(Ver 1.3)  This is now “Part 8” in a series of lessons about spoken words.  If you have not read this series from the beginning I would suggest that you go and start with “Part 1“.  Did you ever realize that your mouth was an opening to your spirit?  You are a spirit being that lives in a physical body.  Your physical body has doors and windows that allow your spirit to express itself and to learn new things.   Your ears are a window to sounds, words and things to hear from God with.  Your eyes are also windows for light, to observe and see things that are around you.  These are one way gates into your spirit.  But, your mouth is a two way gate that breaths air in and exhales air out.  Your mouth also takes in natural food and drink for the nourishment of your physical body.  But, the most important thing that your mouth does is speak words that originate from your spirit.   Your mouth is the only exit for spiritual expression that you have.  Your spoken words are the keys to everything that you do in this world.   I will go a step further and tell you that your spoken words are the keys to everything that happens to you in this world.  For example, your spoken words will become  the key to your salvation or your damnation to hell.   You may not understand that statement but it is based upon scripture and how God designed the process to work.   Let’s start the Bible study by confirming that your words are the spiritual expression made manifest in this world:

Mat 15:18  But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man.

As you can clearly see from what Jesus teaches us, the words of your mouth are an extension of your spirit.  Whenever the Bible talks about your heart, it is usually a figurative meaning  referring to your internal spirit.  The spirit of your being is the innermost real you that will live forever and I hope you understand this.  The heart of a man is similar to the heart of a tree or the heart of an apple.   The term is used to describe the center inner core of the object and that is the unseen spirit of the human in God’s triune design.  Let’s look at another important verse that Jesus speaks on this subject of words originating from the human spirit:

Joh 6:63  It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.

Jesus again tells us where words come from.  The Spirit of God that was inside of Jesus’ body produced the words that gave us life.   Jesus clearly tells us that it is the spirit that causes the flesh to live.    He then says that His words are this Spirit!  What we learn from what Jesus was teaching is that every person has a spirit and this unseen spirit is expressed in the spoken words coming from out mouth in our world.  The only difference between our words and God’s Words, are His words are based upon infinite knowledge, understanding and wisdom and ours are too often just baseless ramblings built upon our own extraordinary ignorance.  Let’s continue researching the connection between the spirit and the mouth, because God says in the mouth of 2 or 3 witnesses let every word be established (Mat 18:16):

2Th 2:8  And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the SPIRIT OF HIS MOUTH, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming:

In this verse in 2 Thessalonians, God says that Jesus will do something with the Spirit of His Mouth that will consume the wicked.   What do you think this is?   Do you think that Jesus will breath fire like a dragon or are you smart enough to know that God just has to say a couple of words and whatever He says happens.  What we learn from this verse is further conformations of spoken words being directly connected to spirits.  Spoken word are not really just a connection to the spirit but more the displayed expression of the spirit.  Technically speaking spoken words and spirits are one in the same in the eyes of God.  God’s words are God and God is His Word (John 1:1).

Mat 12:34  O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.

As you can read again, Jesus connects the heart/spirit of man to the spoken words of a man.  Jesus speaking to the Jews, says how can you speak anything good?  You have to have good in your spirit before you speak anything good from your lips.  Jesus is implying that we can speak something good, but first we have to deposit something good in us in abundance.  These are verses that demonstrate to us that man was made in the image and likeness of God.  Jesus clearly links us to be like God in this capacity.  Our words are linked to our spirit, just as His words were linked to His Spirit.

I have been doing a series of lessons on the spoken words coming from your mouth.  We have learned from God’s word that we can curse people with our words and we can bless people with our words.  We can speak good things and we can speak evil things.  We can proclaim the truth and we can speak lies.  The mouth is a weapon of incredible potential that we can do great good with or create great harm to ourselves and others.   The same mouth has the potential to achieve great good in the world as well as great deception.  That is why the Bible writes us a verse of prayer that asks God to place a guard at the door of our mouths.  If you go to Europe and other places where they have palaces, the occupants are many times protected from the evil of others on the outside by placing guards at the gates of entrance or exit.  This is not what the Bible is saying but the concepts are still applicable.  Let’s start by reading the verse that reveals our mouth to be a door in need of a guard:

Psa 141:3  Set a watch, O LORD, before my mouth; keep the door of my lips.

