Poison And The Tongue - [James 3]

I had two different options. How to evangelize Roman Catholics are the tongue and communication.

So let me give you both sermons. Sermon one, go through the book of Hebrews as you're evangelizing

Roman Catholics. Sermon two, turn your Bibles to James chapter three.

James chapter three. There are many dangers in the church, false doctrine, false teachers, but probably the one that lurks below the level, below the surface, is the tongue.

The untamed, wild tongue that we all have. We live in a society that extols and promotes and celebrates speaking your mind.

And the Bible has a lot to say about what we say and how we go about it. I read in the past, speaking of medical things, that if you look at someone's tongue, if it has a weird color, the doctor can often understand what sickness that person has based on the color of their tongue.

If the tongue is black, they might have a liver disease. If the tongue is bluish, you might have asthma, you might have a heart disease or some type of impaired circulation.

Brown tongue could be Addison's disease. Pale tongue, anemia.

Red tongue, typhoid fever. Strawberry tongue, scarlet fever.

Yellow tongue, jaundice. And you could also tell by the look of the tongue if someone is dehydrated.

And so too spiritually, just like the Puritan Thomas Brooks said, we know metals by their tinkling and men by their talking.

And the thing is, we all talk a lot. It is said that one fifth of your lives, you will spend talking.

That is 13 years of your life in nonstop talking. Of course, some of you talk more than others, but 12 to 25 ,000 words per day.

You might think talk is cheap, but it's not true because it influences people. It affects people for good or for ill.

And I know I do it and I know you do it. We shove our mouths into gear and pop the clutch and just start saying all kinds of things.

The problem is with the tongue. It's the easiest sin in the world to commit. Why? Because some sins are restrained.

You're restrained physically from committing them, but your mouth isn't restrained. Remember that old slogan in World War II?

Loose what? Lips sink ships. And they also destroy marriages, wreck friendships, and split churches.

A Greek philosopher said, will you please say something so I can see you? Will you please say something so I can see you?

That is right from the principle of Jesus, where he said, from the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart.

And so James is talking about a vibrant faith, a holy faith, an energized faith, and he discusses the tongue.

He doesn't say much about the Lord Jesus in the book of James, but if you see in chapter one, let's go to chapter one before we actually hit chapter three.

He talks about the sovereignty of God and salvation, certainly. He talks about the Lord Jesus Christ.

He's a servant of Jesus in chapter one, verse one. He says in verse 18, does he not, that God is sovereign in salvation of his own will, whose will saves?

He brought us forth by the word of truth that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creation.

Jesus is the Lord, he's the savior, he's the sovereign one. And he also talks about Jesus is the

Lord of glory in chapter two, verse one. My brother, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our

Lord. The Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. Paul called him elsewhere, the

Lord of glory. You've crucified the Lord of glory. In Hebrews, as we know in chapter one, the sun is the radiance of God's glory.

These words in James, you might have heard sermons on chapter three. You might've read them, but they're very, very good because the tongue is a litmus test for our spirituality.

Are we mature or immature? The tongue is used for chewing, tasting, swallowing, speaking, but also for either praising or destroying.

Chapter three, verse one, we should probably ask the question, what's the context in the last chapter?

And it is faith without works is dead. It begins in chapter two, verse 14. What good is it, my brothers, if someone keeps on saying he has faith, but does not have any works?

And he's expecting the negative answer. Can that faith save him? The answer is no. Verse 26, for as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.

What do you do with a dead body? You bury it. It has no value. And a faith that has no works is not of value.

You are justified by faith alone, but is that faith alone? Well, the reformers would say no.

Faith alone in Christ Jesus yields justification. But once God has saved you, it's the

God of the universe. He's changed you. He's regenerated you. Something must be different.

And of course, our tongue would be as well. So we're gonna go through chapter three.

Verses, let's go verses three and following. And let me give you for an outline four provocative statements about your tongue designed so that you would be more

Christ -like in your speech. Maybe you wanna entitle this glorifying God with your speech.

And I'm gonna give you four statements from James, the master illustrator regarding these truths or these statements.

Ultimately, James is going to be talking about God has given us our tongues and why has he given us our tongues?

To praise him or to tear down. Number one, don't underestimate the damage you can do with your tongue.

Don't underestimate the damage you can do with your tongue. It is small, but mighty.

James is going to answer here in verses three and four and five and a little bit of six. How could something so small really be an indicator of my spiritual maturity?

