James 3:8 tells us the tongue is a “restless evil and full of deadly poison.” I don’t need to explain that verse – we just experienced an entire year that showed it played out in real life. As we scroll on social media, we see the devastating effects of spoken words. The tongue is indeed restless: hard to keep silent and content. People have been so quick to spew hatred, discord, and poison this past year within the political arena as well as state and local mandates and handling of the virus. So we know the truth of James 3:8, but the question is: what do we do about it?
James 3:2 says, “For 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.” Did you notice that little word at the beginning of the verse? We all stumble. It didn’t say only men stumble, or only women stumble, or just the teenagers, or maybe only those with drug and alcohol addictions. Nope. We all have the ability to fall off the path of righteousness and into sin. This shouldn’t be a newsflash to us because we are told in Romans 3:10:
“There are none righteous. Not even one.”
We are all prone to sin and become hindered in our spiritual progress. And James 3:2 says we sin not in one way or a couple ways, but in “many ways.” How humbling is that?!
Sometimes we like to categorize sin and think our sin is smaller than somebody else’s sin. We think ours is less significant and not as serious. How wrong we are! Sin is sin is sin is sin. Sin by any other name is sin. There is no big, small, innocent, serious, or other category – it’s all sin. When we compartmentalize sin and try to give it pet names, we fail to see the ramifications and potentially deadly consequences it can have on our life.
James 3:2 goes on to say that the one who is able to control his tongue and “does not stumble in what he says,” … “is a perfect man, able to bridle his own body.” Wow! What control that speaks of! Who in the world does not sin in what they say? I don’t know very many people who have that gift of not sinning with their words. I definitely do not fall into that category! My tongue is my weakness.
James is showing us a great way to measure our spiritual maturity. Listen to the words you speak each day. Are they uplifting? Are they true? Are they encouraging? Are they condemning? Are they wicked? Are they sweet like honey? Are they spreading hope or spreading lies? Are they spreading the Good News or the local gossip?
James gives us some examples of things that are powerful, yet small, like the tongue. He compares it to the bit in a horse’s mouth and the rudder on a ship. Both items are small in nature, yet they have the ability to control such large animals and structures.
A horse is a powerfully strong creature and a large ship surely cannot stop or turn on a dime. It just doesn’t seem possible that something so relatively small would have the power to move something so big. The ability to control both of these items can be found in the one at the helm. The horse rider must keep a tight grip on the reigns. Not that he must be forceful, but he doesn’t want to lose his grip nor let the reigns fall from his fingers. The captain of the ship must also keep his hands on the wheel, always in control of his vessel. Who is in control of our vessel? Who keeps restraint on us and the words we speak? What motivation do we have to tighten that grip?
I’m sure we can all think of someone who is loose with their mouth, but we fail to consider our own mouth. We are reminded that the tongue “boasts of great things” (James 3:5), but we often fail to do as we say. We teach and speak all day long, but how often do we back up what we say. How close does our walk match our talk? James firmly, but lovingly, points us toward having the Spirit of God be the One setting His hands on the reigns and rudder of our tongue; and the reason is because the “do as I say, not as I do” attitude does not work with God. As James tells us, we’re playing with fire and we’re going to get burned and others will too. We need to be more careful that we are not stumbling blocks for others.
It doesn’t take many words to cause damage – it only takes one. Sometimes we are quick to compound those words with successive firing from our mouth and it’s like kindling. Before long, we have a forest fire because we just couldn’t keep silent. We didn’t suppress the flesh and allow the Holy Spirit to reign, and the root of that is selfishness.
James 3:5b-6a, “How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire! The tongue is a fire,”
When fires are investigated, there is team who comes to the scene and looks at the debris and investigates the whole area looking for the source of the fire. Our words have the ability to cause devastating destruction, and if a fire investigator were to come to the scene for us, they would find the source is pride and selfishness. We want to speak our piece. We want to get out how we feel so we somehow feel better – never considering how the receiving party is impacted. We know our tongue can be a sword, and somehow we don’t care who we cut. We want to feel better, so we take the cheap shot. We throw the daggers from our lips and we walk away unmoved. Sometimes it’s a heated moment, other times it can be a days long (or even weeks long) battle.
