Controlling Our Tongues

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Well, it's good to see everybody.
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I see some guys, I think I have a couple of new faces, so if you would turn your Bibles to James.
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As you know, we have been doing a verse-by-verse study of the book of James.
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That's my preferred method of teaching.
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Simply go through a book.
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It allows us to not be able to cherry-pick what we want to talk about, but to be forced to deal with the passages, even ones that might make us a little uncomfortable.
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Last week we looked at chapter 3, verse 1, and today we're going to read chapter 3.
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We're going to read verse 1 again just to lead into the context, and we're going to read down to verse 12.
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So we'll be doing a larger swath of reading today.
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So if you have your Bibles open, James chapter 3.
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Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.
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For we all 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.
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If we put bits into the mouths of horses so they obey us, we guide their whole bodies as well.
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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.
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So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things.
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How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire! And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness.
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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.
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For every kind of beast and bird or reptile and sea creature can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue.
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It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.
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With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God.
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From the same mouth come blessing and cursing.
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My brothers, these things ought not to be so.
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Does a spring pour forth from the same opening, both fresh and salt water? Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives, or a grape vine produce figs? Neither can a salt pond yield fresh water.
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Let's pray.
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Father, You are the One who knows all things, even the very thoughts and intentions of the heart of man.
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And Lord, when we consider what this Word has to say about the tongue, and what the tongue says about the man, Father, I pray that we would, by Your Holy Spirit's power, be convicted about how we use this small member in our mouths.
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And Father, that You would, by Your mercy, grant me the Holy Spirit's power to preach today toward the end of glorifying Christ, seeing those who know You draw closer to You, and those who do not know You bow the knee in submission and faith.
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Father, such is the purpose of preaching.
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Such is Your purpose for this time.
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And I would pray, O God, that we would all be enlightened to what this text has to say.
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That You would keep me from error, as I am called to teach, and with teaching comes a greater condemnation.
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So, Father, I pray for a submissive soul in the midst of this assembly.
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In Christ's name.
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Amen.
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Well, last week we looked at the subject of teaching, and the question of who should be teaching.
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If you remember, if you were part of that lesson, we discussed the fact that James tells us...
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Is this okay if I erase this? Alright.
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James tells us that not everyone should be teachers, for teachers will be judged with a stricter judgment.
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Not everyone should teach the Word of God.
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And actually, the term he says, he says, not many, but that doesn't mean not any.
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And I stressed that point last week.
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If perfection was the standard, then no one would be able to qualify, because none of us are perfect.
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But in chapter 3, it would be easy to disconnect verses 2-12 from verse 1, if we were so inclined.
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Because verses 2-12, he begins to talk about the subject of the tongue.
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And people think that that's independent of verse 1.
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That that's all about just how we talk to one another.
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And there are a myriad of applications that we could draw about how we talk to one another.
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You could talk about the fact that when you're talking to another man, you might talk to him with salty language.
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He talks about salt water and fresh water, and by salty I mean you're being ugly to the man, you're being hurtful to the man, you're being accostive to the man, you're being prideful to the man.
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And we could talk about all of that, and certainly the application of the text lends itself to that opportunity of interpretation.
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But context is king.
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If you learn nothing else from me in the study of Scriptures, learn this.
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That if you're going to understand the right application of a text, you must have first the right interpretation.
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And if you're going to have the right interpretation, you must interpret in light of the context.
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What we call the grammatical-historical context of the passage, meaning you understand the grammar, and you understand the historical setting in which the grammar was used, thereby you are able to interpret the passage according to how it was written and the purpose for which it was written, and then you understand it, and you can rightly apply it.
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I will say this, it is almost impossible to get a right application if you have the wrong interpretation.
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If you interpret it wrong, you're going to apply it wrong.
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So we want to interpret it right.
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So we're going to interpret verses 2-12 in light of verse 1.
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Because verse 1 is the interpretive grid of the whole section, at least in my opinion.
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I believe that verse 1, in talking about teachers, lends itself to the subject of the danger of the tongue, because who among us has the most dangerous ability to hurt folks than the one who is teaching the Word with his tongue? With his mouth.
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And so the danger of the tongue in this passage is really pointed to, first and foremost, the teacher.
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A few years ago, one of the men who has been greatly influential in my life was a man by the name of James White.
