Taming the tongue. Jas 3:1-12. WBC 26/10/03 pm
INTRODUCTION
The boneless tongue, so small and weak,
Can crush and kill. Declared the Greek.
The tongue destroys a greater hoard,
The Turk asserts, than does the sword.
A Persian proverb wisely saith,
A lengthy tongue-an early death;
Or sometimes takes this form instead,
Don’t let your tongue cut off your head.
The tongue can speak a word of speed,
The Chinese say, outstrips the steed;
While Arab sages this impart,
The tongue’s great storehouse is the heart.
From Hebrew wit this maxim sprung,
Though feet should slip, never let the tongue.
The sacred writer crowns the whole,
Who keeps his tongue doth keep his soul.
C.H Spurgeon
James is just SO practical. He wants his readers to be mature, complete, not lacking anything (1:4)
- wants them to be consistent
o this morning: consistency in faith & deeds (2;14f)
o tonight- with the tongue, and it’s use
That’s probably why he starts of with teachers and preachers
- greatest potential for inconsistency there!
o We say more than most!
Have to work at living it just like everybody else
Must be careful for For Mt 12:37 by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned."
So- listen: be humble and gracious. We all stumble in many ways
- be gracious to yourself and others.
- Illustr: I’m pretty strict on proof=reading and wastage. Made the biggest boo-boo this week. £100 of printing!
And then he goes on to show us the main way in which we stumble
- in fact- if you can be pure on this one, you’re as good as perfect
o it’s the biggest… most resilient fault of all of us
In fact- Jesus saw it as such.
- He was actually very gracious on ‘warm sins’ (without condoning) but came down like a ton of bricks on
o Two-facedness. Judgement. Pharisaical criticism
THE TONGUE- the master-key
In fact- the bible paints a picture of the power of the tongue
- it’s like the indicator, measuring stick, of man’s spiritual state
- the first sin after the fall was one of the tongue;
o gen 3;12 ‘She made me do it’
- things degenerate… sins spreads… to a point where God has to confuse the language of the people. Babel. Gen 11:9
- God’s judgement on the Jews of the 8C BC was to cart them off to Babylon (Babel) to where (Is 28)
"Through men of strange tongues
and through the lips of foreigners
I will speak to this people,
but even then they will not listen to me," says the Lord.
-the words//tongue they hear is an indicator of the state of their souls
- but the first act of the new creation… seen at Pentecost… is the redemption of the tongue. The new creation is revealed- and the first way in which it is shown is the tongue. Languages that unite not divide. Babel is reversed
Seriously!
- the tongue conveys the state of man’s soul. Daily and in the Bible
- It’s true - Mt 12:34 For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. 35
Illustr: me mending 50 year old radio with Humphrey, 1 month ago. If he dropped the screw once- he dropped it 15 times! Finally- ‘oh dear!’
- ‘don’t you ever feel like saying something stronger?’ Oh no- it’s not what goes into a person that makes him unclean- but what come out. It’s the overflow of the heart
You could have knocked me over with a feather! God spoke to me! ‘he’s right’
Of course- this is a common experience. When you are in the presence of God you want to put your hands over your mouth
- Is 6, Isaiah- ISA 6:4 At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke. ISA 6:5 "Woe to me!" I cried. "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty."
- Peter Lk 5:8 after the great catch of fish- ‘depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!’ (fishermen and their language!)
But note how the Lord encourages
- Peter Lk 5:10 ‘do not be a afraid. I’m going to use you to catch men!’
- Isaiah ISA 6:6 Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7 With it he touched my mouth and said, "See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for."
There’s the grace James talks about!
Don’t look now, Lord!
I don’t want you to see me
standing here with my big foot
crammed in my mouth.
Don’t worry, child.
If I didn’t love you just as much with your
foot in your mouth, I’d hardly ever get a chance to love you.
Susan Lenzkes in ’When the handwriting on the wall is in brown crayon’
And on my first point I want to talk positively about the tongue.
- I want you to see it’s potential like James does
o If you can master this you have mastered the rest
You’ll find great maturity and break-through in your life
o It is the master-key
- Illustr: sued to do stage-lighting. Lots of controls & switches for every light. In bygone days was a big task (rheostats & levers!). But there was/is always ONE switch that controls them all. You can’t fiddle with 32 levers at once- but find this master slider and you’ve sussed it!
Seriously- the tongue is like that.
Two warships with the largest full-load displacement in the world are the US Navy aircraft carriers. The USS Nimitz and Dwight D. Eisenhower weigh about 91,400 tons. They are 1,092 feet in length overall and have a speed well in excess of 30 knots with their nuclear-powered 280,000 horse power reactors. Their complement is 6,100 men and women. The total cost of the Eisenhower commissioned on October 18, 1977 exceeded $2 billion excluding the more than 90 plus aircraft carried. As immense as these two ships are they are both turned by one man at the helm controlling a rudder 1/1000th the size of the ship. A tiny rudder controls the course of these great ships.
