Using Your Words Wisely

That probably until the first of the year, maybe until we have an ordination, Lord willing, that we would preach on different subjects, as the Lord will. We normally go through the Bible verse by verse, and so I encourage anyone who would like a subject preached on to share that with me or someone else. And about a week or two later, a young lady, older lady, shared with me, I would like you to share some time on words, words.

She gave me a few examples, words, but the use of words, our words, probably referring to the tongue. And so I had that in the back of my mind, I was preparing that and did prepare for this morning. But then, long before anyone was here, probably around 9.35 this morning, we were here at Tommy and I, and I was back there by the mailbox.

I was just sitting and Tom looked to the mailbox there in my mailbox and pulled out a letter there, which I don't check that very often, but it's addressed to me, and I opened it up, and lo and behold, there was a letter in there saying, we need a sermon on the tongue. And I thought that was my confirmation this morning, the second witness. And so that's where we're going to go this morning.

We'll take a while for an introduction and then jump into some practical examples regarding words. That's the title of the message this morning, words. In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God.

Very familiar verses from John 1, verse one, in the beginning was the word. Preach on words. Words are words.

What does the word, word mean? Well, if you look it up in the dictionary, it's about that long. All kinds of different definitions, but if you boiled them all down, I think you'd come up with this definition, an expression of the heart using language as a medium. An expression of the heart using language as a medium.

And that's, that is supported from the scriptures from the Lord Jesus, when he said, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. And so an expression of the heart using language, and we all have a language. We're usually speaking English, but we use language to express things that are in our heart.

That tongue is tied real closely down to that heart. And out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks, and the mouth speaks words. And those words have an effect.

So we see words in the very beginning. It's interesting. God speaks in Genesis chapter one, Genesis chapter two, and the devil speaks in Genesis chapter three, and both of these speaking have entirely different outcomes, which is what I want to address here this morning.

God says in Genesis one, three, and the Lord said, let there be light. And there was light. And we can go down all the creation except for the sixth day, but God spoke words.

And those words were creative. When he spoke those words, things happen, and they happen because God has created everything, and everything listens and obeys his voice. And so when God says, let there be light, any atoms or any matter says we need to obey.

Remember when Jesus stood in the boat, and he said, wind and sea calm, and the disciples were amazed. Even the winds and the waves obey his voice. The creation obeys the creator.

And so God, when he speaks, let there be light, there was light. And that speaking was a desire from his heart, an expression from the Lord's heart. I want to create, I want to create a world, a universe, and I want to place a human race in that universe for them to worship and honor and praise me.

So his expression is seen there in Genesis chapter one, and in Genesis chapter two. And so God built the worlds and the universe by his word. And his word is creative.

And that's important because we're made in the image of God. Amen. And you know, Jesus said, follow me, I am the word, the word was made flesh, follow me, my example, you can look to me as an example.

And so the Lord is creating, he is building a universe, he is building kingdoms, he is building all that we see in the natural world, and he is doing it by his word. And because we are made in his image, our words also have the potential to build. Amen.

We call it edification. The word edification means to build, to build up an edifice, to build up a structure. Am I a little loud here? I feel like I'm, am I a little loud? Can you turn me down just to hear it? Maybe my voice is louder this week.

I don't know. Because I'm just getting started. I was going to get real loud in the middle and I just might blow the microphone here, but no.

So we're made in the image of God and our words are also to be building up. Or as the Bible says, edification or edifying. Ephesians 4.29 says, let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying.

To the use of edifying. I want you to be godly. Godly.

Using your words like God uses them to build. And so building up the people of God. I'm not one who, and I believe God can do this, but a lot of people say our words can create material things.

I think God wants us today to create spiritual realities. My words building you up spiritually, using the gifts of the Spirit and prophecy and teaching and all those things to edify his body, to create a bride, to build a bride for his glory. God's spoken word is also redemptive.

