Taming the Tongue

Well, please turn with me if you would once again to the book of James. Tonight we begin Chapter 3 of this short letter, a letter that is crammed full of very practical, godly instruction for the believer. In our text tonight, James deals with a subject that is relevant to anyone who has a tongue, or we might add in our day and age, fingers with which to type. It's the topic of communication, specifically the power and danger of ungodly communication. Let's read the passage together, and then we'll share some comments for a few moments tonight.

James, Chapter 3, verses 1 through 12. If we put bits into the mouths of horses so that they obey us, we guide their whole bodies as well. Look at the ships also. Though they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are guided by a very small rudder, wherever the will of the pilot directs. So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things. How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire, and the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell. For every kind of beast and bird, a reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, but no human being 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 people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so. Does a spring pour forth from the same opening, both fresh and salt water? Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives or a grapevine produce figs?

Neither can a salt pond yield fresh water. This is the word of the Lord. Let's pray. Lord, the first thing we see you doing in Scripture is speaking. You said, let there be light, and there was light. You are a God who communicates with words. And we know that your words are pure and just because you are perfectly pure and just. Father, we bear your image, and in bearing that image, we too are communicators. We, like you, speak and convey thoughts and attitudes. We communicate desires and motives in the words that come out of our mouths. But Lord, unlike you, our words are not always pure and just because we are not pure and just.

We are fallen. And so, Lord, we find ourselves in a predicament in which on the one hand we bear your image, but on the other hand we so often bear that image poorly or inaccurately. So, Lord, thank you for texts like the one before us tonight because they expose our poor image bearing. They point us in the direction we need to go to be more like you in thought and speech and behavior. Holy Spirit, would you take these living words tonight and work them into our souls so that we might be all the more conformed to the image of Christ in whose name I pray. Amen.

You can be seated. Well, the veil between the spiritual realm and the temporal realm is perhaps the most invisible when it comes to the matter of our speech. The mouth really is a barometer of the soul. What's inside the invisible realm of our heart and mind and emotions and spirit comes audibly gushing out of our mouths in our speech. Both the words we say and the way we say them are a mirror to the soul, exposing what's inside for all to see. Now, speech is not an inherently bad thing. It has the potential to be used badly, but it also has the potential to be used for great good. As we will hopefully see tonight, the mouth is not the problem.

The heart is the problem. And unless our hearts get fixed, our mouths will continue spewing destruction and hypocrisy and do great harm to the glory of Christ in us. James' instruction manual on the Christian life would be incomplete if it did not address the matter of the tongue, words, speech, communication of all sorts, because the tongue is so integral to our bearing the image of God and because as fallen people who have distorted the image of God, the tongue has such devastating potential for evil. And it's precisely because our speech has such potential for evil that we need our tongues to be tempered by the power of God. So for the next few moments, let's think about speech, about the power inherent in our words, and about our own fallen tendency with regard to how we use our words.

I'm going to break up the text tonight into two parts. First, the problem of speech in verses 1 and 2, and then secondly, the power of speech in verses 3 through 12. So the problem of speech, 1 and 2, the power of speech in verses 3 through 12. First, we see the problem of speech. And the problem of speech, as James frames it for us here, is that to misuse our words is to incur judgment, and words are easily misused.

That's a problem. To misuse the words is to incur judgment, and it's so easy for us to abuse this gift of speech. If you play with fire, you'll get burned.

If you run with scissors, you'll get stabbed. If you speak sinfully, you will incur judgment. And James is very clear, you will speak sinfully. It's in your nature to do so. In fact, the more you talk, the more you will speak sinfully.

Therein lies the problem. James begins his monologue on speech by considering those who are vocational talkers. They talk by trade, people whose job is to speak and to speak authoritatively, teachers.

He says in verse 1, not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. It's like a mom telling her 11-year-old son, don't grow up to be a football player because they have too many concussions. Don't be a policeman.

