Blue Jean Theology Part 9
Tom Shrader works through James 3:1-12, focusing on the tongue as both a powerful tool and dangerous weapon. He explains that James is not prescribing salvation but describing characteristics visible in believers' lives. Using illustrations of horse bits and ship rudders, he shows how the tongue can direct life positively, but warns of its destructive potential through fire imagery. The tongue reveals what's truly inside a person, especially during trials.
“If you're a Christian, there is a difference in the way you live, and that difference is integrated throughout your entire areas of your life.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Blue Jean Theology (2011)
Recorded: 1996
Duration: 41 min
Themes: tongue, speech, words, character, testimony, influence, control, integrity, struggling with anger, workplace relationships, marriage communication, new believer, mentor, teacher, parent, young adult
Scripture: James 3:1-12, Psalm 32:8, Acts 20, Proverbs 18:21, Proverbs 25:18, Job
Theological Themes: sanctification, becoming holy, practical theology, christian living, biblical wisdom, spiritual maturity, assurance of salvation, justification
Full Transcript
We are working our way through the letter that James wrote to the twelve tribes who were scattered. He has gone out of his way to let us know that what he wants to deal with is very practical in nature. It is important for you to understand this, and if you don't understand it, you're going to end up in big trouble if you try to interpret or understand the book.
This is critical. James is not giving us a prescription for salvation. James is not saying, do this, do this, do this, do this, do this, and you will be saved. James is saying, if you are a Christian, if you are a believer, if you are saved, then you will see these characteristics in your life. Huge difference.
If I come to this book and I think I'm looking for a way that I can please God—we use that word salvation or saved or believer to be a Christian—if I think I'm coming to this book and I'm looking for, from James, a path upon which I can get and begin to move, and at the end of that I end up a Christian, if I look to this book as that kind of book, I'm in real trouble, real fast. My theology will be lousy and confused, it will be heretical, and ultimately, and this is the worst part, you will mess up a bunch of other people and you will end up in hell. I don't want that.
So, we don't want to go down that path. We want to go down this path. This path says, listen, this is a book that tells me that because I'm saved, these things are going to happen in my life. So, it's a very practical book.
A Distinctive Christian Life
He has made the point to us over and over and over again that if you are a Christian, there is a distinctive in the way you live your life. This is one of the issues that is pretty lost on our generation in our culture. If you're a Christian, there is a difference in the way you live. That difference is not isolated to church or to Sunday or to Wednesday night or Sunday school or youth programs or men's retreat.
That difference is integrated throughout your entire areas of your life, so that your Christian faith begins to affect how you deal with your spouse if you're married, how you approach dating if you're single, how you approach the workplace as an employee or employer, what kind of a student you are in terms of the way you react and behave, what kind of friend are you. All of these things are directly impacted by your Christian faith.
The Challenge of the Tongue
Now James comes to an issue that this is a tough one. This is a tough one for most people, but that's a cop-out as I approach it. This is a tough one for me. James provides us here, in James chapter 3, verses 1 through 12, the most concentrated discussion on the issue of the tongue that we see anywhere in Scripture. He's already mentioned it before in the phrase where he said, if you say, then you do. But now he turns and he focuses really like a laser beam on this issue of the tongue.
It's interesting to me that he begins with the person who's doing the most talking, that's the teacher. He said, let not many of you become teachers, my brethren. By the way, a couple of times today, you'll see that little term, that little phrase, my brethren. He's coming on them and he's coming on them heavy, and even though he's coming at them heavily, and even though he's being very critical of them, it's not criticism without basis, and it's criticism that's designed to produce change. He's coming at them because he loves them.
He's saying, because you are my brother, because you are my sister, because we're in this intimate relationship, because of that, I want you to know, many of you should not be teachers because they will incur a stricter judgment. He begins with the person at the front. He begins with the one who's doing the most talking.
The Universal Problem
It is clear as we work our way through this, that James is speaking primarily about the issue of controlling the tongue. But I want to come back, we'll go ahead and read these twelve verses. I want to come back then and try to show you that at least, I think, for the teacher, there are other issues as well.
