James 3:1-12 My brethren, let not many of you become teachers, knowing that we shall receive a stricter judgment. For we all stumble in many things. If anyone does not stumble in word, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle the whole body. Indeed, we put bits in horses’ mouths that they may obey us, and we turn their whole body. Look also at ships: although they are so large and are driven by fierce winds, they are turned by a very small rudder wherever the pilot desires.

Even so the tongue is a little member and boasts great things. See how great a forest a little fire kindles! And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. The tongue is so set among our members that it defiles the whole body, and sets on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire by hell. For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and creature of the sea, is tamed and has been tamed by mankind. But no man can tame the tongue. It is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our God and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the similitude of God. Out of the same mouth proceed blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be so. Does a spring send forth fresh water and bitter from the same opening? Can a fig tree, my brethren, bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Thus no spring yields both salt water and fresh.

On a Saturday night in 1899, four reporters from Denver, Colorado met by chance at a Denver railroad station. Each of the four – Al Stevens, Jack Tournay, John Lewis, and Hal Wilshire – worked for the four main Denver newspapers, and each was required to come up with a hot story for the Sunday edition. All four had the idea of going to the railway station to see if some celebrity arrived by train. But no one had, so they decided to commiserate together over drinks.

Al Stevens said something which at first everyone took as a joke – “What if we all four made up an outlandish story which no one could disprove?” But pretty soon the laughter turned serious as they decided to come up with a story that none of their editors would question. They knew a phoney local story could be checked, so they decided to come up with something far away – China. “How about,” they said, “we come up with a story that American engineers are on their way to China to bid on a major job – the Chinese government is demolishing the Great Wall of China, as a sign of international goodwill, to invite foreign trade?”

As ridiculous as it was, they ran their story, but it was picked up by other newspapers, and eventually went international. When Chinese citizens heard that Americans were on their way to demolish the Great Wall, they were enraged. One group of Chinese patriots attacked foreign embassies in Peking and murdered hundreds of missionaries. Soon six countries had sent 12,000 troops to invade China and protect their countrymen. What became known as the Boxer Rebellion, with all its bloodshed, was caused by four men in a saloon with lying lips. Written or spoken, the power of the tongue is immense.

James knows that, and more importantly, James knows its importance for the Christian life. As you know, James is a no-nonsense pastor. He is interested not in theory and good intentions, but in action. He wants to see real religion, pure and undefiled. He wants faith with works. And back in chapter 1:26-27, he gave us three marks of real Christianity. One was service of the helpless. A second was separation from the world. The third was speech that pleases God, a tongue that is controlled for God’s glory. Tongue is a metaphor for speech, because it is that organ that along with the lips and lungs produces audible words. The idea is communication.

James 1:26 If anyone among you thinks he is religious, and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this one’s religion is useless.

A controlled tongue is the sign of pure and undefiled religion. It is the sign of a faith with works. So in this section, James is going to expand that idea. The summary of this section is really verse 2:

For we all stumble in many things. If anyone does not stumble in word, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle the whole body.

A controlled tongue is the sign of control of the whole man. When the whole person is under Spirit-control, that person is a mature Christian, exhibiting faith with works.

This section does not really have any commands. From verse 3 to verse 12, it is a description, a narration of the power of human speech, of the kind of thing the tongue is. What James is going to do is, through a series of vivid illustrations, he is going to show us the danger and the power and the wildness of the tongue. James is like a safety instructor in a workshop, showing you the machines and then showing you the pictures of people who have had accidents with those machines. He wants us to be aware of the enormous power, danger, destructiveness, and potential evil that comes in human speech. He is pushing us to bridle our tongues.

We’ll see three dangers of the tongue, each one compelling us to flee to the Holy Spirit’s control, so that we would bridle and control our tongues. We will come back to verse 1, but we will begin in verse 2.

I. Beware of the Tongue’s Disproportionate Power

For we all stumble in many things. If anyone does not stumble in word, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle the whole body. Indeed, we put bits in horses’ mouths that they may obey us, and we turn their whole body. Look also at ships: although they are so large and are driven by fierce winds, they are turned by a very small rudder wherever the pilot desires. Even so the tongue is a little member and boasts great things. See how great a forest a little fire kindles!