How could something so small really affect things to such a great degree? And he gives illustrations.

I love these illustrations. You can do studies if you want. The Sermon on the Mount and James, how closely they resemble one another in some of the illustrations

Jesus uses. And so chapter three, verse three, he uses a horse and bridle illustration. I don't know if people here know anything about horses.

Do they, Brown? How many horses do you have now? Two, how many times have you been thrown off of those two horses?

A few, okay. So we have illustrations there too. Just making sure you're awake.

I need some snow coming down. Wasn't that the best by the way this morning? If I could only have a little button to say snow come down at some exclamation type point.

Two illustrations, one powerful living creature and one huge man -made vehicle. Here's the powerful living creature.

If we put bits into the mouths of horses so that they obey us, we guide their whole bodies as well.

If you can control the mouth of that horse, the tongue of the horse, you can govern his whole body.

And he is large and powerful. What's gonna happen here in James?

He's not saying go to a Trappist monastery and eat jam and don't talk.

They still have Trappist jam around here, jelly? Okay, Trappist, you can't say anything.

It's total abstinence from talking. That's not what he's saying. He's talking about control, not abstinence.

You could put some bit in a powerful horse's mouth. And by the way, this is not some old horse named

Glue. They're thinking about, or Swayback or something. He's thinking about a prancing war horse, 550 pounds, raw muscle.

And the power of that horse can be brought under control with a little bit in its mouth. And they obey us.

That's what the texts say, so that they might obey us. No obedience without the bit. My friend,

Scott Labs and I were working on a farm. It was, we were 16 years old. And this guy who owned the farm said, you guys can do whatever you want.

You can ride the tractors. You can ride whatever you want. You can do whatever you want. You can play as often as you want once the work is done.

But see that horse over there? You can't ride the horse. So what'd my friend do? I mean, I wouldn't do it.

I was the righteous kid. Sorry, self -righteous kid. He got on that horse to try to ride it, but there was no bit in the mouth, no reins.

And just that thing went screaming off. He couldn't control it. Well, there's a man -made illustration here too.

Verse four, as James is building to the point, look at the ships. So one's made by God.

This is made by men. Though they're so large, driven by strong winds, they're guided by a very small rudder.

Wherever the will of the pilot directs. Is this not true now?

The idea that huge power can be controlled by small little things. It can be taught obedience.

A horse can be taught obedience. A ship can be taught, as it were, to obey. These were big ships back in those days.

These weren't just small little Sea of Galilee boats. Acts 27, all of us in the ship were 276 persons.

That Egyptian grain ship was big. Some, as Josephus would tell us, would have 600 on a ship.

And even if you take an aircraft carrier, tomorrow I'll probably drive past it, there's a aircraft carrier in the

Hudson Bay and it's called the USS what? Intrepid, sorry, Intrepid, right?

Is it the Enterprise? No, it's the Intrepid, yeah. And that is even controlled by a small, well, it's not so small, but relatively small compared to that ship.

So they, do you notice, are, these ships are so great and they're driven by strong, fierce winds, but there's a very small little rudder.

For the Jews, that must have been amazing because they were not seafaring people. The helmsman, the pilot, the one guiding straight, literally, controlled everything.

How does this apply to my tongue, though, you might ask? Verse 5a, so also the tongue.

It's a small member, yet it boasts of great things. The ship is large.

It seems unmanageable, but there's that rudder. There's that one rudder.

The tongue, too, is a small part of the body, but it has this controlling effect, this determining effect over the whole life, over the whole body, and what does it do because of the fall?

It boasts of great things. It parades oneself around. It's prideful. It's arrogant, and I don't know how you would weigh this, but they said if you weigh your tongue, it's two ounces.

One little two -ounce thing of, I guess we talked about medical things earlier, so a mucous membrane runs our entire body.

Curtis Vaughn said, quote, "'It can sway men to violence. "'It can move them to the noblest actions. "'It can instruct the ignorant, "'encourage the dejected, "'comfort the sorrowing, and soothe the dying, "'or it can crush the human spirit, "'destroy reputations, spread distrust and hate, "'and bring nations to the brink of war.'"

Here's the point. Don't underestimate the power of what you say.

Don't underestimate the power of what you say. Verse five goes on.

"'How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire, "'and then once it's out, it goes crazy.

"'You can't control it. "'Havoc everywhere. "'It only takes a spark.'"

