There was a missionary to the Indians over
a hundred years ago who labored in the northeastern part of the
United States by the name of David Brainerd. He was one of the most gifted greatly loved servants of God
this country ever produced. It was of David Brainerd that
Jonathan Edwards once said, any system of theology that produces
a David Brainerd is worthy of our closest observation. He only lived to be 29 years
old, and yet books have been written about him, journals have
been preserved. His name is known by every Bible
student in the world. He died this 29th. Before David Brainerd came to
know the Lord, he said in his own writings that
four things four things disturbed him, four things that he found
out which caused him great anguish and great conflict and great
disturbance. He said, first of all, he saw
the perfection and the holiness of God's law. It was revealed
to him That God's law was a holy, immutable, immaculate, pure and
perfect law. That God demanded perfection. That God could only be satisfied with perfection.
Perfection in word, in imagination, in attitude, in motive, in deed. that nothing short of absolute,
holy, Christ-like perfection, nothing short of that could God
accept. And he said, I realized that
I didn't have this. I wasn't even close to it. That
as the Apostle wrote, I had sinned and come short of this glory,
of this holiness, of this perfect law. But I saw that law was unchangeable. and that no sinner would ever
approach unto God unless he had a perfect standing before that
law. And this made me not only feel helpless, but it made me
angry, that God should expect and demand of me what I could
not produce. But he said then, I came upon
the second truth, but that truth was established, God's perfect,
holy, immaculate law, unchangeable law. But then I saw the second
thing. I saw that God required faith. God required that I believe him. That as Abraham believed God,
I was to believe God. That without faith it was impossible
to please God. That he that cometh to God must
Not should or ought, but must. Must believe. And I could not
produce this faith. I wanted to. I longed to. I attempted to. But I realized,
after all, it was not real faith. I said I believed. I pretended
to believe. I told others I believed. But
I knew deep in my heart I did not believe. Not true faith. Not saving faith. that this was
something I couldn't produce. Just as I could not produce that
perfect holiness that God's law demanded, my heart could not
produce that faith that does not question God, but says with
Eli, it's the Lord, let him do what he will. That says with
Job, though he slay me, I'll trust him. That says with the
master himself, thy will, not my will be done. I didn't have
it, and I could not produce it. But I could not approach unto
God without it. So God demanded holiness, which
I didn't have, and God demanded faith, which I did not have.
And that made me angry, that God should require of me what
I could not produce. And then he said the third truth
I found, I discovered, the third fact I found to be true, was
that faith is the gift of God. That faith is the gift of God.
Faith is a good work. There are no good works in men.
Every good and perfect gift comes from God. That faith, not the
product of the human heart, yet it was the gift of God. I read
in the scriptures, for by grace are you saved through faith,
and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God. What is
the gift of God? Faith is the gift of God, not
of works. lest any man should boast. It's
the goodness of God I read in the scriptures that leadeth thee
to repentance. God could give me faith. No preacher
could give me faith. My mother could not give me faith.
