Out of the Mouths of Fools
Automated transcript of the sermon audio, generated with OpenAI Whisper (small.en). It has not been checked against the recording and may contain errors, especially in names and Scripture references.
One of the things you might notice about me is that I talk for a living. Communication is probably the majority of my job, how I spend my time. Whether I'm preaching a message or answering questions at a small group or leading a staff meeting or counseling somebody in my office office, or conversing with someone over coffee at my third place. My mouth is open a lot. Because of that, people judge me by my words. They hear me speak, or maybe they listen to a message they downloaded from the 128 site, or they read what I write on my blog, or They read the sermon notes again on the 128 site. In many ways, I am known and judged by what I say.
And so are you. It may be different than the standard that I'm held to as a teacher, but everyone in this room is judged and known by what comes out of their mouth. It's one of the reasons that Jesus said that even every careless word that comes out of your mouth is something that God will hold you accountable for. This morning we come to a paragraph in Ecclesiastes about words and specifically about the words that come out of the mouth of fools, and it's not a pretty picture. Each and every one of us needs to be careful about our words. Of course I knew what the message in 128 was going to be about when Pastor Z read this morning scripture reading from Psalm 39.
You don't need to turn there, but it caught my attention right away because at the beginning of Psalm 39, this was a cry, a plea, a request from the psalmist for God to do this and a commitment that the psalmist was making. He said, I will guard my ways that I might not sin with my tongue.
And then the very next line is, I will guard my mouth with a... Anybody remember what was next? I will guard my mouth with a muzzle. I was like, wow, that's appropriate. At least for some people. This is his earnest desire. He's not having somebody else put a muzzle on him.
He's putting a muzzle on his own mouth because he realizes that's how important his words are. That's how important it is for him to not sin with his tongue. And so he would rather shut his mouth. Think of a dog muzzle. The whole point of a dog muzzle is to keep their mouth closed. And maybe they can open it enough to hum better, but they can't actually say words. Well, dogs don't say words to begin with. But if you put a muzzle on a person's mouth, it wouldn't be to just keep them from biting you. That wasn't the psalmist's prayer. I don't want to bite people with my mouth. It was, I don't want to say things that are wrong, that are sinful, because what we say has serious consequences. And I think that young people, you all, are extremely susceptible to the problem of foolish talking. I remember there was a time in my own life, it was probably somewhere during the first couple years of college, when I realized that my own words were atrocious. Not because I was cursing God or cussing other
people out, but because I was wasting my words. I was just being stupid, silly. You might not think that it's possible based on hanging out with me today, but I actually used to be funny. I actually used to be the person at the party who had the joke, who kept people entertained. You really only see that on very, you know, the window is very small if I let that come out. But that probably used to define me. That was more who I was. I was more of the class clown kind of person. How else do you think I came to know a 30 plus minute joke? My mouth was open a lot and I wasn't seeing a lot of good things coming out.
Then I started, like I said, this is somewhere at the beginning of college, then I started to read more and more of the Proverbs about words. And I realized that the Proverbs described me and what was coming out of my open mouth as a fool. I was not described as the wise, I was described as the fool, and I began to make some pretty serious changes in my speech patterns. Some people would probably even say swinging the pendulum too far back to the other side of being serious, but in light of how important our words are, sometimes it does take radical action like putting a muzzle over your mouth to stop you from sinning with what comes out of your mouth. I committed at that point in time that I was going to be a better steward of my mouth. You may not think that listening to me give announcements?
You may not think that watching certain videos of mine on YouTube, but for the most part, I am a better steward of my words today than I used to be. Based on my own experience, based somewhat on the time I spend with some of you, and based a lot on passages like Ecclesiastes 10, 12 through 15, I need to tell you that I love you and some of you are fools. Not everybody, but some of you who are in here right now are fools. I almost can't believe some of the things that come out of your mouth. It's unfathomable to me. You talk about the kinds of things or you talk about yourself in ways that I wouldn't have ever even dreamed in the height of my word wasting.
