Chapter 2, wherefore, lay it aside all malice. Lay it aside. Put it away from you. Put it out of your heart. Put it out of your mind. Put it out of your spirit and all guile and hypocrisies and envies and evil speaking. He says, here's some things that you just need to put away, get them out of your life. Let it not be said you have these in your life. You're coming to Christ and you're, as newborn babes, you said in verse two, these things ought to be, ought to be out of your life now. You come to God, you look for salvation, you're going to walk with God. So he says, put away all these things, the malice, the guile, the hypocrisy, the envies. and all evil speaking. My, how God holds us accountable for what we say. And he's serious about it. He wants us to mind our mouth. God orders us to put a governor on this tongue. If we don't, if we don't, Put that tongue in check. It says in James, your faith is vain. This thing needs to be controlled. Control that evil speaking and all this malice and all these things, the hypocrisies that come down. God wants us to put a control on it, a governor on it, a check on it to where it doesn't To where it doesn't offend God with what you say, let the words of my mouth, the meditation of my heart be acceptable. Let the words of my mouth, the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight. In thy sight, what I say, what I think, let it be acceptable in thy sight. Oh Lord, my strength and my redeemer. has newborn babes, has had a visit with the Holy Ghost of God, born into the family of God, don't bring that with you. Leave that back in the worldly type of life. The Christian ought to have a different mouth on them, a different attitude on them, a different spirit about them all together. They don't, they're not the same person you hear me preaching so often. Well, it's what God expects. He expects us to be people that change. I said, I'm going to deal with this series of how you grow in grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. What are the things you have to do? And there's some things you have to deal with. You have to deal with them. We love to sing of those things that he took my sins away and certainly does. But there's an area of your life that you're responsible for. You've got to deal with it. You've got to buffet this flesh. You're going to have to deal with your spirit, your attitudes of your heart. You're going to have to deal with the way you talk to people, the way you talk to them and about them. And he says, you govern that tongue. He tells us that if we fail, if we fail to govern that tongue, I believe he said our religion is vain. Is that what he says about it? He tells us our religion just has a gun. He said, if any man among you seem to be religious and bridle is not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain. And that's in James. 1 in verse number 26. So he says, put away from these things. Our manner of speech is almost like a habit to us, the way we talk, the way we talk to people. To change it, It's going to really take some sober, serious dealing with yourself, listening to yourself, and take responsibility for what you say to people when you offend them. Recognize you can't just talk to people any old way, treat them any way you want. You can't bring out what's sarcastic. You heard me last week. I told him, I said, Lord made me apologize to sister. What I said, it kind of quirk little remark, quick. She said something to me and I poured it back on her. Holy Spirit, no, no, no. You get that right. She was trying to help me and I was trying to get smart. I ain't too smart, but I can get it. Lord says you can't do that. You've grown some when you realize that you can't say things to people like you used to, or like you think they deserve, or like you want to say because you want to correct them. You can't get by with that now. You can't do that. If you're going to grow up, you're going to grow up with a better tongue. You're going to grow up with a better manner of speech. You're going to be more responsible for your mouth. Is it saying in the Bible, with our mouth we offend all? Is that what it says? You've got to be conscious of this. The worldly style of talking to people. I think I've told a lot of you what my dad told to a boss one time. He's working in a was during the war, he's working in a machinery shop and running a machine, and a man come over and started riling on him, just give him a hard time, run his mouth to him. My dad said, sir, sir, he said, I'll take your orders. Dad was a man. He meant what he said, he's the old school man. He said, I'll take your orders. He says, but I will not take your sass. Man turned around and won off. You ever wonder how many people we hurt? People that sometimes ask us something simple and I want you to know the manner of speech that comes from the world is a very offensive kind of speech. The Bible tells us in 1 John, they speak to their own, to their own here, the people of the world. They understand that sarcastic, hateful, smart aleck language, comments. And so they accept it, they know it, but the Christian, Ought to have the Spirit of God mellowing that heart and that speech to where you're more careful what you say to people. You wouldn't want to purposely give them a