James Session 5 (Chapter 3:1-12) - With Chuck Missler

[Music] well we're working our way through the epistle of jacob to the 12 tribes i always love to do that because i get this good quizzical look from my biblical friends and jacob of course um is jacobus in the greek it's jacques in french it's iago in italian diego in spanish yakov and hebrew and james in english and so it is more commonly known as the epistle of james and there are many james's four at least in the scripture [Music] james the son of zebedee his brother john of course is very very well known the brother of the beloved disciple he was slain by herod right after pentecost we don't believe this was written by him a couple of other james's i won't go through this each time we've we've covered this but we're obviously we hold the view that this was the james that was the brother of our lord jesus christ not a believer until after the resurrection as the scripture tells we do know that jesus had a number of brothers and possibly sisters listed in the scripture uh that this that james became not only a believer after resurrection but rose to be the one of the primary leadership in the church in jerusalem and paul in his letters even refers to those that came from jerusalem as having come from james there's an identity there that is quite significant james could have been written very late or very early either way it has its supporters um late couldn't be later than 62 a.d where james himself was martyred but it um in fact his martyrdom may have been one of the precipitating events in the rebellion that ultimately led to the destruction of jerusalem in 78 there are some scholars that believe this letter though may have been written very very early there are uh scholastic arguments both ways and uh not not a great moment for our our rather cursory review it was written to the 12 tribes james was jewish that's why i like to call him yakov and he wrote two letters addressed to the 12 tribes and notice they're 12. 10 aren't missing all 12 are there and that myth of the 12 tribes we dealt with in our earlier session but just be sensitive that james was very jewish his readers were christians but very jewish in large measure that doesn't mean it's not for all of us just as the all the epistles are to all members of all the churches so um there are about 60 imperatives in the letter to james in 60 imperatives about 108 verses and so many of us may take the snippets the sound bites of these imperatives and fail to really grasp the thrust of what he's really trying to get across we shouldn't just carry away from this epistle a lot of do's and don'ts if so we miss the point in fact many have many people regard the letter of james to be in contradistinction to paul's letters and each both paul and james in their own ways deal with faith as the key doctrine in the christian life and clearly it is faith is uh we're the sinners saved by faith we must walk by faith and without faith it's impossible to please god and whatever we do apart from faith is sin so that's clearly plenty of scripture there but faith is not believing in spite of evidence faith is obeying in spite of the consequences and that's really what james is going to focus on paul we tend to see paul as speaking of faith leading up to salvation faith that james is talking about is proof that you have been saved so it's not different they just have a different emphasis and faith is not a feeling that we work up it's not an emotional thing it's the confidence that god's word is true but that if that's true then we should be acting upon that word to bring a blessing and it's our walk that is our testimony of our faith and that's really what in a number of ways james is going to hammer away at and what he's really going to ask in effect is the kind of faith that doesn't produce manifest fruit can that save you he's arguing not that you're saved by works but that if you have a faith that's saving you your works will bear witness to that that's really the point he's going to get across widely misunderstood those that argue that there's a contradiction between james and paul failed to have grasp the message of both because paul says much the same thing it's amazing to me as i stand back looking at what more than 40 years of bible studies and and seeing controversies come and go it's amazing to me how many difficulties disappear if you start from the premise that these 66 books although penned by more than 40 guys over thousands of years are an integrated message once you accept for whatever reasons that it's a package tightly engineered and once you go at it with the confidence that it's all ties together you discover it does tie together in ways that are breathtaking and it's one of those things that you can't accept from me that would be a big mistake you need to discover for yourself but recognize the reality that it is an integrated package that every detail there has had the benefit of supernatural engineering once you take that position and try to unravel how it ties together these problems all go away these problems that i've seen of whatever kind all seem to spring from some kind of lack of confidence well moses didn't really write genesis you know that kind of thing did he really on the other hand if you believe jesus christ he said he did if you believe jesus christ you know you don't have any problem with the five books of moses if you believe the gospel of john you got no problem with the integrity of the book of isaiah in john 12 he quotes from isaiah 6 and isaiah 53 and says that same isaiah in other words he ties that all together as he had written