Hung by the Tongue
James 3:1-12
Start with video clip from “A Christmas Story”
There is no doubt that our tongue can get us in trouble.
Maybe not stuck to a flagpole... but our words have often gotten us into jams we could not get out of...RIGHT????
That is what James had in mind as he wrote the words found in the third chapter.
“Within the church today, we would be quick to avoid murder, stealing, committing adultery or drunkenness, but we assassinate fellow believers and leave destruction in our wake by the way we use our tongues.”
James has more to say about the tongue than any other book of the bible. Today we want to hear three things he has to say...
1. The tongue is very small but VERY POWERFUL
2. The tongue is very small but VERY DANGEROUS
3. The tongue is very small but VERY REVEALING
1. The tongue is very small but VERY POWERFUL!
The tongue is like dynamite... small but powerful and able to be used for good or for evil.
I love riding through the mountains and seeing the rock walls of the roads. Sometimes you will see long vertical lines about one foot apart. Those are the drill lines where they drilled down and inserted charges of dynamite. Used in just the right amounts at just the right place, the dynamite is useful to remove the rock in perfect harmony. However, if the workers had not had the training and skill to judge where and how much to use... they could have blown away the whole side of the mountain and destroyed the previous work.
In the same way.... words if used in just the right amount, timing, place and spirit can do a world of good. Conversely, when used incorrectly they can create a world of hurt and problems.
Is there a husband here who has not experienced this firsthand?
One of the greatest illustrations of the power of the tongue is one from Paul Harvey...
In 1899 four newspaper reporters from Denver, CO, set out to tear down the Great Wall of China. They almost succeeded. Literally.
The four met by chance one Saturday night, in a Denver railway depot. Al Stevens, Jack Tournay, John Lewis, Hal Wilshire. They represented the four Denver papers: the Times, the Post, the Republican, the Rocky Mountain News.
Each had been sent by his respective newspaper to dig up a story—any story—for the Sunday editions; so the reporters were in the railroad station, hoping to snag a visiting celebrity should one happen to arrive that evening by train.
None arrived that evening, by train or otherwise. The reporters started commiserating. For them, no news was bad news; all were facing empty-handed return trips to their city desks.
Al declared he was going to make up a story and hand it in. The other three laughed.
Someone suggested they all walk over to the Oxford Hotel and have a beer. They did.
Jack said he liked Al’s idea about faking a story. Why didn’t each of them fake a story and get off the hook?
John said Jack was thinking too small. Four half-baked fakes didn’t cut it. What they needed was one real whopper they could all use.
Another round of beers.
A phony domestic story would be too easy to check on, so they began discussing foreign angles that would be difficult to verify. And that is THE REST OF THE STORY.
China was distant enough, it was agreed. They would write about China.
John leaned forward, gesturing dramatically in the dim light of the barroom. Try this one on, he said: Group of American engineers, stopping over in Denver en route to China. The Chinese government is making plans to demolish the Great Wall; our engineers are bidding on the job.
Harold was skeptical. Why would the Chinese want to destroy the Great Wall of China?
John thought for a moment. They’re tearing down the ancient boundary to symbolize international good will, to welcome foreign trade! Another round of beers.
By 11:00 p.m. the four reporters had worked out the details of their preposterous story. After leaving the Oxford Bar, they would go over to the Windsor Hotel. They would sign four fictitious names to the hotel register. They would instruct the desk clerk to tell anyone why asked that four New Yorkers had arrived that evening, had been interviewed by reporters, had left early the next morning for California.
The Denver newspapers carried the story. All four of them. Front page. In fact, the Times headline that Sunday read: GREAT CHINESE WALL DOOMED! PEKING SEEKS WORLD TRADE!
Of course, the story was a phony, a ludicrous fabrication concocted by four capricious newsmen in a hotel bar.
But their story was taken seriously, was picked up and expanded by newspapers in the Eastern U.S. and then by newspapers abroad.
When the Chinese themselves learned that the Americans were sending a demolition crew to tear down their national monument, most were indignant; some were enraged!
Particularly incensed were the members of a secret society, a volatile group of Chinese patriots who were already wary of foreign intervention.
They, inspired by the story, exploded, rampaged against the foreign embassies in Peking, slaughtered hundreds of missionaries.
In two months, 12,000 troops from six countries joined forces, invaded China with the purpose of protecting their own countrymen.
The bloodshed which followed, sparked by a journalistic hoax invented in a barroom in Denver, became the white-hot international conflagration known to every high school history student . . . as the Boxer Rebellion.
Do you know the power in your tongue
to bless or curse, to build up or to tear down, to help or to hurt, to make things better or to make things worse, to soothe or to irritate?
We all know it... we just, sometimes, don’t consider it when we open our mouths.
