All right, good morning, church family.
If you would open your Bibles to the Book of James chapter 3 this
morning, we're going to be in verses 6 to 12.
We've been going through James for several weeks now, and we
have made it to chapter 3. Last week I started a text and a
message on the tongue and I felt like it was just too long of a
text to do it in one sermon, so I broke up into two parts.
So last week was Part 1 and this morning is going to be Part 2 on
the tongue. So let's read the text.
I'll open us in a word of prayer and then we will jump into the
sermon this morning. James chapter 3 beginning in
verse 6 is what James writes to us.
And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness.
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. For every kind of beast and
bird, of reptile and sea creature can be tamed and has
been tamed by mankind, but no human being contained the
tongue. It is a restless evil, full of
deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and
Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the
likeness of God. From the same mouth come
blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought
not to be so. Does the spring pour forth from
the same opening, both fresh and salt water?
Can a fig tree, my brothers, bare olives or a Grapevine
produce figs? Neither can a salt pond yield
fresh water? Let's pray, Father, we pray for
your spirit to be working among us this morning.
We pray that as we consider this topic of the tongue from last
week and this week, Lord, that you would help us to to to
pause, reflect, meditate, and contemplate.
Where in my life do I need to grow with my tongue?
Where am I guilty of sin? Where am both by Commission and
omission? What changes God are you calling
me to make? How can I use my tongue to be an
instrument of righteousness and not a weapon of destruction?
So, Lord, would you use this text this morning to help our
tongues to be in line with what they were designed for?
Praising you, I pray this in the name of Jesus, Amen.
In 1991, in British Columbia, Canada, one of the trainers at
an aquarium was killed by an orca.
In 1999, a man trespassed into SeaWorld Florida and was killed
by an orca. In 2003, Roy Horn of Siegfried
and Royd was mauled by a tiger as part of the show.
In 2009 in Spain, one of the trainers was killed by an orca.
In 2010, one of the trainers at SeaWorld in Florida was killed
by an orca, and in 2016, a tiger at Palm Beach Zoo in Florida
attacked and killed one of the trainers.
What is the lesson to be learned from all of these incidents?
That wild animals are unstable creatures.
No matter how much we may have tamed them or think we have
tamed them, they are still unstable.
So is the tongue. No matter what kind of strides
we make with our tongues, the tongue is always an unstable
organ, meaning it's always liable to break out.
We may think that we have achieved victory in this area.
Some of you may even say that I feel like I'm a pretty good
master of my speech, my tongue that I don't think I send as
much with it. That may very well be true, but
all it takes is the right amount of stress.
All it takes is the wrong person saying the wrong thing at the
wrong time, or maybe just a spouse who knows how to push the
wrong button. Our tongues are always unstable.
They're always liable to break out.
This morning we're going to look at the second-half of our text
this morning that we started last week, and I'm going to do
the same I did last week, where instead of breaking up
exposition and application, I'm going to weave them together.
So application will be woven together throughout the sermon.
We'll look at it not only verse by verse, but section by
section. So let's start looking at verse
6A where James writes and the tongue is a fire, a world of
unrighteousness. Now last week we saw that James
had used 3 analogies to describe the very small nature of the
tongue and yet the tremendous power that it controls.
He used a bit and a horse, a rudder and a ship and a small
fire and a wildfire. And now James is going to shift
from using an analogy to a metaphor.
He's going to shift from analogy to metaphor.
He says the tongue is a fire. So not only is the tongue
similar to a fire, it actually is a fire.
Now what does James mean by this?
I think James is suggesting that the tongue, just like fire, is
capable of great destruction. If you look back at history, you
will see that there have been some tremendous fires throughout
human history. There is the Great fire of Rome
in 64 AD. It lasted 6 days and destroyed
most of Rome. There's the Great Fire of London
in 1666, burned up some 13,000 homes.
