A Word to the Wise

Proverbs 18:21 says, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.” 

Death and life in the power of the tongue. What kind of fruit are you eating, I ask today—by what you say, by what you write, by what you do? What kind of fruit are you feeding others by what you say? Will it come back as a reward—life? Will it come back to bite you—death? The proverb said.

We hear a lot of things today. One of the things that always annoys me is when I hear, "Well, that's your truth, and this is my truth." It makes no sense. I mean, truth is truth. But they see it from a different set of facts—things that they actually believe.

We just finished a political season, which probably will never end—one of the worst in history that I can ever remember, with all the things, the rhetoric, all sorts of facts that aren't facts. Depending on whose facts you tuned into, you get polar opposite points of view.

And that is a sad thing. Whenever a debatable item comes up, I see or hear—on the news, on TV, or on posts—things that are exactly the opposite of each other. And it saddens me. Sometimes the facts are wrong. I know they're wrong. Sometimes the facts may be correct, but they probably shouldn't be said. And oftentimes, that happens.

I ask, do we do the same thing in the church? Sometimes. If we shouldn't, we should examine our words. Again: death and life are in the power of the tongue. Do we want to have death, or do we want to have life? We'd like to all think that everything we believe and say is absolute truth. Unfortunately, that's not always the case. Of course, what is truth? 

John 17:17 is the best definition of that: Thy word is truth. Christ says, Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth. And we have a book of truth. I really like this book because whether it's history, or knowledge, or prophecy, or whatever—I can count on it being true.

Now, of course, there are a couple of verses added in that we know were trying to make the Trinity seem true, which isn't true at all. But overall, in those verses—which are easily proven—we have a book of truth, a book we can count on.

How much of what we say or write or do is not from the book? Probably quite a bit. And how much of what you think is truth is simply opinion? People have opinion—they're like noses: everybody has one. And what do we use? How do we use what we believe is the truth?

There was a man on a bridge once, about to jump and commit suicide. A car saw that and stopped and yelled at him. He says, "Don't jump! You're one of God's children. He loves you—don't jump!" The man kind of stood there, hanging onto the cable. And so the man said, "Are you a Christian?" And the guy said, "Oh, yes. Yes, I am. I'm a Christian."

"So God loves you—me too! I'm a Christian too! Please don't jump." He said, "Are you a Catholic or a Protestant?"

He said, "I'm a Protestant."

"Me too! Please, God loves you—don't jump!"

Then he finally said, "Well, are you a Lutheran, Methodist, or a Baptist?"

He said, "I'm a Baptist."

"Oh, me too! Please, God loves you—don't jump!"

He finally says, "Well, are you a Traditional Baptist or a Reformed Baptist?"

He said, "I'm a Reformed Baptist."

"Jump, you sinner."

Do we divide based on nuances? Or do we see things a little differently? The Bible addresses truth in many places. When we step away from Scripture, we may or may not be dealing in truth.

And even if what we believe is truth, do we have the wisdom to know how to use it? Sometimes it's better just to not say anything at all. Our using truth—or what we think is truth—can damage other people.

Words. Words that can damage. Sometimes it comes in the form of judging others. Sometimes it comes in the form of gossip. Sometimes it comes in the form of giving information that's self-serving—to get what you want. The Bible talks about that in numerous passages. It provides warnings against using words incorrectly to harm. It also gives us Scriptures that are encouraging—to use words properly to help one another, to grow, kind of like our sermonette. Words of compassion, to understand, to help.

Again: Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof. Whatever we do and say, we will be held accountable for. Words have power. Words have meaning. And they matter. You can inspire people. You can inspire a group, an individual, a nation—even a country, as Churchill did in World War II with words, carefully prepared words. Or words that lead to destruction, like Hitler, and destroyed millions of people. Those things happened.

What were words first used in human history—or first misused, I should say? We know in Genesis 3: the story of the serpent, Adam, and Eve.

I'll read a few verses there, because the words that were said—God gave them the truth up front. Genesis 3:1: The serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord had made. And he said to the woman, “Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?” And the woman said, “Oh, we can eat of every tree in the garden, except the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden.” God said, “You shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.”