My father could not give me faith. I could not produce faith, but
God could give me faith. Again, it is written in the scriptures,
it is given unto you not only to suffer for his sake, but to
believe on him. Faith is the gift of God. And
I saw that through the operation of the Holy Spirit, if God were
pleased for his glory, he could give me faith. And if I were
a recipient of faith, I would forever praise God for it. I
saw that. And that disturbed me. As a helpless,
hopeless sinner, I must wait for faith to be given me of God. And then he said the fourth thing
I saw was this. God could save me or God could
damn me. If God were pleased to save me
and call me unto himself, then I would forever praise and glorify
his name. If God Almighty would damn me,
his justice would forever be praised
because I was worthy of his wrath. The wages of sin is death and
I had earned those wages. I deserved them. If God passed
me by, he would be just. If God committed me to eternal
condemnation, he would be just. If God charged me for my sins
and sent me to hell, he would be perfectly just. In other words, he said, I saw,
I realized, I came to understand, at least in my head, that salvation
is of the Lord. from Alpha to Omega, from the
beginning to the end. It is of the Lord in its planning,
in its execution, in its application, in its sustaining power, in its
ultimate perfection. Salvation is of the Lord. If
any man is saved, made in the likeness of God's Son, enjoys
the glory of God throughout eternity, he will forever praise God, unto
him who loved me and washed me from my sins in his own precious
blood. To him be glory both now and
forever, world without end. Amen. If any man is passed by
and left in his own darkness and rebellion and depravity and
inability and self-righteousness and committed to the pits of
the damned, he'll have to take all the blame upon himself. Why do you start the sermon with
a statement like that? My sermon is entitled, Strong
Meat Belongs to Men. Strong meat belongs to those
of full age, because the average person thinks that that is strong
meat. The average person thinks when
we talk about preaching about strong meat belonging to men,
that we're talking about the doctrine of sovereignty, or the
doctrine of eternal election, or the doctrine of particular
redemption, or the doctrines of effectual grace, or the doctrines
of perseverance. or the doctrines of the priesthood
of Christ, or the substitution and satisfactory work of Christ,
or the mediatorial work of Christ, or the reign of Christ. That's
not strong, that's milk. That's exactly what that is,
that's milk. That whole chapter, the fifth chapter which I read
to you a moment ago, the Apostle Paul talked about Christ being
chosen to be a priest, Christ fulfilling the office of priest,
Christ Jesus dying as our priest and bearing our sins and interceding
at the right hand of God. The Apostle Paul talks about
all of that. Though he were a son, yet he learned obedience for
the things that he suffered. He became the author of eternal
salvation to them that believe. Then he says in verse 11, I've
got many things yet to say that are hard to be uttered. I've got some hard things to
say yet. We haven't gotten to the hard
things. That's what he said. We haven't
even gotten to the hard things. We haven't even gotten to the
meat. You see, these are the first principles. Look at verse
12. For a time you ought to be teachers.
You have need that one teach you again, which be the first
principles of the articles of God. These are the first principles.
Man is lost, man is dead in sin, man is depraved, man is filled
with inability, that God has a people whom he elected, that
he will redeem those people, that Christ came as their federal
head and representative and died for them and redeemed them and
the Holy Spirit calls them and God gives to them his grace.
These are the first principles. You don't even know Christ if
you don't know him to be a sovereign Savior. You don't even know Christ
if you don't know him to be an effectual substitute. You don't
even know Christ if you don't know him to be a mediator. You
don't even know Christ if you don't know him to be the one
who lifted you from the pit, from the cesspool, from the dunghill.
You don't even know Christ unless you know him to be the spirit
that awakened you and called you and brought you to faith
in him. Those are first principles. In verse 1 of chapter 6, therefore
leaving these principles, not leaving them so as not to think
of them anymore, so as not to preach them anymore, so as not
to exercise and witness them anymore, not at all. Because
we enjoy hearing them and we have friends that need to hear
them and lost people who must hear them. But leaving them and
going to something else that is necessary for the believer.
Leaving them, look at the next line, let us go on unto perfection. In other words, now we're redeemed,
let's grow. Now we're in Christ, let's be
like Christ. Now we're children of God, let's
walk like children of God. Now we know the gospel, let's
adorn the gospel. Now we're indwelt with the Spirit
of Christ, let's live in the Spirit of Christ. Now we are
recipients of faith, let's live by faith. That's exactly what
he said. Now I'm going to give you nine
scriptures tonight. This is quite a different type
message, but I'm going to give you nine scriptures that use
the word P-E-R-F-E-C-T, perfect. You see, I started it right here,
let us go on to perfection. Brother Mann, you just said a
moment ago that perfection does not dwell in the flesh. Not perfection
as you're thinking of it. But in every one of these scriptures
that I'm going to give you, the word perfect or perfection is
used. And it means the same thing.
Now, the word perfect is used throughout the Word of God and
it means different things in different places. But in these
nine places, It's the same Greek word. It's the same meaning.
