James



James

Lesson 10

Oh, That Tongue!

Oh, that tongue! What power is in that tiny little member of our body! As a matter of fact, it has the potential of being a world in itself—a world of iniquity. But, with Jesus Christ, it can be an instrument for good. We want to look at the power of the tongue, and that is what we move into when we move into James 3. We have already done the Observation Worksheet, and we have dug into the tongue. Kay wants to take James 3 and put it into context.

James is talking about a faith that is real, a faith that is genuine. All the way through his epistle, James is showing us what genuine faith is really like. He shows us in chapter one that a genuine faith perseveres when it is tested; it does not continuously fail, but perseveres when it is tested. He shows us at the end of chapter one that a genuine faith is not one that just hears, but it is one that does what it hears. He tells us in chapter one that a genuine faith is a faith that loves and it shows. He starts that when he talks about pure religion and undefiledness [sic], and to visit orphans and widows.

Then, he moves, in chapter two, to not showing any partiality and to walking by the royal law of love. And then, at the end of chapter two, he tells us that a faith that is real has works to prove the genuineness of that faith.

Then, he tells us in chapter three, that a faith that is real is able to bridle its tongue. A faith that is real will show in what the tongue talks about—the wisdom that the tongue has. A faith that is real will have the wisdom that is from above, not a wisdom that is from beneath. As he goes through and shows us those tests of our faith (how we know that our faith is real), he comes to the subject of the tongue. As we go to James 3, he has not begun the topics of the tongue and wisdom. We see the subject introduced in James 1:26

James 1:26 26 If anyone thinks himself to be religious, and yet does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this man's religion is worthless.

He goes on to say at the end of James 2, that if you have a religion that says it has faith and says that it believes, but it has no works, he says what use is that? He is showing us that there is a religion that is worthless and there is a religion that is genuine. If we are like Kay, religion has had a bad connotation because when we think of religion, we think of man’s efforts to please his god, whoever that god may be. We think about different religions of the world, such as the Muslim religion, the Hindu religion, and things like that. But James is not using the word “religion” in that sense; he is using the word “religion” in a good sense. Kay relates how before she was saved, she had a religion, but she did not have a relationship. That is not the way James is talking about it. James is using the word religion in a good sense.

The Greek word for religion [sic] is threskos and it means “to be concerned with the externals of Christian service.” James is not talking about doctrine. We do not hear him discussing propitiation, expiation, justification or the sanctification that happens when we are born again. Instead, we hear James talking about the externals: that which we can see, that which can be demonstrated. He is talking about the externals because the externals demonstrate what is internal.

Today, the problem in the church of Jesus Christ is that there are a lot of people saying that they believe. Kay talks about the letters that she receives. Over and over, what she hears from so many women is that “my husband says that he is a Christian,” but that he verbally abuses his wife, that he is “sleeping around,” or he is never home, or he is out with the boys drinking, he never goes to church or opens his Bible, but he says that he is a Christian. Sometimes Kay gets letters from husbands who write and say, “My wife says she believes, but she is not interested in the things of the LORD. All she wants to do is party. She doesn’t care about the kids; she doesn’t care about the home, etc.”

James is talking about a faith that shows, a faith that is real, a faith that is genuine. He calls it religion because religion has to do with the external services, or the externals of Divine service. James is talking about the externals of Divine service and religion because externals demonstrate internals.

James 1:27 27 Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.

“Pure and undefiled religion” refers to “pure and undefiled” service; a pure and undefiled demonstration of something that is internal. Genuine Christianity, “pure religion” puts us in the world, causing us to minister to the world. Kay notes that she is writing a monthly devotional, designed to help people grow in their Christian faith. She tells how she feels that God has burdened her heart to write about America, how it is playing the harlot. As she is writing it, she is paralleling the history of America and the history of Israel. In doing this, what she has seen (studying the history of America) is that Harvard and Princeton, and all those wonderful schools were started by as evangelical outreaches to the world, to the United States of America! The hospitals were built for that! Our Founding Fathers did not have a personal faith in Jesus Christ, but a lot of them had a holy fear of God that people do not have today. What we see is the church, when the church is the church, [is that] it steps out into the world. George Whitfield, who brought revival and the great awakening to the United States of America, came here to establish orphanages. That is “pure religion.” It puts us out in the world; it gives us a burden for mankind, the burden that God has, and it is to visit widows and the fatherless. It puts us out in the world, but it keeps the world out of us. We walk in the world, but we are not of the world. “Pure religion” enables us to keep ourselves unspotted from the world. “Pure and undefiled religion” that he speaks of in verse 27 is to put us in the world, to keep the world out of us, and (in verse 26) is to bridle our tongue. If we think we are religious and our religion is genuine, then we will be able to bridle out tongue.

