Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde

So, to go one layer further in, James is making the point, God is as interested in what we say to each other out there as He is in what we say to Him in here. And saying what we say to Him in here does not give us a free pass on what we say to others out there.

You cannot bless God in here and belittle everybody else in your world. Do you ever find yourself speaking differently based on your situation and circumstances? Does your language and your tone sound different in church than it does at work? Do you speak differently with your pastor than you do with your spouse or children? Are there settings where you let your guard down regarding your tongue?

We need to learn to guard our tongue in every and any situation. And God's Word is going to help us with that today. This is Wisdom for the Heart with Stephen Davey. And Stephen continues through his series entitled Speech Therapy for Saints. I did find it interesting as I was researching this paragraph in James chapter 3, which you can turn to now, that the Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson literally dreamed the plot of one of his novels, in fact one of his best known. In his dream he ended up crying out so loudly that his wife woke him up, fearing for him. And he got onto her saying, I wish you hadn't awakened me.

I was in the middle of dreaming that I was literally being transformed. It will make a wonderful book. Within six days of that and feverish writing, Stevenson's unconscious thoughts between good and evil took the form of this short novel he entitled The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The story is told through the eyes of an attorney. If you read it in middle school or high school, the attorney is a friend of Dr. Jekyll's, but he's concerned because Dr. Jekyll has these long periods of absence and isolation unknown to him. And the rest of society, Dr. Jekyll had actually invented a potion that allowed him to transform into someone that he went about calling himself Mr. Hyde. He's able then to prowl around town, getting involved in all sorts of sinful behavior, and he does it without ruining or dirtying, sullying the character of the good upstanding Dr. Jekyll. The trouble is, as the novel continues, the evil Mr. Hyde gains more and more power. He's stronger and stronger over Dr. Jekyll until he is able to transform without Dr. Jekyll drinking the potion or willing it to happen.

He's unable to control Mr. Hyde. The evil side of Dr. Jekyll is growing more and more powerful. Dr. Jekyll writes a letter explaining the battle and then takes his own life in order to end the life of Mr. Hyde, who has only recently actually committed murder. In his dying moments, Jekyll transforms into Mr. Hyde, who can do nothing to save himself. And when the authorities arrive, they find Mr. Hyde dead, wearing the clothing of Dr. Jekyll. The mystery is solved by the letter, which explains that Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are one and the same man.

The book became a bestseller. Most critics believe it to be so because it played out what everyone struggles with. It played out in flesh and blood, this battle within.

One man is upright and responsible. The other is wicked and evil and murderous. To this day, 125 years after its first publication, we have that phrase that we will use of someone who is one way and then he transforms into another.

He is a Jekyll and Hyde. It's interesting as I studied this text that came to me that James is effectively describing us in the same way, only he isn't writing fiction. In this letter from James, moved along by the Spirit of God, James, the half-brother of our Lord, will reveal that we have this battle within and it finds its way out of and through our mouths, our speech. He has told us that the tongue is a bit or like a bit in a horse's mouth, a rudder of a ship.

It's small but it is directive, powerful. He went on to write in our last session, if you were with us, that the tongue is like a forest fire. It's like a venomous snake.

It's a restless animal waiting to find escape. We covered eight different descriptions given to us by James of the tongue in our last session. I gave them to you and they all began with the letter D. The tongue is destructive, depraved, defiling, determinative, diabolical, disobedient, dangerous and deadly. We could in this message continue the idea with an eighth point, calling the tongue duplicitous. I'm not sure it's a good idea to use words and points that we don't know how to spell. Somebody came up to me afterwards and said, just say it's divided and that's an excellent word.

It has a dichotomy built in. I think it was simplest spoken by that Indian chief in the old western you probably saw where the old chief looks into the camera and he says white man speak with what? Fork and tongue. It's the truth.

No matter who you are, by the way, because the tongue is not a problem of nationality. It is a problem of nature. Our human nature. We all have living with us within us as fallen though redeemed believers, a Dr. Jekyll and a Mr. Hyde. And it is a struggle for life because Mr. Hyde is always wanting to take over.

