Enemies Within The Walls: The Terrible Tongue (part 3)

Our Father in heaven, what a blessing it is to think about you, to contemplate your greatness, your omnipotence, your love, your kindness, your mercy, your justice, all the attributes that are yours.

Father, we come before you this morning just wanting to be taught, to be edified, to be built up, to think rightly about ourselves and about you.

Lord, I pray that you would bless our time as we look at the way we treat one another, how we ought to treat one another, how we ought to think and speak.

Father, I pray that we would do so, that we would be mindful always of glorifying you with our actions and our thoughts and our words.

In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Well, we've been looking at, really,

I guess we could call it the one another's, how we ought to treat one another. And we began the series talking about enemies within the walls, talking about a lack of forgiveness.

And I've mentioned over the last couple weeks we've been talking about our tongues, about how we speak.

And really some of the, I think some of the harshest things that we do to one another are just in how we speak.

And some of the reasons why we need forgiveness are what we say to one another. And so this is a very important topic.

Last week we began, or we were talking about some different things from Proverbs.

And I wanted to just start with this one because I find this one a lot of fun.

Proverbs 18, Proverbs 18 verses 6 and 7.

This will wake you up. If you're a little sluggish this morning, this will really get you going. Proverbs 18 verses 6 and 7.

And if somebody has that and would read it, that would be great. Yeah, go ahead,

George. Okay.

Have you ever heard, I mean, what's a more, let's just put it this way, what's a more kind of earthy proverb that kind of goes with this one?

Maybe a little more worldly than this. Anybody? Cruising for a bruising, that's one.

How about loose lips sink ships?

Or your mouth's writing checks your body can't cash. I had a friend on the

Sheriff's Department, you know, the inmates would get a little lippy and he'd walk up to the inmate, pull up the sleeve on the inmates, you know, pull over.

What do you call those things? Jumpsuit. And he'd say, you know what? I don't think your arms are big enough to talk to me like that.

There's a lot of practical application there, right?

A fool's lips walk into a fight and his mouth invites a beating. That's exactly right. Your arms aren't big enough to talk to me like that.

One writer says a fool finds himself in trouble because he speaks thoughtlessly.

I mean, this is, you know, somebody says something and consequences follow it.

What we say matters in every situation. And, you know, basically this sounds like, you know, situation may be in a bar or something like that or in a jail, but we ought to really think about what we say.

And I wanted to just introduce that. I just like that one, but we're going to be talking mostly about gossip and slander this morning, and hopefully that won't encourage beatings.

Gossip and slander. What do you think of this saying? It's not gossip if it's true.

You ever heard anybody say that? It's not gossip if it's true. Is that true? Somebody said this once and my response was,

OK, well, if you have a child and that child does something sinful and it's all true and I go and tell somebody else about that sinful act that your child did, maybe it's shameful.

If I go and tell somebody else, are you going to come back to me and say, well, you know what? It's not gossip. It's true.

I doubt it. Let's look at Proverbs 26.

Proverbs 26, verse 22. I'm sorry,

I don't mean to sound like a sexist, but this is probably 55 -45 true.

I think women struggle with this more than men. Not always. I'm going to say 55 -45.

It's slightly, let's put it this way. Who is it who goes and buys all the gossip magazines at the grocery stores?

It's not the guys. I don't care what's in the national whatever, all those stories about Bigfoot and Elvis.

I don't care. Somebody buys them.

But I think it's true that the guys struggle with gossip as well. Proverbs 26, verse 22.

Who would read that, please? Go ahead, Charlie. OK, true or false?

There's something about gossip that makes it attractive to us. We just read it.

They're like delicious morsels. We have right now at our house, courtesy of my stepmom, or I should say discourtesy of my stepmom, we have some chocolate caramels with sea salt on the top.

Those things are the best. And it's like you have to, you know, we have rules for how we consume them.

And why is that? Because if not, it's just like doo -doo -doo -doo -doo. They're deadly.

And you know what she did this year? I love my mom. She sent, she found out she really, we really like them.

