Proverbs 15:28

Proverbs 15:28, "The heart of the righteous studieth to answer: but the mouth of the wicked poureth out evil things."

One of the easiest ways to discern a person’s moral condition is to simply sit back and listen to what they say.  The words that we say reveal the thoughts that we think and the feelings that we feel.  No one says what they haven’t already thought.  No one expresses what they haven’t already felt.  Words don’t exit our mouths that never occupied our hearts.  If our eyes are the windows to the soul, then our mouth is the door to the soul.  Peer into someone’s eyes and you’ll get a glimpse of what they are on the inside but listen to someone’s words and you’ll get a much bigger picture of who they truly are.  According to the wisest man ever to breathe this world’s air, people who “pour out evil things” are WICKED.  People who belt out strings of cuss words are wicked.  Men who pour out filthy joke after filthy joke are wicked.  Women who pour out gossip after gossip are wicked.  Teenagers who talk dirty and profanely are wicked.  People who vomit lie after lie are wicked.  Those who constantly boast arrogantly of their greatness are wicked.  Those who sit around discussing creative and terrible ways to hurt or harm people are wicked.

Wickedness is our moral default in this present evil world.  We don’t naturally speak right things because we’re not naturally righteous.  It’s just so easy to say evil things.  It’s just so easy to respond to pain with a bad word.  It’s just so easy to respond to criticism with sharp accusations of our own.  It’s super easy to use our words to destroy someone’s character or reputation.  It takes no effort at all to hurt the people we claim to love with our words.  It’s instinctual to respond to name calling with uglier name calling.  This isn’t a behavior that needs to be taught.  Speaking evil words, let alone in abundance, is not something that is learned; it is something that is instinctual.  We say evil things naturally because we think and feel evil things naturally.  The prophet Jeremiah records one of the most sobering realities of the human heart when he wrote, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked” (17:9).  

With our wicked hearts in our evil world, it takes no effort to be wicked.  To be righteous, that’s a different story.  It takes effort and serious moral consideration to be righteous.  In this proverb, the righteous stand in contrast to the wicked not because of their words but because of their heart.  The righteous don’t focus on bridling the tongue as much as on informing the heart.  The righteous don’t focus on sparing their words as much as on forming their words.  The righteous understand that the source of one’s words is the state of one’s heart.  They know that if the heart is not addressed, then it will remain naturally wicked and as such, it will naturally produce wicked words.  Jesus, the Righteous would say essentially that when confronting the religious Pharisees in Matthew 12 saying, “O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.  A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things” (vss. 34-35).  What Jesus says next is why the righteous are different than the wicked.  He told the evil-speaking Pharisees, “That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment” (vs. 36).  The righteous respect the day of judgment.  The righteous fear the God Who will judge them.  Knowing “every IDLE word,” or every useless word or every unintentional word will be judged in the day of judgment, the righteous take more seriously the formation of their every word.

While the wicked speak hastily and effortlessly, the righteous are found deep in thought.  The righteous aren’t just sparing their words, they’re taking time to form their words.  While the wicked say whatever is on their mind and in their heart, the righteous enroll their hearts in school.  The righteous don’t just keep their words to themselves; they produce better informed words.  This proverb isn’t about speaking less as much as it’s about speaking more righteously.  To speak more righteously, the heart needs to be more righteous.  For the heart to be more righteous, it has to be subjected to truth and surrendered to righteousness.  The heart of the righteous lives in a classroom where it is ever learning truth for the purpose of speaking truth knowing it will answer for “every idle word.”  The righteous don’t want to accuse some person of something without first studying that person.  The righteous don’t want to call someone a viper unless after studying that person he has sufficient evidence to do so.  The righteous doesn’t want to comment on anyone or anything ignorantly, hastily or inaccurately because the righteous are ruled by the fear of God.  The righteous don’t pour out any words without first studying the subject of their words.  These holy people use their eyes, ears and minds to educate their hearts on life, men and God so that when they speak, they speak right words.  Righteous souls speak righteous words because they have taken the time and effort to get whatever they’re speaking about RIGHT in their heart.  This is why they don’t gossip.  This is why they don’t lie.  This is why they don’t speak irreverently or perversely.

Oftentimes, we make the mistake of blaming our mouths for saying something when we should blame our hearts for saying that thing.  Despite being an unruly evil according to James, our tongues don’t have a mind of their own.  Our tongues have to get their words from somewhere and that somewhere is our heart.  Our tongues don’t learn bad words from bad peers, bad music or bad videos; our hearts learn bad words from bad peers, bad music or bad videos.  Our tongues don’t think bad or untruthful things about people; our hearts think bad or untruthful things about people.  The heart of the righteous is constantly studying the world around it so that the mouth of the righteous can speak truthfully and accurately about that world.  The heart of the righteous is constantly studying people around it so that the mouth of the righteous can speak justly and properly about those people.  The heart of the righteous is constantly studying himself so that the mouth of the righteous can speak righteously about himself.

In short, think before you speak.  More importantly, study before you speak.  Even more importantly, study in the fear of God before you speak.  Our answers in life will only be righteous if we take the time to observe life with God as our Instructor.  We must govern our hearts with a commitment to discovering truth if we are to speak righteously.  We must keep our hearts enrolled in the Classroom of Life taught by the Giver of Life if we are to think, feel and then speak righteously.  If we aren’t constantly surveying life with a desperate pursuit of truth, our hearts will default to wickedness and our mouths will naturally pour out evil things.

1 Pt. 3:15, “But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you.”