Last week in making a point about the importance of this congregation being a witnessing congregation I said, "When I think of all the people who might not live forever because of this dumb congregation," I got a lot of reaction from people. I didn't mean dumb by lack of intelligence. I meant dumb in the terms of the use of our tongue for the purpose for which they were intended; and I want to talk about that this morning, for that's the next aspect of coming to an understanding and management of stress in our lives. Turn with me, if you will, to the third chapter of James, an exciting word about the stress that's produced by the words that we speak to one another.

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 has not stumbled in word he is a perfect man able also to bridle the whole body. Indeed, we put bits in horse's mouths that they may be able to obey us, and we turn their whole body. Look also at ships. Although they are so large and are driven by fierce wind, they are turned by a very small rudder whenever the pilot decides. Even so the tongue is a little member and boasts great things. See how great a forest of 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 it 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 by mankind, but no man can tame the tongue. It is an unruly evil full of deadly poison.

Let us pray.

O gracious God, help us to use our capacity of words to really communicate. Help us also to understand what James has said about what it means to have a controlled tongue. All praise and glory be to you. Amen.

I have an old Scotch friend who has a saying he uses any time he hears words used to destroy, depreciate or deprecate. He says, "Heart your tongue!" Now, it's his rendition on the old statement "Mind your tongue." And being a biblical Christian, he means by heart the intellect, the emotions and the will. His statement "Heart your tongue" really means allow the total capacity of your thinking, feeling and willing to control what you say. The purpose of this message is to communicate the stress producing words that we say to each other. We want to look at how we talk and the misuse that we make of the tongue.

Our Words Have Awesome Impact on Others.

The tongue can heal or the tongue can hurt. With it we can boost or burden. The words that we say can either be a load or a lift. They can give comfort or consternation. The words that we speak are very powerful.

And so we turn again to James as a manual for stress management, and in the third chapter gathering together a multiplicity of metaphors he gives us windows through which we can pierce into an understanding both how the tongue works, how it is used creatively or destructive, and how it can be turned into an instrument of glorifying God and helping people. The impact of the third chapter of James is one of the two things that we must decide—either the awesome power of the tongue or the power of an awesome tongue. If we use the word awesome to mean either dread or , we realize that the tongue can be either one. It can be a source of dread in people's lives or it can be a source of awe leading them to greater wonder and to the discover of the unique miracle each person is. I want you to focus your mind, now, on the meaning of words, the power of the tongue, and what we do to each other through it.

The one central metaphor which leads us in our thinking comes out of this chapter of James is that the tongue is like the rudder of a ship. "And though the ship is great and driven by fierce winds, the rudder steers its course. And the pilot steers the rudder." This contemporary translation of this verse helps us, for it shows us the interrelationship between the mind and the tongue and the impact of the words that we speak. With our words we can either keep people on course or we can drive them off course. Our cutting, gossiping, depreciating, competitive, hurting words disturb us and cause a reaction not unlike the circumstances or situation which send our nervous system into red alert.

With the wonderful gift of hearing sound goes through the auditory channel down to that tympanic membrane called the eardrum setting in motion those delicate auditory ossicles, which then serving very much like a hammer and anvil, send into the inner ear the movement of the cochlea, which then makes possible the transfer of neuro energy into thousand little nerves which then move through the auditory channel nerve into the cortex of the brain sending signals into the limbic portion of the brain with the result through the hypo thymus and then into the pituitary, sending into our bodies of the hormones necessary to meet the fight or flight, the comfort or courage that the words have produced. But it's in the neuro circuits of the brain based on previous experience that the word is received and sent with meaning into our bodies. Whatever a word has meant from experience controls what charge will be given to our bodies. When an inflammatory word, a critical word, a put down word, a destroying word, an unsettling word is spoken, the whole loop between hearing, reacting, the sympathetic system going into motion, are bodies reacting for the period that we suggested of about hours, so that if we are living in an environment where words are used to disturb, most of us are living in a constant state of agitation. Wow. No wonder it's time to look at words, what they do to us and what we do to others.

Most people are far more sensitive than we ever understood. And when we're honest we all know that we are more sensitive than we'd like to admit. And everyone lives in a world that is filled with words that hook us, click words that send the process into motion. What are the phrases for you? What words set you on edge? What can be said to you that makes you insecure? You see, the amazing thing is that the cortex of the brain also has an immense memory capacity. All those circuits are formed by things which have been said to you. And so when we think of those same things the same process comes all over again. Have you ever been seated quietly and suddenly into your mind has come the capacity to rehear something someone said? And so the whole process, just like when it was first spoken, takes place. No wonder we are filled with distress instead of good stress.

Our Words Are Our Responsibility.

What are we going to do about it? James is very advanced in his anatomy of stress. He talks about words coursing through the course of nature. The Greek means a wheel of nature. He didn't have an understanding of the cortex or the limbic system, or he didn't go to school as some were fortunate to go under Hansulia to understand stress. But he was inspired by the Lord of all time to speak to his time, and so doing he spoke to our time. For the course of nature really is a description of the process by which stress is created through words right here written hundreds of years ago. And he says it causes a fire. Have you ever heard someone say, "What you said to me burned me up"? Well, of course it did. You get all those catachloramines in your system, all those chemicals brewing, you get hot not only under the neck, under your collar but everywhere else. Indeed, words are like a fire.

But not only do they stir us up and make our blood boil, they're like a forest fire. Once it's set you can't stop it. A careless match, a left campfire, a cigarette thrown out of a car can burn down miles of a forest. James uses this image to help us to understand.

