Proverbs 12:5-7, The thoughts of the righteous are right: but the counsels of the wicked are deceit. 6. The words of the wicked are to lie in wait for blood: but the mouth of the upright shall deliver them. 7. The wicked are overthrown, and are not: but the house of the righteous shall stand.

God is truth and the giver of truth. 

Truth is revealed only by God for God, being truth establishes truth. 

He does not give to any other this right or responsibility.  

He asks no one their opinion as to whether or not something is truth.

Truth cannot be found outside of God.

If you do not know God you do not know truth.

One of the results of the fall of man in the Garden was the rejection of truth and the adoption of the Lie. 

God being Truth, and Satan being the Lie. 

When Adam sinned he became a being with the nature to sin and that nature moved him to believe the Lie as if it were truth. 

It moved him to call evil, good and good, evil.

It moved man to become exceedingly wicked as we are told in:

Genesis 6:5,6, And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.

Here is the spring from which the stream of wickedness begins. 

Wickedness does not spring from the lips even though vile and revolting.

Wickedness does not spring from the hands even though they may be used in the murder of innocents. 

Wickedness does not spring from the feet even though they may take you to the scene of evil.

No, wickedness springs from the thoughts of the heart for every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

Jesus Christ who declared himself to be Truth opened to his disciples the seeming hopelessness of their condition when he told them their true nature as he described the act of adultery.

One of the wonderful things about truth is that truth always brings light. 

Sinful man does not want truth for the light of it will reveal a heart that the Bible says is so desperately wicked that no man can know it.  

Jesus brought truth when he discussed the matter of adultery.

Thou shalt not commit adultery. 

It appears the act of adultery was what was addressed in the Ten Commandments. 

This was primer instruction for a primer people.  

But Jesus Christ came in the fullness of time and told us from where that act was born. 

Jesus revealed to us that it is not the physical commission of adultery that reveals the nature of man but that nature is revealed from the imaginations of the thoughts of the heart.

This is recorded in Matthew 5:28, But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.

Without God telling us this Truth we would continue to believe the Lie about ourselves that only physical acts show us our sinful nature. 

This lie is held by millions as a justification for their satisfaction with themselves, for their permission to think highly of themselves.

We are given to think highly of ourselves when we only consider   that which is physically committed as sin, but Jesus goes to the spring from where sin emanates, for He goes to the heart.

Solomon brings into discussion in our proverb this subject for he says the thoughts of the righteous are right. 

He goes directly to the heart of the matter for sin emanates from the thoughts of the heart. 

Remember the story of the man who walked to work each day and part of that walk took him past the bank. 

Every day passing the bank brought his mind to ponder how the bank could be robbed without the robber being caught. 

Every day, for months, he added to his plan, making adjustments, strengthening weaknesses and being very proud of himself for his shrewdness. 

And one day he thought his plans were perfected in such a masterful way, he decided to execute his plan. 

So the day came and the bank was robbed. 

So when was the bank robbed? 

According to Jesus the robbery took place months before in this man’s heart. 

The taking of the bank’s assets was the natural outcome of the man’s wicked thinking.

The founder of Bob Jones University, Bob Jones Sr. said this: 

Behind every tragedy in human character there is a process of wicked thinking.

Judas, the betrayer of our Lord, perfected the process of wicked thinking. 

Remember Mary who took a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, for Mary understood where Jesus was going. 

She wiped his feet with her hair connecting her full self to his death for He told his disciples:  Let her alone: against the day of my burying hath she kept this. 

And I don’t think those words, “Let her alone” was said in the soft cuddly way in which Jesus is so often portrayed.

But what a poignant act this anointing was on the part of Mary. 

So enters Judas, with a mind full of wicked thinking, who had no heart for truth, who had no heart for displays of devotion by this woman who loved her Master, Jesus Christ and understood his mission. 

The house was filled with the odor of the ointment. 

Mary’s hair was wet with the perfume that announced the coming death of her beloved Jesus, the Christ. 

But what did the eyes of sensitive Judas observe? 

What did his process of wicked thinking bring his mouth to say in this moving moment?  

This is what came out of his heart!

Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor?

Oh, Judas how wonderful of you to think of the poor, Jesus exclaimed. 

My ministry to you is bringing forth fruit. 

I am so proud of you for thinking of the poor! 

No! this was not what came from the mouth of Jesus for God does not hear the mouth, God hears the heart.

And from the Holy Spirit John the Apostle was caused to write what that heart said.

⁶ This he said, not that he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and had the bag, and bare what was put therein.

It is no wonder that there is so much thinking about the poor today, for there are so many thieves reaching their hands into the bag to get their share.  

How quickly web sites arise after a disaster or misfortune in order to get money to those affected. 

How quickly hearts turn to help but what is in those hearts who hold the bag?

