Power of the tongue part 1
James 3:5-8 · Andrew Molloy · Jun 25, 2023
James, No. 23
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261931468184

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

The Power of Tongue, part one. Part two comes up next week. Let me just see if I can get, yeah, here we go. I'll start from verse one of chapter three of James. Let not many of you become teachers, my brother, knowing that as such we will incur a strict judgment, for we all stumble in many ways.

If anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to bridle the whole body as well. Now if we put the bits into horses' mouths so that they will obey us, we direct their entire body as well. Look at the ships also. Though they are so great and are driven by strong winds, they're still directed by a very small rudder wherever the inclination of the pilot desires. Here's five through eight that we're studying today.

So also the tongue is a small part of the body, and yet it boasts of great things. See how great a forest fire is set aflame by such a small fire. And the tongue is a fire, the very world of iniquity. The tongue is set among our members as which defiles the entire body and sets on fire the course of our life. and is set on fire by hell. For every species of beasts and birds, of reptiles and creatures of the sea is tamed and has been tamed by the human race. But no one can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil and full of deadly poison."

Wow. Yeah, yeah. So, it's all bad news today. And if you thought that was, just look at the news today. Right. I mean, just what people say and don't say. You're talking generally. Just generally. You look at everything. Somehow when you said that I was thinking of the Rockies. Where did that end up yesterday? 24 to 0? They got 1. Oh, 24 to 1. Or did they get 25? Well, but that has nothing to do with it. Okay, so here's a preview of this section today.

The Epistle of James focuses on the practical. Would you say that seems correct, right? Our faith and works in practice, our walk through this world, our day-to-day walking, You know, he says the same thing Paul says, except in very different ways. We will either walk by faith, dependent on the control of our indwelling Holy Spirit, or we will walk by sight, dependent on self. What they say in today's speak, our lived experience, which is our wits and the seat of our pants. Living that way, we're not controlled by the Spirit.

But if we're able to abide and remain in Christ practically, controlled by the Spirit, we are James's perfect man, complete and mature in Christ. Bridled and controlled, our tongue will be stable and not stumbling. As what James mentioned a few verses ago about stumbling, this is matching our standing in Christ. This is matching our standing to our state. of earthly being, or position, our condition will match our position.

Today's passage focuses on the great power and influence of the tongue. It too is either unbridled and unleashed in the Adamic state, or tamed, bridled, and peaceable by the spirit, depending on which indwelling power controls. The mature Christian will always be abiding in Christ and rooted in his life, Abiding in self, the tongue will loose its destructive power. And boy, does James bring that out today, this morning.

But here's our standard. Here's the way that we're supposed, kind of a pattern of how we are to live. In Isaiah, it says, under the greatest stress of trial. Well, this isn't Isaiah, but it takes from Isaiah. This is F.W. Grant. Under the greatest stress of trial that could possibly be conceived, a trial which went on to the awful death which the Lord suffered, he was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth. He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shears is dumb, or his shears is dumb, so he opened not his mouth. He was perfect master of himself under all circumstances. And again, as the prophet Isaiah bears witness, while on the one hand he had done no violence, on the other, neither was there any deceit in his mouth. And that's a key phrase. Violence comes from the abuse of power. Deceit is the resource of weakness. I like that sentence.

In the Lord, there could be neither, right? The perfect trial was but perfect manifestation of his supreme excellence. He was unique. His unique obedience to the will of God, while accompanied at the same time with perfection of another kind, which made him able to realize all the weaknesses of which he was the subject. he to whom sin was suffering only, and of the sorest possible suffering, even to the bearing of his heavy burden upon a tree." So the only sin that he suffered from sin, right? But he did not sin. That's what he was saying there in the 1800s sort of way that they phrase things. But so sin only touched him as to suffering. And he took that to the cross. So that's our pattern. But again, the bad news is what we're going to study today.

James 3.5.

So all Satan is a small part of the body, and yet it boasts of great things. See how great a forest fire is, aflame by such a small fire. And the context to this is Just before this, now if we put the bits into horse's mouth so that they will obey us, we direct their entire body as well. Look at the ships also, though they are so great and driven by strong winds, are still directed by a very small rudder, wherever the inclination of the pilot desires.

So this is a third metaphor, right? The tongue is as a small spark that sets a forest on fire. It was preceded by the metaphor of the horse's bit and the tongue as a ship's rudder. And I'm calling it a small spark. That's not in scripture, but that's the idea. That's the idea of it.

