The following sermon was delivered
on Sunday morning, December 8, 2002, at Trinity Baptist Church
in Montville, New Jersey. Now will you turn with me, please,
in your own Bibles to the book of Colossians, Paul's letter
to the church at Colossae, a church that was being threatened with
a teaching that Christ was not enough. that we needed angels
to fully secure our access to God. We needed trappings of pagan
asceticism and Jewish legalism to secure our Christian life
before God. And in this epistle, Paul is
just constantly pounding this note, Christ is all and Christ
is enough. And in the particular part of
the letter that I'm going to read in your hearing, and in
which one text will be a key text in our study this morning,
he is reminding the Colossians of what they are because of their
union with Christ. They have died with Christ, they
have been raised to newness of life in Christ, And now he's
teasing out the implications of that for the practice of the
Christian life. And so I read Colossians 3 verses
1 through 11. Since then you were raised together
with Christ. Seek the things that are above,
where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind
on the things that are above, not on the things that are upon
the earth. For you died, and your life is
hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life,
shall be manifested, then shall you also with Him be manifested
in glory. Put to death, therefore, your
members which are upon the earth, fornication, uncleanness, passion,
evil desire, and covetousness which is idolatry, for which
things sake comes the wrath of God upon the sons of disobedience,
wherein you also once walked when you lived in these things,
but now do you also put them all away. Anger, wrath, malice,
railing, shameful speaking out of your mouth. Do not lie one
to another, seeing that you have put off the old man with his
doings, and have put on the new man that is being renewed unto
knowledge after the image of him that created him, where there
cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian,
Scythian, bondman, freeman, but Christ is all and in all. Now let us again pray and ask
God for the help of His Spirit in the study of His Word. Our Father, together we have
made large petitions pleading for the presence and power of
the Spirit to convince us of our sin, to reveal Christ, to
cheer us, to warm us. O Lord, we pray that you would
do all of these things and more For are you not the God who can
do exceeding abundantly above all we could ask or even think
according to the power that is at work in us? So Lord, we again,
by your grace, hold up our empty cups We open our mouths wide,
fulfill your promise to preacher and listener alike. You have
said, open your mouth wide and I will fill it. Oh God, come
in your filling work this morning, we pray for Jesus' sake. Amen. If someone were to walk up to
you sometime today and ask you, what is the fundamental difference
between Paul's letter to the church at Rome, what we call
the Book of Romans, And Paul's first letter to the Corinthians,
what we call the Book of Corinthians, if they were to ask you, what
is the fundamental difference between Romans and Corinthians,
both written by the same man, both written to first century
churches, what is the fundamental difference between those two
letters? Well, I trust that many of you,
and I hope I'm not being overly optimistic, I hope that many
of you would answer something like this. Well, Romans is a
logical, well-structured, comprehensive statement of what the gospel
really is, and what the gospel demands in the way of the life
of those who believe it. And that you'd say something
like this, 1 Corinthians is an intensely pastoral and practical
letter addressing a shopping list of miscellaneous issues
that were currently hot-button issues at the church at Corinth. Now, do you think you would have
answered at least something like that? That's Martinized, and
I'm not asking would you give it back Martinized, but would
you answer, I hope, something like that? I hope you would,
and you would be right. This comparison gives us a helpful
paradigm for any biblical and wise, balanced ministry of the
Word of God. A wise, balanced ministry of
the Word of God will many times have elements in it that reflect
the structure of the Book of Romans. There will be systematic,
logical, comprehensive teaching of broad areas of God's revealed
truth. But then there will also be times
when there will be intensely pastoral, focused treatment of
specific issues relative to the Church at any given period in
its life together. Well, for the past couple of
years, since concluding our studies verse by verse in the book of
1 Peter, I've been Corinthianizing you. In my own ministry, I've
been addressing specific subjects which I and my fellow elders
believed it was crucial to address. We addressed the subject of the
Lord's return in the midst of all of the nonsense being taught
and written in books and spewed out in the left-behind movies,
etc., etc., that it was crucial that you, the Lord's people,
have a well-grounded, thoroughly biblical understanding of the
biblical teaching on the Lord's return in glory and power at
the end of the age. And then I took up the subject
of the second generation, took up the subject of marriage and
motherhood and homemaking, matters that we believe it was crucial
for us to address at this time. And then I announced to you a
few weeks ago that prior to God willing beginning a study in
the Book of Romans, there were several areas of Corinthian matters
that we felt ought to be addressed and that I should address them,
and so we are presently dealing with the subject of the use of
our tongues. And as I began this series in
the first message, I sought to do but one thing, and that was
to persuade you from the Scriptures of the profound significance
of this subject of the use of our tongues. I set before you
five clear biblical categories of truth, all of which point
to the profound significance of what we do with this little
member that sits between our cheeks and between our jaws. And then in the second message
I began to address what I'm calling those major sins of the tongue
which are identified and condemned in the scriptures. And at the
head of the list was the sin of lying, the deliberate misrepresentation
or distortion of the truth. with our words. And though we may join with our
words, body language, etc., essentially lying is the deliberate misrepresentation
of the truth with our words. And then last Lord's Day we address
the second of these major sins, the sin of corrupt or unwholesome
talk. with a special focus upon that
category of corrupt or unwholesome talk which the Apostle identifies
in Ephesians 5 and verse 4. Filthiness or obscene talk, foolish
talk, and coarse jesting or joking. Now we come this morning to focus
our attention on another major category of the sins of the tongue. namely, abusive, harsh, bitter,
and destructive speech. I am referring to that speech
in which our tongues become a sword, a sword to pierce, to lacerate,
and to dismember the soul of another. Speech in which our
tongues become a whip to lash, to scourge, and to raise ugly
welts on the soul of another. Speech in which our tongues become
a club to beat, to bruise, and to break the bones of the soul
of another. Speech in which our words are
concocted into poison that makes grievously sick the soul of another. And it is a frightening reality
addressed in scripture that your words and mine can become all
of those things and more of a destructive and abusive nature. A sword,
a whip, a club, and poison. And this morning we want to address
that sin. I take no pleasure in doing it,
but I'm called upon to be faithful to the whole counsel of God's
Word. And we'll do so under four headings.
