OK. So Top 10 Sins and Struggles. This is lesson number 3 in the series
in our countdown of top 10 sins and struggles, we continue this week. So
number 10 was laziness, number 9 was anger, and tonight coming in at number 8
tied for number 8 cursing and gossiping. It's interesting that these two are tied
at number 8, because they're both sins of the tongue. Just I don't know, it
just kind of worked out that way, but the same number of people, almost the same
number of people listed this as a problem so it comes in at the number 8
spot. So tonight's lesson we're going to discuss both of these very different
sins, but that come from the same source. So let's talk about swearing, cursing, get
a definition here. Different types of swearing. Of course,
swearing as in taking an oath, oath of citizenship when I became an
American citizen, took the oath of citizenship or when you go to court, take
an oath tell the truth. In the Bible an oath between two people, not an oath
between two people in marriage in the Bible, but I meant an oath between two
people an example Abimelech swears not to harm Abraham, took an oath,
Genesis 2:22. Of course, Jesus this type of activity here, taking oaths,
Jesus said to use lightly. 'Let your yes be yes, let your no be no.' Yes,
you can acknowledge, 'Yes, I am telling the truth. I swear I am telling the
truth,' but I mean 'Let your yes be yes, let your no be no.' No big, you know beyond
that is trouble. And then there's swearing as in profanity and this is of
course the sin that we're talking about, we're talking about the sin of profanity;
using words of a sacred nature irreverently, using God's name or
religious things or sacred ideas, doing this irreverently. Interesting to note in
Quebec where Lise and I come from, in the French language, in
Quebec, not the French that they speak in Paris or Belgium or
Switzerland or or in various countries in Africa and the Middle East,
only in Quebec, in that French, the most common curse words are words for objects
that are used in the Catholic Mass. So the unleavened bread
that when we take communion, well in Catholicism
when they take communion, they take only the bread, and the bread is kind of
pressed down and it's like a little wafer and it's called a host and in
French a host is...well one of the popular swear words in French is
... You know somebody scores the goal on your team, swear word is
host. In the mass on the altar there is what they call a tabernacle and it's
inside this container called a tabernacle that they place the chalice,
the chalice is the container that has the wine and the other container
that has the hosts and since, because now we're really getting far afield here, but
because these things, you know because of transubstantiation, because these
elements have now become the actual body and blood of Christ in
Catholic theology when they're not being used they're inside this tabernacle.
During the mass the priest will open the tabernacle and take these two things out and he'll
bless them and so on and so forth, OK? Well the tabernacle in French,
that's a swear word. When a guy is really upset and hits his
finger with the hammer, 'Oh ... ,' that's a swear word. So the use,
the use not only of God's name, but the use of religious objects or objects that
have religious significance. Again, sacred ideas to use these things
irreverently, this is swearing. Of course the use of course or vulgar language, we
know the "f-word," all that kind of stuff. What is that? Well,
that's course, it's swearing, it's beneath what we ought to be as
Christians. Big question, why do people do this? Some ideas. Swearing in public and
in the media is a common thing now. I mean you know we, Lise and I, say, 'Hey
let's rent a movie from RedBox.' As we go online and I, 'Oh, this
comedy,' R. 'OK, a family movie,' R. "Action movie,' R. Why? Pervasive
language and sometimes they really warn you pervasive language throughout, in
other words, from beginning to end. So I get it if it's a gangster movie or something
or with a lot of bad guys, because bad guys they
swear, but a comedy, a romantic comedy. R because of language, why would a romantic
comedy have to be R, but unfortunately in our society it is. Up until 1939 you
know you were not allowed to use a curse word in a movie. We know this, a common
trivia thing, the first movie to use a curse word was "Gone with the Wind."
Absolutely, they used the "D-word" and in that time that was just unheard of.
Notice they put it right at the end of the movie. The movie's about
four hours long, maybe the censors got bored and
didn't listen to the very last frame, but anyways.
Of course the rise of this type of behavior is a sign of social anger,
frustration in people, general selfish attitude of the 70s and 80s. Swearing is
the ultimate sign of contempt for others. When you tell somebody to...
you know, that's an ultimate sign of contempt.
