Now I want us to explore what
the book of Proverbs has to teach us about peace and anger. You mentioned the
other night how much you enjoy the book of James; if you enjoy James you’ll
enjoy Proverbs, for not only is James replete with practical instruction as is
Proverbs, but we’ll find an emphasis in Proverbs on the tongue and anger and
peace just as we do in James.
I’m going to start our
reflections in Proverbs Chapter Ten and see where our journey takes us – let’s
walk among these chapters and reflect on them, just as we would walk among the
trees in a forest and note their shapes and characteristics.
“The mouth of the righteous is
a fountain of life…” (10:11a).
“Where there are many words,
transgression is unavoidable, but he who restrains his lips is wise. The tongue
of the righteous is as choice silver, the heart of the wicked is worth little.
The lips of the righteous feed many…” (10:19 – 21a).
As we read this counsel, are
we reminded of James Chapter Three?
There is a connection between
the heart and the words we speak, a connection that Jesus speaks about in
Matthew 12:33 – 37: “Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the
tree bad and its fruit bad; for the tree is known by its fruit. You brood of
vipers, how can you, being evil, speak what is good? For the mouth speaks
out of that which fills the heart. The good man brings out of his good
treasure what is good; and the evil man brings out of his evil treasure what is
evil. But I tell you that every careless (useless, wasted) word that people
speak, they shall give an accounting for it in the day of judgement. For by your
words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”
Again, are we reminded of
James Chapter Three when hearing these words of Jesus?
Not everything that grows in
our vegetable garden at home are things that we planted; we are constantly
removing weeds from our garden. Not everything that grows in our hearts are
things which the Lord Jesus planted, there are weeds to be pulled daily, weeds
which our enemy and the world attempt to plant in our lives. If we allow weeds
to grow into fruit-bearing plants, the fruit they bear will poison our hearts
and consequently our speech, with the result that rather than our words being a
fountain of life to the people around us, they become the bitter water of which
James writes and the evil that Jesus speaks of. When we consider that we are
the sons and daughters of the living God, speech that is the result of poison
fruit is particularly egregious – because we are not living and speaking as who
we are in Christ, but rather like people who do not live in Him.
What does the writer mean by, “Where
there are many words, transgression is unavoidable, but he who restrains his
lips is wise”? When we talk without thinking, without considering whether our
words will bring edification and understanding to those around us, we will sin
against others and against God by putting ourselves at the center of the
universe – we will speak to satisfy ourselves; it can be to satisfy our anger,
our pride, to control others, to release tension and stress; but whatever the
reason, when we fail to submit our hearts and speech to our Lord Jesus and instead
engage in a torrential flow of words, we cannot help but at some point to
transgress because we make ourselves the reference point for all that we say…we
place ourselves on the throne.
“The lips of the righteous
feed many…” Jesus says that the words He speaks are spirit and life (John
6:63). Since Jesus says, “Even as the Father sent me, so send I you,” our words
should also be life and spirit. As Jesus feeds us with His words, we are to
feed others with the words we speak as we live in intimate relationship with
Jesus Christ.
While this has always been a
challenge to mankind, it is a particular challenge in this age of instant
communication. In the midst of communication bombardment it is all too easy to
allow fast-growing weeds to feed our speech and our writing – our minds cannot easily
process the volume of communication that many of us experience, we cannot
adequately reflect on what we hear and read; the result is that we send a
constant flow of verbal and written communication to others that is often not thought
out – its source is not considered, we feed others the fruit of poisonous weeds
rather than the fruit of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22-24). The popularity of
“rants” is just one indicator that our speech and thinking has regressed to the
infant stage.
How many people will our lips
feed today? What will we feed them? Will it be anger? Will it be peace?
"Blessed are the peacemakers
for they shall be called sons of God.”
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