In "Bridled Tongue: Constructing a Bridle, Part 1," Pastor Albert N. Martin expounds James 1:26, arguing that a bridled tongue is the measure of true religion. He provides biblical warrant for detailed instruction in practical godliness, emphasizing its distinctively Christian motivation and ability. Martin then outlines the first three 'raw materials' for constructing a bridle for the tongue: consistent, specific prayer (Psalm 141:1-3, Psalm 19:13-14), conscious watchfulness (Psalm 39:1, Proverbs 10:19, Proverbs 17:27, James 1:19), and constant remembrance of God's sober warnings (Proverbs 13:3, Psalm 101:5, Matthew 12:36-37). He urges believers to actively engage in these disciplines to mortify sins of speech.
Primary Texts
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James 1:26This verse provides the overarching theme and definition of a bridled tongue as the measure of true religion, setting the stage for the practical instruction.
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Psalm 141:1-3David's specific prayer to God to 'set a watch' and 'keep the door of my lips' is expounded as the primary example of consistent, specific prayer for speech.
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Psalm 39:1David's resolution to 'take heed to my ways' and 'keep my mouth with a muzzle' is expounded as the primary example of conscious watchfulness over speech.
“Hence a bridled tongue, the measure to which the tongue is under the bridling influences of the Spirit and the Word, to that extent a man's religion is the opposite of vain religion. That is, true religion.”
“Christian instruction says, do this because of the privileges you have in Christ and because you ought to strive to please Christ. The motive for obedience to these commands, as we've indicated, is distinctively Christian.”
“But listen, judge yourself then as being devoid of Christian principles. Don't judge those of us who, because we know his love and want to please him, want specific instruction how we may please him.”
“For remember, I am to bridle my tongue. Don't go asking God to bridle it. He says, you're to bridle it. If any man seemeth to be religious while he bridleth not his tongue, the bridling of the tongue is your responsibility as a new man in Jesus Christ.”
“If we are that careful, lest the smells that come from our mouth offend for a fleeting social contact, oh, how much more should we be careful of the words that cut and wound. But if I would be that conscious, lest I offend someone's olfactory nerves and merely give them an unpleasant sensation when the olfactory nerve picked up garlic and registered in the brain and said, yuck, how much more should I be careful with words that do not offend mere olfactory nerves? that come out and may carry with a man into eternity.”
“They are not roadblocks in his path to hell. They are road signs to keep him in the narrow way that leads to life. They say, uh, uh, uh, uh, not this way. That's not the path that leads to life.”
“When the Scripture says, Thou shalt call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins, this is one of the sins He came to save you from, the sin of an unbridled tongue. And He's your Savior only to the extent that He saves from specific sin.”
Applications
All listeners
Conclude the study with two very practical studies in the Scripture concerning how we may have bridle tongues, or the biblical directives for the construction of a bridle for our tongues.
If your heart is devoid of gospel principles, don't judge my heart as being devoid of gospel principles. If your spirit cannot respond with joy to specific instruction because basically you're still a rebel against God who's cloaking your rebellion by pious talk about wanting lofty, Christ-honoring teaching and away with practical, detailed teaching in godliness. My friend, don't judge others by the corrupt state of your own heart.
Be prepared for this kind of backlash. Even from so-called reformed men.
Don't go asking God to bridle it. He says, you're to bridle it. If any man seemeth to be religious while he bridleth not his tongue, the bridling of the tongue is your responsibility as a new man in Jesus Christ.
Could it not be, dear fellow that one of the reasons we have sinned so grievously in the past in not having a bridal tongue is that we have not consistently and specifically prayed for this very thing.
When you think of the various things that you make a part of every prayer session, every day's prayer is this one of them?
As you go forth into that day thinking of all the people you'll contact all the circumstances in which that door of the mouth is going to swing open do you pray, Lord, set a watch upon it bring those four soldiers as sentinels before me bring them there, Lord truth, love, necessity and wisdom and oh God assist me that they shall keep the door of my mouth.
It's not enough for me to pray Lord set a watch. In answer to that prayer I must be watchful concerning what I speak.
I'd far rather have somebody ask me a question and look at me and say, what's the matter, you dumb bunny, can't you speak? And say, sir, I'm obeying the scriptures. I want to be slow to speak.