So, let's go ahead, work our way through it. Here we are. Not many of you become teachers knowing you'll receive a stricter judgment, for we all stumble, it's the plural personal pronoun, it's not just me, it's not just you, it's all of us, stumble in many ways. If one does not stumble in what he says, he's a perfect man. That does not mean without flaws, that means mature. Able to bridle his tongue as well.
Now, if we put bits into the horse's mouth so that they will obey us, we direct their entire body. Behold the ship, and he begins to give us some illustrations, real practical illustrations. Behold the ships also, though they are great and driven by strong winds, they're still directed by a very small rudder, wherever the inclination of the pilot desires.
The Power of Small Things
So, also the tongue is a very small part of the body, and yet it boasts of great things. Behold how great a forest is set aflame by such a small flame. Now, the tongue is afire, the very world of iniquity. The tongue is set among our members as that which defiles the entire body and sets on fire the course of our lives and is set on fire by hell.
For every species of beasts and birds and reptiles and creatures of the sea is tamed and has been tamed by the human race, but no one can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil full of deadly poison. With it, we bless our Lord and Father, and with it, we curse men who have been made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come both blessing and cursing. My brethren,
I love you, man. I know this is tough, but I love you. That's why I'm dealing with this. "My brethren, these things ought not be this way."
And then as He closes, He's trying to make the point that this is an outflow of an inward condition. "Does a fountain send out of the same opening both fresh and bitter water?" And then He asks rhetorically, "Can a fig tree, my brethren, produce olives? Or a vine produce figs? Neither can salt water produce fresh." So that's His discussion on this issue of the tongue.
The Stricter Judgment for Teachers
Again, He starts up at the front. I want to make just one point about teachers that might be beyond this normal scope. As you read through this, when you read those 12 verses, you get very clearly, I think, and very quickly, at least the majority, really, of what James has to say. This is a serious issue, this tongue. And it's a problem for most people, if not everyone.
But He begins at the beginning with the teacher, the one doing the most talking. And He said, this person incurs a stricter judgment. Let me tell you, I think He speaks here in two areas. One, in the context of just the overall issue. In other words, there's the issue in the life of the teacher that their tongue, outside of teaching, is under control. Because they're in that position, because they're there.
Someone took me to a Suns game a couple of weeks ago. And I've had four different people say, "I was watching you during the Suns game, and you did..." And I thought, gosh, what an awful way to live. Because I kind of just thought I was sitting there. And what I've learned is, for whatever reason, if you're up front, you're going to be held to a stricter judgment. When people look at you differently, they have higher expectations of you. Unfortunately for many teachers, they have higher expectations than the teachers have for themselves. And therein lies a big problem.
The Teacher's Responsibility to Speak Truth
The other issue, and I add now my own little parenthesis here, the other issue for the teacher is to speak the truth. At Paul's last contact, at least what He thinks will be His last contact, with the church at Ephesus, Paul, Luke records for us in Acts chapter 20, Paul meets with the elders at Ephesus. Ephesus was Paul's favorite church. These were His favorite group of elders. And He left behind His favorite person in the whole world, Timothy, to be its pastor.
Paul is saying goodbye to these guys for the very last time. And He says to them, "Beware, watch out, stay on your guard, for there will creep in among you false prophets, wolves in sheep's clothing. They will ravage the sheep, and they will spread discontent." And He leads into this discussion by saying, "When I was with you, I preached the whole gospel of God. I didn't edit it. I didn't just give you the good parts or the parts I thought you'd like, nor did I just give you the bad parts and talk about hell without talking about heaven. I did not edit God and who He is."
The Danger of Editing the Gospel
Men and women, you need to understand that in our day and age, we live at a time when many are inclined to edit the gospel. Here's how it's done. We present a truth, but only a portion of the truth. So we talk about God as a God of love. Love, love, love, love, love, love, love. So that now people are saying, "God's a God of love," and they get to the conclusion, "How could a God of love, if He really loved people, ever send anyone to hell? Or how could a God of love, if He's really a loving God, how could He ever deal with evil?"
