Let's open this morning's service
with hymn number 62 from your hardbacked hymnal, 62, number
62, Crown Hymn with Many Crowns. Let's all stand together. Crown Him with many crowns, the
Lamb upon His throne. Hark how the heavenly anthem
drowns all music but its own. Awake, my soul, and sing of Him
who died for thee, and hail Him as thy matchless King through
all eternity. Crown him the Lord of love, behold
his hands and side. Rich wounds yet visible above,
in beauty glorified. No angel in the sky Can fully
bear that sight But downward bends his wandering eye At mysteries
so bright ? Crown Him the Lord of life ? ? Who triumphed over
the grave ? ? Who rose victorious to the strife ? ? For those He
came to save ? ? His glories now we sing ? ? Who died and
rose on high ? ? Who died eternal life to bring ? And lives that
death may die ? Crown Him the Lord of heaven ? One with the
Father known ? One with the Spirit through Him given ? From yonder
glorious throne To thee be endless praise, for thou for us hast
died. Be thou, O Lord, through endless
days adored and magnified. Please be seated. Good morning. That is our prayer this morning,
isn't it? The Lord would enable us to worship Him in the power
of His Spirit and according to the truth of His Word, worshiping
Him from the heart. We're going to be looking at
Proverbs Chapter 15. If you'd like to open your Bibles with
me to that passage, Proverbs Chapter 15. I've titled this
message The power of words, the power of words. Words are very powerful. Let's pray together and ask the
Lord's blessings. Our Heavenly Father, we thank
you that you've put it into our hearts to worship you, to have a desire
to know you, to exalt you. Lord, you said that if I be lifted
up, I will draw all men to myself. And so, Lord, we pray that as
Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so might the
Son of Man be lifted up in our hearts this morning. Might we
be blessed with your favor and your grace to look upon him in
faith and be healed from the venomous bite of sin. Lord, we come before your throne
of grace, confessing that we are sinners and oh Lord, what
great hope we have in that one who is sinless, harmless, undefiled
and separate from sinners. Lord, cause us to find our rest
and our hope in him and give us the faith to believe thy word
For we ask it in Christ's name, amen. In Matthew, I think it's in chapter
11, the Lord, the disciples asked the Lord, why do you speak to
them in parables? And the Lord answered that question
by saying to them, because it's not for them to know the mystery
of the kingdom, but it is for you to know. And the disciples responded by
essentially saying, but Lord, we don't understand the parables
either. And so the Lord took them aside
and taught them the meaning of the parables. And then further
on in that passage, the scripture says, and he taught them nothing
but by parables. Much of the scripture is written
by way of parables. And unless the Lord takes us
aside, and enables us to understand the spiritual meaning of these
parables the gospel meaning of these parables then we'll be
just like everybody else will only understand the surface meaning
and uh... and never see the glory of christ
in them in proverbs chapter fifteen the lord begins this proverb
which is a parable by the way the word parable and proverb
means the same thing and you know I was thinking that even
politicians who have no interest whatsoever in the gospel know
that if they lose their temper in public they will lose all
confidence of the people basically their careers will be ruined
because Losing your temper, raising your voice, becoming angry is
a sign of weakness. It's a sign of weakness. It's
a desperate attempt to get control of a situation that you feel
like you're losing control of. And that's true in every area
of life, isn't it? And so this parable begins by
saying, a soft answer turneth away wrath, but grievous words
stir up anger. I pray the Lord will teach us
that lesson. It is true that those who holler the loudest
and are the biggest, sometimes they win a battle, but in the
end they lose a war, don't they? Sometimes they may score a point,
but they'll lose a game. And my God, give us the grace
to have the wisdom to not be that way. But there's a gospel
meaning here that goes far beyond the practical application, if
you will, to our personal lives. And I hate putting it that way
because there's really nothing more practical than the gospel.