I would never go to the extremes that some of you do. The things you guys write on MySpace, whether it's your own page or leaving comments for somebody else. The things, and I'm glad that for the most part you guys pay better attention than this, But occasionally, you leave notes that you've written or that someone has written to you behind. You leave them behind on Sunday morning and they're underneath your chair. Or you leave them somewhere on campus, they fall out of your Bible. Sometimes you leave those things behind and the bothersome-ness, not a word but we're going to go with it. The degree to which some of those things that I read from you, the degree to which those things bother me, is tough to explain.
Some of you talk like goofballs, that's foolish. Some of you talk like airheads, that's foolish. That's not just funny, that's foolish. Some of you talk like morons, and I mean that in its biblical description, talking about stupid things, trivial things in stupid ways, and you are being a fool. And what you say says a lot about who you are. And I realize maybe you say, well that's not really me.
That's not what I meant to say. I'm really different than what you've heard. And my response is no, you're not. Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. It all starts from inside of you. Who you are as a person leads to what you write and what you say and how you say it. And just like you always do what you most want to do, everything you say starts in your heart. You might not like how it comes out, you may wish you could choose different vocabulary, but ultimately what you say reveals who you are and that concerns me. That concerns me for your heart because that window into your soul would be better off to some extent if you would just pull the shade so we didn't have to see it. It It concerns me for your heart.
It concerns me for the consequences that some of you are going to run into based on how foolish you are with your words and with your mouth. You're going to lose opportunities. You're going to lose friends. You're going to ruin your life with your mouth, some of you. And then it concerns me for the coming judgment. As I already mentioned, Jesus said that every careless word, let alone the words that are not careless, that we've chosen that are inappropriate, every one of our words is something that we will give an account for. And I realize I don't even know the half of your words.
The people I hang around the most, I don't know the half of your words. I barely know the half of my own words, let alone the half of your words. And that doesn't make me feel better. Because most people at least clean up their speech a little bit when the pastor walks in the room. If you know that I'm coming, you know, I ask you to send me an email with your MySpace page, chances are you've gone to the MySpace page before sending me the link and checked it out just to make sure. If you know that I'm going to come look at it. So I don't even know everything that you're talking about and the things that you're saying, and likely what you are saying around me is cleaned up some, and that's really bad news for you, and your heart, and your mouth. I wonder how many fools Solomon had to listen to. You know, you think about being in his position as the king. Can you imagine the endless parade of idiots that were before him on a daily basis presenting their program or trying to convince him how great they were, wanting something from him.
It's hard to imagine how many fools Solomon had to listen to, but however much it was, Solomon has recorded for us some identifying marks of foolish words and foolish talk. And in this paragraph, Ecclesiastes chapter 10 verses 12 through 15, I think he shows us four things that come out of the mouths of fools. Let's read the four Proverbs. We'll come back and point out these four things. Ecclesiastes 10 starting in verse 12. The words of a wise man's mouth win him favor, but the lips of a fool consume him. The beginning of the words of his mouth is foolishness, and the end of his talk is evil madness. A fool multiplies words, though no man knows what is to be, and who can tell him what will be after him.
the toil of a fool wearies him, for he does not know the way to the city." Obviously, chapter 10 has been discussing and pointing out characterizing the fool.
We saw some facts about Folly and the fool. Then last time we saw fools rush in, they're not using their heads. Almost, maybe we could say, in the previous paragraph, fools aren't paragraph, fools aren't using their heads. We wish they would use their heads and we wish they would now stop using their mouths. Or at least start using their head before they open their mouth. This whole paragraph, 12 through 15 then, gives us four identifiers or four things that come out of the mouths of fools. Number one, verse 12, first thing that comes out of the mouth of a fool is self-destructive words. Though a fool believes that he is earning advantage and making a place and a name for himself, the exact opposite is happening when a fool talks. Verse 12, the words of a wise man's mouth win him favor, but the lips of a fool consume him. The wise man makes his only appearance. I'm sad that we don't get to find out more about the wise man because the fool is bad news in this paragraph.
But the wise man makes his only appearance here at the beginning of verse 12, the words of the wise man's mouth win him favor. And you can certainly read through the book of Proverbs you'll find what characterizes speech that comes out of a wise man. You'll find things like the wise man's speech is gracious, it's kind, it's winsome, it's persuasive, it's sweet, it's healing. And when the wise man speaks, it results in favor. That means he earns for himself by what he says a good reputation. He increases his influence by how he uses his mouth. A wise man's mouth works to his own benefit, not so for the fool.
