The Overflow

Series: The Power of Words

Leslie Basham: The doctor will sometimes look at your tongue to gauge your overall health. The tongue also gives clues to your spiritual health. Here’s author and speaker Nancy Leigh DeMoss.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: The tongue reveals the condition of my heart. The words that I speak are a mirror into my heart. So if I have a critical heart, what kinds of words are going to come out? Critical words. When I speak angry words, what does that tell you about my heart? It means I’ve got an angry heart.

Leslie Basham: This is Revive Our Hearts with Nancy Leigh DeMoss. It’s Tuesday, September 5th.

My friend has a daughter who loves to eat brightly colored candy. She runs to the mirror to see if the food coloring has turned her tongue strange colors; then she proudly shows everyone. Her tongue reveals something about what she’s been doing and what she’s been taking in.

Well, the same is true for you—not that you’ve been eating blue lollipops, but the words you speak tell about what’s going on inside. Here’s Nancy, teaching in front of a group of women to explain more in a series called The Power of Words.

Nancy: We’re talking this week about the power of the tongue. We’re looking at the book of Proverbs and finding that it has a lot to tell us about the impact of the words that we speak.

The verse we’ve been meditating on and I’ve encouraged you to put in different places around your home is Proverbs 18:21. “Death and life are in the power of the tongue.” We’ve seen that our words have power to wound and destroy or to heal and to build up.

Now, if we were just all the time speaking one of those sorts of words, it would be easy to figure it out. The problem is that out of the same mouth often come the kinds of words that heal and the kinds of words that destroy and wound, which is why we need the Spirit of God to fill our hearts with His Word and His ways so that the words we speak will not be the foolish or the wounding or the deadly words.

One of the themes that comes through many times in the book of Proverbs is the connection of our words to our heart. In fact, I counted 11 verses—there may be more than that—where the word heart is in the same verse with the word lips or tongue or mouth. The connection is made over and over again.

The contrast, for example, in chapter 10, verse 20: “The tongue of the righteous is choice silver, but the heart of the wicked is worth little.” You’re seeing a connection to the tongue and to the heart. The tongue is connected to the heart.

Proverbs 15:7: “The lips of the wise disperse [or spread] knowledge, but the heart of the foolish”—why doesn’t it say “the mouth of the foolish”?—“does not do so.” The contrast is between the lips of the wise and the heart of the foolish. Why? Because there’s a connection between what we say and what’s in our hearts.

In fact, as you go through the book of Proverbs—and I’m encouraging you to do your own study; I’m hoping just to whet your appetite for your own study on the book of Proverbs and its many references to the tongue—you’ll find that there are many places where we read about the mouth or the words of the wicked, or the mouth of the foolish.

Then there are other places where you read about the mouth or the tongue or the lips of the righteous, or the words of the pure or the tongue or the lips of the wise. What’s the connection there? The tongue reveals the condition of my heart. The words that I speak are a mirror into my heart.

The words come out. That’s what’s heard; that’s what’s evident. But they reveal what is not so evident until I speak the words, and that is the condition of my heart. So if I’m a foolish person, I’m going to speak foolish words. If I have a wicked heart, the words that come out of my mouth are going to be wicked words.

Hundreds of years ago Francis DeSalles said this: “Our words are a faithful index of the state of our souls.” So, you want to know what’s in your heart? Jesus said, “Out of the abundance [or overflow] of the heart, the mouth speaks.”

So if I have a critical heart, what kinds of words are going to come out? Critical words. If I have a mean-spirited heart, what kinds of words are going to come out of my mouth? Mean words, unkind words.

If I have a proud heart, I’m going to speak arrogant words. If I have an unloving heart, I’m going to speak unkind words. A self-centered heart is going to speak selfish words. And when I speak angry words, what does that tell you about my heart? It means I’ve got an angry heart.

If I speak profane words, what does that tell you about my heart? It’s profane. Impatient words come out of an impatient heart. Complaining words come out of a discontented heart. A heart that is selfish is going to talk about what? Self.

I can remember my dad telling us as we were growing up that one of the important things in conversation is not to talk about yourself. He said, “People want to talk about themselves. So ask questions that draw them out.”

As you think about the people you know who have a lot of friends, people that others want to be around, one of the things you’ll notice is that they talk about others. They ask questions about others. They’re not always talking about themselves.

