Join Rick Hughes on The Flatline as he unravels the intricacies of communication from a Christian perspective. This episode invites you on a transformative journey to discover when to speak and when to hold back, highlighting the pivotal role our words play in shaping our spiritual paths. Rick explores the divine discipline associated with sins of the tongue, empowering listeners with tools to navigate conversations with wisdom and humility. Through scripture and insightful anecdotes, Rick outlines the advantages of becoming ‘laconic’—a person of few, yet impactful, words. Learn how this ancient principle can not only preserve relationships but also
Welcome to the Flatline with your host, Rick Hughes. For the next 30 minutes, you’ll be inspired, motivated, educated, but never manipulated. Now, your host, Rick Hughes.
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Good morning and welcome to the Flatline. I’m your host, Rick Hughes, and for the next few minutes, please stick around. It’ll be a short time of motivation, some inspiration, some education, and it’s always done without any type of manipulation, which means we’re not here to ask for money. We’re not going to solicit money. We’re not going to ask you to join anything. We’re not going to try to get you to give it up, sell it up, anything like that. What we would like for you to do is listen up. Listen. Listen as I present to you some phenomenal principles from the Word of God about how you can establish a flat line in your soul, a flat line, a forward line of troops. a main line of resistance inside your own soul, your mind, your body, so that you can stop the outside sources of adversity before they ever become the inside sources of stress. That’s why we always say adversity is inevitable and stress is, of course, optional. The Christian life is, in fact, a life without stress, a wonderful way to live so that we don’t have to worry, be afraid, live under guilt, things like that. it’s a great way to live and that’s what this show is about giving you the accurate information so you can orient and adjust to the information if you desire but we are different now this show is a little different we don’t play music we’re not trying to appeal to your emotions we’re not going to ask you for any money we’re just going to give you information and what you do with it well now that’s between you and god but my job is to get it right get it accurate and that’s what i do i’m not a pastor i don’t pastor a church I am technically an evangelist. My job is to point you to the direction of the Lord Jesus Christ, hopefully so that you will trust in him and receive him as your savior. Also to point you in the direction of a well-qualified pastor where you can grow up spiritually and learn God’s word. and apply it into your life and give him maximum glorification with everything you say, you think, and you do. As we enter into the new decade, 2020, wow, it’s hard to believe we’ve been broadcasting this show going on 15 years now. As we enter into this new decade, I want to start off by reminding you of a principle we have taught before. I taught it in a church a long time ago, and I taught it on this radio show not long ago, but I think it’s something that is worth repeating as we go into the new year. Maybe you could make this one of your New Year’s resolutions. Whether or not you’ll keep it is another story. But I’d like to talk to you about something very unique. You see, we live in a day and an age when people are quick to mouth off. People are quick to sound off. Say things they don’t really need to say, especially with social media and the way that people get on board with Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, Twit, whatever, all that stuff. Most of the time, it’s unbelievable what people will comment on and what people will say. There’s something in the Bible called sins of the tongue. And this is one of the three areas of sin that believers like you and I can easily get trapped into. I don’t know about you, but it’s real easy for me to get trapped into saying something that I didn’t really want to say. I remember when I was a young man, probably 15 years old, standing in a grocery store And, uh, I remember explicitly who it was and who asked it to me, but, uh, I was there in front of the owner and the meat counter. And he asked me what I thought about one of the guys that lived down the street from me. And I proceeded to give him my own opinion unknowingly to me. person that i was maligning and slandering and criticizing was standing right behind me listening to every word i said i was being set up so it was embarrassing for sure and what i’m trying to say is don’t let let let yourself be set up by satan and when not to speak and the bible tells us constantly to watch out what we say, and we’re going to look at that this morning, okay? I’m going to go back some and remind you of some of these principles, something that we all need to remember. That’s why I want to give it to you today, and it’s a challenge of when to keep your mouth shut. There are times to speak, and there are times