Their throat is an open sepulcher

Romans 3:13

Their throats are gaping graves,
their tongues slick as mudslides.

Every word they speak is tinged with poison.

They open their mouths & pollute the air.

They race for the honor of sinner-of-the-year,

They litter the land with heartbreak & ruin,

They Don’t know the first thing about living
with others.

They never give God the time of day.

Rom. 3:13-15 the message

Theirs corruption of so much in our human speech!

None of us are innocent

The offensive stench exhaling from an
open sepulcher is due not to the grave
itself but to the rottenness within.

Just so, the unclean, unkind, untrue utterances
of others betrays

a defiled head
a despiteful tongue
a deceitful heart.

Some speech is characterized by the venom of
the serpent

“with their tongues they have used deceit;
the poison of asps is under their lips:
whose mouth is full of cursing & bitterness”

Newell points out that

“the fangs of a deadly serpent lie, ordinarily,
folded back in its upper jaw; but when it throws
up its head to strike, those hollow fangs drop
down & when the serpent bites, the fangs press
a sack of deadly poison hidden ‘under its lips’
at the root,

They gash us open with their fangs

Then they inject the venom into the wound.

We are born with moral poison sacks like this.

We strike at one another with venomous words.

Foul speech is not only an offense against others,
it is an offense against God.

The Lord Jesus warns that

“every idle word that we speak,
We give account thereof in the
day of judgment”

Matt. 12:36

John Phillips notes

The average articulate person uses thousands
of words a day.

These daily words would comprise a fair sized
volume & enough volumes in a lifetime to fill a
college library.

Each of these volumes represents the thoughts
of the speaker in their own words & every word
is open to the inspection & judgment of God.

Not one of the words can be recalled nor one
of the volumes withdrawn.

So our words form an important indictment of
each one of us.

Every day we should look over the words we’ve
scattered.

My wife is such an example of choosing an economy
of words. She just edited two briefs of writs going to
the Supreme Court.

Becoming a student of what the court wants to hear

Then arranging each sentence & supporting arguments
to logically & legally persuade a Judge is an amazing
skill set

Designing appropriate terms & admirable phraseology
is an art form all it’s own.

It’s so easy swelteringly bungle ahead with a cluster
of reactive rankle with no lid

Let the words of our mouth & the meditations of our
be acceptable O Lord

You are our strength & our redeemer