And the first is this. an examination of the several
major word families by which this kind of abusive speech is
set before us. An examination of several major
word families by which this kind of abusive speech is set before
us. And the first is found in the
passage read in your hearing, Colossians 3 and verse 8. I say just a brief word about
the context. We're going to look at verse
8. I've already alluded to the fact that Paul has been reminding
the Colossians of the implications of their saving union with Jesus
Christ. And then on the basis of that
saving union, they have died with Him, they have been raised
to new life in Him, they are to put to death their members
upon the earth, verse 5, Verse 12, they are to put on as God's
elect. There is the put off, the put
on motif found in the Pauline corpus of New Testament literature. And now he tells us what they
are to put off. Verse 5, they are to put to death
those gross sins of sexual immorality and uncleanness and passion and
that inordinate grasping after things that will make a man unscrupulous
in his attainment of money, of stuff, and of things. But then
he reminds them with respect to those grosser forms of sin
that these are the very things, verse 6, that provoke the wrath
of God upon those who practice them. Verse 7, he says, they
were part and parcel of your lifestyle before you were converted,
wherein you also once walked when you lived in these things.
However, he says, Now though these things are no longer the
pattern of your life, namely fornication, uncleanness, passion,
evil desire, covetousness, he says, I want you to put everything
that pertains to the formal life away. Not only the gross or forms
of sin that obviously provoke the wrath of God, but verse 8,
but now do you also put them all away. Now he focuses, first
of all, on what we would call the sins of the heart. Notice
what they are. Anger, wrath, and malice. Anger, that burning disposition
of ill will to another. Wrath, orge, which would be the
out-breaking of that wrath. It would be the difference between
an active volcano that just smolders and rumbles, and what that volcano
is like when it actually erupts. He says, now put away the smoldering
volcano, that deep inner spirit of resentment and ill will, that
anger. Put away those wretched eruptions
of that and put away malice, that spirit that actively desires
the harm of another, maliciousness that wills and seeks the harm
of another. He says, put these things away
as well. not only the external sins that
others can see, the sexual uncleanness and those things, but put away
these sins of the heart, anger, wrath and malice and then he
identifies the outer sins of the mouth to which The inner
sins of the heart will give birth if they are not put away. And
the first that he mentions is railing and shameful speaking
out of your mouth. When he speaks of railing, he
uses a word that is translated in other places as blasphemy. When we transliterate it, give
an English equivalent to the Greek word blasphemia, we get
blasphemy. So when someone speaks abusively
of God and the things pertaining to God, we call it blasphemy. But that's precisely the same
word that is used when we speak in an abusive way of others. And then it is translated, railing. When we speak abusively of God
and sacred things, it is blasphemy. When we speak abusively of our
fellow men and women, it is railing upon them. In this sense it is
used in Matthew 15 and verse 19. I'll just give you several
parallel references where the same Greek word is found in the
text, Matthew 15 and verse 19. For out of the heart come forth
evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witnesses,
here's our word, blasphemy, railings, abusive, denigrating speech. Out of the heart comes speech
that is the sword to pierce, the club to beat, the poison
to make sick the soul. of another. It's in this sense
that it's used in 1 Corinthians 4 in verse 13. The apostle was
no stranger to this. Being defamed, we entreat. That's our same word. Being blasphemed. Being defamed. Knowing what it
is to have people take their words and use them as a club.