There's the Great Fire of Moscow in 1812, destroyed 3/4 of the
city of Moscow. In 1942 there was a nightclub
here in America where a fire broke out, killed almost 500
people. And we were all remember the
recent fires that destroyed Notre Dame Cathedral, the island
of Maui, and most recently the apartment complex in Hong Kong.
Fire is capable of tremendous destruction.
And James says the tongue is a fire.
He calls it a world of unrighteousness.
Now that seems rather dramatic, isn't it?
A world of unrighteousness? And yet, when we stop, take a
step back and consider how many people in Scripture send with
their tongue. Cain lied to God.
Abraham lied about Sarah. Jacob lied to his father.
Ananias and Sapphira lied about their offering.
Peter denied Christ three times. The Israelites complained for 40
years in the wilderness. Job's friends failed to speak
rightly about God. The disciples argued over who
was the greatest. The tongue is indeed a world of
unrighteousness. You see, the mouth is kind of
like Pandora's box. Once you open it, you open all
sorts of unrighteousness. Let me consider what is one of
the first sins of a child? Is it not one word?
No. One of the first ways that we
learn to sin in this life is to look at authority and say no.
As John Calvin writes, a slender portion of flesh contains the
whole world of iniquity. Look at verse 6B.
The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole
body. Now what does that mean?
Staining the whole body? That word for staining can also
be translated as defiling. The idea here is that even
though the tongue is a small part of the body, when it's sins
it doesn't. It stains or defiles the whole
body. Which body is being used as a
metaphor or euphemism of the entire sin?
Now what does it mean that by by sitting with a tongue you stain
or defile the whole body or the whole person?
Well think of it like this. If you get a stain on the
sleeve, the arm sleeve of your shirt, the sleeve of a white
shirt, and you get a stain on the arm sleeve of your shirt, we
don't just say that the the the sleeve is stained, we say the
shirt is stained, right? Or other way to think of it is
that if if you have food and one part of your food has E coli on
it, we don't just say that one part is defiled.
We say the whole food is defiled.
Is it not? I think what James is getting at
is that we cannot pretend that our words are not a part of us
once they leave us. We cannot create this dichotomy
where like, this is me, but once I say something, it's something
else. It's an extension of me.
But that's not me. What I said is not me.
People often use phrases such as I don't mean it.
I didn't mean any harm, no offense.
I didn't mean to upset you. I didn't mean to be rude.
That wasn't what I meant. It came out wrong.
It was just a slip of the tongue.
I was just joking. It was a poor choice of words.
I mean no disrespect. I take it back.
That's not who I am. That's not how I feel.
But do not our words represent who we are and what we think and
what we feel? James wants us to recognize that
our words are not simply an extension of us.
They are US, Jesus says. But what comes out of the mouth
proceeds from the heart. And this defiles a person.
I was even talking about boys were telling me we're at a Bible
store. Yesterday, one of my sons came
to me and he said, Dad, why you keep emphasizing the tongue like
bug? And he stuck out his tongue and
said, why you keep emphasizing it's not the tongue, dad, it's
your mind. And I was like you.
You got it, son. Look at verse 6C, setting on
fire the entire course of life. Setting on fire the entire
course of life. Now like the parable of the
sower where the birds ate some of the seed, the sun scorched
some of the plants. The thorns choked out some of
the plants. We could add another group of
seed here. Some seed fell on fertile
ground, sprouted up a plant, but fire came and scorched it.
In other words, what James is saying is that the tongue can
dictate where you spend eternity.
The whole course of our life can be determined by our tongue.
He says that it's it's setting on fire the entire course of
life. Your whole life can be dictated
by your tongue, and this will always be true.
This is not the kind of fire that once you put it out, it
stays out. No, all throughout our life that
has the capability to burn always.
I remember many years ago, my friends and I went.
This is when I was lost. Many years ago, my friends and I
went whitewater rafting and camping together.
One night we had made this campfire, made this glorious
campfire. It was pretty large.
It was pretty hot. It was burning for hours.
