Telling the Truth for Women

Jill Briscoe: Well, we've been talking about a lot of traps, and today, I suppose it's one that none of us really want to think about and yet all of us struggle with. The mouth trap. A Christian is a mind through which Christ thinks, a heart through which Christ loves, and a voice through which Christ speaks. There is so much we can do with our mouths, with our tongues, for good or for evil.

And, of course, the Scripture says out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. And yet in the book of James, we read that if we are hoping that God the Holy Spirit will use our lives and use our tongues and use our mouths to witness, which, of course, the Lord Jesus wants us to, then it's absolutely no use doing that if, at the same time, from the same source, bitter things come out. James says what's the point if the sweet and bitter things are coming out of the same mouth? It's going to cancel out what we're trying to do for God. And so there's a lot of issues here.

Let's read James chapter 3, or some of it anyway. "Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. We all stumble in many ways. If anyone is never at fault in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to keep his whole body in check. When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. Or take ships as an example. Although they're so large and are driven by strong winds, they're steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go."

"Likewise, the tongue is a small part of our body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by such a small spark. The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, setting the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell. All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles, and creatures of the sea are being tamed and have been tamed by man, but no man can tame the tongue. It's a restless evil, full of deadly poison."

"With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God's likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be. Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? My brothers, can a fig tree bear olives or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water."

Well, that's one of the most comprehensive parts in the Scriptures concerning the control of the tongue. There's plenty else about the tongue. If you want to spend a year, you can look up all the references and have yourself a wonderful time. I think there isn't probably one of us here that hasn't wished we could cut our tongue out at some time or other. I have no problem whatsoever choosing a personal example to start my talk. It's just which one?

However, I can think specifically about one of the worst. I was in a little church in England. Stuart was traveling on the road all the time, and it was just a little tiny assembly of believers, and I really enjoyed going there. But we could never get any visitors in. We'd try this and we'd try that, and it was just the same old group, just 20 or 25 people. It used to get a bit much, very typical of many of the churches in England. And we were in the country, so it was a little tiny church.

And one day to our delight, there were some visitors, just three of them, a lady and looked like her sister or someone, and a small child. And we, of course, didn't have any preacher because there weren't enough of us to support a preacher. It was a little Methodist church, and as you know, Methodist churches have circuits and one preacher looks after five, six, seven churches, and he only comes around every once in a blue moon. Most of the preachers on our circuit were, you know, all right.

But this one, I don't know where they found him. He was awful. And I was sitting there so excited about these visitors, and I was seeing them sort of look down and fiddle and look around and fidget, and I thought, "Oh, why did they come this week?" The following week, my husband was going to be in town, he was going to take the service. And I was sitting there saying, "Well, as soon as this is over, I'm going to go up to them and somehow persuade them to come back because I mean, I wouldn't come back if this was my first time."

So this is what I did. I ran up and I said, "Oh, so glad you're here. We just love to have visitors." I didn't tell them we never had them until they appeared. And I just, I sort of just wanted to apologize for the speaker. "They're not usually as bad as this." And she said, "That's my husband." I still go red when I think about it. And don't ask me what I said. I didn't say anything. My mouth just dropped open. I said, "Oh, I'm sorry." She said, "I'm not!" So that was that. They never came back, as you can imagine.

All of us have this problem. James says that genuine religion should and must affect the tongue. Genuine religion should and must affect a person's tongue. A perfect man is never at fault in what he says, he doesn't offend with words, says the book of Proverbs. Again, Proverbs, "A wise man holds his tongue, only a fool blurts out something everything he knows. That only leads to sorrow and trouble." The book of Proverbs, incidentally, is just a great big treasure chest if you're interested in seeing what the Bible says about the tongue and the use or abuse of it, and I recommend it.

James says we're going to be perfect, the perfect man knows how to control his tongue. He's never at fault in what he says. What does that mean? Because who can be perfect? Well, of course, the word "perfect" means mature. And when the Scripture uses that, that's the picture it uses. And so if we're going to be mature at the age we're at as a Christian, then we're going to know that our tongue will be under control.

