Proverbs: When to Speak and When to be Silent

Hello, I'm Pastor Creighton, and thank you for tuning in to USN Churches Podcast.

We're a gospel center church in Port Perry, Ontario, proclaiming the true and life-giving word of Jesus as we love and serve our neighbors.

May God bless you today through his life-giving word.

A reading from Proverbs.

A worthless person, a wicked man, goes about with crooked speech, winks with his eyes, signals with his feet, points with his finger, with perverted heart, devises evil, continually sowing discord.

Therefore, calamity will come upon him suddenly.

In a moment he will be broken beyond healing.

There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers.

The wise lay up knowledge, but the mouth of a fool brings ruin near.

With his mouth the godless man would destroy his neighbor, but by knowledge the righteous are delivered.

A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.

The tongue of the wise commands knowledge, but the mouths of fools pour out folly.

A gentle tongue is a tree of life, but perverseness in it breaks the spirit.

Gracious words are like a honeycomb, sweetness to the soul and health to the body.

There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.

His mouth urges him on.

A worthless man plots evil, and his speech is like a scorching fire.

The word of the Lord.

O gracious God and merciful Father, who has granted to us the rich and precious jewel of your most holy word, assist us with your spirit, that it may be written in our hearts to our everlasting comfort, to reform us, to renew us according to your image, to build us up and to edify us in the perfect building of your Christ, sanctifying and increasing in us all heavenly virtues.

Grant this, O Heavenly Father, for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

Please be seated.

So words have power.

I don't know if you've noticed that uh through your life, that certain words affect you at certain time when what people say to you, uh certain sentences or certain even just one word someone has said to you in your past maybe um still affects you to this day.

Um growing up when I was in high school, um, I had a teacher say to me that I would never make it in life.

He told me that, and uh, he was quite serious.

I've always thought about um I I kind of deserved at the time, but I always thought about um what would cause someone to say that.

And uh it's interesting how something said so long ago can still affect you nowadays.

And this could also be on the flip side when someone says, I love you.

It could be a um a parent to a child saying I love you, or it could be your spouse saying I love you.

It has a deep, deep sense of meaning and it affects you in a certain way.

Words affect you good and bad.

And I say this, we're talking, we're looking at this because we've been going over in Proverbs for the past, it's amazingly, it's been 10 weeks, it's kind of gone quick.

And this is the last um Proverbs that we're looking at today.

And we're gonna look at the topic of word, of words.

And we're looking at this under the umbrella of what it means to live wisely by God's design.

What it means to go through life trying to live by the design that God has made for us.

And what does that mean?

See, the thing about living wisely is that there's certain things that we need to be aware of.

And one of them is how we use our words, the words that we say, the words that come to us.

Because to live wisely, we we need to be aware of that, because death and life are in the power of words.

Now, this is a huge topic, very, very a huge topic.

And we're gonna boil it down because we can't cover everything.

And we're gonna look at it under three headings.

And one is where do you find your words, the intention of your words, and the manifested word.

So we're gonna look at that.

So, point one, where do you find your words?

And you might be thinking, well, why focus on words?

Why look at that when there's so many other things that we could talk about on a Sunday morning?

See, the thing with words is that belief and convictions are formed by words.

And they're and they either destroy a person or they're the making of them.

So let's look at it.

So we're gonna look at, if you go down, um, if you have the page, halfway down the page to um chapter um chapter 10, verse 14.

The wise lay up knowledge, but the mouth of a fool brings ruin near.

With his mouth the godless destroy his neighbor, but by knowledge the righteous are delivered.

See the thing with Proverbs is that it continually looks at certain topics from different angles.

And it's good to always remember that as we read through it, because it's a book of different sayings, all brought in, but at each point it's looking at the same topics from different ways.

But it all hinges on chapter 1, verse 7.

And that's the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.

Fools despise wisdom and instruction.

It's interesting words when you when you think about them and how much they've changed over the years and over the centuries of ministry, and I was about 13 years older than the students on the campus.