Psychologists tell us that swearing and cursing many times is a sign of personal
insecurity. It's a way of calling attention to oneself, a self many times
that you don't like very much, and it's evident of course in a lot of
the music; especially rap music, the angry nature of this music,
it's angry music and the words and the language that is used inside of it, it's
defiant and so on and so forth, they give a lot of justifications for it so and so
forth and that's fine I don't want to explore that, I'm just saying it's a phenomenon
in our culture that even music has cursing in it. In many of us it is a
warning actually that we're beginning to lack self-control.
Most of us swear when we are angry, but some of us we get angry for no reason at
all, we swear all the time. Our problem isn't swearing in those cases, our
problem is our temper; it's not the swearing we've got to get a hold of, it's
our temper we got to get a hold of, swearing is the kind of the byproduct.
What does the Bible teach on this subject? Although there are a lot of you
know a lot of bad language in our society, it's not a new problem, not a new
problem. Both the Old Testament and of course the New Testament Jesus talked
about it as did His apostles. We read for example in Deuteronomy 5:11 says, "You
shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not leave
him unpunished who takes His name in vain." So this is to protect the integrity
of God's name, His name, if you wish, represents His essence and to
revile His name is to revile His essence; in other words, it's personal.
People use God's name thinking... you would never think if the
guy is standing next to you and his mother's name is Martha
and you started using Martha's name in vain, that guy might
take it personally, you see what I'm saying?
But sometimes people will use God's name in vain thinking He won't take it
personally, but He does take it personally.
How do we know? He's made a specific point of telling us this in His word.
Matthew chapter 12:34-37 says, "You brood," this is Jesus speaking,
"You brood of vipers, how can you being evil, speak what is good? For the mouth
speaks out of that which fills the heart. The good man brings out of his
good treasure what is good; and the evil man brings out of his evil treasure what
is evil. But I tell you that every careless word that people speak, they
shall give an accounting for it in the day of judgment. For by your words you
will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned." So what comes out of
your mouth Jesus says is an indication of what is inside of you.
Sometimes people make excuses for vulgar or angry people that maybe they're
related to it saying, 'Oh, don't worry about what he's saying or
all the things coming out of his mouth, because down deep inside he's
really a good guy.' No. No, if all kinds of trash is coming out of his mouth, where
do you think that's coming from? That's coming from down deep inside. Liars
speak lies, impure speak impurities, haters of God swear and good men and
women speak truth in clear and encouraging words. Jesus says everything
you've said will be known and judged by God, not just your curse words obviously,
everything you've said. Why do you think that we confess Christ before baptism
out loud? God is going to judge you based on what you've said. Thankfully
for Christians He's going to base, He's going to judge you based on that
confession and only this will be revealed about
you, the rest will be forgiven. I thank God that I'm a Christian. I thank God
that I'm a Christian because I sure wouldn't want Him to reveal to everyone
all the things that I have said in my life and I think I can
get an amen from people about that, not just for
swearing, but the things we've said that are just wrong. So
I'm glad in the end the only words that will be attributed to me will
be the words of November something or other 1977 when I said I believe Jesus
is the Son of God and based on those words I was baptized, those are the only
words that will be attributed to me that count for something. Ephesians chapter 4,
let's look at another verse, says, "Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth,
but only such a word as it's good for edification according to the need of the
moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear." Don't allow useless words
to come out of your mouth, and of course swearing, cursing, gossip, lies, slander,
we'll talk about gossip a little later. Paul is saying these things have no
value. They produce nothing positive, so they shouldn't even be
uttered. On the contrary the words you utter should have value and you know
they have value because at the moment you say them they build up the people
that you are with. He says in verse 30, "Do not grieve the Holy
Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption." Indicates here
that worthless speech grieves or makes sorrowful the Spirit of God that lives
within each Christian and also because we're not making an adequate
witness of Who lives within us. Have you as parents ever said to your children
when they said something, 'Where does that come from? Where'd you get that?' or even
when they're very small, oh they're happy to go to school or
something and one day they come home with a word that has never been uttered
in your home and all of sudden, bloop and your first
instinct, right, as a mom or dad you're saying, you look at each other, mom and dad and say,
'Where did he give that?' Yeah, right? Our family is not worthy of that or that
rather is not worthy of our family. How many times have you said, 'We
didn't raise you that way. That's not the way you were raised, that's not the way we
taught you to speak.' Well Paul is kind of saying the Spirit inside of us
