Walk
326. The Words of Your Mouth
The Creative and Destructive Power of the Tongue
Planet
Earth is ruled by words. The Word
of God created it, and the Word of God upholds the entire universe. Your speech can be a healing instrument
of God, or a destructive tool of the devil!
John
chapter 1 says that the Word is God.
Isaiah had an experience in the presence of God and said,
“Woe is me! For I am undone and ruined, because I am a man of unclean lips, and
I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for (I know this because) my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts! Then flew one of the seraphim [heavenly
beings] to me, having a live coal in his hand which he had taken with tongs
from off the altar; and with it he touched my mouth and said, Behold, this has
touched your lips; your iniquity and guilt are taken away, and your sin is
completely atoned for and forgiven” (Isaiah 6:5-7, Amplified Bible). When we truly experience the presence
of God, we will discover the uncleanness of our words.
Words are powerful.
Sound waves can cause electrons and atoms to form into different
patterns, which materialize on the plane of earth-consciousness in many
different ways.
God turned the earth over to Adam. God gave the
authority of the earth to man and man’s creative imagination and speech. “Then God blessed them, and God said to
them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion
over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living
thing that moves on the earth’” (Genesis 1:28).
Psalm 8 says that the earth is in the hands of man. “For You have made him a little lower
than the angels, and You have crowned him with glory and honor. You have made
him to have dominion over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his feet” (Psalm 8:5-6).
Adam realized his creative power; he named all the
creatures. Actually, Adam did not
really make an independent decision of what to call the animals. He was so one with God, that he was
actually speaking God’s will as his own will. Adam fell in love with the creative gift of the power of the
spoken word. He found that he
could imagine things in his own mind and then speak them, and they would
materialize. The temptation was
“to be like God.” The Tree of Life
represented coming to God for your thoughts and words, the Tree of Knowledge of
Good and Evil represented using your imagination apart from God to imagine and
then speak.
Adam began to misuse his gift. The entire earth began to change. Eden was lost, and the earth was subject to the imaginations
of an animal (man) who was separated from God. Only this man had the power of imagination and speech, which
no other creature had. Today we
underestimate this power because it can take years, even a lifetime, for words
to create things in the seen world.
The Flood & the Tower of Babel: The perfect
work of the Father had been marred.
Genesis 6:5-6 says, “Then
the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth and
He was grieved in His heart.”
Even after the flood recorded in Genesis receded the people
said, “Come, let us build us a city and a tower whose top reaches into the sky,
and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered over the whole
earth. And the Lord came down to
see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. And the Lord said,
Behold, they are one people and they have all one language; and this is the
only the beginning of what they will do, and now nothing they have imagined
they can do will be impossible for them” (Genesis 11:4-6, Amplified Bible). We know the rest. At the Tower of Babel the Lord confused
their language so that they could not understand each other and scattered them
all over the earth.
Jesus came and said, “I am Alpha and Omega, the First and
the Last” (Revelation 1:11). In
other words, He spoke the first creation and He had come to speak the New
Creation. He said, “I delight to
do Your will, O my God” (Psalm 40:8).
Jesus did not seek His own will but the will of the Father
who sent Him. He said, “I do not
seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent me” (John 5:30). In John 12:49 Jesus said that He only
spoke what He heard the Father speaking first. He called Himself the last Adam.
We are co-creators of the new creation. Every
generation creates its’ own creatures.
Ancient uncivilized savages openly spoke their evil desires into living
forms, and monsters and wild beasts roamed the earth terrifying and destroying
their creators. Man was given
dominion over all the living creatures in Genesis 1 and 2, so all of man’s evil
desires and emotions have affected animals until now. In more modern generations we have become more educated,
civilized and sophisticated. In
so-called Christian nations there are not so many wild beasts, but we see them
now in the form of pests and parasites and disease germs and poisonous
microbes. As fast as medical
science finds a cure for certain bacteria and diseases, new ones appear. TB used to be terminal, cancer was but
is now becoming more tolerable, but then AIDS arrives on the scene. And now
some weird virus is in the Southwest that baffles scientists.