We're just laying a foundation here. Jesus is called the Word and his purpose was redemption. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

And we just celebrated here this morning. I remembered his body and his blood to redeem humanity. And so his word, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Word became flesh, is also redemptive.

And if you watch his ministry, his words were always redemptive. Open your eyes and see. And the blind man could see.

Your tongue is loosed and the deaf or the dumb man could speak. Open your ears and the deaf man could hear Lazarus come forth. And the dead could be raised.

Devils were cast out. Infirmity were healed by the basis of his word. And so not only in the Old Testament did God create with his word, but in the New Testament, he also redeemed with his word.

And our words ought to be also redemptive. Redemptive. And I think those two words here this morning, if we follow them, our words being creative or edifying and being redemptive is the course that the Lord would have us to pursue.

Colossians 4.6 says, Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt. Salt is a preserver, redeeming, edifying by the grace of God. And on the other hand, though, you had the devil.

Just in two chapters after the Lord spoke and created everything beautiful, very, very good, the next words we hear are from the devil. And the devil speaks and he says things like this, Hath God said? Doubtful words. You shall not surely die.

Lying words. And you shall be as God's proud words. And so his words were not creative, but his words were destructive.

And you see the outcome of those words as Eve was tempted and Adam and they fell into sin. And so Jesus said, Satan has come to steal, kill and destroy. So it's interesting.

The first three chapters, God speaks creation. Very good. Building up.

The devil speaks in chapter three, and it is destruction and harm that comes to the world. We'll get back to that here in just a minute. But I want to emphasize, first of all, that words this morning are tied to the heart.

They're tied to the heart. Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. That's the Lord saying.

And it's not just small things that are in the heart. You know, we have fleeting thoughts that come and go and people share things with us. But it says out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.

And so what you hear people speaking out of their heart is not some small thing. It's the abundance of their heart. There's a lot of things down there that are coming out of that heart.

James three, but the tongue can no man tame. And that's true. Only God can tame the tongue.

Some of you have that testimony here that before your conversion, your tongue was was untamable, cursing and swearing and gossip and lying and deception. But after you're converted, now your tongue is being tamed. Praise God for that.

That's that's a tremendous miracle right there. The tongue, which no man can tame, is now being tamed. And so words come from the heart, they come out of the heart.

Someone says, I had a slip of my tongue. No, it was not. It was a slip of your heart.

It was a slip of your heart. Oh, I didn't mean to say that. What you really mean was I didn't mean to let that out of my heart.

That's what you really meant. And maybe it was embarrassing. I didn't mean to say that, but it came out of the heart.

And there was a slip of the heart. For a moment, your heart is revealed. And what's down inside of those hearts? Turn with me to Proverbs chapter 18 for a verse that teaches this idea of God speaking and redeeming and the devil speaking and destroying.

And so we're going to use this as the basis this morning for our message. And I know that this subject is a vast one. We go to James, talk about the tongue.

There's probably 20 verses in there and many things that could be spoken. I originally had four things I wanted to address. And then in my little letter back there that I read this morning, it was about 10.

So we'll address the four, maybe jump, add another one or two here as we go down through it. But look at Proverbs chapter 18 and verse 21. This is a familiar verse for many who've been a Christian for a while.

Death and life are in the power of the tongue and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof. And there's a great example of life, life. God produced life, the animal kingdom, the birds, the fish, all the plants by speaking it into existence.

It produced life. And you and I have the ability to produce life through the speaking of our words, preaching the gospel can produce life in a dead soul. And so life, death and life, but also death here is tied to the tongue, just like Satan's word brought death to humanity.

He spoke and he brought destruction and death to the human race. And so death and life are in the power of the tongue. And it says here that, and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.

So because death and life are in the power of the tongue, we ought to be careful with our words. Amen. And I know we know that, but we ought to be mindful of our words.

And here's the thing about words. Maybe you haven't thought about this. There's maybe what, 180 hearts here this morning and my words are falling on all of your hearts.