Take their words and use them as a sword. Take their words
and concoct poison to the soul. Paul said we're no strangers
to that. That's the first word in this family of words and it
is joined here in Colossians 3 to what is translated shameful
speaking. As Jeffrey Wilson has said, it
is the abusive speech which is itself an abuse of the precious
gift of language and is therefore a form of utterance quite unset
for the Christian's mouth. In classical Greek, as Bishop
Lightfoot, a great scholar of another generation, has demonstrated,
this word was used in two ways, translated shameful speaking.
It could be used of foul-mouthed, filthy talking. I indicated that
last week as a secondary support of the Ephesians 4 passage. In this sense, it was foul-mouthed,
filthy talking, but it was also used of abusive language. And
you see, the two are not that far apart. Usually one will bring
to the service of abusive language the kind of speech that is foul
and filthy. But he demonstrates from classical
Greek usage that there was a separate significance and when people
wanted to describe abusive language they would use this word rendered
shameful things. So there's the first family of
words. Put these all away. As much as fornication, evil
passion, adultery, murder should have no place among the community
of God's people, so this kind of railing, this abusive speech,
this shameful speaking, all of it, without compromise, is to
be put away from the people of God. Now the next word is one
found in 1 Peter 2 and verse 23. And this is a new family
of words. Loidoros. 1 Peter 2 and verse 23. Speaking of how our Lord was
treated, who, when he was, here it's rendered, reviled. Reviled,
not again. When he suffered, he threatened
not, but committed himself to Him who judges righteously. He was reviled. There was deliberately degrading,
insulting, taunting speech hurled at our Lord in the days of His
flesh, but particularly concentrated in the events surrounding his
apprehension, his mock trial, and his death upon the cross.
And you will find this word used of what people did to him. They
taunted him. They reviled him. They spoke
abusively about him and to him, deliberately speaking in a degrading,
insulting, and taunting way. And the apostle was not A stranger
to this as well, in 1 Corinthians 4.12, he uses this word to identify
what he also endured. And we toil, working with our
own hands, being reviled. We bless. Verse 13, being defamed. Another family of words. Now
he says, but being reviled. We know what it is to be the
recipients of deliberate, degrading, insulting, taunting speech. But then there's another family
of words that is used to set forth this kind of abusive speech,
and it's found in Romans 3. Here in this list of quotes from
the Old Testament where Paul is summarizing his indictment
of the entire human race as a sinful race in need of the justifying
righteousness of God in Christ, he says in verse 10, as it is
written, there is none righteous, no, not one. Then he gets specific
in terms of the characteristics of the unrighteous. None that
understands. None that seeks after God. They've
all turned aside. Together become unprofitable.
None that does good. No, not so much as one. And then
he descends to the particular sins. Their throat is an open
sepulcher. It's like an open grave. When
they open their mouth, all the foul rotten stench of rotting
flesh. That's the imagery. They have
a throat that is like an open sepulcher. With their tongues
they have used deceit, the sin of lying. The poison of asps
is under their lips. That's an allusion to this kind
of speech. As when the snake bites, he releases
poison that infects the system. But then he goes on to say, whose
mouth is full of cursing, and here's our word, bitterness,
bitterness. Now this family of word, bitterness,
can mean literally bitterness to the taste. James says in James
3.11, does a fountain send forth at the same time both sweet and
bitter water. So the word means literally bitter. That which registers on the taste
buds and in the brain as bitter. It's lemony, not sugary. Alright? Now that word bitter then passes
over into a disposition of the heart. We see it in Ephesians
4 in verse 31. Let all bitterness and wrath
and anger and clamor and evil speaking. And here this matter
of bitterness is taken from its literal sense of bitter into
a state of the heart, a sour, acrimonious heart. Bitterness in the heart, but
now that bitterness of the heart clothes itself with sour, malicious,
venomous words, so the apostle can say, whose mouth is not just
occasionally tainted with, but whose mouth is full of bitterness. When they open their mouth, out
comes this kind of abusive, venomous, malicious, sour speech. Now, in summary, you bring all
of these words and the family of words together, rendered by
our English Bibles as railing, shameful or abusive speaking,
reviling and bitterness, and we see that the sin of the tongue
which they are all identifying is what I have called abusive,
harsh, bitter and destructive speech. It is that speech that
is indulged when we are cornered by the words of another. And
suddenly our words become like the quill on a porcupine. Up
they come and we're ready to back into people with our words.
For they become like that gland under the tail of a skunk when
he gets cornered. And up comes our mental tail
And out comes skunkish words from our mouth as an attack upon
those whom we feel have wronged us. It is that speech which is
fed by anger, wrath, resentment, and malice and finds words to
attack as weapons. You see, when abusive speech
is used, generally speaking, There is a disposition of heart
that, if left to itself and no other constraints, would smash
with the fist, would tick with the foot. But since we don't
want to be hauled in for assault and battery, we strike with the
words and we kick with our mouths. And God says, let all these put
away from you. As surely as we would not tolerate
assault and battery among us, we must have the same antipathy
to the assault and battery of the mouse. Well, I hope An examination
of these passages and these word families has given you a flavor
for what I mean when I try to articulate the biblical teaching.
by speaking of abusive speech. And this sin is not only identified
in the New Testament by these several word families, but it's
found described in the Old Testament. I give you just a couple of references
lest you think, well, this is just a New Testament phenomenon.