God only knows how much of the money gets to the poor or the hurt.

For the bag is never their bag, the purse is never their purse, the wallet is always someone else’s wallet for they may care for the poor only up to the point of where there is benefit to themselves.

And so was Judas in this group for he was a thief. 

He did not steal the perfume for that filled the air but in his heart he stole it, picturing the money, resulting from its sale, that he could take from the bag.

But his wicked thinking heart was not even stopped by the rebuke of our Lord Jesus Christ for his heart soon brought him to get thirty pieces of silver by committing the greatest act of betrayal the world has ever seen, the betrayal that sprang from his wicked heart.

Only an act of God can change the process of wicked thinking. 

There is nothing in the heart of man that can be conjured up, no turning of a new leaf, no counseling, no therapy, no starting over can ever change a heart. 

But only by God entering the life can a heart be changed. 

Jesus said, Ye must be born again and with that new God given birth God implants a new heart, a heart that loves God and loves what God can do for that new heart.

It is the only the new heart that can receive the mind of Christ. 

Judas was with Jesus three years but never received a heart which could receive the mind of Christ for it takes an act of God, based on faith to have a new God given heart.

The Apostle Paul was able to instruct the Philippians to be likeminded having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind, letting nothing be done through strife or vainglory, esteeming each other better than themselves, and looking after the things of others.

He was only able to instruct them because God had given them a new heart that was made to operate in the kingdom of God. 

He was able to tell them to: Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, only because they had a new heart resulting from obedience to the command: Ye must be born again.

And that is why Solomon can say: The thoughts of the righteous are right: but on the contrary: the counsels of the wicked are deceit.

Remember the story of Joseph and his brothers. 

 The hearts of Joseph’s brothers were revealed when they practiced to deceive.

 I imagine the long hours sitting around the fire after tending to the flock were filled with conversations about this brother with the fancy coat, whom their father favored. 

 Hatred for him built up to a point where that hatred of the heart conceived a plan to do their brother in. 

 For after selling Joseph to the Ishmeelites for twenty pieces of silver, they dipped his coat, that horrid coat of many colors in the blood of a goat, in order to deceive their father Jacob.

And the counsel which flowed from a wicked heart through the mouth was: This have we found: know now whether it be thy son's coat or no.

Nehemiah was God’s servant sent to Israel to build Jerusalem’s walls but any service for our God will be met by opposition by the counsel of the wicked.   

Sanballat and Geshem, two important locals, saw Nehemiah’s work as a threat and called for a meeting of the minds most likely in sweet tones. 

We read of this in Nehemiah 6:2, That Sanballat and Geshem sent unto me, saying, Come, let us meet together in some one of the villages in the plain of Ono. O NO Daniel, Don’t go!

That certainly sounds like a plan of reconciliation but Nehemiah was given to know that this counsel to meet in the plain of Ono was coming from wicked hearts for he refused to go saying:  ……they thought to do me mischief. 

Daniel’s enemies choose flattery to reveal their hearts as they played to the king’s high opinion of himself advising him to edict that only requests to him would be allowed for 30 days. 

 Knowing the habits of Daniel their motive was his destruction. 

 Daniel also probably said after his deliverance from the lions, ……they thought to do me mischief. 

 And don’t forget that classic example of treachery from the heart of Haman, the classic villain, in the days of Esther, who devised a plan to rid himself of his adversary Mordecai and in the process destroy every Jew in the kingdom. 

 But God is so good for The wicked are overthrown, and are not:

 And the end of Esther’s story reads this way:  So they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai.  

 (If you listen closely at that passage you will hear much applause for the villain is dead.)

 Haman met his well-deserved fate for as Jeremiah 17 tells us: God searches the heart, God tries the reins, even to give every man according to his ways and according to the fruit of his doings.

 Our proverbs passage begins with the thoughts and then moves into the words:

 Proverbs 12:5,6,  The thoughts of the righteous are right: but the counsels of the wicked are deceit. The words of the wicked are to lie in wait for blood: but the mouth of the upright shall deliver them.

 God has given the mind where thoughts spring but he has also given an outlet to those thoughts. 

 How powerful is that outlet for from the mouth flows, it seems, many more words than thoughts. 

 The thought is the seed, the words are the plant. 

 The words of the wicked are to lie in wait for blood: but the mouth of the upright shall deliver them.

 The words of the wicked are words to destroy but the words of the upright are to build up.

 This is the contrast between the one who has the mind of Christ and the one who has the natural mind with which they were born. 

 What do your words do? 

 Do they build up or do they destroy? 

 Paul, in writing to the believers in Ephesus gave them instruction to:

 Ephesians 4:29, 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.

 He instructed the evangelists, the pastors and teachers to use words: For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:

 God through His servant Paul tells us to be careful of where we send our minds and admonishes us in Philippians 4:8,