Are you a good Tree?

Matthew 12:33-37

Heart to Mouth!

Matthew 12:33-37, “Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or else make the tree bad and its fruit bad; for a tree is known by its fruit. 34 Brood of vipers! How can you, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. 35 A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things. 36 But I say to you that for every idle word men may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment. 37 For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”

The Pharisees had just thrown a dreadful and blasphemous accusation at Jesus. Jesus had mercifully cast a demon out of a blind and mute man that the man was healed and could now see and speak.

Those who saw it were astonished; and asked, “Could this be the Son of David?” But the Pharisees said, “This fellow does not cast out demons except by Beelzebub, the ruler of the demons” (Matthew 12:22-24). The religious leaders saw the power of the Holy Spirit demonstrated through the one who was being presented to them as the Son of God. Yet, their hearts were so hardened against Him that they attributed His power to cast out demons to the devil himself.

It is important to note that this wasn't the only time they said this about Him (Matthew 9:34). It was their habit to interpret His miracles in this way. They were persistently attributing His miracles to the power of the devil.

This wasn't because they merely misunderstood Him. It was because they hated Him and were resistant to the testimony of the Holy Spirit concerning Him. When they made this blasphemous accusation against Him, they were revealing the profoundly hardened condition of their hearts.

None of them would have dared to argue that the Lord did an evil thing in making a blind and mute man speak and see. But in spite of His good miracles, they so hated Him that they attributed His good miracles to an evil source.

After showing to them that it was impossible that He could have done these things in the power of the devil, He told them to make up their minds. Jesus has condemned them in V 31-32. He told them that that kind of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit could never be forgiven.

In other words, if you have all the revelation there is to see the miracles, heard His teachings, seen the quality of His life, His attitude, able to be exposed to everything there is about Him. Your conclusion is that He is from the Devil, you are unredeemable.

Because you have concluded the very opposite with the fullness of revelation. They were lost and they could never be saved. They were lost forever.

1. Parable. V 33, “Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or else make the tree bad and its fruit bad; for a tree is known by its fruit”. This is a statement of fact. That is a truism. You have a good tree you have good fruit.

You have a bad tree you have bad fruit. Because the tree and fruit must coincide. That is a simple parabolic truth. Jesus says that you cannot say that I am evil, and operate through satanic, if what I am doing is good. They recognized what He was doing as good because their own sons, according to V 27, were casting out demons.

They recognised that as a good thing, and of course they would. They represented God. Our Lord is saying, “How can you say, when I cast out demons which your own disciples also do, that I am evil, when you

acknowledge that that is a good thing to do. If that which I do is good, then the tree is good. But if I am evil, then doing that is evil. If doing that is evil, then your own disciples are doing evil. So, they were trapped.

They had to either say that what their own disciples were doing in their own casting out of demons which they may or may not have been doing. But claimed to have been doing was either good or evil. If they said it was good, then Jesus had to be good.

If they said it was evil, then they had to be evil. They had just reversed that by saying that they were good, and Jesus was evil. This simple parable is common to our Lord.

Matthew 7:17-18, Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit.

Matthew 7:20, Therefore by their fruits you will know them.

Luke 6:43-44 mentions the same. If a tree is good, its fruit is good. If its fruit is good, the tree is good. If it’s an evil tree, it must have evil fruit.

The quality of the fruit is the reflection of the tree that produced it. The fruit of the Lord’s ministry was good. They couldn’t deny that.

• They couldn’t deny that it was good to cast demons out of people.
• They could not deny that it was good to heal the sick, to give sight to the blind.
• They knew that disease was a result of sin.
• They were stuck with the fact that if Jesus did good things, He must be a good person. 2. Problem.

V 34, Brood of vipers! How can you, being evil, speak good things? The Pharisees were making an evaluation. But He challenged them.

They could not have declared an accurate or true evaluation of Him. They could, in no way, speak good things about our good Lord. The problem for them was that good things cannot be spoken by people who are fundamentally evil at heart.

