James chapter 3 verse number 5. James the 3rd chapter and the 5th verse. That's page number 893 in the Pew Bible. James chapter 3 beginning in verse number 5. Even so the tongue is a little member." He's saying that because of horses, we put bridles in their mouths to turn them, ships, they have rudders, you know, to steer them. Even so the tongue is a little member and boasteth great things. Behold how great a matter a little fire kindleth. So talking about the tongue being a small thing, just like a rudder on a ship compared to the ship. We saw some pretty big ships this weekend. We went Thursday. One of the field trips for the kids was to go to the Port of Houston to the ship channel. And we took this little boat tour, and we saw great big cargo ships. And compared to the ship itself, the rudder's a pretty small thing, but it turns the entire boat. And so we see here in verse number five, James is talking about the tongue is a little thing compared to your body. Your tongue's not, I guess if it, I don't know how long it measures. I didn't look at that. I mean, we know what we can see inside our mouths, but I guess it goes, some of you with medical background, Sister Louise, how far down does it go? I don't know. It probably goes a lot further. Maybe bigger than we think, but in comparison to your body, tongue's a small thing. I can't do like Randall. I think he can touch his chin with his tongue. He's got a pretty big one. And I'm certainly not Gene Simmons. I don't know if y'all remember who that was or not, but he used to stick his tongue out a lot Never did really care for for him at all. But anyway The tongue is a very small thing but but boy can it start a lot of trouble Verse number six says the tongue is a fire So it's a little member in verse number five Verse number six is a fire a world of iniquity. So is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature, and is set on fire of hell itself." Verse number seven, for every kind of beast, birds and serpents, and of things in the sea, is tamed and hath been tamed of mankind. So we're going from the tongue being a small thing to being something that's a fire, and even set on fire of hell itself, to talking about beast being tamed. We went to the circus not too long ago. There was a lion tamer in a cage with lions. We've been to SeaWorld before. There are people that ride, you know, and swim with one of those things called the orcas, the killer whales. Couldn't think of them. So, you know, accidents don't happen because they have before, but these things have been tamed by man. But verse number eight says, the tongue can know Who tame man? The tongue can no man tame. God can tame it, but no man can tame it. The tongue can no man tame. It is an unruly evil full of deadly poison. So little member, set on fire, can't be tamed, full of deadly poison. Verse number 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 proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be so, or so to be. Verse 11 says that the fountains send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter, I've never found it to be so. I've never gone to a water fountain and tasted the water and it was both sweet and bitter. It either tasted good or it didn't taste good. I've been to some baseball fields when I was in high school and the sulfur water coming out, I can't believe people drink that stuff. I mean, you have to be really thirsty to drink that when you're used to, you know, Water that doesn't have that that smell or taste to it, but The fountains send forth at the same time sweet water and bitter can a fig tree verse number 12 my brethren bear olive berries either a vine figs so we don't expect to go to a Fig tree and find olives on it or an olive tree and find figs on it. We don't expect to go to a blackberry vine and find figs on there. We expect to find berries on there. So can no fountain both yield saltwater and fresh. We'll stop there. But the point in the end is, what comes out of your mouth? Is it sweet and bitter? Fountains don't do that. What about your tongue? Is it tamed? All kinds of animals have been tamed. What about your tongue? So these are the kind of questions that James is setting before us here. Before we get into the message, let's go to the Lord in prayer and then you can be seated. Our gracious God and Father, we come before you this morning, and Father, we just simply and humbly, sincerely and earnestly ask, Father, that you would speak unto each and every one of us. Father, we know that we are not sufficient for such things as this. Our sufficiency comes from you. Our dependence, Father, is upon you. We wait upon you this morning and ask that you would Father, just manifest yourself unto us, manifest Christ unto all here. Help us to see, Father, the things that you would have us to see in the passage that's before us, that we may glorify and honor your name in all that we do. For it's in Christ's name we pray. Amen. You may be seated. So James says, out of the same mouth comes both of these things, blessing and cursing. Who's he talking about? Out of the same mouth proceeds blessing and cursing. Is he