Seeds Of The Mouth

SEEDS OF THE MOUTH

PROVERBS 18:20-21

ILLUSTRATION… Planting seeds with your mouth (p)

As we begin our time in God’s word this morning, I’d like you to use your imagination to act out in your mind the Bible passage that we will be focusing on… so put on your imagination caps! You are a gardener. I’d like you to imagine yourself at a small plot of ground that is your garden... I know some of you do your best to avoid nature, but just do your best… it’s your imagination! You are dressed in overalls, gloves, a big straw hat; ready for a day of gardening. The sun is out and the weather is beautiful. There is a slight breeze that hits your cheek as you see the green grass framing your garden and smell the promise of growth. The garden is freshly tilled, the dirt soft and brown, and the rows of dirt are all ready to receive seeds and fertilizer.

Each of the rows of your small garden are marked with little square signs on little wooden posts.

You come to the first row of your garden, and it has a little sign that says “family.” You bend down and pull a seed right out of your mouth [pull seed from mouth] and plant it right into the ground. You pack the dirt in well over the seed that you just put into the ground. You move along the row that is marked “family” and you take a seed, one by one, out of your mouth, [pull seed from mouth] [pull seed from mouth] and plant it into the ground and pack the dirt over it.

You come to the second row of your garden, and it has a little sign that says “co-workers.” You bend down and pull a seed right out of your mouth and plant it right into the ground. You move along the row that is marked “co-workers” and you take a seed, one by one, out of your mouth, [pull seed from mouth] and plant it into the ground.

You come to the third row of your garden, and it has a little sign that says, “friends.” You do the same by taking seeds out of your mouth and planting them right into the ground. The next row says “acquaintances & enemies” and then “facebook postings” and then “emails” and then “other drivers in traffic.” Each row of the garden is dedicated to the different people or areas of communicating in your life and you stoop down in each section [pull seed from mouth] [pull seed from mouth] [pull seed from mouth] and take seeds from your mouth and plant them right into the ground.

After you have planted every single row, you step back and look at your garden. It is now fully planted with all the seeds of your mouth. The ground is full of the seeds of your mouth.

The Question of the Day is: What will grow from the seeds of your mouth?

The passage we will look at today gives us a mental picture that the words that come out of our mouths are planted into our lives and the lives around us and those words grow and have consequences. The passage describes those consequences in terms of life and death, good fruit and poison, and good and evil. This idea is sprinkled all throughout the Book of Proverbs. Verse 20, which we are about to read, shares with us the idea that we eat the fruit of our mouths and that we reap the benefits or consequences of what we say to others. Verse 20 tells us we have to accept whatever comes our way when it is the result of what we have said, good or bad. Hopefully, the consequences of our words should produce satisfaction and fulfillment for us. Verse 21 shares with us the startling and true statement that words are powerful. Words and the tongue have the power of life and death.

We are just looking at 2 verses this morning in Proverbs 18, so I’d like to read them from different translations to help us understand what God is saying directly to us.

READ PROVERBS 18:20-21

KJV:

“A man's belly shall be satisfied with the fruit of his mouth; and with the increase of his lips shall he be filled.

21 Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.”

NIV 1984:

“From the fruit of his mouth a man's stomach is filled; with the harvest from his lips he is satisfied. 21 The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit.”

MSG:

“Words satisfy the mind as much as fruit does the stomach; good talk is as gratifying as a good harvest.