They're producing thoughts. They're producing intents. They're producing motives, but my words are falling upon a lot of hearts here today.

And each heart has to deal with my words. And hopefully you you're getting good words so that your heart is made better through those words, but you can't just in a sense, turn this off unless you walk outside the door and close your ears to it. I am putting things into your hearts.

Those things are either producing life or they're going to produce death coming from this tongue right here this morning. And so we need to be very careful. Our words are not just thrown out and just enter into the air and do nothing.

They fall upon hearts unless you're out in the middle of the woods somewhere and you're, you're talking and screaming and yelling. But when most of the time we talk, our words fall on human hearts. And those human's hearts are tempted or they're, they're tested when those words come.

You know how words affect you. Oftentimes words can be very uplifting, can be very devastating in your life. I've had incidences in my life down through, I can go back and look at people have spoken to me, devastated me.

Devastating words. And there are other times when they've spoken life-giving words to my life. And so because life and death are in the power of the tongue, we ought to be very careful with how we speak.

And I want to read a couple of verses here. Proverbs chapter 10 verse 19 says, in the multitude of words there wanteth or lacketh not sin, but he that refraineth his lips is wise. I know some of you don't like this.

I'll tell you this story. I was up in Michigan preaching at a, they invited me to come up there and preach at a, at a couple's night. I'm not usually the guy that comes preach to couples.

I just don't do well at couples nights because I decided I'm just going to go to the book of Proverbs and bring some wisdom for couples. Brother Mike's laughing already. He knows where we're going with this one.

But so I, I just in my, you know, simplicity and the Bible talks about the seven pillars of wisdom. And if you look in the book of Proverbs, there's seven major themes there that are repeated over and over again. And, and so I just brought out those seven major themes and taught some wisdom and applied them to marriage, married life.

And one of them, which didn't go over well, one of them was this passage here in the multitude of words there wanteth or lacketh not sin, but he that refrained with his lips is wise. And, you know, they were certainly desirous of me to coming and talking about, we need more communication, more talking, more, more of these things. And here I'm encouraging them to button up.

And that just didn't go over well. But the Bible does say in the multitude of words, the more words that you speak, the more potential for sin, but he that refrained with his lips is wise. You believe that this morning? It's truth.

It's truth. I don't believe if we were to walk with Jesus, you'd hear him babbling a lot. I believe he weighed his words.

As a matter of fact, he said he didn't speak a word except they were given of him of the father. He spoke and he spoke directly and he didn't waste words. James 119, these are just a couple of verses talking about words.

Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear and slow to speak. Amen to that. You know, be a rabbit when it comes to hearing, be swift, move quickly.

When it comes to speaking, be like a turtle, be slow to speak. You know, it's much better to not have a quick answer, but to have a slow one, to wait, wait, wait, wait. And then finally, I'm going to say something and to just speak off the top of your head and speak out of turn.

First Thessalonians 4, 11 says study to be quiet. One of the verses I use at our home a lot, study to be quiet. A lot of things we can study, but study to be quiet.

And why is that? Because words have an impact on hearers. You ever heard this saying when you were a kid, sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. You know, that's not true.

How have you been hurt by words? Now I realize that the grace of God, and I can imagine Jesus and all the mocking and all the laughing and all the speeches, you know, come down from the cross and save thyself and thou be the Christ and all the things that were spoken to him. And yes, because he had such a maturity and he's the son of God, I'm sure that he walked through there without being hurt. But most of us, that's, it's not a reality.

Sometimes words do have an impact and hurt people. And I don't want to give you the liberty to say, well, I'm hurt because someone said something, but I would encourage you, you know, blessed is he that meditates day and night, who loves the law of the Lord, he shall not be offended, right? Not be offended with words, but words are likened to seeds and, you know, seeds, the word of God is edifying some seeds. I put some seed in my grass this last spring, and I looked at the bag I was pulling out from, it's like 99% seeds and 1% weeds.

