SPEAKER_00: Thank you, worship team.
SPEAKER_00: Appreciate that very much.
SPEAKER_00: Worship is designed to direct our hearts and our minds Godward.
SPEAKER_00: The testimonies we heard remind us that God is at work, at work in our midst.
SPEAKER_00: You know, sometimes we uh we we give announcements about programs and activities that are going on.
SPEAKER_00: And really what we want to see is that God is alive and well in working in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: And when we see God at work, in Chris's life, in Julie's life, or whomever, they're just like us.
SPEAKER_00: They're just like us, imperfect.
SPEAKER_00: They don't have it all together, but they just want to be used of God.
SPEAKER_00: And God works, he works through us.
SPEAKER_00: Now, the reason for sharing the testimonies is not to give the attention on the people, but on God who is at work.
SPEAKER_00: And when the believer sees God at work in our midst, the heart that is warm towards God wants to be a part of that.
SPEAKER_00: There's all kinds of ways to get involved in programs and activities.
SPEAKER_00: But the key is, is God doing something?
SPEAKER_00: Is he warming your heart to reach out, to touch, to fix a car or whatever it is, and through that connect with people and share the reality of who God is and how he's worked in your life.
SPEAKER_00: That's what we want to do.
SPEAKER_00: God is at work.
SPEAKER_00: Let's don't you just long?
SPEAKER_00: Don't you just long for that?
SPEAKER_00: If you don't have that longing, then there's a heart issue.
SPEAKER_00: And certainly the uh the book of James uh talks a lot about those kinds of things.
SPEAKER_00: We're continuing this week with our series on the book of James.
SPEAKER_00: So uh I trust you've still got your Bible open to James chapter 3.
SPEAKER_00: Um today is Sunday, the 1st of May 2016.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure how that happened.
SPEAKER_00: 2016.
SPEAKER_00: And this Sunday, God is still on the throne.
SPEAKER_00: He was all week long.
SPEAKER_00: He is the week to come, and he is today.
SPEAKER_00: Now, in a day like today, the sun is shining, the grass has this beautiful, fresh green to it, uh, summer is going to be here one of these days.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, even here.
SPEAKER_00: Um, it's not hard to see the goodness of God, and rightfully so.
SPEAKER_00: As we sang in one of those uh songs, uh, when the darkness comes, uh he is still there, he's still with us, he's still faithful and good.
SPEAKER_00: To enter into that, we need God's word.
SPEAKER_00: We need a whole lot of other things, but we don't need anything less than God's word.
SPEAKER_00: We need the power of the Holy Spirit at work within our lives.
SPEAKER_00: We need real, meaningful spiritual relationships with other believers.
SPEAKER_00: There's lots of things we need, but there's nothing less we need.
SPEAKER_00: Among the things we need, there is nothing less than the word of God that feeds our soul.
SPEAKER_00: This is our food.
SPEAKER_00: That's why it's focused on so much in the scriptures itself, the word of God, living and active and powerful and sharper than a two-edged sword.
SPEAKER_00: And we desperately need it, and that's why we put ourselves under the teaching of God's word.
SPEAKER_00: It's not the only thing, but we cannot get along without it.
SPEAKER_00: It is that which feeds our souls.
SPEAKER_00: Um we looked actually three weeks ago at the beginning of this section.
SPEAKER_00: Uh after that, we had a baptism service, a powerful way of seeing God at work.
SPEAKER_00: After that, my dear friend Vic, former pastor of the church, uh, spoke last week.
SPEAKER_00: And today we're back in the book of James, and we're going to pick up where we left off.
SPEAKER_00: It's not hard because on this passage, the last time we looked at it, we only, only got to the very first verse.
SPEAKER_00: And that wasn't because I got lost along the way.
SPEAKER_00: Uh that very first verse was incredibly significant for us and is the context for what we are looking at now, especially verses 3 through 12.
SPEAKER_00: So, verse 1, uh, James spoke very directly and pointedly, and James has a way of doing that.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't get a little uncomfortable with what James is saying, I don't, I'm not trying to make you uncomfortable, but if we're not a little taken aback by what God says to us through the scriptures, then there's a deeper problem.
SPEAKER_00: Um and last time the focus was really on me and others like me, um, who stand and have the audacity to open their mouths and say, My friends, this is what God has said, this is what it means, and and here's what I think we need to be doing with it.
SPEAKER_00: And James says, Walt, be careful, be careful, little mouth, what you say.
SPEAKER_00: And I I took that children's uh song, uh, little children's chorus, be careful, little mouth, what you say.
SPEAKER_00: There's a savior up above who is looking down with love.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, be careful, little mouth, what you say.
SPEAKER_00: And that's a child's song, but what he is talking about is not a childish matter.
SPEAKER_00: And in the very first verse, he directs it to those who open God's word, and he says, there shouldn't be very many teachers of God's word.
SPEAKER_00: We saw that several weeks ago.
SPEAKER_00: It's a rather strange statement, but it was against the backdrop in the largely Jewish churches, the messianic churches, we would say today, that James was writing to.
SPEAKER_00: It was the most highly exalted position in that community, and it was what young boys aspired to, and the result was that there was a glut of would-be wannabe teachers of God's word who were neither spiritually mature nor rightly motivated, and he says, better fewer than many.
