Psst! Have You Heard...? - Part A

You can say a word that destroys the life you can save words that enrich and say words that kill incredible potential. Maybe another verse out of Proverbs does the same thing and wraps all potential of negatively and positively on nugget. Proverbs 12 verse 18, there is one speaks like the piercings of a sword. The tongue of the wise promotes health CL you got a bad way.

These are done good way to use your time.

There is the potential negative. The Bible tells us that death and life: the power of the tongue.

Words can destroy or they can build today on connect with Skip Heitzig Skip talks about the power of your work and how you can use them to glorify God and strengthen a and at the end of today's program Skip his wife Linda share encouraging insight. If you've ever experienced the devastating effects of gossip go directly to the person there's something going on. Somebody said something don't go through other people go to the person asked where you heard it if somebody brings that up.

Ask can I quote you on this. You want to resolve it. You don't want to just keep the spring, think, skip, be sure to stay tuned after today's message to the full conversation. Now we want to tell you about a resource that will help you grow even stronger in your knowledge of God's will look like if God party of the Old Testament shows that the Jewish calendar anchored with regular mandatory holidays and celebrations in the book of Esther says that God wants his variance delight and gladness joy and honor at such times, like your family celebration. Listen to this insight from Skip Heitzig sake, not one of our own regular holidays.

Valentine's Day or God so love that's the essence of his nature. The Bible says God is love that is so simple to say so hard for some of us to happiness, holiness, and holidays is a four DVD collection of celebration messages from Pastor Stan suggests that could be a game changer for your family. Take holidays from toxic stress to celebrations of light and joy. Here's a sample you are logged by God, not because you deserve it but because just because that is his nature is his decision. Imagine that foundation for the next holiday on family calendar. This selection of some of Pastor's holiday teachings are thank $25 or more, connect more people to God's word visit connectwithskip.com/offer to give online securely or call 819 to 1888 and request your copy of happiness, holiness, and holidays with skip. I think in Leviticus chapter 19 Skip Heitzig expects today's doing a series we call it white-collar sends and the idea is that these are sins that we address make them look respectable and yet they can be an really are at the root very violent. So we want to address those and we had a believer not a great time so far in the series so right. Leviticus chapter 19 as we begin I want to look up at the screen and take a look at the power of the tongue for a moment about the snail on the left on the right is the tongue of the snail magnified in the microscope a couple hundred times so it snail we know is slow and slimy and sluggish but strong in its strength is in its tongue. It's like a secret weapon all curled up and the average snail has a thousand sharp teeth on the tongue. Some species of snails have over 10,000 teeth and one scientists under the microscope guested about 30,000 teeth on a single tongue of a single's snail so it uses these teeth to saw through leaves and stems, and the like. So it's very very strong, but that that tongue can be very destructive. That's the point where the Bible tells us of another tongue that can inflict great harm and that is your tongue in mind, it is the human tongue, probably more sends a been committed by our mouths than all other body parts combined. I was listening to a radio talkshow a while back Christian program for people calling questions that would be answered are discussed on the air and I tuned in right at the time they were talking about speaking in tongues. The controversy of that spiritual gift that is disputed by many different churches and is able, going back and forth about.

Is it okay to speak in tongues is not okay to speak in tongues is legitimate gift or not. I thought, will nobody seems to be really concerned about the real problem in the real problem isn't just speaking in tongues speaking it's using our tongues.

That's really what we have to watch in particular at speaking a certain way it's using our tongues to form words for a specific purpose.

As I described this advice to you, it is personified and you'll be able to tell what it is I am more deadly than the screaming shell of a Canon I win without killing I tear down homes break hearts and wrecked lives.

I travel on the wings of the wind. No innocence is strong enough to intimidate me know 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 is innocent.

I never forget, and I seldom forgive my name is gossip now that we've named it, let's study it and to do so.

I've asked you to turn to Leviticus chapter 19. Now, the Bible does talk about gossip in a number of different passages from Genesis to Revelation. But the reason I basher determined that this passage is because we are given a direct command from God not to do it. It's a hefty unmistakable. Thou shalt not command in our anchor text is Leviticus 19 go down to verse 16 would simply says you shall not go about as a talebearer among your people doesn't get any more direct than that. You shall not go about as a talebearer among your people not to step back for a moment, because looking at the book of Leviticus and this book has a single theme. It could be summed up in one word, holiness, the book of Leviticus is about holiness, God's holiness and I suppose that of all the attributes that God has holiness is God's least attractive attribute. If you just think about how people deal with God. Holiness would be is least popular one.

We love to make a lot of God's love. That's an important attribute to us.