No. Look at Proverbs 12 in verse
18 and you'll see where I got some of the imagery of the sword
that pierces. Proverbs 12 and verse 18. Listen to Solomon. There is that
speaks rashly like the piercings of a sword. There is a rash speak
that is like the piercing of a sword. And see how that imagery
is found in the Psalms. Psalm 57 and verse 4. Psalm 57
and verse 4. My soul is among lions. I lie among them that are set
on fire, even the sons of men whose teeth are spears and arrows,
and their tongue a sharp sword. Psalm 59 verse 7, an imagery
that is brought forward again. Behold, they belch out with their
mouth, swords are in their lips. Swords are wrapped up in their
lips, and when their lips move, out come the swords that pierce
and lacerate and dismember the soul. Well, having set before
you under my first heading an examination of the several major
word families which identify the sin of abusive speech, secondly,
I set before you an important qualification. An important qualification. Not all speaking in anger is
abusive speech. Not all speaking to another in
anger is necessarily abusive speech. Psalm 2 and verse 5 says
that Messiah will speak some words, and He will do it with
unashamed, unveiled anger. Verse 4 of Psalm 2, in spite
of men's attempts to overthrow the reign of Messiah and to break
the cords of his government, he that sits in the heavens will
laugh, the Lord will have them in derision, then will he speak
unto them in his wrath. He will speak in his wrath! It doesn't say he will just speak
in his authority. He will speak in his might. He
will speak in his power. He will speak in his wrath. And he will trouble them in his
sore displeasure. Yet have I set my king upon my
holy hill of Zion. If it is inherently sinful to
speak in anger, Messiah sins. And in the days of his flesh
we see him doing this. Mark chapter 3. Mark chapter
3, our Lord in one of those situations where He has encountered again
the squint-eyed, narrow-hearted Pharisees opposing Him at every
turn, and they're taking Him to task because He heals a man
on the Sabbath. And when our Lord encounters
them, notice what we read in verse 5 of Mark 3. And when he, Jesus, had looked
round about on them with anger, being grieved at the hardening
of their heart, he said to the man, he speaks in an evident
disposition of anger, And yet He is the holy, harmless, undefiled,
separate from sinner, perfect Savior of sinners. So this important qualification,
not all speaking in anger is abusive speech. Secondly, not
all speech that hurts the one to whom it is given is necessarily
abusive speech. Because someone's speech hurts
you, you can't run and say, that was abusive, that hurt me. Not
necessarily was it abusive. How do we know that? Proverbs
27 in verse 6. As one man said, Pastor Martin,
what bothers me about you? You've got a text for everything.
Well, God have mercy the day I make authoritative statements
and don't have a text to validate it. And God have mercy on you
if you tolerate it. Proverbs 27 and verse 6. Faithful
are the soft, gentle, feathery, velvety love strokes of a friend. Is that what your Bible says? And
that's what mine says. Mine says, faithful are the wounds
of a friend. Faithful are the wounds of a
friend. Now that certainly doesn't mean
your friend comes up with a literal knife and cuts you up and says,
hey, you're supposed to regard me faithful. I'm wounded. You
go to the doc and get stitched up. No, it's speaking of wounds
that are inflicted upon the soul by means of words. And they are
not necessarily abusive words. They go forth as healing words. The same way the incisions that
had been made on my body the seven or eight times I had been
on an operating table were loving wounds. You walked in the door
just when the surgeon was cutting, you say, what's he doing to that
man? Cutting his gut open. Cutting his eyeball open. What
in the world is he doing? He'll give me faithful love wounds.
Try to fix me up. Fix what was wrong with me. Faithful
of the wounds of a friend. And Psalm 141, verse 5, the psalmist
understood this. Psalm 141, verse 5, where the
psalmist says, let the righteous smite me. He doesn't just say, let the
righteous stroke me. Let the righteous just coddle
up to me and whisper something nice. Let him smite me. Let him
smack me good. Let the righteous smite me. It shall be kindness. Let him
reprove me. It shall be as oil upon the head. Let not my head refuse it. So, important qualification,
number one, not all speaking in anger is abusive speech. Not
all speech that hurts is necessarily abusive speech. In fact, when
Paul wrote to Titus, he said, Titus, there are certain situations
if you don't speak in a way that may have the appearance of abusiveness,
you're not being faithful to your commission. Titus chapter
1. Verse 13, having indicted certain
cardinal sins of the Cretans, he then says this testimony is
true, for which cause reprove them sharply. You don't just
say, hey guys, don't you think maybe you ought to go home and
in your devotions during the next week ask the Lord if maybe
perhaps in one way or another you have begun into some degree
or another. He says stop that nonsense. He
says, you get in their faces and you reprove them sharply.
