The Whole Body, Part 6: The Mouth

The Mouth in the Whole Body Series

Well, this morning we continue on as we make our way down from the head toward the heart. It will be next week. Before we make our way into the torso, we're going to be looking at the mouth. The mouth is our focus in the series on the whole body.

Again, the idea here is what we've been pulling out of Ephesians 4, the idea that we are all individually members of one another, individually members of one body, and we are to grow up into all things.

Into Him who is the head, Christ, from whom the whole body joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effect of working, by which every part does its share, causes the growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.

And so we began with an introduction and the head, and then worked our way down to the eyes, the ears, last week was the nose, and this morning it's the mouth. And a lot I want to cover, and of course we'll have an opportunity not this evening, but next Sunday evening to discuss these things more practically in a circle.

There's a lot I want to cover, and hopefully that will be grist for the mill next week. And we're going to boil that all down into two parts, very straightforward, very simple. We're going to look at the unrighteous mouth, and then in contrast, the righteous mouth.

The way that we ought not use our mouths, and the way that our mouths ought to be. And so we're just going to, I have sort of Ephesians 4, 17 through 32 as sort of a banner. We'll get there in a moment, but I just want to start galloping through some aspects of the unrighteous mouth.

The Power of Words and the Unrighteous Mouth

We'll begin here in Proverbs 12, verse 18. Proverbs, of course, has a lot to say about the mouth. Not only the sins of the mouth, but the needs to hear the words of the wise mouth. My son, hear my words.

My son, listen to my voice. And so we have even there a contrast between the righteous mouth and the mouth of folly, the mouth of strife. But here, beginning in Proverbs 12, verse 18. He who speaks truth declares righteousness, but a false witness, deceit.

There is one who speaks like the piercings of a sword, but the tongue of the wise promotes health. Now again, this idea of a whole body, that idea of whole, we said also means something complete, mature.

It could also mean sound or healthy. And notice here, the tongue of the wise promotes health. It promotes soundness. It promotes shalom, wholeness, peace. And that's over against the one who speaks like a piercing of a sword.

And please notice that. It's not the swinging, the wild swinging of a sword. It's the piercing of a sword. I don't know if any of you are World War II buffs like myself, but if you've ever seen the movie Saving Private Ryan, there's this rather harrowing scene where this rather scrawny private, private mellish is wrestling with a German soldier.

Happens to be the very German soldier that he let loose earlier in the movie. And as they're wrestling, he somehow has his bayonet turned against him. And it's a very uncomfortable scene to watch because he's pinned against the ground and the German soldier is over him and he's turned his knife against him and he's slowly pushing it toward his sternum.

And if you're sitting there in a theater, you can't eat popcorn, and you're kind of squirming in your seat as you're watching that bayonet get closer and closer and closer until it finally presses in.

That's the piercing.

Not the swinging, but the piercing. That's the power of the tongue. There is one who speaks like the piercings of a sword. And then there's one who is wise, and their tongue actually brings about soundness, wholeness, health.

Now that's just a way to start. Look at how sharp that contrast is. There's one who pierces, devastates, destroys, a mouth that takes away life. And then there's a mouth that actually promotes, gives, is a wellspring of life.

This is the contrast we see in Scripture, which is to say we underestimate the power of our mouths. If you pause and think about it, how much more sanctified would your life be if you were mute? Would you be any more holy than you are if you were mute, if you couldn't communicate with your mouth?

Well, you'd still have sin in your heart, sin perhaps in your thoughts. You might have sin in sign language, I don't know, but probably you would be a little more sanctified than you are. And in fact, as we'll see next week, as we look at the heart, it's out of the heart that the mouth speaks.

So in dealing with the exit ramp of the mouth, we're not actually dealing with the roots or the source of the fountain, but we are dealing with the stream, we are dealing with the gate. The mouth is, as James will say, as we'll see in a moment, a world of unrighteousness.

That's an unrighteous mouth. Not a little facet or feature, a world of iniquity, a world of unrighteousness. That's to say, compared to that, we have a pretty shallow view of the power of words, don't we?

With a word, God created all that is. With a word, Satan stole and undermined and perverted all that is. We have a shallow view of the power of words. From beginning to end, Scripture speaks about the power of our speech, whether for good or for evil, whether for health or for destruction.

The world comes into being by the word of God, and the ancient serpent, by his words, brings the world into ruin. We also can bring forth life, goodness, light, health, or we can bring forth sourness, malice, destruction.