So the tongue is a fire. This is the statement that James is getting to in verse 6. We don't see it yet, but it's a definitive statement, and he's working towards this thesis. The tongue is a fire, and he's leading up to it. And I thought about this. He's talking about the propellant ability of the tongue, or the kindling ability of of the things related to the tongue.

A little bit goes a long way and it becomes a large conflagration. And I thought of Kingsford, whatever that starting fluid you put on charcoal, that gets a fire going. And I thought of that, you remember that song, it only takes a spark to get a fire going from way back in the 70s? Yeah, that too I thought of, but I didn't want to sing it or anything.

So war, fighting, disputes can be the result of the tump. It always leads to that. Words can Lead to that and I always thought the rule thing these kids, you know, six and stones will break my bones But words will never hurt me. Yeah, there never could be a more untrue statement, you know He said as a child ever, you know ever ever I came to that exact same conclusion. I thought of that and then I said wait, that's Totally it's totally wrong wrong You know in foster Right, exactly.

They come, they teach you. There's some really good counselors who teach you how to, because you never want to add stress on your kids, right, who have been through so much. So you never want, not even really discipline, you don't even want to do that, a little, but lovingly, but It's amazing how people's words can really affect a child and really crush them. Words can crush.

So that is, that axiom is totally wrong. So sticks and stones. But yeah, words can kill. It's according to this. Or create wars. Especially with children. I've learned, because I always used to just, I never thought about it, but then I thought, wow, it really, words can hurt. Having children is one of the incredible lessons that God gives, you know, gives people, believers and all man. It's just, it's such an incredible, you learn so much from that.

Yeah. And we're taught in that foster care to, instead of, yelling and trying to get them to do things like you would your normal kids. You can sort of craft it in a way to where they'll like logically be involved in what you want them to do. And then if they do it, you praise them and they'll turn out better because of that. But there's always a time to say no. Yeah, right.

Exactly. I took this 2C from a list of Paul in several verses he has. And if you look at these things that he lists, it easily relates to the tongue. And you can see how these things are sparked by the tongue, strifes, jealousies, slanders, gossip, arrogance, disturbances, enmities, outbursts of anger, and certainly the tongue disputes, dissensions, factions. Abusive language, there you go, right there. Evil suspicions, foolish controversies, and genealogies. You can see how those things that Paul talks about as the fruit of the flesh or the self are all related to the destruction of the tongue as well.

Not in the least, boasting, right? And it says it right there in verse 5. And yet it boasts of great things, the tongue. And boasting is certainly a tongue-using activity, a sin of the flesh. And there's no special Greek to the word boasting. The definition is just comes out boasting. So I looked that up and it wasn't too interesting, so I didn't put the Greek there.

And here's his thesis in verse 6. And the tongue is the fire of the very world of iniquity. The tongue is set among our members as that which defiles the body, the entire body, and sets on fire the course of our life and is set on fire by hell. This is probably the biggest thesis of today that makes it sort of depressing.

So the tongue is two things. It's a pyre, and there's the Greek word pyre, you know, that's a funeral, pyre, pyre. Pyro. Pyro, P-Y-R. And two, it's a world of iniquity. That's the King James. And up there in the New American Standard, he has the very world of iniquity. The tongue is a destructive element that consumes things.

And I thought of these big forest fires. Well, the Marshall Fire that burned down, what, a thousand homes in 2021, up there in Longmont. That's a huge fire. And then the 2020 Cameron Big Fire. There's three of the largest fires that happened in 2020.

Wow. Those are the largest on the list. Yeah. And you think about how they start. One was started near Durango, kind of near us, as a guy's tailpipe was dragging sparks and then lit. lit the grass on fire. You've got to watch that. Your car can start a fire with the exhaust there. And that's exactly our thesis today. A very small spark starts a big fire.

This tongue is a sum total of iniquity is what This is a constable, says that. And iniquity is adikia, A-D-I-K-I-A. And that's related to righteousness. Dikaios, D-I-K-I-O-S. So iniquity is kind of a similar, righteousness and iniquity, you can kind of...

It's like the A produces a negative of that. Yeah. And then the A, It negates it, right? Yeah, the a- prefix negates it, so it's unrighteousness or a-righteousness. And righteousness, I just defined it quickly. Iniquity, he's using the same word as, is morally justified, being straight, virtuous, right-standing, vis-a-vis God's moral standard, is righteousness. So, iniquity is the exact opposite of that. So the tongue, what comes out of the tongue is the exact opposite of righteousness. Part B and C of verse 6 is, I'll quote it here, the tongue is set among our members as that which defiles the entire body and sets on fire the course of our life and is set on fire by hell and that's a big kind of burrito to chew.