I don't think they can make a pure seed. It seems like, but, but our words, like I'm saying this morning, as I'm speaking, they're either seeds that are edifying, seeds that bring life, or there's some mixed in there that bring death. And I'm scattering them.

Everywhere. And so just to make sure that, that we're not overly talking, talking. Let's, let's look at a couple of words here I want to mention this morning.

Kind of lay a foundation there. We'll jump into some examples of words that we need to be mindful of that aren't good. And then we'll turn it to the other side and look at the positive side of words that bring death and words that bring life.

The first group I want to look at is what's called in the Bible, vain words, vain, vain words. Vain means empty, empty, just like the riches that were mentioned here this morning. Solomon there, Solomon used the word vanity.

Oftentimes life is vanity and vexation of spirit, all these natural things. He sought for meaning and purpose and satisfaction, but he found none. It was vain.

So the Bible mentions vain words. I'd like to talk about them first. Vain words, chatter, chaff, some of the definitions.

Empty, talking just to talk, just to make noise. Vanity or vain words. First Timothy 1.6 says vain jangling or uses that phrase vain jangling.

It's a funny word, jangling. Random, senseless talk. Being idle.

You know, your car there and in idle, it's not moving. It doesn't have any positive. It doesn't have any negative.

It's just vain. It's just empty. And a lot of people truly, most of their, if you take all their words for a day and looked at them and filtered them out, a lot of it is just vanity, vanity.

There's no purpose in it just to take up time and it's vain. First Timothy 6.12 talks about vain babblings. Matthew 6.7 talks about some vain repetitions.

You know what vain repetitions are? The Pharisees were good at vain repetition. They would pray. Maybe they wanted to appear to pray for a long time.

And so in order to pray for a long time, they need to fill up their prayers with repetition. Empty words that are going nowhere. Words to fill up space.

Vain words. A lot of people speak a lot and they speak a lot of vain things. It's just chaff.

Remember what the Bible says? And we have it up on our wall at home. There you walk in our front door and you look up to the left. It's in one of the Bible verses we have on the wall.

There is idle words. Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. Idle words.

Words that are not going anywhere. Words that are just filler. Words that are just without purpose.

Someone said silence is golden. Do you believe that? The book of Proverbs teaches silence, quietness. A wise person is quiet.

A wise person remains silent. A fool utters all his mouth. A fool pours out foolishness, vanity.

And so I think if we want to err, we ought to err on the side of studying to be quiet, being slow to speak, and swift to hear. Silence is not an empty vacuum that needs to be filled. You know, some people are nervous when they're sitting with a group of people and there's just silence.

Somebody has to say something to fill the vacuum. But I thought about, you know, our generation here and the way we live. You know, we have radios, we have TVs, we have phones, we have all this noise.

And can you remember, can you imagine living, you know, 100 years ago, 200 years ago, and you get up in the morning, there's no planes flying above, there's no cars, there's no radios, there's no TVs, and you just, you don't hear anything but a few birds. It's so quiet. And, you know, the Bible says that God speaks to us in a still, small voice.

Amen. A still, small voice. It's what Elijah experienced.

It wasn't the earthquake, it wasn't the fire, it wasn't all the noise and movement, but when things got really quiet, God spoke to Elijah. And maybe that's one of the reasons why we like a lot of noise, is because we might be a little fearful of God speaking to us. Turn the radio on, keep some noise going.

But to allow ourselves to be quiet before the Lord, does silence make you uncomfortable? And so we have vain words. The scripture says, do all things to edification. Chaff does not edify.

It simply takes up space. And that's not what we want to do with our voice, with our words, with our conversation, is simply take up space. And so I want to encourage us here this morning to weigh our words and to be slow to speak, and to speak things that have edification as their purpose and motivation.

Let's go on to this second one. I have four of them here in my notes. Negative words.

