The Miracle of the Tongue

Well, blessings to you all. I was truly challenged, blessed by our discussion this morning, and I believe it was Landon here that sort of made the closing thoughts there in our Sunday school about the woman saying, "Lord, help me." And it says there that she worshiped Him in that way.

Often when we think of worship, it's in a different way than at the feet of Jesus, "Lord, help me." It speaks of a way of life, and I was reminded of a testimony of one of my brothers a number of years ago when he was driving a semi, and he came to a mountain. It was early spring, and this mountain, as the elevation rose there, there was snow covered, and it was a steep mountain. And he said, "I began to spin and lose traction, and it was a very narrow road," and he said, "The thing stopped right there, and I could not go."

He tried this. He tried that. Every time he tried, he spun backwards and began to jackknife the rig, and now he's going to block the whole road. And what am I going to do? Well, he said, there's finally he was trying to study the thing, and if I do this and that, the other thing, and every attempt failed.

And he said, "Well, I'm going to climb in the sleeper, and I'm going to wait till the sun," and this was like 2:00 AM, so he's out there all by himself, "and I'm going to go into the sleeper, and I'm going to just wait till the sun comes out and melts the mountain."

And then he's in the sleeper there, and he said, "You know, I haven't talked to God about this."

And he worshiped God and said, "Lord, help me," basically what this woman did.

And his faith in it was the reality was there. The snow was there. But he said, "I got" I thought, "Well, no, it's no use trying again," and it finally said, "I talked to God about it." And he said, "I got in that truck, and I put it in forward, and he said, 'I climbed the whole mountain without spinning.'" The higher I got, the deeper the snow. Everything was against the realities of, "That's where I want to live. Lord, help me." In every situation, if God sees a sparrow fall and He's interested in that, surely He's interested in the details of our life. That's where we want to live.

Well, that's extra. The message this morning has its roots in a conviction that I had this week, tremendously convicted, and my plea is again on this subject, "Lord, help me." Jesus said, "But I say unto you, every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give an account thereof in the day of judgment.

For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned." Those verses hit me very hard this week when I was sitting in a meeting with a man that was doing an interview. He's getting things together to write a book, and he's gathering history and information for his writing.

In the interview about a particular meeting that I was a part of, and it was a fairly intense meeting, he said, "Harvey, you said something in that meeting, and I would like to hear from you what you said."

And I said, "I don't know. I mean, that's seven years ago or whatever it was. I have no clue what I said. I don't remember. I didn't take notes." But he said, "You said something." I'm like, "Well, this is an official little thing here. It's being recorded." And he said, "I'd like to hear." I said, "I don't know. I am clueless. I don't have notes. I don't have information." And he said, "Well, it's come through consistently by several other people that were in the meeting that you said something." I said, "Well, I don't know what that was."

And these verses were very heavy. These words were so heavy, and I'm like, "Oh dear, what was it?" And after the recording, I said, "Brother, would you tell me would you clue me in what I said?" And I thought of these words, "You know, others are remembering what I said, but I have no clue. Was it helpful? Was it good?

Were they condemning words, or were they words that are pointing to life and helpful and so on?" And therefore, the subject of the message this morning is the miracle of our tongue.

We have it, and you know, I failed the test already today. I was going to come here to this meeting and not say anything all morning until I got up to preach. Do you ever come to a meeting like that?

Beforehand, I decided, "I'm just going to take the words of James, 'Be swift to hear and slow to speak,'" and guess what? Who was talking in Sunday school? I failed the test. I admire some of you folks that can sit through a whole meeting and just be quiet. I'm not there yet. I'm studying. I'm working. I'm saying, "God, help me." The seriousness of our words, when Jesus says they're going to do one of two things: they're going to speak for you on that great day as words of life and justification, or they're going to speak against you, and it will largely have to do where you're going to spend eternity is how you used your tongue.

That's a challenge.

And an example of that, I want to bring two sides of the tongue out today, the two sides that Jesus said, "It either is for the good or for the bad." And sometimes, like I, my response often is, "Well, I'm just going to be shut up then," because after, I'm not accountable for words I didn't say. I'm accountable for the words that I did say. That's not completely true because we are accountable for when we should speak and we don't. Because you notice, he says, "By your words, you are justified."

And a perfect example of this is when Peter was put to the test, and he used his mouth three times to deny the Lord Jesus. It was not until he opened his mouth that the cock crew. And then on the other side, it wasn't until Jesus said with his words, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God," that Jesus gave him the keys to the kingdom or called him the rock.