What? Isn't that an old camp song that Christians used to sing? It only takes a spark to get a fire, what?

Yeah, one little thing you say, and it just, have you ever said something just so dumb, so sinful, so just awful, and as it's coming out of your mouth, you're just wanting to almost reel it back with your little

Zebco 808 reel? You're like, I just want to take that, and so then what do we say when we say those things?

We say, later at least, I didn't mean it. But the thing is, what comes out of the heart comes out of the mouth, and what we said, we did mean.

We wish we wouldn't have said it, and we mean now, please forgive me, but what comes out of your mouth, you mean.

And so do I. Bits, rudders, and tongues, they're all small, and they're all affecting a lot of things.

James says, you know, it's just a small little tongue, but horrible things can happen. Verse six, we come to the second provocative statement.

Number one, don't underestimate the damage you can do with your tongue, but now verse six, you should recognize there's almost nothing as dangerous as your tongue.

A lot of things can be done with your tongue, but here, there's nothing so dangerous. You should be afraid of what you can do with your tongue.

Very afraid. This is the application of the earlier verses. Verse six, and the tongue is a fire.

This is a word kind of linked from the previous context. An uncontrolled tongue is like a fire.

It destroys, it's catastrophic. It destroys things in its path.

It just makes things combustible. Think about it.

What sin do you commit where the tongue isn't involved? You could probably argue there's a few sins where the tongue is not involved.

Psalm 57, my soul is among lions. I must lie among those who breathe forth fire.

Even the sons of men whose teeth are spears and arrows and their tongue, a sharp sword.

Proverbs 16, a worthless man digs up evil while his words are like a scorching fire.

Sticks and stones may break my bones. That wouldn't be true.

Words can never hurt me. James says it's dangerous, it's destructive. It's nuclear.

And look at how he describes it. A world of righteousness, verse six. The essence of all wickedness.

You want to take all iniquity of the world. You want to take all perversion in the world. You want to take the cosmos and condense it down.

It's found right there in the tongue. Homer said, words are winged.

They just fly off. I mean, I can give you example after example. In my own life, or how about this?

The Lord God called to the man and said to him, where are you? And he said, I heard the sound of you in the garden.

I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid myself. Who told you that you were naked?

Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat? And Adam said, the woman you gave me.

She gave me from the tree and I ate. Blames God for the disobedience.

And the thing is, it just affects everything in your life. It progressively defiles, verse six.

The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body. It's just smoky and it just makes things sullied.

Universal pollution, no compartment that's safe. Staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life.

This is the direction of your life. This is the purpose -driven life. The tongue's not controlled.

That's just a little proverbial phrase in Greece. Sets on course all your life.

Calvin said, the vice of the tongue spreads and prevails over every part of the life. It's as active and potent for evil in the old age as it ever was in the days of our youth.

And see, the thing is, even though we might be saved 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, 40 years, 50 years, you ask somebody who's been saved 50 years, do you still struggle with what you say?

What would they say? Of course, to make sure

I contextualize it for those here in New England. What did the fire do in the coconut grove near Boston?

Destruction. What did the fire do? I know this is before your time probably, the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus Tent in Hartford, does anybody remember that?

Well, what's the root cause of all this? What's the origin of the tongue's destruction? It's not, it is shocking.

What's it say at the end of verse six? And is set on fire by what? I mean, if it said lust, greed, envy, it's set on fire by hell.

Present tense, it's habitually set on fire by hell. This is what Satan uses.

That word hell there, of course, is where they would have the fires at the dump, just continually burning all the rubbish and the filth.

And then it was a good picture for the eternal fires of hell. Johnstone said, how appalling the thought should be to the careless talker, the man of unchastened lips, that his words are really

Satan's, for which he yet himself is responsible, that his utterances are doing on himself and those around him the devil's work.

When he pours forth from his lip profane, or impure, or unkind language, he is in truth breathing out the flames lighted from the bottomless pit.

Did not Jesus say, you belong to your father, the devil, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

I don't know if you know this or not, in 1 Timothy 3, talking about leaders in the church, in the same way their wives, deacon wives, are not to be, well,

I was gonna say they're not to be women worthy of respect. They are to be women worthy of respect.

Here's the not part, not malicious talkers, not diabolos, not slanders.

Who's the ultimate slanderer? Satan is the ultimate slanderer. And Paul says to Timothy, when you're gonna pick elders and then deacons' wives, make sure, as A .T.