I’m thinking of one Christian leader I know; I saw him just recently, and I made the comment after I left him . . . I’ve talked with him a handful of times over the years, and I said about this man who is the head of a ministry, one of the things I so appreciate about this man is that whenever you see him, he’s not telling you how he’s doing or how his ministry is doing.

He’s asking how you’re doing. He’s asking about your background and your friends and your life. This is a man whose words reveal that he has an unselfish heart. As a result, he’s an encourager. You want to be around him because there’s an overflow that comes out of that heart.

Now, we’ve seen that a wicked heart is going to produce wicked words. Conversely, if we have a pure heart, a righteous heart, the overflow is going to be words that are pure and righteous.

So if I have a loving heart, what kinds of words am I going to speak? Loving words. If I have a kind heart, I will speak kind words. If my heart is unselfish, as I saw in that Christian leader, I’m going to speak others-centered words.

If I have a humble heart, I’m not going to be saying arrogant things; I’m going to be saying humble things. I’m not going to be saying things that draw attention to myself or my accomplishments or what I’ve done. If I have a humble heart, I’m going to be lifting others up. I’ll have the attitude of John the Baptist who said of Jesus, “He must increase and I must decrease.”

Where do those words come from? A humble heart. If I have a pure heart, I will speak pure words. If I speak words that are sensual or corrupt or ungodly words, I’m showing there’s a heart condition, that I’ve got a problem with my heart; my heart is corrupt, and that’s why I’m speaking corrupt words.

Proverbs talks about a gracious woman. If I have a gracious heart, I will speak gracious words. I think of some women I know who are just gracious people. When they open their mouths to speak, they’re encouragers. Some of you in this room are this way. I listen to you and I think, “I’d like to be like that.”

I’m not—I know you may think of me as being very outgoing and extroverted—but making conversation with people, especially that I don’t know, doesn’t come really easily for me. I would rather just kind of sit behind the scenes or in a corner and let other people carry the conversation. It takes effort for me to go out of myself and out of my way to speak words that are gracious and encouraging.

But I’m noticing that as God does a work in my heart, I’m filled in my heart with His Spirit and with His love and with His grace, and it’s not such an effort to speak words that reflect that heart.

If I have a grateful heart, what kind of words am I going to speak? Thankful words. A thankful heart produces thankful words. Again, you could think of people that you know—they can be in the midst of a really troubling situation, but they’re talking about the goodness of God and the faithfulness of God in the middle of what is a very difficult situation. They are saying thankful words because they have a thankful heart.

Some of you have been so gracious in expressing gratitude for what these sessions have meant to you, and you’ve taken time to stop and say, “Thank you for this teaching. Thank you for your ministry to me.” As I hear you express gratitude, I’m realizing that gratitude is flowing out of a grateful heart.

If you have a wise heart, you’re going to speak wise words. Now, the challenge is that I want to speak wise words, but I don’t always want to pay the price to get a heart of wisdom because it takes work and effort to fill my heart with God’s words so that I have wisdom inside of me that will come out in wise words.

I always have this mental image of what it means to be a wise, old lady, and I want to be that lady. I want to have that kind of wisdom, but I don’t always want to pay the price to get there, to have the kind of heart that is going to give out that kind of wisdom.

If I have an honest heart, I’m going to speak truthful words. If I’m speaking words that are deceptive or not true, it’s telling you something about my heart.

If I have a heart for God, a spiritually-minded heart, it’s not going to be difficult for me, in the course of everyday conversation, to talk about spiritual matters because out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks.

I know some people who have been in church forever, it seems—who are active in doing church work and doing various kinds of ministry—but you get them in conversation and they can talk about everything except the Lord. It’s just difficult.

You don’t hear them talk about what God’s doing in their life or about what God’s been teaching them or what they’re learning about the heart and the ways of God. It’s like that’s a category of their lives that’s for church time, but it doesn’t affect the way they talk all the time.

I’m saying that shows something about the heart. If I can’t talk about the Lord in the course of conversation, it means that my heart is not as focused and set on the Lord as it needs to be; because if I have a heart for the things of God, I will be able to talk about the things of God.

So as we think about our words and our hearts, the words that we speak are really the thermometer of my heart. Those words don’t determine the temperature. The thermometer doesn’t determine the temperature; the thermometer just registers the temperature; and the words that I speak register the temperature, the condition, of my heart.