That's what God had told Adam and Eve. Every tree is yours—except that one. The serpent had some words for the woman and said, “You shall not surely die. God knows that in the day you eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened, and you shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.”

Words. Words have set humanity on a course. Sadly, Eve believed those words. Verse 6: When the woman saw the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took the fruit and ate, and gave also to her husband with her, and he did eat. She believed the words. Life and death—power of the tongue.

Verse 7 says, The eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. I always wonder if Adam was there the whole time with Eve or if he came up and she’d already eaten it. It doesn’t say. But Adam did see that Eve ate and she wasn’t dead. That must have been true—she hadn’t died. He bought into the words as well. And here we are, 6,000 years later, still having words given to us by men—words that Satan inspires, words that try to turn us.

I wonder if they had a book of Proverbs—Proverbs 3:5. I wonder if they’d had that and read it, maybe they’d have changed. Children, when you watch them, they tend to behave. But if you leave the room—hand to the cookie jar. Adam and Eve, it seems, were no different.

Proverbs 3:5: Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not to your own understanding. When they took the fruit, they leaned to their own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths. Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord, and depart from evil. Are we wise in our own eyes?

All too often, I think we are. Instead of speaking the truth—being kind and loving—sometimes we don’t. In Ephesians 4:14, we’re told not to be children tossed to and fro, not to buy into things that we can’t prove or don’t know, carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive.

Satan, the master deceiver, has a lot of students. Those students are doing his will—not even knowing it, in many cases—but they do.

Ephesians 4:15 But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into Him in all things, which is the head, even Christ. That’s who we’re trying to emulate in our words and what we do. Down to verse 29: 

Ephesians 4:29 Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers. Do we consider our words—whether they’re helpful or harmful? Again: Death and life are in the power of the tongue.

Are we carried about by every word we hear, by everything that comes across us? Does it carry us in the wrong direction? Is what we have really the truth—or is it opinion and self-serving?

In the 1970s, Ambassador College sought accreditation. It was an interesting time. Mr. Armstrong agreed to let them seek accreditation. They convinced him it would be helpful to the students. But eventually, being frustrated with the things he was being told, he just stopped the process. He said, “This is God’s college, and if accreditation is going to change it, then we will not seek accreditation.” It shut down a process.

Words. A momentous decision—because of some words. There really wasn’t anything wrong with accreditation. But words stopped it. These are not the words Mr. Armstrong used to stop it, but the words of others. You can see—other people used accreditation to get things that they wanted. Certain things—they would ask the accrediting board. They’d ask the accrediting board, “What do we need if we want to have this?” And the accreditation board would answer. And they went to Mr. Armstrong with just the answer—not the question.

They wanted tenure. They wanted a number of other things at the time. Because there were people that were going off track—the ’70s were kind of a prelude to the ’90s of going off track—and they only gave the answer, and not the question. The question, to me, was more important than the answer. But it made him upset because he was right. He wanted it to be God’s college—and it wasn’t going to change.

And what they were using to attempt to get accreditation was to say things they wanted, and not things that were actually required. It was interesting—hearing the things that they brought, and hearing Mr. Armstrong talk about how accreditation was going to destroy the college.

I talked to him, and I said, “Mr. Armstrong, that’s not true.”
 “So what do you mean?”
 I said, “I read the catalog—the handbook from Liberty Baptist University and Oral Roberts University and some of those. And in that, it said that in your four years here, you will have an episode of speaking in tongues.”
 Mr. Armstrong said, “Is that in their book?”
 I said, “Yes.”
 He said, “Are they accredited?”
 I said, “Yes.”

I said, “Accreditation really is about: are you saying what you are? Are you deceiving the students that are coming? They think they’re coming to the greatest university in the world, and you’re telling them it’s the greatest university in the world—and it’s not. If you tell them they’re coming to a Bible college that teaches the truth of God, and they’re not being deceived, you’re not using that to misrepresent—you can be accredited.”

And so, before he died, we began the process again. Finally, we did achieve accreditation. It did help the students, because they could get grants and loans and things they couldn’t before. One of many examples of words. Words that can change the course of something. There are many examples of words for self-serving purposes.

