Proverbs on Speech
Part 1: Good Words

Baxter T. Exum (#1770)
Four Lakes Church of Christ
Madison, Wisconsin
February 2, 2025

Good morning and welcome to the Four Lakes congregation! It is good to be together this morning, and if you are visiting with us today, we are especially happy to have you with us, and we’d like to ask that you fill out a visitor card – either online or on a card from the pew in front of you. And we also invite you to pass along any questions or prayer concerns in that way. As most of you know by now, Ruby Schmudlach passed away yesterday morning. Don and Ruby were an important part of the church here from the very beginning, and both were such an encouragement to me and to our family and to the congregation through the years. I would just encourage us to be praying for the Schmudlach family this week.

I need to let you know that something amazing happened this week, and that is: Everybody serving in worship this morning got their scripture references to me early enough in the week where I didn’t have to ask them first, and I appreciate that! This has never happened before. If you serve in worship, then you know that an email goes out on Sunday afternoon with the assignments concerning who serves in worship the following week. And in that message, we ask those who lead the prayers for the Lord’s Supper and the contribution to send me their selection for the scripture they would like to have on the wall up here as they lead the church in those two acts of worship. As elders, our rationale here is that instead of us just assigning a passage each week, it’s probably better for those who who are actually making the comments and leading those prayers to really put some thought into it. And our reasoning here is that since all of us come in with different life experiences, we’ll have more variety, allowing us to really focus on what we are doing with the Lord’s Supper and the weekly collection. Hans got his passage to me on Tuesday, and Stuart got his to me on Friday, and I am thankful. I don’t know whether you’ve thought about this, but as a preacher, I don’t usually get to lead our thoughts in those two acts of worship, so I really appreciate the men of the congregation who are willing to do that. This is important, and we are thankful.

Before we get to our study of God’s word today, it is our honor to preach the good news that God loves us, he sent his only Son to die in our place, and we obey this good news by believing it, by turning away from sin, by publicly confessing our faith that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and by allowing ourselves to be buried with Jesus in baptism, a burial in water for the forgiveness of sins. And, as usual, we do have several examples to share this week, starting with an update from the Meadowlands Church of Christ in Soweto, South Africa. I think this may be our first report from South Africa, but they posted a few days ago, and they say that, “Heaven rejoices! Another soul has been added to the Kingdom.” And then they quote Luke 15:10, where Jesus says, “I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” I love their baptistery, by the way. But, good news from South Africa!

This next one comes to us from the Nacogdoches Road congregation down in San Antonio. They say, “Brethren, rejoice again with all of Heaven. Please welcome Sister Amanda to the family of Christ. She answered the call of the Lord despite the water being cold to the bone. Strength and honor.” And then they quote Jesus from Matthew 12:48-50, where he says, “Who is my mother and who are my brothers?” And he stretched out His hand toward His disciples and said, “Here are My mother and brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is My brother and sister and mother.” Amen to that!

This next one comes to us from Oleksandr Rodichev, who simply says that this is the, “Baptism of Olga.” And as I was copying this to share with you today, another one popped up on his page from Friday, saying that, “While we had warm evening in Dnipro with 34 degrees Fahrenheit we got great news from tonight: We got new sister in Christ – Maria.” There were several pictures here, and they were so good I just couldn’t whack any of these or shrink them down, but I just love seeing the church gathered by the river in a place that has been bombarded almost constantly for more than a year now. And it reminded me of Paul coming into Philippi in Acts 16 and heading straight for the river where he knew God’s people would be assembled. But, we are thankful for the good news from Ukraine this week.

We have others we could share today, but I’ll just share one more, from right here in Madison! Last week after studying together after worship, Caesar obeyed the gospel! I am thankful to my wife for taking the pictures. I told her she got my good side! As always, we share these pictures as our invitation to you to obey the gospel just as these people have done. If we can help in any way, if you’d like to study together, please let us know. Pull me aside after worship, or give me a call or send a text to 608-224-0274.

