God's Silver Royale
In the September, 1981 issue of National Geographic is an article entitled, Silver: A Mineral of Excellent Nature. This article is important because it reveals the excellent qualities of silver that make it a royal metal. The student of God can learn a spiritual lesson from it, why God likened His Word, sons, and chosen "vessels" to it. Listed below are statements from the article which relate to the spiritual symbol of God's "silver":
1. Ancient Egyptians... called silver white gold. The two metals united in the earliest coins-- made of electrum, a natural alloy of gold and silver.
2. Only silver rivals gold's ability to bend and stretch. A smith can draw one grain of silver-- about five-hundredths of a troy ounce --into 400 feet of wire, or beat it into leaf nearly 150 times thinner than this page.
3. Nothing else reflects light so well and uniformly. Even the thinnest sheet of silver will reflect 95 percent of the light striking it. Silver concentrates sun rays on solar collectors, backs the best mirrors, and, in extremely fine layers, protects the heat- protecting gold films on office buildings.
4. Silver will activate oxygen to kill bacteria, and in some swimming pools charcoal filters impregnated with silver eliminate germs and the need for irritating chlorine. European airlines purify their drinking water with silver; surgeons disinfect burns with silver creams and mend bones using cement containing antibacterial silver salts. Each year Americans put the bite on, so to speak, more than 60 metric tons of silver dental work.
5. No metal- not even copper- conducts heat and electricity so efficiently as silver.
6. Silver is a natural dry lubricant, good reason to plate it on the bearings of jet engines and diesel locomotives. In the main engines of NASA'S space shuttle, silver seals reduce friction and prevent sparks that could set off the shuttle's explosive liquid- oxygen propellant.
7. Silver can be prepared as crystals of silver iodide and seeded into a cool cloud to become the core of raindrops and snowflakes.
8. In film, crystalline silver salts instantly detect light falling on them and permanently record it. Process the film, and the salts become silver grains that amplify the image a billion times producing a picture. An ounce of silver packs enough image making power to manufacture 5,000 color photographs. This mirror with a memory is faithful, permanent, and works instantly, says Dr. Jack Thomas, director of Kodak Research Laboratories. He adds that a tiny silver salt crystal could detect the light falling onto the earth from a candle on the moon.
9. Happily, we can melt down and refashion our old silver almost endlessly because little metal is lost at each transformation. Strange to think that my wedding band could have crossed the palm of Judas, part of the bribe for which he betrayed Jesus.
10. Idle silver ties up money and costs something to insure and store, so speculators seldom care to accumulate it.
11. Both pure and sterling silver react with sulfur compounds in the air, forever renewing a film of gray- black tarnish.
Let us consider these eleven statements from the article and learn how they symbolize things pertaining to the spirit:
1. Ancient Egyptians called silver white gold for good reason. The two metals when "allied" become "electrum" God's elect are those specially selected for work in heaven and on the earth. The angels of glory are elects for the specific tasks given to them, I Timothy 5:21. They are Temple "vessels", God's treasures of gold and silver. These in turn administer the Word of God symbolized as gold and silver to elect men on earth, Psalm 12:6, 119:72; Proverbs 25:11. Elect men on earth are also symbolized as gold and silver vessels who must minister the messages from above, Malachi 3:3; Acts 9:15. Just as the temple vessels of ancient Israel were taken captive, Kings of Darkness have captured these, imprisoned them, and drank wine from some of them, Daniel 5:2; Luke 4:18; Revelation 11:8. In the absolute sense earthly vessels are removed from captivity when God draws them up to heaven, Malachi 3:2,17; John 12:32. Words spoken by the allied angels to elect men is "electrum", the coin of God. God uses this to pay men who work for Him in the field. This is the only "coin" acceptable as spiritual tithes and offering to God, not nickles, dimes, and dollars, James 5:3.
2. Silver can bend and stretch. God's vessels must be humble possessing the ability to abound and be abased. Such humility is a virtue pleasing to God, Isaiah 2:10-12, 57:15. Angelic vessels bend and stretch down to earth to help men, Psalm 91:11-12; Daniel 9:21-22. There is a high calling for which earthly men must stretch upward to attain, Ephesians 4:13; Philippians 3:12-15. We must also reach out to men in many places, 2 Corinthians 10:13-14. Silver leaf refers to the covering power of these vessels, Psalm 1:3, 68:13, 91:1; Isaiah 32:2; Revelation 22:2.
3. Silver, both angels and elect men, is the best reflector of light (repeaters of the Word of God). They do it without adding to it and detract little from it. Silver concentrates Son rays (messages) and there is no better vessel for that. By comparison a golden vessel reflects the infrared rays (heat portion) of Sonlight reflecting that eternal damnation by fire and brimstone is for devils only, not for mankind. But visible light is transmitted by thin sheets of gold.
