Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Let's go to the book of Proverbs, and we're looking at our major theme of the wise use of our words. All right, so the idea is many, many occurrences, dozens of occurrences in the book of proverbs of the mouth, the tongue, the lips, the words, speech, those kinds of things. And so we're looking kind of doing, doing kind of an overview of these things. So let's start in Proverbs 18 and verse 21, which has already been quoted. But we were here last week and we looked at that, and I want to kind of pick up there and go into a little bit different direction, but hopefully it'll be a blessing. Proverbs 18, verse 21.
[00:00:48] The Bible says, death and life are in the power of the tongue, and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.
[00:00:59] Now, I'm not sure exactly how you interpret the second part of that verse. There are several verses in proverbs that say something about eating the fruit of your tongue or your mouth or your words. And, of course, that indicates the result. Fruit is generally in scripture when it's used in this way, refers to results, but kind of as a working interpretation, kind of the idea behind that is, as I view it at this moment, is that they that love it, that is love the tongue. In other words, they love to use the tongue. It's used often, whatever the fruit of it is, be it good or be it evil, because both are mentioned, death and life, we're going to eat it. So that can be good and that can be bad. And, of course, looking at this verse is often, we often emphasize, and we present this verse as a warning, and it is a warning. The fact that it says death is in the power of the tongue. I mean, that's a warning to us to be mindful and careful about the way our tongue can affect ourselves and others. And last week, that's kind of what I talked about is just to kind of remind us of the seriousness of our words. But I think the one thing that, as I was looking at it, one thing that kind of stood out to me, and that's not often mentioned, is the positive side of this verse, that life is in the power of the tongue. And so in that way, I have all the lists of the verses in proverbs that deal with the tongue or words. And so I went through those, and I found quite a few verses that address the tongue in a positive way. It's not just negative, it's positive. Just like the verse that was quoted by Ari. It says that doth a fountain send forth sweet water and bitter. Bitter being. Salty, right? Sweet being.
[00:03:08] And we always think of bitter. Well, salt water is not good for drinking, but it also a fountain can produce fresh water. Blessing and cursing is also in what he quoted. Cursing is, of course, bad, but blessing is good. So I want to look at some of the positive ways that we can use our tongue and how it can help ourselves and help others and give, as it were, life. Give life just as easily as it gives death. So let's pray together, and then we'll look at these verses. Our Lord, thank you for the chance to study your word today.
[00:03:45] Thank you for the opportunity to be in Sunday school. I pray for those that are teaching downstairs as well, that you would bless them and give them wisdom and encouragement, and bless the Sunday school, not just in our class, but also those classes with new students, new families whose heart you would stir to be a part of Sunday school, to seek your face in that way, as we study the word and as we try to understand and maybe dive deep a little bit into the truths of scripture, I pray that your word would be the sav and the food and the medicine that we need.
[00:04:26] And, Lord, you alone know the hearts of men. You know what we need even better than we ourselves know. So please give grace and help as we study your word. In Jesus'name. Amen.
[00:04:42] So just as we can do great harm with our words, we can do great good with our words. And just as our words can cause death, our words can cause life. So what I thought to myself as I was looking through these verses is I wanted to kind of categorize these verses into various ways that our tongue might be used for good. So what we'll do is we'll just kind of go through some of them just in order. So let's start in Proverbs, chapter ten.
[00:05:13] Proverbs ten. And verse, verse number eleven.
[00:05:22] Proverbs ten, verse eleven. The Bible says this, the mouth of a righteous man is a well of life, but violence covereth the mouth of the wicked. A well of life. Normally in the scripture, you read of wells of water, but this is a well of life. The idea being here is that the tongue is like a well, and it's a place where water is maybe not stored, but a source, maybe of water. It's a source of water. And a wise person, a righteous person, is what it says here. A righteous person, one who is just, will draw the life out using in the form of words.
[00:06:07] And you think of how water, in the comparison here in the analogy, water is used to quench thirst and in fact, give life to those who are dying. Right, if someone is thirsty. And there's plenty of scriptural examples of that. But the point here is that our words can be sources of life. And you think of the most important way that our words can be a source of life, no greater way than this. And that is a source of eternal life by our words giving the gospel. You know, here's what we have to remember, is that the gospel only goes to people if we take it to them using our words. That's the only way. That's why two Corinthians says that if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost. Everyone in here knows the gospel.
[00:06:59] It's people that do not know the gospel that it is hidden from. And so it is our responsibility to tell them. And in that way, I know that's New Testament doctrine, but in that way, it fits this truth here that when we give the gospel to people, we're giving them life.