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Maybe some of you have heard of him.
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He's a debater, he's a teacher, theologian, apologist.
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And he is a man I've had the opportunity to spend some time with, and I'm very thankful for those times.
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Dr.
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White was in a very large Southern Baptist church.
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Now he's in a different church, but this was years ago, and he was in a very large Southern Baptist church.
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And there was a man who was studying the Beatitudes, and he had come to a very unique interpretation of the Beatitudes.
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The first few verses of the Sermon on the Mount.
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Blessed are the poor, blessed are the Beatitudes.
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And so Dr.
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White was asked by this man, do you think my interpretation of the text is correct? And so Dr.
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White took his notes, took the opportunity to study what he was saying, went back to his study and spent several hours looking over the material, and he came back and he said, look, this is interesting, but it's not correct.
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This is interesting, but it's not correct.
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It does not fit with the grammar, it does not fit with the context, it does not fit with anything.
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I think you've gone away from the truth.
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It can be interesting and still be wrong.
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Amen? So he said that.
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A few weeks later that man was asked to preach in that church, that very large Southern Baptist church.
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The man got up to preach.
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Guess what he chose to preach? He chose to preach on the Beatitudes.
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And guess what interpretation he gave of that passage? He gave the wrong one.
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That's exactly right.
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He gave the wrong interpretation.
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So after he preached this sermon, which was, again, very interesting, he was leaving church that day and Dr.
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White just happened to be coming.
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They were going down a hallway where they were going to inevitably run into each other.
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And the man sort of was hanging his head and sort of looking away as the man was walking to him.
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And he said, he said, I know, I know, I know.
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But James, it preaches so good.
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Think about that.
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I know it's wrong.
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I know the interpretation is wrong, but it preaches so good.
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Boy, isn't it? And the danger of that type of attitude toward the Word.
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The danger of that type of attitude to how we would use our mouths in expressing the Word.
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And so I use that as an illustration to simply set the stage for what we're looking at today.
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James says, not many of you should become teachers, my brother, because you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.
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We will be judged not only for how we live the Christian life, not only for how we walk the Christian walk, but how we shepherded the souls of God's people.
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The Bible says that.
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It says, to the elders, it says, shepherd the flock of God which is among you, understanding that you will give an account for their souls.
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Gentlemen, I don't know many of you very well, but I'm going to give an account for how I teach you in this short time I have once a week.
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I'm going to give an even greater account for how I shepherd the souls that God puts under my charge every week in the church because not only am I preaching to them, but I'm actively invested in their lives week in and week out.
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If you desire to teach, if that is something God has laid upon you, you have to understand the weightiness that comes along with that call.
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The weightiness of being willing to say that the charge of the souls of the people in your care is your responsibility.
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Now does that mean everything they do you can control? No, not at all.
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I don't walk around with a whip and a chair and force people to do things, but I call people to repentance and I point them to Christ and I know that at the end of the day God is sovereign and I have to trust Him with that, but I have a responsibility as part of this.
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So that's the call in verse 1.
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Now let's begin to look at verse 2.
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He's called the teachers to understand their responsibility is going to be judged more strictly because they're being judged not only on their own account, but on account of the souls they shepherd.
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He says, For we all stumble in many ways, and if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, also able to bridle his whole body.
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Now, very quickly, is anyone perfect? Does he not automatically say, we all stumble in many ways? And by using the we, he is identifying himself as part of the we.
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Notice that.
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He says, For we all stumble.
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Even James himself.
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By the way, remember who James is, brother of Jesus, but he's also a pastor.
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James is the pastor of the church of Jerusalem.
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He is the pastor of the first church, if it were as you were, there in Jerusalem.
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And he is preaching and he's saying, we all stumble in many ways, and he who does not stumble in what he says is perfect.
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And nobody is perfect.
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And he says, if you can control your tongue, you can control your whole body.
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The problem is we can't control our tongue.
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So he goes on to say, If we put bits into the mouths of horses so that they obey us, we guide their whole bodies as well.
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Look at the ships also.
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They're so large, they're driven by strong winds.
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They're guided by a small rudder, wherever the will of the pilot directs.
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So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things.
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Again, this is an illustration that James is using.
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James writes a lot like Proverbs.
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If you read Proverbs and study Proverbs and study James, you'll see a lot of similarities in the language because it's wisdom literature.
