The following sermon was delivered
on Sunday morning, December 1st, 2002, at Trinity Baptist Church
in Montville, New Jersey. Now may I urge you to turn with
me in your Bibles to Paul's letter to the Ephesians, Ephesians chapter
4, and I shall read in your hearing
verses 17 to 32. Ephesians chapter 4 beginning
the reading at verse 17. This I say therefore and testify
in the Lord that you no longer walk as the Gentiles also walk
in the vanity of their mind, being darkened in their understanding,
alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that
is in them, because of the hardening of their heart, who, being past
feeling, gave themselves up to licentiousness, to work all uncleanness
with greediness. But You did not so learn Christ,
if so be that you heard him and were taught in him, even as truth
is in Jesus, that you put away as concerning your former manner
of life the old man that waxes corrupt after the lust of deceit,
and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put
on the new man that after God has been created in righteousness
and holiness of truth. Putting away falsehood, speak
truth, each one with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. Be angry, and sin not. Let not the sun go down upon
your wrath, neither give place to the devil. Let him that stole,
steal no more, but rather let him labor, working with his hands
the thing that is good, that he may have whereof to give to
him that has need. Let no corrupt speech proceed
out of your mouth, but such as is good for edifying as the need
may be, that it may give grace to them that hear. And grieve
not the Holy Spirit of God, in whom you were sealed unto the
day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath
and anger and clamor and railing be put away from you with all
malice, and be kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving each
other, even as God also in Christ forgave you. Let us again pray
and ask the present aid of the Holy Spirit as we come to the
ministry of the Word. Father, we bow again in your
presence, knowing that you are not weary when your people come
out of a felt sense of present need. Your Word only condemns
the prayers that are vain repetition, the prayers that are offered
as a covering for sin and a substitute for serious holiness. But as
best we know our hearts, Lord, we are not praying out of a matrix
of such foul and wretched desires to use our prayers as a substitute
for heart dealings with You. We long that in this time together
this morning, your word will come with power, that our minds
may be enlightened, that our hearts and wills may be moved. We look to you for the aid of
your Holy Spirit upon preacher and listener alike, for Jesus'
sake. Amen. With a measure of sanctified
hyperbole, the volatile German giant of the Protestant Reformation,
Martin Luther, wrote the following words, and I quote, The greatest
mischief which has been inflicted upon Christianity has not arisen
from tyrants with persecution, murder, and pride against the
word, but from that little bit of flesh which resides between
the jaws. This is that which inflicts the
greatest injury upon the kingdom of God." Now I say there's a
bit of sanctified hyperbole. Luther doesn't know how to speak
in anything other than sanctified hyperbole. He was a volatile,
volcanic man, but he put his finger on an issue that surely
is one that no one will debate who is aware of the baneful influence
of that little bit of flesh that dwells between our jaws. And it is a shared pastoral concern
and burden relative to this very issue which has brought us to
our present series of messages that I have entitled, Now Concerning
the Use of Our Tongues. In the initial sermon two large
days ago, I sought to do but one thing, namely, to demonstrate
from the scriptures the profound significance of this matter of
how we use our tongues. I opened up five categories of
biblical truths culminating in the sobering fact that our words
will constitute a major factor in God's dealings with us in
the day of judgment. For our Lord Jesus said in Matthew
12 and verse 36, by your words you shall be justified and by
your words you shall be condemned. And then in the second message,
last Lord's Day, I began to address some of the major sins of the
tongue as they are identified in the scriptures. And at the
head of the list of the sins of the tongue most frequently
addressed in the Bible is the sin of lying. In addressing that sin, we defined
lying as a deliberate misrepresentation of the truth, the intent to deceive
another with our words. And then we asked and answered
three questions regarding lying. Number one, what is God's assessment
of lying? And doing a sweep through the
Old and the New Testaments, we saw that there was a consistent
witness of the Word of God in every epoch of redemptive history
concerning the fact that lying is not an innocent foible. It
is condemned everywhere as a heinous sin. culminating in God's statement
in Revelation 21.8 that along with murderers and whoremongers
and idolaters, liars shall have their part in the lake of fire,
where they join their spiritual father, the devil, who was a
liar, and the father of it. Second question, what is God's
attitude and action towards the liar and his lying lips? And here again, we looked at
the witness of the Old and the New Testament and demonstrated
that God hates liars and their lying lips. That God has a sanctified,
holy antipathy. He is not simply a distant judge
that points at lying and says, naughty, naughty. His own soul
is the God of truth, is stirred with righteous passion against
the liar. And then the third question,
what is God's remedy for the sin of lying? And we looked at
that remedy for those in whom lying is a reigning sin. sin,
and the remedy is nothing short of a new heart, a heart in which
the God of truth takes up residence by the Spirit of truth, and enables
us to begin to speak the truth as it is in Jesus. And for the