So I think she sent twice as much this year, which is very nice.

It's very nice for her. It makes me so mad. But this is like, I think it's an apt picture of gossip.

We want to hear it. Why do you suppose that we want to hear gossip? Charlie will fess up.

Yes. Yeah, there's something about us that wants to hear the bad stuff that's happening in other people's lives so we feel better about ourselves.

Hey, whatever's going on in my life, at least I'm not like that poor loser.

Right? That's good. Somebody else? Yes, Carol.

We want to be in the know so we can tell somebody else. There's a whole chain, you know, and we don't want to get left out of that chain, right?

The gossip chain. Also notice the prayer chain. Okay, nevermind. But it's scintillating and it's exciting.

And you know, I would put it this way. When you hear or even when you're, and we'll talk about this too, even when you're about to speak something that's kind of gossipy, what sort of sense do you have?

It's kind of a little exciting. It's a little bit thrilling and it's because it's sinful.

I wrote this, so I'll take all the blame for it. It is a pernicious sin because of its effects and because it comes so naturally.

Why is it so natural to us? Because it's easier. Here's my theory.

It's easier to talk about someone than it is to talk to someone.

It's easier to talk about somebody else's sins than it is to go to them in the Matthew 18, the kind of biblical mindset where we want to edify somebody.

We want to help them. We want to build them up and confront them on their sin. It's easier to talk about their sin. It shouldn't be that way, but it is.

It's easier to talk about someone than it is to talk to them about their particular problem.

Now gossip may or may not be true, right? It can be true and it's still gossip.

One person defined it this way, casual or unconstrained conversation or reports about other people, typically involving details that are not confirmed as being true.

So it can be true or might not be true. If it's not true, though, then we have another term for it.

What is it? A lie or slander, the action or crime of making a false statement damaging a person's reputation.

Now what is true? I've already said it, but I want to underline this. What's true of both those things of gossip and or slander?

What's true of both of them? They're sinful and they're really aimed at one thing.

We could say whatever we want, but they're aimed at one thing, which is tearing down the other person. And as we've been talking about the last several weeks, if our goal per Ephesians four is to put off the old man, to put on the new man, to stop acting like an unbeliever.

In other words, chapters one through three of Ephesians are doctrine describing what has happened to every

Christian. Chapters four through six are practice. How do we put these things into practice?

Christians are to behave differently than non -Christians. There's a shocking concept, right? When you gossip, when you slander, you are behaving like an unbeliever.

And we're going to see that turn to Romans one, very famous passage talking about,

I mean, you probably heard this passage preached talking about the descent of civilization from one sin to another, to another, to another.

But I want to go to Romans chapter one, the end of the chapter, we're going to start reading at verse 28.

And I mean, we, we often turn to this and we'll talk about homosexuality and all these things that are just terrible in our society.

Now listen, starting in verse 28. And since they did not see fit to acknowledge

God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.

They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice.

They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness, maliciousness.

They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.

Though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die.

They not only do them, but give approval to those who practice them. This is amazing.

People today can make a living being a gossip columnist, spreading rumors.

Douglas Moos says the purpose of this recital, which is the longest of its kind in the new

Testament is to show the general scope of social evils produced by the unqualified mind to which

God has hand sinners over the harm done by people to other people is thus added to idolatry and sexual perversion to complete

Paul's sketch of the world outside Christ. This is the unsaved world.

He's describing unbelievers. And yet what do we see in the church?

Gossip, slander. I suppose it's easier maybe to spot this at work, right?

I mean, if you're in an organization of any kind of size, unless you work by yourself, and if you do, you know, and you're slandering or gossiping about yourself, well, shame on you.

Did you hear about Steve? Well, you know, I don't know how much fun that would be. But isn't it true that there's always somebody who knows the scoop, knows what's going on?

I mean, there were kind of, now there were some times where it was kind of, it was kind of cool to get the phone calls where I would get the calls and somebody would say, you know, you need to know about this.