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That's what James is.
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He's the wisdom literature of the New Testament.
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And what he's doing is he's providing us pictures.
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He's saying, look, you think of a horse.
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A horse is 1,500, 2,000 pounds, maybe more.
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You've got this giant animal, and this giant animal is controlled by one little metal piece that you stick in his mouth.
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This one little metal piece that sticks in his mouth, that actually controls the whole animal.
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You can cause him to go to the left.
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You can cause him to go to the right.
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You can cause him to woe.
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You can cause him to go.
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That little piece of metal in the mouth of the horse controls everything.
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Then he uses the rudder on a boat.
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And he says, you've got a big old boat, and one little piece of rudder that hangs off the back will cause that boat to go any direction that the pilot of the boat wants it to go.
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The point is, even though we have this whole body with our members, our hands, our feet, and all the rest of us, the one part of us that tends to be the part that has the most influence, the one part of us that seems to have the most danger is right here in our mouth.
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Our tongues are dangerous tools.
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Our tongues are dangerous realities.
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And if you think about it, you could modernize this by talking about maybe the accelerator on a car.
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A car weighs several thousand pounds, but the one little...
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I have a two-year-old daughter, or a six-year-old daughter who loves to jump in the front seat and pretend she's driving.
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And I always have to make sure that if I get out of the car first, because she knows how to unbuckle her seat belt, if I get out of the car first, she'll unbuckle her seat belt and jump right in the driver's seat, right? Which is usually okay unless the car is running.
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Because if the car is running and she jumps in the front seat and she's able to adjust the gear shift or grab it or something, the car could begin to motivate itself forward.
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And heaven forbid she was able to reach the pedal, even at six years old, that little pedal can motivate that car to 60 miles an hour before I would be able to do anything.
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So I have to train myself to take the key out when I get out of the car.
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In the same reality, this is the picture that he's giving us.
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That one little accelerator in the car has power over the whole car.
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That one little accelerator takes it from zero to 60 in just a few seconds.
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How often does your little accelerator take you from zero to 60 in just a few seconds? Yeah, yeah.
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Our mouth, you ever, there's an old movie, I forget the movie, but he said your mouth's writing checks your body can't cash.
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Top Gun, Top Gun, the movie.
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He says your mouth's writing checks your body can't cash.
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That's what, and that happens.
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Our mouth goes around writing checks, but our body can't cash those checks.
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Our mouth's a dangerous tool.
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Brother Charles, you were going to say something, I didn't mean to cut you off.
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It's okay.
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It's okay, brother.
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If you think about it, just chime right in.
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Ultimately, the point of verses 2, 3, and 4 is the danger of the tongue.
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The fact that it is powerful.
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The fact that it has the power to do many things.
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And I want to say this about that.
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I have a lot of issues that come up in the church.
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As pastor, I deal with people who are angry with me.
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I deal with people who are angry with one another.
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I deal with men who cheat on their wives.
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Wives who cheat on their husbands.
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All kinds of things.
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And these are just, these people come in, they have problems.
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People who are addicted to substances.
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People who are dealing with different things.
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And in almost every issue where there is a problem between people.
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Whether it's husband and wife.
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Whether it's friends.
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Church members.
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Brothers and sisters in Christ.
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Almost every instance, it's in the mouth.
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The issue is, well, he said this.
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Pastor, can you believe he said this? Every time I've ever been brought before the elders.
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In 13 years of preaching at the same church, I've only had a few times where I've had to be, I don't even like the word reprimanded, but I've had to be brought in to talk to.
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It's always been about something I said.
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I never get in trouble for what I wear.
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I never get in trouble for what I do.
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It's always what I say.
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And that just shows the power of the tongue right there.
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Every fight you've ever been in, and I imagine you guys have been in a few scrapes here or there.
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Every fight you've ever been in started with somebody running their mouth.
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Very few times is it just somebody looks at you funny.
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Generally, it's something is said.
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Right? Somebody opens their mouth, the next thing you know, you want to close it for them.
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That's the reality.
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How powerful, how influential the tongue is.
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That's James' point here.
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But now take it to the context, because now we've sort of talked about the power of the tongue.
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Now let's look at the context.
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How much more power is in the mouth of the one who preaches the Word? How much danger is there in one who stands up and says, Thus saith God.