talking about unbelievers? They could do that. They could say bless God and then they're in church and sing hymns and then go out during the week and curse men with the same tongue. James says this ought not to be. Make the fountain sweet or make it bitter. Be one or the other. But not both. And the same thing to us as believers. How about that? Can you use your tongue in a wrong way? Have you used your tongue in a wrong way since you've been a Christian? Sure. James says, this ought not so to be. We have to go back to our previous message and talk about the fact that in order for us to have a sanctified tongue, we're going to have to have been regenerated. We sang about that, you must be born again. You gotta have a new heart to have a new tongue. If you don't have a new heart, you can't have a new tongue. But the bigger thing that we talked about last week was the fact that what's in a person's heart is what comes out of their mouth. What's in their heart comes out of their mouths. Psalm 15 verse one says this, this is a Psalm of David. Lord, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? who shall dwell in thy holy hill?" He answers the question. Verse number two, he that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth in his heart. Verse 3 goes on to say, He that backbiteth not with his tongue, nor doeth evil to his neighbor, nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbor. We're speaking about some things there that could be done with the tongue. Who shall abide in thy tabernacle? Who shall dwell in thy holy hill? It's the one with the sanctified tongue. And the one who has a sanctified tongue is the one who has a new heart, because you can't have a sanctified tongue without a new heart. We saw that last week when we talked about the fact that men shall give an account for every idle word, not just evil words, but idle words. Careless words, words that serve no good positive purpose. And we saw that the Lord taught that the heart is revealed in the mouth, and that we will be justified by our speech. Now we know we're justified by faith in Christ, but it's because of that faith in Christ, and because of the work that's been done within us, if we truly are His, and we've been born again. That's going to be proved, again, go back to what James said before, what he wants to show him. Show me your what? Faith. Show me your faith. And if you're going to show me your faith, how are you going to do that? How do you speak? That's the next thing he goes to here. What kind of things come out of your mouth? What comes out of your mouth, what's in your heart? So what's coming out of your mouth? What's your speech like? We tongue-in-cheek kind of said, stick out your tongue. That's what James is saying. Let me see what it looks like. I don't know if doctors do that anymore. I mean, I know I go to the doctor. He says, stick out your tongue. I don't know if he really verbalizes it that way. He's got the tongue depressor. I'm 46 years old. I know what he's going to do with it. So I open my mouth, and he sticks it in there. But I know the doctors used to look at people's tongues. And they could tell a lot about the health of a person by looking, you know, at their tongue. And that's what James really is kind of doing for us here. He said, let me see, you know, what your tongue looks like. In other words, what your speech is like. I mean, you say that you're a Christian, but what comes out of your mouth? What comes out of your mouth? Does it have to be just vile profanity? No. What's on your tongue? We use all these phrases. It's on the tip of my tongue. What's on the tip of your tongue? What do you talk about? What do you speak about? What are the things that occupy your conversation? We're going to give an account for every idle word of what we've been talking about. I know that everything that comes out of our mouth is not going to be a verse of scripture. That didn't always come out of the, you know, everything the Lord said, you know, wasn't scripture when he spoke. I mean, necessarily, I mean, there were conversations, what I'm saying, that he had with the disciples, certainly, that weren't upon, you know, the subject of, but he could turn, I'm sure, and often did, you know, to the scripture. That was what he was there for. And we ought to be looking for that in our speech. How many of you have done this? I've done this before. I've been talking to somebody. I know they don't know the Lord. And I've been seeking for opportunity, praying even for opportunity, while they're speaking to them and listening to them. Lord, turn this conversation where we can talk about their state, their state before you, the state of their soul, where they are spiritually speaking, that we might have some profitable discussion. Because otherwise, they're not really interested in having that kind of discussion. But that the Lord might open a door, that he might open a door that we might be able to speak to them. The thing about Paul when he was in prison, he asked for prayer that he might, he himself, and this is the Apostle Paul, he himself might open his mouth and speak as he