Episode Transcript
Proverbs 15 verse 2, the title of the message tonight is Well Wishes.
Well wishes.
We began this proverb with the first two words which are the tongue.
The tongue.
Like most instruments in our body, we take our bodies for granted.
We get so used to having something like our voice until we begin to lose it.
Even our little toes, you learn how important they are when they're broken.
And the human tongue is a marvelous creation of God.
Not only does it detect with amazing accuracy what goes into our mouth, but it also Has a lot of control over what comes out of our mouth.
And it's a highly sophisticated form of communication.
The world.
And the next time you speak, and as you're listening to me speak now, pay attention to how swift your tongue Moves from one part of your body, one part of your mouth to the other, here, there, up, down, all back and forward.
How many delicate movements your tongue makes. throughout your mouth to to create these distinct sounds to transport data because you know you got data stored up in your brain And that that that data gets it gets transformed from one form of data in your brain, and it gets repackaged into these These sounds, it's coded and the tongue goes and it It sends those sounds, the knowledge in the form of a code, out to these really neat receptacles.
That receives the code, and then the brain then decodes it and repackages it and stores it so that the knowledge here then settles down in that person's brain.
Brother Richard, you're thinking way too deep.
It's beautiful to me.
I'm telling you, it's absolutely fascinating when you think about it.
It's a gift from God.
God included the construction and the hardwiring of our this our our our special tongue I say special because cows have a tongue, apes have a tongue, no creature has a tongue, even fish have tongues.
No creature has a tongue like ours.
It's fascinating.
And he did that because he loves us and he wants us to enjoy the blessings of all the instruments in our bodies.
It's part of human design.
And because it is part of our human design, that means both the wise and the foolish people each have tongues.
So Solomon will begin to talk to us tonight about the tongue.
Look back in your text of the wise.
The wise.
In other words, we're going to talk about the tongue of a wise person, someone who has received wisdom from God.
And the reason Solomon must distinguish the type of man who possesses the tongue in this proverb, rather than simply speaking in general about the tongue. is because the tongue, like many things people possess, is just a tool.
When I came home tonight, my wife had fixed me some delicious okra.
Now let me tell you, I'll give you a little hint here.
If you don't have potatoes and you don't want French fries with your hamburger, just cook you up some okra to go with it.
Man, is it good?
And she just got through chopping up the okra.
And if I come home and I see a big knife in my wife's hand, it means I'm about to get fed.
Now, if I come home and I see a big knife in somebody else's hand, it may mean I'm about to get robbed, right?
It's just a tool.
And it all depends on whose hands that tool is in, like a gun, like a car.
And by God's design, everybody gets the same tools.
But some will use those tools wisely, and others will use them foolishly.
It's a wonderful tool that God's given us, and like the knife, it can be used to feed people, and our tongue can also be used to hurt people.
All depending on whether the person using it is a fool or a wise person.
And as far as the wise person is concerned, Solomon says the tongue of the wise, look back in your text, useth knowledge. handles knowledge, deals in knowledge.
Whether it is the tongue of a wise man or a fool, God gives us a tongue to use knowledge.
I study for this message.
I understand this proverb.
I'm going to explain it all to you front and back tonight.
Sure, there's more you can get from it, of course.
But I'll explain it to you tonight.
But it'll be my tongue that takes the knowledge and puts it to work.
It'll put that knowledge, it'll take that knowledge, and it'll start working that knowledge to get that knowledge from here into there.
Fascinating.
The tongue of the wise uses knowledge.
Knowledge is information that we have ascertained.
It's knowledge stored in our minds, and God gives us this amazing ability to transfer the knowledge that we have obtained into other people's hearts, other people's minds, to give them the understanding that we have in the most common.
And efficient form of doing that is not with a text message.
How many times do you start doing this right here, or you try to type out an email and you go, oh, forget it, I'll just call them.
Why?
The tongue's more efficient.
So the tongue, in the Bible, it symbolizes our whole verbal communication system.
Includes the mind, includes the mouth, the lips, includes the larynx.
It converts the knowledge in our mind into words and it publishes it into the form of distinct sounds.
It's a tool that distributes knowledge from one party to another.
And the tongue of a wise man does this, look back in your text, aright.
Aright.
Literally, that means the tongue of the wise transfers knowledge in a way that makes people well.
That's going to be our key truth tonight.
The tongue of the wise takes knowledge.
And it uses that knowledge aright.
It uses it in such a way so that that knowledge Makes people well.
The first time we see this word arite in the Bible, the Hebrew word translated aright, is in Genesis 4:7.
When God's reasoning with Cain, and he says, If thou doest well, will you not also be accepted?
Well.
And then we see it other times in the Bible: that it may be well with thee, that it may be aright with thee.
So the tongue of the wise uses knowledge well.
It uses the knowledge well, and then that knowledge in turn makes people well. or it keeps people well.
So there are two ways Cain could have behaved concerning him and God, well or not well. a right or not a right.
And there are two ways that we can distribute knowledge.
We can distribute it well.