A two-year-old can control his tongue. You might not think they're babbled on about all this stuff, but if they're told not to say a naughty word, they have the power not to say a naughty word. And we are to be perfect, mature, however old a Christian we are. Now, Paul, when he was writing in Corinthians to 1 Corinthians 13, said, "When I was a child, I spoke as a child. I understood as a child. I thought as a child. But when I became a man, I put away childish things."

So there is a childishness about some Christians. Maybe they've been Christians for years and years and years, but the problem is they can't control their tongue. And the Bible says that's like being very immature, that's like being a baby, an infant, and you should be mature. You should have grown up by now. When I was a child, I spoke like a child. How do children speak? Well, they tattle, don't they? I think, I don't know if you use that word, but they come and tell you what the other kids are doing all the time.

I remember who was it, David. He was always coming and saying, "Oh, you should see what Judy's doing." What they're really hoping is that the other kids get into trouble, you know, and so they're coming to tell you. And so, of course, you have to deal with that little vindictive spirit, cute little thing. And so you have to say things like, "I don't want to hear what Judy's doing, David. Off you go and play." And David goes and plays and you go and see what Judy's doing, right? You're not going to let him know that.

And so kids, that's just kids. They tattle all the time. They can't control their tongue. Kids also are into a little bit of telling lies because remember that we're born with a sinful nature. I never taught them how to answer back or tell lies, and who crept into my house and taught them how to answer back? They just knew how to do that all on their own perfectly.

So Proverbs 10:19 says, "Don't talk so much." The Living Bible says, "Be sensible and turn off the flow." I like that. Be sensible and turn off the flow. Turn off the flow. Now, I'm going to use an acrostic on the word tongue just to help us. We're just going to go through that acrostic and see what the negative and positive things the tongue can do as we go through. And we're going to look at the book of James and other passages of Scripture to back up what I'm saying.

T stands for trouble. Now, that's obvious because I've just read the passage. The tongue is so small a member yet so large in its potential for trouble. And the two pictures that James uses is that of a boat with a little tiny rudder. You've got this great huge boat and this little rudder turns it wherever it wants to. There's so much that we are, we're made up of so many parts. And yet our little tongue can cause so much problems and so much pain, like a little rudder on a boat.

The other picture he uses is a horse with a bit and a bridle. And the idea is that God wants to control us, pull in, rein in the horse. Incidentally, the word "meekness" means controlled strength. It's the picture of a horse again, of somebody controlling that horse, and God wants us to be controlled, to rein us in with bit and bridle. But the bit and bridle turn the horse exactly where they want to. So it just depends who's riding the horse.

If we're riding the horse, if self is on the throne of our lives, then the tongue will turn us in all sorts of directions that it shouldn't. But if Jesus is riding the horse—I like to think of Jesus riding that little donkey with reins in His hands—and He turned the donkey wherever He wanted. And that's the idea, and that's how our tongue can be controlled. Jesus can help us use the rudder and bridle the tongue.

Now, we know He can because He could bridle His own tongue. How do we know that? Think of all the times it must have been hard for Him to control His tongue. Think of the last time He saw the disciples in the Upper Room. "I have many things to tell you. You're not able to bear them now." I mean, He knew this was the last time on earth He could talk to them in human language. He'd only had three years with them. Can you imagine how much He wanted to tell them that night?

If you knew you were dying or going to die and you had a chance to have all the people that mattered most to you closest to you, what would you want to tell them? And how long would you want to talk? And yet Jesus, seeing the state, mental, physical state that the disciples were in, was moved with love and concern and He said, "Well, I've got many things to tell you, but you can't bear them now." And He was able to control His tongue.

People wondered at the gracious words that came out of His mouth. No bitter water from Jesus' mouth. Maybe strong words, maybe fierce words, maybe angry words, righteously angry words, but they were gracious words too. So Jesus in me can help me bridle my tongue. Trouble. Now, what's the positive to that? Trouble? Truth. Truth. When our tongue starts to lead us, like a little rudder into rough waters, then we've got to apply the break.