Now, we’d like to think that that is usually true, but not always. So we tend to trivialize, many times, the words that we say by saying things like this: “I really didn’t mean it. I couldn’t help it. It just came out.” That’s not really true.

The fact is, I may have said it thoughtlessly or carelessly, but that too reveals something about my heart. If my words are uncontrolled and unrestrained, that says that I have a heart that’s not disciplined, that’s not restrained, that’s not under the control of the Holy Spirit. The fact is, what I say reveals what I mean.

So we want to just throw out these heated words, these damaging words, and then try and take them back and say, “I didn’t really mean that.” Well, I may be sorry I said it, but I’ve got to acknowledge that this is no trivial matter that I said this. Though it was thoughtless or careless, it revealed a condition of my heart that is serious; my heart had its temperature taken, and what registered was something that is not pleasing to the Lord.

So let me ask you this: What do your words reveal about your heart? And don’t just ask yourself that as we’re sitting in this room talking about . . . well, you’re sitting here listening, so nobody is sinning with their tongue right now. I’m the only one who has the possibility of doing that right this moment.

But as you go back into your home, as you go back into your workplace, as you get back on the telephone, as we carry on conversation as this session is finished (if anyone has the courage to carry on conversation after we finish talking about the tongue), ask, “What do my words reveal about the condition of my heart?”

Then if we want to change our words—and all of us have times when we so regret what we said. Someone was just sharing with me today how she regretted, as a young, angry mother, things she said to her daughter.

Now her daughter is grown, and she is still reaping the consequences in that relationship of things that she said as a young mother. She regrets those things; she wishes she could go back and take those words back and redo those conversations.

You can’t. But what you can do is let God search your heart now. If you want your words to change, it’s not enough to focus on changing your speech. What we really need is a heart change.

Some of us need major heart surgery; to say honestly before the Lord and maybe before another person, maybe before your mate who would help hold you accountable, “I realize that the words that I speak show that I’ve got some issues in my heart that are very serious. I’m seeing that those quick, thoughtless, careless, unrestrained, gossiping words reveal a condition of my heart that needs to be repented of.”

Now, I don’t want you to leave here feeling overwhelmed and like, “I’ll never open my mouth again because I just can’t say anything right.” What I do want you to do is to repent, to agree with God, to humble yourself, to acknowledge whatever God shows you about your heart, as I’m being forced to do about my own heart as I’m studying this.

Get before the Lord and say, “Lord, change my heart. Fill me with Your Spirit,” so that when I’m under pressure, when I’m speaking to those children, when I’m speaking to my mate, when I’m speaking to my co-workers, when I get on the phone in a conversation, what will come out will be the overflow of a pure heart, of a heart that is controlled by the Spirit of God.

Leslie Basham: This is wonderful counsel. Now, some members of our audience have been listening along, and Nancy asked them to share how words have blessed them.

Woman 1: Well, the words that I remember were from a complete stranger, and they had nothing to do with Christianity at all. But this woman said, “Oh, you have a beautiful smile.” And I’ve never forgotten that.

I was just thinking about words of complimenting people on what you see in them or what they are—that oftentimes is one of the biggest blessings that we can have. It isn’t necessarily how we talk. It is, like what this lady said over here about being convicted.

My mother used to say, “It isn’t what you say; it’s the way you say it.” But I really was encouraged just by this woman, a complete stranger, saying, “What a beautiful smile you have.”

Woman 2: The one thing that the Lord is correcting me on in recent years is not that I’m sharing angry or untrue things, but at my season of life now with my children grown, I have a lot of study time; and I have been too quick to share truth. What it feels like to those I’m just pouring out on is that, “And you ought to be learning this too!”

I’ve isolated two really dear friends and a family member in one year’s time last year; which, thankfully, the Lord is bringing that back around. He had to really correct me on that with the Ephesians verse.

Not only is it good, but is it necessary? If they’re not asking, then I’m supposed to be quiet. That’s so hard. That’s why I love coming here because you can just share. But you know, everyone doesn’t want to hear it. They’re not there. They’re still with the children and the diapers and the home schooling or their career or whatever as a parent.

