DIVINE HEALING IN RELATION TO THE USE OF OUR LIPS
by Carrie Judd Montgomery
Do you want to have a tongue that brings health
to yourself and to everybody around you?
An essential part of the doctrine of diving healing has to do with its relation to the right use of the lips. We find so many Christians who get out of the place of blessing through the wrong use of their tongues; so the Lord is obliged to deal with them and allow them to be sick because they have not used their tongues to His glory. We will look at some texts on this subject. First turn to Psalm 139:4: "For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether." If the Lord Jesus were personally visible to us, we would be very careful about our conversation. If, when we went out, we could see Him visibly walking by our side, how careful we would be about our words; but because we do not fully realize His presence with us, we often are not as careful as we should be. We speak the little hasty word, the impetuous word, the word that is not just as kind and tender as it ought to be, and the Holy Spirit is so faithful that He will reprove us. Sometimes we are not loving and tender in our speech because we misunderstand others. The Lord wants us to be meek, and leaning upon Him every moment so that He will not let us judge after the sight of our eyes or the hearing of our ears. I often pray this prayer, "O God, do not let me judge after the sight of my eyes, but let me know about everything as the Holy Spirit reveals it to me." "He shall teach you all things." This means that He will teach us moment by moment, and we are not to judge things by our own understanding. How solemn to realize that Jesus is listening to our every word! Beloved, I am sure that we all want to please Him in every word and every thought—and yet we are so slow to comprehend that complete yieldedness to Him that will enable Him to work in us to will and to do of His good pleasure.
Now we will look at Proverbs 18:21. Here we read these remarkable words: "Death and life are in the power of the tongue." We take this in two different ways. There are many cases where an infuriated man will speak angry words that stir up anger in another person, which may lead to murder or some desperate act, and in that sense life and death are in the power of the tongue to the sinner; but there is another sense in which life and death are in the power of the tongue to God's children. If we disobey Him and speak words that divide God's children, or if we speak words that grieve God's little ones and wound them to the heart, God is greatly displeased. I believe that if sick people would let God search them, He would often show them that long years ago there was a time when they wounded God's little ones, or when they caused separation among some of God's children, so that God's heart was greatly grieved; and He would show them that they are suffering for it today. Repentance and confession and trust in the cleansing blood will bring them to the place of blessing and healing. Oh, I do believe, dear friends, that we are not filled enough with the Word of God. The psalmist said, "Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee." If we are filled with His Word we shall walk softly, and our tongues will be controlled by the Lord.
Proverbs 12:18. Here are two different kinds of speech: "There is that speaketh like the piercings of a sword: but the tongue of the wise is health." How sad it seems to think that any of God's children could speak like the piercings of a sword, but if the tongue is not sanctified it will sometimes speak in that sharp way and pierce the hearts of some of God's children. Of such a person God might say, "But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea." I do not know whether this appeals to you as solemnly as it ought, but God has made it mean so much—and by our words we shall be justified or condemned.
Then we read of the other kind of a tongue—the tongue of the wise that is health. Do you want to have a tongue that brings health to yourself and to everybody around you—through which Jesus can speak His words of love and life? Even if God shows you that another soul needs to be dealt with about some sin, let us be so tender with them that we can say in the words of the Master, "Neither do I condemn thee." When we deal with people who have done wrong, they know in a moment if we are critical and harsh, or if we are seeking to help them into a place of blessing.
Proverbs 15:4. "A wholesome tongue is a tree of life: but perverseness therein is a breach in the spirit." "A wholesome tongue is a tree of life" in your own being and also in the one to whom you are speaking. You say, "I would like to have a tree of life in me." Christ is the tree of life, and when we have Christ fully formed in us we have His life for soul and body.
"Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh," so if you are quite full of divine love, you will never say anything but loving words. Then people who are hungry-hearted will feel Christ's love in you, and even those who are in erroneous doctrines, but are not satisfied, will feel this love and will desire to be taught the way of life.
Turn to Proverbs 13:3. "He that keepeth his mouth keepeth his life." If we keep our mouth from all evil speaking and from all guile, our physical life as well as our spiritual life will be kept by the Lord. When you are sick and cannot get healed, wait on God and let Him search you. Do not try to search out things yourself, but let the light of heaven stream in. As the Lord shows you your failure to keep your lips under the blood, repent and confess to Him and to those whom you have injured.