Our purpose, our relationships in society, our own souls will either be made, equipped, strengthened by words, or brought to ruin, destroyed by lies. That's the power of human speech. How quickly our speech can turn from blessing and worship to backbiting and murmuring.

A problem that James gets at. And he, of course, gets there in chapter three, but notice that he's already highlighting the importance of speech or the use of the mouth as early as the beginning. In chapter one, verse 26, if anyone thinks he's religious, but doesn't bridle his tongue, his religion is worthless.

It's worthless. It's a sham. That's how powerful our mouths are. They corroborate our Christianity. We're deceiving ourselves if we're actually saying or emitting from our mouths, out of our hearts, something that is over against the semblance of Christianity, the appearance of faith.

And that carries us into James chapter three. If anyone doesn't stumble in a word, he's a perfect man, complete man, a sound man, a healthy man, a whole man.

He's able to bridle a whole body.

Remember, James three begins at the very beginning, let not many be teachers. We all stumble in many ways. Teachers are held to a stricter judgment. Now he's pressing into what seems to be corporate imagery.

If anyone doesn't stumble in a word, he's a perfect man, a mature man, a complete man, able also to bridle the whole body. That's corporate imagery. Is it talking about the self-control that he has of himself?

Certainly, but it's more than that. He's just mentioned teachers. He's just mentioned one who doesn't stumble in word. He's able to actually bridle, to direct, to guide a whole body. Notice how this imagery continues.

Indeed, we put bits in horses' mouths, that they may obey us, and we turn their whole body. So the bit, that presence, that teaching, it's a bit in the mouth that's able to now turn and guide the whole body.

More corporate imagery. Look also at ships. Though they're so large, driven by fierce winds, many sailors, we could say, are passengers within their midst, but they're turned by a very small rudder. That word, the use of the mouth being the rudder on the ship, or the bit in the horse's mouth.

The whole body, the whole vessel, the whole congregation is moved therefrom. This is all corporate imagery. Again, coming out from chapter 3, verse 1. Even so, the tongue is such a little member. The rudder is so small, the bit is negligible.

But look at what it can do. Look at what it can guide. It can lead to life, or it can lead to ruin. It can come to safe harbor, or it can come to the shoals and the rocks. The tongue is a little member, but it boasts great things.

James says, see how great a forest a little fire kindles. The wildfires in California, one of the more devastating ones in the most recent years, I think was started by sparks coming off a wheel that was scraping against asphalt.

Just a few sparks. And then you have hundreds of thousands of acres absolutely ravaged by unstoppable flame. That's what James is tying into. See how great a forest a little fire kindles. And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness.

The tongue is so set among our members that it defiles the whole body. You see, again, are we talking about an individual's body? Certainly yes, but more than that. The tongue can also defile the whole body.

That little member, that rudder, that bit can guide a body. It has a power, a restraint over a body. It can also corrupt a body. The whole body can be affected. Just like trees in the forest are affected by that kindling of the tongue.

This is all aggregate imagery. Trees in a forest, passengers in a boat, the whole body being moved by this tongue. And where's this fire coming from? It's the imagery of hellfire. It says, the tongue is so set among our members it defiles the whole body.

It sets on fire the course of nature and is set on fire by hell. Now that's going to come up again later in chapter 3 where he contrasts the wisdom that descends from above as opposed to the carnal knowledge that's churned up from beneath, the passions of the flesh.

Where is this unwieldy tongue that is a world of unrighteousness, where is it having this kind of effectiveness? Well, James says, that kindling is set on fire by hell. It's a verbal flamethrower. It's an unruly evil full of deadly poison.

Deadly poison. With it we bless our God and Father, and with it we curse men who have been made in the very likeness of God. Out of the same mouth proceed blessing and cursing. Do you remember how James has been contrasting the need to be of single mind?

A double-minded man is unstable in all of his ways. Do you remember how James is calling for wholeness? The completion, the maturity? And here we have the sort of double-tongued, double-minded man in full swing.

Out of the same mouth he blesses God and curses his brother. And so James says, my brethren, these things ought not to be so. Can a spring send forth fresh water and bitter from the same opening? Can a fig tree, my brethren, bear olives or a grapevine bear figs?

No, spring yields both salt water and fresh. For you King James Only fans, brackish water and fresh water. And of course, once you have the influence of that bitter salt, you can no longer maintain the freshness of the water source, can you?