And there's nothing more personal than the gospel. But you understand
what I mean. The understanding of this passage
where the Lord explains to his disciples, no, I don't ever raise
my voice. I don't need to. I'm not out
of control. I'm not threatened by anything
or by anybody. And I don't raise my voice in
the streets. I don't have to beat my children. I speak to them with a soft voice. Remember when the prophet Elijah
went up on the mountain and he heard a whirlwind? He was running
from Jezebel and desperate to have the Lord speak to him, wasn't
he? And one of the significant things
of that story is that the prophet ran to Mount Sinai. And the first
question that the Lord asked him, he said, Elijah, why are
you here? Why would you run back to the
law in order to try to get some comfort, some protection? There is no protection in the
law. And there was a whirlwind and the Lord's voice was not
in it. And then there was an earthquake and the Lord's voice
was not in it. There was a fire and the Lord's
voice was not in it. All these tremendous demonstrations of power. And
then what happened? The Lord spoke with a still small
voice and he calmed Elijah's heart and he sent him back with
confidence. That's how the Lord speaks. That's
how he speaks. When he speaks, he speaks effectually
to our hearts. He convinces us that all scripture
is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine,
for reproof, for correction, for instruction and righteousness,
that the man of God may be thoroughly furnished unto all good works.
He converts us by his word, doesn't he? By his own will begat he
us with the word of truth. You know, it's a miracle of God's
grace that we have rested all the hope of our immortal soul
on words. On words. We weren't there. You weren't there. Peter was there. He said, he
said, I did not bring to you cunningly devised fables, but
we handled the word of truth. We handled the Word of God. We
know that what we say is true, but that's the testimony of a
man, isn't it? It's the testimony of a man.
Someone who says they've seen or heard audibly from God since
the Lord Jesus Christ ascended back into glory is a liar. God speaks to the hearts of His
people by His Word. And Peter goes on to say, and
we have a more sure testimony, a more sure word of truth. He's
speaking of the word of God. He says, take heed, take heed
that you believe. To rest the hope of our salvation
on words, on the testimony of another. Now if you served as
a juror in a court of law, you would have to listen to the testimony
of different witnesses and then decide for yourself the veracity
of those testimonies and the defending attorney would be trying
to discredit the testimony of the prosecutor and vice versa,
wouldn't you? And you'd have to sit there as a juror and try
to figure out what the truth was. When God speaks, we just
believe. We believe everything he says.
His word is sharp, Hebrews chapter 4, powerful, powerful. Sharper than any double-edged
sword able to divide us under the soul and the spirit and reveal
the thoughts and the intents of the heart That's the Word
of God There's no word like that Remember when they sent the when
they sent them out to arrest the Lord and they came back without
him and they said where is he? And what'd those arresting officers
say to the Pharisees? Never a man spake like this man
before. We couldn't defend him. We couldn't
take hold of him. His words were too powerful.
And he is the word of God. In the beginning was the word
and the word was with God. And the word is God. And the
word became flesh. and he dwelt among us and we
beheld, we beheld his glory as the only begotten of the Father,
the one who is himself full of grace and full of what? Truth. Truth, Lord. And what
did that centurion say? No, you read it in the study
this morning. When the Lord said, I'll come and heal your servant.
The centurion said, I'm not worthy that thou should come under my
roof. Only speak the word and my servant shall be healed. Lord,
I'm a man under authority. I understand authority. I say
unto this man, go. And he goes, I say to another,
come. And he comes. I understand that you have all
authority. And when the Lord ascended back
into glory, that's what he said. All authority has been given
unto me in heaven and in earth. Therefore you go, go. and I'll be with you even until
the end of the earth." There's no words like these words, is
there? So when God says, a soft answer
turneth away wrath, you and I come into this world with our fist
clenched against God. The scripture says we are in
enmity with God. We will not have this man reign
over us. I'm going to do it my way. I'm
the captain of my own ship. I'm the master of my own destiny.
I'll make my own decisions. And if I get in trouble, I'll
call on God to help me out, but I'm going to be the one calling
the shots. That's how we come into this
world. That's the attitude that we have. And the Lord says a
soft answer, turneth away wrath. I'll speak to them. And the Lord
himself said they shall be all taught of God. When God teaches
you, just believe everything God says, don't you? Everything. You believe it all. Every word
of it. Understand it all? No. But believe
it? Yes. Yes. Now his voice, though it be soft,
is not weak. It's not weak. It's powerful. Scripture says his voice is the
sound of many waters. That's a picture of a waterfall.
