Join us on this enlightening episode as we delve into the wisdom of James, exploring the power of the tongue and its potential to both bless and curse. We draw fascinating parallels between Clyde Beatty’s skills as a lion tamer and the challenge of taming our tongues – a challenge that is only successful through spiritual regeneration. This episode invites you to reflect on your own speech and its impact on those around you.
The foundation, ye saints of the Lord, is laid for your faith.
SPEAKER 03 :
Have you ever heard of Clyde Beatty? Well, he was the secret to the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus’ most popular act. He was the wild animal tamer. In this study on Through the Bible, we’re going to learn Clyde Beatty’s secret for taming a lion. But what we learn from our teacher, Dr. J. Vernon McGee, will be far more important for us. He says, you can tame a lion, you can tame an elephant, but you can’t tame the little tongue. I’m your host, Steve Schwetz, and by far the best thing that we’ll hear is that only a regenerate tongue in a redeemed body, a tongue that God has tamed, can be used for him. And that’s what I want as well, and I hope that’s what you want. It’s a heart for God and a wild tongue that he has tamed. Now, before we jump into the great study that we’ve got before us in James 3, Greg and I have got a quick update we want to share.
SPEAKER 04 :
And, Steve, this is a really exciting conversation that we get to have, and it’s focusing on what’s new. And there’s a lot of new stuff going on through the Bible. And if you’re a newer listener, one of the things we want you to understand is we’re not trying to make things happen.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, we’re just trying to hang on and be faithful. Absolutely. God’s opening the doors. We’re not just sitting around going, oh, we got to do something. But the Lord brings opportunities to us and new doors open by his grace.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, exactly. We are not passive in the sense of, like Steve said, our team is busy. But what we’re busy with is God initiates things. And I’d like to give us a little taste of that today because God’s been doing some pretty amazing things. So first of all, Earlier this month, I told our listeners, if you listen carefully, I said, I’m going to tease you and we’re going to talk to you about a new language in Luganda. And that is the language of Luo, which is spoken by three and a half to four million people in northern Uganda. And we know that that team does such a great job. We know God is going to use that.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, that is really exciting on the ministry front. Also, if someone were to ask me, hey, Steve, what’s new through the Bible? I’d say this is kind of like the year, particularly coming into 25, the year of completion. Like when I was growing up, the government built a freeway through my hometown. That thing took forever to build. I mean, decades because there were lawsuits and other issues. That aside, when it finally opened, the anticipation of that opening was a big deal. They actually had an open house where you could walk on the freeway before they officially opened it. That’s fun. And I feel like we’re kind of at the cusp of that with the ministry, and we’ve done some significant technology investment behind the scenes, getting a hold of our digital content, managing that content, distributing it efficiently, tracking it, tracking the responses that come in from all these different languages. I mean, you may think this is kind of easy, but there’s a bunch of moving parts under the covers. Oh, it’s hard. And the investment that we’ve made in technology we think really allows the money that so many people have faithfully given to the ministry to be effectively used and for us to know the effectiveness of it. That’s the advantage of digital. And we’re at the point where so much that we’ve invested over these last several years is now at the point where we’re going to be able to see the fruit. Before we came into the studio, you were playing with the statistics. Well, not playing. Yes. You were acting presidential and showing me. Absolutely. Yes.
SPEAKER 04 :
Very serious. A lot of gravitas. Tell us about that. Well, and and I was thrilled to show you this. We have this wonderful board where we can show the analytics, which is the numbers. And just a month before that. We’re recording. We record in advance. But a month ago from this recording, we released the TTB Amharic study app. Now, both you and I have been to Ethiopia. We’ve seen the hunger for God’s word. This in four weeks. Now, remember, there are over three million apps available. Yeah. So if you think of it like a fisherman, there’s three million bobbers floating in the water.
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And we just threw a goldfish.
SPEAKER 04 :
We threw ours out there.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah.
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37 countries downloaded the app in one month with no advertising. We haven’t even started to advertise yet.
SPEAKER 03 :
And so that’s what’s exciting. That’s the thing I love about the digital is the term, the diaspora. If you’ve heard about that, that believers are spread out all over the world. Yes, but they’re spread out all over the world speaking different languages. Yes. And that’s, I think, one of the greatest, and this wasn’t even on our radar originally, one of the powers of digital is we can reach the Amharic speaker who’s living in Europe. We can reach the one who’s living in Southern California, who’s living in New York, because they have access to it and they can grow in their native tongue. Greg, we’re out of time. Would you pray for us?
