The words you speak, the spirit world is listening to. It's listening to your words so carefully, that every one of them is recorded. Every one of them, every idle word. How can you hear an idle word? You've got to be listening in, tuning in to every word, so every word that we are speaking in the earth, as God's representative, He's listening to, all heaven is listening to, demons are listening to it so they can leap on it and have a chance to do some havoc. God is listening to it, because He wants to be able to work on your behalf. The key thing is, are you speaking as an ambassador of heaven, or are you representing and reflecting the demonic chaos of the world? What are you speaking?
He says every idle word; an idle word means literally something that's barren. It yields no return. There's no fruit in it. It's an empty word, so probably the best way you'd describe it is, it's a word that you speak, but you never meant it. Any word you speak, and you didn't mean what you said, is an idle word, any word. Any word you spoke, but you had no intention of keeping it, is an idle word. Any word that was insincere and not genuine or authentic is an empty, idle word, see? No content. Now the thing is oh, well if it's an empty word, at least it's not a negative word. Actually that's not true, because an empty word still releases something. I tell you, it's so simple to see it. If I give a commitment to you that I will pay a bill today, and you then arrange your plans on the basis of my word, but I had no intention of doing it, the day comes, I don't pay the bill. Don't say that you won't be affected by that. You will be affected in a number of ways. First you'll be hurt that I treated you with such little respect and value. Secondly, you'll feel distrustful of me. Thirdly, you will step away from me, so these are all the manifestations of the spirit of death. See, words can bring us closer, words can separate us, so it does minister something. Empty words - you think, when a tradesman said they'd come, and they never came. You think when someone said they'd do something, and they never did it. You think when someone said something to you, and you just felt as you heard it, it's not going to happen. They're just lying to me, and you wanted to say something, but didn't know what to say. Don't tell me it doesn't have any affect. Empty words have a huge effect. They actually have a number of effects in our relationships. Let me just give you some examples of negative, empty words.
I'll just quickly do them, just so you get an idea of what they are. I just want you to understand what they are, and then we want to turn so that we never speak empty words. We're going to speak words that have substance, or we'll just zip our lip. Okay, empty words: flattery is a form of empty words. Flattery is insincere praise. When people flatter you, they tell you oh, I think you're wonderful, and it's just sort of over the top. Now there's sincere praise, there's insincere praise. It's actually praise which is over the top, and it has a hidden agenda. The Bible says the person who flatters with the tongue, is spreading a net for your feet. They want something, so when someone comes and flatters you, they're buttering you up, they're going to ask for a favour or they're pumping you up to get some information out of you. That's what they're doing, all of which of course is manipulative and deceptive, and releases the spirit of death, because when you find out what they were up to, you feel quite wounded, hurt and distrustful. Ha! Something was ministered alright - so flattery, flattery, flattery, flattery. There's an agenda in behind it.