This morning we are returning to our ongoing, long term, and very sporadic series of lessons from the book of Proverbs. For those who may be new here, I just want to give the reminder that my love for Proverbs goes back to my first semester at Freed-Hardeman University down in Henderson, Tennessee. I grew up going to public schools in the Chicago suburbs, and I remember my high school advanced biology teacher standing up and saying, “Only idiots believe in creation.” I graduated early from high school (in part, to get away from some of that nonsense). I graduated on a Friday in early January (basically by going in and shaking my principal’s hand and walking out the door), I packed on Saturday, drove all day on Sunday (stopping for worship in Effingham, Illinois, I believe), enrolled on Monday and started classes on Tuesday. One of those classes was Biology, and the second semester focused on zoology (basically,the study of animals), and the class was taught by Milton Tucker (pictured on the left up here, along with his wife Patricia). I learned that brother Tucker got his PhD in Madison, Wisconsin, back in the 1960’s, and this man was an absolute brain. But he also believed in God and that God created the world and everything in it in six days, resting on the seventh. The class was challenging. I remember hundreds if not thousands of slides, where we memorized more than I thought was possible to memorize. We had a lab on Tuesday and Thursday where we dissected all kinds of creatures and continued to learn. Years later, when we moved to Madison, lo and behold, some of you actually remembered the Tuckers from their years in Madison. He and Patricia actually helped purchase this building back in 2001. But every day Dr. Tucker would start each class with a reading from Proverbs, followed by a prayer. And in that transition from the public schools of Illinois I quickly learned that not all who believe in creation are idiots. Not at all. But that class 1.) awakened me to God’s incredible design in the world around us, 2.) reminded me that you can get an advanced degree from a secular school and come out with your faith in tact, and 3.) created in me a new appreciation for King Solomon’s wisdom in the book of Proverbs.

Several years ago, then, we started looking at the book of Proverbs in sermon form, passage by passage. In the first nine chapters, of course, we have paragraphs. We have a sense of continuity. So, we would cover a paragraph or two, and then move on to something else, and then come back and study another paragraph or two, and so on. But that got us to Proverbs 10, where we lose nearly all sense of context! Starting in Proverbs 10, we are blasted with one proverb after another, and rarely is one ever connected to the one before it or after it. And so, at that point, I printed out the entirety of Proverbs 10-31, one verse at a time, which took up roughly 80 pages. And then I started making notes on each verse and separating these by topic. So, over the past few years, we have now been covering the rest of the Proverbs topically. We have pulled out everything King Solomon says on wealth, for example, and we have looked at those verses together, and so on. Up to this point, we have now covered 430 out of the 915 Proverbs, or right at 47%. I’m referring to this as the 30-year plan through Proverbs. I don’t know whether I will live long enough to make it to 100%, but we are making a valiant effort.

I’m thinking of what Solomon said at the end of Ecclesiastes, when he said that the preacher’s job, “In addition to being a wise man,”  is to “[teach] the people knowledge; and [to ponder, search out and arrange] many proverbs.” His role is to “find delightful words and to write words of truth correctly” (Ecclesiastes 12:9-10). Well, over the past several weeks, I have tried to pull out everything King Solomon says about SPEECH, about the words that we speak. I didn’t do the math, but I’m thinking we might get over the 50% with these, because there is so much in Proverbs concerning the words that we say. One author found it interesting that King Solomon, a man so gifted with words, is responsible for over 16,000 words in the Bible, and he used many of those words in giving advice to his sons (here in Proverbs) concerning the words that they will speak. And I firmly believe that as we study these words from King Solomon, all of us should be able to learn some very practical lessons that we can apply to the words that we speak today. And today, of course, words are not limited to literal speech. Today, much of our speech happens online, or through email, or text, or some other electronic communication. Most of us will speak (or write) literally millions of words in a lifetime. And this is significant, because as Jesus said in Matthew 12:36-37,“But I tell you that every careless word that people speak, they shall give an accounting for it in the day of judgment. For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.” Words matter.

Today and for the next two Sundays I’d like to have us look at the POSITIVE USE OF WORDS, then we’ll note some of King Solomon’s advice to either TALK LESS or STOP TALKING ALTOGETHER, and then on subsequent Sundays we’ll be looking at some of the NEGATIVE USES OF WORDS – GOSSIP and RUMORS, and then we’ll plan on wrapping it up with basically a MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTION of everything else King Solomon says about our speech. Today, though, we start with the POSITIVE USE OF WORDS, and we will look at these in canonical order, in the order they appear in Proverbs. I’m doing this just to make it easier to follow along.

