Watch your Mouth

Good morning. I'm going to try to share this morning about the topic of our words, our speech. There's some reason I thought of Joseph. You heard the expression, Joseph, watch your mouth. That's something people would have just thrown around, watch your mouth. But a watch, biblically what a watch is, is what we would maybe call like guards. Guys that would stand outside the door and in a violent sense be willing to prevent somebody or something from entering in or going out. You had to get through the guards. Be able to get in and that's called a watch. I think they'd also call it a watch when you stay up all night watching to make bad guys aren't coming to invade your camp or your city. So we need to watch our mouths. It needs to be, let's see. Psalm 141 verse 3 says, set a watch, oh Lord, before my mouth. Keep the door of my lips. Your lips are like a door. And things come in and out of the doors and one of the things that can come out of the door of your mouth is words. Maybe that's the only thing that comes out. Well, never mind. There needs to be like little guards there that are watching the words that are going to come out. Like little soldiers. There are certain words that might want to come out of our mouths and the little soldiers should say no. That shouldn't come out. If somebody is endeavoring to follow God, these days we call those kind of people Christians. It's our duty. It's our job. It's something we signed up for. It's something that we absolutely must do. We must take it very seriously. I'm going to read, I guess the whole, I think it's the whole chapter, James chapter 3. My brethren, be not many masters, knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation. For in many things we offend all. If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body. Behold, we put bits in horses' mouths that they may obey us, and we turn about their whole body. Behold also the ships, which though they be so great, and are driven of fierce winds, yet are they turned about with a very small helm, whithersoever the governor listeth. Even so the tongue is a little member, and boastest great things. Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth, and the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. So is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature, and it is set on fire of hell. For every kind of beast, and of birds, and of serpents, and of things in the sea is tamed, and hath been tamed of mankind, but the tongue can no man tame. It is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. Therewith bless we God, even the Father, and therewith curse we men, which are made after the similitude of God. Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be. Doth the fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter? Can the fig tree, my brethren, bear olive berries, either a vine figs? So can no fountain both yield salt water and fresh. Who is a wise man, and endued with knowledge among you? Let him show out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom. But if ye have bitter envying, and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth. This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work. But the wisdom that is from above is pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy. And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace. I think there at the end all of these general principles are still wanting to be applied to our words. Our words should be peaceful and full of good fruits and gentle and so forth. I tried to read that clearly. I don't know if you were able to pay attention. There are enormous things here that are said about our words. And how important it is that we keep them. And distinguishing the difference between the wisdom that is from above and the wisdom that is natural and earthly. I'll read a few more scriptures to try to... Proverbs 21-23, Whoso keepeth his mouth and tongue, keepeth his soul from troubles. There's a couple of points I'm really wanting to bring out here. And one of them is that our mouth is something that should be kept. There should be a watch. There should be carefulness. If we're not doing that, we're failing to do something that we must do. Proverbs 13-3, He that keepeth his mouth, keepeth his life. But he that openeth wide his lips shall have destruction. Proverbs 10-19, In the multitude of words there wanteth not sin. But he that refraineth his lips is wise. The tongue of the just is as choice silver. The heart of the wicked is little worth. The lips of the righteous feed many. But fools die for want of wisdom. Proverbs 18-20, A man's belly shall be satisfied with the fruit of his mouth. And with the increase of his lips shall he be filled. Death and life are in the power of the tongue. And they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof. The heart of the wise teacheth his mouth. And addeth learning to his lips. Pleasant, that was Proverbs 16-23. The next verse says, Pleasant words are as a honeycomb. Sweet to the soul and health to the bones. In the first chapter of James verse 26, it says, If any man among you seem to be religious and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain. Words are a big deal. In the scriptures, they are likened to things such as poison, swords and arrows. They can do much damage and harm. They are powerful. Every one of us, to the littlest of us, have mouths. At an early age, we develop a grasp for a language. It's like little children walking around with swords