If something begins to be discussed in a group and you're active in it and all of a sudden you realize the conversation is drifting into gossip or meddlesome speech, it is abusive speech, it is not healing, it is not edifying, and all of a sudden you're silent and people say, what's the matter? You say, I'm seeking to obey what the scripture says. Slow to speak. I am consciously watching what passes from my lips.
And if you're indifferent to the warnings, you're indifferent to the warnings. You're indifferent to a means ordained for your preservation, and you're in dangerous ground.
If when we get on the telephone, just for a nice little chit-chatty time, if we would say, let us pause to pray that God will direct our conversation, we may seem a little odd doing it at first.
Some of you may have to remind yourselves of this matter of specific prayer by putting a little three-by-five card in your Bible in the chapters that you read for your devotions and put down there, pray about your tongue until it becomes second nature to you to pray that God would help you. If you come into social gatherings, and you find that that's there where you fail to be watchful, then before you go out, make that a matter of specific prayer. Maybe you ought to write on a little piece of paper, or maybe you ought to just print in, with a felt marker on your hand, watch your tongue, and every once in a while look at your hand.
If that's what it's going to take to break the pattern of careless speech, then so be it! Keep that pattern by the grace of God. Break it! This is cutting off right hands, blocking out right eyes.
When it does, at the risk of being considered a little prudish, if you've not been engaging in unedifying conversation, you speak out and say, brothers and sisters, this doesn't fit what we've been hearing. If you haven't, I've been guilty, and the Lord reminds you of it, you stand up and say, look, I've been sinning with the rest of you here, but as for me, I'm done. Either the conversation changes or I'm leaving.
Let me ask you this morning, how much true religion do you have? Is there a bridal on your tongue constructed of consistent prayer, constructed of constant watchfulness, constructed of continual remembrance of the warnings of God?
Why don't you go home this afternoon and do some bridal construction? And get alone with God and ask Him to help you that that bridal shall be upon your tongue to His praise and to His glory.
So look to Him, call upon Him, trust Him to be your Savior from the sin of an unbridled tongue.
A full transcript is available on the
tab. 134 paragraphs, roughly 49 minutes.
Machine transcription
Introduction: The Bridled Tongue as the Measure of True Religion
We come this morning to the fifth in a series of studies on the basic theme,
A Bridled Tongue, The Measure of True Religion. That title to our series of studies is, of course, one extracted from and dictated by the statement of James in James 1 and verse 26, If any man thinketh himself or seemeth to be religious, while he bridleth not his tongue but deceiveth his heart, this man's religion is vain.
Hence a bridled tongue, the measure to which the tongue is under the bridling influences of the Spirit and the Word, to that extent a man's religion is the opposite of vain religion. That is, true religion. In our previous studies, having expounded this text, we then considered four distinct paths down which a bridled tongue will not deliberately and knowingly go.
And I chose these four, not arbitrarily, but because I felt they were four distinct areas in which, perhaps, we could go. Perhaps we as a congregation needed most to hear the directive of the Scriptures. We saw that a bridled tongue will not engage in false witness. A bridled tongue will not engage in what Paul calls in Ephesians 4 corrupt speech, nor will it engage in what Paul calls in Colossians 3.8 abusive speech, nor will it engage in
what we saw last week from 2 Thessalonians. We saw that in Ephesians 3.11, 1 Timothy 5.13, and 1 Peter 4.15, gossipy, meddlesome speech.
And I've been greatly encouraged from a pastoral standpoint that many of you have faced specific sins in these areas, have confessed them to God and, where necessary, to one another, and have truly repented of them. I received several encouraging phone calls last Lord's Day. Several of you spoke to me personally. And thanked me for the wounds that came to your own heart, illustrating what the Scripture says, that he that rebukes a man shall have more love than the man who passes by the issue.
The Biblical Warrant for Practical Instruction in Godliness
Now there's only one thing better than getting right in this area, and that is keeping right. And so I want to conclude the study with two very practical studies in the Scripture concerning how we may have bridle tongues, or the biblical directives for the construction of a bridle for our tongues. We'll take the imagery of James 1.26, the figure of speech, that the tongue is bridled, that is governed by an external restraining influence as the horse is bridled.
And we want to see what it is that constructs a bridle for the tongue of the child of God. Now, if you want to make a bridle for a horse, why don't you make a bridle for a horse? Or a mule? You go out and get some leather or some rope, and you begin construction of the bridle.