You're standing at the edge of this great waterfall and you're
not able to carry on a conversation with the person next to you because
of the sound of this water. It's deafening to everything
else. And so it is. When that still small voice speaks,
When the soft answer that turneth away wrath speaks effectually
to our hearts, it's the only voice we can hear. All other
voices are drowned out, aren't they? No one else's opinion,
no one else's ideas can change what you've heard once you've
heard the Lord's Word. Once you've heard the gospel
of His free grace, once He's convinced you that you're a sinner,
You have no righteousness of yourself. You're completely dependent
upon Him as your sin bearer, as your substitute, as your sacrifice
before God. And that He was successful. He
was successful in actually accomplishing the redemption of those that
God chose in the covenant of grace before the world ever began.
That's a soft answer, isn't it? You just believe it? I love when
the Lord said to Isaiah, Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, speak
ye comfortably to them. Speak from my heart to your heart
to their hearts. We don't have to beat the sheep,
do we? You know, it was a generation or two ago if you weren't screaming
and hollering, you weren't preaching. And, you know, I don't understand
that. I don't understand that. because
God's Word doesn't have to be... I mean, we ought to speak passionately,
we ought to speak from our hearts. But men don't have to be intimidated. The Lord never intimidates anybody,
not His children. Let me rephrase that. The Lord
never intimidates His children. Everyone else is intimidated
by Him. But He doesn't intimidate His children. Look at Proverbs
Chapter 11. It's not the wrath of God that
leads us to repentance. It's the goodness of God that
leads us to repentance. It's the love of Christ that
constrains us. And He doesn't convince us of
His love with a loud voice. A soft answer turneth away wrath. Look at Proverbs chapter 3 verse
11. The integrity of the upright shall guide them. Now you can
look it up, Proverbs 11 verse 3. I'm sorry, did I say something
different? Proverbs 11 verse 3, the integrity
of the upright shall guide them. Now that word integrity is the
word innocence. Innocence. Those for whom Christ died. Those that God chose according
to his own will and purpose in the covenant of grace before
the world ever began, those who have heard his voice
and followed him are innocent. Innocent. justified before God. They are without sin. There is no condemnation to them
that are in Christ Jesus. The law has nothing to say to
God's people. The law has been satisfied. Christ
is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. Let
me ask you a question, child of God. What is it that breaks
your heart and motivates you to want to serve God and obey
God more? the threats of the law, or the
soft answer that turneth away wrath? It's the love of Christ that
constraineth us, isn't it? It's not the fear of wrath. It's
knowing that the wrath of God has been silenced by the sacrifice
that the Lord Jesus Christ made for you. We mourn after him as
one mourneth for his own son, the one whom we have pierced."
That's the soft answer, isn't it? Lord, let me hear thy still
small voice. Speak tenderly and softly to
my heart and convince me. Convince me. Break me. When the Lord breaks his children,
he doesn't break them with a rod. Rod of iron. He breaks him with
his grace, doesn't he? You see, that's the meaning of
these parables. And if we're looking to his soft
answer by his grace, he will enable us to have soft answers. How many times we've tried to
fight fire with fire and what happens when you fight fire with
fire? What happens? The fire gets bigger, doesn't
it? The fire gets bigger. There's only one time in the
history of mankind when fire beat fire. And that's when the fire of God's
wrath fell from heaven on the center substitute and satisfied
all the demands of God's justice so that we now have no fear of
the fire. The threats of hell? Fire's been quenched. You've
heard the story of the man who's traveling with his family out
west and There's one of these western states where the where
the grass is six feet tall and there's a great fire coming their
way The planes are on fire and if
the fire catches them They'll all perish in it And so the father
gathers his fire his family around and he starts a fire right there
where they are And the fire burns out this large
circle around his family. And the children are crying.
They see the fire coming and they say, father, father, is
the fire gonna kill us? And the father says, no, my child.
The fire can never burn again where it's already burned once. The fire of God's rest justice
can never burn again where it's already burned once. Child of God, the Lord speaks
with a still small voice. The Lord speaks with a soft answer
to turn away wrath. Grievous words, they just stir
up anger, don't they? and they stir up anger in our
hearts. If we hear another voice and
it's been told us that that's the voice of God, but that voice
is speaking with anger and with judgment and with wrath, what
does that cause us to do? It causes us to run from God. And God asked Adam, Adam, where
art thou? The Lord knew where Adam was.