is saying, 'That's you talking, that's not me, that's not me talking.' So useless
speech which is what swearing is essentially has a destructive effect on
everybody; yourself and your self- respect, others in contempt, the Holy Spirit of
God in offense; rather show who you really are with your speech, building
others up, revealing not hiding the Spirit of God within you by the things
that come out of your mouth. And then James of course warns against
the dangers of the tongue and why we should control it. Let's look at James,
what he says, we're doing a quick survey here, because we've got to kind of
squeeze both these ideas in this brief lesson. James says, "For we all stumble in
many ways. If anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man able to
bridle the whole body as well." So everybody sins with the tongue, it's a
common sin. It's a deadly sin, verse three to five. 'Now if we put the bits into the
horses' mouth so that they will obey us, we direct their entire body as well. Look
at the ships also, though they are so great and are driven by strong winds, are
still directed by a very small rudder wherever the inclination of the pilot
desires. So also the tongue is a small part of the body, and yet it boasts of
great things." So here he gives an example of how small things can affect great
things. Horses, the bits in their mouths; the ships, the small rudder; the
spark can set a forest on fire, and then he goes on to talk about
the tongue setting your whole life on fire. So that's
OK, pointing out the problem and how it manifests itself,
some of the reasons. The solution however is what this class
is about, so what do we do about that? So we go back to James chapter three and we
read beginning in verse seven this time, he says, "For every species of beasts and
birds, of reptiles and creatures of the sea, is tamed and has been tamed by the
human race. But no one can tame the tongue; it is a restless evil and full of
deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who
have been made in the likeness of God;" and he says, "from the same mouth come
both blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be this way.
Does a fountain send out from the same opening both fresh and bitter water? Can
a fig tree, my brethren, produce olives, or a vine produce figs? Nor can salt water
produce fresh." So bad language of all types exists in the world, yes, and we
hear it all the time, yes. The solution however is for us not to add to it.
We can't eliminate the bad language. When I first became a Christian
you're very sensitive to things and I would say, 'Hey,
watch your language,' and I realized are you kidding me? The
only language I needed to watch was mine and that was the way that I could
perhaps have an effect on other people. I remember traveling around in
different places and recognizing I can't control
other people's tongues, it's only by controlling mine that I can have some
kind of influence. So in verses 7 to 12 James tells us that we have the choice
of blessing or cursing, but only one instrument with which to do it,
which is the tongue. So we need to learn to do one consistently, because we cannot
do both and be pleasing to God, you can't do that. So continuously producing that
freshwater he's talking about from our fountains is difficult, but it's possible
if we learn to do the following. Here's the point, here's the punchline, if we
learn to do the following; it's a learned behavior, as swearing is a learned
behavior, you learn these words, you hear them from other people, you use them.
So a couple of things we need to learn. One, learn to control our temper. We need
to find acceptable ways of expressing our passionate feelings, ways to
dissipate negative energy caused by frustration and adversity instead of
violent outbursts that include swearing. Like what, for example? Well, pray. If
you're mad, pray. Weep, call out to God, sing. I remember Lise and I and the kids were
very small, it was a long day and it took forever to get them all to bed and one
thing after another, finally exhausted, 10 o'clock at night we'd sit
there and we were feeling I don't know, out of sorts, you know what
I'm saying? And one thing that would always pull us
back she or I would have the presence of mind the presence of spirit to say, 'Hey,
let's sing.' 'OK.' And I'd pull out a songbook that we had stolen or
borrowed from the church and we would sing and you know we
didn't know how to sing parts or anything, we were just saying,
'OK, oh that's a good one. I like, let's do that one,' and then we'd sing one where
there were like four different parts and that we'd get like a verse and a half
into it and we'd go, 'No, let's go back to...' but just the singing would
just release all of that tension and so on and so forth. It was
marvelous. Run, exercise, take a shower, talk it out with God. I mean it's okay to
express negative feelings, but not by swearing and psychologically it
doesn't do any good anyways. You can get up and curse and swear about
something that happened all you want, it doesn't help. Secondly, solution, again,
change your habits. We need to consciously change
our habits of speech and eliminate vocabulary which is vulgar and
disrespectful. I began to say before I was driving around in Vermont once we're
on a trip or whatever and I had a problem with the I don't know muffler or
something. I stopped at a local little garage, the mechanic came out, a nice guy you
know, and I said, 'I'm having a trouble with this,' and he starts talking to me
and this gentleman had only one word in his vocabulary and it was the F word
OK, and that was not free; it was the F word, but I mean he used it as an
adjective, as an adverb, as a preposition, as a noun, as a verb, it was everywhere.
