James 3

James 3:1

THE OF THE TONGUE James 3:1-18. IN giving you an exposition of this third chapter of James there is no break in thought from the last discourse. The great subject of faith, as illustrated by works, is most intimately related to the opening sentences of today’s study. It is a rule that Christian men and women, hearing an Apostle’s appeal that they demonstrate faith by works, immediately remember the obligation of witnessing in the Name of the Lord. In truth, not a few seem to regard speaking for Jesus the solitary way of serving Him. I know people who have no commercial worth whatever, no disposition to industry, no qualifications for a business life, who delight in attendance upon, and speech in, all public services. Some of these same look with decided contempt upon the men and women whose devotion to domestic or commercial duties detain them oft from the House of God, and who, when they come, seldom make a speech or even utter aloud a prayer.Let it ever be remembered that attendance upon Christian assemblies is a virtue, the practice of which is enjoined by the Apostle’s appeal. Let us often recall the fact that Jesus Christ Himself coupled the promise of confessing us before the Father and the holy angels, with the condition that we should confess Him before men; whilst an Apostle expressly declares:“If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. “For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (Romans 10:9-10). And yet, beloved, Christianity is capable of being expressed in other ways than by the tongue, and we are convinced that some men who devote themselves closely, and yet honestly, to commercial duties, and some women who regard the obligation to the home equally as important as the attendance on public assemblies, by their sweetly consistent course, honoring Christ quite as much and giving to the Lord, are just as definite illustrations of a living faith as are those who respond to every new voice, push their way to the center of every crowd, and make their voices heard in every assembly.If it were not for these same domestic mothers there would be little hope of building up a body of believers, for the Church is recruited from childhood; and if it were not for the same industrious brethren and fathers it would be impossible to erect any houses of God, pay gas bills, coal bills, and salaries of church servants from sexton to pastor.Now, James is known as the practical Apostle. It is natural, therefore, that he should pass immediately from calling upon people to demonstrate faith by works, to the warning against confusing all good works with words. And with this thought of the connection between chapters let us pass directly to the study before us.I find three ideas somewhat thoroughly discussed in this chapter: The Solemn Responsibility of Teaching, The Terror of the Untamed Tongue, The Characterization of Two Wisdoms.THE SOLEMN OF “My brethren, be not many masters, knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation”. The teaching to which James refers here is probably professional. He is thinking of such offices as Prophet, Apostle, Pastor, Teacher, Evangelist, and he warns men against rushing in where angels hesitate to tread.If I understand this opening sentence, James means to say this:The Gospel ministry should not be man’s choice; Recently some of the leading magazines of the country have been discussing the decline in the ministry, especially the decline in the number of young men who are entering the profession. The reasons they assign are selfish and material, everyone. Some have said it is because the salaries are small; others because the promotion comes slowly; still others because it does not give one sufficient social prestige, and so forth: all of which show how we have departed, both from the faith of the fathers and the teaching of the Word. When Peter once employed this speech, “Behold, we have forsaken all, and followed Thee; what shall we have therefore”? (Matthew 19:27), the Master’s reply was both an encouragement and rebuke. The peerless Apostle Paul did not come up from his knees saying, “Lord, if I yield myself to Thee and enter the Gospel ministry how much salary can I have?

