Posted on 04/13/2020 6:32:24 AM PDT by Pilgrim's Progress
“He that keepeth his mouth keepeth his life: but he that openeth wide his lips shall have destruction” (Proverbs 13:3).
“He that keepeth his mouth keepeth his life,” what that means there is that you keep your mouth shut at the right time. To keep your mouth is to put a guard on it. Watch what you say, watch how you say what you say, and watch to whom you say it. Sometimes we “answer a fool according to his folly” (Proverbs 26:5), so Jesus cautioned his disciples, “neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you” (Matthew 7:6).
With some folks, it is a total waste of time to try to tell them anything. This is not an excuse for not witnessing, but after you have tried you know how they respond, and it is apparent that they want nothing to do with the truth, you just walk away and leave them be.
“. . . but he that openeth wide his lips shall have destruction,” some foolish people just don’t know when to keep their mouths shut, and their big mouths get them into all kinds of trouble. It is obvious that a man that just keeps running off with his mouth, saying anything he wants even at the most inopportune times, that fellow is just looking for trouble. And he’ll find it.
“When thou vowest a vow unto God, defer not to pay it; for he hath no pleasure in fools: pay that which thou hast vowed. Better is it that thou shouldest not vow, than that thou shouldest vow and not pay” (Ecclesiastes 5:4-5).
It is better to keep one’s mouth shut than to vow something and not pay it, and sometimes people make emotional promises that they are simply unable to keep. No one requires a vow, but if one is made, it ought to be kept. Better not to make the vow in the first place.
We reap and sow in this life by our mouths: “Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers” (Ephesians 4:29). “And that ye study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you” (I Thessalonians 4:11).
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