One of the most notable in the Bible is Acts 5. Acts 5 is the story of Ananias and Sapphira. Again, I’m sure you know the story. I’m not necessarily going to turn and read it, but they saw that other people had sold goods and given to the church, and they were praised and honored for it. So Ananias and Sapphira decided they were going to do the same thing—except they sold property and lied about how much they sold it for when they gave it to the church.

When they lied to Peter, God revealed to Peter what the truth was. Interesting—it backfired. Yeah, they told Peter, “Yes, that’s what we sold it for.” It wasn’t the money—it was the lie. The words. Death and life from the power of the tongue. For them, it certainly was—very quickly.

Sometimes I wish that could happen. It would make us more careful in what we say. But if that were to happen, I wouldn’t be up for speaking, and I probably wouldn’t have an audience either. So thankfully, we have mercy—and faith—heavy on mercy. But it set an example to start the church. They realized God was in that.

The Bible offers guidance on how believers should relate to governing authorities. Because we do have governing authorities, and they’ve told us to do a lot of things over the decades. It emphasizes respect and obedience to rulers, and it also says we can be disobedient sometimes—if it’s in conflict with God’s law.

Now, I’m probably going to leave preaching and go to meddling here, as the old joke goes, but I’d like to address some things that happened the past few years that we all witnessed—I think were difficult. Things that people took sides on—that were harming the church. Things that often caused anger and division. Things done—and these people, in using it, often used scriptures to justify what they did.

Let me give some examples. When COVID happened, there was so much rhetoric. Did it come from the Wuhan lab? Did it come from the monkeys in the jungle? A little natural mutation? There were arguments all over on that—on the news, social media, wherever—depending on what you listened to.

Then we had the vaccine mandates. And then we had the social media members for the vaccine condemn members who didn’t take it, or chose not to. And then the masking edicts came. And the same thing happened—people took a side. Something that probably would have been better just to leave alone.

But I read the quotes that members said on some of the forums—on Facebook and things: “You’re disobeying God if you don’t get the vaccine.” “You’re disobeying government authorities if you don’t wear the mask.” And I read the comments that “if you didn’t comply, you’re killing other members.”

Well, I don’t think anybody was trying to murder members. I don’t think any of that was true. But there were terrible words. And the sad part is—they often used scriptures to support it.

Let’s look at some of the scriptures. And we’ll look at scriptures on both sides: obeying government and disobeying government. Because I think in the future, when we get the beast power there, there’ll be some edicts and things that we won’t be able to keep—and things that we’ll have to be able to judge for.

Of course, Romans 13:1–2—that’s always where people will go for the governing authorities. We see that they’re there to maintain order. And I’m glad we have rules and laws in the land when I’m on the freeway. Yeah, there are times when it’s crowded on my side and I’d rather drive on the other side. But if I did, I’d have other cars coming at me all the time. So they do supply an order to society with some of the laws.

Romans 13:1-2 says: Let every soul be subject to the higher powers. For there is no power but of God. The powers that be are ordained of God.
 Verse 2: Whosoever resists the power resists the ordinance of God, and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. Whoa—we better do what they say.

1 Peter 2—another chapter—verse 13, where they also quote, because it kind of sounds like we’re supposed to support all the mandates, and to do that would be to honor God.

1 Peter 2:13–14 says: Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake, whether it be to the king, as supreme, or unto governors, or unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers, and for the praise of them that do well.

So are we to submit to every ordinance? And what kind of ordinance does that mean?

Titus 3 encourages us—obedience to rulers as well. Titus 3:1: Put them in mind to be subject to principalities and powers, to obey magistrates, to be ready to every good work, to speak evil of no man, to be no brawlers, but gentle, showing all meekness to all men. Subject to principalities—then we are.

Of course, Jesus said, Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, and unto God that which is God’s.

These scriptures all make it sound like you should follow every directive—and indeed, most directives we should.

On the other hand, I heard members challenging the people that were pro-vaccine, pro-mask, and don’t assemble with words such as, “Well, if you get the vaccine, you have no faith. God’s our healer, not vaccines.”