If you happen to walk into the scene where Titus is doing what
Paul said, his face may have been red, his jugular vein may
have been out, and his throat and his finger may have been
out. What are you doing, Titus, abusing the sheep of God? He
said, no, I'm doing what Paul told me to do. I'm reproving
them sharply. And that qualification in this
mamby-pammy of feminized age is desperately needed. Desperately
needed. In an age where now they're doing
away with all grades in the school because you don't want to bruise
the self-esteem of a child who gets a B and the person sitting
next to him gets an A. Doing away with contact sports.
Do you know they've outlawed dodgeball in many states? I'm not kidding you. I couldn't
believe some of the stuff I was reading the other day. Somebody
might get bruised. There's a place for holy sarcasm,
folks. You carry that over into the
church and men of God will be scared witless to ever get in
anybody's face with an open Bible and a finger under their nose
and say, John, you have stepped over the line and you need to
be rebuked and rebuked sharply. I've got nothing to prove to
you of my love to you. It's been proven over a long period of
time and my love is constraining you right now to say you're off
base and you need to deal with this now. No, when rebukes are given with
an element of righteous passion and sharpness, they will always
be motivated by love that seeks the good of its object, always
have the restoration of the rebuked as its goal, and it's generally
given very reluctantly because it causes pain to the one who
has to give it. The day any surgeon finds a sadistic
delight in cutting people open, he ain't going to be my next
surgeon. And a guy that opened my eyeball
up, if he's just sitting in the wings, I can't wait to dive into
that fellow's eyeball. No thank you. You need someone
else that's got the compassion, that has a sense of reluctance.
I don't want to do this, but I must for the good of my patient. We've looked at an explanation
of the family of words, and I hope I've persuaded you from your
Bibles, that God does condemn what I'm calling abusive, harsh,
cutting speech. I've given this important qualification. Now, thirdly, I want us to pay
attention to some specific descriptions of how and where abusive speech
is most frequently manifested. And again, dear people, I take
no delight in this, but I believe it's got to be done. How and
where is this kind of speech most frequently indulged? Well,
we're going to look briefly at the domestic sphere, and then
various social spheres, and then the ecclesiastical sphere. Those
three spheres. And we start with the domestic.
Why? Because those nearest this weapon are most likely to feel
its jabs, its clubbing, its poisonous effect. And that's the domestic
sphere. The wife is disappointed with
her husband in one way or another and begins to demean him and
rail on him in the presence of her kids. She's guilty of what
is condemned in all these passages. She uses her tongue. She's not
big enough to get the galoot in the next room and beat the
car out of him. So she uses this to beat the
car out of him. Not only privately, but she'll
do it around her kids. And she'll use her tongue like
a rapier to cut him down in the eyes of her children. She'll
use it as a club to beat on him in her frustration. And he may
have some very real frustrating faults. But my Bible says, do
you put all of these away. That's for the wife who's got
a frustrating husband. And so many things about him
that are club worthy. Put it away. Don't club him with
your words. Don't stab him with your words.
Don't poison your soul with your words. It may be a disappointed
and angry husband who make insulting remarks about his wife before
the kids. Her looks, her weight, her abilities.
Compare her with others. Oh, but so-and-so does this,
and you only... That's abusive speech, folks.
It should have absolutely no place in our marital relationships. And if in moments of weakness
the tongue becomes that sword, the tongue becomes that club,
the tongue becomes that whip, the tongue becomes that poison,
we have immediate occasion for repentance before God, before
our spouses, and before anyone else in the household who's seen
us turn our tongue into the whip, the scourge, the club, and the
poison. Parents to children. Again, the
child frustrates you. And you don't believe that what
the child has done is worthy of a principled, godly application
of the rod. So you rail on that child with
words. You stupid idiot. You dummy.
You clumsy ox. What are you doing? You're cutting. You're bruising. You're lacerating. You're poisoning the soul of
that child. In my pastoral experience, I've
had to deal with people whose bruises and cuts and wounds of
the soul were as real as any cuts and wounds and bruises I've
ever seen on a human body. Because of parents who use their
words like clubs and swords and whips and poison. In God's name,
I plead with you parents. Do you also put them all away? Abusive speech out of your mouth. The little jingle sticks and
stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me. That's
a lot of baloney. The names in many ways hurt far
more than the sticks and the stones. My grandchildren seem
to have a particular proclivity for broken bones. So I've seen
them bust a number of bones over the years and have their casts. Four to six weeks, the cast is
off and they're back to life as normal. The bones heal beautifully. But I've seen people whose souls
have been stabbed and whipped and bruised and poisoned, struggling
decades And the wound is not healed. Parents, I beg you, don't
do it. And if you've been doing it,
go home today and sit down with your children and beg their forgiveness. And say that by the grace of
God in this home, this will have no more place than a club, a
sword, a whip, or a bottle of poison would have a place. in
this family. I'm not talking about mom and
dad putting up the paddle when you need the paddle. I'm talking
about a club. So don't even go home and say,
Pastor said you ought to put your paddle away mom. No, no. Don't
you try to hide behind me. Because your mom and dad will
come to me and then I'll come to you and we'll sort that out.