As we go to bed, I took out a small amount of water and I
poured it on the fire and it kind of went out and my friend
said, you know, that fire will come back.
I said no, I just poured water on it, it's out.
He said no, it'll come back. I said no way, no, no way.
He said I can pour this and he had a gallon of water.
He said I can pour this entire gallon of water on this fire and
it will come back. I said there's no way, no way.
So we made some kind of bet. Again, I was lost.
He poured the gallon of water on the fire, a gallon of water.
We got inside our tents to go to bed.
About an hour or two later, I see this glow outside the tent.
The fire came back. That's why when you see
firefighters putting out a fire, the the fire has been out for a
while and they're still spraying it with water.
That's how it is with our tongues.
We can think I'm beyond. I have conquered this.
I have put out this fire in my life.
And yet, without fail, we will realize that the embers in our
mouth still burn hot. I don't care how mature a
Christian is. I don't care how long you've
been a Christian. I don't care how mature you are.
Our tongue always has the capability to burn.
Always looking for 60 and set on fire by hell.
Set on fire by hell? Now what does that mean?
To put it bluntly, the tongue is inflamed by the fires of hell.
It is the hell is a source of constant fire that will keep
this thing burning. When James says that the tongue
is set on fire by hell, hell is being used as a kind of a
synecdoche for Satan, for sin, for all that is evil in this
world. Now Paul tells us in Ephesians 6
that Satan shoots flaming darts at us, right?
Metaphorically, but in the in the spiritual world, literally.
And these flaming darts, they are not only meant to destroy
us, but they are also meant to ignite us.
That he would turn us into a flaming dart.
You ever said something and wondered where did that come
from? I don't even know why I said
that. How many times I mean like you
can take the sweet. My wife is the sweetest person
in the world. How many times that you can take
put four boys in your life and you'll say things or but you can
be the sweetest person in the world put and a man, a roommate
that rubs you the wrong way. You say something, you're like,
I don't even know why I said that.
I don't know why I said that. Where did that come from?
Where does that come from? One answer is this.
It came from the enemy. It came from the enemy.
Now, that's not to say that we are not responsible.
We are Jesus says that we will give an account for every
careless word that we have spoken.
But this text explains why we can say things that are so
hurtful and so destructive. I mean, you ever said something
and like, like in a moment somebody had hurt you or wounded
you or offended you and you knew how to put them in their place.
You knew what would be hurtful to them, and you took it.
You said it and then immediately afterward, or maybe the next
day, you thought, I don't know why I said that.
I shouldn't have said it. You know why we said it?
Because we don't wrestle against flesh and blood.
We wrestle against the forces of hell.
Look at verse 7 to 8A. For every kind of beast and bird
of reptile and sea creature can be tamed and has been tamed by
mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue.
Now James goes back to his analogies.
Here he uses another animal analogy, but this time in the
broad sense. He says every kind of beast and
bird and reptile and sea creature can be tamed and has
been tamed by mankind. And what does that mean?
To tame? That word tame means to reduce
from an uncontrolled to a controlled state or to subdue.
Think of it like this. If you go to a zoo, you will
find in the zoo. You do not find humans in the
zoo. You find animals in the zoo.
We have subdued them. You will find lions and tigers
and bears in the zoo. If you go to an aquarium, you
will find sharks and orcas. Apparently these are enormous
beasts. These are dangerous and deadly
beasts and yet humans have found a way to subdue them.
Now. This is because God has given us
a mandate from heaven. Genesis 128 Be fruitful and
multiply. Fill the earth and subdue it.
How many dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of
the heaven and over every living thing that moves on the earth.
As humans we have the capability to subdue a £14,000 elephant, a
£5000 rhinoceros, a 4000 LB hippopotamus, a 1500 LB polar
bear, a 30 foot whale shark, a 3500 LB beluga whale, a £10,000
orca, a 2000 LB crocodile, a £300 ostrich, but we can't
subdue a three ounce tongue. James says no human being can do
this. Now when James says no human
being contained a tongue, he means just that, no human being.
