SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/22/2022 12:30 PM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-1 “The Punishment”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference:
Matt. 12:36-37
Message of the verses: “36 “But I tell you
that every careless word that people speak, they shall give an accounting for
it in the Day of Judgment. 37 “For by your words you will be justified, and by
your words you will be condemned.’”
In our last SD we spoke about how what a person is
thinking will come out eventually in the words that they speak, and it is
because men’s words are an accurate gauge of their hearts, they shall render
account for their words in the Day of Judgment. A person is either justified or
condemned by the words that they speak.
MacArthur adds “Salvation and condemnation are not produced by words or
deeds, but they are manifested by them.
Words and deeds are objective, observable evidence of a person’s
spiritual condition. In the Day of
Judgment, that future general time when the Lord evaluates who belongs in and
out of His eternal kingdom, the criteria will include the speech of every
person.”
Now
matter whether or not you look in the Old Testament or the New Testament there
is a consistent teaching of salvation is by God’s grace working through man’s
faith. The point Jesus is making here is
not that words are the basis of salvation or condemnation but that they are
reliable evidence of the reality of salvation.
So it is that the speech of a redeemed person will be different, and the
reason is because it comes from his renewed heart. Pure, wholesome, praising speech is what
shows a new heart.
I
have mentioned that Ephesians 2:10 is one of my very favorite verses and this
shows us as we begin in verses 2:8-9 how a person has been saved, and then in
verse 10 it shows us that we will be working after we have become saved, not
working to be saved. Romans 10:10 says “for
with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the
mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.”
Then in Romans 15:18 we see that what we saw in 10:10 in turn results in
“obedience…beyond and deed.” Salvation
will produce good works, and it is for that very reason and in that sense that
words bring justification or condemnation.
The
ungodly will be forever condemned for their speech. I have to say that while going to high school
and then going to work at a foundry for over 35 years that the speech of the
ungodly was something that I certainly noticed after becoming a believer some
nine years after beginning my work at the foundry. I once had a person who had something against
me as far as work related and he wrote something that he said I said and in
that paper were many swear words to which people knew that I would have not
said anything like that. Now back to our
lesson and we can see that Jesus does not limit this warning to extremes such
as blasphemy but H makes explicit that men will render account for every
careless word that they speak whether or not it is immoral, vulgar, cruel, or
even blasphemous. They will have to at
that time of judgment render account even for words that are careless.
John
MacArthur writes “The basic meaning of argos
(careless) is useless, barren, unproductive, or otherwise worthless. Such words include those that are flippant,
irresponsible, or in any way inappropriate.
Hypocritical words are among the most careless and worthless that men
speak and are, unfortunately, among the most common. When men self-consciously keep their
vocabulary orthodox, moral, and evangelically acceptable while among fellow
Christians—for the sake of impressing them or to keep from embarrassing
ourselves—those words are careless and worthless in God’s sight, and He will render
them against their account. The
calculated hypocrisy of such ‘holy talk’ is a stench in His nostrils.”
Spiritual meaning for my life today: I trust that the Lord is teaching me things
that I need to realize from this very convictive passage.
2/22/2022 1:01 PM
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