Alan Wright, pastor, Bible teacher, and author of his latest book, The Power to Bless.
It's so important that in our home I would say how you speak about yourself and about others was probably the most important foundational teaching and the subject of our strictest discipline. That's Pastor Alan Wright. Welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life in a whole new light. I'm Daniel Britt, excited for you to hear the teaching today in the series, Foolproof, as presented at Reynolda Church in North Carolina. If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program, I want to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now. It can be yours for your donation this month to Alan Wright Ministries. So as you listen to today's message, go deeper if we're happy to send you today's special offer. Just contact us at PastorAlan.org, that's PastorAlan.org, or call 877-544-4860.
That's 877-544-4860. We'll have more on this special offer later in the program. But now, let's get started with today's teaching. Here is Alan Wright.
Okay, you ready for some good news? God has given you tools, for lack of a better word, that are so powerful and so valuable that they are, well, more valuable than precious gold and silver. Tools that if you learn to use in the way He's designed, will be strong enough to bring about change in the world, to build things, heal and restore things, and actually impart life. I'm talking about words. In our study of Proverbs, we come today to the largest theme in all of Proverbs. Over 90 of the Proverbs are about the power of words.
And we're going to look at a number of Proverbs, but I want to focus your attention on one of the most beautiful in Proverbs 25, verse 11, to just start us with this one verse, one proverb that will lead us into many, many more in much depth. A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver. A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver. A word, just a word that is given, speech that comes forth, is so valuable.
There is a YouTube video that has been viewed by nearly 30 million people and it is deserving of such for its impact. It depicts a man seated on some steps of a city building on a blanket with a tin can and a cardboard sign that reads, I'm blind, please help me. And in the video occasionally passersby will drop a little coin into his tin can. And then somewhere in the middle of the day, a well-dressed woman comes, first stands there in front of the man who reaches out his hands and feels her shoes. And she doesn't put any money in his tin can, but she picks up the cardboard sign, turns it around to the blank backside of it, takes a marker and writes something that we can't see, positions the new cardboard statement next to the blind man, and she goes on her way. Well, then the video depicts that following this throughout the rest of the afternoon, passerby after passerby, dozens and dozens and dozens began dropping money in her little tin can and business is booming. At the end of the day, the same attractive woman comes, stands in front of the blind man, he feels her shoes again and realizes that it is her and he says, what did you do to my sign? And she said, I just wrote the same thing in different words and she didn't leave any money and she went on her way. And the camera pans towards the little cardboard sign originally that read, I'm blind, please help me. And now we see what she had written on there.
It's a beautiful day and I can't see it. Proving the point that a word fitly spoken is more precious than you can imagine. In other words, a change of wording evoked a heart feeling and an imagery that changed everything about how people were viewing this blind man. And what I want to show you today is just how true it is that your words make that much difference.
And in doing so, I confess it's really a sermon series and I'm going to try to cram it into a sermon, but I just can't overemphasize how important this is. So I want to come at it from talking first in the broadest terms about the mystery of language itself, the mystery of this deep power of our words, and then look practically at what the Proverbs say about how important our mastery is of the tongue. And then importantly, I just want to show you the mercies of God to us that have come to us through Christ redemptively in order for our speech and our words to become completely different. This has been in my life one of the great paradigm shifts that I've experienced because I grew up, as you have, in a world that has a scientific model and that there are palpable and tangible things in this world and words are just, you know, words. And yet, I have experienced this and if you've not experienced this, I want to at least begin you down that road of seeing that words are not just these empty, meaningless things that we say, but this is something very deep and dear in the heart of God that He has put into our nature as a tool for literally shaping the world.
The Proverbs are just full of instruction about this, and it must be because it's God's heart, but underneath all of this, I'd like to start by saying, don't we all throughout history, all of humanity, somehow know that words have power. I'll never forget the day that our kindergartner, Bennett, came home from his Christian school and he was a little troubled and we said what was, what went on today and he reported that his kindergarten teacher had read a troubling story because it had a bad word in it. And we were like, oh my, a bad word in Christian kindergarten.
And so, we didn't know whether to ask him more or not, but we kept listening and finally he volunteered. He said, yes, it's a really bad word. He said, it's, you know, it started with an F. And we were looking at each other like, what? And we were very relieved and he added some clarification. He said, yep, she read a story and it had it in it, the word fat. We were like, that is bad, Bennett, that is bad. And to stay away from that word and the S word, you know, stupid.
We had to stay away from both of those. As a kindergartner, he was troubled. He realized as a five-year-old that there's a power in words that somehow the words really matter.
