Well, I invite you to open your Bibles with me again this morning to James chapter three. James chapter three. And if you need a copy of scripture, if you weren't able to bring one with you today, we have those in the pew seat in front of you. And it will probably fall open to James chapter three by this point. And in your bulletin, I do have some notes should you decide to continue to track with me in this current study. Well, if you've had any access to the news feed this past week, right in the middle of all of the front lines is the discussion about Zuckerberg going through his hearings in front of the Senate about the privacy rules and policies of Facebook. And it's been in the news cycle now for pretty much the whole week. Now I'm not going to ask you to raise your hand, but I wonder how many of us have a Facebook account? I mean, I would raise my hand. Mine's on and then it's off. I'll go on for a while and then come off it for a while. But I've been involved with Facebook for some time. Our church has a Facebook. site that we try to keep fairly current. And so when I hear Facebook in the news so often, I'm listening. I'm listening. I came across some stats this week about Facebook that I found interesting. Did you know that worldwide there are over 2.13 billion, B, billion, monthly active Facebook users? Globally, over 2 billion. You say, give me a perspective on that. There are just over 7.5 billion humans on the earth right now. And there are 2.13 billion monthly active Facebook accounts. Five new Facebook profiles are created every single second. You say, well, what's the breakdown of who uses Facebook? 76% are female, 66% are male. I'm like, well, those don't add up to, but they clarify, the statistics clarifies that 76% of female out of 100% of the female. So 76 out of 100 females and 66% out of 100% of males use it. But that's still a staggering number. Just today, there will be 300 million photo uploads worldwide to Facebook. The average time spent per Facebook visit is 20 minutes. And then the next question I want to know, but I didn't want to do the research, is how many times do we visit Facebook every day and spend those 20 minutes, right? I think it was John Piper that said, if Facebook doesn't do anything else, it'll prove on the Day of Judgment that we did have time to pray. We did. But I'll let that one alone, right? Every 60 seconds, there are 510,000 comments posted, 293,000 statuses are updated, and 136,000 photos are uploaded. I mean, it's just amazing. But if you think about it, Facebook is all about words. Despite the name Facebook, it's all about words. It's a way, whether you're involved in it or not, or whether you're excited about it or not, Facebook has become a way where we connect with other people, old friends and new friends, for the sake, listen, of reading their words. Or for the sake of sharing our words. You say, well, wait a minute. We put pictures up on Facebook. We upload images and put events up there. Yeah, and then we write words about those pictures. Or we write words in our response to those pictures. I mean, Facebook is all about the world of words. And if we're not impressed with the power of words just by the one example of Facebook, then we're missing the obvious. Words are powerful. I've come across some wisdom words about words, as one person said. Just some practical proverbs about our conversation, our words. Someone said, an argument is two people trying to get in the last word. That's true. Someone else says, if you have nothing to say, say it. Or someone else said, don't speak unless you can improve on the silence. I like that one. He who thinks of the inch and talks by the yard deserves to be kicked by the foot. I like that one. Someone else said, it isn't hard to make a mountain out of a molehill, just add a little dirt. And then one more wise saying. It's actually a rhyme. A wise old owl lived in an oak. The more he saw, the less he spoke. The less he spoke, the more he heard. Why can't we all be like that bird? Words of wisdom. We live in a world of words. And James as he wrote his epistle, wants us to never forget that reality. As I pointed out last week, in every single chapter of this epistle, James is addressing our words. But it's here as we come to chapter 3, as we did last week, as we pulled our chair up to these first dozen verses of chapter 3, we have one of the most compressed yet extensive sections of Scripture dealing with our words. We don't need to read Facebook to get this information. We don't need to read old wise sayings about words to get this information. All we need to do is open our Bibles to James 3 and read verses 1-12. Follow along as I read about the power of your words. James 3, Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, knowing that as such we will incur a stricter judgment. For we all stumble in many ways. If anyone does not stumble in what he says, he's a perfect man, able to bridle the whole body as well. Now, if we put the bits into the horse's mouth so that they will obey us, we direct their entire body as well. Or look at the ships also. Though they are so great and are driven by strong winds, They are still directed by a very small rudder wherever the inclination of the pilot desires. So also the tongue is a small part of the body, and yet it boasts of great things. See how great a forest is set aflame by such a small fire. And the tongue is a fire. The very world of iniquity The tongue is set among our members as that which defiles the entire body and sets on fire the course of our life and is set on fire by hell. For every species of beast and of birds, of reptiles and creatures of the sea is tamed and has