This is one that's a real issue, I think, in our world today. We live in a negative world, but people speaking negative words. Now, how many of us realize this morning that we're commanded in the Bible to think on these things, that which is praiseworthy, that which is virtuous, that which is noble, that which is of a good report.

That means a positive report. And so when things happen to you, God commands you, if it's a negative thing, to turn it to a positive. In everything, give thanks.

Lord, thank you for this thing that's happened to me. I know it's going to work out for my good. And that has to be your thought process.

That has to be in your mind. And so we're commanded to think on these things. And so people who bring a good report encourage that good report thought process.

But people who bring an evil report tempt those to think in a way that is not good. Many tempt others with negativity or an evil report. The negative words you speak, those who hear them have to deal with them.

Do you realize that? You have to deal with them. Now, I would list a bunch of them here. There's so many of them.

We're going to turn to Numbers 13 and see this working out. In Numbers 13, the story of the children of Israel coming into the promised land. But no, it's raining out.

It's so depressing. Just throw that one out in the air. All your ears heard that one.

What do you do with it? Oh, I got to deal with it. This house is so messy. I don't think God is going to do it.

This is boring. All these things are negative. And when they come out of your mouth and get spread into people's hearts and minds, it challenges them.

Now, what am I going to do with it? I'm so tired. My leg hurts. I'm not talking about you, James.

My leg hurts. You know, getting around older people and one thing that you hear a lot of about their physical condition and how bad it is and the negative side of life and all those things. It's wonderful man, godly man.

He was just positive about everything. He had his, he was almost 90, wasn't he, honey? 90 years old. And yet he viewed things as a positive.

My machinery always breaks down. Gas prices are so high. Oh, the list goes on and on.

Don't be a negative person like that. If you're going to be a negative person like that, keep it in yourself. You want to be that way.

Because once you share that, then that challenges others to have to deal with it. And the good, a classic example of this, turn with me to Numbers chapter 13. Numbers chapter 13 is the story of the Israelites as they come to the bank of the Jordan River here in Numbers 13 verse 30.

One of my favorite stories from the Old Testament. I'm not going to read the whole story, but God commands Joshua to take the people across and they send spies over to look up, look over the land. And here in verse 30 of Numbers 13, and Caleb stilled the people before Moses and said, let us go up at once and possess it, for we are well able to overcome it.

But the men that went up with him said, we'd be not able to go up against the people for they are stronger than we. And they brought up the people and said, evil report, meaning bad news. This is bad news.

An evil report of the land, which they had searched under the children of Israel, saying the land through which we have gone to search it is a land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof. And all the people that we saw in it are men of great stature. And there we saw the giants, the son of Anak, which come of the giants.

And we were in our own sight as grasshoppers. And so we were in their sight. And notice chapter 14 verse one, it says, and all the congregation lifted up their voice and cried, and the people wept that night.

The impact here of a negative report. Now, can you imagine if all 12 of them came back with the same report Joshua and Caleb had, and all of them were in agreement, and they saw it in a positive way, and they shared that with the people, there would have been excitement in the camp. But these chose to, to look at life from a negative perspective.

And it brought about a problem throughout the whole congregation. In other words, those seeds sprung up in their hearts. When you cast out negative words, those who hear have to deal with it, because it enters into their heart, it is in a sense a temptation, a temptation to go negative, a temptation to believe those negative things.

Let me ask you this, just ponder this story for a minute, if those 10 spies would have come back, they'd have kept their negativity to themselves. There's a good chance that the congregation would have gone into the promised land. What they should have done is this, Lord, I really have some problems with this land, there's giants, there's major problems up there, and taken it to the Lord, amen, take it to the Lord.

But they, they spewed it out to the people, and the people then were affected by it. They embraced the negativity, and it cost them dearly, going or being led into the promised land. I shared this concept here a few weeks ago, but just a reminder, we have the Lord here, we have you, and then we have your Christian brother or sister underneath you, and this example fits well here with negativity.

