Pearls, Pigs, Prayers, and People, Part 1

We've often heard it said that words have the unusual capacity to harm or to heal. Words inflict damage or they accelerate recovery.

And all of us know what it's like to be on the receiving end of either extreme. When we're suffering, there's nothing like a compassionate friend who brings words of hope. Today on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindoll continues our study about Jesus' renowned Sermon on the Mount. And in particular, we'll be looking at a section that underscores the astonishing power of words. Chuck titled today's message, Pearls, Pigs, Prayers, and People. Turn, please, to Matthew chapter 7. Matthew 7. We're going through Matthew together, and we have come these last number of weeks to the Sermon on the Mount, which is chapters 5, 6, and 7, covered so well through the Gospel by Matthew. And we're moving toward the end of that Sermon, and we've come to verses 6 through 12 on this seventh chapter of Matthew. Matthew 7, verse 6. Do not give what is holy to dogs, and do not throw your pearls before swine, or they will trample them under their feet and turn and tear you to pieces. Ask, and it will be given to you.

Seek, and you will find. Knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks, it will be opened. Or what man is there among you who, when his son asks for a loaf, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, he will not give him a snake, will he?

If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask him? In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the law and the prophets. You're listening to Insight for Living.

To study the book of Matthew with Chuck Swindoll, be sure to download his Searching the Scripture studies by going to insightworld.org slash studies. And now the message from Chuck titled Pearls, Pigs, Prayers, and People. Have you thought lately about the significance of words? How about the significance of one word? Sometime one word can make the hair on the back of your neck stand up.

Sometime it'll make your spirit soar. Other times, one word, oh, it'll just drop your emotions, it seems, all the way to the bottom. Just one word. Let's think for the next few moments about the power of one word in certain situations. You're sitting in your oncologist's office waiting for the results of the biopsy. She walks in, sits down, smiles, and you hear the word benign.

Oh, she says other things, but that's the word you hear. And you will remember it for months, perhaps for years to come, benign. You're standing in a courtroom, it's been a lengthy, lengthy trial. You've been the one on trial.

The foreman of the jury stands and you wait for the word and you hear it, innocent. How great is that word at that moment? What a relief it brings. Following a bloody war, you're an exhausted soldier. And war travels across the landscape, word travels across the landscape, and you hear it for the first time, word from the enemy, surrender. How great is that word?

Here's another. You're a recent graduate from senior high school. You've had your heart set on a university. You go to the mailbox, you pull out the envelope. In the corner of the envelope is the name of the school. You tear open the envelope, you open the page, and you read the word accepted.

You don't read much else, but you read that word accepted. What a moment. What a great word. You've been married for a number of years and your prayers have continued for a baby. You long to have your own little baby. You're at the office, your wife calls, you hear the word pregnant.

It never sounded better. Or you may have ten kids and she calls to say not pregnant. How great is not in a moment like that? Just one little word. You love baseball and you're sliding into home full speed. It's the last of the ninth and the score is tied. And you slide across the plate and in the cloud of dust you hear safe. Oh, isn't that better than out?

Safe. Solomon writes, words fitly spoken are like apples of gold in pictures of silver. As an earring of gold and an ornament of fine gold, so is a wise reprover on an obedient ear. Solomon had at his disposal a vast vocabulary. The sacred text says he's the wisest man who ever lived. And he says a word fitly spoken.

Look at the picture, like apples of gold in settings of silver. Through the Old Testament we come across words, words that mean so much. The serpent deceived me and I ate, said Eve.

Just a word, I ate it. I yielded to the tempte and from that moment on sin entered into the world and death by sin. And through that death, through that sin, all have sinned.

One word. God spoke to Abraham and said take now your son, your only son, up on the altar and sacrifice him. You and I cannot imagine our son were to take up a mountain and build an altar, place our son on the altar and sacrifice him.

One word changes everything. When you get into the New Testament we read of a good news of great joy. It was born to you in this day in the city of David, what, a Savior.

Long awaited, waited prophecy, predictions one after another, Messiah, Messiah's coming and he says he's calm. The Savior. Paul writes, for by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves.

It's a gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. Grace, faith, saved. Powerful, great words. It was Mark Twain who wrote the difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and lightning bug.

Isn't that good? Just a word. J.B. Phillips, one of the early ones to write a paraphrase of the scriptures, words are to enter another's heart and bear fruit.

