Let another praise you, and not your own mouth—a stranger, and not your own lips.Let another man praise you, and not your own mouth; a stranger, and not your own lips.Let another man praise thee, and not thine own mouth; a stranger, and not thine own lips.Let another man praise thee, and not thine own mouth; A stranger, and not thine own lips.
3 sermons cite this verse
… Please. Solomon writes, let another man praise you and not your own mouth, a stranger and not your own lips. Peter was to learn that. Jesus knew it. So the lesson, let's all write it down. In solitude, he prayed and gained the right perspective. In solitude, he prayed and gained the right perspective. Cut solitude and silence out of your life and you're a goner. I say to the young men and women at the seminary, Dallas Seminary, when I have the opportunity to speak in their chapel, the ones I'm most concerned about who fill this chapel today are you who are most gifted, who can just handle the text with ease, who have this splendid, winsome personality, I get scared for you. I get nervous. How important accountability is. And Jesus is accountable to his Father, and they've just talked it over. No doubt the Father whispered, move on, son, move on. So he says, let us go somewhere else to the towns nearby so that I may preach there also, for that is what I came for. …
… let it be somebody else. Don't let the praise come from yourself. Solomon said it this way in Proverbs 27 verse 2, let another praise you and not your own mouth, a stranger and not your own lips. One reason we have such a hard time with this is we are absolutely convinced sometimes that if we don't let other people know about our accomplishments, then they'll go unnoticed. If somebody's going to tell about our accomplishments, it's going to have to be us. And yet the Bible says everyone who tries to self-promote is guaranteeing a future humiliation. Now, one day Jesus was invited to a dinner party. And when he went to this dinner party, he noticed an interesting social phenomenon. People who were coming in to the dinner party, some of the guests were coming down to the front and placing themselves in the seat of honor only to have somebody tap them on the shoulder and make them go to the back seats. What humiliation. Let me paint the picture for you this way. …
… The Scripture says, Let another praise you and not your own mouth, a stranger and not your own lips. Now, we said criticism, for example, we don't like that too much. Praise, we like that a little better. And yet I want us to think about the two of these. Because you see, criticism is the most, shall we say, the most difficult to accept, but it's the most profitable of the two. Whereas praise is the one that we love to hear the most of, but oftentimes can be destructive. That is, if we do not handle praise correctly, it can destroy us. If we do not handle criticism correctly, it too can destroy us. And so it's very important we know how to handle both of them. And of the two, the most destructive probably could be praise, because when a person becomes so self-centered, so self-interested, and so prideful, arrogant, and self-sufficient, what happens is they are just absolutely headed for destruction because he says pride comes before the fall. And therefore, we have to be careful how we're going to handle the praise in our life. Now, when I think about both of those, I think about how Satan responds. For example, Satan will take advantage of both of those in our life. When someone criticizes you and Satan will say, see there, you don't fit. You're not worth it. You don't measure up. You can't cut it, which is a very demeaning thing from him. On the other hand, someone comes along and praises you. …