Everything we see around us has been spoken into
being. If we had eyes to see and could follow the course of every
sound wave, we would see that everything we express in speech goes forth
seeking other waves of the same quality, kind or species. When they mingle, they unite to produce
a pattern of electrons and atoms that, finally, materialize as seeds, eggs or
sperm. 1 Peter says that the Word
of God is the sperm that conceives our new birth. Mark 4 says that the Word is a seed. Jesus inferred that the Word planted in
and spoken by man is the way life works.
Matthew 18:19 says that if any two on earth are agreeing together, that
whatever they ask and say will be done.
When two or three are gathered together in Jesus’ name He is there with
them to produce it. What about if
any two or three come together in some other name like they did at the Tower of
Babel? If you talk with a witch
they will tell you how stupid many Christians are because they do not realize
the power of the tongue.
The sharp stinging words, the poisonous slanders,
flatteries or falsities, lies and cruel words that hurt or wound others, the
jealousies, hates, fears, injustices, all these things and many more
materialize in the forms that belong to their own species. But Galatians 6:7 is also true. It says, “…whatever a man sows, and
that he will also reap.” READ IT.
Matthew 12:36-37 says, “But I say to you that for every
idle word man may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment.
For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be
condemned.” Judgment can come now
here on earth and later in eternity.
Think of the misuse of this creative power when in earlier
generations the silent order of monks and nuns would not speak.
Those who are gardeners and those who worked on the
kibbutzims in Israel can testify that vegetables, gardens and flowers respond
to music and speech. Think of
yourself, when a harsh word hits you, how it wounds your spirit.
The answer, of course, is to allow the Holy Spirit to
control again our minds and imagination, and then, out of the abundance of our
heart, we will speak kind, healing thoughts.
This is why criticism is so bad; it does not change
anything but the criticizer. Jesus
so often dealt with evil things not by ignoring them or embracing the evil and
compromising with it, but by exercising a law above the lower law. He could have criticized the woman
taken in adultery. He knew it was
wrong; He was not compromising with immorality, but He was using the creative
power of man to heal the wrong. He
was not compromising with the world by agreeing to pay taxes to Herod. In submitting to the evil government He
was keeping his power; the devil could not trick Him to loose His power by not
submitting to authority. But Jesus
overcame the evil with a miracle by finding the money in a fish. Matthew 7:1-2 (Amplified Bible) says,
“Do not judge and criticize and condemn others, so that you may not be judged
and criticized and condemned yourselves. For just as you judge and criticize
and condemn others, you will be judged and criticized and condemned, and in
accordance with the measure you [use to] deal out to others, it will be dealt
out again to you.” Gossip
and criticism will KILL YOU!
The tongue has control over the entire body. The speech center in the brain has
dominion. Speaking in our newly
acquired heavenly language of tongues can be a blessing to us and to those
around us when we pray. We pray
God’s will into being.
What does the parable of the wedding feast have to do
with speech?
“And Jesus answered and spoke to them again by parables and
said: ‘The kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who arranged a marriage for
his son, and sent out his servants to call those who were invited to the
wedding; and they were not willing to come. Again, he sent out other servants,
saying, “Tell those who are invited, ‘See, I have prepared my dinner; my oxen
and fatted cattle are killed, and all
things are ready. Come to the
wedding.’” But they made light of it and went their ways, one to his own farm,
another to his business. And the rest seized his servants, treated them spitefully, and killed them. But when the king heard about it, he was furious. And he sent out his armies, destroyed
those murderers, and burned up their city. Then he said to his servants, “The
wedding is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy. Therefore go into
the highways, and as many as you find, invite to the wedding.” So those
servants went out into the highways and gathered together all whom they found,
both bad and good. And the wedding hall
was filled with guests. But when the king came in to see the guests, he saw a
man there who did not have on a wedding garment. So he said to him, “Friend,
how did you come in here without a wedding garment?” And he was speechless.
Then the king said to the servants, “Bind him hand and foot, take him away, and
cast him into outer darkness; there
will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” For many are called, but few are chosen’” (Matthew 22:1-14).
The ones who did not make it were not only the ones who
were not interested in God and considered the worldly things more important,
but also the ones who came to the wedding but would not put on the beautiful
garment that was provided by the host (this was a tradition). They were speechless in verse 12, in
verse 15, the Pharisees went and consulted and plotted together how they might
entangle Jesus in his talk.