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Thus saith the Lord.
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How much danger is there? Let me ask you a question.
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Are false teachers a problem in the church? Does the Bible talk about false teachers as a problem? There will come those who have itching ears, seeking those who will tell them what they want to hear.
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And I can't imagine.
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I mean, I think about this all the time.
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Because I know not everything I say is correct.
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And I have to deal with that.
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And I have to pray that God would give me clarity.
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And there have been times where I have been very corrected, and I was very thankful.
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For times I have been in error.
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But I can't imagine what it would be like to live as someone whose life is spent preaching error.
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The danger of the judgment of someone like Joel Osteen.
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And you say, why would you mention somebody's name? Pastor, well, Paul didn't mind mentioning names.
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He mentioned Alexander the coppersmith who did me great harm.
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He mentioned a lot of people.
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And so when I come to you today and I say, Joel Osteen is a false teacher, you might not like that because you might like reading that you have your best life now.
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Well, I've got news for you.
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If you've got your best life now, you're going to hell.
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If this is your best life, you're going to hell.
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Because your best life is yet to come.
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Joel Osteen does not believe in the reprobation of man.
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He does not believe in the depravity of man.
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He does not believe in the nature of man as sinful.
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He does not believe in the necessity of Christ for salvation.
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He does not believe in the inerrancy of the word of God.
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And when he preaches, you can tell these things.
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But these are things not only can we extrapolate from his preaching, but these are things that he has clearly said.
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And yet his little tongue, that little member in his mouth, goes to thousands of people in an auditorium and millions of people around the world.
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The danger of such a thing is tremendous.
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And he's not alone.
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He just happens to be an easy target.
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Thousands upon thousands of people are duped by false teachers.
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And the dangerous little rudder in their mouth that not only steers their life, but steers the lives of their hearers, is dangerous.
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And this puts the onus on you as well.
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Because is this about the teachers? Yes.
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But this is also about you who listen.
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You get to choose who you listen to.
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Now when it comes to the ministry here, you got to listen to who Pastor Mark invites in.
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And I know that he does a good job of trying to invite in men who are going to preach the truth.
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But on your own time, you got to choose what books you read.
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You got to choose who you're going to allow to speak into your life.
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You got to choose who's going to make an impact on you.
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And know this, their words make an impact whether you realize it or not.
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As you listen to their words, as you listen to what they're saying, it is making an impact on your soul.
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I tell you how, when I first got saved, I may have told this story before, I got saved at 19 years old.
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I've been married for 6 months.
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I was at a church that was very liberal, as far as theologically liberal.
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And so I wasn't getting taught the Bible at church.
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You know, I was getting, you know, be good, do good, that kind of stuff.
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That's liberalism, says be good and do good, but it doesn't have a foundation in the Word.
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So I started listening to the television.
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Because it's the only place I knew, right? I mean, I just want to know what the Bible says.
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So I start listening to these people on television.
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And of course, there is a dangerous road, right? You rarely find solid teachers on television.
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You can find them.
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But you rarely find solid teachers on television.
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More often you find solid teachers on the radio.
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John MacArthur, R.C.
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Sproul, guys like that are on the radio.
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Less on television.
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Guys on TV, I was listening to, like I said, 19 years old.
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And my wife and I were newly married, only been married about a year.
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We got married at 19, so I was about 20.
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I'm riding along with her and she's got a running nose.
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She used to have this horrible allergy problem.
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And she's always had a running nose, always coughing, always had a sore throat, just always sick.
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And I looked at her and I said, you know what? If you had more faith, you wouldn't be sick like that.
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That was ignorance on my part.
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That was stupidity on my part.
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That was spiritual hubris, pride on my part.
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But it had been influenced by those rudders on television.
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Thank God he alleviated me from that and showed me the error of that.
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But I have to tell you, that is how easily you can be influenced by false teaching.
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And the danger of false teaching, the danger of that little member in the mouth of the false teacher, is James' concern.
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I truly believe that in this passage.
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His big concern is that that which is small has great power.
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The rudder, the bit, the mouth of the false teacher has great power.
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And that's why it goes on in verse 5.
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He says, With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God.
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From the same mouth come blessing and cursing.
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Herein is really the big part that we, this is sort of what I'm driving to today, is the word hypocrisy.
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Yeah.
