711. Scripture Verses that can Guide Your Life - (#9) Death and Life are in the power of the tongue.

[00:00:06] Welcome to Wisdom Today. My name is Bill Kelley and I'll be your host. In this podcast we will be exploring the book of Proverbs.

[00:00:22] Let's open in prayer. Father God, I thank you for anyone listening to this podcast today. Lord, I pray that you would reveal to everyone listening how much you truly love each and every one of them.

[00:00:34] In addition, I pray that everyone listening would have favor with both God and man. I ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.

[00:00:44] This is Proverb 23 beginning in verse 1.

[00:00:49] When you sit down to eat with a ruler, consider carefully what is before you, and put a knife to your throat, if you are a man given to appetite.

[00:01:01] Do not desire his delicacies, for they are deceptive food. Do not overwork to be rich, because of your own understanding cease.

[00:01:13] Will you set your eyes on that which is not? For riches certainly make themselves wings. They fly away like an eagle toward heaven.

[00:01:24] Do not eat the bread of a miser, nor desire his delicacies, for as he thinks in his heart, so is he.

[00:01:34] Eat and drink, he says to you, but his heart is not with you.

[00:01:39] The morsel you have eaten you will vomit up and waste your pleasant words.

[00:01:45] Do not speak in the hearing of a fool, for he will despise the wisdom of your words.

[00:01:53] Do not remove the ancient landmark, nor enter the fields of the fatherless, for their Redeemer is mighty.

[00:02:01] He will plead their cause against you.

[00:02:05] Apply your heart to instruction, and your ears to words of knowledge.

[00:02:10] Do not withhold correction from a child, for if you beat him with a rod, he will not die.

[00:02:18] You shall beat him with a rod, and deliver his soul from hell.

[00:02:23] My son, if your heart is wise, my heart will rejoice.

[00:02:28] Indeed, I myself, yes, my inmost being, will rejoice when your lips speak right things.

[00:02:38] Do not let your heart and be sinners, but be zealous for the fear of the Lord all the day.

[00:02:46] For surely there is a hereafter, and your hope will not be cut off.

[00:02:53] Hear, my son, and be wise, and guide your heart in the way.

[00:02:58] Do not mix with wine-bibbers, or with gluttonous eaters of meat.

[00:03:05] For the drunkard and the glutton will come to poverty, and drowsiness will clothe a man with rags.

[00:03:13] Listen to your father who begot you, and do not despise your mother when she is old.

[00:03:20] Buy the truth, and do not sell it.

[00:03:24] Also wisdom and instruction and understanding.

[00:03:28] The father of the righteous will greatly rejoice, and he who begets a wise child will delight in him.

[00:03:37] Let your father and your mother be glad, and let her who bore you rejoice.

[00:03:43] My son, give me your heart, and let your eyes observe my ways.

[00:03:50] For a harlot is a deep pit, and a seductress is a narrow well.

[00:03:56] She also lies in wait as for a victim, and increases the unfaithful among men.

[00:04:03] Who has woe?

[00:04:06] Who has sorrow?

[00:04:08] Who has contentions?

[00:04:10] Who has complaints?

[00:04:13] Who has wounds without cause?

[00:04:16] Who has redness of eyes?

[00:04:20] Those who linger long at the wine.

[00:04:23] Those who go in search of mixed wine.

[00:04:26] Do not look on the wine when it is red,

[00:04:30] When it sparkles in the cup,

[00:04:32] When it swirls around smoothly.

[00:04:36] At the last it bites like a serpent,

[00:04:39] And stings like a viper.

[00:04:41] Your eyes will see strange things,

[00:04:44] And your heart will utter perverse things.

[00:04:48] Yes, you will be like one who lies down in the midst of the sea,

[00:04:53] Or like one who lies at the top of the mast,

[00:04:56] Saying,

[00:04:58] They have struck me, but I was not hurt.

[00:05:01] They have beaten me, but I did not feel it.

[00:05:04] When shall I awake, that I may seek another drink?

[00:05:09] Friends, today I'd like to take a closer look at verse 9.

[00:05:15] And Proverb 23 verse 9 says this,

[00:05:28] Friends, we will come back and take a closer look at that verse prior to closing today.

[00:05:34] But what I'd like to do is to continue our study,

[00:05:39] Which I have entitled,

[00:05:41] Scripture Verses That Can Guide Your Life.

[00:05:43] Now today we'll be taking a look at three additional verses.

[00:05:49] But let's review some of the things that we have learned over these previous two weeks.

[00:05:56] We have learned that God loves us,

[00:06:00] And that He loved us so much that He gave His only begotten Son to us.