And this is what it means. It means both mental, moral,
and spiritual growth. It means full age. It means maturity. In other words,
what he's saying is this, therefore, leaving the principles, therefore,
having laid the foundations, therefore, having seen the first
oracles, the principles of the oracles of God, let's go on to
maturity, let's go on to full age. Let's go on to mental and
moral and emotional and spiritual growth. That's what he's saying.
There are some things to be said. Our Lord said that to his disciples.
He said, I have many things to say to you. You're not able to
bear them yet. Howbeit, when he, the Spirit
of truth, is come, he'll guide you into all truth. So if you
can see, first of all, that these first principles of the oracles
of God are the very things I've been talking about in the life
of David Brainerd. We saw those things, Cecil, before
he was saved. before he came to know God. These
were the foundations. And a lot of people think, well,
I study the Bible and get into the mysteries, the mysteries
of the counsel of God and the mysteries of the first 12 years
of the life of Christ, of which nothing is written. Or if I get
into the mysteries of providence and the mysteries of prophecy,
and the mysteries of the Church, that this is strong meat. Nonsense. Nonsense. This is not strong
meat at all. You know what strong meat is?
Strong meat has to do with the things I'm going to read in these
nine scriptures. Now, you'll see this as it unfolds for you,
and the word perfect is used every time. And each time it means maturity.
It means moral, emotional, spiritual maturity. It means growth. It
means to grow up, to be of full age. It means to be no longer
a babe in Christ, but a man. Paul said milk belongs to babes,
meat belongs to men. And this is meat, all right?
The first one. I'll give you about eight or
nine of them. Matthew chapter 5. Here's the
first one. At the very beginning, Matthew,
first book in the New Testament, we'll go right through, Matthew
chapter 5, verse 43. Matthew 5, 43. Now here's the
word, verse 48, the word perfect, you can underscore it, be you
therefore perfect. Now you look up in your lexicon
the Greek word. I want you to study, when you
get home, don't take, some of you men have big exhaustive concordances,
look it up. It's 56-46 in the Greek lexicon,
I believe that's the number. And each time I'm using it here,
it means the same thing. It means full age, it means to
be a man, it means to grow up. You be perfect, you be mature.
What's he been talking about? Go back, verse 43. You have heard
that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and
hate thine enemy. That's generally our principle,
isn't it? That's the principle of a baby, yes. Not a mature,
not a man. Not a man in Christ. I say unto
you, love your enemies, love them, and bless them that curse
you. Bless them, pray for them. Do
good to them that hate you, pray for them which despitefully use
you and persecute you. If you may be the children of
your Father which is in heaven, he maketh his Son to rise on
the evil and on the good, he sendeth rain on the just and
the unjust. If you love them that love you,
what reward have you? Do not even the publicans the
same? The publicans were the lowest class of people in his
day. And he said, if you love people
that love you, why, you're no more than a publican. A publican
loves a man or woman that loves him. Verse 47, if you salute, if you
greet, if you speak to, if you exchange greetings with your
brothers only, what do you more than others? Do not even the
publicans do that? The lowest class of people? That's
when he said, Be ye full grown, spiritually mature, morally and
mentally of full age, grow up. These are the hard sayings, and
they grade against our natural thoughts and our natural flesh. To bless, to love my enemy, to
bless a person that curses me, to pray for a man that takes
advantage of me and despitefully uses me, That's what's hard about
it. That's the strong meat that a
baby chokes on, but a man can chew it and he can swallow it
and digest it and do something about it. That's right, that's
maturity. All right, let's go to another
one. I'm not going to tarry very long. Luke 6, Luke 6. I see in traveling around the
country and visiting churches in different places, I see people
who are well-versed in election and sovereignty and church truth,
local church truth, and who are versed in all these other truths
that are so ordinary and so contrary and so unlovely. And they act
like spoiled babies, they don't speak to each other, they don't
love each other, they split churches and start new churches, start
one over here, start one over there, start one over there,
over nothing! And live next door to folks and
don't even speak to them, don't! Friends of 20 years, don't even
speak to them! And I'm troubled about this. And Luke chapter 6, listen to
this verse 37. Judge not, here's the word down
here in verse 40, the disciple is not above his master, but
everyone that is perfect shall be as his master. Everyone
that's mature, that's full grown, that has grown up. Let's go back
and see what he's talking about. Judge not, that you be not judged. Judge not and you shall not be
judged. We're quick to judge, aren't we? I've tried to establish
a rule in that office in there, and in my own mind, I will not
judge a matter until I've heard both sides. Only a fool will
judge a matter and arrive at an opinion after hearing just
one side of anything. And even after we hear both,
we're not to judge men. That's God's business. We're
not to judge fellow believers. We're not even to judge outsiders.