That's why once water is brackish, there's no way to separate it unless you filter out those elements. Or you have a whole new source, a whole new well or spring. And this is the idea is, if a spring once had been fresh water, as soon as something brackish or bitter makes its way in, it corrupts that whole stream.

Now it's undrinkable. Now it's something that perhaps can never be salvaged. No spring yields both salt water and fresh. So James is concerned about duality. James is pressing that our speech will either demonstrate or falsify our faith.

The tongue has this kind of power, not just in our bodies, in our lives as individuals, but corporately. It has this kind of power, this kind of impact. That's the power of the mouth at work in the congregation.

Now question 144 in the Westminster Larger Catechism, which is dealing with the Ninth Commandment, what it requires. It says this, very helpfully, partly, what it requires is a charitable esteem of our neighbors, loving, desiring, even rejoicing in their good name, sorrowing for and covering their infirmities, freely acknowledging their gifts and graces, defending their innocence, ready to receive a good report, unwilling to admit an evil report concerning them.

That's a marvelous little description about how we are to deal with false witness, or how we are to relate with words and reputations and a concern and regard for one another. Proverbs 6 .16 and following,.

These six things the Lord hates. Yes, seven. This is a classic rhetorical device to get at the emphasis here. Six things, no, even more than that. Seven things the Lord hates. These are an abomination to Him.

A proud look, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that are swift to run to evil, a false witness who speaks lies, and one who sows discord among brethren.

Again, this is what the mouth is capable of doing. It's not just the tongue, it's the look, it's the heart behind it, and what's the result of that? Innocent blood gets shed, wicked plans are hatched, feet are swift to run toward evil, discord and division amount among brethren.

You see the power of the mouth. Our speech will either demonstrate or falsify our love. Again, it comes out of the heart, we'll get there next week, but out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornication, thefts, false witness, blasphemies.

Here all of a sudden the mouth is getting caught up in the cycle. It's out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks. As we'll see next week in Matthew 12. So what are some of these sins of the mouth?

What are the things that have this kind of forest fire impact in a congregation? Well, perhaps most importantly, right up front, is gossip. Gossip. How do we understand gossip? In the book of Proverbs, gossip is likened to a dainty, a delicious morsel.

When Alicia and I had our wedding, we had sort of a non-traditional reception, and it was at an art museum in the lobby, and we had a few stations, but mostly it was meant to be sort of a gala reception, and we had waitstaff carrying trays with hors d 'oeuvres, or hors d 'oeuvres for you unenlightened.

And the entours were going around, and you almost can't help but to feel a little sophisticated when a waiter comes by and says, can I interest you in whatever it is, some sort of prosciutto-wrapped scallop?

And what do you do? You almost twinkle your fingers and go, don't mind if I do, right? And it's so good, and if it's really good, you go, I need more of that. I'm actually craving it. Like one wasn't enough.

That was just a little bite in a mousse bouche, but I need another bite. Now I'm craving, I want more. That's exactly what gossip is like. Don't mind if I do. Ooh, that was really tasty. That was downright scandalous.

I want more.

I'm going to follow that waiter around. There's got to be more on that tray with my name on it. No, no, no, don't pass it off to others. I'm the one right here. Where does that interest come from? Well, sadly, we're so degenerate at times that it can arise just out of sheer boredom.

There's not enough going on in my life. I need to busy myself with the lives of others. And this is really the simple evil of a busy body is I'm so discontent in my own life. I don't have enough that I'm occupying myself with.

I need to occupy myself with the latest gossip and scandal of others. When I was growing up, I don't notice this as much anymore, but when I was growing up, if you were in line at a grocery store, they would have the gossip tabloids, and they would call them that, gossip tabloids.

I want to read the latest celebrity gossip. It's like, why? Who cares? Why in the world would you buy and waste your time reading this brain rot? Now there's even worse brain rot nowadays. But the idea was my life's just uneventful.

It's too mundane. It's boring. I want to know the dirt that's going on in other people's homes and lives. So it can come out of boredom. Certainly it can come out of shame. A sense of I always need to be comparing myself.

Where am I ranking? How do I measure up against those around me? It's helpful for me to know the inside scoop about what's really going on in someone's life, in their home, in their workplace, where they're at.

It might make me feel better about myself. It might help me cope with some of the shame that I feel, or maybe an inferiority that I feel. And so certainly it can come out of shame or it can come out of pride.