We can distribute it not well.
And this is such a fundamental matter for us.
And it's because the well-being of the entire human race, if you will remember, in the beginning, depended entirely on whether or not knowledge was distributed well.
Fascinating.
The tree of knowledge of good And evil.
And we were not supposed to have the knowledge of evil.
We were only supposed to have the knowledge of good.
The tree of the knowledge of good and evil did not use knowledge well.
It did not use it aright.
It gave knowledge.
The tree of the knowledge of good and evil gave knowledge that Adam and Eve did not have.
So it was good at giving knowledge.
But it didn't give knowledge well.
And the knowledge it gave didn't make people well.
It actually brought down humanity.
So God wanted us to have the knowledge of good only.
He wanted us to have knowledge distributed to us aright.
Coming to us well, where would our knowledge have come from?
It would have come from God the Spirit.
It would have been consummated through the eating of the tree of life.
And we would have received knowledge from God, who is wisdom, and we would have received it aright.
Everything that we would have been exposed to, that we would have witnessed, that we would have heard, that we would have experienced, would have been done aright.
And that would have made everything go well for us.
And this, therefore, becomes the test piece of every piece of knowledge or every piece of information that we distribute to other people.
Will the knowledge that we're about to distribute, will it help people be well?
Will it make things well?
Or will it cause chaos?
Will it hurt someone?
Because the knowledge Adam and Eve, and thus the knowledge that we gained through their eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
It mortally wounded us.
It was knowledge that mortally wounded us.
It is knowledge that eternally saves us.
Repeat that again.
It was knowledge that mortally wounded us.
Who told thee that thou wast naked?
And it is knowledge that eternally saves us.
Jesus said, This is life eternal, that they might know thee.
The one true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent.
So, what mortally wounded us?
What caused the whole human race to fall?
What caused every one of us to have to face death one day?
It was this simple thing: knowledge that we should have never received.
That's what caused it all.
Not all knowledge is good.
So don't, when you hear people say, oh, some liberal librarian, Well, we shouldn't you shouldn't censor things.
There was a librarian in Tyler that got fired for having filth in the public library there in Tyler.
They fired her and then she turned around and sued them.
And you see, the librarians, and I believe it was this particular librarian I was reading after when she got fired, she said sometimes to have good content, to have a good variety of content, there's got to be some things that offend a few people.
Well the the concept that limiting knowledge to people, that you should have free knowledge, is g that limiting knowledge is bad, that's a lie.
It's a big lie.
There's some things we were never intended to know.
Not all knowledge is good.
If it was, there couldn't have been a tree of knowledge of good and evil.
Some knowledge is bad and it's bad for us.
It's the same difference as When you go out in the woods, my woods is my backyard.
But if something grows in my backyard, I don't just go mow over it.
I see what it is first.
Sometimes it's kind of neat and I may want to replant it.
And you know when I keep something, if you can eat it, I keep it.
But You can eat pretty much anything that you can chew and swallow.
But not everything you eat is good.
Some of it's evil.
Some of it will hurt you.
Not everything you know is good.
Some of it's evil.
Some of it will hurt you if you know it.
If you get the wrong knowledge in your mind, it will harm you.
Just as if you get the wrong substance in your belly.
Parents, how many times Have we had to look at our children?
And I honestly think when little kids are growing up, That there's something they hear.
I always told my children I loved them when they were little, but you know what?
I probably told them more than that.
Don't put that in your mouth or get that out of your mouth.
Right?
Get that out of your mouth.
Were we being cruel when we did that?
No.
In God, through His word and in His garden, by telling them not to eat from that tree, He's saying, Get that out of your mind.
Don't put that in your mind.
It will hurt you.
If you're in here tonight, or if you're online, you can type in online yes or no.
Raise your hand or type yes if you have ever been harmed spiritually. mentally, physically, or emotionally, by something you have seen or heard.
It's everybody.
Something you've seen, something you've heard.
How many of y'all have something you've seen you wish you'd never seen before?
Yeah.
Me too.
Everybody has been harmed by seeing or hearing something that's offensive to God.
You receive knowledge that God never intended you for you to have, and that's why it hurt.
Life or death depends on the knowledge we receive.
Do you know what keeps most sick people from being cured?
Lack of knowledge.
They're always trying to discover a cure.
And they have discovered lots of cures, haven't they?
We don't wrestle with polio like we used to, thank God.
Common cold, flu, use it doesn't get us like it used to, some other things.
Thank God they discovered antibiotics.
But do you know why you had to discover them?
Because people don't know what the cure is.
And knowledge would cure.
I think knowledge would cure pretty much everything.
Last Sunday after church, I had so many people reach out to me excited about what they learned during the church service.
We learned in the book of Daniel that God has put convicting physical evidence that Jesus Christ is the Messiah that Daniel Said would come into the world.
He put that physical evidence in the book of Daniel and in the New Testament, corroborating it and knowing this great truth.
You know what it did to people?
It, that knowledge brought them joy.
That knowledge brought them peace That knowledge brought them comfort.
