Proverbs 25:23
“The north wind brings forth rain, and a backbiting tongue an angry countenance.”
Have you ever seen people who just look mad all of the time? I know I have - they are just cranky! Well, the Word of God gives us a little insight as to what is going on using this verse. People who always have terrible expressions on their faces are those who have a backbiting tongue. The phrase backbiting tongue means a tongue that talks trash in secret. You can think of it like this…. You are having a conversation with someone and they are polite and non-aggressive but then you turn to walk away, and they talk about you after you’ve gone in a bad way. The essentially “bite your back.” The good news is that God has told us with this warning verse how to distinguish those people from other people in order that we may avoid them. What a great and practical God we have! Instead of investing our time in those who will just talk trash about us when we are not around, we can now look at someone’s face and use the Word of God to discern whether or not someone is going to be loving toward us before we ever interact with them! The next time you are in public, take a look around and see if you can discover anyone with this type of countenance. Then ask the Lord if what you see on their face reflects the backbiting in their heart…..
Whether you discover that they are backbiters or not, however, does not excuse you from loving them and ministering to them. Often when we find people who backbite, we tend to avoid them out of self preservation- this is understandable. However, God’s heart is that we know this about them and still minister to them when we are moved to do so by the Spirit of the Living God.
Luke 6:35 says: 35 "But love your enemies, do good, and lend, hoping for nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High. For He is kind to the unthankful and evil.”
We are to be love our enemies, do good and lend to them – even if and when our enemies talk trash about us. The reason, however that we are given this insight into the hearts of men is so that we can be prepared not only to deal with them but so that we are warned ourselves not to engage in backbiting lest we too have an angry face!
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