[00:07:17] We're offering, at least offering them life. And it is. Listen, it is absolutely incumbent upon Christians to give the gospel to people.
[00:07:31] If Christians, if all of a sudden everyone in the world just stopped telling people about Jesus, stopped talking about the Lord, what he did for us on the cross and those kinds of things, literally, the gospel progress would stop immediately.
[00:07:46] We are the only people taking it. And I know at that point we might have this idea, well, but I'm not the only Christian. There are many other Christians that are giving the gospel and telling people about Jesus and all that. And that's true. But each and every one of us has a responsibility before the Lord to give the gospel to people as individuals. Because as we saw not too long ago, each one of us is in a bubble, right? Is in a sphere of our own that other people don't interact. And it is my firm belief, based upon my personal experience, that the Lord doesn't often allow those spheres to intersect with one another. In other words, whatever sphere you're in, whatever bubble you're in, that's why you're there. And those people in that orbit, that's why they're there, and you're in that place. And the Lord has other people in other places so that we can get the gospel to those people.
[00:08:44] Listen, if we fail to do our part, if we fail to be obedient to the Lord, and I know it's hard. I know it's hard to give the gospel, especially to people who are close to you and things like that. But if we fail.
[00:08:56] It is very likely that other people are not going to interact with them in that way because that's our responsibility. We can say, well, other people can do it, maybe, but what if they don't?
[00:09:08] I have family members. You have family members that do not know the lord. And if we're hesitant or reluctant to give them the gospel, we assume they're going to get it from somewhere else. How do you know that? How do I know that?
[00:09:25] We assume that, but we don't know that.
[00:09:29] Your coworkers, your friends, your neighbors, we assume other people are going to tell them, but we don't know that that's the case, and so it's incumbent upon us to do it. There's no greater way to give life. Look at proverbs 15, if you would. Verse 14.
[00:09:52] Proverbs 15, verse four. The Bible says, a wholesome tongue is a tree of life, but perverseness therein is a breach in the spirit. The tree of life has so many connections with other parts of the Bible, from Genesis, obviously, all the way to revelation, when the tree of life occurs in the last book of the Bible, last couple chapters of the Bible. And the tree of life in the garden of Eden was a tree whereby if, even after they had sinned, if Adam and Eve had partaken of that fruit, they would have lived forever in that state. And so God blocked it so they would not live forever in that state.
[00:10:29] And you think about the tree of life, the tree of life as it is, again, going back to the gospel. But there's other ways we can give life, and this might be a little bit different, but the ways we bestow life, death and life, are in the power of the tongue.
[00:10:49] Referring to the effect of our words upon relationships, upon our words, have a huge effect, and it can be in a positive way in the form of life. So you have, number one is giving of life.
[00:11:07] Our tongue can give life. And some of these overlap a little bit. And so the second one is also related to this is giving of praise. Giving of praise. Look at Proverbs 27.
[00:11:21] I want to show you a couple of things here.
[00:11:25] Proverbs 27. And verse number two says this, let another man praise thee and not thine own mouth. A stranger and not thine own lips.
[00:11:48] I'll tell you something.
[00:11:51] I'll get to my point in a minute, but it is absolutely in the heart of every one of us to toot our own horn. It's there.
[00:12:04] I don't care how humble you are. I don't care how spiritual you are. It is absolutely in our hearts to toot our own horn, because if we don't do that, somebody might not recognize how good we are. Right.
[00:12:19] But we must resist that temptation with all of our might.
[00:12:24] But they might not know. Well, then they don't know, because even if they think well of us, our true state is going to be definitely worse than that. That's what Spurgeon said, and he's right.
[00:12:38] Don't be angry. If anyone thinks ill of you, you're far worse than they think. It's true. It's true.
[00:12:46] I mean, maybe it's not true of you, but it's true of me.
[00:12:50] So we need to resist that temptation. Sometimes we veil self praise with spiritual sounding words.
[00:12:58] We'll preface what we're going to say with, well, I'm not toot my own horn, or I'm not trying to brag. And then we brag. Yeah, I'm not toot my own horn, but then we toot our own horn.
[00:13:11] Just leave it, right? That's what the Lord says. Just leave it. If anybody's going to praise, let another man do it. Which raises my point.
[00:13:20] Let another man praise thee not thine own lips. You know what's implied in that?
[00:13:25] That we should be praising others.
[00:13:28] We should be praising others.