by the same guy so if you accept the words integrity you don't waste your time traveling down these scholastic by you know rabbit trails that make fine phd thesis if you're trying to get a degree from one of these liberal seminaries but destroy faith destroy faith there is a book out that attempts to tie the shroud of turin to the torture and murder of jacques de molay in the 13th century it weaves together a whole bunch of legends myths and maybe some real history about the knights templar and how they really found the treasures of the temple back in the 12th century that became the funds for the european whatever and and that these guys anyway gets into the whole masonic roots and all of that stuff but aside from all that colorful background it also weaves this whole tale that the real church teachings were by james were hidden and then later rediscovered by the next knights templar and that paul had really he was a usurper upstart that created christianity as we know it it goes through all this stuff it's so um embroidered with pseudo scholarship that someone who has a weak faith could read that and it would totally undermine the perspective of the new testament it's amazing you're going to run into all kinds of that kind of thing because leighton's pulpits are articulate and continuing all these things have their refutations you want to take the trouble to peel the onion you'll find each one of these things can be shredded with good scholarship but boy the energy and time you waste and the risk and danger of falling in quicksand in the meantime is tragic it's tragic and it's funny it fascinates me whether whether your anxieties are scientific or whether textual or doctrinal it's amazing to me to discover how many of those just evaporate when you recognize the integrity of the total package so spending effort girding your comprehension of the integrity of the package gives you an installation to all this nonsense that's flying around um anyway last time and last half chapter 2 that we took last time james talks about three kinds of faith he talked about dead faith the faith that you know can this kind of faith save a person pray for that works can it save a person and even calvin john calvin said it it is faith alone that saves us but it's faith that justifies us but faith that justifies is never alone calvin's saying the same thing james is that if you have a saving faith you're saved by faith but if your safest phase is saving you then it will manifest itself in fruit now so james is calling for authenticating actions to prove you really have the faith so he talks about dead faith that's a scary thing can faith be dead yes indeed there are many people i have the vocabulary the many people that have the intellectual assent are they saved well how do i know only god knows his heart i won't pass judgment on that but i can we're not called to inspect gifts it's called to inspect fruit takes a second example dead faith he talks about demonic faith i think he did this deliberately to shock his listeners you know the you say you believe devils also believe in tremble he gives the devils more credit than many parishioners because they don't have intellectual sense they got an emotional response the devil shudder that's interesting they're probably many christians that believe and they also shudder they may even roll on the floor and do other interesting things but but uh that's not the issue because are the are the demons saved i don't think so the third kind of faith is that which not only has anal extent and emotional response it has a response of the will commitment and the mind understands the truth the heart desires the truth but the will acts on the truth and then he uses he used a couple of examples in fact very contrasting examples he used abraham a very prominent person a jew and very prominent in the scripture and he uses him as an example where his works demonstrated the faith that saved him and it's not saying that the works saved him he's saying the faith was manifest by the works and then the other example he takes is a rather intriguing one it's a contrast to abram it takes someone's minor person that's a gentile that's a bill repute contra stabler namely rahab uses her as another example and it fascinated me and we closed last time as we looked at hebrews 11 which is so well known as the hall of faith it goes through sort of a it's just a survey of the old testament all these great people of faith that's where abraham and rahab and all these are mentioned and it's interesting if you go through hebrews 11 relabel in your bible with your own little note the hall of works it's the hall of works the list of people there it describes how great their faith was by the works they did one of the things i'm so grateful for this opportunity to go through the book of james or jacob as i like to call it i do see emphasis seeing faith overemphasize at the expense of works we are so uh fearful of falling into legalism with good reasons paul talks plenty about that but we i think have failed to really embrace the fact they're also called to obedience and that's what james is attempting to deal with that brings us of course to chapter 3 where james is going to talk about the world's smallest and largest troublemaker and they're both one in the same the biggest troublemaker in the entire world is the tiniest troublemaker the tiniest is the biggest the biggest is most he has so far in chapter one he talked about the mature christian as being a being very patient in trouble chapter two he talked about the mature christian being practicing truth in chapter three he