Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1558
“I create the fruit of the lips: Peace, peace.” Isaiah 57:19.
“THE fruit of the lips”! The lips are neither trees of the orchard nor herbs of the garden. What fruit can they bear? The scattering of Babel came of human speech when languages were multiplied and the united race split up into fragments. Wars and fighting and hatred and bloodshed have sprung of talk and bluster—these are deadly fruits, the very mention of which brings pain to the heart—surely it is in vain to look for much that is worth gathering from mouths and tongues! Great talkers are proverbially little doers and the more talk, the less work. We may come for years looking for fruit on this fig tree and find none. “Nothing but leaves” will be gathered by those who look to the lips for a harvest to fill the barn. This is most true. It you let the lips alone, they produce mischief and trouble and not much else.
An unrenewed tongue is almost worse than an unregenerate heart because, bad as the heart may be, there is heart in it—the tongue is often heartless—a mere sounding sham with no reality to support its bronze noise. Too many speak with the lips and their heart is not in what they say. If the lips become the instruments of hypocrisy and if the fruit of the lips is only the fruit of the lips, it is comparable to the apples of Sodom. The lips, moreover, cause pain and evil all around, which the heart, alone, cannot do. The heart is as an oven closed up. The tongue is a fire raging abroad, setting on flame the course of nature when it is, itself, set on fire by Hell.
The lips of the wicked are like the upas tree which drips poison. We could readily dispense with the fruit of the lips as it comes from uncircumcised and unclean lips. Go out and gather a basketful of the fruit of the lips—gossiping, bickering, fault-finding, murmuring, nonsense, vanity, falsehood, boasting, infidelity. I will not tell you all that I might put into that basket! Certainly, if it were to be shred and poured out into the broth of daily life, we would soon have to say as they did who threw the wild cucumber into the pottage, “O man of God, there is death in the pot!” The fruit of the lips tends to vanity, to poverty, to sorrow, to shame, to death. The fruit of the lips is just what the root of an unrenewed, unregenerate heart causes it to be.
You remember AEsop and how wisely he kept his master’s command when he bade him provide for dinner the best things he could and when they came together he set out tongues—nothing else but tongues! His master was pleased with his wit, though I am afraid the guests did not relish it and he ordered him, the next time, to provide for dinner the worst things he possibly could. Tongues again—nothing else but tongues! Truly AEsop was wise there, for the fruit of the lips is sometimes the best thing in the world and sometimes the worst thing in the world—it is a blessing and a curse— according to the man whose tongue speaks. The fruit of the lips may be compared to Jeremiah’s figs—the good, very good, but the bad, exceedingly bad, exceedingly ripe figs that cannot be eaten. Fruit of the lips, what shall I say about you? It might seem that the less we said the better, lest in our case, also, the fruit of the lips should add to the useless heap!
Our text tells us that God creates the fruit of the lips, but this must be understood, of course, with reservation. He does not create the fruit of the lips as we commonly see it, but the good fruit, the true fruit, the fruit worth gathering— that which should be the fruit of the lips—of this God is the Creator. The natural fruit is so evil it needs the Creator, again, to step in and make us new creatures and our fruit new, also, or else it would remain so bad that the verdict upon it would be, “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” And what is that fruit which the Creator produces from a source which is naturally so barren? First of all, it is the sacrifice of thanksgiving—“the fruit of our lips giving thanks to His name” (Heb. 13:15).
The fruit of the lips which God creates should be, above all things, praise. We ought to delight to praise God—it should be our element, our occupation, our recreation, our very life! We are as much and as evidently intended to praise God as angels are. When I look at a bird, if I study it awhile, I am convinced that it was made to sing. When we look at
an angel and study his formation and character, we are certain that he was ordained to praise God. And he that studies man, if he can see beyond the defects which the Fall has brought upon every organ, will be forced to see that he is a creature adapted for the praise of God. Our tongue is the glory of our frame and it is given us that we may give glory to Him who framed it! Articulate speech, which is denied to birds and beasts, is given to us for this major reason—that we may articulately and distinctly praise and magnify the name of the Most High.