and arrows that they can just shoot off anytime. I want to make a point of saying that there's something that's being alluded to here when it says that we're supposed to keep the words of our mouth. That means, the scriptures say that out of the heart is where words come from. This is indicating and it's saying that these are instructions to the man of God or the woman of God. Somebody who loves God and is serving God can have things in their heart that shouldn't come out of their mouths. That's part of it. I kind of want to address, there's a false doctrine that comes up often that says, there's different names and descriptions of it, but when somebody is converted, when they're saved, when they're born again, they're given a new heart and you're just filled with the Spirit. If that were the truth, then we could just say everything that came to our heart. We could just do everything that we wanted to do, but it's not true. The heart that changes when we're converted and give ourselves to God is the heart of recognizing that before we didn't recognize that God was Lord and we're His servant. Now we do. We want to fix that. We want to serve Him. We want to make up for that. So we develop the heart of a servant who's trying to submit and obey and bring forth the fruit. I should go slower. Bring forth the fruit that He wants us to bring forth. So this is the new heart that we have, but I don't think it's true that upon conversion there's just nothing bad in us anymore. But rather we have a heart that's now at war against those bad things. Out of love for God. Our new heart is a heart that's now signed up to run a race. We didn't realize there was a race before, and now we know that there's a race and we're signed up. We're going to run that race. We're committed to producing fruit for Him. We recognize, oh, I'm like a laborer in His vineyard and I've been denying Him His fruit. I'm not going to do that anymore. I want to give Him His fruit. This is His vineyard. And we commit to producing fruit, producing profit for our Master. Oh, I'm His servant. He's the Master. I want to give Him a lot of, I want my actions to bring forth profit for Him. And so, this is likened to steering a ship or steering a horse or cultivating a garden or investing our talents. Recognizing that our mouths are His vineyard. So it's His vineyard, so the fruit that comes out of our mouths is, He tells us what kind. Weeds can come out, thorns can come out, but we see what He wants. He tells us what kind of fruit that should come out and we submit to that because we recognize that it's His, it's not ours. We're in control of it, but we use our control to make it do the things that He wants. It's become socially acceptable for people to just confidently say things like, Oh, I'm just a sarcastic person. That's just how I am. Oh, I'm just rough around the edges. That's just the way I am. Some people are real gracious and real kind and care, but I'm just not like that. I just say it how it is. And it's something people can boast in and it's just like, oh yeah, that's how they are. And we just love them anyway. But it's not okay. We signed up, when we signed up to be with God to recognize that those are things that are in every one of us and we're not just going to be that kind of person, but rather we're going to be conformed into a new person. We're going to fix up this garden. It's a shame too, because the world thinks it's okay to do that as well. So there are many ways to communicate the same things. Maybe infinite, I don't know. And God cares about our word choices. And it's not something that's just going to happen. It requires effort. It's a grand lifelong commitment to a labor, to sculpting our speech. It's not, excuse me. It's not fake. It's not being fake. To be careful, we read all those scriptures. You saw there that the wise man, the godly man, he keeps his words. He's not being fake. He's not being a fool. He's being careful with what he lets out. There's little guards there making sure. Is this going to be helpful? Is this going to create more problems than it needs to? We should be putting forth much effort and care into what comes out and how it comes out. Is there a better way to say that? Is there a more fruitful way to say that? Am I just letting my heart spew stuff out without checking it? I wish I had a... As I imagine sharing this, I would have liked to have had a pretty good list of examples of ways that I've learned that society naturally talks and that I naturally talk that I've recognized and found like that is just not a good way to respond or react. When somebody says something that I disagree with, this natural way to respond is wrong. I don't want to respond that way. It can be really tricky because we don't... These are subtle things. These are things maybe that we don't see and these are things that still get practiced among God's people. This is something I put a lot of thought into and put a lot of thought into and I'm on the lookout for hearing unkindnesses or recognizing them. It's always easier to see other people doing stuff wrong than yourself. But this is something I want us to be working on. Looking for these things and trying to change them. I can be in a state of trying to be careful with what I say but if I don't recognize that something is wrong, then I might say it anyway. First you have to want to do the right thing and then you have to learn what's not right. What is and isn't right. I wish I had a list. As I was trying to think of a list, it