Introduction:
A. Today, we are continuing in our series called: “Speak Life – Speaking Words that Heal, not Hurt.”
1. The Bible tells us that words have the power of life and death.
2. God’s desire is for all of us to learn how to control our tongues so that our words bring life.
3. So far in our series, we explored: The truth about lying, the malignant talk of gossip and slander, and the ego talk of boasting, flattery and exaggeration.
4. Today, we want to explore what I am calling “corrosive talk” which has to do with speaking words of complaining and criticizing.
B. I like the story of the man who decided to join a monastery and one of the rules of this particular monastic group was that you were only allowed to speak two words at the end of every ten years.
1. At the end of his first ten years he said, “Food Bad!”
2. At the end of his second ten years he said, “Bed Hard!”
3. Finally, on his 30th anniversary at the monastery he said, “I quit!”
4. The monk in charge responded, “It doesn’t surprise me a bit. You’ve done nothing but complain ever since you got here.”
5. I’m just wondering if that is an apt description of any of us – that we’ve done nothing but complain ever since we got here!
C. When it comes to many of us, we are very careful to tell the truth, and not to gossip or slander, or not to swear or use God’s name in vain, but we pay little attention to the corrosive words of complaining and criticizing that so easy flows from our mouths.
1. I have chosen to call complaining and criticizing “corrosive words” because we all understand the way acid works.
2. Different kinds of acids work in different ways, but they basically have a way of burning or eating through whatever they touch.
3. That’s what “corrosive words” do to whatever they touch – corrosive words destroy our spiritual life and our relationships.
D. If any of us want a formula to destroy our relationship with God and with others, or a formula to destroy our life in general, then here it is: give yourself over to complaining and criticizing.
1. All we have to do is give ourselves to complaining about everything…and I mean everything.
a. Complain about the weather, the government, the election, and the economy.
b. Complain about your job, your boss, your co-workers, and your income.
c. Complain about your physical features, whether you have too much or too little here or there, whether it be hair, or cheek bones, or love handles and sagging.
d. Complain about your family, your parents, siblings, spouse or children.
e. Complain about how people drive, or the way they don’t discipline their kids, etc, etc.
f. Isn’t it amazing how many things we can find to complain about?
g. Just imagine how that kind of complaining is going to bless that person’s life, and their relationship with God and with others!
h. Not a pretty picture, is it?
2. If that’s not enough, let’s add to complaining a constant stream of criticizing.
a. Stop chewing your gum that way!
b. Don’t leave your hair in the sink, clean up after yourself!
c. Don’t slam the door when you go outside!
d. Quit leaving me with an empty gas tank!
e. Stop forgetting your homework at school! Don’t you have a brain?
f. Sit up straighter…stop talking and listen for once…do you think I am just talking to hear myself talk? Answer me!
g. Again, not a pretty picture!
E. To be honest about it, I think we would all admit that we have done our fair share of complaining and criticizing.
1. This kind of corrosive speech has a variety of roots.
2. It can come from our anger that builds up inside of us and needs an outlet.
3. It can come from our irritation that can be produced by many things going on around us.
4. It can come from our disappointment when things don’t go as expected, or people don’t treat us as we hoped.
5. It can come from impatience with others and with ourselves.
6. It can come from general stress that can come as a combination of a number of things we already mentioned.
7. It can even come from our own guilt and insecurity as we are disappointed with our own behavior or choices, or we question our own ability to make something good of our lives.
8. So there are many reasons and roots to explain why we might be prone to corrosive talk.
I. What the Bible Says about Complaining and Criticizing
A. So, what does the Bible say about the corrosive speech of complaining and criticizing?
1. The Bible is clear that this kind of talk is not to be coming from the mouths of God’s people.
2. Phil. 2:14-15 says: Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe.
3. The idea of being overly critical or to be one who criticizes is expressed in the Biblical ideas of strife, discord and nagging.
4. Although Solomon, focused on the quarrelsome person being a wife, we all know that the quarrelsome one could just as easily be the husband.
a. Better to live on a corner of the roof than share a house with a quarrelsome wife. (Pr. 21:9)
b. Better to live in a desert than with a quarrelsome and ill-tempered wife. (Pr. 21:19)
c. A quarrelsome wife is like a constant dripping on a rainy day…(Pr. 27:15)
d. Paul tells us that the elder must “not given to drunkenness, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money.” (1 Tim. 3:3)
e. Solomon says: As charcoal to embers and as wood to fire, so is a quarrelsome man for kindling strife. (Pr. 26:21)
f. I really like this one: Drive out the mocker, and out goes strife; quarrels and insults are ended. (Pr. 22:10)
B. Nowhere in Scripture is complaining and criticizing more graphically depicted than in the case of the Children of Israel.
