Psst! Have You Heard...? - Part B

See what he does? He now reaches down below the tongue, but below the words that are spoken down to the very deepest level of where the words are formed in the thought life, in the mind, what the Bible often refers to as the heart.

Now, why does he do that? Because words are just a gauge of your heart. The church isn't off limits to gossip.

In fact, it can sadly be a place that cultivates it. You can guard against gossip by being purposeful with your words. But before we begin, did you know you can get more insightful teachings from Skip on his TV show? Here's how. My TV program, Connect with Skip Heitzig, is now airing on the Hellsong Channel on Saturdays at 4.30pm Mountain Time. Watch there or tune in on TBN on Sundays at 5.30am Eastern.

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Or give online securely at connectwithskip.com slash offer. Okay, we'll be in Leviticus chapter 19 and various chapters in James for today's study as we join Skip Heitzing. James chapter 3 verse 2. He says, For we all stumble in many things. Can I get an amen?

We all do, don't we all? We blow it in a lot of different ways. If anyone does not stumble in word, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle the whole body. Indeed, we put bits in horses' mouths that they may obey us, and we turn their whole body.

Look also at ships. Although they are so large and driven by fierce winds, they are turned by a very small rudder, wherever the pilot desires. Even so, the tongue is a little member and boasts great things. See how great a forest a little fire kindles? Down in verse 8, James 3. But no man can tame the tongue, inferring only God can do that. It's an unruly evil full of deadly poison. With it, now listen to this potential, with it we bless our God and Father, and with it we curse men who have been made in the likeness of God. Out of the same mouth proceed blessing and cursing.

My brethren, speaking to believers, my brethren, these things ought not to be so. Amazing, James says, the potential in a human tongue. In Greek mythology, there's a character named Proteus, and Proteus was the old man of the sea. He was the being that was subservient to Poseidon in the Greek myths. But Proteus had a very interesting ability. He could change form. He could morph. He could change appearance. So he could be a tree. He could be a pebble.

He could show up as a lion or a dove, a serpent or a lamb. That's like the tongue. The tongue can bless and curse.

Bless and blast. It can sing. It can slander. It can encourage.

It can discourage. As an illustration, let's compare two people in relative recent history and compare how both of them, known for their speech, used it in two different ways. Let's compare Adolf Hitler and Dr. Billy Graham. Adolf Hitler swayed people with his speech.

Great masses of people. He turned a nation with his speeches, with his words. So when Adolf was growing up, he was tutored in giving speeches, in communication, and in mass psychology by a renowned European astrologer and occultist by the name of Erich Jan Hanusen. He taught Adolf how to speak, how to speak to crowds, how to win crowds in his favor, how to turn their thinking around.

And you know the results. It's been estimated that for every single word in Hitler's book Mein Kampf that 125 people lost their lives in World War II. He's responsible for the death of millions of people. Compare that to Dr. Billy Graham who used his tongue for nothing else than proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ around the world. Billy Graham has preached to more people than any single human being who has ever lived in human history.

Dr. Billy Graham has shared the gospel of Christ to over 215 million people in the stadiums of 185 different countries. Think of the different potential between those two individuals. So words have the potential to affect people for good or for evil. So words are personal, words have potential.

Let's take it down a level. Not only that, but words are powerful. That's the thought in verse 16.

Listen to the power. You shall not go about, this is a direct command, you shall not go about as a tail bearer among your people. Now what is a tail bearer?

It's pretty easy. A tail bearer is somebody who bears a tail. I know you're going, duh.

Think about it. He's carrying, he's bearing a tail. He has a story that he's bearing. He's carrying a story.

And it's a story about someone. And a tail bearer has a story about someone usually he doesn't like or she doesn't like. And there may be traces of truth in the tail that they bear. Maybe certain parts that are true, many parts that are not.

It's a spin on the facts. But this person is telling the tail not to reveal the truth. The purpose is not to reveal the truth. The purpose is to ruin a person.

The purpose is when I bear this tail in your hearing, you're going to hear it and change your thinking about the person I'm telling you about. You're going to change what you think about them. So I might say, well, let me tell you what he's really like. Let me tell you what I heard her say when I was eavesdropping. Well, you don't know all the facts.

Let me tell you what really happened. And people lean in. The difference between a tail bearer and a concerned friend is the difference between a butcher and a surgeon.

Both cut the meat, but for very different reasons. The tail bearer is bearing the tail to change a person's thought life about the person. So words are powerful. They can ruin, ruin a person's reputation in certain cases for life. The Hebrew word tail bearer, by the way, is raqil, and it means a slander monger. Somebody who bears or carries harmful information about some other person. The basic English translation, the Bible in basic English just says, do not go about saying untrue things among your people. Other translations say don't be a gossip. Don't be a gossip. Now we as believers have gotten very crafty at our favorite sin of gossip.

