The Life and Death of a Spoken Word Text: Proverbs 14:25
Introduction: A World Built on Lies
We live in an age that is drowning in words and starved of truth. Our entire civilization has become a vast, echoing chamber of deceit. We are told that men can become women, that debt is prosperity, that freedom is slavery, and that the murder of the unborn is a healthcare choice. The lie has become the very air we breathe, the foundation of our laws, the curriculum in our schools, and the moral framework of our culture. And because we have abandoned the truth, we are surprised to find that we are also abandoning life. We see souls, which is to say lives, perishing all around us, and we wonder why.
The book of Proverbs is intensely practical. It is not a collection of quaint, inspirational sayings for your grandmother's needlepoint. It is a divine field manual for navigating reality. And in our text today, Solomon draws a line in the sand with the starkest of consequences. He sets before us two kinds of people, defined by two kinds of speech, resulting in two ultimate outcomes: life or death. This is not a matter of mere personal preference or slight character flaw. How a society treats the truth, how it values the testimony of a faithful witness, is a matter of its very survival. When truth dies in the public square, souls die with it.
This proverb forces us to confront the fact that our words are never neutral. They are not empty vessels. They are freighted with power. They are instruments that either build or demolish, heal or wound, save or destroy. Every time you speak, you are acting as one of two kinds of witnesses. You are either a minister of life, delivering souls, or you are an agent of deceit, spreading death. There is no middle ground. In the great courtroom of life, you are always on the stand.
The Text
A truthful witness delivers souls,
But he who breathes out lies is deceitful.
(Proverbs 14:25 LSB)
The Witness of Life (v. 25a)
The first half of the proverb lays out the positive principle:
"A truthful witness delivers souls..." (Proverbs 14:25a)
The most immediate context here is a court of law. Imagine a man falsely accused of a capital crime. His life, his "soul" (Hebrew: nephesh), hangs in the balance. Everything depends on the testimony given. A witness who comes forward and speaks the plain, unvarnished truth, who refuses to be intimidated or bribed, literally delivers that man's life from the executioner. He snatches him from the jaws of death by the simple, potent act of telling the truth. This is the foundation of all justice. Without truthful witnesses, courts become instruments of murder and oppression, as they were in the trial of Naboth or, supremely, in the trial of Jesus Christ.
But the principle extends far beyond the courtroom. The word "soul" here, nephesh, means a life, a person, a breathing creature. A truthful witness delivers lives in countless ways. A doctor who gives an honest diagnosis delivers his patient from the lie of false health. A pastor who preaches the truth of God's law and gospel delivers his congregation from the damning lies of sin and self-righteousness. A father who tells his son the truth about the world, about women, about work, delivers him from a life of folly and ruin. A friend who speaks a hard truth in love delivers his brother from a destructive path.
Truth is the basis of trust, and trust is the currency of a healthy society. When truthfulness is the norm, businesses can flourish, contracts are honored, marriages are secure, and communities are safe. Truth builds. It creates an environment where souls can thrive. It delivers them from the chaos and destruction that always follow in the wake of lies. The truthful witness is a life-giver. He is a public servant in the truest sense, because he upholds the fabric of reality itself, which is woven from the truth of God's own character. God is true, and therefore, reality is what it is. The truthful man honors this. He aligns his words with the world as God made it, and in so doing, becomes an agent of deliverance and life.
The Breath of Death (v. 25b)
The contrast could not be sharper. Solomon now shows us the other man, the anti-witness.
"But he who breathes out lies is deceitful." (Proverbs 14:25b)
Notice the language. He doesn't just "tell" lies. He "breathes" them out. The Hebrew here suggests a puffing, a constant exhalation. Lying is not an occasional activity for this man; it is his atmosphere, the very substance of his respiration. It is as natural to him as breathing. This is a profound description of a character wholly given over to falsehood. Jesus said of the devil that "when he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies" (John 8:44). The man who breathes out lies is a son of his father, the devil.
And the result of this constant exhalation of lies is that he "is deceitful." The word for deceit here means fraud, treachery, and disillusionment. He doesn't just speak lies; he embodies deception. He is a walking fraud. His entire persona is a trap. He promises life, liberty, and happiness, but he delivers only death, bondage, and misery. Think of the serpent in the garden. He breathed out lies to Eve. "Did God really say? ... You will not surely die." And in so doing, he did not deliver souls; he damned them. He was deceitful, and through his treachery, death entered the world.
This man is the opposite of the life-giver. He is a soul-destroyer. In court, his false testimony sends the innocent man to his death. In business, his fraud bankrupts families. In the church, his false doctrine leads the flock astray into heresy and eternal peril. In the home, his constant deception shatters trust and destroys the covenant of marriage. He is a force of entropy, of chaos, of dissolution. Everything he touches unravels, because he is at war with the fundamental nature of reality, which is truth. He breathes out lies, and the world chokes on them.
The Ultimate Witness
This proverb, like all of Proverbs, finds its ultimate fulfillment and its deepest meaning in the person and work of Jesus Christ. He is the ultimate "truthful witness." In the book of Revelation, He is called "the faithful and true witness" (Revelation 3:14). He came into the world to bear witness to the truth (John 18:37). And what is the result of His testimony? He "delivers souls."
His truthful witness does this in two ways. First, His witness against us delivers us from the lie of our own self-righteousness. He speaks the truth of the law, showing us that we are sinners, guilty before a holy God, and deserving of death. This is a painful deliverance, but a necessary one. He delivers us from the fatal deceit that we can save ourselves.
But second, and gloriously, He bears truthful witness to the grace of God. He testifies that God the Father sent Him, His only Son, to die for liars and soul-destroyers like us. He testifies that His blood cleanses from all sin. He testifies that His resurrection has conquered death. He testifies that all who abandon their own deceitful ways and trust in Him will be delivered. He delivers our souls not just from a temporal executioner, but from the eternal executioner. He delivers our souls from Hell. He is the truthful witness who, by His testimony on the cross, delivers the souls of all who believe.
The great contrast, then, is between Christ, the True Witness, and Satan, the one who breathes out lies. Every human being aligns himself with one or the other. There is no neutrality. When you speak the truth, especially the truth of the gospel, you are participating in the soul-delivering work of Christ. When you speak lies, when you flatter, when you slander, when you bear false witness, when you go along with the fashionable lies of our culture, you are participating in the soul-destroying work of the devil. You are breathing his air.
Conclusion: Your Words, Your World
So the application comes down to this. What are you breathing out? What is the atmosphere you create with your words? Do your words align with reality as God has defined it, or are they a constant effort to create a new reality of your own making? Are you a builder or a demolitions expert?
In your home, are you a truthful witness who delivers the souls of your spouse and children, creating a place of security and trust? Or do you breathe out the lies of anger, manipulation, and broken promises, creating a toxic environment of deceit?
In the church, are you a truthful witness, speaking the truth in love, building up the body? Or do you breathe out the lies of gossip and slander, tearing down the saints and sowing discord?
In the world, are you a truthful witness to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, delivering souls from darkness by proclaiming the gospel? Or are you a coward, who by your silence, becomes complicit in the deceitful lies of the age?
Our words have weight. They have consequences. They deliver or they destroy. The call of this proverb is a call to repentance for every careless word, every malicious lie, every cowardly silence. It is a call to turn from the father of lies, who breathes out only death, and to turn to the Faithful and True Witness, Jesus Christ. Let His truth fill your lungs, so that when you speak, you exhale not deceit, but the very words of life. For by the truth, and the truth alone, are souls delivered.