Episode Transcript
All right, we'll be in Proverbs 15 verse 7 tonight.
Proverbs 15 verse 7.
Hello, Brother Neil.
The title of the message tonight is Faithful Lips and Fat Hearts.
You've heard of a fat lip, haven't you?
We're going to learn about fat hearts and faithful lips tonight.
So tonight's proverb highlights a connection between what we think What we say God gave man the wonderful gift of speech Allowing us to communicate essential information to each other.
I thank God for the gift of speaking.
It was the gift of speaking that God gave somebody.
That allowed me to be able to hear the gospel and understand it.
I thank God for it.
Sometimes in the Bible, our ability to communicate is symbolized not just by the words that we say, but by the body parts that we use to form those words.
Sometimes speech is reduced down to the mouth.
Sometimes it's reduced down to the tongue, like in the book of James.
But tonight it's reduced down to the lips.
Solomon says, if you look in your text, the lips.
And why does Solomon use the lips instead of the tongue or the mouth, as he so often does to signify communication in the Proverbs.
Perhaps he's simply using a different body part to have artistic expression and not just give us the same thing over and over again, and that would be understandable and appreciated.
Or perhaps better yet, he's using the lips because of what the lips can do, which the tongue cannot.
You see, the tongue is used to speak, and the lips also are used to speak.
But the tongue cannot close the mouth, and the lips can.
When we encourage someone to keep a secret, yes, I know the tongue doesn't have to wag, I understand that.
But as a form of speaking here, when we encourage someone to keep a secret, They don't respond by saying, oh, my tongue is lame.
They don't say that.
They do say my lips are sealed.
And the idea being that our lips are the gate, they're closed like a gate and they won't allow any word to escape our mouths.
And keeping that in mind, Solomon is speaking tonight about the lips, in particular lips that do not keep the gate closed.
Most of the time, when we're reading about communication in the book of Proverbs, it's encouraging people to keep the gate closed.
Tonight, it's doing the opposite.
It's encouraging them to get the lips to work and to keep the gate open, all depending on what's coming out of it, of course.
So we're looking at the lips, look in your text of the wise.
Now if a wise person's lips are moving, that's something we want to listen to, isn't it?
If a fool's lips are moving, that's when he needs to close his mouth.
And so we're talking about the lips of the wise.
And the wise, remember, are those who think and act according to God's design of creation and His expressed will and His word for man.
So if wise people think and act according to God's design and will, they're going to speak according to God's design and will.
Therefore, the lips of the wise are going to, look back in your text, disperse, disperse.
I love the language being used here by God's Spirit.
A wise man uses his lips To disperse.
And a lot of times in the Bible, most of the time, this word is used in the Bible, it's used in a negative sense.
Like in the sense of dispersing a crowd, scattering the Israelites, for example.
Because of their sin, God comes in and disperses them, scatters them across The globe and moves them from the promised land.
But we're talking about a wise person's lips tonight.
And so they're going to be dispersing in a wise, a good, in a beneficial sort of way.
The idea here is that the wise man has something that's beneficial for people and which the Lord's graciously given him.
If you'll remember, there was a famous, how many of y'all remember Joe the Plumber?
No one remembers Joe the Plumber, but or you do, alright, you do.
Good, all right.
Joe the Plumber is a famous line that Barack Obama had when he was running for president.
And he was talking to some folks on the street.
And there was this one particular guy who wanted to have his own plumbing business.
He was a plumber.
He wanted to have his own plumbing business.
And he confronted Barack Obama about his stance on taxing businesses so they can give it to other people.
And he says, hey, I'm going to have my own business one day.
Why are you wanting this kind of policy?
And Barack Obama says, well, I believe that things work better when you spread the wealth around.
And of course, he didn't say spread your wealth around.
He said spread the wealth around.
That way, it didn't sound as insulting and personal.
What he meant was, when I get your money and give it to somebody else, is what he meant.
Spread the wealth around.
And the socialists, they want to take the wealth and spread it around.
They want to disperse it to others.
And that's not good.
It's foolish.
In a wise man's case, however, they're wanting to spread around the true wealth.
And there is something that we should spread around and we should not keep to ourselves.
That's why a wise man's lips opens the gate.
Because there's some things that God gives to us that were meant to be given to others.
When you look in the book of Ephesians, it talks about gifts.
And it says, He gave some apostles, some prophets.
And it says some evangelists and some pastors and teachers.
So the gift of being a pastor is A spiritual gift.
And what do you do with gifts?
You give them away, don't you?
That's why they're called gifts.
When God gives a man a spiritual gift, it's not because he says, Oh, look here, I'm going to let you be a pastor.
I'm going to give this gift to you.
I'm going to give you the gift of being a pastor.