was pretty difficult for me to try to formulate it. But I'll say this. These improper ways of communicating that I would have liked to have had a list of usually involve sarcasm. Probably sarcasm would be like Roman numeral I and then there would be a bunch of examples. Probably the examples that I would want to think of would just be examples of the use of sarcasm or hyperbole which is like making a big extreme statement to make a point. Often we use this sarcasm because we're offended and we want to try to hurt the other person or make somebody's position look dumb. Make someone feel stupid or ashamed. If we believe somebody's position or their actions are shameful. Think of parents. Your child does something. It's shameful. There's different ways to show them that their actions are shameful. We should carefully and gently lead them to see that their actions are shameful. Not shame them. We can see that they should feel ashamed but the wrong path is to shame them and the right path is to gently help them to see like you don't want it. Can you see how you're doing this? You don't want it. Do you see how that looks to other people? You wouldn't want somebody else to see you doing that, would you? It's mostly a matter of caring, loving and being careful. As I imagine like theatrically trying to give an example of the wrong way to tell somebody something and then the gracious way. I might not be able to do that. Gently, carefully leading someone to see that. We need to be sensitive. We need to not be harsh. It's not okay to just... I've seen old videos of myself dealing with my children and I'm ashamed at how harsh I've been to them and just like... especially the little ones, they're so sensitive and just throwing commands at them and not being sensitive. It's something we grow in. We don't want to be harsh. Don't pick on people. It's really easy for friends to pick on each other but it's also really easy to think you're better friends with somebody than you really are. And just be picking on them in a friendly way and hurt their feelings. And they don't... I would recommend just don't pick on people. Young people especially, they... I mean, you just shouldn't... Don't pick on somebody. If somebody's got a... If one of your friends has a problem, don't tease him about it. Just don't, ever. Like that is just something we shouldn't do. Don't tease your friends. Don't pick on people. Don't... Even if it's just a little bit. Just friendly. You know, cause you always... You know, you always do that thing wrong. It's just a little thing. It's not that important but... I would suggest don't do it. Don't boast. It can be really easy when we're describing a situation to just casually throw in there that you're responsible for such and such or you're the one who did such and such. Just learn to leave that out when you're describing something. Leave out any boasting. Also, learn to leave out others' faults. If somebody breaks something and somebody says what happened, you don't have to say so and so broke the thing. You can just say, oh, we have a break over here. We broke something. To be careful that it's gonna hurt somebody's feelings if it's not necessary to just like throw in who's responsible for something or some fault that somebody has. Be careful. If it's not necessary, there's no need. It's a blessing to cover up little things like that. I wrote guilt trip down here. Don't put guilt trips on people. I think in general, the thing that has helped me is just to recognize that these sub points under sarcasm of ways that I was brought up learning how to talk or argue. Typically, they're not saying what I mean. It's like sideways, sarcastic way of making a point. The solution I found is just to say what I really mean. It's pretty bad when I have to take and interpret my own thoughts, my own manner of communication because the thing coming out of me is just not really saying what I want. It's saying the opposite or sarcasm or something that's supposed to bring a point across. I just think it's better to just learn to say what you mean. I'm at war with sarcasm in my own life. If you hear me being sarcastic, I'd appreciate you pointing it out to me. As soon as I realize I've said it, I'll just say, oh, that's sarcasm. I want to perfect my speech. Somebody said recently, that by perseverance, one can overcome nature. What was that? Was that the last meeting? No. Oh, oh, oh. Who was that? Okay, by perseverance, one can overcome, you said even nature. And I was thinking, oh, yeah, that's the flesh. So, ways of communicating that are fine with the world and totally acceptable, now we view these things as weeds. We want to rid the garden of our speech of weeds. We want to be sure that there's no unkindness. Especially when we're offended, it can be easy to sculpt our words in a way that makes somebody look bad. Sometimes, so these are things we have to exercise ourselves in. We should be, but if you're not already, get to exercising. Get to learning. Get to a place where you're not just saying whatever pops into your head, but you are taking the things that you make, make it your habit that the things that come to your head or come to your heart, that there's a watch. And you're being careful how you're changing how you say it. You're maybe just not saying it. This should be how we communicate. So, a thing that has happened to me often, so if somebody's speaking in an unkind way toward me, the solution I have is to translate what they're saying. Try to, sometimes