What are some other ways that our words will justify us? The Bible says that if we confess with our mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in our heart, we shall be saved.

"For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation."

John says, if we confess our sins, there's words of justification.

He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. James says, "Confess your faults one to another that you may be healed." You see the healing power in a tongue that's used in a right way.

I just marvel at the miracle of a tongue. We've all heard that little saying that goes, "Our walk talks, and our talk talks, but our walk talks louder than our talk talks." While that is true, there's another truth, though.

A great part of our walk has to do with our talk.

One thing our walk has a hard thing to do, hard time doing, is tell on us immediately. If you meet a stranger, you have to study their life for days and weeks and maybe years to sort of get to know them. You meet a stranger, you need to hear their words for about 10 minutes, and you sort of get the gist of what they're made of.

I think that's a miracle. It's the badge of our identity. We carry it with us. And folks, this is for all of us because we all walk around with a tongue. And when I was a kid, we'd go to the doctor, and I don't know if they still do this. They'd say, "Stick out your tongue. I want to study your tongue," was one of the first things they did, and they'd look at that thing, and it would tell a lot about your health.

Well, the Bible says that our life, our tongue actually tells about what's going on in our heart. When we're dishonest, that's going to come through one way or the other. We only get away with living a lie with our tongue for a time. It will eventually find its way out, the truth will.

And I believe that's why David says, "O Lord, set a watch before my mouth. Keep the door of my lips." It is that serious. And that has the idea of not locking that door. It has the idea of taking oversight of what that little tongue lets loose.

It's the table of contents of our lives. We walk around. We run that thing day in and day out. Let's go to James chapter 3 for a few thoughts on the tongue.

James chapter 3, half-brother of Jesus. Jesus talked a lot about the tongue. James did. In fact, Proverbs is one of the topics. The topic of the tongue and speech probably is one of the greater topics of the book of Proverbs.

And we could put that right in with James as well. In almost every chapter, I believe, in the book of James, instruction is given on our tongue, how we use it, whether for good or for bad. But verses 1 and 2 of James 3 says, "My brethren, be not many masters knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation.

For in many things we offend all. If any man offend not in word, the same as a perfect man and able also to bridle the whole body." And if we go down through here, the whole body jumps out in verse 2 and verse 3 and verse 6. The whole body. We get the picture of the whole body is directed, controlled, expressed by the miracle of our tongue.

"Be not many masters." What is James saying by that? In many things we offend, I think he's simply saying, "Don't be eager to become a teacher or a master." And the master is going to use more words, obviously. A preacher is going to use more words. So I take a risk up here this morning.

When we become a teacher, we take on a certain risk because we're going to say many more words, and the potential for going wrong is higher. That's what I take of this passage. I think there's a proverb that says something like this - I thought I had it jotted down - "In the multitude of words, there lacketh not sin."

So the more words I use, the greater the chance to sin with my tongue. That's why James says, "Be slow to hear."

I mean, slow to speak, but swift to hear.

Now, this is according to studies. It is estimated that the average person says about 30,000 words every day.

When I saw that number, I tried to think over that. I'm like, "That study must be way off." 30,000 words. Do you know how many words are in the book of Proverbs? The whole book of Proverbs, according to the English language and the old King James version, it's approximately 15,000 words.

So if I start my day at 7:00 in the morning, by noon, I'm already through Proverbs. And then afternoon, I start all over again and do Proverbs all over again. The book of 1 Samuel has approximately 22,000 words in the English language. So I surpass that in a day if I'm average.

And if you use if that's an average, some of you might use more than that. You might do Proverbs three times a day. Think of it. That brings sort of the reality home, doesn't it? That's a lot of information.

That's a lot of instruction. That's a lot of rebuke. It's a lot of encouragement on the good side, isn't it? A lot of words of blessing and that's sort of staggering to me. So if you're a teacher, James is saying, or you're a master, maybe a school teacher, maybe you work at children's ministry, young people, you have the potential to say a lot more words than the average person. I think of these Bible school teachers or these college professors that stand all day long teaching, and then at the end of the day, they sit and do their coffee things yet with people, and they talk. How many thousand words does a person like that say in a day?

The point is not so much how many words we say. While it is important to be careful, the point is, how are we going to use this tongue, and are we going to have it governed by the Holy Spirit? If we have a speech problem, if we have an issue with saying things that we wish we wouldn't have said, or we try to backpedal, or, "Did I say that?" If we have a constant battle with that, there's a good chance that we have a deeper problem, and that is that heart because the Bible says, "Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh." So what is in there down deep? Actually, we could say the tongue has its roots right down in the very coring, the core of who I am.

