complete change of attitude in regard to sin—if you are ready to come now, earnestly desiring the forgiveness of sins, there is forgiveness with Him, thank God. For “if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness,” 1 John 1:9.
GEORGE WHITEFIELD: One act of true faith in Christ, justifies you forever and ever; and He has not promised you what He cannot perform.
HUGH HENRY SNELL (1817-1892): Jeremiah plainly states, “I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more,” Jeremiah 31:34. Hear the prophet Isaiah saying, “I, I am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins,” Isaiah 43:25. Hezekiah also—“Thou hast, in love to my soul, delivered it from the pit of corruption; for thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back.” Isaiah 38:17. The Psalmist says, “As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us,” Psalm 103:12.
C. H. MACKINTOSH: A believer, then, is cleansed from all sin by the blood of Christ, and made the righteousness of God in Christ who is risen and ascended—all on the principle of faith.
CHARLES STANLEY (1821-1890): He has not half washed us in His precious blood. No, our sins are all forgiven, and we “are justified from all things,” Acts 13:38, 39. But it is “through Jesus.” It was Jesus “who died for our sins,” 1 Corinthians 15:3. It was Jesus “who was raised from the dead for our justification,” Romans 4:25; who said, “It is finished,” John 19:30. It was Jesus who showed them His hands and His side, and said, “Peace be unto you,” John 20:21. It was Jesus. Yes, yes! Jesus hath done all things well.
C. H. MACKINTOSH: The work of redemption is finished, all is done. Thou hast only to yield thy heart to His love, believe His word, and trust the blood that can make thee whiter than snow. If you are a believer, you are washed—yes, whiter than snow.
ELVINA M. HALL (1818-1889) Jesus paid it all,
All to Him I owe;
Sin had left a crimson stain,
He washed it white as snow!
