Open the Bible

Colin Smith: There are many proverbs that are about our words and they're scattered all through the book. What I've tried to do is simply group them together and to draw out the main themes, and then for my own good, and I hope this will be helpful to you, just to turn them into prayers, things that I would ask of God in regards to my speaking and encourage you to ask of God in regards to your speaking, too.

Steve Hiller: Welcome to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith. Today, we're continuing a message we began last time, thinking about our words and applying wisdom to our words. Honestly, if I'm praying about my words, it's usually because I've got a difficult conversation coming up and I'm asking the Lord for help with that. But I'm guessing there are plenty of other times we ought to be praying about our words.

Colin Smith: Yeah, well, I guess the starting point is anytime we're going to be speaking. I mean, we speak thousands of words every day, and often it's when we're really not thinking carefully about what we're saying that we end up saying things that are foolish or things that are hurtful. We don't want to be in that place. We want to be growing in self-control.

We want to realize that the power of the tongue is very, very great and therefore that it must not be used in a way that's destructive, but that it must be used in a way that is going to build other people up and honor the Lord. So when is there a day that I don't need to ask of God that he would help me to have wisdom and grace and restraint in regards to what I say and that in his kindness, I would be able to speak in a way that reflects the spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ?

It is a wonderful thing, isn't it, that the Holy Spirit dwells within us and that he is able to prompt us in regards to what we say and that he's able to restrain us? That's what we want. That's what we need. I think these are things to ask of God very regularly indeed.

Steve Hiller: All right. We're going to look at that today and those four major themes that Pastor Colin has taken these proverbs and grouped them together around. So if you can, hope you will join us in the book of Proverbs as we continue our message called Words.

Colin Smith: We all know that less is often more when it comes to our words. Someone in our congregation told me that many years ago, when she was a student, she became engaged. Looking back now, she sees that if she had married the man to whom she was engaged at the time, it would have been a disaster. But she did not see that at the time.

But her father did. One night, her father came into her room and said, "Honey, just be sure that everything you see in him is what you want to live with for the rest of your life." And then he said, "I love you," and left. By the end of the week, his daughter had broken the engagement, ended the relationship. Sometime later, she met the man to whom she has been happily married for many years.

Now, that was one wise father. I think many fathers, our instinct would have been in that situation to pour out some great speech, to go on and on and on. But this father had wisdom. "Whoever restrains his words has knowledge, and whoever restrains his lips is prudent." Lord, help me to speak with restraint. There's wisdom.

Second, Lord, help me to speak with humility. I don't want to stop long here, but I do want to draw your attention to it. Proverbs 27:2, "Let another praise you, and not your own mouth; a stranger, and not your own lips." You remember how Jesus told a story about a Pharisee who went into the temple, and when he spoke to God, basically what he was doing was singing his own praise.

Don't ever sing your own praise, making a great deal of all that you've done and all that you've accomplished and all that you are. Let another praise you, and not your own mouth; a stranger, and not your own lips. So from that, I've framed this prayer: Lord, help me to speak with humility.

Restraint, humility. Third word is wisdom. Here I want to point to two proverbs that go together, making the point that the right word, spoken at the right time and in the right way, has great power. The right word, spoken at the right time and in the right way, has great power. Chapter 15 and verse 23: "An apt answer," well, that's the right word, isn't it? The appropriate answer, the apt answer, the right word is a joy to a man, and a word in season, well, that's the word that's spoken at the right time, how good it is.

Then alongside that, chapter 25 and verse 11: "A word fitly spoken," so that is the word that is spoken in the right way, fitly spoken, is like apples of gold in a setting of silver. We put these together and we have this very important principle of wisdom. How can you speak with wisdom? Well, it's a matter of speaking the right word at the right time and in the right way.

When that is done, it is something beautiful. It's something of great value. In fact, it's compared here to a work of art. Here's a craftsman and he has created these apples of gold. It's a beautiful piece of artwork. These apples of gold have been crafted in a setting of silver. Now, what makes this a beautiful work of art is the fact that the apples of gold are surrounded by the setting of silver.

It's these two together that make this the beautiful work of art that it is. If you cut out the silver setting, the apples of gold would look very bare. Of course, if you cut out the apples of gold from what the craftsman has made, well, the settings of silver would just look like craters on the moon. So the point of the analogy is that the apples of gold and the settings of silver belong together, and it is the fact that they are together that makes them beautiful.

In the same way, what you say and how you say it belong together, and it is the togetherness of the right word, said at the right time and in the right way, fitly spoken, that's the thing that is of great power and of great beauty. What you say on a particular occasion may be right, but if it is said with harshness, it will do no good. It's not spoken in the right way; it's not got its setting.

