“Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” [Matthew 12:34] You cannot get around it; your mouth will eventually reveal what is in your heart. Your passion cannot help but come to the surface in your thoughts, actions, and eventually words. A football fan thinks and speaks about football. A golf fan watches, studies, analyzes, and talks constantly about golf. A newlywed daydreams and speaks of his new spouse continuously. Keto, karate, carrot cake, corn on the cob, cucumbers, cats, copiers, crime, canopies, camping; whatever your passion is, it filters its way out through your “pie hole.” Why? Because passion causes us to want to share our wonderful discoveries and ideas with the world around us.
Cleansed Heart
For the follower of Christ, one’s mouth reveals a cleansed heart. Proverbs 4:23 teaches us that from our heart “flows the springs of life” and to we should keep our heart with all diligence. Vs 24 follows it up by admonishing us to put away from us “a froward mouth, and perverse lips put far from you.” The true follower of Jesus has pure speech. Speech that does not backbite, slander, put others down, or gossip. Verbiage that is not filthy or corrupt (Col 3:8). How does this happen? Does the Christian use the power of perseverance and self-control to curb his cussing mouth? While the Holy Spirit does grant us the fruit of self-control, the largest contributor to a new-born believer’s cleansed vocabulary is the power of God.
Romans 10:9 teaches us that if we “confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you shall be saved.” This type of confession leads to life everlasting. Why would anyone confess that Jesus rose again from the dead? Because the Holy Spirit reveals to the unbeliever a new revelation of God’s grace and mercy. This man discovers, deep in his heart, what he could only give mental assent to moments before. He knew that he knew that Jesus loved him so much that he paid for his eternal salvation at the cross of calvary and therefore confessed Him as Lord.
This confession leads to possession of a new life in Him. Ez 36:26 teaches us that He will give us a new heart. He takes away a stony heart, replacing it with a “heart of flesh.” A heart that is malleable. A heart that can be shaped and purified by the Master. This is what changes our thoughts, and hence our “talk.” And, as mentioned, our speech is formulated in our mind and heart. And from the heart flows what is contained therein. Therefore, a faker-Christian uses profanity and therein is a key identifier of posers and imposters. As a murderer will always confess their crime to someone at some time, a sinner’s sin will always “find them out.”
Filthy Heart
It never ceases to amaze me how many “believers” we encounter while preaching the gospel on the street. Identifying themselves as churchgoers, these “churchians’” primary objective is to critique our evangelism techniques. In response to their incessant questioning as to why we are “yelling at people,” we generally refer them to the red letters where Jesus commands us to “go into all the world and to preach the gospel.” Within 5 minutes, 99% will eventually utter some sort of profanity which reveals their filthy heart. Friend, if you use curse words, your heart is wicked. As I heard a fellow evangelist preach, “you have a potty for a mouth because you have a sewer for a heart.”
Foolish Heart
We also encounter atheists and agnostics occasionally. The Bible teaches that the fool in Psalms 14 says in his heart, “there is no God.” The fool’s deep-seated conviction of Yahweh’s nonexistence leads him to a reckless, heart-inspired utterance which the psalmist labels such a person as a fool. Per Pastor David Guzik, “The God-denying man David has in mind [in this Psalm] is not merely troubled by intellectual objections to the existence of God; in his heart he wishes God away, typically for fundamentally moral reasons.” https://enduringword.com/bible-commentary/psalm-14/ The fool has determined in his heart, out of convenience, that there cannot be a God.
John 3:18-20 18”He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. 19And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. 20For everyone that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.”
It would be very convenient for the pre-condemned unbeliever to have no God to answer to. No judgement, no law, no justice, and no eternal damnation. Part of their condemnation is that Jesus’ light is already here in the world, but the unbeliever prefers darkness (or sin) because their deeds (and they) are evil. They do not want to come to the light because they do not want their wicked heart to be exposed and reproved. Like cockroaches, sinners prefer darkness and run for their lives upon a glimpse of Light to preserve their good works from being exposed as worthless, and their sin as being revealed as exceeding sinful.
Denying Heart
Therefore, they deny Christ. They attempt to believe and confess Christ out of the world. This foolishness is nothing but folly. Romans 3:19 teaches us that “what things soever the law says, it says to them who are under the law that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.” “Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? (I Cor 1:20) Whether you like it or not, you will confess Jesus as Lord someday. Why? Because, as Phil 2:9-11 states, “Wherefore God also has highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow… and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.”
The Answer
Friend, what do your words sound like? Does bitterness flow from your innermost being? When times are difficult or when you stub your toe, what comes out of your mouth? When you are squeezed, what comes out? Examine your heart see if there be any wicked way in you. Confess your sins to the Lord and He is faith and just to forgive you and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness.
Psalm 139:23-24 KJVS Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: [24] And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
1John 1:9 [KJV] If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