SPEAKER_00: Better fewer than many.
SPEAKER_00: Be careful, little mouth, what you say.
SPEAKER_00: And I took the time to expand on that, just that one little verse, really, in part because I needed it.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know how you needed it, I know I needed it.
SPEAKER_00: But also, interestingly enough, we are at a particular moment in the history of our church where we are beginning the process of seeking the next man that God will bring along.
SPEAKER_00: I'm only here for a season.
SPEAKER_00: And we are just beginning the discovery process, the search and discovery, not search and destroy, search and discovery of who God has for us.
SPEAKER_00: And the exhortation of James is applicable to me, but it is also applicable to the man who comes.
SPEAKER_00: And we need to be thinking about what is it that's really needed?
SPEAKER_00: And it's far more than knowledge and skills.
SPEAKER_00: At its core, it goes to heart issues.
SPEAKER_00: This chapter is all about the issues of the heart.
SPEAKER_00: So I took the time to expand on that.
SPEAKER_00: We looked very, very briefly at verse 2 in this connection, where he begins to expand on that and moves from the rather narrow focus of the teacher of God's word, and parenthetically that applies not only to the preacher-teacher, it applies to the use of word gifts.
SPEAKER_00: Among the spiritual gifts, there are a number of what are called word gifts that have to do with speaking and exhortation and prophetic utterance and so forth.
SPEAKER_00: And these are highly important gifts of God.
SPEAKER_00: But they're not limited to a paid professional.
SPEAKER_00: They're applicable to a Sunday school teacher, adult, or children, they're applicable to Iwana workers.
SPEAKER_00: They ought to be applicable to all of us, whether it's with our children or with our friends, as we have spiritual friendships, that we seek to have an influence for God in the lives of other people and to be influenced by God.
SPEAKER_00: And the word stands central in this.
SPEAKER_00: So that first verse applies in general to everyone, but specifically to the formal teacher.
SPEAKER_00: Now he begins to expand that in verse 2, where he says, For we all, and James is speaking himself, for we all stumble in many ways.
SPEAKER_00: If anyone does not stumble in what he says, he's a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body.
SPEAKER_00: Just very briefly, when he talks about this, uh he uses the term stumbling.
SPEAKER_00: We all stumble in many ways.
SPEAKER_00: The word that is used there is a very interesting one.
SPEAKER_00: It basically means we get tripped up, we slip, we fall.
SPEAKER_00: Not all of the sins that we commit are malicious, intentional, deliberate, and conscious.
SPEAKER_00: More of them are than we would hope for.
SPEAKER_00: But there is just something sometimes we just mess up.
SPEAKER_00: That's all there is to it.
SPEAKER_00: Spiritually, we mess up, we'll get tripped up.
SPEAKER_00: And that's true for all of us.
SPEAKER_00: So it's he's broadening out not only to the deliberate, but also to just, I'm a I'm just a simple person, you're just a simple person.
SPEAKER_00: We walk around and we get tripped up in an evil and sinful world, and we have evil and sinful hearts that are drawn towards that.
SPEAKER_00: We just screw up, that's all there is to it.
SPEAKER_00: That's just part of what happens.
SPEAKER_00: Now, he says, we all stumble in many ways.
SPEAKER_00: If anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man.
SPEAKER_00: Well, you need to be careful about this.
SPEAKER_00: The word perfect here, the way James uses it, both in this section and in others, is not talking about sinless perfection.
SPEAKER_00: There is no one other than Jesus who does not stumble in sin or deliberate or in undeliberate.
SPEAKER_00: It's really talking not about sinless perfection, it's talking about maturity.
SPEAKER_00: The idea is being complete, being spiritually mature.
SPEAKER_00: That's really the focus here.
SPEAKER_00: Now it's interesting that James includes himself.
SPEAKER_00: Um and the context here is words, words, words, words, words.
SPEAKER_00: Danger, danger, danger.
SPEAKER_00: Careful little mouth what you say.
SPEAKER_00: And James includes himself in that.
SPEAKER_00: And it's very interesting when you read the Gospels, the apostles, oh, the followers of Christ, they said the dumbest things.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, if you can't read the Gospels and have a sense of humor, uh God does something amazing, and they say, oh, well, let's build a tent or something like that.
SPEAKER_00: Missing totally what God was doing.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, Peter, the one who every time he opens his mouth, he inserts his foot.
SPEAKER_00: And then he opens his mouth again and he changes feet.
SPEAKER_00: That's just the nature.
SPEAKER_00: And yet Peter, like James, wrote scripture.
SPEAKER_00: How does that work?
SPEAKER_00: We all stumble in many ways.
SPEAKER_00: James stumbles, so is he stumbling when he's talking to us?
SPEAKER_00: Well, what about 1 and 2 Peter?
SPEAKER_00: And we've referred a number of times over the months about this work of God, this miraculous thing that happens, where when the writers of Scripture were writing what ended up being Scripture, they may have had no idea what God was going to do with that writing or that 2,000 years later we'd still be focusing on and analyzing it and applying it to our lives.