How honorable a station may I hold? Into what elite society may I expect to move?” His was the better question of the truly called man, “Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do”? The moment men begin to choose the ministry, as they choose other professions, as a calling which is to be considered from the standpoint of personal profit, promotion, popularity, or power, that moment the office is prostitute and rendered impotent.I agree absolutely with Charles Spurgeon that no man should enter the ministry who can remain out of it, and yet satisfy his conscience. Much as I long to see a multitude come into this profession, which I believe to be the most blessed one known to man, I should mourn not a little to find that I had influenced a single youth to enter this calling who had no clear convictions that it was God’s will for him.“My brethren, be not many masters”. This does not relate to instructors in biology or any other natural science. It is not so much an injunction to the teaching in the primary school, in the grades, in the academy, in the university, as it is to the men who have set their eyes toward a public ministry in the Name of Jesus.When one thinks of the responsibility of that office, how that even the eternal destiny of immortal souls will be determined by its faithful or unfaithful discharge, he is compelled to cry out, “Who is sufficient for these things”? The greatest preachers the Church has ever known have entered their pulpits with fear and trembling, and before they dared to stand upon their feet to speak, have gone upon their knees to plead with God for Divine wisdom, knowing full well that what they said would affect the eternal interest of their auditors. If men hesitate to sit upon a jury when the question of a man’s release from indictment or death upon the gallows is the one to be determined —and they do—why should men rush into a profession where every word will become a savor or life unto life, or death unto death?I can join sincerely this morning in the prayer which Christ requested of us that we should ask the Father to “send forth labourers into His harvest”, since the harvest truly is great, and the laborers are so few; but I have sat in councils where ministers of the Gospel seemed alarmed lest they should ordain to the fellowship of their profession a man who could not write a college title after his signature, nor point with pride to the seminary from which he graduated; but I confess to you that my anxiety lies always in another direction, namely, Has this man chosen the ministry for himself, or has he been called to it by the King of kings, who alone has the right to make appointments to this office?The judgment of public speech is necessarily severe. James refers to that fact by saying,“My brethren, be not many masters, knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation”. The man who would fain be a teacher of his fellows must submit himself to Divine judgment; then, whether he will or not, the public will submit him to its judgment. You go into the sacred Scriptures, and hear what God has to say concerning those who teach without having been commissioned of Him. Paul, writing in Second Corinthians (2 Corinthians 11:13) speaks of certain men as “false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ”. While to the Galatians he writes, “of false brethren unawares brought in, who came in privily to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage”. And he declares that they who seemed to be somewhat in repute added nothing to him (Galatians 2:4; Galatians 2:6). And his beloved Timothy he warns against “some having swerved have turned aside unto vain jangling; desiring to be teachers of the Law; understanding neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm” (1 Timothy 1:6-7). John, in his Letter to the Church at Smyrna (Revelation 2:9), calls certain of the Jews who assayed to teach, “the synagogue of Satan”.You may! recall that Kirwin in “The Happy Home,” speaks of those teachers in the public schools, who merely make their vocation a temporary expedient to something else, after this manner:“Public hackneys in the schooling trade, Who feed a pupil’s intellect with store Of syntax truly, but with little more; Anxious only that their boys may learn, While morals languish, a despised concern; Dismiss their cares when they dismiss their flock; Machines themselves, and governed by a clock.” And yet, who would compare the baneful effects of false teaching in the school to that accomplished when the same is brought into the church? Dr. M. J. Savage once spake sanely enough when he said: “Teach your child false arithmetic if you will, you will get that knocked out of him very soon in business; teach him false geography—that the Grecian Archipelago is in the Indian Ocean. That is a matter of slight importance.

Teach him false history. It will make very little difference to him whether he can tell who came first, Richard III. or Henry VII. Teach him falsely almost anywhere else, and it is of slight importance compared with false teaching regarding the relation of the soul to God. Train your child to keep a clear-eyed vision of the highest and last truth that God reveals and to listen to the last word that He teaches. This, on your peril, is the most important thing that you can do.” And this, beloved, is the portion of the ministry, and the very importance of it submits it to the severest judgment. If it stands the test, praise is its portion; if not—execrations. “My brethren, be not many masters, knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation”.The office of teacher calls for superior wisdom and care.“For in many things we offend all, If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body”, Oh, beloved, if we are to teach, just as James here clearly intimates, we must have wisdom that is better than human, and care akin to that which characterized the Christ. Think on what the great Isaiah said concerning his commission:“The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary: He wakeneth morning by morning, He wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned, “The Lord God hath opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned away back” (Isaiah 50:4-5), Analyze that sentence and what does it mean? It means vastly more than ability to speak. All intellectual men share that in common. It means vastly more than the learning of the schools; there the teaching is human; here it is Divine. It means the power to comfort. When Jesus said, “Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest”, He meant to do it, not by inviting us to pillow our heads upon His bosom as did John, but by teaching eternal Truths by which we would find peace and rest.It means power to counsel.

You remember how Solomon wrote in the Proverbs: “Counsel is mine, and sound wisdom: I am understanding; I have strength” (Proverbs 8:14). And the man engaged in the ministry should so reveal God as to make Him all of this to his faithful auditors. For, as Pastor Stalker has said, “Whenever a preacher strikes correctly a note of the eternal Truth, it is Christ that does it. Whenever a preacher makes you feel that there is a world of realities above and behind the one you see and touch; whenever he lays hold of your mind, touches your heart, awakens your aspirations, rouses your conscience, that is Christ trying to grasp you, to reach you with His love, to save you.“Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God” (2 Corinthians 5:20). THE TERRORS OF THE UNTAMED TONGUE Our Apostle passes from discussing the solemn responsibility of teaching, to take up another phase of the tongue’s temptations. Just as he began this chapter by showing the dangers of entering a profession to which we had not been called, and using the tongue in a service for which it had not been selected, he pauses to declare the character of the unregenerate tongue.Two or three things he makes perfectly clear:Man is incapable of taming the tongue. “Even so the tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth! “And the tongue 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 it is set on fire of hell “For every kind of beasts, and of birds, and of serpents, and of things in the sea, is tamed, and hath been tamed of mankind: “But the tongue can no man tame”. Think of it, beloved! People come back from Africa and report to us the ferocious beasts which inhabit the interior, and we shudder at the description; make mention of the serpents that crawl in its rotting wastes, and we are filled with alarm. Men who live upon the seas report the mighty monsters of the deep, and sometimes take up the most peculiar and awful of them and put them on public exhibition, and we almost fear to approach them, even after they are dead. In our museums, on the occasions of great national or international expositions, the thesaurian is mounted, and we look at him to rejoice that he passed from the scenes of earth before our day. But James declares that worse than the hyena, more terrible than the monsters of the deep, or even the rehabilitated mastadon, is that little harmless looking member we bear in our mouths! It is the one thing of earth that man has never yet tamed.

