Wholesome tongue and lips of the wise

Wholesome tongue and lips of the wise

(Verses 4 and 7 in Chapter 15 of Proverbs are clubbed together).

A wholesome tongue is a tree of life: but perverseness therein is a breach in the spirit (Proverbs 15:4).

Our tongue has to be wholesome, meaning health-giving, healthful, good, moral, ethical, nice, clean, virtuous, pure, innocent, chaste. The tongue reveals our character. Our tongue becomes wholesome when we are filled with the Holy Spirit or when the Holy Spirit indwells us. We do not know this truth even after accepting Jesus as our Saviour. There is Another Person living in your heart. When you open your mouth, you have to gently ask Him to speak for you. He gives you the utterance. You should have the consciousness of His presence in your heart.

Preachers of the Word speak God's messages from pulpits but when we meet them personally, they speak another language which emanates from their very life. What they preach from the pulpits is what they have learnt. What they speak in their routine at times appears to be perverse. This perverseness is a breach in the spirit as it reveals their true character which is different from the character of the One who indwells them. By their words, they honour the Holy Spirit but by their own lives, they suppress and humiliate the indwelling Holy Spirit.

The lips of the wise disperse knowledge: but the heart of the foolish doeth not so. (Proverbs 15:7)

If we become wise listening to the indwelling Holy Spirit, we should speak those words that disperse true knowledge which would edify those who hear us. True knowledge comes from our heart and not from our head. True knowledge is taught by the indwelling Holy Spirit who brings to our memory what we have experienced in our life. It is the Holy Spirit who gives us the utterance when we speak.

The foolish are those who do not feel the presence of the Holy Spirit in them. They put a bushel on the lamp and prevent it from giving light. In our churches, we are taught a false doctrine that when we pray, the Holy Spirit descends from the heaven; the Holy Spirit anoints a person when the pastor or a servant of God lays down his hands on our heads. The Holy Spirit who has already taken abode in our heart will not go up and then come down on us when a servant of God lays his hands upon our heads. There are thousands of Christians who become fools in the eyes of God when they suppress the Holy Spirit in them and look for Him elsewhere.

Next.....Fool despising instruction