SPEAKER_00: In those cases, in those situations after the fact, we realize God so superintended the process, so led, that the end result is not only the stumbling, fumbling words of James or of Paul or of Peter or of anyone, but are the very words of God.
SPEAKER_00: God protects their little mouths.
SPEAKER_00: Interesting, significant.
SPEAKER_00: You see, God can control our mouths.
SPEAKER_00: We cannot, but God can.
SPEAKER_00: And we find that even in the experience of the writers of Scripture, there was a need for this miraculous thing where God works anyway, and the end result is inerrant, true, applicable, exactly what God wanted for the first readers to hear, and exactly what we need today.
SPEAKER_00: But that's because God is at work.
SPEAKER_00: So this is a bridge that carries us over, and in verse 2, he says we all stumbled.
SPEAKER_00: If anyone doesn't stumble, he's a perfect man.
SPEAKER_00: And this leads us into the passage that we're really interested in looking at this morning.
SPEAKER_00: And it's a passage of warning.
SPEAKER_00: The tongue, and I want you to capture this because this lies behind this whole passage.
SPEAKER_00: The tongue is a tattletale.
SPEAKER_00: Your tongue is a tattletale that reveals what's on the inside.
SPEAKER_00: One writer put it far better than I could, and with far fewer words than I would give to it, so let me just read what one of my favorite writers wrote.
SPEAKER_00: He says, the tongue is you in a unique way.
SPEAKER_00: Interesting.
SPEAKER_00: Chris, the tongue is you in a unique way.
SPEAKER_00: Picking on Chris this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Jason, the tongue reveals who you really are.
SPEAKER_00: Walt, the tongue is you in a unique way.
SPEAKER_00: It is a tattletale that tells on the heart and discloses the real person.
SPEAKER_00: A frightening thought.
SPEAKER_00: What we say reveals something about us, about what's going on on the inside.
SPEAKER_00: Not only that, but the misuse of the tongue is perhaps the easiest way to sin.
SPEAKER_00: Interesting.
SPEAKER_00: There are some sins that an individual may not be able to commit simply because he doesn't have opportunity.
SPEAKER_00: Not that we don't seek out opportunities, but there's a lot of sins that we could commit that we may not have opportunity.
SPEAKER_00: But there are no limits to what one can say.
SPEAKER_00: There's no built-in restrictions to what can come out of our mouth.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, be careful, little mouth, what you say.
SPEAKER_00: There's no internal governor that controls that.
SPEAKER_00: It's a flaming fire, a raging forest fire, and all the things that he'll be talking about.
SPEAKER_00: And so this writer says, in scripture, the tongue is described variously.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, the tongue is described as wicked.
SPEAKER_00: Your tongue, my tongue, deceitful, perverse, filthy, corrupt, flattering, slanderous, gossiping, blasphemous, foolish, boasting, complaining, cursing, contentious, sensual, and vile.
SPEAKER_00: And that's only a partial list of the way the scriptures describe this little flab of flesh, this little two-ounce muscle surrounded with mucous membrane that wags all the time.
SPEAKER_00: The way it's described in Scripture is most sobering.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, No wonder God put the tongue in a cage behind the teeth, walled in by the mouth.
SPEAKER_00: Interesting.
SPEAKER_00: The tongue is a litmus test.
SPEAKER_00: It lets us see things that are going on within.
SPEAKER_00: And the reality or the lack of reality of God working in our lives is revealed in part by what you say.
SPEAKER_00: It's the real you in a given sense.
SPEAKER_00: It lets us know whether, now, we know we're not perfect.
SPEAKER_00: We all stumble in many ways, but is your tongue simply an expression of the old life and the old you?
SPEAKER_00: Is it just a natural thing?
SPEAKER_00: Or is God doing something in your life that among other things transforms your speech?
SPEAKER_00: And I don't just mean it cleans up a potty mouth.
SPEAKER_00: That's a good thing to have happen.
SPEAKER_00: But there's something far more profound than that.
SPEAKER_00: Where because we change on the inside, then we begin to use our mouths in different ways.
SPEAKER_00: Ways that bless and build up rather than tear down.
SPEAKER_00: You see, we underestimate the importance of speech, of what we say, of the words that flow upon the whole line right here.
SPEAKER_00: We underestimate the power of heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said, out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.
SPEAKER_00: Warning, warning, warning.
SPEAKER_00: Well, let's uh let's move on.
SPEAKER_00: Um let's look at verses three through six first.
SPEAKER_00: If we put bits, James chapter three, verse three, if we put bits, like a bit and a bridle, a bit into the mouth of horses, so that they obey us, we guide their whole bodies as well.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 4, look at ships.
SPEAKER_00: Though they are so large and driven by strong winds, they're guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs.
SPEAKER_00: So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts great things.
SPEAKER_00: How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire.
SPEAKER_00: And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness.
SPEAKER_00: The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell itself.
SPEAKER_00: These are strong descriptions of a reality.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, be careful, little mouth, what you say.
SPEAKER_00: It is deceptively small and surprisingly dangerous.
SPEAKER_00: And James uses such practical, simple illustrations that we cannot miss and must not miss the significance of.
SPEAKER_00: A simple fact, though small in size, our tongues exert a disproportionately great influence.
