Robert Frost is credited with having said, “Words to live by are just words, unless you live by them. You have to walk the talk.” Robert Frost is in complete agreement with scripture. Jesus quoted the prophet Isaiah when he said, “Hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy about you, saying: These people draw near to me with their mouth, and honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. And in vain they do worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.”
Ezekiel tells us about the Jews of his day who faithfully attended meeting and listened to the word of exhortation and verbally agreed with all that was said. God knew their hearts and explained to Ezekiel, “So they come to you as people do, they sit before you as my people, and they hear your words, but they do not do them; for with their mouth they show much love, but their hearts pursue their own gain.” Ezekiel may have thought he was getting through to them, but in reality his words were only words. God said, “Indeed you are to them as a very lovely song of one who has a pleasant voice and can play well on an instrument, for they hear your words, but they do not do them.”
How often have we heard a good exhortation and then left to do just the opposite from that which we were exhorted to do? A brother recently confessed that after a confrontational meeting at work his boss asked him, “Why is it when you come to work you leave your religion at the door?”
Evidently this is what happened in Ezekiel and Isaiah’s day, too They came to meeting, and they sat, and they heard, and they agreed and they did not do. It is no use our giving the Lord lip service if our everyday actions are not in harmony with our words. As Robert Frost so aptly put it, we must “walk the talk.”
Have we ever wondered just how much good the words of exhortation do us? Think how many exhortations you have heard or read in your lifetime. We are to exhort one another, for Paul told us that we should be “exhorting one another daily, and so much the more as you see the day approaching.” But we need to ask the question, what good does it do if we hear and do not do?
There is a sad truth we need to admit can be true. It is possible for us to deceive ourselves. James tells us to “be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.” We can say that the truth is the most wonderful thing in our life; we can say that we long for the coming of the Lord, and then we can go out and live in a way that contradicts these words. Remember that Jesus called them hypocrites who drew near to God with their lips when their heart was far from Him.
What you are doing is hollering so loud that I cannot hear what you are saying. Are our talk and our walk consistent with each other? Talk is cheap. Actions speak louder than words. We might deceive others, we may be trying hard to even deceive ourselves, but we know deep in our hearts that we are not deceiving our heavenly Father. We need to acknowledge with the Psalmist that the Lord knows if we are walking the talk, and ask Him to “Search me, 0 God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”
Let us commit ourselves to live by the word of the Lord, to follow the Word made flesh, so that then the words we live by will be the words we walk by, and in all our ways we will acknowledge Him and He will direct our paths.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One