[00:13:30] Praise is powerful. You're talking about giving of life.
[00:13:35] Praise is, you know, what most people hear in their lives. What was it? Was it Abby that said with what happened at chick fil a recently, that. What was it? Somebody refresh my memory.
[00:13:52] One of her leaders or something made a comment how she is doing a good job or something at work, and I'm probably getting it wrong, and that's fine. I get all my stories wrong.
[00:14:04] And they asked her, have people told you you've been doing a good job? Because she'd been promoted several times and all this stuff?
[00:14:13] And she said, no.
[00:14:16] And the leader was like, what?
[00:14:19] I'm sorry, but nobody's told you that.
[00:14:23] You know what it demonstrates? It's a good example, though, that praise is rather thin. Criticism is abundant. Praise is thin. Yes, sir.
[00:14:35] Like. Like, yay, you're here.
[00:14:38] Oh, the kids, you mean? No, but the other workers. Oh, well, Adida.
[00:14:45] Yeah. I think our whole family is. Everybody knows all about us at Chick fil a now.
[00:14:52] You know, we go in there and we'll see her and all that stuff anyway. What's that?
[00:14:59] Yeah, exactly.
[00:15:02] It's just important for us to remember, no matter what we're talking about. We're just talking about general wisdom. Now, in your family, among your friends, your coworkers, in every relationship you have, remember that person you're looking at, that person that your loved one, your acquaintance, they receive a lot more criticism than they do praise than my hood is. And that includes you. That includes you.
[00:15:27] So we shouldn't be tooting our own horn, but we should be tooting the horn of other people that are worthy of it. And that's a good thing that gives life. It is a way to give grace to people. And you'll see what I mean in just a minute.
[00:15:42] One Corinthians eleven. We want to turn there just because we'll stay in proverbs. But one Corinthians eleven two says this. Paul writing to the church, he says this. Now, I praise you, brethren, that you remember me in all things and keep the ordinances as I delivered them unto you. Paul noted their obedience and mentioned it to them. You know, what? What does it do to you? And this will relate further down in our list. But what does it do to you when someone gives you a word of praise, not thanksgiving. That's good, too. I'm talking about praise right now. What does it do to you? How does it make you feel?
[00:16:18] I know everything's not about our feelings, and you should do the right thing, and we should do the right thing even without praise, right. When we're looking for only the praise of God, we should not live for the praise of men, but man. It is a shot in the arm when someone else recognizes a good thing that you have done right? Now, transfer that then to others in the way that you can use your tongue and your mouth for good.
[00:16:47] You think, just peruse in your mind the epistles of Paul. Okay. Or Peter.
[00:16:56] How many times does Paul praise the churches that he writes to all the time? In fact, there are some epistles, Philippians first, Thessalonians, where there are no words of criticism at all.
[00:17:11] Nothing but praise.
[00:17:14] You think, well, they'll get the big head. Some people think that that's stupid. That is a worldly idea. Too much praise. Too much praise. You just got to remember that the criticism that is around us is abundant. Praise is thin, so we can add praise, and we don't have to worry about someone getting the big head about it.
[00:17:34] And here's the thing.
[00:17:37] Many, many people are afflicted with envy and insecurity, and it makes it near impossible for them to verbalize praise. A person who's envious and jealous can't praise the other person.
[00:17:53] It precludes it.
[00:17:56] A person who is insecure in themselves often has a difficult time praising other people.
[00:18:02] We're constantly thinking of how we might get others praise in order to validate ourselves. This insecurity, instead of.
[00:18:12] Well, put it like this, we should have a singular focus on the Lord.
[00:18:21] There's two forks here, two prongs in the fork, right? We should have a singular focus on the Lord and desire for his praise. And number two, we should have a clear conscience when those two things are out of order, when our motives are out of order, and when we do not have a clear conscience, that's when we find it difficult to praise because we're insecure ourselves in our own relationship to God.
[00:18:46] Now, just hear me.
[00:18:49] If you and I are not walking with the Lord, we're not obedient. We have lingering and open and unresolved sin, unrepentant sin in our life, and our relationship is just out of order.
[00:19:01] You will not praise other people. You won't.
[00:19:05] You won't, because you have that insecurity in yourself, and so you're looking for that validation. This is just human nature.
[00:19:17] And so what we do is we use, when we don't have a clear conscience before God, and we don't have a right relationship to the Lord, and we're not seeking for his praise singularly. What we do is we use the praise of men as a substitute. And that's a cheap substitute, because the praise of men, the praise of men cannot give you a clear conscience, and it cannot make your relationship to God right. When you know it's not right, right. It can't cleanse your motives. So here's the thing. Cleanse your motives.
