The Tongue: How do you use it?

“My tongue will speak of your righteousness and of your praises all the day long.” (Psalm 35:28 NIV).

The human tongue is an interesting commodity. James says of it, "Dear brothers and sisters, not many of you should become teachers in the church, for we who teach will be judged by God with greater strictness. We all make many mistakes, but those who control their tongues can also control themselves in every other way. We can make a large horse turn around and go wherever we want by means of a small bit in its mouth. And a tiny rudder makes a huge ship turn wherever the pilot wants it to go, even though the winds are strong. So also, the tongue is a small thing, but what enormous damage it can do. A tiny spark can set a great forest on fire. And the tongue is a flame of fire. It is full of wickedness that can ruin your whole life. It can turn the entire course of your life into a blazing flame of destruction, for it is set on fire by hell itself. People can tame all kinds of animals and birds and reptiles and fish, but no one can tame the tongue. It is an uncontrollable evil, full of deadly poison. Sometimes it praises our Lord and Father, and sometimes it breaks out into curses against those who have been made in the image of God. And so blessing and cursing come pouring out of the same mouth. Surely, my brothers and sisters, this is not right!" (James 3:1-10 NLT). I like the way The Message puts verses 5-10 of this (James) passage: "A word out of your mouth may seem of no account, but it can accomplish nearly anything—or destroy it! It only takes a spark, remember, to set off a forest fire. A careless or wrongly placed word out of your mouth can do that. By our speech we can ruin the world, turn harmony to chaos, throw mud on a reputation, send the whole world up in smoke and go up in smoke with it, smoke right from the pit of hell. This is scary: You can tame a tiger, but you can’t tame a tongue—it’s never been done. The tongue runs wild, a wanton killer. With our tongues we bless God our Father; with the same tongues we curse the very men and women he made in his image. Curses and blessings out of the same mouth! My friends, this can’t go on.”

We don’t often think about the tongue and as such we greatly under-estimate it’s power. James is right, “By our speech we can ruin the world . . .” An obscure Austrian painter proved that. Probably no individual personifies the potent power of the tongue toward evil ends then Adolf Hitler. By all historical accounts, there is no way this mad-man should have ever gained the type of power he managed to gain. It was his speeches–the power of the tongue–that captured the German people and led to the holocaust and to a devastating world war. The tongue has power.

The tongue has power for good or for evil. Sadly because of sin, we seem to much more effective at using our tongues to tear down rather then build up. Oh that we could learn with the Psalmist to use our tongues “to speak of (God’s) righteousness and (sing) of His praises all day long.” I wonder what change such a commitment would bring in our churches alone not to speak of the changes that would occur in our world. If God’s people would determine to pray daily “Set a guard over my mouth, O Lord; keep watch over the door of my lips.” (Psalm 141:3 NIV), and then live it, I wonder what changes would be wrought in this land?