Pastor John, you were recently at a conference where Doug Wilson referred to Jesus' words

in Matthew 1234 where we read this, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.

And you raised the question there about the verse.

Would you tell us what you asked and what's the takeaway for us today?

I asked the question not at all out of disagreement with anything Doug was saying.

In fact, I was just totally tracking with his message, which I thought was excellent

about the mouth and how it speaks in relation to the heart.

But that text, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks, creates a bunch of problems

for me.

And Doug doesn't create problems.

God creates the problems for me because he said, this is the word of Jesus, not the word

of any mere man.

It's one of the scariest verses in the Bible for me.

Because Jesus also said, on the day of judgment, people will give an account for every careless

word they speak.

And I say, oh my goodness.

So out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth is speaking, all these careless words.

And I'm going to be judged because those careless words signify what my heart is really

like.

I mean, that's a scary situation that we're in.

And a related problem, this one I raised, is this in Psalm 141, verse 3, it says, set

a guard, O Lord, over my mouth.

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