But that doesn't mean God is incapable of taming it.
It doesn't mean that God is incapable of attainment.
Sometimes as Christians, even mature Christians, we are
perplexed as to why we keep falling into sin with our
tongues. You may have been a Christian
for 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, you know, and you can see
yourself mature or you know, maybe if you're an elder, you're
a Deacon, you're a pastor, you're a missionary, you're a
teacher. You're, you know, you're like
man. And you got to wonder, like, why
do I keep falling into sin with my tongue?
Why do I keep getting angry? Why do I keep complaining?
Why did I tell that lie? I mean, it was an emotional lie,
but it was a lie nonetheless. Why do I still struggle to
gossip? Why?
Why do I still struggle with this?
Why do I keep sinning in this way?
Here's why. Because in our own strength, we
have no strength. We need the grace of God, we
need the fruit of the Holy Spirit to tame this animal, and
that is the only way to do it. You try to tame this on your own
and you'll keep biting people. The verse 8B it is a restless
evil full of deadly poison. A restless evil full of deadly
poison. Now one question we may have is
why is it so difficult to tame the tongue?
Why is this? James gives 2 reasons.
He gives 2 reasons why #1 the tongue is a restless evil.
The the word for restless is the same Greek word that James used
in James 1/8 when he said he is a double minded man, unstable in
all his ways. That word unstable, same word as
restless here. Unstable and restless, same
Greek word. What does that mean?
You ever seen those old school mouse traps like the, you know,
the ones with the spring that you put back, you know, and
people like like the cartoon has got a little piece of cheese on
it or something. I remember one time we had a
mouse in our apartment in seminary.
I bought all those fancy new mouse traps, you know those ones
that like to advertise and none of them worked.
And then I saw like like $1.99 just like cheap little like
ghetto looking mousetrap. I was like, let me just try this
thing. So I bought it.
First day I caught the mouse those I don't like those things
because you said it. They're so unstable like you
just touch it it's and man it hurts if you get your finger in
there is not our mouth like those mouse traps.
Sometimes the slightest comment can cause us to snap back.
We get caught at the wrong time, the wrong day of the month, the
slightest trial or inconvenience does it not cause us to
complain? Right.
Everything is going well. My week's been going well, but
having a great week. And then it's just The slightest
inconvenience can cause us to complain.
The slightest fear or anxiety could cause us to bend the
truth. You see, the tongue is an
unstable evil. It's unstable.
Second reason he gives The tongue is full of deadly poison.
The tongue is full of deadly poison.
I absolutely hate snakes. I, I, I hate them.
My boys were telling me last night they were like, hey, God,
did you know they're bringing back this show where like,
people like, get in boxes with snakes and stuff.
And I was like, man, they did that years ago.
The show called Fear Factor. He's like, yeah, that's what
it's called. They're bringing it back.
I was like, I don't know why I hate snakes.
I don't like looking at them. I don't want to touch them.
However, I am fascinated with people who engage with them,
like Steve Irwin or Bear Grylls. These animals have deadly poison
in them. Not all of them, but a lot of
them do. I have never been bitten by a
snake. I'm from Alabama, I've never
been bitten by snake. I would like to keep it that
way. I was so happy when I found out
that Western Washington does not have any poisonous snakes.
I was so happy. We do not have any poisonous
snakes, but we do have poisonous people.
God has given us the power to poison people with our words.
The tongue is full of deadly poison.
Not just a little bit, it's full.
Look at verse 9. With it we bless our Lord and
Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the
likeness of God. You see, James says the tongue
has the power to bless and the tongue has the power to curse.
When God gave us the ability to speak, He gave us the ability to
bless him, to praise Him. What a tremendous privilege we
have to praise the living God with our mouths.
You ever think about that? That we, you know the, the birds
praise him and and the flowers praise him, but not the way that
we do. We praise Him as children.