A watch is someone who stays up to guard an entrance of a city.  In Bible days a city would have great walls around it and they would place men on top of the walls during the day and night to watch for danger.  Their job was to stay awake during those specific hours and to keep vigilant watch for any approaching danger.   When danger was observed, the watchman would sound an alarm to wake the city to counter the impending danger.  While you might try to apply this to the verse in Psalms, it really doesn’t make a lot of sense in that regard.  You might need to watch what you eat occasionally, but God is speaking more about spiritual things that you need to keep a watch on than any natural things that are trying to enter in your body.  Let’s get one more witness to the fact that our mouth is a gate before we continue:

Mic 7:5  Trust ye not in a friend, put ye not confidence in a guide: keep the doors of thy mouth from her that lieth in thy bosom.

What we have is another verse found in the Bible that says your mouth is a gate.  A gate is a door or entrance to a realm that you either want to keep people out of, or keep things within.  You never design a building without doors, otherwise you can’t go in and you can’t get out.  So what is God trying to keep from exiting your mouth by placing His guard upon it?  Why would it be bad for you if something came out that shouldn’t come out?  That is an amazing question to ponder!  If your wrong spoken words had no consequences attached to them, it really would not matter if we had a guard, would it?  However, God is implying that your words have great consequences positive or negatively upon your life and that is a potentially bad thing for you if you do not understand the concepts being revealed by God.

Pro 6:2  Thou art snared with the words of thy mouth, thou art taken with the words of thy mouth.

When you learn to see what the Bible says, you become infinitely more aware of what you say.  According to God, the words of your mouth can cause you to become a captive of your enemy.  A snare is a trap.  A trap is a deceptive device that renders you a captive.  As you can clearly read in this verse, God says that you are “taken” (caught in a pit) by the words of your mouth.  These have to be wrong negative spoken words or that would mean that any words spoken could be a pitfall for us.  That statement would also indicate by the law of antithesis that you can be “freed” by the right words of your mouth.  The things the Bible says about your words are some of the strongest warnings that God gives us in the Bible.  It is so obvious to me that many people do not heed the warning of God and speak some crazy things.  People let words come out of their mouths that I’m sure must cause God to cringe with disappointment.

Pro 18:21  Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.   

God declares that your tongue has power.  If you refuse to see this or to ignore it, does it cause it not to be true?  If you do not believe in gravity, would that affect the law of gravity if you wanted to jump off a tall building?  Of course it does not, you are still going die.  Your wrong belief never overrides the truth.  The same is true of ignorance, your ignoarce of the law does not affect your punishment for the violation of that law.  So when God says that Death or Life is in the power of the tongue, does that make it not true, if you do not believe it?   Again it does not!   What God is revealing to us is that we have been given choices to make.  What we achieve in life or that which happens to us in this life is determined by the choices that we made and words that we have spoken.  Obviously many people do not believe this and they can’t figure out why things have happened in their life.  Some think it is just bad karma, bad luck, or possibly just amazing coincidences or accidents that occur in their lives.  Maybe you can discover a Bible verse that says that, but so far I have not found any.

So if God wants you to pray and ask Him to put a guard on your mouth, what is He trying to keep you from saying?  It could be just simply that you should say only good things to people, good things about people and not to speak negatively about others and that is certainly applicable.  However, God seems to indicate from the verses that we have studied today that there is much more to it than that in the Bible.  If you can be taken captive or a prisoner just by your wrong spoken words or even die because of your words of death, would it be important not to speak those words that cause those negative results?  I believe that it is entirely meaningful given the verses that we have just studied.  So a watch on the gate of your mouth is not a physical guard to keep things out.  I believe it is a spiritual guard that keeps you from harming yourself and others that you live with speaking words with negative consequences.  What about your children, for example.  If your words can affect you they can also affect your family and those that you are responsible for.  Only you can allow God to place a guard on your mouth.  God will not violate your rights or your will.  God will also not force you into saying anything correctly.  As you learn to cooperate with God, you will learn more about how the words of your mouth have great significance and are very important to keep under control.  You should go and review the book of James and see what God says about the tongue and how important it is to manage.

If you would like to continue reading this series of lessons on spoken words, you can go to “Part 9“.