The battle goes back and forth. And that's what James confesses to. We left off with verse 9.

Let's pick it up there with what we'll call James honest confession. He writes in chapter 3 verse 9, with it, that is the tongue, 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 these things ought not to be this way. Now it's encouraging that James again shifts back to using this first person plural pronoun we. He doesn't write and he doesn't say all you out there getting this letter you got a problem. He says we.

We all do this. Whether you're a mature disciple of Jesus Christ or a newborn believer you have discovered you're involved in a battle. It's a battle of Jekyll and Hyde proportions. We've got a battle within.

So what I want to do is take a closer look at this battle. James writes in verse 9 with the same tongue we can bless our Lord and Father which happens to be the highest and noblest employment of the tongue the periods would say. And it's true when we sang together moments ago to God be the glory. I stand in awe of you.

Jesus paid it all. In Christ alone my hope is found. He is my light my strength my song. We could not have directed our mouths and used our tongues with anything more holy and honorable and glorious than that fact it's one of the blessings of the assembly when we're coerced by our brothers and sisters around us to raise our collective voices and forget about ourselves and focus on the glory and the sufficiency and the honor of our Lord and Father whom we bless. James says we use our tongues to bless God.

The word bless is interesting it's eulogumen to compound word you EU meaning good or well and logos meaning word good word. We're delivering good words we're speaking well of someone. Eulogumen gives us our transliterated English word eulogy and we've contained the context of that word to a funeral where the deceased is eulogized.

He has spoken well of good things are said about him. No matter how badly he lived no matter how wickedly she may have lived somebody will think of something good to say which is a good thing. That's a eulogy. According to James a eulogy is not reserved for funerals.

In fact we ought to eulogize more often not only the living but our Lord. Now the dispersed Jewish believers to whom James was writing would have immediately understood the context of and the concept of eulogizing God blessing God whenever the name of God was spoken in his hearing he was to respond with blessed be he blessed be he blessed be he three times a day the devout Jew and James generation and even to this day they will repeat the Jews devout Jews will repeat prayers called eulogies and every one of them begins with the words blessed be thou Lord. So James is saying understood by them immediately and to us after explanation it's easy to bless God to eulogize God to say good things about God to say bless God praise God whatever and then with the same mouth curse another person. The word curse isn't a reference to profanity by the way vulgarity. There are other verses in the New Testament for that. It's a word that carries the idea of demeaning cutting unkind condescending words to call down curses which is a literal translation of the verb. It's a reference to slander gossip accusation which in this context by the way is referring to those within the faith referring to those who follow after God.

We would say today those inside the church so to speak. There's another nuance to this verb as well. The Christian does this kind of cursing this kind of demeaning speech only because they view themselves as better than the person to whom they're speaking.

So that's the nuance. You are calling down curses. You are speaking down to someone else. That means you're higher up in your view.

You're above them. You're placing yourself on the pedestal and from up here you're open season. And the believer has that idea. He is literally using his mouth for both blessing God then and because he views himself as better than another curses man.

People might say now you know that's not so bad. I mean come on think about it at least we're not saying bad things about God. We're saying bad things about people but at least we're singing hymns and choruses in church. We're saying bless the Lord. We will pray several times this week perhaps before we eat or maybe in some quiet time and we're going to say wonderful things to God. We're not going to say bad things to him.

So it can't be that bad. And James effectively says I knew you'd say that and I knew you'd be thinking that way. So let me just tie off that loophole which he does in the very next phrase. And with our tongue we curse men who have been made in the likeness of God. There's a volume in there. We are blessing God. We're a cursing man. James says may I remind you that those you are cursing have been made in the likeness of God. Now let me pause for a moment because there's great doctrinal truth here even though mankind has fallen. Even those who do not believe sin has defiled but it has not destroyed the image of God stamped uniquely upon mankind. In fact the perfect tense of this verb in verse 9 who have been made means that the image of God those unique qualities of conscience moral reasoning objective will they have been made which means those qualities were not entirely obliterated following the fall.

