Oh, be careful little mouth what you say....

I find myself singing a lot of children's songs these days, which is always very refreshing to do! The "Sunday School" songs that Jack has been learning in church are packed with simple truths that every believer needs to be reminded of continually. One of Jack's favorite songs is Oh, be careful little eyes what you see. Since I have been singing this a lot over the past few months, whether it be with Jack or to myself, I have had some time to reflect on the words and they are so basic but so powerful. Here are the lyrics:

Oh, be careful little eyes, what you see.
Oh, be careful little eyes, what you see.
There's a Father up above, looking down in tender love,
So be careful little eyes, what you see.

Be careful little ears what you hear
Be careful little mouth what you say...
Be careful little hands, what you touch...
Be careful little feet, where you go...

There's a Father up above, looking down in tender love,
So be careful little eyes, what you see.

So, today, as I was listening to Nancy Leigh DeMoss speaking on 1 Corithians 13, she shared the below message, and, oh, how the Lord used this message to penetrate my heart.

As I was listening, I couldn't help but think of the above song that I sing so often.

I hope the Lord will use this message in your life the way He did mine. It's so good to be reminded of simple truths!


Nancy Leigh DeMoss: During the 17th century, Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of England, sentenced a soldier to be shot for his crimes. The execution was scheduled to take place at the ringing of the evening curfew bell. But when the time came for the bell to be rung, the sexton repeatedly pulled the rope of the bell, but the bell made no sound. When Cromwell sent someone to investigate, they discovered that the soldier’s fiancé had climbed into the belfry before the scheduled execution and had wrapped herself around the clapper so that it could not strike the bell.

She managed to climb down, bruised and bleeding, to meet those awaiting the execution. When she explained what she had done—so the story goes—Cromwell’s heart was touched, and he said, “Your love shall live because of your sacrifice. Curfew shall not ring tonight.”

We’re looking at the qualities of God’s kind of love, and we come now to four of those qualities that are closely related to each other that we’ll be look at, today. First Corinthians chapter 13, we’ve looked at a long string of qualities. We’ve seen that "love is patient, and love is kind. It’s not jealous; it does not brag, and it is not arrogant. It does not act rudely or unbecomingly. It does not seek its own; it’s not provoked. It does not take into account a wrong suffered. It does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but it rejoices with the truth" (verses 4-6, NASB paraphrased).

Now we see that "love bears all things, [it] believes all things, [it] hopes all things, [it] endures all things. Love never fails" (verse 7-8, NASB). So, Paul says, pursue love.

The woman who attached her body to the clapper of that bell was willing to bear all things for the sake of the one that she loved to stay his execution. What a picture of what it means to bear all things for love’s sake.

The word here to bear all things really means "to cover." It means "to support or shield." It’s used sometimes to describe a warrior’s use of his shield as an instrument of protection. He withstands the blows and the attacks of others by means of this shield.

The person who has God’s kind of love will bear all things. That means he or she will protect others from exposure. A loving person isn’t going to go broadcasting the failures and the sins of others.

So how are we doing on this love test? We’ve been taking the love test for the last several sessions. When it comes to bearing all things, do you find yourself offended if an act of kindness goes unappreciated?

I found myself wrestling with this in the last few weeks. A particular act of kindness that I had done initially for love’s sake, but when there was not thanks extended and expressed, I found myself not feeling so loving anymore, not acting so loving anymore, not bearing this offense, but wanting to bring up the offense, wanting the other person to know that I had felt offended rather than being willing to bear that offense.

By the way, one of the most convicting things to me in dealing with that offense is to then think about how many things God has done for me for which I’ve never said, “Thank You.” I don’t thank Him often enough for health, for food, for shelter, for warmth in cold weather and air conditioning in the hot weather. How many things has God poured out upon me, just in material and physical blessings, for which I’ve never thanked Him?

God has a kind of love that bears up under my offenses, and yet when I’m offended, I’m so prone not to bear those offenses.

What about when it comes to your husband’s failures and faults and flaws? No one knows them any better than you do. So when you have opportunity to expose, do you find yourself bearing up those offenses, covering, protecting him? Or do you find yourself bringing his offenses into the light, being quick to share with others how your husband or a pastor or a friend has done wrong in your eyes?