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Do you think like, and I think from what I noticed, I'm not sure, but do you think the translations can have a lot to do with that? The way things are worded or the way, like, you don't sound like...
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No, I'm trying to think of how to answer best.
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Translation does matter, which is why I'm an advocate for learning as much as you can about the original languages and understanding that every English translation is based on a Greek or Hebrew foundation.
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And so I think that's the solution to the dilemma of the translations.
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It's not that, you know, we say this translation is perfect, and that's what the King James guy said, that this translation is perfect, everything else is faulty, and so we're going to stick with one translation.
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I think that's, you know, while I love the King James Bible, I wouldn't say that's the answer.
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I would say the answer is that you have an underlying text, and so if you come to a question of interpretation, then you should always look underlying the English.
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What does the original language have to say on this issue? And oftentimes it doesn't make a difference, but sometimes it does.
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And so I would say that's one way.
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That's the grammatical thing I was talking about earlier, right? Grammar matters.
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I never, you know, I was in school, I took English.
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In fact, in college, I didn't even have to take English classes because I clepped all the English classes.
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I don't know if you know what that means.
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Clepping means you take a test, and if you pass the test, you don't have to take the class.
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It's to give you the credit.
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So I clepped all the English classes because that was something that I was, I understood, so I could take the test and not have to do the classes.
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And so I clepped all the English classes, and then when I started seminary, I started doing all the work that came with learning the Bible, I learned that it's grammar.
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It's almost always the issue of interpretation.
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Learning how to use, how to understand how verbs operate, how prepositions operate, how nouns and relate to pronouns and all of those things, all of those things are important, especially when you're looking at a different language.
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And so that's one thing.
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But the second thing, too, on this, and I don't want to chase a rabbit too far, but you asked, can interpretations affect how you understand? Absolutely.
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And I'll tell you the best example I know.
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Do you know who Rick Warren is? Rick Warren wrote a book back in the 90s.
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It was called Purpose-Driven Church.
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Later it became Purpose-Driven Life.
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Anybody ever read Purpose-Driven Life? Okay, all right.
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Purpose-Driven Life, there are five purposes to your life, discipleship, worship, evangelism, fellowship, and ministry.
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That was the five purposes of your life, and you should center your life on these five purposes.
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Not necessarily that that's bad, right? But one of the things I noticed when I read Rick's book is that every time he wanted to make a point, he used a different translation.
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So like if he was making a point about discipleship and he found something in the New Living Translation that agreed with him, he'd quote from the New Living Translation.
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But if he was making a point about evangelism and he was trying to make a point and he found something in the NIV that agreed with him, he'd use the NIV.
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And then I would say, well, why is he using the NIV here and he's using the New Living Translation here? He's using the message over here and he's using the King James over here.
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And the whole reason was is because he had points he was going to make regardless of what the Scripture said.
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And so he made his point, then he went and found what the Scripture said to try to agree with it.
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That's backwards.
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This is why I preach verse by verse because if I'm preaching verse by verse, I start with the text and draw out of it what is going to be said versus saying, okay, today I'm going to talk about money and then I go into the passage to try to find all I want to say about money and the passages that agree with me, I'm going to use and the passages that don't agree with me, I'm not going to use.
30:44
So, you're saying that they're different depending on translations, depending on Bibles and different translations or different wording.
30:58
Oh yeah, well yeah, but that's...
31:00
There's...
31:01
I taught on this.
31:02
I don't think you were here because several months ago I taught on how Bibles are translated because not all Bibles are translated the same way.
31:14
There's the literal, what we call essentially literal because nothing is totally literal because you can't literally translate Greek into English because there are some words in English that don't have an English equivalent.
31:26
There are some words in Greek that are one word means three words in English.
31:33
Right? And so you can't translate literally always.
31:37
But there are essentially literal translations meaning they attempt literal translations.
31:43
New American Standard Bible probably comes the closest at giving a very literal translation.
31:49
The Christian Standard Bible is the latest one that attempts to do that.
31:55
The ESV is what I use and it's good for what it is.
32:00
KJV is good, but it's, again, it's 400 years old so you're using a different type of English.
32:05
So now you're having to translate English into English.
32:08
Right? Because words that we don't use anymore.
32:12
So you have essentially literal translations.
32:15
The New International Version, the New Living Translation are what you call dynamic equivalent.