He calls them “brood of vipers” The word translated “brood” or “generation” basically means “offspring” and this speaks both of their evil character and their evil source. They are “offspring of vipers”. Vipers who come from vipers!

It's the very name that John the Baptist had once called them.

Matthew 3:7, But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?

Now it might shock you, at first, to hear this as if our Lord were needlessly throwing out a cruel insult. But it was a carefully selected name chosen to reveal their true character.

The word that Jesus uses isn't the ordinarily word for “snake” or “serpent”. Rather, this is the word that refers specifically to a particularly deadly and poisonous snake. It was the word used to describe the kind of snake that attached itself to the apostle Paul's arm.

Acts 28:3, But when Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks and laid them on the fire, a viper came out because of the heat, and fastened on his hand. A viper is a name for a snake, and it had to do with a poisonous snake.

The Lord would have been well-acquainted with the many snakes in that land of Palestine. They ranged from very small to somewhat large vipers. Most of them were sort of small, and they were common in the desert. In fact, their colour even hid them.

Sometimes looked like.

• dead branches,
• the soil around,
• beneath rocks or trees,

• in the shade,
• in caves they would hide.

Man, unwarily would come near they would clamp their teeth into a man and sink them down in, pumping in their poison and clinging to the individual’s flesh. The regular word for snake would suggest the ideas of “cunning” and “subtleness”.

When Jesus told His disciples earlier.

Matthew 10:16, “Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. Therefore be wise as serpents and harmless[f] as doves.

But this particular word would suggest the idea of extreme danger and deadliness. Later on in this Gospel, Jesus would use both words to describe the Pharisees.

Matthew 23:33, “Serpents, brood of vipers! How can you escape the condemnation of hell?”. Here, when Jesus calls them “vipers”, He is highlighting their deadly and dangerous character.

In terms of their actions, Matthew 12:14 tells us that they were already meeting together to plot out how to kill the Lord. Jesus would point out that their teaching itself was dangerous.

Matthew 15:14, Let them alone. They are blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind leads the blind, both will fall into a ditch.”

Their doctrine is “leaven” that the disciples were to beware of them.

Matthew 16:6, Then Jesus said to them, “Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.”

Why did Jesus select vipers? Because they were perhaps the most dangerous creature in that part of the world. They were the subtlest to be sure, the most deceitful. They represent the Old Serpent the Devil and Satan, the original snake in Eden.

The one who is the father of these other vipers. They descended from the Devil himself. They were filled with the poison of

• deadly legalism,
• poison of self-righteousness,
• fatal hypocrisy,
• treachery and
• moral filth.

Intended to underscore the danger of what was coming out of their mouths at that time. Jesus was performing miracles before the people in the power of the Holy Spirit. Many of the people were beginning to believe on Him.

But the Pharisees, who were jealous of Him and had already committed themselves to killing Him. Dared to attribute His miracles to the devil in an effort to dissuade people from believing on Him. Yet, they themselves had the outward appearance of being holy and pious like poisonous snakes that look beautiful to the eye but are deceivingly deadly.

What darkness and wickedness of heart these words revealed to be in them? You would not have been able to tell by looking at the Pharisees. But you could tell by hearing what they said.

Paul spoke of the deep and hidden sinfulness in the hearts of men.

Romans 3:13, “Their throat is an open tomb; With their tongues they have practiced deceit”; “The poison of asps is under their lips”; Jesus not only refers to the Pharisees as “vipers”, but as the “brood of vipers”. They were vipers who came from a family of vipers! Jesus would later say to them;

Matthew 23:29-32, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Because you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous, and say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.’ Therefore you are witnesses against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers’ guilt”.

God had sent prophets to their fathers in the centuries past. These prophets came to tell them of the Messiah that God would later send them.

Yet here they were, the sons of those who killed the prophets, now about to kill the One of whom those prophets prophesied! They truly were a “brood of vipers”. All this was meant to show that these Pharisees said what they said about Jesus because they were evil at heart.