believer In whom lying is a remaining sin, he must trace the sin to
its roots, and he must bring the dynamics of gospel grace
upon it, that he might be one marked by the speaking of truth. Now this morning, with our Bibles
open before us, I will seek to identify one more major sin of
the tongue which we, as the people of God, are to put to death if
we are presently indulging it, and one concerning which we are
always to watch and to pray, lest we fall into it, and furthermore,
one which, when we detect in the presence of others, we are
to soundly and roundly reprove it and rebuke it and refuse,
so far as is humanly and socially possible, to have it enter our
own ears. Now, the minute you hear me announce
that I'm going to address one specific sin of the tongue, what
is your inner disposition and reaction? Only you and God know. I don't know. But I can tell
you it's one of two things. In John chapter 3, the Lord Jesus
said this, Everyone that does evil hates the light, and comes
not to the light, lest his work should be reproved. But he who
does the truth comes to the light, that his works may be made manifest,
that they have been wrought in God. Upon announcing that I was
going to preach on one specific sin of the tongue, highlighted
in the Scriptures, you began to have one of two attitudes
in the deep recesses of your heart. On the one hand, there
may have been an attitude that said, Lord, as unpleasant as
it may be, I want to come to the light of your word. Lord,
send a searchlight of Holy Scripture. And if I'm guilty of that sin,
whatever it is, Lord, search me and try me and know my thoughts. See if there be any wicked way
in me and lead me in the way everlasting. Your disposition
was already one of coming to the light. Your heart is going
out, though your remaining sin would draw you back. Your heart,
as a renewed man or woman, boy or girl in Christ, has already
been saying, Lord, flood the light upon my soul, and flood
the light upon the use of my tongue. Or, or, you've already
begun to pull down the shade. He that does evil does not come
to the light, lest his work should be reproved. And you've already
begun to pull down the shades of your soul and say, whatever
that crazy preacher is going to talk about, it's not going
to get to me. Now, which was your disposition? It's one or the other. No middle
ground. And if it was the latter, it's
an evidence you're lost, and you're not saved, and you'll
never dwell eternally with the God of Light. You'll go into
the darkness that you love with the Prince of Darkness, into
outer darkness. So speaking on this subject becomes
a very, very searching, accurate index of the true state of your
soul. Keep that in mind. as we begin
to work our way through the scriptures addressing the sin of corrupt
speech. The sin identified in the passage
read in your hearing, let no corrupt speech proceed out of
your mouth, but such as is good for edifying as the need may
be, that it may give grace to them that here I'm going to address
this morning the sin of corrupt speech or speech that does not
build up and edify and minister grace. Now let me say just a
brief word about the setting of this text, Ephesians 4 and
verse 29. The Apostle Paul having set forth
This breathtaking description of the marvelous salvation that
is ours in Christ in chapters 1 to 3 begins in chapter 4 to
work out the practical implications of that salvation. In chapter
4 in verse 1, I therefore, in the light of this magnificent
salvation that is ours in Christ, I beseech you to walk worthily
of the calling wherewith you were called. He's now going to
set before them a walk, a pattern of life, a lifestyle worthy of
all of the privileges of grace. And as he is working that out
in chapter 4 in verse 17, he says that lifestyle will be marked
by this. Negatively, you will no longer
walk as the Gentiles walk. It will be a lifestyle in direct
contrast to those who have not experienced this salvation. Their lifestyle is regulated
by their darkened minds, by their perverse hearts, and by their
spiritual deadness. But in contrast, he says, your
lifestyle, if you have truly learned of Christ in the gospel,
and have experienced the truth as it is in Jesus, verse 21,
will be a lifestyle in which you will make it evident that
you have put off the old man with his doings, and that you
have put on the new man and that you are pressing after conformity
to nothing less than the very character of the God who has
conferred this grace upon you. And put on the new man that after
God as the pattern and paradigm of moral virtue has been created
in righteousness and holiness of truth. Now, having set forth
that generic statement, a walk worthy of our calling is a walk
that is in direct contrast to those who still are governed
by a darkened mind, by spiritual death and deadness, is characterized
by the putting off of the old man and the putting on of the
new, he now is going to descend to some very specific aspects
of that contrasting lifestyle. And notice verse 25 begins with
the words, wherefore? In the light of this generic
description of the walk to which you are now called in Christ,
I want to descend to specifics. You see, Paul didn't have this
silly notion. Entertained by a lot of preachers
and theologians, all you need to do is give the general and
trust the Holy Spirit for the particulars. He doesn't trust
the Holy Spirit for the particulars. He gives the particulars. Trusting
the Spirit of God will make them effective in the hearts of the
Thessalonians. And so he begins with the matter
of lying. He begins with the matter of
the tongue. The first specific he addresses,
wherefore putting away falsehood, speak truth, each one with his
neighbor. We looked at that as a parallel
to another passage in our study last week. Then he deals with
the passion of anger, verse 26, be angry and sin not. Verse 28,
he deals with their past patterns of thievery, let him that stole
steal no more, but rather let him labor, working with his hands.
