One of the biggest difficulties all marriages and families struggle with is the failure of men to actually speak words that give value, identity, purpose and encouragement to their wife and their children. Marriages languish for lack of words like plants languish for lack of water. Relationships languish for lack of words. They just wither. Use words to build relationships.
I want you to open your Bible at Proverbs, Chapter 18. Man, we feel like we've been having a feast in these last few weeks haven't we? I've been speaking on Taming the Tongue. How many found that their tongue is getting a bit better? How many have started to pick up not only what you're saying, but what others are saying? Have you noticed how strong the put downs are? It's unbelievable isn't it, and we need to learn how to address those things. First we address it in our own heart, and we're coming near Christmas now, near the end of the year, but I wanted to start to move from where we were talking about the negative aspects of the tongue, to actually how God has designed us to operate, and I want to share with you something today that'll help you.
We're just going to look at a message called the Power of the Tongue. I feel I'll add to this, and do some other sessions related to it, but I want to just give you some things that are really - I want to lift your thinking about God's design, because if we don't see how we're designed, we will always malfunction. The same with a natural thing; if you have some natural object, you don't know what it's made for, don't know what it's supposed to do, you'll end up using it for the wrong thing and use up, you know, like kids pick up a remote and use it as a hammer. They just don't quite know what it was for, until someone starts yelling [laughs] isn't that right?
Okay then, Proverbs 18:21; Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit. Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit. The Bible tells us very clearly, your tongue has power. There is a power, a spiritual force in words. The Bible tells us very clearly, words that we speak are containers. They contain something. They contain what is in your heart, and we saw that there are all kinds of words people can speak. We looked at some of the negative kinds of words, and we also looked at what they release, and we're going to look today, I want to go and look really at the more positive aspect of this. But we've looked at how people release lying words, and it releases the spirit of murder and death against people. We looked at gossiping words. Gossiping words release the spirit of death against people, they hurt people.
We looked at flattery, which is empty words. They're words with an agenda, and they also hurt people, because ultimately the agenda comes out. We looked at empty words, words spoken which are insincere, have no meaning and they tend to disappoint people. Again, they minister death to people. We saw about put down words, words that you hear the words, but the spirit within it, and what it contains, you go away and you feel downed afterwards, and you feel put down. You feel less. You feel actually dishonoured and devalued, and we saw these kinds of words and what they did. We saw the last one we looked at was angry words, and we saw how angry words release a spirit of murder, and people don't just hear the words, they feel the spirit that the words contain. It's a mixture of the human spirit. It's what's in your heart, and it also activates and releases demonic spirits, so many people I know and have prayed for, ministered to, have been deeply wounded for almost the whole length of their life, because of some angry outburst within the family by a father or mother, or by someone near to them when they were very young. They've carried the impact of that right through their life.