And while women exhibit abilities in so many other directions, it must be confessed that most of them have signally failed in this, and it remains as true that “The tongue can no [woman] tame,” as it is, “The tongue can no man tame”.Ridpath in his History says, “Ben Johnson has a play called, ‘The Silent Woman,’ who turns out, as might be expected, no woman at all, but ‘Nothing,’ as Master Chumbly said, ‘but a great lubberly boy.’” While George Eliot, herself a woman, refers in “Felix Holt” to this besetting weakness of her sex by describing Mrs. Transome in the hour of anger, whose outburst of temper was taken advantage of by Mr. Jermyn; and then the author remarks, “She, poor woman, knew quite well that she had been unwise and that she had been making herself disagreeable to Harold, to no purpose. But half the sorrows of women would be averted if they could repress the speech they know to be useless—nay, the speech they have resolved not to utter!”But in passing let me remark that while James affirms that no man has ever yet tamed the tongue or can, and history makes woman’s failure equally clear, he does not intimate that the tongue is untamable. That which is too hard for man yields to the touch of God. He is not preaching us, then, a Gospel of despair, but by impressing a truth, is putting us on our guard; and in this connection he reminds us of another thing:Its deadly poison is but poorly appreciated.“It is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison”. How “unruly” it is one may imagine if he goes back to the figure before employed, “Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth! And the tongue is a fire”. What so unruly as a flame? What so hungry? I once traveled for thirty or forty miles across the black spot in Minnesota over which the famous Hinckley fire had raged, leaving the devastation of nature and human dead in its trail. In that awful time the beasts of the fields, wild and domestic, sought refuge in vain.

The forests, valued by thousands, if not millions of dollars, were consumed, and ingenious man in many an instance failed to make his escape; he died the agonizing death of burning. And yet it all came from one little spark. And James says what that spark, when kindled to wood, is, in its devastating, destroying power, the human tongue becomes in its restless evil, and in its deadly poison.If one takes up the Word of God and runs it through, he will be surprised to see what crimes this little member has accomplished, how it has given breath to lies, existence and aid to scandal, ruin to reputation, stain to character, converted hope into despair, transgressed every Law of God, turning true worship to idolatry, the Name of God to profanity, casting scorn upon the Sabbath, visiting maltreatment to fathers and mothers, stirring up the spirit of murder, seducing to adultery, inciting to theft, expressing covetousness! There is not a soul in hell but has been hurled there by the human tongue.Dr. A. P.

Gouthey comments:“‘Death and life are in the power of the tongue’ (Proverbs 18:21). “‘Boys flying kites call in their white-winged birds, You can’t do that when you are flying words; Thoughts unexpressed often fall back dead, But God Himself can’t kill them when they’re said.’ “What person among us can estimate the effects of one talebearer’s work, say nothing of the hundreds who are constantly engaged in it? God alone knows the blasted hopes, broken hearts, and wrecked homes which fire in the world directly as a result of this sin. Young ladies have been whispered out of society and into the deepest shame. Ministers have been whispered out of the pulpit and into disgrace. Wives and husbands have been whispered out of their homes and into divorce courts. Many have been whispered out of health and happiness and into premature graves, and thousands have been whispered away from Heaven into hell. Absolutely nothing has been sacred to the scandal-mongers. Neither home, nor virtue, nor church, nor state, nor reputation, have been safe from their attack.

Like the German hordes in Belgium, they have gone with hobnailed boots across every sacred thing to carry out their infamous work of wreck and blight and ruin.”“Deadly poison”! I have often thought, and I believe it profoundly, that a man or woman whose tongue has been untamed by the Spirit of God, has no more right to membership in the Church of Jesus Christ, than does a gambler, drunkard, or the adulterer, “for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh” (Matthew 12:34).The tongue is an index of character; and as for evil effects, the man who impoverishes himself by drink, the woman who sells herself for money, the crowd that gathers about the table of the green cloth, do not injure so deeply, and certainly not more eternally, than do those who carry about untamed tongues. I should like once to see a new article introduced into the discipline of churches, directed against the godless use of this “unruly” member. And I could wish that the Christian custom of Hannah More might be adopted by all good men and women. Whenever was told anything derogatory of another, her instant reply was, “Come, let us go and see that person at once and learn if it is true?”Before passing from this subject, let me remind you that the use of the tongue and pen are practically one. I hope to live to see the day when newspaper reporters can be prosecuted for lying, and either put in the penitentiary or hanged for not telling the truth, when such publication can accomplish nothing but the gratification of the prurient and the breaking of human hearts and the blasting of human hopes.To illustrate, Dr.

Deems recited an instance of a New York paper which contained an account of the terrible fall of a beautiful young woman in that metropolis. There was nothing on earth to be accomplished by its publication except the gratification of those who search every sheet for the sensational.