Kay wants to take us through James and show us what he says about being able to bridle the tongue.

James 1:19 19 This you know, my beloved brethren. But everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger;

If we are not slow to speak, and [are] quick to speak, our tongue might get away from us. But, if we are slow to speak, we can bridle our tongue and bring it under control.

How does anger manifest itself? It can manifest itself in violence. Another way anger manifests itself is by speaking.

James 1:20 20 for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God.

And then in verse twenty-six, he talks about bridling our tongue.

James 1:26 26 If anyone thinks himself to be religious, and yet does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this man's religion is worthless.

James 3:2a 2a For we all stumble in many ways.

He is not saying that if we are truly a Christian, we will never fail, or fall, or stumble. We stumble in many ways. He is not saying true Christianity never stumbles or loses control of its tongue. He is saying we all stumble in many ways, but

James 3:2b 2b If anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to bridle the whole body as well.

Kay is sure we have noticed that “perfect” is a key word in James. In James 1 he says trials help us to be mature, to be a perfect person. The Greek word for perfect, teleios does not mean “without error,” or “without defect.” It means “to be mature,” “complete,” “coming to Christ-likeness,” “coming to the full stature of a man or woman of God.” In James 1 he talks about us being perfect.

James 1:4 4 And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

James 1:17 17 Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.

James 1:25 25 But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does.

James 2:22 22 You see that faith was working with his works, and as a result of the works, faith was perfected;

He is talking about faith coming to maturity. He is talking about a faith that is real, a faith that is genuine. But he is also talking about us having these externals of religion and living in such a way that more of what we are, is more we are Christ-like. More and more we come to the stature of the fullness of Jesus Christ.

In James 3:2 he says, “You’re a perfect man, a mature man, a complete man, a Christ-like man if you are able to bridle your tongue.”

James 3:2b 2b If anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to bridle the whole body as well.

James 3:10 10 from the same mouth come both blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be this way.

What comes out is from the well within. What is in our well? Bitter water within, bitter water out here. Sweet water within, sweet water out there.

Kay tells of the biography of Amy Carmichael and how she went to India and God used her to rescue children. She rescued the widows and she rescued the orphans out of the temples where they were used for sexual practices in the worship of their god. It was terrible what they do to those children. She went to India to do this and wrote a book called If. One of the things in essence is this: if a cup is jarred, it can only spill sweet water if that is what it is filled with. She said it more poetically. If one jars a cup, what spills is what is inside. What is spilled from our mouth when we are jarred?

James 3:13 13 Who among you is wise and understanding? Let him show by his good behavior his deeds in the gentleness of wisdom.

Kay reminds us of James 2:18 and reiterates James 3:13. It is not just what we do, it is not just a religion that does, but it is a religion that speaks according to the wisdom that is from above and not the wisdom that is beneath.

In Psalm 15, he talks about who is going to dwell with God, who is going to live in His Holy Hill, who is going to dwell in His Presence. Kay wants us to watch, very carefully, everything that has to do with speech.

Psalm 15:1-3 1 O LORD, who may abide in Your tent? Who may dwell on Your holy hill? 2 He who walks with integrity, and works righteousness, And speaks truth in his heart. 3 He does not slander with his tongue, Nor does evil to his neighbor, Nor takes up a reproach against his friend;

In other words, someone might come to Kay, or go to another person and complain about her. That other person is not going to take up that reproach because one does not take up a reproach against a friend. If they do not take up a reproach against a friend, then that person is bridling their tongue.

Psalm 15:4-5 4 In whose eyes a reprobate is despised, But who honors those who fear the LORD; He swears to his own hurt and does not change; 5 He does not put out his money at interest, Nor does he take a bribe against the innocent. He who does these things will never be shaken.

