(Ver 1.6) Today is the second lesson on the subject of the significance of our spoken words.  I know this is a very controversial subject and one that many Christians do now subscribe to believe in.  However, regardless of what we believe about it, our beliefs do not change what God and the Bible says and the results that we get from the God’s established Spiritual Laws that are found within the Bible.  In the last lesson on this subject, we learned about “Why Moses Didn’t Enter Into Promise Land”.  God said it was because of Moses’ unbelief, He told him that he would not be able to lead God’s people into the promised land that He had already given to them.  Unbelief is one of a Christian’s greatest enemies in receiving a promise from God.  This can include the unbelief of what the Bible says or the unbelief of what the Spirit of God is leading us to do.  It could even be the unbelief of what a Bible teacher teaches us from the Bible.  I am not saying that I am anything important personally in you hearing from God, unless I say what the Bible says and that should make what is said important.  All we need to do is read the Bible and see what it says and then believe it, to see that what is written is true or not (Acts 17:11).  People should recognize that there are crazy people on the internet doing the same thing that I am doing to help people,  many automatically discount what is said as being the same crazy ramblings.  By automatically dismissing what someone says, many people at times miss what God had wanted them to know.  Not everyone on the internet is crazy, and some of them have some very profound deep things to teach if we are open to them.   Learn to judge every teacher by the Word of God and remain open and prepared to change your thinking and beliefs.  God is doing some really great things in the world today and those who are open to them will enjoy their benefits.  If you would like to read this series from the beginning, I would suggest that you go back and start with “Part 1“.

So today I want to discuss more about the Bible topic of “Spoken Words”!  But not just any spoken words, let’s talk about those that Jesus called “Idle Words”.   What are “Idle Words”?    Let’s start by reading the lesson’s foundation Bible verse.

Mat 12:36  But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.

Wow!  That is an amazingly strong statement from Jesus.  Jesus is obviously directing our attention at our spoken words.  But, not just any spoken word, but rather one specific type.  God tells us personally that the “idle words” that we speak will be judged by God on judgment day.  I mean that could be a very scary statement for some people to even think about.   Obviously I can see too many people do not believe what Jesus said or either they do not understand what the verse means.  Otherwise, they would probably keep silent more often.  In today’s world idle words are all around us, on our cell phones, on our tablets in our emails, on internet websites, on Facebook and Twitter on TV, on radio,  raining down from our satellites, printed in our magazines, news papers and fictional books.   I mean we are bombarded by idle words coming at us from a multitude of different ways.  How many of these text messages that we get or send can be considered idle words?  Try to examine your Facebook experience and see how many words are crossing your path that can be called idle words.  I know of some people and I won’t mention any names that appear like they are never quiet.  To hold a phone conversation with them is impossible, because they are the only one speaking and you just have time to say “yea” or “uh?” occasionally.    Some people spend hours and hours on the phone talking to everybody about everything.  How many of these kind of people do you know?  I pray that you are not one of them.   It would appear on judgment day that we may have to sit or stand around and listen to everything that people said on this earth for a very long time.  Doesn’t that sound fun?  No!  I do not think any of us will be very happy on judgment day.

I am generally a quiet person.  It has been my personality to listen more than to speak. If you knew me, I believe that you would agree.  I know many Other people are different, I know that and I do not fault them for being different.  But, nevertheless I believe we need to learn what the Bible says about the definition of “Idle Words”.  These are the words that God says we will personally have to account for, so what are they?   It would appear that we need to learn to avoid these types of “idle words” like the plague.  But that can only begin with us first learning about what they are.  Here is the definition of the word from Strong’s:

G692

From G1 (as a negative particle) and G2041; inactive, that is, unemployed; (by implication) lazy, useless: – barren, idle, slow.

The concepts given to us in the Bible can so easily go over our heads.  Because we don’t understand them, we may simply ignore them.  This Greek word G692 means “unemployed” or “inactive”.   That is a concept that most Christians do not have a clue what it means.  The Greek word is the combination of the negative particle combine with the Greek word G2041 that literally means to work or toil.