1. In the end, those Jewish adults who came out of Egypt were denied entrance into the Promised Land because of their complaining and criticizing which was evidence of faithlessness.
2. We could look at numerous examples of their complaining and criticizing, but for our purposes today, let’s look at one from Numbers 13 & 14.
a. You will remember, when the people of Israel were poised on the edge of the Promised Land the first time, 12 spies were sent to explore the territory and return with a report.
b. 10 of the 12 spies reported, “We can’t attack those people; they are stronger than we are.” And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, “The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size…We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.” (Num. 13:32-33)
c. However, Joshua and Caleb, while affirming the details of the account, maintained that God was able to give His people the Promised Land.
C. The whole story of Numbers 13 and 14 are a perfect example of the destructiveness of complaining and criticizing.
1. Let’s notice what complaining and criticizing leads to.
2. First, complaining and criticizing ignores God’s potential.
a. The report of the 10 spies was given from a godless perspective.
b. Surely if God had brought them through the plagues of Egypt, and had opened the sea to save them and had provided water from the rock when they were thirsty, then surely God could deal with the giants in the land.
c. We ignore God’s potential because we forget what He has already done, and we forget that He keeps His promises.
2. Second, complaining and criticizing leads to wrong conclusions and bad judgments.
a. The grumbling Israelites said: “Why is the LORD bringing us to this land only to let us fall by the sword? Our wives and children will be taken as plunder. Wouldn't it be better for us to go back to Egypt?” And they said to each other, “We should choose a leader and go back to Egypt.” (Num. 14:3-4)
b. Their conclusions about God’s intentions could not be further from the truth.
c. But when our godless grumbling gets rolling, wrong conclusions and judgments are easy to accept.
3. Third, complaining and criticizing leads to self-pity.
a. The Israelites declared: “If only we had died in Egypt! Or in this desert!” (Num. 14:2)
b. Those given to complaining and criticizing often feel very sorry for themselves and they nurse those feelings of self-pity and mistreatment.
4. Fourth, complaining and criticizing leads to fear.
a. Twice in the story, Joshua and Caleb exhorted the people not to fear.
b. When we find ourselves in difficult circumstances, like the Israelites did, we realize that the odds may be against us, and the situation is beyond our control.
c. If we forget about our God, then we will feel threatened and insecure.
d. The more we complain and criticize the more afraid we will become.
5. Fifth, complaining and criticizing breeds rebellion.
a. Joshua and Caleb urged the murmuring Israelites not to “rebel against the Lord.”
b. The Israelites were ready to elect new leaders and to stone those who opposed their rebellious plans.
6. Finally, complaining and criticizing results in God’s judgment.
a. God’s judgment on the Israelites was swift and final.
b. Their complaining and criticizing defamed God’s presence, power, and glory, and so God had to punish His people when they behaved this way.
c. So not only did those Israelites experience God’s judgment, they also missed out on God’s blessings – not one of them would get to enter the Promised Land.
7. The example of the Israelites is one that we want to learn from and to avoid.
II. How to Stop Complaining and Criticizing
A. So, how can we keep our hearts from developing a complaining and critical spirit, so that our tongues will not spew corrosive words?
1. I want to offer several practical suggestions.
B. First, I would suggest that we need to Be Realistic
1. I like the story of the old man who limped into the doctor's office and said, “Doctor, my knee hurts so bad, I can hardly walk!”
a. The doctor slowly eyed him from head to toe, and then said, “Sir, how old are you?”
b. “I’m 98,” the old man announced proudly.
c. The doctor just sighed, and said, “Sir, you are almost one hundred years old, and you're complaining that your knee hurts? Well, what did you expect?”
d. The old man said, “Well, my other knee is 98 years old too, and it doesn’t hurt!”
2. Because we live in an imperfect world with imperfect people, then we need to expect that things and people are not going to be the way we might like them to be.
a. Realistically speaking, there are always going to be opportunities to complain and criticize.
b. Satan, our enemy, will make sure we have plenty of things to find fault with.
3. Therefore, we need to make sure our expectations are in line with what is realistic.
a. What I am trying to say is: often we must lower our expectations.
b. Sometimes we set ourselves up for complaining and criticizing because our expectations are too high.
c. If we expect that we are always going to get what we want when we want it, then we have set ourselves up for serious disappointment.
d. If we expect that people are always going to do the right thing and do what is best for us, then we are in for a rude awakening.
e. If we expect that life is going to be easy and without challenges and difficulties, then we are going to really struggle when it doesn’t go that way, and that struggle will be intensified by our unrealistic expectations.