been tamed by the human race. But no one can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil and full of deadly poison. With it, we bless our Lord and Father. And with it, we curse men who have been made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come both blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be this way. Does a fountain send out from the same opening both fresh and bitter water? Can a fig tree, my brethren, produce olives? Or a vine produce figs? Nor can salt water produce fresh. Last week in our study, We called our time in verses 1 and 2, a muscle warning. A muscle warning. And we saw that teachers, those who minister the Word in the public setting, in the context of a New Testament local church, will face what James writes is a stricter judgment. And I love how James includes himself in those first two verses twice with the word, we. He feels the weight of this too. You say, well why? Why is he talking about that? Remember, there would have been a shortage of teachers in their gathering. Their gatherings for worship would have resembled, at this early point in the church history, with this being a Jewish readership, it would have looked a lot, felt a lot like synagogue worship. And teachers were invited to come up front and teach. And there must have been some clamoring to get up front to teach. There was a shortage of teachers because of the persecution and the scattering. And for some reason, people were throwing elbows to get into the spotlight to have a position of leadership and teach. And James is like, slow down. Don't clamor for the spotlight and for leadership. You understand, don't you, that we who minister the Word are going to face a stricter judgment, a stricter reckoning, if you will. You say, why is that? Well, we said last week because, first of all, content. We have to make sure that when we say, when we open the Bible and we say, this is what God said, this is what God is saying in His Word, we better be right. Our content must have a fidelity to, a loyalty to, and a clarity and accuracy with what God has revealed in His Word. And we're going to have to answer for that. We're going to have to answer for content. But secondly, we're going to have to answer for our integrity. Where is the integrity of a teacher like us, James says, who stands in front of you and says, this is God's will and His Word, and then we leave the front of the room and we don't live it? What kind of force do I have when I say to my son Jared, Jared, pray like I don't. Spend time in the Word of God like I refuse to do. There's no integrity there. So it's a stricter judgment. Content, integrity, but then thirdly, we're going to face a stricter judgment because of impact. And by that, James said last week to us from these two verses, that when we teach, we set people on a trajectory and they start moving in that direction. Have we put them on a right path? A stricter judgment. And so James didn't pull many punches last week. But then something interesting happens. Somewhere around verse 2, James gets out of the pulpit, so to speak. He walks around, down from the stage, and he sits in the pew with the congregation. And he says, although those who stand up in front have to be very cautious with how they teach and what they teach and how they live. He says, as I sit down here in the congregation, if you will, we all need to be careful. Somewhere in verse 2, James transitions from just focusing on those who would aspire to leadership in the local church gatherings, and now he says, we need to, as Christians, Feel the weight of our words. And again, he uses the word we in verse 2. We all stumble in many ways. What is he doing here? James is giving to us from the ground level, words of wisdom about words. And what he's going to give to us in the next ten verses is heavy. I must admit, I wish I had more of a warm devotional sermon for you this morning. Especially since some of you might be grumpy because of the ice. It took me about two miles to get past that in my own heart. Some of you have had a great weekend, an encouraging weekend at the retreat. I wish I had some encouraging, uplifting, joyful words for you. And I think I do at the end. But between now and the end of the message, this is heavy stuff. This is going to weigh down on our shoulders in a very heavy way. Because what happens as we come to these next ten verses is this. We must be struck. by the destructive force of our words. We must feel this weight. Why? We must feel this weight so that the urgency to subdue our tongues and even use them for the good of the Gospel will be fueled. Our urgency must be fueled so the weight must be felt. And so what I want to do is work our way through verses 2. We're going to back up into verse 2 again. All the way down to verse 12. And I want you to notice 8 sobering reminders regarding the power of your words. And I want you to capture all 8 of these. First of all, number 1. Words are the great equalizer when it comes to growing in Christ. Your words are the great equalizer when it comes to growing in Christ, when it comes to maturing as a disciple. Or in theological talk, it's key, your words are key indicators and key equalizers with regards to your progressive sanctification. You say, yeah, say that all with smaller words. Here it is. No matter how long you've been in Christ, your words will remain and must remain a constant focus in your life. If you're a new believer, and we've had God save people here in the last year, if you're a new believer in Christ, you need to set your focus and level the sights at your mouth. If you're in mid-life as a believer, I don't know where you are as far as