Now he comes in verse 29. in this string of specific aspects
of what it is to walk, to live as new man, new woman in Christ,
in contrast to what we were and what the rest of unconverted
humanity is in its spiritual darkness, he now says, and let
no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth. Now, having
said that brief word about the context, now then, secondly,
let's consider the meaning of the term corrupt speech. The NIV renders it no unwholesome
talk. Now, Paul used the Greek word
sapros. Sapros. Imagine with me now that
you are a Greek-speaking man in first century Ephesus. And at the end of your day of
work, you're making your way back through the local open market,
the local bazaar. And there you come to the place
where the local fishmonger, as our English friends would call
him, sells his fish. And there's a pile of one of
the local delicacies, the fish that everyone in that area loves,
piled up on the man's open air stand. And you happen to glance
up and you see a sign. It had four dollars, was the
ordinary course for one of these local fish. It was crossed out,
and the words were there, a bargain today, one dollar. And it catches
your eye, you're a good bargain hunter. And your eyes are caught
by the indication of a bargain. So you go over to the fish stand,
and you say, yeah, well they look good, I think I'll, wrap
me up one of those. And you plunk your dollar down,
stick your fish under your arm, and you go home. And you come
through the door and your wife says, hello sweetheart, gives
you a peck on the cheek or a peck on the lips, however passionate
your wife may be, when you get home from work. And you say,
dear, I think you're going to appreciate what I picked up at
the fish market. They had a tremendous bargain on, and then you name
that particular fish that is one of the local delicacies,
and you plunk it on the counter. And your wife says, well, dear,
that was so thoughtful of you, let me give you an extra kiss
for that. And so she snuggles up. Plants a big one on you and
you say, oh boy, that was worth the bargain just to get that.
And so then she starts to unwrap it. And like a good wife who
knows what a good fish is, first thing she does, she looks at
the eyes and uh-oh, the eyes are not clear. They're clouded.
Look like they got thick cataracts over them. She then begins to
push the flesh and it's not firm, but it's mushy. She gets a little
more suspicious. Now she strokes the scales and
they're all slimy. Now she bends over and the thing
stinks. She looks at her hubby and says,
Sweetheart, we can't eat this fish. It is sapros. It is rotten. It is unedible. It is unwholesome. It is laden with that bacteria. It's on sit for human consumption. And the word his wife would use
is the word Paul uses here. That's sapros fish. It's corrupt
fish. Or imagine the next day, this
guy having lost it with the fish, he's out for a walk with his
son. And he goes by an open field where someone has some apple
trees, and in that particular town, any fallen apples, anyone's
free to take them. And as they're walking along,
the son says, oh daddy, look over there, they're a beautiful
big red apple. And he goes over and picks it up, and turns it
over. And where it's been lying on
the ground, it's all brown, and smelly, and mushy, And his father
says, son, you can't eat that apple. It is sapros. It is unwholesome. It's unfit
for consumption. It's rotten. That's the word
he would use with his son. Now you get a feeling of the
flavor of this word? Now Paul says, let no sapros
speech, let no corrupt speech proceed out of your mouth. Now the heart of the issue is
this. Our words are the diet of the minds and the hearts of
those to whom we speak. And in that diet there is to
be nothing at all that is rotten, that is foul, suffused with bad
spiritual and mental bacteria, nothing that is rotten and foul,
Only that which Paul says is productive of wholesomeness and
nourishment. The word he uses in the latter
part of the verse, such as is good for edifying, building up,
as the need may be. It's the very word he used twice
in chapter 4, of the building up of the body. So it's not a
mechanical word. It is a building up by nourishment. It is a living building up. And
the Apostle says, anything that does not fit the category of
the wholesome that is productive of building up is corrupt, it
is sapros, it is unfit for our consumption and therefore none
of us is to peddle it into the ears of others. Let no corrupt
speech proceed out of your mouth. So any kind of speech that is
corrupt worthless, does not build up in minister grace, is prohibited,
and under that umbrella would be all forms of abusive speech,
slander, gossip, vindictive speech, sarcastic speech, needling, taunting,
and the list could go on and on. Anything that crawls with
the unwholesome bacteria of that which is destructive when eaten
by the minds of men by way of their ears is never to proceed
out of your mouth and of my mouth. Let no corrupt speech proceed
out of your mouth. And we shall address some of
these that come under the more broad category in next week's