Now where do we go for the raw materials to construct a bridle for this unruly member, the tongue? How can we find the materials so that our tongues will not go down the forbidden paths of false witnessing, corrupt, abusive, or gossipy and meddlesome speech? So this is going to be very intense. It's going to be a very intensive kind of study.
It's really going to be a workshop in bridle construction. Now there are some who would question this kind of preaching. They would call it moralizing, that we ought not to be concerned with such mundane issues as these. They would call it legalistic.
So before I go into the workshop in which we will try to construct this bridle for our tongues out of the raw materials given to us in Scripture. Let me take a few minutes to show the biblical warrant for this kind of instruction that I'm attempting to give this morning. First of all the Bible makes very clear that specific detailed instruction in practical godliness is an apostolic precedent. In other words, when the apostles would instruct their new converts.
They did not simply instruct the new converts. They did not simply instruct the apostles. They did not simply instruct the new converts. simply give them great and lofty doctrinal concepts which, as it were, provide the driving power for a life of godliness. Nor did they merely set before them the glory of Christ
who is the great example of godliness. They gave specific, detailed instruction as to how to be godly. Just a couple of examples. 1 Thessalonians 4, verses 1 and 2. 1 Thessalonians
4, verses 1 and 2. Finally then, brethren, we beseech and exhort you in the Lord Jesus that as ye received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, even as ye do walk, that ye abound more and more. For ye know what charge we gave you through the Lord Jesus. And then he moves into the very practical matter of sexual purity.
1 Thessalonians 4, verses 1 and 2. 1 Thessalonians 4, verses 1 and 2. But the phrase that I want you to focus on is this. Ye received of us not only that ye ought to walk so as to please God, but how ye ought to walk. The apostle was engaged
in giving what we might call a manual of practical directives for true godliness. A manual of these things. He told them how. And when you read through the passage, it says, pastoral epistles and fine directives given to wives, to old men and to old women, to young men, to young women. Paul says to Timothy in 1 Timothy 4, 11, these things command and teach. What
things? These practical, detailed instructions of godly living. You take Titus chapter 2 and verse 1 and following, you have the same thing. Titus is commanded to tell the older women to do this, the younger women to do this, the mothers to do this, the older women to do this, the older women to do this, the younger women to do this, the mothers to do this, the mothers to do this, to do this. Why? He says, in so doing, you'll be a good minister. And then, of course, the classic
text is 2 Timothy 3, 16. All scripture which is inspired of God, it is inspired of God, yes, it is verbally inspired, is profitable for what? Teaching, reproof, correction, instruction. And that word instruction means child training in the realm of righteousness. The scriptures are given
to train us to do this. And then, of course, the classic text is 2 Timothy 3, 16. All scripture just like our teacher teached us in the life of godliness. Just like you train a child by specific repeated instructions concerning the disciplines necessary to come to maturity, so likewise we must be disciplined, child trained in the life of godliness. So there is warrant for detailed,
The Distinctively Christian Nature of Practical Instruction
specific instruction in practical godliness. And then there is one other thing I want to underscore before we start constructing bridles together. And it is this. We want to note the distinctively Christian nature of this kind of instruction in the Bible.
That's why it can never be called moralistic if we are giving it biblically. This kind of distinctive Christian instruction in the Scriptures, or this kind of instruction, is distinctively Christian. First of all, in the motive for which the instruction is given and in which it is to be received. When Paul is going to give some specific instructions about husbands and wives and servants and masters and the rest, how does he start it in Ephesians 5.1?
He starts it in a thoroughly and a distinctively Christian framework. Be ye therefore imitators of God as beloved children, and walk in love as Christ, Christ also loved you and gave himself up for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for an odor of a sweet smell. And all the way through, every bit of instruction is constantly enforced with evangelical Christian motivation. Husbands love as Christ loved. Wives be subject as the church is subject.
Masters treat your servants right because you've got a master in heaven, even the Lord Jesus. You see, moralisms simply say, do this because it's good in itself. Christian instruction says, do this because of the privileges you have in Christ and because you ought to strive to please Christ. The motive for obedience to these commands, as we've indicated, is distinctively Christian.
If ye love me, Jesus said, ye will keep my commandments. We make it our aim, Paul says in 2 Corinthians. 5, 9, to be well-pleasing unto him. Not only the motive in giving the instruction and the motive in obeying is distinctively Christian, but the ability to obey is distinctively Christian.