The garment spoken of is righteousness but it is also
a holy speech.
How do we obtain that righteousness? There are two types of garments
representing righteousness. One is
the free gift of righteousness (the white robe), and the other is linen (the
wedding garment), which represents works of righteousness. We are not saved by works, but the
works of righteousness follow our salvation. One of the main works of righteousness is holy speech.
Romans chapter 10 says that Israel was ignorant of real
righteousness; the kind that comes from God as a free gift and not from how we
perform. But Romans 10 tells us
that the way to receive righteousness from God is with our speech. “The Word (God’s message in Christ) is
near you, on your lips and in your heart; that is, the Word (the message, the
basis and object) of faith which we preach, because if you acknowledge and
confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and in your heart believe (adhere to,
trust in, and rely on the truth) that God raised Him from the dead, you will be
saved (delivered from danger and healed). For with the
heart a person believes (adheres to, trusts in, and relies on Christ) and so is
justified (declared righteous, acceptable to God), and with the mouth he
confesses (declares openly and speaks out freely his faith) and confirms [his]
salvation” (Romans 10:8-10, Amplified Bible).
“"Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for
the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready. And to
her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine
linen is the righteous acts of the saints” (Revelation 19:7-8).
Oh, how nice it will be when we meet Jesus in heaven some
day, and find out how many times our words healed someone’s broken heart,
comforted the lonely, perhaps healed a broken body or a heartsick soul. How awful it would be to find out how
much we hurt someone! Jesus went
around doing good wherever He went.
Let us allow the Holy Spirit cleanse our lips with His coal of fire, and
allow God to use us as His instrument of doing good.
Derek Prince writes some important issues about the tongue
and the words of our mouth in his book “Does You Tongue Need Healing,” pages
23-60 (this is not a word for word quote, but selective and edited quotations).
We have considered thus
far the direct connection between our hearts and our mouths, as summed up in
the words of Jesus in Matthew 12:34: Out of the overflow of the heart the
mouth speaks . When the heart is
filled, it overflows through the mouth, and that overflow tells us the real
condition of the heart.
In the Old
Testament there are portraits of Christ and of Christ’s bride. For Christ the Messiah and His bride,
the church, the first feature of the grace of God and the spiritual and moral
beauty is their lips and their speech.
We are now
going to consider a biblical picture of the tongue itself. The epistle of James deals at length
with this subject. First, consider
some very searching remarks James makes about the kind of religion which God
accepts and also the kind that He does not accept. James speaks about the kind of religion that is not acceptable
to God:
“If anyone
considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue,
he deceives himself and his religion is worthless” (James 1:26, NIV).
It does not
matter how religious we may claim to be.
We may attend church, sing hymns and do all the other things that are
expected of religious people. In
themselves, all those things are good.
We may do all those things, but if we do not keep our tongues under
control, our religion is worthless and unacceptable to God. May God grant that all religious people
would face up to this issue.
On the
other hand, James speaks about the kind of religion God accepts. Again, it is different from the
practice of the average churchgoer today.
“Religion
that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this, to look after
orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by
the world” (James 1:27, NIV).
The first
positive requirement of pure religion is not churchgoing, or even Bible
reading. It is looking after and
showing practical love to those who are in need, primarily orphans and widows.
Let me
suggest, if you are in any way religious, that you take time to look in this
mirror of the Word of God found in James 1:26-27. If you do not control your tongue, your religion is
worthless. If you want to have a
religion that is accepted by God, it must be demonstrated first and foremost in
caring for those who are in need: the orphans and the widows.
I think
again about the doctor in the desert when he asked his patients how they
felt. He really was not too
interested in the answer because the next thing he always said was, ‘Show me
your tongue.’
That is
really what James is saying in these two verses. If you want to impress God with your religion, the first thing
He will say is, ‘Show me your tongue.’ He is going to judge from your tongue
whether your religion is valid and acceptable or not.
James uses
a number of pictures to illustrate the function of the tongue in our
lives. First, James 3:2 says:
“We all stumble in many
ways. If anyone is never at fault
in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to keep his whole body in check.”