In other words, if that friend says something with their tongue, their “Yea” is yea and their “Nay” is nay and they do not alter that. They will abide in God’s Holy Hill because they have the tongue under control.

Galatians 5:19-21 19 Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, 21 envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

“Immorality, impurity, sensuality” are really “body deeds.” “Sorcery” means “the use of drugs for magical purposes.” The word [in Greek] is “pharmakeia”. “Enmities” are conflicts. “Practice” in the King James is “do” and the [Greek] word is “prasso” which means “as a habit of life.” Those who do these things will not inherit the kingdom of God. Look at how many of these things have to do with the tongue: strife, enmity, jealousy, outbursts of wrath, and dissensions. All of those are of the tongue.

Kay asks us, “What goes on with your tongue? Are you a peacemaker, or a divider? Do you heal, or do you destroy with your tongue?” If we are a Christian, we are able to bridle our tongue. We know why we are able to bridle our tongue because every Christian has one Resident inside of us, the Holy Spirit, which we get from the New Covenant:

Ezekiel 36:27 27 "And I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.

To walk in His commandments and keep His statutes is to be able to bridle our tongue. Kay asks us, with the tongue, who is controlling the horse? Who is the pilot steering, or directing the rudder? Who has the reins? Who is the pilot, the steersman who is directing the rudder? Those are two illustrations that James shows for the power of the tongue; its smallness, and its power.

James 3:3 3 Now if we put the bits into the horses' mouths so that they may obey us, we direct their entire body as well.

Who directs the horse’s body? We direct [it]. We are able to direct because we have the Holy Spirit in us and He is our power. Kay relates how, when they first came to Tennessee, they received a horse named “Gambler.” She tells how their two young sons rode “Gambler” bare back with reins to control him. They urged her to ride “Gambler” but she was afraid, at first. They told her that all she needed to do was to “get hold of the reins and hold’em tight and you can make “Gamble do anything you want to do.” She discovered she could make the horse do anything she wanted him to do because she was directing that big old horse because she had a bit and a bridle over his very sensitive tongue.

So, to make it obey, we must bring the tongue under control. God is saying that if we bring that tongue under control, we have power because we not only have the tongue, we have the whole body [under control]. What a wonderful challenge to us!

James 3:4 4 Behold, 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.

The pilot is controlling the path of the ship because he has control of the rudder. The pilot directs that ship. God is showing us that the power of our tongue depends on who is controlling the rudder or the reins. If we are a child of God, we are able to bring that tongue under control.

When he opens up his discourse on the tongue, in James 3, he opens up in a very unusual way: he opens up talking about teachers. He talks about them for one verse, connects it with the second verse, and then drops teachers. We may wonder what he is doing jumping here and there. But we must remember that he is talking about the externals of Christianity. There are all sorts of externals. The first thing he begins with is this admonition not to be “many teachers” [sic].

The tongue has the power to change the course of a person’s faith.

It is very important. Kay asks why he says

James 3:1a 1a Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren,

We might say, “Who wants to teach? It is hard work!” We are held accountable because as a teacher we will incur judgment for everything we teach. Kay realizes she will be judged for every word she says because what she says could change the course of our relationship with Jesus Christ. It could take us off track, or take us into err, or take us into false doctrine (which is err), or it could take us into a wrong behavior. So he says do not be “many teachers” [sic]. Why would they want to be teachers? It was a good thing to be a teacher in those days. They liked to be known as teachers. They loved being called “rabbi” [rhabbi], which means “[my] teacher.” So they loved that and Jesus told them. In Matthew 23 He talks about the Scribes and the Pharisees and how they are putting heavy loads on people and everything. And then He says this:

Matthew 23:6-8 6 "And they love the place of honor at banquets, and the chief seats in the synagogues, 7 and respectful greetings in the market places, and being called by men, Rabbi. 8 "But do not be called Rabbi; for One is your Teacher, and you are all brothers.”

Later on, Jesus is going to say that we are here as servants. So a teacher is a servant. And yet in those days, what had happened was teachers were so needed in the Body of Jesus Christ. Remember, this whole New Covenant is in progress. They have moved from Law to Grace and now they have a whole new understanding of this covenant and everything. The people would go forth and proclaim the Word of God. As we go through the New Testament, we see two types of things happening as far as delivering the message. We see the kerugma, the preaching or proclamation of the message. Anyone was to proclaim the message. They were to tell people about Jesus Christ. So they went out proclaiming.