[00:06:06] We've also learned about faith.

[00:06:09] We've also learned about humility.

[00:06:12] We've also learned verses that we can stand on when we have issues in our life.

[00:06:20] We've learned that we need to trust God at all times.

[00:06:25] On today's lesson, we're going to be taking a look at the power of our words.

[00:06:33] And let's begin today's lesson by looking at Proverb 18 verse 21.

[00:06:41] And that verse says,

[00:06:43] Death and life are in the power of the tongue,

[00:06:47] And those who love it will eat its fruit.

[00:06:51] So friends, my very first point of today's lesson is,

[00:06:55] Death and life are in the power of the tongue.

[00:07:00] Now when they're talking about death here,

[00:07:04] They're not talking about physical death.

[00:07:08] They're talking about spiritual death.

[00:07:12] But our words can have so much meaning and so much power

[00:07:19] That we have the ability to actually kill people spiritually with our words.

[00:07:28] If we criticize people,

[00:07:30] If we demean people,

[00:07:33] If we talk down to people,

[00:07:37] People are going to not be blessed.

[00:07:42] And that is what we are supposed to do with our words.

[00:07:47] Our words need to be chosen carefully.

[00:07:51] Because our words are so powerful.

[00:07:56] Let's look at an example of how powerful words can be.

[00:08:02] Let's go to the very beginning of the Bible.

[00:08:06] These are the words of God in Genesis,

[00:08:10] The very first chapter of the Bible, verse 3.

[00:08:15] Then God said,

[00:08:18] Let there be light.

[00:08:20] And there was light.

[00:08:23] I want you to think about that.

[00:08:25] God said,

[00:08:28] Let there be light.

[00:08:31] And there was light.

[00:08:32] God created the universe.

[00:08:36] He created everything that we can see with our physical eyes today.

[00:08:42] God spoke it into existence.

[00:08:47] Every single thing.

[00:08:49] The birds of the air.

[00:08:52] The grass.

[00:08:53] The trees.

[00:08:55] The mountains.

[00:08:56] The seas.

[00:08:57] Everything that is in our world today.

[00:09:02] God spoke it into existence.

[00:09:06] Now that is the Father.

[00:09:09] Now, let's look at his son, Jesus.

[00:09:14] What I'd like to do is go to the Gospel of Mark, chapter 4.

[00:09:20] Now the verse that I'm going to talk about, it says,

[00:09:26] Peace be still.

[00:09:28] I want you to think about those three words.

[00:09:31] Peace.

[00:09:32] Be still.

[00:09:34] So now that we know that is part of the verse,

[00:09:39] let's look at the entire 39th verse of chapter 4 in Mark.

[00:09:46] Then he arose and rebuked the wind and said to the sea,

[00:09:54] Peace.

[00:09:55] Be still.

[00:09:56] And the wind ceased and there was a great calm.

[00:10:01] Now, friends, some of you may not know this story,

[00:10:06] but this passage of Scripture is entitled Wind and Wave Obey Him.

[00:10:14] So what I'd like to do is begin on chapter 4 of Mark, verse 35.

[00:10:22] On the same day when evening had come, he said to them,

[00:10:27] Let us cross over to the other side.

[00:10:31] Now when they had left the multitude,

[00:10:33] they took him along in the boat as he was.

[00:10:38] And other little boats were also with him.

[00:10:41] And a great windstorm arose,

[00:10:45] and the waves beat into the boat,

[00:10:48] so that it was already filling.

[00:10:51] But he was in the stern asleep on a pillow.

[00:10:56] And they awoke him and said to him,

[00:10:59] Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?

[00:11:03] And now we go to verse 39.

[00:11:07] Then he arose and rebuked the wind and said to the sea,

[00:11:12] Peace, be still.

[00:11:15] And the wind ceased and there was a great calm.

[00:11:18] But he said to them,

[00:11:22] Why are you so fearful?

[00:11:25] How is it that you have no faith?

[00:11:30] Now friends, this is different than the other two gospels in Matthew and Luke.

[00:11:40] The other two gospels says,

[00:11:42] Oh, you of little faith.

[00:11:45] But Mark takes it to the extreme.

[00:11:48] And it says,

[00:11:49] How is it that you have no faith?

[00:11:52] No faith at all.

[00:11:55] And they feared exceedingly and said to one another,

[00:11:59] Who can this be that even the wind and the sea obey him?

[00:12:06] Friends, I want you to think just for a moment what that must have been like.

[00:12:15] Pretend you are in the boat with Jesus.

[00:12:20] And you have been rowing and rowing and rowing.

[00:12:25] And the storm is coming down.