James is saying that if
you can control your tongue, you can control your whole life. You are a perfect man if you can
control your tongue. Then he goes
on in the remainder of this passage to give some illustrations from the natural
world. James 3:3-8 continues: “When we put bits into the mouths of
horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. Or take ships as an example. Although they are driven by strong
winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go.
Likewise the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on
fire by a small spark.”
The tongue also is a fire,
a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his
life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell. All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles
and creatures of the sea are being tamed and have been tamed by man, but no man
can tame the tongue. It is a
restless evil, full of deadly poison.
James is bringing out the
unique significance and influence of the tongue for the whole course of our
lives. The first example he uses is
the bit in the horse’s mouth. He says, “If we succeed in putting a bit in a
horse’s mouth, we can turn the whole animal around.”
The horse,
in the Bible, is usually a type of physical strength. James is saying that no matter how strong a horse is, if you
can get control of its mouth with the bit, you can control the whole
animal. The horse’s strength is
brought into subjection through the control of its mouth. The same is true with us. That which controls our mouths controls
the whole course of our lives.
The next example is
perhaps a little more vivid. He
compares the tongue to the rudder of a ship. A ship may be a great structure, but is carried to and fro
by the tremendously powerful forces of the winds and the waves. Yet, in that ship there is only one
decisive, small piece – the rudder.
It is the use of the rudder that determines the whole course of the
ship. If the rudder is used
properly, the ship will arrive safely in the harbor. If the rudder is not used properly, the ship is likely to be
shipwrecked.
James says it is the same
in our lives. The tongue is the
rudder. Our tongues control the
course of our lives. If the rudder
of the tongue is used properly, we will make it safely to our appointed
destinations. But if our tongues
are not used properly, we will be shipwrecked.
James also gives the
example of a small spark that can start a forest fire. Every year in the United States,
billions of dollars of damage is caused by forest fires, and they usually start
just the way James says, with a small spark. The Forest Department of the United States has a very vivid
poster which says, “Only you can prevent forest fires.”
That is
also true in the spiritual realm.
The tongue is like a little spark that can cause a forest fire of vast
proportions, causing billions of dollars of damage. Many churches and religious groups no longer exist because
one tongue set a spark that burned up the whole thing, which could never be
restored.
The final
example James uses is that of a source of lethal poison. He says the tongue is like a deadly
element that can poison us by spreading infection through the whole system of
our lives.
Consider
those examples again: the bit in the horse’s mouth, the rudder in the ship, the
spark that starts a forest fire, and a poison that is injected into the life
stream. The principle underlying
each of these illustrations is the same: the tongue is a small part of the
body, but it is able to cause inestimable damage that might never be undone.
James goes
on to point out, once more, the inconsistencies of religious people:
“With the tongue we praise our Lord and
Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of
the same mouth come praise and cursing.
My brothers, this should not be. Can both fresh water and salt water
flow from the same spring? My brothers, can a fig tree bear olives, or a
grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water” (James
3:9-12, NIV).
James is
saying exactly the same thing Jesus said.
If the tree is good, the fruit will be good. If you have a fig tree in your heart, you will get figs out
of your mouth. But if you have a
vine in your heart, you will never get figs out of your mouth. What comes out of your mouth indicates
what is in your heart.
It is the same, he said,
with the flow of water. If the
water that comes out of your mouth is fresh, then the spring that is in your
heart is fresh. But if the water
that comes out of your mouth is salty and brackish, then the spring of your
heart is salty and brackish. So
that which comes out of the mouth inevitably indicates the true condition of
the heart
Words
Determine Destiny
The essence of the
different pictures that James uses to illustrate the function of the tongue in
our lives is the same: the tongue is something small in itself, but capable of
causing incalculable harm if left unchecked. Of the four particular pictures that I referred to (the bit
in the horse’s mouth, the rudder in the ship, a spark that starts a forest
fire, and a source of poison that corrupts the whole life stream), the one that
best illustrates the tremendous potential of the tongue is that of the rudder
in the ship.