Philippians 2, 12 and 13, Therefore I have no sympathy for those who say that we need not, give this kind of distailed instruction, as though we were more efficient teachers of godliness than the apostles.
Paul says, I needed to teach you how to please God. And woe be unto preachers and teachers who are wiser than the apostles.
May God deliver us from such wisdom.
I have very little sympathy for those who say, well, that's moralistic. Now, it may be moralistic to you, my brother, my sister, if you know nothing of love to Christ, if you know nothing of what it is to say, Lord, I want to please you, if you know nothing of what it is when you see a duty to flee to Christ and say, Lord Jesus, be my strength. But listen, judge yourself then as being devoid of Christian principles. Don't judge those of us who, because we know his love and want to please him, want specific instruction how we may please him.
If your heart is devoid of gospel principles, don't judge my heart as being devoid of gospel principles. Don't judge my heart as being devoid of gospel principles. If your spirit cannot respond with joy to specific instruction because basically you're still a rebel against God who's cloaking your rebellion by pious talk about wanting lofty, Christ-honoring teaching and away with practical, detailed teaching in godliness. My friend, don't judge others by the corrupt state of your own heart.
I say to you young men, particularly going out in the ministry, be prepared for this kind of backlash. Even from so-called reformed men.
Moralistic. Imagine preaching to the people of God on how to make bridles.
Ah, my friend, I need to know how to make a bridle for this tongue because I want something more than vain religion, don't you? And the measure of my true religion is the measure to which this tongue is bridled. And would God be so cruel as to set the standard of a bridled tongue before me and then leave me alone? And leave me in the dark as to how I may construct the bridle?
Thank God he's not that God. Having said that my tongue should be bridled, he says, my child, come to the workshop and I'll show you the materials by which the bridle for your tongue may be constructed. All right? So much for that introduction.
Two Kinds of Bridle Materials: Direct and Indirect
I had to get that off my chest. All right? Now, there are two kinds of materials for the construction of this bridle. There are those...
There are those materials that we might call the visible, the obvious, the more directly involved materials for the construction of the bridle. And then there are those less obvious, to use a different figure, the indirect materials. So I want to deal this morning with those obvious and direct materials needed to construct a bridle for our tongues. And next week, God willing, the less obvious, the indirect, and I'll give you three this morning, time permitting.
They are consistent prayer, conscious watchfulness, and constant remembrance.
Material 1: Consistent, Specific Prayer for a Bridled Tongue
First of all, if you're to have a bridle constructed for your tongue, there must be consistent, specific prayer focused on this very thing. And I want you to look at one key text, and then we'll just bring in...
Second one, as sort of an enforcement. Psalm 141 and verse 1. Now, we're in the workshop together, and we say from our hearts, Lord Jesus, give me for your praise a bridled tongue. Teach me how to construct a bridle.
For remember, I am to bridle my tongue. Don't go asking God to bridle it. He says, you're to bridle it. If any man seemeth to be religious while he bridleth not his tongue, the bridling of the tongue is your responsibility as a new man in Jesus Christ.
Lord, what's the material out of which the bridle is constructed? First material is this, consistent, specific prayer focused on this very thing. Psalm 141 and verse 1.
Lord, I have called upon thee. Make haste unto me. Give ear to my voice. When I call unto thee, let my prayer be set forth as incense before thee, the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.
These first two verses are a general petition. Lord, give me access and acceptability as I pray. And may I share one of the things that God really dealt with me during my times of prayer with Mr. Blaze, was that I noticed again and again when we'd pray together, before he ever would start asking, asking God for anything, he would say, Lord, assist us as we attempt to pray.
That's what the psalmist is doing here, isn't he? I have called, make haste, give ear, let my prayer be acceptable. Lord, may my praying be true prayer. Now, having given that general petition, what's the first thing he prays about?
Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth. Keep the door of my lips. Then he prays, about the state of his heart, incline not my heart to any evil thing, to practice deeds of wickedness. Then he prays for grace to be patient, under opposition and under rebuke, let the righteous smite me, etc.
But notice at the top of his list, in his devotional exercises, is this prayer, specific pointed prayer, concerning his lips. Now, what's the figure he uses? Notice, Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth. Keep the door of my lips.