So no, no. We're not talking about putting
away the paddle. It may be a legitimate means to give you what the Bible
says you need and deserve at times. But when I use the word
club, I'm talking about an instrument that goes far beyond an instrument
for legitimate corporal punishment of a child. But what about our
various social spheres in the workplace? How easy it is when
the boss does something that you'd like to kick him in the
backside. You say, Pastor, that's not very spiritual. I mean, you
never felt that way even though you're Christian? Tell me your
secret. No, the boss will do something
at times, you'd like to just give him a good boot in the backside.
You can't, so what do you do? You boot him with your words.
If not to his face, to someone else. And vice versa, some of
you in places of authority and responsibility. How easy it is
to speak demeaningly, to speak in a way to those under you,
in which you are using your words in an abusive way. And God says,
stop it. There's the social sphere of
the workplace, in the school, all the cattiness, particularly
of young girls. Guy's big temptation is trying
to brag by using bathroom language. Girls, you are the cattiest bunch
of creatures on the face of the earth. How did you see so-and-so? Look at that dress. All the while
you're envious of that. You've got bitter envy in your
heart and what do you do? You make your tongue into a little
snake and you let it loose to speak in the demeaning, abusive
way. God says, put that away. Cattiness. That kind of pickiness should
have absolutely no place with regard to people's looks, their
clothes, their new glasses. It's amazing what things we'll
pick up and use as an occasion for abusive speech. What about on the road when you're
driving and somebody does something real stupid? Nobody's in the
car but you and God. You happen to notice that it's
a female? What do you say, man? Oh, that stupid woman driver.
What do you women do? You notice it's a male? That
arrogant male. And all of your incipient, all
of your incipient chauvinism in both directions comes out.
The anger gives birth to the abusive language. God's there. God hears it, though no one else
does. These are the spheres in which
abusive language can leap out of our mouths and God says put
it away. Then the ecclesiastical sphere.
You have this clear word in James 4.11, Speak not evil one of another,
brethren. Don't speak against one another,
brethren. Galatians 5 in verse 15, he says,
If you bite and devour, take heed that you don't eat one another
up. There's the picture of our words being like a ravenous beast. And he says to believers, Brethren,
desist from all of this. With respect to all of these
forms, and I've only given you a sampling, listen to the word
of God in Colossians 3 and verse 8. But now, do you also put them
all away? The anger, the wrath, and the
malice, the dispositions of the heart, the railing and the shameful
speaking out of your mouth. So I've tried to open up the
word families, give an important qualification, give some specific
descriptions. Now I come to some concluding
exhortations regarding the sin of abusive speech. And I have
two very vital exhortations. Number one, some of you must
face the fact that your willful pattern of this sin of abusive
speech is irrefutable proof that you are unconverted and that
you are not in the state of grace. Now listen again to what I've
said. You must face the fact that a
willful pattern of the sin of abusive speech is irrefutable
proof that you are an unconverted man or woman, boy or girl. You
are not in a state of grace. And why do I say that? Well,
I could argue from Romans 3, 14b, where Paul is giving a description
of unconverted humanity, and he says that their mouth is full
of bitterness. And to have a mouth full of bitterness
is to be yet in the state of an unrighteous, unconverted,
unsaved man or woman. But I want to argue more cogently
from two passages in 1 Corinthians and I want you to turn to them
with me if you will please. 1 Corinthians chapter 5 verses
9 to 11. Now remember what I'm trying
to do. I'm trying to support my blunt dogmatic assertion That
if abusive speech is the pattern of your life, it is irrefutable
proof that you are not converted. You are not a child of God. And
I say that because of these two passages. 1 Corinthians 5 verses
9 to 11. Paul says, I wrote unto you in
my epistle. He's referring to a previous
letter that's been lost in the sovereign will and purpose of
God. God did not see to it that it was preserved and made part
of our New Testaments, so that doesn't trouble us at all, but
we do know that Paul wrote a previous letter. I wrote unto you in my
epistle to have no company with fornicators. He had written a
directive that they were not to enter into intimate relationships
as a matter of choice with the sexually unclean. But he said,
now I did not mean with the fornicators of this world or with the covetous
or extortioners or with idolaters, for then you must needs go out
of the world. In other words, he said, now, when I told you
this, I wasn't saying dissociate yourself in every single respect
from anyone who fits these categories of crass, gross, immoral lifestyle. He said, if that were so, then
you'd have to go out in the world. And what the Corinthians had
done, they'd taken Paul's directive, they'd put an extreme and ludicrous
significance on it, so that way they exempted themselves from
obeying it. They said, well, if he says that, then this is
what it would mean, so let's just forget it, it's an undoable
directive. So he said, no, no, I'm correcting
that now, I'm helping you Corinthians to understand what you should
have understood originally, I did not mean with the fornicators
of this world, the covetous, extortioners, idolaters, but
as it is, I wrote unto you not to keep company. Now notice,
if a man that is named a brother, here's someone that takes upon
himself the profession of being a Christian. If that one is a