Instead the lips of a fool consume him, the last part of verse 12. Based on the parallel nature of the proverb, the wise and the fool, whatever it means that the fool's lips consume him, it's the opposite of what the result of the wise man's speech is. And so whereas The wise man wins approval. The fool loses respect. Every time he talks, when the fool talks, he tarnishes his reputation and decreases his influence. The wise man, just the opposite.
He polishes his reputation. The fool tarnishes it. Mucks it up. The wise man gains for himself The wise man gains for himself influence. The foolish man loses whatever influence he may have already had. And the imagery shows here by this description of his lips consume him, suggest that it's his own fault. There is no one else to blame for his loss of influence, his loss of reputation, his loss of favor. There is no one else to blame but his very self. The word consume is the word swallow. It's kind of a funny picture of imagined really big lips growing and then swallowing the person. That's the picture here of the fool's mouth, of his lips, of his words.
They hurt himself and they hurt others. And you realize that your words affect the health of just four quick bullet points. Your words affect the health of your reputation. What you say impacts your reputation, what other people think about you. For the good or the bad. Your words affect the health of your relationships. These obviously are connected together, but I think they have some differences. You win friends with your words. You lose friends. Create enemies with your words. So it affects your reputation, your relationships. Your words affect the health of your influence. How people listen to you.
Whether they're automatically predisposed based on everything you've said in the past, their history with you, they know then whether they're going to give attention to you or not when you say the next thing. If you've been crying wolf the last few times, likely they're not going to believe you now. So your reputation, your relationships, your influence, and your words affect the health of your opportunities, and that is what people let you do. They're not going to give you responsibility and opportunities. If everything they know about you based on what you say shows that you're a fool. A fool's mouth is his ruin and his lips are a snare, they're a trap to his soul. And so out of the mouth of fools come self-destructive words. Secondly, out of the mouth of fools comes verse 13, crazy talk. From start to finish, the fool demonstrates that he is out of his ever-loving mind. Verse 13, the beginning of the words of his mouth is foolishness, and the end of his talk is evil madness. What? Evil madness. Wow. I think this verse is kind of unique. In fact, I
kind of think this verse is just an excuse for Solomon to say, the fool, his mouth is bad. No, I mean really bad. No, I mean really, really, really awfully, stupidly, ridiculously, ludicrously bad. That's how bad it is when the fool opens his mouth. The beginning, first part of verse 13, the beginning of the words of his mouth is foolishness. It's continuing the description at the end of verse 12, that the lips of a fool consume him, the beginning of the words of his mouth is foolishness. From the start, what you get with a fool is foolish. And the end of his talk is evil madness. From the beginning to the end and everything in the middle, it's bad. And I want you to just get the description, evil madness.
This is not funny. This is insanely sinful. It's crazy talk. I can't get over the word madness. I didn't actually have the opportunity to look up how many times in scripture the word madness is used, this Hebrew word for madness. When we say, and I did look it up in a couple dictionaries, and it has some overlaps to even how we talk about people being mad. Because when we say someone is mad, and by mad, I'm not talking about angry mad, I'm talking about crazy mad. The person is mad. They have mad cow disease. You know, that doesn't mean that they're just angry like cows. It means that they can't be in control of themselves. They're out of control. When we say someone is mad, We mean that they have gone off the deep end.
Their behavior, and in this case their words, is so far gone, so far off the reservation, that normal conduct and normal social interaction is no longer possible. People who are mad to the extreme get put in the crazy house. They get this nice clean jacket tied around themselves. Can't use their arms because they're going to hurt people if their arms are out or they're going to hurt themselves. They get put in straight jackets and in padded walled rooms. They can't interact with people like normal people do. And the fool should put a straight jacket on his mouth. Because what comes out of it in the end is evil madness.
