[Transcript of a midweek message published by Horley Baptist Church on YouTube[1], February 2021]
Do we realise how powerful and dangerous our tongue actually is? The words we use, and how we use them can cause destruction that is difficult to contain, damaging others and ourselves.
My morning routine pretty much every morning involves opening up the BBC app, reading the news, and in particular looking at the front pages of the newspapers. Usually without fail some particular tabloid papers seem to fill their front pages with attacks upon people, personal attacks against whatever policy they may be standing up against, or any misdemeanour they have carried out. It’s a reality of our newspapers, our press, our media in this country. In fact Meghan Markle was warned when she started dating Prince Harry of how bad our media, our tabloid papers actually are; she didn’t believe it until she experienced it for herself.
[01:07] We are a nation that loves to see the mighty brought down. This makes us somewhat different to our American counterparts that make heroes of the self-made man. We tend to be the opposite; maybe it’s something to do with our love of Robin Hood. I don’t know what it is but we love to attack people and we love to see them fall, and this isn’t just confined to our newspapers and on a national scale; we see it in our lives as well.
[01:52] On a packet of “England’s Glory” matches it said these words “It takes one tree to make a thousand matches and it takes one match to burn a thousand trees”, and that seems to be an appropriate warning for a box of matches because we’re seeing the devastation that a fire can do to huge areas of wildlife and homes. We see in our news from across the world how forest fires have brought such devastation. We see it to a lesser extent in our country as well. In the late 90s the band Stereophonics – of which I was a fan – used those words in their song to talk about how rumours and words destroyed their local community and in particular the reputation of one particular man.
[02:47] In James chapter 3 verses 5 and 6 it makes a similar claim “Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark, the tongue is also a fire” The Stereophonics recognized it, James in his letter which we can find in the New Testament recognized it too that the tongue has the ability to set a fire ablaze that can cause an unimaginable amount of destruction and it can be incredibly difficult to control and it can consume communities, anything that lies in its wake.
[03:27] From my own personal experience of leading a church I have seen the damage that the words of an individual can make, that an accusation made. An accusation that can be left upon and revelled in and spread can affect relationships, it can break down families. It can move from relationships into the workplace and also it can undo a huge amount of good work that a church can do. Fire caused by the tongue consumes everything and, just like an arsonist burnt by a fire of his own making, so too do the words of a gossiper bring destruction upon them as well.
[04:23] A person can do great deeds, can do wonderful things, can act in a way which is very Godly, I guess, and yet all those good works can be undone by the way they use their words. The things that they say, the way they treat other people. That’s why we have to be so careful with what we say because we can ruin the reputation of others, we can ruin the reputation of churches and we can ruin also our own reputation through the things that we say and the way that we treat other people.
Hey, thank you for tuning in! Hopefully, unlike me, you are nice and warm but thank you so much for tuning in. Do remember to subscribe to our YouTube channel and do share this on social media – that would be amazing.
Just a reminder that this talk is very much just an introduction to our talk on Sunday. It’s part two of our series ‘Me and My Big Mouth’ and we would love it if you’re able to tune in either to our Sunday service or you can catch up on the talk later on YouTube. This week we will be having Helen talking about those verses I shared in this talk plus more from James chapter 3, so please join in and enjoy.
’bye
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[1] YouTube link: Am I a Fire Starter?
Bible references: James 3
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Contributed by Martin Shorey; © the Author