Small things can have effects out of proportion with their size. We would reason that large things could only be moved or steered by large and powerful mechanisms. But James wants us to know that the smallness of something should not betray us into thinking that it will have small effects.

The average human tongue is 10 centimetres from the tip to the back of the throat. Can ten centimetres really have a huge effect?

James says, think about a bit in a horse’s mouth. The average horse weighs 450kg, or 1000lbs, and a draft horse is double that. It’s 450kg of nearly pure muscle and dense bone. How does a human who weighs between 10 and 20% of that animal’s weight get him to obey? Try to wrestle him? Grab his neck and twist? No, this tiny thing called a bit. A small device in two parts. The smaller section goes in the horse’s mouth, and sits on the gums between the molars and the front teeth. The second part is the system of loops and rings that connects to the bridle. It’s supposed to work with pressure, not pain, but a small mishandling can bring pain to the horse easily. So here you have this massive beast, who can be told to turn, slow down, halt, even if the one riding him is a child. All because of a small device with effects out of proportion to its size. A little member that boasts great things!

James says, or think about a ship’s rudder. Have you ever tried to move something while in the water? Maybe pull someone out, or shift something? It is a huge job. Some of the biggest ships in the world are the United States Navy’s aircraft carriers. The Nimitz class warship measures around 332 meters long, a third of a kilometre. They weigh around 100,000 tonnes. That behemoth though, is steered by two rudders which are compared to that size, tiny. They are 9 meters high, and 7 meters long. To put it another way, the rudders are 2% of the length of the ship. But yet, when the helmsman is ordered to steer 10 degrees to starboard, those rudders make a change of a few metres, and the ship changes course. All because of a small device with effects out of proportion to its size. A little member that boasts great things.

James says, think about a forest fire. When those blazes take off, you can have temperatures on the forest floor of 800°C. The fire can cause thermal heating which whips up the wind to 80km/h. If you are on the ground in there, it is literally a kind of furnace. How do get such a conflagration? Do you need to drop a cluster bomb? Do you need an army of soldiers with flame-throwers? No, a little fire will do it. An ember from a small campfire, a discarded cigarette end, or even a droplet of dew that acts as a mini-magnifying glass, focusing the sun onto a spot of dry grass and igniting it. All because of a small thing with effects out of proportion to its size. A little member that boasts great things.

A horse’s bit, a ship’s rudder, and a tiny ember have effects that far outstrip their physical size. James says, that’s exactly the case with the tongue. It may only be ten centimetres in physical size, but the speech it produces can change the world.

Men with powerful skills of communication, have whipped up crowds into revolution, to overthrow governments, to go on bloodthirsty rampages. Careless talk has betrayed secrets to enemies and changed the outcome of a battle and the course of history. A slandering tongue has split families, and caused feuds that enveloped whole nations. A well-argued defence of an economic policy has brought millions of people to abject poverty and misery. Erudite and persuasive men have led literally millions to follow a false religion or false philosophy all the way to Hell. Actresses and actors have used their tongues to airbrush and polish a way of life that leads people into moral heartache, that destroys families, splits marriages, ruins childhoods, deepens despair and leads some to drugs or suicide. Lecturers use tongues to shape millions of future generations to think about creation, economics, business, and human life in ways that distort their realities.

One application of this truth about the tongue’s power is teachers within the church. That’s why James opened in verse 1 with these words.

James 3:1 My brethren, let not many of you become teachers, knowing that we shall receive a stricter judgment.

Teachers are people whose whole calling in life surrounds the tongue. They study, learn, and then pass on what they have learnt through teaching. Sometimes that teaching is verbal, sometimes it is written, but in both ways, the teacher is communicating to others. James says, the teacher will be judged more strictly. Why? First, because he becomes partly accountable for others. He becomes partly responsible for how others understand the truth. If he uses that public space to distort, pervert, dilute or otherwise mishandle the Word of God, he is leading people astray. Second, he’ll be judged more strictly because teaching the truth suggests a certain mastery of the truth. To teach it implies you understand it, and in Christianity where faith and works are together, you are supposed to understand it not only in intention and agreement, but in action. In other words, in Christianity, a teacher cannot be a mere theoretician, an analyst, an academic who loves only the ideas. In Christianity the teachers must practice what they preach, so the teacher will be held to the standard that he insisted on for others. The tongues of teachers shape the lives of others, so James says, don’t rush to be a teacher for its own sake, because you will be judged more scrupulously at the Judgement Seat of Christ.