I pulled this from the Wiest and it's really good. He says, the tongue is so constituted in the members of our body or among the members of our body that it defiles the entire body and sets on fire our round of existence. and is constantly being set on fire by Gehenna is what how Wiest kind of brings up the Greek so that constantly being set on fire by hell or Gehenna that would be a perfect perfect active voice, present tense active voice, right? So it's constantly being. And he has that round of existence, our entire being is affected by, and the tongue conflagrates all that and burns our entire being up, basically, is what he could be saying. I see again the propellant, the fueling propellant quality of the work of the tongue.

I was watching something on Netflix and it's used a lot. Sometimes you have an actor saying, says something and then he goes, oh, I shouldn't have said that. And that's often, right? Well, how about the phrase that something has gone viral on some social media thing that's always used. Yeah. That's exactly what we're...

And I had the, what do you guys think? I had the, I, I come, I came to the conclusion that things on Twitter and all that stuff, Twitter and Instagram, let's say, but finally Twitter, that's all the tongue, isn't it? Even though you're not using it. The tongue is the virtual tongue. You're basically saying it. It's the thoughts of man. Yeah, and the thoughts are coming out through the tongue. And through your fingers there. I don't think they saw that in scripture yet. It's coming out through your fingers. Little members like this. And the tongue is a little member. And so now we use our fingers. And it comes out the same, I think.

And we see how destructive that is. We've seen that in so many situations. In the political realm these days, certain things will get spotlight and it just takes off. That's the biggest tragedy. Whether you believe it's the biggest tragedy is up for grabs, but it will be made into that. And then it's in the news for several days and it's a big conflagration, right?

But I don't think they were seeing that the fingers were that back then. Because think of it, you had that, and you're riding with a feather really neatly. And then you had to send it. So there was a lot of disconnect. Now it's instantaneous, right? That's interesting. So you guys seem to agree. That's good.

Sets on fires. phlogiso, that's ignite, burn up, or operate destructively. There again is that propellant quality. And defiles is spolao, to spot or spill something, or to stain it. A perfect garment would be stained or spotted. So the Greek really makes sense there, right? Spolao. and that defiles the entire body. So my summary is the tongue is a holy, unholy, hell-raising hellfire. A hell-raising hellfire when controlled sinfully by our own selves.

That's good. That's good, I like that. That's the crux of what he's saying in that very, such a rich verse. Oh yes, it's true. Isn't that true? They get on every news, they always gather in the rotunda and they get on camera and then they get in those hearings and meetings. And that's it. This is Washington, D.C. here in verse 6.

Could you say that depending on how mature a believer is, he can control his tongue for good? Depending on his maturity in Christ? It's like Galatians 5.17, flesh desires what is against the spirit, spirit desires what is against the flesh.

These are in conflict with each other, so you don't do what you want to do. It's the same thing with the tongue, isn't it? And it does take maturity to control. Actually, it's not the tongue that's being controlled, it's your mind that's being controlled. There's a battle going on in our minds.

But I think you can have those thoughts and resolve them in your mind, but when it goes out through the tongue, that's an extra... You can't take them back. Yeah, I think that's an extra sinful thing that God allows for. If you keep it up here, you're not... I myself, I have a problem with anger. I have such angry, bitter thoughts, but if I keep them in my head, I resolve them, you know, and the Spirit within me will change my mind.

Yeah, right. You know, and after I calm down, I say what the Spirit wants me to say instead of what I, the flesh, wants to say. Yeah, yeah. So maybe it depends on our maturity how we control our tongue, but the flesh sometimes still wins over. It does. Yeah, that's a good point. Good point, Jim. So 7 and 8, verse 7 and 8.

For every species of beasts and birds, of reptiles and creatures of the sea is tamed and has been tamed by the human race. But no one can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil and full of deadly poison. At first I thought, my mind went to this, from Genesis 126, then God said, let us make man in our own image according to our likeness and let him rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.

So if you compare that to James 7, it seems to line up really well, right? That dominion over the animals and then dominion over the tongue. You can see the parallelism there between the two. And I thought of that, that came to my mind or this from Psalms 8-6. You make him to rule over the works of your hands. You have put all things under his feet. That's man.