We're not their judge. God's their judge. And he goes
on, he says, don't condemn. Condemn not. How we condemn one
another and condemn another person. And you shall not be condemned.
Cecil hand me a bookmark in the study there while I go to the
pits right here. An old Indian proverb. Lord grant that I may
not criticize another until I've walked a mile in his moccasins.
It's so easy, it's so easy to criticize and condemn a person
and you don't know the circumstances. You don't know why that person
did what he did, you don't know why he said what he did, you
don't know the circumstances. You don't know what hell he's
lived in or what confusion or what circumstances. So just don't
condemn him. Just leave off judging and condemning. And he goes on and he says, forgive
and you'll be forgiven. And he said, Give, be generous
and gracious, give, and it shall be given to you. Good measure,
pressed down, shaken together, running over, shall be given
to your bosom. For with what measure you meet,
whatever you dish out, someday it will be dished out to you. Whatever you dish out by way
of judging and criticizing, whatever He that soweth bountifully shall
reap bountifully, he that soweth sparingly shall reap sparingly."
Whatever measure you meet, it will be measured to you. Verse
40, the disciple is not above his master. Everyone that is
perfect, mature, shall be as his master. Hard to say. This
strong need belongs to men. 1 Corinthians 2, here is the
word again, 1 Corinthians 2. Verse 4 through 6, the word here
is in verse 6, how be it? 1 Corinthians 2, 6, we speak
wisdom among them that are perfect, among them that are mature. We talk about these things to
those who are mature. What things do we talk about?
Well, verse 4, Paul said, My speech and my preaching was not
with enticing words of man's wisdom. I didn't come to entertain
you. Paul said, but my preaching was
in the demonstration of the spirit and of power that your faith
should not stand in the philosophy of men. You can't pull the wool
over the eyes of a full-grown man. Now you might hoodwink babies
and you might deceive babies with your philosophy and vain
words and enticing show, but not men. Their confidence and
faith is not in the philosophy of men, it's in the power of
God. And Paul said, how be it we speak
wisdom when we're among full-grown spirits and mature believers
who are ripe in understanding? We impart a higher understanding
of God's power and God's divine plan. And they know what we're
talking about. They know what we're talking
about. Babies fall for enticing words
of man's wisdom. Babies fall for philosophy of
men. But full-grown men in Christ,
they demand a higher knowledge and a higher learning. They demand
a higher understanding of that divine plan. They want to hear
God's word. All right, Ephesians 4. Here's
the word again. Ephesians 4. In Ephesians 4, Verse 13, this
is similar to the one we just read, Ephesians 4, 13. The apostle
had been talking about the Lord Jesus resurrected from the grave
and taken to heaven, and when he did, he left on this earth
apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers for the
perfecting of the saints. See verse 12, for the perfecting,
the maturing of the saints. Maturing of who? The saints,
believers, people who know that they're lost, who know that Christ
is the Savior, who already know these first principles. These
pastors and teachers are given for their perfection, for the
work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ,
till we all come in the unity of the faith. Not divided, but
in the unity of the faith. And of the knowledge of the Son
of God unto a perfect man, full grown, mature. under the measure of the statue
of the fulness of Christ, that we be no more, that we henceforth
be no more children tossed to and fro and carried about with
every wind of doctrine, every person that comes along, every
cunning false prophet, every new thing that crops up. No,
we are not driven around and tossed by every new thing that
comes along, but we are grounded in the faith. All right, Colossians
3, here's another one. Colossians, the third chapter.