somebody can be unkind, it can make me either want to be unkind back, or to just not deal with them, but what we need to do, something I've practiced is to translate what they say and to take the meanness out and see the point they're making, see what they're feeling, see what they're thinking, see what they want and answer them back as though they said it nicely. Everybody knows it's easier to receive criticism from somebody who's being careful with their words and meek than somebody that's insulting you. And so you try to be sure that if we're bringing forth criticism to somebody that we're doing it carefully and meekly. And if somebody else is not, take the effort, the little guards can hear that and pretend like they're translating it to you as though he said it nicely, someone said it nicely. But sometimes, I can be so overwhelmed by somebody's rudeness that I am rendered incapacitated. There have been many times somebody's being mean to me and I just cannot believe how rude and unkind somebody's being and I can't think and I'll just sit there in silence and to me this would be like a weight that's just too big for me. I can't lift this. And I don't know how the allegory would be to entering back into being mean back to them or pointing out someone else's faults or somebody's inconsistencies or oh yeah, well you such and such, you do such and such or something like that. I had a dear friend at the end of high school and the beginning of college. His name was Bob, still is. And one time, I don't remember the details but we were very, something happened and we were real offended at each other. And I think one of us, oh I think one of us had a secret and the other one found out. I can't remember exactly what it was but we were very emotional, very upset. For sure one of us was. And we sat at a table and I don't know how long it was. We might have sat at that table for an hour, maybe it was only half an hour. We just sat there in silence because we loved each other so much. Neither of us was willing to say anything unkind to the other person. And all we had was unkindness in our hearts toward each other and so we sat there in silence because we were unwilling to say the unkind things that we were thinking. And eventually we just realized like we're just going to have to talk about this later. And we just said let's get out of here. We'll talk about this later. Let's just get out of here. We just had to ignore it for a little while because we were so emotional and full of hurt. To me that's one of my favorite stories. I just think that the love that man and I had for each other I mean that was a big deal to me. Anyway, if you don't have something nice to say don't say anything at all. That's a good one. So be willing to do that. Not say anything sometimes. A soft answer turneth away wrath but grievous words stir up anger. I'm sure we've all we could probably all share a story about a time I've had times when somebody comes at me very aggressively and I just I translate it in my head and just smile and pretend like they're not being rude and sometimes they'll say something else and something else and eventually they'll okay, eventually they'll calm down. I've seen it work. I've seen it not work before too. I've seen somebody just keep on being unkind. Proverbs 12 verse 16 says A fool's wrath is presently known but a prudent man covereth shame. Both I think it's describing two men who have the same feelings the same thoughts and the same ideas. One, the fool presently makes it known but a prudent man knows that it would be a shame to do that and he covers it. A wise man learns that he should watch his mouth and learns what to watch for. Taking the time and putting forth the effort. When we're talking about something having an argument is it your job to win the argument? Excuse me, your goal is it your goal to win the argument? Or to be fruitful? How can I how can I use my words in a way to bring forth fruit? Not just win the argument. This will be out of place here but I've seen on a shirt a shirt that someone in the world would proudly wear and think is funny and cute. It says, I love sarcasm. It's like punching someone in the face with words. I mean, the world recognizes that's what sarcasm is. That's what it does and they're just like yeah, that's what I do. It's what we should not do. Proverbs 12 verse 18 There is that speaketh like the piercings of a sword but the tongue of the wise is health. I saw a man give an illustration. I didn't see the first part but I think this is like a wise grandpa trying to teach his grandchildren and he writes some stuff on some pieces of wood and has these girls I guess maybe they got into an argument or something and he had them pound a bunch of nails so imagine two 2x4s here with just like all these nails stuck in it. And he's like okay those are the hurtful things that you said. Now pull them out. Excuse me. Pull them out and every time you pull a nail I don't want you to say sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Okay, it's all good. There's no more nails in the wood now. It's all fixed, right? But if I held up that piece of wood you'd see. It got hurt. We can say sorry and we can pull nails out but our words do damage. Don't let them out. You can apologize and you can fix things but it's better to just never let them come out. Be careful if we're offering criticism. If you enter into a disagreement you're entering into a battle and the goal is not to win. The goal is to win someone over to your