Watch your Mouth — Buddy Treviño

Guarding the Mouth and Controlling Access

Good morning. I'm going to try to share this morning about the topic of our words, our speech. There's some reason that I thought of Joseph. You heard the expression, Joseph, watch your mouth. That's something that people would have just thrown around, watch your mouth.

But a watch, biblically what a watch is, is what we would maybe call like guards. Guys that would stand outside the door and in a violent sense be willing to prevent somebody or something from entering in or going out.

You had to get through the guards and be able to get in and that's called a watch. I think they'd also call it a watch when you stay up all night watching to make bad guys aren't coming to invade your camp or your city.

So we need to watch our mouths. It needs to be, let's see, Psalm 141 verse 3 says, set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth. Keep the door of my lips. Your lips are like a door and things come, things come in and out of the doors and one of the things that can come out of the door of your mouth is words.

Maybe that's the only thing that comes out. Well, never mind. And we want to, there needs to be like little guards there that are watching the words that can, that are going to come out, like little soldiers and they're like, there's certain words that might want to come out of our mouths and the little soldiers should say no, that shouldn't come out.

And this is, this is a, it's a, if somebody is endeavoring to follow God, these days we'd call those kind of people Christians. It's a, it's our duty. It's our job. It's something we, it's something we signed up for.

It's something that we absolutely must do. We must take it very seriously. I'm going to read, I guess the whole, I think it's the whole chapter, James chapter 3. My brethren, be not many masters, knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation.

For in many things we offend all. If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man and able also to bridle the whole body. Behold, we put bits in horses mouths that they may obey us. And we turn about their whole body.

Behold also the ships, which though they be so great and are driven of fierce winds, yet are they turned about with a very small helm, whither so ever the governor listeth. Even so the tongue is a little member and boastest great things.

Behold, how great a matter, a little fire kindleth. And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. So is the tongue among our members that it defileth the whole body and setteth on fire the course of nature.

And it is set on fire of hell for every kind of beast and of birds and of serpents and of things in the sea is tamed and hath been tamed of mankind. But the tongue can no man tame. It is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.

Therewith, bless we God, even the father, and therewith curse we men, which are made after the similitude of God. Out of the same mouth proceeded blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be.

Doth the fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter? Can the fig tree, my brethren, bear olive berries, either a vine figs? So can no fountain both yield salt water and fresh? Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you?

Let him show out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom. But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not and lie not against the truth. This wisdom descended, descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish.

For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work. But the wisdom that is from above is pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits without partiality and without hypocrisy.

And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace.". I think there at the end all of these general principles are still wanting to be applied to our words. Our words should be peaceful and full of good fruits and gentle and so forth.

I tried to read that clearly. I don't know if anybody, if you were able to pay attention. There are enormous things here that are said about our words and how important it is that we keep them. And distinguishing the difference between the wisdom that is from above and the wisdom that is on, that is natural and earthly.

Biblical Warnings About the Tongue

I'll read a few more scriptures to try to, well, Proverbs 21, 23. Whoso keepeth his mouth and tongue keepeth his soul from troubles. There's a couple of points I'm really wanting to bring out here. And one of them is that our mouth is something that should be kept.

There should be a watch. There should be carefulness. If we're not doing that, we're failing to do something that we must do. He that keepeth, excuse me, Proverbs 13, verse 3. He that keepeth his mouth keepeth his life, but he that openeth wide his lips shall have destruction.

Proverbs 10, verse 19. In the multitude of words there wanteth not sin, but he that refraineth his lips is wise. The tongue of the just is as choice silver. The heart of the wicked is little worth. The lips of the righteous feed many, but fools die for want of wisdom.

Proverbs 18, verse 20. A man's belly shall be satisfied with the fruit of his mouth, and with the increase of his lips shall he be filled. Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.

The heart of the wise teacheth his mouth, and addeth learning to his lips. Pleasant, that was Proverbs chapter 16, verse 23. The next verse says, pleasant words are as a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and health to the bones.

In the first chapter of James, verse 26, it says, if any man among you seem to be religious and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain. Words are a big deal.

In the scriptures they are likened to things such as poison, swords and arrows. They can do much damage and harm. They are powerful. Every one of us, to the littlest of us, have mouths. At an early age we develop a grasp for a language.

