“Speaking from the Heart” – FBC Morning Light (10/23/2024)

Well good Wednesday morning to you. Today in our Bible reading we're reading in Luke chapter 8, just a few verses there, and then, well, frankly we're jumping all over the place between Matthew, Mark, Luke.

I want to focus on, if you want the full list of places where we are, I encourage you to go to our church website, download the Bible reading plan, otherwise it can be rather time consuming to go through it all here.

But anyway, I want to focus on one of the passages. It's in Matthew chapter 12, and in verses 33 to 37, Jesus is rather blunt with some of those who are in his audience, and he's pretty critical. He calls them, in fact, a brood of vipers in verse 34.

Why does he do that? Well, let's back up here. In verse 33, Jesus says, either make the tree good and its fruit good, or else make the tree bad and its fruit bad, for a tree is known by its fruit. Okay?

Jesus is talking about good trees, bad trees. Good trees bringing forth good fruit, bad trees bringing forth nothing or junk. And then Jesus makes this comment. He's speaking to some who are there in the audience.

He says, you brood of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak good things? Now who's he talking about? Well, you look back in the context, and he's talking about these Pharisees who saw Jesus cast demons out of this guy, a demon-possessed person who was also blind and mute, Jesus healed the man, cast out the demon, and the multitudes were amazed.

They said, could this be the Son of David? In other words, could this be the Messiah? But the Pharisees said, here's what's come out of their mouth, this fellow, speaking of Jesus, does not cast out demons except by Beelzebub, the ruler of the demons.

And you get what they're doing. The Pharisees are saying that Jesus is himself a minister of Satan, that he is doing what he's doing by the power of the Wicked One. Now Jesus, in dealing with that in verses 31 and 32, basically says these men are guilty of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, that they're attributing the work that was accomplished by the power of the Spirit in casting out the demon and healing this demon-possessed man.

They're ascribing that to the power of Satan, ascribing the power of the Holy Spirit to the power of Satan. Jesus says, this isn't forgivable. This isn't forgivable. And that's when he, that's a segue into this comment about the good tree, the bad tree, the good fruit, bad fruit, and then he turns to these people who have just accused him of casting out a demon by the prince of demons and says to them, you are a brood of vipers, you are dangerous, you are poisonous, and you are so evil you can't speak good things.

Then he says this, out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. And then from that platform, if you will, Jesus establishes a principle that gives us some understanding, even in our own lives 2 ,000 years later.

This isn't all about Jesus. He says, a good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things. And then he says, by your words you will be justified, by your words you will be condemned.

Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. So if you know someone whose words are just constantly belittling and demeaning and destructive and profane, then that's telling you what the character of his heart is, the nature of his heart.

On the other hand, you know someone who's generally encouraging and positive in the way he speaks with you, the words that he uses with you, then that indicates a good heart. So you can tell the character of a person's heart by the words he uses and the manner in which he communicates to other people.

And Jesus says in verse 36, I say to you that for every idle word men speak they will be given account of it in the day of judgment. By your words you will be justified, by your words you will be condemned.

Now what's he getting at here, that the day of judgment, you know, judgment is going to be determined by the words we use? What he's saying is, going back to what he said earlier, the words of your mouth indicate the nature of your heart.

If your words, what you say and the way in which you say it is just evil all the time, it's revealing an evil heart. Your words will condemn you because the words will manifest your heart. On the other hand, if you have a good heart that's been graciously affected by the redeeming power of the Holy Spirit and God has graciously saved you, he's even redeemed your speech because it'll change the way, a changed heart will change the way you communicate with others and speak to others.

So very helpful and challenging words from our Savior. Let's be sure to guard our heart, because out of it are the issues of life, even the words we say. So Father, give us good hearts, transform us by the work of your Spirit, we pray in Jesus' name and for his sake, amen.

All right, listen, have a good rest of your Wednesday. I trust the Lord will bless you in it.