Horses, Fires and Ships

2024 Spring Branch

James 3:1-12

Horses, Ships, and Fires

If you are a preacher or teacher… you are held to a higher standard. Preachers/Teachers are held to a higher standard and will receive a stricter judgement. You will influence others. You will guide people by your words and actions, and will either lead people rightly or not rightly… and you will be held accountable for this.

People are watching you. People are listening to you. You are leading people. Please do not forget this. You must be mature. You must act mature and speak with maturity… or you will mislead and keep people from being mature Christians.

No man is perfect. Our speech will not be perfect. We are going to stumble with our mouths, with our speech. But our goal is Christ and His perfect speech. Our goal is maturity. So, therefore, our goal is to improve our speech and to control our mouths from sinning.

Horizontally, death and life are in the power of the tongue (Proverbs 18:21). “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me”… is a lie. You will stop bleeding and healing will occur from many injuries… But words can leave open wounds and scars forever.

“My diet is balanced. My food is the best. But it’s the words I have eaten that I cannot digest.”

Words alone can bring a government down or establish peace, destroy a marriage or renew hope, crush a child’s sense of worth or lift him to confidence and joy, unify a church, or splinter it into angry factions…

Take the horse picture, with the bit in his mouth… you lead him, guide him, and direct him… to water, to the house, to the stall… or to the poisonous viper, or to the edge of a cliff.

Words will take you places. Words will make you form thoughts about life, work, or people. And then you will respond out of this.

Words will encourage you. Words will build you up. Words will take you from the darkness to the light, delivering you from depression and despair. Words will make you feel important. Words will make you feel special. Words that are truth guide a soul from death to life…

Words can lead people to the Savior or lead a soul to hell.

When we observe carefully the impact of our words, we see why God cares so intensely about them.

Words, your mouth, causes fires. Sometimes unintentionally and sometimes on purpose.

A lit cigarette in a dry ditch on a hot summer day can do much damage. A small, controlled fire by the house can melt a neighborhood. There was no intention, no malice a forethought… It just came out of our mouths… and it did the damage. (marriage, friendships)

(Story of Jerry Clower and the Ledbetter Family)

Sometimes, it was an accident how we got there… But we were in it and we had to put the fires out or die trying...

Other fires in California and other places…Arsonists… have intentionally set fires to destroy property and people… for whatever reason.

Georgia records an average of 700 arson fires, annually, which destroys over 9,000 acres.

In 2002, an arsonist started two fires in Rodeo-Chediski, Arizona, and it consumed 467,000 acres and 426 structures.

Fire destroys rapidly and ruins peoples lives. It pollutes and contaminates.

There are those in the world and in the church that do this as well. They are scoffers and sowers of discord.

Solomon compared people who sow discord to troublemakers who go around lighting fires: “As charcoal for embers and wood for fire, so is a quarrelsome person for kindling strife” (Proverbs 26:21, CSB).

Fires leave death and destruction in their wake. Scoffers and sowers of discord do the same.

Proverbs 16:28: “A perverse person stirs up conflict, and a gossip separates close friends.”

This is why God hates this so much. “Hate?”

In Proverbs 6:16–19, he listed seven things the Lord hates, and a few of them are “a lying tongue, a false witness, and one who sows discord among brothers” (ESV).

“Sowing” discord implies spreading conflict or scattering it widely. Proverbs 6:14 reveals that an individual who sows discord is corrupted by sin and afflicted with a perverted heart.

That is the issue: It is a heart issue. Luke 6:45 - For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks...

Listen church: Believers cannot claim to be filled with God’s love, walk in the light of God’s love and continue spewing hatred and sowing discord.

Love speaks and hate speaks. What are you speaking?

Solomon was a wise man, and God through Solomon, tells the people of God how to put out fires…

“Drive out a scoffer, and strife will go out, and quarreling and abuse will cease.” Proverbs 22:10

“For lack of wood the fire goes out, and where there is no whisperer, quarreling ceases.” Proverbs 26:20

The New Testament tells the church:

“As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him, knowing that such a person is warped and sinful; he is self-condemned.” Titus 3:10-11

Now listen to this severe warning:

Proverbs 6:15 explains that the consequence of such foolish and evil behavior is sudden “calamity,” which literally refers to “a crushing weight.” You will be broken without remedy. A person who continually and actively sows discord is pursuing a life of sin, and such a life is destined for destruction.

Your mouths, your words, your actions are leading yourselves and others to misery and destruction.

This is not Christian. Spreading gossip, rumors, slander… Is not Christian. Lying is not Christian. Stirring up strife, discord, promoting division… is not Christian. Not seeking the truth, not seeking reconciliation and restoration… Not talking to one another… Hating one another…

Is NOT Christian.

“If anyone claims, ‘I am living in the light,’ but hates a fellow believer, that person is still living in darkness.

Anyone who loves a fellow believer is living in the light and does not cause others to stumble. But anyone who hates a fellow believer is still living and walking in darkness. Such a person does not know the way to go, having been blinded by the darkness” (1 John 2:9–11, NLT).

And the child, the student… at school asks, “Why is God allowing this… this hurt, this slander, the person to hurt me?” Listen dear ones, God does not want them to do this. God wants them, and commands them to love you, to control their mouths and to speak life.

Speak life. Speak the truth. Turn their lives to blessing. Lead them rightly... to peace.

Jesus said, “God blesses those who work for peace, for they will be called the children of God – Blessed are the peacemakers” (Matt. 5:9).

But those who sow discord can expect to experience devastating distress and severe suffering. If they stubbornly refuse to listen to God’s warning and accept correction, they will be broken and ruined beyond all hope of healing (Proverbs 29:1).

This is a serious matter.

But what happens when a ship. When a vessel filled with people, is headed towards a wreck?

The unsinkable Titanic, minutes before midnight on April 14, 1912, struck the iceberg, sinking it only hours later… claiming the deaths of 1,500 passengers. It couldn’t turn fast enough.

What happens if a classroom filled with students… a workplace filled with workers, a church filled with brothers and sisters… are headed towards the flames of misery and destruction?

A tongue, a mouth, words from everyone in that class, in that business, in that church… will turn the ship around. It is a big class, it is a big business, it is a big church… Your words today will turn the ship. Your mouths today will turn the direction of families, of schools, of churches and communities everywhere.

Truth will turn ships today. Encouragement will turn the ship today. Positive words, life giving words will turn the ship today.

If only we would speak it… Will you speak it?

Jesus calls us to be peacemakers. Jesus calls us to speak truth. Jesus calls you to self-control, to let your conversation be always full of grace, and to build others up.

Whatever fills the heart overflows out of the mouth and life. From the heart the mouth speaks.

My personal self-examination question is: What is in my heart today? What is it filled with? Bitterness? Resentment? Unforgiveness? Hurt? Anger?

How will I know? Listen to what’s coming out of your mouths.

What do I need in my heart today? Who do I need in my heart today?

Is it Jesus? Do you need His love, His forgiveness, His compassion and grace?

What are you doing with your mouths?

Are you speaking in a way that you would speak around Jesus. Is Jesus pleased with your talk, with your mouths, with your attitudes?

Do you need His forgiveness and help today?

Do you need a Savior today?

Give Him your heart today… Look to Him and give Him your heart day by day... and He will work on your mouth.