We've gotten so good at it that we don't say just, let me tell you the truth. We go, hey, I have a concern. My heart is burdened. Oh, if your heart's burdened, unburden your heart.

Right? That's what we want to say. When you say my heart's burdened, I feel so bad for you.

I want you to unburden your heart. Or we get even worse than that. We get even more vile than that. We couch it in a prayer.

And we can change the way a person thinks by our prayer. So listen to this. Oh Lord, I just pray for Skip. Lord, you know the truth about him. You know what he's like. You know what he's done.

Now you hear that and you go, really? He's bad? I mean, I know he's bad. I didn't know he was that bad. Or he's done something. What has he done? Right? It's taking you somewhere.

That tail is spinning the way you think about that person. Listen to something shocking I discovered. A study by the New York Daily News. And I just looked at this and I read this and I reread this a few times to see how they approached this poll and how they discovered it and how many people they used to do it. According to the New York Daily News, 80%, 8-0%, 80% of normal conversations consist of gossip.

I hope you're going, wow. 80% of normal conversations consist of gossip. No. That's what they found. This is also true online.

It's very reflective of that. One article entitled Solomon on Social Media by Tim Chalice says, and I quote, there are many websites, blogs, and Twitter accounts dedicated almost entirely to gossip and sharing what is dishonorable rather than what is noble. At the end of his article, he just gives the best advice ever. Avoid these people and their gossip. Just avoid them. Avoid these people and their gossip.

Good luck. You go, I don't understand. How can you tell if it's gossip or if it's just news? Let me ask you a question. Do you raise your voice or lower when you tell? You see, if you go, hey, come here. That's usually not news. News is, hey, come here. You raise your voice. That's news. When you have to lower your voice, show something is up.

You see, it says in Proverbs 16 verse 28, a whisperer separates the best of friends. It's done in secret. Listen to this true story. Bill Graolis owned a flower shop in a little town in West Virginia called Campbell's Creek, West Virginia. Bill decided he was going to get proactive about his life and get healthy. So Bill went on a diet. Isn't that great? He went on a diet.

Yeah, that's good. Losing a little weight, looking better. Well, he started losing weight. As he lost weight, a rumor developed around town that he had AIDS. He had AIDS because he had lost weight.

After all, he's a guy who owns a flower shop. So people started talking, whispering, making, they had a keen sense of rumor. And they started making up stuff.

He's got AIDS. And so graffiti showed up on the walls of the shop. His windows were broken. One lady refused to go in the shop. She owed money. She had a check that she wrote.

She opened the front door, threw the check in the shop and got in her car and sped away. So Bill was sick of it. He quit his diet.

Right? Stopped being healthy, quit his diet, went and got a blood test for AIDS. Of course, showed he didn't have any. He posted the medical results on the window of the shop. Didn't help. The rumor still persisted because now it's a story.

Everybody's hearing the same thing over and again. His van, his delivery van got trashed. His business went in the hole. The man did not have AIDS. He didn't need AIDS. He was destroyed by gossip.

His life was decimated. There's an old proverb that says, the tongue is but three inches long but can kill a man six feet tall. Now listen to this. Do you know that there's a list in the Bible of the things God hates? Now just hearing that, if you've never familiarized yourself with this portion of scripture, that in and of itself should get your antennas up. If God says he hates something, you want to find out what he hates so you don't do that.

Right? If God says I don't like it, that's one thing. If God says I hate it, I want to know what that is. So there's a list in Proverbs 6 that says, six things God hates, yea, seven are an abomination to him.

Okay, that's strong language. Hate, abomination, right there. Of the seven things God hates, three of them are sins of the tongue. And among them, one of them is he who sows discord among the brethren. Here's God saying, not, I wish they wouldn't do that. I hate that.

I hate that. He who sows discord among the brethren. So words are personal, they have potential, they are powerful. Let's go to the deepest level. And that is words should be purposeful.

They are and they should be for the right reason. Verse 17. You shall not hate your brother, where?

In your heart. You should not hate your brother in your heart. You shall surely rebuke your neighbor and not bear sin because of him.

You shall not take vengeance nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself. And here's why I am the Lord. See what he does? He now reaches down below the tongue, but below the words that are spoken, down to the very deepest level of where the words are formed in the thought life, in the mind, what the Bible often refers to as the heart.

And why does he do that? Because words are just a gauge of your heart. What is spoken on the outside reveals what's the inside. If good things and edifying things come out in your speech, that's what reveals is your heart. If foul things come out, that is your heart. Well, I said that, but I don't mean that.

I don't think so. If you go to a doctor, a doctor says something interesting. When you first come to see he or she, the doctor will say, stick your tongue out. You go, my tongue, I got a side ache. But the doctor knows that your tongue can reveal a lot about what's inside of you.