4. The truth of the matter is that life is often unfair and difficult and that many of us either have been or will be dealt a difficult hand, so to speak.
a. In the real world we live in, some people we trusted do us wrong, some spouses don’t keep their vows, life threatening diseases strike, and loved ones die unexpectedly.
5. When things like these happen, we may feel that we have every reason to complain and criticize, but we must not.
a. As difficult as it may be, we must bite our tongue and allow God to calm our spirit.
b. We know how bad things got for Jesus, and yet he controlled his tongue – Isaiah 53:7 says, “He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.”
6. The ability to control our tongues in those circumstances begins by being realistic in our expectations.
C. Second, I would suggest that we need to Be Grateful.
1. The main cause of complaining and criticizing is a focusing on the negative.
a. Instead of thanking God for what we do have, we complain about what we don’t have.
b. Instead of focusing on how far we have come in life and all that God has done for us, we focus on how far we still have to go.
c. Although we might not be where we want to be right now, we can thank God that we aren’t where we once were.
d. Although we might not have the best job in the world right now, we can thank God that we are employed at all.
2. Just as we can always find something to complain about or be critical of, so can we always find something for which to be grateful.
a. So rather than complaining about having to mow the lawn, we can be thankful we are healthy enough to mow the lawn.
b. Rather than complaining about having to fix the car, we can be thankful we have a car to fix, and for how often the car has gotten us to where we needed to go.
3. 1 Thessalonians 5:18 says: “Give thanks in all circumstances for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus.”
a. We need to realize that the thanklessness that comes out in complaining and criticizing is not ultimately a response to circumstances, but an accusation against God.
b. We may think we are just complaining and criticizing our situation or the people around us, but in reality we are judging God who has allowed us to be right where we are.
4. Ultimately, a heart of gratitude and thankfulness isn’t dependent on our bank statement, a doctor’s diagnosis, or the praise we receive for a job well done.
a. Rather, a heart of gratitude and thankfulness comes from a heart that loves God and recognizes all of the blessings of God.
b. Spiritual amnesia – the forgetting of God’s presence, deliverance, and provision – is a deadly disease that leads to corrosive speech.
c. But the antidote for this deadly disease is to remember – to learn to count our blessings and to be grateful.
D. Third, I would suggest that we need to Be Forward-Looking.
1. What I mean by this is that rather than speaking words of complaint and criticism, we need to speak with positive expectation.
2. Although things are not the way we would like them to be, we trust that God can change that in the future, or God will enable us to endure the situation.
a. So as we bring our concerns and even our complaints directly to God, we do so while expressing our belief that God knows and cares and will do what is best for us.
3. Although someone might not have done what they should have done, rather than tearing them down with criticism, we can build them up by explaining how they need to do better, and by expressing that we believe they can do better next time.
a. That’s looking forward with positive expectation.
E. Finally, I would suggest that we need to Be Different.
1. The easiest thing in the world is to complain and criticize, but God calls us to be different.
a. God wants us to do everything without complaining and arguing so that we will stand out from others.
b. When we don’t complain and criticize like others, then people take notice that there is something different about us.
c. By not complaining and criticizing we can be like a light shining in the universe.
2. Let’s make it our goal to be different by not complaining and being so critical with our words.
a. Let’s start each day with a goal of going the whole day without complaining or criticizing.
3. John Wesley was a great English preacher of the 1700’s and he was considered a rather spiffy dresser.
a. One Sunday morning he wore a bow tie that had long ribbons that hung downward.
b. After the sermon was over a lady walked up to him and said, “Brother Wesley, are you open to some criticism?”
c. He said, “I guess so. What would you like to criticize?”
d. She said, “The ribbons on your tie are entirely too long and inappropriate for a man of God,” so the woman took out her scissors and cut off the ribbons on his bow tie.
e. A hush fell over the people standing there as Wesley calmly asked, “Now may I borrow the scissors for a moment?”
f. As she handed them to him, he said, “Ma’am, are you open to some criticism?”
g. She answered, “Well, I suppose I am.”
h. Wesley said, “All right then, please stick out your tongue.”
4. I’m not suggesting that we cut out our tongues, but if we want to be different and shine like stars in the universe, then we need to keep our tongue from corrosive talk by doing two additional things.
a. Think First – As I have said in most of these messages on the tongue – think before we speak – T.H.I.N.K – is it true, helpful, inspiring, necessary and kind?
b. Talk Less – the more we talk, the more likely we are to say something we shouldn’t.
1. So one of the important ways to control our tongue is to simply use it less.
Resources:
Resources: Tongue in Check, Joseph Stowell, Victor Publishing, 1994, Chapter Five.