Robertson said, they're not she -devils. The tongue can be used by Satan, in other words.

Just think about how churches are just wrecked with words. Provocative statement number one, don't underestimate the damage you can do.

Number two, there's almost nothing as dangerous as your tongue. And now number three, found in verses seven and eight, your tongue is evil and full of poison.

And there's nothing you can do about it. Oh, the Lord can do something, but nothing you particularly can do about it.

Verse seven, 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.

God tells Adam and Eve to take dominion over everything and run everything, subdue the earth and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living creature that moves on the earth.

And James here is talking in the same way. You can tame all those. He doesn't mean you can make them domestic kitty cats.

You can't take a lion and say, well, I can just make that a house pet. But you can rule it, you can govern it, you can control it.

But the tongue can't control it. After Noah's ark,

God said, and the fear of you and the terror of you shall be on every beast of the earth and on every bird of the sky and everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea into your hand they're given.

You control everything and I'm gonna put something in them that makes them afraid and runs away. But not so the tongue.

No one can tame the tongue. It's wild, it's undisciplined, it's savage,

MacArthur said. No one can tame the tongue. Anarchy. He doesn't give any exceptions here.

Well, you know Moses, he could. And Peter, he could. No one can tame the tongue.

That's why if you go back to chapter three, verse one, "'Not many of you should become teachers, my brethren, "'for you shall know that we who teach "'will be judged with greater strictness, "'for we all stumble in many ways, "'and if anyone does not stumble in what he says, "'he's a perfect man who's also able "'to bridle his whole body.'"

You can tame a horse. You can tame a donkey. You can tame an elephant.

But you can't tame the tongue. No one can tame the tongue.

I read this by, it seems dated, but it's so true. Harder than the drunk leaving the bottle, the heroin addict leaving his needle, a gambler tossing away his cards is the person that can tame the tongue.

Calvin, other vices are corrected by age are the process of time. They drop off from our lives.

But not the tongue. What were the first words recorded after the fall?

The first words recorded by fallen man after Adam. Yeah, let's make it after Adam.

"'Then the Lord said to Cain, "'Where is Abel your brother?' "'And he said, I don't know. "'Am I your brother's keeper?'

"'Back to verse eight, "'It's a restless evil full of deadly poison. "'It doesn't stay where it's supposed to stay.

"'It's fickle, it runs, it's inconsistent. "'It goes back and forth. "'It's unstable in all its ways.

"'It's full of poison. "'It's death -bearing. "'Poison is under the lips, fangs.'"

It's like you look at a poisonous snake and it's not just slithering, it's got its mouth open with the fangs out, with the poison dripping out.

And you know, here's the problem. Everything seems to be going so well with our tongue and we're saying the right things and we're at church and we're praising the

Lord, we're trying to encourage people. And then somebody pulls out in front of us and then we were doing so well until people used to pull out in front of me and I would think,

I'd always say, sometimes out loud, but I try not to say it too much, you fool, you idiot. And then

I read the Sermon on the Mount. If you say raka, you're worthy of hellfire.

And I thought, that needs to change. You know, at least if you had a snake with fangs and poison, you could kind of milk out the poison a little bit once in a while.

But you can't do that with the tongue. You go to someone's medicine cabinet and there's all kinds of poisonous labels on there.

Not on the tongue. Can't tame your own tongue.

No wonder one of the antidotes to the taming of the tongue is what

David would say in Psalm 19, it's prayer. Lord, let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight.

Oh Lord, my rock and redeemer. We can't tame the tongue, but God can tame it for us.

David prays, set a guard, oh Lord, over my mouth. Keep watch over the door of my lips.

In other words, I need help. I can't watch my own lips. I mean, I'm required to and I'm trying not to, but I need your help.

And number four, recognize your tongue is insane.

It's illogical. It's crazy. It's inconsistent. Four provocative statements from James three, don't underestimate the damage you could do with your tongue.

Recognize there's nothing as dangerous as your tongue. Third, there's evil and poison there and you're gonna need to have

God subdue it. And then finally, remember your tongue is illogical or inconsistent.

This is convicting. Verse nine, with it, we bless our

Lord and Father. Praise God from whom all blessings flow. And with it, we curse people.

That would be bad enough, but these people are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing.

You can see the pastoral heart there. My brothers, these things ought not to be so.

Does a spring pour forth from the same opening, both fresh and saltwater? Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives or a grapevine produce figs?

