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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
‘The tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity.’
Jam_3:6
I. What it is:—
(a) A fire (Jam_3:6).
(b) Poison (Rom_3:13).
(c) A sword (Psa_57:4; Psa_64:3).
(d) Untamable (Jam_3:7-8).
(e) A world of iniquity (Jam_3:6).
II. What it does:—
(a) The idle tongue. Idle for good, though not idle for evil (1Ti_5:13).
(b) Lying lips. Speaking lies is one mark of the generation of the ungodly (Psa_58:3).
(c) The spiteful tongue. In contrast with the love that covers the multitude of sins, this layeth open to view even the infirmities, the faults of others.
(d) The blaspheme’s tongue, too, heaps up wrath. ‘Because of swearing the land mourneth.’ The oaths of the ungodly are bringing down judgments from the Lord.
Such are the works of the ungodly tongue. Such are the doings of one of those members which God has given us wherewith to glorify His name.
III. What shall be done to it?—The question is asked in the 120th Psalm. ‘What shall be given unto thee? or what shall be done unto thee, thou false tongue?’ And the answer returned is, ‘Sharp arrows of the mighty with coals of juniper.’ Yes, lying lips are but for a moment, the end cometh when men shall reap that which they have sown. What shall be done to it?
(a) It shall be exposed. Each word shall find its echo.
(b) It shall be silenced. ‘The wicked shall be silent in darkness.’
(c) It shall be condemned. Yes, ‘by thy words shalt thou be justified, and by thy words shalt thou be condemned’ (St. Mat_12:37). Sinners will at length find that ‘a fool’s mouth is his destruction, and his lips the snare of his soul’ (Pro_18:7).
IV. If conscience testifies that you are ‘verily guilty in this matter,’ repent of this thy wickedness. Look up by faith to Him ‘Who is exalted to give repentance and remission of sins.’ Pray that a live coal from the altar may touch thy lips, ‘thine iniquity be taken away, thy sin purged,’ that henceforth thou mayst be clean through that ‘blood of sprinkling’ that ‘cleanseth from all sin.’ Let prayer and praise be the employment of thy lips here on earth, and the new song of eternal thanksgiving thy delight in heaven. It is well worth while to watch, and strive, and pray that ‘holiness to the Lord’ may be written on heart and lips, body and soul, that we may be ‘the Lord’s,’ and join at length that blessed company of whom it is written ‘and they sung as it were a new song before the throne.’ Then shall that tongue, which now you curb lest it should offend, ‘be loosed,’ Christ Himself say, ‘Epphatha’ (be opened), and the praises of thy God be thine everlasting theme.
—
Rev. Francis Storr.