Blowhole

"Blowhole"
Proverbs 12:6, 18-19; 14:3; 15:4; 18:7, 21:23

The average person spends one-fifth of his or her life talking.  According to research, each of us will open our mouth an average of 700 times a day.  In those 700 times, you will use an average of 18,000 words. If all of our words were put into print, a single day's words would fill a 50-page book. In a year's time the average person's words would fill 66 books of 800 pages each.  Every year you write with your spoken words 66 volumes.  If you lived 70 years, you will have "written" 4,620 books of 800 pages each with your spoken words.

Of course, that's the average.  There are some who talk more.  And some who talk less.  I was telling my daughter, Kristin, this, when I saw her up in Kansas City this past week.  She said we should call people who talk a lot, "book fillers."  So you could say to a person, "You're one of those 'book fillers,'" and they'd have no idea we just described them as someone who talks too much.

That is a lot of stuff coming out of our mouths.  Some people have what's been called, diarrhea of the mouth:  too many words.  Or as one guy said, who was trying to get his chatty wife to leave church, after worship was over, out to the parking lot so they could go home, "Every time my wife starts talking, all the blood runs to her lips.

The point of this is not about talking too much, or too little, though.  The point is, a lot of words come out of our mouths—but what kind of words?  With so many words coming out of our mouths, some are bound to be hurtful and destructive.  And some are hopefully healing, instructive, and peacemaking.

The Hebrew word for mouth means, literally, the hole you blow through; thus, blowhole.  It may be related to fire, in that you have to blow to get the fire started and then rekindled in the morning when the fire has almost gone out.  So the words we speak come out of our blow hole—both good and bad words.

That's what our Proverbs are about for this week's message.  What kind of words come out of our mouths—our blowholes?  That's the wisdom lesson the Proverbs I've chosen for this morning's message are teaching.  Let me go through two or three of the Proverbs I've picked, and see what we learn.

First, Proverbs 12:6.
The words of the wicked are a deadly ambush,
but the speech of the upright rescues them.  (Holman)

This Proverb is saying that different kinds of words are going to come out of a person depending on whether the person is "wicked" or "upright."  Therefore, it's not just the words coming out of your mouth, but your character that determines your vocabulary.  This Proverb is calling us not only to assess what kind of words we speak, but check out our very character out of which we speak.  Are you wicked, or are you upright?  Check out your words—that will give you an indication.

Are you someone who likes to ambush with your words?  Usually we think of a person being the ambusher.  But here, it is words.  When you are ambushed, you did not expect that to happen.  You are surprised, caught off guard.  Prior to the ambush you may have been confident, feeling safe and unafraid.  Just tootling along through your day.  Then, BAM! out of the blue, words jump out at you and cause injury.

That's how you know if maybe you lean toward being wicked with your words.  You use your words to ambush others, to surprise others with a quick and unexpected attack.

By contrast, the upright use their words to "rescue" others.  The word for rescue, in Hebrew means to snatch away.  To rescue someone is to snatch them from harm and hurt by the words you speak.  Someone's mouth can ambush you, but another person can snatch you out of that ambush with their words.

My daughter and her husband sometimes have a conversation around the question, "If you could have a superpower, what would it be?"  And, what if that superpower had to do with our mouth and our words?

There's a new television series coming out called, "Inhumans."  It is about people who live on the moon called the "Inhumans."  They have superpowers, and have been isolated on the moon because of the powers.  Some powers can be both constructive and destructive.  Just to be safe, these inhumans have been banished to a moon colony.  But they want to be on earth with normal people in the larger population.  One of the inhumans never speaks.  The reason is, if he even whispers a word, it comes out with such force, it could destroy whole cities.  So he keeps his mouth shut and has to decide when he should speak and when not to.  It's not that he's evil—he just has a catastrophic superpower.

Imagine having the opposite superpower—to utter a single word and you can rescue people, deliver them from an evil ambush.  Which do you use your mouth—your superpower—for?  Ambush and destruction, or rescue and saving?

Our second Proverb is chapter 12, verses 18 and 19.
There is one who speaks rashly,

                like a piercing sword;

                but the tongue of the wise brings healing.

Truthful lips endure forever,

                but a lying tongue, only a moment.

The Hebrew word for speaking rashly literally means to babble or speak thoughtlessly.  There are people who just go on and on and on and really say nothing.  Like politicians.  I ran across this "Instant Buzzword Generator."  You can make up any kind of amazing sounding phrase by joining a word from column 1 with a word from columns 2 and 3.

Instant Buzzword Generator
Column 1 Column 2 Column 3
Integrated Management         Options
Total Organizational Flexibility
Systematized          Monitored Compatibility
Parallel          Reciprocal Mobility
Functional Digital         Programming
Responsive Logic         Concept
Optical          Transitional Time phase
Synchronized          Incremental Projection
Compatible Third generation Hardware
Balanced Policy         Contingency

I was thinking, on our Vivid Vision statement that our Grow The Church Team put together, we could have thrown in some of these buzzword terms.  Like having a "functional policy projection."  Or a "synchronized incremental time phase."  They are amazing sounding phrases, but what the heck do they mean?  Who knows?  But that's how some people babble on, saying a lot of stuff that has no meaning.

But as this Proverb states, the darker side of this babbling or thoughtless speaking is to turn words into a piercing sword.  Imagine a list of words like the Buzzword Generator, only the three columns have hurtful, destructive, and demeaning words.  Words that are "sword thrusts."  The destruction of these sword thrusted and thoughtless words is that they are intentionally hurting.  If you are thrusting these words at another person, you aren't defending yourself.  You are trying to stab another person deeply and intentionally.  You are trying to injure someone with your words.

The second part of this verse is about "truthful lips" vs. a "lying tongue."  Truthful lips endure forever.  The word in Hebrew for endure, literally means to be buried like a post.  If you've dug post holes, you know the deeper you put them in the ground the sturdier they will be.  That's what truthful lips are like—solid and immovable in their truth telling.

But the main part of this parable has to do with time.  Telling the truth, having truthful lips lasts forever.  Truth has a forever kind of quality.  Whereas lying may get you through a moment, but that's all.  Eventually that moment will pass, your lie will be found out, and the timeless truth will be demanded of you.

The last Proverb about our blowhole that I'll highlight is 15:4.

Kind words are good medicine,

                but deceitful words can really hurt.  (CEV)

Thousands of Tasmanian Devils have died from a rare type of cancer called Devil Facial Tumor Disease. Scientists discovered that the cancer began in the mouth of a single Tasmanian devil and spread through the bites of that animal. Tasmanian Devils bite each other around the mouth very frequently, and this cancer spread through those bites. Over the course of several years, over forty percent of the Tasmanian Devil population has died because of this cancer.

Some people's words are like those Tasmanian Devil bites.  It isn't just the one bite that injures.  The bite creates a disease which kills the animal.  Just so, there are words we utter in a biting way.  Those words act like a disease in a person that eats away at them, sometimes, their whole lives.  Words that create the cancer of worthlessness, bitterness, guilt, or shame.  Words that are spoken out of deceit.  Words that are intended to hurt.

On the flip side, there are words that act like good medicine.  Words have that amazing healing quality.  Words like, "I'm sorry."  Or, "I love you."  Or, "I am praying for you."  Those kinds of words have a way of going right to the location of our pain, and beginning the healing.  They are "good medicine" words.


We speak a lot of words, every day.  Listen to your own words.  Make sure they are words that rescue, words that are truthful, and words that are healing.