The problem with truth is, you know, if you start and hear people gossip, and we'll talk about gossip in a minute, there's a truth that causes trouble. For example, you're in a meeting and somebody says, "Mrs. Smith has been appointed the president of the association." Well, that sounds all right. Here we are sailing along like a little ship in a nice placid lake. And now the tongue can steer or turn the conversation the way it wants it to go. "It's such a pity, isn't it, that her marriage is in trouble?"

That's all it needs to say, and suddenly the placid lake has turned into a whirlpool, and Mrs. Smith's in big trouble. That's for sure. If our words won't bolt like a horse that's out of control, then Jesus needs to be given the reins of your tongue. I don't know if you've ever done that, just knelt down and say, "Jesus, it says in the Bible that all my members must be yielded to You, my hands, my feet, my heart, my mind, my ears, my eyes, my tongue." And just go through all those members. Think about them and give them to God and ask Him to control them.

Now, the background to this passage of Scripture is really interesting. He says, "Now some of you want to be teachers." Do you see that? "Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers." Now, what that's saying is that there was prestige afforded to the teacher. There was human ambition that had come into the heart. James says, "Now, no one's perfect, but I want you to know, all those of you that want those teaching positions, that those that teach will be judged more severely. Those that teach will be judged more severely."

All of us are to speak the truth. Those who teach the truth have to watch it more carefully than anyone else's. And if we are in any capacity of leadership or leading a committee or heading up a Bible study or responsible for something going on in the church of Jesus Christ, we will be judged more severely by our words. Now, I want you to turn to Matthew 12 for a minute. Matthew chapter 12, verse 36 and 37.

Jesus speaking: "But I tell you," says Jesus, "that men will have to give an account on the day of judgment for every careless word that they have spoken." Have you ever seen that verse? But when I read here that on the day of judgment everyone will have to give an account for every careless word that they have spoken, just as much as for murder, it sort of makes the ground level at the foot of the cross.

You know, we think this is a huge sin and this is a less sin and this is a little bitty sin that doesn't really matter. And careless words? "Every careless word that we have spoken. By your words you will be acquitted, by your words you will be condemned." Serious words and ones that we don't want to think about.

"Gird yourselves wisely towards outsiders, making the most of the time. Let your speech be always gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone." Colossians 4:5. "Let your speech be always gracious, seasoned with salt." And that's a little picture because in Jesus' day, when the fishermen would bring in their catches of fish, put them in big baskets, they'd take great big blocks of salt and crush it up with a stone and spread it all over the fish. They didn't have refrigeration, and that was a very hot country.

And so what the salt did was arrest the corruption. And that's the picture. Let your speech be always gracious, seasoned with salt. Every time you're talking, shut your eyes quickly and season your tongue with salt to arrest the corruption that your tongue can engender among the people that you're speaking to. At this point, James changes the focus from the teachers to all of us.

So T for trouble, T for truth. O for obscenity. Verses 9 to 12 back in the book of James. "With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God's likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing." Now, obscenity takes many forms. One of the forms is profanity. That means swearing. With the tongue we curse men who are made in God's likeness.

Now, Exodus 20 tells us "Thou shalt not." It's one of God's no-nos for His children. "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain." That's profanity. This commandment should be a bridle for the tongue. "For the Lord will not hold him guiltless that takes His name in vain." And God looks on that man as a criminal and will severely punish him. In the Old Testament, you and I would be stoned to death for taking the name of the Lord in vain.

These are serious things. Maybe we haven't realized before how serious. It means to speak lightly or irreverently of God. You know, I remember when I met my husband, I was just very newly converted, and I always used to talk about Jesus. Jesus this, Jesus that, Jesus the other. And one day Stuart said, "Why don't you say 'The Lord Jesus'?" And I said, "Why? What do you mean?" And he said, "Jesus this, Jesus that. It's just too familiar. It sounds just pallid. There's something that jars when you use Jesus this and Jesus that all the time."