32:22
They're not intending to be literal and they tell you that from the start.
32:26
They're intending to convey ideas rather than words.
32:30
That's a different way of translating.
32:34
It can misconstrue the truth and that's where it becomes a little bit less accurate.
32:42
I'm not saying I wouldn't use an NIV, but I'm saying I understand the translational methodology.
32:47
Then you have the Message and the Living Bible.
32:50
Those are paraphrases.
32:52
Those aren't even an attempt to translate literally.
32:55
Those are translating ideas.
32:59
Not even thoughts, but ideas.
33:00
Yes, sir? You had mentioned the Royalty a while back.
33:04
Yeah, Young's Literal Translation.
33:05
That's about as close as you're going to get.
33:07
When I said NASB is close, I guess I meant it was the closest readable one.
33:11
Young's Literal is so hard to read because he does attempt to do a word-for-word verse translation.
33:21
I've never even seen one in print.
33:23
Young's Literal, I've always seen it online or digital.
33:27
I've never seen one in print because I just don't know that people would use it to read, like a devotionally read.
33:33
But it does attempt to make a literal word-for-word translation and that's why it comes off as so desperately choppy at times because you're translating one language into another language and it isn't always meant to go that way.
33:47
But yeah, it certainly is the most...
33:50
But, and here's...
33:51
Let me take a step back.
33:53
You also have to remember a translation that is done by an individual is different than a translation which is done by a committee.
34:01
New American Standard Bible, all of these...
34:04
King James Translators, 40 translators on the King James Translation Committee.
34:09
I don't know if it's called a committee, but the group that did it was over 40 scholars.
34:13
So when you have that, you have checks and balances.
34:16
You don't have one person that's going to interpret it their way.
34:20
Whereas when you go to Young's Literal, that's one man's interpretation.
34:24
You do have to be careful because you're getting his...
34:28
That same with the message.
34:29
Who translated the message? He just died recently.
34:32
Last name Phillips, I think, was his name.
34:34
Maybe I'm wrong.
34:36
But that guy translated the message and it was his translation.
34:39
I call it the Toothbrush Bible because it's the only Bible I know of that talks about Jesus told his disciples make sure you bring a toothbrush or something.
34:47
Because it's so much an attempt to modernize language that it, to me, becomes almost silly in retrospect.
34:56
Well, yeah.
35:00
The message is a paraphrase.
35:02
It's not a translation.
35:04
So if somebody comes to me and says, I want to talk to you about theology or whatever, and they pull out a message, I say, well, before we start this, let's get a Bible.
35:14
I probably wouldn't say that.
35:16
I might.
35:18
I might be nicer.
35:20
What I would say is if somebody pulls out a message translation, I would say it's going to be very hard to get an accurate understanding of the text unless we have an accurate text.
35:29
And you're not using an accurate text.
35:32
You're using a paraphrase.
35:34
So let's look at an accurate text.
35:37
And so, yeah.
35:37
I think the text does a lot.
35:40
But again, Martin Luther talked about men who would take the Bible and make it into a wax nose that they could twist anywhere.
35:48
Even if somebody has a literal translation, even if somebody can read Greek and Hebrew, even if somebody can read the original languages, that doesn't keep them from being a false teacher.
35:57
It doesn't keep them from being dangerous because they can twist the words.
36:02
I mean, Peter tells us this in his epistle when he talks about the writings of Paul.
36:07
He said, there are many who have taken the writings of our brother Paul and twisted them.
36:11
Unlearned men, unstable men, have taken Paul's writings and twisted them.
36:17
Yeah.
36:18
So even in first century early Christianity, there were false teachers who took what Paul wrote and completely distorted it.
36:26
So was it done then? Yes.
36:28
Can it be done now? Absolutely.
36:30
So, how do you know somebody's being fair with the Word of God? How do you know somebody's being accurate and honest with the Word of God? That's right.
36:39
You become a Berean yourself.
36:40
You search the Scriptures to see if what they're saying is true.
36:44
I will say this and I've said this many times.
36:46
If I say something, you should not take it for granted that it's true simply because I say it.
36:51
That's right.
36:52
I appreciate anybody who respects enough to listen, but do not take my word as gospel.
37:01
Yes, sir.
37:04
Before I came here, man, at the same time, that's why I have to start what I like by what he's saying all the time.