We want to talk about God's mercy and God's grace, important attribute to us. We want to talk about the fact that God knows everything he's omniscient God, the God's power is another attribute, he is omnipotent God's holiness. Bobby takes Lois billing it scares us. And that's probably because number one we don't really know what it means to number two. We don't really know what it would mean to us, but here's what you need to know of all the attributes of God written about in Scripture holiness is talked about more than all of the that God is called holy more than is called loving or gracious or merciful or powerful. He is called holy so it's obviously very important to him and I share all that upfront information because you come across it in some of the verses were to look at. So the theme of this book is holiness, God's, and yours in the book of Leviticus could be divided simply by saying that the first half of the book is about approaching God's presence in the second half of the book is about accepting God's precepts to approaching God's presence accepting God's precepts. Chapter 19 falls in the second portion of the book so it's about accepting God's precepts in the yoga notice something that's familiar to you. As I read what we are going to look at our what you know is the 10 Commandments there repeated and then there flushed out. That is there explained in various life situations. So for example if you look at verse one of Leviticus 19 and the Lord spoke to Moses, saying speak to all the congregation of the children of Israel and say to them, you shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy everyone of you shall revere his mother and his father and keep my sabbaths, I am the Lord your God.

Do not turn to idols, nor make yourselves molded God's I am the Lord your God.

So just in the first four verses we have a repetition or a hint of the first five of the 10 Commandments.

Then in verse 11, he starts dealing with, among other things, what we say our speech or words.

What I like to do in verses 11 through 18 is on look at four practical observations about our words. So here's what I'm in a dilemma.

Start wide and go narrow. That's the approach I'm going to go very general and then will get specific or feel like I'm in a start shallower and go deeper. So the first observation about words the words of personal words, a person, but they personally convey who you are as a person to others so notice of a word. As we go through a couple verse of verse 11, and emphasize the word you'll see why you shall not steal, nor deal falsely, nor lie to one another and you shall not swear verse 12 by my name falsely, nor shall you profane the name of the Lord your God. I am the Lord.

Verse 14 you shall not curse the deaf, nor put a stumbling block before the blind, we gotta be creepy to do that, but you shall fear the Lord your God or fear your God. I am the Lord. Verse 16 you shall not go about as a talebearer among your people, nor shall you take a stand against the life of your neighbor. I am the Lord. I counted in this chapter, the word you 54 times in this chapter alone. God is speaking through Moses to the people telling them about their personal expression, their personal life flushing out the 10 Commandments to them personally so here's the theme God has given us an incredible capacity to communicate who we are.

Through the use of our words.

We can communicate our thoughts or feelings are values are ideas are ideals to people our desires or dislikes to our words, and we do regularly. The average person will end up speaking 1/5 of their entire life. That's incredible are you will spend 1/5 of your life talking some will do much more than that. Some will do much less than that 1/5 of your life will be spent verbally communicating talking.

If you want to know, that looks like if you were to take the words you speak in a single day and translate them into published literature. A single day of your speech would produce a book that's 50 pages long.

50 page book in a single year. That would be 132 volumes of 200 pages per volume so that your whole lifetime would be upward of 3000 volumes are 1,500,000 pages in a C average. The average person speaks for 1/5 of his or her lifetime.

Now you also know there is a difference in the genders between male and female help with this very delicately, but it would seem that females have a greater linguistic ability was put it that way more developed linguistic ability is able to use words may be better maybe differently so what the experts tell us, and you probably read many of these kinds of things with the average woman speaks 25,500 words a day that's average.

The average male speaks 12,500 words a day, so there's a big difference in what is that mean it means he comes home after eight days or eight hours of work comes home and he's already used up 12,495 words at five left. She's just getting wrapped up so you got five words left once again to say why there is a what's for dinner. That's three and good night.

He's done by five words.

Now here's the result. If you would ask him hey how's everything at home. He's gonna say great ask her how everything's going at home and she might say, well, you never really tells me anything.

This is what I've always found it humorous in the Bible that when Zacharias the priest is burning incense in Jerusalem in the temple and an angel comes to him to announce that his wife Elizabeth is good to have John the Baptist Zacharias, who is talking to an angel Angel says is going to happen. John the Baptist is proven suck really prove it, and angels talking to you. Isn't that proof it up, so give me a sign that is really a happy so there's a really want to sign or I'll give you sign you will be able to talk to let babies born.how is that for him going home and he can't say anything or stop any conversation but his wife is awfully excited about a miraculous birth is an old lady having a baby and she's going to be talking to him all day and he can't say a word and it's frustrating for her because he can't say a word. I've always thought I was just a humorous portion of the Bible.

So words are personal. We use them to communicate who we are, but we are faced with a challenge in our day and age because we not only speak words but we write them down to write them down on paper. We type them into our computer screens. We tax them on our mobile devices. We post them on social media and with each of those steps. Our communication becomes more and more impersonal we get less personal with all those stages. So, written words or texted words are more difficult to understand because you're seeing the word and ascribing meaning to the word that you see. But you cannot hear the intonation or the voice inflection that would change everything and so a better form of communication. The reading a text or an email would be to pick up the phone and talk to the person because they might say that sentence a little bit differently than you read it to me because now you're getting it for communication or hearing tone and inflection, but even that is an ideal because there still a lot of the conversation that you don't pick up on because you don't see what experts have called for a long time, body language, which changes everything.