And so I thought about that. And I thought if I'm going to really treat His name reverently, then I'm not going to do that anymore. And so when I talk about the Lord, I do try and say the Lord Jesus. And somehow, that sounds so much better. When I began to write, and I don't type, I write everything longhand, which I'm not very proud of. My daughter's always saying, "Mother, learn to type!" Not me. But I don't have time to stop and learn.

So I write longhand. I've written all these books two or three times longhand, if you can imagine. Can you imagine how many times in my life I have written the name Jesus Christ? And I mean, fast, I'm scribbling, I'm writing, I'm on airplanes, I'm on airports, you name it, my books have been written on every continent in the world, I guess. But after this experience of calling Him the Lord Jesus, I could never bring myself to write JC.

I've always written the whole name out, the Lord Jesus Christ. And this is in my scribbling. Now, that's just the way I help myself in little things to treat the name of the Lord as I think it should be treated. And I don't know about you, but when people around you at a ballgame or an airport are using the Lord's name in vain, it just hurts me so much.

In fact, Stuart and I were sitting in the airport going down to Denver, and there was a man in a very nice business suit sitting behind us with three or four of his colleagues waiting for a plane. They looked high-class people and his language was unbelievable. And I kept looking at Stuart thinking, "I don't think I can take this much longer," but I tell you, I was just about to turn around and say, "Hey, that's my friend you're talking about." Then the call came for the plane, and I didn't get the opportunity to do it. But it gets to you. Well, if it gets to you, can you imagine that it gets to Him?

So obscenity, part of obscenity is profanity, which has to do with swearing, to speak lightly or irreverently. And also to live lightly instead of reverently is profanity. "The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you," says Paul in Romans 2:24. And he was talking about people living that professed to be Christians, but were living as if they never heard the name of Christ. And he said, "People look at you and blaspheme the name of God. You cause people to blaspheme the name of God by the way that you live."

It's a little bit like Psalm 23 where it talks about the shepherd and the sheep. I remember standing in Jerusalem and watching the sheep come home. And there were two little flocks, one coming from the right into the gate, into the market gate into the inner city of Jerusalem, and another one coming from the left. And the ones from the right were little fat, fluffy things. They were so cute and they were trotting along all one behind the other, almost holding each other's tail, all obedient and well-fed and had smiles on their little faces. And the shepherd, you know, was bringing them along.

And from the other direction came another little flock, but oh, what a difference. One of them had an ear hanging off and they were scraggy and dirty and wandering all over the place, and the shepherd wasn't really watching them. And I thought, "Well, if I was a sheep, I know which flock I'd like to belong to." And then I looked at the shepherds, and I judged the shepherds by the sheep. That's what people do. They judge the shepherd by the sheep and never more than when they listen to what we're saying, what we're doing with our mouth.

So there is profanity, there are idle words. Idle words in the Scriptures are things that we don't even think about. I'm going to say them for you so you'll know what they are. "Oh God," how many times do we say that? "Oh Christ." I hear Christians say those things. It's been so much part of our language before we found Jesus. It's sort of hard.

I remember I had a very dirty mouth before I became a Christian. Now, I didn't think I did. I was just totally immersed in my culture. And yet when I became a Christian, every time I'd open my mouth to bring out a profanity or something, it was just as if somebody internally tapped me on the shoulder inside and said, "Not anymore, not now. Don't." It was an inner check, and you can ask the Holy Spirit to do that for you.

Say, "Lord, if unthinkingly I'm going to use an idle word that is a derivation of Your name, 'Oh God, oh Christ,' stop me, check me. Ask Him to do that. He'll be delighted to answer that. And 'golly,' 'gosh,' 'oh heavens.'" Do you know what Matthew 5:34 and 37 says? Jesus said again, "Don't swear by the heavens or the earth, for that's God's footstool and heaven is His throne. Let your yea be yea and your nay, nay."