And I can give you a good example of something like that. The department had a policy, the sheriff's department had a policy of sexual harassment.

There were certain things that deputies were not allowed to do. They weren't allowed to say, but they also were not allowed to possess semi -pornographic magazines at work.

And somebody called me up once and said, there is a gigantic trash bag full of them at such and such a location underneath a tile.

They were hiding these so they could just, you know, peruse them at their convenience. And I said, thank you.

And I went up to this place and the guys were like, what are you doing here? Kind of thing. And I said, well, I'm just here to clean up a little bit.

And I lifted the tile and they were pretty surprised. I lifted the tile,

I took out the bag and I dragged that thing down the hallway. And it was a long trip out to the dumpster and then smooshed them all.

People were not very happy about that. But it was interesting to me because I just thought, you know, it was the one time where I got kind of the secret of phone call and I thought, oh, this is pretty cool.

But that's normally not how it goes, right? Somebody wants to tell you something about somebody else.

Listen what Hendrickson says about gossip. He says, the whispering slanderers are meant, they perhaps do not dare to come out in the open with their vilifying chatter, but they whisper it into somebody's ear.

In fact, that word, I'm not going to try to pronounce it, but the whisperers, or I think it's translated in the, when we hear gossips, it really is, it's the same word, it can be translated whisperers.

And it's kind of a, I don't know, it's one of those ones that sounds like what it is. Yeah, one of those.

And it really is about, you know, they're saying shameful things and they won't say it out loud.

Whereas a slanderer is somebody who does it in the open. But both are big time troublemakers within a church.

A .T. Robertson talks about that word and he says it's found nowhere else, talking about backbiters or slanderers.

And he says it really has to do, it's the only time it's found in the

New Testament. And they just want to stab people in the back and we'll talk more about that in a bit.

Leon Morris says it's a term which may be used in a good or neutral sense.

Here, however, plainly refers to not good, slander, whispering to people that don't want to hear openly.

They whisper behind doors. Here's a question.

Even if you don't, you say to yourself, perhaps rightly, well, I don't gossip.

I don't participate in gossip. Good. Do you approve of those who do?

And, you know, sometimes we think, well, I don't tell other people things. Well, do you receive it? We're going to see in a minute that even receiving it, the concept of receiving gossip is sinful.

And I read this week and I posted on Facebook, an article by Tim Chalies, where he lists five different types of gossipers.

And I'm going to go through some of those. Now, just think about gossip itself within the body of Christ, whispers about other people.

In what possible way could that be helpful? It's not helpful to the people that you're gossiping about, and it's not helpful to the people that you're gossiping to.

It doesn't help anyone. You are sinning, you're recruiting people to sin, and you are also slandering other people in the body of Christ.

Tim Chalies writes, gossip is a serious problem. It is a problem in the home, in the workplace, in the local church, and in broader evangelicalism.

He says in his book, Resisting Gossip, Matthew Mitchell defines gossip as bearing bad news behind someone's back, listen, out of a bad heart.

And shows that when the book of Proverbs uses the term gossip, it does so in the noun form, not the verb form.

In other words, the Bible is concerned less with the words that are spoken and more with the heart and mouth that generate such distractions.

Let me just explain what I think he's trying to say there. Why is it important that the

Proverbs Solomon writes using the noun form, and he talks about gossip in that sense? Well, I just think because it's not just the action of speaking gossip, it's the action of receiving it.

It is gossip itself that is the problem. The noun, the container, the word itself that is the problem.

As we pass it around, we do damage. As we receive it, we do damage.

Just think about it this way. If somebody wants to tell me some gossip and I receive it, then what do they think?

What does the gossiper think? That you agree, or at least you think that what they're doing is...

Now, what if I say instead, you know, that sounds like gossip to me.

Then what? That person, well, they may not like you, but that person has just gone from a little bit of pride, a little bit of accomplishment, a little bit of excitement to shame, or they should.

Guilt, maybe anger, but if they're angry because they're called on their sin, well, there are other issues, but we ought not to even receive gossip.