Well, here's the problem. Is God a God of love? Not a trick question. I mean, it's just a, is God a God of love? Sure He is. But there are other aspects to God's life. If you talk about Tom Schrader and you say, "Here he is as a father, father, father, father, father, father," and all you talk about is father, you have an accurate view, perhaps, of His parenting skills, but a distorted view of His life, where He's also a husband and a teacher and a church member and an American and all of the other things, because they all come together to paint an entire picture of who I am. It's the same deal that we have to encounter as we come to this idea of the gospel. We cannot just present the good parts.
The Power of Clear Biblical Preaching
Here's the tension for me. Probably the greatest sermon ever preached in the history of this country was preached about 256 years ago by a guy by the name of Jonathan Edwards, and it's called "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." And a few years ago, I had a stack of these sermons, and I would pass them out to people. Somebody would be, we'd mention this, and they'd be intrigued by that. And I'd say, "Well, here's a copy of it. You ought to read it."
Almost without exception, they came back and said, "Man, is that really heavy? Oh, is that really tough to understand? That's really complicated." Here's what amuses me. Edwards is speaking to a culture that, by and large, didn't get through the sixth grade. Now, that's probably comparable to a PhD today, but nonetheless, they didn't get to a sixth grade. These are uneducated, by and large, foreign people, blacksmiths. These are people who may run a general store, uneducated people.
We take that very same sermon, and we give it to people today who are college graduates. I dare say, almost everyone in this room, I'm almost positive has graduated from high school. There are some who that was the end of formal education, and they're probably the ones that are the best off. And then there's a few who went to college, and then there's a few who graduated from college, and then there's even more who went on for master's and PhD and all this other stuff.
Our problem is not intellect. Our problem is our capacity to think, for Edwards comes in a very logical fashion. And our problem is we don't want to concentrate that long. If I can't get my theology down to a bumper sticker and a catchy, pithy little phrase, we don't have time for this.
Os Guinness says, as He looks at the church today in America, it's exactly where the church in England was 75 years ago. Here's
his analysis. Never have the churches been so full and the pulpits so empty. Charles Colson offers this insight: "Churches, preaching today often sounds like a Christian adaptation of secular me-ism instead of the convicting truth of the gospel. Seldom do we hear messages about repentance, cost of discipleship, sacrifice, Christian compassion, or losing one's life for Christ's sake."
Now, I come back and make this point to you: this is not church bashing. I have learned that there are enough problems in church without beating one another up or beating each other up. We aren't beating each other up here because we're talking about men and women who have walked away from the whole counsel of God, who basically said that to study the scripture is essentially irrelevant. They've got to give you a poem, three PowerPoints, and a verse to memorize to get out the door. They may have nothing to do with anything, but they'll start with some sort of a Bible verse just to get the thing moving down. After all, we're in a church. We have to watch out for that.
Let me give you a little tip. If you're in a church like that, or a denomination, number one, you cannot reform them, and number two, in all likelihood, you will not grow there. So get out to a church where this is taught.
The Responsibility of Teachers
Those of you, and there are many in this class, there are many in the other classes, and there are many who listen to the tape, who are teachers, leaders, elders, pastors, you need to understand, as I am very well aware of, we will be held to a stricter judgment. We will be judged not only for the way we behave, but for the way we handle this issue of the tongue.
So that aside, that was a parenthesis, we get to the meat of this. James begins this discussion by telling us, listen, we all stumble in a lot of ways. We're all in this boat together. If anybody does not stumble in what he says, in other words, if he's got control of the tongue, he's moving toward maturity.
The Magnitude of the Tongue's Power
Theodore Epps says, "Perhaps no subject is more important to believers to think about today than the use of a tongue." It's the power of the tongue, the importance of the tongue. Ben Franklin, from a secular perspective, said it this way: "A slip of the foot you may recover soon, but a slip of the tongue you may never get over."
So that this has all come together to cause some people to say, "Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, but small minds talk about people." This issue of the tongue is so big, I think, for most of us, if for no other reason than the occasion for sin. It's estimated that you in an average day speak about 30,000 words. That's similar to a small book. In the course of a lifetime, a library filled.
