Conflicting Speech Can Be Deceptive

AN EXPLANATION

While James is known for his teaching that works are evidence of our salvation and genuine faith, he also taught that our words are important. When our words are controlled, they can direct us in right ways. When our words are contentious, they can destroy relationships built over decades or give someone a crippling burden of pain for a lifetime. James also addressed those words that are contradictory and can deceive not only others but ourselves as well. The Native Americans referred to such a person as one who spoke with a “forked tongue.” That is, this person said one thing at one time and in one place and the opposite thing at another time and in another place. In James’s own words, “These things ought not to be so.”

AN ILLUSTRATION

Once more James offered two illustrations to substantiate his point about speech that contradicts itself. First he asked, “Does a spring send forth fresh water and bitter from the same opening?” Many people around the world live in remote villages with no running water. For them it would be a life-giving blessing to live near a spring that bubbles continually with fresh water. But what a disappointment to find a spring of bitter water. Perhaps less useful would be a spring producing both fresh and bitter water: it would be as deceptive as a mouth that speaks both blessings and curses.

James asked this rhetorical question: “Can a fig tree, my brethren, bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs?” Obviously, not a chance. Such inconsistency is impossible in the natural world. Just as the fruit of a tree reveals the health of its root system, so our words reveal what is in our heart. If our hearts are deceitful, our words will be also.

AN APPLICATION

James made it plain: our tongues speak words that spring from our inner nature. Our words reveal who we really are deep inside. Just as it is impossible for saltwater and sweet water to come from the same source and for olives to grow on a fig tree, it is impossible for our tongues to produce what is not in our hearts. If we bless and curse at the same time, something in our heart is desperately out of order. Evil speech emanates from an evil heart. A heart that truly loves God doesn’t fuel lies, slanders, gossips, curses, or the like. Jesus said, “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks” (Matthew 12:34).

We are deceiving ourselves if we think we can go through life speaking with a forked tongue. Our words are a barometer for what is really in our hearts. If our speech is inconsistent, simply washing the mouth out with soap won’t work. The remedy must reach much deeper, to the heart. Solutions will never come by trying hard to work on our vocabulary. What we say is not the source of the problem. We can wash our mouths out with soap until the bar of soap is but a sliver and still not solve the problem. Solomon said, “Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life” (Proverbs 4:23).

Only an untrained or incompetent physician would treat a symptom and ignore the source of a disease. That’s one reason your doctor asks you to stick out your tongue during an examination. Often internal problems can be identified by the film on the tongue. A competent physician, however, would not just clean your tongue off and send you on your way. She would determine the source of your problem rather than just dealing with the symptom.

Those people whose speech is contentious and contradictory too often deal with only the symptoms. They do their best to stop saying things they shouldn’t say and try hard to say the right thing. But no matter how hard we may try, “no man can tame the tongue” (James 3:8). Education can’t do it. Turning over yet another new leaf in life can’t do it. Nothing in the natural realm can accomplish this. Only a supernatural transformation of the heart can tame a tongue. And that happens to believers because the Christian life is not a changed life; it is an exchanged life. We give God our old life, and He gives us one that is brand-new. This is God’s promise: “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you” (Ezekiel 36:26).

Only Christ, through His work on the cross, can truly produce a life of works—and words—that pleases Him and blesses others. Once we have surrendered our will to His, our words and our heart work together in beautiful harmony. As the psalmist requested, “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer” (Psalm 19:14).

Every person has a God-shaped void within his or her heart that can only be filled by Him. That’s why the very best thing we can do with our tongues is to confess that Jesus Christ is our Savior and Lord. The Bible says, “If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (Romans 10:9–10).

After all, one day every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that “Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:11). Do it now.