God says, Don’t forsake the assembling of yourselves together. So are you going to stop keeping the Sabbath when they tell you to do that?

They also used scriptures to support their comments. Of course, the first one is Acts 5:29—Peter. We all know that. They’re commanded by the magistrates: “Do not talk in Jesus’ name. Do not do this.” And what did they do?
 Verse 29: Peter and the apostles answered, ‘We ought to obey God rather than men.’
 So—an edict, obviously, telling them to do the opposite of what Christ told them.

Exodus 1:18—even in the Old Testament, we see cases where there was disobedience to authority. The Hebrew midwives in Exodus 1:18 disobeyed Pharaoh’s order. He gave an order: kill all the baby boys that are born. He was afraid there were too many Israelites, and they might take over. So he ordered them to kill them.

Verse 18: The king of Egypt called for the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this thing, and have saved the men children alive?”
 They didn’t follow orders.
 The midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian women—they are lively, and are delivered before the midwives come in unto them.”
 It wasn’t true.
 Therefore, God dealt well with the midwives, and the people multiplied and waxed very mighty. God dealt well with them—for not killing the babies, for not obeying the order.

Of course, Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in Daniel 3—they heard the king’s order, and they told the king, “We’re not careful to answer you. We will not bow down to your gods.” Pretty obvious case there—not serving.

Daniel—I like Daniel 6:9. It says when Daniel knew the decree had been signed—no one could pray, no one could petition anybody but the king—he went to his house. The window was open, and he looked toward Jerusalem, kneeled on his knees three times a day and prayed, and gave thanks. He knew the order was signed. It was a direct violation.

Of course, Hebrews 10:25 tells us not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together, as some do.
 So what should you do?

Revelation tells us not to be partakers of the sins of this world. Come out from her. Be separate. The world’s going to ask you to do things that you shouldn’t. And if you don’t worship the beast, you’ll be killed. And I suppose, hopefully, we’re in a place prepared for her and don’t have to be killed. But we have to look at those scriptures—and both sets of scriptures are true.

Everything said—scriptures are there to help with our relationships. Scriptures are not there to hurl invectives at other members. They’re not there to belittle or discourage. And that’s what’s wrong. Now, pointing out where to find information available on a subject or another is fine—a lot of people handled things very well. But stating information you cannot prove is opinion, and not the truth. And certainly judging or condemning others with those opinions is very wrong.

I’m afraid, as the world goes on now, we’re going to have a lot more opinions. A lot more people teaching things that are wrong. Expecting things. Things like this have been done in the church before—judging of people.

Loma Armstrong died early on of an easily corrected medical procedure she could have had. Even now, some 60 years later, I’ll read people saying that Mr. Armstrong was a tyrant. He kept her from being kept alive by not going to the doctor. It wasn’t true.

Actually, Mr. Armstrong wanted her to go to the doctor. Loma Armstrong said, “No, I don’t want to.” She did go enough to find out what she had—a blockage. But she wanted to be healed. She didn’t want to go on. It was her choice.

I verified that from Billy Faye Carwile—someone I’ve known since I was a little kid—the nurse that was there with Loma Armstrong. People have passed judgments, and they weren’t there. They don’t know. But people decide things. It wasn’t a matter of obeying or disobeying her husband or authority at that time. It was her choice.

Sometimes we judge people for choices they make when we really don’t know what they did.

As to governing authorities: yes, we are to obey governing authorities—when their laws and commands do not put us in conflict with God’s law. We are to disobey man’s law when it does put us in conflict with God’s law. The wisdom is knowing the difference between the two.

Obviously, laws that would have us commit idolatry, or immorality, or injustice are things that we cannot do. Sometimes we can disobey—because in our country, we have the right to challenge an authority that’s not the law.

In 1979, I faced a really hard decision—one of many that I’ve had in my lifetime. But this one came because of the receivership: January 3rd, 1979. A lot of you weren’t even born then. Some of you were there—a few—if you were in Pasadena.

Michelle—when they came in that day, they came up to the door. They locked the doors to the executive office. Michelle worked in the executive office. She stood there and held the state of California out. They threatened her through the glass doors. They said, “We’re going to take pictures of you, so if we arrest you, we’ll have that.” She held her ground. It took three days before they got in.