decades, as far as chronological age, but if you've been saved for some season of life, for a good chunk of your life so far, nothing's changed. Your focus must remain on what comes out of your mouth. And I would even say to those who might be towards the sunset of their pilgrimage in this life, You've walked with the Lord for decades. It's you that would stand up and say, this is absolutely right. You would say, from the sunset of your life, I have never been able to take my focus off of my mouth. When I have, even in old age, I've regretted it. Your words are the great equalizer when it comes to growing in Christ. And I'm so glad that I see in verse 2 these words, for we, that's James included, this is Jesus' little brother, remember? By the way, he's speaking from the vantage point of having grown up with Jesus, who had no sin. So James would have been the first kid in the family to mess up with his mouth probably, right? Maybe that's another reason, reason number 65, why he was slow to place his faith in his brother as an adult. But James is saying, I'm telling you, and James is getting up there in years too, He's like, we all stumble in many ways. If anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to bridle the whole body as well. And we saw last week that phrase, perfect man, takes us back to the same word being used in chapter 1 verse 4, where it talks about the importance of enduring trials of all sorts, Why? Because it's the testing of your faith that produces maturity and brings you to completion. Same word that we see in 3.2. It's talking about maturity. It's talking about Christlikeness. And you may say, well, you know, I struggle in my Christian life. Or you may sit here and think, you know what, I have some momentum going into Christian life. Listen, our words are the great equalizer. They humble us all no matter where we are in our discipleship. I remember taking driver's training in Pontiac, Michigan when I was 15. And it was like the second day of class. And for some reason, I got there just a little bit late that day. My mom dropped me off late, I guess. And I walked in and I found out that my classmates had volunteered me to be the first one to drive on the road that day. Listen, my parents never let me drive anything but the lawnmower. up to that point. I was one of those kids that didn't have the advantage of having been behind a wheel ever. And now I have a teacher in the car and two students in the back. And I've never driven a car. So I got out on the road on Telegraph and I saw that the speed limit at that point was 45, 40 or 45-ish. And so I got it up there and there wasn't a lot of traffic that day. And he said, well, I want you to change lanes. I changed lanes with the blinker. And then he says, now you're going to turn left up here. And the light was green. There was no traffic. So I made a left-hand turn at 45. Seriously, I didn't know any better. It's second day of class. And my teacher and the smart alecks in the back seat were all pasted onto the passenger side of the car. And I grinned. And then my teacher says, didn't you know you're supposed to take turns always? This kind of driving at 15 miles an hour. I was like, were you going to go over that today in class? He goes, actually, yes. OK, that would have been nice to know. I didn't know. There are some things I learned in basic training, if you will, for driving. Things like use your blinker. I know that's a novel idea in southeast Michigan. Things like turns at 15 miles an hour. Things like looking over your shoulder before you change lanes, even if you've already cleared your mirrors. But these basics are things that I didn't just need to learn at 15. I need to remember when I'm 75 and driving. That's what you need to remember about your tongue. At every chapter of your life, it's the great equalizer. We never stop working on that. Statement number two. Sobering reminder number two. Words undercut all other strengths. Words undercut all other strengths that a person may have. Look at verse three. Now if we put the bits into the horse's mouths so that they will obey us, we direct their entire bodies as well. We direct their entire body. I don't know when's the last time you stood up next to a horse. And usually when you're standing next to a horse, you're careful of where you're standing too, right? And a horse is a little bit bigger than you are. And a horse has a few more muscles than you have. I like what Arkent Hughes, how he described to his church family the scene of this horse. He says this, take 550 pounds, and by the way, that's as much as a puffing Olympic heavyweight lifter can hoist overhead. 550 pounds. Take 550 pounds, set it on a horse's back, and it will barely snort as it stands breathing easily under the burden. The same horse, unburdened, can sprint a quarter mile in about 25 seconds. A horse is a half ton of raw power. Yet, if you place a bridle and a bit in its mouth, and you put a hundred pound woman on its back who knows what she's doing, the animal can literally be made to dance." You see, when you put the bit in the horse's mouth like that, you have not removed any ounce of energy or power or strength from that horse. It's merely being controlled by its mouth. But here's the thing you need to remember. To these Jewish minds that are receiving this letter, they're not thinking about a dancing circus horse. Most of the horses these Jewish readers would have come across on a regular basis were military horses. or prancing war horses, as one person put it. They are much bigger and stronger and bolder and intimidating. As a matter of fact, God Himself, when He's giving Job a one-on-one lecture in Job 39, verses 