not to speak. The word laconic, L-A-C-O-N-I-C, means to be a person of few words, a laconic person. And when it comes to certain situations, believers in the Lord Jesus Christ who are filled with the Holy Spirit, that’s problem-solving device number two. Empowered by the Word of God, that’s the problem-solving device of doctrinal orientation, we have to be laconic. There’s a time to speak up. There’s also a time to keep our mouth shut. That’s why the Bible says in Proverbs 13, 3, “‘He who guards his words guards his life, for whoever is talkative comes to ruin.'” The best way that I know to destroy your life and my life and have any hope of any future in our life is to run our mouth when we don’t need to be running our mouth. We need to be listening. So it’s very important that we stay out of the sins of the tongue. You know, we have a lot of sports talk radio today and I listen to it often because I’m a football fan and I hear people call into these sports talk radio shows and go on and on and on. They’re looking for an audience, and they’re so arrogant, and they want to say something. They think they’re smarter than everybody else in the world, and they want to criticize the coach and malign the players. And it’s unbelievable what goes on, the gossip, the slander, the criticism, the maligning on these sports talk shows. Remember, if you’re a Christian, mental attitude sins do quench the Holy Spirit, but so do sins of the tongue and overt sins. The three types of sins that we commit, mental attitude sins like worry or bitterness or jealousy, and sins of the tongue like lying and slander and gossip, maligning, criticizing, backbiting, and of course the overt sins that we get involved with such as stealing, murder, fornication, adultery, You know, as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, we’re mandated not to let sin reign in our mortal bodies any longer. That’s what Paul wrote in the book of Romans. So what he’s saying is we just don’t have time to let the sin nature control us. The Bible indicates that if we’ll walk in the spirit, we can defeat the flesh in the book of Galatians. Walk in the spirit and you won’t be fulfilling the lust of the flesh. So there’s always the battle there, and that battle’s always going on, and you, like me, have to be very careful about what you say and what you do. So let’s look at some times when, in fact, we should keep our mouths shut. These are practical principles. from the word of God, for people of principle. And I hope you are one of those people. And I hope this will help you formulate your New Year’s resolutions. James 3, 5 through 8. In the New English Translation Bible says, So too the tongue is a small part of the body, yet it has great pretensions. think how small a flame sets a huge forest ablaze and the tongue is a fire the tongue represents the world of wrong-doing among the parts of our bodies it pollutes the entire body and sets fire to the course of human existence it is set on fire by hell itself For every kind of animal, bird, reptile, and sea creature is subdued. And who has been subdued by humankind? But no human being can subdue the tongue. It’s a restless evil full of deadly poison. Sins of the tongue. Sometimes we never think about it. Sometimes we just mouth off not paying attention to that. And then we go back and say, I wish I had never said that. They include sins of the tongue are three categories. Slander category, and this is gossiping and maligning and judging and complaining against other people. And then there’s the falsehood category, and this includes lies and deception and misrepresentation. perjury, fabrication, pathological lying, distortion, equivocation, ambiguous and unclear expressions designed to mislead and verbal duplicity and hypocrisy. Now, I went through a lot of stuff right there. I don’t know if you even got it all, but it’s such a political machinations today. Deception, misrepresentation, perjury, fabrication, pathological liars, distortion, equivocation, ambiguous, unclear expressions that are all designed to mislead verbal duplicity and hypocrisy. That is the falsehood category, the sins of the tongue. And then there is the whining and complaining category. And this category is complaining when you’re blessed by God and are beneficiary of his grace, but it’s a distortion of the grace of God, whimpering, grumbling, complaining by you or me who have our very own portfolio of invisible assets, and we have no need to complain. There is great blessing if we avoid these sins of the tongues in these three categories. Psalm 34, 12 through 13. Who is the person who desires long life, who loves length of days, that he may see prosperity? Then keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking slander. Wow. There’s a promise right there from the book of Psalm 34, 12 through 13. Control of the tongue plus avoidance of the sins of the tongue is actually a sign that you’re becoming a spiritually mature believer. James 3.2 says the mature believer can bridle the whole body, can control not only what he thinks, but what he says or does. So James, the