Sermon Transcript — June 12, 2004
I'd like for you to imagine, please, the following scenario. Let's imagine that you, or I, for that matter, are in the dark, and a charge is brought against you. The prosecuting attorney says, "You said this, on such and such a date, you said this comment about another person. You lied, told a half truth; you gossiped; you trashed someone's reputation."
And you respond, "No, I didn't. I didn't do that."
So the prosecutor says, "Okay, we're going to bring out some evidence." And he pulls out a little cassette tape player, sets it there, right in front of the judge, presses the button, and sure enough, out comes your voice, and you did say what the prosecuting attorney said that you said.
And so, you say, "Well, I guess that's proof. Yes, I did say that. Maybe it slipped my mind, but I did say that."
And then the prosecuting attorney says, "Now, go ahead and give an account. Explain why you said what you said."
And you turn around and you say, "I'm sorry. I guess it was just some careless words. I wasn't thinking too carefully about what I was saying."
And the prosecuting attorney says, "I'm sorry, but that's not a very good excuse."
I'd like you to turn with me, please, to the book of Matthew, Matthew's gospel, and I'm going to read this in the New Revised Standard Version, Matthew 12:33-36.
Matthew 12:33 - Jesus Christ here has some interesting things to say about words, about the things that we say. "Either make the tree good, and its fruit good; or make the tree bad, and its fruit bad; for the tree is known by its fruit." Sort of a natural law.
Verse 34 - "You brood of vipers!" Then He says to some of the Jewish leaders of the time. "How can you speak good things, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks." The things that we think about; the things that we have inside of us are the things that tend to come out. If you've ever had something deep inside of you, a very positive experience. Have you ever been in that situation where you've had to keep something in; you know something good is about to happen, and keeping it inside is very difficult, similarly with negative sentiments. "Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.
Verse 35 - "The good person brings good things out of a good treasure, and the evil person brings evil things out of an evil treasure.
Verse 36 - "I tell you, on the day of judgment you will have to give an account for every careless word you utter;" The New King James version has, "Every idle word. . ." The New Revised Standard Version has, "Every careless word. . ."
Words. Words have power. Words have an effect on people. Words remain, and probably many of us over the last couple of days have been watching the funeral for Ronald Reagan, the funeral yesterday and his laying in state, and of course, earlier, during the week, and we saw the funeral and a lot of people came forward and gave eulogies for late President Reagan, who was a very unusual individual. Some of the things that stand out most about the 1980's and about the presidency of Ronald Wilson Reagan were some of the things that he said. One phrase had a great deal of effect. He stood there, right in the middle of divided Germany, you remember the scene, and he pointed to the Berlin wall, and he said, "Mr. Gorbechev, tear down this wall." And it was a very dramatic moment, and the German people were very impressed. He also coined the phrase, "The Evil Empire." These phrases remain; these words remain.
They ran a little bit of the 1984 presidential campaign; Ronald Reagan had a wonderful sense of humor, and you could see both him and Walter Mondale there on stage. You may remember the line, and the questioner asked Mr. Reagan, President Reagan, he was; this was the beginning of his second term in office, they said, "Mr. President, what about your age?" You know, and of course the hint was maybe he was getting too old to be president.
And Ronald Reagan, I don't have the quote verbatim, but he had a wonderful response to this, he said, "I will not make a political issue out of my opponent's youth and lack of experience." And you could see Walter Mondale standing there, and he had to smile.
Words have power; words remain. You've heard the old saying, "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words don't bother me." You know what? It isn't true. Now you may have a very thick skin, but we've all been bothered by people's words from time to time. People say things. And then the other side of the coin is from time to time, we've all been encouraged by people's words. People have said the right thing.
A philosopher by the name of Pindar, a long time back, I got this out of a book of quotations, he said, "Words have longer life than deeds." Words have longer life than deeds. There's a lot of truth to that, isn't there? And I think in our experience, even our recent experience in the church we can see just how powerful words can be, and how much of an effect they can have on people.
What I'd like to do in the split sermon then this afternoon is look at what the Bible says about words and about words being used to negative effect, and words being used to positive effect because we find both teachings in the Bible, and we find that Jesus Christ expects us to use our words and use our tongues for positive effect.