So a person might say something using the words that you would read in the text or using a voice inflection, you would hear on a telephone when they say the sentence they raise an eyebrow that meets up or they might say a word, but give a smirk let means up or the talking as they talk. They shift their posture without all of that mean something. So the fullest form of communication is to identify have a conversation where you are engaged in that conversation, hearing words and using work now.

I say we have a challenge. Will I mean well. Social media has revolutionized the way our culture communicates. Nobody will dispute that everybody's been studying this for years, would agree with that that social media has revolutionized the way our culture communicates for the first time in history, it's possible to have friends you've never met to follow people you don't even know so that our language itself is changing meaning.

By the way we communicate, we are cultivating what Harvard business review calls within the relationships within relationships as opposed to full rich relationships, thin relationships, surveys, Markham a Mozilla foundation, computer programmer wrote this, and I quote social networking encourages people to have a greater number of much shallower friendships.

I know what 15 of my friends had for breakfast, but I don't know whether any of them is struggling with a major life issue. If this trend continues, says Markham people in 2020 will have hundreds of acquaintances, but very few friends. So you see a fellowship is limited to 140 characters startle fellowship so words are personal. We use them to communicate who we are. It's a little deeper. Words are not only personal words have potential as we look at the verses that are before us with our open Bibles. We can look at them and we can surmise that there is great potential in the tongue now.

Here, the potential is seen negatively is put a negative form. You shall not do this. So the reason is put in negative form. You shall not is for impact, and to restrain the improper use of the tongue and to redirect a proper use of its own right. So if we reverse these negative commands we can see the potential instantly.

For example look at verse 11 were told in the second verse second part of that verse that were not to lie to one another. Okay so that's what were not supposed to do.

Don't do this.

Don't lie to each other not turn that around. If were not supposed to lie to each other. It also means we can beat tell the truth be truthful, be honest, that's the potential we can lie or we can be truthful, to be honest we can be wholesome. Also look at verse 12 you shall not swear by my name falsely, there's another negative don't do that, don't swear by God's name falsely looking out turn that around. We can't swear by God's name falsely, so that means we can pray we can worship we can offer intercession, we can bless in the name of the Lord granted verse 15 there is no negative versus a positive. It says in righteousness.

You shall judge your neighbor. Just think of the incredible potential to make personal judgments of human beings personally or civilly in a in a courtroom.

So all of this incredible potential can be summed up by a single verse in the book of Proverbs verse chapter 8 of Proverbs 18 verse 21 it says death and life are in the power of the tongue. There's the potential death in life you can say a word that destroys you can say a word. The delights you can say words and read she can say words that kill incredible potential. Maybe another verse how to Proverbs does the same thing and wraps all of this potential both negatively and positively in one little nugget. Proverbs 12 verse 18, there is one who speaks like the piercings of a sword, but the tongue of the wise promotes health. You see how you got a bad way to use your tongue. A good way to use your tongue. There's a potential which way you choose.

There's one who speaks like the piercings of a sword. I bet all of you know, a sharp tongued individual. You can see that person in your minds eye might be somebody's on the mirror today I be yourself sharp tongue people verbal terminators. I call them they just react like a firebreathing dragon.

There are those who speak like the piercings of a sword or snail but the tongue of the wise promotes health potential. That's the message from the series white colors. Now let's go to the studio with Skipton line as they share encouraging insight ever experienced the devastating effects of gossip today. He talked about positive and negative potential for house that they hurt or heal right unfortunately gossip is become so widespread in society and in a social media test Rodentia is without them unity.

You can just pay these things and not face and not let your realtor handle it definitely infiltrated the walls of the church as well Skip someone listening today may have been the target of Gossett, maybe even in their church, what would you say to encourage them. First of all I'm sorry and on behalf of the body of Christ.

If that's happening to you in the church. I just want to say I'm sorry and it shouldn't happen, but it does because we are fallen creatures and unfortunately in the church. It gets dressed up in spiritual dress yes and it's called a concern or a prayer request or whatever. Go directly to the person.

If there's something going on. Somebody said something don't go through other people go to the person ask where you heard it if somebody brings it up. Ask can I quote you on this. You know you want to resolve it. You don't want to just keep the string going, and then this realize everyone thinks something about you and probably tells it to somebody else. Okay so that's just life. Everybody thinks something about you and probably tell somebody else and by the way, so do you. Everybody does that. So we just have to watch ourselves and make sure were not spreading time is thinking Skip in my hand.

We hope this conversation escape and I can't encourage doing your thing and help keep these difficult messages coming to human ethics filling in your walk with Jesus to physically count/standing.connect.com/standing or hundred 19 1892 team. Thank you to him tomorrow SQ shares how you can go to Scott by being purposeful in a few words, you should cancel Skip presentation of connection communications changing truth ever-changing time