But then I thought, well, this taming seems to be a little more than that taming or dominion over the tongue. And then I thought, are we supposed to go about the day trying to tame your tongue. I thought, that's not really it, I don't think. To get to Jim's point here, this taming isn't like taming a horse or a house pet.

It's the word damatso, and it's used as in restraining or curbing or subduing, so more forceful. Same word as when that demonic man who was running around in the cemetery and going crazy naked and he came up to Christ when he got off the boat and he bowed down and he said oh you're the you're the Christ you're please don't send me away to another country or whatever so they were trying to subdue this man And he was having these outbursts, these demonic outbursts. And he even broke his chains and his shackles, and they just couldn't control him. He's like one of those men on meth or crank or those drugs that the cops are like, we can't you know, we can't control this person. So that's the word they use there when they talk about restraining that man, right?

So you can see, you see what I'm getting at? So is it really taming instead of subduing or bringing to bear? Uist has every creature on land and sea is controlled and has been controlled by mankind. And no one in the human race is able to control the tongue. That's a little stronger.

Well, I like that because that kind of points to the fact that in Adam, we can't do it. There's so many parallels to that in the Christian life. What Paul teaches. You see, it's impossible. Yeah. It's like you can tame a wild animal, but the animal is still wild. Right, yeah. You have to be cautious. Yeah, tiger or leopard. You can tame those animals. You can tame those animals, but they're still wild. But when something in their mind trips, then the trainer is dead, right? We've seen that, yeah.

Weiss adds unstable evil to restless evil, and that seems to tie into that Mark 5 passage. That man was unstable, those demons were unstable and they were restless in that man. Oh, added to this, though, that Jesus himself was able to control that man. And he, well, first he brought, we have brought to bear, but he bowed down before Jesus Christ.

And then all Christ said was, you know, get out of them. And then he, then they all went and they went into that. Yeah. The herd of pigs and then jumped off the cliff. Um, but. Christ was able to control them with his words. They had a request, and he fulfilled the request. He said, don't send us away. Let us go into that herd of pigs. And he said, OK. If you own the herd of pigs, you might. What's the ending? The epilogue to that story was after the man, the demons left him, he was sitting on a park bench with one of those blankets on, sipping coffee, perfectly normal. I added a blanket part. He was back to his own self.

That's amazing. So, yeah, so I came to the conclusion this taming has a stronger flavor, more diabolical. Look what Ironside says of it as a commentary. All species and varieties of birds and beasts, even slimy serpents and creatures of the sea, and that's good, that's correct, has been tamed by patient handling and attention. But no man can tame the tongue.

And I thought, well, that's, boy. I disagree. Yeah. I disagree with that. It's like that taming or tamable. just seems to be weak to me. As if patient handling and attention can tame the tongue. That seems to not say what the verse is saying. Like, you know, a house that patience and all that and careful attention. Yeah, you don't want to do that with that. Well, you can do that with the tongue, but I think it's more curbing and restraining and subduing forcefully. is what I think that word for tame is. That's what I'm positing in this lesson, as opposed to patient handling and careful attention. And to Jim's point, yeah, I don't think we want to do that, exert self-effort in taming and restraining a tongue and putting a choke hold on it. I think it's a lost cause.

He doesn't get into it now, but he gives a taste of it in verse 11, where he talks about, you know, can sweet water come from a bitter spring? And so he gets to the discussion about the source of where those thoughts are coming that goes throughout the tongue. He gets to the source of it. And Paul, you know, develops those things much in more detail whenever he writes. But James is practical. He doesn't bear down into the doctrine as much. But that's what he's getting at. Some related Old Testament verses. Whoever guards his mouth and tongue keeps his soul from troubles.

Proverbs 21, 23. Regarding the wicked, his mouth is full of curses and deceit and oppression. Under his tongue is mischief and wickedness. Psalm 10, 7. You will let your mouth loose in evil, and your tongue frames deceit. Psalm 50, 19. Your tongue devises destruction, O like a sharp razor, O worker of deceit. Psalm 52, 2. You love all words that devour. How about that? O deceitful tongue. Psalm 52, 4. Death and life are in the power of the tongue.

Boy, that fits James' words here nicely. And those who love it will eat its fruit. Proverbs 18, 21. The acquisition of treasures Think of Congress when you... The acquisition of treasures is by a lying tongue. It is a fleeting vapor, the pursuit of death. Psalm 21 6, Proverbs 21 6, I'm sorry.