ought to speak. I mean, that ought to be the thought and the cry of the heart of the believer. That I would speak as I ought to speak. That I would speak in a way that would honor and glorify you. That I would speak things that would be edifying and good for those around me. That I would use my tongue to build up and not tear down. That I would use my tongue to do good and not evil. Well, that all depends upon what's in a person's heart, doesn't it? The tongue provides the evidence of what our hearts really are like. James talks about the tongue being a small thing, but being a powerful thing. Can you hurt somebody's feelings with your tongue? Have wars been started by tongues and things that were said? Absolutely. Small but powerful. We had the illustrations last week of the horse and the ship. And we also quoted the verse of scripture about that we ought not to be like the horse or the mule that requires bit and bridle in order to turn that animal in the direction that you would have it to go. No, our heart's already been turned. Our heart's been turned towards God, and our hearts towards Him would be this way that I've been describing, Lord, take my tongue. We sing the hymn, Take My Life and Let It Be. Lord, take my tongue. In that hymn, it says, take my voice and let me sing. We could add a stanza and say, take my tongue and let me speak as I ought to speak. That doesn't rhyme, but we could work on it and put it in there somehow. But disproportionate. Think about this thing. It is disproportionate to the entire body. But boy, can it start a lot of trouble. Psalm 141 verse 3 says, set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth. Keep the door of my lips. Do we pray that way? Do we seek such things? We used to sing, I bring up the little children's song from time to time, you know, that we used to sing in Sunday school, be careful of the feet where you go, be careful of the eyes what you see, little ears what you hear, little hands what you touch. You know, how about our mouths? Lord, calls my mouth to be careful what it says. Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth. Keep the door of my lips. You know, the wicked can't. We see that in our text. Where's that at? We see in verse five, it's a little thing. We talked about that. It boasts great things, and you've heard people do that. But behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth. Verse number eight's the verse, though, that we're looking for. The tongue can no man tame. What hope, what hope does a man outside of Christ have? over keeping the door of his mouth, doing the thing that the psalmist here is praying that the Lord would do for him, said, watch, O Lord, before my mouth, keep the door of my lips. What hope does a man have outside of Christ of being able to do that? He has no hope. He can't keep his tongue. The things that his tongue is going to be used for are going to be used for the things that his heart longs for, which are the things of this life, the things of this world. If you're a believer, if you're a child of God, if you've been born again, that's not the case, you know, with you. Because God has changed your heart. Therefore, there has been, in a manner of speaking, a taming of your tongue. Your tongue has been tamed. So with a new heart comes new behavior, including the speech. And James is identifying that part of it, of this new heart that we have, by identifying that there will be new speech. Your speech will be affected by your new nature if you are a child of God. So the new man in Christ has a new mouth. He has a new tongue, new speech. You know, we can go back and think of some of those other analogies that, you know, we've heard as kids over the age. I never had my mouth washed out with soap. Did you? Anybody? Brother Wiseman? You grew up in that culture. You didn't have to, huh? You've done it? You washed out a kid's mouth with soap? Let me clean your tongue. Sir? Oh, a fire in your pants, didn't need your mouth washed out. And that's about all that a man can do. As parents, all you can do with your kids is discipline, but you can't change the heart. I can't change the heart. We've talked about those things before. Only God can change the heart. I mean, you may be able to keep it from coming out of their mouths in your house because they're afraid of what may happen, you know, discipline-wise because of it. But boy, when they get around their friends at school, unless they have a heart to obey, they're going to let it fly, you know, whatever it is. They're going to speak however they want to speak outside of your presence unless they have a heart to obey. And God gives that kind of a heart unto us, a new heart. You remember what James said earlier, if any man among you seems to be religious or thinks himself to be religious or presents himself as being religious but does not bridle his tongue, He's deceiving His own heart. His religion is useless. Let's read it there from chapter 1, verse 26. If you're in the Pew Bible, it's just over on the left-hand side. Left-hand far column at the bottom, verse 26. If any man among you seem to be religious and bridle, if