This young woman’s widowed mother, who, having brought up a large family, now resided in a distant land, happy in the thought that her children were doing well, received a marked copy of this paper detailing the sickening degradation of her child; and when she read it, reason reeled from its throne and she was made in one moment a subject for a mad-house, while scores of others suffered under the scandal.Does any man imagine that he can do such a thing as that and not be made to answer for that dear mother’s madness; imagine that he can do it and escape being called into judgment for the sorrow which he has needlessly dragged into human lives?We are not saying this to condone the offense of the guilty girl. Such an offense cannot be condoned; for it, she had to answer to God. But we are saying that publishing scandal for scandal’s sake reveals a sordid mind and putrid tongue, or both; and James describes it, “full of deadly poison”. But again, according to the Apostle,The voice of the tongue unveils the springs of character.“Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be. “Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter? “Can the fig tree, my brethren, bear olive berries? either a vine, figs? so can no fountain both yield salt water and fresh”. The tongue shows what the indwelling spirit is; the tongue unveils the secret springs of life. I have heard men tell, by a sentence, how black were their hearts. I have read articles from pens that were tame enough from a literary standpoint; but eloquent in description of the character that indicted them. “There is nothing from without a man, that entering into him can defile him; but the things which come out of him, those are they that defile the man” (Mark 7:15). Ah, what words the wise man wrote into Ecclesiastes (Ecclesiastes 5:6): “Suffer not thy mouth to cause thy flesh to sin”. Did you ever think of the fact that Satan is characterized as “the accuser of our brethren * * which accused them before our God day and night” (Revelation 12:10). His tongue has always either been praising self, or blasting others; and in either exercise it was revealing his inmost character.The same may be affirmed with reference to the tongue of man.

The saintly Gordon has seldom been more exact and apt in illustration than when he said: “Speech is that which especially reveals the flavor or quality of the man. It may sometimes feign sanctity, to be sure, when it is wanting in the life; and it may seek to make itself redolent with a borrowed grace, as the tippler disguises his breath with spices and perfumes; but the illusion cannot be long maintained. ‘Thy speech betrayeth thee’ is a saying of universal application.

One cannot live sinfully and talk generously. ‘Show me your tongue,’ says the doctor, as the first demand of the patient. Here is the most favorable point for a diagnosis. And the truest diagnosis of the soul can be made in the same way by examining the tongue to see what kind of a deposit and coloring the thoughts and desires have left there.”Another writer truly declares:“It is the nature of all sin to harden and embitter, but especially is this true of backbiting. It is always closely associated with jealousy, envy, pride, and hatred, and these traits are the most blasting and deadly known to humanity. One cannot long indulge the sin of backbiting without searing one’s conscience and stultifying all one’s finer sensibilities. And the tragedy of this whole matter is, that the sin of backbiting moves in such respectable company that one may be guilty without bringing oneself under suspicion even in the highest circles of religion!

Indeed, this foul sin is often committed in the very name of the highest type of piety! On the merest hearsay a person more than once has been brought under the most deadly suspicion by the backbiter; all in the name of perfect love! ‘O religion!

What crimes have been committed in thy name!’”THE OF TWO WISDOMS James will conclude this chapter by describing the characterization of two wisdoms—the wisdom that is from above, and the wisdom that is from below. It is hardly necessary to take the time to call your attention to the difference between learning and wisdom. The former any man with ordinary mind may get by application to study; the latter is always a gift, and is bestowed either by Satan on the one side or God on the other; it either comes up from below or down from above.The first is “earthly, sensual, devilish”. There is no little of the best wisdom of this world which belongs under one or all of these terms—“earthly, sensual, devilish”.Take it in science; how much of it is earthly; how much of it is sensual? God is not regarded. The attempt is to frame His universe without Him, to rule Him out of the world of His own creation.

It is not only “earthly” then, but it is also “devilish”, for that has been the desire of the devil from the beginning.What, in art? Leo Tolstoi tells us, “Art for the most part has been immoral,” and today its most boasted productions are “earthly, sensual, devilish”.Music has better escaped, and yet how much of that is “earthly, sensual, devilish”.Go into the theater tonight if you do not believe it, and hear what they sing—“earthly, sensual, devilish”.Go into schools and listen to the rationalism that characterizes the greater colleges and universities of the country, and describe it if you can!

You will find yourself forced to make use of James’ terms.Aye, go into the homes and look at the nude statuary pedestaled upon center tables and niches in the walls, and study the paintings that adorn many so-called Christian homes, and you will need James’ words when you attempt description. People have come to the conclusion, reached the deliberate fallacy, that if only a thing is artistic it cannot be “earthly, sensual, devilish”. But Tolstoi says that “Art exceeds in them all.”I never think along this line without being reminded of Campbell Morgan’s statement concerning his new home: “I very well remember when I was married; my father came into my home. He was a Puritan, and I used to think that it was hard lines that he was, but today I thank God for it. He came into my home soon after I was married, and looked around. We showed him into every room, and then, in his own peculiar way, he said to me, ‘Yes, it is very nice; but nobody will know walking through here whether you belong to God or the devil.’ I went through and looked at the rooms again, and I thought, ‘He is quite right!’ and we. made up our minds straightway that there should be no room in our house henceforward that had not some message—in picture, or text, or book—for every comer, which should tell them that we, at any rate, would serve the King.” Thank God for the contrast.There is another wisdom mentioned.It is pure, peaceable, gentle, persuadable, compassionate, and honest. “Pure”!