If in those 30,000 words there was only one thought or one word that was sinful, that would result in about 20,000 occasions for sin over the course of your lifetime. So you're coming with this face to face. You begin, I think, as you deal with the tongue, to understand this is the core or the representative of everything that's in you.
When God appears to Isaiah, and Isaiah says, "Holy, holy, holy, woe to me for I am undone," you know the next thing he says? "I am a man of unclean lips." So this issue is of paramount importance to us as we start to work our way through what does it mean to be a Christian in terms of practical behavior.
James's Three Illustrations
James gives us three illustrations. The first two are positive, and then he gives us a negative illustration.
Here's the first one. He said, "Now if we put a bit into a horse's mouth, that horse will obey us, and we can direct it." I'm not a horse guy. I've told the story before, and I will not tell it this morning, although it is an incredible story of life and death where I came close to losing my life riding a horse.
But I was an adult, and they took me to this ranch up in Montana, and they put me on a horse. It is the first time, and this will give you some idea of my background and my dealing with animals, it's the first time I ever saw a horse without a number. Anyway, they put me on this horse, and they put this bit into the horse's mouth, and in theory with this bit, I could make the horse go left, right, backwards, or forwards.
Here's this gigantic animal. I was watching one of my all-time favorite athletes, Secretariat. Secretariat is one of the great athletes that you'll ever see in the history of sports. So I watched that yesterday on a classic sports channel that just popped up. Yesterday, they did a half-hour special on Secretariat.
Most of you probably don't know much about Secretariat other than he won the Triple Crown and really did it by breaking, even though there was a confusion on the time clock at the Belmont, he did it by setting a time record at each race. Leading up to the Kentucky Derby, at the Wood Memorial, Secretariat ran an awful race. Yesterday, they had Ron Turcotte, the jockey, and he was saying that Secretariat had an abrasion, actually a boil on his lip, so that as they moved it, where Secretariat loved to run with his head up when you'd pull it, but to have his head up would irritate that boil, and Secretariat just ran an awful race.
The Lesson of Control
Well, that's how sensitive—here's this gigantic animal, this beautiful specimen, Secretariat, it gets no better. And yet, you can take this gigantic animal and you can control left or right. You can control him and direct him.
So here's what James is saying. Here's the first illustration. If I got control of the tongue, number one, I'm under control, and number two, I can begin to direct my life.
Here's a great verse: Psalm 32, verse 8: "I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you should go." And God says, "I will guide..."
I read this a billion times. I never saw this until yesterday. "I will guide you," God says, "I will guide you with my eyes." So here's what I'll do. I'm riding you like a horse, Tom, but I'm guiding you, but it's not you. It's not where you say, "I see where you need to go and I will guide you with my eyes." That's the first positive illustration He makes. Not only am I under control, but I also am sensitive and maturing to what God has for me and I'm sensitive to the places and the areas that He would have me go and He direct my life.
The Ship and Rudder Illustration
Here's the second illustration. It's again a very positive illustration. I think there's an element here that at least for me is interesting and I don't want to read too much into it, but I'm going to go for this anyway. It's very similar to the first illustration. Verse four: "Behold the ship, though they are so great and they're driven by strong winds, they're still directed by a small rudder that takes you wherever the pilot wants to go." It's virtually the same picture. Here's this gigantic ship, but there's this very small rudder that directs and guides the ship and that rudder is under the jurisdiction of the pilot.
You do not have to be a biblical scholar to begin to apply that to your life. Here you are, God controls the tongue and when He does, He directs your life. But there's one issue in here that I just want to make this point and then we'll go on. He said this ship is driven by strong winds. Obviously, they didn't have power motors then. But it seems to me also that it may be that that ship is out there in strong winds and those winds may have a tendency to blow it this way or move it this way or turn it around, but the pilot educated with the rudder can keep it on course.
The Tongue as a Revealer in Life's Storms
I would suggest to you that the tongue becomes an interesting revealer in the midst of those winds of life that tend to blow us to and fro. Circumstances beyond our control, the tongue becomes a great revealer of what's inside.