From The Power of the Tongue by Time George on www.sermoncentral.com
The tongue is the rudder. Mastering it is key to spiritual growth
Alec Motyer in his commentary on James: “it is not that a person strong enough to control the tongue is therefore also strong enough for every other battle. It is much deeper and more important than that: it is rather that winning this battle is in itself winning all battles’
That puts it in a different perspective doesn’t it? Makes our mastering of it more urgent/important. Stops us looking elsewhere to affect the tongue
- tackle the tongue and the rest of you will change
- give it priority and you will grow into maturity
How do we do this?
- James told us how (1:19)- everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry
- Thomas Watson - God has given us two ears, but one tongue, to show that we should be swift to hear, but slow to speak. God has set a double fence before the tongue, the teeth and the lips, to teach us to be wary that we offend not with our tongue.
- Self- control…. And training it to be sued as Peter says
1 pet 3;110 For,
"Whoever would love life
and see good days
must keep his tongue from evil
and his lips from deceitful speech.
1PE 3:11 He must turn from evil and do good;
he must seek peace and pursue it.
1PE 3:12 For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous
and his ears are attentive to their prayer,
o but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil."
The benefits are multiple!
- God’s blessing! His eyes on you! Holiness is like a magnet to Him. The HS feeds on holiness and breeds holiness. More begets more!
- As Abraham Lincoln said "It’s better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt"
o People might think you wise!
o Aesop, the ancient storyteller, told this fable: Once upon a time, a donkey found a lion’s skin. He tried it on, strutted around, and frightened many animals. Soon a fox came along, and the donkey tried to scare him, too. But the fox, hearing the donkey’s voice, said, "If you want to terrify me, you’ll have to disguise your bray." Aesop’s moral: Clothes may disguise an ass, but his words will give him away. Talk About Tongues by Dan Cormie on www.sermoncentral.com
And just think of the benefits for others!
- truly- the tongue has great power to bless (and to curse)
o James says this himself
The words we say can become blessings and curses to US and others
THE TONGUE- a fire
It’s fascinating actually- the power of the tongue and words
- Illustr: Prof Winston’s programme on the brain. 2 identical twins (in nature and nurture)- made them different people by the end of the day
o Most powerful element in this ‘moulding’ was the words they heard!
Truly- the tongue is a fire.
- It’s an invasion… infiltration.. from the enemy in our bodies. A bazooka that doesn’t belong to the ‘new man’ but it’s in there
o That’s why most satanic attack on Christians comes from other Xians… or within.. ‘friendly fire’… because hell has a stronghold, and embassy, in our mouth!
Infiltrated the ranks.
- And a small word can do such damage- to others, and ourselves
On October 8, 1871, at about 8:30 in the evening, a lantern in Mrs. O’Leary’s was milking her cow and the cow kicked over the lantern and set a wisp of hay on fire which quickly spread from one building to another, across a field and into the nearby town. Within hours that one small flame destroyed the town of Chicago.
Words are the fuel this fire burns on. Stop the words and the fire goes out
- words of hurt, criticism, untruth, gossip, innuendo, impurity TO OTHERS
- words of lowness, self pity, criticism TO OURSELVES
Stop the words- and the fire goes out
How do you stop the fire spreading, burning
- ask for forgiveness- from God… the individual
That’s how you can master the master-key
THE TONGUE- a beast
But the battle will always rage on! Until we die
- Illustr: dad telling of an old man ‘free at last!’… aaaagh (as he dies)
In v7 it’s described as a beast. ‘restless evil’
- JB Philips: “always liable to break out”
- Untamed, half-tamed or poorly tamed beast accepting (for a time!) imposed restrictions and then suddenly turning savage
I guess this means- we don’t give up!
- this is where the grace and humility come in. Accepting self, one-another…. And never thinking you’ve arrived
- (or have the right to preach on this stuff!)
THE TONGUE- a spring
In closing- v9 onwards infer that when we see God we naturally want to praise and bless Him
- when we see God’s image… in people… we SHOULD naturally want to praise and bless, as well]
- That’s what the spring inside you, the Holy Spirit, wants to do
…. And it’s out of character with the spring to give salt water
- ‘this shouldn’t be’
So- in closing: let’s ask, pray, and seek God that He will allow our tongues to be a source… spring… of the Holy Spirit’s blessing for others.
Please, Lord- help that no unhelpful talk may come out of our mouths but only what is useful for building others up
- take my life and let it be. May the words of my mouth
