Dangers of the Tongue

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Welcome to No Compromised Radio Ministry. My name is Mike Apendroth. And today, Mario's back in the house.

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So that means it is video and audio. I want to say something about videotape, but there's no tape.

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Audio tape, cassettes, eight track. I remember my father had a

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B, no, no, a VW Bug, 1973, I believe, light blue, not really like my dad's car because he loved 55

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Chevys. And I remember Bel Airs, but I don't know, maybe the mom drove this, but I remember he had an eight track cassette player in that car.

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And he would be getting cassettes, eight tracks of the month.

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So you could order a few and then you're forced to buy like three the next year at full price or something. I remember he had

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Willie Nelson. I don't know.

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Somebody's there's, I think maybe mom had Captain Anthony or something. Probably just listed those things over and over and over.

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So anyway, so much for that. What does that have to do with anything today? Nothing, except I'm just thinking about tape.

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And then now these Wednesday shows that we have them recorded on YouTube, make sure you hit like, tell your friends.

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That would be great. Subscribe, click here, subscribe. Mario's shaking his head. Today, I wanna talk a little bit about our speech, about our tongue, to use what the

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Bible says, to make sure that we think biblically about addressing one another, what we say and what we don't say.

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Someone once said that you could look at someone's tongue and determine how sick they are or what kind of sicknesses they might have.

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And I read online that if a person's tongue is blocked, they might have liver disease.

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If a person's tongue is bluish, that could be a heart issue, circulation issue, asthma, breathing, right?

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Dark tongue that's brown could be Addison's disease.

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A pale tongue could be anemia, that makes sense. Red could be typhoid fever, strawberry, scarlet fever.

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Yellow, this would be an easy one, jaundice. And you look at a person's tongue, you kind of could figure out what might be wrong with them.

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Well, the same thing applies spiritually. What comes out of a person's mouth can tell us a lot about what they have inside of them, in their heart.

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Is there a sickness or a disease? Because the two are connected. Even the Lord Jesus said, for out of the mouth, the heart speaks.

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And so today we're going to talk about what we should say, what we shouldn't say. What does the Bible say about the tongue, which is a great revealer of your heart?

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And so probably what we could do is go to the book of Proverbs. Proverbs 10 has a lot about speaking.

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We could go to Ephesians chapter four, talks about speaking there. Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth.

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But today I want to go to James chapter what? What's the chapter that talks about the tongue?

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And you know that answer is James chapter three. It has been said in World War II that loose lips sink ships.

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It's also said that loose lips can cause problems in the church, problems in marriage, problems at your job.

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We want to make sure we're very careful with what we say. Problem is we talk a lot.

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Problem is it's easier to sin with your mouth than it is with your body sometimes because you could just say whatever you want, wherever you are, you can say things.

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And so it's easy to sin with our mouth. It is said that we talk 12 ,000 to 25 ,000 words a day.

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Somebody added that all up and it said that's 13 years of continual mouth motion talking.

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And so if you talk a lot, you have the opportunity to sin a lot. So we want to just think to ourselves while we don't want to be some monks that aren't allowed to speak off in some monastery somewhere, just be careful with our tongues and have it be guided by the spirit of God who dwells in us.

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The first thing James does is he addresses teachers because teachers talk a lot because they're teaching.

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And so you know what the passage says. James 3, verse one, 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's a perfect man able to bridle his whole body also.

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And so James is going to start off with teachers and he's saying, you just want to be careful when you teach. When you get up and say, this is what

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God says, you have to be careful in what you say and what you don't say. A side note, just completely kind of unrelated.

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When you listen to sermons, here's what I do when I listen to other people preach. I say many things, including what is the person saying?

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What is that man saying? And what is he not saying? You can learn a lot about what churches don't say, right?

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They don't talk about sin. They don't talk about repentance. They don't talk about hell. They don't talk about judgment.

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It's one thing to say certain positive things, but what are they not saying? Well, they could be judged for that too, of course.