position without inflicting harm which honestly when somebody starts trying to insult somebody else it's because they're actually losing often because they're losing the argument of what the substance is that they're really talking about. If someone else is wrong and you want them to change their position as we all know changing your position can be painful. If you win this argument it's going to create pain. Just the fact that somebody has to change their mind is going to be painful for them. You don't want to add anything to that. You don't want any of your harsh words or something to get in the way of that. You're trying to lead them to a painful place to accept whether it's your child or someone that you meet. One example that I think I can maybe get across is like somebody makes a point and it's a bad point and so a common thing to do is to take that point to its extreme and say for some reason it was very difficult for me to try to think of practical examples but if somebody says somebody says it's okay to buy a certain thing that you don't think is good to buy sorry this is a bad example and so what you think is that's not a good thing to buy. But the natural way a natural way to respond is oh yeah let's just go out and buy a bunch of those oh yeah it's fine to buy apparently so we'll just let's all just buy a bunch and what you believe is surely when I present it in this way surely that person will see oh maybe that would be bad. But and you want to get them to see that but this tactic that commonly gets used is I think one time I specifically remember I used that I was trying to convey to someone how important it is to eat healthy and they were saying like they said oh it's not what goes into the man that defiles a man but what comes out and I was like okay well let's just go out and buy some crack cocaine because it doesn't matter what goes in right? Like just trying to make that the point they were using say you know I hurt his feelings it was very unfriendly. Anyway we we don't want to use that tactic we should say you can you can make the same you can communicate the same points more carefully like if someone says it's okay to buy this thing and you're like well here's a better example somebody says it's okay to do this thing and you you could sarcastically hurtfully say like oh yeah well why don't I just go get some for your children then? Where the truth is we think oh if it there's been a time when I believed in doing something and then somebody said oh you're going to teach your children to do that and I was like oh that just should put a whole new light on it like obviously not and if it's not okay for my children then how can it be okay for me? But there'd be there'd be a a kind and gentle way to to try to express to somebody consider consider if your children were to do that how would you feel about that as opposed to this like oh yeah well why don't you just I mean there's just that's an example but there's there's other ways that we do that that we should be on the lookout for. Matthew chapter 12 verse 35 says a good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth good things and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things but I say unto you that every idle word that men shall speak they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment for by thy words thou shalt be justified and by thy words thou shalt be condemned. Psalm chapter 19 verse 14 let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight oh Lord my strength and my redeemer. Colossians chapter 4 verse 6 let your speech be always with grace seasoned with salt that you may know how you ought to answer every man. Ephesians 4 verse 29 let no corrupt let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth but that which is good to the use of edifying that it may minister grace to the hearers. It should just be really clear like your mouth can be like arrows swords poisons or it can be life health healing it's a powerful thing and if the warning there is that there are there are corrupt communications that can want to come out of our mouths and it's an essential it's not it's not extra this isn't just if we're failing to do this we're failing our religion is vain steering sculptily steering our vessel sculpting our clay weeding our garden carefully intentionally it's not just going to happen if we're not doing this we're failing it's not it's not an extra thing an additional good little thing it is it is an essential thing we're we're we have the potential to walking walk potential to be walking around shooting little arrows we can just we can have a have a sentence that we're saying and in that little sentence is a little arrow we shot off and got somebody or got or got our hearer or something and we don't we don't want that that is all I think I'll share right now I'd be glad for any corrections or clarifications corrections clarifications or additions thank you brother that was a real blessing I really appreciated that it's one of those topics that just never gets old like you could just we it should never get old I was considering if if you could have Bible topics on your phone that would be should be on your main screen anyways yeah God help us I I think over the years I mean this is something that I've really meditated on for a lot of years and tried to work on in my own life for a lot of years and I always focused on the words in my mouth but I think the real victory is focusing on the heart in your mind if you get your heart right then