English author Edward Bulwer Lytton, who was the one who wrote, the pen is mightier than the sword. And I have sometimes, you know, moments where I look at what other people do vocationally and I know contractors that build houses and programmers that build computer programs and inventors and artists that build things and I realize so often my world is about words and there are days you go, well, you know, I wish there was something more tangible to this. But in the deeper sense, I realize that what I've been given and what all of us have been given is a real capacity to build something, but we build it with words.
When you speak out a word, in a sense, in that very act, there is something creative about it. I could describe right now something that you've never thought of. Perhaps a pink flamingo in a bright blue tuxedo riding a unicycle playing a trumpet. Now, unless you're very weird, you never previously thought of a pink flamingo in a bright blue tuxedo riding a unicycle playing a trumpet. But now you have. So in a real sense, I have brought a pink flamingo in a bright blue tuxedo riding a unicycle playing a trumpet into this room or at least into your mind.
In other words, with a sentence, I created something. That's Alan Wright and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. Ever feel like something's holding you back as if you lack an important key that could change everything?
Is there someone you love who seems stuck? You'd like to help them, but how? What's missing? Blessing. We all need a positive faith-filled vision spoken over our lives. You can learn how to embrace the biblical practice of blessing through Pastor Alan Wright's new book, The Power to Bless, which quickly became an Amazon number one bestseller after its recent release.
Until now, the hardcover book has only been available through retail sales. But this month, Alan Wright Ministries wants to send you the book as our thank you for your donation. When you give this month, you'll not only receive the bestselling book, but you'll also receive a free five-session video course in which Pastor Alan teaches how to bless and covers content not found in the book.
The video course includes a detailed study guide perfect for personal growth or small group discussion. Make your gift today and discover the power to bless. The Gospel is shared when you give to Alan Wright Ministries. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support. When you give today, we will send you today's special offer. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries. Call us at 877-544-4860. That's 877-544-4860.
Or come to our website, PastorAlan.org. Today's teaching now continues. Here once again is Alan Wright. Words are, yes, symbols, but some symbols are so closely aligned to the reality that it's almost impossible to differentiate between them. I don't think we're on a, I don't know what backs up our money anymore, but it used to be a gold standard. So it used to be a $20 bill was just a symbol of $20 worth of gold at Fort Knox. That piece of paper, the $20 bill in itself is just a piece of paper, not worth much at all.
Doesn't cost hardly anything to produce it, right? It's not that piece of paper that is valuable, it's what it represents. Maybe a better example, if somebody wrote you a personal check for $100, you wouldn't tear up the check. And say, well it's just a piece of paper, you can't do anything with a piece of paper. That personal check, it may not actually be the $100, but it is to you $100.
And so you deposit it. Words are like this. They are so powerful because they are so closely associated with the reality is to say that it touches upon that reality. That's the reason if someone were to utter a racial slur, we don't say, well it's just words and words don't mean anything. No, we disdain it because we agree that the word is a symbol of a thought and the thought is something generated by the heart, which is the core of a person.
And therefore, if you had the thought, the thought was real and your word is your thought and the thought is you, so your word is you. It's so important that in our home, I would say how you speak about yourself and about others was probably the most important foundational teaching and the subject of our strictest discipline. I remember one time when Bennett was young, just a little junior golfer, and this normally even-tempered, self-controlled little boy, like most people ever play golf, found it very difficult on the golf course when things started going badly to not speak ill of oneself. And you must understand that if your words are really important about others, they're very important about yourself and how you talk to yourself. And after he had made a couple bad shots and he was getting in a real bad mood and I could hear him, I'm walking along spectating, I could hear him, you know, saying things about how he stinks and how he can't make a putt and he can't this and all the can't, can't, can't.
And the parents not even supposed to interact with the kid, but I couldn't stand it. So I just walked alongside him. I started trying to correct him. And it's famous now in our family because I ended up saying to him, I said, you know, the problem is that you don't even need the devil.
I said, you don't need anybody to accuse you or put you down. You're doing it yourself. And somehow that got through to him. And he still reminds me of the day that I told him, you don't even need the devil. You're doing the job yourself. The power of our words.
I believe in it so strongly. This year at the Masters Par 3 tournament that they have on Wednesday before the official start of the famous golf tournament, Jack Nicklaus's grandson was caddying during the little Par 3. And at one of the golf holes, they let all the caddies hit a shot. And Jack Nicklaus's grandson hit a shot and made a hole in one.
It was all over the news. And what was more interesting about it was Jack Nicklaus had told his grandson the day before, I think you're going to make a hole in one. Now, you might say that's just a lucky coincidence of statements. You could say it's the power of suggestion.