book of James, as I read to you earlier, emphasizes the fact that verbal sins are always motivated by mental attitude sins and the arrogance or the emotional complex of sins in our life. James 3.14, listen. If you have bitter jealousy and strife in your heart, inordinate ambition, and you do, he says, then stop being arrogant and stop lying against the truth. That’s gossip or slander called lying against the truth. See, this is a sin of the tongue. In James 3.16, for where there’s jealousy and inordinate ambition exist, there’s dissension in every evil deed. The evil or the worthless deed here he’s talking about are the sins of the tongue. The sins of the tongue are mentioned in several passages like Romans 2.1, Romans 14.4, Romans 14.10, James 5.9. Brethren, do not complain against each other so that you yourself will not be judged. Behold, the judge is standing at the door. These warnings of scripture lead us up to studying what it means to be laconic, a person with a few words, expressing much in just a few words. The plain truth is this, we simply need to learn how to keep our mouth shut at certain times so that we stay out of trouble and we don’t get under discipline from God. So let me give you a few of those times, and we’ll start by looking at the verse that advises this laconic behavior. Here’s the verse that advises it. Proverbs 13, 3. Again, the one who guards his mouth preserves his life, and the one who opens wide his lips comes to ruin. There you go. Mark that one down. We should always, number one, here it is, the first thing I want you to remember. We should always keep our mouth shut when we get angry. In Ephesians 4, 30 and 31, the Bible says, don’t grieve the Holy Spirit of God. by whom you’re sealed for the day of redemption. And let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you. Those are all sins of the tongue and mental attitude sins, along with all malice. That’s an overt sin. That’s an attempt to hurt somebody. Here it is. God said, keep your mouth shut when you get angry. We should always do that. Can’t allow your anger to become emotional explosions so that you say things you regret and do things you wouldn’t normally do. That’s letting your sin nature get out of control. Maybe you’ve done that this week. Maybe you didn’t think you sinned. If you have done that, I suggest you go to God, admit the sin, and let him cleanse you from it because he doesn’t tolerate that. Number two, we should always keep our mouth shut when we’re tempted to tell a lie. As a matter of fact, in Proverbs 6, 16 through 19, there are seven things God hates. He says they’re an abomination unto him. Listen to verse 17. A lying tongue. A false witness, verse 19, who utters lies. One who spreads lies among the brothers. There it is, sins of the tongue. In Proverbs 12, 22, lying lips are an abomination to the Lord, but those who deal faithfully are his strength. God doesn’t tolerate liars. If you’re a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ and you have a propensity to tell a lie, then you are sinning. It’s straight-up sin, and you can get under serious divine discipline from God. for lying. God says, don’t lie. Stay out of it. Three, we should keep our mouth shut when we are tempted to straighten out someone. When we want to correct someone, you may call him or her an idiot, but it’s not our job to straighten out idiots. They frustrate you. They get you mad. They make you want to say something you should not say. Proverbs 9, 7 and 8, he who corrects a scoffer, the Hebrew word is lutz and it refers to an arrogant boaster. He who corrects a scoffer gets dishonor for himself and he who reproves a wicked man gets insults for himself. Verse 8, do not reprove a scoffer or he will hate you. and reprove a wise man, he’ll appreciate you. He’ll love you for it. So there are people that you can correct and people you can’t correct. The arrogant idiot you can’t correct. Don’t waste your time. Point four, do not speak if you don’t have all the facts. Having all the facts is critical. In Proverbs 10, 14, New American Standard Bible says, wise men store up knowledge. but the mouth of the foolish ruin is at hand. You know, Proverbs 3, 7 says, don’t consider yourself to be wise. And there’s so many people that think they’re wiser than God, but they haven’t stored up any knowledge like Proverbs 10, 14 says. Wise men store up knowledge. Knowledge is appreciation and reverence for God. And the foolish person doesn’t have any appreciation or reverence for God, so he runs his mouth. He doesn’t have all the facts, and his ruin is at hand. He’ll destroy himself. Eventually, he’ll wipe himself out. Point five, you should keep your mouth shut if you’re tempted to pervert the truth. Critical, you understand this. Again, the Proverbs 10, 31 out of the New American Standard Bible, the mouth out of the mouth of the righteous flows with wisdom. But the perverted tongue will be cut off. Do not pervert the truth. The very worst thing any Christian could do, the worst thing any minister could do is to pervert the truth of Scripture, pervert the Word of God. There’s truth related to salvation, truth related to Christian living, both of which are perverted daily, daily by Satan’s ministers. who teach false doctrine. You said, I didn’t know Satan had ministers. Yes, he does. There are men in pulpits across this country today and ladies in pulpits who are Satan’s ministers. You want to hear the verse? 