Now, David was a military man and the figure from the battlefield and from the military structure, those figures permeate the Psalms of David. You find it in a passage like Psalm 127. The watchman waketh but in vain unless the Lord keeps the city. Well, you know what?
the watch was. The watch was the soldier or the soldiers, plural, who were appointed either to stay awake outside the camp of the soldiers that no unwarranted intruder come within, or to guard a prison so that nothing within that ought to stay within could get out. But the whole figure here is of the official guardian of the people to keep unwanted things from without coming in, things within from getting out. Now here's the picture. David
says, Lord, here's my mouth, and it has a door, like the door of a city. And Lord, the only things that should come out of that door are things that are pleasing to you. But Lord, left to myself, that door will be swinging open, letting out things left and right that ought never to come out. Lord, will you not please send a sentry, or I like to think of it, send four soldiers to guard the door of my mouth. You know what those soldiers are? You
know what their names are? Here they are. Truth, love, necessity, and wisdom. Lord, put four soldiers in front of my mouth. And every time the door would open and something
would march out, let first of all truth question him and say, do you answer to what I ask? Let us pray with deep teaser. mü Gas i am, as you would come forth from the mouth of that Child of God, are you true if not, go back inside. mü And then if he not's and says, yes I am true, then a soldier called love would step forward and say, do you answer to my name? Are you coming out because love demands
that you come out? Are you coming out because love impels these words, even the rebukes that must come must come out? están más amados, santos que os puedo dar este nombre. de juzgados, quiere que yo se entre aCool. Verde, en obvio que dejará que hayaulu que te entre lo que me di�olo.
must be rebuked, motivated by love, speaking the truth in love. If not, love says, you go back in. You're not allowed to come out. Well, if he can say, yes, Mr. Truth and Mr.
Love, I answer to you too, then Mr. Necessity steps forward and says, do you answer to my name? Is it necessary for you to speak what you're about to speak? Do you come forth pressed by necessity or simply because you'd like to go out and have a little stroll? It would
be convenient. If you're not coming forth on a mission of necessity, go on back in. Then if he can answer to Mr. Truth, Mr. Love, Mr. Necessity, then Mr. Wisdom steps forward
and says, is it the part of wisdom for you to come out right now, or would it be better if you went back inside and came out a couple hours from now, a couple days from now, a couple weeks from now? And if you can face those four centuries and find that all that would come out can answer to them, then he's welcome. This is David's prayer. Set a watch, O Lord, upon my lips.
Keep the door of my mouth. William Jay, the great preacher who had such a formative influence upon Charles Spurgeon, has an exposition of this text in which he has four heads. I'm not going to preach his sermon, but I'll give you his four heads. He says, first of all, David's prayer indicates that he understood the importance of this subject of a bridal tongue. He puts it first in his prayer, keep the door of my mouth. Secondly, this prayer
indicates that David realized he was in danger of sinning in this area. Keep the door of my mouth. I'm in danger of allowing things to come out of that. I'm in danger of allowing that door that ought not come out of that door. Thirdly, David is confessing his inability
to preserve himself from this sin. He says, Lord, that door will swing open unless you put the watch there. So he confesses his inability. And then he shows in the fourth place his wisdom in applying to God for assistance. Lord, I've called upon thee, O dear child
of God. Do you see what David saw? The tremendous importance of this subject, a bridal tongue. Do you realize your constant danger of sinning here? Do you feel your inability to preserve
yourself? And do you display the wisdom of applying to the living God for assistance?
There's one other text that we'll look at just briefly, Psalm 19. And then I'm going to say a few things by way of application on this first ingredient. First, raw material for a bridled tongue. In the 19th Psalm, David prays, verse 13, Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins. Let them not have dominion over me.
Then shall I be upright, and I shall be clear from the great transgression. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight. Notice, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. He's conscious that he stands in a saving relationship to his God. God is his rock and his redeemer. And after praying in a general sense that
he be kept from sins, he then zeroes in upon two areas, the words of his mouth and then that from which they flow, the meditation of his heart. Could it not be, dear fellow that one of the reasons we have sinned so grievously in the past in not having a bridal tongue is that we have not consistently and specifically prayed for this very thing. I believe James' words come home to us here. Ye have not because ye ask not.
When you think of the various things that you make a part of every prayer session, every day's prayer is this one of them?
Is it? As you go forth into that day thinking of all the people you'll contact all the circumstances in which that door of the mouth is going to swing open do you pray, Lord, set a watch upon it bring those four soldiers as sentinels before me bring them there, Lord truth, love, necessity and wisdom and oh God assist me that they shall keep the door of my mouth.
