Scientists tell us that there are, there's more bacteria per square inch on the backs of our tongue than any other place in the human body. That's why hygienists will tell you when you brush your teeth, don't forget to brush your tongue, because that's where the germs are. Well, I'm not here to really tell you about oral care. As much as I'm here to tell you about verbal care. Because your tongue, your mouth, a metaphor for the words that you speak, is one of the most dangerous parts about you. As a kid, you probably heard the saying, sticks and stones can break my bones, but words will never hurt me.
But chances are that as you grew up, you realize that isn't always true. Today on Connect with Skip Hyten, Skip explores the power of words and how you can use yours to give life and encouragement to others. But first, we want to share about an exciting opportunity you have to take your knowledge of God's Word even deeper. Calvary College partners with Veritas International University and Calvary Chapel University so you can earn an accredited undergraduate or graduate degree or simply increase your knowledge in biblical studies. The deadline to get your application in for the 2021 semester is December 4th. Find out more and apply today at calvaryabq.college. That's calvaryabq.college.
Now, we're in Psalms 140 and 141 as we dive into our study with Skip Hyzick. You know, your tongue is one of the most important parts of your body. It's small, but you depend on it.
And so do we. Because without your tongue, you wouldn't be able to speak and we wouldn't be able to know what you're thinking. Without your tongue, you wouldn't be able to sing. I know for some that may be a plus.
But for most, it wouldn't be. Without your tongue, you wouldn't be able to whistle. Without your tongue, you wouldn't be able to eat because it is your tongue that directs the food in your mouth toward the throat enabling you to swallow it. Without your tongue, you wouldn't be able to taste anything.
Those taste buds between 3,000 and 10,000 receptors are on the top and the bottom of your tongue. At the same time, your mouth and especially your tongue is one of the dirtiest parts about you. Scientists tell us that there's more bacteria per square inch on the backs of our tongue than any other place in the human body. That's why a hygienist will tell you when you brush your teeth, don't forget to brush your tongue because that's where the germs are. Well, I'm not here to really tell you about oral care as much as I'm here to tell you about verbal care. Because your tongue, your mouth, a metaphor for the words that you speak is one of the most dangerous parts about you.
You know that James chapter 3 talks about this. He writes, The tongue is a small thing, but what an enormous damage it can do. A tiny spark can set a great forest on fire, and the tongue is a flame of fire. It is full of wickedness that can ruin your whole life. It can turn the entire course of your life into a blazing flame of destruction. For it is set on fire by hell itself. People can tame all kinds of animals and birds and reptiles and fish, but no one can tame the tongue.
It is an uncontrollable evil full of deadly poison. In Proverbs 18, Solomon went so far as to say death and life are in the power of the tongue. Think of the power of a doctor's words who could say to a patient, you have a clean bill of health or you have six months to live. Powerful words.
Think of the words of a judge who could say to somebody in the courtroom, you're free to go or 20 years in the state penitentiary. Very, very powerful words. Maybe you can relate to this prayer. Dear Lord, so far today I've done okay. I've kept my mouth shut. I haven't gossiped. I haven't lost my temper.
I haven't been grumpy, nasty, selfish, or overindulgent. I'm really glad about that. But in a few minutes, Lord, I'm going to get out of bed. And from then on, I'm probably going to need a lot more help.
Amen. Psalm 140 and Psalm 141 are companion Psalms. They relate to each other. Both deal with the subject of words, of speech. In fact, Hebrew scholars tell us that nearly every verse in Psalm 141 contain words from Psalm 140. So we read these Psalms together because we believe they're companion Psalms.
But let me tell you the difference between the two. Psalm 140 is what's called an imprecatory Psalm. I know that's just a big word, but let me tell you what imprecatory means.
An imprecation is a call for vengeance or payback. So an imprecatory Psalm is a prayer where David, who is verbally attacked by enemies that surround him, asks God for payback. That's an imprecatory Psalm. When we get to Psalm 141, that's a different kind. That's an imploratory Psalm.