Now, if you really want to be practical, make a list of all the things you shouldn't say. I don't know if any of you have got children. How do you teach your children not to swear? I remember Pete going to school. We have three children just in case you didn't know: David, Judy, and Pete. Pete's our illustration child. He used to say to Stuart as he'd come out to church, "Use me as an illustration tonight, Dad." The other two used to say, "Don't you dare use us as an illustration, Dad."

But Pete loved it. And so Pete gets to school, and within one week, I kid you not, he had—I don't know where he collected them all—but he came home with a whole barrel of bad words. And so Stuart was away, he was traveling somewhere, and I thought, "Well, I'm going to have to deal with this." And so I put him to bed one night and I said, "Peter, you have been coming home saying all sorts of new words. Do you know what any of them mean? Do you know what these new words you're learning? They're very naughty words, they're bad words."

And he said, "Which words, Mommy?" I said, "Pete, you know which words." "No, Mommy, I don't know which words. If you'll tell me, Mommy, then I'll know." Well, I was pretty sure he knew, but what could I do? So I said to him, "Pete, I will say them once, all the ones I've heard you say and a few more I haven't yet, and so you will know from now on which words you are never to say again. But you'll only ever hear Mommy say them once."

"All right, Mommy." So I begin and I go through my list, okay? And after each one, he sort of goes, "Ooh, ooh," you know, he's a real actor. And we get to the end of the list, and the little rascal says, "You forgot two." So he knew perfectly well, he just wanted to make me say them. Well, whether he knew or not, it was an excellent, excellent thing to do because then it was done, then it was said, and I could get him on it every time he used one. "Pete, we talked about that. You remember."

Now, I don't think it's any harm for us as adults to do that if you wish to do it. Make a list, lay it before the Lord, say, "Lord, keep me from taking Your name or being guilty of obscenity or profanity." Now, cursing is a little different, verse 9. Since we've been made in God's image or likeness, it says here, cursing a man is like cursing God. And you have to realize this. If you don't take the name of the Lord in vain, you say, "I'm not guilty of that." To curse a man is like cursing God because the man is made in the image of God. That's the argument that he brings up here.

Things—and you'll only hear me say this once—"Damn you." That's a curse. "Go to hell." That's a curse. A little different from obscenity, a little different from profanity. But if we tell a brother or a sister or somebody that isn't a brother or a sister, then we are going to be judged. We're going to be held accountable for it. A curse is an angry, abusive word to those we consider our subordinates as well as a bitter denunciation in their absence. Can both fresh and bitter water flow from the same spring?

So obscenity, this filthy communication out of your mouth, as the Bible calls it, includes all these things, plus the dirty jokes and the sexual perversion and all of that. Now N, nagging. This is turning off the flow. For the nag, it's a tricky business. I know that nagging is all sorts of things. It's the unbroken horse. It's the ship out of control.

One of the best illustrations is in the book of Job, actually. Job, you know, had a terrible day. I mean, not too many of us have days like he did. If you read chapter 1, you see what happened to him. He lost his house, he lost his business, he lost his kids, all of them. He lost his land, he lost his camels, he lost his—he lost everything. The only thing he didn't lose was his wife, which is the only thing he needed to lose.

Poor Job. When the devil put his finger on all these things, he thought, "What's the best thing I can do for Job? I'll leave him his wife." That's the sort of woman she was. And so he lost everything except this woman. Now, I wrote a book years ago called Prime Rib and Apple. It was about all the prime ribs of the Bible starting with Eve. And when I came to Job's wife, I called her little dripping tap. I don't think you use the word tap here, you use faucet. Well, in England, we say a tap instead of a faucet.

And Job's wife to me was this little dripping tap, just drip, drip, drip, drip, drip. That's nagging. And when she came to Job, who was struggling with all this disaster that had happened to him, she said, "Why don't you curse God and die, old man?" Well, that's nice, isn't it? She was really a nice supportive wife. And Job had to answer her and say, "You're talking like an evil woman. You're talking like an evil woman."

So the bitter water was flowing out of her heart. She wasn't an evil woman because we read in different parts of Job that she was a believer. Well, you infer that, we don't read it directly. But she was talking like an evil woman. And all of us can do that. And nagging is one way we do it. Nag, nag, nag. Nag is reminding somebody over and over again. Actually, nagging is unforgiveness showing. That's what it is. Nagging is unforgiveness showing.

