"The mouth of the righteous is
a FOUNTAIN of life."
The second thought that I have from
this verse is that life comes from
the mouth. That may not be the only
source of life, but the text is clear that it is one source. The mouth can be
life-giving. But, it says the “mouth of the righteous.” The mouth can also hurt
and destroy, but the mouth of the righteous speaks life-giving words. Words of
hope; joy; peace; and love. Jesus said “the enemy comes to kill and destroy,
but I have come that they may have LIFE; and have it more abundantly!”Notice that it says a life-giving mouth is like a fountain not a factory. The image is not of labor and sweat and weariness that somehow produces the product of life. The image is restful and clean and cool and refreshing fountain. Life bubbles up and overflows from somewhere deep within with scarcely any effort.
The next thing I notice is what makes a mouth into a fountain of life is “righteousness.”… "The mouth of the RIGHTEOUS is a fountain of life." God cares about our mouth. God cares about our lips and our tongue. He cares about what goes in, but he cares a lot more about what comes out. (Matthew 15:11) So I think what God means to do through the message in this simple Proverb is to help us become the kind of person whose mouth will freely, refreshingly bring forth more and more life for other people.
So our first question has to be: What is this righteousness that makes mouths into fountains of life? How do you become the kind of person whose mouth freely brings forth life? I tried to answer this question by looking other places in Proverbs where it says something is a “fountain of life.” I thought this would show me just what it is that that turns mouths into “fountains of life.” Here's what I found:
Proverbs 13:14 says, "The teaching of the wise is a
fountain of life." So if the "teaching of the wise" is a
fountain of life, and "the mouth of the righteous" is a fountain of
life, then one element of this righteousness is true wisdom. Righteous people
are people who live by the true wisdom of God’s Word.
Then I remembered that the most crucial thing Proverbs says about wisdom
is that "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom" (9:10). So you
have to assume that "the fear of the Lord" is right at the heart of
the wisdom - which is the basis of the way righteous people live (fear of the
Lord—wisdom—righteousness.) The surprising thing was the way this was confirmed
in Proverbs 14:27 which says "The fear
of the Lord is a fountain of life."
So I conclude that the mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life
(10:11) because righteous-ness is a life based on true wisdom which is a
fountain of life (13:14), and true wisdom is a fountain of life because it
begins with the fear of the Lord, which is a fountain of life. (14:27)When you think about the fear of the Lord or when you look up Psalm 36:9. The fear of the Lord means at least two things:
-
1. It means we stand in awe of the majesty and power and
justice and holiness and grace of God. We tremble at his Word (Isaiah
66:2);
- 2. It means that we shudder with dread at the thought of
how terrible it would be to forsake this great God. As Joseph said; “Why
should I do such a thing and sin against my God!”
This is what Psalm 36:9 says: "You [God] give them to drink from the river of your delights. For with you is the fountain of life." God Is a Fountain of Life and the Righteous Live on God. Now we are getting to the very bottom of things. Now we know why righteousness makes the mouth into a fountain of life. The reason is that righteousness is a life based on true wisdom, and true wisdom begins with the fear of the Lord, and the fear of the Lord roots people in God himself and keeps us close to him in personal fellowship, and God—and God alone—is the ultimate, self-replenishing, inexhaustible fountain of life.
"The mouth of the righteous is
a fountain of life" because GOD is a fountain of life and the righteous
live according to the life-giving flow of the Word of God in their lives.
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