I'm about halfway through a biography on Stonewall Jackson. What an interesting little duck this guy is. But one of his things is he's a puritanical Calvinist. There's a situation where he's stuck during the Mexican War and he's stuck down there and he doesn't want to be there and there's nothing for him to do and it doesn't fit with where he'd want to be. He's writing home and all of a sudden his letters become very spiritual. God in His infinite wisdom would take care of him, was Jackson's view. God, His eternal Father, would look out for him. If the Lord attended him for garrison duty, so be it. Perhaps it was his way of curbing Jackson's excessive ambition.
By the way, this is really well written, I thought: "Some youths worry about excessive carnal desire, sloth, aimlessness. Lieutenant Jackson fretted as he would later in higher rank about his rampant ambition." This is a great sentence: "He kept it well hidden as others do lust throughout their life."
Testing Jackson's Faith Through Words
Well, he goes on. He's stuck in the middle of this place. He doesn't want to be there, but he's saying God's God and God's got me here for a reason. Now the test comes, or at least a test comes, a little bit later. His in-laws, his mother-in-law dies and their family begins to quiz Jackson. They love to kind of jerk him around.
They would ask him questions. What if he was blind? How would he feel about the love of God toward him? Jackson said, and I quote, "Such a misfortune would not make me doubt the love of God." Say he was put on a rack of interminable pain for his whole life. What then? Jackson said, and I quote, "I would endure it and thank God."
At times, the family could not restrain themselves. Jackson's belief brought out wonder and argument and teasing mischief in them. What if he had to accept grudging charity from those upon whom he had no claim? What if he were at the mercy of others over whom he had no control? Put him on a bed of pain, immobile, sentenced for a lifetime, at the mercy of eternal charity of others. What then, Jackson? He thought for a moment and he said, and I quote, "If it was God's will, I think I could be content for a hundred years."
Right after this, his wife becomes pregnant and then she dies and Jackson begins to deal with it face to face. Now, I will grant you at this moment, those are just words in Jackson's life, but they are a great revealer of what's inside.
Biblical Examples of the Tongue Under Trial
You've got biblical illustrations in the book of Job. Again, I use especially here with so many Scottsdale Bible people, because you have been Job abused and I do not want you to have to endure. I do not want you to have to go through this anymore. But you well know better than most that Job went through all sorts of "curse God and die," "what sin have you done," and Job said, "I will not blame God. I will not sin against God with my tongue." So at the end, he says "now, before I had heard about you, now that I've seen you," and never in the midst of this does he curse God, but he confesses his strength in the midst of that.
A Contemporary Example: Larry Wright
I saw it in Larry Wright's life. Larry, in the midst of all... By the way, some of you occasionally ask how Larry's doing. I think physically he's the best—this is his own evaluation—the best he's been in years. He got some vitamins or something that he's taken and Larry's taken everything and just kind of refused it. But Sue was taken and felt better and Larry just feels great. So "great" is a relative term. He feels like not that bad.
But he had been through all this and all of a sudden he had the cancer diagnosis. I remember somebody said to him, "Larry, don't you think you've suffered enough?" Which I thought was a stupid thing to say. Then Larry said, "Apparently not." He went in for the surgery and they did the radical. When I went in to see him, he was just coming out of the anesthesia. So it's at that moment when you're not coherent enough, I don't think, to think up excuses or clever sayings. It's that moment that reveals what's really inside. I said, "How are
You doing? And his first words to me were, "God's grace is sufficient." I'm saying to you, that tongue, and I believe this is part of what James has in mind. That tongue in the midst of being blown all over the place in life, that tongue reveals what's really there.
Now that's all the positive illustration. Here's the negative. Now he deals with fire. He deals with this principle that a little flame starts a big fire. We've got evidence of that. We've seen that in our own society. 1871, the great Chicago fire, 17,540 buildings were destroyed. 300 people were killed and 90,000 people were left homeless as this little lantern begins this gigantic fire.
Four Characteristics of the Destructive Tongue
So he begins to speak negatively, James. Here's what the tongue can do on the negative sense, and he gives us four characteristics. Here's the first one right here in verse five. It is incredibly, or can be, has the potential to be enormously destructive.