disqualifies all of us by saying the mature christian has control over his tongue his tongue now we did talk touch a bit on the venomous nature of gossip in one of our earlier sessions james opened the door to my tirade about gossip here a little while ago a couple sessions ago and you thought i was through talking about gossip but james has a lot more to say about this untamable member of our being it was in james 1 19. he remember he said he's we should be swift to hear slow to speak and slow to wrath and that's uh that was a preamble he was just getting warmed up and james and a few verses later he emphasized that the believer who does not bridle his tongue is not truly religious and he's using the word religious here in a positive sense we're going to discover we get to chapter 4 both in the first verse in verse 11 12 that his gang must have had the people he's writing to must have had some really rough meetings because he talks about them fighting and screaming at each other and you could you can just get a glimpse at what their what their uh board meetings must have been like the church that he's talking to but one of the things we should really reflect on is the power of speech its power is very positive in terms of prayer praise worship and leadership but it's also capable and prone to lies deceit and manipulation you know it's interesting you and i when we're first born we have a very very high input rate if you take the way we gather information our eyes most conspiracy eyes ears proprioceptive whatever the bit rate going into our brain into our computer can be measured in the millions of bits per second the bandwidth of of three-dimensional to a double image input is enormous the output rate is very very limited it's measured the input rates measured in the millions of bits per second the output rates measured in the thousands of bits per second much smaller which means that our brain has as we grow from an infant as we grow is programmed to do enormously enormously effective at summarizing putting things together because of that imbalance that our input rate is far higher than the output rate but as we explore our output rate constricted though it may be it is primarily verbal even those that are faster on keyboard are discovering the software around where you can talk and it'll type it for you they're finally getting that working pretty well the output rate of our mouth is very very high it's our most fluent form of expression even though body language other things are important our ability output is primarily verbal and with that we do major damage major damage james is going to deal with this whole issue with six pictures to highlight three basic powers of the tongue in the first few verses he's going to talk about the power of the tongue to direct he's going to talk about a bit like on a horse horse's bridle and he'll talk about the rudder on a ship he opens up in verse 1 chapter 3 verse 1 my brethren be not many masters and by that he means teachers i believe knowing that we shall we shall receive the greater condemnation you know for more probably about 30 years i taught bible studies and if you listen to my old tapes you'll know i took great pride that i'm not a teacher i took the posture that all i was trying to do is get you to do your own homework and i and i used to quip about that a little flippantly saying that i read about what james said about teachers and i'm not a teacher i'm just want to stimulate you to do some learning big difference i have to you know yield to the truth obviously especially i think even probably then but also in these years i have to admit that my i'm going to be accountable as a teacher and that's scary because i know there's many times that i'm not necessarily correct even some positions of the past that i've revised in some to some measure that accountability is of concern so if you're teaching whatever you're teaching that bible or whatever you're in a position of accountability as well as responsibility and so then he goes on born many things we offend all if any man offend not inward the same is a perfect man and able also to bridle the whole body i'm sure he's speaking hypothetically because i don't any perfect men here can i see a show of hands now incidentally he's going to talk about the tongue but i think he's speaking broadly i don't think he would exclude the pen from the spoken word and i have to tell you i just have to get this off my chest i find myself staggered at the stuff that gets mailed through the federal mails that masquerades as christian newsletters attacking openly libeling members of the body of christ you know matthew 18 has a very explicit procedure for people who have a bone to pick of some kind it's not public i guess i'm sensitive this because for several decades two or three decades i taught the bible but as a layman as a hobby thing i i made my living and my full-time profession was as an executive putting companies together whatever doing all the usual things people do whether you know as professional executives professional directors what have you and my christian life was personal and it was hobby or lay if you will about seven years ago i switched gears where i started doing this full time and the lord's blessed that and i believe he's called me to it so that's all great but i have to tell you the adjustment i've gone through emotionally ethically really bothers me i had less ethical problems in the secular world than i have been confronted with in the last seven years people not keeping their commitments people saying falsehoods about people in print if it was a secular world i