It was like 'Stop! Stop!' and yet he was in a good mood, he was
happy, he was trying to sell me his services, it's just that's the only word
he knew how to embellish something. Something wasn't just, 'I'll get
your car running real well,' no, for him it was, 'I'm gonna get your car...' you know,
adjectives. Well... He had a habit. If you're losing the point I'm making, it was a
habit with him, he wasn't being malicious, he wasn't trying to show..., it was just a
habit. Sexual and bathroom vocabulary, expected of adolescents, but not have
grown people. Euphemisms, oh dear, now I'm gonna preach now. The substitution of a
word or phrase for a less objectionable or offensive one. We do this all the time
with God's name. Gee, what is Gee? Well, it's an euphemistic contraction of the name of
Jesus. Oh you're just saying that because you're the preacher. No, no, no. Webster's
New World Dictionary says G-e-e, Gee is and I quote, "a minced form of Jesus used in
mild oaths." That's not a theological book, that's a dictionary. So we use it as an
exclamation or we use it as an interjection. 'Gee,
I didn't mean it.' Or gosh, again another dictionary, "minced form of
the word God used as a mild oath," Webster's unabridged dictionary says
again, not a theological, not a doctrinal, a dictionary. I mean there so many:
heavens, godly, for heaven's sake, gracious, my Lord; all of them mild oaths using
euphemisms for God's name, for the holy things of God, for religious ideas that
are religious in nature, spiritual in nature, and then of course the
number one thing today, O-M-G, exclamation mark, exclamation mark.
Are we being prudish? A little too fastidious? We thought it was strange
wasn't it because Catholics in Quebec were using the religious objects in
their mass, in their religious mass, as curse words. We were like, 'Wow, what's with them?
That's so strange,' but is it any stranger that we use God's
name, the name of the Lord, religious ideas, and so on and so forth,
but we just shave off a few letters and we use it in our common conversation? We
may see this as being extreme, however, as Christians our conduct and our speech
should be far above the standards of the world. How else will our light shine
brightly if we use the same language of the world? Another way to produce fresh
water, avoid temptation. In order to produce good speech, we need to avoid
people and situations that lead us into participating in dirty jokes and gossip
and bad language. If we find ourselves in this situation it requires true courage
and conviction as well as self-discipline to change the course of
a conversation that is going the wrong way. We need to walk away
If someone comes up to me, rarely now,
it's ... , if it's the minister, but when if somebody
didn't know me and they would say to me, 'Oh, I've got a good joke for you.' I go,
'Oh yeah?' 'Now, it's a little bit you know...' I say, 'Oh, you know maybe you shouldn't.
Maybe you shouldn't. If you have to warn me that it's gonna be dirty, but then
maybe you shouldn't tell me.' Is that hard to do? Oh yeah, it's embarrassing
because the reaction is, "Oh, oh, oh sorry.' You know what I'm saying? You don't want
to be that guy, but why? Don't drag me into your mud. Another way to produce
fresh water, acknowledge our failures. A lot of times we may hear this and say,
I mean a lot of times what I mean is what I've just talked about,
about the kind of language we use, maybe it's like I'm asking, 'Hey, let's
bring up the level here.' Many may hear this and say, 'Hey, nobody's gonna
tell me what to say,' or, 'Well, you're just going too far, and that's OK for a
preacher's meetings, you know, you guys, but not the rest of us,' but we can't
produce pure, clean, fresh water unless we understand and acknowledge that maybe
we're wrong and maybe we've been wrong for years on this matter.