SPEAKER_00: Just to help you help this penetrate a little bit, you probably can't read that.
SPEAKER_00: This is from the Message New Testament, kind of a contemporary translation slash paraphrase.
SPEAKER_00: Let me just read, just listen to verses three through six in the message.
SPEAKER_00: A bit in the mouth of a horse controls the whole horse.
SPEAKER_00: A small rudder on a huge ship in the hands of a skilled captain sets a course in the face of the strongest winds.
SPEAKER_00: A word out of your mouth may seem of no account, but it can accomplish anything or destroy it.
SPEAKER_00: It only takes a spark, remember, to set a forest fire.
SPEAKER_00: A careless or wrongly placed words out of your mouth and out of my mouth can do that.
SPEAKER_00: By our speech we can ruin the world, turn harmony to chaos, throw mud on a reputation, and set the whole world up in smoke and go up in smoke, with it smoke right from the pit of hell.
SPEAKER_00: See, this is what James is wanting to get across for us to really stop and think about what the little thing is and what it does.
SPEAKER_00: So let's look first at the power of words being underestimated.
SPEAKER_00: Verses 3 through first part of 5.
SPEAKER_00: If we put bits in the mouth of horses so they obey us, they guide their whole horse's body.
SPEAKER_00: Look at ships, so they're so large and are driven by storm, they're guided by a very small rudder wherever the captain directs, so also the tongue.
SPEAKER_00: Is a small member, yet it boasts great things.
SPEAKER_00: Power quite out of proportion to size.
SPEAKER_00: So he uses illustrations that were very common in their world, very understandable, very relatable.
SPEAKER_00: He talks about a horse.
SPEAKER_00: Now, when you think of a horse, I don't know what kind of a horse you think about, but he's not talking.
SPEAKER_00: The people in biblical times, where in the sections of the Mideast to whom this was written, they knew about horses.
SPEAKER_00: There weren't a lot of horses around.
SPEAKER_00: But the horses they saw, this was not a gentle chestnut mare eating a sugar cube out of some young girl's hand.
SPEAKER_00: That's not the kind of horses they knew about.
SPEAKER_00: These horses were war horses.
SPEAKER_00: They were huge, powerful steeds.
SPEAKER_00: They were girded in armor.
SPEAKER_00: The horses were armed.
SPEAKER_00: A horse was a battle tool, was an instrument, was a was a weapon.
SPEAKER_00: Unexpected.
SPEAKER_00: Control the bit and bridle, and thereby control the tongue.
SPEAKER_00: What he's saying is, you have control over a war machine.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: That's what would come to their minds.
SPEAKER_00: A ship.
SPEAKER_00: Ships in the New Testament were not as large as the ships that we know, but they weren't necessarily just little small rowboats or a little sailing vessel that would have trouble tacking against the wind on the Sea of Galilee.
SPEAKER_00: In Acts chapter 27, Paul is on a ship, and there were 276 people on that ship.
SPEAKER_00: This was not just a small little rowboat.
SPEAKER_00: They weren't as big as what we have now, but they were big and they were controlled by this tiny little rudder.
SPEAKER_00: And the direction was set by something so small and so influential.
SPEAKER_00: The point is clear.
SPEAKER_00: The influence of this small thing is way out of proportion to its diminutive size.
SPEAKER_00: The influence of this little thing is way out of proportion to the other.
SPEAKER_00: What you say, what comes out of your mouth, has an influence that is far greater than we often imagine.
SPEAKER_00: It is no small matter.
SPEAKER_00: Talk words throughout the book of Proverbs, talked over and over and over again.
SPEAKER_00: James, kind of a New Testament wisdom literature, talks about words over and over again.
SPEAKER_00: Verses 5b and 6, the second half of verse 5 and 6 talks about the unintended consequences that words can have that we often underestimate.
SPEAKER_00: So he goes on and he says, How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire.
SPEAKER_00: The tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness.
SPEAKER_00: The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and is set on fire by hell itself.
SPEAKER_00: These are powerful, powerful words.
SPEAKER_00: The picture of a spark setting ablaze on fire, or uh setting a forest fire ablaze.
SPEAKER_00: I have a real good friend who lives in Colorado Springs.
SPEAKER_00: 2012, Waldo Canyon Fire destroyed his house and 346 houses in the outskirts of Colorado Springs.
SPEAKER_00: In the National Forest, four and a half miles away, there was a little spark.
SPEAKER_00: They found that it was not set by anyone.
SPEAKER_00: It was just a natural, spontaneous spark, very dry conditions, a little spark of wind.
SPEAKER_00: The wind got stronger, the wind blew, and the wind blew destruction.
SPEAKER_00: It came up over the front range, from that valley, over this hill where my friend's house was.
SPEAKER_00: I've stayed there many times, and you look up and there's this beautiful hill.
SPEAKER_00: When they looked up, there was nothing but a wall of flame that came, and nothing could stand in its way.
SPEAKER_00: They ran.
SPEAKER_00: Their house was leveled.
SPEAKER_00: The car in their garage was melted down to a lump of clay, and there was no stopping it.
SPEAKER_00: The firefighters were there and they could do a few things around the edges, but there was no stopping it.
SPEAKER_00: Powerful and destructive.
