The people who achieved nothing and did nothing are taking shots at the guy who actually did
something big for God and had achievements.
Then in verses 4 and 5 we see total hypocrisy, where they're accusing the Gileadites of doing
exactly what they're doing.
Here's what I want to show you in verse 6, is that people whose heart is wrong, because
we have people, their hearts wrong, right?
Strife, vainglory, envy, contentions, hypocrisy, right?
These are not good attributes here.
Well verse 6 shows us that people who are like this are eventually going to slip up
and show their true colors, aren't they?
People who are wicked in their heart, people who are in the ministry for the wrong reason,
people who are going to church for the wrong reasons and serving God for the wrong reasons,
eventually they're going to slip up and show their true colors because of the fact that
out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.
And the Bible says we cannot help but speak the things that we've seen and heard.
Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.
So if you have bitterness in your heart, envy in your heart, strife in your heart, you can
try really hard to cover it up and hide it but eventually it's going to slip out.
Eventually you're not going to be able to fool everyone.
Look what the Bible says in verse number 6, or at the end of verse 5, they said, let
me go over.
Men of Gilead said unto him, art thou an Ephraimite?
They lie and say no.
Look at verse 6, then said they unto him, say now shibboleth, and he said, sibboleth,
for he could not frame to pronounce it right.
Then they took him and slew him at the passages of Jordan and there fell at that time of the
Ephraimites forty and two thousand.
Now we might just take the sh sound for granted, right?
It seems pretty easy to make the sound.
I mean, you read the story, who can't go shibboleth?
Who would say sibboleth?
But not every language has this sound.
You know, we might take it for granted, English has the sound, but there are actually many
languages that don't have a sh sound.
You know, when you go to other countries, you start figuring out pretty quick what sound
they don't have when they start to speak English.
You know, when we were over in Jordan, they called Baal, they either called him Baal,
because it seemed like the Arabs had no P sound.
The Hebrews have a P sound, but the Arabic speakers, it seemed like they didn't have
a P sound, so everything was either an F or a B. They just decided which way to go with
it.
They don't have a P, so it's like, are we going to go F or are we going to go B?
You know, they're just trying to find the two closest sounds.
So it's either fall or ball.
And then they didn't talk about Palestine, it was fallestine or ballestine or whatever.
They just did not have that P sound, it seemed like.
So you know that when you go to other countries, a lot of places, they don't have that sound
in the alphabet.
I remember in Germany, for example, they don't have the, you know the short E sound, eh?
They don't have that, that sound, or no, I'm sorry, excuse me, of course they have that
sound.
They don't have the ah sound, so they say it like an eh, that's what I meant to say.
So they don't, they can't say ah in German, in fact, almost no language in Europe has
an ah sound.
So the ah sound is actually a really weird sound that's in very few languages.
And for us, that's like our first sound.
The A says ah as in apple, I mean that's, we start, we just get the hard one over with.
But to us, it's not hard.
No one has ever thought ah is hard.
But yet in other countries, they struggle with this.
So in Germany, they talk about how they have a ket and a dog, a ket, because they can't
say cat.
Or this guy's saying, bring me the letter.
And I'm like, what letter?
The letter.
You know, we're on a construction site.
Well, you wanted a ladder, ladder, ladder.
They can't say that ah, they're like ladder.
They can't like ah, ah.
They're like trying to, they can't open their mouth wide enough to make, they just can't
figure it out.
So even a sound that's as basic as the sh, I mean look, these people's life depended
on it.
Think about it.
If they could make that sh sound, if they can roll their R, they're getting across
the river.
I'd be dead.
I can't roll my R. I've been speaking Spanish for years, I can't roll my R. You know?
And so if that were the test, like, you know, hey, you know, it's like, hey, estas gringo?
No, no, no, okay.
Well then say, borro.
I don't know, say carro.
I'm like, carro.
I try to fake it, like carro.
You know, just try to do it bad.
But when there's those two Rs next to each other, I remember going through the script
for the Spanish after the tribulation.
Just every word that had a double R in it, I just replaced it with a synonym.
Replaced it with a synonym.
It was just like, pick a different word, change the script, change the script.