I like what one man says. I'm around this guy from time to time, and he says when somebody gossips to him, or even if it doesn't, if you don't think it qualifies as gossip, because here's the problem.

Again, let's just go back to what I said. It's about someone. It's not to someone. So let's say that what

I'm... I'll just use me. I go to somebody else, and I want to talk about a third person.

I want to talk about Dan Rathman, and I say, you know,

Dan really struggles with whatever it is. Now, Dan doesn't, and I'm just using him as an illustration.

Dan struggles in no way. He's a man without fault. What that person ought to say to me is,

Steve, I'm so glad that you are concerned about Dan. It's good that you love

Dan so much that you want to help him. However, it'd probably be better if you went and talked to Dan about it.

So I'm going to give you two weeks to go talk to Dan, and if you don't, then I'm going to go to him and say there's an issue that you need to talk to him about, because I want to stop gossip.

I don't want to further it. I don't want to receive it, because it is a problem even to receive it.

I am furthering the crime, let's say, of gossip. If somebody came to me and said, you know,

I know so -and -so burglarized such -and -such a house, I might say, well, that's interesting information.

Thank you. You know, I'll just make a little note of that, put it in a log. No, I'm going to say, well, have you called the police?

Why? Because the police can actually do something. If you tell me something or if I tell you something about Dan, that does nothing.

It doesn't help Dan, and it hurts me. It hurts the person who's telling me, or, you know, if I'm doing it, it hurts me and the person

I'm telling, and it hurts Dan. I mean, it is a triple -header loser, an overarching throughout this whole thing as we talk about the tongue, as we think about how we treat one another.

Here's what, you know, there's the old phrase, what would Jesus do? Well, we know

Jesus wouldn't gossip. We understand that. I like to just turn that a little bit.

Just imagine that you're walking somewhere and the Lord is standing next to you and you go, hey,

I would like to tell you about Dan, about the problems Dan has. You'd never do that in a million years.

Why wouldn't you? Because you know it's wrong. But somehow when we're amongst brothers and sisters in Christ, we feel free, especially, you know, if the person is, you know, perceived to have some position to take a shot at them, it just shouldn't be.

We should not do that. Let's go to Proverbs 6.

Proverbs 6, a fairly famous and well -known passage. And let's read, let's have somebody read verses 16 through 19, please.

16 through 19. Go ahead, Bruce. Okay, now that, you've probably heard this before, but what does that, what does that formula tell us there at the beginning?

There are six things that the Lord hates. By the way, that's kind of strong language, when

God hates something. There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him.

What is that formula? What is it trying to tell us? Some probably remember this. Have you heard this before?

The emphasis is on the last one. In fact, commentator, I just like this because it's mathematical.

Listen to the purpose of this kind of numerical pattern, x and x plus one.

It's not to give a complete list. Instead, it is to stress the final x plus one item.

Yes, a little algebra right in your Sunday school. It's the culmination or product of the preceding items, the stresses on the last one.

So what's the last one here? One who sows discord among brothers.

What would you say to somebody who's trying to sow discord in the church? Nothing. Thank you, brother, for trying to sow discord.

That's a blessing to me, and I'm sure it is to the rest of the church. Titus three, verse ten.

What does this say? Receive the factious man. Reward the factious man.

Roll out the red carpet for the factious man. Reject him after one or two warnings.

Why? Because God hates that. It's an abomination to him.

Such things should not be. Kyle Delitch wrote this.

The chief of all that God hates is he who takes a fiendish delight in setting at variance men who stand nearly related.

In other words, what does God really hate? People who come into a close -knit group, which a church necessarily should be, and seek to separate brothers.

Nothing worse. Listen to Matthew Henry. Making mischief between relations and neighbors and using all wicked means possible, not only to alienate their affections one from another, but to irritate their passions one against another.

The God of love and peace hates him that sows discord among brethren, for he delights in conquering in peace.

Those that by tail -bearing and slandering, by carrying ill -natured stories, aggravating everything that is said and done, and suggesting jealousies and evil surmises, blow the coals of contention.