message. However, In this very epistle
there is a particular category of corrupt speech which is highlighted
by the Apostle. And I believe has peculiar relevance
in the hour in which you and I live in American society. And as I've pondered this theme,
I've been constrained to focus upon it with the prayer that
God, by the power of the Holy Spirit, will come upon us and
help us to see the foul, wretched, totally unchristian nature of
this dimension of corrupt speech. And what is that category? Well,
I want you to turn with me to chapter 5. for this specific
example of corrupt speech. In chapter 5, verse 1, the apostle
now calls them to be imitators of God, to walk in love. Then
he goes to the negative, but fornication and all uncleanness
or covetousness, not even being named among you, has become saints. Now look at verse 4. Nor, having
dealt with all forms of sexual immorality under the canopy word
pornia, fornication, and all uncleanness or covetousness. And many commentators say in
this context it could well mean that he's thinking of covetousness
in a more limited sense. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's
wife, any kind of sexual greed. But it's clear that he's addressing
specifically sexual aberration and sexual sins, fornication
and all uncleanness or covetousness. Let it not even be named among
you as becometh saints. Let it be something that is far
removed from those of you who have been set apart unto God
in union with Christ. And then he brings right on behind
it, in addition to these deeds, notice the focus, nor filthiness,
translated by many modern translators, obscenities, nor foolish talking,
or jesting which are not befitting, but rather giving of thanks. And here the apostle focuses
on three specific sins of the tongue that fit under the category
of corrupt, unwholesome, unsuitable speech. The first is filthiness,
or obscenity or indecency. This would take within its orbit
all shameful speech. And I want to get very specific.
And I've cried to God that I may be specific enough to get into
your conscience, but not specific enough to cause your mind to
sin. And that's no easy razor's edge
to be on in preaching. I don't want anyone to go out
scratching his head saying, what in the world are we talking about?
But I don't want anyone to go out with my having put words
and thoughts in your mind that become an occasion to sin. But
Paul wrote the word and he expected the people at Ephesus when the
service was over to say, do you remember what he said? Nor filthiness,
nor obscenity. How would that apply to us? So
that this should be discussed only with a view to understanding
it that we might deal with it by the grace of God. What is
this filthiness or obscenity which is forbidden? It is all
bathroom and locker room course talk. The use of vocabulary and
slang terms which have grown up around personal body parts,
private bodily functions, and sexual activity. I think that's
specific enough. Right down to the seven and eight
year olds, you would understand what I'm talking about. when
the apostle says, nor filthiness, nor obscenities, nor indecencies. He's putting under the searchlight
of the Word of God whole bathroom and locker room course talk. The use of vocabulary and slang
terms that have grown up around personal body parts private bodily
functions and sexual activity. In a word that is different but
has the same root, in Colossians chapter 3 and verse 8b, Paul
says this, But now put them all away, anger, wrath, malice, railing,
here is the root word, shameful speaking, out of your mouth. Out of your mouth just in public?
No. Out of your mouth in your family. So that the head of every household
in this assembly says in my home, bathroom talk, locker talk, slang
talk about bodily parts and functions is prohibited. Because God says, nor filthiness,
out of your mouth, anywhere, anytime, any circumstances. This is not to mark the new humanity
in Christ. It is created after God in righteousness
and holiness of the truth. And the great embodiment of that
holiness and righteousness is the Lord Jesus. Can you imagine
him in the intimacy of the home at Nazareth using bathroom talk
with his siblings? The slang language referring
to bodily functions and bodily parts and sexual activity. The lips of the Holy Son of God
were never stained with one such word, for he was holy, harmless,
undefiled, separate from sinners. And even when he used bodily
functions for an illustration, he spoke of it in a chaste way. He says, don't you foolish hypocrites
know, what goes into the mouth doesn't defile a man, he swallows
it. And he gets rid of it when he
goes to the bathroom. That's what Jesus said. There was no prudish bypassing
of those realities. A woman, when it's time to give
birth, has pain! He speaks of birth pangs, bluntly,
frankly, but in a beautiful and chaste way. Let no corrupt speech
proceed out of your mouth. No filthiness or obscenity. But now, secondly, this is where
the knife of God is going to cut deeper. Notice the language. nor foolish talking. Morologia, compound word. Know where we get our word moron?