I know it’s hard for you to imagine my wife holding out the state of California—but she can be tough when she needs to be.

The court-appointed receiver did take, after three days, the offices. They went in and collected all the papers and everything there because the court had given an order that the receiver was placed over the church. Mr. Armstrong was no longer over the church.

The receiver said, “Mr. Armstrong is fired. I’m in charge.”
 Of course, that didn’t go over well with all of us. But at the same time—it was the government.

I had been helping with legal documents during the two or three months that they were in the church. The lawyers asked me to do something that I really didn’t expect and didn’t even know if I should—what I would do with this.

They asked me the question: “Why aren’t the members upset that the state of California took your church?”
 Because we obey government—that’s why.
 It seemed different. That was what the world did, though. The world held signs up. Placards. We see them every day on the news now—people for this, against that. Things that are crazy.

We were taught obedience—and not to go against governing authorities in protests and that type of thing.

The lawyers said, “You know, the court is taking the lack of response by the members to be a sign that you want them to come in and take over your church. So—you disagree. You have to do something.”

I was 26 years old. Didn’t really know exactly what I would do, but I was being asked to do something that seemed like civil disobedience. Should I do it? It was a dilemma.

I saw the need, because the state did not have the right to be there. Should I? Shouldn’t I? Which scripture to apply?

I couldn’t ask Mr. Armstrong, because the lawyers said this has to be a grassroots movement. If they call someone up on the stand, they’d say, “Yeah, why are you here?”
 “Well, Mr. Armstrong told me to be here.”
 That wouldn’t be exactly grassroots. Very awkward.

I thought of the story of Esther. Who knows if you’ve come to the throne in the kingdom for such a time as this? Everyone knew I worked for Mr. Armstrong—and so I had a voice. Was I there to do this, since people would listen to me?

I began calling members in Southern California, asking them to come take the buildings. They were going to lock the receiver out and not let him back in. We called, and by the evening time we had called over 5,000 people and asked them to come take the Hall of Administration. Some didn’t come. Some did.

I told people—matter of conscience. I didn’t judge anyone, one way or the other, what they would do. But the words—death and life were in the power of the tongue. A few words—and 5,000 people were going to come, in civil disobedience—at least, that’s what it was saying—to take the buildings.

Would I be arrested? Worse? Would I be fired by Mr. Armstrong? Was I misinterpreting scripture?

Of course, as far as I was concerned—they were defying God. They were taking God’s property. At least that’s how I saw it. They were Goliath.

I didn’t know what would happen. I did know, legally, civil resistance can occur. It’s only a crime if you commit a crime—or if the state, the government, and the courts later say that it was a crime.

Members came. For three days, it was on national TV.

Take it. So we did.

We all make choices—our choices. Should I be the judge of others’ choices? Not necessarily. I prefer to let Christ judge each of us in what we do. He’s the perfect Judge. He’s also the perfect One for mercy. But we will have areas of disagreement.

You know, the Church never made an edict on the vaccine. We did obey the mask mandates by the governing laws—they weren’t against God. The vaccine was not the mark of the beast. And the edicts were not actual laws that had to be obeyed. They could be challenged in court—and have been. There were restrictions, and some things we can do even if we disagree, for the sake of unity.

So I don’t take a stand on the issue itself. I don’t think it was that critical. It’s still being studied. We may never know exactly what happened with that. And my position was always: study it for yourself and make your own decision. Depending on the facts that you read, you may or may not choose one or the other.

But hurling invectives at other brethren who disagree? That is wrong—no matter which direction it comes from.

There’ll be people in God’s Kingdom who took the vaccine. There’ll be people in God’s Kingdom who did not take the vaccine.
 People who judge one another—they won’t be in God’s Kingdom.
 That one, we’re told clearly.

Again, I studied it. I chose not to take it. I have friends who studied it and chose to take it. I’ve had both vaccinated and unvaccinated people stay in my house—and didn’t care one way or the other.

I do, at times, wish I had one of the signs from the pro-choice people: “My body, my choice.” I want to carry one of those. Vaccine—my body, my choice. Didn’t work out.
 Killing babies is wrong—but whether you take the vaccine certainly doesn’t fall into that category.