could have made a fortune with lawsuits don't do that in christian world for lots of reasons first of all some of these do them a favor by giving that that much visibility really you know but the libel and the slander that is commonplace within the so-called christian community staggers me in the secular world they're not all peaches and creatures they're rough and tumble guys there but they're smarter than that in general there's little life there too but i mean the real winners may not be moral men don't misunderstand but they've learned the efficient effective way to win is to have some principles and ethics that you operate by they're maybe slow to give a commitment but when they give it you can count on it anyway he argues that you can tell the person by his words if a person has control of his tongue you can probably get james is saying he's able to bridle the whole body the flip side i think is what he's also saying when you when you encounter someone who can't control his tongue it should raise substantial doubts about the rest of his character that's what james is saying and that's another reason why as christians our mouths are so important and how many times have you seen someone that you may respect in this christian situation for many reasons and then you hear him say something that just punctures the bubble a slip of the tongue is something that that it's still forgivable i'm not trying to build a you know a legalistic case here but how how signifies his testimony of his walk in the rest firstly behold we put bits in the horse's mouth that they may obey us and we turn about their whole body in other words he's drawing an analogy here how a small piece of metal in a bridle can control this big powerful animal which but for the those arrangements would be wild and dangerous and yet handled properly he's not only not dangerous he's controllable useful productive what have you he's drawing an analogy here words turn into deeds in ourselves and also in others this is probably one of the great tragedies of our entertainment media the entertainment executives say that our entertainment mirrors the population nonsense the percentage of murders and rapes and immorality on the television is way out of proportion to the that in the population as gross as our population is no that's nonsense we're planting ideas we're making those things seem common there's a well i won't start on that one verse four james could say behold also he use the bit as an example he's going to use a similar kind of example he says behold the ships which though they be so great and are driven of fierce winds yet they are turned about with a very small helm whether so ever the governor listed i don't know if you've ever been to a big shipyard you most of us are familiar with boats you know in lake sense or something the size of the rudder compared to the boat is pretty modest what's really amazing when you see a ocean going vessel in dry dock here's this huge huge vessel take a look at the rudder it's it's it's big in absolute terms it's trivial in terms of the size of the ship and yet that rudder is used to control the ship in storms cross currents high winds it's amazing you know just to realize that the helm which is what controls the rudder is is that modest and what he's saying here again he's drawing that analogy of the tongue you know during the second world war you've probably seen posters loose lips sink ships they also erect lives betrayal of a confidence the innuendo and do huge huge damage it's interesting how the bit and the rudder can control uh can't overcome in effect uh contrary forces the wild nature of the horse or the winds or currents of if you will that would drive a ship off course but um a runaway horse or a shipwreck of course could mean injury and death to pedestrians or passengers so these things are small in contrast to what they're controlling and yet they hold the destiny far out of proportion to their weight or or apparent significance i think what james saying is just a few words at the right place at the wrong time can affect the lives of an accused his family and his friends they can place a nation at war or they can redirect the lives of a child how even a yes or no or a nod or something at the right moment can influence an entire life let's take the other side paul excuse me peter preached at pentecost in acts 2 he preached he spoke and 3 000 people found eternity were saved through that on april 21st of 1855 edward kimball went into a boston shoe store and led a young man to christ his name was dwight l moody when you start talking about this kind of thing you know you quickly discover you quickly find yourself leapfrogging all through the book of proverbs it's amazing to me it's amazing to me i thought it was familiar with the book amazingly i realized how much in the book of proverbs deals with the tongue a soft answer turneth away wrath but grievous words stir up anger proverbs 15 1 lying lips are an abomination to the lord proverbs 12 22 in the multitude of words there wanteth not sin but he that refrained of his lips is wise proverbs 10 19 well okay so these are two of the six the bit and the rudder now james takes two more to demonstrate the power of the tongue to destroy and uses fire and beasts as his two examples in the next few verses five through eight james verse 5 says even so the tongue is a little member and boasts with great things behold how great a matter a little fire kindleth you know fire can start with a small spark and destroy a city i can remember as a kid i i don't know how old i was i must have been like four really small but i