Material 2: Conscious Watchfulness Regarding Speech
As we begin consistently and specifically to pray about this thing we shall begin to see the answer of God in the bridling of our tongues. But then the second raw material out of which the bridle is constructed is conscious watchfulness regarding our speech.
And you find prayer and watchfulness of course joined together in the words of our Lord in the 26th of Matthew. Watch and pray that ye enter not into temptation. Conscious watchfulness regarding our speech. Now there are three or four texts of scripture one that we'll look at in more detail and then several with which we'll enforce it.
Again in the Psalms. Psalm 39 and verse 1. And I'm using these that have a lot of imagery in them. A lot of figures of speech.
Psalm 39 and verse 1. David says I said I will take heed to my ways. See he's not praying that God will take heed to him here. He says this is what I'm going to do.
As a redeemed man as one who's in saving relationship to Jehovah I will take heed. I will be watchful to my ways. Particularly that I sin not with my tongue. See the general statement.
I will take heed to my ways in general. But to the ways of my speech in particular. I will keep my mouth with a bridle. Better translated.
I will keep my mouth with a muzzle. While the wicked is before me. There is a word, a Hebrew word for bridle that means legitimately bridle. This word can mean bridle or muzzle.
And the other place it is found is in the Deuteronomy passage. The same Hebrew root. Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn. Now a muzzle is different from a bridle.
Now get the picture. David said I will muzzle my mouth. Now what's a muzzle? You've seen.
How many of you kids watch that circus program Friday nights with your folks on the television? And sometimes when they have the trained bears what do they always have on the bear's mouth? They have a muzzle. It's this leather thing that keeps the mouth shut so that when he would open it there's something stronger than his jaws that keeps it shut.
There is an external restraint upon the opening of the jaws lest it clamp on the arm of the trainer or someone else. That's what a muzzle is. Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth the corn. What would a person do?
He'd say boy that corn, that ox is getting too fat from the corn that he's treading out and he's eating up my profits. So he puts a muzzle on it. When the ox would bend down to chew the corn that he was treading out at the mill he can't. You see the muzzle is that external restraint.
Now David says I will muzzle myself. I will muzzle my mouth. Conscious restraint I will learn to shut my mouth. To change the figure you've heard about people who shoot now and aim later.
The person who doesn't think before he acts. This is the person who allows verbal shot to come out of his mouth before he's aimed. David says no I will muzzle. I will exercise conscious watchfulness and restraint in my speech.
It's not enough for me to pray Lord set a watch. In answer to that prayer I must be watchful concerning what I speak. James says it this way. James 1 in verse 2.
19 Wherefore let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak. Every time someone would come and say hey I think I've got something you need to learn. What does he say? He says boy let your ears cultivate the most trigger like sensitivity.
The minute someone would teach you say yes, yes, yes. He said when that tongue would start to speak. He says be suspicious of it. Swift to hear but slow to speak.
Look at these two texts in Proverbs. Dealing with the same idea of the conscious watchfulness regarding our speech. Proverbs 10 and verse 19. In the multitude of words there wanteth not transgression.
The person who just opens his mouth without any conscious effort to restrain what comes out sooner or later sin will come out. You'll never find a multitude of words without finding some sin in them. Why? Because the multitude of words flows out without conscious restraint.
But here's the contrast. He that refraineth his lips. He does it. The Lord doesn't do it.
He doesn't. He that refraineth his lips doeth it. He that refraineth his lips doeth it. He that refraineth his lips doeth it.
He that refraineth his lips doeth it. He that refraineth his lips doeth it wisely. And then Proverbs 17.27.
Proverbs 17.27. He that spareth his words hath knowledge, and he that is of a cool spirit is a man of understanding. He that spareth his words.
God says it's wonderful to be stingy in one area. It's wonderful to be stingy with your words. Be a miser with your words. And let me use a couple of illustrations that may help underscore this.
Suppose every time you gave a word away, you gave a nickel away. Some of us be in the poorhouse before sundown. All right, now. Follow me now.
This is a grotesque illustration, but I hope it'll get the message across. Suppose when you gave that nickel away, if that word could face those four centuries and answer to them, it would always gain another nickel. It was a hundred percent return on your investment. But if it couldn't, if it was not true, you lost your nickel.
If it was not pronounced by and in love, you lost. Suppose you lost your nickel if it didn't meet that standard, but you got double returns if it did. How many of you would be wealthy? How many of us would be pauperists?