Now, let us read Psalm 15:3. This is a wonderful psalm. It opens in this way: "Lord, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? who shall dwell in thy holy hill?" Then follows a description of the kind of person who abides in His taber-nacle—in the secret place of the Most High; and you know that if we abide in Christ we may ask what we will and it shall be done unto us. The second verse reads: "He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth in his heart." And the third, "He that backbiteth not with his tongue, nor doeth evil to his neighbour, nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbour." We are to dwell continually in that secret place of His holy hill where we do not backbite with our tongues and we do not take up a reproach against another. Those who take up a reproach tell it to somebody else—until it is cast abroad like the seeds of a poisonous weed. This is indeed evil in the sight of the Lord.
I heard of one lady who, when anybody brought her an evil report, would say, "Come, let us go together to that one and see if it is true." This stopped people from coming to her with their backbiting. The Word is so plain to us that if we have anything against another, we are to go to that one alone. The devil will bring up a thousand reasons why we cannot do this, but we must obey God—and usually we will find that the trouble will fade away like the mist before the sun.
Next we will read I Peter 3:8-10: "Finally, be ye all of one mind." What kind of mind? It looks as though our minds are very different one from another, but this is the kind of mind that we are to have alike: "Having compassion one of another, love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous: Not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing: but contrariwise blessing; knowing that ye are thereunto called, that ye should inherit a blessing." I especially want to call our attention to this next verse: "For he that will love life, and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile."
The company we read of in Revelation 14, who followed the Lamb whithersover He went, had this characteristic: "In their mouth was found no guile." That means no deceit—not changing things just a little, but letting the One who is true dwell in us and speak through us. "I am the . . . truth," Jesus said; and the Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of truth. As we are filled with the Spirit He will make us true and cause us to speak the exact truth.
"He that will love life, and see good days . . ." We love life because Christ is our life—even here and now. We love life because we can serve Him—because we can bring many sheaves and lay them down at our Master's feet. "Good days." Our days are not good days if they are full of sickness. If we keep our tongues from evil and if we speak no guile, we may claim from the Lord good days—full of His joy, and full of His life and health.
Turn to James 1:26: "If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain." This is one of the most solemn verses that we have read. A person may "seem" to be very religious but use his tongue in a wrong way, and God says, "This man's religion is vain." Such a man is deceived, and has no real heart-religion.
James 3:5-8: "Even so the tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth! And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell." This is a description of the untamed tongue that belongs to a person who has not been saved. Read the rest of the passage: "For every kind of beasts, and of birds, and of serpents, and of things in the sea, is tamed, and hath been tamed of mankind: But the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison." No man can tame the tongue, but God can tame it. It is subdued and tamed through being saved and filled with the Holy Ghost. How precious that God can use a sanctified and yielded tongue to give forth His wonderful messages of life.
If we have a bottle of deadly poison in the house we put a label on it, with skull and crossbones; and if those who go around speaking evil and backbiting and making division could be labeled deadly poison, people would be on their guard; unfortunately, they do not wear a label. People who do such things need not think that they will go free, for God will surely deal with them. Now notice the thirteenth verse of this same chapter: "Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you? let him shew out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom." Our conversation shows where we stand spiritually.
Look at Psalm 101:5: "Whoso privily slandereth his neighbour, him will I cut off." I believe God sometimes cuts off from the earth those who will not yield to Him when He disciplines them for slandering others. This is very solemn. May God search His people along these lines—and have mercy upon them.
Now read Isaiah 50:4: "The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary: he wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned." Oh, that we may be taught of God's Holy Spirit to speak sweet, gentle words of comfort and tenderness to him that is weary. How precious to speak a word in season, before one might come to the point of despair, and to see that one lifted up into His courage and joy.
Turn to Song of Solomon 5:13. Nobody can understand this book unless the Holy Spirit explains it. It must be a very spiritual heart and mind that approaches it, and it is full of instruction for the bride of Christ. We read in the latter part of this verse, which refers to Jesus, "His lips like lilies, dropping sweet smelling myrrh." Earlier, in 4:3, we read of the lips of His bride as being "like a thread of scarlet." The blood must be over her lips, but His lips are like lilies; and when our lips are covered with the scarlet blood they will bring forth the lilies of His own purity.
