Tuesday, December 15, 2015
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We've had a lot of fun in our family listening to the audio and video recordings that I made when our kids were little. Then I get to listen to them and what they sounded like before they had much of a vocabulary and before their voices changed. Those are special memories. So is the recording of our wedding over thirty years ago. It's always a pretty tender time when my wife and I sit and listen to the day we made our lifetime vows to each other – happy tapes.
And then, there are not happy tapes. Like the ones of former President Richard Nixon after Watergate. The Watergate accusations flew back and forth without any fatal damage until an aid testified that the President had recordings of his oval office conversations. There was a big legal battle over releasing those tapes, but eventually the world heard the not very pretty things that were said behind closed doors. I wonder if President Nixon just forgot sometimes that the recorder was running, or if he thought no one would ever hear what he was saying. Wow, was he wrong!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Talk Is Not Cheap."
Our word for today from the Word of God comes from Matthew 12:34. Jesus said, "For whatever is in your heart determines what you say. A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart, and an evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart. And I tell you this, you must give an account on judgment day for every idle word you speak. The words you say will either acquit you or condemn you."
Pretty sobering, huh? You show what your heart is full of by your words and then He says the divine tape recorder is always running. When you're on the phone, when you're angry, when you're whispering, when you're talking behind someone's back, when you think no one heard it, the recorder is running. And one day all of it will be played back in the presence of the living God. You talk about being without defense, wow, there it is, listening to yourself say it.
See, words really do matter. By your words you show what's in your heart. By your words you will be acquitted. By your words you will be condemned. Our words will be there to meet us when we stand before God; Encouraging words, God praising words, Christ sharing words, loving words. But also our careless words, our dirty words, our hurting words, those backstabbing words, angry ones, lying ones. If our words will be the measure of our judgment there are some steps we need to take now!
First, we need to realize we don't stand a chance before God's judgment without a Savior. The Savior – the only One who died for our sins. That would be Jesus. There are just too many words that have done too much damage. They are objective proof of the darkness that has been inside us called sin. The sin that God's one and only Son died to pay for. He paid the death penalty for all of it. If you've put all your trust in Him to be your personal sin-rescuer today, you will be forgiven once and for all.
But beyond that we need to listen to ourselves to ask God to help us hear what He hears in our words. It's time we join David in his prayer, "Set a guard over my mouth, Lord; keep watch over the door of my lips (Psalm 141:3).
Ultimately the weight of our words should cause us to make Jesus Christ Lord of our tongue every new day, every hour. If we can win the words battle, we can win anything. But believe me, it takes the control of Jesus Christ himself to tame a runaway tongue. So, if you're judged by your words, if they are evidence of the sin and the darkness in your heart, the words that have hurt people, the angry words, the dirty words, the unforgiving words, the hurtful things, isn't it time to make the Savior who died on the cross your Savior? He died for all of that.
The only way to escape God's judgment is to accept the payment that He made when He took God's judgment for you on the cross. So today reach out to Him and say, "Jesus, I bring a lifetime of wrong, a lifetime of hurt and sin to You. I am yours beginning today." Go to our website. We'll help you find your start with Jesus. It's ANewStory.com. Or you can contact us at 442-244-WORD and text us there.
Talk is not cheap. It can be very expensive. The President of the United States was ultimately judged by his own words, and we will be too.