What came out of their mouths was simply drawn up from the well sin that was in them. Jesus says, “How can you, being evil, speak good things?” They could not speak anything else but evil. It was impossible for them to do otherwise.

Jeremiah 17:9-10, “The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it? 10 I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind, Even to give every man according to his ways, According to the fruit of his doings.

1 Samuel 24:13, As the proverb of the ancients says, ‘Wickedness proceeds from the wicked.’ But my hand shall not be against you.

3. Principle. V 34, “For out of the abundance [or “overflow”] of the heart the mouth speaks.” It is that the mouth cannot help but speak from what is in the heart. The lips reveal externally what the man is made of internally.

Matthew 15:18-20, But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile a man. 19 For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. 20 These are the things which defile a man, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a man.” So, the heart then is the thinking place.

The mouth can only produce what is in the heart. Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, all the rest, and finally, blasphemies. So, if you have blasphemy on your mouth, then you have blasphemy in your heart. That is Jesus’ indictment.

He said, “A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things...”

Deep in a man is a “treasure-store”—an inner “depository” it is filled with the things that he thinks about. The things that he treasures and values, The things that he fundamentally believes, hopes for, and loves. If he is a man who is right with God and is in His favour if he is a man indwelt and empowered by the Holy Spirit and is taught of God's word, then he is a good man who has a good treasure within.

The heart is full, and the mouth is the spill over. The mouth is the overflow valve to what is in the reservoir, so that when your heart overflows with thought and intent, your mouth is going to be the spill-out. A man’s character is known by his mouth.

Job 32:17-20, I also will answer my part, I too will declare my opinion. 18 For I am full of words; The spirit within me compels me. 19 Indeed my belly is like wine that has no vent; It is ready to burst like new wineskins. 20 I will speak, that I may find relief; I must open my lips and answer.

James 1:26, If anyone among you thinks he is religious, and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this one’s religion is useless.

James 3:8, But no man can tame the tongue. It is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.

When you get rattled and shaken deep within, what is it that comes spilling out? When you are in a time of trial and testing and pressure deep in my inner being, what comes out of you? To be sure, I am not perfect, and I am still growing.

But do you tend to 'count it all joy'when I fall into various trials knowing that the testing of my faith produces God's good work in my life.

James 1:2-4, My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, 3 knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. 4 But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.

When you feel the strain of temptation, do you find yourself calling out to God to help you to turn from temptation and sin?

Knowing that God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but will with the temptation make a way of escape that you might be able to bear it? (1 Corinthians 10:13) When someone does something evil to you or curses or persecutes or wrongfully uses you. Do you love your enemies, and bless them, and do good to them, and pray for them (Matthew 5:44)?

How about those times when I fail? How about those times when something comes out of my mouth that is sinful and wicked? That's bound to happen because you still struggle with the sin that's in you.

But what happens then?

Do I confess it to my Father? Do I accept my fault and admit my sin? Do I go back to those whom I have injured, or to those who saw my failure, and ask their forgiveness as well?

Do I seek to make things right? What I do AFTER I blow it reveals what's in my heart? Does what I do at those times reveal that what comes out of my mouth is being drawn from a fundamentally good treasure?

V 35, A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things. Obviously, you can only bring out what you have got inside. If you open a box, you are only going to take out of there what’s in it.

The only thing you can get out of that thing is what is in that thing. If you are an unbeliever and don’t know God, in you dwells no good thing. So, you can’t get any one out of there, because it’s not in there. When I think of my salvation, do I praise God for it?

Do I thank Him for His daily blessings?

Do I quote His word?

Do I encourage and edify others? Do I thank them for the ways God has used them in my life?

Do I seek to tell others about Him? Do I use my mouth for the high purposes of God's glory? Ask yourself: Does your mouth bring forth good things? Does that prove that they are drawn from the good treasure of your heart?