2 Corinthians 11, 14 through 15. No wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. Therefore, it is not surprising if his servants, who also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness, there they are, whose end will be according to their deeds. They pervert the truth. They don’t tell you that it’s faith alone and Christ alone. They tell you that if you want to be saved and go to heaven, you got to be a good little boy. Can’t do any bad things because in the end, God’s going to measure the good and the bad. And if you’re on the bad end of the bad, you’re going to hell. That’s not what the Bible says. The Bible says Christ died for the sins of the world. The Bible says he who knew no sin was made sin for us. Our sins were paid for in him and his death, burial, and resurrection are guarantees to us that we have eternal life through faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross. We are not allowed to pervert the truth, and it goes on every day. You may wonder why God let his children pervert the truth. Sometimes these people are not his children. They are ministers of Satan who are teaching doctrine of demons the Bible talks about. So remember that. And, you know, one thing that’s hard to face, here it is, Moses himself misrepresented God once at the Rock of Meribah. You can read it for yourself in Numbers chapter 20, verses 7 through 12. Here’s what it says. Then the Lord spoke to Moses, and he said, Take the rod, you and your brother Aaron, and gather the congregation together and speak, speak, speak to the rock before their eyes, and it will yield its water. And thus you will bring water for them out of the rock and give drink to the congregation and their animals. So Moses took the rod from before the Lord as he commanded him, and Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together before the rock. and he said to them listen to me you rebels must we that’s moses and aaron bring water out of this rock for you and then moses lifted his hand and struck the rock twice with the rod and water came out abundantly in the congregation and the animals drank but the lord said step aside moses aaron i need to tell you something verse 12 because you did not believe me You did not hallow me in the eyes of the children of Israel. Therefore, you will not bring them into the promised land, which I have given to them. He struck the rock instead of speaking to the rock. He perverted the truth. In Deuteronomy 3, 24 through 28, listen to this. Oh, Lord God, you have begun to show your servant your greatness and your mighty hand for what God is there in heaven on earth and can do anything like you do. I pray, please let me cross over and see the good land before the Jordan, those pleasant mountains, and Lebanon. But the Lord was angry with me on your account, and he would not listen to me. And the Lord said to me, Enough of that. Speak no more to me about this matter. Go to the top of Pisgah. Lift up your eyes to the west, to the north, to the south, and the east, and look at it. But you will not go over the Jordan River.” Wow. God takes it seriously if we misrepresent him in front of his people. Here’s another one. One should keep his mouth shut if he’s tempted to malign his neighbor. It’s critical you remember that. The hypocrite with his mouth destroys his neighbor, the Bible says, and that’s found in Proverbs 11, verse 9. But through knowledge, the righteous will be delivered. How do we destroy our neighbor? By slander, maligning, gossiping, criticizing. Seven, if you have a quick temper, you should by all means keep your mouth shut. Proverbs 14, 17. A quick-tempered man acts foolishly. And a man of wicked intentions is hated. That quick temper will get you in trouble more than anything else because it’ll lead you to say things you shouldn’t say and do things you shouldn’t do. And one of the signs of a mature believer is learning how to get his temper under control. If you have temper outbursts, if you get angry and explosive and emotional control of your life, you have not grown spiritually to learn how to handle that through the filling of the Holy Spirit. Let’s see, the Bible says the fruit of the Spirit is love and joy and peace and long-suffering and gentleness and goodness and meekness. That’s not you, is it? You’re explosive and angry, bitter, and that’s an area you must grow in. Here’s another principle. You must keep your mouth closed if you’re tempted to be rude, the Bible says. Proverbs 16, 24, pleasant words are like a honeycomb, sweetness to the soul and health to the bones. I like honey. I bet you do too. I love it in my coffee and my tea. I put it on my oatmeal, honeycombs. Honey is pleasant. And it’s compared here to pleasant words. Not being rude with waitresses, waiters, with