Ten centimetres that changes the course of history, enveloping billions of people. They aren’t shaped by mere sentiment, or unuttered thought. They are shaped by the tongue, that small member.

James 3:6 And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. The tongue is so set among our members that it defiles the whole body, and sets on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire by hell.

Verse 6 is difficult but it seems to mean that the tongue contains all the evil of Hell, the world of sin, and with its small size can corrupt the whole person.

What you do with this will have effects far out of proportion with its size. James is saying, don’t let its small size deceive you into thinking it is of small consequence. Consider its power. Consider its power to build up and tear down, to create and to destroy, to restore and to crush, to guide and to deceive, to purify and to defile, to dominate and to abdicate, to encourage and to dishearten.

So what is James’ point? What do you do with a small but lethal object? What do you do with 10 centimetres of atomic power? Answer: you leash it. You control it strictly. You guard it, you watch it.

Remember chapter 1, verse 26? If anyone among you thinks he is religious, and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this one’s religion is useless. (James 1:26)

The mark of true religion, of mature Christianity, of a faith with works, is a controlled tongue. The first danger is its disproportionate power. James points us to a second danger.

II. Beware of the Tongue’s Wild Ways

For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and creature of the sea, is tamed and has been tamed by mankind. But no man can tame the tongue. It is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.

James goes a step further. Not only is the tongue deceptively small and yet devastatingly powerful, but the tongue is also wild. It is unpredictable and unleashes the unexpected.

James tells us that all kinds of animals have been tamed and trained by man. Think about the wildest animals who have been used in circuses – lions, tigers, leopards, elephants. Animals as large as orcas, so deadly in the ocean, have been trained by man. Animals as independent as eagles and hawks have become hunters for man, and return to the perch or the hand.

James isn’t trying to make a case for every species having been domesticated. He is simply saying, when it comes to every kind of animal – in the air, in the sea, on the land, big or small, carnivore or herbivore – man has found a way to manage or even eliminate the wildness, hostility or viciousness of the creature. Whether by cage, tank, leash, or dart-gun, or training, there are few we haven’t caught and trained for our use or amusement.

But with all this taming ability, man has not tamed the tongue. The tongue is as wild as a black mamba in the bush, dangerous, random, full of deadly poison.

How so? The tongue is exactly like that puff-adder strike to the ankle. Out of nowhere, seemingly, the tongue stabs people in the back, criticizing and breaking down people it claimed to love. Suddenly, it strikes with a piercing, sharp comment that cuts deep and wounds. Wildly, it brings up salacious details of someone else’s relationship, sharing intensely private information for others to digest and enjoy. With shocking unpredictability, it brings up the past, using what is supposed to be forgiven as a weapon. With alarming fierceness, it defends and attacks by exaggerating wildly, saying things that are way out of proportion for shock effect, for the power to tear, strike, and wound. With blind rage, it uses inflammatory words to heat up an argument, adding sting to a wound with sharpness.

What is the point? The tongue is known to be wild, sudden, poisonous. James is not saying the tongue cannot be bridled, otherwise he would be contradicting himself. What James means is that the tongue never comes to a place where its wildness is completely domesticated, where it loses its unpredictability. It is like some animals that cannot be fully trained or domesticated – there is always the danger they may turn on their trainer. What would you do with a completely unpredictable animal? You restrain it. You guard it. You realize the always present potential that this thing could suddenly bite or sting. So you govern it strictly.

If anyone among you thinks he is religious, and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this one’s religion is useless. (James 1:26)

The mark of true religion, of mature Christianity, of a faith with works, is a controlled tongue.

The tongue is small but powerful beyond its size, the tongue is wild and unpredictable. But James has a third danger to bring us about the tongue.