When you get rattled and shaken within, what comes pouring out? You can tell a tree by its fruit because good fruit only comes from a good tree. If someone were to walk along behind you and listen to your words, what kind of tree would you prove to be?

What kind of heart does your mouth reveal to be within you?

What kind of treasure is deep within? Story once about one of the early Methodist preachers during the English revival of the 1700's. His name was William Grimshaw and while he was a good pastor, he had some rather unusual ways of find out the spiritual condition of the people in his church.

One day, he was visiting a family from the church, and he wanted to know how the spiritual condition of the old, blind grandmother of the family. She boasted that she was a good Christian, but he had reasons to suspected that she was just pretending in order to please him.

So, after the grandmother thought he left, he sneaked into the room and began to poke her gently with a cane. Thinking that

it was one of the children in the family, she snapped in anger, and let fly a whole lot of profanity. The pastor found out the truth of what was in her heart. He knew the truth from what came out of her mouth. You may not agree with old Pastor Grimshaw's methods but be honest before God.

What is it that comes pouring out of you when God tests you and allows you to get “poked”? Do you complain against God for the troubles and difficulties in your life? When disappointments occur, do you express bitterness toward Him because of it?

It doesn't have to be words either! Do you give off the facial expressions, or the roll of the eyes, that communicates bitterness within? Do you make use of 'non-verbal communication'on the freeway when someone cuts you off?

Is God letting you know, at such times, that there's something wrong in your heart? What kind of things do you talk about when you are relaxed and with your friends? The Bible is very honest about sin. It warns us.

Ephesians 5:3-7, But fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not even be named among you, as is fitting for saints; 4 neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks. 5 For this you know, that no fornicator, unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. 6 Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. 7 Therefore do not be partakers with them. Be honest.

Do you use your words to criticize and judge others? Do you belittle others with put-downs and humorous remarks?

Do you gossip and slander others?

Do you make jokes about sacred things? Do you use the name of the blessed Saviour as an expletive? Are the only times your children hear of God the times when you use His name in vain?

What is the pattern of your words?

What kind of heart do they reveal? We be brutally honest with ourselves about this. We must know and admit the full truth about ourselves. If the pattern of your or my speech is evil, then it reveals an evil heart. The mouth pulls up nothing from the well except

what's truly there and we must go back and examine whether or not our words reveal that we truly are what we think we are.

2 Corinthians 13:5, Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you are disqualified. 4. Punishment. V 36-37, But I say to you that for every idle word men may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment. 37 For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”

It is a very serious and sober warning from our Lord. It is the promise from the lips of Jesus who is Himself the Judge of all the earth. All people will give an account to God for every idle word. The word translated “idle” means “unprofitable”.

The word translated “word” in this case is not “logos” (which would suggest a reasoned statement), but “rhema” (which would suggest more of a casual utterance). This, then, would be a careless or thoughtless utterance for which someone

might say, “I didn't mean what I said. I was just kidding anyway. Don't take things so seriously.” Jesus warns us that He takes such “careless” or “idle” words very seriously. A good reason why. Such words tend to indicate what's in our hearts more truthfully than a carefully thought-out and prepared set of words ever could.

Jesus is letting us that even the “idle” or “careless” words we speak are heard by Him.

James 5:9, “Do not grumble against one another, brethren, lest you be condemned. Behold, the Judge is standing at the door!” He is declaring, well in advance, that people will be required to give an account of every word they speak on the great day of judgment even the “idle” words. Our words prove what is in our hearts. This is why Jesus then says, “For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned”. He who will judge our words will also prove to be the One who knows the true condition of our hearts. It will be our words

that will on that great and all-important day stand as the evidence of the true nature of our hearts. V 37, “By your words you shall be condemned.” Every person is responsible for what he says, and if he rejects Jesus Christ, then he is going to be responsible for the result of it, which will be a lifetime of useless, empty, evil words.

Primarily, this applies to unbelievers, to the wicked. They will be condemned by their words. The judgment here is primarily the judgment of the Great White Throne ultimate eternal judgment, and Christians aren’t going to be there.