Fools talk in such a frenzy that it's impossible for them to fit in. The normal interaction is just no longer possible for them. They stick out because they are so ridiculously off the reservation. And like I said, this isn't funny crazy, this is sinful. Solomon calls it evil. It's wrong. It is immoral. It's offensive to God. It's not only self-destructive, but certainly evil madness is bound to be divinely judged. And so out of the mouth of fools comes crazy talk. This leads to number three. Out of the mouths of fools, fools come, arrogant verbosity. Verse 14, arrogant verbosity. I hate to love this verse. It's so accurate, so common, and so upsetting.
Verse 14, a fool multiplies words, though no man knows what it is to be. And who can tell him what will be after him? The fool is verbose. What's that mean? That means got diarrhea of the mouth. Maybe that's a youth colloquialism we could use to describe it. Verbose, an excessive talker, someone who loves to open his mouth and a fool multiplies words. A fool doesn't just add words together. A fool multiplies those words for maximum effect. This isn't the first time in Ecclesiastes that Solomon himself has addressed Bloviation. You remember when I gave you that word, to Bloviate? To speak arrogantly or pompously and excessively about something for which you really have no information or knowledge whatsoever.
Bloviate. Look back at Ecclesiastes 5. Because these are in the book we're studying, just to remind you, we've already talked about these, mentioned these, Ecclesiastes chapter 5 verse 2, specifically in reference to going to worship, going to the temple, be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven and you are on earth, therefore let your words be few. Look over at chapter 6, perhaps even more explicit, of the danger that comes from excessive words. Ecclesiastes 6 verse 11, the more words, the more vanity.
That's a perfect description of hot air. Some of you are flying hot air balloons with your mouths. We'll just hook you up and point your face upwards. We'll have to attach some sort of contraption to shut your mouth so we can come back down, because otherwise you're filling up the balloon. The more words, the more vanity. The fool loves to talk, loves to hear himself, loves to share his opinion. In the book of Proverbs, Solomon talks about the fact that the fool of the mouth pours out folly. It's not like the annoying drip of the faucet that occasionally a little drop falls out. It's like Niagara Falls out of your mouth. Multiplying foolish and vain words. In particular, based on this passage here in Ecclesiastes 10, 14, the fool loves to share his convictions on things he has no idea about. Look at the last two lines there, verse 14, though no man knows what is to be, and who can tell him what will be after him? This is talking about the future, the future of the fool's own life and the future after the fool's life is over. No one can tell him
what's going to happen tomorrow or what's going to happen later on in his life. Definitely as we've already seen in Ecclesiastes, no one can tell you, guarantee for you, what's going to be after your life. So who can tell him what will be after him? No one. Now, only do the words keep vomiting out of his mouth, but no one can get him to stop. No one can tell him otherwise. Wise people listen and know their limits. Fools babble. They go on like they're know-it-alls.
I don't know if this is your experience or not, but it seems to me that some of, not all, some of the most wordy people are also some of the most arrogant people. Now I hope that it's possible to use a lot of words and not necessarily be arrogant, since my job includes the need to use a lot of words. But some of the wordiest people I know are some of the hauteist people that I know as well. They have so convinced themselves that they know the answers and they act like the rest of the world has just been waiting for them to arrive and explain the mysteries and provide the solutions to all of our problems, to answer solutions to all of our problems, to answer all of our questions, we've just been waiting for them. And so, we just need to come and sit at their feet and learn and listen from all of their great wisdom that they're going to share. And yet, they have no understanding either what they're saying or the things about which they make confident assertions.
Now Ecclesiastes 10.14 is aimed directly at future tellers, people who claim to know things that are going to happen tomorrow or even after they die, at those who talk big when they have absolutely zero information. There's no book you can go to other than the Bible, which a fool is not going to, but there's no book that tells us anything certain about the future. You can't go to the library and look up websites that have guaranteed accurate information about what's going to happen in your life or after you die. And these people are talking with such great conviction, multiplying words on things they have no idea about.
But the application of this spills over onto all kinds of other issues. It fires me up and wears me out. To read some blogs or some comments on blogs or to listen to certain groups of people, they have no flaming clue and yet they go on and on and on in such a way that demonstrates they don't have any need to learn anything else. They've arrived. They got it and they want you to hear what they have to say. You know what that really is? That's madness. It's arrogant, verbose, madness. The more words they multiply in their argument, doesn't actually make their argument more persuasive. It makes them look more arrogant.