SPEAKER_00: Once it began, it simply ran its course.
SPEAKER_00: The problem with our words is that once they're uttered, there's no pulling them back.
SPEAKER_00: There really isn't.
SPEAKER_00: There wasn't in James' Day, and boy, with the internet, there is no pulling back.
SPEAKER_00: Be careful, little mouth, what you post on Facebook.
SPEAKER_00: It will live with you and follow you, young people, around.
SPEAKER_00: What might seem fun and funny and cute now could be I've known people in another church where I served, where there was a campaign out to destroy this person.
SPEAKER_00: I got phone calls with innuendo and false accusations, and two lives were destroyed by malicious speech.
SPEAKER_00: Destroyed.
SPEAKER_00: The man is in prison today.
SPEAKER_00: Be careful, little mouth, what you speak.
SPEAKER_00: The unintended consequences.
SPEAKER_00: I want to read you something that is just too powerful to pass on, to pass up in this connection.
SPEAKER_00: The unintended consequences of our speech.
SPEAKER_00: It's something that Paul Harvey did one of his the rest of the story about.
SPEAKER_00: You remember Paul Harvey?
SPEAKER_00: Who remembers Paul Harvey?
SPEAKER_00: A powerful communicator, and what he said was absolutely true.
SPEAKER_00: This one is right out of the Book of James, as it were.
SPEAKER_00: In 1899, four newspaper reporters from Denver, Colorado, set out to tear down the Great Wall of China.
SPEAKER_00: And they almost literally succeeded.
SPEAKER_00: The four met by chance one Saturday night in a Denver Railway depot.
SPEAKER_00: Al Stevens, Jack Tournay, John Lewis, and Hal Wilshire.
SPEAKER_00: They represented the four Denver papers, The Post, The Time, The Republican, and the Rocky Mountain News.
SPEAKER_00: Each had been sent there by his representative newspaper to dig up a story, any story, for the Sunday edition.
SPEAKER_00: And so the reporters were at the railway station hoping to snag a visiting celebrity or someone that they could happen across and interview.
SPEAKER_00: None arrived by train that night.
SPEAKER_00: The reporters started commissarating.
SPEAKER_00: For them, no news was bad news.
SPEAKER_00: So they had to make it up.
SPEAKER_00: They were facing empty-handed return trips to their city desks.
SPEAKER_00: Al declared that he was going to make up a story and hand it in, and the other three just laughed.
SPEAKER_00: Someone suggested they walk over to the Oxford Hotel and have a beer, and they did.
SPEAKER_00: Jack said he liked Al's idea about faking a story.
SPEAKER_00: Why didn't each of them fake a story, turn it in, and get off the hook?
SPEAKER_00: John said Jack was thinking far too small.
SPEAKER_00: Four half-to-bake stories don't cut it.
SPEAKER_00: What they needed was a real whopper they all could use.
SPEAKER_00: Another round of beers.
SPEAKER_00: A phony domestic story would be too easy to check upon, so they began discussing foreign angles of a story that would be difficult for others to verify or deny.
SPEAKER_00: And that is the rest of the story.
SPEAKER_00: China was distant.
SPEAKER_00: Everyone agreed on that.
SPEAKER_00: It was distant enough.
SPEAKER_00: They would write about China.
SPEAKER_00: John leaned forward, gesturing dramatically in the dim light of the bar room.
SPEAKER_00: Try this one on, he said.
SPEAKER_00: Group of American engineers stopping over in Denver en route to China.
SPEAKER_00: The Chinese government is making plans to demolish the China Wall, the Great Wall, and our engineers are bidding on the job.
SPEAKER_00: Harold was skeptical.
SPEAKER_00: Why would the Chinese want to destroy the Great Wall of China?
SPEAKER_00: John thought for a moment, well, they're tearing down the ancient boundary to symbolize international goodwill and to welcome foreign travel.
SPEAKER_00: Another round of beer.
SPEAKER_00: By 11 p.m., the four reporters had worked out all the details of a preposterous story.
SPEAKER_00: After leaving the Oxford Bar, they would go over to the Windsor Hotel, they would sign four fictitious names into the hotel registry.
SPEAKER_00: They would instruct the desk clerk to tell anyone who asked that four New Yorkers had arrived that evening and had been interviewed by these reporters and then had left early the next morning for California, obviously on their way to China.
SPEAKER_00: The Denver newspapers carried the story, all four of them, front page.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, the Times headline that Sunday read, Great Wall of China doomed! Peking seeks world trade.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, the story was a phony, a ludicrous fabrication concocted by four capricious newsmen in a hotel bar.
SPEAKER_00: But their story was taken seriously.
SPEAKER_00: It was picked up and expanded by the papers on the East Coast and ultimately by newspapers around the world.
SPEAKER_00: When the Chinese themselves learned that Americans were sending a demolition crew to tear down their national monument, most were indignant, but some were enraged.
SPEAKER_00: Particularly incensed were members of a secret society, a vocal group, a volatile group of Chinese patriots who were already wary of foreign intervention.
SPEAKER_00: They, inspired by the story, exploded, rampaged against the foreign embassies in Peking, and slaughtered hundreds of missionaries.