So we need to learn to say, 'You know what? I've used bad language or
offensive language and I apologize for it,' when we've lost our temper
or unwisely told a story that was vulgar or used crude language.
I remember at our house the kids were very small and I mean you know sometimes
you hit that crossroads, I hit that crossroads, I remember
I mean you've got four little kids running around making us crazy,
and finally something happened and I just lost my temper and I kicked
over the chair and I said you know blurted out two or three choice curse
words and they just, they didn't escape, I just I used them like a hammer to shut
everybody up and it did; they were whoa and then Julia
she's running in, Lise wasn't there, she was downstairs, and Julia is
tearing through the house saying, 'Mommy! Mommy! Daddy used a bad word. Daddy used
a bad...' Yeah daddy used a couple of bad words and the
hardest thing to do at that point was this, you know after I... you know Lise was
wise enough to say, 'Maybe you need to go out on the back porch and just
calm down a little bit and think this over.' I said, 'Yes, I think you're
right,' and I just let it go down a bit and after a while, after supper, that
was the quietest supper we ever had at our house, even the kids were
saying, 'Could you pass the salt please? Thank you Daddy.' It was, but
after supper we sat there and I apologized to my children. 'Daddy is sorry.
That was language that was not right. I don't want you to use it. I shouldn't
use it. I lost my temper and I should not have done that as well. Please forgive me.'
'Oh yeah, for sure. Are you kidding me? We want the happiness to come back.' So if
you're holding yourself to a standard where you know you're gonna have to make
it right, it makes you think twice about the kind of conduct that you're going to...
So learning to acknowledge to God and others about our language, or our poor
language, sometimes the first step in gaining that self-control. One more, fly
with the eagles. If you want to fly like an eagle, you know the old saying, 'Don't
hang around with the chickens.' Develop friendships and habits that create this
building atmosphere. Don't hang around with people who spend all their time
complaining, gossiping, swearing, find those who have pure water coming from
their fountains and learn from them and drink from them. Alright, so let's
summarize this first part of the lesson tonight. So swearing is the use of coarse
language, sacred names or concepts, and euphemisms in our everyday conversation.
People swear for various reasons, but usually because of frustration, lack of
self-control, low self-esteem, many times ignorance, immaturity, poor training. And
the Bible teaches what comes out of our mouths is an indication of what's in our
heart, so if you've got junk inside, junk's going to come out, right? And also that one
way to purify our hearts is to guard carefully what comes out of our mouths,
because we'll be judged for this. My favorite passage on this Psalm 141:3. "Set
a guard, O Lord, over my mouth; Keep watch over the door of my lips." If you have a
problem with swearing, if that's an issue for you, my encouragement would
be to memorize this here. Let this go in there, upload this verse into
your mind and into your heart and into your spirit and go to it often if this
is the issue for you. Alright, let's go to part 2. We said we had a tie here, let's
talk about gossip, shall we?
Butch Adams, MyDailyPause.org, nice little web site, it's got little
thoughts, 30 seconds, takes 30 seconds to read, he says that the 'gossip
is a sin because it goes against the basic command to love our neighbor and
our direct command from Jesus as Christians to especially love the
brethren.' Interesting thought. So what is gossip? Gossip is the revealing and
sharing of negative things about others, the revealing and sharing of negative
things about others. Why is it gossip? Well, it's gossip because it's done
without that person's knowledge. It's done without that person's permission
and usually, usually, without confirmed facts.