We will now turn to the sixth chapter of Isaiah. Isaiah saw the King and realized that his own lips were unclean. Minnie Abrams told us about a girl at Ramabai's in India, at the time of a great revival there, who kept crying out, "O Lord, Thou art holy, but I am vile." She had a vision of the King; and when we have that vision of the Lord in the beauty of His holiness, we see what we are in ourselves and how we need His blood to cleanse us. How were Isaiah's lips cleansed? We read that one of the seraphim took a live coal and laid it on his lips, and his sin was purged. But where did the angel get the coal? He took it from off the altar. God's holiness would burn us to death if God did not take it from off the altar of Christ's atoning sacrifice. "And he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged." Then he was ready, when the Lord asked who would go for Him, to say, "Here am I; send me." We all need the coal of fire from off Christ's altar of sacrifice to touch our hearts and our lips.
What kind of lips does God want us to have? See Ephesians 5:18-20. God's command is to "Be filled with the Spirit." And when we are filled with the Spirit, what shall we be doing? "Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord; Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ." Is it not wonderful that God will bend to hear the melody in our hearts—when heaven is so full of melody? "Giving thanks always for all things." We will have a tongue full of worship, full of thanksgiving to God, praising Him for everything that He allows—even for the trials—because they are all going to work together for good to them that love God.
One more text—Matthew 21:15-16. Here we read of "the children crying in the temple, and saying, Hosanna to the Son of David." And we read that the chief priests and scribes "were sore displeased, And said unto him, Hearest thou what these say?" How those untrue men hated the praise of the little children. Jesus said, "Yea; have ye never read, Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise?" The Lord was quoting from the eighth Psalm, and we will read it from the Old Testament. The wording here is wonderful: "Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger." So we can put the two things together—praise and strength; that is, if we will praise God it will make us strong. God ordains strength through the perfection of praise, and this praise stills the enemy and the avenger.
I believe we have not fully understood how much praise means in the winning of a battle. We must get to the place where we pray through—and get on to praising ground. Then we shall be like children in the perfection of our praise. Jesus said, "Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." Little children never criticize each other; they never doubt your word: Their guilelessness is wonderful. The reason we criticize each other is that we doubt one another's motives. There is one special verse that ought to stop our doing that: "For thou that judgest doest the same things." (Romans 2:1). That means if we impute a wrong motive to another's actions, we do it because there is the same thing in us.
Beloved, let us seek to be filled with the love that is described in the thirteenth chapter of I Corinthians—and when our hearts are filled with this love our lips will be also.
The above may be printed and distributed for the glory of God.
by Carrie Judd Montgomery
Do you want to have a tongue that brings health
to yourself and to everybody around you?
An essential part of the doctrine of diving healing has to do with its relation to the right use of the lips. We find so many Christians who get out of the place of blessing through the wrong use of their tongues; so the Lord is obliged to deal with them and allow them to be sick because they have not used their tongues to His glory. We will look at some texts on this subject. First turn to Psalm 139:4: "For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether." If the Lord Jesus were personally visible to us, we would be very careful about our conversation. If, when we went out, we could see Him visibly walking by our side, how careful we would be about our words; but because we do not fully realize His presence with us, we often are not as careful as we should be. We speak the little hasty word, the impetuous word, the word that is not just as kind and tender as it ought to be, and the Holy Spirit is so faithful that He will reprove us. Sometimes we are not loving and tender in our speech because we misunderstand others. The Lord wants us to be meek, and leaning upon Him every moment so that He will not let us judge after the sight of our eyes or the hearing of our ears. I often pray this prayer, "O God, do not let me judge after the sight of my eyes, but let me know about everything as the Holy Spirit reveals it to me." "He shall teach you all things." This means that He will teach us moment by moment, and we are not to judge things by our own understanding. How solemn to realize that Jesus is listening to our every word! Beloved, I am sure that we all want to please Him in every word and every thought—and yet we are so slow to comprehend that complete yieldedness to Him that will enable Him to work in us to will and to do of His good pleasure.
Now we will look at Proverbs 18:21. Here we read these remarkable words: "Death and life are in the power of the tongue." We take this in two different ways. There are many cases where an infuriated man will speak angry words that stir up anger in another person, which may lead to murder or some desperate act, and in that sense life and death are in the power of the tongue to the sinner; but there is another sense in which life and death are in the power of the tongue to God's children. If we disobey Him and speak words that divide God's children, or if we speak words that grieve God's little ones and wound them to the heart, God is greatly displeased. I believe that if sick people would let God search them, He would often show them that long years ago there was a time when they wounded God's little ones, or when they caused separation among some of God's children, so that God's heart was greatly grieved; and He would show them that they are suffering for it today. Repentance and confession and trust in the cleansing blood will bring them to the place of blessing and healing. Oh, I do believe, dear friends, that we are not filled enough with the Word of God. The psalmist said, "Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee." If we are filled with His Word we shall walk softly, and our tongues will be controlled by the Lord.