Because if you hear somebody going on and on and on about something, you might say to them, "You haven't forgiven that person." They'll say, "Oh yes, I have." But if they go on nagging, they haven't. They're showing they haven't by bringing the thing up over and over again. I was listening on O'Hare this week to a conversation behind me. I always do that. It's great for writers. And anyway, I couldn't help but overhearing they were talking so loud.

And a husband was saying, "Are you going to forget my birthday again like you did last year?" That's nagging. That's unforgiveness showing. Or what about a teen that's being reminded by her mother not to be late like you were last time, and the time before, and the time before, and the time before? You haven't forgiven, you haven't forgotten, so you nag, you bring it up over and over again. Book of Proverbs says it's better to live on the corner of a roof than with a nagging wife.

Better to live on the corner of the roof. Now, remember, I wasn't talking about one of our roofs, that would be hard, wouldn't it, to live on the corner of one of our roofs? They were flat roofs. And in the time of the Feast of Tabernacles, they'd build little booths and go and live in them just for the feast days. And that's what this is referring to. It's better to build a little booth, move out of your room and, you know, hole up on the top of the roof than to be in the same room as your wife if she's a nag.

Now, the opposite of nagging is nurturing. If you nurture your own spiritual life and if you try and figure out how much God has forgiven you, the size of your forgiveness, then you'll be able to forgive from the heart, as Jesus says, everybody else. The other practical thing you can do is ask your husband to help you to turn off the flow, to turn off the tap. Say, "Can you turn off my tap?" He won't know what you're talking about, so you can say faucet if you like.

But when I drip, will you turn off my faucet? And explain to him. Or find somebody else if you don't have a husband, best friend, or a worst friend, any sort of friend. Ann Landers says, "Nagging is like being nibbled to death by a duck." I really don't know what she means, but it's very descriptive. I can see this duck nibbling away. It's just an unpleasant experience to be nibbled to death by a duck. Nobody likes that.

Which brings us to gossip. Gossip is the needless repetition of real or imaginary faults. Now, let me say these things slowly and think about them as I do. Gossip is the needless repetition of real or imaginary faults. Now, let's read 5 and 6 again. Verse 5 says, "Likewise the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by such a small spark."

You know there used to be a song, "It only takes a spark to get a fire going." And it only takes a spark to get a fire going. I mean, that's it. You should know that, we live near Chicago. You all know the story of the Chicago fire, don't you? What got that going? Well, some say a cow kicked over a lamp. And the sparks flew into the hay, and it only takes a spark to get a fire going. The great Chicago fire grew from that.

I go through a little town that's famous for a fire that was worse than the Chicago fire. And they've got a museum there, fascinating. The whole place was wiped out and the whole air was on fire because there's a factory there and the resin had got into the air and the resin got on fire. Everybody was suffocated. Incredible. And that started by an Irish lady and some shoes, they say, that rubbed on the carpet stuff and set off a spark. You know the way you can do that?

And it only takes a spark to get a fire going. Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by such a small spark. This is hot stuff, breaking news we're talking about. Keeps the wheel of our existence red-hot. The tongue can make the whole of life a blazing hell. The word is Gehenna. Gehenna was the place they burned all the rubbish outside of Jerusalem. There was a terrible stink. That's what gossip is all about.

You know, you've heard it. Somebody says, "Don't carry this any further, needs to be confidential." Then you yourself carry it further to the next person that you meet. A gossip betrays a confidence, but a trustworthy man keeps a secret. The answer, of course, to gossip is grace. Saying what the person doesn't deserve. Grace will deal with gossip. What you need to do is say, "I'll find something nice to say or I won't say anything at all. I'll find something nice to say or I won't say anything at all."