The rudder
is visually just a small part of the ship that is down below the surface. You
do not see it when you look at the ship sailing on the surface of the
water. Yet that small part, which
is not normally visible to the eye, determines the direction of the ship. If the rudder is used correctly, the
ship will make it safely to its destined harbor. But if the rudder is misused, almost certainly the ship
will suffer shipwreck. The rudder
determines the course and the destiny of the entire ship.
The Bible
says the tongue is like that in our bodies. When we look at people from outward appearances, normally we
do not even see their tongues. Yet
that small, unnoticed member is just like the rudder in the ship. The tongue’s use determines the course
of the person’s life. It
determines his or her destiny.
To continue
our study, we want to consider an example from the history of Israel that
drives home this lesson with inescapable clarity. The lesson to learn is this:
Men determine their own
destinies by the way they use their tongues.
The
incident we are going to look at is found in the book of Numbers, chapters 13
and 14. The Israelites had come
out of Egypt and were on their way to the Promised Land. God arranged with Moses to send twelve
men ahead of them to spy out the land: to find out its general character, the
nature of the inhabitants, the kind of cities, the kind of fruit, and to bring
back a report. One leader was
chosen from each of the twelve tribes to go ahead into the land. They spent forty days walking through
the land and then they came back with their report. The report they brought back is given to us in Numbers
13:26-28 (KJV):
“And they (the twelve
spies) went and came to Moses, and to
Aaron, and to all the congregation of the children of Israel, unto the
wilderness of Paran, to Kadesh; and brought back word unto them, and unto all
the congregation, and shewed them the fruit of the land. And they told him, and
said, We came unto the land whither thou sentest us, and surely it floweth with
milk and honey; and this is the fruit of it.” [The fruit was so heavy that it
took two men to carry one bunch of grapes on a of between them. But this is what they said next]. “Nevertheless the people be strong that
dwell in the land, and the cities are walled, and very great: and moreover we
saw the children of Anak (the giants)
there.”
When God gives you a
promise, are you going to accept the promise at its face value, or are you
going to accept it and then say ‘nevertheless’? That was a fatal word that caused the people to be disturbed
and distressed.
Two of the spies, however,
Caleb and Joshua, refused to go along with this negative attitude. In Numbers 13:30-31 (KJV) we read this:
“And Caleb stilled the people before Moses, and said, Let us go up at once, and
possess it; for we are well able to overcome it. But the men that went up with
him said, We be not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger
than we.”
Let us take notice of the
words that were used. Caleb said,
“We are well able to overcome it.”
The other ten spies said, “We be not able.” One set of spies said the positive: “We are able.” The other set said the negative: “We
are not able.” As you follow the
story, you will see that each group got exactly what they said. Each group’s destiny was settled by
their words. “And the LORD said, I have pardoned according to thy word: But as
truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the LORD.
Because all those men which have seen my glory, and my miracles, which I did in
Egypt and in the wilderness, and have tempted me now these ten times, and have
not heartened to my voice; Surely they shall not see the land which I swore
unto their fathers, neither shall any of them that provoked me see it: But my
servant Caleb, because he had another spirit with him, and hath followed me
fully, him will I bring into the land whereinto he went; and his seed shall
possess it” (Numbers 14:20-24, KJV).
By his positive
confession, Caleb settled his destiny for the positive. Numbers 14:26-32 (KJV) continues: “And
the LORD spake unto Moses and unto Aaron, saying, How long shall I bear with
this evil congregation, which murmur against me? I have heard the murmurings
of the children of Israel, which they murmur against me. Say unto them, As
truly as I live, saith the LORD, as ye have spoken in mine ears, so will I do
to you: Your carcasses shall fall in this wilderness; and all that were
numbered of You, according to your whole number, from twenty years old and
upward which have murmured against me. Doubtless ye shall not come into the
land, concerning which I sware to make you dwell therein, save Caleb the son of
Jephunneh, and Joshua the son of Nun. But your little ones, which ye said
should be a prey, them will I bring in, and they shall know the land which ye
have despised. But as for you, your
carcasses, they shall fall in this wilderness.”
Notice the
words, ‘as you have spoken in my ears, so will I do to you.’ God is saying, in
effect, “You have settled what I will do to you by the words that you have
spoken.”