Our world says we have a freedom of speech. In the kingdom of God, that's not really true because when we have the freedom of speech, that means I can say what I want to say. That also means there's a lot of victims that need to hear what you have to say, and that takes away their freedom of hearing. The Bible turns that just backwards. So we need the freedom to hear, and we need to guard our mouth, our tongue.

A flow of words does not mean a flow of wisdom. The carpenter says, "The best rule for talking is the same as for the carpenter. Measure twice, then saw once." My dad even took that a step farther, and he said, "Think 10 times."

We wouldn't get said we wouldn't get too much said, would we? If we have brothers' meetings and Sunday school lessons with everybody thinking 10 times before we say something, I think the point is in place. A quote, "Thou art master of the unspoken word, but the spoken word is master of you."

The next couple of verses in James says, "Behold, we put bits in the horses' mouths that they may obey us, and we turn about their whole body. Behold also the ships which, though they be so great and are driven of fierce winds, yet are they turned about with a very small helm whithersoever the governor listeth.

Even so, the tongue is a little member and boasteth great things. Behold how great a matter a little fire kindleth. And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. So is the tongue among our members that it defileth the whole body and sets on fire the course of nature, and it is set on fire of hell.

For every kind of beast and birds and of serpents and things in the sea is tamed and hath been tamed of mankind, but the tongue can no man tame. It is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison." Maybe stop there for now in verse 8. Here James gives us a lesson of the bit, the rudder, the bit and the rudder in these verses.

And what do they have in common? They both are designed to give direction. And in comparison to size, when he says the whole body, the whole body of a full-grown horse, especially a draft horse, is approximately 1,800 pounds.

And the bit in comparison weighs maybe 4 pounds.

But that little bit, piece of iron in the mouth, is respected by that huge animal, and it has the ability to give direction. And the same with the ship. Queen Elizabeth, approximate weight was 83,673 tons. And the rudder of that ship weighed approximately 140 tons. There again, 140 tons is a lot of but in comparison, it's very small. So the picture we have here and he's so is the tongue, it is one of the smallest of our members.

And yet it has great ability to turn and influence and direct the whole body. That's a picture. The whole body. And that's sobering when we think of the tongue that way. It's a powerful little weapon. I mean, a powerful instrument that God has given to us. And I think of I want to think of just a little bit along the line of direction. With a few words, I think there's a proverb that says, "A word fitly spoken" I have that written down somewhere.

Someone can maybe help me. "It's like apples of gold," I think it says, "in pictures of silver." And then there's another proverb that says, "But the fool" it's a contrast difference. I have that written here some. "But the mouth" okay, here it is. "A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver." I don't know completely what that looks like, but that's a word.

And I want to grab a hold of a word. It doesn't mean it has to be a lot of words, but a word. And then it says, "The contrast is, but the mouth of fools feedeth on foolishness." You get the picture? The mouth of fools has its roots in foolishness, and it just goes and goes and goes and goes and goes and goes and goes.

And the more words, the less they mean. That's the picture I get. But a word that is spoken at the right time and the right place gives tremendous direction. I've seen that in our meetings. I've seen and heard that in family gatherings. I've seen and heard that in brothers' meetings when things were going just in a direction that and here comes a wise brother and has five words of wisdom in the right time with the right spirit, and it gives direction to the whole meeting.

It has the ability in fact, I see that just recently. We were at a folks' gathering with probably 20 or 30 people sitting in a circle out in their yard. And there was a topic being discussed there, and it was being discussed over from this side, that side, and we couldn't get off that topic. And there were about two main men that were doing the talking, and the rest of us had to listen.

And the host was sitting beside me. He said, "Harvey, can you steer this subject? Can you get this to a different topic?" I made a few feeble efforts to do it tactfully, and it didn't go. It went right back on the topic, and it was going on and on for a half hour, probably.

And here was a young mother that had gone into the house with one of her children. She was gone for probably 15 minutes, and she came back out, and she heard this topic still going on by these men. And I won't say what she said, but it was a few words fitly spoken at the right time, very tactfully. It just derailed.

I'm like, "There's the answer." It was a young mother. It brought a breath of fresh air. It steered the whole thing. It just gave direction. I say this to help us see that when we use our tongue in a rightful way, we can breathe into a situation hope and life and future.