But the right word, spoken at the right time and said in the right way, as we all know from our experiences, is a thing of beauty and a thing of great power. Lord, let me speak with that kind of wisdom. So restraint, these are the things to pursue in our words: restraint, humility, wisdom—right word, right time, right way.

Then, Lord, help me to speak with grace, with grace. So many references to this in Proverbs. Chapter 16 and verse 24: "Gracious words," gracious words, they're like a honeycomb and sweetness to the soul and health to the body. And the passage that was read for us from Proverbs in chapter 15, well, this theme's all over Proverbs 15, which is why we read it today. Verse one: "A soft answer turns away wrath." A soft answer. Or verse four: "A gentle tongue is the tree of life." Or verse 26: "Gracious words are pure."

Now, don't ever imagine for a moment that words that are soft, gentle, or gracious are thereby weak. Look at Proverbs chapter 25 and verse 15, a remarkable statement: "With patience a ruler may be persuaded, and a soft tongue will break a bone." A soft tongue will break a bone. Now, try and take this in. It's the soft tongue, it is the gentle tongue, it is the gracious tongue that is stronger than a bone.

Gracious, kind, and gentle words are not weak words. They are powerful. They are very strong. The reality of life is that venting has very little effect. You can rage, but very little will be achieved as a result. Man's anger, the Bible says, does not accomplish God's will. But grace does. Grace can change a heart of stone.

Just think about your own life, Christian brother, sister. How has God dealt with you? How did he change your heart of stone? Was it not his grace that won you? Was it not his kindness? Was it not the glimpse of his love for you that drew you to him? God's kindness leads us to repentance.

You want to lead someone to repentance? Show them kindness. Here's Saul of Tarsus, a man as hard as nails. He's breathing out threats and he's breathing out slaughter. His heart's like stone. But that heart was changed. How was that heart changed? Answer, Paul tells us himself, "By the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me has not been without effect."

There's a beautiful statement that David makes in Psalm 18 and verse 35. He says to God, "It's your gentleness that has made me great." It's the gentleness of God that has made you what you are. It's the patience of God, it's the kindness of God that has led you to repentance. Since you know that from your own experience, let that be reflected in the kind of words that you speak and the demeanor that you have towards others. Lord, help me to speak with restraint, with humility, with wisdom, and with grace.

Steve Hiller: You're listening to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith and a message called Words. It's part of a series called Wisdom for Life. If you missed any part of this broadcast or any part of the series, come and listen online. Our website is openthebible.org. You can stream the program or you can download an MP3 for free.

You can also listen to Pastor Colin's teaching on the go if you have the Open the Bible app. You'll find it at your app store, simply look for Open the Bible. Let's get back to our message from Proverbs 3. Again, here's Pastor Colin.

Colin Smith: How are we to grow in this? How can I speak in this kind of a way? How can I be a person who brings words of life to other people and how can I bring blessing into the lives of others? That's surely the question that is in all of our minds at this point. Let me just commend this to you. First, it begins with the open ear, the open ear.

Two things to say here: first, very obviously, if you want to bring blessing to others, you have to listen to them before you speak. Proverbs 18 and verse 13: "If one gives an answer before he hears, it is his folly and shame." We've all done that surely many times, that we've come up with the answer before we've really heard the question.

Proverbs 18 speaks to us so clearly: "If one gives an answer before he hears, it is his folly and shame." So in the New Testament, of course, the Apostle James picks this up and he says, "Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger." Then with that, the open ear means not only that we are cultivating the ability to listen to others, but that we are practicing what it means to listen to the very word of God.

Proverbs 22 and verse 17: "Incline your ear and hear the words of the wise, and apply your heart to my knowledge, for it will be pleasant if you keep them within you, if all of them are ready on your lips." So you see here two verses: they begin with the ear and they end with the lips. You want to have wisdom on your lips? Well, it begins with opening your ear.

Now, when Solomon speaks here about listening to the words of the wise, of course he is referring to the words of Scripture, the very words that we are looking at here in Proverbs as a part of the very word of God. Solomon is telling his son, "Look, here's how you get wisdom. You get wisdom drip-fed into you as you listen to the word of God. The ready tongue begins with the open ear."

This is taken up very wonderfully in Isaiah chapter 50, which is a passage that speaks prophetically about our Lord Jesus Christ. Isaiah chapter 50 and verse 4: "The Lord God has given me the tongue of those who are taught, that I may know how to sustain with a word him who is weary." Let me pause there for a moment. Wouldn't you love to have that?

To know how to sustain with a word the person who is weary. Someone who you'll speak to even this morning, someone you'll speak to this week, and they're weighed down and you wonder, "What am I to say that could be in any way helpful?" Isaiah the prophet says this: that it is the Lord God who gives the tongue that is taught to do this, to know how to sustain with a word him who is weary.