From this Greek word, moros. Logia, word. No moronic words. No banal, stupid, mindless prattle. foolish talking, the kind of
speech that is beneath the dignity of image bearers of God. It's the speech of the fool or
of the drunkard. The fool or the drunkard is not
reflecting the image of God. And the apostle says, nor foolish
talking. The talk of fools and of drunkards. contrary to what we are as image
of God, and secondly, contrary to what we are in our identity
as the saints of God. We are set apart unto God with
the renewed dignity of renewed image in Christ. We stand in
Christ as new men, new women, to be what God intended we should
be. Adam, had he not sinned, would
never have indulged in foolish talking, the talking of a moron
or of a drunkard. The kind of talk that marks 99% of current television sitcoms. Once in a while I will sit and
force myself to watch three to five minutes sweeping across
the channels And when I do, I say to myself, what banality! What stupidity! What a mass of
inane gibberish! With the recorded laugh track! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha,
ha! Image bearers of God carrying on like fools and drunkards. Now let me say for the sensitive
of conscience, this is not a prohibition of innocent and playful banter
which brightens human relationships. There is an innocent, playful
banter that brightens human relationships. Two of the sisters delivered
a meal to us last night, and in the course of that, I mentioned
something and one of the sisters had a moment of forgetfulness
and I said, you know, I heard this little joke recently. The
guy said, I got three problems, three problems. I got bad knees,
I got bad eyes and I can't remember what the third
was. The third was he was having problems with his memory. And
we had an innocent laugh, but then the moment the sister said
that this was beginning to be a problem, my spirit was grieved. I said, no, no, she said, I wasn't
offended by that at all. Innocent banter brightens human
relationships. He's not talking about that.
He's talking about the foolish talking that is just the prattle
of mindless engagement of the tongue. that has no wholesome
influence in the cultivation of human relationships. In the
passing on of information, one man has said this, the purposes
for which the faculty of speech was bestowed upon us are these,
to carry on the business of life, to minister to the needful mental
and emotional refreshment of ourselves and others, to help
our fellow men by instruction, encouragement, and comfort, and
the highest use of all, to praise God and hold direct communion
with Him. When speech is devoted to these
ends in suitable proportions and to no other ends, we need
not fear. that we are sinning with our
tongues. And this wise commentator included
among the divine purposes for the faculty of speech to minister
the needful mental and emotional refreshment of ourselves and
others. The kind of wholesome banter
that those of us on the staff here at Trinity engage with one
another, that is an affirmation of our goodwill, that is a constant
reminder that our hearts are one and that we're so secure
in each other's love that we can engage in wholesome banter. This is talking about foolish,
talking, the talk of fools and of drunkards. I say the kind
of stuff that forms the content of these banal, stupid, juvenile,
I can't come up with enough words, that glut the sitcoms on the
television. And Paul says, No filthiness,
obscenity, indecency. No foolish talking. And then he says, no coarse jesting. Jesting which are not befitting. And most of the modern translations
will say no coarse jesting or joking. This word, in the Greek-speaking
world of the first century, was used sometimes to speak of a
virtue, of someone who was quick-witted and could turn a phrase. The
etymology points toward being able to quickly turn a phrase
and be clever with words. And it was considered by some
to be a virtue and an attainment of some degree, apparently, of
mental alacrity and acuity. But in the alternate lifestyle
of the people of God, this thing that could be used in order to
turn something into double entendre, that was quick to be able to
make a bridge from an innocent statement to something unclean,
or an innocent statement to something that was sarcastic and bit and
cut into the heart of another's feelings, joking at the expense
of another's feelings, joking at the expense of moral purity.
William Hendrickson says this, Some people seem to have the
ability to move any conversation to the ribald, the suggestive,
and the unclean. They seem to have a garbage can
type of mind, and every serious topic of conversation is one
that they can turn to an off-color jest or anecdote. Hence this
word most likely refers to a clever wittiness in telling coarse jokes. Let no corrupt communication
proceed out of your mouth. Filthiness or obscenity, foolish
talking, coarse jesting or joking, are to have no place among the
people of God in their alternate lifestyle as the new humanity
in Christ. Now in O'Brien's very helpful
commentary on Ephesians, he gives a wonderful summary of these
three words. I read this brief paragraph.
Each of the words used for sinful speech, obscenity, foolish talk,
and coarse joking appears only here in the New Testament. Only
here in the New Testament, the first is best understood concretely
in the present context as signifying disgraceful speech, and in the
light of the preceding sexual sins is rendered rightly obscenity. The second term means foolish
or silly talk. The third word in the triad was
used in classical Greek in the good sense of wittiness, or that
sense of wit that was regarded as essential to good social conversation. Even in early times, however,
the term could have negative connotations, perhaps buffoonery
of some kind of inhumane or degrading jesting. obviously not an Italian or an
Irishman, thinks that the context of Ephesians 5.4 suggests the
meaning of coarse joking that has suggestive overtones and
double entendres. All three terms refer to a dirty
mind expressing itself in vulgar conversation. This kind of language
must be avoided as utterly inappropriate among those whom God has set
apart as holy. Now, as I tried to give you from
the scriptures the meaning of corrupt speech, and then to focus
in upon one aspect of corrupt speech as identified by Paul
in these three words, I now come to what is the heart of the burden
of the message this morning. And I want to bring, set before
you, an observation and then an exhortation. And I want to
make an observation concerning the present state of our society
and our culture. The average American hearing
what I have preached this morning would sneer. He would regard
obscenity, foolish talk, and coarse jesting as a mere peccadillo. You know what a peccadillo is?