Fires burn and hurt – that’s the way with our words. They not only affect us, but anyone in their path. The affects on others can be massive and consuming, and it can impede their spiritual progress.
We see this illustrated in Numbers 12. Miriam became prideful and resented Moses as a leader. She even stirred up her brother Aaron against Moses. She encouraged division in her family because of her selfish and insecure ways. Instead of being content and trusting God, she allowed her mouth to get out of control, spark a fire, and it festered and began to rage. What she failed to remember is the omnipresence of God. He sees what we do, and He hears what we say. Nothing escapes His ears! The Lord did not overlook Miriam’s words or behavior. In Numbers 12:10, Miriam was disciplined for her actions and she became leprous.
The most beautiful part is found in the two verses that followed where we see both of Miriam’s brothers interceding for her health and well-being. Aaron entreated Moses, and Moses in turn “cried out to the Lord.” What an amazing example we have been given here! Moses was the one ridiculed and questioned, yet he responds in prayer for help on behalf of his sister. What a testimony! When we are on the receiving end of angry and bitter words, have we ever thought to respond in prayer? Have we ever stopped to intercede for the spiritual health of the one afflicting us with their words? I don’t know about you, but that’s not usually my first response. Sometimes I can ignore it, and other times I “take the bait” and bite back.
If you keep reading in Numbers 12, you will learn that God did heal Miriam’s leprous skin, but not before she was “shut up for seven days outside the camp.” She was quarantined for a whole week. And really, this is the kicker: her words – the words of one woman – ultimately stopped (for one week) the progress of hundreds of thousands of people headed toward the Promised Land.
Her grumbling, gossiping words impeded the entire group from heading where God had intended them to go. See, we don’t think about the ramifications of our words because we are selfish and consumed in the moment of our ranting. We want to feel better ourselves so we tear down another person, not considering the “cloud of witnesses” surrounding us and taking note and being tempted to imitate our poor choices, ill-spoken words, and bad behavior. We become a stumbling block when we give way to our flesh and suppress the Holy Spirit.
Psalm 39:1, “I will keep watch over my ways so that I do not sin with my tongue; I will keep watch over my mouth as with a muzzle while the wicked are in my presence.”
When you are tempted to open your mouth and spread the flames that spark fires, stop, and go instead to the Lord. In your secret thoughts and private prayer, go to Him and confess your feelings of pride and selfish tendencies. He understands. He wants us to bring those things to Him.
Take your thoughts captive by taking them to God. He has shoulders big enough to carry them all! Ask Him to intervene for you and help renew your thoughts so you can be reminded of His truth. Ask Him to remove those burning embers in your heart and mind so they don’t escape and start a fire which can hurt others.
Proverbs 26:20, “For lack of wood the fire goes out, and where there is no gossiper, quarreling quiets down.”
Our words matter. They have great impact.
Proverbs 18:21, Solomon warns us, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue.”
When we surrender our tongue to the Lord, the direction of our life is affected (James 3:6). Take care of your words, and so many other issues will be resolved. It is all interconnected, and somehow we fail to see this. Let’s go back to the example of the horse’s bit. When we pull back on the reigns, what happens to the horse? The rest of his body follows. It’s the same with our tongue. When we pull back the reigns on our words, the rest of our body will follow. We will be able to “bridle the whole body as well” (James 3:2).
We need to pray as David says in Psalm 141:3-4,
“Set a guard, Lord, over my mouth; keep watch over the door of my lips. Do not incline my heart to any evil thing, to practice deeds of wickedness with people who do wrong; and may I not taste their delicacies.”
The presence of a guard indicated the possibility of danger. We don’t guard something that doesn’t need to be protected. Notice where the guard is posted. Not at the ear to protect us from being hurt by words we might hear. Not at the heart to shield us from the wounds that are sometimes caused by what others do. The Psalmist asked God to post a guard at his own mouth knowing that the greatest danger he faced was not what others might do to him, but rather what he might say that would harm others.