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James is writing a book to people that are scattered, they're dispersed, chapter one tells us, because of persecution.

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And so what James is trying to do is he's saying, in light of the resurrected Savior, Jesus, in light of my older brother, my half -brother,

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Jesus, and who he is and how I've watched him, I want you to live a life that is not controlled by circumstances, but by the

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God of the Bible. Circumstances, when you're suffering and you're scattered and you're persecuted and you're on the run for your faith, could cause you to be very down, very depressed.

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And so what does he say in chapter one, verse three? Count it all joy. What happens when you're tempted because you're suffering?

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Well, you might blame God. God's sovereign and he put me in this situation. And so James says,

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I don't want you to blame God when you're being tempted, he only does good things. He makes people born again, he gives good gifts.

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When you're on the run and you're scattered, maybe you'd be tempted not to be obedient because you're too busy running.

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And so James says, you know what? Be doers of the word and not hearers only. So James walks through a variety of things to do, even though it's going to be hard for you to do.

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God through James gives us guidance. And so now we come to the tongue. In chapter three, you can imagine if you're suffering, persecuted, this, that, and the other, that you might say things that you ought not to say.

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It could be slander against other people, biting and gossiping and saying things about them because they're hurting, you're hurting and you're just maybe take it out on them.

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Maybe you could say something bad toward God. And so James is saying, you know what?

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Let's talk about the tongue because when you're persecuted, we wanna make sure you're especially guarding the tongue.

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Oh, another note, while there are 108 verses in James and 54 imperatives, there's all kinds of things you could learn about God from this book.

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And especially helpful if you think this way about the book of James, it kind of unlocks it.

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It's not a book of test of saving faith. It's a book on guidance.

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Jesus has been raised from the dead 12, 15 years earlier. How do we live in light of persecution?

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How do we live just generally? And James' answer is going to be simple. You can just hear him.

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Watch my older brother. I watched my older brother and I watched him when he suffered.

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I watched him as he lived. And I'm gonna try to now tell you, live like my older brother.

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Did Jesus count it all joy? I mean, for the joy said before him, that's Hebrews chapter 12. Did Jesus blame

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God when he was being tempted in the wilderness? Of course not. He submitted to his will. In the garden of Gethsemane, of course he didn't blame his father.

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Jesus, do you think he was a doer of God's word? Would that be a general statement? He's a doer of the word and not a hearer only deluding himself?

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Of course he was a doer of God's word. And his will was to do the father's great pleasure and to do his will.

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So when it comes to the tongue, think about Jesus. Did he ever speak a sinful word?

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Did he ever say something that was inappropriate or untimely? Did he ever gossip, slander, say something rude?

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Did he ever not say something that should have been said? And the answer is, of course, Jesus was sinless and spotless and no deceit, no reviling, even when he was crucified.

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So today on No Compromise Radio, we're talking about the tongue and how we need to guard it.

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And what does the Bible say? Because we all struggle in this area. James gives a couple of illustrations.

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He's a master illustrator, James 3 .3. If we put bits into the mouths of horses so they obey us, we guide their whole bodies as well.

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So small little bit in a huge horse still guides that horse. That's the idea.

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Look at the ships also, though they're very 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 you've got a bit in a horse's mouth. And even though the horse is powerful, see horsepower, you can control the horse.

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And the ship is large. Some of these ships could have 250, 300 people in them back in those

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Bible days. Yet you can have a rudder that's small, even the text says very small rudder and it can direct that ship.

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You have control over the rudder, you control the ship. Control over the bit in the horse's mouth, you control the horse.

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And so you can see where James is going. Control this little thing, this two ounce slab of mucus membrane to quote

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Chuck Swindoll, you control the body because everything's connected. I read that the

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Trappist monks said, you just shouldn't talk. That will solve the problem of sinning with your mouth.

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I remember I was putting siding on our house and I was being helped by Gary.

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And Gary was teaching me how to side the house. And so at the very beginning, I just cleaned things, I held things.