That's not a cousin of an armadillo. A peccadillo is a slight sin. If it's a sin at all, what's
the fault? Nothing to get upset about. And
for this preacher to stand up here and get right in the face He strained his vocal cords to
talk about obscenities, bathroom talk, chorus talk, foolish talk. That's ridiculous. That's fiddling
while Rome burns. It's a mere peccadillo. Insignificant. Doesn't demand
any kind of sober consideration. But when we turn to our Bibles,
Paul understood what few in our day understand. Calvin captured
the danger of this kind of speech when he wrote, and I want you
to dirt up the loins of your mind and capture this simple
sentence of Calvin. If only vice can be made common,
then it seems those vices possess the field. If only vices can
be made common, then it seems that they possess the field. Follow me now. What is made the
stuff of ordinary and acceptable language, and the subjects of
jokes and banter, is soon the stuff of acceptable behavior. You got me? What is made the
subject, the stuff, of ordinary language? So it's not obscenity,
it's not uncleanness, of jokes and banter. What is made the
stuff of ordinary acceptable language and the subject of jokes
and banter is soon the stuff of acceptable behavior. If you
can laugh at it, why can't you do it? It must not be that serious
an issue. And we have in our present society
three indisputable evidences of the fact that that's exactly
what has happened in our society. Number one, in the realm of pop
music, in the realm of pop music, what
was made the subject of so-called innocent lyrics, though it fit
the category of the obscene The foolish and the coarse jesting
has now become acceptable behavior. I was able to watch this past
week the documentary on Elvis Presley when he hit the television
screen in 1956. I had no television then. I was
totally ignorant of what was going on in television. But as
I saw for the first time why there was this flap over Elvis
the pelvis, and the fact that he had crossed lines of decency,
not just pushing the envelope an inch or two, but light years
from where it had been, so that a secular man committed to some
of the far-out rock music assessing what Palvis did said this, the
sexual revolution did not begin in the 60s with the hippies on
our campuses, it began with Elvis Presley. As a secular man, an ungodly
man, recognizing that when the bodily motions and when the language
love me tenderly, sung by a man who dreamt sensuality, and who
went through the physical postures of sexual activity without shame,
with teenage girls swooning and screaming while he did it. What
was then the subject of lyrics? And the bodily motions that shocked
many in an older generation has become the acceptable behavior
not only of the younger generation, but the older as well. Now Eminem, with the most vile,
coarse, vulgar, and obscene words, is the icon of a whole generation
of young men. He's welcomed as a special guest
star on music award ceremonies. How did we get there? What is made the stuff of ordinary
acceptable language, the subjects of jokes and banter is soon the
stuff of acceptable behavior. From Madonna to Britney Spears, to Jennifer Lopez, the icons
of a whole generation of young women. And when I drive by any
place where I see kids getting out of high school, I want to
throw my arms around these girls sporting their belly buttons
and proving to the world they have breasts. and say, my precious
girl, you've been sacrificed upon the altar of a lie. Paul understood. Obscene language,
stupid foolish talk, jesting not befitting, break
down the moral resistance and what becomes acceptable talk
and prattle and laughter and jokes will become acceptable
behavior. Second category I've already
alluded to at the realm of popular TV sitcoms, MTV, late night TV,
the diet of this generation has been that of Seinfeld, Friends,
The Simpsons, will and grace, sex and the city. And while there
was much in the Cosby family that was idealistic, and a lot
of blacks resented the fact that Cosby's home life didn't represent
urban black experience, but upper middle class white experience,
be that as it may, what a profound difference. You knew that Cosby
and his wife still had something going between them. But there
was never anything ribald, lecherous, double entendre. You laughed
because they were the struggles of families that you recognized.