Let's say you have an experience that's negative, maybe you have a flat tire, like a couple weeks ago I hit a deer and smashed the front end of the car. You have an experience that's negative. The Bible says here that we need to bear our own burdens, bear our own burdens.

You know, I need to deal with that in my own heart, and address it in my own heart before the Lord, and turn it into something that is positive. And I'm encouraged, I don't have to deal with it all by myself. The Bible says to cast your burdens where? Upon the Lord.

You have a burden? Cast your burden upon the Lord, for he careth for you. So I'm to bear my own burden, casting it on the Lord. Now there are people, those who are maybe younger in the faith, or weaker, who are maybe even facing great difficulties, and are being overwhelmed, that a brother sees them, that they're not doing well, and a brother, knowing the scriptures, tell him to bear ye one another's burdens.

So these brothers and sisters come up and help this individual in their grief, in their difficulty, and bear their burden with them. But one thing we're not to do, we're not commanded to do, is to cast our burden this way. It says cast your burden this way, upon the Lord.

Don't cast your burden upon your brother. However, if your brother sees you burdened, and comes to you and says, I want to help bear your burden, that's a good thing. And yes, I understand there are situations where, you know, our burdens are great, and maybe we come to the Lord, or we're not in a good position to come to the Lord, and we need assistance and help, and that's where the brotherhood is there, to bear one another's burdens.

But a lot of times, what happens is, we have negative things happen in our life, and we pour it out on our brothers and sisters. We get on the phone, and we, oh this is, this is, this happened to me, and this is, and our family is, and this, and pour that negative, negative words upon the brothers and sisters. So we cannot force people to carry our negativity.

Those ten spies should have gone to the Lord with their burden, and not poured it out on the people, and tempted the people with that negativity. So let's, let's work on being more positive, looking at things that happen to us in life with a, with a positive outlook, and not negative. If you feel negative in your heart, you feel like something bad has happened, keep it inside.

Because once you share it, then everybody else has to deal with it, amen? And it can affect your marriage, it can affect your family, it can affect the church, negativity. Now this next group of words here, the third one, I want to be careful how I do this. I'm trying to figure out the best way to, to work through this one, but this is something I think you young people need to listen to, and, and even us older ones.

Coarse words, or vile words. We looked at vain words, and we looked at negative words, but, but a third part here, a third group of words, are coarse words, or vile words. And I'll use that word curse, cursing.

You know, a lot of times, and I've heard people say words that, my, so that's almost halfway to cursing there. Words that are not, not wise. So we are told in the Bible, let no evil communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edification, right? Some of us remember those words.

Shucks. Gosh. Darn it.

Heck. I don't like to use those words, but we grew up with those things. You know, people didn't want to say hell, or damn, or, you know, the word for excrement.

They didn't want to use that. That's a little too far, and so they, they come just to the edge, and use just words that are not good, right? And they're certainly not words that are edifying. Would you agree? And so it says here, to let no evil communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, coarse words that do not edify.

Now, I've, I've heard some young people, this is something that's common, but, but I'm going to use it here, and I trust I don't offend anybody. Sucks. I've heard young people using that all over the place.

Not a good word. Not a good word. First of all, it's going to affect people when they hear it.

It has a connotation. It's not good. Amen? And it's being used by a lot of youth today, which I cringe when I hear it.

Yes? I haven't thought about that one. My bad. Well, when you say my bad, I don't think of anything.

It doesn't challenge me in my, my heart, but some of these words are challenging. They, they have a connotation. We can talk about that a little bit later on.

What the? What? Four or five years ago, I was with a bunch of youth. Never heard that. Someone said, what the? What? They didn't go on with it, but my mind went on with it.

And I have experienced some of those things in my unconverted state, but when that statement is made, my mind immediately goes the rest of the way. And, you know, that's, that's not good. It's not edifying.

And people have to deal with that. When you speak it. And I think some of us here are using these words that are borderline vile.