Now, we come to U, unkindness. This causes the innocent to suffer and the forgiven to wonder if they really are. Has to do with revenge. The tongue is very good at meeting out little personal animosities. It has to do with malice, retaliation. Max Lucado in his book, "No Wonder They Call Him Savior," says this: "Maybe your wound is old. Though the arrow was extracted long ago, the arrowhead is still lodged, hidden under your skin."

Peter tells us when they hurled their insults at Him, He didn't retaliate. When He suffered, He made no threats. Instead, He entrusted Himself to Him who judges justly. Jesus did not bite back or say, "I'll get you. Just wait until after the resurrection, buddy." He entrusted Himself to Him who judges justly.

And let me say this, if you're on the other end of the tongue, and it isn't your tongue that's causing the trouble, what do you do? Well, you need to read 1 Corinthians 4 where Paul is on the end of people's gossip and insults and accusations. And he says, "You know something? It's a very small thing that I am judged of you or of any human court. I don't even judge myself. He's the one that judges me." It's a very small thing, and he doesn't say it's nothing. He's saying, "I'm listening to what you're saying. Is there any truth in it? If there is, I'll deal with it. And if there isn't, it's going to be a very small thing that I am judged of you or of any human court."

So unkindness can be dealt with. It can be dealt with by shutting up, by just keeping your mouth buttoned up. And of course, by being determined to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. I was in a situation like this just two weeks ago when people were talking to me about a friend of mine, not here, but somebody that's a very well-known speaker, actually. And I knew both sides of the argument. And I just sat there saying, "Lord, help me not to say anything unkind." I could have said a few things that were legitimately unkind. And I just asked the Lord not to put another log on the fire.

That's the picture I always have. In fact, that's what Proverbs says, that you don't put another log on the fire. You just hold it in your mouth and you don't say anything. E, envy. And the answer to that is encouragement. And I don't have time to get into all of that. You should look in Proverbs 6. It says there are six things that God hates. And about three of them—yes, three of the six—have to do with the tongue. Now, that's something, isn't it? I mean, you'd think God hates a lot of stuff. But actually, it says there's six things specifically that God hates, and three of them have to do with the tongue.

And lastly, slander. Finding fault with the demeanor or conduct of others and spreading their innuendos and criticisms in the church. 2 Timothy 3:3, false accusers. This is, according to James, the snake bite. The tongue is full of deadly poison. "The poison of asps," says Paul, "is under their tongue." Snake bite, that's what slander is. Because there's always a bit of truth. The exaggeration of faults that are real, that's slander.

It's a coloring, no direct falsehood. Leaving out one detail, including another. A thorough misrepresentation of a person's motives and actions. It's like two painters painting the same picture. Have you ever seen an object put in front of an art class and everybody sits there and they paint it? And they're so different even though the object's the same? Let's say it's a big bowl. One painting has a little tiny bowl and they've seen the foliage behind and the pretty colors and the scarf and the rose, and so it's all in proportion. Another person's looked at the same picture and all that's in the picture is a bowl. That's all there is, totally exaggerated.

Now, you can't say that's not there. I mean, that's the truth. But it's blown out of all proportion. That's slander. And the answer to that, of course, is sweetness, the sweetness that comes from the fullness of the spirit. And you can say things like, "Now, we don't really know all the facts, do we?" That'll stop it. You can say, "Why don't we really find out what happened? Why don't we go back and ask them if this is really so?" These are sort of helpful things that you can think to say. Remember that the devil is the accuser. Thirty-five times he's spoken of as the accuser. Don't do his work for him. Let's pray together.

Heavenly Father, thank You for Your Word. Thank You that it is so relevant. And Lord, I pray that our tongues may be used to tell of Jesus Christ, to witness to Him, to stop gossip, to avoid slander, to think of the kind instead of the unkind. And even if there is a bit of truth in what we're hearing, to stop the fire spreading. Help us not to put another log on the fire, to fan the flames. For Lord, how big a fire a little spark engenders. And so we ask that You would control our mouth. Put a bit in it, Lord. You ride the horse. You steer the boat. And help us be concerned enough to have a time with You and to yield our members to Your control. We ask it for Christ's sake. Amen.