He's giving me a gift to give to you when someone is given the gift of singing.
It's God giving them a gift to give to you.
I thank God for the gift of service.
I really do.
And I told Brother Reese we had a compliment on the lawn Sunday.
Someone complimented it. and which I shared and passed on with Brother Reese.
And I assume you had a hand in the grass last week.
Yes.
Yeah.
And the person said, when Rhys does it, he does it right.
That's what he said.
When Reese does it, he does it right.
And so I passed a compliment on to him that I had heard from somebody else.
And, well, that's a gift of service.
And God gave that gift to Brother Reese to give to him to us.
And then other people came and benefited from it.
It encouraged their hearts.
And so the idea is that a wise man's lips have something beneficial to share.
That the wisdom that God gave that wise person was not given to them exclusively.
Does a person benefit from a gift that God gives them?
Absolutely.
Do I benefit from my own study?
Thank God.
Yes.
But that gift is given to others in a wise man when God gives a person wisdom?
That wisdom should not be held in that person's heart for them alone.
You know, in the Bible, when it comes to women, it says the elder women should teach the younger.
Why is that?
Because there's the assumption that a godly person who's lived as a Christian for a number of years has grown in grace.
And so they should be able to take that wisdom that they've acquired from God and pass down to the younger women.
And that also would be included here tonight when it comes to the dispersion.
Because it says here that the lips of the wise, they do what?
They disperse what?
Look back in your text.
Knowledge.
Knowledge.
And that's why, you know, I've told my wife, I've told Brother Shepherd Sunday, we've had a lot of people come and go as visitors here in this church over the years.
They'll pop in, we'll introduce ourselves.
Majority never come back.
Some stay.
I thank God for those who do.
Majority.
Never come back.
Had someone come in recently that said, oh, I just love this building, you know.
And I said, well, thank you.
And I walked away thinking, I hope that person loves God's word as much as the building.
You know, because I'd rather sit in an old building with windows open and no air conditioning.
And hear God's word faithfully taught and learn it and sit in a beautiful building with air conditioning and all the lights and show and all going on and not being fed God's word.
So it's knowledge that God Gives a wise person, and it's knowledge that God wants that wise person to give.
All the gifts are of God, by the way.
Are given to us by knowledge.
There's not a single gift that God gives to us eternally, that is, except through knowledge.
That's why the tree that Adam and Eve were supposed to have eaten from And we're not supposed to have eaten from, they were both trees of knowledge.
The tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
It allowed Adam to choose.
The wrong kind of knowledge.
That knowledge brought death.
Had he eaten from the tree of life, it would have given him the right kind of knowledge, which would have brought Everlasting life.
The tree of the knowledge of good and evil gave Adam and Eve a knowledge of themselves.
They ate from the tree and knew that they were naked.
The tree of life would have given them the knowledge of God, allowing them to know God as their wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting Father. and Prince of Peace.
How does God give us His grace, His peace, and His everlasting life?
Through knowledge.
The knowledge of God and the Savior He sent.
2 Peter 1, verse 2 and 3.
2 Peter 1, 2 and 3.
Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God.
And of Jesus our Lord, according as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness.
Now, watch this.
He has given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness.
All things.
How?
Through the knowledge of Him that hath called us to glory in virtue.
Everything that we receive from God eternally, I know a lost person can be born and receive a heartbeat from God, but everything that we keep, Everything pertaining to life and godliness is given to us through knowledge.
And that's why it is so important for wise men to disperse that knowledge to To one another, to their fellow man.
Solomon said, Wise men won't only have the knowledge of God, but they're going to spread the knowledge of God.
They're going to disperse the knowledge of God.
And by the way, For that very reason, this is why it is one of the most gravest sins committed in the church.
The gravest sin is not two people having an adulterous relationship in the church building.
That's bad.
The gravest sin is not someone, and I know about that.
I don't know if y'all have ever experienced that in your church personally, but I've known about that.
A grave sin to come down here and take money out of the offering plate and take it home.
It's a grave sin to not give it when God's given it to you.
Still stealing either way.
Whether you're stealing what someone gave or stealing what God gave you and not putting it in.
It's all a sin.
But that's not the greatest sin committed in the church.
I'm going to tell you what I believe it is.
Of course, false teaching, but then it wouldn't be a true church.
But the greatest sin committed in a church, in my estimation, is when a pastor gets behind that pulpit, is given an audience who comes to listen.
And he fails to disperse knowledge to God's people.
Jesus said, feed my sheep.
Because it's knowledge that God uses to give unto men all things pertaining to life and godliness.
If you want to be a godly person, there's only one way to get it through knowledge.
If you want to have everlasting life, there's only one way to get it through knowledge.