Here's some good counsel. If you haven't written anything down, I want you to write this down on your little note sheet, okay? Are you ready? Please, start with that. Please, comma, stop talking. You can choose period or exclamation point there. Either one is fine with me. Please, some of you, just stop talking. I am flabbergasted, blown away, amazed, unbelievable, somebody whispered, what does that mean, flabbergasted. I am bamboozled, on occasion, sitting around a campfire at Icthuse, or visiting a small group. Typically this happens in a smaller group kind of setting where somebody feels comfortable enough to just vigorously display their foolish talk. It amazes me that when that starts happening, I've seen this happen so many times, that someone, whether it's their small group leader or maybe another more mature student in the group, sometimes even myself will kindly urge them to stop gossiping or stop complaining, to stop talking so silly because we're being serious at this point in time, to stop being so argumentative.
I'm going to give you that just quick list again because these are the kinds of things that happen where some more mature person is kindly urging someone to shut their mouths, to stop the flow of foolishness coming out, either because they're gossiping or because they are just being silly when that's not the time or the place, when they are being argumentative. The only thing I could really think of to illustrate this is, it's kind of like, Emma was having this experience a lot right now. She really hates throwing up. Like that's just a really, that's something she really just doesn't care for. It seems like in her pregnancy, at least at the beginning part here, the nausea and the feeling like you need to vomit is a strong and regular occurrence. And the length she will go to, to like suck it back down, to swallow it and just keep it from spewing out all over the place. She does whatever she can to just keep it down. Some of you need to do that with your words. And especially when someone is helping you to identify when that time is.
Look, if I tell you to stop talking, little hint about me. If I tell you to stop talking, I mean it. And I don't really mean it when you feel like it or later on when you go home or sometime when it's more convenient to you. If I tell you to stop talking, I'm vigorous, I mean, if I could, like, strangle your throat in an acceptable, non-harmful way, right? Because I'm not wanting to cause physical harm. If there was some kind of ninja move, where, like, that I was familiar with, perhaps I would employ that. In the meantime, I'm just going to go with, please stop talking. I mean that. For your benefit, for my benefit, which is also then back for more of your benefit, for the benefit of the rest of the people who are around, put a cork in it.
Just stop talking, especially when someone older, wiser, more mature. I got in lots of trouble for back talking my mom. I was that person. And I hear some of you talk to your parents, if you were my child, you were my kid, wow, we'd have some fun coming up with some various forms of your discipline. And you probably wouldn't be leaving the house for a while. Because if you're talking like that to your parents when other people are around, who knows how it is at home? That's foolish. It's arrogant, and the more words that come out, the more vanity. And in the multitude of words, transgression is unavoidable. Out of the mouth of fools comes arrogant verbosity, which leads to number four.
Out of the mouth of fools come lame excuses. Verse 15. You probably expect lame excuses to come out of the mouth of fools. You may not expect that that's what verse 15 is talking about, at least when you first read it. I'll see if I can't explain to you why I think it's talking about lame excuses. Verse 15, the toil of a fool wearies him, for he does not know the way to the city. Now unlike verses 12 through 14, the word words isn't found in verse 15. 12, 13, and 14 include the word words. They also include other words like mouth, lips, talk. Obviously 12, 13, 14 are all about what we say, how we speak, what we're talking about.
Instead in verse 15 we have the word toil. So it's certainly tempting, at least at the beginning, to see this as a switch in subject from what the fool says to what the fool does, from his speech to his conduct. And it may be. But I think the context, obviously, is pushing us to see this as something that continues the subject of foolish speaking, foolish words. And more than that, I think that the proverb itself conveys more than just laziness in work or toil. The toil of a fool wearies him, for he does not know the way to the city. Now here's the question, here's why I'm wondering if this really has to do with the fool's work and toil or if it's about lame excuses.
is, what does being tired have to do with knowing directions? That's really my question, because obviously these two parts of the proverb seem to go together. What do directions have to do with being tired? Does this mean they couldn't go to Google Maps? They were so worn out from working, which by the way is probably not good work if it's the work of a fool, the toil of a fool. They're so worn out and tired by that exhausted that they can't even give directions to somebody. It's overwhelming. But how does that relate? Being tired. How does that relate? Knowing how to get to town. So let me tell you what I don't think this verse is talking about. I don't think that this verse means the fool is so worn out from failing to work smart. Remember back in verse 10, if the iron is blunt and one does not know or does not sharpen the edge, you must use more strength.
