Confusion does not always result directly from personal sin, but sin surely causes a great deal of confusion. In today’s passage, we find Daniel making this point as he contrasted God and man. Daniel pointed out that righteousness belonged to the Lord and confusion belonged to the people. Why? Simply because God’s people chose to sin against the Lord. Sin blurs and transforms an otherwise clear and indisputable reality into corruption and vagaries. Committing sin blurs the broad chasm between sin and righteousness. This blurring makes it more difficult for a child of God to discern the perfect will of God. Therefore, only those believers who eschew evil can and will experience clarity of mind. Those who embrace evil reap uncertainty.
Our words should never be used by the Devil as weapons to destroy or discourage others. Any problem with our words reveals a problem with our heart: “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh” (Matthew 12:34). The mouth can exhibit good or bad and our actions reveal the heart of the problem when the Bible says, “out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies” (Matthew 15:19). This is why our words are not always profitable to those who hear them. Yet, God admonishes us to “let no corrupt communication proceed out of” our mouth. Believers are instead encouraged to make sure their words are “good to the use of edifying.” The saint of God should speak words that God can use to build up other saints in the faith.