But let's start out with a few of the negatives, a few of the negatives. One of the things that is really rather basic that we know we should avoid with all of our being as Christians is lying. We should be people of honesty and truth. When I left Ambassador College and worked in the high school in Texas for a couple of years, I was, how shall we put it, I was disappointed and a little bit shocked to see how many teenagers, you know, sometimes the old saying is, "You talk to a certain person, and if his lips are moving, you know he is lying." And I had kids in some of my classes, and if their lips were moving, I knew they were lying. Lying is very, very common in our society. It feels badly, doesn't it? When somebody lies to you, and you know that that person is a person whose word can't be relied on.
Turn with me, if you would to:
Proverbs 12:22 - "Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord, but those who act faithfully are His delight." People who tell the truth, people who can be counted on to tell the truth. We in the Church of God should be people who can be counted on to tell the truth. One of the things, one of the wonderful privileges that we exercise in this country when we go into a court of law, you have the option in a court of law in the United States of America of not choosing to swear an oath, and we exercise that, don't we? I imagine many of you have been there. I've been in a court of law as a bilingual interpreter, and you know, they swear in the interpreter, and I used to raise my hand, and they'd say, "Do you swear or affirm," and usually it was very quick, you know. We'd get through the swearing, and I'd say, "I so affirm." I didn't usually turn to the judge and make a big deal out of it, but I'd say, "I so affirm."
One of our elders in another part of the country became very famous. He had to go into court on a regular basis, many, many times. He worked for the city. They knew him in the court, and he became the gentleman when he walked into the court, they said, "Oh, you're the man who doesn't swear," because he showed up there so frequently. He became very famous, but Jesus Christ says we're not to swear, because a Christian's word is to be good. Matthew 5:33-37.
Matthew 5:33 - We should be known as people of truth. When we open our mouth now we should say the truth without shading it. "Again you've heard that it is said to those of ancient times, 'You shall not swear falsely,' but carry out the vows that you have made to the Lord.
Verse 34 - "But I say to you, '(Do not) (Don't) swear at all: either by heaven, for it is the throne of God,
Verse 35 - "or by the earth, for it is His footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great king.
Verse 36 - "And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black.
Verse 37 - "Let your word be, 'Yes, yes,' or 'No, no;' anything more than this comes from the evil one."
And so the idea is that as Christians, it should be noted, we should be people whose word can be relied on, and therefore when we say, "I choose not to take an oath, it's accepted, because we've taken a higher oath, if you wish, a higher vow before God, and we're people who don't lie.
One of the other areas that we need to be very careful about before we talk, before we state our piece, the Bible warns us about getting the facts before stating what we think about certain things. In fact, interesting, how this ties in with Dave Evans' sermon, with the first split sermon that we had, get the facts first. Do you really know what happened? We've all got the tendency somehow to put our mouth in gear thinking that we know what's going on, but the Bible tells us in Proverbs 18:13 not to answer a matter before we hear it.
Proverbs 18:13 - "He who answers a matter before he hears it, it is folly and shame to him." The scriptures tell us, "Get the facts; find out; don't begin talking; don't say, 'Well I know who's right; and I know who's wrong, and I know what really happened,' when we don't really know. Sometimes I'm not much of a fan of TV, but occasionally I switch on the TV to watch, The Judgment Hour. Do you ever watch The Judgment Hour? Judge Judy? She's tough on people. And Judge Joe Brown? And one of the things you learn, now it's not the cream of society, right? It isn't the cream of society that ends up in the courtroom, usually, for Judge Judy, or Judge Joe Brown, or there's another one. There's three or four on TV. Interesting how many of those TV programs there are because people like to watch this. They like to see justice done, but very often Judge Judy will get two people there, you know, and their words kind of conflict with each other. Someone's lying. But she's pretty smart. She's pretty wise.
And she says, "Well, I want to hear the whole story first. I'm not going to just listen to one side." And when there is conflicting evidence, and she will often say, "Somebody here is lying." She's pretty discerning to figure out whose words, you know, don't really sound too terribly solid. It's an object lesson. Sometimes when there's a dispute; when there's something going on; we're too quick to jump in.