fornicator, that is, he has a lifestyle of sexual impurity, or covetous,
he's a money-grabbing, unscrupulous man, ride over anything or anybody
to get his butts, or he goes and worships in an idol's temple,
Now notice, skip over that one in the next two, or a drunkard,
he's a man whose bottle is his God, or an extortioner, that
is, he's someone who'll shake down other people for money,
he's unscrupulous, with respect to taking advantage, and notice
he nestles in the midst of these gross forms of sin, or a reviler. He says, If someone has a lifestyle
of abusive speech, he's in the same category of a patently unconverted
man, woman, boy or girl, as is the man who has a pattern of
fornicating, of coveting, of worshipping idols, of drunkenness
and extortion. That's pretty plain stuff. And
therefore I say, if you sit here this morning, and abusive speech
is your pattern of life. It's your lifestyle. You have
no grounds to claim you're a child of God. And that's why Paul says,
with such a one you're not to have any company, you're to judge
that one. Such a one should be put out
of the church if he's in the church. What have we to do with
judging them that are without? Do we not judge them that are
within? But them that are without God
judges. Put away the wicked man from among yourselves. And who's
a wicked man? The person who has a lifestyle
of abusive speech. along with the drunkard, along
with the sexually unclean, along with the worshipper of idols.
The reviler has no grounds to claim he is a child of God. Now in chapter 6, he makes a
similar statement, verse 9. Do you not know that the unrighteous
shall not inherit the kingdom of God? That's a question, a
rhetorical question. Do you Corinthians not know that
the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God. We are all
natively unrighteous, yes, but if we're Christians, we become
righteous in two ways. We've been regenerated by the
Spirit. We've repented and believed the Gospel. We have an imputed
righteousness in union with Christ. 1 Corinthians 1.30. But of Him
are you in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom,
righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. So that though
natively unrighteous, a true believer is a righteous man with
a righteousness that is perfect in Christ. But he's righteous
in a second way. He's been regenerated. He's been
given a new heart. The Spirit of God has been given
to him. A principle of obedience to God. He's been set apart unto
God in union with Christ. And in the dynamics of grace,
he begins to work out a practical righteousness. And Paul says,
do you not know that those devoid of righteousness in both senses
shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Then he gives an exhortation,
don't be deceived. Don't let anyone delude you,
don't delude yourself. And now he's going to get specific.
Neither fornicators, and here he's using pornea in its more
limited sense, of those who indulge in all forms of sexual aberration
apart from and in distinction from those who violate the marriage
covenant, for he deals separately with adulterers later on, do
not be deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers,
nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with men, practicing
homosexuals, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor
revilers, nor extortioners shall inherit the kingdom of God. And
such were some of you, but you were washed, you were sanctified,
you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and
in the spirit of our God. Here again, in the midst of all
of these sins, he places the reviler, the one who is guilty
as a pattern of life of abusive speech. His tongue is no stranger
to being made a sword to pierce, a club to beat, a lash to whip. His tongue is no stranger to
the alchemy of poison to make sick the souls of those around
him. I say to anyone in this place,
if that is you, you are not a child of God. You have no grounds to
claim that you have acquaintance with God's transforming grace. That's pretty plain stuff. That's
true of any of you kids who are developing an unholy art of abusive
speech. It's true of you men who are
guilty of this with your wives. Wives with your husband. It's
a way of life. It's a pattern with you. You've
learned to live with it. Maybe those around you have mustered up enough moral
courage to tolerate it. But Almighty God doesn't treat
it with indulgent toleration. That's my first word of exhortation
to you. And what you need is you need
to go to the fountain open for sin and uncleanness. You need
what these Corinthians got. Such were some of you. But they
were washed, set apart unto God from these sins, declared righteous
in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit. You need to
get into Christ to know the righteousness of God that is in him. And you
need the Spirit of God to cut out your heart of stone that
spews forth your abusive speech, for out of the abundance of the
heart the mouth speaks. That's what you need. That's
what the Corinthians needed. But then my second word of exhortation
is this, that some of you must face the fact that though you're
not guilty of the sin of abusive speech as a pattern of life,
hear me carefully now, yet its frequency in your life is evidence
of shameful, inexcusable spiritual immaturity and retarded growth. You're not guilty of this sin
of abusive speech as a pattern of life, yet its frequency in
your life is evidence of shameful, inexcusable spiritual immaturity
and retarded growth. You remember when Paul was dealing
with the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 3 with respect to their sin of
a schismatic spirit? I'm a Pole, I'm of Apollos. He
has to indict them and say, look, when one says, I'm a Pole, I'm
of Apollos, are you not carnal and walk as men in this area? One would not know you from the
unregenerate. This was not the total lifestyle. This was in this particular area.