They get shot at by the bad guys. It's not that playing football or being a policeman are bad things. It's that they incur great risk. The teacher incurs great risk in his vocation, not because his vocation is bad, but because the main tool of his ministry is the part of the body most difficult to control, the tongue. Now, James' point is not to talk about teachers specifically.

He's merely using that to illustrate a more general point, that an improper use of words in general incurs judgment. And the more you speak, the more you will misuse words. Notice how he expands the application in verse 2, for we all, teachers and non-teachers alike, stumble in many ways, and if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body. So this passage isn't just about teachers.

The teachers aspect is a launching point to talk about speech in general for all people. When I was in high school, I was required to memorize the book of James, and I remember getting to this verse and thinking to myself, man, if I can just control my mouth, then I won't have any struggle with any other sin, because it says if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he's able to bridle his whole body. So I strategically set out to control my mouth, excited about the prospect of becoming the first descendant of Adam to achieve sinless perfection. I told myself I was not going to speak at all, unless it was absolutely necessary, and even then, my words had to be as few and efficient as possible.

I think I made this resolution right after lunch, and it lasted until about right before supper. The principle is true though. If a person is perfect in speech, he will be perfect in every arena of life. My problem wasn't that the principle didn't hold true. My problem was that I'm not perfect.

None of us are. We are sinners, and sinners abuse the gift of speech, and abusing that gift incurs judgment. A stricter judgment for teachers, those who speak a lot and who are entrusted with some measure of authority in their speaking, but judgment nonetheless for everybody who speaks and who stumbles in their speech.

Stumbles is a nice way of saying sins in their speech. Jesus says it very plainly in Matthew 12, 36 and 37, he says, I tell you on the day of judgment, people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned. The problem of speech is that to misuse our words is to incur judgment, and words are so easily misused.

In fact, let's think for a few minutes about how easy it is to misuse our words. Let's think for a moment about the power of our speech. The power of our speech.

And this is James' second point in verses 3 through 12. Speech is incredibly powerful. Its potential to do good and to do harm is so easily underestimated and overlooked. First James tells us that speech, the tongue, is capable of great influence. Speech is capable of influencing the trajectory of a life as it steers events and people in certain directions, and sways emotions and attitudes as it shapes thoughts and philosophies that affect behavior. Speech is powerful because of the great influence it exerts. James illustrates this aspect of the power of speech with a couple of analogies. Verse 3, if we put bits into the mouths of horses so that they obey us, we guide their whole bodies as well.

Verse 4, look at the ships also. Though they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. The average full-grown horse can weigh anywhere from 900 to 2,000 pounds. The average bit weighs one or two pounds.

And yet all of the muscle and strength that a horse possesses can be harnessed and controlled with ease with the simple use of this bar in its mouth. The size of the bit is really disproportionate to the influence that it exhibits. The rudder on a ship must be one seventieth of the total length of the vessel, if my Google search was accurate. One seventieth of the length of the boat, and yet it's able to steer that boat right where it needs to go.

Again, the size in proportion to the effect it has on the vessel is surprising. James says, so also the tongue is a small member, easily underestimated, yet it boasts of great things, which is another way of saying it possesses great power, great ability, great influence. How many words does it take to change the course of a life?

Very few. In fact, I imagine there are people here tonight who can think back to something that was said to them, something that in retrospect exerted great influence, perhaps even altered the course of their life for good or for bad, just through the words that were said. I remember a friend telling me in my late teens that I should consider going into ministry.

I never thought about ministry as a viable option until that moment, and we never spoke about it again after that moment, but that one sentence had a profound effect on the entire direction of my life. Speech is powerful because it is capable of great influence. But notice also that speech is powerful because it is capable of great destruction.

There are two aspects of the destructive power of words. First, the destruction caused by our words is an irreversible destruction. It can't be undone. Once our words have caused their damage, there's no reversing it.

There's no taking it back. It's like a wildfire that has destroyed a forest. It only takes a spark to destroy an entire landscape, and once that landscape is destroyed, there's no putting it back.

