My dear readers,

The Power of Pleasant Words

Proverbs 16:24: “Pleasant words are as an honeycomb, sweet to the soul, and health to the bones”

The heart and the mind are distinct and yet inseparable. To reach the heart, the mind is the gateway. To touch the mind, the heart is the source. When the heart loves the LORD, the mind seeks only all things that delight the LORD. When the mind seeks all things that delight the LORD, the heart is blessed and love is deepened with more knowledge. However, the heart is also easily broken and hurt. The wound can be so deep that no medication can soothe the pain. Man has tried to do so with words. But the comfort lasts only for a moment, and the futility and limitations of man’s wisdom is exposed.

The frail ones with a broken heart will spiral downward to depression. Some turn to alcohol to numb the pain by dulling their senses. But they awaken with a hangover and the sorrow floods back into the heart. Life takes a turn for the worse. The sun has stopped shining. A dark foreboding cloud follows them everywhere they go. Everything they taste and touch is meaningless. Nothing this world has can bring the spark back into their life. The heart is in the depth of the deepest ocean buried by tonnes of rocks that no man can dig out! Is this not the lot in life for every man? Losing loved ones and the fear of death are some of the most painful experiences in life that grip the heart so tightly like an iron fist that can never be pried open.

When all seems lost, the mind is where the journey of hope begins! Hope is not and cannot originate from the words of man. The wisdom of man is too earthbound. It is limited by man himself. Man is bound by space and time. What he sees is what he is and where he is in the present. The moment time passes, his past is lost to him forever, never to return. His future is as dark as the darkest night and is beyond his grasp. His manifold attempts to penetrate this impenetrable darkness have resulted in all sorts of guesses and ruination of millions of lives throughout the ages. False hope is created to ease this state of hopelessness, otherwise man will go mad swimming in an ocean with no land in sight. The moment his strength wanes, he drowns.

Thanks be to God that He has reached down to helpless and hopeless humanity from His unreachable heavenly height. He communicated with man and gave to him His inerrant and infallible Word of everlasting life. Once His perfect Word is understood, ingested, and obeyed, the heart is soothed and the pain evaporates. The brightness of the sun penetrates and the storm clouds of life are driven away for good. His life is now abundant to overflowing! Everything in life is sweet. This is what Proverbs 16:24 reveals. The literal translation is – “Honeycomb are the words of agreeableness, sweet to the soul and health to the bones.” The emphasis is on the “honeycomb.”

The beginning of this sweetness is when the sorrowful heart is comforted by the knowledge and experience of being forgiven of all his sins when he receives Jesus Christ as his Lord and Saviour. When he confesses and seeks God's forgiveness in Christ, the sweetness of salvation grace will fill his soul and remove all his guilt of sin, including the dominion of penalty and bondage to sin. The most pleasant words, i.e. agreeable words, are the gospel message that Jesus alone saves. It will bring health to his bones in that his life will be contented and abundant in the spiritual sense. He knows he is going to heaven and no longer to hell! He has the hope of eternal life in Christ. There is a crown of righteousness with his name on it waiting for him in heaven when his life on earth ends. He now looks at the world with new eyes. They have been opened by Christ to see beyond the material and into the eternal. His whole life from his heart, mind, and words has been transformed by the power of God and the Holy Spirit who now dwells in him forever.

Having tasted this sweetness at his spiritual birth, his life as a Christian from henceforth will be wrought with many trials as he learns to live and suffer for Christ. That is why the Bible says honeycomb and not just honey! The sweetness continues. The honeycomb is an unending source of sweetness. The only pleasant words that are like the honeycomb are the perfect Word of God, the Bible. The Bible covers every aspect of man’s life and more. To know man's beginning and where sin and death came from, study the book of Genesis. It reveals to man the beginning of all things. To know where and how this world will end, study the Book of Revelation. The answer to the end of sin, death, Satan, sinners and saints are all found in this amazing hope-filled Book of books.

The more a child of God studies the Bible, the more pleasant his words will become. The blessing he brings to others will be immeasurable. It will reach into the heavenly realm of the new heaven and new earth.

Study God's Word diligently so that your words will be pleasant to all men and God, and will heal the broken-hearted, and will set prisoners free from the bondage of sin. The life of the child of God will become rich and full, and so will the lives of others who come into contact with him. May God make us all men and women of pleasant words to bring sweetness to every life and comfort to every sorrowful heart, to the glory of our heavenly Father. Amen.