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And before you know it, I was helping and hammering. And you don't hammer it all the way into the side of the house because you got to give some room to breathe.

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Here in New England, expand and contract and winters and all that. Did I mention it's freezing cold outside today?

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Wow, it's cold. But I better be careful not to complain because I'm doing a show about the tongue.

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So that was just FYI. That's just reporting the facts, not complaining. I love freezing weather.

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God ordains freezing weather. I love it. Anyway, I hit my finger, thumb, holding the nail, the siding nail.

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And I didn't swear even in my mind. I was so happy.

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Because in the old days, when I first got saved, I knew not to swear. And so the Lord just took foul language right out of my mouth, but still sometimes it went into my brain.

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So I was very, very thankful for progressive sanctification of the Lord's work. I hit my finger. And so I said to Gary, I said,

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I hit my thumb. He's like, are you okay? I said, yes, I'm wonderful because I didn't swear out loud. I didn't swear in my mind.

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Now, Trappists cannot talk, but they could still swear in their mind.

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And so that's not going to be the solution. The solution is going to be found deeper.

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So what does Paul go on to say? Well, Paul says a lot about the tongue, but what James goes on to say, so also the tongue is a small member,

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James 3, 5, yet it boasts of great things. The tongue's so small, yet it just, it can get us in so much trouble.

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Pride, boasting, self accolades, parading yourself around.

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It can do a lot and it can do a lot of damage. What does the

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Bible say about some of the damage that it can do? Something so small can cause so much trouble.

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And something so small, if we can control it by the power of the spirit of God, the fruit of the spirit of self -control, we can contain things.

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We can encourage people. We can build people up. We can edify them. The power to destroy is there, but the power to encourage is there.

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It's amazing to me as a pastor, when I'm thinking rightly and I try to encourage people, it goes such a long way.

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Where are the people that encourage those others today? I sometimes sort of post it on my desk right over there.

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And it has one word with an exclamation point, encourage. I buy postcards and buy postcard stamps and write a little note.

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Thanks for what you do behind the scenes at the nursery. I don't know if people notice, but I do, praise the Lord. And then

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I go to that person's house and it's up on the refrigerator. It took me, I'm not trying to brag because this is a show about the tongue.

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I'm trying to tell you that this is something that's just so easy to not do and easy to do.

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Just try to encourage. So something small can affect negatively in a huge way. And something small can affect positively as well.

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James said, how great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire. And of course, you know the song, it only takes a spark, what?

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To get a fire going, glowing, growing. I mean, it is gonna just be a disaster. Los Angeles just had those big fires in late 2024.

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It starts off small and before you know it, it's just taken off. And the tongue is a fire,

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James says, verse six, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body.

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See, it affects setting on fire the entire course of life. See, it affects and set on fire by hell.

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I mean, the bit and the rudder and the tongue have something in common. Small, but they can affect a lot.

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They can achieve great things. I remember when

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I was a kid, there was black belts in karate and black belts in judo.

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And somebody told me they had to register their hands as deadly weapons, right? You have to register your gun.

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They had to register their hands. And I'm sure it was just made up stories, just like they would tell me certain things about the hell's angels, that if you touch the chrome handlebar on a hell's angels

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Harley, it would cut you like a razor blade. I mean, I guess we don't have anything else to talk about in Nebraska, make those things up.

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I mean, if hands can kill and they should be registered, it's like we should register our tongues.

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I mean, the fire, the killing, the assassinations with the tongue, we have to be very, very careful.

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I looked up the most dangerous animals in the world. And here are a few of the most dangerous animals in the world.

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Mosquitoes, they kill a million people per year, right? Think malaria. Snakes kill 50 ,000 humans per year.

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Dogs kill 25 ,000 humans per year. I don't know if this is true or not.

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This is just a website. Assassin bugs kill an average of 10 ,000 humans per year because of a certain disease they give.

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Snails kill 10 ,000 humans per year from schistosomias. I don't even know what that is.

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Scorpions kill, tapeworms kill, crocodiles kill, but the tongue is the real killer.