I knew I was better than them. It's helpful for me to be validated in that feeling. I've always wanted the opportunity to look down on them, and now I have that opportunity because of this gossip. We crave the satisfaction that comes with having others put down.

You see, it becomes this other-oriented way of holding ourselves up and over against those around us. I don't know who this originated from, but someone very wisely, astutely said, gossip is confessing someone else's sin.

That's very thoughtful.

Because what's tied in there is the total lack of self-awareness and humility of yourself. That I don't begin with the plank in my eye. I don't begin with confessing my own sins and rightly understanding myself before the Lord and counting myself of lesser esteem than those around me.

So rather than confessing my sins and then going to the splinter in my brother's eye, I actually confess their sins. And I don't confess the sins to them. I confess their sins to everyone around them.

Some of you parents maybe have some variation on this. You teach your children how to put a guard over their mouth, and you say you should answer these three questions or something like it. Is it true?

Is it necessary? Is it helpful? There's some variation on that. That's really helpful. How do you know it's true? Do you know it's true? And even if it is true, is it necessary? Is it necessary for you to know?

Certainly. Is it necessary for you to share? Is it necessary for you to go to this person that you've learned this thing about or seen this thing in?

Is it helpful?

Why are you going to this person? Why are you concerned with this thing? What's behind that? What's the heart of the motive behind that? Is it true? Is it necessary? Is it helpful? Of course, the beginning there, is it true?

The information, of course, may be false. You may have just the wrong perspective. You may have come into the wrong time, or you have a wrong context. You have an absolute misunderstanding. You have a bias.

You have a tint that's causing you to view someone in a certain way. And so your eye's upon them, waiting for them to fulfill what you're expecting them to fulfill. Because you can't look at them charitably.

Of course, where something is not known directly, but rather indirectly, slander is usually a part of that gossip as well. Character assassination. A sliding or staining of another's name, character, or reputation.

Perhaps you just think or you assume the story is true. But even so, do you recognize hearsay? Again, is it true? Is it really true? How do you know? Why do you know? Should you know? Is it necessary that you know?

Is it necessary that you hold on to it? Is it necessary for you to share it? Well, there's ways that we are to share. In that Matthew 18 sense, you go to your brother. If he hears you, you've won him.

Already, that's telling you something about the motive you ought to have. My goal is to win my brother. To win my sister. That's the only reason I'm going to them. If we're not going to them, it may be that we have a very different motive, and it's not winning them.

It's actually making ourselves feel better. Making them look worse. It's some other motive than winning them.

Do you see?

Is it necessary? Is it necessary to share something that may be true, that can actually bring about a bad report? Scripture warns against a bad report. We just saw that. This idea of the Westminster Larger Catechism, that we're not looking for bad reports.

In fact, we're disinclined to receive them. Oh, I don't know about that. Are you sure you're looking at this rightly? Are you sure you're thinking charitably? We have our ears open for whatever is true and noble and of good report.

And is it helpful? In other words, is it something that can edify? Is it something that will bear fruit? And that fruit may come out of faithful wounding. That fruit may come out of rebuke or confrontation or exhortation.

That is necessary as well. But again, you have to check your motive. Some people are far too eager to be wounding than they are to be faithful.

Sign me up.

I love faithfully wounding others. What spirit are you of? It may not be gossip when you need to warn someone about a dangerous situation, a dangerous person. We have that in Scripture. Paul warns about Alexander or others.

You have the apostles giving warnings to congregations of who they are to avoid. They call out certain people. John Calvin, when he was preaching in the glorious pulpit there in Geneva at St. Pierre's Cathedral, it was a practice to call people out in the middle of the sermon for certain offenses and sins.

It's a practice that's been lost to church history. You should be very thankful that that practice has been lost. I wouldn't do that without calling myself out in many ways. But you have a practice where sometimes it's necessary to warn.

That's not gossip, to give a warning if it's true and it's necessary and it's helpful. But at the same time, it also can be gossip. You might be warning because it's hearsay or it's bias or it's slander.

You might be warning out of a motive of pride or a wounded ego or bitterness or malice. So everyone wants to have a noble camouflage for what might be gossip or slander. No, no, no, I was just warning.

I'm just being faithful.

Another example of this, I'm seeking counsel. I'm seeking counsel from 85 people about this.

Wow.