So sometimes, even though it’s truth and it’s good and it’s right, it’s still not appropriate to pour it all out.

Woman 3: Just last week I had, during my prayer time . . . I would look at my life, and I said, “Lord, I’m not seeing any fruits.” That’s kind of what was on my mind.

I was out working in the yard. I love working out in the yard and seeing all the growth and everything. I had taken my phone out, and it was on the table outside, and it rang. I answered it, and this girl said, “This is February the 20th, and last year on February the 20th you gave us Bibles” because my radiation had been completed. My radiation had been completed, and she was one of the technicians at Karta.

She said, “This is February the 20th, and I wanted to tell you that I had read it through.” It was a one year Bible. She said, “I wanted to thank you for it and to tell you that I had read it all the way through.” And she said, “You know what? I’m just going to do it again.”

It was so encouraging to me to think that a year later some fruit had come from reading that Bible I gave her.

Nancy: Let me say, there is some pastor who today is sitting in his study thinking, “My life just is not bearing fruit.” There is some parent, there is some mate, there is somebody who led you to Christ or who has encouraged you in your faith, and they are working out in their garden; and they’re thinking, “My life just is not bearing fruit.”

It may be that you need to be the one that picks up the phone and makes the call and says, “I just want to thank you for how God has used you in my life.”

I heard a song at church last Sunday about how beautiful are the feet of those who take the gospel. As they were singing, I thought of person after person who has ministered the Word into my life in different ways.

Some have been radio preachers that I’ve never met or heard live, but their ministry has instructed me, taught me in the Word. I thought of some pastors. I thought of the pastor I grew up under, who faithfully ministered the Word and taught me the ways of God. I thought of servants of the Lord who, through their writings or their personal ministry, have blessed me.

I sat and made a list of some of those who came to mind, and what I’m hoping to do in the next week or so is to get a copy of the words of that song—I want to print them up and send them with just a cover note to those individuals. Some of those I don’t even know, and they have no idea who I am or that their ministry has in some way touched my life. Some I know quite well.

I just want to send it with a cover note saying, “Thank you for your ministry.” I need those words of encouragement; they need those words of encouragement.

It may not be somebody who’s in vocational Christian work, but somebody whose life has touched and encouraged and blessed yours, and you can minister healing and wholeness and grace to them by just saying Thank you, by acknowledging how God has used them in your life. Those are words of grace.

Leslie Basham: Nancy Leigh DeMoss will be right back. When’s the last time you encouraged your pastor and his wife? If you can’t think of a time, maybe today is the day to take action. Every year Revive Our Hearts helps you say Thank you to your pastor’s wife.

You can order a beautiful package of gifts that you can’t find anywhere else. Why don’t you surprise your pastor’s wife this year? You can find out more by visiting www.ReviveOurHearts.com.

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Lying can be subtle. Hear more about the power words have to deceive tomorrow. Here’s Nancy with a final thought.

Nancy: How many of you would be honest enough to acknowledge that even over these last few moments, the Spirit of God has pointed the finger at your heart, and you have seen that there is an issue, maybe more than one issue, in your heart that needs to be repented of, and that your words are just a reflection, an expression, of what’s deep in your heart?

You just want to ask the Lord to forgive you, to change your heart; you want to repent of whatever it is that He’s shown you that’s in your heart. You want God to change your heart in those specific areas, knowing that then the words that come out will be an expression of a pure heart.

If that’s true of you in some specific issue that we’ve addressed, or maybe something the Holy Spirit has poured out to you, would you just be honest enough to slip your hand up in the air? I want to pray for you, and pray for us, as most of our hands are in the air. Thank you for being honest. You can slip them down.

Lord, You see our hands, but more important than that, You see our hearts. We do lift up our hearts to You and confess that we want to justify and trivialize this so often, the things that we say.

But we come before You brokenly and humbly to say, “It’s our heart that is the issue,” and to plead with You to give us repentant hearts, to cleanse our hearts, to purify us, to fill our hearts with You and with Your Word so that what comes out of our mouths will be the fruit of Your Holy Spirit.

Change us, Lord. Change our hearts, and then change the way that we speak so that our words can bring glory to You. We pray in Jesus’ name, amen.

Revive Our Hearts with Nancy Leigh DeMoss is an outreach of Life Action Ministries.

All Scripture is taken from the New King James Version.

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