Proverbs 12:18. Here are two different kinds of speech: "There is that speaketh like the piercings of a sword: but the tongue of the wise is health." How sad it seems to think that any of God's children could speak like the piercings of a sword, but if the tongue is not sanctified it will sometimes speak in that sharp way and pierce the hearts of some of God's children. Of such a person God might say, "But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea." I do not know whether this appeals to you as solemnly as it ought, but God has made it mean so much—and by our words we shall be justified or condemned.
Then we read of the other kind of a tongue—the tongue of the wise that is health. Do you want to have a tongue that brings health to yourself and to everybody around you—through which Jesus can speak His words of love and life? Even if God shows you that another soul needs to be dealt with about some sin, let us be so tender with them that we can say in the words of the Master, "Neither do I condemn thee." When we deal with people who have done wrong, they know in a moment if we are critical and harsh, or if we are seeking to help them into a place of blessing.
Proverbs 15:4. "A wholesome tongue is a tree of life: but perverseness therein is a breach in the spirit." "A wholesome tongue is a tree of life" in your own being and also in the one to whom you are speaking. You say, "I would like to have a tree of life in me." Christ is the tree of life, and when we have Christ fully formed in us we have His life for soul and body.
"Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh," so if you are quite full of divine love, you will never say anything but loving words. Then people who are hungry-hearted will feel Christ's love in you, and even those who are in erroneous doctrines, but are not satisfied, will feel this love and will desire to be taught the way of life.
Turn to Proverbs 13:3. "He that keepeth his mouth keepeth his life." If we keep our mouth from all evil speaking and from all guile, our physical life as well as our spiritual life will be kept by the Lord. When you are sick and cannot get healed, wait on God and let Him search you. Do not try to search out things yourself, but let the light of heaven stream in. As the Lord shows you your failure to keep your lips under the blood, repent and confess to Him and to those whom you have injured.
Now, let us read Psalm 15:3. This is a wonderful psalm. It opens in this way: "Lord, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? who shall dwell in thy holy hill?" Then follows a description of the kind of person who abides in His taber-nacle—in the secret place of the Most High; and you know that if we abide in Christ we may ask what we will and it shall be done unto us. The second verse reads: "He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth in his heart." And the third, "He that backbiteth not with his tongue, nor doeth evil to his neighbour, nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbour." We are to dwell continually in that secret place of His holy hill where we do not backbite with our tongues and we do not take up a reproach against another. Those who take up a reproach tell it to somebody else—until it is cast abroad like the seeds of a poisonous weed. This is indeed evil in the sight of the Lord.
I heard of one lady who, when anybody brought her an evil report, would say, "Come, let us go together to that one and see if it is true." This stopped people from coming to her with their backbiting. The Word is so plain to us that if we have anything against another, we are to go to that one alone. The devil will bring up a thousand reasons why we cannot do this, but we must obey God—and usually we will find that the trouble will fade away like the mist before the sun.
Next we will read I Peter 3:8-10: "Finally, be ye all of one mind." What kind of mind? It looks as though our minds are very different one from another, but this is the kind of mind that we are to have alike: "Having compassion one of another, love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous: Not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing: but contrariwise blessing; knowing that ye are thereunto called, that ye should inherit a blessing." I especially want to call our attention to this next verse: "For he that will love life, and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile."
The company we read of in Revelation 14, who followed the Lamb whithersover He went, had this characteristic: "In their mouth was found no guile." That means no deceit—not changing things just a little, but letting the One who is true dwell in us and speak through us. "I am the . . . truth," Jesus said; and the Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of truth. As we are filled with the Spirit He will make us true and cause us to speak the exact truth.
"He that will love life, and see good days . . ." We love life because Christ is our life—even here and now. We love life because we can serve Him—because we can bring many sheaves and lay them down at our Master's feet. "Good days." Our days are not good days if they are full of sickness. If we keep our tongues from evil and if we speak no guile, we may claim from the Lord good days—full of His joy, and full of His life and health.
Turn to James 1:26: "If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain." This is one of the most solemn verses that we have read. A person may "seem" to be very religious but use his tongue in a wrong way, and God says, "This man's religion is vain." Such a man is deceived, and has no real heart-religion.