    1. And we start today with PROVERBS 10:11, where King Solomon says that, “The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life, but the mouth of the wicked conceals violence.”

We do have a positive and a negative mixed in together here (that’s how the Proverbs are sometimes), but the positive side of this is that the mouth of the righteous is compared to a “fountain of life.” And I don’t know whether we always appreciate the value and the importance of a fountain of fresh water back in those days. But this is huge. Today, of course, most of us just turn on a faucet. What an amazing blessing! But it hasn’t always been this way, even here in the City of Madison. Yesterday, I did some research into our water supply here in Madison, and it all goes back to an undergrad at the University of Wisconsin and his senior project back in the 1880’s. He developed a way of testing the water, and back then, everybody had their own well. Well, for his project, this guy went door to door and tested a bunch of private wells, and let’s just say that they were pretty much all full of poop! I think that might be the best way of putting it. Most people would have a well and then a few feet away they would have a cesspool (a catch basin for waste and sewage), and that sewage would almost always find its way into the drinking water. Long story short, we now have 23 wells in Madison, going down to a depth of more than 1,000 feet, distributed through 916 miles of water main, 9,009 hydrants, coming from 33 reservoirs providing over 43 million gallons of storage, and piped out to 64,839 properties. And now, we turn on a faucet, and we have immediate access to cold, clean water. Today, water is safe and relatively cheap.

Not so in the ancient world. Back then, wells were expensive and rare, and they were often absolutely necessary for survival. People would fight over wells. We think about the ongoing conflict between Abraham and Abimelech. People would find their wives at wells. We think of Abraham’s servant finding a wife for Isaac. Jacob found his wife at a well. Moses met his wife at a well. Last week, I mentioned David’s mighty men going behind enemy lines to get water from the well in Jerusalem. Jesus met with a Samaritan woman at a well. Wells were so important. And to prevent evaporation, wells were often covered. This is what led to people finding their wives at a well. Men would impress the ladies by moving those huge stones (as in the case of Moses). There’s so much we could say about this, but Solomon uses a fountain (a source of water) as a picture of a righteous person speaking. The words of the righteous are valuable and refreshing. The words of the righteous are a source of life.

On the other hand, the words of the wicked are a cover for violence. Violent and abusive words have a way of attracting attention, and we will pay more attention to those words in other Proverbs in a few weeks. For now, though, the words of the righteous are compared to a “fountain of life.” We hear this, and we might think of that time when the crowds were leaving Jesus (in John 6), and Jesus asks the twelve, “You do not want to go away also, do you?” And Peter answers and says, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life.” This is why we plan on singing Wonderful Words of Life after today’s lesson. The mouth of the righteous gives life, while the mouth of the wicked destroys with violence. So, we ask ourselves this morning: Do our words give life? Do we bless and encourage? Or do we use our words as a cover for violence? Are our words critical, and negative, and destructive?

    2. Our second proverb today comes in Proverbs 10:20, where Solomon says that, “The tongue of the righteous is as choice silver, the heart of the wicked is worth little.”

So, this is similar to the first Proverb, but instead of comparing our speech to a “fountain of life,” he now compares the tongue of the righteous to “choice silver.” Again, then, the words of the righteous have great value, and in this case, the value is measured in silver. Obviously, one advantage of silver (and gold) is that precious metals have some kind of value regardless of what the economy may be doing. Even when paper money is worthless, silver still has value. I’ve noticed lately that you can buy silver and gold at Costco these days. Some locations have it in the store, and other times you have to have it delivered. At this moment, gold is going for $2,781/ounce, and silver is going for just over $31/ounce. Those values fluctuate, of course, but precious metals always have some value. And that’s what King Solomon is saying about the “tongue of the righteous.” The words of the righteous will have value, even when other words do not.