They must be the right words shaped cunningly to pass the defenses and then explode silently within another's mind. Had that happen? I've had that happen so many times. I remember sitting in a classroom at the feet of some of the finest teachers in the scriptures that was alive at the time. And I remember hearing a man or a scholar here or there say something that just grabbed me. To this day, I can give you the very words they spoke. We were in a classroom and we were dealing with justification. And all my life, Christian life, I'd been told, well, it really means just as if I'd never sinned, justified. And he said it means so much more. It's the sovereign act of God whereby he declares righteous the believing sinner while we're still in a sinning state. Those words just poured out of it.

I'll never forget them. I wrote them in my notes and committed them to memory and have quoted them for over 50 years. The sovereign act of God where he declares this sinner righteous while I'm still in a sinning state. Not a magnificent definition. Words. Words.

I forgot a word earlier I should have mentioned. You're driving too fast. A car behind you has flashing lights. You're pulled over.

A very well-dressed man in uniform walks up. Hello. Asked for your driver's license. You fumbled around to find your driver's license. And he looks at it, doesn't write anything down, and he uses the word warning.

How good is that word? I'm going to give you a warning. Today I'm going to give you a warning.

I want to warn you, at least to begin with, about dogs and pigs and pearls and treasures. They're found right here in this sixth verse of Matthew 7 where we're told not to do something. Now, remember the first five verses in this chapter Jesus was telling his listener and indirectly telling us, don't judge. In other words, don't be judgmental.

Don't have a negative mentality toward all people. Lose this suspicious spirit. Don't operate your life like that. We were in that again and again in that previous message. And he warns us about living like that. And then he comes to something here that's altogether different. Here he talks about when you're in a situation where you really need to discern something, in the right sense you have to judge your audience. You've got to pay attention to the people or the person you're talking to.

Look at what he says. Do not give what is holy to dogs. Do not throw your pearls before swine. Let's stop there because I know as soon as I read those words you're thinking of your little dog. The little one that wags his little tail when you walk in and jumps up on your lap.

All over you. They're little puppies. They pee all over you. You got them in your arms. You know, they're just adorable. I've said to people, if they stayed puppies, we'd have 15 of them in our home. But they all grew up to be dogs.

So we don't have a dog. I like them when they're little puppies. This is not a cute little cuddly pet. These are wild dogs. The dogs in Jesus' day ran in packs. They were not only dangerous, they were diseased. You had to watch yourself when you were out and there were dogs, packs of dogs nearby.

Because they would attack. What a word to use. But he's not referring to dogs as literal dogs. But people with dog-like natures. Those who resist to the point of attack.

In other words, they're hostile against the truth of the Gospel. So be careful. Don't just indiscriminately give the treasure that which is holy and try to force-feed dogs.

And then he goes to the next illustration. Don't throw the pearls before swine. Now, I understand some people have pot-bellied pig pets. Sorry. Can't figure that one out. I've seen pictures of it.

Don't invite me if you have one. These are not cute little pot-bellied pigs that you wash up and put a ribbon on. These are filthy swine that live belly deep in slop. And remember, his audience is Jewish. You and I, for the most part, I would imagine our listening audience right now here would be mainly Gentile. There are a few Jews. And if you are Jewish, you know immediately where I'm going.

But Jesus uses a term that is alive with meaning. It is repulsive. It is disgusting.

It is inedible. No pork is found in a Jewish home. I'm probably the only tourist that when we all went to Israel and we were served scrambled eggs, I asked, yeah, where's the bacon? I only did that one time.

I got a scar back here. The chef made it clear there is no swine in any of our establishments. And now we've got hogs, swine being fed pearls. You feed swine at best acorns. And the swine of that day with long tusks and a mean-spirited nature would attack you if he found out that it wasn't acorns. These are pearls. Who cares about pearls? I'm hungry.

I want something to eat that I can enjoy. Now you get the picture? There's a principle in all of this I don't want you to miss. This has to do with discernment. So write down the principle. Discernment must temper our declaration. Discernment must temper our declaration. Don't give what is precious and treasured to someone who stiff arms you and says I'm not interested.

Please. I was sitting with a physician a number of years ago at another time in my life. I'd gotten to know him fairly well.

I didn't think he was a believer, and I'd never seen evidence of it. But he was helping with a member of our family, and I went to lunch with him. The more we talked, the more I began to think, I wondered if this would be a good moment to share the gospel, to do it carefully and simply. He's a brilliant man, and I said, may I share with you something?

He said, sure, of course. He knew what I did for a living, and I turned the napkin over. A little paper napkin, I drew a cliff over here on one side and a cliff over here on this side. I talked about we who are removed from the living God who is holy and righteous. There's this big chasm between us, but the Lord has built a bridge. I drew a cross to span the two cliffs so you could go across. I wrote in the name on the horizontal beam, Christ. I explained how one who is without Christ and sinful by nature can come to know God who is holy and righteous by coming across that chasm through the cross. He snatched the napkin out of my hand and waved it. Not in a million years could I believe nonsense like that. I was talking to him.