A living tree that's been burned down to ash is never going to resemble a living tree again. How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire. In verse 6, the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. Not only is the destructive power of words irreversibly permanent, its destruction is also comprehensive.

The latter part of verse 6 says, The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell. The power of speech is such that when it destroys, it thoroughly destroys. It doesn't just set on fire little pieces of life. It sets on fire the entire course of life.

It's comprehensive in its destructive power. A third quality of speech that demonstrates its innate power is the fact that it is incapable of being tamed. Verses 7 and 8, Every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature can be tamed, and has been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue. Try as I might when I was a teenager, I was incapable of taming my tongue for even half a day.

Why was that? Because no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison, and no match for the most resolute of intentions within man. Augustine points out that we cannot tame our own tongue any more than a horse can tame itself, but Augustine adds God can tame it. Notice James doesn't say no one can tame the tongue.

He says no human being can tame the tongue. We're going to think about that some more here in just a minute, but notice this means that if we find within ourselves any degree of self-control or virtue when it comes to our speech, we have to admit that that ability, that virtue, has been brought about by the pity and help and grace of God. So if our speech is this formidable a foe, so formidable in fact that it is untamable without divine intervention, then be assured that the tongue is a powerful tool for good or for evil. Speech is powerful. It's a powerful force because it is capable of great influence. It is capable of great destruction.

It is incapable of being tamed by humans. And then one final quality of speech that demonstrates its power, we see it in verses 9 through 12, and it's that the tongue is capable of great hypocrisy. Look at verse 9. With it, that is with our mouths, with our words, we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing.

My brothers, these things ought not to be so. When we bless our Lord and Father with our mouths, we are declaring that God is the epitome of beauty and goodness and truth. But then if we turn around and curse people who are made in His image, in other words, those who most fully reflect in their very nature the truth and beauty and goodness that we just finished admiring, then we are disparaging that image. We are deprecating the God we claim to be honoring.

It's the height of hypocrisy. And then in good James fashion, he draws some more analogies to illustrate the point. Verse 11. Does a spring pour forth from the same opening, both fresh and salt water? Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives or a grapevine produce figs? Neither can a salt pond yield fresh water.

And think about that last analogy. A salt pond cannot yield fresh water. How much salt does it take to make fresh water non-fresh water? Any salt at all, right? The least little bit of impurity. I mean, by definition, the essence of fresh water is its freshness and its wateriness. You can't have sort of fresh water any more than you can have sort of watery water.

If it's not entirely pure, it's not at all pure. The venerable Bede was a theologian, a monk from the eighth century, and he commented on verse 11, and he said this. He said, Not only is it impossible for sweet and bitter water to come out of one and the same fountain, but it is also true that if the two get mixed, it is the bitter which will affect the sweet, not the other way around. Put blessing and cursing together, and cursing will win out every time. Bad habits corrupt good manners, and wicked talk has the same effect. I had a friend who once said, You can mix ice cream and manure together.

It doesn't really affect the manure, but it sure messes up the ice cream. The nature of speech is such that all it takes is a little bit of impurity, a little bit of hatefulness, a little bit of untruthfulness to spoil the whole thing. And if we claim to be fresh ponds of virtue, blessing the Lord with our mouths on Sunday, but then turn around and curse God's image bearers with words that cut and demean and mislead, we are demonstrating the height of hypocrisy. Speech is so powerful that it is capable of turning worshippers of God into those who demean God and don't even know they're doing it. Such is the power of the tongue. When we walk through this text, we've heard James' warning regarding the misuse of our words.

We've certainly observed that James' tone is almost exclusively negative. In this passage, he's telling us what not to do. He's warning us of the bad things that will happen if we do what we ought not to do.

And that's very helpful. We need to know where the danger zones are. We need signposts that warn us where the potholes are.