He was just sort of encouraging him. Or could it be something even more? Could it be that even in a non-spiritual context like that, through just everyday speech, something's being shaped. Next weekend, I will, as I have done hundreds of times, officiate a wedding. And there will be two really important moments. A moment in which they exchange their vows. He will say to her, I take you to be my wife. And before God and these witnesses, I promise to be your loving and faithful husband. And plenty and in want. In joy and in sorrow.
And in sickness and in health. As long as we both shall live. And she'll say the same. And I'll have a moment in which I'll say you have shared your vows. And therefore, I proclaim you to be husband and wife. Now folks, you could put on a white dress and eat cake and have a big party and sleep together and not be married.
And you could stand in the middle of a cornfield with a couple witnesses and a pastor and speak some vows and be married. The words, think about this, the words enact the covenant. Words are a mystery of deepest power and importance.
So we should not be surprised that in the beginning, God said, let there be light. He created everything that exists by speaking. The thought was in his own mind, but the thought was expressed through speech.
And through the speech, it came into reality. In that sense, you could say God was in his word. His word is the essence of who he is. This is not magic the way sorcerers and witch doctors use incantations as if there are magic spells and formulas.
If you just repeat the words long enough, then the words themselves have power. No, what we see in God is that the words have power because they are God's own breath. They are so intimately connected with God that they are expressions of his deity and his creativity. And when he came to the pinnacle of creation, which is you, it's not a surprise then that the mark, one of the key marks of the pinnacle of his creation, a human being, is that the human being could speak. God said, let us make man in our own image after our own likeness. And so he created us in his image. And there are many ways that we're like God, but we are perhaps most like God in this we can speak. The Targum, one early Hebrew translation, rendered Genesis 2 verse 7, which normally reads, The Lord God formed the man of the dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature, or a living soul. But one very early translation that was written by Hebrew scholars render it, and man became a speaking soul because it is our capacity to speak that sets us apart from all of the animals. You know, there's some scientific research about the DNA coding of a particular gene that separates us from all the other animals, and it's a speech gene. It's extraordinary, really, if you think of it, and scientists are baffled and amazed by this, that human beings somehow are born into this world with a capacity to figure out by almost osmosis very complicated grammars in their native language and effortlessly store an unbelievably huge lexicon of words in their heads that come together to form speech, and any healthy child just is able to do this. Alan Wright, and I hope that we are communicating something helpful for you today in our teaching full-proof communication.
It's from the series Full Proof, and Alan is back with us in the studio as he shares his parting good news thought for the day in just a moment. Ever feel like something's holding you back? As if you lack an important key that could change everything?
Is there someone you love who seems stuck? You'd like to help them, but how? What's missing? Blessing. We all need a positive faith-filled vision spoken over our lives. You can learn how to embrace the biblical practice of blessing through Pastor Alan Wright's new book, The Power to Bless, which quickly became an Amazon number one bestseller after its recent release. Until now, the hardcover book has only been available through retail sales, but this month, Alan Wright Ministries wants to send you the book as our thank you for your donation. When you give this month, you'll not only receive the bestselling book, but you'll also receive a free five-session video course in which Pastor Alan teaches how to bless and covers content not found in the book.
The video course includes a detailed study guide perfect for personal growth or small group discussion. Make your gift today and discover the power to bless. The Gospel is shared when you give to Alan Wright Ministries. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support.
When you give today, we will send you today's special offer. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries. Call us at 877-544-4860. That's 877-544-4860.
Or come to our website, PastorAlan.org. Alan, we're back in the studio with our parting good news thought for the day. If this gives someone any reassurance, maybe it will. I've worked in the communication business for a long time, and it seems to always be our biggest problem. You would think we'd be the experts, but I think it goes to show that we all could use to brush up on communication skills. What we're learning from Proverbs is that this is one of the most prevalent themes throughout the entire book of Proverbs, the power of our words. It's something, I think, Daniel, that makes us like God. He created the world by speaking, and we are shaping the environment around us through our words.
It's amazing. So much good we're going to see that our words can do. Anxiety in a man's heart weighs him down, but a good word makes him glad, Proverbs 12. The lips of the righteous feed many, but fools die for lack of sense, Proverbs 10. Or one of my favorites, Proverbs 15. A soft answer turns away wrath, a harsh word stirs up anger. On and on it goes in the Proverbs. Our words are powerful tools to do good in this world. Let's use them. Today's good news message is a listener supported production of Allen Wright Ministries.
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