bad example of a Christian. You wouldn't want them to think you was a smart aleck. or somebody was just outwitted him and made a fool of him. That'd be the last thing he'd want. He wouldn't want him to feel so offended that they wouldn't talk to you anymore. You'd lose your chance to witness to him. I'm staying on this a little while tonight. It's a very important part of your Christian life. It's so easy for us to say things, but it's hard to take them back. I remember that preacher preaching up in the tent that time. He said, some things you can't take back to begin to deal with statements you make. He said, once it's in the air, it's gone forever. You can't. take it back. You might say, oops, I'm sorry. Well, I know I shouldn't have said that. That don't work. You say something sarcastically to somebody and you know what they say in their mind? They meant to say that way. Now they might act like they didn't want to but that's really what was in their heart of what they wanted to say. They wanted to have a mean mouth, a hateful spirit, a corrective spirit, something that just, that you go through problems and it tells you the power of that tongue to cut people, to hurt them. It's a very strong instrument. It's caused different people death by just speaking to them in a certain way. I'm saying to you it's a very important thing that you and I deal with our manner of speech and all evil speak and get away from it. Get away from it. All the world's slang and talk and sarcasm and sarcasm and insults and you know you hear me preach on satire and I It's a reality. You hurt people. You may see them snicker and laugh at it, but inside they're not laughing. Inside they're stewing. You never know just what kind of an example you left with a person if you're not careful with the tongue. Let me read now close. He said, as newborn babes, as people that are just birthed into the family of God, he said, desire the sincere milk of the word that you may grow thereby. You say, I've been saved a long time. Well, you and I'll never get to the state that we really don't need to read and read and reread the Word of God, and hunger for it, and love to read it, even the passages that just seem so easy, and yet there's so much depth in them. I'm learning 45 years of preaching, almost 50 years now, and I'm learning that some words that are so simple and plain have such power and use to them. And how we need to desire to grow in the area of drinking in the word of God and letting it have a place in our life. James said, I like James. James said, let the word of God dwell in you richly. Let it have a really supreme part of your life. May it be a great value to you, a treasure to you, sweeter than honey in the honeycomb. It's precious. The word of God by, without it, without it, where are you going to get an answer? Without it, how are you going to know the way? Without it, how are you going to know God? You're growing this grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so it's going to take a lot of Bible study and a lot of meditation in his word. One of the areas, one of the proofs that you're growing spiritually is that you can take a verse of the Bible and meditate on it. and squeeze all the sweet juices of that verse, God will reveal to you, you'll say, I've never seen it that way before. My, how much it feeds my soul and enlightens my mind. When you learn to observe, to do according to the thought that is written therein, when you learn to drink in the word of God and have it Just minister to your need. Answer a question of your mind. It's hard to describe meditation. It's a spiritual thing. It's a necessary thing. You don't gain much out of the Bible without meditating on. You're not going to get good understanding. You're not going to know how to apply it, how to fit into it, what God is saying to you unless you learn to meditate on His Word. You can meditate anytime. Sabbath said he meditated on His Word day and night. It says, Oh how I love thy law. Meditation day and night. You wake up in the middle of the night, you get a passage of scripture in your mind and begin to roll that over and begin to think about it and just keep dealing with it and what is it saying to me? Lord, what is your will for my life? What is this speaking about? Will you open my understanding to this truth? Help me to grasp this. Help me to understand it. If you don't seek, you won't find. If you don't knock, you'll not get an answer. You want to know the Bible. You want to know what God has to say. What riches, all the riches of both the wisdom and the knowledge of God. How unsearchable are His judgments, His ways past, find it out. How rich it is. how it'll help you calm your spirit, awaken your mind to a truth, help you to get beyond a lot of obstacles that you face and answer the questions of your mind. Oh, Earl Hughes, why don't you go in the closet and close the door and look up and say, Lord, how am I doing? Well, I think there's a mirror that will tell you the answer to that, I believe. I think that was part of one of my messages I was preaching. We'd rather, I was talking about we'd rather, I think it's this morning, believe a lie than receive the truth. That's when you look in the mirror and the mirror tells the truth about yourself and