Oh ladies, it’s so important, so important that with our tongues we not put those God has put in authority over us in a negative light. If you’re going to share a failure or a flaw of somebody else, make sure it’s a situation where you are part of the problem or part of the solution and that the person you’re talking to is part of the problem or part of the solution, or don’t say it.

How I admire some wives who’ve lived in very, very difficult situations in their home with relation to a child or a parent or a mate but have not gotten into the habit of dredging up those offenses and not putting their husband or their family member in a negative light.

It’s so important that you and I not gossip or listen to gossip about others. You see, love never protects sin, but it’s eager to protect the sinner. Now, that’s contrary to what’s natural for us because we do have this kind of perverse pleasure in exposing someone else’s faults and failures. I wonder if that’s because we make ourselves look better.

I know I can think back to times when I’ve so sinned against the Lord and against another person. Their name will come up in a conversation, someone will say something positive about that person, but I know something about that person that they don’t know. Why do I have to say it? Why can’t I bear that offense? Maybe the offense isn’t against me, but there’s something I know. It’s all pride, which is really the opposite of the kind of love we’ve been talking about.

Scripture says hatred stirs up strife, but love covers a multitude of sins. We can measure our love for a person by how quick we are to cover his faults.

Now, to bear all things doesn’t mean that we bear lies or wickedness or false teaching or other things that are contrary to God’s laws. It’s not speaking here of covering for someone who is breaking the law. We’re not speaking here of a mate or a parent being involved in sexual abuse or physical abuse or drug abuse.
God has made provision for that person to be helped by giving us civil authorities and church authorities, and the most loving thing to do in that situation, in a spirit of meekness is to involve the proper or appropriate authorities, not taking matters into our own hands. We’re not to cover up for the breaking of the law on the part of another person, but many times the things that we bring into the light, the negative things about other people are not such kinds of grievances but just things that have annoyed us personally. That’s when love will bear up.

When a close friend, someone we really love, or one of our children does something wrong, we tend to put the best possible face on what they’ve done.

“He just didn’t understand what he was doing.”

“She didn’t really mean what she said.”

But when someone we don’t like does something that we don’t like, we can have quite a different reaction.

“That’s so typical of that person. What else would you expect from that person?”

When we love someone, when we truly love them, we put things in the best possible light. We make allowances wherever possible. Love doesn’t justify sin; it doesn’t compromise with things that aren’t true. Love is willing to warn and, as a mother, there are certainly times when you have to do this with your children. It’s willing to correct. In fact, it must correct. It’s willing to exhort and rebuke and discipline. But love does not expose or broadcast failures and wrongs. It covers, and it protects.

In Genesis chapter 9, we read an account about the three sons of Noah. Scripture says that

Noah, a man of the soil, proceeded to plant a vineyard. When he drank some of its wine, he became drunk, and he lay uncovered inside his tent. [One son], Ham . . . saw his father’s nakedness (verses 20-21, NIV).

Not only did he see what his father had done, the drunkenness and the nakedness, but then he told his two brothers outside. He, in a sense, exposed his father’s failure, and the suggestion here is that he did it in a way that was scorning or mocking of his father, but the other two sons,

Shem and Japheth, took a garment and laid it across their shoulders. Then they walked in backward and covered their father’s nakedness (verse 23).

So we see in these other two sons, the covering of a multitude of sins.

As we think about that fiancé who clung to the clapper of that bell and was willing to take upon herself the brunt of that experience as the clapper pushed up against the bell, she was willing to be bloodied and wounded in order to bear up so that her fiancé, the one she loved, would not have to be executed.

What a picture, in some very small sense, of what Jesus did for us at Calvary as He clung to that cross, not deserving to go there Himself but was willing to be bloodied and wounded to pay the ultimate price of death so that you and I would not have to experience the execution of God’s wrath.

In the cross God bore all things. He threw the great covering of His love over our sin, forever covering it, for those who trust in His Son. By nature, love is redemptive. It wants to buy back, to restore, not to condemn. It wants to save and not to judge. So love feels the pain of those that it loves. It helps to carry the burden of the hurt and is even willing, if necessary, to take the consequences of the sin of those that it loves.

•Do you have the kind of love that covers a multitude of offenses? Or do you find yourself being easily offended?
•Do you seek to cover and protect those around you from harm, from attack? Or do you expose and broadcast their failures to others?