“And the men, which
Moses sent to search the land, who returned, and made all the congregation to
murmur against him, by bringing up a slander upon the land, even those men that
did bring up the evil report upon the land, died by the plague before the
LORD.” (They settled their own deaths.
They spoke words of death, and death was the outcome). “But Joshua the
son of Nun, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, which were of the men that went to
search the land, lived still” (Numbers 14:36-38, KJV)
Death and life are in the
power of the tongue. How much more
clearly could that be illustrated? The men that spoke negatively settled for
death. The men that spoke
positively received life. They
settled their own destinies by what they spoke. The ones that said, “We are not able,” were not able. The ones that said, “We are able,” were
able.
In the New Testament, our
experience as Christians is directly compared to that of Israel in the Old
Testament. We are warned that the
same lessons apply to us. Hebrews
4:1-2 (NIV) reads: “Therefore, since the promise of entering his rest still
stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it.
For we also have had the gospel (the Good News) preached to us, just as they did; but the message they
heard was of no value to them, because those who heard it did not combine it
with faith.”
The same
promise that God gave to Israel still stands for us a promise of entering into
the rest of God but we must be careful that we do not fall short of it in the
same way that they did in the Old Testament. Their problem was they heard the message, a promise from
God, but they added that one fatal word ‘nevertheless.’ Instead of focusing on
the promise of God and boldly confessing their faith in God’s promise and
power, they focused on the negative.
They looked at the giants and the walled cities and said, “We are not
able.” Thank God for two men who had the faith and the courage to say, “We are
well able.”
When you face God’s
promise concerning a certain situation, what are you going to do with your
tongue? Are you going to give assent to the promise of God? Are you going to identify yourself with
the promise of God and say, “God said it; I’m able.” Or are you going to be one
of those who say, “Nevertheless, look at all the problems. God said it, but somehow I don’t feel
able.” Remember, just as those
spies settled their destinies with their tongues by the words that they spoke,
so the same lesson applies to whoever has heard the gospel. We likewise settle our destinies by
the words that we speak.
Ten of the twelve spies
focused on the problems, not on the promises. Two of the twelve spies, Joshua and Caleb, focused on the
promises, not on the problems.
Joshua and Caleb said, “We are well able.” The other spies said, “We are
not able.” Each got exactly what they said. They all settled their own destinies by the way they used
their tongues.
We have studied an example
from the Old Testament that illustrates how ‘death and life’ are in the power
of the tongue. We learned that the
right use of the tongue will impart life, and, conversely, the wrong use will
impart death.
Now, we will consider
certain specific diseases that affect our tongues. These six diseases that commonly infect our lives through
the misuse of our tongues can, in some cases, be fatal if left unchecked.
Disease Number
One: Excessive Talking
This
disease is so common that people accept it as normal when it is not. “When
words are many, sin is not absent, but he who holds his tongue is wise”
(Proverbs 10:19, NIV).
Another
version of the same Scripture verse reads: “When there are many words,
transgression is unavoidable. But he who restrains his lips is wise” (Proverbs
10:19, NAS)
In other words, if you say
too much you are bound to say something wrong. There is no alternative.
Disease Number
Two: Idle or Careless Words
In Matthew
12:36 (NIV) Jesus says this: “But I tell you that men will have to give account
on the day of judgment for every careless word you have spoken.”
One day we
are going to have to answer for every word we have spoken. We are going to have to answer for
words that were idle, insincere, that we did not really mean, that we were not
prepared to stand behind, or that were not worked out in our lives.
In the
Sermon on the Mount, recorded in Matthew 5:37 (NIV) Jesus states: “Simply let
your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the
evil one.”
That is an
astonishing statement. If we say
more than we mean, then the exaggeration (unnecessary emphasis or overdoing)
in our speech comes from the evil one.
Let me sum it up in just
one simple word of advice. If you
don’t mean it, don’t say it. If
you will follow that one rule, I promise you, it will change your whole life. You will be a different person. If you would keep that rule for one
year, I promise you that a year from now you will be a different and a much
better person.