Colossians 3, beginning with verse 12. Now the word perfect
is used down here in verse 14. And above all these things put
on charity, that word's love, you know that. which is the bond,
or that which binds everything together in perfectness, in maturity. Let's go back. Put on therefore,
verse 12, as the elect of God. See, already we know we are elect
of God. We are holy and beloved. Now
put on vows of mercy, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness,
long-suffering, forbearing one another, beareth all things,
believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. I don't believe that saving,
spiritual, God-given love ever turns to hate. I think self-love
can turn to hate, but not God's love. Once loved, always loved. Love, beareth all things, believeth
all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Forbearing
one another and forgiving one another, read on, If any man
have a quarrel, an argument, a complaint against any, no matter
who it is, the same way that Christ forgave you, freely and
fully, that's the way Christ forgives, freely, fully, even
so also do you. And above all things, put on
love. This is the bond, that which
binds everything and everyone together in peace and harmony. This is the strong need. Those other things are just foundation,
first principles, the first principles of the oracles of God. This is
the difficult part. This is where men, mature men,
full-grown men, are able to nail self to the cross, are able to
swallow their pride and arrogance and haughty spirit, are able
to surrender their rights, are able to give in, are able to
keep on loving in spite of and in the face of the greatest opposition,
who understand that man at his best state is altogether vanity,
that the person who does what he does, he does it Because of
a lack of restraining grace, were it not for God's restraining
grace, we would be of all men the chief of sinners, wouldn't
we? That man is only speaking out of natural wisdom and natural
understanding. He is speaking only as a man. He has no spiritual understanding.
We profess to have spiritual understanding. We profess to
know the Christ of the Bible. Love binds everything together
and everyone together in peace and harmony. And if you have
any complaint, as Christ forgave you, it does not matter who it
is. You forgive the same way. Freely?
Well, if he'll apologize, I'll forgive him. No, sir. Freely? Well, if he'll make restitution.
No, sir. Freely? Well, I'll forgive him,
but I'm not going to forget it fully. Well, I'll forgive it,
but I'm not having anything to do with it now. And fully, that's
not the way Christ forgave you. Wouldn't it be awful if he forgave
you tonight? You said, Lord, forgive me for what I thought
today and what I said today. Well, I will, but I'm not going
to forget it. Boy, I wouldn't want that. Well, I'll forgive
you, but I'll tell you, I'm going to keep my on you from now on.
I wouldn't want that. Well, I'll forgive you, but needn't
expect us to have anything to do with one another." I wouldn't
want that. Well, if I don't want that, why am I putting that off
on other people? Because I'm a baby, that's why.
I'm a spoiled, thumb-sucking rat. That's what I am. Well,
I meant to say, rat's a better word. Isn't that a shame? This is the meat. This is the
meat. This is the meat. religious babies
choke on. This is it right here. This is
the meat that these infants choke on. This is what they can't take.
They've got to have milk. They've got to have the preacher
always milk, giving them milk. They can't take this. But men
can. Strong meat belongs to men. Strong
meat say Strong men say, Preacher, this is what I need. I need you
to rebuke and reprove and correct and instruct me. I need God to
have mercy on me, too. Turn to 2 Timothy 3. Let's see
what this says. 2 Timothy 3. 2 Timothy 3, verse
16. Verse 17, here is the word perfect,
that the man of God may be perfect. That word, again, is mature.
Underline it, take it home and study it. Don't you receive one
thing I say on the basis that I said it, because I'm a man
too. I'm trying to preach what the
book says. I'm trying to give the meaning to the word that
God gives. The word perfect there is mature,
spiritual maturity, full grown. Strongly, all scripture, verse
16, is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine,
for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness,
that the man of God may be perfect. The spiritually mature man knows
and desires only to be subject to God's Word, the Word of God.
The more Word of God you can give him, the happier he is.