I know Scripture says wisdom is found in a multitude of counselors, but are you sure you're just seeking wisdom or are you actually bearing this out in gossip and slander and trying to have as much of an efficacy as wide flung as you can?

It may not be gossip when you're earnestly seeking counsel, how to deal with a person, a relationship, a circumstance. But again, we always want to place what might be gossip under some noble camouflage.

No, no, no, it's not that. I was just sharing because I need some help or I wanted prayer. It's really difficult. How can you tell the difference? I think I said this some weeks back. You can usually tell the difference when people are taking great pains in care, almost stumbling over themselves to present it in the most neutral, positive light they can, allowing anything that can be anonymous or rather secret to remain anonymous or secret.

If you're really seeking counsel about the issue and about your role within that, then you're going to take great care and great caution to protect whatever you can protect about the person at issue's name, reputation, character, or so forth.

If those things are just freely flung and they're getting all the Louisiana mud boat, you know, filth flung at them, you probably don't have the right motive or heart in how you're seeking counsel. It might just be an umbrella to excuse what is truly gossip or slander, which is a way of saying this.

The presence of gossip depends largely on how you're talking and why you're talking to others. How you talk about others and why you're talking about others will largely answer the question, is this gossip?

Is this slander? Is this a bad report? Is this really true? Is it really necessary? Is it really helpful? What about backbiting? What an image that is. Backbiting. Do you remember that viral video from like 15 years ago with the little kid that was with his young brother Charlie?

And all of a sudden he goes, Charlie bit me. And Charlie's there, big grin. He's so proud of himself. That's what it's like. It's like I don't even have to see the impact. It's just the joy of the backbite.

I get all the joy, the vent, the release, the vindication, and I don't actually have to see the impact. I certainly have no regard for what this means for them because I can't even see their face and I don't care to see their face.

I'm behind them, undermining them, backbiting. You ask these kinds of questions. Would I be saying this if the person in question was here? Why or why not? Has the Lord ever done that to you? Maybe there's a difficult situation and you're prone to talk about it and all of a sudden the person that you're wanting to talk about is right there, right in your midst.

That's a rebuke from the Lord. And all of a sudden you have to have a totally different conversation. Are you hiding the conversation from some people but freely flowing it toward others? And the question is why?

Why?

Are you ashamed of it? The fact that you had spoken about it and how you spoke about it became public. Is that something that would be embarrassing or shameful to you? Or to ask simply in light of the golden rule, is this how you would want others to treat you or to talk about you behind your back?

The golden rule is so elusive in these kinds of situations. A gossiper never assumes that they're gossiped against. A slanderer never assumes that they're being slandered against. The Lord is just and He's composed the world in this way.

Our slander always comes down against us at some point. The gossiper finds himself to be rather lonely and having fraught relationships at the end of it all. Wisdom is known by her children. Fruitfulness is something that accrues over time.

A backbiting that is fueled by malice, by some offense that hasn't been rectified, will often not only stay within that person but begin to spread. This is why James is using corporate imagery in James chapter 3.

The tree can't remain aflame without affecting the forest around it. The rudder has to have an impact. It has to have a direction. That bit has to pull the horse one way or the other. And so it is. These things rarely stay contained within ourselves.

It's out of the heart again that the mouth speaks. What about slander? Slander closely tied to gossip. And that's more it's rather than sharing something that could potentially be benign. This is something that's malicious.

Slander often comes out of jealousy, envy. It's an evil eye. It can be the dynamic of just having it out for someone because you have it out for them. It could be the slightest of slights. With that, jealousy, with that envy is always pride.

Pride and envy are always a package deal. If you read the Psalms, you'll find that most of the psalmists were suffering under slander, the assaults of the tongue. David, for example, in many of his psalms speaks about his distress because of the lies and the false witness and the reproach that has fallen upon him.

Psalm 52 is an example when he's speaking of the distress against Doeg the Edomite. Your tongue devises destruction like a sharp razor working deceit. You love evil more than good, lying rather than speaking what is right.

You love devouring words, you deceitful tongue. That's the distress he was feeling about this man's words, the character assassination. It was like a sharp razor cutting and working into David's life.

And he could see that this man loved this deceit. He loved the impact and influence it was having over against David. He says it was a devouring tongue, devouring words. Of course, you get the idea because you read the Psalms and these things mount up that slander is something that we always will face.