It is like little children walking around with swords and arrows that they can just shoot off any time. I want to make a point of saying that, sorry, there is something that is being alluded to here when it says that we are supposed to keep the words of our mouth.

That means, the scriptures say that out of the heart is where words come from. This is indicating that these are instructions to the man of God or the woman of God. So somebody who loves God and is serving God can have things in their heart that shouldn't come out of their mouths.

That is part of it. I kind of want to address that there is a false doctrine that comes up often. There are different names and descriptions of it. When somebody is converted, when they are saved, when they are born again, they are given a new heart and you are just filled with the Spirit.

If that were the truth, then we could just say everything that came to our heart. We could just do everything that we wanted to do. But it is not true. The heart that changes when we are converted and give ourselves to God is the heart of recognizing that before we didn't recognize that God was Lord and we are His servant.

Now we do. We want to fix that. We want to serve Him and we want to make up for that. So we develop the heart of a servant who is trying to submit and obey and bring forth the fruit. I should go slower.

Bring forth the fruit that He wants us to bring forth. This is the new heart that we have. I don't think it is true that upon conversion there is just nothing bad in us anymore. But rather we have a heart that is now at war against those bad things.

Out of love for God. Our new heart is a heart that is now signed up to run a race. We didn't realize there was a race before and now we know that there is a race and we are signed up. We are going to run that race.

We are committed to producing fruit for Him. We recognize, oh, I am like a laborer in His vineyard and I have been denying Him His fruit. I am not going to do that anymore. I want to give Him His fruit.

This is His vineyard. And we commit to producing fruit, producing profit for our Master. Oh, I am His servant, He is the Master. I want to give Him a lot of, I want my actions to bring forth profit for Him.

And so this is likened to steering a ship or steering a horse or cultivating a garden or investing our talents, recognizing that our mouths are His vineyard. So it is His vineyard, so the fruit that comes out of our mouths, He tells us what kind.

Weeds can come out, thorns can come out, but we see what He wants. He tells us what kind of fruit that should come out and we submit to that because we recognize that it is His, it is not ours. We are in control of it, but we use our control to make it do the things that He wants.

Conforming Speech to Godly Character

It has become socially acceptable for people to just confidently say things like, oh, I am just a sarcastic person. That is just how I am. Oh, I am just rough around the edges. That is just the way I am.

Some people are real gracious and real kind and care, but I am just not like that. I just say it how it is. And it is something people can boast in and it is just like, oh, yeah, that is how they are.

And we just love them anyway. But it is not okay. We signed up to be with God to recognize that those are things that are in every one of us and we are not just going to be that kind of person, but rather we are going to be conformed into a new person.

We are going to fix up this garden. It is a shame because the world thinks it is okay to do that as well. So, there are many ways to communicate the same things. Maybe infinite. I don't know. And God cares about our word choices.

And it is not something that is just going to happen. It requires effort. It is a grand, lifelong commitment to a labor to sculpting our speech. It is not fake. It is not being fake. To be careful, we read all those scriptures.

You saw there that the wise man, the godly man, he keeps his words. He is not being fake. He is not being a fool. He is being careful with what he lets out. There are little guards there making sure. Is this going to be helpful?

Is this going to create more problems than it needs to? We should be putting forth much effort and care into what comes out and how it comes out. Is there a better way to say that? Is there a more fruitful way to say that?

Am I just letting my heart spew stuff out without checking it? I wish I had a…. As I imagine sharing this, I would have liked to have had a pretty good list of examples of ways that I have learned that society naturally talks and that I naturally talk that I have recognized and found that is just not a good way to respond or react.

When somebody says something that I disagree with, this natural way to respond is wrong. I don't want to respond that way. It can be really tricky because we don't…. These are subtle things. These are things maybe that we don't see, and these are things that still get practiced among God's people.

This is something I have put a lot of thought into and put a lot of thought into, and I am on the lookout for hearing unkindnesses or recognizing them. It is always easier to see other people doing stuff wrong than yourself, but this is something I want us to be working on, looking for these things and trying to change them.

I can be in a state of trying to be careful with what I say, but if I don't recognize that something is wrong, then I might say it anyway. First, you have to want to do the right thing, and then you have to learn what is and isn't right.