This is his rule of faith and practice. He delights in the
Word. He revels in the Word. He feasts
upon the Word. He bows to the Word. The word
of God directs him to obedience and good works for God and men
and how he loves God's word. I love thy law, David said. He
wasn't talking about the Ten Commandments, he was talking
about the word of God. Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a
light unto my path. I'll hide thy word in my heart
that I might not sin against thee. God's men, mature men,
live on the word. They feast on the Word like a
jawbreaker they carry around all day. They love it. They like
to memorize it so they can quote it. They like to lie on their
bed at night and think about it. They grow on that Word. That's
their desire, the sincere milk of the Word, that you may grow
to maturity. If you grow at all, it's going
to be on the Word. It's not going to be on feelings or experience
or anything. It's going to be on God's Word.
If I grow at all, I don't mean you, I mean all of us. All right,
James 1. Let's look at James 1. James 1, verse 2. Now here's that word again, verse
4 is the word. Let patience have her work of
perfection, or her perfecting work, her perfect work, maturing
work. That's the same word there. That
you may be perfect, that you may be perfect and entire,
wanting nothing. What's this all about? Verse
2. You count it all joy when you fall into divers. The word
temptation there is trials, not temptations to sin. God doesn't
tempt any man to sin. We are tempted and enticed when
we are drawn away by our own lusts, but God does try men. Knowing this, that the trying
of your faith worketh patience, God sends trials. And these trials
may take any direction. Commonly, the first thing we
think of when we think of trial is sickness. I don't know why,
but that's usually the first thing we think of. Sometimes
it takes that direction. Sometimes trials takes the directions
of failure in business, loss of a job, conflict with a friend,
conflict in a family. There's just a lot of directions
that trials can take. Ill health, true. Just a lot
of things. Well, here's what he says. Trials
are promised. In this world you shall have
tribulation. Trials are ordained of God. They come from the Lord. Trials are for our maturity. that we may be perfect and entire,
wanting nothing. Now, what's to be my attitude
towards trials? Well, the Apostle Paul says,
I'm to rejoice in them. I'm to thank God for them. And
I'm not to pray to be delivered from them, but to let that trial
have its perfect work, let it finish. You know, just as soon
as something happens that's unpleasant either to the flesh Well, to
the flesh or to the mind. If something unpleasant happens,
we all go to praying about it. Lord, remove this. Take this
away. Heal this. Don't let this happen.
Get rid of it now. That's the reason folks say to
me all the time, pray for this person, pray for that person,
pray for... I don't know how to pray about that matter. I can pray, Lord, your will be
done, but can I... Paul went to the Lord three times
and says, remove this thorn, and God wouldn't do it. It wasn't
God's will to remove that thorn. God's will was that the thorn
stay, that Paul might be taught a lesson. And here someone gets
upset with me or with you or somebody else because we won't
pray that a person be made well. Maybe God doesn't want that person
well right now. Maybe he's got a lesson to teach
him or her husband or his wife or the children. Maybe that person
will die, and maybe out of that death God will bring forth a
glorious purpose for his honor and his praise. And here I am
finding myself praying against God. What I've got to do is when
a person says pray about this or pray about that, I've got
to pray to find out how to pray about it, haven't you? I've got
to go to God and say, now Lord, what am I? I don't know. I don't
even know this person. Now when am I going to pray?
I'm not going to ask you to to make this man successful when
you want him to be broke. He better out broke. He'll accomplish
your will for him to be broke. I'm supposed to pray that this
person have this and that and the other when it's not your
will for them to have this and that. We just made religion the
most foolish thing I know. It's just God give me, God give
me, God give me. And God's given us already. more
than infinite and more than we deserve, anything this side of
hell's mercy. But I'll tell you, this thing
of running to God in prayer by every ingrown toenail is just
upsetting to me. And I think we need to do some
praying about our praying. And first of all, find out what
is the will of God so that we can pray according to the will
of God. The trial has got to finish. We've got to go through it. It's
not easy. If it was easy, it wouldn't be a trial. It has sorrow
and pain and anguish, but if it didn't have those things,
it wouldn't be a trial. But when we come through it,
God's purpose will be accomplished, and we'll have that patience
that he wants us to have. We'll have that tenderness for
other people he wants us to have. We'll have that understanding,
that pity, that compassion, that love. that he wanted us to have,
that we couldn't have gotten any other way. Right? That's right. All right, James
3, here's the word again. James 3, verses 2 through 5. Now, here's the word over here, beginning with verse 2, chapter
3 of James. For in many ways we offend all.