And the words they use and the meanings were completely different from when I was that age.

And it almost feels like a different language.

I just remember feeling so out of my depth just from the conversations I would have with the younger um students because I had no idea what they were talking about or what they're referencing.

But what does verse chapter 10, verse 14, the beginning of it mean when it says, what is knowledge?

What is it talking about to lay up knowledge?

See, we all come from different backgrounds and schooling, and this is not what it's talking about.

It's not talking about that you need to gain this certain aspect of knowledge, of worldly knowledge, to be someone who is considered a wise person according to the Bible.

What it's talking about is something that's completely different, and that's the fear of the Lord.

Now, the thing with the fear of the Lord, we can go back to Creighton's first sermon because he talked about it.

But the fear of the Lord, to boil it down very simply, is to have a reverence for him, to have a reverence for the Lord, the one who created the world, the one who created everything, created the earth, created the universe, created you and me.

But another way to think about reverence is that it's like when you walk into a beautiful building and you're instantly struck by the vastness and the beauty of it.

Or it's when you look at beautiful art and it moves you a certain way, it gives you a reverence.

Or it's when you see a breathtaking landscape, or it's when you hear a beautiful song and the song moves you a certain way, when you hear the certain notes or the lyrics of the song, or it's poetry when you hear it read, it moves you in a certain way.

And it gives you this reverence, this deep sense of that this is wonderful, that this is beautifully made, that it comes from somewhere beyond the person who created it.

That's what it's talking about.

That's what the fear of the Lord is, that you have this reverence for him, this beauty for him.

It's not that you go off cowering from the Lord, it's that you come to him humbly with his beauty and what he's done in this world.

And we live in a time where all knowledge is questioned and changing constantly.

But the thing is, there's one thing that doesn't change, and that is God's word.

And that's why we're commanded to read his word, because it doesn't change.

It is an amazing book, and it is a book that's been around for thousands of years.

And it is a book that is unchanging and it is world-changing.

And we have to take account of that, of why it has changed the world so deeply.

It has affected cultures, and why is that?

Now you may be thinking, how can we trust it?

Isn't there so many translations of it, so many different translations, there's so many things that seem to contradict each other?

Well, this is where I'm gonna promote the learner's exchange.

Next Sunday at 9 a.m.

in the lower hall, we're gonna look at the topic of can we trust the Bible?

And we're gonna discuss it.

It's a very um friendly place, welcoming place.

You can ask any question you want.

And most of the time I won't know the answer to the question.

But we'll talk about it, and um, it is a great place to come and discuss these things.

And I would encourage you to come.

Get up early and come.

It's at 9 a.m.

Lower hall.

But just to just talk quickly about it, the thing that's so good about the Bible is that there is hundreds, thousands of manuscripts of the books that we have in this, the 66 books.

It is the only thing in the world, the only written book in the world that has that many manuscripts.

There's more things in it than there's evidence for Plato existed.

And it is something that we need that we can rest on.

That this isn't a book that's just written by someone off in a corner.

It is written and copied and copied and copied exactly.

And it's something that we can rest on and we can take account in.

But also another thing that we need to take account is that Jesus upheld the word, the God's word, and would have been the Old Testament.

Because he says in Matthew 4, 4, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.

And he also says, heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

And then Peter, responding to Jesus, says, Lord, to whom shall we go?

You have the words of eternal life.

So when it says, lay up knowledge, what it what it's talking about, it's talking about in this sense of not hoarding knowledge, not hoarding worldly knowledge.

It's talking about studying the God's word, taking in his knowledge, and making it a part of your life, making it be written on your heart and your mind.

You read it, you mark it, you uphold it, you memorize it.

And if you can't read it, listen to it.

Listen to it read.

There's many great readings of it on podcasts, on YouTube.

There's things that we can take in and we can constantly be having it go through our mind.

That's what it's talking about here is to find your words in the Bible and not find it in worldly wisdom.

That's what it says when it says, the wise lay up knowledge.