They are but preparing for themselves a fire of the same nature. He says, you're just warming up the coals of hell for yourself.

Gossip, slander. Again, I just come back to, you know, I think

I said this at the beginning of the church, Matthew 16, or beginning of the class, way back when, whenever it was,

Matthew 16, 18, the Lord says to Peter, upon this rock, I'm going to build my church in the gates of Hades hell.

Death will not prevail against it. The Lord's building his church, but there are some people who want to do what?

Tear it down. You think God, you know, is just like wild about those people?

No. He hates what they're doing. Let's look at Proverbs 11, 13, and who would read that, please?

Proverbs 11, 13. Pastor Dave.

I mean, this is like 1 Corinthians, right? Love covers a multitude of sins. I mean, isn't that what we want?

Shouldn't we want to be known as somebody who's trustworthy in spirit? Not a slanderer, just kind of uncovering things.

Listen to what Chalice says. The spy, he separates these people up into five types, these gossips.

And this one, he says, the spy is an informer, a person who gathers secrets so he can use them to his personal advantage.

This is the person who's always listening for rumors and who always seems to know everyone else's business.

His ear is always to the ground. You ever heard that? I just keep my ear to the ground.

I like to know what's going on. The spy's main motivation is power. It may be the thrill of knowing something before everyone else, or it may be the power that comes when threatening others by revealing their secrets.

Blackmail. He uses information to elevate himself and destroy others. Now, listen, we're not talking about, you know, like Andrew Smith here a week and a half ago posted something on Facebook.

And I just thought when he posted, I thought, what if he's really trying to say Anitra is with child?

And, you know, I dropped him a little note. He just kind of he brushed it aside and I thought,

OK, well, I'm not going to worry about it. And then it was like a week or so later that I found out, well, she was.

It's not that kind of rumor. It's not that kind of secrets. Those are good secrets.

But when people are looking for information that can put the hurt on somebody else, put the squeeze on someone else, elevate themselves, that's not good.

There's nothing good about it. There's nothing honorable about it. Let's just even think, let's just take it out of the church for a moment and let's just put it in business.

Is that the sort of person that you would like to be in business with? I don't know how he does it, but he sure gets things done when he talks.

You know, people are just kind of they slink down their chairs because they know that he's got the dirt on them.

He can destroy them. Awesome. That's the guy I want to be my partner. Until he turns that around on me, right?

It's like a Proverbs 1628. We really can learn something about people who do this, about their characteristics, their qualities.

Proverbs 1628, a dishonest man spreads strife.

Just take that by itself for a moment. What does it tell us about somebody who wants to create conflict?

They're dishonest. And a whisperer separates close friends.

Again, an informer, a slanderer. Challis writes of this person, he describes him as the grumbler.

The grumbler complains and criticizes. And you notice here, he says, he changes to she.

She criticizes other people and complains about them behind their backs. She spreads all their secrets, describes exactly how she feels about them, and then excuses it by saying, listen to this one to see if you've ever heard it.

I just needed to vent for a while. You know what?

If you want to vent about your own failings, feel free. That's typically not what people do when they vent though these days, is it?

I just need to vent about other people. Just tell you how bad everyone else is.

Challis goes on to say, because she is miserable and misery loves company, she drags other people into her grumbling.

Her motive is often jealousy or envy. She wants what another person has and grumbles because she does not have it herself.

He goes on and he has another category, the backstabber. The backstabber is a complainer, but he is more than that.

He is also angry and malicious and is out to destroy others. He may bring full out lies in order to bring down another person or may engage in a smear campaign.

He looks for something, anything, everything wrong with his enemies and makes sure everyone knows all about those things.

And when I read that, I just thought, you know what? That is basically the biography of everyone who has caused the church split, who has gone in and said, you know what?

I'm going to divide this church. I want people to follow after me. They're going to blow things up out of proportion.

They're going to do whatever they can to separate people off for themselves. Listen, he goes on to say the backstabber is often motivated by revenge for some deep offense, some opportunity lost or some hardship gained.