We praise him as people made in his likeness.
What a tremendous privilege. There is no greater feat that we
will ever do in this life than to praise God with our lips.
I don't care if you climb Mount Everest.
I don't care if you can dunk of basketball.
I don't care what we can accomplish.
Nothing compares to this feat, to praising God.
No painting rivals the beauty of this portrait.
No orchestra sounds like this Symphony.
God has given us the greatest privilege in the universe
praising Him. How many times does the psalmist
declare that he will use his lips to praise God?
I will bless the Lord at all times.
This praise shall continually be in my mouth.
Psalm 3410. Lord, open my lips, and my mouth
will declare your praise. Psalm 5115 because Your
steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise You.
Psalm 63 Three. My mouth is filled with Your
praise and with your glory all day.
Psalm 71 Eight. My lips will shout for joy when
I sing praises to You. Psalm 7123 My lips will pour
forth praise. Psalm 1/19/71 my mouth will
speak the praise of the Lord. Psalm 14521 our mouth is
$1,000,000 instrument because it praises an infinitely worthy
God. I was watching Shark Tank the
other day. Yes I know I watch Shark Tank.
It's a good show, you should try it out.
One of the pitches on the show was a 3D printing company that
can print instruments. They had a cello on there.
My favorite instrument to listen to is the cello.
Absolutely. I mean hands down nothing to me
compares to it. They were saying on the show
that a good cello, a good like made out of wood cello can be
10,020 thousand even like the top ones can go up to $100,000
and there are 3D printed ones were selling for 3000.
They were trying to make like instruments that are very
expensive, more affordable to other to to more people.
Right? Because I'm who can afford
100,000 or even a $20,000 cello. This instrument is intended to
produce glorious sounds. But imagine if a cello was used
as a hammer. I got a cello upstairs.
It's Eugene's. Imagine if I went upstairs and I
needed to nail something in the wall.
I pulled it out. I didn't have a hammer.
I don't have a hammer, and I used it to hammer in this nail.
Or imagine. We went out to the parking lot.
My boys are playing baseball. They're throwing around rocks.
I'm like, hey, guys, I got a bat and I use it as a baseball bat.
Wouldn't that be a shame? Wouldn't it be a shame to take
this glorious instrument and use it for these purposes?
Imagine if we used this instrument not to praise God,
but to curse his creation, James says.
Not only do we bless God, but we curse people who are made in the
likeness of God. Now, when James says curse
people, he doesn't mean curse them out, nor does he mean to
put a curse on them. The idea of cursing is
essentially to speak evil of someone, to speak evil of them.
And notice James calls attention to not just cursing some people.
He says cursing anybody, all people.
He says we curse people made in the likeness of God.
Well, who was made in the likeness of God?
Everybody. The lying politician.
The annoying neighbor. The incompetent customer service
clerk. The bragging Co worker.
The friend who constantly interrupts you.
The chronic complainer. The unreliable friend who
constantly cancels on you. The person who never apologizes.
Reckless drivers. Parents who don't discipline
their kids, the micromanaging boss, the friend who only calls
when they need something, the person who always one UPS your
stories, the slow Walker in the grocery store, the Co worker who
takes credit for your work, the argumentative person.
And on and on and on. How easily we can criticize and
complain and condemn and cancel and curse God's creation.
Brothers and sisters, God gave us this instrument to praise
Him. Look at verse 11:50, last
section. From the same mouth come
blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought
not to be so. Does a spring pour forth from
the same opening? Both fresh and salt water?
Can a fig tree, my brother's bare olives, or a Grapevine
produce figs? Neither.
Can a salt pond yield fresh water?
Now James goes back to his analogies and it gives us three
more analogies. He's making one central point
with these analogies. But before we look at that
point, let's look at the analogies.
He asked 2 questions and makes one comment.