not his tongue, the logical conclusion there is, deceiving his heart, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain. James is pretty serious about this thing. If the tongue is not bridled, if the tongue, if the speech isn't sanctified, then the heart is not. It's a telltale sign that here we have this tongue that's speaking in this way. It can't be. It can't be sanctified. One of the works that faith produces is speech that seeks to honor God. Speech that seeks to honor God. So, I'm not saying that you as a Christian have never used wrong speech. But I promise you this, if you have a new heart and you did, you couldn't get any peace because of it until you made it right. You were troubled by it, in other words. You remember the illustration I gave you last week about my experience going to get my tires rotated? The Lord wouldn't leave me alone. I didn't use any profanity to the fellow, you know. I just, my speech was just a little demanding and harsh, you know, for me anyway. throwing things and kicking over battery displays and stuff like that. Some people could do stuff like that. And they think that's the only way they can get any customer services, that they do stuff like that. But it was just in my heart, I knew that the way that I was acting wasn't honoring to God. You know, I don't have to act in an upset way to get anything done. You know, either the people are going to help me or they're not. What good is that going to do but just get everybody all bent out of shape, you know? But the Lord's not going to let you alone if you do stuff like that. Why? Because you have his spirit abiding within you. You are his what? What are you? Are you not the temple? of God? Is your body not the temple of the living God? And God abides within you? Is He going to allow you to profane His temple? Is He going to lightly pass over that and just let you go? No, if you're His, He's going to correct you. If it's nothing more than the still, small spirit of God being grieved within you, it may be more than that. It may come to more than that. You've had those kids. I don't know that I was necessarily that kid, but I think Theresa might have been, from what she's told me, I don't know, that her parents could speak to her and she'd just break down in tears, that kind of thing. Then you've got the other kid that's just like staunch, Defiant, you know, I told you not to do that. This is not now. This is a long time ago. If you do that, I'm going to whip you. And she'd raise up her little skirt and say, come on, big boy, you think you tame me? And she's just a little two, three-year-old thing. So you've got different personalities. And the spirit could be grieved, and your ear might perk up and say, yes, Lord. Or you might be, this situation's just not going the way that I want it to go, and I'm gonna make something happen here, and the Lord has to do something else to get your attention. So again, my point is, and having said that and used those little illustrations, I'm glad she's not that way anymore, by the way. Boy, that would be hard now that she's 20 years old. She comes up to me and she bumps into me sometimes and I just kind of give her a little shove and she sees real quick that she's not as strong as she thinks she is. But it would be a lot tougher now if she was 20 if she didn't have a heart that longed to serve the Lord, which I'm so thankful that she does. But my point is that Your speech is going to be a reflection of your heart, just like you go and you look in the mirror. And James, didn't he use that sort of illustration for us? He brought a mirror up early on, and you go and you look at yourself in the mirror. And if you go away and forget what you saw, what good does it do? But if you're a child of God, God's not going to let you forget. He's going to continually put His image, be holy as I am holy before you. This is what I want you to be conformed into. This is what I would have you to do. He's not going to let you alone. So there's an indication that you belong to Him. You use wrong speech, and the Lord won't let you alone. Be afraid if you do things, whether it be speech or otherwise, and the Lord doesn't do anything, and you seem to be able to do those things and get away with them. You have to begin to wonder whether or not He's your Father. Whether or not you are truly His. whether you are indeed saved or not. So unless your supposed salvation or your professed salvation manifests itself in the way that you speak, James is saying, this isn't me saying this. This is James saying this. This is the word of God saying this. Let's take it to the ultimate level that it needs to be. It's not just James. This is the word of God. Your speech is a reflection of your heart. Do those of us who name the name of Christ always do what we ought to do? No, we don't. Sadly, we don't. We've been given the capacity to do. We've been given a new heart. You have access to the throne of grace anytime. I mean, Brother Doug, you can go to the throne of grace anytime. Whether it's during the day at work, whether it's during your off time, whether it's when you wake up in the middle