SPEAKER 04 :
Father, we do thank you that you are a God who is always doing new things, and we’re just following you. And what a joy and what a thrill it is just to try to keep up with you. We thank you for all the new things you’re doing and pray you will continue to bless your word as it goes out. In Jesus’ name, amen.
SPEAKER 03 :
Here’s Dr. J. Verne McGee with our study of James 3.
SPEAKER 01 :
Now, if there ever was a message that gets down to the nitty-gritty, It’s this message here that deals with the tongue, because most of us find ourselves in this spot here where we recognize that the tongue gets us into trouble, and the tongue reveals who we are. Now, last time, James used the figure of speech of putting bits in the mouth of a horse. And the ship is guided with a very small rudder. A great ship is. And the tongue today, a tongue should be controlled like that. And he says in verse 5, where we begin today, even so the tongue is a little member and boasted great things. Behold, how great a matter a little fire can live. Now, the tongue can really get us into trouble. No question about that. And someone again has put it in words like this. A careless word may kennel strife. A cruel word may wreck a lie. A bitter word may hate instill. A brutal word may smite and kill. A gracious word may smooth the way. A joyous word may light the day. A timely word may lessen stress. A loving word may heal and bless. So today we need to recognize the importance of the tongue. It’s all important. It actually tells who we are and reveals who we are. Many years ago, in fact, it was right after World War II, and it was when General Montgomery of the Eighth Army in Italy, and he was that great British commander, he made a statement to the army before he left. He said to the army and all of his generals who were there, He says, command must be personal and it must be verbal. Otherwise, it will have no success because it’s wrapped up in the human factor. Continuing on, he said this, I often have at the back of my mind a passage from the New Testament, except ye utter by the tongue words that that are easy to be understood, how shall it be known what is spoken? That is 1 Corinthians 14, 9. And that’s the kind of tongue I want to speak in today, is a tongue that the little child, and I have letters from children, And that the older ones can. And as someone said, how in the world could that same message have brought a nine-year-old child to the Lord and at the same time brought a professor at the University of Ohio? I don’t know. I must confess, I don’t know. But I do believe that God blesses his word and it must be taught simply. Now, he goes on here to say something else about the tongues. He says, and the tongue, verse 6 now, chapter 3 of James, and the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. So is the tongue among your members that it defileth a whole body, and it’s set on fire, the course of nature, and it’s set on fire of hell. Now, this is something that I think is quite impressive, my friend. that the tongue is compared to a forest fire. I don’t know whether you’ve ever seen a forest fire or not, but here in California, they are very devastating, absolutely, in many cases, unbearable. uncontrolled. They have to burn themselves out in most cases. Now, fire has been, of course, one of the greatest friends of man and nature. In fact, the evolutionists likes to say that the dawn of civilization came when man found out he could use fire. When it was under control, it could warm our bodies. It cooks our food. And it’s tragedy, though, when a house is on fire. But when fire is under control, it makes power to turn wheels. The danger is when it’s out of control and you hear a fire siren rushing through the night and you know there are a group of men making a frantic effort to put it out. Present civilization, even today, is not able to control the fire. A London fire in 1666 destroyed Mrs. O’Leary’s cow, kicked over a lantern in Chicago, and started it there. And yet today, we see great devastation caused in our day. And as we’ve said, some historians say civilization began when man discovered fire. Now, the tongue is like a fire. When it’s under control, it’s a blessing. When it’s out of control, it’s a blight. It can be a cure or it can be a curse. In Proverbs 12, verse 18, there is that that speaketh like the piercing of a sword, but the tongue of the wise is health. Tongue can be like a sword, kill you, but it also can be health itself. What a picture this is of the tongue. And again in Proverbs 15, 14, the heart of him that hath understanding seeketh knowledge, but the mouth of fools feedeth on foolishness. And now the proverb I think I’ve given you before. Thou art master of the unspoken word, but the spoken word is master of you. You haven’t said it. You can’t be held responsible. But once you’ve said it, why, I tell you, it’s been said. Like the mistake I made some time ago, and it really was a slip of the tongue because I used the wrong man for General Nathan Bedford Forrest, the one who said, who gets there the fastest with the mostest. I made a blunder at that time, and it was a slip of the tongue, you see. And you remember that man, Simon Peter, his tongue betrayed him, but he denied he knew his Lord. But on the day of Pentecost, who was it that the Lord used? That blundering, stumbling, bumbling fellow, Simon Peter. Now, forest and brush fires, they scorch, they blacken, they’re a plague. And a tongue