So speech is gossip when you reveal or share what you know is true concerning a
negative thing about someone else. Speech is malicious gossip when what you share
is based simply on rumor and innuendo and you mean to harm the other person,
that's malicious gossip. Either way gossip harms everybody
involved. The source of the gossip betrays a confidence or is guilty of
spreading a hurtful truth or a damaging lie about another. The carriers I call
them carriers, the carriers are hurt because they share in the original sin
and they contribute to its amplification. It was this big and
then the next person it gets to be that big, and then the third person, it's that
big, they continue to amplify it. And then of course the victim is hurt because
whether the information is true or not, a negative thing is attributed to them
which they will have to carry from now on and it usually cannot be undone. So
gossip that's a serious sin because it violates the basic command to
love one another and it does serious damage to a lot of people and it's not
easily repaired. So let's do the same trajectory as we did last time,
gossip in the Bible. At least three of the New Testament writers teach us about
this sin, a sign that this was and continues to be a common problem even in
the church because Paul writes about it, Peter writes about it, James writes about
it. Imagine they all write about it so it must have been an issue. So, quickly,
Paul says Ephesians 4, "Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only
such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so
that it will give grace to those who hear. Do not grieve," there's
grieving of the Holy Spirit again, "Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom
you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath
and anger and clamor," and there it is, "slander be put away from you, along with
all malice." Note that Paul includes gossip, slander, in the same category as
anger, maliciousness, wrath, bitterness, it's all in the same thing and it's
also interesting that in this verse the conjunction and is used to link all of
these words suggesting that they are equal in their degree of wrongness and
potential for harm. So Paul says that Christians should put this kind of
speech away from themselves. Let's go to James. James chapter 4, he says, "Do not
speak against one another, brethren. He who speaks against the brother or
judges his brother, speaks against the law and judges the law; but if you judge
the law, you're not a doer of the law but a judge of it. There's only one Lawgiver
and Judge, the One who is able to save and to destroy; but who are you to judge
your neighbor?" So gossip has this element of judgment in it since as
we pass along the news of the failings and foolishness of others, we also pass
along a silent judgment of them as well. So in this context, James asks, 'Who are
you to judge another person by making known their weakness or criticizing them?
Who put you in charge?' Only God can judge and why? Because He is
without sin, because He knows the law perfectly, and because He knows the
individual completely so His judgment is fair and perfect; He knows everything.
So criticism and the gossip that it usually is wrapped in tends to put the
gossiper in the role of judge, that's the point here, a position only God has and a
right and ability to fulfill. You think about it for a minute, even
courtroom judges, they have to qualify for their
positions; they're guided by laws and the rules of evidence so that they are
not influenced by hearsay, gossip, or rumors. You ever notice the lawyers jump
up and say, 'I object your honor that's hearsay,' in other words, that's gossip, those
aren't facts, that's not confirmed testimony, that's
here[say], that's gossip. So they're supposed to judge impartially according
to proven facts and the thing about gossip is, it very rarely is
based on proven facts. And then Peter has something to say about it in Peter,
First Peter 2:1, he says, "Therefore, putting aside all malice and all deceit
and hypocrisy and envy and all slander, like newborn babies, long for the pure
milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation, if you have
tasted the kindness of the Lord." First Peter 2 verses 1-3. So Peter here echos
Paul's instruction to put aside the type of speech that is offensive, but
he also adds the idea that the reason we do these things is because we like it, we
desire to hear and to traffic in the gossip because in verse 2 he says,
"like newborn babies long," so they long for, well instead of longing for the
gossip, you see what I'm saying? You ought to be longing for the Word of
God and what comes from the Word of God, but we know what that's like, right? The
thing that stimulates us, somebody calls us up or somebody pulls us aside in
church and is 'Psst Psst...it's got a story for you. Have you heard about Gene? Oh..' We want
to be able to enjoy the trafficking and the exchange, that longing to get some
secret news. In here, in the example I've just given you, both the speaker and the
trafficker in the gossip, they're enjoying the experience. So the
admonition that Peter gives here is to cultivate
a desire not for the gossip, but a desire for the spiritual nourishment that comes
from God's Word. Just like babies are anxious for their mother's
milk, he doesn't say mother's milk here, but
when he says pure milk what do you think he's talking about? When babies
desire the pure milk, they're wanting the breasts, they're wanting Mama's milk. So
he's saying you ought to go for the pure milk, the pure milk of the word of God
and not the toxic mix of gossip and hypocrisy and the envy that is often the
motivating factor for gossip in the first place. Can't you
sense the streak of envy when someone says to you, 'Hey, did you hear about
Betty? Yeah, she bought a new car, but her other car was only five years old,
must be nice being married to a lawyer.' Don't you hear the envy, you see
in that type of conversation? Of course, the motivation for feeding on
God's Word, as Peter says, is the fact that it was through this word that we
learned of Christ and His sacrifice for us. How can we accept and enjoy this gift
that He's given us and at the same time enjoy the toxic gospel? You can't do both.