Therefore, as the tongue of fire consumes stubble, that's our That fits nicely for this morning. And dry grass collapses into the flame, so their root will become like rot, and their blossom blow away as dust. For they have rejected the law of the Lord of hosts, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel. That's Isaiah 524.

So the tongue is used 85 times in the Old Testament in 85 verses. In Scripture total, it's used 110 times. In the New Testament, it's used 25 of those. In the New Testament, the three uses are, the first one is eight times in 1 Corinthians as to the gift of tongues that we covered, what, last year or two years ago, Roger? So it's not really the same thing. It's a language. But that's eight times is the use of that.

And then the second sense is a positive sense, finally, that things like every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, from Philippians 2, 9 through 11. And then the third usage, actually it's four usages, the third usage is these verses that we have in James, the four uses, the four verses in James of the tongue. And that's a negative, and I think one is positive, coming up next week. And then the last usage of the word tongue in the New Testament is in Revelation. And a couple times there, but it's used in relation to nations and tongues, so languages again. So there you have the usages of the tongue. This is good.

J. Vernon McGee mentioned this poem here.

Boneless tongue so small and weak, the tongue can crush and kill, declares the Greek. The tongue destroys a greater horde, the Turk asserts, than does the sword. A Persian proverb wisely says, saith, a lengthy tongue in early death, or sometimes takes the form instead, don't let your tongue cut off your head. The tongue can speak a word whose speed, the Chinese say, outstrips the speed of the horse. So things of the tongue travel fast.

While the Arab sages disembark, the tongue's great storehouse is the heart, to Jim's point he was making there. From the Hebrew writ, this maxim sprung, Though feet could slip, ne'er let the tongue. The sacred writer crowns the whole, Who keeps his tongue doth keep his soul. And that was from, I looked that up, that's from Psalms, I believe.

So, in ending more from Jay Bernoulli, you'll see why this is funny. The tongue is more toxic than hydrochloric acid. That was one of his points. The tongue is the most dangerous weapon in the world. We came to that conclusion. It takes a baby two years to learn to talk and 50 years to learn to eat and smell. You can hear Jayburn McGee saying that. And I think this is the last one. The best for last.

And I'll just put it up there and let you read it for yourself. And if you hit the nail on the head, it was Christ Jesus that was the only person that could subdue the legion. And it's Christ Jesus is the only one that can subdue our own tongue. Therefore, abiding in Christ is subduing the tongue. And we got to have his life, right, to do that. That's the homework, which is hard. Right.

And what's amazing is, you know, not to toot our trumpet, but so few understand that, so few are taught well about that. You know, Vine, I've been watching on YouTube a bunch of crazy Christians that do all kinds of crazy things. And their big problem is they don't understand they have a sin nature. Yeah, right. They just don't get it. So whatever they do is, well, the spirit led me to do that. Well, who is that? The demons, you know, they're like a down Satan. Terrible stuff. So, boy, knowing that we have, you know, two natures and just the whole thing about the battle we have and the victor is the Holy Spirit. And so, you know, it's just... I like that.

Illustration about that we've used before, the ship, and it has a captain, and they have a mutiny, and they tie up the captain. Well, now I can't remember the story. They tie up the captain. Oh, yeah, they tie up the captain. They take control of the ship. So they're sailing, but the captain is tied up on one of those masts, but he's still barking commands.

I remember that, right? But I'm trying to – there's more to the story, which I can't remember. So he's still talking, right? That's part of it. He's still talking. Yeah, but he's subdued. He's subdued and it's like our old man is there barking commands, but we don't have to listen to him.

There was a mutiny. That's what I'm learning later on in Romans here soon in chapter 6, you know, wrecking yourself dead to sin. We're dead to that guy. We're dead to him. We no longer have to follow his order. Right. And it's just that, you know, this morning you saw bad news and James just here doesn't get into all that. We have to wait for Paul to kind of round those things out. So I'll read this, what I put up the last bullet point for the sake of the recording the internet lesson. It says, if you don't have the slides, J. Bernard McGee said, it was a miracle in Balaam's day for an ass to speak, and today it's a miracle for one to keep quiet. But hey, there's J. Bernard McGee, so it's all good. So, yeah, there you go. Okay. We can close. What were we doing on time? Oh, good. I'll just close this out here.

Heavenly Father, we thank you that we have a resource in this battle against hominid and that's your life and your indwelling life and if we could only live with you as the spring source of our life so that we have Your thoughts are our thoughts and your words are our words, Lord. And we just pray for that wisdom and we pray for that blessing in Jesus' name. Amen.