can burn through a church, a burn through a community, burn through a town, and even burn through a nation. Now, when it says it set on fire of hell, there are those that have questioned my use of that word in the title of my book, that this is not the proper translation. The Greek word here is Gehenna. It’s not Sheol. Actually, this is the correct word for hell. It is the same thing that you find in Revelation as the lake of fire. And here it’s the valley of Hinnom where the fire never went out. And this word is only used 12 times in the New Testament. And the Lord Jesus is the one who used it 11 times. And James used it only one time in right here. And this is a correct translation. The tongue set on fire of hell. Now we’re not through with the tongue. Notice verse 7 here. For every kind of beasts and of birds and of serpents and of things in the sea is tamed and hath been tamed by mankind. But the tongue can no man tame. It’s an unruly evil full of deadly poisons. I remember several years ago when I was much younger and before I was married, a group of us young folk, including some of the young couples, when a circus would come to town, we would go out at night to some home and have a time of fellowship. And then we would have a late dinner. And then we’d go down to the railroad yards for the circus to come in. And we’d watch the circus unload. And the parade of moving it out to the circus grounds was in progress. And we’d go along with it. And we’d watch them put up the tents. One morning, we were invited to have breakfast with them in a cook tent. My, what a thrill it was. And then they would generally put up the tent where the animals were. That’s where you entered the circus. And Clyde Beatty, who had had his own circus for a long time, Why, he was then with the Ringling brothers, Barnum and Bailey, and he had charge of the wild animals. And he was the one went in the cage and put them through their paces. And we were in that tent, not at that time as paid customers, but we’re just watching them put up everything. Clyde Bailey went to a cage in which there were some little lion cubs. I think there were three or four of them. He took them out and began to play with them. He would roll them and they would bite at him and he would grab them and turn them over and just having a big time with them. And we went over and asked him the question of why he did that. He said, I would never go in a cage with a lion that I had not brought up from the time it was a cub because you can’t train an old lion. And I begin with these little ones. And when they grow up in a fierce, fine-looking young lions, and they didn’t use old lions then, Clyde Beatty didn’t. He said, I put these fierce-looking lions in the cage. But he said, they know me. And I know them. May I say to you, you can tame a lion. You can tame an elephant. But you can’t tame the little tongue. One little animal, no zoo has in captivity. No circus can make it perform. The tongue can no man tame. Only a regenerate tongue in a redeemed body that God has tamed can be used for him. And have you ever noticed that Paul said that we believe in our heart and confess with our mouth? The Lord Jesus said, we’re to sing a duet and it’s to be in tune. The Lord Jesus said, what’s in the heart is going to come out. Somebody’s put it like this. What is in the well of the heart will come out through the bucket of the mouth. And you’re going to say it sooner or later. And have you ever noticed the man that Christ touched his tongue? I thought that was always a very wonderful thing that the Lord Jesus touched his tongue. Now, let’s come on down here because we’re not quite through here. He says, verse 9, therewith bless we God, even the Father, and therewith curse we men who are made after the image of God. Out of the same mouth, proceed blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be. Now, the tongue that you and I have is capable of praising God or blaspheming God. The tongue is what lifts man above the animal world. Man, as we’ve said, is not a gibbering ape. Man’s not a mockingbird either. Man can communicate with man and he can communicate with God. And when a man on Sunday can sing like an angel and then talk like a demon during the week, Well, you label him. The Bible calls him a hypocrite. You can call him anything that you want to. I had a marvelous experience of that when I announced in the bank I worked that I was going to study for the ministry. The vice president, one of them called me in and he’d been a good friend of mine. He knew something of my life and how I’d live. And he said, Vernon, I hope you’re going to be a genuine preacher and a genuine servant of God. He says, the reason today I’m not a Christian It’s because of an experience I had during the war. Now, this is World War I. He said that they set up a bank out at the old powder plant, that old hickory out of Nashville, Tennessee. And it was a branch bank, and they had difficulty balancing out there. One of the tellers was a soloist in one of the downtown churches in Nashville. And he said one day that he came out of the church, And one of the ladies there that had heard him sing a solo said, you know, that man’s the most wonderful man in the world. He sings just like an angel. And this vice president didn’t say anything. But that woman had business at the bank out at Old Hickory. She had property there. And she came out one day, and that man was a teller in the bank out there. And so this man