We still bear the mark. One of those obviously would be conscience which uniquely binds man to the right and condemns man when he does wrong. Those who believe and those who do not believe show they have the image of God and that they both know what's right or wrong. Mankind ladies and gentlemen is not some slightly more evolved animal. If that is true then even the mentor one of the mentors of Darwin said if we do believe that man then has the freedom to act like an animal.

Animals can kill their young. No we're more than that. Is James exaggerating the connection between insulting mankind and insulting God.

I don't think so. In fact think of it this way suppose you're invited over to a home for dinner and you walk in with others and you're walking with your wife by a painting you see on the wall and he whispered to your wife I hope they didn't pay much for that it's horrible only to discover that the artist is your host who overheard you. So what would you say. You know don't take it so hard. Look I wasn't criticizing you. I was only criticizing your work. That's the point.

You cannot separate the two. Anyone who insults another human being with unfair unkind demeaning condescending gossiping criticizing speech has just insulted the artist because the artist created that as his work. So to go one layer further in James is is making the point God is as interested in what we say to each other out there as he is in what we say to him in here and saying what we say to him in here does not give us a free pass on what we say to others out there you cannot bless God in here and belittle everybody else in your world. James says that is exactly what we're doing with our speech. This is our battle now after this honest confession which we would all appreciate because we find ourselves in the same kettle. James delivers an earnest confrontation look at verse 10.

He says this and it's point blank again James never did put the gloves on they've always been off throughout the entire letter. My brethren again he's including himself with them. He's talking to believers as well. My brethren these things ought not to be this way. This ought not to be strong negative fact the only time it appears in the New Testament it is here.

This ought not to be. It's interesting that he would say it that way and we need to make sure we understand what he said earlier in the letter. James has effectively said this is how it will be if you are a believer. Works will follow your faith. This is how it will be if you're a believer. Now he says this is how it shouldn't be but might be if you're a believer. James is not saying that a believer will never speak out of both sides of his mouth. He is saying that a believer should not do that. These things ought not to be this way.

There is absolutely no loophole in that. That's it. There it is. It is your battle. It is my battle. And you cannot excuse it.

There's no loophole no no escape clause. This is it. It shouldn't be this way. It's like the voice you might hear in your head shame on you. Stop that. It's what he's saying. Convicting isn't it? How convicting is this? You know I can't wait to finish the book of James. I was wondering could we take a break? You know study something easier to grasp like election and free will.

Those are easier to study than this is to apply. But according to James imperatives and he's speaking with imperatives he's telling us that when God redeemed our spirit he gave us through his spirit the capacity to renovate our speech as we surrender to that spirit of God and be aware that that renovation project is going to take you a lot longer than it did to do your kitchen or that upstairs bathroom or that walk in attic. It'll last your lifetime but it'll be worth every step because of the power of your tongue to bless and to heal. Now if you're like most people involved in one of those renovation projects pictures help don't they. And James does just that now he gives us three outdoor pictures to describe what we are pursuing this sanctified speech. He shows us pictures of a fountain a fig tree and fresh water for the most part self-explanatory but look at verse 11. He says does a fountain send out from the same opening both fresh and bitter water implication at the same time. James is by the way not referring to a man made fountain he's referring to a gushing fountain from a mountain crevice and the strata of earth underneath that mountain may include both sweet and bitter water. His point is out of the same opening there will come water of one kind or another not both at the same time. So what kind of fountain are we. What's coming out of the opening. I like the metaphor of one author who said it this way he said within the mountain of self there is a great struggle for there are two streams within but only one opening. If God had meant it otherwise he would have created us with two mouths one for blessing God and another for cursing our fellow man.

But he created only one. So the more practical question would be what kind of fountain will you and I be today. What will be delivered. What will gush out.