I wish I had a list. As I was trying to think of a list, it was pretty difficult for me to try to formulate it, but I will say this. These improper ways of communicating that I would have liked to have had a list of usually involved sarcasm.

Probably sarcasm would be like Roman numeral one, and then there would be a bunch of examples. So, probably the examples that I would want to think of would just be examples of the use of sarcasm or hyperbole, which is like making a big extreme statement to make a point.

Often, we use this sarcasm because we're offended and we want to try to hurt the other person or make somebody's position look dumb, make someone feel stupid or ashamed. If we believe somebody's position or their actions are shameful, think of parents, your child does something, it's shameful.

There's different ways to show them that their actions are shameful. We should carefully and gently lead them to see that their actions are shameful, not shame them. We can see that they should feel ashamed, but the wrong path is to shame them, and the right path is to gently help them to see, can you see how you're doing this?

Do you see how that looks to other people? You wouldn't want somebody else to see you doing that, would you? It's mostly a matter of caring, loving, and being careful. As I imagine, I imagine theatrically trying to give an example of the wrong way to tell somebody something, and then the gracious way, but I might not be able to do that.

Gently, carefully leading someone to see that. We need to be sensitive. We need to not be harsh. It's not okay to just... I've seen old videos of myself dealing with my children, and I'm ashamed at how harsh I've been to them.

Especially the little ones, they're so sensitive, and just roughly just throwing commands at them, and not being sensitive, and it's just something we grow in, but we don't want to be harsh. Don't pick on people.

It's real easy for friends to pick on each other, and then, but it's also really easy to think you're better friends with somebody than you really are, and just be picking on them in a friendly way, and hurt their feelings, and they don't...

I would recommend just don't pick on people. Young people especially, I mean, you just shouldn't... don't pick on somebody. If somebody's got a... one of your friends has a problem, don't tease them about it.

Just don't, ever. Like that is just something we shouldn't do. Don't tease your friends. Don't pick on people. Don't, even if it's just a little bit, just friendly, you know, because you always, because you know, you always do that thing wrong, and it's just a little thing, and it's not that important, but I would suggest don't do it.

Don't boast. It can be really easy when we're describing a situation to just casually throw in there that you're responsible for such-and-such, or you're the one who did such-and-such. Just learn to leave that out when you're describing something.

Leave out your... any boasting. Also, learn to leave out others' faults. If somebody breaks something, and somebody says what happened, you don't have to say, so-and-so broke the thing. You can just say, oh, we have a break over here.

We broke something. To be careful that it's going to hurt somebody's feelings if it's not necessary to just like throw in who's responsible for something, or some fault that somebody has. Like, be careful.

Don't... if it's not necessary, there's no need... it's a blessing to cover up little things like that. I wrote guilt trip down here. Don't put guilt trips on people. I think in general, the thing that has helped me is just to recognize that like these these sub points under sarcasm of ways that that I was brought up learning how to talk or or argue.

Typically, they're not saying what I mean. It's like sideways sarcastic way of making a point. The solution I found is just to say what I really mean. I mean, it's pretty bad when I have to take and interpret my own thoughts, my own manner of communication, because the thing coming out of me is just not really saying what I want.

It's saying the opposite, or sarcasm, or something that's supposed to bring a point across, and I just think it's better to just learn to say what you mean. I'm at war with sarcasm in my own life. I try to... if you hear me being sarcastic, I'd appreciate you pointing it out to me.

I try to... as soon as I realize I've said it, I'll just say, oh, that's sarcasm. I want to perfect my speech. Somebody said recently that does somebody... By perseverance, one can overcome nature. What was that?

Is that the last meeting? No. Oh, who is that? Okay, by perseverance, yeah, one can overcome. You said even nature, and I was thinking, oh, yeah, that's the flesh. So, things that... ways of communicating that used... that are fine with the world and totally acceptable, now we view these things as weeds.

We want to rid the garden of our speech of weeds. We want to be sure that there's no unkindness, especially when we're offended. It can be easy to sculpt our words in a way that makes somebody look bad.

Sometimes... so, these are things we have to exercise ourselves in. We should be... but if you're not already, get to exercising. Get to learning. Get to... get to a place where you're not just saying whatever pops into your head, but you are taking the things that you make it your habit, that the things that come to your head or come to your heart, that there's a watch, and you're being careful how you're changing how you say it.