We see that over and over again. And if someone should be able to do that, it should be God's people at the right time who have a doorkeeper at our tongue.

I think of giving direction, and this is a plea to parents. And there again, I find this amazing. So for some of you that don't know my family, I'm the 14th of a family of 15. So I'm clear at the tail end, almost clear at the tail end.

We have our family gatherings. I hear my older siblings talking because I'm the young kid there, you know? So I sit and I listen. I take this stuff in. And I marvel every time. Every time we have a rife gathering, my older siblings, which are now almost 80 years old in fact, I think my oldest sister is 80ish, and my oldest brother is pushing 80.

And I hear them say this over and over in so many different ways. "You know Dad always said this. You know what Mom used to say?" I'm like, "You guys have been away from home." I mean, they left Mom and Dad. Some of them went to work as hired men and maids when they were 16.

So you're saying you're 80 years old. Mom and Dad had you for 16 years. What happened between 16 and 80? I hear very little about that.

And you know a lot of the repeats are positive things. "Dad taught us this. The values. The principles. Well, Dad always said this." And I'm going to give and I can relate to that. I say, "I remember Dad saying that in my generation. I'm 20 years behind.

Dad was still saying that." You see what Dad was doing and Mom was doing? They were giving direction. They were charting. They were helping those children in the home from 0 to 16 to establish values and principles. And I'm going to give the older I get, the more credit I give to my father. He used words. He lived a life, but he used words.

We ate three meals a day. How many of us still do that today as families? We gather together, set the table, get the chairs three times a day. It was around that table that Dad taught me, line upon line, precept upon precept, a little here and a little there with words, the principles of life. That's where he taught me to fear God. That's where he taught me, "You can't do wrong and get by."

I treasure those values, and I lift that out to parents today. You have your children for just a small percentage of their life. You know in the Old Testament what they were supposed to do to get the commandments of God, the principles, and the values to the next generation? Deuteronomy 6 says, "When you go out of the" when you're in the house, you do that. You give instruction. You talk to them. It's words, actually. I think it says there, "Talk to them."

When you're in your house, when you take them on a walk - there it goes again - talk to them. When you put them down for their nap, talk to them. When they wake up from their nap, there it is again.

Line upon line, precept, a little here and a little there. It's tremendous. We cannot afford to keep back words as parents to our young children because you know what? And this is why I promote homeschooling. It's because you folks, we folks as parents, have them for a very short time of their life. And that opportunity is our opportunity to plant into their young hearts with words the values and the principles. We live it, but we also talk it. That is how they get it.

They're going to repeat you when they're 80 years old. They're going to say, "Dad always said this. Mom taught us this." You get the point. Let's use our words to bring direction to a next generation.

"Teach them diligently unto thy children. Talk of them in thy house. Take a walk. Lie down when you get up," and so on. The opposite is true, and this is again a warning to parents. If you don't do that, if you don't speak into their life with words, the principles and the values of God's word, somebody will. There's way too many parents that are not actively, proactively involved in words with their children and giving direction and good direction. Somebody is.

When a child is left go at a young age playing on a little device, and then as they age a little, they get a hold of a smartphone, guess what? They're being taught. And the world uses words. And you're going to wake up one day. You'll say, "You know what? After all, I wasn't their instructor. I wasn't the one giving direction with my words."

That would be a sober waking up to, folks.

In a negative sense, our words have the power to destroy. That comes out in these verses very much.

A wrong word can direct the listener into the wrong paths. An idle word, a questionable story, a half-truth, or a deliberate lie could change the course of a life and lead it to destruction.

Proverbs says that death and life are in the power of the tongue.

Verse 5 through 8 talks about the power to destroy: the fire, the animal, so on.

Back in the late 1800s, I believe it was a man, a woman maybe, who was out milking a cow with a little lantern in the city of Chicago. And according to history, the cow kicked over the lantern. The fire burned for three days.

And there were 100 homeless, 100 families, 100,000 - excuse me - 100,000s ended up being homeless, and properties destroyed that valued over 400 million. And back then, that was a lot of money. Proverbs says, "An ungodly man diggeth up evil, and in his lips there is a burning fire." You see the verses here. It's like a fire that's set on. And how do we do this? How do we start fires? Like the cow kicking the lantern over in the barn, a small thing.

Comparison now again, the destruction that it can do. Proverbs has a lot to say about this. "Where no wood is, there the fire goeth out.

