The Human Tongue (Part B)

No one can tame the tongue.

It is an unruly evil full of deadly poison. He does not say the tongue cannot be tamed. Let's read that again. No man can tame the tongue. That's what he says. No man can tame the tongue. That's what he says. Let's read that again. No man can tame the tongue. That's what he says. He does not say the tongue cannot be tamed. Let's read that again. No man can tame the tongue. That's what he says.

information about cross-reference radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. And now here's Pastor Rick with his continuing study called The Human Tongue, taught from James chapter 3. Jealousy is as cruel as the grave.

It does not care spit about you. You can say that from the pulpit, because it makes the point stick, and it's not wrong. And the point that is being made here is don't underestimate the power of little things to do good or to do bad. The tongue can crush bones, the Proverbs tells us. You can use it for good to rebuke, or you can use it for good to exhort and encourage, or you can be filled by hell.

But if you're sitting here and you're one of those folks that's always justifying your anger and your rage, your out-of-control behavior because pressure came upon you, the Scripture doesn't say, okay, feel good about that. Look also at the ships. They are large and driven by fierce winds. What is your rudder's response to that? Remember Bismarck? That the Leviathan of the sea of the Atlantic Ocean in the Second World War, Britain threw everything she had at that ship.

Sunk the hood, Britain's, I don't want to take too long, this is a topic I like and I can just gobble up my time getting into this, so let me get to the point. Bismarck was faster than anything else on the sea, and her guns were just as superior. She could stand at a distance and sink whole convoys. The only way, the way they got her was the airplanes with their torpedoes and don't hold me to the technical parts because I'm rushing through this so we can get on, but it's a point that needs to be made. They hit her rudder and all the Bismarck could do after that was go in circles and that's when they came upon her like a pack of wolves and they sunk the Bismarck.

But the rudder was the key compared to the rest of the ship, although the ship that size rudders pretty big, but relative to the size of the ship it's very small. Be careful, be careful about the steering of your mouth. Verse five, what comes out of it that is, even so the tongue is a little member and boasts great things, see how great a forest a little fire kindles.

Now he gets to it. You teachers, watch out for your tongue. You speakers, you who communicate, even if you are a mute, you communicate, watch out for the signals you send out. They come from your heart and so the correlation between the wannabe teachers and the tongue is significant, the correlation between the true teachers who are called and the tongue is significant, just because God calls you to do something does not give that person that is called the right to be reckless, rude or wrong. We are all to stand before the Lord Jesus as perfect as we can. And so to not stumble in speech, it's a virtue that we all want, it's tremendously difficult for all of us to go again and we say, oh, they pushed my buttons, they got on my last nerve.

You got plenty more to irritate. Ecclesiastes 5 verse 2, do not be rash with your mouth, let not your heart utter anything hastily. I've never done that, I can't identify with this. Who hasn't said something hastily, the wrong thing? Do we ever hastily say the right thing? He continues, do not let your heart utter anything hastily before God, for God is in heaven and you are on earth, therefore let your words be few. And he goes on to say, a fool's voice is known by his many words. You see, Ecclesiastes and Proverbs have no hesitation in saying a fool does this.

And we look at that and say, I don't want to be that one. I've had my time, I've done it from time to time and I don't want to do it again. Psalm 39 one, I said I will guard my ways, lest I sin with my tongue. I will restrain my mouth with a muzzle while the wicked are before me. We all who love the Lord Jesus read that and say yes, I want to be the person that can restrain myself. In preparing my notes, I had to take out so many things that are true but without restraint and just spoken out, they can come across as cruel and unnecessary and trying to filter it down so the body is made stronger. So that the guilty are convicted, yes, but they're not crushed, they're encouraged to work even harder yet again. No matter how many times you fall on your face, the devil cannot beat you if you keep getting up.

All you got to do is get back up. What happens to those who don't? Apostasy, backsliding, we have known people that have had tragic ends in the faith. He says, is a little member in both great things, the principle of small things causing big trouble or small things, again it goes both ways, being a help. One ancient man of the word said, any teacher whose teaching tends to make men think less of sin is a menace to Christianity and to mankind, amen.

We have whole buildings out there of people trying to make sin appear to be something other than it is, trying to make the guilty innocent simply on the grounds of they don't like it. That won't work. He says, see how great a forest a little fire kindles, a flame of a match can ignite a whole forest. Church goers, you must know only you can prevent church fires. You know the Smokey the Bear, only you can prevent? Only you can prevent fellowship fires. Watch your mouth. It does not have to have profanity to be doing the devil's work.

You can be quite articulate in doing Satan's work. We in this church incidentally, we have no openings for critics, sorry, husbands, especially husbands. Try not to be too critical of your wives. Not that she's guilty and deserves it, I'm not suggesting that at all because oftentimes she just has to be guilty of not doing it your way on matters that really are not necessary.

She doesn't have to do it your way. So be very careful there, husbands and wives. I should point out, now let's move forward. Can I get out of here this morning? As I'm speaking, I'm restraining myself from really hitting the critics, being critical of the critics.

