What Does The Bible Say About Talking Too Much?

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Oh, hi, Pastor Mike. Uh, I had a question that had to do with uh the Bible. >> Okay. >> If I think it’s Proverbs 23 says not to talk too much about something um just do it, then can we still confide in someone and tell them our plans for the future? >> Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I I think some of the warnings in the book of Proverbs have has to be about people that are just talk, right? That’s the concern. I don’t know which passage you’re thinking of. I think I don’t [snorts] know. I

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think of Proverbs 24 speaking about people that’s their lips are always talking and talking of trouble. Uh [snorts] there’s a lot of discussion about the babbler who just babbles. A lot of the warnings in Proverbs are about people that are gossips and they’re whispering to everybody everything they they hear. So, I don’t know the passage you’re thinking of. I’m looking through Proverbs 23 right now trying to see if the passage that you’re thinking of might jump out at me. But I

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would say confiding in people is fine as long as we’re confiding in someone for a good purpose and someone that’s trustworthy because the deep waters of people’s hearts. I mean, I think we got to be careful who we entrust ourselves to when we say, “Here’s [clears throat] some of the things going on in the depths of my soul or depths of my heart.” But I I certainly think even as my mom used to tell me as a little kid, right, actions speak louder than words. And the problem with entrusting a lot of

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our thoughts to other people with our with our lips is that um it it doesn’t amount to much. Ultimately what our what matters is our actions. And I know actions sometimes need to be predicated and based on people talking through their thoughts. So I have no problem with you doing that. Matter of fact, we ought to be as the Bible says [snorts] sharpening one another like like iron sharpening iron. So, one man sharpens another. [snorts] Or as it says in Hebrews 10, we ought to be stirring one

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another on to love and good deeds as we connect together and fellowship together. So, you’ve got to be open and you’ve got to be talking. I just don’t want to be the talker who always talks and never listens or never acts. And I think those are primarily the proverbs that are coming to mind as I look through the text here in Proverbs 23 and 24. Tell me more about your reticence to to to entrust yourself with discussions with other people. >> Okay. Um I guess it most most of the

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time it’s when uh whenever I have a plan. um like for school in the future. Uh I just um I guess uh when I’m talking with my family, I don’t know if it’s like uh you know, making too many plans for the future or or um >> Okay. Well, >> that’s pretty much it. >> Let me talk to you about the book of James, which says any plans you make, right? when it talks about the merchants who are going to go here and there, go make a profit, return home, it says you should say, “If the Lord wills, we will

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live or do this or that.” So part of the concern too of scripture is presumptuous planning. And if I’m going to say, “Here’s my plan. Here’s my school plan. I’m going to do this. I’m going to go through this course of study, graduate here, get a job there.” We just need to make sure that the scripture would tell us, don’t do that presumptuously, thinking that it’s not contingent on God. It’s only contingent on you and your plans and your work. >> [snorts]

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>> The other thing that the book of Proverbs would definitely say is good and that is sharing your plans so that others can be your consultants and your counselors, right? There’s victory in the abundance of of counselors, people that are going to weigh in on it. So, what you should be asking when you’re talking about schooling, particularly to someone who is older than you, is here’s my plan, if the Lord wills, is it a good plan in your eyes? And one person isn’t enough for this, right? I I think you

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should have any plan that’s important should be run by two or three or four people. The problem is us with our blind spots and just our own mind. Sometimes we’re not thinking of the big picture. Uh [snorts] matter of fact, I’m looking at my text messages here. Some of the things I’m doing in this church take a lot longer because I’m collaborating with our whole pastoral team and it takes time. But I I I can write something that I think is going to be good for our website or our doctrinal

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positions, but people need to weigh in on it and say, “Hey, what about this and what about that and this may be misunderstood or you’re going the wrong direction here.” So, I want to share and confide in people about plans. Number one, as long as I’m saying if the Lord wills, I’m not saying my plans are inable. And number two, I want to make sure that I’m getting advice from people that I think are wise and might be able to to say something about my plans. And that means I’m open to correction. I’m