We say, "Oh, yeah, we know the facts," when we often don't. One of the things that church pastors have to do in resolving personal disputes, and sadly, sometimes family disputes, they have to be very careful to hear both sides and reserve judgment and not say anything until both sides are heard and all the facts come out. Proverbs 18:17 is very telling. Haven't we all seen this?
Proverbs 18:17 - "The first one to plead his cause seems right." Oh, I hear you; you've got a complaint. This person did something terrible to you. Wait a second. Second part of the verse.
". . .until his neighbor comes and examines him." And so the Bible warns us about prejudging and answering a matter before we're in possession of all the facts. It's not wise to answer a matter before we hear it. We have to be careful about that, and sometimes hold on to our tongues and say nothing because we may not know all the facts.
Another area that we need to be cautious about is criticism, cutting people down, trashing people, trashing sometimes someone even in the church, a brother or a sister, and frankly, there's too much of this in God's Church. We tend to be too critical of one another. All too often God's people don't know how to disagree without being disagreeable. You don't know how to sit down with one another and maybe we have reached different conclusions on a particular matter. I'm not talking about fundamental matters of the faith here. If it's fundamentals of the faith, then we've got a problem. But we disagree with someone on a particular matter, and then if we're not careful, we begin to cut them down and speak very negatively about them. This happens too much in the church. We need to be careful about it. It's not a new problem. It's been around since the first century, and I'm always impressed with the words of the apostle James. Let's go to the book of James, in James 3:7-12. I remember these verses being expounded in General Epistles when I was at Ambassador College.
James 3:7 - The apostle James says that it's a contradiction to worship and praise God and cut down a brother at one and the same time. ". . .every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and creature of the sea, is tamed and has been tamed by mankind.
Verse 8 - "But no man can tame the tongue. It is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison." Very colorful description of the tongue here. And then he goes on to highlight the contradiction.
Verse 9 - "With it we bless our God and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the similitude of God." Men, human beings, are made in God's image, and yet all too often we criticize, we cut down, we allow a disagreement to grow bigger than it needs to be.
Verse 10 - "Out of the same mouth proceed blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be so." "How can this be," says James. "How can we do a thing like that?"
Verse 11 - "Does a spring send forth fresh water and bitter from the same opening?
Verse 12 - "Can a fig tree, my brethren, bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Thus no spring (yields) (can yield) both salt water and fresh." James says this is a contradiction in terms when we do that.
Let me read to you from Barclay's Commentary, William Barclay, on this section, James 3. Barclay has some interesting insights. He says, "We know only too well from experience that there is a cleavage in human nature. In man there is something of the ape and something of the angel, something of the hero and something of the villain, something of the saint and much of the sinner. It is James' conviction that nowhere is this contradiction more evident than in the tongue.
"With it," he says, "we bless God. This was especially relevant to a Jew. Whenever the name of God was mentioned, a Jew must respond: 'Blessed be He!' Three times a day the devout Jew had to repeat the Shemoneh Esreh, the famous eighteen prayers called 'Eulogies,' every one of which begins, 'Blessed by Thou, O God.' God was indeed, eulogetos, The Blessed One, the One who is continually blessed. And yet the very mouths and tongues, which had frequently and piously blessed God, were the very same mouths and tongues that cursed fellowmen. To James there was something unnatural about this; it was as unnatural as for a stream to gush out both fresh and salt water or a bush to bare opposite kinds of fruit. Unnatural and wrong such things might be, but they were tragically common."
And dropping down, he's got a quote from John Bunyan. "John Bunyan tells us of Talkative: 'He was a saint abroad and a devil at home.' Many a man speaks with perfect courtesy to strangers and even preaches love and gentleness, and yet snaps with impatient irritability at his own family. It has not been unknown for a man to speak with piety on Sunday and to curse a squad of workmen on Monday. It has not been unknown for a man to utter the most pious sentiments one day and to repeat the most questionable stories the next. It has not been unknown for a woman to speak with sweet graciousness at a religious meeting and then to go outside to murder someone's reputation with a malicious tongue.
"These points, said James, should not be. Some drugs are at once poisons and cures; they are benefits to a man when wisely controlled by his doctor but harmful when used unwisely. The tongue can bless or curse; it can wound or soothe; it can speak the fairest or the foulest things. It is one of life's hardest and plainest duties to see that the tongue does not contradict itself but speaks only such words as we would wish God to hear." It's a contradiction.