somehow got some matches and i across the street from our house was a vacant lot a fairly large vacant lot and i can remember striking a match and setting that a lot on fire i just oh is this fun you know i think i could stamp it out i got away from me and i have just vague memories i remember it but it was very early apparently but suddenly there's a roaring fire there are fire engines there are upset neighbors no real damage fortunately remember explained to my mom it just took one match [Laughter] and i'll never forget that well a fire started in a barn in chicago the story was a it was a cow that kicked over land i understand that actually was some the kids that were smoking it but that anyway at 8 30 p.m at october 8th of 1871 and that fire spread over 100 000 people were left homeless 17 500 buildings were destroyed and over three about 300 people somewhere between 250 300 people died cost the city over 400 million dollars and in those days that dollar is probably worth 20 times what it is today by the way that same day not really not as well known it was a dry autumn day that a spark ignited a raging fire northwoods of wisconsin which burned for an entire month and uh taking more lives than the famed chicago fire this firestorm destroyed billions of yards of precious timber all from one spark it wasn't as well known it wasn't you know obviously for obvious reasons but it is also the records if you look it up words our words should also start fires in fact in verse six james says it sets on fire the course of nature i want to tell you another story i came across that i thought gets the point across very well there were four guys that met by chance on a saturday night in denver at the denver railway depot al stevens jack tourney john lewis and hal wilshere real story they were newspaper reporters for the denver post the denver times the republican and the rocky mountain news each had been set sent by their editor to dig up a story any story for the sunday editions this is saturday night they needed a story by tomorrow morning's edition and so the reporters were in the railroad station hoping to snag some visiting celebrity or something uh frank freddie or somebody that was coming through and uh that might arrive by train but none arrived and so the four reporters who were competing papers they haven't met and they were commiserating and all were facing an empty-handed return to their city desk and aldi declared that he was going to make up a story and hand it in just make up something colorful the other three laughed at him that's ridiculous someone suggests they all walk over to the oxford hotel and have a beer so they did jack said he liked dale's idea about faking a story but why didn't each of them fake a story and get off the hook john jack said you're thinking too small four half-baked fakes didn't really cut it what they really needed was a real whopper that they all could use another round of beers a phony story of course could be too easy to check so they started discussing something foreign uh some foreign angles that would be difficult to really verify china was distant enough so as you read yes we'll write something about china john lean forward gesturing dramatically the dim light of the bar room and said try this one on a group of american engineers stopping over in denver in route to china the chinese government is making plans to demolish the great wall our engineers are bidding on the job harold was skeptical why would the chinese want to destroy the great wall john thought for a moment they're tearing down the ancient boundary to symbolize international goodwill to welcome foreign trade another round of beers by 11 pm the four reporters had worked out the details of their preposterous story after leaving the oxford bar they'd go over to the windsor hotel they would sign four fictitious names to the hotel register they'd instruct the desk clerk to tell anyone that asked that four new yorkers that arrived that evening had been interviewed by the reporters and had left early the next morning for california the denver newspapers carried the story all four papers and on the front page in fact the times headline that sunday read great chinese wall doomed peking seeks world trade of course the story was a phony a ludicrous fabrication concocted by four capricious newsmen in a hotel bar but their story was taken seriously and was picked up and expanded by newspapers in the eastern united states and then by newspapers abroad yeah whoops is right when the chinese themselves learned that the americans were sending a demolition crew to tear down their national monument most of them were indignant some of them were enraged particularly incensed were members of a secret society a volatile group of chinese patriots who were already wary of foreign intervention they inspired by the story exploded they rampaged against the foreign embassies in peking they slaughtered hundreds of missionaries in two months nineteen thousand troops from six countries joined forces invaded china with the purpose of protecting their own countrymen the bloodshed that followed sparked by the journalistic hoax hoax uh invented in a bar room in denver became the white hot international conflagration that's known to every high school student as the boxer rebellion um there's a little background here there was a band of people called the i ho chion which which means righteous and harmonious fists they believed a mysterious boxing art rendered them invulnerable and the group's origin was supposed to have been maybe originally a self-defense organization uh during the taiping rebellion the