You know what I hope will happen over the next few days and weeks, and I hope for the rest of our lives? That God will bring this back to us again and again, sparing my words. Would I give away what I'm going to say now if everything I say, every word, was a nickel? To return with investments because they were the words of life that we find in the book of Proverbs?
Death in life and the power of the tongue, or would I be a pauper because they failed to meet that standard? Now, let me use another illustration. This is very, very grotesque. As the kids would say, very grotesque.
But I think the kids will remember it. I did a very stupid thing a couple of years ago. That's not the last stupid thing I did, but I'm thinking now of this particular thing. We were at Carlisle for a week's vacation over New Year's Day, and they asked me to speak at their New Year's Eve service.
Well, I liked the flavor of garlic in things, but I had never, never had a whole garlic clove anywhere where I could see what it was like to cut a clove. I didn't like to cut it up on something, so it was sitting on the back of Mrs. Rieslinger's stove there. I saw it all week, and it was really getting to me because I'd smell it, and I'd say, mmm, that smells nice.
So that afternoon, it was December 31st in the afternoon, we were going to have, as I remember it was chicken noodle soup, Campbell's chicken noodle soup. And I said, you know, I think I'm going to add a little flavor to it. I took one of those little garlic cloves, and I sliced it up very thin into my soup. And I just ate it.
And it was great going down. But when I was done, with about 20 feet between me and my wife, she'd make these awful faces like she was tortured. And I spent the whole afternoon, I'm not jesting here now, I spent two or three hours before I had to go out to preach that evening. They had some mouthwash that you had to dilute, one part to about 20.
I took that stuff straight until it burned the inside of my mouth out. I brushed my teeth. I used baking soda. I was sucking lozenges.
Doing everything under the sun. I was doing everything under the sun. To try to kill that offensive garlic breath, at least sufficiently that I could peer in public. But to know of it, it hung on me for about a week.
But you know, it did something to me, and you know what it did to me? And here's the point of the illustration. When I was in the company of people that night, you talk about sparing your words. They have an advantage over us here in that the pulpit area is a good 20 feet from the first puke.
So I didn't mind standing up and preaching. I figured there was enough good clear air between me and them to neutralize it. But when I came into personal dealings with people, I was consciously restraining myself from saying any other word than that which was absolutely necessary. I was going to keep that potential offensive orifice shut unless it was necessary.
But as I was saying, I was going to keep that potential offensive orifice shut unless it was necessary. But as I was saying, I was going to keep that potential offensive orifice shut unless it was necessary. But as I was preparing for this study this morning, I thought, Lord, and here's the point, follow me, get it, get it. If I would be that conscious, lest I offend someone's olfactory nerves and merely give them an unpleasant sensation when the olfactory nerve picked up garlic and registered in the brain and said, yuck, how much more should I be careful with words that do not offend mere olfactory nerves?
But go down, as the scripture says, into the innermost parts of a man-words that can cut and can wound, that can build up prejudice and attitudes of distance between believer and believer. If we are that careful, lest the smells that come from our mouth offend for a fleeting social contact, oh, how much more should we be careful of the words that cut and wound. But if I would be that conscious, lest I offend someone's olfactory nerves and merely give them an unpleasant sensation when the olfactory nerve picked up garlic and registered in the brain and said, yuck, how much more should I be careful with words that do not offend mere olfactory nerves? that come out and may carry with a man into eternity.
That's what it means to be consciously watchful. I'd far rather have somebody ask me a question and look at me and say, what's the matter, you dumb bunny, can't you speak? And say, sir, I'm obeying the scriptures. I want to be slow to speak.
If something begins to be discussed in a group and you're active in it and all of a sudden you realize the conversation is drifting into gossip or meddlesome speech, it is abusive speech, it is not healing, it is not edifying, and all of a sudden you're silent and people say, what's the matter?
You say, I'm seeking to obey what the scripture says. Slow to speak. I am consciously watching what passes from my lips. Now, just as some people need more grace, from God in the area of patience than others, some people have a naturally impatient spirit, other people by virtue of their temperament inherited from mom and dad are more naturally patient.
So, some of you need much more grace in this area than others. I'm fully aware of that. But the grace of God is sufficient to take the most loquacious, free-speaking person and harness that natural tendency. To where he consciously guards his speech.