SPEAKER_00: In two months, 12,000 troops from six countries joined forces, invaded China with a purpose of protecting their own countrymen.
SPEAKER_00: The bloodshed that followed, sparked by a journalistic hoax invented in a bar room in Denver, became the hot international conflagration known as the Boxer Rebellion.
SPEAKER_00: And that is absolutely true.
SPEAKER_00: The Boxer Rebellion ultimately involved 55,000 troops, 51 warships from eight different countries, including America.
SPEAKER_00: It engaged 150,000 Chinese troops.
SPEAKER_00: Tens of thousands of Christians died, both Chinese nationals and missionaries, killing, plundering, looting, raping, a tenderbox set ablaze by a few idle, misplaced words.
SPEAKER_00: Now that's an extreme case.
SPEAKER_00: But it proves the point very well that it truly happened.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, be careful with a little mouth at what you say.
SPEAKER_00: Be careful at what you say.
SPEAKER_00: It can haunt you the rest of your life.
SPEAKER_00: It can have influence on people in situations that you may not intend.
SPEAKER_00: It can be terribly destructive.
SPEAKER_00: It can destroy people, it can destroy reputations, it can destroy churches, it can lead to bloodshed, murder, rape, and so forth.
SPEAKER_00: That is not an exaggeration.
SPEAKER_00: We underestimate the often unintended consequences of what comes out of our mouths.
SPEAKER_00: Verses 7 and 8 goes on for every kind of beast, of bird, of reptile, of sea creature can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue.
SPEAKER_00: It is a restless evil full of deadly poison.
SPEAKER_00: Now, what he's saying here is you look around the animal world, and he uses four categories of animals, same four groupings that are found two places in Genesis.
SPEAKER_00: This was just a way of thinking the whole animal world.
SPEAKER_00: And he looks at the animal world and he said, Man has the ability to tame just about any animal that they want.
SPEAKER_00: We can domesticate the animals, and James says, but you can't domesticate your tongue.
SPEAKER_00: You can't do that.
SPEAKER_00: You don't, we don't have the power in ourselves to tame the tongue.
SPEAKER_00: This is serious, powerful stuff.
SPEAKER_00: With the image of the bit in the bridle, there's obviously someone who controls it.
SPEAKER_00: The rider and the helbsman are there, but they're not mentioned in the picture of the spark.
SPEAKER_00: There's typically someone who ignites it.
SPEAKER_00: But the question in now is who is it who can control this?
SPEAKER_00: Who acts in such a way to control the dangers involved?
SPEAKER_00: And he says, no man can control the tongue.
SPEAKER_00: Now that thought needs to be examined pretty carefully.
SPEAKER_00: Look at exactly at what is said in verse 8.
SPEAKER_00: No human being can tame the tongue.
SPEAKER_00: And that is true.
SPEAKER_00: You can modify your behavior a little bit, but unless there is a change from within, because the tongue always reflects what is within.
SPEAKER_00: And we can't change our own nature.
SPEAKER_00: No human being can do that.
SPEAKER_00: The correct observation is there is someone who can do that.
SPEAKER_00: That's a someone with a capital S, that's God.
SPEAKER_00: Augustine said 13 or 17 centuries ago, whatever it was, he said very clearly that he does not say, speaking of James, he does not say that no one can tame the tongue, but that no one among men, none of us, can tame it.
SPEAKER_00: So that when it is tamed, we confess that this is brought about by the compassion, the help, and the grace of God.
SPEAKER_00: If we're ever to be protected from the dangerous words within that sometimes are ill-meant and oftentimes are simply ill-used and goes way beyond what we ever intended, we need help.
SPEAKER_00: That help is not within us, that help is outside of us.
SPEAKER_00: That help is God who works on our behalf.
SPEAKER_00: Final thoughts here, verses 9 to 12.
SPEAKER_00: The tongue, we already called it a tattletale, it reveals what's within.
SPEAKER_00: And what's within us, the Bible describes as a divided heart.
SPEAKER_00: We have an existential schizophrenia, which just basically means we're all messed up inside.
SPEAKER_00: We're conflicted.
SPEAKER_00: We have inclinations that pull us in all kinds of different directions.
SPEAKER_00: And if you can't identify with this, you don't know yourself very well.
SPEAKER_00: But hang out a bit with James, he'll help you.
SPEAKER_00: We're torn.
SPEAKER_00: We're torn within, conflicting.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to use, I don't intentionally want to use my mouth for destructive purposes, but it happened.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to set a forest fire.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to steer a ship into destruction.
SPEAKER_00: But those kinds of things happen among us, don't they?
SPEAKER_00: Don't they with you?
SPEAKER_00: If you don't sense this conflict, this tension within, then truly you don't know yourself very well.
SPEAKER_00: But let the word of God reveal what is inside.
SPEAKER_00: So, verses nine and ten, uh, he says, this really must not be.
SPEAKER_00: This is absolutely not uh appropriate.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 9, he says, with our tongue we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God.
SPEAKER_00: From the same mouth comes blessing and cursing.
SPEAKER_00: My brothers, these things ought not be.
SPEAKER_00: This shouldn't be.
SPEAKER_00: And what's he describing?
SPEAKER_00: He's talking about the fact that God has given us the gift of speech, unlike the rest of the animal world.
