Who can bring out clean from unclean? No one!Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one.Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one.Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one.
7 sermons cite this verse
… away, flees like a shadow and does not continue. And do you open your eyes on such a one and bring me into judgment with yourself? Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? No one. Since his days are determined, the number of his months is with you. You have appointed his limits so that he cannot pass. I'd love to just preach a sermon on that for the rest of the evening, but I'm going to keep going. Maybe dip back into that, but that's such a great verse. It is appointed and every man wants to die. Look away from him that he may rest. Just leave me alone till he be like a hired man. A hired man finishes his days. For there's hope for a tree if it is cut down. There was a Siberian elm in my backyard that fell down a few years ago. We got rid of it. It sprouted in my neighbor's yard and grew up. She just cut it down. I'm so thankful because I hate those things. …
I. TWO KINDS OF MEN. First, the pure—where shall we find them? Where are they born? We answer, no men are born so! Who shall bring a clean thing out of an unclean? No one! Not one! As our parents have sinned, we, their children, are born with tendencies to sin—we are impure even from birth! There are none pure but those who are made so by a second creation! The first time they are marred upon the wheel. They must go under the Creator's hand a second time—they must feel the power of the purifying Spirit of God creating them anew before they can be called pure at all! And these are not absolutely pure. Even in those who are entitled to be called, "pure in heart," there remains impurity. If any man shall question that, let him remember the First Epistle of John, the first Chapter, at the 8th verse—"If any man says he has no sin, he is a liar, and the truth is not in him." There is sin in the best of men—and if they do not perceive it, it must be because they are blinded with a foolish self-conceit—for in the purest heart there still remains connected with it the old nature and the impurity inherited from the first Adam. This makes life a perpetual conflict until life's close. Still, we name men by their predominant characteristics. The partial impurity of a good man does not entitle him to be called impure. If the master principle within him, the reigning principle, is purity, he is a pure man. A man may once in his life have spoken an untruth—he may have been surprised into saying a thing which is not—but if the general tenor of his life is stern integrity, we do not, therefore, condemn him and brand him as a liar! Otherwise where were the men living upon earth who would be worthy of a name implying praise? The godly are pure—have been made pure by regeneration, and they are pure, though not absolutely so. …
"True, you are young, but there's a stone, Within the youngest breast" A child soon finds this out for himself, if God enlightens him. Though reared in a godly home, and brought up by godly parents and carefully shielded from everything like evil society or influence, I was very conscious of early feeling myself to be inclined to all sorts of evil, to have found it difficult to be and do that which was right, and easy to be and do that which was wrong. And so far as your memories will serve you, if you have any spiritual enlightenment, you will have found the same thing in relation to yourselves. How could it be otherwise? "Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one!" "Behold," said David, and we cannot expect that we are better than he was, "Behold, I was born in sin and shaped in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me." To find good, then, in a child should be to us a subject for deep thankfulness to God! And we should always look upon it as being His work. We should not wonder to see it, for God often puts it there, but we should never look upon true goodness in a child as something from human nature— "Grace is a plant, wherever it blooms, Of a celestial birth" and if there is a desire towards Jesus Christ. If there is a tenderness of heart concerning sin. If there is simple prayer for pardon and childlike trust in the Savior, it is as much a work of Grace in the youngest child as in the oldest convert—let us always remember that it is so! …
14. “But what is that faith whereby we are sanctified, —saved from sin, and perfected in love?” It is a divine evidence and conviction, first, that God hath promised it in the holy Scripture. Till we are thoroughly satisfied of this, there in no moving one step further. And one would imagine there needed not one word more to satisfy a reasonable man of this, than the ancient promise, “Then will I circumcise thy heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the Lord they God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.” How clearly does this express the being perfected in love! —how strongly imply the being saved from all sin! For as long as love takes up the whole heart, what room is there for sin therein? 15. It is a divine evidence and conviction, secondly, that what God hath promised He is able to perform. Admitting, therefore, that “with men it is impossible” to “bring a clean thing out of an unclean,” to purify the heart from all sin, and to till it with all holiness; yet this creates no difficulty in the case, seeing “with God all things are possible.” And surely no one ever imagined it was possible to any power less than that of the Almighty! But if God speaks, it shall be done. God saith, “Let there be light; and there” is “light”! …