You're maybe just not saying it. This should be how we communicate. So, a thing that has happened to me often... so, if somebody's speaking in an unkind way toward me, the solution I have is to translate what they're saying.

Try to... sometimes somebody can be unkind. It can make me either want to be unkind back or to just not deal with them, but what I... what we need to do and something I've practiced is to translate what they say and to take the meanness out and see that... see the point they're making.

See what... see what they're feeling. See what they're thinking. See what they want and answer them back as though they said it nicely. Everybody knows it's easier to receive criticism from... from somebody who's being careful with their words and meek than somebody that's insulting you, and so you try to be sure that if we're bringing forth criticism to somebody that we're doing it carefully and meekly, and if somebody else is not, take the effort.

The little guards can can hear that and then and pretend like they're translating it to you like as though he said it nicely. Someone said it nicely. And um... but sometimes I'm... I can be so overwhelmed by somebody's rudeness that I... I am rendered incapacitated.

There have been many times somebody's being mean to me and I'm just... I just cannot believe how rude and unkind somebody's being and I'm just... I can't think and I'll just sit there in silence and um... this to me this would be like a weight that's just too big for me.

I can't lift this. And I don't know how that... how the allegory would be to entering... entering back into... entering into being mean back to them or pointing out someone else's faults or somebody's inconsistencies or oh yeah well you such and such.

You... you do such and such or something like that. Um... I... I had a dear friend. Oh the end of high school in the beginning of college his name was Bob. Still is. And um... one time I don't remember the details but we were very... something happened and we were real offended at each other.

And um... I think one of us... oh I think one of us had a secret and the other one found out. I can't remember exactly what it was but um... we were... we were very emotional, very upset. For sure one of us was.

And um... we sat at a table and I don't know how long it was. We... we might have sat at that table for an hour. Maybe it was only half an hour. But we just sat there in silence because we loved each other so much.

Neither of us was willing to say anything unkind to the other person. And we're... all we had was unkindness in our hearts toward each other. And so we sat there in silence because we were unwilling to... to say the unkind things that we were thinking.

And eventually we just realized like we're just gonna have to talk about this later. And uh... we just said let's... let's get out of here. This is... talk about... you know we'll talk about this later.

Let's just get out of here. And we just... we just had to ignore it for a little while because we were so emotional and full of hurt. To me that's... that's one of the... it's one of my favorite stories.

I mean I... I just think that the love that... that that man and I had for each other. I mean that... that was a big deal to me. Anyway um... if you... if you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all.

That's a good one. So be... be willing to do that. Not say anything sometimes. A soft answer turneth away wrath, but grievous words stir up anger. I'm sure we've all... we could probably all share a story about a time I... I've had times when... when somebody comes at me very aggressively and I... and I just... I translate it in my head and just smile and... and pretend like they're not being rude.

And sometimes they'll say something else and something else and eventually they'll... okay eventually they'll... they'll calm down. I've seen it work. I've seen it not work before too. I've seen somebody just keep on being unkind.

Proverbs 12 verse 16 says, a fool's wrath is presently known, but a prudent man covereth shame. Both... I think it's describing two men who have the same feelings, the same thoughts, and the same ideas.

One, the fool presently makes it known and... but a prudent man knows that it would be a shame to do that and he covers it. A wise man learns that he should watch his mouth and learns what to watch for, taking the time and putting forth the effort.

When... when we're talking about something or having an argument, is it your job to win the argument? Excuse me, your goal... is it your goal to win the argument or to be fruitful? How can I... how can I use my words in a way to bring forth fruit and not just... not just win the argument?

Speaking Truth Without Sarcasm or Harm

This will be out of place here, but I've seen on a shirt, a shirt that someone in the world would proudly wear and think is funny and cute. It says, I love sarcasm. It's like punching someone in the face with words.

I mean, the world recognizes that's what sarcasm is. That's what it does and they're just like, yeah, that's what I do. And it's... it's what we should not do. Proverbs 12 verse 18, there is that speaketh like the piercings of a sword, but the tongue of the wise is health.