"See also the tongue is a very small part of the body, yet it boasts great things. How great a fire, a forest, to set aflame by such a small fire. And the tongue is a fire, the very world of iniquity, the tongue is set among our members as that which defiles the entire body and sets on fire the courses of our lives and is set on fire by hell."
Here's the first characteristic of a tongue out of control, and that is it is enormously destructive. It can be very good. I can have fire that's used for warmth and cooking and manufacturing and power and all that, but when it is out of control, it's destructive, and the same is the case of the tongue. Proverbs 18:21, "life and death are in the power of the tongue." Here's a great proverb for you. 25:18, "telling lies about someone is as harmful as hitting him with an ax or wounding him with a sword or shooting him with a sharp arrow."
The Enormously Destructive Power
Enormously destructive powers in the tongue. As I would never think of murdering you or hitting you or stabbing you, I may indeed just cut you to ribbons with my tongue. One of the things that is interesting to me is how as Christians we institutionalize sin. If you're a homosexual, you've got no chance in the body of Christ. They're going to kill you. And I don't mean that physically. I mean, it used to be divorce, and now it's that. If you're divorced, they're just going to put you on the shelf and that's the way life is because that is an awful sin.
Adultery? Well, that's bad, but we can understand a little bit of that. And then we have these sins that we sanction, like gluttony. So somebody says, "Hey, I'm just really struggling with my weight." They say, "Come on over here and have a donut and talk about it. Everybody struggles with their weight, see?" Well, no, that's sin. I struggle with my weight. All that is a huge deal for me, and I fight it and fight it and fight it. And one of the problems for me is, I understand it's a spiritual issue. It's a spiritual problem for me. That's physiological. It's spiritual. But if I go to somebody and I say, "I'm really struggling with my weight," I get zero compassion. There's nobody that wants to deal with that sin.
Here's another one like that. It's the tongue. Phrases that start by, "I know it's wrong and I know I shouldn't really say anything, but," and then we just bury whoever comes next. "I wouldn't tell you this, except I know you'd want to know and to be praying about it." And we rip them.
I came across, I was going through some old notes the other day. I came across a great old J. Vernon McGee quote. McGee's quote was, you've got the rest of the world and you don't expect much, but from the Christians, you have some expectation. But in this area of the tongue, he said, they seem to not understand the problem there. Here's his quote: "I think the church is more harmed by the termites within than the woodpeckers on the outside." That's exactly right. It's incredibly destructive. And almost never does anything good come out of this.
The Deceptive Nature of the Tongue
Here's the second thing. Not only is it destructive, it's deceptive. He said, "Every species of beasts and birds and reptiles and creatures of the sea have been tamed. But you can't, by the human race, you can't tame the tongue." I mean, we can get this whale to jump up and flip around. And I saw some show the other night, and I was trying to remember what it was, but this gal had trained either a spider or a cricket or something like that. And they were using them in movies. And I thought of this verse. I mean, we can train all this stuff, but you think you can control the tongue? If you think you can control the tongue, you're kidding yourself.
One of my favorite Twilight Zones were these two guys were sitting there and they were drinking one night. They were in a men's deal, kind of the old men's reading room, chess playing, smoking cigars, sniffing brandy, and having a great time, the way life was meant to be probably in that day and age. And that's why they call it the good old days. And the one guy said to the other guy, "I'll bet you you cannot go a year without talking. I'll bet you a million dollars." Remember the Twilight Zone? And the guy said, "That's fine. I'll take the bet." He needed the money. He needed the million. He said, "I can go a year without talking."
So they put him in the center of this men's club and he sat in this cage-like environment where people could observe him to indeed make sure he didn't speak. At the end of the year, the clock is ticking, ding, and it's over. And the guy said, "Hey, listen, I appreciate you're in there a year and I appreciate that you didn't talk, but I don't have a million dollars. I can't pay you." And this guy gets all excited. And if you remember, he had surgically removed his voice box because he wanted that million bucks because he knew there was no way he could go a year without speaking. You may think you can control this tongue.
Only a regenerated tongue in a redeemed body can be used by God. You must be born again, and that includes your tongue. Chuck Swindoll says that the last part of the human body to be sanctified is the right foot, meaning our driving. I would suggest to you the last part to be sanctified and the great revealer of what's inside is the tongue.