James 3:5-8: "Even so the tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth! And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell." This is a description of the untamed tongue that belongs to a person who has not been saved. Read the rest of the passage: "For every kind of beasts, and of birds, and of serpents, and of things in the sea, is tamed, and hath been tamed of mankind: But the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison." No man can tame the tongue, but God can tame it. It is subdued and tamed through being saved and filled with the Holy Ghost. How precious that God can use a sanctified and yielded tongue to give forth His wonderful messages of life.
If we have a bottle of deadly poison in the house we put a label on it, with skull and crossbones; and if those who go around speaking evil and backbiting and making division could be labeled deadly poison, people would be on their guard; unfortunately, they do not wear a label. People who do such things need not think that they will go free, for God will surely deal with them. Now notice the thirteenth verse of this same chapter: "Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you? let him shew out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom." Our conversation shows where we stand spiritually.
Look at Psalm 101:5: "Whoso privily slandereth his neighbour, him will I cut off." I believe God sometimes cuts off from the earth those who will not yield to Him when He disciplines them for slandering others. This is very solemn. May God search His people along these lines—and have mercy upon them.
Now read Isaiah 50:4: "The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary: he wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned." Oh, that we may be taught of God's Holy Spirit to speak sweet, gentle words of comfort and tenderness to him that is weary. How precious to speak a word in season, before one might come to the point of despair, and to see that one lifted up into His courage and joy.
Turn to Song of Solomon 5:13. Nobody can understand this book unless the Holy Spirit explains it. It must be a very spiritual heart and mind that approaches it, and it is full of instruction for the bride of Christ. We read in the latter part of this verse, which refers to Jesus, "His lips like lilies, dropping sweet smelling myrrh." Earlier, in 4:3, we read of the lips of His bride as being "like a thread of scarlet." The blood must be over her lips, but His lips are like lilies; and when our lips are covered with the scarlet blood they will bring forth the lilies of His own purity.
We will now turn to the sixth chapter of Isaiah. Isaiah saw the King and realized that his own lips were unclean. Minnie Abrams told us about a girl at Ramabai's in India, at the time of a great revival there, who kept crying out, "O Lord, Thou art holy, but I am vile." She had a vision of the King; and when we have that vision of the Lord in the beauty of His holiness, we see what we are in ourselves and how we need His blood to cleanse us. How were Isaiah's lips cleansed? We read that one of the seraphim took a live coal and laid it on his lips, and his sin was purged. But where did the angel get the coal? He took it from off the altar. God's holiness would burn us to death if God did not take it from off the altar of Christ's atoning sacrifice. "And he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged." Then he was ready, when the Lord asked who would go for Him, to say, "Here am I; send me." We all need the coal of fire from off Christ's altar of sacrifice to touch our hearts and our lips.
What kind of lips does God want us to have? See Ephesians 5:18-20. God's command is to "Be filled with the Spirit." And when we are filled with the Spirit, what shall we be doing? "Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord; Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ." Is it not wonderful that God will bend to hear the melody in our hearts—when heaven is so full of melody? "Giving thanks always for all things." We will have a tongue full of worship, full of thanksgiving to God, praising Him for everything that He allows—even for the trials—because they are all going to work together for good to them that love God.
One more text—Matthew 21:15-16. Here we read of "the children crying in the temple, and saying, Hosanna to the Son of David." And we read that the chief priests and scribes "were sore displeased, And said unto him, Hearest thou what these say?" How those untrue men hated the praise of the little children. Jesus said, "Yea; have ye never read, Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise?" The Lord was quoting from the eighth Psalm, and we will read it from the Old Testament. The wording here is wonderful: "Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger." So we can put the two things together—praise and strength; that is, if we will praise God it will make us strong. God ordains strength through the perfection of praise, and this praise stills the enemy and the avenger.
I believe we have not fully understood how much praise means in the winning of a battle. We must get to the place where we pray through—and get on to praising ground. Then we shall be like children in the perfection of our praise. Jesus said, "Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." Little children never criticize each other; they never doubt your word: Their guilelessness is wonderful. The reason we criticize each other is that we doubt one another's motives. There is one special verse that ought to stop our doing that: "For thou that judgest doest the same things." (Romans 2:1). That means if we impute a wrong motive to another's actions, we do it because there is the same thing in us.
Beloved, let us seek to be filled with the love that is described in the thirteenth chapter of I Corinthians—and when our hearts are filled with this love our lips will be also.
The above may be printed and distributed for the glory of God.