Frankly, all of us need to be able to analyze things for ourselves.
 I actually prayed for people who didn’t take the vaccine—and I prayed for people who did take it. Because I had no idea which was going to be the better or worse.

Matthew 7—Jesus makes a very clear statement on judging. A humorous one, of course.
 That’s where He says: “Why do you try to cast the little speck out of your brother’s eye when you’ve got a big beam in your own?”
 And oftentimes, people do that.
 And He says: “Hypocrite! First cast out the beam out of your own eye—then you’ll see clearly to cast out the speck in your brother’s eye.”
 Make sure you’re right with God. Then maybe you can help your brother.

I’d like to look at what Job’s friends did. It’s interesting—Job has a whole big book about people saying things.
 Job’s friends got in trouble for making statements about things they didn’t know. They judged without full knowledge—but they thought they did.

If you judge without full knowledge, it can lead to harm—and a misrepresentation of God and His justice.

In Job, we have 22 chapters of Job’s friends telling Job:
 “God is good. You had to have sinned. You’re wrong. Just admit it.”
 That’s kind of the short version of 22 chapters. It’s a natural human assumption—God is good. If you’re being punished, then you did something wrong. That was kind of the theme.

But God has the whole puzzle.
 We don’t—we have our piece, but not the other pieces.

God sometimes allows wrongs.

In the end, God rebuked Job’s friends.

Job 42:7–8—I’ll read that. He rebuked the friends for their wrong assumptions that they made.
 They acted and spoke with words too quickly—and it resulted in poor judgment and regret.

“It was so, that after the Lord had spoken these words to Job, the Lord said to Eliphaz the Temanite: ‘My wrath is kindled against you and against your two friends, for you have not spoken of Me the thing that is right, as My servant Job has.
 Therefore take unto you now seven bullocks and seven rams, and go to My servant Job and offer up for yourselves a burnt offering; and My servant Job shall pray for you—for him I will accept—lest I deal with you after your folly, in that you have not spoken of Me the thing which is right, like My servant Job.’”

Wow. All those wonderful words of “God is good, God is just, you had to sin”—that’s what was happening.
 And now they had to go to Job.

What if God told you—if you wrote something critical—what if God told you:
 You have to go to the person you wrote it to, ask them to forgive you, offer a burnt offering for you—and then I won’t kill you?

That would be pretty tough.
 It’d be pretty humiliating.

Thankfully, we get to go to Christ in private and ask for forgiveness if we mess up.

Proverbs 29:20—there are a lot of Proverbs about that.

“Do you see a man who is hasty in his words? There is more hope for a fool than for him.”

Another translation says:

“Do you see someone who speaks in haste? There’s more hope for a fool than for them.”

Ecclesiastes 7:9 says:

“Be not hasty in spirit to be angry, for anger rests in the bosom of fools.”

Oftentimes, these things create anger in us.

In 2 Samuel 24, we see a time when David was hasty—a man after God’s own heart.
 We’re not going to talk about Bathsheba and Uriah. We’re going to talk about when he numbered Israel.

2 Samuel 24:1—“The anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel.”
 Israel is always messing up.
 And He moved David to go and number Israel and Judah.

The king said to Joab, the captain of the host that was with him: “Go now through all the tribes of Israel, from Dan to Beersheba, and number the people, that I may know the number.”

Joab said, “Now may the Lord your God add to the people, however many they be, a hundredfold, that the eyes of my lord the king may see it—but why does my lord delight in this thing?”

Joab basically told David: Don’t do this.
 Don’t number Israel. God’s our strength—not the numbers.

Verse 4: “Nevertheless, the king’s word prevailed against Joab.”
 And he went out and numbered them. He did what he was told.

There were times when I was asked to do things that I said, “Do you really want to do that?”
 And… they did.
 It doesn’t work out well.

He numbered Israel.
 “I’m the king. Get out there. Do what I say, Joab.”

David finally recognized that he had acted rashly.