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open to reason. And if those two things are in place, then I think you’re good. And you should entrust yourself and and confide in people. Just know that it’s not just about the saying it, it’s about the doing it. You should work twice as hard at doing it than you do at saying that you’re going to do it because that’s the most important thing of all. Does that help, Alexis? >> Yes. Yes. It always helps, Pastor Mike. Thank you so much. >> Okay. You’re welcome. Thanks for the

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call. [snorts] 877-9135357. Just even talking to you, Alexis, I think about the passage I’m about to preach at church this weekend from 2 Corinthians. Uh 2 Corinthians chapter 1. He has to tell these Corinthians that he made plans and they didn’t work out. Now, of course, Paul is always making plans and saying as the Bible says we should if the Lord wills. He knows it’s all contingent on the Lord’s will. But there were people that were disappointed in the plans that he made that weren’t

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fulfilled that he didn’t do. He didn’t visit them when he said he was going to and and they were mad. Some of the critics said, “See, you can’t trust him.” and he’s having to defend himself that he’s never making plans without purposefully wanting to do what he says he’s going to do. His motives are are sincere and and it’s always for good. And even the change in plans, he’s going to try to tell these people is because I have a good reason. And it’s got to be a

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good reason that I think anyone could look at and say, “Yeah, that is a good reason.” And he’s going to explain that to them. And certainly he’s in there with his other traveling companions Timothy and Silas and they clearly right agree that with the Apostle Paul it’s not time to go to Corenth. So your plans might change Alexis just remember that there are a lot of things that may get in the way. Uh but we want to as it says in Hebrews I’m sorry Psalm 15. We want to swear to our own hurt and not change.

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And all that means is we want to say we’re going to do something and do it even if it’s hard. Right? If you say your your wife, I’m going to pick up, you know, a dozen eggs on the way home. Uh, after you check your bank account, make sure you can afford it. I’m going to go and pick up my my my wife some eggs, right? Even if I get tied up at work, I better go the extra mile and and be willing, you know, to do what I said I was going to do because we need to be people of our word. And and that may be

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difficult even if it’s to our own hurt. And that’s all we’re saying there. All right, let’s go back to uh 877-913 5357 is the number. Got a good conversation going here on um YouTube. Let’s look at this. H you miss me on bot. I miss being on bot. That’s true. I wish we were still on bot. But here’s the thing. Uh Nabboth’s Revenge. Love that. Uh [laughter] here’s the thing about bot radio. Um just like every radio station we’re on, we’re on about 900 stations.

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uh a little over 900 I think right now. Every station that we do our teaching on uh costs us money and so we raise money from people and say do you want this on this radio network or this radio station and if if they say yes we would like that right well then we say we would really be great is if you wrote in number one and just tell us you’re listening because radio’s weird. you put it out there and you don’t know even who’s listening. And then number two, we want to know if you if you believe in it

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enough to support it because we have to pay for all that time on these towers and these networks and all the production costs and all of that which I always like to remind people at least for focal point. I don’t I I refuse to take any money from Focal Point. So I don’t make any money being the voice of of Focal Point, but I want all the money to go into paying for that so I can go on more stations, right? because every dollar that we get volunteered in to give to make this happen goes right into

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production cost and transmission cost and everything that it takes to be on all these stations with bot. We were on it for a number of years. Uh and I’ll tell you, we we tried. We really tried, but if if at some point we don’t have enough people that are willing to to to pitch in every month, then we can’t we can’t be on it. And and all it takes is a bunch of people that are willing to give a little bit every month. and uh you know we can make it work but uh it costs a lot and at some point we had to

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make the decision and uh we had to go off of bot radio and I see Jay was responding to you now. I just read that but uh yeah we miss bot radio. We get to see um Rich Bot who runs that uh every year. Matter of fact Jay and I are going to go out there to the national religious broadcasters. We’ll go to the breakfast and talk to to Richbot. He is a good man with good heart running a good network and and we we wish them all the best. We always are very supportive of bot radio and I feel bad every time

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we have to go off of a station because we can’t afford to do it and you know maybe you’re sitting out there on on 1020 million you want to give it to focal point we can go right back on bot today we will call rich bot up president of bot radio and say yeah we’re we’re ready to go it’s all about uh people that are willing to support it we’ll go as far as we can and and that’s fine.