As they went out and proclaimed the Word of God, they laid the foundation for faith. In I Corinthians we see

1 Corinthians 3:11 11 For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.

That is the beginning of salvation. But, that is not the end. That is just coming to know Christ. We have to go on to perfection, to maturity, to Christ-likeness. We have to understand that perfect law of liberty that will take us on to Christ-likeness. We have to understand what it is to be a child of God, that He brought us forth by that perfect gift so that we become that perfect man or perfect woman. It takes more than being saved; it takes growing.

KJV I Peter 2:2b 2b desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby:

Along came those that did teaching. The [Greek] word for teaching is didache. These came along, go in and proclaim the Gospel, people would come out and be saved, and then they would move a teacher in. That teacher would begin to instruct them. People rushed to the fore, wanting to be a teacher, but God knew that what a teacher taught in the authority of a teacher, standing there as an explainer of the Christian life and how we are to live, could have great import on a person, either for good or for evil. The power would come in their tongue, in what they said, in what they taught. So he says, “Don’t be ‘many teachers’ [sic].” As a matter of fact, in II Timothy 1, what we see happening is Paul writing to Timothy and telling Timothy why he was a teacher.

II Timothy 1:11 11 for which I was appointed a preacher and an apostle and a teacher.

A preacher is like a herald. We should only be teaching if we have the gift of teaching, appointed as a teacher. But, we have to know that as a teacher, we will be held accountable for what we teach, because this tongue that is going to give forth the Word, can change the course of a person’s faith.

Titus 1:10-11 10 For there are many rebellious men, empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision, 11 who must be silenced because they are upsetting whole families, teaching things they should not teach, for the sake of sordid gain.

“Empty talkers” were talking empty words. A man who was responsible for many, many conversions in his evangelistic campaigns, not on the scale of Billy Graham, would get up and preach, then go back stage and he would just go through the offering. He would say, “What fools they are.”

He would see people saved and somebody said, “What do you mean?”

He said, “What fools they are to believe that stuff.”

And they said, “You don’t believe that stuff?”

“No! It’s stupid!”

“How can you preach that way?”

He said, “Look at what it brings! It’s a good profession!”

To some it is a “good profession;” profession without possession.

What he is saying here in Titus is there are people coming in and they are teaching, and their teaching is dividing families. We have seen that happen. We have seen wives pick up a false doctrine and the husbands know, intuitively, that it is wrong. They may not be able to explain it. And it divides families. Kay has seen it divide families and has gotten letters where it has divided families. This tongue can change the course of a person’s faith and it can take them off on tangents. In Matthew 15 Jesus is talking about them teaching traditions of men.

Matthew 15:7-9 7 "You hypocrites, rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you, saying, 8 'This people honors Me with their lips, But their heart is far away from Me. 9 'But in vain do they worship Me, Teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.'"

There have been some people that have been so indoctrinated by wrong teachers that they will believe the traditions of that church, that preacher, that denomination, over the Word of God. Kay tells of a woman who came into a Romans Precept class up in New York, where the spiritual climate is different than it is in [Chattanooga, Tennessee], where there are more denominations than the predominantly Southern Baptist denomination in [Chattanooga]. The woman was studying Romans, and came to the teacher and said, “I’m sorry. I can’t study Romans anymore.”

The teacher said, “Why?”

She said, “Because it is contrary to what my church teaches me. I’ve just got to stop.” Kay will not reveal the denomination because we might think she is taking a poke at something. Several weeks went past. The Precept leader prayed. This was a Church of God Precept leader.

Several weeks later, the woman came back and said, “I’m back. I’ve decided I’ve got to believe the Word of God above my church.”

How are we going to know the truth? We better know the truth because if we do not know the truth, we can be led astray in our faith. But what he is talking to right now is teachers. In I Corinthians 3:11-15 he says one man lays the foundation and another comes and builds upon it. He can build with gold, silver, and precious stones. Gold, silver, and precious stones cannot be manufactured by man; they are dug out of the bowels of the earth, through much labor, sweat and toil. We can grow wood hay and stubble and they are not worth very much. We put gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, and stubble in a fire and the only things that will be left are gold, silver, and precious stones.

