Do not Say Isaiah 50:4

Isaiah 50:4 nkjv The Lord GOD has given Me the tongue of the learned, That I should know how to speak A word in season to him who is weary. He awakens Me morning by morning, He awakens My ear To hear as the learned.

God gives us the tongue of the learned. I love this because we do not have to rely on what we do not know, we can rely on the Holy Sprit to guide us into our ministry in helping those who are in need. We are called by God to lead and help people out of the turmoil’s that they face and we have the answers and those answers can be found in Jesus Christ. One of the keys to helping people is to remove the focus from our selves and onto what is important and that is the kingdom of God. The whole strategy of the enemy is to get you to focus on you self and then you become the important issue not the kingdom of God.

Yes we know that God is mindful of us and He knows the very hairs on our head and all the promises of God are there for us but the reality is we are saved to be an example and a bridge a path for others to find the answers to life and living. The focus must be out to others and directed to the kingdom of God. Every thing we do must be or must have some redemptive purpose to it, where as the enemy all he does is to draw attention to himself and away from God and His purposes.

In (Exodus 7:12 NKJV) we have the confrontation between Moses and the magicians; Verse 12c says; for every man threw down his rod, and they became serpents. But Aaron’s rod swallowed up their rods.

The sorceress and the magicians threw their rods down and they turned into snakes the whole idea of this was to grab attention, to draw attention to themselves and to cause fear and intimidation to those gathered. I love the but of scriptures; but Aaron’s rod swallowed them up; all that Moses and Aaron were about was for redemptive value it was not about attention, it was about deliverance, it was redemptive for the people of God

The bible says in (2 Thessalonians 2:9 NKJV The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders. He will in the last days try and draw attention around the world to himself and he will do it with lying signs and wonders.

When we stop and look at the decisions we make or our actions in life can we see what we do as having redemptive value or are the things we are involved in about bring attention to our selves? Jesus said we are the light, the salt and the yeast of the world. Light to show the way out of problems, salt to bring savour or flavour to peoples life and yeast to infiltrate every are of life with the glory of the kingdom. The kingdom of god is about life, love and light.

One important issues to have the tongue of the learned is to know how to implement the “do not says” in our life so that we are not snared by our own words and a good place to start this series is in 2 Chronicles.

2 Chronicles 7:14 nkjv if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

This is a very familiar passage of scripture that often is used to teach on intersession and to bring people back to the importance of prayer. The key for me is this part of the scripture which says ‘If my people would turn from their wicked ways.’ The first thing we notice is that we as the people of God are responsible for the well being of our towns, our cities and our nations and the turning first starts with us.

I want us to see if we will the focus when dealing in the kingdom is always away from our self and reaching out to others, but when it comes to issues that need to be resolved relational or others it is always pointing back and becomes personal. God does not say that we are to deal with what is wrong with others but to turn ourselves. We can so limit what can be achieve in our life when the focus we have is in the wrong direction.

It is hard to reach out to some one with words of life if we are snared by our own mouths, it is hard to demonstrate the kingdom if we are about pointing out some one else’s problems rather than turn away from what ails us. Isaiah the prophet put it this way;

Isaiah 58:9 nkjv Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; You shall cry, and He will say, “Here I am.’ ‘If you take away the yoke from your midst, the pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness;

Isaiah says put away the pointing of the finger, I would like to call this statement of Isaiah’s the “do not say.”
In Elijah’s darkest hour when he is hiding in a cave, when he as run from Jezebel who wanted to kill him, God comes in 1 kings 19 and challenges him with this question; what are you doing here? As you read the story you discover that instead of dealing what was wrong in his own heart, Elijah starts to point the finger at what was wrong with Israel and all that he had done for God and he declared that out of all that was in the nation he was the only one left who served God.
Even though he snared himself with his mouth, God gives him another chance and asked the same question again. Do not say what is wrong with others turn from what we need to turn from. Elijah missed the opportunity to renew his calling and the reason for his existence because he was snared by the confession of his own mouth and did not see what was really going on in his own life.
The moment we are fixed with what is wrong with others is the moment we loose our capacity to reach them or to minister to them with the tongue of the learned. We stop being light or salt or yeast in their situation. Jesus said do say it is three months until the harvest for the fields are white to harvest. What ever you put off till later is more than likely not to get done.