Our sins have already been dealt with. Our sins have been cared for at Calvary. Unbeliever.

How does this relate to him? He is the main object because Jesus is speaking here about the Pharisees.

Luke 19:22, And he said to him, ‘Out of your own mouth I will judge you, you wicked servant. You knew that I was an austere

man, collecting what I did not deposit and reaping what I did not sow. When God comes to the time when He judge the evil people in Revelation 20, He opens books, and those books have in them all the deeds and all the words of these people.

You can run through all the deeds, words and find no good thing, and He keeps the full record. The full record is kept the full record. Scientists say that our voices set in motion sound waves, and those sound waves go on an endless journey through space.

What does this idle idea mean? Useless, words of no value, no purpose, barren, unproductive, no-good product, ineffective in promoting God’s kingdom and God’s glory. Now they may be words that are nice. They might be words of kindness and comfort and gentleness, sometimes words of truth and wisdom, but they are useless in promoting the kingdom of God, in advancing the name of Christ and exalting God’s glory.

They cannot do that. At best, they are humanly good, but not divinely good.

They are earthly. They are useless in terms of the advance of the kingdom, in terms of the exaltation of the Son of God. In terms of the glory of God, they are useless, purposeless, ineffective. An unbeliever can never speak good. But a believer will speak good things, though often also evil things.

That’s the difference. But we will be justified by our mouth. The Bible says you are saved by the manifestation of good works, your salvation is made visible, obvious, verified, validated.

What about believers? V 37, “By your words you shall be justified.” A believer is going to be ultimately justified objectively by his words. We are saved by our faith in Christ, but it is manifest in our words so that our words can become a valid criteria by which our salvation can be made obvious, patent, manifest.

When there is a transformed heart, there will be a transformed mouth, because out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.

Once in a while, my mouth sounds a lot like my old self.

Doesn’t yours? But still there are times when it is definitely representative of my new heart. We don’t show it enough, but we show it, because we are created unto good works. We must give an account for every idle word that we speak.

Now this is tremendous accountability. Some of us can kind of protect ourselves because we calculate our hypocrisy, and we say the right thing at the right place and the right time.

• We don’t talk here the way we talk at home.
• We don’t talk here the way we talk at work, or
• We don’t talk here the way we talk on the phone when we gossip, or
• We don’t talk here at church the way we talk to our brothers or sisters, mom and dad, teacher, or the kids.

We have sort of a calculated hypocrisy. We sort of have this holy talk that we pull out when we need it. But then there are those times when we are careless and not careful.

• We get angry.
• We get upset.
• We get anxious.
• We get fearful.
• We get irritated.
• We get frustrated.

Then it comes out the careless words. They really reveal what is going on down there. In public, we may appear noble, whereas in private, we are vile. The real you will be manifest when you speak in anger, when you speak in hatred, when you speak in irritation, when you speak in isolation with no other Christian present, and you really let fly what’s inside.

Proverbs 11:11, By the blessing of the upright the city is exalted, But it is overthrown by the mouth of the wicked.

When it comes time for our eternal destiny to be made manifest, God can look at our words and know we are the redeemed because it will be obvious from what we say and how we speak.

But then there are those times when that bitter water comes out of the same fountain.

Colossians 4:6, Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one.

What does salt do? It prevents corruption. Our voice and speech should never contribute to anyone’s corruption. It should always prevent that. Salt also has a way of adding flavour, and so our speech should be charming, should be winsome, should cause laughter and joy in the right way at the expense of no one.

Our speech should be spiritual, wholesome, fitting, kind, sensitive, loving, purposeful, edifying, gentle, truthful speech, and we should pray what the psalmist prayed.

Psalm 141:3, Set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth; Keep watch over the door of my lips.