The wisdom that is from above is first pure. We may put it down as positively certain that any wisdom which is impure is not from God. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Proverbs 9:10): and the Apostle tells us, “With the heart man believeth unto righteousness” (Romans 10:10), Goethe was a great poet, but as Dr.

Hillis says, “During his life he kept two friends busy, the one weaving laurels for his brow, the other cleaning mud from his garments.” When, therefore, Mr. Horton tells me that he believes Goethe was inspired of God, I am compelled to reply to the statement, “Rot!”“But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable”. These words are related. That which is pure can be peaceable; and the one who has been made pure by wisdom from above will prefer peace. When a few years ago the Queen of England Was sick, one of her loyal subjects said, “There is one tongue in Europe from which a hundred words could change the face of all properties in Christendom, and in a hundred days array homes, bringing in hostilities and change the face of affairs in all the continents and isles of the world; but this tongue, in the poor sick mouth, is pleased to voice the sweet utterance that keeps the world in Easter peace.”“Peaceable, gentle”—or rational. There are those who imagine that to receive the Spirit makes people impracticable, if not insane. On the contrary, the only rational man, the only rational woman, is the man or woman Who has the wisdom that is from above, the counsel of the Holy Ghost of God.“Easy to be intreated”—persuadable. I was profoundly impressed by what I witnessed in one of our meetings.

There was a man present who is a follower of another. His chief was severely arraigned in some of the sermons, and I may say, I think justly so, but this man sat through it without evincing any spirit of resentment.

He did not rise and storm out of the house as I have seen others do when their opinions were opposed; but with an eager ear and an open Book, he caught every word and traced every passage as if he were present to learn. Beloved, that is a proof of “wisdom * * from above”; those who have it are persuadable; their minds are open to receive whatever is from God. “Easy to be intreated”.Compassionate—or, “Full of mercy and good fruits”. Remember again that James is the younger brother of Jesus. He had heard Him say, “Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy”. He knew then that the spirit of compassion was from above and that compassion will bear the fruits of goodness. “For every tree is known by his own fruit” (Luke 6:44). “Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them” (Matthew 7:20).Unchangeable, invariable—“without partiality”. Ah, beloved, that is the difference between wisdom and learning.

The Apostle says, “Whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away”.The science of law does not apply the same formulas in which it expressed itself twenty-five years ago; the science of medicine cannot make use of the language of ten years since; the science of astronomy has changed with every new discovery; but “the wisdom that is from above” is without variance. “Whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away”.“The Word of our God shall stand for ever” (Isaiah 40:8). One is human learning, variable; the other is Divine wisdom, “without partiality”.“Without hypocrisy”—honest.

It does not make any difference what profession one makes, if he is guilty of hypocrisy, his wisdom is from below, not from above. The most honest man that ever walked the earth was Jesus Christ, and in proportion as His Spirit indwells men, we are like Him in this also. I was once familiar with a man in Kentucky who had committed the Scriptures from Genesis to Revelation, and repeated them with almost perfect accuracy; and yet he was a horse-thief—tried, convicted, incarcerated. He had not “the wisdom that is from above”; he had memorized the Scriptures; he had never committed them to heart. Dr. Dixon tells of a boy of fourteen years, refusing to stretch the cloth as he measured, and thereby losing his job; but he lived to become Adam Clark, the Commentator,— “Without hypocrisy”.In conclusion, the call to righteousness.“The fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace”. This is a fitting climax to the definition of Divine wisdom. Truly it lifts a man above the storm and into peace. Mr. Moody tells the story how during the early days of the Civil War, when the North had been defeated at Bull Run, and at many other points, it looked as though the Republic was going to pieces. He, with others, was much cast down and discouraged. “For awhile every speaker in the meeting hung his harp upon the willows. It was one of the gloomiest meetings I was ever in.

Finally an old man with beautiful white hair got up to speak, and his face literally shone. ‘Young men,’ he said, ‘you do not talk like sons of the King. Though it is dark just here, remember it is light somewhere else.’ Then he went on to relate how a friend of his had been in the mountains spending the night, intending to climb to the top to see the sun rise. On the next morning as they started up, a storm came on, and his friend said to the guide, ‘I will give this up; take me back.’ The guide smiled upon him and said, ‘We will soon get above the storm.’ On they went and it was not long before they had gotten up to where it was as calm as any summer evening. Down in the valley a terrible storm raged; they could hear the thunder and see the lightnings flash. And the old man’s application was, ‘Though all is dark around you, come a little higher, and the darkness will flee!’”

