No One Can Tame the Tongue

9-15-24

Hoonah-Hadley

James 3:1-12

Call to Worship Psalm 19

Daily Verse James 3:8

“But no one can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.”  This morning we have a tough road to hoe. This verse neither looks good, sounds good or taste good. It may be likened to the bitter herbs of old or the bitter waters of Marah that they could not drink in Exodus 15. Nevertheless, in standard fashion, God’s word calls us out the darkness into the light. It straightens our path, holds us accountable, corrects, rebukes, chastens, that He might raise us up in the way that we should go, over and over again. It calls us out of the world and into His presence with songs of praise, a melody in our hearts ascending the heights. It could be said, every message, every Sabbath, every verse is personal, as it should be, some maybe more than others, but this one is all inclusive, “no one can tame the tongue”, as in nobody, not one, 0. This may or may not be helpful but it’s heavy on my heart so we’ll trust God with it and let it settle where it may. My father started beating me right about 4 years old until about 14, roughly 10 years. Spare the rod, lose the child. (Proverbs 13:24) I definitely needed disciplined, and it sure left a path of destruction for nearly 30 years, but, “raise up a child in the way that they should go and when they are old they will not depart from it.” (Proverbs 22:6) There is plenty of room for conversation here but the one thing I remember about it was what he used to say during the beatings, “It’s your mouth” he would say. I don’t recall what I said but I suspect he had a legitimate complaint. We don’t correct these things over night, but this verse is personal for me.

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James 3:1 “…let not many of you become teachers, knowing that we shall receive a stricter judgment.” The church gave high esteem to the office of teacher. Matt. 5:19 “Whoever…breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” Pastor Gabe says, “you saints are the water for those in the desert.” May that water be springs of living water and not the bitter waters of Marah. “To whom much is given, much is required.” (Luke 12:48) To be called by God is a high calling, a holy calling that requires more and receives a stricter judgment, we don’t need to elaborate any more here.  James 3:2 “For we all stumble in many things.” James, one of the penman of the bible includes himself as a stumbler, and this not just here or there but in “many things.” Remember the childhood song, “ring around the rosie, pocket full of posies, ashes, ashes, we all fall down.” The truth of the matter is, we all fall short, there is not one righteous, no not one, all is all, welcome to the “Stumblers Club”. Keep in mind the theme here in James 3 is the “Untamable Tongue.” Vs. 3 “Indeed, we put bits in horses’ mouths that they may obey us, and we turn their whole body.” James gives us a list of examples to paint the picture of how a small thing controls a big thing. Horses are big, bits small, but the bit determines/controls the direction of the horse. Vs. 4 “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.” The Titanic may be our best example of being just a fraction off course. The slightest adjustment of the Titanic’s rudder at the proper time may have saved 1500 souls in April of 1912. Vs. 5 “Even so the tongue is a little member and boasts great things” Boasting anybody? We all fall down.

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One more example in vs. 5 “See how great a forest a little fire kindles!” There are to many stories about fires and the devastation therein, billions of dollars in damage, millions of acres scorched because of a wayward cigarette or the match of an arsonist. The Great Chicago Fire of 1871 killed 300 people. Montana’s Mann Gulch fire of 1949 claimed the lives of 12 Forest Service Smokejumpers and burned over 5,000 acres. Perhaps you’ve experienced a fire of your own. Certain kinds of fires are beneficial, others are devastating, either one just takes a spark. Vs. 6 “And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity…” Iniquity: unjust, harmful, wickedness, sinfulness, a grossly immoral act, sin. This is the destructive kind of fire that destroys lives and herein James says, that’s what the tongue is like.  Vs. 6 continues: “The tongue is so set among our members that it defiles the whole body…”  Don’t forget the horse, the ship and the fire, the tongue does that, steers the whole body, in fact defiles it.  Defile: to injure, trample, to make dirty, pollute, to render impure, corrupt…to violate. In other words, the tongue criticizes, condemns, belittles, complains, is a fault finder, gossip, slander, lying, it corrupts the entire moral character of a person. Vs. 6 concludes, “it sets on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire by hell.” Nature has a course, it interrupts that, it destroys the natural progression of things. It is influenced by hell, it has evil intentions. Proverbs 18:21 sums it up, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit.” The tongue kills and gives life. Before we speak, we should ask ourselves, are the words I’m about to utter, are they coming from hell or heaven. Will they build up or tear down, bless or curse, encourage or discourage? Either way we will eat the fruit and drink the cup from which our words are poured. Loose lips, sink ships. The tongue defiles the body.

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No one can tame the tongue. Bill Britt, a businessman and a fisher of men, among other things used to teach using a stick figure on a dry erase board. I think he called his stick guy, “Vern”. I remember he got himself all worked up teaching about the different parts of the body when he introduced the mouth as a “bit”, a “rudder” and a “fire”. He got amped up, saying “it’s your mouth, it’s your mouth” then he slammed the board with his hand knocking it over. Ok, Bill, I got it. He made a point, I remember it well. In vs. 7 James goes on to say that humanity has tamed every kind of bird, beast, creature of the sea, but, vs. 8 “But no one can tame the tongue. It is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.” It is toxic, it is restless, it is evil, poisonous. Matt. 12:36-37 is helpful here, we will have to “give an account …for every careless word we have spoken. For by your words you will be justified and by your words you will be condemned.” What is the source of this evil, this poison? Matt. 12:34-35 “…out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things.” That’s pretty straightforward. What comes out of our mouth is a reflection of our heart. Jeremiah says our heart is “desperately wicked”. The heart and tongue are connected. God is performing heart surgery on us today. Psalm 141:3 “Set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth; keep watch over the door of my lips.” Our words provide a barometer for our spiritual condition. If you don’t believe the tongue sets the course of nature on fire, google Hitler, Stalin, Manson, David Koresh, Jim Jones, etc., millions of lives lost to a restless, evil tongue. No man can tame it, it is humanly unfixable, but God can. God knows our heart, give Him yours that He might perform surgery so our lips, our tongue, our mouth will declare His praise.