James was amazed what a small thing it was and yet how much power it had.
He likened it to a bit, a rudder and a spark.
He said you can take a one pound bit and turn a 1000 pound horse.. 1/1000 the size.
I was in the fourth grade and riding my daddy’s horse, Champ. Champ was a true champion with a wall full of ribbons to prove it. He was fast as lightening and for a reason... he hated to lose. He absolutely refused to let another horse get in front of him. One day the men had been running Champ and he was all lathered up. He was excited and ready to go. They needed to cool him down before putting him up so I got to WALK him around the pasture. Well, my sister had this old nag of a horse... truly a nag... that dropped dead about a year later. She rode with me. We were walking very slowly all the way out to the other edge of the pasture. But my sister decided it was too slow and she was going to run. So, she took off running. Well, Champ took it as a personal challenge. He bolted. In the process I made a big mistake.... I dropped the reins. Now my sisters horse is ahead of us, Champ is running wide open, the reins are slapping around his head, and I am screaming. Champ thinks I want to go faster. I am holding on and screaming for dear life. My Daddy looks up and sees me coming. He sees the problem. He runs out in Champ’s way and waves his hands to stop him. There are two more problems. 1. we have been working for months to get all of the rocks out of the pasture but there is one left... this big. 2. There is a stack of brush this tall. Champ jumps over the brush and comes to a dead stop in front of Daddy. I go sailing over Champ’s head and land.... on my head.... right on that rock.
The ER doctor told my parents that there was no hope, I would die.
If I had just held onto that small piece of metal in his mouth, the bit... I could have controlled that beast.... But I lost control.
How many times have you lost control of your tongue.... and paid the price.
How many times have others had to pay the price?
It wasn’t the horse’s fault.... it was mine.
And it is not the fault of the tongue either. The tongue is a 2 ounce piece of muscle and tendons.
2. The tongue is very small but VERY DANGEROUS!
It is dangerous because IT CAN NOT BE TAMED!
James had been to circuses in his day. He talks about dancing bears, dogs that jump rope and elephants that balance on barrels.
I once saw a buffalo that could ride a skateboard.
Any animal is capable of being tamed and trained.
But James says NOT THE TONGUE.
Just when you think you have it tamed, BAM! It jumps up and bites you.
1. The tongue is very small but VERY POWERFUL
2. The tongue is very small but VERY DANGEROUS
AND
3. The tongue is very small but VERY REVEALING!
Someone wise once said, “The eyes are the window to the soul.”
I don’t completely understand that but I think I agree Someone named Bruce Barton, whom I don’t know but I do agree with him, said, “For good or evil, your conversation is your advertisement. Every time you open your mouth you let people look into your mind.
Or as the 70’s song said, What you see is what you get.”
When you hear wrath and bitterness and hate and bragging and profanity and vulgarity and bigotry and perversion coming from a mouth.... you have seen their soul, their true self, their deepest self.
They may claim to be holy and god-fearing... but the fruit does not lie.
James makes it clear...
Nothing has been found in nature that can compare to the double use of the tongue—to the blessing and cursing out of the same mouth.
1. A fountain cannot produce sweet and bitter water at the same time
2. A fig tree cannot produce olives
3. A vine cannot produce figs
4. The ocean cannot produce sweet water
You may think that you are passing the Christianity test too... BUT THE FRUIT DOES NOT LIE!
Jesus said in Matthew 15:18-20, “But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man ‘unclean.’ For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what make a man ‘unclean.’”
Jesus also said, “For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him. But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken. For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned” (Matthew 12:34-37).
Not only is the tongue so dangerous because it reveals our true self....
It reveals that Satan is at work in us.
James described the tongue as a fire, a ravenous destructive fire. Then he says “that it is set on fire by hell itself.”
James is saying...
A VILE, gossiping, lying, destructive tongue is the instrument of Satan himself, that kind of talk comes straight from the pit of hell.
So let’s review...
1. The tongue is very small but VERY POWERFUL
2. The tongue is very small but VERY DANGEROUS
3. The tongue is very small but VERY REVEALING
Bottom line.... If we want to become mature and complete in our faith, we must control our tongues.
Nothing seems to trip a believer more than a dangling tongue
INVITATION
PRAYER
O Lord, let the anointing of the Holy Spirit fall upon me, in Jesus’ name. O Lord, purge my tongue with your fire, in Jesus’ name. Lose my tongue from every bondage, Lord Jesus, forgive me for the wrong use of my tongue. In the name of Jesus, remove my tongue from under evil control. Father God, I promise that I will exercise control over my tongue from now on so that I will not commit spiritual murder with my mouth. By your help, the enemy will not master my spiritual life, in the name of Jesus. I refuse to follow any evil pattern, in Jesus’ name.