As I said, this is not a new problem. It's something that's gone on down through the ages, two thousand years of God's church, and even prior to the founding of the New Testament Church of God where apparently this took place back in the first century, but before that in the book of Ecclesiastes, I'd like to turn back there, there's a wonderful little cautionary note. . .you remember the old saying, "A little birdie told me?" A little birdie told me.
Ecclesiastes 10:20 - "Do not curse the king, even in your thought. Do not curse the rich, even in your bedroom; for a bird of the air may carry your voice, and a bird in flight may tell the matter." A little birdie plucks your words out of the air and flies off and comes around in a circle and suddenly some king, some rich person, somebody says, "I heard you said this about me." Now I suppose that's happened to most of us from time to time and hopefully we've learned and come to understand that we need to be careful about those things.
Instead then of lying and criticism and some of the negative things that we're warned about in the scriptures, what instead should we fill our speech with? Let's look at some of the positive areas where we can make improvements, and where we can speak in a more Christian manner. Let's address this question of disagreement where we are in disagreement with people about certain things, where someone has indeed done something where we need to talk to that person. This is where one of the biggest tests of human nature comes around, and I believe one of the biggest tests of being a Christian.
One of the toughest parts of being a Christian is when somebody has done something, done something against you. When somebody has said something against you, and of course, it's much easier to seek out the person to the right or to the left or to your side and talk to that person about it, rather than go and sit down with the individual and say, "This happened; we've got to sort this out, brother." This has happened. The "go to your neighbor" principle has never been easy. It takes a little bit of courage; it takes a little bit of doing, but it's mentioned back in the Old Testament as well in Leviticus 19:17, 18.
Leviticus 19:17 - "You shall not hate your brother in your heart." Don't bear a grudge; don't hold on to hatred. ". . .you shall surely rebuke your neighbor, and not bear sin because of him." Go talk to him; go talk to her. Sit down, if it's a significant matter; sit down; find the right moment; pray about it first and talk it over with that person. ". . .rebuke your neighbor and not bear sin because of him." See, you're partly responsible for your brother or your sister; there is some responsibility there.
Verse 18 - "You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am the Lord." Don't let it come out sideways. Let is come out with the person with whom there is a problem. It's easier when it comes out sideways, but it isn't Christian. State your piece, and sometimes you've got to leave it. Sometimes these confrontations that have to take place where you bring something to a person, sometimes a person will react and say, "You're right. You're right. I was careless. I did say that. I'm going to be more careful in the future." It does happen, and it's a very positive outcome when that happens.
Sometimes it doesn't come out as positively as it ought to, and there are occasions where you simply have to state your piece, and then leave it, and then move on.
Area number two, point number two in relation to the subject of criticism, instead of cutting down, instead of criticizing, one of the things that we should do with our speech and with our words is encouraging, encourage people. And I must say that there are many people in God's church who are very, very good at this. I've been a recipient of encouragement from God's people at difficult moments in my life; I think many of you have been as well; there's an art to encouragement. First of all, you've got to be a little bit perceptive. You've got to see what's going on with people, then you've got to choose the right word.
I'll never forget what happened to me just shortly before I left England to come to the United States as a student at Ambassador College, and I'd begun attending services of the church, and I had a rather odd encounter with one particular gentleman. I told him I was going to go to the United States, and he was not in the least bit encouraging. He should have been; but this particular man was not in the least bit encouraging, and I was very perplexed by the strange reaction that he had. He didn't say anything positive about my going to Ambassador College; I was all excited about it. But the person who was encouraging is a gentleman who is now actually a minister in the United Church of God; I'll never forget Paul Suckling's reaction. I sat down with Paul Suckling, I actually wanted to be baptized before I left England, and I told him, "I want to be baptized." I said, "I'm going to be leaving the country shortly."
And he said, "Oh, where are you going?"
And I said, "I'm going to Ambassador College in Pasadena."
And I'll never forget, he said, "Oh, good for you." One little phrase that stuck in my mind: "Good for you." It's a word of encouragement; it's a word that makes people feel good; it's a word that helps people in the undertaking that they've taken on.