19-25, He paints with His brush strokes of His words an amazing picture of a war horse that just smells and snorts and discerns war in the air, and he's ready to charge towards the enemy. That's the kind of horse that James has in his mind here. And he says, you take something that big, that powerful, you'll control it merely by controlling its mouth. You know, there's a lot of people all around us, including us to one degree or another. We have a lot of good strengths. Strengths of character. Strengths of personality. Strengths of skill set and career path. Strength of a heritage of a church like ours, like Calvary Baptist Church. We all have strengths. But you know what James is saying in verse 3? With all the strength that we have, we can undo our strength with just a few words. You control a person's words. You control what comes out of their mouth. You control them. But that can also be their downfall. Ropes says in his commentary, it is with men as with horses. Control their mouth and you are masters of their action. Words. How powerful they are. Words undercut all other strengths. But a third reminder. A third reminder of the weight and the power of your words. Here it is. Words undercut the most impressive of presence and position." Words undercut the most impressive of presence and position. Look at v. 4. He says, look at the ships also. Though they are so great and are driven by strong winds, are still directed by a very small rudder wherever the inclination of the pilot desires. What James is doing here is he's taking our view away from a very large, powerful land animal and he says, let's get bigger. And what he does next is he points the direction of their mind to the largest inanimate object to their memories. Ships. Now I used to think I knew something about boats. I grew up on a pond in Clarkston. I had a rowboat. I knew everything there was to know about moving a boat through the water, I thought, from an early age. Then we moved to a lake in Clarkston, and I not only had a rowboat and a canoe, but my family had a pontoon. So now I was on top of the world, especially when it comes to fishing. And then my dad and a distant cousin of mine went in on a boat that we docked at Lake St. Clair for fishing, which was yet bigger. And now at this point I'm thinking basically I know everything there is to know about any kind of nautical vessel. Just because we had a little boat on Lake St. Clair. And then I left Michigan, went to the south, and spent those decades down there. But the last 11 I was living at the ocean, where the largest naval base in the world is located at Norfolk. And we have men in our church that command those vessels. And I remember we had one captain invite Lori and me and Jared to come tour the ship he was getting ready to be deployed on and he was like in charge of this ship. And it was a smaller battleship. And so we toured this ship and went through the different decks. We looked at the different technology, what we were allowed to see. Everyone saluting him as we walked by. I felt pretty important. I was on a ship that was just huge. It was like a building that was floating. And then we came out of the ship and I looked across to a couple of docks over and there sat an aircraft carrier. which made our boat look small. If our boat was a building, that boat is literally, an aircraft carrier is literally, as Scott can tell you and other Navy guys here, that's a city. That's a floating city with an airport. One captain in our church said, I don't know how true this is because I'm not in the Navy, but he says it can take sometimes, depending on the sea conditions, two miles to turn an aircraft carrier. That's huge. Now, as big as that is in our mind's eye, when James says, I want you to think of a ship, they're still thinking of large vessels. We happen to know that there were 276 passengers on Paul's ship that he took to Malta. That's recorded in Acts 27. 276 passengers. So they were capable of large vessels. And James is basically saying, these things are big. They're foreboding. Their presence is intimidating. And then you put something that big, not just out in the sea, but put it out in a stormy sea. And you know what? That boat's still going to go. As big as it is, as stormy as it is, that boat is still going to go wherever the whim of the skipper directs it. Because it's controlled by a small rudder, And that rudder is controlled by a smaller lever, and that small lever is controlled by just a few fingers of the skipper. Wow. You know, as impressive as the presence of a ship like that, the words control it. Or the words, if you will, will undo it. It's the same with our lives. What a rudder is to a ship, our mouths are to who we are. There's a lot of people that you'd like to disengage their Twitter account, right? Because no matter what position they have and no matter what powerful presence they have, it can be undone. As a matter of fact, in Ecclesiastes 10.1, you know the picture. Just like flies falling into the perfume create a stink, so does a little folly in the life of someone who's supposed to be wise and elevated. Words undercut the most impressive of presence and position. Reminder number four. Reminder number four. Words have the ability to destroy beyond remedy. Words have the ability to destroy beyond remedy. In other words, they don't just mess something up that can be easily fixed. Words are capable of taking something that was good and moving it to a position of being totally unusable. Look at verses 5 and 6. James says, So also the tongue is a small part of the body, and yet it boasts of great things. See how great a forest is set aflame by such a small fire. And