Where there is no tail-bearer, the strife ceaseth. As coals are to the burning coals and wood to fire, so is a contentious man to kindle. A fool's lips enter into contention, and his mouth calleth for strokes." Did you ever see a fistfight that began without some sharp, heated words first? Not very often.

The story goes of a man and his wife that got into an argument, and the more they talked, the hotter they got, and their words became what James describes. And the woman was finally in such a rage that got out, jumped into the car, and chased her husband with the car and ran him over, crippled him for life, put him in a wheelchair, and they lived together that way. Now imagine.

I mean, that's terrible, but that is what happens when we don't get control of our tongue. It becomes bigger and bigger. James says it's like a fire, and it destroys relationships. It wounds people. It offends people. And Proverbs tells us that a brother offended is harder to gain than a city wall.

You see the damage that our tongue can do. What about tail-bearers, gossip, a person who chatters or repeats idle talk and rumors about others? And I want to bless y'all. I'm not preaching to you all. I'm preaching to myself. I want to compliment you, especially sisters.

I think you've gotten a hold of this gossip thing like some groups don't. I want to lift that up. Gossip does a lot of damage in congregations, in relationships, and so on.

The nature of this is a conversation I came across of two girls. Well, Proverbs says, "A froward man soweth strife, and a whisperer separateth chief friends," Proverbs 26 I mean, 16:28. There was a conversation between two girls. Tilly. "Tilly told me that you told her that secret. I told you not to tell her." The other replied, "She's a mean thing. I told Tilly not to tell you. I told her." The first speaker responds, "Well, I told Tilly I wouldn't tell you. She told me, so don't tell her that I did."

That's a confusion, conglomeration of, "I just simply take it this way. The news isn't out yet. When you come to me and say, 'Now don't tell anybody because this isn't public news yet. Just don't tell me,' it depends what it is. I don't have the discipline or the notebook to say, 'Now this is open news. It's okay to say it, and this is not okay to say it.'" You see what that does? The tricky I have people coming to me and say, "Have you heard?" And I'm like, "Oh, dear. I had heard that, but I was told it's not out yet."

And the person that told me, I was strictly informed, "Don't tell anybody else." But three other people came and told me, "Is it out or is it not out?" That gets us in trouble, folks. It really does. If it's not out, then don't tell me.

It's not public news. I mean, I know all that has its place. What about the beasts in verse 7 and 8? Every man can do every beast and train them, and every kind of beast can be trained by mankind. I'm going to hurry up here real quick.

It's amazing what we could do with animals.

But we can't tame our tongue. We can tame animals, but we can't tame our tongue. I think of that when I go to the dolphin show in the past, and we watch sea creatures, and that's mentioned here. How in the world would you go about to train a seal to do what they do?

That amazes me. I marvel at that. But James says, "You can do that, but you can't control your tongue." It's because our tongue is rooted to our heart, and there's no one that's going to change my heart but the Lord Jesus Christ.

So the unconverted man is going to be reckless with his tongue, but the converted man is going to guard his tongue because his heart has been in tune with Jesus Christ. Freedom of speech is not an option in the church. It's not an option in the kingdom of God. We don't have the freedom to just let it run. In closing, verses 9 through 18, he speaks about the power of delight and how that we bless God with our mouth, and that we can also curse man. "And these things ought not to be," he says.

And I just want to close with the encouragement. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so. There is power in beautiful words and words that bear testimony of our faith and what we stand for. We share stories of our coming to God. We share testimonies of our struggle coming to God. Those are beneficial words for the church and for each other and encouraging each other.

What about an apology or a confession, words of gratitude and thankfulness, words of encouragement? It is said again in a study, and this is for children, that children in the world, out of every 18 negative comments, they get one comment of positive encouragement. Now that, again, is staggering, and I hope that's not the case here. 18 to 1. Is there a wonder why so many young people are struggling in suicide camps and thoughts and depression and going to drugs and other things? It's because fathers and mothers are not using words that affirm and encourage.

Someone said that one word of encouragement is worth more than in failure, that is. One word of encouragement is worth more when a person has failed in failure than a whole book of blessing and success. Think about that.

There's a lot of success stories and a lot of applauding to successful people, and there's a whole round of folks that we interact with that maybe have failed some test, whether it's in school, whether it's some other attempt they made to succeed and they failed, and they're unnoticed.

And God's people should have words of healing and blessing and encouragement, gratitude, thankfulness. We see that at the close of this. And I just want to leave this as a challenge for myself and all of us. We're only given one stab at it, and we only have one tongue.

Let's use it wisely. May God bless us. Anyone have any thoughts before we pray?