of the night and something has gripped you, you can go to the throne of grace. You have absolute, complete, total, unbarred, unrestricted in any way access to God. But sadly, we fail oftentimes to live as we ought. The reality of the matter is that if you're a Christian, you've been given a sanctified tongue, and you and I will not be satisfied with our speech unless it's used in a way that God would have us to use it and it honors Him. anything else, for you to use your tongue in any other way than to seek to do that with it, you're living contrary to your nature, if you're a Christian. You're doing the thing that Peter did. Peter, you're going to die me three times. Not me, Lord. I'll die with you. And yet, he did deny that he knew the Lord, you know, three times, and even used speech to try to, you know, change, as it were, his appearance before others because he was afraid. It reminds me of David. You remember, I mean, here he was fleeing from Saul. He goes to the temple. He gets Goliath's sword, the only sword that was there. He gets Goliath's sword, and where does he go? into the midst of the Philistines. He kind of comes to his senses at one point and acts like he's crazy and lets the spittle fall down upon his beard. You remember that instance in scripture? In other words, what I'm saying is, you're acting like something that you're not. If you're not using sanctified speech, you're acting like something that you're not. You're acting contrary to your nature. If we're in Christ, we have a new heart, then why is our speech not completely sanctified? Why is that? Why, if I have a new heart, why, if I'm listening to what you're saying, what you've told me before, that I've been given a new heart, why is my speech not completely sanctified? Why is everything that comes out of my mouth, it's on your tongue, the flesh? This fallen, you know, this body hadn't been sanctified. It's still tempted. We long for the day when we're rid of this. We have a glorified body. No more sin. See, that's the heart of the believer, right? No more sin. No more unsanctified speech. No more unholy thoughts. No more unrighteous deeds. I'm done with sin forever. when I received that glorified body. No longer to be troubled by it. But while we're here and now, we are. We still have this fleshly body until, as the scripture says, the immortal shall put on immortality. What a day that will be. But God has called you and I, who are in Christ, to possess a sanctified tongue. And guess what? You're responsible to do so. You have access to the throne of grace to help you and strength that God gives to help you with anything that you're having difficulty with. But you're responsible. God will hold us accountable for how we used our tongues. He holds us accountable for how we use our tongues. Holds us responsible. Could you use a tongue to sever a relationship, maybe even a relationship with a person that doesn't know the Lord? And you might have been their only, at that particular time, the Lord can do anything, but you might have been their only contact with someone that knew anything about, it seems, in their life, in their circle, the things of God. That wouldn't be God honoring, for sure. I'd be honoring, but it wouldn't be God honoring, for sure. But he's called you and I who are in Christ to possess a sanctified tongue. As we seek him for this, how many people here think that if you seek the Lord to enable you in every way to use your tongue in a way that would glorify him, how many of you think the Lord would not honor that request? No hands. As we seek Him for this, as with anything else, He will grant His power to do that. To open our mouths and out of them come good things, out of a good heart that bring forth treasures, good treasures of good things, that we may minister grace to the person that is hearing. What does Ephesians 4 tell us? Let no corrupt communication proceed forth out of your mouth, but that which is good through the use, the edifying use of building up, in other words, that it may minister grace unto the hearer. We've been told to let our speech be gracious and seasoned with salt, as it were, seasoned with grace. Where there is genuine living faith, true regeneration and transformation, this will be the result. We will desire to have a sanctified tongue, as with all the parts of our body, that our ear will be sanctified, our eyes will be sanctified, that our tongues will be sanctified, that we would live before the Lord and do those things which are pleasing in His sight. Don't say to yourself, if I belong to God, these things will just take, God will do this. These things will take place by themselves. No, you're not passive in this thing. You're active. You are to be active. You're to be actively seeking the Lord to correct those things that He has revealed unto you in your life that are deficient. James says, Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth. Such a small thing. Such a small thing and yet it burns up. It can. It can burn up everything in its path. He says there's a world of iniquity under the tongue. Poison under the tongue. You've heard the