Can you criticize critics? I've got to think that one through. Anyway, a beast, a ship, a fire.

Which one best describes your tongue when it is out of control or under control? I mean a horse under control gets a lot done, Proverbs tells us. When the trough is empty, the barn is clean, but much work comes by their labor. We need a beast to do things.

We can say in our age, in the mechanical age, it's machinery, computers, things like that that get things done. But what about the tongue? Proverbs 25, 15, a gentle tongue breaks a bone. My mom had that gift, at least as far as, she had the only gift that was locked into one person, me.

It just worked on me. And if I did something wrong, she had a way of just correcting me. And I just briefly, when I got out of boot camp or came back from somewhere, I was in the military, and I said a really bad word. And there was silence, dead silence. And she said, you have a filthy mouth.

I'm still hurting as I'm telling the story. That proverb is true. A gentle tongue breaks a bone like a karate chop. Don't be the one in need of the gentle tongue.

You can do that. You can be the child that doesn't get corrected because you figured it out. And Jason, Stuart, and I were sharing, both of us have this in common, amongst other things. We were only, we were both, we both received a spanking one time from our father on earth. See, we figured it out. This is, you're not going to get me again.

If ever I'm going to do something that deserves a spanking, I'm not getting caught. Now I don't know what that has to do with anything I was just saying. It was in there, verse six. And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. The tongue is so set among our members that it defiles the whole body and sets on fire the course of nature. It is set on fire by hell, incendiary. That's what it is.

It sets fires to things. May I speak, may I speak my mind from a purified heart. That is the quest. Before you speak, remember the heart. Remember the heart is deceitful, above all things, desperately wicked. Out of the abundance of the heart, Jesus said, the mouth speaks.

It is a servant for what is really going on inside. Proverbs 28, verse 26, he who trusts in his own heart is a fool, ouch. You trust in your emotions? You trust in just how you feel about something? And that's it?

That's all you've got? Proverbs says he's a fool. He says, but whoever walks wisely will be delivered.

Wisely means he considers, he thinks it through, doesn't just act impulsively. A world of iniquity. What evil the tongue can throw out.

It's a world of trouble. Paul says this, he says, let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth but what is good for necessary edification that it may impart grace to the hearers. Some vocations have a higher amount of profanity that belongs to it, I think.

For example, the construction industry. You can serve in those environments and not give in. You can set an example. You can mark the difference between you and everybody else just by not talking like them. And you can do it on a construction site, in an office. You can do it out in the street, in the classroom, wherever, in the home, wherever you find yourself.

This is doable. Slow it down. Don't let your feelings run the ship. It is a world of iniquity. He says in verse six, the tongue is so set among our members that it defiles the whole body. It ruins everything. The mouth messed up everything.

If you just shut your mouth, we wouldn't have this problem. How many times have we come across that in our lives? Matthew 15, Jesus speaking, but those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart and they defile a man.

They make us dirty. That's what that means. He says it sets on fire the course of nature. That Greek word for course is wheel.

These idioms from the Greek transfers this way. It's a cycle of life. It sets on fire the cycle in life.

Ecclesiastes 3, a time to plan, a time to sow, you know, the cycles of life. The tongue can mess it all up. The tongue is an arsonist. It is a brute. It is a viper.

It is an x-ray. That's what the Bible tells us straight out. He says and it is set on fire by hell.

Any of you been victim of verbal abuse? Maybe you've been victim of, maybe you are the one giving the verbal abuse and as you're doing it, you know hell is driving the ship. The Greek word for hell, there is gahanna. That is the very place of evil where the wicked will go, the place that burns with fire. James knew his theology and this is a warning to watch out for a hell-lit tongue. Mark 15, 29, those who passed by him as he hung on the cross blasphemed him.

Who wrote their script? Hell and they signed off on it. They wanted it. Revelation 16, 19, and men were scorched with great heat and they blasphemed the name of God who has power over these plagues and they did not repent and give glory to him. So all they had to do is use their tongue to repent and give glory to God, but no. You know hatred can make the flesh feel really good.

It makes you feel like you're covering ground, just wasting your energy hating someone or something and hell knows how to work it very well. James knew firsthand about malicious speech. He was a victim of it growing up in the house where the Virgin Mary lived. Years later when Jesus was preaching about his father in heaven and telling the Pharisees, your father and my father are not the same person.

This is what they said. This is in John chapter 8. Jesus says, you do the deeds of your father. They said to him, we were not born of fornication.

We have one father, God. Why would they say that? Why would they say, why would they connect fornication to a spiritual dialogue like this?

Because they were saying, Mary, your mother, she wasn't faithful. We've heard the story. We did our, we launched our smear campaign. We did a, sent out our people to dig up the dirt on you and this is what we have found.

James knew about that. Chapter 7, for every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and creature of the sea is tamed and has been tamed by mankind. The taming, the need for taming animals indicates something wrong. The fact that they eat each other and we eat them confirms something is wrong in creation. Just the fact that creatures eat each other should let us all know this life is a mess and don't be so surprised when it's falling apart. But with what we know, we should be scrambling to the next life where these things don't take place. I know again of no other in physical creation whose tongue leads to sin. Animals, they operate out of instinct, we out of the will. Well, we move on, verse 8, no one can tame the tongue.