I’m not going to do any jokes right here either, because that would be an example of more idle words.  You see idle words are contrasted to be opposite to “employed” words “productive” words, “active” words or “working” words.  These are all employment, work and job related terminologies but now they are being related to us in association to what we speak.  God is saying that our words ought to be working for us and not just be idle or lazy.   What we should learn are working words change things. God used His working words to change darkness to light in Genesis 1. Does God expect us to do the same? The answer is Yes! So how do we get our words work for us?  Working words are a concept found in the Bible word “edification”, where we use our words to build up like as in a construction project.  In the last lesson about Moses’ big mistake, God told Moses to Speak to the Rock and this is an example of working words.  Instead of obeying Moses spoke to the people and called them rebellious. God said to Moses to speak to the Rock and get the answer and instead Moses spoke the problem and did not enter into the Promise Land.  If you did not read this lesson you should, it is one of the best ones that God has given to me up to this time.  What Moses did was an example of “Idle Unemployed Words”.  Instead of using his words to work for him and get the answer, Moses spoke the problem and failed to enter into the promise land.

So we can start to understand now that God says every, lazy, idle, useless, unemployed, inactive,and non-constructive word that we speak we will be judged for all of them.  How many words in the course of day do we “employ” that are “productive” to get good “results”?  The clear implication to this verse is for us to change what we say to words that “work” for us!  As Christians we should become aware of the words that we speak.  We should think about what we say before we say it.  Just because a thought comes into our mind, that doesn’t mean that we should speak it out.  This is a common trick of the devil.  Satan gives people thoughts in an attempt to get them to speak them out.  Why is this so important for Satan to do this?  Believe it or not your spoken words gives Satan entrance to come in and kill steal and destroy from you.

People do not understand what God said in Numbers 14:28, that whatever I hear you say that is what I will do to you.  People do not realize that God is listening to what they say.  People do not realize that God does to them whatever comes out of their mouths good or evil.  That is very strong!  Many times people like to think that God is in complete and total control of everything that happens to them.   In their thinking they do not believe that they have anything to do with what happens in their lives.  They believe that it was either bad luck, or just a coincidence, or an accident or just an unfortunate set of circumstances that they are faced with.  But, God has established and given to us spiritual laws in the Bible and this is one of them that every believer needs to grasp immediately.    You can very easily discount what God says and what the Bible says.  But, if you do that it still does not mean that what happened to you is not something that you at least contributed to making it happen.

Let me give you another New Testament verse that repeats what Numbers 14:28 says.  This is a Bible verse that is obviously very controversial and hard for many believers to grasp and believe.   This verse is found in Mark chapter 11:

Mar 11:23  For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith.

Jesus gives us the spiritual definition of Numbers 14:28 and clarifies a few details that were not clearly given to Moses.  Many times we will learn that God teaches things in progressive stages.  He will give us a little bit in one place and let us take it in in small parts and then He will give us a little bit more as we are able to chew and swallow it.  This way we are not overwhelmed or choked with too much of the new Words of God.  Paul taught this way also.  Paul told some I wanted to feed you meat but you were unable to partake and I fed you just soft milk (1 Cor 3:2).    So God teaches us a few meaty things in Mark 11:23 about how the spiritual law of spoken words work.  I guess I should start by giving you the context of this verse in Mark 11.  Jesus was traveling through the countryside and He sees a fig tree with leafs on it.  Jesus then goes up to the fig tree looking for figs to eat.  Finding none, Jesus speaks to the fig tree to curse it and the disciples heard Him.  The next day they all walk by the same fig tree.  Suddenly one of the disciples notices that the tree was withered and dried up from the roots upward.  So what was Jesus doing?   Was Jesus just mad or upset at the tree because it didn’t have any fruit on it?  No, I do not think so.  Was Jesus showing off and saying to them “look what I can do and not you”?   No, I do not think so.  Did Jesus say “This happened because I’m God and you are not”?   Again, No, I don’t think so.   Or was Jesus teaching them and all of us an object lesson on the spiritual law of spoken words?   I believe that Jesus was telling them a spiritual secret and demonstrating the spiritual law of spoken words to His disciples so that they would learn a valuable lesson in life.  You’ll have to make up your own mind in what you believe and figure it out if Jesus was talking to you also.  I would personally pray and ask Him to show you what it means.  Jesus is no respecter of persons and what He did for one he will do for everyone.

You can see that a “disciple” of Christ is a word that means a student, a learner, a pupil.   Are you one of these?  Maybe you think you know everything and you are the master?  If you do you are in trouble and being covered and blinded by your ignorance.  If you are a Christian you must be a Christ follower forever, a student of Christ forever, or in other words His disciple forever.   Only He knows everything and we don’t.   So whatever Jesus says to Matthew, Mark, Luke or John, I believe He is talking to you and I also!  Please do not think that you know more than they do.   Learn what Jesus was trying to teach them and we will become what He wanted us to become, more like Him.