James 3:5

SMALL SINS James 3:5. I BEGIN, this evening, a series of four sermons on some of our sins, and I think you will not criticize the order if I speak to you first of all concerning “Small Sins.” On next Sunday night my subject will be “Secret Sins;” the Sunday following, “Presumptuous Sins and finally on “The Unpardonable Sin.” Touching all of these, save the last, I fear I can speak to you from experience; and even touching this last, I have greater fear that I may speak from observation, for I think I have seen men who have committed even this.In them all, we shall find Satan the author; sorrow and death, the final result. This is true of little sins, strictly true of secret sins, still more true of presumptuous sins, and terribly true of the unpardonable sin. (See my volume on “Revival Sermons,” p. 67.)There is an impression in many minds that small sins are scarcely condemned of God, that our little iniquities do us hardly any harm.Wide-spread as this impression is, I do not hesitate to declare it the very devil’s delusion; and I shall show, before I have finished this evening, that our small sins are the forerunners of our greatest sins, and become fathers and mothers to the vilest and blackest crimes that men ever commit. I remark in the first place, then, thatSMALL SINS ARE The very fact that men fear them so little fills them with the greater danger. Satan, seeing that, uses them to snare souls, just as men put small minnows on the hook when angling for the largest and gamest fish. The great sins—the sins that shock society—such as drunkenness, theft, gambling, adultery, and murder—these are not the ones from which most of us stand in greatest danger. It is the small sins that undermine society, that start souls on the way to wreck and ruin. It seems so small a sin to speak unadvisedly with the lips, that most men and women are guilty; but James says, “Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth”.It seems so small a thing to take a social glass that nine out of ten young men do not hesitate to do it, and that is the reason that intoxicating cups wreck so many souls, and are such a daily delight to the devil.It seems so short a distance away from virtue to sit in the theater and look on, while unprincipled men and painted women play your passions up; but the prostitute knows whence her prey comes.It seems almost trivial to play cent ante, or even poker and whist, but the hole of green cloth could tell you where its carrion crows were cultered.It does not seem so great a sin to look the look of lust, but be it understood that that is a nibble at Satan’s bait, and his hook is sharp, and the lust line is strong.It may seem to some of our sisters a small sin to appear in public with skirts above the knees, or to appear in the parlor, scantily dressed; but when modesty dies, immorality, like the fungus it is, springs up from the decay.Truly, as Solomon says in his Song, “Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines: for our vines have tender grapes” (Son 2:15).The sincerity, the innocence, the modesty, the devotion, the virtue of childhood—these are “tender grapes” and deserve to be guarded with care. When we have lost them, our beauty is gone; when we have lost them, we are prepared to be forever barren; when we have lost them, we have brought shame to ourselves and sorrow to our God; when we have lost them, we have lost our souls.One reason why I have such intense interest in the young men and young women of my church exists just here.

They are not tempted to the greatest sins, to the greatest violations of law. Satan dare not do that!

To attempt such a thing would be to defeat himself and excite their deserved scorn. He knows that their unblunted sensibilities would instantly rebound if he, the demon of darkness, dared to invite them to grossest godlessness. But with his little bits of bright colored bait, he tries to call them out of the straight and narrow way into by-path meadows. With his smooth touch, he tries to tenderly remove the enamel of character; with his jolly jugglery, he hopes to deflect slightly from the course of absolute right, knowing full well that having accomplished this, he can at least land them on the rocks of ruin. I warn you against the first wrong step.The man who never takes the first drink will never be a gutter-drunkard. The young man who stops in absolute ignorance of cards and other gambling games will never be the victim of the vile dens.

The young man who never sets foot into the harlot’s house will never be destroyed by God’s judgment against unbridled lusts. I warn you, then, against the first wrong step, against the slightest deviation from what your conscience and God’s Word conspire to teach.A gentleman, crossing the English Channel, stood near the helmsman.