Wisdom helps him to succeed. I don't think that what this is describing is that the fool is working so foolishly using verse 10 as an illustration. He's worked so hard trying to chop down the tree with the blunt end of the axe that he's just so worn out that he's delirious walking around in circles with no clue how to get to the city. I don't think that's what this verse is about. I realize that exhaustion, like extreme exhaustion, can't be someone to be forgetful, but that's a strange conclusion to this section. I think what he's giving is a lame excuse. He's so worn out by all that he's done. He can't even tell you how to get to town.
It doesn't say why he needs to go to town or why somebody else needs to go to town. But the implication is that this city is a well-known place. You can imagine if you lived in Israel and there were only a few towns, maybe even thinking about Jerusalem itself, which would have been a huge town, a huge city, the roads would have been relatively wide and well traveled getting to the city. And so to say, I don't even know, I don't even know how to get there. It means, oh, and you're going to have to go for me. Because I'm just so worn out by all the hard work I did today. Can you, can you go, I don't even know how to get there. Maybe that's a better excuse than there's a lion in the road. Do you remember that excuse from the book of Proverbs? But not knowing the way to the city is still a sorry and unlikely story.
It's a lame excuse. And you do realize that bad excuses, weak sauce, reasons for why you did something wrong that you weren't supposed to do or why you you didn't do something good you were supposed to do, weak sauce answers and reasons when somebody asks about that does not actually make you look better. It makes you look like a fool. I have these kinds of discussions and I feel like I know a little bit about this because I have seen lame excuses in my own life where I've given weak sauce excuses. You know what those excuses typically demonstrate? They typically demonstrate our total lack of perspective. They demonstrate our total selfishness.
They show even more how lazy we are. I asked some of the girls on Wednesday night at the small group I was visiting, what would happen if I came in on Sunday morning? I thought about doing it today just as a little, no, I'm kidding you, kind of thing. What would it have, because we were talking about Bible reading, prayer, personal, spiritual disciplines, various people were talking about how hard it was for them to do that and the various things that kept them from doing that.
And I said, what would you think if I came in on Sunday morning and we sang all of our great songs and then I came up, had my microphone on, had the music stand ready to go and I looked out at y'all and said, you know what, I've had a really hard week guys. My sermon's not ready. We're going to have to do something else. Let's take an offering and we'll just go. First of all, if my sermon wasn't ready, then that's bad news when I answer God. Regardless of what you think, I'm in way bigger trouble with my actual boss. But if I gave you some weak sauce, I just didn't have time. What do you mean you didn't have time? You realize like the New Testament knows nothing about a pastor who doesn't have time to prepare to speak his message to people. You make the time to do that. You know, I'm just so busy. I asked some of the girls, are your parents, are they giving you a schedule in the morning that tells you what you're doing, like down to the every 30 seconds? You don't have five minutes where they let you decide what you're
going to do with your day. I'm so busy. I just haven't had time to read my Bible. Every minute that you slept was under doctor's orders and every minute that you were awake, your parents were making you do something. I don't even think Little Orphan Annie had that rigorous of a schedule that she didn't have five minutes to herself to read her Bible or read a devotional book or whatever it might be. When you say, you know, I just don't have time, I don't know, compare yourself to, start with anybody else, but compare yourself, your schedule, how busy you are to your parents' schedule. Who are responsible for you, who make you meals who work to buy the clothes, all you had to do was just choose which one out of the options they bought for you. They spend their time working to enable you to buy those clothes out of which you have all the options that just take up all your time, trying to decide what's going to look good. They're working, providing, and taking care of you, like paying bills. Oh, I just had so much schoolwork. You will look back on that someday
and realize how foolish that excuse is. Just too much schoolwork. Really. If schoolwork and breathing is all you have to do, you have so much time. It's interesting, and I mentioned this illustration as well. Did you have time to eat yesterday? Did you? If you had time to eat, you had time to do other things. You do what you most want to do. It's not a problem with your time management, it's a problem with your want management. It's a problem with your desires. It's not a problem with your schedule and how packed it is. It's It's a problem with what's in your heart. And fools give lame excuses. Excuses that don't even work, that everyone sees right through.
