The Sword Of Speech

Words, speech, language, it shapes life, it communicates to the very heart. And it is vastly important what you say and how you say it. The writer of Proverbs puts it well when he tells us: "He who speaks the truth gives honest evidence, but a false witness utters deceit. There is one whose rash words are like sword thrusts, but the tongue of the wise brings healing."

The tongue of the wise brings healing. My message to you this morning is really quite simple and straightforward. It is this: speak; speak the word of healing. Use the weapon God has given you and persuade, convince, say what you can and say what you must, but say it. Say the word of healing, the word of love. Say the word of salvation and of wholeness to someone who needs to hear it, and do not doubt its power. Because our God has assured us that, “He who speaks the truth gives honest evidence,” and that “the tongue of the wise brings healing.”

I am challenging you today to speak the word of witness. I am, as last week, urging you to make the most of every opportunity you have to share your faith. It's not enough just to say, well, I'll live out my witness. I'll be good, I'll be moral, I'll go to church, I'll pay my bills, and they will know I'm a Christian. That’s not enough, I am saying; you need to interpret your style of life, you need to speak it, you need to say it.

Why? Remember what we've been saying: that there is no truth so powerful as the truth that one person addresses to another. There is no truth so life-changing as the truth someone has shared with me. Oh yes, the life has to be there, there has to be something to back up what is said. But you have to say it, you have to speak truth, for, says the writer of Proverbs, “The tongue of the wise brings healing."

I think too of what the Apostle Paul says to us in the Ephesian letter. He's asked us to commit ourselves to the whole armor of God, the whole armor of God. And if it includes the breastplate of righteousness and the shoes of peace and the shield of faith and all the rest, it surely also includes the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. The whole armor of God involves the way in which we share, and speak, and open up the word of God to others.

Phillips Brooks, himself a preacher of great ability, defined preaching in one of his books as the communication of truth through personality. And that's what you so when you share the Gospel with another person: you give it body and substance and power, truth through personality.

You see, presumably it would be possible to do away with preaching; possibly you could have worship without preaching (though I hope not in the foreseeable future). You could show films and play tapes and conjure up videos, you could sit and read the Bible together. And all of that would be instructive, it would be helpful. But the wisdom of the ages says, No, we want a person, we want someone who will bring his own passions, we want someone to share with us out of the deep conviction of the moment, we want a fresh now word from the Lord. Let there be speech so that our lives may be shaped and our attention may be grasped, right now.