[0:00] This message was recorded at Vision Baptist Church in Alfred, Georgia. It is our prayer that you will be blessed by the preaching of God's Word. Turn to Proverbs 10, if you will. Hope to get done with the lesson with a few minutes to do some questions with Kevin and Mark while they're here with us tonight.
[0:15] Also, the ladies have cupcakes on their side. They've got the sweet side and we have the salty side. And if they beat us, there might not be any cupcakes left. And so we want to do that.
[0:26] But we're going to talk to Mark and Kevin about disciple making. Stephen Evans works at, I don't see him here tonight, but he works for a company called Citrus. It's a software company. But every time I see him, I say, how's it going at the orchard?
[0:38] Have you got a lot of oranges this week? It's a really lame joke, but I keep it going. And so it's like I pretend like I don't know what he really does and I talk to him about something else.
[0:48] And sometimes when we talk to Mark Tolson, we talk to him as if he's somebody that's living in China, as if that's what he's really doing is just living, but he's there to make disciples.
[1:00] And so we have that in common. So the conversation, we'll talk about China, we'll talk about Bolivia, but we really are saying, hey, I want to make disciples in my life because I want to be obedient to the scripture. You're making disciples in that country.
[1:12] And I want to do that. Let's talk. Let's pray together. When me and Ben prayed a second ago, he said, you know, what are you up to? And I knew exactly what he was asking. It's accountability. Because when I said, what are you up to, Ben?
[1:23] It's are you doing what it's going to take to get to where God's leading you in China to make disciples? And when he was asking me, he's saying, so who are you investing in? Are you spending your life with and sharing the Bible?
[1:36] Somebody posted something the other day and they were saying making disciples in India. And I thought, well, that's great. Then I read a little bit farther and I saw that they were like in India for like seven days. And I thought, well, that's good terminology.
[1:48] But you don't really make disciples in seven days. You do see people, you know, saved. That's possible. But it takes a life's work. And that's what when guys like Mark and Kevin come into this church, if there's one thing that you can do and encourage them is let them come into a culture that is like the culture they're trying to create on the field where men are praying together.
[2:11] We're discipling other people. We're reaching. We're introducing them to new people. And I want to encourage you in that. You have that ability as righteous men, people that have been made righteous by Jesus Christ.
[2:25] So if you haven't got the Proverbs 10 yet, please turn there. And when we get the Proverbs, the theme of Proverbs is the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Fools despise wisdom and instruction.
[2:37] That's Proverbs 1-7. Pastor and Robert had some tough chapters in Proverbs over the last few months. It deals with sexual purity and things like that. And then now we get to chapter number 10, and it's going to go for about 10 through 22.
[2:52] The first part we see it's 10 to 5 is contrasting righteous and wicked living. And that's done in a lot of single Proverbs. Like the first part of the Proverbs is righteous, and the second part is wicked.
[3:03] And there's even 375 verses in a row that are like that. The verses stand alone. That the context isn't the verse before or after, but it's there. If it wasn't the inspired words of God, I would say it's like a fortune cookie, all right?
[3:17] It just opens up and your message is there. It's all you need. You got it. And that's why Proverbs is a great book to read throughout the day. You can just immediately jump into it and know where you're at. If your brain's half asleep, you can still jump in, and it says exactly what it's saying.
[3:31] It's hard to summarize a proverb because it says exactly what it's saying. It's not a narrative or a story. So in chapter number 10, we start this list of these sayings that are going on.
[3:44] And as I give Robert a hard time about how when he first moved here, it was always like, my dad said, my dad said. He had a lot of one lines that his dad said. Could you imagine being Solomon's kid here? All right?
[3:55] My dad said, we know, buddy. We know. Did your dad, was there anything your dad didn't say? You know, you could live your whole life saying, my dad said there. And so they're not connected together, but in chapter 10, we see a theme that comes up often, which is the power of words.
[4:12] 1011 says, the mouth of a righteous man is a well of life. The violence covereth the mouth of the wicked. So I wanted to take that topic in 10 of the mouth and looking in on verse number 11.
[4:23] And we go through the Bible so Pastor doesn't get to choose the topic in which he's going to address this group. But in chapter number 10, we had a lot of subjects that we choose from. And I chose this one tonight for us because I think it's really relevant with having these two men here with us, these disciple makers.
[4:39] How many of you were at Aim for Columbia? It was a great time. And when we started out, Brother Jonathan did a teaching on gun use and the dangers of it.
[4:53] And he told about at a shooting, he was at a competition one time, and he saw a kid get shot and bled out. And like about 30 minutes in, I about walked away and said, I ain't even going to touch a gun. All right? You got me convinced.