your words will be right it's just the root of the matter recently my my brother was doing some ancestry.com stuff and looking at things in our family tree and I've never done that but it is kind of neat to know kind of know some of the lineage of your family and he had come across to one of our grandfathers who was in the army and he was set on a watch and he was supposed to stay awake on the watch and he fell asleep and the Indians they stole all his guns and anyways long story short the punishment for falling asleep on a watch is death or it was in this country that's how serious it is if you fall asleep and you're in charge of watching you're worthy of death and that's we should really consider that when it comes to our words like it is that serious like your words can really do that type of damage you know your words can do such a serious damage to somebody else that well how does God look at it like I think God thinks of it as a serious thing when we do that when we wound somebody with our words you know I don't think he he doesn't cause us to die or anything but I think it's a very serious offense to him and we should really consider that and we should we should keep our mouth with a bridle and just really study to not let any kind things out of our mouth but there is hope there is grace there is there is truth and I appreciate you sharing those verses there's a lot of really really good instruction there and pray God I could lay hold of that myself and just really appreciated that thank you yeah I too just want to say thank you I was both very blessed very convicted and just as Tao said like this this is one of those topics we should be hearing over and over again and the tongue according to James is like a fire and and fire fire when it's in control is a necessity it is it is warming it is I don't I don't in many parts of the world man couldn't survive without fire I don't think it is it is very needful and and we would suffer from hunger and and cold if there was no such thing as fire but a fire out of control is so devastating and so destruction and so is the tongue so is words I like little sayings little quotes you talked about how we need to get rid of the weeds I came across a quote recently and said it is not enough for the gardener to love flowers he must also hate weeds another quote I thought fit in well is rudeness is the weak person's imitation of strength appreciated what you said about about the the false idea of that a part of the false gospel is like if you get this heart change nothing nothing bad will ever come out and and not taking away that we definitely need a heart change but I think I think the heart change has to do with not that not that that means there will never be anything there that we have to guard against coming out it just as you pointed out it will but our our attitude changes towards those watchmen those watchers like instead of ignoring them we we give them very special honor or or or credit for their position and we like that's that's what a heart that that's one of the things that a heart change is like we get on the right side of the battle we get on the as Paul said I have fought he didn't say I fought the fight good he said I fought the good fight you know he he was on the right side of the battle and wanted to share a little poem just three verses it's an old poem written around the 1900s maybe many of you have come across it already but I I just thought it really fit in here if you are tempted to reveal a tale someone has to you has told about another make it pass before you speak three gates of gold three narrow gates first is it true then is it needful in your mind give truthful answers and the next if last and narrowest is it kind and if to reach your lips at last it passes through these gateways three then you may tell the tale nor fear what the result of speech may be if you are tempted to reveal a tale someone to you has told about another make it pass before you speak three gates of gold oh is it true yeah is it true is it needful and is it kind just one one last thought like yeah this is an essential like what what would we say about someone who who just continually violated the very basics of non-resistance we would say he is not a Christian Jesus Jesus spoke about this the disciples spoke about this it is it is essential by our words we will be justified by our words we will be condemned anyway thank you very much yeah I was very blessed as well a lot of my points really got covered good in the comments and I don't want to take away from that yeah just a lot a lot of time to think now and for some reason some of the the big horses I used to have in the past that were fast and powerful came to my mind just one of the things we would do is like it says here in James how we can control a big horse by the bit in his mouth and one of the things we would often times do was to check those bits like if perhaps one would break usually they were two piece bits or three or four pieces that wore and if you work this horse daily it had the potential of breaking without you knowing how weak it was inside his mouth so I remember one time a bit bit break and the outcome was very devastating there was more than one horse involved because there was a team of four horses there was a manure spreader involved there was live involved and nothing just really drastically you know happened the horses ran to a tree and stopped there but it all happened because a bit broke and I don't know maybe it was either me or