He says one man lays the foundation and another comes and builds on it. Be careful how we build on it. In I Corinthians 3 he is talking about teachers because he says the day is going to come when every man’s work will be tested to see what quality it is. “As a teacher, what did I build with? [Was it] with what I conceived, or what is truth from God’s Word?”

I Corinthians 3:15 15 If any man's work is burned up, he shall suffer loss; but he himself shall be saved, yet so as through fire.

Kay asserts that what Kay teaches is very important and it is very important who we listen to. [If] we constantly sit under wrong doctrine, eventually it will begin to have an effect on us. Especially is everyone around us believes the wrong doctrine and we think, “You know, I’m crazy!” The tongue from a teacher can change the course of a person’s faith. In Revelation 2: 20 he says, “I am upset with you! I’ve got something against you! You have a harlot there!”

Revelation 2:20 20 'But I have this against you, that you tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, and she teaches and leads My bond-servants astray, so that they commit acts of immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols.

He is saying, “She has led my bond servants away! She has changed the course of their faith so that some of the people have come over here and eaten things sacrificed to idols and others have come over here and gotten involved in immorality!” Kay used to have a pastor that seduced a woman. Kay hears about that all the time. This woman did not know Jesus Christ. She started going to the church. She had been married to one man, only known one man, was having problems, and the pastor seduced the woman. How can that happen? It is more strict for a teacher because a teacher is standing there as an expounder of the Word of God. What that teacher begins to say then has an effect on those people so that they take it more to heart, because that is a teacher!

“How could a teacher be wrong? He knows more than I do. He studied the Word more than I do. He is a teacher. Who am I to doubt him?”

Who we are to doubt him is, as Jesus said, “Don’t call him rabbi. I’m your Teacher. You are both brothers, so it is not as if he has an inside thing. That’s just his calling.”

So what he is saying is, “Don’t be ‘many teachers’ [sic] because you are going to incur a stricter judgment.”

Kay tells of her friend who is a Precept leader whom Kay describes as “just gorgeous.” She was dirt-poor and her mother would drop her off at church, and this was a nice church. She went into Sunday School and established herself there. Kids would snicker and she was embarrassed. When her mother would drop her off at church, she started going and hiding in the closet. One day, her Sunday School teacher came to that closet, opened the door and found her. She just looked at her and said, “You are absolutely hopeless! You’re just hopeless!” That was her teacher, a teacher of the Bible. She had to be right. For thirty years, she believed her teacher that she was hopeless, until she came to know the Lord Jesus Christ.

Teachers have such influence that it is so important for them not to be “many teachers” and to remember if they do, take, in obedience, that calling because they will be held accountable. Kay tells of another true story she read about a family of church goers. Their pastor invited a man to lead healing meetings. He taught on healing. He said, “I want to tell you something. Healing is for everybody. If you are sick and you are not healed, the reason you are not healed is simply because you will not believe God, because you will not make a positive confession and say, ‘I stand on the truth of God’s Word in absolute faith, and I am healed. It doesn’t matter how I feel. It doesn’t matter what the doctors say. I am healed! If you are not healed, if any of you here are sick and you want to be healed, you come forward and you make this positive confession!”

The mother and the father came forward with their son, who was a brittle diabetic. A brittle diabetic is very fragile. Their sugar can change instantaneously. That night, he said, “Let’s just praise the LORD! This family’s come forward! They believe God! They confess their son’s healing! Son, you are no longer a diabetic. You are healed!” They just all praised the LORD and thanked God. He was not a diabetic. He is perfectly normal!

The next morning the kid got up, came in the kitchen and said, “I can eat sugar, can’t I? I’m healed!”

And the father said, “Well, yes, you are.”

He said, “Well, if I don’t have diabetes anymore, I can eat sugar like the other kids do.” He poured a ton of sugar on his cereal, and all day, he ate cereal. All day, he ate sugar.

“Daddy . . . , oh Daddy, my stomach is hurting so badly.” The kid was on his way into a diabetic coma. But, the father had taken the insulin and thrown it all away,

When the child became sick, the father said, “It’s the devil. The devil’s doing that. He’s testing our faith.”