[5:04] They're dangerous. But then he was working us through it, and he let us know this is a powerful weapon that should be used in a certain way, that he ought to know how to handle it.
[5:14] And also, we learned it has to do with motive, too. The gun is neutral. You know, if it's not, if it's in the hands of somebody who wants to do evil, evil will be done. If somebody wants to do good, good people will be protected.
[5:25] And we thought about that. You know, if we really thought about the power of our words and the power of our mouth, some of us might just decide, yeah, I'm not going to talk anymore. You know, I'm just going to become mute.
[5:36] It would just be much better. This is too dangerous of a weapon for me to be playing around with and to use. And Proverbs reminds us of the power of the mouth. You know, if any one of you in here were known to be beating your wives, every one of us would pull you aside and say, what's the problem?
[5:54] You know, I don't think we have that in here. But every one of us could have a tendency to be slanderous and hurtful with our mouth towards our spouse or towards our kids or towards people that we work with.
[6:05] And people that would never think about throwing a fist, small people like me, all right, will throw a ton of fists in the air when it comes to their words. And so this hit me home hard, man, before it hit anybody.
[6:17] I was a little grown up like I am now. So every bully, I already had something to say to them. But, I mean, I worked out every scenario. If this guy walks up to me and he says this, I'm going to say this because I was always prepared and loaded to want to do damage with my mouth.
[6:33] But our mouth, which we know can do evil, it can also be used to be a well of life. So there's a running theme of Proverbs, the power of words. In Proverbs 10, 11, the mouth of the righteous is a well of life, but violence cometh from the mouth of the wicked, covereth the mouth of the wicked.
[6:51] God cares about what goes in, but he also cares a lot more about what comes out of our mouth. Matthew 15, 11, not that which goeth into the mouth defileth the man, but which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man.
[7:04] A lot of people in religion will talk about what we eat and all that, but the Bible talks a lot about what comes out. It's a test. You sit down at a doctor and the doctor says, breathe in, breathe out.
[7:15] He's testing your lungs, right? If you want to test your heart, speak out, that's how you'll do it. If you look back, if you were to take a printout of your conversations for the last 30 days and analyze it, you would say, I have a pretty good idea of what's in the heart of that person because it comes from a heart of abundance.
[7:34] What is abounding in our heart is what's going to come out. So it's a really good test to us. So you say, well, I'm here and I got my Bible and I've done all the things I'm supposed to do.
[7:45] That isn't necessarily a location. That isn't a good test as what is coming out of my mouth. Am I speaking the gospel to people? Am I encouraging people? Or am I using my mouth to destroy people and to hurt people?
[8:00] I thought it was an Italian soccer player, but you told me it was a what? A Uruguayan soccer player. I don't know if you've been watching that musical called the World Cup, you know, that's going on. So popular right now, they dance around, flop like fish.
[8:14] No, I'm just kidding. And so the World Cup's going on, but this one guy got mad and he said, you don't understand when you're in the pitch like that, you do things like that. He didn't realize there's 50 cameras on him and he bit somebody.
[8:26] He got mad and he just gnashed at them. And Kyle and I were talking about that's just not a reaction that we would have. We don't just bite on people. We'd headbutt or punch. It was a very mature conversation me and Kyle were having for the service about what we would do, but we don't bite.
[8:40] But something in his heart, if you don't get nothing else tonight, men, we don't bite. But it came out of his heart and he's like, I'm just going to bite this guy and he was so mad. And so sometimes something just comes out of your heart.
[8:52] And you're not biting people, but you have words that come out and you're like, you've got to deal with that. You have to deal with what's inside of the heart. This passage has a lot to say about the Christian's ability to make proper use of his mouth.
[9:05] So many of the things we talk about when it comes to the ministry and serving the Lord and the work, if you just get it, you just take it all away, it is you having a conversation with somebody.
[9:16] It's not a building, it's not chairs, it's not any of that stuff. It is you talking to somebody. The most exciting pictures I see around the world on Fridays are when I saw Robert was in Mark's Friday class that he was having.
[9:31] He was just sitting there. Why would a picture of Robert in China with three or four guys at a table be really exciting to me? It's because I know that there's words coming out of Robert's mouth.
[9:41] And I know those words have the ability to change lives because they come from God. And all the things that really matter really come down to having conversations. We do things, you know, we use our hands and we serve them.
[9:53] That is to set a platform up so that we can have meaningful conversations. It's a wonderful gift that we have to communicate. You know, people can't speak, they're still communicating with the words.