[00:12:28] It is raining violently.

[00:12:30] The waves are crashing.

[00:12:32] The water is coming into the boat.

[00:12:35] You're beginning to feel this might be the end of your life.

[00:12:43] It looks like the boat is filling up with water and you may soon sink.

[00:12:50] Now you're in the middle of a storm.

[00:12:52] Now you may make it and land on shore, but that may not happen.

[00:13:00] So you are full of fear at this time, not faith.

[00:13:07] But Jesus is admonishing them.

[00:13:10] He's saying, Oh my gosh, are you kidding me?

[00:13:14] I have been with you this long and this is how you act when a little storm happens in your life.

[00:13:22] And friends, we have issues every day in our life.

[00:13:26] We have storms that come up in our life.

[00:13:30] Maybe not physical storms like this rainstorms, but you know, we may lose a job.

[00:13:36] You know, we may get a negative physical report.

[00:13:40] You know, there may be a death in the family.

[00:13:42] But friends, how we react to life will basically determine how successful our lives are.

[00:13:51] And Jesus is not happy with his disciples at this time.

[00:13:55] But the overall point that I really want to get in this lesson is the power of our words.

[00:14:04] Let's go back to our three points that I gave today.

[00:14:07] Death and life are in the power of our tongue.

[00:14:12] Friends, we need to choose our words carefully.

[00:14:15] And every word that comes out of our mouth should be uplifting.

[00:14:20] And they should bring peace.

[00:14:23] And they should sound sweet.

[00:14:25] And they should be words that are going to lift people up.

[00:14:29] Point number two.

[00:14:31] Then God said, Let there be light.

[00:14:35] Light and there was light.

[00:14:37] Listen to the power of those words.

[00:14:42] Now, let's go to Jesus's words as well.

[00:14:46] Then he arose and rebuked the wind and said to the sea,

[00:14:51] Peace, be still.

[00:14:53] And the wind ceased.

[00:14:55] And there was a great calm.

[00:14:58] Friends, my third point is, Peace, be still.

[00:15:05] And friends, I encourage you today that if something in your life seems that it's going to bury you,

[00:15:18] it's going to drown you, may I suggest you do what Jesus did.

[00:15:25] Peace, be still.

[00:15:29] Friends, we can talk to our storms even today in our lives.

[00:15:35] Friends, before we close today, I'd like to go back to our proverb of the day.

[00:15:41] And today is December 23rd.

[00:15:44] And I'd like to take a look at verse 9.

[00:15:48] It says, Do not speak in the hearing of a fool, for he will despise the wisdom of your words.

[00:15:56] Friends, some people will not receive our words of kindness.

[00:16:03] Our words that are helpful to them.

[00:16:07] They may encourage them.

[00:16:09] Some people are angry.

[00:16:12] We need to ask God for discernment as to who we should speak to,

[00:16:18] what we should say, and to who we should say them.

[00:16:23] Friends, we need to be careful with our words.

[00:16:26] But we also need to be aware of the people that we engage.

[00:16:33] Some people are not in a good frame of mind.

[00:16:36] We can pray for them if they will allow us.

[00:16:40] Some people, you can see the anger in their eyes.

[00:16:44] And some people, it's just better if you just pass on.

[00:16:49] Maybe just give them a simple smile and maybe a wave of some kind.

[00:16:55] But friends, some people are just not open to our advances.

[00:17:02] Friends, my call to action today is quite simple.

[00:17:05] I have been asking you to record the verses that we bring up in our lessons.

[00:17:13] And today, we talked about Proverb 18, verse 21.

[00:17:18] I encourage you to write inside your notebook that particular verse.

[00:17:25] And Genesis chapter 1, verse 3.

[00:17:29] And mark the entire verse 39.

[00:17:34] Now, it's actually, you know, it's a pretty long verse, but it doesn't take that long.

[00:17:39] It might take three or four lines for you to write in.

[00:17:43] But friends, I will never end a podcast without giving anyone an opportunity to receive Jesus into their heart.

[00:17:52] If you have never taken that step, may I invite you to repeat a simple prayer after me today.

[00:17:59] Jesus, I confess that I am a sinner and in need of a Savior.

[00:18:03] I ask that you come into my heart.

[00:18:06] I ask that you lead me and guide me from this point forward in my life.

[00:18:11] I make you my Lord and Savior.

[00:18:15] Now, may the Lord bless you and keep you.

[00:18:19] The Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you.

[00:18:23] The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.

[00:18:28] Friends, tomorrow is Testimony Day.

[00:18:32] Please join me and a special guest as we further explore Wisdom Today.