the tongue is a fire. The very world of iniquity. The tongue is set among our members as that which defiles the entire body, and sets on fire the course of our life, and is set on fire by hell. It's an interesting phrase there at the end of verse 5. See how great a forest is set aflame by such a small fire. You have two pictures here. You have a huge forest, not just a few trees in your front yard. You have a huge forest where you can't discern the end of the forest looking this way or this way. Forest, tall and wide. You have that contrasted with just a little flame. Yet, when it comes right down to it, this little flame can beat all that. James is actually having fun with his vocabulary here. The word great and small at the end of verse 5 is actually the same Greek word. And it's a word that the context determines. Are we talking something big here or small? But either way, you can't miss the dynamic. It's big. It's really big. Or if it's small, it's really small. And he's using that to point out that it just takes a little tiny thing to destroy something big. I remember shortly after we moved to Chesapeake, Virginia, it was probably 10 or 11 o'clock one night and I think actually we were going to bed and I noticed a different light coming in our blinds than normal from our neighbors. And it looked like it was going bright and then retracting a little. And it was like, what's that? That's not the normal porch light coming through. And I looked out the window and my neighbor's house behind me was on fire. It had just caught on fire. Now we had a lot of Navy guys that would come and live in that house. We could never figure out who was the owner. A lot of Navy guys would be in and out based on deployments, based on whatever. And the homeowners didn't allow any smoking in the house, so there was a little bucket on the back porch for them to put their cigarette butts into. They'd have to come outside on the back porch and do that. And they kept that bucket real close to the house. Well, I guess it got full. And the guy was out there smoking and he finished and he put the butt in there. And the butt caught something in the pail on fire. The flame was high enough to reach the siding of the house. And it literally caught the siding on fire going up a corner. And it went up through that access into the attic like in a matter of just two or three minutes. And then the whole attic was on fire. Just right now. And I'm watching this from my window. So I run outside and the guy's out on the back porch just kind of watching it. And I'm like, hey, do you want my hose from the garden? And he goes, yeah, dude, that'd be cool. And so I got my hose and I was going to save the day and get in the newspaper, and my hose barely reached the fence. And I tried to squirt it, and it fell way short. I was like, yeah, sorry about that. And by then the fire department's coming. But by then the whole attic had been consumed, and it had gotten into the house. And everyone got out safely, and I was over there talking with them later. And they were just shocked. They were so thankful to be alive. But they were shocked that such a small, not even a flame, just the red ember of a cigarette butt could ignite what was in that bucket and totally take over the house and destroy it. And they were out of it for six or seven months while it was reconstructed. A little flame undercuts and destroys beyond remedy. We have to be reminded that When it comes to our words, they're like fire in this sense especially. Fire does not merely wound. It changes everything. So too are our words. Psalm 120 verses 3 and 4. Listen to this. Listen to this. What shall be given to you? Or what shall be done to you, you false tongue? Sharp arrows of the warrior with coals of the broom tree." Those are the words. They're weapons. It's like shooting fire. Proverbs 16, verse 27, an ungodly man digs up evil and it is on his lips like a burning fire. Psalm 57 verse 4, My soul is among lions. I lie among the sons of men who are set on fire, whose teeth are spears and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword. Your words have the ability to destroy beyond remedy. With just a few words from your mouth, you can totally obliterate one person's testimony that has taken years to build. With one or just a few words, you can totally exploit and make vulnerable someone's spiritual weaknesses. You can attack someone's character and bring question marks into people's minds about that person. We see this with the media every day. Even saying something that's not true, it lodges in the mind. It's like the scene in court where a lawyer gives way more information than he should, plants some seeds of even falsehood in the ears of the jury, and then the judge will say, strike that last statement from the record. Yeah, right. It stays. It stays. How much damage our tongues have done in Washtenaw County? Whether it's been someone we lost our patience with at Walmart, or Meyer at the checkout. Whether it's been a friend in our cul-de-sac. Maybe it's been someone in the lobby here, or in the fellowship hall, or the kitchen. And maybe it's been years. Maybe it's been your living room. According to James, words have the ability to destroy beyond remedy. Are you feeling the weight? The fifth reminder, here it is. Words carve out your character and legacy. Words carve out your character and your legacy. You say, say that another way. Okay, your words will define you, listen, beyond how you want to be defined. Look at verse number six. The tongue is a fire. The very world of iniquity, the tongue is set among our members as that which defiles the entire body and sets on fire the course of our