It was a calm and pleasant evening and no one dreamed of a possible danger to the good ship. Suddenly there was a flapping of the sail, as if the wind had shifted. The officer on watch sprang to the wheel and looked closely at the compass and shouted to the pilot, “Look sharp; you are a half point off the course!” The pilot corrected the deviation and the captain returned to his post. A passenger said, “You must steer very accurately when you make so much adoo about half a point.” “Ah,” answered the captain, “a half point in many places here would send us on the rocks.”It is so in life. The man who consents to deviate a half a point from the right cannot hope to save himself by saying, “This is only a slight mistake, a small misstep.” “Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth”.Every lost soul began his course in sin by a slight mis-step. Every devil in hell was, at one time in his existence, taking his first step into sin, and none of them dreamed, when they dared to turn so slightly aside, that the act had such serious consequences.I remark again,SMALL SINS ARE SOUL- SINS Have you not noted that the Scriptures do not say, “The soul that sinneth a big sin, it shall die.” The Scriptures do not say either, “The wages of big sins is death.” They simply present sin as the deadly serpent, and you may be assured that the smallest of them has its bag of venom, full of destruction.When I lived in the South, and worked on a farm, I was not so much afraid of the great black snakes that abound there, as I was of the shorter copperhead or the small, slow-moving viper. You have gone into shows and have seen men and women take up the great boa-constrictor and coil his ample folds about their bodies, simply to add excitement to the circus. There was some danger in that, but not one-hundredth part as much as comes to the child who lays her hand upon the head of a baby cobra.The small size of the serpent saves her nothing. The fangs are there, and back of that fang is the venom-bag.Oh, I don’t wonder that Satan is spoken of as that “old serpent”, and when you yield to sin, you are simply yielding to Satan. It is unnecessary that he should have coiled himself all about you before he strikes venom into you. If he touch you at a single point, there is poison in the touch, and possibly death. Our white lies, as we call them, our modern amusements, our little violations of God’s Law—let us not be deceived into supposing that these shall not bring us into judgment. “The soul that sinneth, it shall die”.Then again,SMALL SINS ARE SOUL- IN THEIR . Great sins are seldom committed. Small sins characterize almost every hour. How they multiply! They are like those small destructive pests that pillage the world. The moth-worm, you can scarcely see him, and you might be disposed to laugh to scorn the insignificant thing; but when he has become a thousand, and turns his teeth on your best garments, you will cry instead.The grasshopper—what farmer would fear him! If you will remind him that he can eat down the corn, lie answers, “Not many hills, I guess.” But when he has been multiplied into a million and they march across the Kansas prairies, nothing lives after them. They darken the very heavens. They desolate the earth.

No fences can stay them, and even the fires built about the fields are put out by the very multitude of this mischievous pest, and the living tramp over the dead, charred corpses of their comrades and march on in their frightful destruction. Before them, the earth is an Eden; behind them, a Saharan desert; every blade eaten, every twig stripped, every bit of green, blackened desolation! And yet they are “little ones.”A gentleman, travelling in the Alps, witnessed an avalanche of snow, and as it swept down the mountain-side, utterly demolishing the village that lay in the valley, he suddenly remembered that that mighty torrent of moving snow and ice was made up of flakes so small that twenty-five of them would have been needful to cover a single cent! Their might was in their multitude, e’en though they were little ones.Do you know anything of trachina? How it illustrates this same thought! Those wiry worms require a microscope for their discovery, so small are they.

But when once they have entered the animal, they literally honeycomb the body, insinuating themselves in every fibre and muscle, and bringing their subjects to unspeakable and unthinkable agony. And yet, they are little ones. “Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth”.Mr.

Spurgeon says that some years ago there was not a single thistle in the whole of Australia. “Some Scotchman, who admired the thistle rather more than I do, thought it a great pity that Australia should be without that marvelous and glorious symbol of his great nation. He, therefore, collected a package of thistle seeds and sent it over to one of his friends in Australia. The man who received it and sowed it in the ground probably said to himself, “It is a little one and whether it be a flower or briar is no great matter; it cannot hurt much!” “But now,” Spurgeon says, “the whole districts of the country are covered with it.” It has become the farmer’s pest and plague, and this little one will not be eradicated out of that country until doomsday. Better had that ship been wrecked at sea than to have landed that little one, and it would be better for you to die tonight than to give small sins place in your life by as much as it is better to die in innocence than it is to die in iniquity; to die honest than to perish in dishonor; to die in virtue than fill the grave of disgrace.Thirty-five years ago, Martin F. Black was a prosperous commission merchant in New York city, with a fortune estimated at from $150,000 to $200,000. At sixty-two years of age he was broken in purse, spirits, and health.

Black appeared before Magistrate Eisenbrown and begged to be sent to the House of Correction, where he would be sure of food, a bed, warm clothing and shelter during the winter months. His request was granted for a three months’ term.“I was ruined by gambling, drink and women,” Black said, while he was waiting for the van to take him away. “Five years ago I was one of the most prominent commission merchants in New York.

I had a big place on Courtland Street, and my fortune was between $150,000 and $200,000.“One day a big buyer paid me a visit. Until that time I had been a teetotaler. My customer asked me out to ‘take a little something.’ I excused myself and said I never touched liquor.“‘Oh, all right, if you set yourself on a pedestal and think you’re better than other men I guess I’m through with you,’ the buyer declared angrily.“I didn’t want to offend this man. I placated him and consented to take a drink. The stuff seemed to run through my veins like fire and that afternoon after I’d left my friend I went back to the saloon and had several more drinks.“Whilst there I met a smooth young chap, who invited me to go out with him. We drove to a gambling house where I was introduced to stud poker without a limit.

Soon all the money I had with me, about $1,200, was gone.“Although I saw the folly of my way, I could not break away from that habit which in a single day had come to own me. Then came wine suppers with theatrical people.