What was he offered for choices? Three choices:

• Seven years of famine (oh wow—that’s painful),
  
   
• Flee three months before your enemies (he didn’t want to do that),
  
   
• Or three days of pestilence in the land.
  
   

He chose that—because he knew God would be doing that, and He would show mercy—perhaps.

But David’s choice cost 70,000 men.
 His hastiness. His words.
 Death and life were in the power of the tongue—and they that love it will eat the fruit thereof.

That was bitter fruit for David.

Our short set of words on social media may not kill 70,000 men.
 But what if it destroys one person’s faith?
 What if it makes one child of God bitter?
 What if it causes a divide that’s impossible to heal?

Is it still worth saying it?

Do you seek wisdom in what to say and whether to say it?

If you don’t know—give it a day. Put it in the draft. Go pray.
 God can show us our human bias.

There are times when I’ve told myself, “I’m sure glad I didn’t say or do those words.”

Matthew 12:36 should give us all pause to think before we speak or write.

Don’t feel bad—we’ve all been foolish.
 None of my human bosses in 72 years has done this perfectly—whether parents or bosses. I wish they were perfect. It would have been much less traumatic on me. But that’s not what happens—because we’re all human.

Matthew 12:36:

“But I say to you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.”

Ouch.
 Have any words you want to re-swallow? Drink back?

Romans 14:10 backs this up as well:

“But why do you judge your brother? Or why do you show contempt for your brother? For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ.”

People judge by the standard that's not God's standard.

Now, I've seen people push an ox in the ditch so that they can do something they want to do, and people judge them for it. Maybe it was an ox in the ditch. Maybe it wasn't. I've seen other people that never, ever see an ox in the ditch. If that's the case, you're never going to be the Good Samaritan, because you're never going to want to help anybody, because you might look bad, and that's sad.

We need wisdom to discern, not to judge people in gray area. We see people doing things. Assume the best. Assume there's a reason for it.

Jesus obviously did nothing wrong, but they were condemning Him by their traditions and their misinterpretation of God's law. Obviously, if we see someone actually sinning, we have to judge. But why? Not because we're better than them, but to help them.

Galatians 6:1—Paul, in writing to the Galatians, tells them in verse 1 of chapter 6:
 “If a man is overtaken in a sin, a fault, you which are spiritual, restore such a one in the spirit of meekness. Restoring in meekness. Considering yourself, lest you be tempted.”
 Oftentimes, people who judge someone wrong, God puts them in a situation where they do the same thing.

Matthew 18, of course, gives us the criteria. Take it to the person you alone. Solve it. If it can't be solved there, take someone with you. If it can't be solved there, take it to the church.

All too often, I see the reverse. We spread something in the church, and then it has to come to the minister, and then it has to go the opposite direction, unfortunately. There's words to help them. We help people. That's why we focus on restoration. We focus on love, and kindness, compassion. That's what we're supposed to be.

Zechariah 8:16—it was this way in the Old Testament as well as the New. Our actions should be based on truth, not on thoughts or opinions. Zechariah 8:16, God through Zechariah writes:
 “These things are the things you shall do. Speak every man the truth to his neighbor. Execute the judgment of truth and peace in your gates. Let none of you imagine evil in your hearts against his neighbor. Love no false oath, for all these things are things that I hate, says the Lord.”

Don't even think it, let alone say it or write it or do it. The Bible gives us wisdom to do things in this way. Proverbs is full of them.

Proverbs 18:13—“He that answers a matter before he hears it, it's folly.” Sometimes we jump to conclusions. Conclusions can be a folly to us.

James 1:19–20 says, “Let every man be swift to hear, and slow to speak, and slow to wrath. The wrath of man works not the righteousness of God.”

That's why we have two ears and one mouth. I think sometimes He probably best for the third ear right here. Might keep us from saying things that we shouldn't say.

Philippians 2:3–4—“Let nothing be done through strife or vain glory, but in lowliness of mind esteem each other better than yourself.”

Give the benefit of the doubt. You want the benefit of the doubt. Give the benefit of the doubt. Esteem others. Ask yourself before you write or say or do something, am I esteeming others? If not, don't say it. Don't write it.