my brother driving it and I don't know for sure but I think from there we kept checking the bits a little more and I think that's a good life lesson how in the spiritual in the spiritual kingdom or in the kingdom of God we need to check our bits more I was just blessed with it and I was glad you brought out what I call the punch line there in Matthew 12 just so much in there that Jesus said you know about by our by our words we will be justified by our words we will be condemned like we're thinking of this as being being thrown to the left or the right and it's a pretty heavy thing if we think of it that way praise God we can have victory and we can have we can grow in these things I'm not sure how well this relates but this morning as I was reading through well actually I was listening to a lot of it as well Matthew 5 up through 10 and tried to look at it in the light of of pursuing not really pursuing maybe perfection versus obedience but but I think I found like something different or something very valuable in just having having obedience in mind rather than than a perfection those are scattered thoughts I don't really have it collected that well but I just thought that that maybe at least at the moment I had some kind of revelation or peace about the fact that that at the end or or maybe as a whole obedience is really what we're called to do perfection can't really be nailed down that well that that we should sure we should pursue it and it should be the end goal but as we trudge through this life I think obedience is really the the main the main call and so hope that fits in here somehow God bless you all yes I have been really blessed too a lot of thoughts go through my mind that some of it that's like oh this is something that I just hardly know how to cope with and deal with and um it seems like it eludes me to some degree and then well just to be quiet and not say anything doesn't um come out either but I I just seems like I find it hard within myself I guess it's just kind of like a confession that I find it difficult to know um I like to think it's not one of my gifts but and I don't think it is but that's no excuse of um not watching our tongue and it's so very important so very far reaching and but it's so easy to do it wrong and um I've not been able to get to the place of my heart's just so so guarded that my tongue doesn't slip and I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I spiritual meat are the ones that that are what I like to call where the rubber meets the road. Things that have good practical application. I'm not saying there's no place for the ones that seem to be more of an intangible nature that are about things in the heavenlies that we can't quite see yet or grasp but we want to experience though there's place for those but I just really like the really like the practical I appreciated all the practical examples. I know Dwayne already commented on appreciating your your thoughts about part of the false gospel and and what that heart is like that that really resonated with me too about a heart the new heart that we're given is one that wants to be conformed to the image of Christ you didn't put it that way but that was kind of my my takeaway something that a heart that wants to war against the old man and strive to to be the new man. I really liked that and and as I thought about it too I I think sometimes about what the epistles are like what what are the epistles James for example or the Pauline epistles to the different churches and I find it interesting I guess in later years to look who who it's addressed to like for example first Corinthians is addressed to the church at Corinth but also all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ and James in particular is addressed to the twelve tribes dispersed in other words it's not to a specific group of people in the epistles I see that that there's encouragement I see encouragement given I see expounding on the teachings of Christ I see answers to questions that were in letters that we don't get to read that that didn't survive but letters that were written to the to the Apostles that the churches had that get addressed but I also see to Buddy's point problems addressed within the churches and and if if James was addressing his letter to be dispersed abroad to people everywhere then then it is not that there's not value in all the epistles for us whether whether they're to a specific church or to Christians everywhere it's a problem common to to men everywhere this this problem of the tongue it's something that we have to continually guard against and continually strive against I just appreciate it and thank you yeah I just want to thank the Lord and thank you brother buddy I really blessed and convicted and appreciated it oh I just feel like I failed so much in my life on this subject and still fail just oh what a wretch I am I feel like again thank you and I just pray that the Lord help us all and me and to do better in this thank you and then brother buddy and if we don't get convicted something's a matter with us like Taylor and Walter and Wayne and Max have said if there's something a matter if we don't get convicted of the abuse of the tongue I appreciate your sensitivity for the for Bob okay I don't know not in San Antonio but when you just stood or you just sat quietly from each other and that's you know I also appreciate you your sensitivity about comic books how you said that it's poison trash and I agree with you I my friend Maurice called