We need lighthouses that steer us clear of the rocks. And so the intended purpose of these verses, I think, is to wake us up to the dangers of ungodly communication. We ought to come away from these verses wary of ourselves with regard to our speech. I think this text ought to have the same effect on us that God had on Job at the end of Job's trial when God showed up and spoke to Job out of the whirlwind. Scripture says, Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said, Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? And God proceeds for two or three chapters to interrogate Job with a series of unanswerable questions that put Job in his place. And then Job answered the Lord and he says, Behold, I am of small account. What shall I answer you?

I lay my hand on my mouth. A realization of the magnitude and wisdom of God and of our own finitude and foolishness ought to have that same effect on us. It ought to make us put our hands on our mouths. There's a good chance that for many, if not most of us, the effect this text ought to have on us is a realization that we really do talk too much. That we fancy ourselves to be teachers or evangelists or prophets in ways that God has never called us to or equipped us for.

We just like the perceived preeminence of being God's mouthpiece. But all the while God is saying, Be quick to hear and slow to speak. And God is saying, I will fight for you.

You only have to be silent. And he is saying, Be still and know that I am God. And when you draw near to God, draw near to listen. Be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God.

For God is in heaven and you are on earth. Therefore, let your words be few. Folks, this text is in the Bible because God knows we are prone to impure speech and we are prone to excessive speech.

We need to be tempered. But having said that, there is a time to speak. There is a purpose and a place for godly edifying words. And so I want us to spend the remainder of our brief time together tonight thinking about what godly speech looks like. We know that wicked speech is something to be avoided, but how do we pursue godly speech? What is the right use of our words? James doesn't go into specifics here, but the rest of scripture goes into great detail, explaining to us what kinds of patterns of speech we ought to pursue and what kinds of patterns we ought to avoid. In fact, I want to draw your attention to an exceptionally helpful resource when it comes to evaluating the use of our tongues. It's our own confession of faith, specifically the Westminster larger catechism, questions 144 and 145.

I want to write that down because I'm not going to read it all tonight, but I encourage you to go home and read it. Questions 144 and 145 of the larger catechism. These questions deal with the ninth commandment.

You know the ninth commandment, thou shalt not bear false witness. It's the commandment that most specifically addresses the use of the tongue. Now, before we look at the larger catechism's answers, I should point out a couple of principles that need to guide us as we approach the Ten Commandments. The first principle is that a negative command, a prohibition, a thou shalt not, carries with it by implication a positive expectation. Behind every thou shalt not is implied a thou shalt.

Do the opposite, right? And vice versa, a positive command implies a negative prohibition. So, for example, the seventh commandment is thou shalt not commit adultery. It's not merely about not committing adultery. It's about being faithful to your spouse. Honor your father and mother also means don't do anything that would dishonor them. We don't keep the ninth commandment by merely not lying.

We must also actively speak edifying, gracious, truthful words. So that's an important principle to keep in mind whenever we approach any of the Ten Commandments. The Bible itself illustrates this principle. Exodus 21, for example, gives us a case study in the sixth commandment, thou shalt not murder. It says, when an ox gores a man or a woman to death, the ox shall be stoned, but the owner of the ox shall not be liable.

But if the ox has been accustomed to gore in the past and its owner has been warned but has not kept it in, negligence that leads to loss of life, and it kills a man or a woman, the ox shall be stoned and its owner shall be put to death. In other words, the prohibition against murder also morally obligates us to preserve life positively whenever it lies within our power to do so. One more principle concerning the way we understand and apply the Ten Commandments is that a command, as it is formulated in the Decalogue, in the Ten Commandments, is principial, not exhaustive.

It's given in a principle form, and it's not exhaustive. In other words, it gives the moral principle behind a command, but not every possible application of that command, of that principle. So, for example, the fifth commandment, honor your parents, establishes a principle of honoring all authority, of which parents is merely the most fundamental, the most representative example.