white lotus sect they call themselves at first these boxers as the western media called them the boxers and so that became known as the boxer rebellion they first addressed their hostility against the christian converts who had you know caused many people to abandon their traditional belief system and and so they roam the countryside killing chinese christians and foreign missionaries and from all this anti-christianist area it uh it just started to escalate against everything foreign churches uh railways mines whatever and they recruited disenchanted from all segments of society there was a lot of there was a there was a drought so many people were starving and hungry so they were open to this kind of of a thing and this is 1899 1900 time period local authorities have refused to stop the violence at first the manchu court was alarmed by the uncontrollable popular uprising but they took satisfaction at seeing revenge taking being taken for their humiliation before the foreign powers and there's i won't get through all the politics but the empress and the emperor were at odds and they end up backing they thought she was impressed with the boxers successes so she not just was neutral they actually started backing the boxers and that foreign powers you know got even the whole thing starts to escalate that started a very famous eight week uh siege on uh they king the whole thing obviously got way out of hand and then the united states getting the act and i won't go through the whole history there but it uh finally this german settle down in september of 1901 ultimately ends up humiliating it collapsed the chain prestige and all that so forth but all this started by what you know a group of guys in a bar putting together a lie obviously having no concept of what that might ignite it's interesting to see what david prayed set a watch o lord before my mouth keep the door of my lips incline not my heart to any evil thing see the great tragedies i don't think any of us have any ability to grasp the evil that a few idol words can cause about a person his reputation someone's marriage the integrity of a church or a business or what have you but david knew that the key to the tongue was the heart matthew 12 34 out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh but anyway verse six james continues the tongue is a fire a world of iniquity so is the tongue among our members that it defileth the whole body and set up on fire the course of nature and is set on fire of hell our tongue [Music] potentially has more destructive power than a hydrogen bomb because the bomb's power is only physical and temporal your tongue's power potentially is spiritual and eternal your proper use of your tongue in the right situation can alter someone's eternity hydrogen bomb can't do that in fact the tongue controls the bomb if you want to get argued about it but anyway you know it's amazing within any organization especially a church or a ministry when certain people leave or are replaced what a beautiful spirit of harmony and love takes over from what previously was tense and divisive it's amazing uh the the scripture says that in proverbs 26 where no wood is the fire goeth out so where there is no tail bearer the strife ceases i think we've all been in organizations how many you got show hands how many have you been in organization where there's been uh a turbulence or a problem yeah okay so yeah it's almost unanimous where that one person leaves or moves away or whatever suddenly gets along tongue the tongue can cause disasters from sin on the inside or pressures from the outside it's interesting that if we feel abused let's remember too that our lord was also similarly abused here's the lord jesus christ some of the things that he had to bear one of them was how his enemies talked about him they called him a man gluttonous and a winebibber when he performed miracles they attributed those miracles to satan even when he's hanging on the cross his enemies threw vicious taunts at him he even records that in psalm 22. it's one of the things in there it's interesting he describes what they're saying a verbatim actually anyway verse seven for every now now james introduces another model he talked about fires up until now for every kind of beasts and a birds and of serpents and of things of the sea is tamed and have been tamed of mankind but the tongue can no man tame everyone that's married knows that no i'm sorry i'm sure it is an unruly evil full of deadly poison no man can tame his own heart how do you tame your heart turn with me to isaiah 6 and i think there's a revealing event that occurs in isaiah 6. now isaiah 6 is a famous passage because it's when i it's where isaiah is treated to a glimpse of the throne room of the universe the throne of god and it describes that the first few verses but when you get to verse five i want you this is always in the scripture where someone is confronted with the throne of womb of god they always have the same effect they're not excited they're crushed notice what isaiah's reaction is then said i woe is me see in other words what he's going to be confronted with is the righteous the blinding righteousness of god in contrast to our sinfulness that's the thing that grabbed isaiah right up front here what was me for i am undone because i am a man of unclean lips and i dwell in the midst of the people of unclean lips for mine eyes have seen the king the lord of hosts then flew one of the seraphim unto me having a live coal in his hand which he had taken with the tongues from off the altar and he laid it upon my mouth and said lo this hath touched thy lips and