It starts with the fear of the Lord, but the mouth of the fool brings ruin.

With his mouth the godless man would destroy his neighbor, but by knowledge the righteous are delivered.

Now, this isn't me saying that those who read their Bibles are better off than those who don't.

If you do a quick Google search, you'll see, you'll see the opposite of that.

And you may know someone in your life who's been deeply affected by the church.

But the thing is with this, is that where you find your knowledge is where you'll be influenced and how your words will be influenced.

It's either the words that bring life or the words that bring death.

And the thing that's so good about reflecting on this is that we all fall guilty to this.

That we all fall um, we all are influenced by things in our lives that change the way we talk, that change the way we talk about people when they're not around.

We all do it.

We all do it if we're honest with ourselves.

And this is played out in many different ways.

And the thing that's I said so good about the Bible, I'll say you'll hear me say this every Sunday.

The Bible is so good, the Bible is so good.

But the thing is that it critiques us, it helps us to reflect on ourselves.

It's not about putting it on other people, it's about putting it on ourselves.

So let's look at it.

At the top of the page, chapter 12, verse, um, or sorry, chapter 6, verse 12.

A worthless person, a wicked man, goes about with crooked speech, winks with his eyes, singles with signals with his feet, points with his finger, with perverted heart devises evil, continually sowing discord, therefore calamity will come upon him suddenly.

In a moment, he will be broken but beyond healing.

Now, the thing with fitness, about trying to make your body healthy, is that it requires that you work your whole body.

It's if you just go to the gym and just do biceps, you'll have big biceps, but you won't be a healthy person because the rest of your body will be suffering.

It won't be strong like your biceps.

But also, the other thing is it's what you eat that create makes you a healthy person.

So, what it's talking about here, if you noticed when I read it, is that the person who is involved in the crooked speech, his whole body is being controlled by it.

His whole body is involved in doing this speech and doing the wicked speech.

Because it says, with his eyes, he's involved, he winks with his eyes, he signals with his feet, he points with his finger, his heart devises evil.

His entire being is involved in this.

That's what it's talking about here.

And it's talking about if the person continues, they will come to ruin.

And it's very similar to health, that if you neglect it, it will eventually creep up on you.

But as we look at the verses, it what it's talking about here are things that so easily creep up in our lives, things that it's lying, tearing people down, gossiping about people.

These are things that are so easy to do that we obviously sometimes we don't even think about them.

But they have deep, deep effects on people and they cause people to become hurt.

See, our words that we use, we're, if we're not careful with them, hurt people and they break them, they tear them down.

If we lie about things, if we gossip about people, it breaks people down.

And these all come out of our heart.

These things flow out of our heart.

See, what comes out of our heart is where we find our knowledge and what we reverence directly influences our words and how we use them.

And it says here it has eternal consequences.

And the thing is it doubles down now on in the next verses.

It says, There are six things the Lord hates, seven are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among his brothers.

See, the the thing is you might be thinking, like, oh, there's a contradiction right now in the text, that it says six and then it says seven that the Lord hates.

What that means is just the list isn't exhaustive.

These are just certain things that the the Proverbs writer is bringing up right now.

So, what does it mean the Lord hates an abomination to him?

What this is getting at is that it's not just the Lord being petty at certain things.

This is talking about his divine ordering of the world that he's made and things that go against it.

It's things that he's commanded for us to follow.

That's his divine order, the things how he's created the world.

And if you read the Bible, if you read the redemptive story, you see it played out from Genesis to Revelation, his redemptive story, his divine ordering.

But when we look at the list, again, it's simple things of lying, tearing down, gossip, pride.

These are things that we're plagued with constantly.

That's what this list is.

And it's stuff, it's very innocent, things that seem so innocent, the words that we use, how we talk about people, how we go about our lives speaking.

It's very important when we reflect on our words.

And we all we all do it.

But the thing that's also so good about God's word from worldly um world worldly wisdom is that there's an answer to this problem of these things that we all fall to.