life and is set on fire by hell. It's interesting, that phrase in the New American Standard here, it is the very world of iniquity. There's a word here you're familiar with, a Greek word. It's the word kosmos. It's talking about the world order that we're in right now. And it says this, that in the power of our tongue, remember he's writing the Christians. Even with Christians. Our tongue carries with it all of the bad residue of living in a fallen world. We can sure get ticked off at unsaved people when their tongue is going wild on TV or at a rally or whatever, but you know what? We hold the same potential in our tongue. The very world of iniquity is present In our mouth. It's Chuck Swindoll I think that said, our tongue is a two ounce slab of a mucus membrane. But my oh my is it powerful. It's a very world of iniquity. MacDonald puts it this way, it is all the evil characteristics of the fallen world portable in you. Our words. Words carve out your character and legacy. It also says in this verse that it is set among the members of our body this way, so that it defiles the entire body. What the tongue says brings effect and impact back on the entire body. And it says that it defiles. What does that mean? This is a word that's talking about staining in a very permanent way. It's talking about polluting, contaminating. I think even your ESV says, stain. Every part of your life gets stained by what you say. Again, not just at Walmart, not just in the cul-de-sac, not just in the lobby, but when you're home, in your closest relationships. Your words stain your character and your legacy with those around you. And if that's not enough, he says here at the end of v. 6, it sets on fire the course of our life. Literally, this is the wheel of life. Or if I can borrow the phrase from the Lion King, the circle of life. You say, what is he communicating with that phrase? It means this, as much as the words I will speak today, as much as those stain every part of my character, Hold that potential. It will do it not just today, but it's going to do it tomorrow. And it's going to do it next week. And it'll do it as long as I live for the rest, the span of my life. And not only that, we're not just talking with this phrase, this whole wheel of life, this course of nature idea. It's not just talking about the tenure of my life, but it means every day what I speak sprays out and affects every part of every day. He's going to great lengths here to explain that your words have the ability not only to destroy beyond remedy with fire, but also to carve out your legacy and your character. Have you ever found yourself asking this question? Maybe in your marriage, maybe in your parenting, maybe towards your parents? Maybe with co-workers or students, have you ever found yourself asking this question, why do people treat me the way they do? Why do they respond to me the way they do? Why the reaction that's so predictable? I mean, it's as if their guard is up about me and I just asked a simple question. I was just making an observation. Why do people treat me the way they do? Well, the answer is this, your words, right or wrong, have established their reality of you. They've stained every part of you. Even your best of intentions. Are you feeling the weight of this Word? William MacDonald in his commentary says, your tongue affects the whole of wickedness in the whole of the man for the whole of his life. It defines him. It defines her. Right or wrong? It defined one lady whose husband obviously got to write whatever went on her tombstone after she was gone. This is in an English country church cemetery. The tombstone reads, beneath this stone, a lump of clay, lies Arabella Young, who on the 24th of May began to hold her tongue. It's like, wow. Whoever Arabella Young was, or her husband, they're making the same point that James is making in verse six. Your tongue, like it or not, right or wrong, what comes out of your mouth, produces the reality of you, your character, and your legacy. Three more. Very heavy statements, reminders. Number six, words can give an earthly expression to hellish realities. Words can give an earthly expression to hellish realities. Again, look at the end of verse six. Your tongue is set on fire by hell. Just a few lines back it said our tongue is like a flame, even just a little tiny flame. that can take out the whole forest. But you want to know what lit that flame? James says, hell itself. I don't know that there's many more shocking words that James can reach for to jolt our attention to how we talk. It says, your tongue is set on fire by hell. This is Gehenna. This is the Jewish valley on the southwest side of Jerusalem. And in that day there is a perpetual burning going on, the burning of trash. It was the place of false worship in the Old Testament. And it became symbolic of the future abode of Satan and his minions. Kent Hughes put it this way, the uncontrolled tongue has a direct pipeline to hell. And this pipeline is reciprocal. It not only receives, but it sends. It's fueled by hell. It burns our lives with its filthy fires, but it also, as John Calvin says, it is an instrument for catching, encouraging, and increasing the fires of hell. There couldn't be a more sobering statement in all of Scripture about our words. In John chapter eight, when our Lord says to those who are challenging him, you are of your father, the devil. Remember that? John 8.44. And then how does he go on to describe the primary characteristic of their father, the devil? He says, Jesus merely says, he's not of the truth, And he's a liar. The biggest descriptor of Satan himself is what comes out of his mouth, so to speak. And James