MIND YOUR WORDS

"Let no one despise your youth, but BE AN EXAMPLE to the believers in word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in faith, in purity." (1 Timothy 4:12; Capital Emphasis Added)"12:36 But I say to you that for EVERY IDLE WORD men may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment.

12:37 For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned."

(Matthew 12:36, 37; Capital Emphasis Added)My dear Brother or Sister in Christ, a popular pastor in a town was once sent for by a man at the hour of his death. On entering the room, he saw one whose face he did not recognize. "You do not remember me," said the dying man. The pastor confessed that he did not. "Well," said the man, "I heard of you as a famous preacher some years ago, and I resolved to go to your church and judge for myself. I went, and was exceedingly struck by your sermon. It produced a powerful effect upon my conscience. I never rested until I got an opportunity of being in your company. I desired to have some communion with one whose sermon had so much impressed me. I met you at a house where many others were assembled, and hoped to have derived some good from your company. But, to my surprise, you hardly ever spoke of God, or Christ, or the Bible, or the soul, or eternal things, all the night long. YOU TOLD STORIES. YOU JOKED. YOU LAUGHED. You were courteous. You were friendly. But you were not like the pastor I had heard. I went away convinced that you did not believe what you preached, and that Christianity was all a delusion. I shook off my feelings. I hardened my conscience. I went back to the world. And now I have sent for you to say, that I have lost my soul!"

Our Lord Jesus plainly tells us that "for every idle word men speak they shall give account in the day of judgment" and that "by our words we shall be justified, and by our words we shall be condemned" (Matthew 12:36). By conversation and speech, sin first came into the world. It began by the passage of words between Satan and Eve (Genesis 3:1-7). In your WORDS, as well as in your ACTS, be an example at this end of the world!