We should expect it as Christians living in the world as salmon swimming against a stream. You should expect to be spoken ill of, to be treated contemptuously. No servant is greater than his master. It's not hard for us, I would hope, as Christians, to bear the scoffing skepticism of the world around us.

That's always a little bit easier than bearing the tongues in our midst, the other trees in our forest, the other passengers on the ship. It's hard when it's our own brethren that we find ourselves in distress from.

To the degree that we find this foreign, it will be very hard to relate to the Psalms because so many Psalms are composed in this very sense to be delivered from slander. Psalm 64, the first four verses, again from David.

Hear my voice, O God, in my meditation. Preserve my life because of fear of the enemy. Hide me from the secret plots of the wicked, from the rebellion of workers of iniquity who sharpen their tongue like a sword and bend their bows to shoot their arrows.

Bitter words that they may shoot in secret at the blameless. See the imagery there? That's sniper fire. I've been at the battlefield of Gettysburg a few times, and thanks to Paul Wanamaker, who's a pastor down in Easton, he's a Civil War buff, and he's explained how the battle actually unfolded.

And it's amazing where you see some of the artillery points were set up, and then imagining how far that artillery was firing, and of course so far that you'd probably not hear the cannon shot until well after the cannonball had struck across, and just thinking at some of these places where trees were just shattering and men were getting rolled over like some bowling alley from hell, and they couldn't even hear or see where the shots were coming from.

That's the imagery here for David. It's like in secret, in darkness, I'm just taking arrow after arrow after arrow. A man, Proverbs 25 says, who bears false witness against his neighbor is like a club, a sword, a sharp arrow.

You get the imagery, a club. I don't know what's worse, getting clubbed to death or taking a lot of arrows. Either way, that's unpleasant, and this is the imagery that the Psalms use. This is something of the experience of what it's like.

Doesn't that show us the power of our mouths, the power of our tongues? That is a hard thing for us to bear. It's hard enough in the world, in the workplace, among relatives that are unbelievers, but how much harder is it in the very house of God?

Now Paul's whole point in Ephesians 4 is to get at this. I want you to notice the connection between where we begin in verse 17. I'm just going to begin toward verse 20, and I want you to see how important that is as a bridge into what Paul commands.

We are something before we do something. Really important we always understand that. We are members one of another, therefore we ought not to speak evil of one another. It's the same dynamic in Ephesians 4.

There's something that's true of us as Christians, as a congregation, that therefore means something about our mouths. We have not so learned Christ, verse 21, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him as the truth is in Jesus.

And so you put off concerning your former conduct that old man which grows corrupt according to deceitful lusts and be renewed in the spirit of your mind and that you put on the new man which was created according to God in true righteousness and holiness.

Therefore, here's the result. Because this is true, you're no longer the same old man. You're a new creation created in Christ Jesus for good works because you put on a new man created by God in true righteousness and holiness because you are now the body of Christ.

Therefore, putting away lying, right off the bat this is impacting our mouth. The first thing that he goes to, and it's a participle, it's in stride. As you're putting away lying, let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor.

Again, put off, put on. You're putting away this in order to put on that. Let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor for we are members one of another. That's an automatic for Paul. Because we belong to each other, this is how we are to relate.

That means something for our mouths. Be angry and do not sin. Don't let the sun go down on your wrath. What is that saying about a congregational life? It means every day if I'm harboring anything against a brother or a sister, I'm to deal with that in a biblical way.

If it's something that love can cover, I'm to cover it. If it's something that love must confront, I must confront. But I'm not to let the sun go down on my wrath. Even if I'm wounded and I'm angry, I'm not allowed that anger to become sparks in a forest that could intentionally burn down the congregation.

That's the power of the mouth. And notice what he says, verse 27, Nor give place to the devil. Didn't James say that our tongue is set on fire from hell? Who's actively prowling and at work in our midst?

It's the evil one who sows division. He's the father of lies. No wonder Paul says, putting away lying, speak the truth to your neighbor. Be angry where that's difficult, where relationships are frayed and slander or gossip might be in the midst.

But don't let the sun go down on your wrath. The devil is at work. Don't give him a foothold. I give some practical advice in the way this carries into life, but he's going to quickly get back to the mouth.

So let him who stole steal no longer. Rather let him labor, working with his hands, what is good that he may have something to give him as need. Right back to the mouth, verse 29. Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification.

We're going to come back to that phrase shortly. That it may impart grace to the hearers. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God. You see who else is at work in the congregation? The very Spirit of God.