Again, the solution, we need to move on here, like every sin and bad habit the
solution and change requires effort and the practice of different kinds of
speech, so here are a few new things to learn in order to deal with the sin of
gossip. Number one, learn to apologize. In Proverbs 29 the writer says, "A man's
pride will bring him low, But a humble spirit will obtain honor." If you sin with
your tongue, then repent with your tongue. Apologize to the one you've gossiped about, as
well as the one you've drawn into sin by gossiping with. I guarantee you you'll
only do that one time. This will discourage the desire
to receive or trafficking gossip in the future and it'll be painful, but it will
be effective in cultivating humility and it'll cut down on
gossip in your own life. Somebody says, 'Hey, I've got news for you,' 'Wait a minute I
remember what I had to do last time that I fell into this sin, yeah, no, keep it to
yourself.' Do this a couple of times, I assure you that people will not want to
share gossip with you. Number two, learn to hold your tongue. Proverbs 19, "When
there are many words, transgression is unavoidable, But he who restrains his
lips is wise." And Proverbs 17:28, "Even a fool, when he keeps
silent is considered wise; When he closes his lips, he is considered prudent." You
know there's usually not much left to say if we eliminate what is untrue, what
is exaggerated, what is distorted, unnecessary, coarse, repetitious, hurtful
and stupid. There's not a lot left to say. We don't always have to say everything that
passes through our mind or report it to us by someone else. In doing so is a kind
of a form of pride. Proverbs 18:2 says "A fool does not delight in understanding,
but only in revealing his own mind." So learn to filter what comes into our
hearts and goes out of our mouths through the spiritual quality control
provided for us by God's Word. Paul says in Philippians 4, "Finally, brethren,
whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure,
whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and
if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things. The things you have learned
and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things, and the God of
peace will be with you. Notice that the reward for correctly filtering and
processing the things that we hear or say or repeat, what's the reward? Peace.
The exact opposite of what is produced by gossip. Gossip brings trouble and
dissension. Number three, we're almost done, learn to say the right thing at the
right time. Proverbs says, "The wise in heart will be called understanding,
And sweetness of speech increases persuasiveness." Then in Proverbs 25 he
says, "Like apples of gold in settings of silver Is a word spoken in right
circumstances." And so God has given us the ability to speak in order to praise
Him, in order to express ourselves and communicate and bless one another. It
takes time and practice, but we need to consciously learn to do these things in
a wise and gracious way. As Christians we don't always have the opportunity to use
our speech to confess Christ, but if our speech is coarse or foolish
and trafficking in gossip, no one will take our witness seriously for the Lord
when that moment comes. You see, not only God judges us for what comes out of our
mouths, our brothers and sisters and non-believers, they also judge us for
what comes out of our mouths. So summarizing in closing let me say that
in my opinion I think that the greatest danger concerning the sins of swearing
and gossip is that many people think that these are just minor sins, they're
just small vices, "everybody does it" type thing, but James says of the tongue and
it's sins, "So also the tongue is a small part of the body, and yet it boasts of
great things. See how great a forest is set aflame by such a small fire! And the
tongue is a fire, the very world of iniquity; the tongue is set among our
members as that which defiles the entire body, and sets on fire the course of our
life, and is set on fire by hell." James didn't take this sin lightly. So
I point this out for those who have problems in these areas so that you'll
take seriously the lesson about these sins tonight and make a
genuine effort at eliminating them from your lives because the reward, the reward
which is peace is so great if you do it and the punishment for these things is
also very awful if you don't. I hope that you've been encouraged,
instructed, motivated, to tackle some of the sins of the tongue that all
of us of course, me included, we have to deal with every single day. That's our
lesson, we're down at number eight next week, number seven. I don't know if we
should start a pool here, you know which one is number seven, but appreciate your
patience, we went a little bit long tonight. God bless you.