you up the other day and he said cartoons a trash and poisonous as a man you know any cartoons they're sarcasm they're mocking and they should be avoided completely just a couple of comments and proverbs don't answer a man according to his folly because you'd be as foolish as him and then it says now answer me and according to his folly and reprove him something like seems like an apparent contradictions but it's not bear one another's burdens and then Paul says in Galatians be your own burden but it's not it can be harmonized and so you know Jesus he didn't speak to uh what's the Pharisees or the scribes but he spoke to Pilate it depends on certain individuals you can discern are they are they worthy to be spoken to or are they so far gone that you just be a fool by talking to him one of the big things today not a big thing today it's probably been going on for 20 years and but I'm oblivious to it is is is in the sports figures they have what they call trash talk trash talk it's just trash talk I don't know if you're young people you're trash talk they do it in basketball or football trash talk and it's just complete complete sinful trash poison filth it's something like when you get stopped at a at a green light or your green light and you I know I deliver pizzas and so I get all the time I get stopped at a stop sign so someone pulls up to me next in their vehicle with the windows down and they play that rap music and I get every filthy thing going in my ears for like one or two minutes and trash talk is the same thing the book that Leroy and Marilyn gave my wife she read it to me last night part of it about the Amish man who rode a bike across the country and he met one man I don't know if you remember that they were but he read one man that uh oh he was paralyzed but then he was in a wheelchair but he finally got healed and then he said if he ever gets healed he's gonna ride a bike across the country and you know proclaim the message of Jesus he was the evangelical but the man who wrote the book Stutzman was a is an Amish man from Holmes County but the the sign that the man had on his bicycle or the thing was a good one it said God's last name is not D and it had a blank blank blank and I thought that is very appropriate you know if you have a sign God's last name is not D blank blank blank the Lord be magnified yeah that was a really good um just like words you know we could use and like Paul says you know let all things be done for the building up and and words words are almost like a tool you know and it's like you know you have one brother and another brother a hammer might be good to replace tongue for in a certain situation like um you know we need to use our hammers to build bridges to each other you know and it's hard to build a bridge by yourself it is it is hard to do that so it's like it takes two you know to use their hammers properly to build a bridge I was really blessed by it buddy it was a really good um really good praise the Lord yeah I appreciate what you what you said about the heart that's for sure it I wish I had if somebody outside the church were to watch watch that on the YouTube or whatever I wish I hadn't I wouldn't I could see how somebody could easily get the idea that I that I didn't think that but yeah that's that I had intended to say exactly what you said and then say but in the meantime as we're as we're perfecting our hearts because that is our ultimate goal in the meantime don't say careful with be careful with your mouth I'm glad Robert that you mentioned trash talk that is a great a great example I said boasting but that I think that's what it is and um and I did remember another one thing I did want to say especially to the young men the how that I can remember there was a time in my youth when I just thought um you'd there were certain guys and they could always make funny little comments about something that happened or was getting said and and I remember just thinking really admiring that wanting to be oh I wish I could think of funny little cute comments to say about things and it was a goal of mine to make if I can make a little comment and make people laugh and if you if if you thought of something but then somebody else said it it was like oh I should have spoke quicker or or something that was the goal was to be the first one to make the funny comment or whatever and I anyway I'd really advise against such things trying to get noticed saying things to get noticed or to make people laugh sometimes funny things just come to mind and but you don't have to you don't have to share I mean I would say you even ought not ought not to I remember like so so now I'm an old man and I was talking about when I was a young man but somewhere in the middle there after I had after I had figured this out I remember feeling pretty good about myself when um when I think of the funny thing and not say it and then somebody else would say it and I'd I felt like oh yeah I won and they lost because because I didn't say it Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh I was the mountain flame with light, my chains fell off, my heart was free. I knelt with the Lord and bowed my knees, Amazing light, how now revealing, that Thou, my Lord, shouldst die for me. No condemnation now I dread, Jesus and all Him in His might. Alive in Him, my living help, and clothed in righteousness divine. Lord, I approach eternal hope, and win the crown through Christ my own. Amazing love, how can it be, that Thou, my Lord, shouldst die for me.