says, hell sets the tongue on fire. Words can give an earthly expression to hellish realities. And number seven, words are humanly untamable. Words are humanly untameable. Look at verses 7 and 8. For every species of beast and birds, of reptiles and creatures of the sea is tamed and has been tamed by the human race, but no one can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil and full of deadly poison. It's interesting this four-fold breakdown of the animal world. Every species of beast and birds, reptiles and creatures. This is the same designation we see in the Old Testament Scriptures. In Genesis 9, as we're dealing with Noah and that whole scene, same designation. James here, knowing that his readers would be familiar with Genesis, is saying every kind of animal that's ever existed, man can at least get in front of, and while they might not all make good house pets, a man can control them to a degree. He says, and as hard as that's been, they still haven't figured out a way to control the tongue. I don't know what kind of animals you allow in your house. In our house, we've had, as long as I've been alive, there's been poodles around, I think. Up until just a few years ago, when our 16-year-old poodle departed. We've had poodles. Poodles, I think, are cats with expensive haircuts. I think you can look at them that way. When I was growing up, I also had Labrador retrievers. I enjoy labs. I used to have chameleons. I didn't mind chameleons. Two things I'd never thought I'd have as a pet, A, a tarantula, because I don't like spiders, and number two, or B, letter B, a snake. I don't mind snakes. I don't mind cutting their head off and then going up and looking at them up close, right? I don't like snakes. So I never saw this coming. My son, when he was young, watched Jurassic Park with dinosaurs, and one named Raptor, and Jared wanted one. And I'm like, well, raptors are gone. Or if they even existed, whatever, you can debate that. But yeah, we're not going to get a dinosaur because they're all sold out, OK? And he kept looking and talking and talked to some of his friends who had pets. And he says, no, I want a snake as a pet. I'm like, well, you can go out in the woods and look at them. And he says, no, you can get the whole thing. I want it in my bedroom like my friend Luke has. You're gonna bring a snake in the house? And it's gonna stay in here while I'm sleeping? And you know what? We ended up doing that for him and surprised him one Christmas. We got him the thing to keep it in and we bought him a California red snake, I think is what it's called. It's part of the bow family. It was that big. You gotta admit, I'm not a snake person, but that was cute. And I remember once it escaped as we were taking it to where we were going to surprise him. It escaped in the van. I had to find it. But as you handled the snake, it got used to it. And after the snake was no longer this big, after a few years, you know, it's this big. Very docile still, never struck at us for those first couple of years. And you could bring it out, show the company, put it on your shoulder, it'd just kind of sit there and say like, what's up, you know, to everyone in the room. It thought it was one of you. It was a very kind pet, it was. We'd feed it mice, and my wife would even give it a bath. She would. You say, that's not right. Is it? Are you supposed to do that? It wouldn't shed its skin, and we were told that sometimes you have to help it, so she'd help it shed its skin every couple of months in the sink, and just talk to it, and they had good fellowship. That's as far as I can relate to taming something other than a poodle. I can't even relate to the elephant thing. Or the lion thing. But James is basically saying that's okay. As much as you haven't had to wrestle with an elephant or a lion or an alligator, you have something bigger to wrestle with. And that is your mouth. Your words. It says, no man can tame them. Well, there is some hope in this verse though. Homer Kent in his commentary points out that the Greek word order is very important here. It can literally read this way, but the tongue no one is able to subdue of men. So just when we feel the weight crushing us, we start to see hope. With all the destructive potential of our tongues, even as Christians, and we find ourselves in despair, man, we can't control this at all. James is saying, well, I want to be clear, no man can control it. There's hope. But it's going to come from outside of ourselves. But I still need you to feel one more weight be lowered on our shoulders here about our words. Words number eight. Words offer the greatest expression of spiritual hypocrisy. Words offer the greatest expression of spiritual hypocrisy. Now look at verse 9. With the tongue we bless our Father and Lord, and with it we curse men who have been made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come both blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be this way. Does a fountain send out from the same opening both fresh and bitter water? Can a fig tree, my brethren, produce olives, or a vine produce figs? Nor can salt water produce fresh." We have two illustrations here of fresh water and salt water, and both should be unique to their source. Salt water produces salt water. Fresh water produces fresh water. These Jewish readers would have remembered the waters of Marah in Exodus 15.23. It says, Now when they came to Marah, they could not drink the waters of Marah, for they were bitter. They would have also thought of 2 Kings 2 when Elisha and his group could not drink water because it was poisonous. It was not good to drink and he had to be used by the Lord to fix that. Their