Look what God's doing.
Look how He's demonstrating this to me.
Look how He's convincing me.
That Jesus is the Christ in my faith is not in vain.
That knowledge brought confidence into our hearts.
Knowledge.
That's knowledge used aright.
Last night after supper, my wife and I were sitting on the The love seat, and we told each other how much we meant to each other.
We do that all the time.
We're mushy.
But you know what?
As a couple, knowing your husband and wife, knowing that you're adored, That makes you okay in the head, doesn't it?
Knowing that your wife's crazy about you.
Your husband's, my wife calls it goo-goo-eyed or something.
My wife says, God knocked you in the head, gave you goo-go eyes.
But knowing that your spouse adores you, it safeguards your heart.
Gives you joy.
What is it?
It's knowledge that does that.
And at the end of time, No matter what has happened to us down here, no matter what heavy burden we've carried, no matter what pain, what damage. we've incurred here on this earth knowledge.
Knowing what God has done for us through Christ, that knowledge Will fix everything.
It will raise us from the dead.
It will give us eternal life.
It'll give us joy unspeakable and full of glory forever and ever.
When knowledge is used aright, it makes people well.
Back in your text.
But the mouth of fools, however, what does the mouth of fools do?
It poreth out foolishness.
Now if you have a pen, underscore that word, poreth.
That's the key word, Poorth.
You see, it's not what wise people No, that makes them use knowledge aright.
It's not that wise people use the tongue of the wise uses knowledge well.
Because wise people only have good knowledge.
No.
We all raised our hand and said there were things we wished we would have never known, things we wish we could get out of our heads, and we can't.
We all have bad knowledge.
If we wanted to, if we wanted to, we could probably all curse as any good sailor could.
I know all the bad words, Miss Ann.
I know you do.
I love teasing Messiah.
So it's not that the wise person only has good knowledge.
But it's that they don't pour out everything in their head.
The wise know, unfortunately, until Jesus comes, both good and evil.
We inherited that from our parents, but a wise man keeps a gate on his mouth to keep the knowledge of foolish things from reaching people's ears.
There's some things I wish I did not know.
My mind would be a lot happier. more peaceful, smarter, and cleaner if it didn't have so much garbage accumulated in it over the years.
And sadly, I don't know about you all, but I would assume it's the same.
It seems much easier to forget good things you've learned and much harder to forget the bad things you've learned.
So I might not be able to forget the bad things, but by God's grace I can fence them in.
I can fence them in.
I may not be able to keep from catching a cold.
But I don't have to share it.
And it's the same thing with knowledge.
I don't have to share it.
There's a bucket, I do something every time it rains.
I've got some couple little almond trees out in my front yard, and I've got some real pretty flowers around my mailbox.
And when it rains, I take this five-gallon bucket and I stick it under the overhang on my porch.
I let it fill up with water.
And then I set it over here on the porch.
And when it gets dry, if we hadn't had any rain, I'll go out and I'll pour a little on the flowers or a little on the almond trees until it's gone.
Now, if it keeps raining for a while.
I may go out there and there may be little things crawling in it.
They go like this.
They come up to the top, they breathe, and they go like that down.
You know what those are?
What are they?
That's right, mosquito larvae.
Good eating.
Like shrimp, just a lot smaller.
But you don't want to keep those in there.
Sometimes there'll be June bugs in there, little things in there.
Well, your mind gets like it.
The water's good, but those critters in there are not good.
Now, when I take that bucket.
And I go out there to my trees or my plants, do you think I care?
If those larvae pour in there on top of those plants, not one bit.
I just go out there and pour it all.
It all pours right out of that bucket.
And that's the way a fool is with his mind.
I heard someone say a while back, I heard someone say, I have no filter.
If I think it, I say it.
And they were kind of bragging.
That's foolish to say something like that.
A fool pours out foolishness.
What that means is they take the bucket of their mind.
And whatever they're thinking, I just pour right out.
A wise person has to use knowledge aright.
He has to realize, I've got a bucket.
God gave me a bucket.
Adam and Eve gave me June bugs, larvae, spiders, and everything else.
And so what I've got to do, I've got to use that water wisely.
Because I'm not pouring it on flowers or on trees.
I'm pouring this knowledge on people.
And so I've got to make sure.
That I pour it when they need it, not when they don't need it.
And I got to make sure and filter all the bat out.
And make sure that only what they hear is what's going to help them.
If it's not going to help them, leave it in the bucket.
So before you tell someone something, think about the effect it will have on people's lives.
Will it make things well?
With that, we'll go ahead and close tonight.
I see all those yeses y'all put on there.
I sure love you folks.
Brother Danny, I got your card in the mail.
Thank you, brother.
I sure am thankful for God's word.
It makes us wise, doesn't it?
Father, thank you for your precious word.
Thank you for giving us such. . .
Detailed, wonderful father-to-children instruction in the Proverbs.
We're grateful.
For you caring so much for us to give us the wisdom and to use your knowledge aright.
In Jesus' name, amen.