Bitter water or sweet. Verse 12 can a fig tree my brother and produce olives or a vine a reference to the grapevine can a grapevine produce figs. These questions are expecting the reader to respond with absolutely not. We know that can't be. So here here James says look you want to check the progress the temperature of your heart which no one can see. Check out the fruits of your words of your lips. You found it to be true haven't you. As you battle when your heart is right your words are right. When your heart is pure your words are pure. When your heart is surrendered to the spirit of God your words are sweet and satisfying. Again in the last phrase of verse 12 nor can salt water produce fresh water literally a salt spring will not produce sweet or fresh water. Now I want you to follow this carefully James point is that one kind of water cannot transform itself into another kind of water by itself. In the same way our tongues which have been natural conduits for evil ever since the fall cannot produce good things on our own.

James is doing more than exposing the problem even though he ends abruptly. And in the mind of the believer if you've been in the faith very long and you've gotten to know some of the New Testament your mind as mind it goes immediately to Galatians Chapter 5 where we are given the record of fruit love joy peace patience kindness goodness faithfulness gentleness self-control Galatians 5 22 and 23. And how does that fruit appear. If you go back and look at those words most of it makes an appearance through by means of speech words the tongue. So James has shown us that our speech has the power to direct to determine to destroy and to delight because there's nothing more refreshing than cold water when you're thirsty or fruit when you're hungry. Solomon wrote it this way in Proverbs 12 18 the tongue of the wise person brings health. Paul wrote to the church in Rome he said Listen it's my prayer request that when I come to you I might refresh you.

It's a great prayer request isn't it. Lord help me today as I mingle in here and as I leave and as I show up at work tomorrow and whatever I do that I will refresh with my words. Paul wrote to the Colossians this way. Let your speech always be accompanied by grace. Colossians Chapter 4 verse 6.

So what does that look like. Well your home your marriage your church your relationships should be marked by these fruitful refreshing qualities. James is saying we must choose to be the fountain from which sweet water comes.

We must choose to be the tree from which ripe fruit grows. We are the ones who should speak. James is not telling us in this paragraph how to listen to encouraging words.

In fact we frankly don't need a lesson on that one. He's telling us that we need to speak them. This is speech therapy for saints. Don't ever forget he writes to whom you are speaking especially in the context of the faith.

Imagine when we speak to one another we are actually speaking to sons and daughters of God headed for incredible glory. C.S. Lewis wrote these powerful words along this line that provoked my thinking in his book entitled The Weight of Glory a series of addresses.

C.S. Lewis of course wrote the Tales of Narnia and Mary Christianity and a number of others. He said he said it this way. Listen we're almost finished. Remember that the dullest and most uninteresting believer you talk to will one day be a creature which if you saw him as he will be you would be strongly tempted to worship him. It is in light of this that we should conduct all our dealings with one another all friendships all loves all play all politics. It is immortals whom we joke with work with Mary snub and exploit. There are no ordinary people.

You have never talked to a mere mortal. What a reminder the best way to get started is to join in with James in this honest confession. If this is James battle it is ours. Can we not confess it as well. Man came up to John Wesley the founder of Methodism a couple of centuries ago and he said to Mr. Wesley after a sermon he said I want you to know that my talent is rebuke.

To which Wesley responded I believe God would be happy if you buried that talent. Then we pursue with all surrender to Christ in daily renovation. So get your tools ready.

You're in the middle of it. We are in need of it. God is worthy of it.

We are in need of it and God is more than worthy of every surrender to his glory and honor. With that Stephen brings to a close this three lesson series called Speech Therapy for Saints. Since this series is so important and so practical you might want to listen to it again or share it with a friend. We've taken this series and posted it to our website wisdom online dot org. You can go there to listen anytime free and on demand. We've also bound it together as a set of CDs. So if it would encourage you to have this series in your collection of biblical resources give us a call. Our number is 866 48 Bible. Thanks for listening and join us next time for more wisdom for the heart.