Conclusion

we must now, while we can guard the condition of our heart, because out of that heart flows the issues of life. Let me suggest some ways that we can do this. 1. Jesus is your saviour. Let us be very sure we have trusted Jesus as our Saviour and have been washed of our sins. The point of this passage is not merely that we seek to 'reform'a dirty mouth. That should happen.

But that's not what needs to happen first. If the well itself is dirty, it doesn't do any good to clean the bucket that draws out the water and if the heart itself is still evil, it doesn't do any good to try to merely clean up the mouth.

2 Corinthians 5:17, “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new”. If we come to Christ, confessing that we are sinners who need to be saved, and placing our trust in the cleansing power of His blood then He is “faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).

Let's be sure that we have first trusted in Him and then, our heart the wellspring of our words will be clean. 2. Allow God to search out regularly. Having trusted Christ, let us make a regular practice of allowing God to search our hearts.

If it's true that it's out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks, then we must ask God regularly to search our hearts and rid of us all that remains of our old life. Before I was a Christian, I had a very filthy mouth. After I became a Christian, it took some time for me to stop. Every time I uttered filth, it broke my heart that I would still so dishonour my Saviour. I would then confess my sin. He always forgave me. Progressively, God was removing from my heart the residue of the old life of sin.

So, my mouth was becoming more and more available for His service. That's what each one of us must do. The Bible says that there is not a word on my tongue but that the Lord knows it altogether.

Psalm 139:4, For there is not a word on my tongue, But behold, O Lord, You know it altogether. He even knows my thoughts afar off.

Psalm 139:2, You know my sitting down and my rising up; You understand my thought afar off. I can admit the truth to Him. I can turn to Him and speak.

Psalm 139:23-24, Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me, and know my anxieties; 24 And see if there is any wicked way in me, And lead me in the way everlasting. 3. Confess your weakness. Let us confess our weakness in the area of our words, and our need for God's grace and strength to help us.

The apostle James warned us that there is the potential for great harm in our words.

James 3:6, “the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. The tongue is so set among our members that it defiles the whole body and sets on fire the course of nature; and is set on fire by hell”.

James 3:8, “every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and creature of the sea, is tamed and has been tamed by mankind.

But no man can tame the tongue. It is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison”. It's as if we are walking around with a very dangerous, untamed, dangerous animal in our mouths. As someone said, if you want to tame an animal, you must bring the animal to man but if you want to tame the man, you must bring the man to God.

Man is the proper tamer of animals. God is the proper tamer of men's tongues. Let us daily yield ourselves to God that He might tame our tongue. 4. Fill and guard your hearts. Let us make sure that what we put into our hearts is what we would want to have coming out of our mouths.

Ephesians 4:29, “Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearer”.

If we would have good things come out, then we must be sure that we are putting good things in.

Philippians 4:8, “Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things”.

Psalm 119:11, “Your word I have hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against You.”

The more of the truth of God's holy word we put in, the more we will be pushing the evil out. 5. Dedicate your tongue. Let us dedicate our tongues to God's good purposes. The danger of the tongue may tempt us at times to cut it out.

The potential for sin from our lips may tempt us to super-glue them shut. But God has given us our lips and our tongues for His glory and use. The mouth that is dedicated to God, and that draws its speech from a heart that has been cleansed by Him, is a powerful force for good in this world.

The prophet Isaiah was a man who also had a dirty mouth. But God cleansed him. In a vision, an angel touched his lips with a coal taken from the altar—an altar where atonement had been made for his sin.

Isaiah 6:7-8, And he touched my mouth with it, and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; Your iniquity is taken away, And your sin purged.” 8 Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: “Whom shall I send, And who will go for Us?” Then I said, “Here am I! Send me.”

God took Isaiah's sin away and cleansed his lips. He put those lips to service as His mouthpiece to the nation of Israel. Likewise, give yourself to Jesus Christ. Present your whole body as a living sacrifice to Him. Dedicated all that you are including your lips to His service.

Then with a heart cleansed by His blood never use your lips for common things again.

Proverbs 4:23, Keep your heart with all diligence, For out of it spring the issues of life.