The Bible talks about vile communications. They're borderline vile. And not only that, but they're bringing temptation to others.

And so let's, let's be mindful of those words that we speak. And I know the younger generation maybe don't have the background that some of us older ones do, but let's be mindful that our words are wholesome, edifying. And we don't have to come just short of cursing.

I have another one here. I'd like to look at angry words, angry words, angry words. You know, I never thought I was an angry person.

I've mentioned this before until recently and some of the situations with the boys there. And I think in our flesh, I've learned in our flesh, every temptation is possible. If you're put in the right position, or I should say the wrong position, it's in you.

And I guess because I'm married to a wife that doesn't, is not provoking anger or children that did not provoke, anger did not come out of me until recently. And I'm really surprised at how angry I can become. Matter of fact, we put Zach there in the boys camp last week and they, the boys have goals that they are given to reach and the parents are given goals.

And so they asked me, what's my goal that I'm going to be working on while Zach is working on his goal? And I said, number one, anger. Anger and a negative perspective are the two goals that I gave them, anger. Look with me to Ephesians chapter four, Ephesians chapter four, verse 29.

Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers. That's beautiful there. Our words ought to always minister grace, help, build up, edify people who hear and grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby you're sealed unto the day of redemption.

So evidently your words can grieve God. But your words cannot grieve God. Or grieve the Spirit of God.

Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice. Now there's a couple of words in there I'd like to look at. First one is clamor.

I've noticed in me clamor. You know what clamor is? It's when you get so angry you start to yell. You ever been there? Why did you do that? Clamor, clamor.

It's when your anger elevates you to start yelling. You probably look at me and say, you would never yell like that, would you, children? I never thought I would. But some of these buttons in me that never got pushed for years are getting pushed sometimes.

Or maybe it's just I'm getting older. Clamor is anger that causes an amplification of volume in your words. It's never happened to you.

And yes, it's in the heart, but it's also in this flesh right here. One of the works of the flesh is anger. It's in the human part of us.

Another word here I'd like to look at is the word wrath. You know what wrath is? Wrath is threatening gestures. God is going to pour out his wrath upon you.

Wrath, I'm going to hurt you. I'm going to kill you. I'm going to harm you.

You know, when you get angry, just like Cain, you have this desire to harm, wrath. I'll pour out my wrath upon this person. So you punch him.

What's that? Knuckle sandwich you talk about, James? Hurts donut. Yeah, hurts donut. Wrath.

So instead of giving just normal discipline, you go over two or three times and heart, it's anger, wrath, evil speaking. Then you start calling names, boy. You know, you're going to call this person evil, evil, evil things, bad names, vile things.

I don't want to get into some of the names. But I'll read this. This ought to help us here to stay away from names and getting angry.

Jesus said this, you have heard that it was said, but of old time now shall not kill and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment. But I say unto you that whosoever is angered with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. And whosoever shall say to his brother shall be in danger of the council, but whosoever shall say thou fool shall be in danger of hell fire.

That's anger to the limits to where you just rip somebody. Angry. Name calling.

And there's a lot of things there that we could talk about. Angry words, life and death are in the power of the tongue. They do have an effect on others.

Yes, sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. That's not true. How about slander? Slanderous words.

I've cautioned people in the past about this. Slander is speaking something untruthful about another person, especially about your brother. Speak not evil of your brother.

You shouldn't speak evil of your brother at all. But when you slander your brother, you're speaking something that's not truthful. And most of us probably won't go there, but a lot of times what happens is someone will slander a person in your ears, and then you will just take that slander and tell it to someone else.

And maybe not realizing that that slander was slander, it was not even true, and you're passing on a slander. You become a partaker with those who are lying about someone. So here's what you should do biblically.

You hear something negative. You probably shouldn't even listen to that, but if you do hear something negative about someone, what do you do? You call them. You say, dear brother, dear sister, I heard someone say this.