Neither can a salt pond yield fresh water. And so James just gives these illustrations of how unstable the tongue is.

And you can extol the Lord and praise the Lord, and the Jews would do this all the time.

Anytime someone said the word God back in this particular day, the Jew would say, blessed be

He. Someone would mention God, blessed be He. Oh yes, isn't God good, blessed be

He. They would praise God. And all of a sudden we praise God with our mouth and we curse other people.

I mean, it's out of the same mouth. Even if I have to die with you, Peter said to Jesus, I will not deny you.

30 verses later, now Peter was sitting outside in the courtyard and a certain servant girl came to him and said, you too are with the

Jesus, the Galilean. And he denied it before them all saying, I don't know what you're talking about.

That reminds me of John Bunyan in Pilgrim's Progress with a little man named Talkative.

And it was said of Talkative, he was a saint abroad and a devil at home. From the same mouth, verse 10, both of these things come.

The best we have to offer praise, the worst we have to offer cursing other people.

What a paradox. This just ought not to be.

That's what James is trying to say. And nature proves it, verse 11. Nature proves it with this fountain.

You don't get, what's your favorite kind of bottled water? Anybody, what's the new popular bottled water now?

Huh? Well, I don't even know the names. What, Vav? Oh, I see,

I don't even know these things. What if there was a nice flowing fountain up out of the water?

And I'm gonna just have to change that. We're gonna do Evian in my illustration. Is Fuji a good water?

Fuji's, that's it? Okay. What about the electrolyte water? And out of this same fountain, you know, you're parched and you've been walking for a long time.

You've been riding your bike for five hours at the PCH. And you finally get to this fountain to take it.

And you're like, wait, out of the same fountains coming Evian and Montezuma's revenge water.

It's just all like both together mixed. You would go, that doesn't work. That's nauseating.

That doesn't work. Oh, well, let's go to the Dead Sea and get fresh water out of that. That doesn't work.

And the same thing in verse 12. You don't get olives out of a fig tree or you don't go get grapes, you know, figs from a grape vine.

It's crazy. It's illogical. We can confess with our mouth

Jesus as Lord and then we can say something bad about someone else. We complain, we slander, we demean other people.

And we say praise God from whom all blessings flow. Reviling, deceit, profanity, slander, innuendo, gossiping, complaining, six things the

Lord hates, yes, seven are an abomination, haughty eyes, and the second one is a lying tongue.

No wonder the Bible sometimes says just talk less. When there are many words, transgression is unavoidable, but he who restrains his lips is what?

Wise. He who restrains his words, Proverbs 17, has knowledge and he who has a cool spirit is a man of understanding.

Ecclesiastes 5, a fool's voice is known by the multitude of words. Even a fool when he keeps silent is considered wise when he closes his lips, he's counted prudent.

Spurgeon used to say, too bad we can't tax words. You might say things not as often.

Calvin used to say to pastors, and you probably will want me to heed his advice, pastors, just fast from talking.

He doesn't mean the pulpit, he just means behind the scenes. One person said, talk is cheap because the supply always exceeds the demand.

Another person said, silence is golden. Not many people can be arrested for hoarding.

Plato, wise men talk because they have something to say. Fools, because they have to say something.

Will Durant, the historian, one of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a good thing to do and always a clever thing to say.

Someone has said that it takes a baby two years to learn how to talk and 50 years to keep his mouth shut. So if I just left it here, it would kind of be a downer.

James could leave it there. He would not make you think it's a downer because it's true.

But I thought, you know what? Whenever I think now about sin and how I fall short, of course,

Jesus was our substitute and he died for our sins. But also there was a reason why he lived on earth as our representative.

Now just think, if you study for the rest of your life in scripture, could you find one time

Jesus ever sinned by saying anything? If anybody should have complained or had a reason to, but Jesus never complained, any slander of Jesus you could find?

Any backbiting, envy, lack of thanks, blasphemy?

I did some study this week and I found some of the verses that talk about Jesus's words.

And it is so good and I'm going to read some of these and just let them kind of, I just want you to absorb these words and think, you know what?

Lord, you've saved me to use it this morning's message. I have a heavenly calling.

I'm a holy brother or sister in Christ. And I have an advocate and apostle and a high priest.

And you've done so much for me. You've forgiven me. You didn't have to save me. You didn't have to love me. You've loved the unlovable.