I can't do a double R. So they couldn't do it and they died.
But what God's showing us here, obviously there's a symbolic meaning here, okay?
The symbolic meaning here is that people who have guile in their heart, people who have
wickedness in their heart are eventually going to slip up and it's going to come out of
their mouth and as the Bible says, thy speech betrayeth thee.
Thy speech betrayeth thee.
You know, your speech will show who you are and what you're like and you can pretend and
go through all the motions but every once in a while you're going to slip out and say
something.
And people who turned out to be phonies later, you kind of, you remember, you look back and
you remember weird stuff that they said.
And you're like, man, that was weird when he said that.
Because every once in a while it accidentally slips out, what's really going on in their
heart.
And so we need to be careful that we have the right things in our heart.
Because if you start getting a bad heart, it's going to come out.
You know, and you say, well, I'll just fake it.
Well, you know what, nobody can fake it all the time.
And eventually you're going to slip and let it out.
And so let me give you a little tip.
If you want to get along with your parents, you want to get along with your spouse, you
want to get along with your brothers and sisters, your co-workers, you know what, you've got
to actually change your heart toward those people.
Because if you just decide, well, you know what, I'm so bitter against my wife but I'm
going to go through all the motions and at least put on a show, well, you know what,
she's going to see through that.
And the same thing vice versa, if you're a bitter, contentious wife and you're going
to go through all the motions and act like you love your husband, well, guess what, he's
going to get a vibe from you and every once in a while the wrong things are going to slip
out of your mouth.
And so you've got to actually get your heart right and then you don't have to put on a
show.
You know, putting on a show can be pretty exhausting.
It's got to be tiring to be fake and have to keep track of all your lies and constantly
have to pretend to be something that you're not.
It's a lot easier to just live your life being real.
So you know, you need to just get your heart right with the Lord, get your heart right
with your parents, get your heart right with your spouse, get your heart right with the
church, get your heart right with the pastor.
You know, if you have bitterness toward me, that isn't right.
You shouldn't be bitter toward me.
Why are you coming to Faith Forward Baptist Church and being bitter toward me?
That doesn't make any sense.
You either need to make it right in your heart toward me or then maybe you should just think
about going somewhere where you have a pastor that you're not bitter toward.
Because being bitter toward the pastor of the church that you go to, you know what?
You're ultimately hurting yourself because you're the one who's not going to profit from
the preaching and you're not going to benefit from being here like someone would whose attitude
is right.
And it's the same in any area of life.
You know, that's just church.
But what about at your job?
You know what?
You're hurting yourself when you have a bad attitude.
And I guarantee that even if you go to work and go through all the motions, you know what?
The boss and your coworkers are going to perceive that something's wrong with your spirit.
And so have the right spirit, love your pastor, love your boss, love your job, love your wife,
love your children, love your husband, love your house too, right?
Love everything, you know?
I'm just saying have the right attitude.
And by the way, you should love your house and not get a bad attitude like, oh man, I
wish I had a better house.
That's called covetousness.
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house is one of the things that's brought up.
And so love your people in your life that are supposed to be your loved ones and don't
sit there and just go through the motions because guess what?
Your husband can tell when your heart's not right.
Your wife can tell when your heart's not right with them.
And then you wonder why you have a bad marriage.
Well, you know what?
It's starting within on the inside of you.
That's where you need to start fixing things and let that work itself outward.
Okay.
You know, the Bible is really clear on salvation.
It's not based on how good you are.
A lot of people think they're pretty good, you know, and yeah, they're going to get to
heaven because they're pretty good.
But the Bible says from all the sin and how short of the glory you got.
The Bible says that as it is written, there is none righteous, no, not one.
I'm not righteous.
You're not righteous.
And if it were our goodness that would get us into heaven, none of us would be going.
Because the Bible even says in Revelation 21, 8, it says, but the fearful and unbelieving,
the abominable and murderers and sorcerers and foremongers and idolaters and listen to
this, and all liars shall have their part in the lake that's burning and firing for
itself until the second death.
I've lied before.
Everybody's lying.
So we've all sinned and we've done stuff worse than lying.
Let's face it.
We all deserve help.