immense importance of carefulness about our daily words.

Our Lord tells us that every careless word that people speak, they shall give an accounting for it in the day of judgment. And He adds, By your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.

There are few of our Lord’s sayings which are so heart-searching as this. There is nothing, perhaps, to which most men pay less attention than their words. They go through their daily work, speaking and talking without thought or reflection, and seem to imagine that if they do what is right, it matters but little what they say.

But is it so? Are our words so utterly trifling and unimportant? We dare not say so with such a passage of Scripture as this before our eyes. Our words are the evidence of the state of our hearts, as surely as the taste of the water is an evidence of the state of the spring. For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart. The lips only utter what the mind conceives. Our words will form one subject of inquiry at the day of judgment. We shall have to give account of our sayings as well as our doings. Truly these are very solemn considerations. If there were no other text in the Bible, this passage ought to convince us that we are all guilty before the Lord and need a righteousness better than our own, even the righteousness of Christ (Philippians 3:9).

Let us be humble as we read this passage, in the recollection of time past. How many idle, foolish, vain, light, frivolous, sinful, and unprofitable things we have all said! How many words we have used, which, like thistledown, have flown far and wide and sown mischief in the hearts of others that will never die! How often when we have met our friends, “our conversation,” to use an old saint’s expression, “has only made work for repentance.” There is deep truth in the remark of Burkitt, “A profane scoff or atheistical jest may stick in the minds of those that hear it, after the tongue that spoke it is dead. A word spoken is physically transient, but morally permanent.” Death and life, says Solomon, are in the power of the tongue (Proverbs 18:21).

Let us be watchful as we read this passage about words when we look forward to our days yet to come. Let us resolve, by God’s grace, to be more careful over our tongues, and more particular about our use of them. Let us pray daily that our speech always be with grace (Colossians 4:6). Let us say every morning with holy David, I will guard my ways that I may not sin with my tongue. Let us cry with him to the strong One for strength and say, Set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth; keep watch over the door of my lips. Well indeed might James say, If anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man (Psalm 39:1; 141:3; James 3:2).

—J.C. Ryle, ‘Expository Thoughts on Matthew’