It is destructive. It is deceptive. Here it is: it is deadly, verse eight. No one can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil. It is filled with poison. Let me give it to you again. Proverbs 18:21: "Life and death is in the power of the tongue."
Here's the great test for you. It's not what you say when those who are in authority over you are around. Your great test is how do you handle your tongue when you are with those over whom you have control or authority? How are you with your kids? How do you speak to your kids? Is there an air of respect and reverence for those kids as you deal with them? We can be deadly with this. We will tear these kids apart with our tongue.
I came across this note: "I don't care how influential or secure or mature a person may appear, genuine encouragement never fails to help. Most of us need massive doses of it as we slug it out in the trenches." It's the flip side of yes, it is deadly, but encouragement can uplift and bring me to great heights very quickly.
The Tongue Reveals Hypocrisy
Here's the fourth thing. It is destructive and it is deceptive. It is deadly. And the last thing: it is hypocritical. "With it we bless our Lord and at the same time we curse men." We sing the praises of God. We read the Scriptures. We pray, and then we get in the car and we're not even out of the parking lot and we're having roast pastor for lunch. We're ripping the elder board for not having vision.
It's a great revealer. That is the revealer of your heart. It's not that he makes you so mad—he doesn't. All he is, is just being used by God to reveal all of the junk that is in there.
Here's what He says: "Does a fountain send out of the same opening fresh and bitter water? Is it possible that a fig tree can produce olives? No. Or a vine produce figs? No. Neither can salt water produce fresh." Here's what He's saying to you: If indeed you haven't grasped it by now, He's saying, listen, if you say you're a Christian, one of the ways it's going to manifest itself is your life is going to be different and your tongue will be under control.
You will not be stealing someone's credibility with your tongue, or murdering them with your tongue, or disrespecting your parents with your tongue, or lying against your friends and neighbors with your tongue, or coveting your friends' goods and possessions with your tongue, or cursing and blaspheming God with your tongue. But your tongue will reveal what is inside, and with it you have this enormous capacity to praise and to bless God, to uplift those that are discouraged, to bring hope to those that are in despair, to share the truth of our Lord with those who are confused, to comfort the hurting, and to bring healing to the sick.
I am as convicted by this as I'm sure you are. James says this tongue has to be under control. By the way, it's not just the tongue. He's saying the principle goes throughout my life. My life must be under control. Does it mean I will never sin? No. But it means when I sin, I understand it's sin and I confess it as such.
A Challenge for Practical Application
Here's what I ask you. I just ask you to think about this stuff. Are you one of those that just fires from the hip with that mouth? I talk to lots of guys that say, "You don't know what it's like," which is interesting to me because I think I probably know what it's like as well or better than they do. "You don't know what it's like out there in the real world where everybody's talking and everybody's doing this and all this is going on." Hey, been there, done that.
In the midst of that, you're the one that's supposed to shine differently. And while I am delighted you're here and delighted you're in church and delighted you're in a men's group, delighted you're in a women's study, glad you're in precepts and all the other things, you can study to your heart's content. That's exactly the people James is talking about—people like that who hear the Word but don't do it.
I'm challenging you. Take a look at the tongue. It is a great revealer of your spiritual condition. James doesn't back off. He wants to talk about how should we think. What's real wisdom? Not knowledge, but wisdom.
If you're one who's so inclined, go ahead and read the remainder of chapter 3, and the next time we're together, we'll take a look at that and see how James would have us think. We'll see those characteristics in our life.
Father, thank You for Your Word that it's true and that it's real. We pray that Your Spirit would reveal to us the reality. And the reality is we're kidding ourselves if we think we can control our tongue. Father, help us understand that our tongue can be controlled, not naturally, but supernaturally through a work of Your Spirit in our life. God, I pray that You would use my tongue to edify and to build up, and at the same time, You would give me the power to control those things that would be destructive and harmful. Father, help me understand that life and death is within the power of the tongue, and let my tongue be a power that's used for life. Father, we ask it of You in Christ's name, Amen.