The Tongue
Posted by preachgospelblog.com | Filed under Illustrations of Bible Truths
1. Slander Hurts
There’s no doubt that slander hurts. There’s only a single letter’s difference between “words” and “swords.” Slanders are like flies; they light upon our sores where they know they will hurt the most. Sir Francis Bacon expressed a profound truth when he said, “The worthiest persons are frequently attacked by slanders, as we generally find it to be the best fruit which the birds will peck at.”
2. The Lesson of the Tongue
Socrates of Constantinople, an early church historian, tells of an ignorant man who came to him asking him to teach him a Psalm or some part of Scripture. Socrates began to read to him the 39 th Psalm, “I said, I will take heed to my ways, that I sin not with my tongue.” As soon as he had read the first verse, Pambo, for that was his name, shut the book and took his leave saying that he would go learn that point first. His instructor waited and waited for him, but he did not come back. Finally, one day Socrates met Pambo accidentally and asked where he had been. Pambo said he was still learning that first lesson about the tongue. Forty-nine years later when someone else asked him why he did not learn anything else from the Scriptures, his reply was the same. Is it then any wonder that James takes almost the whole third chapter to discuss this all-important part of the body?
3. Little Things
We should mind little things in life-little courtesies, little matters of personal appearance, little extravagances, little minutes of wasted time, little details in our work. It seems that a thing cannot be too small to command our attention. The first hint Newton had, leading to his very important optical discoveries, was derived from a child’s soap bubble. The art of printing was suggested by a man cutting letters in the bark of a tree. The telescope was the outcome of a boy’s amusement with two glasses in his father’s shop. Goodyear neglected his skillet until it was red hot, and the accident guided him to the manufacture of vulcanized rubber-little things, every one a little thing. Yet how important they proved to be to the man who had the wit to correlate these things with the idea in his head. So the tongue is like the helm of a ship. The helm is small, but it can direct a big vessel.
4. The Tongue-The Best and Worst
Xanthus, the philosopher, once told his servant that the next day he was going to have some friends for dinner and that he should get the best thing he could find in the market. The philosopher and his guests sat down the next day at the table. They had nothing but tongue-four or five courses of tongue-tongue cooked in this way, and tongue cooked in that way. The philosopher finally lost his patience and said to his servant, “Didn’t I tell you to get the best thing in the market?” The servant said, “I did get the best thing in the market. Isn’t the tongue the organ of sociability, the organ of eloquence, the organ of kindness, the organ of worship?” Then Xanthus the philosopher said, “Tomorrow I want you to get the worst thing in the market.” And on the morrow the philosopher sat at the table, and there was nothing there but tongue-four or five courses of tongue-tongue in this shape and tongue in that shape. The philosopher again lost his patience and said, “Didn’t I tell you to get the worst thing in the market?” The servant replied, “I did; for isn’t the tongue the organ of blasphemy, the organ of defamation, the organ of lying?” Well done, servant; you certainly taught the philosopher a lesson, the same lesson the Apostle James wants to teach us in the third chapter. The tongue can do great good, and it can do great evil.
5. Undoing Gossip’s Harm
There was a peasant with a troubled conscience who went to a monk for advice. He said that he had circulated a vile story about a friend, only to find out the story was not true. “If you want to make peace with your conscience,” said the monk, “you must fill a bag with chicken feathers, go to every dooryard in the village, and drop at each of them one fluffy feather.” The peasant did as he was told. Then he returned to the monk and announced he had done penance for his folly. “Not yet,” replied the monk, “Take your bag, make the rounds again and gather up every feather that you have dropped.” “But the wind must have blown them all away,” said the peasant. Words are easily dropped, but no matter how hard you try, you can never get them back again.
6. Tongue Control
Once a young man came to that great philosopher Socrates to be instructed in oratory. The moment the young man was introduced he began to talk, and there was an incessant stream for some time. When Socrates could get in a word, he said, “Young man, I will have to charge you a double fee.” “A double fee, why is that?” The old sage replied, “I will have to teach you two lessons. First, how to hold your tongue, and then how to use it.” What an art for all of us to learn, especially for Christians.
7. A Forked Tongue
This is told of a Christian man whose most intimate friends could not find out anything about his religious affiliations. One day a friend of his, on being told that he belonged to the church, exclaimed, “Why, I have known him intimately for some years, but I never dreamed he was a Christian!” He could not possibly conceive how the mouth that spoke so violently and indecently of his fellow men could be opened in church to praise and bless God.
8. A Lie Is Forever
A little girl come to her mother, saying, “Which is worse, Mama, to tell a lie or to steal?” The mother replied that both were so sinful she could not tell which was worse. “Well, Mama,” replied the little one, “I’ve been thinking a good deal about it, and I think it’s so much worse to lie than steal.” “Why, my child?” asked the mother. “Well, you see, Mama, it’s like this,” said the little girl, “If you steal a thing, you can take it back, unless you’ve eaten it, and if you’ve eaten it, you can pay for it; but a lie is forever.”
9. Evil Use of the Tongue
I shall never forget going on a picnic with my schoolmates and my uncle who was the teacher. We were playing with a little ball, and it got caught in the top of a tree. The teacher was angry about it and wanted to know who threw it there. Because my uncle was the teacher, they all ganged up on me as the culprit. The result was that my uncle broke quite a good-sized stick on my back punishing me. That was punishment unrighteously administered because of a lie. Thus, this expression, “a world of iniquity” in James 3:6, actually means that both a great amount and a great variety of unrighteousness is caused by the evil use of the tongue.
10. The Steps and Stops
Once, when Dr. Pierson was in George Mueller’s study, he took a glance into his Bible. As he was leafing through it he came to Ps 37:23, “The steps of a good man are ordered by Jehovah.” He noticed that George Mueller had written by the side of it in the margin, “and the stops!” If our tongues know when to go and when to stop, then our whole bodies, our whole personalities, will know when to move and when to stop. If we don’t have God’s bridle, these tongues of ours will keep going incessantly. Now we need the steps and the stops, too! If it were not for the bridle, the rider would find it very difficult, if not impossible, to stop the horse. Why does the horse stop? Because the bits in the bridle hurt his tongue. It is so with God in His dealings with us. We are moving so fast in the wrong direction, toward our own goal and destruction, that God has to pull hard on the bridle to cause us to stop.
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