And he says, you are like babes. There's been arrested growth.
There is a spiritual infancy that is culpable. For a six-month-old
child to act like a six-month-old child is not culpable. But for
a six-year-old child to act like a six-month-old child is pathetic
or horribly culpable. And so this sin is outcropping
in your life with a frightening frequency. This is an indication
of spiritual immaturity and retarded growth. And what you need is
the exposure that's come to you in the scriptures today. And
you need to have some dealings with God. You need to be prepared
to go before God and own this sin and say, God, this has got
to stop. And bring to bear upon it all
of the dynamics of the grace of God in union with Jesus Christ. You need to read a passage like
James 3, soak your soul with it, and then come to a passage
like Colossians 3 and say, Lord, help me to take hold of the reality
that in union with Christ I've died to sin. I've been raised
to newness of life. I'm seated with Him. I'm indwelled
by the Spirit. I have all the supplies that
are in Christ Jesus. Lord, I'm determined that this
thing is going to be dealt with. dealt with in such a way that
within weeks your kids will see the difference, your wife will
see the difference, your husband will know the difference. And
I didn't deal with that third category in the interest of time,
but it crops out in the ecclesiastical realm as well, when our tongues
can be used as a lash in our frustration with our elders. and expressing our frustration
honestly and openly. We lash out in the presence of
others. We lash out about a brother,
about a sister. Dear brethren, as far as I know,
our congregation has no widespread infection with this horrible
thing, but an ounce of prevention is worth more than ten pounds
of cure. And I trust that as God has put the spotlight upon
this sin, that by the grace of God we will pray, Lord, lead
me not into temptation. And for any who were among us
this morning who thought, well, this is all a tempest in a teapot,
what's a few words? Someone was kind enough to send
on to me this week an excerpt they found in John Bunyan's sermon,
Sighs from Hell. This section on the tongue, and
I want to read it to you. It's not lengthy. His sermon is based on Lazarus
and the rich man. The rich man in hell crying,
send me a drop of water. Oh, then they will cry one ounce
of ease for my cursing, swearing, lying, jeering tongue. Some ease for my bragging, braving,
flattering, threatening, lying tongue. Now men can let their
tongues run at random, as we used to say. Now they'll be apt
to say, our tongues are our own. Who shall control them? Psalm
12 and verse 4. But then they will be of another
mind. Then they will say, oh, that
I might have a little ease for my deceitful tongue. Methinks
sometimes to consider how some men do let their tongues run
at random. It makes me marvel. Surely they
do not think they should be made to give an account for their
offending with their tongue. Did they but think that they
should be made to give an account to him who is ready to judge
the quick and the dead. Surely they would be more wary
of and have more regard to the use of their tongues. And do
you think the Lord will sit still, as I may say, and let your tongue
run as it desires, and yet never bring you to account for the
same? No, wait! The Lord will not always keep
silence, but will reprove you and set your sins in order before
your eyes. O sinner, yes, and your tongue,
together with the rest of your members, shall be tormented for
sinning. And I say, and am very confident,
that though this be made light of now, Yet the time is coming
when many poor souls will rue the day they ever spoke with
their tongues. Oh, will one say that I should
so disregard my tongue! Oh, that I, when I said this
or that, had bitten off my tongue! That I'd been born without a
tongue! My tongue, my tongue, a little
water to cool my tongue. Bunyan took it seriously because
he read his Bible. God help you. God help me to
take it seriously because we read the same Bible. Let's pray. Our Father, we understand a bit
more fully why the Holy Prophet cried out I am a man of unclean
lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. O Lord, cleanse us of our sins
of abusive speech. And by the power of the Spirit,
give us the tongue of the wise that heals, that comforts, that
graciously rebukes and wounds where necessary, and deliver
us from all of the wicked, devilish abuse of this marvelous faculty
of speech. Forgive us, Lord, when this noble
faculty has been used of the devil, To be that piercing sword
and that aggressive and stinging whip and that bruising club and
that sickening poison. Have mercy upon us, O God. Help us. With the psalmist we
cry, set a watch upon my lips. Keep the door of my mouth. And then, Lord, deal with the
inner dispositions, for you have said that it's out of the abundance
of the heart that the mouth speaks. Cleanse our hearts. Fill our
hearts with more love to you, more love to your word, more
love for holiness, more love for your Son, more love for one
another, more love for a lost world. O Lord, help us. Have dealings with us. Do not
leave us to ourselves. Thank you for your presence with
us, and now we pray your blessing to rest upon us as we leave this
place. May the Word not leave, and may
we not leave it, but may we cherish it, enfolded in our hearts by
prayer and meditation and instant obedience in the strength of
the Spirit. Hear us and answer us, we plead
in Jesus' name. Amen.