[00:19:45] Seek God's praise alone, because that's ultimately the most important reason that we do what we do and live for the Lord and all those things. And number two, if there's something not right in our lives, we got to get it right.
[00:19:58] And what we'll do, you'll find, is that they'll be a lot easier to recognize other people doing a good job when those two things are in order.
[00:20:09] Because other people need to hear praise. Your kids need to hear praise. Your grandparents, your grandkids need to hear praise. Just not too much for Cooper, because I'm just joking. That kid is seriously precocious.
[00:20:26] So, giving praise, giving life, the third, giving wisdom. Look at Proverbs ten, if you would.
[00:20:39] Proverbs ten, verse 20.
[00:20:43] I'll just read through these real quick.
[00:20:49] Says this. Proverbs ten, verse 20. The tongue of the just is as choice silver, speaking of its value. Value comes from what? Scarcity? Rarity. Right. That's why diamonds are valuable. Precious stones are valuable. You know why? Because they're rare. All right? So when something's valuable, it speaks to its rarity. All right? The tongue of the just is as choice silver. The heart of the wicked is little worth. That proves my point. Verse 21. The lips of the righteous feed many. What is he talking about? Feed? How do you feed? What are you giving them for? Food. But fools die for want of wisdom.
[00:21:27] So by giving people, it's like giving them food, that which they sustains them. Look at verse 31 of the same chapter. The mouth of the just bringeth forth wisdom, but the forward tongue shall be cut out.
[00:21:42] Proverbs 15. Look at that. Chapter 15, verse seven.
[00:21:49] The lips of the wise disperse knowledge, but the heart of the foolish doth not so.
[00:21:57] Chapter 20, chapter 20, verse 15, there is gold.
[00:22:08] Chapter 20, verse 15, there is gold and a multitude of rubies. But the lips of knowledge are a precious jewel.
[00:22:17] You know what that tells us? Along with the first verse, we read about choice silver, the tongue of the justice as choice silver is that wise words, which is a way we can use our tongue for righteous things. Right? For good, for life. Wise words are not common.
[00:22:33] Those of you that live and work in secular environments where you're surrounded by unbelievers, or even if you're in an environment where there's believers, but they're not, maybe not walking with the Lord, because that exists as well.
[00:22:45] You'll find that wisdom in words, directions. Advice is not good. Advice is not easy to come by because you got to remember the world has a philosophy of its own, its own wisdom that is contrary to God's wisdom. And they will give that advice.
[00:23:03] So the Bible says in verse number 20, verse 15, the lips of knowledge are a precious jewel. In other words, it's something that you don't find every day.
[00:23:16] Look at chapter 24, verse 26, talking about knowledge. Chapter 24, verse number 26.
[00:23:26] Every man shall kiss his lips that giveth a right answer.
[00:23:32] Number Ari, don't you try it.
[00:23:35] If you ask me a question, don't you even try it.
[00:23:40] But notice the right answer. The right answer, that's words of wisdom. The right answer is, we're not talking about trivia here.
[00:23:49] We're talking about giving sound wisdom and advice.
[00:23:54] I'll give you an example. If people are having marriage problems, the world's automatic default answer is going to be, you shouldn't put up with that.
[00:24:06] Nobody should put up with that. You need to get out.
[00:24:10] You're worth more than that.
[00:24:13] See, that is wisdom of the world.
[00:24:16] Now, we can go to some fringe examples. I know all that. But generally speaking, the world's advice is going to be that on that particular subject. But you know what? You got to remember what is informing the world's advice? Do you know what is informing the world's advice? The flesh.
[00:24:35] The fulfillment of the lust of the flesh. I'll prove that to you. I'll prove that to you. Look at James, chapter three.
[00:24:42] James, chapter three.
[00:24:49] So you have ways you can use your tongue for good. Number one, giving life. Number two, giving praise. Number three, giving knowledge and wisdom. But here's a little kicker. Here's the kicker for every Bornagain Christian is this. If you want to use your tongue to give knowledge, you must first have knowledge.
[00:25:07] You must first have knowledge, and you must first have wisdom. And here's the thing, and this is in my biblical counseling class. One thing that I'm pointing to Sister Judy, because she has done a lot of study on the subject of biblical counseling from this particular curriculum that I'm using in my class.