your spouse, with your children. Not being rude. Okay? Now buckle your seatbelts because this one may get a little tough. Point nine. A woman should never use her words as an attempt to control her husband. Okay? In Proverbs 19, 13, a foolish son is the ruin of his father, and the contentions of a wife are a continuous dripping. That’s called nagging. That’s using words to control your husband. You know, I was talking to my daughter about this the other day, and she said I wouldn’t nag if he did it the first time I asked him to do it. And most men are not going to do it the first time you ask them to do it. And you can be pleasant about asking again instead of getting mad, getting angry, and going off on them with your temper because they didn’t do what you wanted them to do or just getting mad and withdrawing and not saying anything and pouting and having a little pity party because your husband… not doing what you want him to do. No man is perfect. No woman is perfect. Most of us men are just jerks. I’ll admit it. If it wasn’t for the sense of God, we would probably already be a greasy spot somewhere. But you married us. You have to put up with us. So don’t nag us. That’s what the Bible is saying. The contentions of a wife are continuous dripping. Can men be naggers? You better believe they can be. They can be worse than a woman sometimes. critical, criticizing, maligning, putting their spouse down. There’s no room in the Christian life for any sort of behavior like that. If you’re that sort of man, you’re not a man at all. You’re just a mouse. You’re a wimp. If you pick on your wife or if you pick on your children or if you intimidate them in any way whatsoever. Now, point 10, definitely you should keep your mouth shut when you’re tempted to judge another person. God does not allow judging. Proverbs 21, 23, whoever guards his mouth and tongue keeps his soul from troubles. In Matthew 7, 1 through 5, judge not so that you are not judged. For with whatever judgment you judge, you will be judged. With the measure you use, it will be given back to you. So why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye and you don’t consider the log sticking out of your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, oh, let me remove the speck from your eye. And then look, there’s a log in your own eye. You’re a hypocrite. First remove the log out of your own eye and then you will be able to see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye. The log in your own eye is representative of your own self-righteous arrogance. Arrogant people don’t see themselves as they really are. They see themselves as they think they are. And if they have an unrealistic self-image, they have unrealistic expectations. That’s the way it goes. So there you have it. The laconic believer. Very critical, we understand. And that’s review information that we’ve given to you before. But it’s critical that we understand. We’re not allowed to judge. We’re not allowed to malign. We’re not allowed to criticize. We’re not allowed to slander. We’re not allowed to gossip. These are all traits of the sin nature. And if you let your sin nature get out of control, this will be you. You will be rude. You will be impatient. You will be judgmental. You will be doing exactly all these things we talked about. If you’d like a transcript of this, we can provide it for you. We’ll send it to you in email or in printed form. And if you would like any of our material from our books that we have published to anything else that we offer, including the Problem Solving Device Bookmarker, or the Christian Problem-Solving Device book. It’s free. It’s yours. All you have to do is ask for it. Get in touch with us, please. Let us know if you’re hearing us. Let us know if you’re listening. I’d love to get letters from you in this new year. We’re coming up into the new decade, 2020. I’d love to know who’s out there, who’s paying attention, who’s not. We’re signing new contracts every day. for new radio shows, and it depends on who’s there, who’s listening, and how effective we’re being in that area. So thank you for your prayer support. Thank you for your encouragement. Thank you for listening. And it’s my prayer that you know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, that you have made the most significant decision that you could ever make in your entire life. which is to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shall be saved. A simple act of faith can change your life because the Bible says, whosoever should call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. I did it and you must do it if you haven’t. Please consider the claims of Jesus Christ because God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. Until next week, this is your host, Rick Hughes, saying thank you for listening to The Flatline.
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Thank you for listening to The Flatline with your host, Rick Hughes. If you’d like to contact Rick, please write to him at P.O. Box 100, Cropwell, Alabama, 35054, or online at www.rickhughesministries.org.