SPEAKER_00: There's communication, low-level communication, but not the gift of speech.
SPEAKER_00: Why do you suppose God gave mankind the ability to speak words?
SPEAKER_00: Well, we find when we look in the scriptures that we are intended with our lips to praise God, to bring glory to God, to exalt God, to direct other people to God.
SPEAKER_00: That's why we've got mouths, that's why we've got a tongue, that's why we can speak, and our words, just like the gift of music, is designed to exalt and glorify God.
SPEAKER_00: It's not about us, it's not about the musician, it's not about the teacher, it's all about what God wants to have happen with these gifts.
SPEAKER_00: And they are designed to glorify and exalt God, the very loftiest thing in the world.
SPEAKER_00: And yet the perversity of the sinful, broken, conflicted heart is that same mouth can bless God and can ask and wish that people went to hell.
SPEAKER_00: You can say, I love you, God, and you can turn around in a fit of anger and just wish that person a curse.
SPEAKER_00: A curse in this context, and that's what he's talking about.
SPEAKER_00: These things should not be.
SPEAKER_00: From the same mouth comes blessing and cursing.
SPEAKER_00: Cursing is not talking about dirty language, it's talking about wishing a curse of damnation on someone.
SPEAKER_00: And I would be incredibly surprised if the vast majority of us in this room have not at some time or another, without meaning it perhaps, just out of utter frustration, have just said, oh, go to hell.
SPEAKER_00: That's what he's talking about here.
SPEAKER_00: Do we realize what we're saying?
SPEAKER_00: We're wishing, we're calling down eternal condemnation on someone when we say that.
SPEAKER_00: Those aren't just flippant words.
SPEAKER_00: Words have meaning.
SPEAKER_00: That's an expression of an evil heart.
SPEAKER_00: And the same mouth that stands and praises God can be so vile.
SPEAKER_00: And can, if we only realize what we were saying when we said, Oh, you can go to hell.
SPEAKER_00: If we only realized what we were saying, we would never say it.
SPEAKER_00: Words, words, words.
SPEAKER_00: It reveals what is in.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, This must not be.
SPEAKER_00: He says, in fact, this actually can't happen the way we're talking about.
SPEAKER_00: So he says, verse 11 and 12, does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and salt water?
SPEAKER_00: And the grammatical construction he uses here demands a negative answer.
SPEAKER_00: If we were to translate, it would say a spring can't pour forth from the same opening both fresh and salt water, can it?
SPEAKER_00: It's almost demanding a negative answer.
SPEAKER_00: He says, this can't be.
SPEAKER_00: That doesn't work that way.
SPEAKER_00: That's not how springs work.
SPEAKER_00: Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives?
SPEAKER_00: No, a frig tree bears figs.
SPEAKER_00: A grapevine?
SPEAKER_00: Um.
SPEAKER_00: A fig tree bears olives and a grapevine produces figs.
SPEAKER_00: Go figure.
SPEAKER_00: Neither can a salt pond yield salt water.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying, in fact, when there is this kind of internal division, then what we have is a divided heart.
SPEAKER_00: A divided heart.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says in Matthew, he picks this up, just listen, Matthew chapter 12, verse 33, either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad, because of tree is known by its fruit.
SPEAKER_00: You brood of vipers, how can you speak good things when you are evil?
SPEAKER_00: For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.
SPEAKER_00: The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, the evil one out of his evil treasure brings forth evil.
SPEAKER_00: I tell you that on the day of judgment, people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, by your words You will be condemned.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying the fact of the matter is that it's when we are divided like this, we have a heart problem.
SPEAKER_00: The only help for a dirty mouth is a cleaned heart.
SPEAKER_00: The only real solution for a destructive pattern of speech is a changed heart within.
SPEAKER_00: The question that we are forced to answer is how's it with our heart?
SPEAKER_00: Because what we say and how we speak, it manifests that.
SPEAKER_00: So here's our conclusion.
SPEAKER_00: If I just read this in isolation, I just want to shrivel up and go into isolation and hide.
SPEAKER_00: Because the fact of the matter is, I cannot control my tongue, and you can't either.
SPEAKER_00: So is it hopeless, little mouth?
SPEAKER_00: Oh no, my friend.
SPEAKER_00: It is not hopeless for our mouths.
SPEAKER_00: We can't control our little mouths, but God can.
SPEAKER_00: A couple of verses, I won't take the uh the time to go into it.
SPEAKER_00: God gives us an undivided heart.
SPEAKER_00: God gives us a heart of flesh instead of a heart of stone.
SPEAKER_00: God puts a new spirit upon us.
SPEAKER_00: And these two passages in Ezekiel are Ezekiel looking forward to what God was going to do.
SPEAKER_00: And ultimately, one manifestation of that was on the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came to take up residence with believers and gives us a new heart.
SPEAKER_00: And it happens at the very moment of salvation when we come to faith.
SPEAKER_00: We may not even be aware of it, but there is an inner transformation.
SPEAKER_00: Instead of just having that old nature, now there's a new nature, a new heart, a new set of dispositions.
SPEAKER_00: We are not yet where we will be, but we are no longer where we were.
SPEAKER_00: The hope and help for our little mouths comes at the cross.