37:19
Make sure you read your word.
37:23
Be accustomed to what people say and focus on God and not the pastor.
37:27
You wouldn't know that's your pastor you might put it first thing he'd tell you, put it on the pastor.
37:31
Some of the people fall away, man, and they don't focus on God, they focus on the pastor.
37:36
Then when something happens to the pastor, you know, you're gone.
37:40
Instead of taking, keeping your eye on God, I mean, in a good way sometimes, but you still get caught up.
37:46
Absolutely.
37:46
I find myself all the time getting caught up, but then when the pastor leaves, you know, you get mad at God because of some really stupid things, but you got to focus on God and what he said.
37:58
Don't get caught up in, sorry, the lack of a pastor, but when a pastor leaves, when you leave and call the pastor, you forget.
38:05
Yeah, we tend to follow what's generally called the cult of personality.
38:12
You know, we tend to be tied to the person teaching, and it can be very negative.
38:19
It can be very bad.
38:20
You know, I know what you're saying, work for it, search for yourself, but us ourselves can manipulate the Word, and just off of our past beliefs or ideas, we get the wrong idea.
38:37
Like you were saying earlier, we get the wrong idea of the passage, and couldn't there be false teachers that don't realize that they're teaching falsely? Yes, and I want to address that one, both of what you said, but he has something to say.
38:51
I want to let him, very quickly, and then I'll come back and...
38:53
No disrespect to you.
38:55
Please.
38:55
We're going to get back to it.
38:57
Yes, sir.
38:58
Yes, sir.
38:59
Thanks.
39:00
Sorry, I mean to diverge there.
39:03
Let me very quickly answer what he said, though.
39:07
It's your responsibility to study and to know how to study, and so we seek to try to help you learn to do that.
39:14
There are rules.
39:15
It's called hermeneutics, and that's part of understanding the Word of God, and yes, when you're early, you do have to take for granted that people are telling you what's right because you won't know any better, but as you begin to grow, and as your hermeneutics grow and you get better, then hopefully you'll begin to see through the cracks, and that's where you become a Berean.
39:34
So, yes, there is a certain time in the beginning where you have to be at least a little open to being taught, but at the same time, as you're learning, you will grow.
39:48
All right, so let's start.
39:50
I wrote the word hypocrisy up here and never really dealt with it.
39:52
That's what he's talking about when he says, "...from the same mouth come blessing and cursing.
39:57
My brothers, these things ought not to be.
39:59
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." The argument that James is making here, at least as I see it, is the argument of hypocrisy.
40:18
Hypocrisy is not limited to men who teach Scripture, but it's very dangerous in men who preach Scripture.
40:24
Those who would speak out of both sides of their mouth.
40:27
Those whose doctrine is unstable.
40:30
It's not founded on the truth.
40:31
Those who are willing to say one thing at one time and another thing at another time.
40:36
And that's what he's talking about here.
40:38
But he's also talking about the danger of those who would use their mouths to bless God in one instance and would use their mouths to curse others in another instance.
40:49
And I think that's the application that can come to even those who aren't teachers.
40:55
Do you use your mouth to praise God? The answer should be yes.
41:02
And I think all of you guys you go to worship service on Tuesday night, you go to worship service on Sunday afternoon, and you're using your mouth to praise God.
41:11
And then are you also using that same mouth to hurt others? Are you using that same mouth to complain about God's provision in your life? Are you using that same mouth to argue against God's Word? That's the hypocrisy.
41:31
That's the danger.
41:31
How can the same spring bring fresh water and salt water? The answer is it shouldn't.
41:39
It can't.
41:41
But going back to verse 2 where he says we all stumble.
41:45
We do all stumble with that.
41:47
I've never seen a person in the history of ever that I didn't find at least a little hypocrisy in.
41:55
I've never met a person that was perfect.
41:59
And where we are imperfect the most is with our mouths and with our hypocrisy of our mouths.
42:07
I claim to believe in the sovereignty of God and yet I worry about what's going to happen tomorrow.
42:14
That's hypocrisy.
42:17
Is it not? If I believe God has so ordained my life that He is working all things together for His glory and that all things that happen are going to be for my ultimate good and yet I stay up all night wringing my hands because I've got a big meeting tomorrow with a group of people that are mad at me.
42:42
So I'm imperfect.