I saw a man give it... give an illustration. I... I don't... I didn't... I didn't see the first part, but I think this is like wise grandpa trying to teach his grandchildren and he... um, he writes some stuff on some pieces of wood and has these girls, I guess maybe they got into an argument or something, and he had them pound a bunch of nails.

So imagine like two, two by fours here with just like all these nails stuck in it. And he's like, okay, that was... those are the hurtful things that you said. Now... now pull them out. Excuse me. Pull them out and every time you pull a nail out, I want you to say sorry.

Sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry that. I'm sorry I said that. Sorry. Okay, it's all good. There's no more nails in the wood now. It's all fixed, right? But if I held up that piece of wood, you'd see it got hurt.

Um, we can say sorry and we can pull nails out, but our words do damage. Don't... don't let them out. Like you... you can apologize and you can fix things, but it's better to just never let them come out.

Um, be careful if we're offering criticism. Um, if you enter into a disagreement, you're entering into a battle and the goal is not to win. The goal is to win someone over to your position without inflicting harm, which honestly, when somebody starts in trying to insult somebody else, it's because they're actually losing, often because they're losing the argument of what, you know, what the substance is that they're really talking about.

If someone else is wrong and you want them to change their position, as we all know, changing your position can be... can be painful. So, what you have to... some... if you win this argument, it's going to create pain.

Just the fact that somebody has to change their mind is going to be painful for them. You don't want to add any thing to that. You want to... you want to... you don't want any of your harsh words or something to get in the way of that.

You're trying to lead them to a painful place to accept, whether it's your child or, um, some... someone that you meet. Um, that one example that I... I think I can maybe get... get across is like, somebody makes a point and it's a... it's a bad point, and so the... a common thing to do is to... to take that point to its extreme and say, well, for some reason, it was very difficult for me to try to think of practical examples, but if, um, somebody says, um, somebody says it's, uh, it's okay to buy a certain thing that you don't think is good to buy.

Sorry, this is a bad example. And so you... what you think is, that's not a good thing to buy. Um, but... but the natural way... a natural way to respond is, oh yeah, well, let's just go out and buy a bunch of those.

Oh yeah, that's... it's... it's fine to buy, apparently, so we'll just... yeah, let's all just buy a bunch. And what you believe is, surely that... if... when I present it in this way, surely that person will see, like, oh, maybe that would be bad.

Um, but... and you want to get them to see that, but this tactic that commonly gets used is, um, uh, I think I... I... one time I specifically remember I used that. I was trying to convey to someone how important it is to... to eat healthy, um, and they were saying, like, um, they said, oh, it's not what goes into the man that defiles a man, but what comes out.

And I was like, okay, well, let's just... let's just go out and buy some crack cocaine and what... because it doesn't matter what goes in, right? Like, just trying to make that... the point they were using say, you know, I... uh, I hurt... I hurt his feelings.

Um, it was very unfriendly. Um, anyway, we... we don't want to use that tactic. We should say, um, you can... you can make the same... you can communicate the same points more carefully. Like, if someone says, it's okay to buy this thing, and you're like, um, well, here's a better example.

Somebody says, it's okay to do this thing, and, um, you... you could sarcastically, hurtfully say, like, oh, yeah, well, why don't I just go get some for your children then? Where... where the truth is, we think, oh, if it, uh, there's... there's been a time when I believed in doing something, and then somebody said, oh, are you going to teach your children to do that?

And I was like, oh, that just should put a whole new light on it. Like, well, obviously not, and... and if it's not okay for my children, then how can it be okay for me? Um, but there'd be... there'd be a... a kind and gentle way to... to... to try to express to somebody, well, consider... consider if your children were to do that.

How would you feel about that? As opposed to just, like, oh, yeah, well, why don't you just... I mean, there's just, um, that's an example, but there's... there's other ways that... that we do that, that we should be on the lookout for.

Words Accountable Before God

Um, Matthew chapter 12, verse 35 says, a good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things. But I say unto you that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.

For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned. Psalm chapter 19, verse 14, let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer.

Colossians chapter 4, verse 6, let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer every man. Ephesians 4, verse 29, let no corrupt... let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace to the hearers.

Um, it should, it should just be really clear, like your mouth can be like arrows, swords, poisons, or it can be life, health, healing. Um, then that, it's a powerful thing, and if, uh, the, the, the warning there is that there are, there are corrupt communications that can want to come out of our mouths, and it's, uh, um, an essential, uh, it's not, it's not extra.