phrase, the face that launched a thousand ships. You've heard that before? That's nothing in comparison to what the tongue has done and what the tongue can do. Remember we said in Mark 7 20 that it's what comes out of the man that defiles the man. You know, we could amputate the tongue of an ungodly person, wouldn't make any difference, would it? What's in their heart is the problem. Not what just comes out their mouth, but what's in their heart. It's a fire that burns from within, in other words. It's like a volcano. And it's what's in the heart, and it erupts, you know, out the mouth is what happens. I had to look this up, I'm not a volcanic expert. Makes sense though, it's pretty simple. But a volcano goes dormant because magma from the Earth's mantle can no longer reach the volcano. Can you see a spiritual application in there anywhere? If you've been given a new heart, That poison that once came out of hell itself and found its way out of your mouth because you were a child of the devil and not a child of God is no longer able to make its way through the earth's mantle, so to speak, into the volcano in order to erupt as it once did. I'm not saying that you never use your tongue in the wrong way. We've already established that. I'm talking about the principle within. There are those that they just erupt because the fire from hell itself is just making its way into the heart and out the mouth. But that thoroughfare, that freeway that once existed in our lives, it's been intersected by God. We no longer use our tongues the way we once did. The tongue merely is what a person uses to find expression of who they are. You know, they express themselves. And one of the ways they express themselves is through the mouth, through the tongue, with the tongue. It'd be hard to talk if you didn't have a tongue. Lots of times we stick that tongue, you know, right back there behind the teeth and make certain, you know, I don't know what you do with the tongue, Lily, when you roll the R. I've never really paid much attention to it because I can't do it very well, but that tongue is useful. You know, have you ever tried to hold back your tongue and speak? You know, it's hard, it's hard to do. With this tongue we bless God, James says, even the Father. And therewith curse we men who are made in the likeness of God. Out of the same mouth proceed blessing and cursing. These things ought not so to be. In other words, James says, that's not right. That's not right for a person to use their tongue to bless God and to curse men. It makes you wonder, is that tongue sanctified? Is that tongue regenerate? Is that tongue saved? He has transformed us who are His. He has given us a capacity for new speech because of a new heart. And He expects us to speak in a way that glorifies and honors Him. In everything you do, whether you eat or you drink or whatsoever you do, you do all to the glory of God. That includes our speech. A clean heart, a fresh heart, can't produce bitter water. The bitter water that once was there has been taken away. Just like a bitter heart can't produce fresh water. It goes back to the source. And if you're a child of God, you will be seen to be a child of God by your speech. By your speech. You could be talking to a blind person, and they would be able to see that you're a child of God by your speech, or should be able to see that you're a child of God by your speech. We've really run out of time. I kind of wanted to touch on this thing about blessing God and cursing men who were made after the similitude of God, but we will have to leave that for another time. 1 Peter 3.10. If you, Peter says, would love life and see good days, The person that wants to do that, he says, let him refrain his tongue from evil and his lips that they speak no deceit. So the tongue has a tremendous potential for disaster. We have cause and reason to ask the Lord to keep the door of our mouth. and help us to be able to use our tongues in a God-honoring way. It's such a little thing, but it can light and kindle such a great fire. I can't remember, I read something about it this morning about the great Chicago fire back in the 1800s. You know, that started with one spark. And here's this idea that James is setting forth here. This little tongue, such a small member, what a great flame it can cause. As I was listening to some of the messages I listened to this week on this subject, I was thinking about, here's God, and we call Him our Father, and I thought about Genesis, and I thought about All the, you know, there was, you know, this was created, and then this after its kind, and after its kind, and after its kind. And what kind of tongue do we have? We have been born again. We are children of God. You know, what kind of tongue ought we to have? How we should be seeking that our tongue would be His kind of tongue. if you want to imagine God having, you know, a tongue. But our speech is His speech. The things that are upon our tongues, the matters that are upon our lips, upon our minds, are the things that concern, you know, the kingdom. Things that concern that which would glorify and honor God. Let's stand.