Proverbs 10:18,19,  He that hideth hatred with lying lips, and he that uttereth a slander, is a fool.  In the multitude of words there wanteth not sin: but he that refraineth his lips is wise.

In this first proverb God tells us two things that reveal the fool.

He says clearly that anyone who utters a slander can be properly placed into the family of fools.

How easy it is to utter words, for our mouth is so easily engaged in speech that is not based upon well thought out conclusions.

Remember what slander is, for to slander is to injure by maliciously uttering false reports, false tales about other people.

So many times we resort to slander when we do not have all the facts.

There is no virtue in arriving at conclusions in record time.

We are not engaged in an Olympic contest as far as coming to an opinion about others.

There are no prizes for out-concluding others.

I think one of our biggest failures as Christians is joining in partisan choruses regarding our leaders.

God does not give us a pass in uttering non-well thought out speech even against those who are in political leadership positions.

Those, by the way, whom we never have to face with our words.

Would we be so loose with our words if we were face to face?

It is so easy to mouth off to others about our President and our congressmen and women without knowing the facts.

It makes us appear to others as knowing something when we do not know much.

We are to remember to pray for those who rule over us, we are never given leave to slander them.

Another identifying mark of fools is having a forked tongue.

A person who speaks with a forked tongue is one who speaks that which is not in his heart for he hideth hatred with lying lips.

He speaks a message that his heart does not share.

When Jesus told the Pharisees that they were like whited sepulchers which indeed appear beautiful on the outside but within were full of dead men’s bones and of all uncleanness, he was stating the principle that we are given in the beginning of this proverb, and that principle concerns having a forked tongue.

For the Pharisees definitely spoke of that which was not from the heart.

They covered up their hate with lying lips for they were hypocrites.

Jesus was quick to point out to the Pharisees their hypocrisy for the Pharisees were quick to show their outward righteousness while totally ignoring the unrighteousness that took place in their heart.

Whenever the heart is without righteousness there is a desire to establish the appearance of righteousness.

Think of children, who when they are accused of some misdeed, immediately assume some angelic pose.

And that is what is revealed in our proverb.

Hatred is in the heart, but righteousness in expressed from the lips.

This is Satan’s counterfeit for there is no such thing as true righteousness in Satan’s world but his righteousness consists only of what is revealed through the senses, sight, smell, taste, touch, and hearing.

As agents of Satan the Pharisees could only exhibit righteousness by painting the sepulchre white but could do nothing about that which lay inside, dead men’s bones and uncleanness.

How often we mask what is inside by expressing words that utterly are opposite of what is in our heart.

A smile comes easily but inside may be a villain.

Remember Judas who so easily kissed our Lord but followed that kiss by his traitorous acts!

Praise easily comes from our mouths for acts that deserve no praise.

Someone comes in our presence with a new outfit that is completely foolish looking and yet we offer praise for such stunning and beautiful clothes.

There may be no friendship in our heart for someone but by our words we express thankfulness that we can spend some time with them.

Is that which we express as polite courtesy sincere or is it just something that is expected to be said?

Is the cashier at Wal-Mart really sincere when she says for the thousandth time, "Have a nice day?"

Are our words for the regard of someone contrary to what lies in our heart?

Do we really mean what we say?

A.W. Tozer (1897–1963) said, Some churches train their greeters and ushers to smile, showing as many teeth as possible. But I can sense that kind of display—and when I am greeted by a man who is smiling because he has been trained to smile, I know I am shaking the flipper of a trained seal.

This world system is built upon the philosophy of hypocrisy for Satan’s world system is totally based upon what the image of a thing is rather than the reality of the thing.

Our system of communication, television, internet, e-mail, twitter, facebook, promotes image rather than reality.

Politics is all about image for politicians know that most people will decide for or against him or her based only upon seeing images.

It is easy to construct a righteous image but only God can construct a righteous reality for that is only created in a direct act of God by the new birth.

The new birth is that which brings a new mouth, a new mouth that reflects what is in the heart.

Paul in Ephesians 4:21-25,29 expresses what is to be for the one who has within him or her the righteousness of Christ:

If so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus: That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; ²³And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; ²⁴And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. ²⁵Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another. ……..²⁹Let 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.

Oswald Chambers (1874–1917), If we are not concentrated, we affect a great many attitudes; but when we "set our faces unto the Lord God," all affectation is gone—the religious pose, the devout pose, the pious pose, all go instantly when we determine to concentrate; our attention is so concentrated that we have no time to wonder how we look.

And one of the things that concentration upon our Lord will bring is a scarcity of words of our own for our concentration will be on the word of God.

Our words, the multitude of words indeed are they which bring us to sin as we will discuss in our second proverb:

Proverbs 10:19,  In the multitude of words there wanteth not sin: but he that refraineth his lips is wise.

When was the last time you prayed for God to set a watch before your mouth and to keep the door of your lips?

Here again we have a caution regarding the use of words and it has to do with the quantity of words used, for there seems to be a direct proportion between quantity of words and sin.

Solomon the wise, tells us that the more words spoken the more sin will result.

Our mouths are fully equipped to speak words but God tells us to use words not only carefully but sparingly.

Proverbs 17:27,28,  He that hath knowledge spareth his words: and a man of understanding is of an excellent spirit. Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise: and he that shutteth his lips is esteemed a man of understanding.

Solomon, again in Proverbs, tells us to let others praise us but to not use our own mouths to praise us.

So many times we are prone to wander with our mouths in order to bring out some grand thing that we accomplished.