SPEAKER_00: It comes through a relationship of God.
SPEAKER_00: It begins when we confess our sins.
SPEAKER_00: It can begins when we recognize I can't do this myself.
SPEAKER_00: It begins when we realize I don't have the capacity to be and do what God wants me to be and do, and what at my deepest level I want to be and do, because I was made for more than this.
SPEAKER_00: I was made to thrive.
SPEAKER_00: And we live and we're we're we're a mess.
SPEAKER_00: Now, it begins for us at the moment of salvation, but that's not the end of the story.
SPEAKER_00: The rest of the story, two more phases.
SPEAKER_00: Our present experience now, where we're no longer who we once were and we're not yet who we will be.
SPEAKER_00: We have been fundamentally changed, but the completion, the full manifestation of what God is doing in our lives lies in the future, and the time will come where we will be what we want to be, and we shall be what we should be, and this process will be behind us and we will be home.
SPEAKER_00: And all of that is gospel.
SPEAKER_00: The only way to tame your tongue is for God to transform your heart.
SPEAKER_00: That's the simple reality of the scriptures.
SPEAKER_00: This is a gospel truth.
SPEAKER_00: It begins at the cross, it continues as we grow and walk with God, and one glorious great day, we will finally, by God's grace, be home, and the process will be complete.
SPEAKER_00: So what James is saying to us is we have a huge problem, a bigger problem than we think.
SPEAKER_00: We really do.
SPEAKER_00: It's no small matter how we speak and the influence, intentional or unintended, of the words that come out of our mouth.
SPEAKER_00: And we are incapable.
SPEAKER_00: We don't have, we can't help ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: I was raised by a father who said, Walt, you can do anything.
SPEAKER_00: You're a barret.
SPEAKER_00: Horrible.
SPEAKER_00: I really believe that.
SPEAKER_00: I can't do anything.
SPEAKER_00: Anything good that I can do is God at work.
SPEAKER_00: You cannot tame your tongue.
SPEAKER_00: It's hopeless, but it's not hopeless because there is hope.
SPEAKER_00: There is hope in the gospel, there is hope in the transformation of Christ, there is hope in repentance, there is hope in growth, and there's hope in final, final glorification.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, be careful, little mouths, what you say.
SPEAKER_00: And that is possible because God cares for our little mouths.
SPEAKER_00: And because he is at work within us, we are not doomed, we are not doomed to destroy.
SPEAKER_00: God at work within us.
SPEAKER_00: The book of James, without that to me, would be shattering, crushing.
SPEAKER_00: I would go away beaten up.
SPEAKER_00: It's only part of the story.
SPEAKER_00: There is hope.
SPEAKER_00: But that hope is not within you, but that hope is in another.
SPEAKER_00: That hope is from the cross.
SPEAKER_00: That hope is in the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: And that works its way out in our lives until finally, one glorious day, we are who we're meant to be.
SPEAKER_00: How's your heart?
SPEAKER_00: You're somewhere along that line?
SPEAKER_00: There's probably people here who just really need repentance in the cross.
SPEAKER_00: That's where it begins, folks.
SPEAKER_00: There's many of us who just really need what God's word brings to us.
SPEAKER_00: A spirit of humility, a spirit of compassion, a spirit of love for other people.
SPEAKER_00: We need other people.
SPEAKER_00: But we're all needy.
SPEAKER_00: How's your heart?
SPEAKER_00: There is no controlling the tongue.
SPEAKER_00: There's no taming the tongue unless God tames your heart.
SPEAKER_00: And P.S.
SPEAKER_00: God specializes in that.
SPEAKER_00: Specializes in that.
SPEAKER_00: That is good news.
SPEAKER_00: Would you pray with me?
SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, I don't like what I read here.
SPEAKER_00: It convicts, it rebukes, it instructs, but it also gives hope.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, we need you.
SPEAKER_00: How we need you.
SPEAKER_00: You are all we really need.
SPEAKER_00: Father, I pray that there would be a mighty working in my heart, in the hearts of those around us, Godward.
SPEAKER_00: Father, for anyone who's here and their heart is cold to you, I pray that you would warm their heart, renew their hearts, give them a heart of flesh, alive and responsive to you.
SPEAKER_00: May they come in faith and repentance.
SPEAKER_00: And Father, may we turn to you realizing that our help is not within.
SPEAKER_00: Our hope and our help is in you.
SPEAKER_00: Oh Lord Jesus, we need you, and by your grace, you are with us.
SPEAKER_00: Blessed be the name of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: All right, let me just have you stand and we'll um I'll give the benediction Chris likes so much.
SPEAKER_00: She's already given it, but that's all right.
SPEAKER_00: It's not going to keep me from giving it again.
SPEAKER_00: My friends, go into the world in peace.
SPEAKER_00: In peace.
SPEAKER_00: Have courage.
SPEAKER_00: Hold on to what is good and honor all men.
SPEAKER_00: Strengthen the faint-hearted, support the weak, help the suffering, restore the wandering, comfort the grieving, and share the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Love and serve the Lord in the power of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And may the grace and the peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with us all.
SPEAKER_00: God bless and amen.
SPEAKER_00: You're dismissed.