If we look at the next verses of um beginning at chapter 15, verse one, a soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.

The tongue of the wise commends knowledge, but the mouth of fools pour out folly.

A gentle tongue is a tree of life, but perverseness in it breaks the spirit.

Gracious words are like a honeycomb, sweetness to the soul, and health to the body.

There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way up to death.

A worker's appetite works for him, his mouth urges him on.

A worthless man plots evil, and his speech is like a scorching fire.

See what this is taught giving here is an ex it shows an example of what is positive and what is not positive.

It goes back and forth.

And that Proverbs is really good at that.

It's just going back and forth, giving a comparison.

It's a very if you're very practical-minded, this is this is for you.

Because it goes back and forth very quick.

A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.

What that is is someone who um if you're it's someone who's being criticized, if they give a soft answer to being criticized, it turns away the criticizer really quick.

It takes away the wrath, it takes away the harsh word.

And the tongue of the wise commends knowledge, but the mouth of the fool pours out folly.

What this is continually getting back is to the fear of the Lord.

It continually goes back to that.

It goes back to where you find your knowledge, and if you rest in the Lord, it'll work through your body.

Through the gospel, the gospel, when you apply it to your life, when you apply the things to your life, work into work into your body and work into your heart, and it works through you.

See, death and life are in the power of words.

But in two weeks, we'll be looking at the first Sunday, we'll be going to the first Sunday in Advent.

And the thing that is so wise about the church calendar is that we spend many weeks looking at the Christmas story, at why it's so important, but at the true Christmas story and what it means when we say God with us.

In the Old Testament, God spoke through his prophets, but his people still strayed from him, helpless.

He sent his son into the world to save us, to take on our sins, to die the death that we deserved.

See, the God's redemptive word became flesh.

And we see this in John, in the Gospel of John, chapter one, in verse one.

It says In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

He was in the beginning with God, all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.

In him was life, and the life was the light of men.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

There is a man that was sent from God, and his name was John.

And if you go down farther, it says, And the word became flesh and dealt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

And Jesus speaking to his disciples on the night that he was betrayed, he says to them, He says this.

No one comes to the Father except through me.

See, Jesus becomes the word.

It no longer is this, it's no longer a written word, but it's a man who walks.

The word walks.

Jesus became the word.

See, the thing that's so profound about Jesus is that he has experienced everything that we've got we go through in our lives.

All the suffering, all the pain, all the joys, he's experienced it all.

He is gracious, he is sweetness to the soul, he is health to the body, and he hung on a tree to give you life.

See, the only way for you and me can have to can hope to be wise, to speak unfoolish words, is to find our knowledge in Jesus, is to reflect on him, is to meditate to him, is to speak to him.

And it's to give up our lives to him and let his word dictate our lives and form our lives.

If we don't, we can never hope to hear his sweet words of well done, good and faithful servant.

See, the thing is, as we go through life and as we use our words, we are we need to be wholly aware of how we use them and where they come from and where we're finding our words and how we react to things and how we speak about people as we go through life.

Because we're commanded to, but also because we've been so forgiven that we need to think about ways that we can honor God as we walk in this world and as we go through it.

We need to speak good about people and not evil about people.

And let's pray.

Heavenly Father, thank you that you have given us our your word here in the Bible.

Thank you, Lord, that your word became flesh and dwelt among us.

Lord, please prepare our hearts as we now move in into the Advent season after next week.

Lord, um help us to truly reflect on the true meaning of Christmas and the great hope, the great joy that it is.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

We hope that you've been blessed by God's Word today.

If you live in the Port Perry area, we hope that you'll come and worship with us in person on Sunday at 10 a.m.

If you'd like to learn more about Newsong Church, we'd love to connect with you.

Please find our contact information at newsongportperry.ca and reach out to us.

Newsong's ministry is entirely funded by the generous giving of those who worship and journey with us.

If you feel called to support our ministry with a financial gift, please go to newsongportperry.ca slash giving to make your contribution.

Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.