So when the New Testament speaks of wives submitting to their husbands or slaves to their masters or members of the church to the elders or citizens to the king, these are all applications of the fifth commandment, which establishes the principle of submission to God-given authority. So in light of these two principles, the Westminster Catechisms ask two questions of each command. They ask, what does this command require? And then what does this command forbid?

Because every one of these commands is requiring something positively, and negatively, it's forbidding something. I say all that to prepare you for the answer to questions 145 and 140, well, 144 and 145 of the larger Catechism. These answers include 19 things that are prohibited and 12 things that are required of godly speech. Now, I'm not gonna take the time to go through all 31 of these items tonight, but go home, read through these lists carefully, and as you're reading through these things, ask the Holy Spirit to search your heart and expose any sins of omission or commission in your speech. I do, however, want to highlight a handful of the items mentioned in hopes that the Lord will even now prick our consciences with regard to our communication.

So I've edited these, I've abridged these from the Westminster, I've updated the language just to make it more relevant to what we're doing here tonight, but listen to this, using our words in a godly manner requires the following. Speaking the truth, and only the truth, sincerely, freely, clearly, and fully in all things. It requires the preserving and promoting of the good name of our neighbor. It requires a charitable esteem of others.

It requires covering the infirmities and weaknesses of our neighbors. Freely acknowledging the gifts and graces of others. Defending the innocency of the innocent. Godly speech requires discouraging tailbearers, flatterers, and slanderers. It requires keeping all lawful promises we have made. So that's the positive expectation of godly speech. Here's the negative. Godliness of speech prohibits prejudicing people against the truth, giving false evidence, concealing the truth, speaking the truth unseasonably or maliciously to a wrong end.

Let me just pause on that one for a minute because I think we overlook it. Just because it's true doesn't mean it's godly to say. If it's not edifying, if it's unseasonable, even if it's true, it needs to be kept to yourself. Godliness of speech prohibits perverting the truth in order to mislead or confuse people. It prohibits slandering, backbiting, tailbearing, whispering, scoffing, and reviling. It prohibits misrepresenting the intentions, words, and actions of others. It prohibits flattery and boasting. Godliness of speech prohibits speaking too highly or too lowly of ourselves or others.

Isn't that one interesting? Have you ever thought of speaking too lowly of yourself as sinful? False modesty is what that is, and it's wrong.

We're speaking too lowly of others. Making too much of small faults, unnecessarily exposing weaknesses in others, raising false rumors, receiving and countenancing evil reports. Godliness of speech prohibits refusing to hear a just defense. It prohibits evil suspicion of others, envying or grieving at the deserved credit of any and endeavoring or desiring to impair that credit. And godliness of speech prohibits rejoicing in the disgrace and infamy of others.

It's a very convicting list, and there's more where that came from. Go home and read the rest of the list and look up the verses that go with it and let God's Spirit convict you where you need convicting. If we took even half of those admonitions to heart, I wonder how fruitful and life-giving our speech would become. I don't want my lips to be poisonous. I don't want my words to spark and burn like wildfire out of control to the detriment of all who hear me.

And brothers and sisters, you don't want that either. So how do we get to that place of godliness of speech? Matthew 15 gives us the key, and I'll close with this. Matthew 15, beginning at verse 11, Jesus says, It is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth.

This defiles a person. What comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. See, church, our problem is not primarily our mouths. It's our heart.

We have a mouth problem because we have a heart problem, and the only way to fix the mouth problem is to fix the heart problem. The good news is that Jesus Christ has come to give us new hearts. As we grow in the grace of that new heart, our speech, our words will reflect that grace more and more.

And I'm excited about where James is gonna go next because he's gonna deal with the heart issues that are really the very cause of all of our speech problems. So next time we're together in the book of James, we'll take a look at the heart that is governed by wisdom from above. Let's pray. Father, your words to us are gracious and kind and true and helpful. May our words to others be of the same kind, and when they fall short of that standard, when they injure and burn and poison others, would you forgive us and grant us the grace to repent. So, Lord, may the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. I pray in Jesus' name. Amen.