He didn't have to holler. You're my Lord. Soft answer turneth
away wrath. The tongue of the wise, verse
2. This is the parable. What's the
Lord doing? I hope what he's doing right
now is he's taking his people aside and he, I hope you're not
just hearing my voice. If you just hear the voice of
a man, you'll never be taught of God. But if what I'm saying
is true, and the Lord convinces our hearts that this is true,
then we've been taught of God. And the parable, like I said,
the unbeliever, and we spent, many of us spent years in religion
studying this book, and all we saw was the surface meaning,
and we thought, well, if we could just put into practice these
principles, these precepts, then we can earn favor with God by
our own righteousness. Isn't that what we thought? Are these precepts true? Will
they make life easier? Yeah. Yeah. But, oh, there's so much more
to them, isn't there? This book's about Christ. It's about Christ. The tongue of the wise useth
knowledge aright. Samuel say when Eli told him
the Lord was speaking to Samuel and and and and Eli said next
time you hear his voice say thy servant Listeneth speak Lord
and That's what that's what Samuel said Speak Lord for thy servant
listeneth Lord. I my ears are tuned Lord. What
whatever whatever you have to say. I want to hear it I want
to hear from you The tongue of the wise useth
knowledge. All right. Oh, the knowledge
of God, the knowledge of the gospel is spoken effectually
to our hearts by the tongue of the man who is wise. God has made him to be for us
all our wisdom and all our righteousness and all of our sanctification
and all of our redemption. The personification of wisdom
in the Proverbs in particular is a revelation of the Lord Jesus
Christ. This book's about him. He's the
one who takes the knowledge of God and speaks it aright to our
hearts so that we know him. Lots of lies being told. Lots
of lies being told. We're going to look at that in
the next hour. Many false prophets have gone into the world. What
did John say? Try the spirits to see whether
they be of God. Are they speaking the truth?
They speak in the truth from God's word, or are they speaking
lies? Lies, lies, sweet little lies. Everybody loves to hear lies,
don't they? And they believe the lie. And the biggest lie
that men believe today is that man has a free will. That's the
biggest lie. Man has a free will. I determined
the destiny of my own soul by a decision that I make. God turned them over to a reprobate
mind. Because they had no love for
the truth, he sent them a strong delusion that they should believe
the lie. Men believe the lie. They believe
they have a free will. They believe they decide for
themselves. Who's going to be saved and who's not going to
be saved? They're taking God off the throne. They've put themselves
on the throne of God, haven't they? The tongue of the wise useth
knowledge aright, but the mouth of fools pours out foolishness. Now, we can see our own selves
in these things, can't we? How many times our mouths have
spilled out foolishness. His mouth never did. never has
and never will. Never. Everything he says is
true. You can trust his word for your
soul and for your life. The eyes of the Lord are in every
place beholding the evil and the good. Nothing that goes beyond his
sight. Psalm 139, he knows our ways,
he knows our comings and our goings, he knows our thoughts
before we think them and the words that we speak, he knows
them before we speak them. Our God is omniscient. Now, that's
only a threat. That's only a threat to those
who are not trusting Christ. To those who are trusting Christ,
that's a great comfort. That's a great comfort. Let me
show you that. Turn with me to Hebrews chapter
four. The Lord's not threatening us. Remember he speaks with a
soft answer. That's how he woos us to himself. He doesn't beat his sheep. He
doesn't try to intimidate his sheep. He loves them. And it is the love of Christ
that constraineth us. Look at Hebrews chapter four.
