Intro...
1. "The [overall] purpose of all these sections [all the sections of the book] is the inculcation of certain cardinal social virtues, such as industry, thrift, discretion, truthfulness, honesty, chastity, kindness, forgiveness, warning against the corresponding vices, and praise of wisdom as the guiding principle of life." (Scholar Crawford H. Toy)
Truthful lips endure forever,
but a lying tongue, only a
moment. Proverbs 12:19
1. Truthful lips endure forever: God looks after those who love the truth and speak the truth. Under His blessing, they will endure forever.
a. "Any human relationship is more stable and fulfilling when we are determined to speak the truth and acting in harmony with it. Being known as a person of truth will bring us immediate rewards. These include such things as a clean conscience before God, a good reputation with others, and a much stronger relationship in marriage, as well as the family, our friends, and even our co-workers." (Edward D. Andrews)
"A trustworthy reputation is part of honesty's payoff." (Theologian David A. Hubbard)
2. A lying tongue: It often seems that the lying tongue wins the day and is stronger than truthful lips. The judgments of the God of truth will show how temporary the success of the lying tongue is.
a. "The lying tongue belongs to one who continuously deceives others with his misleading utterly false information, which causes others to arrive at a mistaken belief. This is a person that could care less about the destruction of his lies in the wake of his deception. The distortion of the truth is this one’s means of making the world mold to his perception of things. He could never accept the moral values of right and wrong set out in Scripture because he has distorted the truth so much that his moral compass is unable to point toward truth." (Edward D. Andrews)
"Jeremiah and the false prophet Hananiah illustrate the truth of this proverb positively and negatively (Jer. 28)." (Dr. Thomas L. Constable)
3. But for a moment: “The lying tongue may continue to utter its falsehood for long years by the calendars of men, but when you place those years by the side of the ages of God, they are as a moment, as the winking of the eye, as nothing.” (Morgan)
a. “Truth stands for ever; because its foundation is indestructible: but falsehood may soon be detected; and, though it gain credit for a while, it had that credit because it was supposed to be truth.” (Clarke)
"Freedom is not the presence of restriction or the absence of restriction, it’s the presence of the right restrictions, the ones in accord with the truth who God made you to be and then when you give up your freedom, you surrender to those restrictions, it will release you into richer, deeper freedom. The truth will set you free. This is the reason why for example you know a fish out on the grass, a fish out on the grass isn’t free. A fish out on the grass has lost its freedom to move, even to live! You have to restrict the fish to the water and in the water, its strength returns and its power returned and it can, you know, swim away like lightning and therefore, freedom is a lot more complex, is it not? It’s the right restriction. The restrictions that fit in with the givenness of your nature; these restrictions that fit in with the truth of who you are and the truth of how things are and you know the ultimate example of the complexity of freedom is love." (Theologian Tim Keller)b. “It is truth which abides. A lie must perish. In a world still largely mastered by lies, it is difficult at times to believe this. Yet to review the history of the race is to have evidence of it. Lies are always perishing.” (Morgan)
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