Well, of course, that leaves us to say, "How do I get this gift?" How did Isaiah get this gift? Notice what he says because he tells us: "Morning by morning he," that is God, "awakens me; he awakens my ear to hear as those who are taught. The Lord God has opened my ear." Now, do you see what Isaiah's saying?

The prophet had a morning-by-morning appointment with God, a daily discipline in which his ear was opened to the word of God. Hiding it in his heart as it was drip-fed into him was the way in which God gave him the tongue that knew how to say something that was helpful to a person who is weary. Alec Motyer says very wonderfully and rightly: this morning-by-morning appointment is standard curriculum for all disciples. I love that. So the wise tongue begins with the open ear.

It involves a pure heart. Proverbs chapter 16 and verse 23: "The heart of the wise makes his speech judicious." Now we're being told something about how you get to wise, good, judicious speech. It's the heart of the wise that makes a person's speech what it is and adds persuasiveness to his lips. In other words, the words we speak always reveal the state of our hearts.

An anxious heart produces anxious words. An angry heart produces angry words. A grace-filled heart produces graceful words. A patient heart produces patient words and so forth. Jesus said, "Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks." Now, James tells us that no human being can tame the tongue.

And the reason, of course, that no human being can tame the tongue is that no human being can change the heart. But God can. The way that God tames the tongue is by changing the heart. That is why David said, "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me." So notice the pattern here: the ear teaches the heart, and the heart teaches the mouth. That's the how of growing in wisdom with our words.

Then the very last thing is simply this: a cleansed mouth. You remember when Isaiah saw a vision of God, he found himself overwhelmed by the sheer glory of God's holiness. He felt his own sin as he had never felt it before and he said, "I am ruined." You remember that the sins of which he was most aware were sins of speech: "I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell among a people of unclean lips."

Isaiah was a prophet; already he was speaking the word of God. He had public ministry; his lips were the organ of his ministry. His ability to speak was his greatest gift. But Isaiah discovered that sin hides not only in our darkest failures, it also clings to our greatest gifts. If sin inhabits even my greatest gifts, Isaiah is saying, then I am ruined.

You remember what happened next in Isaiah's vision? Very wonderfully, he saw in this vision an angel of the Lord taking a hot coal from the altar that was burning in the temple and bringing it right over to where Isaiah was and pressing it where? Right on his lips. In the school I attended, if a boy used bad language, he was sent out to the restroom to wash out his mouth with soap.

I don't know if it ever acted as a deterrent. I know this: that soap can't cleanse a man or a woman's mouth. But Jesus can. Jesus can. And when he died on that altar of the cross, he died for all of our sins, including the sins of our lips. And in the vision, God's provision that is pointing forwards to what Jesus accomplished on the cross was taken and it was pressed onto the lips of Isaiah.

What Jesus has accomplished on the cross can bring cleansing to our lips and to our mouths, too. "See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, your sin is atoned for." Then God called Isaiah to go out and speak. And when you have the open ear, and the open ear is changing the heart, and then through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ there's a cleansing of the mouth, then we, by God's grace, too, will be able to go and speak. And the words that we speak will not be death words; they'll be words that bring life.

Steve Hiller: You're listening to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith and a message called Words. It's from our series Wisdom for Life. If you ever miss a broadcast in our series, come and listen online at openthebible.org. Open the Bible is a listener-supported program. It's your generous donations that allow us to bring you Pastor Colin's teaching each day.

As you give a gift of any amount this month, we want to send you a copy of Pastor Colin's brand new 30-day devotional book. It's called Grow in Hope. Colin, who is this book for?

Colin Smith: Well, this is for everybody who wants to have hope. I think that's absolutely every person. We all need hope. And if you would like to have hope drip-fed into your life for 30 days, then Grow in Hope is a devotional that will do just that. It's full of the promises of God.

It shows that hope comes from God; it comes to us through the Lord Jesus Christ and it comes to us by his marvelous grace. So 30 days of hope—I think that's something that everyone can use and I hope it's going to be a blessing to everyone who reads it.

Steve Hiller: Well, we'd love to send you a copy of this as our way of saying thank you for your financial support. You can give online at openthebible.org or when you call 1-877-OPEN-365. That's 1-877-673-6365. Again, the website is openthebible.org. For Pastor Colin Smith, I'm Steve Hiller. Thanks for listening and I hope you'll join us next time.

This program is a listener-supported production of Open the Bible. Who in your life needs to know the God of the Bible and might be willing to open the Bible with you if you ask them? Most people can think of someone and many are finding that someone in their life is open to this invitation: "Would you be interested in opening the Bible with me?"

Fly Through the Bible is a short, simple, and shareable book that will help you open the Bible with a friend, a neighbor, or a loved one who needs to know Jesus. It's also freely available online. Fly Through the Bible has 15 short sections, each with five discussable questions that will open conversations around the word of God. For more information, visit openthebible.org/fly. That's openthebible.org/fly.