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Proverbs 16, the scoundrel plots evil and his speech is like a scorching fire.

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A perverse man stirs up dissension and gossip separates close friends.

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I mean the destruction of the tongue. Proverbs 26, without wood, a fire goes out.

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Without gossip, a quarrel dies down. As charcoal to embers and as wood to fire, so is a quarrelsome man for kindling strife.

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The words of a gossip are like choice morsels. They go down to a man's inmost.

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I mean, you want to change the world, you guard your tongue.

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You want to change your marriage, you guard your tongue. You want to change your church, you guard your tongue.

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You want to change the world, you use your tongue to speak God's word and edifying things. You want to change your marriage, you speak positive things about your wife and compliments and encouragements and nourishing and washing by the water of the word,

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Ephesians chapter five, teaching her the Bible and encouraging her along the way. And your children, you want to change the church instead of talking about negative things or politics or sports or things that are neutral, but in the church context, to talk about the

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Lord Jesus Christ, the word incarnate, praising Him, thanking Him. Sometimes I know there are people at church, it's a little inside story here.

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And I know if I go see them on Sunday, they're going to talk to me about sports.

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I like sports. I enjoy sports. I might even do a little sports on Sunday, the

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Sabbath, the Christian Sabbath. But on Sunday, I don't really want to talk about sports.

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Plus the Patriots aren't any good anymore. I mean, when they're good, tell me on Sunday, but now they're not even good. My point, you understand, is there are certain things

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I want to talk about on Sundays and other things I don't. And I'm just trying to model and to direct and to be a good leader when it comes to that on Sunday.

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Can you imagine that the Bible says that the world of iniquity is the tongue?

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Okay, let's think about that. Adam sins. What's he do?

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He blames God for making Eve. That's like a world of iniquity right there.

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Eve blames Satan. Someone said that for every word in Hitler's book,

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Mein Kampf, 125 lives were lost in World War II. Small, but just destructive.

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It says that it defiles the entire body. It's like to get smoky and sullen, not sullen, but to sully with smoke.

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And the origin of the tongue when it's sinning, especially for the unregenerate person, it's set on fire by hell.

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It's like Satan's instrument. Jesus talked about Satan was a liar, right?

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He's the father of lies. When he was talking to the Pharisees and false teachers, you're like your father, a liar.

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One man said how appalling the thought should be to the careless talker. The man of unchastened lips, that his words are really

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

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That's an interesting way to think about it. While you're not like a literal mouthpiece, literal spokesman for Satan, like somehow dwelling in your heart, but Satan's words, if he were here on earth talking, would be similar to yours.

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It's crazy. James 3, for every kind of beast and bird, every 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's a restless evil full of deadly poison. So can you domesticate animals?

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Can you train animals? You know, when you're a kid, you go to Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey Circus, and there's lion tamers and tiger tamers and elephant tamers.

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So man can subdue animals in other words, but can you subdue your own tongue?

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James is driving at this. You're gonna need help. You need the spirit of God to help you control your tongue because in and of yourself, you can't tame the tongue.

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Now, two or three times in my life, I've had ivory soap jammed into my mouth by my mother because I said some bad words.

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And so I'm gonna clean your mouth out with soap. I can taste it. Now, I used to like ivory soap because out of all the soaps, if you drop in the tub, it floats, ivory floats.

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I don't know if Irish ring floats. For years, I tried to go without buying soap.

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I know what you're thinking, but you're thinking wrongly. Why did I go without buying soap for years?

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Because I traveled so much in corporate America, I'd always go to hotels. And in those days, back in the eighties, the hotel soap that you get for free was bigger.

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So I would just take both of those and I just had a collection of 50 soaps at home. I never had to buy soap.

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I think it was like eight years, I never had to buy soap. I use soap every day, but I didn't have to buy it.

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And I came to realize it was like three bars for a dollar. What was I doing the whole time? Saving money?

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I don't think so. But a couple of times I had a taste ivory soap. My mom said, you know what? That was inappropriate.