III. Beware of the Tongue’s Fickle Fruit

With it we bless our God and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the similitude of God. Out of the same mouth proceed blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be so. Does a spring send forth fresh water and bitter from the same opening? Can a fig tree, my brethren, bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Thus no spring yields both salt water and fresh.

The tongue is not only deceptively devastating for its size, and wild, it is also forked, bringing with it two completely different kinds of communication.

This doesn’t happen in nature. James says, think about a spring. As you kneel down to taste the water, it does not come up salty and then a few mouthfuls later, sweet and fresh. You do not put your mouth to that water as it courses up into your mouth and taste it changing from bitter to sweet, salty to fresh and back again. Springs are either fresh water or salty, but they can never be both at the same time.

Or James says, think about trees. If you plant a fig tree, you will get figs. Olives never appear on fig trees, not even once in thirty or forty years. Grapevines will produce grapes, year after year, but however much you spray them with fig juice, or staple figs to their branches, they will still produce grapes. The kind of thing it is limits what it can bring forth. Banana trees produce bananas, never apples. Cows produce milk, never orange juice. An oil gusher brings out oil, never molten gold.

But one thing in nature has this deeply disturbing ability to bring out mutually contradictory things. The tongue is able to do what nothing else in nature can do, bring out opposite fruits at different times; bring out, from the same heart, the same mind, words that are both angelic and demonic.

Like a fountain which can produce fresh water in the morning and then abruptly, for no reason at 1pm turns salty, so is the tongue. Like a plant which has tomatoes on one branch, but deadly nightshade on another, is the human tongue.

We know what this looks like. It is that disturbing ability in us to do exactly what James says: we bless God, and we mean it! We sing praises to His name in hymns, we pray, we say Amen, we speak to one another glowingly of the Lord’s work in our lives, and then we go home and we are distressingly rude to our spouses, and tell them how displeasing they are to us, we chide our children with cutting, rude words we’d never use within earshot of the Christians at church.

We weren’t trying to be hypocrites when we gave good and wise counsel to those Christians at church, but then when we drive home, we despise the driver in front of us, and curse him. We love God with our lips, and then hate God’s image with the same lips.

We are affirming and edifying to one person at church, and then those same lips are unbelievably rude and cruel to someone at home.

We counsel others how to be peacemakers, and then stir up conflict everywhere we go.

We speak of the importance of sacrifice and then demand our rights from others.

The same mouth can praise God and swear, be honest and deceitful, be diplomatic and unkindly direct, truthful and evasive, pleasant and congenial and nasty and irritable.

The tongue is simply a reporter. Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. And so the disturbing reality of the tongue is that it reveals we are divided beings. It reveals that in the same heart, puzzlingly brewing in the same pot is saintliness and sin, beauty and ugliness, medicine and poison, Heaven and Hell.

I don’t think James is saying, these things are never true of a Christian. James says, these things ought not to be so. It is a painful reality, one we should not happily tolerate, or acclimatize to, one we should fight against.

The point is, what do you do with something which can be used for great good, but from that same portal can come out hellfire? What would you do with a tap, if it was your only tap, which sometimes gave you water, and other times gave you cyanide? What would you do with an air conditioner, if it was the only one you had, that sometimes blew in cool air, and other times blew in toxic gases? You would govern them carefully. You would watch them, and make sure you shut them off if the pure turned to poison.

James is telling us in three ways – the tongue must be bridled. It is small but has huge effects – so control that bit, that rudder, that little burning ember. It is unpredictable and wild, so control that snake which could go from pet to predator in a moment. It is inconsistent and fickle, bringing out good one moment, and evil the next, so control that fountain which brings out the healthy in one moment and then changes to poison the next.

Now James has told us what to do: control the tongue. Control what you say, how you say it, how much you say, when you say it. Don’t just open and fire. He has told us in verse 2, that when you can control your speech, you are in fact in control of your whole person. He told us in chapter 1:26 that true religion, faith with works is bridling, controlling the tongue. He has here not told us how to do it. But his book does give us the answer in roundabout ways. There are two ways to control the tongue.