This isn't just, um, if we're failing to do this, we're, we're failing. Our religion is vain. Steering, sculptily, steering our vessel, sculpting our clay, weeding our garden, carefully, intentionally, it's not just going to happen.

If we're not doing this, we're failing. It's not, it's not an extra thing, an additional good little thing. It is, it is an essential thing. We're, we're, we're, we have the potential to walking, walk, potential to be walking around, shooting little arrows.

We can just, we can have a, have a sentence that we're saying, and in that little sentence, it's a little arrow we shot off, and got somebody, or, or got, or got our here, or, or something, and we don't, we don't want that.

That is all I think I'll share right now. I'd be glad for, uh, any, uh, corrections or clarifications, um, corrections, clarifications, uh, or additions.

Reflections on the Heart Behind Speech

Thank you, brother. That was a real blessing. I really appreciated that. Um, it's one of those topics that just never gets old. Like, you could just, we, it should never get old. Um, I was considering if, if you could have Bible topics on your phone, that would be, should be on your main screen.

Anyways, um, yeah, God help us. I think over the years, I mean, this is something that I've really meditated on for a lot of years, and tried to work on in my own life for a lot of years, and I always focused on the words in my mouth, but I think the real victory is focusing on the heart and your mind.

If you get your heart right, then your words will be right. It's just the root of the matter. Um, recently, my, my brother was doing some Ancestry .com stuff, and looking at things in our family tree, and I've never done that, but it is kind of neat to know, kind of know some of the lineage of your family, and he had come across to one of our grandfathers who was in the army, and he was set on a watch, and he was supposed to stay awake on the watch, and um, he fell asleep, and the Indians, they stole all his guns, and um, anyways, long story short, the, the punishment for falling asleep on a watch is death, or it was in this country.

That's how serious it is. If you fall asleep, and you're in charge of watching, you're worthy of death, and that's, we should really consider that with, when, when it comes to our words, like it, it is that serious, like your words can really do that type of damage, you know, that, your words can do such a serious damage to somebody else that, um, well, like, well, how does God look at it?

Like, like, I think God thinks of it as a serious thing when we do that, when we, we, we wound somebody with our words, and you know, I don't think he, he doesn't cause us to die or anything, but I think it's a very serious offense to him, and we should really consider that, and we should, we should keep our mouth with a bridle, and just really study to not let any kind things out of our mouth, and, um, but there is hope, there is grace, there is, there is truth, and I appreciate you sharing those verses.

There's a lot of really, really good instruction there, and I pray God I could lay, lay hold of that myself, and just really appreciated that. Thank you. Yeah, I too just want to say thank you.

I was both, um, very blessed, very convicted, and just, um, as Tao said, like this, this is one of those topics we should be hearing over and over again, and, um, the tongue, according to James, is like a fire, and, and fire, fire when it's in control is a necessity.

It is, it is warming, it is, it, I don't, I don't, in, in many parts of the world, man couldn't survive without fire, I don't think. Um, it is, it is very needful, and, and we would suffer from hunger, and, and, and cold if, if there was no such thing as fire, but a fire out of control is so devastating, and so destruction, and so is the tongue, so is words.

Um, I like little sayings, little quotes. Um, you talked about how we need to get rid of the weeds. I came across a quote recently and said, it is not enough for the gardener to love flowers, he must also hate weeds.

Um, another quote I thought fit in well is, rudeness is the weak person's imitation of strength. Um, appreciated what you said about, about the, the false idea of that, uh, a part of the false gospel is like, if you get this heart change, nothing, nothing bad will ever come out, and, and not taking away that we definitely need a heart change, but I think, I think the heart change has to do with, not that, not that that means there will never be anything there that we have to guard against coming out, it just, as you pointed out, it will, our attitude changes towards those watchmen, those watchers, like, instead of ignoring them, we, we give them very special honor or, or, or credit for their position, and we, uh, we, like, that's, that's what a heart, that's one of the things that a heart change is, like, uh, we get on the right side of the battle, we get on the, as Paul said, I have fought, he didn't say, I fought the fight good, he said, I fought the good fight.