Here it is. One with a dog-like nature or a hog-like appetite. So don't make it a literal dog or hog.

He's talking about one who has a nature like that. Music minister of a former church, Howie Stevenson, used to have a cute saying, Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and it annoys the pig.

Never try to force feed a hog or a dog. You won't ingratiate yourself. You will become offensive. You'll be an annoyance. Saying more or talking louder or drawing another illustration will not make it better. Leave it.

Leave it. You discern that this is priceless information and you know this is time to be quiet. I like what Spurgeon wrote, Saints are not judges but saints are not simpletons either.

Be a student of your audience. I know you love to share Christ and I know many of you are very good at that, but when you sense a stiff arm, respect it. It's not the right time.

It's not the right place. I found also that by sharing the gospel graciously and clearly, briefly, it's like tossing a log on a frozen lake. It may lay there for months, but when the warm weather comes and the lake thaws, that log will sink in. I suppose but what that physician friend of mine one day came to a very, very tough place in his life where his hardness softened, where the frozen response thawed and he remembered something that was said. He remembers the simple little illustration.

So we've got it. Discernment must temper our declaration. Now look at the next several verses, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven. Obviously, this is about prayer.

You see it clearly in verse seven. In fact, you could easily memorize the verse because ask, seek, and knock. When you take the first letter of each of the three, you spell ask. Ask and it shall be given to you. Seek and you shall find. Knock and it shall be opened.

In fact, all three are present tense in the original language, but you can add keep on before every verb and ing at the end of each word. Keep on asking. Keep on seeking. Keep on knocking.

Meaning come to the Lord often. Come boldly. Don't be reluctant. Don't be hesitant.

Don't be shy. Come. Come again. If the situation intensifies, come with intensity. In fact, Paul himself prayed three times that the thorn would be removed from him, and he heard a no each time. He kept coming.

He kept coming. I've heard people say once you've told the Lord or asked the Lord for something you need, that's all you need to do. I don't read that here. I read keep on asking, keep on knocking, keep on seeking. So let me urge you to do that. Don't think that because an answer doesn't come that afternoon, the Lord is saying no. He may be saying, I want to know how sincere you are in this request. I want you to reveal how great is the need. So ask and it shall be given.

Seek. In fact, one of the Psalms says, 66, 18, if I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me. So I need to have a clean heart if I expect my prayer to be effective. At the same time, James says in James 5, 16, the effective fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. Often there's fervency in it, and it avails much.

It gets a lot accomplished. Don't be afraid to go to the Lord with energy. Lord, Lord, I plead with you about this. There's a sense of urgency in the repetition of ask and seek and knock. We're just midway through a message from Chuck Swindoll titled, Pearls, Pigs, Prayers, and People. Please keep listening because there's much more to learn from this surprising passage in Matthew chapter 7.

This is Insight for Living. And to learn more about this ministry, please visit us online at insightworld.org. If Chuck's series has ignited your curiosity and you're ready to learn more about Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, then I'll encourage you to purchase Chuck's book called, Simple Faith. This is one of the most highly requested books in his collection because it so clearly describes the timeless wisdom of Jesus on relevant issues such as forgiveness, prayer, confrontation, and dealing with hypocrisy. To purchase Chuck's book titled, Simple Faith, call us.

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Chuck Swindoll. For thousands of years, no place has been more meaningful to God's children than the land of Israel. The rugged landscape reminds us to find refuge in God alone. The fertile valleys invite us to follow our shepherd. Jerusalem's position at the very center of the world announces the good news of Christ to every nation. And now you can see Israel with Chuck Swindoll and Insight for Living Ministries March 6 through 17, 2022. Every time I visited the Holy Land, I've returned home with a refreshed heart for God and a renewed vision for the world.

Really, I mean it every time. And so I want you to have the same life-changing experience. To learn more, go to Insight.org slash events or call this number 1-888-447-0444. Insight for Living Ministries Tour to Israel is paid for and made possible by only those who choose to attend. Tomorrow Chuck Swindoll continues his message about pearls, pigs, prayers and people right here on Insight for Living. The preceding message, Pearls, Pigs, Prayers and People, was copyrighted in 2015 and 2021. And the sound recording was copyrighted in 2021 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. All rights are reserved worldwide. Duplication of copyrighted material for commercial use is strictly prohibited.