That is where David, recognizing he himself has a problem with his own speech, asks God for help with it. It's estimated that the average man or woman will open his or her mouth 700 times per day to speak. That's not how many words you speak. You'll speak between seven and 20,000 words, but you will open your mouth about 700 times to speak.
So we have 700 opportunities every day to get it right or to blow it badly. So with that in mind, let's read these two Psalms and then I'll give you the principles that are in it. Psalm 140 begins, Deliver me, O LORD, from evil men. Preserve me from violent men who plan evil things in their hearts. They continually gather together for war. They sharpen their tongues like a serpent.
The poison of asps is under their lips. Keep me, O LORD, from the hands of the wicked. Preserve me from the violent men who have purposed to make my steps stumble. The proud have hidden a snare for me and cords.
They have spread a net by the wayside. They have set traps for me. I said to the LORD, You are my God, hear the voice of my supplications, O LORD. O God, the LORD, the strength of my salvation, You have covered my head in the day of battle. Do not grant, O LORD, the desires of the wicked. Do not further the wicked scheme, lest they be exalted. As for the hand of those who surround me, let the evil of their lips cover them.
Let burning coals fall upon them. Let them be cast into deep pits, that they rise not up again. Let not a slanderer be established in the earth.
Let evil hunt the violent man to overthrow him. I know that the LORD will maintain the cause of the afflicted and justice for the poor. Surely the righteous shall give thanks to Your name, the upright shall dwell in Your presence. LORD, I cry out to You, make haste to me, give ear to my voice when I cry to You. Let my prayer be set before You as incense, the lifting of my hands as the evening sacrifice. Set a guard, O LORD, over my mouth.
Keep watch over the door of my lips. Do not incline my heart to any evil thing, to practice wicked works with men who work iniquity. And do not let me eat of their delicacies. Let the righteous strike me, and it shall be a kindness.
And let him rebuke me, it shall be as excellent oil. Let my head not refuse it, for still my prayer is against the deeds of the wicked. Their judges are overthrown by the sides of the cliff, and they hear my words, for they are sweet.
Our bones are scattered at the mouth of the grave, as when one plows and breaks up the earth. But my eyes are upon You, O God the LORD. In You I take refuge. Do not leave my soul destitute. Keep me from the snares they have laid for me, and from the traps of the workers of iniquity. Let the wicked fall in their own nets, while I escape safely." Using these two psalms, let me give you what I believe are three guidelines that come from both of these psalms, three guidelines on using your words, using your speech.
Here are the guidelines. Some words are hurtful, other words are helpful, all words are consequential. If you're taking notes, you want to write those three things down. Some words are hurtful, other words are helpful, all words are consequential. And that will form our outline as we go through these two psalms.
Consider the first. Consider hurtful words. Some words are hurtful, and there's three types of hurtful speech that are identified by David. First of all, sharp words.
Sharp words. In verse 3 of Psalm 140, David writes, they sharpen their tongues like a serpent. The poison of asps is under their lips. What a descriptive set of words describing sharp words.
Now, an asp is an Egyptian snake. It's one of the most dangerous, venomous on the planet. The victim after bitten has four minutes before he or she dies. So it's a very, very descriptive set of words. Now, there are some people that, when you have a conversation with them, they just know how to inject venom into it.
It might not be a direct assault. It might be a backhanded, passive-aggressive, sharp word that they just love to inject conversation after conversation. And those are the kinds of words that will destroy friendship and erode trust. Maybe you work with somebody who has a sharp tongue. Maybe you live with someone who has a sharp tongue.
No nudging, please. Or maybe you are someone who has a sharp tongue. Maybe that is the chief problem of your life. In fact, I will say the closer you are to a person, the greater is the capacity for mutual pain. Because the closer you are to a person, the more you know that person. You know what they like, you know what they hate, you know what words will cause them to get upset, so you know what buttons to push and you know when to do it.
So the closer you are to a person, the more capacity you have for mutual pain. I read an article about a 12-year-old girl in Florida just last year who went to an abandoned cement factory in Florida and jumped to her death. She committed suicide.
When you hear that a 12-year-old commits suicide, you wonder what caused that. Did she have trouble at home? Come to find out, she had a great home life. Her parents loved her, they were together, there were no issues between them. You wonder was it that she was experiencing bad grades at school? No, her grades were pretty good. Was she facing some physical disease?