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I mean, I never said the worst, worst words, but there were words that we are not allowed to say in Omaha, Nebraska, as a 10 -year -old kid with a crew cut.

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And so mom said, open up and I obeyed and in it went and she just rubbed it around and kind of get that little flaky ivory soap on your teeth.

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I didn't have to have that happen too many times. We need to control our tongue. Or there's gonna be the discipline of a mother, or the discipline of the heavenly father.

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And what happens with James here is he's gonna try to say, you know what? Just use some logic and don't have your tongue just go off the deep end in this weird illogical way.

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Listen to what he says. With it, our tongue, we bless our

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Lord and father and with it, we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing.

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My brothers, these things ought not to be so. Hey, brother, fellow Christian, fellow brother

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Christian, person in Christ, on Sundays, you're singing praise.

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Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Immortal, invisible, godly wise, all hail the power of Jesus' name.

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Let angels prostrate fall.

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Hate you hear about so -and -so. Look at them. We do, I mean, what are we thinking?

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I mean, I do it, you do it. I don't wanna do it. I know you don't wanna do it, but he's trying to say what in the world is going on.

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It's like we're schizophrenic, like we're double -minded. Remember earlier in chapter one, he said double -mindedness is not a good thing.

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We do praise and then we slander and we speak evil and we backbite and we're harsh with our wives.

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Have you ever been harsh with your wife? I'm pretty sure it's not just with your face. You say something.

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Parenting, what does Ephesians 6 say? Dads, don't exasperate your children.

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How do you exasperate them? I'm telling you, I know you use this. Maybe you use sign language.

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Maybe you write it down, but my guess is you say things harshly. Maybe you say things that need to be said, but the way you say it, right?

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There's two different ways to go about that. Here he's saying, wait a second, this is illogical.

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Say to yourself, I don't want this to happen. He says, does a spring pour forth from the same opening, both fresh and salt water?

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So a spring comes up. It's not both salty, briny and fresh.

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It's one or the other. Then he says, can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives or a grapevine produce figs?

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Neither can a salt pond yield fresh water. In other words, we extol the

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Lord and we praise Him with doxologies. And then we say something that we ought not to say and how illogical that is.

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And so that should help us to then come to this realization. Lord, I need help.

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Forgive me, I need help. Now, when I read these verses, Psalm 141, verse three, set a guard,

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O Lord, over my mouth. Keep watch over the door of my lips. When Mario drives home today, when

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I drive home today, when you drive home today, you think that might be a good prayer before you walk in to greet your wife and your daughters and your sons, where you think, you know what?

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I wanna say some edifying words, some encouraging words, especially if I'm the dad and I'm the leader and I'm the husband and I'm the leader.

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I'm gonna try to set the tone. I'm gonna pray things like this, Psalm 19, verse 14.

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Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight,

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O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. That's what I want. I know that's what you want as well.

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And James basically says this little tiny thing can affect positively, can affect negatively.

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So guard it, watch it. Make sure you don't try to tame it yourself because you can't do it.

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Lots of times when I get anxious, I think to myself, I've not been praying because I'm taking the world on my own shoulders and the

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Lord in His kindness is gonna give me a little anxiety because that's the fruit of me not praying.

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The fruit of me not praying is when I also start saying things that I ought not to. And I don't mean four letter words, but I just then don't say the encouraging words or the uplifting words.

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And I'm short with people or I'm harsh with people, or there's a little gossip here or a little slander there or a little,

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I would never do that, how could they do that kind of there? So I don't wanna do that. I don't wanna be like Peter, one minute saying, if I have to die with you,

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Jesus, I will. And the next moment, seemingly the Galilean girl comes over and says, you're with Jesus too, right?

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No, I'm not. But that's how fickle our tongues are. Mike Abendroth, No Compromise Radio Ministry.

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When it comes to the tongue, let's pray in the morning. Lord, would you guard our tongues and use our tongues to lift up, to encourage, to say positive things.