3. Is it any wonder, that these accounts are very readily received by the generality of men? For who is not easily persuaded to think favourably of himself? Accordingly, writers of this kind are most universally read, admired, applauded. And innumerable are the converts they have made, not only in the gay, but the learned world. So that it is now quite unfashionable to talk otherwise, to say any thing to the disparagement of human nature; which is generally allowed, notwithstanding a few infirmities, to be very innocent, and wise, and virtuous! 4. But, in the mean time, what must we do with our Bibles? — for they will never agree with this. These accounts, however pleasing to flesh and blood, are utterly irreconcilable with the scriptural. The Scripture avers, that “by one man’s disobedience all men were constituted sinners;” that “in Adam all died,” spiritually died, lost the life and the image of God; that fallen, sinful Adam then “begat a son in his own likeness;” — nor was it possible he should beget him in any other; for “who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?” — that consequently we, as well as other men, were by nature “dead in trespasses and sins,” “without hope, without God in the world,” and therefore “children of wrath;” that every man may say, “I was shapen in wickedness, and in sin did my mother conceive me;” that “there is no difference,” in that “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God,” of that glorious image of God wherein man was originally created. And hence, when “the Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men, he saw they were all gone out of the way; they were altogether become abominable, there was none righteous, no, not one,” none that truly sought after God: Just agreeable this, to what is declared by the Holy Ghost in the words above recited, “God saw,” when he looked down from heaven before, “that the wickedness of man was great in the earth;” so great, that “every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” …
2. His fundamental point was, “Give God all the glory of whatever is good in man;” and, “In the business of salvation, set Christ as high and man as low as possible.” With this point, he and his friends at Oxford, the original Methodists, so called, set out. Their grand principle was, there is no power (by nature) and no merit in man. They insisted, all power to think, speak, or act aright, is in and from the Spirit of Christ; and all merit is (not in man, how high soever in grace, but merely) in the blood of Christ. So he and they taught: there is no power in man, till it is given him from above, to do one good work, to speak one good word, or to form one good desire. For it is not enough to say, all men are sick of sin: no, we are all “dead in trespasses and sins.” It follows, that all the children of men are, “by nature, children of wrath.” We are all “guilty before God,” liable to death temporal and eternal. 3. And we are all helpless, both with regard to the power and to the guilt of sin. “For who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?” None less than the Almighty. Who can raise those that are dead, spiritually dead in sin? None but He who raised us from the dust of the earth. But on what consideration will He do this? “Not for works of righteousness that we have done.” “The dead cannot praise Thee, O Lord;” nor do anything for the sake of which they should be raised to life. Whatever, therefore, God does, He does it merely for the sake of His well-beloved Son: “He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities.” He Himself “bore” all “our sins in His own body upon the tree.” He “was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.” Here then is the sole meritorious cause of every blessing we do or can enjoy; in particular of our pardon and acceptance with God, of our full and free justification. But by what means do we become interested in what Christ has done and suffered? “Not by works, lest any man should boast;” but by faith alone. “We conclude,” says the Apostle, “that a man is justified by faith, without the works of the law.” And “to as many as” thus “receive Him, giveth He power to become the sons of God, even to those that believe in His name; who are born, not of the will of man, but of God.” …
The man who is thus seeking purity, while he prays and resolves, if he is really wise and taught of the Spirit— III. WILL HAVE A DEEP SENSE OF HIS OWN WEAKNESS AND DEPRAVITY. Therefore, he supplicates the Lord in the language of the 146th verse—"I cried unto You; hear me; I shall keep Your testimonies." His tender misgivings are an incentive to his restless importunities. As though he should say, "Oh, Lord, I am praying and resolving, but my prayers need Your answers, and my resolutions need Your might to fulfill them. My prayers—what are they? My resolves—what can they do? I am a frail leaf and I bend before the wind of temptation! My righteousness is like the sere leaf of autumn—it is soon carried away—yes, it is like a filthy rag that ought to be set aside and hidden from view! My God, I need sifting, I need sifting! Oh, save me, and then I shall keep Your testimonies." There is no holiness in any man by nature and never will be! Some ingenious author has said that man is not dead like a stone, but dead like an egg. There was some disposition to life in him that needed brooding over to develop. Well, I should not like to be the hen that had to sit on that egg till it has hatched! That a long eternity of disappointed hopes would spread out before me, I am quite certain. It is a stone egg, this humanity of ours! There is no real spiritual life whatever in it. Who shall bring a clean thing out of an unclean? No one. And they may sit on that unclean egg as long as they like, but a vile, unclean chick will be the only result of it. Before ever we can keep God's testimonies, we must be saved! We must be saved, first, from the guilt of the past. By Substitution, by Redemption, by the application of the precious blood of Jesus, by that expiatory Sacrifice in which our blessed Lord bore for us the vengeance of God that was due to our sin, must our salvation be procured! …