Some of the standards you knew were unbiblical and you could
critically analyze them. But what a profound difference
between a group of singles sitting around talking about who they've
got the hops for. A generation that feeds its soul
upon it. There's probably no more profane
man, adulated by millions, than David Letterman. He's an utterly
profane man. Mocks sacred realities. Filthy
mind. Leno's not far behind. Then in the realm of our national
leaders, on the shameful revelation of what went on in Clinton's
Oval Office and his activities with Monica Lewinsky. What followed? A spate of jokes about what went
on in that Oval Room. And from his activity to the
jokes and the laughter. It is now epidemic among teenagers. Indulging in their perversion
and saying, I'm not having sex. sexually transmitted diseases
in parts of the body that they never appeared before. I'm being
discreet. How did it happen? From talk,
coarse jokes, to the breaking down of a sense of moral outrage. And now it is acceptable behavior. Child of God, mark it down. A fundamental ingredient of the
soul in maintaining a holy walk in an unholy context is the maintaining
of a deep sense of moral revulsion in the presence of that which
displeases God. And if you begin to break down
that revulsion with your mouth, your body will follow. For as a man thinks in his heart,
so is he, and out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. Therefore the apostle says, let
no corrupt, foul, putrid communication proceed out of your mouth. It is impossible to maintain
this moral revulsion to that which displeases God when it
becomes the subject of ordinary foolishness, excuse me, and coarse
joking and obscene speech. Now you can just sit there and
write it all off and say that's a man sitting around thinking
too much. But are you going to argue with
me that this nation is drowning in a cesspool of sensuality? If so, you don't know what this
nation is. And no little part in bringing
it there is the very thing the apostle addresses here. Why does
he move from prohibiting fornication and uncleanness and say, nor
obscenity, nor foolish talking, nor coarse joking. He understood the connection. God have mercy on us if we don't.
Well, that's my observation. Now I conclude with an exhortation
and warning, particularly to my precious children and young
people here. Kids, hear your old pastor this
morning, will you? As I often say, when there's
something particularly on my heart, I greet you at the door
and I say, did you listen to me for three years? I want you
to listen for three years now. You young people, you children,
listen to your old pastor today. Don't be guilty of putting poison
in the souls of others. Because you feel smart. You've
learned a new dirty word and you want to pass it on to someone
else. You've heard a joke. It's got a double meaning to
it and you think it's clever and you'll be cool if you tell
it. Listen to what Jesus said. It is necessary that offenses
come. In a sinful world, people are
going to sin and find occasions to sin. But he said this, but
woe to him through whom the offense comes. It were better for him
that a millstone were hanged about his neck and he were drowned
in the sea. If you become the occasion of putting poison in
the mind of another, Jesus said, it'd be better for you to be
drowned in the sea. Don't think it's cool. Prove
you're with it and you're smart. You know a little about sex and
you can tell a dirty joke? Kids, don't do it. You're putting
poison in the minds and the souls of others and God will hold you
accountable. And if the Lord should be pleased
to save you, you'll have a lifetime to regret that you can never
take those things back. From time to time as I think
of what I was before God saved me, and I think of the dirty
jokes that someone may be telling their grandchildren, that they
learn from me. And I can't take them back, kids.
I can't take them back. God's forgiven me. But I've got
to live with the fact that they may be told all over the place
because of me. I want you to have that as an
old person. You say, for me, no corrupt speech will go out
of my mouth. No dirty words, no dirty jokes,
no stupid tomfoolery, just talking nonsense. I'm going to learn
to harness my tongue to make it useful for God. Sure, kids
will say, yeah, you're too good, Mr. Too-Good-Too. Forget what
they say. As pleased as God. You determine. that by the grace
of God you'll please Him. But then the second part of my
exhortation is don't you allow others to put this poison into
your soul. Don't you allow anybody to make
your ears the inlet of the poison of obscene speech, foolish talk,
coarse jesting. Listen to Calvin speaking to
his own generation Back in 1556, I was going to read his opening
part of his sermon on this text, and say, where do you think this
guy lived, and when do you think he lived? You say, that's somebody
living around the corner! It was Calvin in Geneva, preaching
through Ephesians. But listen to what he says, kids.
We would not willingly expose our throat to a dagger when we
see it drawn, nor would we go looking for someone to murder
our bodies. And if you hear someone puts
a dagger to your throat, you can say, oh, welcome dagger,
stick it in. No, Calvin says, we would not
willingly expose our throat to a dagger when we see it drawn.
Nor will we go looking for someone to murder our bodies. Why then
do we long to have our souls murdered, which is much worse.