And I would add that Solomon describes “choice silver” in this passage – not just silver, but silver that has been refined; pure silver. And the alternative, of course, is the lack of value that comes with those words from the “heart of the wicked.” Those words are “worth little.” There is a connection, then, between the heart and the words we speak. Jesus recognizes this in Matthew 12:34-35 when he says to the Pharisees, “You brood of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak what is good? For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart. The good man brings out of his good treasure what is good; and the evil man brings out of his evil treasure what is evil.” Words, then, come from the heart, and we will see this throughout our study of speech in Proverbs. A righteous heart produces valuable words, and a wicked heart produces words that are worthless.

    3. We continue with Proverbs 10:21, where King Solomon says that, “The lips of the righteous feed many, but fools die for lack of understanding.”

As I understand this proverb, he’s probably not speaking literally (in terms of eating as opposed to starving), but he’s speaking proverbially. And King Solomon is suggesting (he’s observing) that those who are truly righteous have a way of sharing their wisdom with others. On the other hand, those who are foolish (or wicked) have no interest in listening to wise words, and they end up dying in their foolishness. First of all, then, the righteous are teachers (they are eager to help others avoid some pitfalls), but the wicked really don’t have anything to share. And it’s not that nobody’s sharing! The foolish die because they just don’t get it. And I know: Some of us have access to more wisdom than others (we’ve had good parents, and teachers, and coaches, and mentors), but if we don’t listen, we miss it. Wisdom is available for those who are willing to listen.

    4. This brings us to Proverbs 10:31, where King Solomon says that, “The mouth of the righteous flows with wisdom, but the perverted tongue will be cut out.”

This is similar to the ones before it. We have speech coming from both sides, but the difference here is that “the perverted tongue will be cut out.” And yes, that’s extreme, but perverted speech is extreme. Both words and actions have consequences. We might think of Jesus’ advice to pluck out an eye instead of lusting after a woman (and so on) in the Sermon on the Mount. He wasn’t telling us to cut out an eye; he was telling us: Don’t lust! In other words, the tongue isn’t the problem here, but it’s where those words come from. We might compare it to working on an outlet at home. If I’m swapping an outlet, I have to start by turning off the breaker. I must trace that power back to the source. So also with the tongue. If I have a problem saying terrible things to my wife, or to my children, or to friends, or to people at work, it’s not a tongue problem, but it’s a heart problem. And if we’re ready make a change here, it starts in the heart. I have to make a point of choosing to speak words of wisdom, words of encouragement. At Culver’s, I can write the name of the cashier on my receipt and mention that person by name in a review or on the survey where they give you a free scoop. But I have to think about that and then do it.

    5. This brings us to the next verse, Proverbs 10:32, where King Solomon says that, “The lips of the righteous bring forth what is acceptable, but the mouth of the wicked what is perverted.”

This is similar to the others, but here the emphasis is on speaking what is acceptable. Obviously, we want to speak what is acceptable to God, but there’s also a sense in which our words are to be appropriate and acceptable to those who hear us speaking. This doesn’t mean that we cut loose with profanity as long nobody cares. That’s not it at all. But in a positive sense, those who are righteous speak what is appropriate to the circumstances. We might think of Paul in 1 Corinthians 9:19-23, where he wrote about adapting his approach to different cultures and audiences,

To the Jews I became as a Jew, so that I might win Jews; to those who are under the Law, as under the Law though not being myself under the Law, so that I might win those who are under the Law; to those who are without law, as without law, though not being without the law of God but under the law of Christ, so that I might win those who are without law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak; I have become all things to all men, so that I may by all means save some. I do all things for the sake of the gospel, so that I may become a fellow partaker of it.

The righteous, then, will speak what is “acceptable.” On the other hand, the wicked just speak what is “perverted.” I think we’ve all heard some advice on what to say or not to say to those who are grieving. We’re not supposed to say, “I know exactly how you feel,” because that’s probably not true. Instead, it’s probably better to simply say, “I’m sorry for your loss,” and so on. That would be a whole study of it’s own, but the idea here is that the words of the righteous are “acceptable.”

    6. We continue this morning with Proverbs 12:18, where King Solomon says that, “There is one who speaks rashly like the thrusts of a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.”