I met a lot of women connected with the stage, and they helped me spend my money. Business soon left me and I was ruined.”It is needless for me to make this appeal to men who are older in iniquity, and women who have long walked in sinful ways. But if I can bring it to those of you who are younger, who have a full life before you, whose consciences are yet keen, whose hearts long for the holy, whose conceptions of life are not so unlike Christ’s, pure and undefiled—then Christ gives me an unspeakable privilege that I can preach to you such a sermon. Beware of little sins! “Behold, how great a mutter a little fire kindleth”!Watch against the first encroachments on your character, and in His keeping you can stand at last complete in Him, who offers Himself as your Christ and God.There is a third subject to which I have incidentally referred, but upon which I must further insist, and that is this—SMALL SINS SOON GROW INTO GREAT ONES It takes but a single year to grow the lion’s cub into a man-killer; and not many years are required to grow the card-player into a gambler, the man of a social glass into a patron of the blind-pig, the impure thought to an unclean life. It requires less than an hour to sweep away the strongest dykes that stay the Mississippi, when once a small stream has acted as engineer over the levee, tunnelling its way for the fellow drops that will follow.There is a story told of an Englishman who took a young tiger from the jungles of India to his home in London and bred him as a pet. He grew very rapidly, and the big brindle thing used to follow him about the streets to the terror of all who saw him. Many men remonstrated with him, but to no avail. He answered, “He is only a cub yet, has never tasted blood, and he is as gentle as a cat.” One day the master fell asleep on the lounge and the pet sat by, licking his hand. The tiger’s rough tongue finally brought a slight abrasion to the skin, and with a second and third touch a little blood vessel was broken, and he tasted blood.

Instantly all the fires of his wild nature were kindled, and in a moment the pet was changed to the wild beast of the forest. Leaping back, and crouching close to the floor, his great eyes glowing like balls of fire, he prepared to spring upon the throat of his master.

His low growl wakened the man, and in a moment he saw the stupendous folly of having taken into his house an innocent looking cub that could, in so short a time, come to be his destroyer.May I warn you, young men and women, if you are nursing small sins, secret or other sort, that every day adds to their strength—their satanic power; and you must, by letting Jesus in, drive them out of your heart, out of your house, away from you forever, or else you will perish beneath their power.An agent of an insurance company said half of our losses come from the sparks of a pipe, or the ashes of a cigar. “Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth”!The spark of sin, if fostered and fanned, will become to you a consuming flame. Yea, if even let alone, it will often work its own way to mighty proportions, destroying everything one holds dear.Now, some of you may possibly be congratulating yourselves that you have accomplished victories over certain sins that once had a strong hold upon you. You have ceased to be drunkards or gamblers or unclean, and, of course there can be no danger for you in a solitary cup, an innocent (?) game of cards, a little yielding to lust. Be not deceived; many a man has put down great enemies and perished before apparently insignificant ones.You remember Cyrus, that wonderful general of the ancient day, who conquered the kings of Asia, and, like another Alexander, longed for new worlds for conquest. The mightiest fell before him, but he fell before some unknown barbarians that lived on the northeastern boundary of his empire.Conceit never makes a conqueror of any man. The love of sin looks not toward salvation.

The disposition to let a little one live in you is indicative of an evil heart against which the judgment of God is sure to come. And again I say—watch against the small one.But I remark in the fourth place thatYOUR ONLY HOPE OF PERFECT VICTORY OVER SIN IS THROUGH THE SAVIOUR “He was manifested to take away our sins” (1 John 3:5). His heart longs for our salvation. “The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10). He came, “not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (Mark 2:17). I declare to you that there is no safety out of Him. “For there is none other name under Heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).There is no sin, small or great, from which He does not stand ready to save us, and from which He is not abundantly able to save us.James Covey used to write to the wicked sailors, through a friend of his, saying, “Tell the poor sailors that none of them need to despair since poor, blaspheming Covey found mercy.” And Paul said, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief” (1 Timothy 1:15).As dear Murray McCheyne remarked, “He was not willing to keep his throne and happiness, and leave us to die and be destroyed of our sins.” He came into the world; He became “A Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief”. He “bare our sins in His own body on the Tree”. Whilst we were yet in rebellion, He died for us, and there is no possible explanation of this act than that He wanted to save us.Why should we not be saved?

What has the world done for us that we should love it so much? Has it died for us?

Has it blotted out our sins, or converted us from them? Has it opened any way to Heaven? You know it has not, but, on the contrary, it has tempted us to sin. It has laughed when we have sinned. It has taken pains to culture us in sin. It purposes to crush us by sin. Through sin it would send us to hell, every one; and I want to ask you which you propose to accept? Satan’s temptation, or the Saviour’s invitation; the world’s lust or Jesus’ love; sin or God’s salvation?

Angels from Heaven and evil spirits from hell wait your answer!One place, or the other, will be made happy by this night’s decision. Which shall it be? Your soul’s destiny is in the balance! You may just now tip the scale, and send it upward for salvation, or downward to sin and damnation! Which?