Proverbs 25:12—“A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.” I bought a little book on that years ago. It was titled that. Are our words apples of gold or are our words rotten apples in fool's gold? Sometimes I think that's the case.

Power in words.

Proverbs 17:28 shows us the power in silence. This is one that we should listen to more often:
 “Even a fool, when he holds his peace, is counted as wise. He that shuts his lips is esteemed a man of understanding.”

Silence. Think about things. These are things that God expects from us.

When we look at the post, we often see our own understanding. We shouldn't lean on that. Like it says in Proverbs 3:5–6:
 “Trust the Lord with all your heart. Lean not to your own understanding. In all your ways submit to Him, and He will make your path straight.”

You want to walk straight into the kingdom? Watch what you say. Lean on God, not yourself.

God tells us to use words to build others up, not to tear them down. And words can be encouraging and enhance life or discouraging and cause harm.

James 3:5—where it talked about the tongue. “The tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among parts of the body.”

Well, if you look at the fires in California—wow. It took out whole neighborhoods. Some people can do the same with the tongue.

Proverbs 12:18—“The words of the reckless pierce like swords, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.”

We need to bring healing to people.

Proverbs 15:4—“The soothing tongue is a tree of life. A perverse tongue crushes the spirit.”

Proverbs 16:24—“Gracious words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul, healing to the bones.”

Our words can create life or death.

We should choose and intentionally use words that encourage, that build faith, that offer hope, that offer healing, offer compassion, like we heard in the sermonette.

Words matter. Words have power. There are a lot of hurts in this world. We will have to help heal those.

In the millennium, we'll be giving words of encouragement, words of healing. Do that—feels good. There's no better feeling than knowing that you're helping, calming someone who's angry, saving someone from the words that they can't take back.

Words could be your power to change someone's life.

Silence may also be the way for you to help. Think about it.

You may not be a Churchill, able to move a country like he did. He chose to lead a country to victory, and his words and speeches are well-documented.

If you can choose words that are uplifting and encouraging, you can help others.

Some people ask why Mr. Armstrong never chose to respond to all the accusations made against him. He chose the response that the royal family gives, which is silence.

He told me—he said, “It's not worth it.” I got a letter written about me that was totally slanderous, totally wrong, and I was upset. Mr. Armstrong said, “No, just let it die. Be silent.”

Prince Charles, now King Charles, confirmed. That's what the royal family did. I was riding with him in a car, an article that was in the paper he had right there that was pretty nasty as such, and I said, “You felt like suing,” and I kind of went, and I said, “Of course, you don't do that because it doesn't change anything.”

Silence is the only way.

Until Jesus Christ's return, silence is the only way to let something die. People will believe what they want to believe. You're not going to change that that easily.

Only God knows the real truth. If you challenge something, then they go to the person who made the statement and say, “Well, hey, they said this. What do you think?” And that person says something, and then they come back to you, “Oh, you have a rebuttal? He said this,” and then they go back to him, and back—rebuttal, comment, rebuttal, comment. It never ends.

It's better just to be silent. Let it go.

Only God knows the real truth, and if we need to know, He'll tell us. That's one of the things. God does tell us everything we need to know. He doesn't tell us everything we want to know, and that's probably a good thing.

The kingdom of God is going to be an incredibly beautiful place. It's going to be wonderful in every aspect. No fear, no depression, no sickness. A place of truth, no fake truth. A place where you can trust—pure words and a pure language.

I look forward to that. It's going to be a place without sin, which has caused pain and division.

We no longer have to worry about, “If you take the fruit, you'll truly die.” There won't be any false fruit to take.

That should be our goal today. We are the kingdom of God in embryo. This phrase was often used years ago. We are to be reflecting God and His reality.

We are to be choosing to be careful to guard our lips through the Holy Spirit.

Satan is going to egg us on in this world. It's going to get worse and worse and worse. We all know that. And as it gets more divided and more opinionated, we have to make sure we back away from those things.

Satan is going to stir up conflict, and he'd love to stir it up in the church. He always has.

Your words can spit venom, or they can bring peace. It's your choice.

One gives death, one gives life.
Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof. Choose good fruit. Choose your words wisely. And we will be there together in the kingdom of God.