Posted on 03/14/2022 9:12:17 PM PDT by Pilgrim's Progress
“A wholesome tongue is a tree of life: but perverseness therein is a breach in the spirit. A fool despiseth his father's instruction: but he that regardeth reproof is prudent” (Proverbs 15:4).
“A wholesome tongue is a tree of life,” a wholesome tongue is a healthy, moral tongue. “For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned” (Matthew 12:37). “The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach” (Romans 10:8). That’s how we get saved, by the confession of the mouth.
“A wholesome tongue is a tree of life,” not only for yourself, but for others. With the tongue you witness to other people.
“. . . but perverseness therein is a breach in the spirit,” in 16:32 we find that man has a spirit: “He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city” (Proverbs 16:32). That is the spirit that is being addressed here in 15:4. It’s not talking about the Holy Spirit, or the regenerated spirit of a Christian, but the spirit of a man as spoken of in First Corinthians: “For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God” (2:11).
A man, whether he is saved or unsaved, has a spirit. It is our physical, carnal nature. Again, it is not the new man, but it is the old nature. It is what makes you, you.
“. . . but perverseness therein is a breach in the spirit,” you, your personality, your character has a flaw in it. That perversity is a breach. A breach in a wall is a break in a wall. When an army set to attack a city protected by a wall, they would breach the wall, and enter into the city. It was a place to get through, a weak or a low spot. It is how the forces of Persia entered into Babylon to take it in one day.
What the Devil does is look for the weak place in your character. That is a breach in your spirit, and he will attack at that point. This is where perverseness is found where the world or the Devil can get to you. As the verse is speaking of the tongue, either a wholesome tongue or a perverse tongue, it is the place where the mouth speaks: “for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh” (Matthew 12:34).
“A fool despiseth his father's instruction,” we are to honor our father and our mother. You may not always understand them, but you are to honor them and obey them. This is until a man leaves his father and mother and cleaves unto his wife. Then it is a different story. Then the wife is in subjection to her husband, and the husband is in subjection to Christ (I Corinthians 11:3).
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