They're after, you know, justice is mine, saith the Steve. I used to say that one, you know, justice is mine.

I will repay. It's actually supposed to be the

Lord. But, you know, people take it upon themselves to do that. Again, talking about different types of gossips,

Chalice talks about the chameleon, the person who uses gossip to fit in with the crowd at work or school.

You know, if you want to be one of the cool kids, you have to give the cool other cool kids some dirt, something that they want to hear.

If you're going to fit in with the in crowd, you have to do what they do. Proverbs 29, 25 says, fear of man will prove to be a snare.

But whoever trusts in the Lord is kept safe. When you care about the opinions of others, when you care that you are looked up to, that you are accepted, that you are taken into the crowd, then that's fear of man.

And you will find yourself doing things that you don't want to do, including passing on gossip. Let's look at Second Thessalonians, chapter three, and we'll close here.

Second Thessalonians, chapter three, verses 10 to 12.

And would somebody read that when they get there, please? Second Thessalonians, chapter three, verses 10 to 12. Yes, go ahead.

What's the essence of being a busybody? What's that?

A gossip, right? Being a meddler involved in the affairs of others.

And, you know, when you think about somebody who will not work, they want to, they have to spend their time doing something.

So Paul writes about them being busybodies. But look at what the opposite is.

We commanded and encouraged in the Lord Jesus Christ and to do their work quietly and to earn their own living.

Work quite, I could have just said to do their work. Why do you think he added the quietly?

Because he knows that that's the problem. It's that gossip. Chalice writes, the final kind of gossip is the busybody.

The busybody is the person who is idle and his idleness leads to meddling in gossip. Proverbs 26, 17, like one who seizes a dog by the ears is a passerby who meddles in a quarrel, not his own.

He just wants to be involved. The busybody loves the titillation that comes through gossip and loves living vicariously through other people's stories.

Do tell me what's going on. Tell me, tell me, tell me. I need to know. No, you don't.

Within, just within a family unit, would we accept, well, what do we, what do we tell the kids?

Stop tattling, right? Don't tattle. Well, what is tattling?

It's gossip. Is it true? It might be true. It's still tattling. It's still gossip. We don't want it.

Would we accept our spouses talking about us to somebody else? No. Within or at work, how do we, how do we feel when people are talking behind our backs as they are want to do, especially if you try to live out your faith at work, then what other people say?

Oh, look at the goody -goody. Look at the guy, you know, who won't break the rules. Look at the guy who isn't like the rest of us.

Why would we accept such a thing in church? Why would we think that that's okay?

Again, if there are six things that the Lord hates and even seven that are an abomination to him, that seventh one is the worst.

And that is someone who goes into damage to separates brothers to cause havoc within the body of Christ.

There is probably, I don't think there's anything that is more destructive to unity than gossip.

It's not something that we should do. It's not something that we should accept. In fact, we should do everything we can to just stop it dead in its tracks.

I'm not big on, you know, what would Jesus do sermons?

But I think what would Jesus listen to? Would he listen to what I'm about to say?

Why? I hope so. Because if my, if my words are building up, is he going to receive that?

Yes, because that's what he's commanded in his word. As a Christian, my tongue has a use and that use is to bless

God and to bless his people. That's what I'm to do. Slander, gossip, all these things have no place in a

Christian's vocabulary. Let's pray. Father, we, we have undoubtedly failed in many ways with our tongues.

We speak imprudently, rashly, without consideration for the effects of what we're going to say.

Lord, I, I would pray even today that we would repent of that, that we would purpose to even speak in light of the, of the cross, of who we are in Christ.

In light of all that you have done for us in granting us forgiveness of sins, how we ought to employ our mouths, our speaking to praise you, to build one another up, to lift one another up, to do the things that are hard, to speak to one another, not about one another, to pray for one another, to confront one another when we need to, but not to sin against one another with our mouths.

Lord, prevent it, strengthen us, give us grace that we might not even want to do these things.