If you don’t have anything nice to say…

          I imagine we've all heard this before. It’s a matter of being polite. It’s what we tell our children because it’s what our parents told us, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” It seems like good advice and would probable save a lot of people a whole lot of trouble. How many people do we know who’ve gotten themselves into trouble with their big mouth?

             But we should consider whether or not this advice is biblical. The word of God calls us to bring captive every thought that exults itself against our knowledge of God and this “Proverb” does just that. For it to be biblical it would have to say something like, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, repent.” Why? Because Eph 4:29 says, “Don’t let anything unwholesome come out of your mouth, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.” When we have nothing nice to say we have a heart problem.

          In fact, if we search the word of God we will find a heavy weight placed upon our words. It says that life and death are in the power of the tongue. It says we will be judged by our words. Jesus said that what condemns a man is what comes out of his mouth, because what comes out of our mouth — comes from our heart.  A mouth with nothing nice to say is born out of a heart that is far from God. A heart that knows God, has received his gift of salvation, that is continually walking in his truth; will be a heart filled and over flowing with gratitude, regardless of circumstances.

          It's interesting that the bible tells us the deceiver appears as an angel of light. His lies sound like truth. He doesn't come at us with a preposterously tall tales. He gives us something that’s believable, something that sounds true. But, if we believe that half truth, we've believed a whole lie. And in doing so, we can somehow feel good about ourselves because we’ve learned to keep our mouth shut. We know better then to tell someone how ridiculous they look or how dumb they are.  When we’re disgusted with or despise others, we keep it to our selves; we go and tell others who will agree with us. Wouldn’t Jesus tell us the same thing he told the Pharisees, “You make the outside clean, but your inward part is full of greed and wickedness.”  So, if you don't have anything nice to say, it's time to get right with God. Be a doer of his word and not just a hearer.