1. Bring Your Thoughts Under Christ’s Control

Your tongue is a messenger. That’s why James used the idea of a fountain – a fountain brings out what is in the reservoir. So the tongue is not a creator, it is reporter. It will fetch what is in the heart and bring that message out.

James 3:14 But if you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth.

James 4:1 Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members?

In other words, if you want your messenger to report godly things, the first stop is to change the message. Change the quality of your thoughts, and you will change the quality of your speech. Jesus explicitly said,

Matthew 12:34-35 For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things.

If you don’t want your tongue to tell on you, then reduce the amount of things that it can report you for. Despising people in your heart, bitterness in your heart, resentment, grumbling, envy, jealousy, hatred, these are not just potential sins because they happen to be in your mind. They are already sins. This is why David prays in Psalm 19:

Psalm 19:14 Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart Be acceptable in Your sight, O LORD, my strength and my Redeemer.

Did you ever think that if you are a Christian, then the Holy Spirit does not simply observe your thoughts? He inhabits them. He dwells inside you, and interpenetrates your being. Our thought life is the environment He lives in. So our first way of gridlocking the tongue is to make our thought life submissive to Jesus Christ.

Philippians 4:8 Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy– meditate on these things.

2. Harness Your Tongue With Humility

Your tongue is a messenger. You can control what messages your tongue fetches, by controlling the thoughts. But you will not clean up your thoughts perfectly ever.

The second filter, the second control mechanism is to understand that we send this messenger out as often as we want to. Why do we sin with our lips? Because pride sends the messenger out more often than it needs to go.

Proverbs 14:3 In the mouth of a fool is a rod of pride, But the lips of the wise will preserve them.

James tells us pride is at the root of the problem:

James 3:16 For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there.

James 4:6 But He gives more grace. Therefore He says: “God resists the proud, But gives grace to the humble.”

Pride says, I have to defend myself against this attack. Pride says, I have to vindicate myself against what has been said.

Pride says, I have to show this person how clever or learned I am.

Pride says, I have to show this person that I am an independent thinker and can challenge everything he says.

Pride says, I have to defeat this person by wounding them and crippling them with a devastating insult, a force attack of exaggeration.

Pride says, I have to show everyone how discerning I am by announcing the faults of someone else, where they can’t see it.

Pride says, I have to diminish others, so I am shown to be somewhat better by contrast.

Pride says, I have to spread some unwholesome secret to others, so that they will take me into their confidence and see me as an intimate confidante.

Pride says, I have to be loved by others, so I will amuse them with all kinds of humour, appropriate and inappropriate. Pride says, I want this person to esteem me, so I will flatter him or her with all the things he wants to hear. Every instance of speaking too much, or the unguarded tongue, is an instance of a proud heart seeking its own advantage. I must win, I must be right, I must be admired, I must be loved, I must have everyone on my side, I must always come out on top.

Humility is sourced in a deep trust in God. The humble person doesn’t try to pretend he is less; he is simply forgetting about himself and his rights and reputation and becoming more and more absorbed with God’s purposes and God’s glory. So the humble man harnesses the messenger with a humble desire for God’s glory.

No, I don’t need to respond to that attack, it will only inflame things and distract from God.

No, right now I want to be more interested in someone else’s life, instead of parading my own.

No, I don’t have to compare my life to another’s, I can be inwardly grateful and content.

Right now, I don’t need to wound and cut another person to come out of this as the victor, I can leave vindication to God.

No, it is not important that this person admire me, it is important that he or she admire my God, so I don’t have to flatter, or parade my knowledge.

No, it’s no necessary to argue every time, or to find the fault every time, just to show people that I have that ability. I can agree with truth, rejoice in what was good, and save my disagreement for when it is really needed.

No, I don’t need to try to gain people’s trust by betraying the trust of others in gossip. I can be trustworthy all round before God.

Proverbs 10:19 In the multitude of words sin is not lacking, But he who restrains his lips is wise.

Wise humility says – I don’t have to say it, or respond, or comment, or argue, or boast, because I am not living for my own name and glory.

Connect your tongue to a sweet fountain of godly thoughts. Harness it with humility that lives for God’s glory, not self. That’s how you bridle a thing as destructive, as wild, and as fickle as the tongue.