Isaiah 50:4 I reminded Mr. Suckling about that recently; he didn't remember the comments, but he did say that. Isaiah 50:4 - "The Lord God has given me the tongue of the learned." This is actually speaking about the servant, Jesus Christ. "God has given me the tongue of the learned that I should know how to speak a word in season to him who is weary." There is an art to it. We grow in understanding of this, just like we heard in the first sermon. A word in season. "He awakens Me morning by morning; He awakens My ear to hear as the learned." And of course Jesus Christ is a perfect example of this. He knew what to say; He knew the right thing to say to someone who was feeling down; somebody who needed that little bit of encouragement; somebody who needed to be guided in the right way.
When people, our brothers and sisters in Christ, are going through troubles, work problems, personal problems, anxiety over something, we need to encourage; we to be observant about what's going on; we need to know a little bit about what's going on in some people's life. Some people you can tell just from their body language, right? You can tell something's wrong; you can tell when people are up; you can tell when people are down. You need to have a sixth sense for it, and know what to say. Many in the church are very, very good at this.
Proverbs 12:25 - The Proverbs have so much to say about our words. It's a very big subject; there's a lot of other scriptures, but some of these scriptures are so telling. "Anxiety in the heart of man causes depression, but a good word makes it glad." One little word, apples of gold with rings of silver is the way it's described elsewhere. That rightly chosen word can be very, very effective. We should all be getting better at that, sense it, and encourage people.
Sometimes it's good to say little or nothing. Sometimes it's a good thing to say little or nothing. Sometimes it's best not to venture an opinion, not to get involved. I will always remember one of the comments that was made about one of the Bible instructors at Ambassador College, and this Bible instructor, like here at ABC faced a lot of questions, lots of Bible questions; it's not me, by the way, somebody else, and one of the students would comment about this particular instructor that they'd learned something from him that when he got a difficult question, there were times when he would pause; there was a moment of quietness and silence as he would think about answering the particular question. And the student was impressed by that.
Proverbs 15:28 - "The heart of the righteous studies how to answer." It's fine to take a little bit of time; it's fine to say, "I'm not sure whether I should even be involved in this, but I'm not going to say anything right now. Let me think that one over." "The heart of the righteous studies how to answer, but the mouth of the wicked pours forth evil." Sometimes it comes out all wrong if you just begin talking, and sometimes it's much better to say nothing, to take it under advisement, maybe to pray about it, maybe to say nothing. And other times it's good just to refrain from talking, to say, "We don't know; I don't know; this doesn't concern me; this is outside of my area; I don't have to be involved in that." It's a good thing to say from time to time.
Proverbs 10:19 - The Proverbs say so many things about not talking too much. One of the Proverbs says, you know, you seem intelligent if you say nothing. You know, this is one of the things you learn in grad school, not to say anything when you're asked a question. "In the multitude of words sin is not lacking, but he who restrains his lips is wise." Let's keep reading:
Verse 20 - "The tongue of the righteous is choice silver. The heart of the wicked is worth little.
Verse 21 - "The lips of the righteous feed many, but fools die for lack of wisdom." There are times when the wise person, the wise man or woman, realizes that it's best to say nothing, to refrain from jumping in. We live in a society; we live in a cultural environment where we all tend to "jump in." We all know what's right; we all know what's wrong, or so we think we do. We all know what should have been done, or so we think we do. Often we don't, but the scriptures tell us to be cautious about that, and at times to simply refrain from saying anything at all. That's sometimes the best answer.
Let's go back to the courtroom. Let's imagine that we're in the dark once again, and the prosecuting attorney has got his cassette playing, and he sticks it right there in front of the judge and presses the button and out comes your voice; my voice, and instead of gossip and criticism, instead of that, out come good words, wholesome words, encouraging words. Maybe some mistakes as well, but by and large, the right words, Christian words, good words.
Matthew 12:37 - We didn't read that last verse. The end of this teaching is Jesus Christ. It says: "For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned." And in the second scenario with the cassette sitting there on the bench right in front of the judge, the judge then turns to you and says, "Go your way, my son; go your way, my daughter; your words have justified you."