Wherefore, let us keep far from such people as can do nothing
but quench and put out the fear of God in us, and make us shameless
and hard-hearted, and rob us of all honesty and shame. Let
us fear God should pay us the wages we deserve for having acquaintance
and familiarity with such people, and let us labor hard that such
plagues may not reign among us. Listen, you kids, anybody comes
to you and says, hey, I want to... You say, wait a minute,
is this clean? Is this honorable? Oh, no, I don't want to hear
it! Get away from me! You got to take your fist and
put it on their face if they won't get away. Sock them in
the name of righteousness. I will not let you poison my
soul. Again, some of us can testify. that though God has cleansed
us and forgiven us, and months may pass, and things we allowed
into our souls are buried, all it takes is a word, an association,
and up from the deep bowels of the file drawer of the mind will
flash those words that we wish had never come in there, and
we want to reach into our souls and scar them with Clorox. Can't do it. You want that? Is that what you
want? Same way some of the men among
us can say that pictures they allow to flash on the screen
of their mind, unclean pictures, long since forgiven for indulging
them. But you can't scrub them from
the walls of the mind. And in the most inopportune time,
the devil puts a flashlight on them, and there they are. There
they are. I'm pleading with you young people
and children. I beg of you. Don't allow them. Don't allow them. I don't care
if you're the loneliest person on your block and in Trinity
Christian School. You say nobody is going to put
poison in my soul by way of my ears. Keep your rotten fish to
yourself. Keep your rotten apples to yourself. I don't want your sapros fish.
I don't want your sapros apples. I want wholesome fish. I want
wholesome edible apples. Now I feel for some of you because
you're in settings where you don't control whether or not
you hear it. I think I'll remember as long
as I live one of our young ladies telling me that in one of her
first classes at college, she had a professor that, to prove
he was cool to the students, sat down with them. As he began
to instruct them, he used every form of profanity and foul language
to prove he was with it. I'd like that professor to sit
here. You know what I'd tell him? I'd say, Sir, if you cannot
express your thoughts clearly, convincingly, Logically, without
the use of obscenities and foul language, you're a stupid, uneducated
man. You have no business teaching
in a college. The English language is so rich,
so profuse with adjectives and adverbs and the way we can work
with that language like a painter with a full palette of colors.
No one needs obscenities to express his mind clearly if he's an educated
man or woman. And I feel for you. I don't know
what the answer is. You have to pray that God somehow
immunize you against the permanent influence. I don't know the answer.
But I'm talking about the situations and the places you have a choice.
That's why it bothers me. When people have a choice and
they pop in their videos. Well, I only had two sex scenes. I only had six curse words. How
many times do you need to hear a curse word for it to lodge
itself in your mind? Am I so wicked that I just need
to hear it once? You can hear it six times? How
do you know what your threshold is? I get sick of this. There's too much of it in this
congregation. You'll go to heaven if you never
see a movie. But you may go to hell because
you feel you've got to see a movie. You see what I'm saying? I said
you may. It may be the very means that God the devil will use to
unravel the moral fabric of your soul. Why risk it? It ain't worth it. I saw three movies growing up,
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, a Gene Autry movie, and I think
it was one other. I'm terribly twisted, socially
maladjusted, ignorant and unrelated and irrelevant. I really suffered. I go to bed every night crying.
Oh, I suffered so. I only saw three movies growing
up. I said, Pastor, you're being
sarcastic. Yes, I am. Because I want some of you to
stop letting the world dictate these issues and start thinking
as a new man, a new woman in Christ. That's extreme. I rest my case with my Bible. Let no corrupt Communication,
proceed out of your mouth. By analogy, let no unnecessary
corrupt communication proceed into your ears. I said unnecessary. Some situations you can't go
into the office and tell everyone, stop their foul language. You
may not be able to clean up the language of that. I fully understand
that. But I'm talking about the things
where you have a choice. You have a choice about your
friends. You have a choice of the music you listen to. You
have a choice about the things you watch. You have a choice. Choose racistness. Choose purity. Choose moral sensitivity. Don't choose the past. that will
dull your ability to feel and to sense something of God's antipathy,
to uncleanness, and to rivalry, and to the lecherous, and to
the things that dishonor the living God. Well, that was the
burden of my heart. I have to leave with God what
you do with it. I trust it will be the response
of thoughtful reflection and obedient faith. Let's pray. Our Father, when we think of
the horrible tidal wave of moral filth that breaks over this nation
day after day after day, We can only cry out to you to have mercy. We marvel, we marvel that you
have not just obliterated us as a nation. When we think of
our moral filth, all the laughter that will go on today at unclean
speech, all of the indifference to purity and sanctity, nobility
and dignity, Lord, we've become such a coarse, vile, filthy nation. Have mercy upon us. Have mercy. We pray especially for our precious
children and young people. God, help them to see the issues
that are before them. And by your grace to deal with
these matters. We pray for those who may be
enmeshed in these very sins. and for whom nothing less than
the sovereign regenerating work of the Spirit will ever release
them from the bondage into which they've fallen. Be gracious and
deal with them for their good and for your glory. We ask in
Jesus' name. Amen.