So what was the lesson of Mark 11:23?   Jesus told them and us that if we would speak to the mountain and believe that what we say would happen, we would get exactly what we say.   There are so many lessons to learn from this one verse that I cannot teach them all, nor do I claim to know them all.  A mountain is a symbolic representation of a negative situation or set of circumstances that we are facing, possibly an obstacle, either physical, mental, spiritual, financial or whatever we are faced with that appears to be a challenge.  Jesus told us to speak to it and tell it to be removed and it would obey us, if we believe.  Why is it necessary for us to both speak and believe?  What we say and what we believe represents us putting our faith to work.  That is the opposite of being idle or unemployed.  All people both speak and believe either positively or negatively about things that around them.  They either speak an expect good things to happen or speak and expect bad things to happen to them.  Speaking and believing involves a decision that we make that even though the problem looks big and impossible to move,  Jesus said that it would have to obey us and what we said to it would have to be done!

How many Christians believe this truth?  I can see there are a growing number, are you one of them.  If you are not one of the ones that believes the LORD JESUS then begin to notice what you say and believe and see if it is not what you get eventually.  This principle works for you or against in the positive or the negative, because it is a spiritual law!  I know this boggles the minds of religious unbeliever who do not believe what Jesus said.  You see I did not write these verses in the Bible, I’m just a news reporter doing my best to show them to you with a greater emphasis of importance.   These verses have been in the Bible for hundreds of years and people have just ignored them.  We are responsible for the information that they say and how they apply to our life.  God told Moses in Numbers that the Rock would obey his spoken working words, but Moses spoke to the people and called them “rebels”.  God told him his words would bring the answer and he ended up enlarging the problem.  Moses didn’t believe God and didn’t enter into the promise land and this is definitely a lesson for us all today.

Let’s look at some more example verses with the Greek word G692 translated as “idle” just to obtain a greater subject knowledge.  This Greek word occurs only in 6 verses and is only used 8 times in the N.T.  Jesus used this word in describing the man in the parable that went out to hire workers in his field. He goes to men and asks them why are you idle?  They answer no one has hired us and then they go to work for the man.  It is self-evident what the word means by studying this parable in Matthew 20:1-6.   Not working is the definition of “idle”.  Therefore, here is another verse in the N.T. that contains this same word:

2Pe 1:8  For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The Greek word for “Idle” is found in this verse in 2 Peter 1:8.  However, it was translated as “barren” in this verse.  “barren” might mean the basic same thing as inactive or unproductive.   But, I believe that God is seeking that we should avoid this situation of unemployed word from occurring in our life.  I know it does not directly say “words” in this verse, but think about what the verse is saying, “in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus”?   Isn’t that words?   Isn’t “knowledge” obtained by words and we can’t say anything unless we have knowledge to do so”  Also it would seem that “Idle” could be considered to be synonymous to being “unfruitful”.  God is telling us in this verse in 2 Peter that we should not be either of these.   You see to be “barren” can also mean to not bear any fruit.   Jesus cursed the fig tree in Mark 11 because it was barren.  Do you think he was symbolically giving us some valuable clues to spiritual things?  It is also interesting to see the context of this verse.   Let’s look back at a preceding verse:

2Pe 1:4  Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

The promised land, symbolically represents these “exceeding great and precious promises” that God has given to us in His word.   As this verse says, that these promises have already been given, we are now required to possess them.  To become a partaker is the same as to become a possessor.   God had given Moses and Israel the promise land and told them to “partake” of it.  They did not believe God and therefore failed to obtain what was freely given.  The promise land represents the blessings of God.  The promises of God also represent the blessings of God.  Because Moses did not believe he remained in the curses in the wilderness and died there.  This is a powerful type and shadow of what we have facing us today.  There are giants in our spiritual promise land today trying to intimidate us and keep us out of possessing it.  How do we do this?  We speak only words that are “useful”, “employed”, “working”, “productive”, “active”, “positive” and “fruitful” words.  Then we avoid all spoken words that are “idle”, “unproductive”, “inactive”,  “negative” and “unfruitful”  words.    This is the lesson of Moses found in Numbers 14 and Jesus and the fig tree in Mark 11.  These are the words of Jesus found in Matthew.  Avoid these “Idle Words” and you will be very glad when it comes to the judgment day and you have a much better opportunity to possess the promises of God in your life today.  Thank you for studying the Bible on this website and please leave a comment if you would like to share your experiences in this area of life.  God Bless!

If you would like to continue to read this series of lessons on spoken words, you can go to “Part 3“.