[10:04] So here in chapter 10 it says, The mouth is a problem to so many people in verse number 6. Do you all know that to be true, that the mouth is a problem to so many people? Has your mouth ever got you in trouble?
[10:16] Has your mouth ever written a check that you weren't able to, the cash got yourself in trouble? I'll go ask your wives. If you won't agree with me, I'll walk to the other side of this room and see. The Christian has wisdom to speak, the Bible tells us in verse 13.
[10:29] Follow along your notes here. The Christian also can keep quiet. And that's a hard thing to do, isn't it? The ability to not say something. The Christian shares precious things. The Christian's words provide food for others.
[10:41] It feeds people. Our words feed people. The Christian's words are thought out. That we meditate and we consider. So first of all, we see the mouth of the righteous.
[10:54] And so the mouth is an incredible tool when it comes to building and advancing the kingdom. And the next part, the mouth of a righteous man is a well alive. The violence covereth the mouth of the wicked.
[11:06] So who is the righteous? So first of all, if you say, I want to make a difference in this world, I want to do good. I have a mouth that I can speak. But am I being a righteous man? Have I became a righteous man?
[11:18] And the Bible teaches us that if you are a believer in here, that you are righteous. That your belief in him, that faith in him has made you righteous. Who knows what Romans 3, 18 says?
[11:29] If you turn there, you'll know. I'll beat you to it. If you beat me to Romans 3, 18. Go ahead and read it. All right, I had a head start, so I should have got there. Romans 3, 18 says, There is no fear of God before their eyes.
[11:44] Now we know that what things whosoever the law saith, it is said to them who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore, by the deeds of the law, there shall be no flesh be justified in the sight.
[11:57] For by the law is the knowledge of sin. So what's being said here is there's a group of people that have no fear of God. They have no knowledge of God. So there's no fear.
[12:09] And because of that, they're not righteous people. But we are people that heard about God. And we have a knowledge of him. And we have faith. And so because of that, our fear of God has made us righteous people.
[12:22] We're now people of faith. People know God's loving, but if they never knew that they were sinners on the way to hell, then that fact that God's loving does not bring them the saving faith. But we are men that fear the God of heaven.
[12:36] And because of that, we have been made righteous. We didn't attain righteousness, but we've been made righteous by him. So that's you in here. So if you've got a mouth, check. All right?
[12:46] Are you righteous? Check. And if you're not, let's make that happen tonight. Become a believer. And so we know that we're sinners. We know he's the Savior. So the fear of the Lord is required for wisdom.
[12:57] The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Proverbs 9, 10. So if you like math in here, you have the fear of the Lord equals the beginning of wisdom. So do you fear the Lord?
[13:08] Yes. And so do you have wisdom? Yes. Second thing in Proverbs 13, 14 is that the law of the wise is a fountain of life. So the second thing here is that the teaching of the wise is a fountain of life.
[13:24] So do you fear the Lord in here? Yes or no? All right? Which that means that you are wise here, that you have been given wisdom. And so what you teach is a fountain of life to people.
[13:35] If you're a believer in here, the words that come out of your mouth can be a fountain, can be a well of life to people. And so how do you know if you fear the Lord? Here's two of the ways that you can.
[13:46] Do you delight in his word? Psalm 36, 9. You give them the drink from the rivers of your delights for with you is the fountain of light. Do you delight in this word? I'm not asking you do you misuse it?
[13:59] Do you ignore it? Do you skip your private reading? But do you delight in this word? Do you say when I hear it taught and when I read it, I find what I need in it. I find that it's satisfying. And then secondly here, not only do the people that fear the Lord do we delight in the word, but we also reverence the word.
[14:15] Isaiah 66, 2. For all things have mine hand made and all things have been, saith the Lord. But to this man will I look, even the him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word.
[14:29] So in Isaiah 66, when he says, trembled at my word, he obviously wasn't talking about a leather-bound book that we have here in our hands. But he's talking about hearing from the word of the Lord. But now we have it recorded for us.
[14:41] And so the same reaction ought to happen. Do you tremble at the word? Meaning that when you hear it and you read it, you say, that is truth. If I don't like it, or even if I do like it, those are the words of the Lord and I show it respect.
[14:56] I allow these words to guide my life as a shepherd guiding me, saying, go this way, go this way. I make adjustments in my life based upon the word. In righteous men we do these things, and Proverbs reminds us of the life of us that are righteous.
[15:12] So a summary of here is that the mouth of the righteous is a well of life, because God is a fountain of life, and the righteous live on God. So because of the fact that we now have received our righteousness from God, our abundance is God, and that's what comes out of our mouth.