Elijah gave up his ministry the mount he was consumed with what was wrong with very body else rather than addressing what was wrong with himself; We are to be light so that we can show people a way out of there situation not so that we can high light what is wrong or what they are doing wrong. God says if my people who are called by my name will turn; Jesus never majored on the peoples being sinners he majored on showing them a way out of their sinful life. I am the way the truth and the life he said.
The turning has to be from us. Elijah found himself snared by his own mouth and I am not sure what brought him to that place maybe he was tired or just run down from giving out so much and the lesson to be learnt from this mans story besides do not say; is that at our greatest place of victory may also be the place of our greatest failure.

For instance we may have struggled with smoking for years and finally we have broken free from its grip and now after our victory we let our guard down and are hit with some thing else from out of left field which we thought we had victory over. Elijah who had just destroyed 500 false prophets of baal was now after this great victory intimidated by Jezebel who threatened to do the same to him as he did to her prophets. I wonder in his tiredness if he was just overcome with the enormity of the ministry and the problems that he saw before him. The bible does not say, God just asked the question, what are you doing here?

It is so important not to get caught up with pointing out other peoples problems no matter how justified you feel in doing it, the hardest thing to do some times especially when we feel justified is just keep the mouth closed. The psalmist understood this and cries out to God with this petition;

Psalms 141:3 nkjv Set a guard, O LORD, over my mouth; Keep watch over the door of my lips.

Moses faced the same problem and restricted his ministry to God’s people because of no watch on the door of his lips. Moses was overcome by the problems and issues of the people of God rather than see the solutions and that God would as he had done so much in the past provide a way out for them. When Israel were in trouble in the wilderness God instructed Moses to speak to the rock and his provision would flow out and bless his people but instead of just ministering as he was called to do he allows his mouth to run away from him and points out the problem of the people. God had instructed him to speak to the problem not about the problem.

He ends up striking the rock, which was ok to do in the past, but this was to be a time of glory that had no hand of man involved. It seems that the people problems stopped him from ministering the way that God wanted him to minister and so he reverted back to the way things were done rather than to what God wanted done. The light was used to reveal problems rather than God’s power and solution to their situation. “Do not say”

In the New Testament we are encouraged to not let any evil communication escape from our mouths for not only does it devastate people around us but it snares us and restricts what God wants us to achieve in our life time.
One way to address this issue is to implement in our lives what Paul instructed the church at Rome to do.

Rom 12:14-15nkjv bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep.

People do not want us to point out there sins they know exactly what is happening in their lives and they very often are not looking for answers to why they are weeping, more than likely as Paul said they are looking for support to weep with them and allow the light to show the way the salt to bring savour and the yeast to soften their lives and impregnate them with the kingdom of our God and saviour.

Ours is a ministry of reconciliation not separation.

Paul said weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice and quite often the very break through that we are looking for our lives may be hinged to this statement of Paul’s. Although you are facing a hard time you are aware of some one else’s break through and your mouth does not snare you instead you rejoice with them about their break through. On the other hand we who are living in the break through or the great blessing of God know how to sit with those who need a break threw and can weep with them when the weeping is required.

In Jer 1:11 God came to Jeremiah the prophet and asked him twice a question what do you see? The first response was that he saw a branch of an almond tree (I do not have time this day to explain what the almond branch meant to Israel but suffice for now it was very important to them) and God said to Jeremiah that he had seen well. The second response to the question was that he saw a boiling pot facing away from the north. He is what I want you to see, God said you have seen well, why? For you have not majored on the problems but your first response was to see the solutions that God would provide in the midst of the boiling pot that was yet to come.

Do not say. Even what we leave our children and our children’s children can often be established by what our mouths snare us with. The bible says that a wise man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children yet when you look at what is being left to our children is but a massive debt which will hold them in bondage for years to come despite all the rhetoric that is being put forward as good economic management. If you look through this nation there is not much left to sell to pay for what was already paid for by our for-fathers.
In the book of Isaiah we see a great insight into the modern leadership and how its mouth snares this leadership and how because of this snare their decision enslaves generation to come.

Is 39:6-8 nkjv Behold, the days are coming when all that is in your house, and what your fathers have accumulated until this day, shall be carried to Babylon; nothing shall be left,’ says the Lord. And they shall take away some of your sons who will descend from you, whom you will beget; and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon. So Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “The word of the LORD which you have spoken is good!” For he said, “At least there will be peace and truth in my days.

There was no peace in the days of his children’s children; there is a message there that needs to be preached. We must face what is wrong in us and deal with it rather than be obsessed with what is wrong in some one else other wise we get enslaved and generations that follow after us.

Hebrews 12:15 nkjv looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled

;Moses, Elijah and many more great people of faith did not finish what they were asked to do because they did not put a guard on their mouths.
'Do not say.'