It is an unruly evil full of deadly poison. He does not say the tongue cannot be tamed. Let's read that again. No man can tame the tongue. That's what he says. Romans chapter 7, Paul was saying this thing about how we behave for what I am doing I do not understand for what I will to do that I do not practice but what I hate that I do do.

Why is that? Because we have two natures, that's why. So he compares it to fire, he compares it to poison. That's arson and arsenic, it works out that way. The tongue, an arsonist, the tongue, poisonous. Psalm 140 verse 3, they sharpen their tongues like a serpent. The poison of an asp is under their lips, selah.

Think about that. If your car, I think most of you know about cars, if you have a problem stopping it, get the brakes fixed. If you have a problem with your tongue, stopping it, get the brakes fixed. Get before the Lord, stay in the word. When you can force yourself to suffer, because that's what it's going to take. I just had to let that person know how I felt.

No you did not. There are many times you do not, there are some times you do, but most of the time we do not. Just bite your tongue. Verse 9, with it we bless our God and Father and with it we curse men who have been made in the similitude of God, out of the same mouth proceed. Blessings and cursings, my brethren, these things ought not be so.

Anybody who heard that say we agree, we shouldn't be so. But this flash, it's easier to point out the problem than resolve it. I can point to anybody's flat tire.

Fixing it's another issue. One writer said, speaking of the tongue, it has the ferocity of the tiger, the mockery of an ape, and the subtlety of a serpent. The tongue can mock others, belittle others so I can feel big about myself. You know, adolescents do this all the time, they pick on somebody, they find somebody to pick on and they just hammer them with the tongue like a pile driver, until that person that they hammer with the tongue grows up to be a serial killer. No kidding. But there are consequences.

Think about them, early on in life, before they move too far down the line. In the similitude of God, we, unlike the animals, have the ability to reason out things like they don't have, theirs is more instinctive, we can feel, we have a sense of justice. The animal kingdom really doesn't have a sense of justice. I mean if, you know, a bear captures a squirrel and eats it, well no, that's actually a relief. Unless squirrel, I'm sorry, that's just nutty.

But back to this. If an animal wounds another animal, they don't get together like in the cartoons, and have court, and then execute justice. Humans are the ones that attempt to do this. This is in the similitude of God, being like God, these attributes, to have fellowship with God, and so we ought to be careful with each other who are in the image of God. Verse 11, does a spring send forth fresh water and bitter from the same opening? Verse 12, can a fig tree, my brethren, bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Thus no spring yields both salt, water, and fresh. So he appeals to reason through nature to illustrate his point, and the point is this, we have two natures.

We have a fresh water nature, we have a bitter water nature. We are born with a nature that can do nothing God's way, can get nothing right according to God. It is the sinful flesh that we all struggle with, all except Christ. Romans 7, 18, for I know that in me, that is in my flesh, nothing good dwells, for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. He is saying this flesh, the flesh is that natural sinful nature that we have, but we are also, we're born with a sinful nature, we are born again with a spiritual nature that can do nothing wrong in the eyes of God. That's what John meant when he said in 1 John, whoever has been born of God does not sin. Not when you're in the spirit, for his seed remains in him, and he cannot sin because he has been born of God. We are dead to sin, but sin is not dead to us. That is the problem, always trying to pull us out of the spirit and into the flesh, it happens like that, and so in our war against the sinful nature, you should be seeing progress. You will see two steps forward and three back and then four steps forward and one back. There will be progress if you continue, it will hurt. I promise you it will not be easy.

The alternative is much worse, far worse, and you know it's true. Our speech is always inspired by something. Is it the flesh or is it the spirit of God? Which will it be? Set your course. If you say I've fought this thing time and time again, I fail every single time, we'll keep fighting because the minute you stop, it's going to really get ugly. Satan is going to have his way with you, and others, others will hurt also. So we close with a quote from Peter, 2 Peter. Peter knew what it was to stumble, he knew what it was to fail, they all did, but when we read from Peter, we just are more conscious of this with him because his stories have been laid out more than others. He says, therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure, for if you do these things, you will never stumble.

I should add, if you have a problem forgiving people, if there are people that you need to go to and say, I was wrong, I sinned, you were doing what you were supposed to do, I was not, it's me, that, that is beating the flesh, but if you say, well, I'll do it maybe later, you reap what you sow. Thanks for joining us today as we took a deeper look into the book of James here on Cross Reference Radio. Cross Reference Radio is the daily radio ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia. We're blessed to bring you God's word with each broadcast. If you'd like more information or want to listen to additional teachings from Pastor Rick, please visit our website, crossreferenceradio.com. If you've been blessed by this program, we'd love to hear from you. When you visit the website, simply click on the contact us link at the top of the page and leave us a message. That website again is crossreferenceradio.com. Please join us again next time as we continue our study through the book of James right here on Cross Reference Radio.