4. Bacteria can be viewed as words from devils which contaminate leading to spiritual sickness and living death, I Corinthians 11:29-30; Ephesians 2:1-3. As the pun of the word suggests, they bring BACK TEARS. We need oxygen in the air to live, and Wisdom has been described as the breath of God, Wisdom of Solomon 8:24,25, (Apocrypha). Jesus also breathed upon his disciples, (imparted words of wisdom upon them), John 20:22. Thus a silver vessel, angel or elect man, can make words of Wisdom have meaning and make them work for those who hear them. All spiritual waters are not pure because demons have muddied streams and cast out their own waters, Ezekiel 34:18-19; Revelation 12:15. An angelic teacher with words of Wisdom can purify our drinking waters we receive in our ears. Spiritual teeth of silver help us eat the Word of God breaking it down so we can understand it and it can become a part of us.
5. Silver (angels and elect men) is the best conductor of heat and electricity, which is power. In other letters we said electricity means the ELEC-TRY-CITY, or judge Babylon and earthly Jerusalem. Heat goes from the extremes of warm to burning or from friendly and hospitable to burning destruction. These ranges of heat are contained in the Word of God. But the Word has two edges, and care must be taken to apply the right edge to the proper recipient kingdom, of men or of devils. A silver vessel will tell it like it is, exactly as God gave it. He can make you see God as a friend, but will also show Him to be a wrathful destroyer without qualifying it. Golden vessels qualify this part of the Word and rightly divide it, relegating the wrathful edge of the Word of God to the kingdom of devils to which it is specifically sent, Isaiah 14:12,21-22, 55:11; Matthew 25:41. Because no discernment of the edges of this part of the Word is made, men are lead to errors in judgment, Isaiah 59:14; John 16:8,11. Therefore most earthly churches teach Baalim, a lying doctrine that God will annihilate lost men in eternal judgment with fire and brimstone along with devils, Jeremiah 9:14, 19:5; Malachi 3:6,17. Only a golden vessel will reflect the heat properly.
6. Like gold, silver is a lubricant. It can slide along and among the brethren without causing friction and heat, or discord and anger, Genesis 44:18; Psalm 133. To avoid burning a person with fire, spiritually speaking, we should avoid anger, Isaiah 42:25, 45:24. Many burn incense to Baal in anger at prodigals, Jeremiah 7:9, 19:5, (and they actually hope they will die in hell fire)!
7. "Clouds" are the angels of heaven, the Watchers, Daniel 4:13; Hebrews 12:1. When they rain, words like water fall from heaven upon men. Nothing for men is worse than a drought of hearing the Word of God, Amos 8:11-12. A silver messenger of authority can speak to the clouds and they will give rain and snow. This is spiritual "cloud seeding" and the means by which they receive silver lines, or a silver lining, Psalm 19:1,4; Isaiah 55:10-11.
8. Picture making in the spiritual sense refers to the proper mental picture-concept of the Word of God. This is what understanding is. Ignorance and error is not having the proper concept or a distorted concept of the Word of God. Devils impute false picture-concepts which confuse and deceive men. But when the Holy Spirit '"dwells" in you, angelic teachers impute the proper picture-images in the mind. Then is when understanding comes. Right memory or recall is something a silver crown of angels can control for you, Daniel 4:13,17, 9:21-22.
9. Consider Jeremiah 18:1-6. Silver can be fashioned and refashioned into any shape of vessel, or tool God pleases. Thus God can use angels and elect men in whatever capacity He pleases. A silver cup can become a spoon, an arrow, and a cup again with nothing lost. And men must be born again.
10. Unused or non-working Words from God is not good in our world, Amos 8:11-12; Luke 8:16. Men dry up and die spiritually as a result. Such is the "cost" of withholding pennies from heaven. Speculators are those who trade in talents to enrich themselves, Matthew 25:14-30. Mysteries locked in parables are like idle silver to tradesmen. Therefore men of God seldom care to keep words and concepts they cannot understand.
11. Tarnish comes from sulfur compounds in the air. Tarnish forms a covering over silver, so that it cannot reflect light. The dictionaries define brimstone as sulfur. When you add here what is written in number 5 above, we find that silver vessels on earth get a black-eye closed to seeing light from pushing scriptures that seem to condemn men. All that glitters is not gold, and all that is written in the Bible is not the Word of God. The Bible is a mixture of the Word of God sprinkled with man's errors from knowing in part, and deliberate demonic deceptions. To teach this in advance, God had Moses build his Tent with gold and silver (true Word), colored clothes (parables), and badger skin ("unclean" animal allegorical for devils). A silver vessel hung up on badger skin scriptures, who cannot discern and divide rightly truth from them, will be lead to teach Baalim. Teaching Baalim is the sulfur in the air which can tarnish silver and make them fail to reflect light. Sulfur compounds come from burnings in industry and combustion engine wastes in earthly air. In heaven silver vessels do not have this problem, Song of Solomon 4:16. SULFUR = LU-SUF-R (Lucifer).