With this one, we start with the negative: There are some people who basically stab with their words. Isn’t that what’s going on here? Some people wield their tongues like a sword, hacking people to pieces, poking and jabbing with their words, with no thought of helping. We know people like this. Words can hurt. I think of meeting with a young couple many years ago. He was somewhat connected to the church, but she was not, and they were having some marriage trouble, so we sat down to talk about it. As I remember it, she was seeing the faces of demons coming out of the walls in their home. It was weird. There was a heavy spirit in the room. That’s the only way I can describe it. But in the course of that discussion, I remember this woman just cutting loose with her words, saying to her husband, “Why don’t you tell your preacher about your cocaine use, why don’t you tell him about this, and that,” and on and on. She became completely unhinged, stabbing and thrusting with her words. It would have been more comfortable, in fact, if she had been wielding an actual sword. But when I read Solomon’s words here, I think back to that encounter maybe 30 years ago. And what was interesting to me at the time is that I didn’t think any less of the young man because of those accusations, but I actually felt empathy for him at that moment. She had no interest in saving the relationship, but was doing everything in her power to stab this young man to death with her words.

On the other hand, King Solomon says that “...the tongue of the wise brings healing.” Several weeks ago I read something from Emily Dickinson on her birthday, and I shared it with my sister. And it reminded me of my sister, 1.) Because my sister was named after Emily Dickinson, and 2.) Because of my sister’s work as a therapist. But Emily Dickinson once wrote this,

If I can stop one heart from breaking,
    I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
    Or cool one pain
Or help one lonely person
    Into happiness again
I shall not live in vain.

King Solomon would approve, and I think that’s what he’s saying here. We can stab with our words, but those who are wise will use their words to heal.

    7. We have time for one more today, so let’s close this morning by looking at Proverbs 12:25, where King Solomon says that, “Anxiety in a man’s heart weighs it down, but a good word makes it glad.”

All of us feel the heaviness of an anxious heart from time to time. For some, it’s worse than it is for others. Solomon, though, reminds us that “a good word makes it glad.” I am so thankful for those who encourage. There’s much in this world that concerns us, and the constant bombardment of news has a way of getting us down. But “a good word makes us glad.” This proverb may be written more from the perspective of the person with an anxious heart, but this is also a reminder for the rest of us: We have the ability to lift people up! And I don’t think Solomon had any idea the kind of ability we would have to do this these days. We have the ability to call, or message, or text. We have the ability to encourage by video. I got a message this week from a friend in Virginia who was doing some Bible teaching on TikTok, and he ran into a guy in Watertown who wants to know more about the Lord, and now we are connected by text, and he hopes to worship with us next week. We have so many ways to connect. We just need to do it. In Hebrews 10:24-25, the Bible says, “...and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near.” Let’s not overthink this, but let’s encourage each other.

Last Sunday afternoon, I was tired. You guys know that I love you, and I love coming together for worship, but you also wear me out. It had been a long day, I was wrapping up lunch on the east side at maybe 2:30 or 3 o’clock, but on the way south on Monona Drive, I thought, “You know, I haven’t seen Ruby for a while.” So, when I hit the Beltline I went left instead of right, and I took the scenic route home through Deforest. I’m glad I did. As usual, Ruby was more encouraging to me that I was to her. But what a blessing to be with that Christian sister. When she heard my voice, I think she smiled the whole time. She was an encouragement.

Conclusion:

As we close, let’s just remember: We have no idea who God may put in our path who may need some encouragement this week. How can our words be a fountain of life? That’s our mission over the next week, to make sure our words are valuable, feeding many, overflowing with wisdom, acceptable to those who hear, words that bring healing and gladness to those who are anxious.

In just a moment, Josh will lead us in a song to help focus our thoughts on what we just studied, but before we sing, let’s go to God in prayer:

Our Father in Heaven,

We are thankful this morning that you are a God who speaks. You spoke this world into existence, and you have spoken to us through your inspired word, including the words given to us through your servant Solomon. We know from these Proverbs we’ve read this morning that we need your wisdom to speak words that are a blessing to others. This week we pray for opportunities and open doors. Give us the power to encourage.

Thank you, Father, for Jesus. We come to you in his name. AMEN.

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