you go your same way and never make a change. So you'd rather believe the lie than the truth. Truth says this is what you are. You walk away and say, that ain't that bad. I ain't gonna fix that. All the wonders of the Word of God, how it can help you, how it can strengthen you, how you can get victory over the devil, the world, the flesh, and the devil. You hear me well. You do great service, disservice, disservice to your soul by not memorizing the Word of God. Sometimes I'll wake up And I'll say, oh, how does that verse start? Oh, Lord, I wanna say that verse. How does it go? And just strain and try to see and try to get part of the verses. Lord, how does that thing start? Wash you, make you clean. Put away the evil of your doing from before my eyes. Cease to do evil. Learn to do well. Seek judgment. Relieve the oppressed. Judge the fatherless. Plead for the widow. You've got something that'll stir your soul, feed you. Memorize the Word of God. After that, he says, come here. Come here. Come now. He says, though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow. Though they be red like crimson, they shall be as white He said, if you be willing and obedient, you'll eat the good of the land. That'll help you in the night. I love to quote it. There's so much in it. Relieve the oppressed. Seek judgment. Judge the fatherless. Plead for the widows. It's what God says. You got that word in your heart, you got something to stir your soul, stir your soul to action, concern about others. Something will feed you, set you on a right track to where you're not always thinking about yourself with, oh me, poor me, nobody loves me. God says, I'll give you something to do. Think about others. What you can do for others, how you can help others. You need to think about people around you that are not ready to meet God. You need, you and I, you and I, you and I need to think every once in a while, look at me. Look at me. You and I need to think real soberly and seriously sometimes about hell. Don't race that out of your mind. Don't avoid that. Don't pat yourself on the back and say, well, I'm not going. Watch yourself. Best thing for you is just to begin to really meditate and think about people in hell. Maybe somebody you knew well, and now they're crying out like the rich man in hell, Father Abraham, Father Abraham, send Lazarus thy might. Dip his finger in water and touch my tongue. Think about the possibility of somebody that's really close to you screaming in torment for all eternity in hell. Not a good subject, is it? Not a friendly subject, not a delightful subject, but it's a real subject that will help you carry a burden for souls, help you to wake up to the truth. I called the preacher in New York about my sister. She went to the church once in a while. And I said, she passed away, and I was going to head up to the funeral. And I said, she came to church? Yeah. I said, now be honest with me. He says, Brother Owen? He said, I've never seen her give a testimony. He said, I've never seen her turn to God. She's a sweet girl, wonderful girl, lovely girl, beautiful girl. He said, Brother Owen, I don't believe she was saved. What if somebody told you that about one of your kin or your children? God help us. It's what the Bible is teaching us when it says, be sober. Sober up, face reality, face the truth. There's a heaven and there is a hell. And if we don't get busy and burdened, seek God's face, there's gonna be some people you know real close, real close. that's going to miss heaven. Shall we stand? Preacher, what are you trying to do to us? Wake us up to the last days? I don't think we got a lot of time. I think the, I think the, as the Bible says, he's standing at the door. I believe he's turning the door knob. I believe it's gonna be soon. And the last thing you wanna hear, as somebody's left behind. God help us. Father, in Jesus' name, help us to wake out of this distracting, wicked, deceitful world's environment You set an ax for to save ourselves from this untoward generation. May we do it. May we get out of their foolish, empty, wasted life and begin to carry a burden for their soul. Learn to pray longer, stronger, more fervent, more zealous than we've ever prayed. May we pray, may we be able to pray an effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man that availeth much. May we be able to pray that. See, see our loved ones, family members. Turn to you. Thank you for the time together. You are good to me and I thank you. Thank you. Thank for your goodness, your kindness, your mercy, your help. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen, amen. You're dismissed. Leave it. Sorry, we are I want to go ahead and make it now, so I'm sorry The card somewhere this month was pastor Appreciation and we do want to recognize our preacher just tell them how much we love them appreciate them now all he does all the work he does not just preaching but all the The hard work different things he does around the church, and we do have a small fellowship in the fellowship hall afterwards and a card For him, it kind of got passed around. I'll get it to you as soon as I find it. But we got a card for you. I just want to tell you how much we love you and appreciate you. Thank you. Thank you. Amen. Thank you. Good job.