What do you mean you don't even know the way to the city? That's not a good excuse. That's plain. Everybody knows how to get to town. Just because you worked hard or thought you worked hard is not a reason to give a lame excuse. And so out of the mouths of fools come lame excuses. So out of the mouth of fools come destructive words, crazy talk, arrogant verbosity and lame excuses and people know and judge you by your words. They see those things coming out of your mouth. They know and judge you by your words. Let me take just a moment to caution the quiet ones among us. I don't want to let you off the hook that easily because while the paragraph is obviously aimed at fools who are talking, speaking, making their foolishness known, you can destroy yourself and your reputation without words. It just might take longer. You can be totally quiet and still ruin your reputation. You're not exempt from that. You can think crazy even if you don't talk crazy.
And you can certainly be as arrogant in silence and refuse to talk because you think you know better, just like some people can't stop talking because they think they know better. And just because you don't make lame excuses doesn't make your laziness or your disobedience better. Oh well, at least I didn't make a lame excuse. That is good.
you for not subjecting us to your lame excuse, that's part of the problem. But laziness and disobedience, whether you try to cover it with an excuse or not, is still an issue that needs to be dealt with. Now if you are eager to change your speech, and I hope you are, there is something you can do about it. If the air is stale, then open up some windows and get some fresh air in. There is something you can do. If you have listened to this message and realized you need to pay more attention to your speech, a couple of suggestions. Number one, repent. Because it is sinful. Jesus died on the cross to pay the penalty for some of what you say. He offers forgiveness for that as well, but you need to repent. And then if you want to change your words, what do you really need to change?
You need to change your heart. Is that possible? Of course it's possible. If you want to change your heart, fill it with God's word. Fill it with good things. It's why Joshua 1.8 says, this book of the law shall not depart from your mouth. This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth. That's a weird statement. I've had students try to explain that and be like, I mean like we eat them and then we shut our lips so they can't get out. No, it means the book of the law, God's word, is always to be in your mouth. It's always to be there, to speak that. And where does that come from? This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night.
Thinking about it, getting it in. It's why in Colossians chapter 3 verse 16, Paul says, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. The result is you'll be teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God. Read good things. Starting with scripture, other good books. You want to speak good things? Get good things in. Read good things. Memorize scripture. If you get into a situation where you don't know an answer, then just quote a verse you memorized. It's tough, not impossible, because Satan has done it, but it is at least tougher to be a fool when you're quoting scripture. So memorize it, listen to it, listen to good music as opposed to filling your heads with junk speak from popular sources, music, internet sites, you will start using those words as well.
So read and memorize and listen to good things. The mouth speaks positive things out of the abundance of the heart. If what is in your heart is positive, just as much as if it pours out negative things, if what is in your heart is negative. So get good things in.
So before you destroy yourself and your reputation by talking crazy and always spouting off your opinion ceaselessly and making more lame excuses, ending up, by the way, friendless and alone and ready to be judged. Watch what comes out of your mouth. Father, help us. I plead on behalf, especially of some who are here this morning and who have heard these words, I beg you to convict them, grant them repentance, and cause them to hunger for a changed heart and a changed mouth. That they would have no need to change before you or before others. That their words would not only earn them favor but bring healing, accomplish great things on your behalf. Let us not out of the same mouth bless and curse that shouldn't be so. Let's not cut down one another and build up ourselves all the while claiming to be honoring you. Put a muzzle on our mouths if need be. Fill our hearts with good things, primarily from Your Word. Let our mouth never be empty of words that honor You. May our speech, our talk, the things we say when our
mouth is open, starting with our hearts, may it be something that we pray about before We pray all this in Christ's name. Amen.