[15:31] And because of that, we can help people. That's why Mark can make a difference in China. It's because he now, he has been made righteous, and his life is a fountain of life. And then third here, it says, Proverbs 10, 11, the mouth of a righteous man is a well of life.
[15:47] So it says a well of life here. It says well and not a storage unit. One reason it doesn't say storage units is they didn't have storage units when the Bible is written. That's one reason.
[15:58] All right, don't bite people, and we didn't have storage units in the Bible. Two things, look at it. But also, the words that you say that are going to help minister the people, they come from a source.
[16:08] They don't come from you. And that's why dry facts aren't going to do the job. It isn't. You can't just go collect and know a whole lot about the Bible and sit down with somebody and say, Hey, let me.
[16:20] You said this. I have a computer app. Let me give you this truth. No, that it comes from you. It comes from the source that's inside of you. And when you speak to people, it makes a difference.
[16:31] We saw a little bit ago, the men in the church, you gave an update on the missionary. You weren't that source of information, but you communicated it with a passion because it first moved in your heart.
[16:42] I'm getting ahead of myself because I'm excited about Sunday, but Dave and I were looking at Matthew 8 today, and two groups of people went out into town and told people about Jesus. One group of people came and said, Hey, that Jesus you talked about?
[16:54] We don't want anything to do with him. Send him out of town. But a maniac went around telling people about Jesus, and those people gathered and said, Where is this guy? I want to know him.
[17:05] And it isn't just about facts. It's that what you're sharing isn't coming from a source. It's coming from God. Those of you that are married in here, do your wives, do they hear from God when you speak?
[17:17] I'm not talking about adding to the Word of God, but are you speaking with grace and in love? Are you encouraging them in the things of the Lord? Do our children hear these things?
[17:28] Can they tell where it's coming from? Can they tell that it's a heart that's in communion with God? Proverbs looks like a whole lot of things to do. It looks like a long list given to us to do.
[17:39] It looks like hard work. But that's not things that you do, but it's a person that you trust. John 15 talks to us about abiding. And when we find the well of life in God, these things are going to come up now from us.
[17:54] Who's been in the county the longest? Well, probably. Anybody been in the county longer than Brother John? How long have you been in Forsyth County? Since 88. Anybody beat him here? All right. Did anybody, when you got to the county, did you have to dig your well for your house?
[18:09] Or we already had running. You did? Oh, you drilled it. I don't even know what to do with this now. You didn't have it on your property, huh? So was that pretty high priority?
[18:21] Yeah. All right. Good. Yeah, I feel a little odd. We're dumb. Yeah, you do. And so I asked a rhetorical question. So I was like, yes, Trent. Water is important to my family.
[18:31] We drink water. We bathe. And it really is. I mean, what, on the list of things, if you moved into a house, I would say turn the water on, would be right up there at the top. Get electricity going.
[18:42] Get water. And have these things there. And your house should have a well in you. The people around you ought to find a well in you. China did not have people speaking the words of God and sharing wisdom among that group of people.
[18:57] But then they found a well. They found somebody that is connected to the source, that out of his mouth comes wisdom. Not his wisdom, but the wisdom of God.
[19:07] The wisdom that fears the Lord, that has faith in God, and it's changing lives. And if you just picture there, it's a dry desert place spiritually, but now there's a fountain, and there's things growing, and there's a church, and there's some granary, and there's some trees coming up, and there's some vegetation, and some things that are happening.
[19:23] And so the abundant heart, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh. Whatever you get consumed about, it's going to come up. Whatever is flowing from your heart is going to come. And so if the things of God are not coming out of your heart, it's because you are not enjoying that source that you have there.
[19:41] And the way that God means to change the mouth is by becoming your abundance. So he wants to change your conversations. He wants to change your conversations by becoming your abundance.
[19:52] So if you think, take for example, there's somebody and you think, I ought to share with them the words of life. I ought to share the gospel with so-and-so tomorrow, and I'm going to see him at lunchtime at one.
[20:05] Can I tell you one of the best things that you could do is make sure at seven you drink deeply of the well. That you go to the word, and that you commune with God, and that you enjoy what you're going to share with somebody else, and then it's going to come out.
[20:22] Brother Johnson was talking to me with the fire department. They'd have to ever so often go and check the fire hydrants to make sure that when they need it, it's going to come out, that it's pressurized, and that it's constantly ready for use.
[20:35] Well, when we spend time in the word, we stay pressurized. We stay ready for that occasion because you can't plan them. You know, those opportunities that come up, you can't orchestrate them.
[20:45] But God provides them for you, and if you're not in the word and loving the Lord and his word, then it's not going to come out of you. And it's not just a good idea. It brings life here to those.