at verse 12, for the word of God is quick. It is quick. Isn't it a miracle that the first
time you heard the gospel, you believed it? If you haven't believed it, you
haven't heard it. But as soon as you hear it, you just believe
it. You believe the testimony, don't
you? It's quick. It's powerful. When God speaks,
he leaves you with no options. And you've heard me say this
before, I'm going to say it again, coming to Christ is not a choice. It is not a choice because when
God convinces you of the truth, you've got no place else to go. You're just bound by his word. It's quick, it's powerful, it's
sharper than any two-edged sword. piercing even to the dividing,
a son to the soul and the spirit and the joints and the marrow,
and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." Oh,
Lord, my thoughts are so vain. My intents and my purposes are
so sinful. And the Word of God reveals that,
doesn't He? And then He says, Your thoughts are not like My
thoughts. Your ways are not like My ways. As the heaven is high
above the earth, so are My thoughts above yours. And I know the thoughts
that I have for you, thoughts of good, thoughts of peace, not
of evil, to bring you to your expected end. Now look at verse
13. Neither is there any creature
that is not manifest in his sight, but all things are naked and
open unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do. Now I'm going to say something that
applies to every person in this room, every person that might
hear the sound of my voice. every person's gonna have to
do with God. And the fear of God in the hearts
of God's people is the thought of standing in the presence of
a holy God without the Lord Jesus Christ pleading your cause, without
the righteousness of Christ as all your hope, but oh, when you
know that you have Him, then there's peace, isn't there? The
Prince of Peace We have peace with God through the Lord Jesus
Christ. Verse 14, seeing then that we
have a great high priest that is passed into the heavens, Jesus,
the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. You see, fear. The spirit of fear is not of
God. In other words, you know, I've always thought of that as,
you know, if I'm fearful, that didn't come from God. But it
means something else. God doesn't use fear to control
His people. He doesn't have to. That's the
tactics of a person who's losing control. Our God hasn't lost
control. The spirit of fear is not of
God, but of love, of a sound mind. For we have not a high priest
which cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmities,
but was in all points tempted like as we yet without sin. Let
us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace. You see, it's
the love of Christ that causes us to run to Him. It's fear that
causes us to run away from Him. Why did Adam hide? Why did he
hide? He was afraid. He was afraid. Why did Gideon hide? Why was
he hiding down in the winepress? He was afraid. Fear will cause
you to run from God. This whole thing. There's no
creature that's not manifest in His presence and that's what
God... Go back with me to our text. Verse 3 of Proverbs chapter
15. The eyes of the Lord are in every
place beholding the evil and the good. Our God has nothing but compassion
for His children. His wrath His justice, the fire
of his judgment is already spent. It's already spent. Seeing that
we have such a high priest, come, come boldly, come with confidence
to the throne of grace that you might find help in your time
of need. What is your need? I know what
it is. We all have temporal problems
that we have to deal with in this life. But we all have the
same need when it comes to the salvation of our souls. We have
a need for a savior. We have a need for a substitute.
We have a need to have our sins put away, don't we? We have a
need to be saved. That's our need. That's our greatest
need. Every other need. I will say something I've also
said many times. Any problem that you can solve
with time or money is not really the problem we're talking about
here. And there's only one problem
that you can't solve with time or money. Only one. Every other problem that you
and I experience in this world is going to be solved either
by money or by time. Because when you take your last
breath, you're not going to have any more problems. Oh, but that sin problem, we
can't buy our way out of it, and all of eternity and hell
won't solve it, will it? The eyes of the Lord are in every
place, beholding the evil and the good. Come to my throne of
grace. You'll find help in your time of need. Mercy and grace. A wholesome tongue is a tree
of life. Oh, Lord, give me a wholesome
tongue. Let me speak a word in due season. Lord, put a guard
on my lips. And James talks about that, doesn't
he? James talks about this fire of
iniquity that's in our mouths and the unruly tongue that no
man can tame is what James says. And that's true. You can't tame
your own tongue, but he can. He can. Lord, tame my tongue. Put a guard
over my lips. Keep me from speaking fiery words
of wrath that are going to just stir up dissension among men.
But more importantly, Lord, your tongue is wholesome. Your tongue
speaks of the tree of life. The tree of life. That's that
tree that Adam was exiled from in the garden, wasn't he? Let
us put a seraphim over the gates of paradise, lest they go back
in and eat of the tree of life. And then we see that tree of
life where again, we see it in Revelation, don't we? Planted
by the river of life, producing its fruit in due season. 12 fruits every year, it's always
a different fruit on the tree. And the people of God and the
leaves of the tree of life were for the healing of the nations.
That tree of life was Christ. And everything the Lord Jesus
Christ says, he says about himself. He's the teacher and he's the
subject. He always speaks of himself,
doesn't he? A wholesome tongue is a tree
of life, but perverseness therein is a breach to the spirit. If
it's not speaking of Christ, it doesn't comfort my spirit.
It doesn't give me hope. Tell me about Him. Would Paul
say, we preach Christ and Him crucified and we profess to know
nothing else among you save Jesus and Him crucified. He's the one we need, isn't He?
The power of words. Wars have been started over words. Broken marriages have happened
over words. Children have been estranged
from their parents over words, haven't they? Words are powerful.
Lord, give me, give me grace to guard my words. But there
is no power to your word or my word like there is to his word.
Lord, speak your word. My servant shall be healed. All
right, let's take a break. th th