Finally, the preacher came over because the kid was slipping in and out of consciousness and said, “Let me call a doctor.”

The father said, “No. You bought that man. He told us this is just the devil and we’re going to confess. We’re going to believe!” They confessed and they believed.

They had a little group of women that came in and just when the pastor insisted, they looked at the pastor and said, “Where is your faith?! Didn’t you hear what that preacher said?! We’ve made a positive confession, healing is an atonement, and it is for everybody, and all we have to do is claim it!” And they watched their child slowly stop breathing.

They said, “God is going to work a greater miracle. He’s going to raise him from the dead.” And He didn’t raise him from the dead.

They came to get him and take him to the funeral home. They said, “Don’t take off his shoes! God’s going to raise him from the dead and he’s going to need his shoes.” They called the press and said, “God’s going to raise our son from the dead! Come to the funeral tomorrow and see him raised from the dead!”

We have to admit that they had faith. The only problem is that it is faith in wrong teaching. Their child was never raised from the dead and they were put in prison. A tongue of a teacher teaching the wrong thing changed the course of their faith and brought the death of their child. They have seen the error of their way, now that they have gotten into the Word of God. Oh that tongue, what power it has.

The tongue has the power to change the course of the work of God.

Kay asks what we hear a lot around churches—murmuring, complaining. She asks if we have heard people complaining about how God’s not taking care of them, what God is and is not doing.

Philippians 2:14 14 Do all things without grumbling or disputing;

That word, “grumbling” can be translated “murmuring.” “Do all things without grumbling [without murmuring] or disputing.” Now that is our tongue. And as we grumble or complain, it affects other Christians, other believers and it affects the work of God.

I Corinthians 10:10 10 Nor grumble, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the destroyer.

God’s people, when they came out of the land of Egypt, and began following God, began to grumble. As a result of their grumbling, others picked it up and then they “were destroyed by the destroyer.” It changed the work of God.

In Deuteronomy 1, Moses is giving the Law a second time, amplifying it a little bit, telling them how they are to live when they go into the Promised Land. Watch what he says in verses twenty-six and twenty-seven. First let’s look at verse nineteen.

Deuteronomy 1:19 19 "Then we set out from Horeb, and went through all that great and terrible wilderness which you saw, on the way to the hill country of the Amorites, just as the LORD our God had commanded us; and we came to Kadesh-barnea.”

They came into Kadesh-barnea and were going to straight into the Promised Land. But, they decided to send in twelve spies to check out the land and se what the land was like. God was going to take them into the land. This was before forty years in the wilderness had ever happened. But, when those twelve spies came back, ten of those men

Deuteronomy 1:22-27 22 "Then all of you approached me and said, 'Let us send men before us, that they may search out the land for us, and bring back to us word of the way by which we should go up, and the cities which we shall enter.' 23 "And the thing pleased me and I took twelve of your men, one man for each tribe. 24 "And they turned and went up into the hill country, and came to the valley of Eshcol, and spied it out. 25 "Then they took some of the fruit of the land in their hands and brought it down to us; and they brought us back a report and said, 'It is a good land which the LORD our God is about to give us.' 26 "Yet you were not willing to go up, but rebelled against the command of the LORD your God; 27 and you grumbled in your tents and said, 'Because the LORD hates us, He has brought us out of the land of Egypt to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites to destroy us.’”

What are they saying? God “hates us!” God does not care about us! God is going to destroy us! God had been taking care of them, delivering them from Egypt. He brought them out in order to bring them in. When God heard the grumbling, the work of their tongues, it changed the course of the work of God. Instead of going in, they wandered in the wilderness for forty years, waiting for every male, twenty years and above, to die because they grumbled against the LORD. Kay asks if we realize that our tongue, unbridled, uncontrolled, has the power to change the work of God? She also asks if we realize that we could stop our church from being what God wants it to be, simply by our tongue? She asks if we realize we could drive off one of God’s shepherds by our tongue. She has seen it happen over and over again and has seen God write, “Ichabod” over that church: “the Glory of the LORD has departed.” Why? Because of a tongue.

The power of the tongue can be for good or evil. We will give an account for every word that we speak. Kay asserts that she will give an account in the Day of Judgment. She will give a greater account because she is a teacher.

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