[20:57] So the fountain of life is free, and it reproduces wells. And let him that is thirst come, and whosoever let him take the water of life freely. We have something to offer. Wells produce water for others.
[21:10] Simply put, right? Men, your home needs a well. You need to dig now and find your abundance in God. I have spent a lot of time. I won't say wasted. I've spent, invested a lot of time in a playlet.
[21:22] It's supposed to be a playset here, okay? Sometimes I do misspellings just to let you know I put this together, okay? And so a playset for my son because he needed that. But you know what Thatcher needs more than anything in my home?
[21:34] He needs a well. He needs somebody that is constantly bubbling over and talking about God and who is living and drinking something that he wants to be part of. And you guys need to make sure before anything else, before electricity is running, before you have the entertainment, before the TV is hooked up, if there's not a well in your home, if there's not a man of God planted in the Word of God, that a fountain is coming from his house, then your house is lacking.
[22:01] They're thirsty. They're dying there for want of the Word. So what will be the result in their lives? The lips of the righteous feed many. So from your mouth the rest of this week, from your lips, you can feed people.
[22:17] But fools die for the want of wisdom. People around us are dying for want of wisdom, for something that's true. But from your mouth, in English or in Chinese or in Spanish or anything, your words can be feed people.
[22:30] There is that speaketh like the piercings of a sword. That's the negative side. But the tongue of the wise is health. Would you say that your mouth has been characterized as the tongue of the wise that brings health to people?
[22:44] Or would you say that a better description of your mouth would be a sword? You know, I got characterized that for a long time for right reasons. But people said, man, Trent's really sharp with his mouth.
[22:55] And I thought it was fun for a while. But that's really not what I want to be known for. I want to say that I minister to people. That when I get near him, it just seems like he has the right things to say.
[23:06] Because he's talking about the right things. It doesn't matter. When you go out to a desert, it doesn't matter if you've got a... What's a nice sink faucet? Coal.
[23:17] How about set? Coal? Molar? Molan. All right. All right. It doesn't matter if you're out in the desert and you find one of those or you find one of those.
[23:28] Or you just find an old rusted pipe coming out of the hill. You're glad to find water. You know where it's coming. And so you say, I don't have the ability to speak like some of these guys and their updates and what they do.
[23:40] If you're able to come from the source, from the word of God to people, it can change lives. So we feed many. There's wise health. The words of the wicked are to lie and wait for blood.
[23:51] And can you believe that? You've been that man before and I have too. Waited for the occasion to slander somebody. Waited for the occasion to hurt somebody. That's what wicked men do.
[24:03] They wait for that opportunity. But the mouth of the upright shall deliver them. Meaning there's an opportunity where I could just jump and I could attack somebody and I have what I believe is the right.
[24:15] And I've waited for that moment. But instead of attacking that person, I deliver them. I defend them. That moment when your friend or your wife, they have a moment and they've just done something really dumb.
[24:28] They do that too, okay? And they've done something really dumb and you have that opportunity. And if you're not happy, grace can come out of the fountain of your mouth and you can deliver them.
[24:39] And so men, I hope you see this. I have some questions for you before the women eat all of our cupcakes, okay? Does your mouth usually feed people with the truth or starve people through silence? Does your mouth usually heal people with words of grace or are you critical?
[24:54] Does your mouth usually protect people or they use to cause harm for the reputation of others? If you have sought happiness, comfort, sexual fulfillment, purpose or hope in other cisterns like Jeremiah talks about, and you have forsaken the fountain of life, you will be leaving those around you thirsty.
[25:15] So men, if you are not enjoying time with God and finding Him to be your source for all things, then the things that are going to come out of your mouth, they may sound right, but they're not going to be running water.
[25:28] They're not going to be a fountain. That's why I said it can't be a storage unit. It can't just be facts. It has to be coming from somewhere deep within that has been provided to you by the God of heaven.
[25:41] So men, are you providing a fountain of life everywhere you go? And in doing so, some people are going to come and they're going to drink as you're sharing the gospel. And that's where disciple making will take place. Everywhere you go, you give unto the Lord the glory due unto His name.
[25:57] And so every chance you have, you praise the Lord of heaven with your lips, and that feeds and it brings healing and it delivers people. What a powerful weapon that we have.
[26:08] You don't have to have a carrier permit for it. You don't have to license it with the state. Any of those things are up there. Every one of you have it. And if you spend time with the fountain of life, you'll be prepared to make a difference.
[26:22] This message was recorded at Vision Baptist Church in Alfred, Georgia. For more information, log on to www.visionbaptist.com where you can find our service times, location, contact information, and more audio and video recording.