And because you've so loved me, I would just like to speak better. I would just like to talk better.

I would like to say things nicer about my husband or my wife or whatever it is, to whomever rather, you may speak.

But when you hear about Jesus, you think, okay, God sees me, not for the person

I am with my mouth, but he sees me in Christ. It's amazing to just listen to this survey of Jesus.

Don't look up these verses, just listen. Matthew 7, when Jesus had finished these words, the crowds were amazed at his teaching.

Matthew 13, he came to his hometown and began to teach them in their synagogue so that they were astonished and said, where did this man get this wisdom?

Matthew 22, and hearing this, they were amazed at his teaching. Matthew 22 goes on and there were crowds heard this.

They were astonished at his teaching. Matthew 19, when the disciples heard this, they were very astonished and said, who then can be saved?

Matthew 27, and he did not answer him with regard to even a single charge, so the governor was quite amazed.

The Gospel of Mark, they were amazed at his teaching. They were all amazed, so they debated among themselves, what is this, a new teaching with authority?

Mark 6, when the Sabbath came, he began to teach in the synagogue and many listeners were astonished saying, where did this man get these things?

And what is this wisdom given to him? And such miracles as these performed by his hands.

Mark 10, they were even more astonished and said to them, then who can be saved? The disciples were amazed at his words.

Mark 10. Mark 11, the chief priest and scribes heard this and began seeking to destroy him for the whole crowd was astonished at his teaching.

Mark 15, Jesus made no further answer. Pilate was amazed.

The Gospel of Luke, all were speaking well of him and wondering at the gracious words which were falling from his lips.

And were they not saying, is this not Joseph's son? Luke 4, they were amazed at his teaching for his message was with authority.

Luke 4, amazement came upon them all and they began talking with one another saying, what is this message?

Luke 20, and they were unable to catch him in a saying in the presence of the people and being amazed at his answer, they became silent.

And John 7, and the Jews then were astonished saying, how can this man become learned having never been educated?

You will never find one time in the Bible where Jesus uses his tongue to sin.

He was fully man, but he never ever used it to set anything on fire in a sinful way.

And so when you do sin using your tongue, what's the best thing to do? If you say something untoward towards your wife, our children, well, we have judicial forgiveness, that's at the cross and we have parental forgiveness.

And that is because God's our father, not to be earning standing with him, but we realize what we've done and we look at our wife, our children, our fellow church person, and we say, what?

You could say, I would like to tell you that I didn't mean what I said, but I meant it and now

I regret it. And I would ask that you would please forgive me. I've asked the Lord to forgive me and now

I'm asking you to forgive me. And the thing is, if you hear that from someone, what should be your response?

Well, just wait, I know you're gonna do it again next time. That's what you said last time you did it.

That would probably be more ungodly than the initial sin, if that could be.

The person that hears, will you please forgive me, should say what? Matthew 18, I have been forgiven for thousands of sins, millions of sins, could

I not forgive you? It would be my pleasure to forgive you. I think there's probably something worse than sinning with the tongue.

And that is when you go to ask somebody for forgiveness after you've sinned with your tongue, if that person says,

I will act not like Jesus, I'm the new authority, and now they're sinning with their tongue and they don't forgive either.

The last bit of information I'd like to give you is, if you replace sinning with your tongue, with praising and speaking well of the

Lord, that will really help. It is hard to say things negatively when good things are coming out of your mouth.

And so instead of talking about ourselves all the time, conversations we can talk about the Lord and his word, that would be very, very helpful.

I just have to tell you what the Lord is doing in my life. Well, we're gonna pray and sing one final song and we're dismissed.

I thank you Father for this text, very, very convicting to think about what we must say to each other and to our husbands and to our wives and our children, our parents.

If it was only our words that you judged without an advocate, we would be lost.

But we have a savior who paid for every one of those. And because of that, we don't wanna sin anymore with our tongue.

And when we do, help us Lord to be quick to confess our sins, guard our hearts, guard our tongues.

May we speak well of your son with evangelism, with encouragement. And Father, I would just even like to do that now as the pastor.

You are a great God, a sovereign God, a God who's gracious and merciful and slow to anger, abounding and loving kindness.

And that you would so love us to send your son to die for us, people that have blasphemed you and spoken ill of you.

And then now even as Christians, our tongue is sullied. Yet you love us anyway because you see us in Christ.

That is great love. Great love for great sinners should yield great praise from us.