42:45
You're imperfect.
42:48
And yet what's the call? The call is consistency, not hypocrisy.
42:54
By the way, that's the opposite of hypocrisy.
42:56
The opposite is consistency.
43:02
The opposite.
43:06
Hypocrisy is the opposite of consistency.
43:09
You say, well, what's consistency? I say the same thing all the time.
43:15
I believe and continue to believe the same thing no matter who I'm with.
43:19
I stand for the truth no matter the consequences.
43:22
That's consistency.
43:23
And consistency is a rare jewel.
43:27
But think about the passage and what it's saying.
43:30
Can a fresh spring bring salt water? No, because that's inconsistent.
43:37
And that's the point.
43:39
God calls us to consistency because in consistency we find integrity.
43:48
In consistency we find integrity.
43:53
We should all want to be men of integrity.
43:56
Whether we're teachers or whether we're not doesn't matter.
44:02
The reality is a man who wants to be a man of God should be a man who wants to be a man of integrity, a man of consistency, and a man who avoids hypocrisy.
44:13
And we must remember that hypocrisy begins in the tongue.
44:20
I want to draw to a close with an illustration, a short story about the dangers of the tongue.
44:28
The dangers of the tongue.
44:32
In November 1978 U.S.
44:35
Representative Leo J.
44:37
Ryan of California visited the People's Temple in Guyana.
44:42
Anybody remember that? Anybody alive then? You know what I'm talking about? Jonestown, yeah.
44:48
I was wondering if anybody would know.
44:50
Jim Jones.
44:51
It was a California-based cult.
44:54
His group went to investigate reports that some of the people there were being held against their will.
45:01
The congressman and his party were ambushed and killed.
45:05
A few days later at Jonestown, Guyana, soldiers were horrified to find hundreds of bodies of cult members who had been shot or committed suicide by drinking cyanide-based Kool-Aid.
45:17
Reverend Jim Jones, 47 years old, lay near the altar with a bullet wound in his head.
45:24
The death count was 780 people.
45:28
A brief report of what happened during those final moments was, As Jones talked over the loudspeaker on the beauty of death and the certainty that everyone would meet again, several hundred cult members gathered around the pavilion.
45:41
They were surrounded by armed guards and a vat of Kool-Aid mixed with cyanide was brought out.
45:46
Most cult members drank it willingly.
45:49
Others were forced to.
45:51
They started with the babies.
45:54
At least 80 infants and children were fed the deadly potion and then the adults took it.
46:00
Everything was calm for a few minutes and then the cyanide-induced convulsions began and it all got out of order.
46:08
Children were screaming and there was mass confusion and shortly afterward, everyone was dead.
46:19
You ask, can false teachers believe what they're saying is true? He believed it enough to put a bullet in his head.
46:34
David Koresh, absolutely.
46:37
I point to this story only to say, how do you tie verse 1 to verses 2-12? The danger of the false teacher is the danger of what comes out of his mouth.
46:50
The danger of the false teacher is the ability to manipulate others with this small tool in his mouth called the tongue.
46:58
If you are seeking to know God and to know His Word, be careful to whom you listen.
47:06
Be careful to whom you open your ears and your mind to because we are easily manipulated and manipulation can lead to a dangerous result.
47:21
Be Bereans.
47:22
Be willing to go to the Scripture.
47:25
Even in your lack of knowledge, be willing to go to the Word and find in it the truth.
47:32
And learn as best you can, as much as you can, and understand this, that the same rules that apply to the teacher about the tongue also can be applied to you.
47:44
How you use your tongue will say a lot about your soul, will say a lot about your life, and will say a lot about your walk with Christ.
47:54
The tongue is a very small part of our body, but it boasts of great things.
48:01
Be careful with your tongue.
48:04
Let's pray.
48:06
Father, I thank You for this opportunity to study.
48:09
I thank You for the truth.
48:10
I thank You for the opportunity to just be reminded about the danger of the tongue and the power that comes with it.
48:17
Lord, may we be ever invested in seeking the truth, knowing the truth, listening to teachers of the truth, listening to the Word and comparing everything to it.
48:27
But most of all, Lord, may we be careful with our own tongues.
48:31
May we avoid hypocrisy.
48:34
May we seek consistency.
48:36
May we be men of integrity.
48:39
In Christ's name, Amen.