It can reveal if you have a lack of, if you have a vitamin deficiency, if you have an infection of sorts. So stick out your tongue. Now listen to what Jesus said, A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good. An evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil. For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks. You're familiar with it. You just quoted it.

A good person brings out good, an evil person brings out evil because from the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. Now when I was a kid, I had mouth trouble. Maybe all kids do, but this kid did.

I said some pretty bad stuff. And my mom did something about it. She had a little fix called a bar of soap. Have you ever had your mouth washed out with soap?

You have. So curious, I mean that's a lot of people. What brand was it, like ivory? So my house, Irish Spring. So if you know anything about soaps, you know that's like a real strong. And she took that Irish Spring mega bar of soap. I put it down and wash my mouth and I'm gagging.

And you know what? It didn't help. It didn't fix things. Now it did that day. Maybe that week.

Maybe I'll walk by the bathroom and see that soap. But it didn't fix things permanently. Why? She didn't go deep enough, that's why. The problem wasn't the mouth. The real problem was the heart. The heart needed to be clean.

That was the issue. So notice what he says, you shall not hate your brother. That's feelings that you have. That's thoughts you have toward them.

And then verse 18, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. So how do you get control of a tongue? Easy. Love. If you really love people, you don't slander them.

You don't. That's hateful. If you really love people, you don't gossip about them. That's not love, that's hate.

That's hate speech. So love will keep you from slander. It will keep you from gossip. It will keep you from defaming. Because Paul said in 1 Corinthians 13, love does not rejoice in iniquity, love rejoices in the truth.

Okay, let's press this a little further. One thing to say good, love everybody. Thank you, all love. How is that love displayed? Somebody hurts you, somebody says something about you, you feel injured by somebody.

And the answer is, let it go. No, the answer is by talking to the person directly. Going to the person directly. Please notice verse 17, you shall not hate your brother in your heart.

You shall surely rebuke your neighbor and not bear sin because of him. In other words, you don't talk about that person, you talk to that person. See, most people talk about that person to another person. No, you go to that person and you say, hey, I got a problem with that. And you deal directly.

That's the healthiest way. Go personally and reconcile is much better than hating him in your heart and stewing over it in your heart. This is the same thing Jesus said. Jesus said, Matthew 18, if your brother sins against you, go and tell him. What's amazing is that nobody does that anymore. A clear command of Jesus, go to that person, fix it, reconcile it, deal with it, move on.

Nobody does that. Well, I'm going to go tell 50 other people about that person first. Maybe I'll get around to it.

Maybe I won't. Well, I'll just let it go and forgive it. No, you go to that person.

You go directly to that person. You shall love your neighbor, not libel your neighbor, love your neighbor. Now I have to say this because I think this is equally as potent and true. The problem isn't just that people love to say gossip. The reason they love to say gossip is because there's a lot of people who love to hear it. They wouldn't be saying it if people didn't love to hear it. There wouldn't be so many open mouths if there weren't so many open ears. And they know that if they hear something, oh, tell me more, tell me more. And all of a sudden, you know, I'm your audience. Proverbs 18, listen to what it says. The words of a tale bearer are like tasty trifles.

They go down to the inmost body. See, it feeds something perverse. You hear something and go, oh, hmm, I'm yummy. Tell me, tell me more.

What else you got? So let me encourage you. If somebody that you know comes to you to tell you an evil report about somebody else, by the way, if they're going to gossip to you, I guarantee they're going to gossip about you. So ask them some questions.

Number one, when they come to you, ask them this. Why are you bringing this to me? Why are you telling me this information? Do you want me to be part of the fix? You want me to go to that person with you? I'll do it. I'll help. Let's reconcile this together if you need help. Or are you just doing this to slander that person? Why are you telling me?

Number two, ask them this. Where did you get your information? Well, I don't reveal my sources. Then I'm not going to listen to you anymore.

We're done. Question number three. Have you gone directly to that person?

You're telling me about it. Have you told him yet? No, I told 50 other people first.

Question number four. Have you personally checked out the facts? See, they got information and they're now telling you or acting on it. Where did you get your information? But not only that, have you personally checked out the facts?

Well, no, but I heard from three people the same thing. So maybe they all know and love each other. It's collusion. Question number five.

This usually will stop anybody with an evil report. Can I quote you on this? Because they're going to probably say, oh, no, don't involve me in this. Well, you're already involved by telling me. So now I'm going to quote you on this because that's where I heard it from.

You're going, boy, I'm never going to tell Skip anything. That might be good. Don't develop the tongue of a snail. Let's develop the tongue of the wise that promotes health. For the honor and glory of the God who is holy. And says, be holy because I am. That wraps up Skip Heitzig's message from his series White Collar Sins. Now, here's Skip to share how you can keep this broadcast going strong, connecting you and many others to the Lord. Christianity centers on one thing, the cross of Jesus Christ. When we look to Jesus by faith, we are healed and forgiven of our sins.

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