minds going. You can't go to bitter water and drink it as if it's good. You can't do that. And then they reach to their areas of commerce, agriculture if you will, talking about figs produce figs. Olives produce olives. Let's update that a little bit. He might say something to us if he's writing this to us today. You can't pull up to the drive-thru at McDonald's and order a deep dish stuffed crust pizza. It doesn't come out of McDonald's. You can't go to Taco Bell and order Captain Crunch French toast. That comes out of the bomber. Or a better example is you can't pull up to the drive-thru at Starbucks and get good coffee. You gotta go to Dunkin' Donuts. You knew that was coming, right? But he's using these to illustrate something very serious, and I call it the greatest expression of spiritual hypocrisy. He says, with our tongue, and the Jews would say, blessed be he, whenever they referred to God in worship or in conversation, blessed be he. You say that, you bless the Lord, and then you turn right around and you curse someone made in his image. How can that be? That should be impossible. By the way, don't miss the fact that he's referring to both the first and the second great commands. Love the Lord your God with your whole heart, mind, soul, and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself. He says our tongue can undo us and make us the largest hypocrite in the room because what we say to man, the second great command, undoes anything we said to God in worship. You've heard the story of the little boy who was sitting by his parents in church and he heard them just singing at the top of their lungs and saying amen during the sermon and speaking comforting spiritual words to friends in the lobby. And then he got in the van and they went home and they're sitting around the table and then the dad says, let's go ahead and pray for our meal. And it just out comes just a beautiful prayer of thanksgiving for the meal. And then for the next 10 minutes, the father and the mother shred so many people from church that they were with that morning. They talk about the horrible job the musicians did. They complain about the preacher. They criticize what was worn in the lobby. And they just go on and on. And the little boy is just listening to this. And finally he says, Dad, I have a question. You sung your heart out this morning, right? Yeah. And you prayed before this meal, right? Yeah. But I'm just curious, which one does God hear? That, or what you're saying about the other people? It's a good question. Your words offer the greatest expression of spiritual hypocrisy. And by the way, don't miss it. Here's another allusion to the Sermon on the Mount. In Matthew 7, verse 16, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, there and in a few verses after that, you'll know them by their fruits. Just two concluding observations to this list of eight. What I wanted to do today, as painful as it is, is look in the mirror like we learned to do in chapter 1. Look in the mirror and don't hurry away. So number one, looking into this mirror forces us to our knees, does it not? Have you been crushed by the potential or even the carnage that you've already seen from your words? Just think through your friends and your relatives, your business associates, your neighbors, even strangers we talk to. You know, maybe just maybe at this point we can relate to Isaiah. As he stands in the presence of the Lord in Isaiah chapter 6, and in verse 5, his only response, his first and only response is, woe is me for I am undone. What do you mean Isaiah? Because I am a man of unclean lips. And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. For my eyes have seen the King. the Lord of hosts. You and I need to stop excusing and covering our words. And don't start at Walmart as you grade yourself now. Start in the privacy of your most intimate relationships. Change starts there. It's here that we are undone. Even this week, I've gone through this week, aware of these eight points. I've driven around town with these eight points in my mind. I've spent time in my office here, in my office at home with these eight points. They have dogged me this week only to crush me. I mean, even when no one's home, Lori's at the retreat, and if my iPhone does something wrong or doesn't do something fast enough, my mouth opens and stuff comes out. I'm like, it's a phone. Well, you understand that the nouns and verbs are not the ultimate issue. The mouth gives voice to what's in the heart. And now we understand the problem. And we're like, Lord, an iPhone can best me. And it's a heart problem, Lord. Change the heart, you change the nouns and verbs. And so, Lord, I'm desperate. I read in Isaiah 53 and Isaiah 61 that the Lord was perfect in when He didn't open His mouth and when He did. And because of the great exchange of Calvary, I get credit for that positionally. And because of the bad nouns and verbs that I'm constantly having to hear come out of my mouth and I have to deal with, Jesus has totally suffered for all those. And there's been an amazing exchange. But that amazing exchange doesn't mean the battle's over. It makes me all the more desperate for His grace every five minutes. And how I talk. Looking into the mirror forces us to our knees. But secondly, looking into the mirror also shows us the incredible potential our words possess. Do they not? You can go back this afternoon and read through all eight statements and turn them into a positive statement. That's kind of what we're going to do next Sunday, Lord willing. And suddenly, your heart is filled with hope that's sourced in Christ. We're going to talk about muscle control next time.