So as to not appear bold in our self praise we use many words and in their course somehow our virtues are indirectly and sometimes not so indirectly extolled.

Paul in his second letter to Timothy told him to shun profane and vain babblings for they will increase unto more ungodliness.

Babblings means empty sounding, it means fruitless discussion.

Charles Bridges in his Proverbs commentary said: "The fool talks forever upon nothing; not because he is full, but because he is empty; not for instruction, but for the pure love of talking."

And because of that love of talking there comes expressions of pride, complaints, impure thoughts, slander, and hypocrisy.

God tells us in His word to avoid foolish talking, inconvenient jesting, reminding us that every idle word shall be remembered.

Jesus told the Pharisees who were full of words in Matthew 12:36,  But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. ³⁷For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.

And at times even prayers are composed of idle words.

Remember that Jesus told us to beware of the scribes who make a show of their long prayers.

Prayers of many words, not to seek God’s hand, but simply to show off before others.

Satan has so organized his world system that so much of the time the world simply engages in vain babbling.

Try to engage in a serious conversation and you will find in many cases emptiness of ideas, fruitless talk, talk that brings no blessing to the soul.

The most important of discussions, concerning spiritual things is shunned in favor of vain babbling.

Considering that sin is connected to the multitude of words it is wise to use our mouths with a caution, a discipline.

For our proverb tells us that he that refraineth his lips is wise

God does not intend for us to be silent but He intends for us to weigh our words before speaking and when we speak we are to have something to say that will edify, that is suitable, and that is profitable to the hearer.

We can be so wrapped up in the care of the body.

The world is so deeply invested in the care of the body and the drumbeat of this care is to take off pounds by dieting.

It will be so good for your health to take off some pounds!

I do not disparage dieting but perhaps some of us ought to go on a word diet.

Perhaps our goal should be to cut our words in half.

Many parents could easily do that as they over and over repeat instructions to disobedient children.

We know by our proverb that many words and much speaking is in direct proportion to our sinning.

So when we go on a word diet we will also go on a sin diet.

Remember our study of James who told us to be faster to hear and slower to speak.

This tells us that our speaking skills are usually well trained but our listening skills usually need further work.

Start listening more and you will reduce the multitude of words automatically and concurrently the multitude of sin.

Remember our 17:27 proverb that says that if you are slow and reluctant to speak you will have an excellent spirit.

It is far better to wisely consider your words before you speak rather than regret them after they have left your mouth, impossible to recover.

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) our 30th president said: I have noticed that nothing I never said ever did me any harm.

Some of the most painful words spoken are words of regret for having said what we said.

"I wish I'd never said that" or "Why did I say that?"

Sometimes the reason we say words we soon regret is because we say too many words.

We speak too many idle and foolish words and some of them pop out of our mouths without going through our wisdom censor.

Our wisdom censor automatically tells us to simply refrain our lips from too much talk.

Wisdom tells us to cut our word quantity drastically.

Going on a diet of words means to swallow your words before they come out so you won’t have to eat them later.

I think we would all agree that swallowed words are much tastier than eaten words!

Sometimes we go on and on about things we don’t know anything about and our words are full of conjecture and prognostication.

In Ecclesiastics 10:14 Solomon calls such talk as coming from a fool.

A fool also is full of words: a man cannot tell what shall be; and what shall be after him, who can tell him?

In other words this fool is full of words about the future that he knows not of.

His speech is filled with speculation and at times that speculation leads to sin for in the multitude of words there wanteth not sin.

If we would consider our own ignorance as to future events, it would no doubt contribute to our diet of many idle words which we foolishly multiply.

The words we add beyond necessary speech contain most of our verbal sins and the quantity of those sins increase in proportion with the quantity of words that come forth.

So going on a diet of words will bring on a diet of sins.

After going on and on and on and on has anyone ever told you to put a cork in your mouth?

Well God is not so coarse in speech as to use that kind of language but the message is the same as we find in:

Psalm 39:1,  I said, I will take heed to my ways, that I sin not with my tongue: I will keep my mouth with a bridle, while the wicked is before me.

Do you have children that talk too much? Nip it in the bud.

Do you find yourself offering opinions about every subject on earth, most of which you know little about. Nip it in the bud.

You can be esteemed wise by talking less. Look at God’s pattern.

He talked to us off and on for 4000 years yet in the last 2000 years he has been silent, not a word!

He has told us all we need to know.

He does not jabber with wasteful speech.

He gets to the point and his words accomplish what he sends them to do and then he rests.

If you are telling someone about going to the grocery store to buy some meat that was on sale, you don’t have to tell about every food product on every aisle if the intent of your tale is to tell about how much money you saved on the meat.

Get to the point!

Now as a caution to this, lest we go overboard and become mute, let me make it clear we are not to be completely silent for we have been given a job to do.

There are people who err on the side of almost complete silence and they are not right in this either.

All of us need to use words that are gracious and to be a tree of life.

The constantly silent types are at fault here for if they do not learn to speak, their lives will be of little value to anyone.

God expects words from you to others that will lift a heavy heart.

God expects words from you that will feed others at God’s table.

God expects words from you that tell others of His love, mercy, and grace.

Words that are good to the use of edifying, words that minister grace unto the hearers.

Proverbs 10:21 says,  The lips of the righteous feed many.

Proverbs 12:25,  Heaviness in the heart of man maketh it stoop: but a good word maketh it glad.

Proverbs 15:23,  A man hath joy by the answer of his mouth: and a word spoken in due season, how good is it!

Proverbs 25:11,  A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.