[00:25:26] And one thing, Jay Adams, who's the author, one thing he brings out a lot is that the counselor himself is not some sterile physician type person. No. If he's giving out wisdom, he himself needs to be applying it to himself. In other words, if a person's giving counsel, he himself ought to have received the counsel and has acted upon it himself. Otherwise, it's like a doctor prescribing medication he wouldn't take. It's like, why would you do that? I know that that kind of thing happens.
[00:26:05] But if we are going to give knowledge, use our tongue. The idea with giving knowledge and wisdom to others, knowledge being information, wisdom being the application of knowledge, if we're going to give it to other people, that's the whole idea of using our tongue, is not talking to ourselves, it's talking to others. So if we're going to give that knowledge to others, we ourselves better know better, have that knowledge, and have applied it in our own lives. Right?
[00:26:30] And when you do that, you gain experience. And experience is such a great teacher.
[00:26:35] All experience doesn't have to be bad. You can have good experience. I'm married to my wife. I have a lot of experience. Been married 24 years this December, right? Next year will be 25 years. You know what we've had in 25 years? Experience. But you know what? We've had some bad things, but most of our experience has been really good.
[00:26:54] And whenever you have experience, you can then use that to populate or inform your wisdom that you give to other people. James three, verse 14. Look what it says.
[00:27:08] We'll start in verse 13. Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you. Remember what we're talking about. Wise words. Let him show out of a good conversation. Now, that's not words. That's lifestyle. Right? His works with meekness of wisdom. But if ye have bitter, envying and strife in your hearts, glory not and lie not against the truth.
[00:27:32] This wisdom, the wisdom that leads people to glory, praise themselves. Right? What we just read. The wisdom that leads people to lie, deceive, manipulate, comes of envy and strife. This wisdom descendeth not from above. Okay, so if the wisdom is not from above, that is not from God, like we're reading in proverbs, then where is it from? But is earthly, sensual, devilish world, flesh, devil. You see that? Earthly.
[00:28:09] It's of this world. The philosophy of the world, which is informed by the flesh, which is lured by the devil. Doctrine taught by the devil. Okay, so put all of that together. You have God's wisdom. You have the wisdom from below. Wisdom from above. Wisdom from below.
[00:28:29] This is what I want you to see about using your words, is that the wisdom that is from below is in the viewpoint and perspective of those who have it. They think they are wise, right? They think they are wise. It does have a form of wisdom and knowledge.
[00:28:52] But what is driving that? What motivation is driving, you know what it is? The flesh.
[00:28:58] It's the impulses of the wicked nature of man is driving it. And the whims and the currents of the world, and the devil's tinkering with it. All right? Manipulating it all.
[00:29:15] That is the whole of the wisdom of the world. And so you get to a point where someone's offering information, they're offering knowledge to you. They're using their tongue like we're talking about, but they're giving you wisdom. That is not right.
[00:29:29] It's contrary to God's wisdom. We should be very careful of that. But see, the wisdom of God on our tongue, the wisdom of God our tongue can give, can be a source of grace and direction and help to people around us.
[00:29:49] It's important. It's important that the advice we give, the opinions we hold, right.
[00:29:59] And when we give our input, it should not just be our know viewpoint. On talking. My wife and I were on evangelism yesterday. We're talking to a man named Daniel. I was going to call him a young man, but he was 29. That's not young. Well, how many thinks 29 is young? Of course, it's all about perspective. So I was talking to, I was talking to this man, Daniel, and, and so we were talking about the, the idea. Well, he was kind of like an agnostic. He was an agnostic. And so the, the, on the subject of wisdom, so I was trying to give him the wisdom of God because he had a completely different basis from which he was deriving wisdom.
[00:30:55] But what was motivating his wisdom? What was motivating his wisdom was not right motivations from trying to please the Lord. It was other motivations that come of the earth.
[00:31:12] So we have three things, giving life, giving praise, and we have two more that we'll touch on next week, which is giving health and giving kindness.
[00:31:23] These are all positive ways we can use our tongue. So we know the dangers, and we'll look at this later. We know the dangers of using our tongue too much. Right. The Lord says that in the multitude of words, there wanteth not sin in others, there'll be plenty of sin to go around. Right. But there are sometimes when the Lord says, open your mouth, improbs, open your mouth. Well, one of the times that we need to do that is for good.
[00:31:48] When praise is due, don't be quiet. Right. When praise is due, don't be quiet. When wisdom is needed, don't hold your mouth closed.
[00:31:59] When you can give life, give it, give it. Use it for good. Use it for. Right. Let's pray together.