Let's look at them individually. His first question, does a
spring pour forth from the same opening, both freshwater and
saltwater? If you've ever seen a naturally
occurring spring, it pours forth water, right?
That's what that's what it is. Now in, in an arid environment
like Palestine, this would have been vital.
They would actually probably build entire villages around
wherever a spring occurred, right?
Because water is, is everything, it's life.
And so this was vital for them. Now you can have a saltwater
spring or a freshwater spring. They both exist.
Saltwater springs are far less common, but they do exist.
Florida has some saltwater springs, the Dead Sea has some
saltwater springs, the Mediterranean has a few, and the
Caribbean does. But most springs are freshwater
springs. They pour forth freshwater that
you can drink, but what you can't have is a spring that six
months out of the year produces freshwater and then six months
out of the year produces saltwater.
Or biweekly or bi monthly, or every other day.
A spring is one or the other. It's either a saltwater spring
or it's a freshwater spring, but it's not both.
That's the first question. Second question, can a fig tree
bear olives or a Grapevine produce figs?
Now, you do not need to be a botanist or an arborist to know
this. Ask any child in this service.
Jonathan, let me ask you right now.
A lemon tree produces what lemons see.
He is not an arborist or a botanist.
An apple tree produces apples. A fig tree produces figs.
It never produces anything but figs.
You will never walk up to a fig tree and see it growing olives.
Nor will you ever walk up to an olive tree and see it growing
figs. Likewise, if you have a
Grapevine, you will get grapes. You will not get Peaches.
You will not get plums. You will not get avocados.
A Grapevine cannot produce figs. And his Third Point?
Neither can a salt pond yield fresh water.
Literally neither can salt water yield fresh water.
If you have a saltwater spring or a saltwater pond, you can
never get freshwater out of it. Now, what is James's point in
all of these analogies? What is the central point that
he is making here? Here it is.
The type of spring tells you the type of water.
The type of tree tells you the type of fruit.
Likewise, the type of person should tell you the type of
speech. I say should because James
writes from the same mouth come blessing and cursing.
In other words, the tongue is a hypocrite.
And James says, my brothers, these things ought to be so
imagine if you had a freshwater spring that would sometimes give
you salt water. You went you, you, you go to the
spring and you drink and you drink and all of a sudden it's
salty. He's got a mouthful of salt
water, right? That's what it's like when we
speak evil of others. It's like trying to drink salt
water or imagine if we needed to make some wine and we went to
our vineyard to go collect grapes, but our vineyard was
full of figs. I don't know if you can make
wine out of figs. Maybe you can or you needed to
make some fig cakes, but the fig tree only has olives in stock.
You see what James is doing is James is highlighting the
hypocritical nature of the tongue.
There's, there's an age-old joke of the person who is late to
church and racing to church and they're yelling at the driver in
front of them, maybe even, you know, like making comments about
them, maybe even commenting things that I won't repeat.
And then they walk inside the church.
Oh, praise his name or husband and wife are singing praises to
God at church and then on the drive home they're speaking
negatively of their brothers and sisters.
We have a phrase talking out of both sides of our mouth.
We have to strive so hard to not be a hypocrite with our tongues.
Yes. Let me be very clear in case
you're like, well, what about you, pastor?
Are you hypocrite? Yes, yes.
I don't stand up here as as especially if you know me.
If you know me well, you know how much I struggle with sins of
the tongue. I don't want, I want anybody to
walk away thinking that like I'm deceived about this.
I pray you are not either. What should define our speech is
praise and compliments and encouragement and thankfulness
and blessing and forgiveness and honor and all the sons
inspiration, motivation, admiration, exhortation,
affirmation, validation, reconciliation, recognition,
edification. James saying that there's not a
time and a place for correction or instruction or admonition.
There certainly is a time and a place for those.
But what should define our speech is blessing, blessing God
and blessing people. A renewed person gives renewed
speech, and a live person speaks words of life.
We are to speak as not only as those who have new hearts, but
also have new tongues. Let's pray.