“Do not go about spreading
slander among your people” (Leviticus 19:16, NIV)
Going
about spreading slander-idle, untrue, exaggerated, malicious talk – is
gossip. The very title of Satan in
the New Testament, the word rendered ‘devil,’ means ‘a slanderer’ in
Greek. That is its root meaning
and the main description of Satan in the Bible. If you gossip or tell tales, you are actually doing the
devil’s work for him. You are a
representative of Satan. Not only
must we be careful not to give out gossip, we have a responsibility not to
receive gossip also. “The words of a gossip are like choice morsels; they go
down too man’s inner most parts” (Proverbs 18:8, NIV)
How
true that is of human nature. When
we hear something about someone that is bad or shows them in a bad light,
something in the human heart rejoices. The words of a gossip are like choice
morsels. Be careful when one of those choice morsels of gossip is placed in front
of you that you do not swallow it.
They are poisoned. They
taste sweet but they poison us. And, as we receive them into our hearts, our
lives will become poisoned by those morsels of gossip. “A gossip betrays a
confidence; so avoid a man who talks too much” (Proverbs 20:19, NIV).
Disease Number
Four: Lying
We
need to be careful that we use the right word to describe this disease of the
tongue. Somebody has used the
phrase, ‘ evang-e-l-a-s-t-i-c-ally speaking.’ The evangelist sees 200 people
come forward in his crusade, and by the time the report is in newsletter, it is
500. What is that exaggeration or
lying? It is really lying. I do
not mention this to be critical of others. It is important that every one of us be very careful that we
are not found guilty this type of speaking.
In Proverbs
6:16-19 (NIV) the writer tells of even things that the Lord hates. Hate is a strong word. This is what it says: “There are six
things the LORD hates, seven that are detestable to him: haughty eyes, a lying
tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked schemes,
feet that are quick to rush into evil, a false witness who pours out ties and a
man who stirs up dissension among brothers.”
Out of those seven
specific things that the Lord hates, there are three that are related to the
tongue: first, ‘a lying tongue,’ ‘a false witness’ (obviously that affects the
tongue also); and third, ‘a man who stirs up dissension among brothers’ (and
normally the way that dissension is stirred up is by words). So out of seven things that the Lord
hates, there are three that affect the tongue, and of those three, two are
specifically connected with lying.
This is stated again in Proverbs 12:22 (NIV): “The LORD detests lying
lips, but he delights in men who are truthful.”
Disease
Number Five: Flattery
‘Help,
Lord, for the godly are no more; the faithful have vanished from among men.
Everyone lies to his neighbor; their flattering lips speak with demotion. May the LORD cut off all flattering
lips and every boastful tongue…” (Psalm 12:1-4, NIV).
In this Scripture David is
speaking about a state of moral decline in the human race. I believe it is not unlike what we see
around us today. Godly men are
difficult to find. The faithful
have vanished. What is the result?
“Everyone lies to his neighbor; their flattering lips speak with deception.” A
judgment of God is pronounced by the Scripture upon these flattering lips:
“May the LORD cut off all flattering lips and every boastful tongue.” In
Proverbs 26:28 (NIV), we are warned: “A lying tongue hates those it hurts, and
a flattering mouth works ruin.” If
we listen to and receive flattery, or if we become flatterers, the end is ruin. “Whoever flatters his neighbor is
spreading a net for his feet” (Proverbs 29:5, NIV).
Disease Number Six: Hastiness
of Speech
“Do
you see a man who is hasty in his words?
There is more hope for a fool than for him” (Proverbs 29:20, NAS)
This
verse says if we are hasty in our words, our condition is worse than that of
fool. That is a solemn statement
because the Bible has nothing good to say about the fool.
There is one example in
Scripture of a man who was hasty in his words just once. The Bible tells of the
price it cost him. The man was
Moses. He was told by God to go
ahead of the children of Israel, speak to a rock, and it would bring forth
water. But he was so angry with
the children of Israel that he said to them, “You rebels, must we bring you
water out of this rock?” Then,
instead of speaking to the rock, he smote it (see Numbers 20:7-12). That act of disobedience, expressed in
hasty words, cost him the privilege of leading the children of Israel into the
Promised Land. This is described
in Psalm 106:32-33 (KJV): “They (the children of Israel) angered him (Moses)
also at the waters of strife, so that it went ill with Moses for their sakes:
Because they provoked his spirit, so that he spake unadvisedly with his lips.”
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