Tuesday, July 3, 2018
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One thing television has done for us, it's made us all more self conscious about our breath. The commercials keep coming. Years ago it was - Don't broadcast bad breath. To our recent commercials like: Your wake up breath. You run from people who want to kiss you because you have to gargle first. You’ve got to get rid of that morning mouth. Well these kinds of commercials sell a lot of mouthwash, toothpaste and breath mints and breath drops. I just wish there was a mouthwash for the really gross mouth problem.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Verbal Halitosis".
Our word for today from the Word of God comes from Ephesians 4:29, "Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen". This word on wholesome is interesting, "don't let any unwholesome talk". It means decay, it means rotten. It talks about rotten fruit sometimes using that word. It talks about spoiled fish -that's interesting. Don't let any rotten apples or spoiled fish come out of your mouth. This is a strong word, it's not just unwholesome.
Now we're talking here about verbal halitosis. What if we taped your conversations over the last few days and played them all back - telephone conversations, what you said to your family members, your angry moments, your stress moments. Is there any talk there that would tear a person down? Critical, negative, complaining, some put-down there, a little sarcasm, maybe you had the last word that ended the argument: but it wounded someone that you love. Listen to this, "Do not let (stop it - do not let it) come out of your mouth" that kind of hurting talk. So the Bible says the tongue has the power of life and death.
Proverbs says, "Reckless words pierce like a sword". You got to ask the Lord to send you it for you to can hear those spiritual alarms that go off before you are about to say something that is really hurtful. We've done it enough for a lifetime already. Stop it before it gets out. It's like a bullet coming out of a gun, you can't stop it. Well you have to stop it by not pulling the trigger. Once it's sent to its target, it's going to do its damage. Now interestingly enough, God provides a do here for the don’t. He says, "Don't let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouth" He says, "but talk building-up talk" - things that build up other people. You need to look at that other person as a person who's under construction - that's a person you're building.
So you ask yourself, when talk to that person did I build them or did I bulldoze them. It's a strong follow up here in Ephesians 4:30, "Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God.” In other words, you make God cry when you tear down a person that He is trying to build. So look out for that rotten, spoiled garbage that so easily spills out of our mouths. See spiritual halitosis is just dangerous because it smells bad, but it leaves sometimes lifelong scars. "Guard your mouth".