There's a marvelous story about a young man in a Highland village of Scotland who because of envy and hatred passed on a very depreciating, destroying story about another man in the village. As a result, the rumor spread until the man's reputation was absolutely destroyed. He used his tongue to commit character assassination. He destroyed the man. And then through a discovery of the real fact he realized that he had passed on a story which was untrue. And so he went to the dominie of the village, the local pastor, hoping that he could be absolved for this. And the pastor said, "Tell me. What is it that you said?" And he told him. And he said, "Now can I be forgiven?" He said, "Oh no, not that quickly." He said, "I want you to do something for me. Take a whole bag of feathers. I want you to go all around the village and put one feather in every dooryard." The man thought that was a very unusual instruction from a clergyman. But wanting to be forgiven, he obeyed. And so he went all over the village and out around the outskirts of the town and put one feather in every dooryard. Then he came back, came into the man and said to the dominie, "Now, may I be forgiven?" And the dominie said, "Oh no, not yet. I want you to take that same bag and go and pick up all those feathers." He said, "Why, that's absurd, Dominie. I can't do that. The wind has carried them away." And, indeed, that's what happens.

Boys flying kites haul in their bird. You can't do that when you're flying word. Thoughts unexpressed may fall back dead, but God can't cure a word after it was said. And he's chosen it to be so. We live in a free world. He's given us our freedom, and we can use this amazing capacity to speak either to malign or to mold great people. What have you done with yours? The story of the feathers causes offensive guilt inside of us as we think of all of the people we've assassinated. They march before our minds eye, but then we think of the little words that we drop, the critical, cutting things that create a very different impression in people's minds of the true character of a person.

James comes to the conclusion that though everything else can be tamed the tongue cannot be tamed. And yet we need to see that rather grim prognosis in the light of his main metaphor. Remember it? He talked about the tongue being like the rudder of a ship that is moved by the pilot. Now, whether it is taking a hold of the rudder in a small ship or the helmsman steering the wheel thus activating the delicate machinery that finally turns the rudder and gives a new course to the ship, still it is the rudder combined to the pilot that determines the direction. That's a vivid image because with it he puts the responsibility back on our shoulders—the pilot of the words that we speak, the mind. We have power to think thoughts and use the capacity of the tongue and the larynx and the lips to speak words. The thought that we think moving down through the hypoglossal nerve gives the capacity to move the tongue.

Now I want to do some experimenting with you. I want you all to think, think I am going to stick out and move my tongue. No words now, just do it. All right. Now, with the same thought I want you to activate your larynx using your vocal chords and just simply go aaaah. All right. You made a decision. It may not be the most important one that you've made, but you're made a decision. Now I want you to use that capacity that is yours to think a word and send the message and use your capacity of the larynx, your voice, your tongue and your lips to form a word. Got to make a choice now. You may not feel it, but I want you to say it. Love. Now, by choice I want you to say I hate you. A little reluctance, praise God. What has happened is that we've discovered the wonder of how we are made. A little bit lower than the angels, created for companionship with God and entrusted with the awesome power of words.

Now that says to us stop using that equivocating phrase, "Well, I don't have any control over what I say" or "It's your fault if you don't understand. Why have you got such a thin skin? I just say what's on my mind and it's up to you how you take it." Ah, what a minute. Not so. If we can destroy people or create people with words, every word we speak is our responsibility. That's what Jesus said. Remember it there in the twelfth chapter of Matthew? He talked about good trees bringing forth good fruit and bad trees, bad fruit. And he said to the Pharisees "O you brood of vipers. Out of your evil hearts you speak evil things. How can anything good come out of you?" And from the abundance of the heart so the mouth speaks. Here again, Jesus is using heart in the inclusive sense of meaning the mind, the emotion and the will.

And then he said, "You will judged for every word you speak." How are you going to do on judgment day? You're sure you're going to live forever because you believe in Jesus. But how are you going to feel when you stand before the loving, gracious Lord of the Word of God, Christ himself and he says, "Well, why did you do it? I love that person you destroyed. I love that person you put down. I came and died, suffered on Calvary for that person that you kept out of the kingdom by the words that you spoke." Horatius Bonar said, "It is out of an overflowing heart that the lips speak words. Your heart must overflow if you would speak love."

Now James talks about the meekness of wisdom as the only antidote to this. He talks about a mind that is controlled by the wisdom of God, and it has six marvelous parts. Look at that. It is an exciting thing to understand what God can do. When we receive the meekness of God in our mind it is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits without partiality and without hypocrisy. You see, when the circuits of our brain contain the wisdom of the Lord Jesus Christ when we have in us his mind, we are able to send the signals to the tongue to communicate his love. It also means that we are able to creatively talk things through with one another until we understand each other. It also means that we are able to listen to people intently not to what they say but what's meant underneath what they say. Suddenly we become responsible people in the midst of history. We do not need to leave behind us the scattered wreckage of destroyed lives because we never piloted the rudder. And if you're going to pilot the rudder, get in touch with the eternal Pilot who alone can tell you how to turn the wheel.

A prayer that has meant a great deal to me is one with which I close. One of the great hymns. Remember it?

Lord, speak to me that I may speak in living echoes of thy tone.

As thou has sought, So let me seek thine erring children lost and lone.

O teach me, Lord, that I may teach the precious things thou dost impart.

And wing my words that they may reach the hidden depths of many a heart.

O fill me with thy fullness, Lord, until my very heart o'er flows.

In kindling thought and glowing word.

Shall it be so for you? Amen.

Lloyd John Ogilvie is retired U.S. Senate Chaplain, and author of numerous books including Facing the Future Without Fear.

(c) Lloyd Ogilvie

Preaching Today Tape #2

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