So to stand up and give a show, to stand up and give a performance.
To stand up and to beat and stomp and get a bunch of people You know, all stirred up and not give knowledge is a grave offense to God.
I don't know if y'all have ever seen these videos of these Pentecostal churches, or maybe you've been to one.
Where they've got someone on the piano and they're going on that piano, and they've got someone on the drums, or maybe the guitar.
And they're just up there just dancing.
You know, I've seen them do that.
Just dancing and running up and down the pews and all.
Where's the knowledge at?
That's not knowledge.
That's emotion.
As I said to the class in the Genesis to Jesus the other day, it's all heat.
But it's no light.
There's no knowledge being dispersed.
And I watched a video this morning.
Early this morning.
I've been up since 2.
I had a 30-minute nap after that.
That's it.
I just couldn't go back to sleep.
But I watched a video.
In Africa, there is a man that they believe is Jesus Christ who's come back.
Have y'all seen that?
No?
They say one million people are following this fella.
He's got his own prophets, and they were introducing themselves on the film.
And it showed him, of course, he's dressed in the typical ancient Middle Eastern robes.
Because Jesus has to have a robe.
So he's dressed in this robe and he's walking around with this smile on his face.
I wonder if they've brought him a man sick of the palsy yet.
I doubt it.
And do you know what they were doing?
They believe this man is Jesus Christ, and they had a film of one of their services.
In their service, was the same as the Pentecostal services here.
They were being slain in the spirit where they fall down and do all that.
They were doing the hooping and all that stuff.
Same exact stuff.
And we know that was of the devil because that man's not Jesus.
So, any time that a pastor gets up and he doesn't disperse The knowledge of God, it is a grave offense to God.
The lips of the wise disperse knowledge, therefore, we can conclude that if a pastor gets up, does not disperse knowledge.
He is not wise.
You've got a fool leading the sheep.
I wrote knowing I'm saved so people could have the knowledge of salvation.
That's dispersing knowledge.
That's because knowledge is spread through the gospel message.
It gives the knowledge of Christ.
The only way it can be spread is if a wise person's lips are dis Dispersing the knowledge of the gospel.
Romans 10, verse 14: How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed?
And how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard?
And how shall they hear without a preacher?
Or another way of saying it, how shall they hear without a wise man's lips dispersing knowledge of God and the Savior he sent?
And the knowledge of God continues to be spread, not only through the gospel message, but through the deeper teachings of God's Word, like we're going through in the book of Daniel, like we're going through in the book of Job.
And the book of Proverbs.
Peter's second epistle, which we quoted from a few verses back, has a theme about the knowledge of God.
And what we're supposed to do with it, rather than fall from our own steadfastness in the knowledge of God.
2 Peter 3:18.
2 Peter 3. 18 says, but grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
To him be glory both now and forever.
Amen.
The only way to grow in the knowledge of God, again, is if a wise person spreads or disperses that knowledge to us.
Proverbs 11, verse 30.
Proverbs 11:30, the fruit of the righteous is a tree of life.
That means a righteous person.
Who is spreading the knowledge of God that becomes a tree of life?
For someone to pluck that knowledge from the wise person and eat it and then live forever through understanding about the Lord Jesus.
It says, the fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, and he that winneth souls is Wise.
How do you win souls?
By dispersing knowledge, the knowledge of God.
Solomon said: the lips of the wise disperse knowledge.
Look back in your text, but the heart of the foolish.
Now I want you to notice this is where it gets sad here, folks, and rather frustrating.
I want you to notice how the first part of this Proverbs deals with the lips the lips of the wise But notice how the second part of the proverb does not contrast the lips of the wise with the lips of the fool.
It contrasts the lips of the wise with the heart of the fool.
Why is that?
Well, the lips of the wise, when they're dispersing knowledge, do you know where the ultimate goal of putting that knowledge is at?
If I'm dispersing knowledge, I'm teaching God's word up here, ultimately, where do I want that knowledge to wind up at?
In a person's heart, not in their ears.
I want it to get to their ears, but if that doesn't get from their ears to here, it hasn't done that person any good at all.
Hearing it and not accepting the truth you've heard isn't going to do you any good.
And so it says, the heart of the foolish, when the lips of the wise disperse knowledge, it's being dispersed upon the hearts of men everywhere.
That's what the parable of the sower is all about.
What's the sower doing in the parable of the sower?
Jesus said, a sower went forth to sow.
And that seed, he said, he went to sow seed.
And he said, and some landed here, and some landed here, and some landed over here.
Some landed on a sidewalk, some landed on a road, some landed, you know, on rocks, and some landed in good soil.
In all of that different place where the seed landed represented different people's hearts.
How they all received the same gospel and all had a different response to it.