No, there were no health issues. As they dug, they found out that she had been getting Facebook messages from so-called friends, those who were close around her in school, but all of the messages sent were death wishes. Till they finally said on her Facebook, are you even still alive?
You should be dead. And it happened so frequently that she took her life. In Proverbs 12, Solomon says, there is one who speaks like the piercings of a sword. Did you know that snails have tongues with teeth on them?
One scientist discovered under his microscope as he unraveled it, 30,000 little, talk about a sharp tongue, seriously, a snail, it's like a little secret weapon, it's rolled up in its mouth, but he can pull it out and saw through stems and leaves and debris. Some folks have a sharp tongue, they keep it rolled up, ready to unravel at just the right time and drop just the right balm into a conversation. Sharp words are hurtful. A second category is mentioned in our Psalm, not sharp words, but spiteful words.
Go down to verse 9 of Psalm 140. As for the head of those who surround me, now notice this phrase, let the evil of their lips cover them. Here the word evil or evil of their lips is malicious or spiteful or threatening words. That's how it's generally seen or translated.
However, the Hebrew word amal, for evil, literally means troublesome, filled with anxiety, laborious, toilsome, or having a wearing effect. There are some words you get exposed to and they have a wearying, toilsome effect. Think of the vulgarity and profanity. That just, you hear it so often, it just, I hope it wears on you.
It grates at you. In fact, it's everywhere, so much so that everybody says, oh well that's just normal nowadays. I don't think there's any form of media entertainment where vulgarity isn't the norm anymore. And virtually every workplace in America, it has become the norm. A Time magazine article states, profanity on broadcast television has risen 70% in the last five years. Now if that isn't shocking to you, this should be, because this is the purpose of the article that I'm quoting. Time magazine said this, children exposed to swear words on television will become more physically aggressive.
The aggressive speech, usually accompanied by aggression seen on the screen, will translate, according to the experts quoted in this Time magazine article, into physically aggressive behavior. Now when I was a boy, and if I ever said a bad word, my mom had a solution for it. I hear it, that's right, she would take a bar of soap, take me over to the sink and shove that bar of soap into my mouth, let me taste it, and then she'd wash it out with soap.
And I thought, what's the purpose of that? You know, I've got to clean up your speech, I'm going to wash your mouth out with soap. I never will forget that. To this day, if I'm in the shower and I taste a little bit of soap, my mind goes back to those traumatic experiences of my childhood.
Here's what's ironic. What I was having my mouth washed out for back then is what's on prime time today. In 1946, and I know that goes back a ways, but just follow me here. In 1946 a movie came out, still is played every single Christmas. It's a Christmas classic with Jimmy Stewart, what's the name of it? It's A Wonderful Life. It's a great film, right? It's a feel-good movie. And in this movie, Jimmy Stewart is the actor. You have to be really old to even laugh at that.
Because everybody else is going, I don't get it, who is this Jimmy Stewart guy? Okay, so in this movie, 1946, It's A Wonderful Life, the original screenplay, when the movie was produced, there were certain words in the movie that had to be deleted because they said people can't listen to these words. It is not appropriate, it is unacceptable for the viewing audience to have these words in entertainment. I want you to know what those words were that were deleted.
These words, jerk. Jerk, deleted from the movie, inappropriate for audiences. Lousy, deleted. Dang, taken out.
Impetent, removed. And garlic eaters, taken away from the film. Garlic eaters is offensive to me. I'm censored.
We've come a long way. Spiteful words. Look at a third category in our Psalms. Slanderous words. Go down to verse 11 of Psalm 140. Verse 11, let not a slanderer be established in the earth, David prays. A slanderer is a tail bearer. It describes somebody who roams around looking for a person to tell something to. I have a tale to tell. Will you listen?
Here's the description. I am more deadly than the screaming shell of a cannon. I win without killing. I tear down homes. I break hearts, wreck lives. I travel on the wings of the wind. No innocence is strong enough to intimidate me.