thine iniquity is taken away and my sin purged his lips were cauterized by the cold from the altar interesting can we tame our own heart i don't think so i think what james is telling us is that only god can only god can he also in this verse eight back in james three verse eight it's it speaks uh the tongue as as full of deadly poison it's interesting the most deadly of poisons are the poisons that are tasteless and odorless i'm going to suggest you that's analogous to subtle criticism and slander verbal venom that does its work when the victim can't react it can include a word that's unsaid the awkward silence a raised eyebrow a quizzical look any of those can be sent right from the pit of hell tongue can break hearts and run reputations it's interesting that every word adolf hitler wrote a book mein kampf every word in adolf hitler's book cost 125 lives in world war ii now contrast the words of hitler with the words of winston churchill instead of the fanatical ravings and what have you churchill's brilliant but very measured sentences pull together a faltering nation for its finest hour the tongue is like an unruly animal restless and dangerous it seeks prey and then pounces and kills some animals are poisonous as are some tongues and the deceptive things about poisons that can work slowly and visibly a malicious word that's spread uncontested can do great damage to a person or family or a church i guess james's key point here before we go on is that animals can be tamed but the tongue cannot you can take animals that weigh tons and train them you can take a tongue which is a few ounces and can't and obviously the reason you can't is because it's just the amplifier of thoughts that come from the heart but anyway james then goes on to two more final ones the power of the tongue to delight and he uses two the fountain of the tree is his examples here that gives us six altogether verse nine therewith bless we god even the father and therewith curse we men which are made after the similitude of god out of the same mouth perceived blessing and cursing my brethren these things ought not so to be doth a fountain sent forth at the same place sweet water and bitter now uh in most of the world almost every place you go in the world even small villages one of the most prized possessions of most of these settlements is right in the middle of town is what a fresh water fountain both in its reality and also its symbolism it represents uh you know blessing refreshment life why because you and i need water we can go without food for a while but you can't go without water for very long water is necessary for drinking also for washing cooking farming all kinds of activities necessary for life and proverbs 18 4 the words of a man's mouth are as deep waters and the welsh spring of wisdom as a flowing brook proverbs 10 11 the mouth of a righteous man is a well of life 13 14. now the law of the wise is a fountain of life to depart from the snares of death see water is life-giving and so our words can give life if they're controlled by the spirit of god and not our flesh death and life are in the power of the tongue proverbs 18 21. it's interesting how the floods in the midwest we've all seen floods uh in actual practice or on on news broadcast it's amazing how much uncontrolled water i mean how uncontrolled water how much damage it can do in contrast that of course is the refreshment of water and the refreshment of the holy spirit paul's prayer was that he might refresh the saints in rome when he visited them he often named christians who refreshed him first corinthians 16 18 and philemon has a couple of verses that mentions that and water also cleansed in the tabernacle in the temple there was a labor that was for the purpose of washing god's word is the spiritual water that cleanses us it's interesting that we are washed by jesus's blood once and for all that's a judicial cleansing but the scripture tells us that we should be washed every day in what the word uses a different idiom the blood is a judicial issue washing the water by the word is a daily effect affair our words to others can cleanse them and sanctify them if those words that we're using have their source in the holy spirit our word should be like the river in ezekiel 47 that brought life to everything it touches do your words bring lie a life to everyone it touches don't need a show of hands proverbs 12 18 there is that speaketh like the piercings of a sword but the tongue of the wise is health verse 12 can the fig tree my brethren bear olive berries either a vine figs so can no fountain both yield salt water and fresh see saying in effect he's been drawing an algae here in effect but a tongue is like a tree what is a tree a tree can provide beauty it can provide shade and also bears fruit our words can help someone find shelter and encourage proverbs 10 21 the lips of the righteous feed many jesus said the words these words that i speak unto you they are spirit and they are life john 6 63. now the most important thing about a tree is what it's root system it has to be healthy it has to be deep see you and i need to be like the man in the first psalm the book of psalms psalm 1 very simple beautiful psalm the blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly understandeth in the way of sinners nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful but his delight is in the law of the lord and in his law doth he meditate day and night and he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that bringeth forth his fruit in his season his leaf also shall not wither and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper there's the secret of prosperity in the first few verses of psalm 1 and of course nourishment is important and situating did the lord need nourishment boy he communed with his father and heard from his father every day he got his marching orders from his father every day isaiah 50 verse 4 the lord hath given me the tongue of the learner that i should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary he waketh morning by morning he wake he awakeneth mine here to hear as the learning mark 1 31 5 speaking of the lord jesus christ in mor and in the morning rising up a great while before the day he went out and departed into a solitary place and they're prayed you realize that every morning that you don't get up find some privacy and have a quiet time with the lord you're putting your day in jeopardy it's so easy to do and yet how often do we do it people say when should i read my bible question when are the sheep fed when do you if your shepherd when you feed the sheep in the morning morning best part of the day if we're going to have tongues of delight our hearts have to be right with the lord each morning now by the way james finishes all this with a warning there's a warning here a fountain cannot bring forth two kinds of water a tree cannot yield two kinds of fruit so this raises a fundamental question that really underlies this whole passage the question is what is your most important stewardship your wife is nudging you with your elbow of the family you might be saying gee one of my most important stewardship is to provide for my family my career my profession there's a lot of good lists and you defend all of them what is your most important stewardship what stewardship eclipses every other priority in life it should be the stewardship of your heart your heart where's your heart i can't discern only god can discern the thoughts and tense of the heart but i can tell where it is by your tongue unfortunately matthew 15 18 but those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart and they defile the man and proverbs 4 23 says keep thy heart with all diligence and i think that's the root truth in james chapter three first half james three is that all this is symptomatic of the root issue our hearts and he's talking to christians that's all i'm saying talking to you and i now one of the writers i consulted and trying to get some background here suggested there are 12 words that can transform your life there are 12 words that can transform your life you ready please thank you i'm sorry i love you and i'm praying for you and we shouldn't be saying that unless we mean it that's a cliche we use often too frequently too casually 12 words please thank you i'm sorry i love you i'm praying for you no i think the secret is our heart and i think that is not a once and for all thing you can't come down the sawdust trail and it's done we all tend to think receiving jesus christ is a climax not that we shouldn't that's probably the most important decision of your life is to seriously wholeheartedly commit yourself to jesus christ very very important but it's a beginning not an end that's where it all starts and james is in effect asking throughout his whole epistle you say you're saved great what have you done with it where's the evidence is there a changed life is there obedience evidence of being not perfection you're going to stumble tragically we all do and you have to remember the christians borrow so first john 1 9 we confess our sins he is faithful and just forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness but that's not a license to excuse ourselves from obedience we are called to obedience and that obedience is not a works thing as it's often described it's not a do's and don'ts thing it's a question of being diligent over our heart and letting our heart reflect in our walk uh the character of god when we screw up when we fumble when we say something inappropriate when we pass on a rumor about someone when we indulge in gossip that tragedy isn't just because we may injure a life a family an enterprise a mission a mission or a church it's tragic for another reason is that we cloud the perspective of anyone else on the character of god because if we're christians god is expecting us to reflect god's nature and that's really what james is going to hammer through all the rest of this let's stand for closing word of prayer let's bow our hearts well father we come before your throne thankful for this letter you've given us from james we pray father that this call to obedience will echo your holy spirit father in our lives not a set of rules but a set of responses to the greatness you of your nature of your faithfulness of your truth we pray father that you would draw each of us more fully into your word help each of us father to be more diligent in our time with you every day that we might hear your voice that we might know your heart that our lives and our words would reflect your heart and your words that we might bear fruit father that we indeed might be fruit-bearing trees that we that our words indeed would comfort encourage strengthen and yes where appropriate exhort or convict not by our self-righteousness father but rather by the leading of your holy spirit as we commit ourselves father this night into your hands in the name of yeshua our lord and savior jesus christ amen [Music] you

Channel: Koinonia House

Views: 8,909

Rating: 4.9656162 out of 5

Keywords: jesus, christ, chuck, missler, koinonia, house, khouse, institute

Id: gsNCj_7n_1Q

Length: 54min 29sec (3269 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 01 2021