Is this true? And you inquire. You find out this is not true. Instead of just taking it and embracing it and passing it on, I heard so-and-so did this.

What if so-and-so didn't do this? What if what you heard is not true? You become a partaker with slanderers and with liars. And so I always try to, if I hear something negative before I ever share it with anyone else about someone, is to inquire them. I remember many years ago I was in our congregation here back in the 1990s up in Mount Vernon.

There's a lot of Seventh-day Adventists. And they were much bigger back then. As a matter of fact, they're selling their buildings up there.

But back in the 90s, they were pretty big, and they were having some influence on us. And we got to, my wife and I got to know one of the families there, and we went to their house for supper and got to know them. He was, I think, one of the maintenance men out at the Eastern Star.

And the influence, they kept questioning us about the Sabbath and all those things. And so I decided in our church congregation that we were going to take seven Sundays and just walk through the whole Bible, seven straight Sundays, and study the Sabbath from Genesis to Revelation and just get this thing buttoned down. And we did.

And a few months later afterwards, I started hearing people, I even had people calling me saying, I hear you guys are worshiping on Saturday. And some people have been saying, I hear you're doing all these Jewish customs and things of that nature. And I said, boy, that's just not true.

And dealing with all those things and slander, and people were passing things around, and we had not come to those conclusions at all. But about five years later, a dear brother who, if I said your name, you would know who it is, came to me and he tearfully apologized for spreading things that he did not know at the time were true. He never called me.

Just a simple call would clarify it. But he spread it. And there was another brother who was very well known in these circles who, when these rumors started to go around, one night I got a call.

And this brother said, hey, brother, I've been hearing this about you. Is this true? And I said, here's what it is. Oh, I can understand that.

OK, that's great. And it was resolved. He did the wise thing.

He inquired. He had a love and a care. And I want to know from you.

I want to hear it from you. I want to understand what you're going through. And you share with me.

And so let's be careful when you hear something of so-and-so committed immorality or, you know, so-and-so did this, that you make sure that you're accurate. Because if you pass it on and your words repeat the slander, you become a partaker of those who slander. And I tell you, slander can really bring death and destruction to marriages, homes and churches.

So death and life are in the power of the tongue. And so God says, study to be quiet, be very careful what you speak, because people have to deal with it. And they're affected by it.

And so let's make sure that when you speak, you're edify. Edifying people. And not bringing temptation or destruction to them.

These words have an effect on others. And I know that, you know, for those who are spiritually mature, it's much maybe easier to deal with these things. But those who are not, it makes it more difficult, more of a temptation.

So we stand up here every Sunday. Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our debts as we forgive those who are indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation.

And so let's not play the part of the tempter himself in tempting our brothers and sisters with words. With words that can be destructive. Vain words, negative words, coarse words, angry words, and slanderous words.

Can we remember those? Cast them out. And we'll be better off for it. Life.

Life, not death. Why don't we do this here this morning for a little bit of something different. Let's just have a moment here of introspection and ask the Lord to speak to us about our own mouth and our own words.

And a few minutes here maybe you can share with the Lord your failure or your area of life. Maybe I didn't even touch on it here this morning. God has shown you some things that we can address.

Let's take a few moments here and then I'll close this in prayer. No man can tame. We have no abilities here today to control the tongue and to lead our tongue into the path of righteousness.

But you do. And you can change us from the heart out. Lord I pray for anyone who's bitter here today.

Who speaks out bitterness. And someone who is insecure and speaks out of their insecurities. And someone who simply speaks vain words.

Lord in all the things that we talked about, may you convict us, convert us, and make us a better people. Make us a better congregation. And those who look at things from a positive perspective.

Even though negative things happen. We know that all things work together for good to those who love you. Bless us Lord.

May that passage, slow to speak, swift to hear, be a part of our life and our character. Bless each congregant here, each person here. Lord we pray in Jesus' name.

Amen. All right. You can be seated.