No purity is pure enough to daunt me. I have no regard for truth, no respect for justice, no mercy for the defenseless. My victims are as numerous as the sands of the sea and often as innocent. I never forget and I seldom forgive. My name is gossip.
Solomon wrote in Proverbs 18, the words of a gossip are like choice morsels. Now just picture that. You sit down to a nice meal. Your stomach is churning because you're hungry. You smell the food. Now you take your first bite. You take and you go, mmm.
Why? Because it's a choice morsel. And there are folks who when they hear gossip, it's like, mmm.
Yeah, tell me a little bit more. And there are some who feel that way in telling those kinds of things. Which shows us the problem of gossip. It's not just in the telling of it.
It's in the hearing of it. There wouldn't be so many open mouths if there weren't so many open ears who go, mmm, tasty morsels to receive it. Now have you ever experienced this? Somebody you know, you haven't seen maybe for a couple weeks, then you see them again, but suddenly they appear to you to be very different. They're kind of cold towards you. Their attitude towards you is like aloof and cold and standoffish.
And it's as if the winds of the relationship has shifted and you wonder, what's up? I can almost guarantee you they've heard something. They've been listening to someone say something that causes that response whenever they see you. So, let me suggest that before you entertain the hearing of a bad report about somebody else, that you ask five questions.
Question number one, ask the person this, why are you giving me this information? Why are you telling this to me? I can almost guarantee they're telling you that because they feel, they believe, you will be a sympathetic ear.
That you will go, mmm, tasty morsel. They don't think you're going to confront them and say, hey, wait a minute, let me challenge you on this. They think you're a sympathetic ear. So ask them, why are you telling me this? Question number two, where did you get your information?
Ask them that. Where did you get your, identify your sources. Well, these are really credible sources, but they don't want to be named.
Then don't tell me. If you can't identify your sources, don't bring it up. Third question to ask, have you gone directly to those involved? How few people do this, but how biblical that is to do.
Matthew 18, you go directly to the person. Question number four, have you personally checked out all the facts? Because you know the thing about facts is facts are often offset by another set of facts. And you might have bits of the truth, but do you have all, are you sure you have all the facts here? The Bible says a fool answers a matter before he hears it.
And the fifth question to ask is my favorite question of all. Can I quote you on this? Oh, no, no, no, I don't want to be involved. You are involved.
You just got involved and you got me involved in it. Can I quote, but I'll ask them, can I have your permission? Can I quote you on this?
If they're responsible and mature, they will say, yes, you can. That's Skip Hitek with a message from the series playlist. Right now, we want to share about an exciting resource that lays a solid foundation of God's truth in your life. A recent study from the Cultural Research Center found that Christians are almost just as likely to reject the idea of absolute moral truth as they are to accept it. For American adults, belief in absolute moral truth is eroding across all age groups and political ideologies, whether they're churched or unchurched. What that means is that over 75% of Christ followers, or those who purport to be Christ followers, are saying that nothing can be known for certain. There is no absolute truth.
What about you? We want to help you understand the nature of truth so you can pursue God's truth and apply it in your life with two brand new booklets by Pastor Skip, Why Truth Matters and God in Suicide. If you fall into that category, what do you do with the claims of Christ? Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. These booklets are our thanks for your gift of $35 or more today to help keep this ministry on the air, connecting more people to God's word. To give, call 800-922-1888, or give online securely at connectwithskip.com slash offer. Many people are searching for happiness, but they can't find it in the world.
True happiness is found only in Christ. That's why we're committed to sharing solid Bible teachings that encourage listeners like you in your pursuit of God. And through your gift today, you can help connect others to the Lord and keep these messages you love on the air. Call right now to give, 800-922-1888. That's 800-922-1888. Or visit connectwithskip.com slash donate.
That's connectwithskip.com slash donate. Thank you. Tune in tomorrow as Skip Heitzig shares more helpful guidance on using your words for good. God can handle your gnarly prayers. So be honest and get it out.
And I look at it like this. Honest prayer is better than dishonest piety. Make a connection. Make a connection at the foot of the cross. Cast all burdens on His word. Make a connection. Connection. Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.