who was vice president, he was talking to this lady and all of a sudden they heard the vilest language he said he thinks he’d ever heard came from this teller who was the soloist at this church. He attempted to balance and he didn’t balance. And I was a teller for several years. And I know that just about as discouraging as anything that can happen to you. You know, you got to go back over the whole transaction of the day. And this man began to rip out a blasphemy. And this lady says, who in the world is that? And he says, why, that’s that soloist that sings like an angel on Sunday. A man can bless God with his mouth, or he can blaspheme God. You can do one of the two with the mouth you’ve got. And the Lord Jesus says what’s in the heart is going to be coming up through the mouth. That tongue is going to say it. Now, verse 11, does a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter water? Can the fig tree, my brethren, bear olive berries? Either a vine, figs, so can no fountain yield both salt water and fresh. In other words, a man can be two-faced. He can be double-minded and a forked-tongued individual. He can say good and bad, but no fountain down here is going to give forth both sweet and bitter. And a tree won’t bear figs and olives. I don’t know whether you could bud one on the other or not, but it would have to be an unnatural growth. But some people, they’ve been grafted, and graft is a good word, by the way, for them. They can praise God on Sunday. Now, the tongue reveals genuine faith, by the way, because with the mouth confession is made of that which is in the heart. Verse 13, who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you, let him show out of a good life his works with meekness and wisdom. You see, the tongue can reveal genuine faith. It can give a testimony for God and speak wisdom. Now, verse 14, but if ye have bitter envy and strife in your hearts, glory not and lie not against the truth. Now, strife and bitterness are not the fruits of faith at all. And the tongue, you see, can stir that sort of thing up. And he’s making now a contrast between what the tongue does and the tongue of even a foolish believer and the tongue of a wise believer. In fact, an uncontrolled tongue today raises the question in any man’s mind, or whether he’s a child of God or not. You can’t make me believe that you can cuss six days a week and then sing in choir on Sunday. I don’t think you can. You can’t tell dirty jokes and then teach a Sunday school class and tell about the love of Jesus on Sunday. That tongue you’ve got, my friend, can do either one. But if it does both, it is that which stirs up strife And we’re told here, lie not against the truth. And a lying tongue is one that denies the Lord during the week by his conversation. Now, verse 15, he says, this wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, demoniacal. Now, in other words, what he’s making here very clear is these things do not originate from God. And it comes not from him at all. It’s earthly. It’s sensual. And it’s demoniacal. You know, knowledge is proud that she’s learned so much. Wisdom is humble that she knows no more. The wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, and demoniacal. You see. For where envy and strife are, there is confusion and every evil work. And we’re going to deal with this in the next chapter. Because he’s going to define to us what world and this really is. And what a shock that’s going to be to a lot of people. Verse 17, but the wisdom that is from above, it’s first pure. It’s not mingled a mix. It’s no mixture. It’s pure. It’s the original. Then peaceable. And actually, the thought is that out from the pure comes peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy. These are verses that do not need very much elucidation at all. Dr. Samuel Zwamer says, mentions the fact that false teaching always produces strife and envy and trouble. He said this, you cannot explain the wickedness of the world as merely human. It is human plus something. And that is why non-Christian religions are successful. They are supernatural, but from beneath. And anything that causes division and strife, and I don’t care whose church it’s in, it’s not of the Lord. You may be sure of that, and you may boast of fundamentalism, but if you’re causing strife, I want to tell you, you got up the wrong flag. Now he says, the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by them that make peace. Now, that’ll be enlarged upon in the next chapter. So until then, may God richly bless you.
SPEAKER 03 :
If we can help you find a resource by Dr. McGee to deepen your own personal study of God’s word, or if you’d like to find out how you can partner with us to keep the Bible bus traveling the world in more than 250 languages, just call us. 1-800-65-BIBLE is the number. You can also contact us from our app, and you can always visit ttb.org. Well, this is Steve Schwetz. For all of us at Through the Bible, we’re grateful for your company on the Bible bus and your partnership in taking the whole word to the whole world.
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Jesus paid it all, all to him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain, he washed it white as snow.
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Through the Bible exists to take God’s whole word to the whole world. And we invite you to stand with us with your faithful prayer and financial support. Where will God’s word go today?