Yeah, here's the word. If any man offend not in word,
same as a perfect man. There's the word perfect. It's
got the same meaning. Mature. Spiritually mature. Now let me
tell you something right here. I'm on right now. I'm not going
to have a lot to say about it because you know as much about
it as I do. I'm on the one single greatest instrument of sin in
this world, the tongue. That's the one single greatest
instrument. I'm not talking about the source
of sin. The source of sin is the heart. The root of sin is
the heart. The tongue only says what comes
out of the heart. But bless your heart how that
thing says. I believe we'd be spiritually,
much more spiritually mature if we didn't have tongues. But
we'd find sign language to say it. We're going to get it said.
He said, in many ways, verse 2, we offend all, but if any
man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able to
bridle his whole body, if he could bridle his tongue. Verse
3, behold, we put bits in the horse's mouth, that they may
obey us, and we turn the whole horse's body, and we put a little
old rudder on a ship, and it's driven with fierce winds, and
we can turn that ship, whether so ever the pilot decides to
turn it, but the tongue, It's a little member, it boasteth
great things, but how great a matter a little fire can kindle, it
can burn the world up. And the tongue is a fire-world
of iniquity. So is the tongue among our members,
it defiles the whole body, it sets on fire the course of nature,
it's set on fire of hell. I've seen one person's tongue
destroy a whole church. I've seen one person's tongue
break up a man and his wife. I've seen one person's tongue
destroy the love of a child for its parents. I've seen one person's
tongue actually tear up a whole neighborhood, haven't you? One
tongue! It's a hard saying, but I'm telling
you this, we need to ask God to give us the ability to keep
quiet, to be still. If we speak, Lord give us the
ability to speak wisely. If we must speak, Lord give us
the ability to speak for your glory. If we must speak, Lord
give us this ability to speak only good of those about whom
we're talking. I'll tell you a good rule, and
I don't always do this, but I'd like to be able to. When you
have another person as your subject of conversation, say only that
which you would like for that person to hear if he was sitting
right there beside you. That'll wind her up. Only what
you'd like for that person to hear. Oh, our tongues. They're such terrible instruments
of Satan. They divide friends. They're
so cruel. So cruel. And once spoken, they
can't be retracted. That's what's terrible. If we
could sometimes like to reach out and bring them back, but
they won't come back. But I'll tell you what you never
have to bring back is praise. Words of love never have to be
retracted. Nobody wants to retract them.
Words of praise, words of love, words of encouragement, words
of glory to God. Just let them flow on to the
ends of the earth. But words of anger and words
of jealousy and words of envy and words of strife, words of
argument. I want to be mature, don't you? I'm going to have to put a watch
on my tongue. 1 John 4, I'll give you the last
one. These are, this is meat for men,
mature men. Verse 10, let's go back to verse
8. Verse 7, 1 John 4, let us love
one another. Love is of God, and every one
that loveth is born of God, knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth
not God, for God is love. In this was manifested the love
of God toward us, because if God sent his only begotten Son
into the world, that we should live through him, here in his
love, not that we love God, but that he loved us and sent his
Son to be the propitiation for our sin. Beloved, if God so loved
us, we ought also to love one another. When did he love us? Before we loved him. Why? How did he love us? With an infinite,
everlasting love. with a love that gave his Son.
No man has seen God at any time if we love one another." Now,
watch this verse. If we love one another, if we
love one another, if we love one another, God dwelleth in
us and his love is perfected in us. Here's the whole key. This is the whole key. This is
where it starts and continues and stops right here. This is
the essence of it, the foundation of it. This is the key to love. Christ said on this hinge is
all the love. Love God with all your heart
and love that neighbor as yourself.