Basically, everybody rejected it except for the heart. that was prepared to receive the seed.
They just went a different way of rejecting it, but they all rejected it.
And that the rest weren't wise enough to accept it.
Wise lips can disperse knowledge to foolish.
Hearts, but the heart of the foolish, look back in the text, doeth not so.
Doeth not so.
In the Hebrew, this literally means doesn't do right.
If you'll notice in your King James, you'll have some words in italics there.
You see that?
That's because the translator's trying to supply that.
I don't believe that translation is correct.
When you look in the Hebrew, it's well it could be correct if you interpret it this way.
When you look in the Hebrew, it's talking about that person's heart.
Basically, not responding the right way.
So, the lips of the wise they tossed the baseball.
The heart of the foolish won't catch it.
Make sense?
They just won't catch it.
They doeth not so.
So underscore the word foolish.
The Hebrew word translated foolish here, it means fat.
It means fat.
If you were to look this up in a literal translation, you'd probably see the word fat.
It doesn't mean the more you weigh, the more foolish you are.
It's not talking about that.
The heart of the fat, instead of the heart of the foolish, think of it that way.
The heart of the fat.
Does not receive knowledge from the lips of the wise, that's what it's saying.
Why can't a fat heart Receive knowledge.
It's because the fat covers the heart and won't let the knowledge in.
So you think about a person's heart, and we know that the pump doesn't receive doesn't receive knowledge, it pumps blood.
The heart is talking about the innermost part of a man, the heart of a man, not the pump of the man, but the innermost part.
The the innermost man Where that truth is trying to reach, his heart or his inner person is like it's a heart covered with fat.
It's completely sealed off with a layer of fat, and the truth can't get into it.
Like the stone that the seed landed on that kept it from reaching the soil underneath in the parable of the sower.
See?
There was something there blocking the seed from getting in.
And so that's what a fat heart is.
It's like their heart's enclosed with a barrier of fat, the truth can't penetrate it.
Speaking of proud people.
Who won't hear God's word?
The Bible says in Psalms 119, verse 70, Psalm 119, verse 70: their heart is as fat as grease.
But I delight in thy law.
See the difference?
So you have one person, the psalmist, that says, I delight in your law.
I want your law in my heart.
My heart loves your word, God, but their heart is fat like grace.
It doesn't delight in your word.
It has no place.
It won't let your word in.
Sometimes the Bible would call them maybe hard-hearted.
Speaking of people that God has determined to judge for rejecting his word, he told this to Isaiah, Isaiah 6.
10.
Make the heart of this people fat.
See how that works?
Make their heart fat.
And make their ears heavy.
You know what a heavy ear is?
You ever seen someone talking to you and they just won't quit talking?
Someone was talking to me the other day, and I was praying, Lord, help me to be able to leave.
They wouldn't stop talking.
And you feel like your ears just melting off, just coming off of you.
So you can't hardly keep it up anymore.
He says, make their ears heavy.
Shut their eyes, he says.
Lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart And convert and be healed.
So, a fat heart, because he said, make the heart of this people fat, a fat heart won't understand.
Closed eyes won't see.
Heavy ears won't hear.
The whole point being.
Ears that are heavy and weighted down and won't perk up to they're heavy and weighted down, they won't perk up They won't hear.
They're like closed eyelids.
Eyes that are closed, they won't see.
A heart that is fat, it won't understand.
It won't accept the truth.
It won't let it in.
It's like closed eyes, it refuses the light.
It's like closed ears, heavy ears, it refuses the sound.
So a heart that's fat is the same as eyes that are shut.
The lips of the wise shine the light, but the fat heart won't open its eyes to see.
And this explains why some people, when they are shown the truth in undeniable terms, You explain it, you tell it passionately, you tell it clearly, so that any honest listener Would be able to agree.
But once you communicate it to them in undeniable terms, they still will not receive it.
It's because they're fat-hearted people.
They just won't open the heart to let the truth in.
And with that, we'll go ahead and stop.
And Lord willing, we'll take back up in the next proverb next week.
And I hope that this will do two things.
Number one, encourage you to get all the knowledge of God you can.
To share all the knowledge of God you can.
And then lastly, to understand when someone does not receive the knowledge you give them.
It's not always because you don't explain it right.
It's not because you're not trying hard enough or you haven't prayed hard enough.
Sometimes it's just because you're speaking to a fat heart.
Father, we thank you so much for your precious word.
Lord, we pray for the fat-hearted people we know tonight.
And I believe everybody here knows someone.
And Lord, we pray for them tonight that you'll melt that fat off their hearts and make their hearts tender.
Remove the stones so the seed can enter in.
We ask in Jesus' wonderful name.
Amen.