That's the second raw material for a bridled speech. Not only consistent, specific prayer, focused on this, set a watch, O Lord, before my lips. Keep the door of my mouth. But a conscious watchfulness regarding that speech.
Material 3: Constant Remembrance of God's Sober Warnings
I will put a muzzle upon my mouth. I will be swift to hear. Slow to speak. And then I close very quickly with the third raw material out of which the bridle is constructed, and I'm calling it constant remembrance of the sober warnings of God.
Why are the warnings of God in Scripture for a Christian? We know why the warnings of God are there for the unbeliever. To those of you this morning, out of Christ, strangers to repentance and faith, the warnings of God are roadblocks in your path to hell. God says, Flee from the wrath to come.
Be not deceived. God is not mocked. What you sow, you'll reap. For the unbeliever, the warnings of God are roadblocks in his path to hell.
So that if any of you stumbles into hell, you stumble into hell, willfully plowing over, under, or around the warnings of God given to you in his word and in your own conscience. Well, what then are the warnings of God for a believer? The believer whose destiny is not hell, but whose destiny is the celestial city. What are the warnings of God?
They are not roadblocks in his path to hell. They are road signs to keep him in the narrow way that leads to life. They say, uh, uh, uh, uh, not this way. That's not the path that leads to life.
The sign over here, no, no, not that way. And the warnings are the very means which God uses to keep the true believer in the way that leadeth unto life. Now let's look at some of those warnings concerning the tongue. And if you're indifferent to the warnings, you're indifferent to the warnings.
You're indifferent to a means ordained for your preservation, and you're in dangerous ground. Proverbs 13 and verse 3. He that guardeth his mouth, conscious watchfulness, see it? He that guardeth his mouth, keepeth his life.
He that openeth wide his lips. He says, we're all friendly here, doors wide open all the time. You all come. He said, he that just throws the door of his lips open and it swings freely on well-oiled hinges, that man, he says, shall have destruction.
You better construct a bridle of consistent, specific prayer and of conscious watchfulness because if you don't, God says, destruction is coming. Some form of destruction. If you're a child of God and you do not restrain your tongue, you do not pray for a restrained tongue and walk in willful disobedience, whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. For this cause many are weak and sickly among you and some sleep, Paul says, concerning the sin of the Corinthians.
That's a warning of God put there for your own preservation. Turn back to chapter 10. We go back to verse 19. In the multitude of worlds, there wanteth not, that is, there will not lack transgression.
This is a form of warning. God says, I warn you, if you just talk without conscious restraint, if you allow your tongue to run out without the influence of fervent prayer guiding and directing it, you're going to sin. Now, does a Christian deliberately set his face in a path of sin and say, yes, I'll choose that? Of course not.
It's contrary to what he is as a new man in Jesus Christ. And you and I are constantly to remember these warnings. Look at Psalm 105 and verse 1 as another of those warnings. Psalm 101 and verse 5, 101.
Whoso privily slandereth his neighbor, him will I destroy, him that hath a high look and a proud heart, will I not suffer? David speaking as the king, the righteous king over Jerusalem, the greater than David, of course, speaking in the absolute sense. Whoso privily slandereth his neighbor, will I destroy? God says, a man who engages in slander will be the object of my destroying wrath and anger.
Well, you see, a child of God says, I must not fit that category. I'm the object of his love and his mercy. God says, in essence, prove it by the actions of your tongue, the warnings of God. And then, of course, that sober warning of our Lord in the twelfth of Matthew.
Practical Application: Implementing Bridle Construction
By thy words thou shalt be justified. By thy words thou shalt be condemned. Every idle word that men shall speak they shall give an account thereof in the day of judgment. I made some suggestions last week that I said might have sounded radical, but do you see how they fit this Biblical concept of how we construct a bridle for our tongues?
If when we get on the telephone, just for a nice little chit-chatty time, if we would say, let us pause to pray that God will direct our conversation, we may seem a little odd doing it at first. Any new skill, any new path of duty seems odd when one first sees it. Seems odd when one first undertakes it. Who of us sat down in a car for the first time and felt, well, this is nothing, this is, you know, drive off?
None of us. None of us. We felt strange until we felt at home with the disciplines of a wheel. And some of us real old-timers had to learn with a shift and all the rest.
Some of us, even with a shift on the floor, not even up on the wheel, we're really dating ourselves, aren't we? See? Yes. Well, this is a Biblical discipline, exercise thyself unto godliness.
We never feel natural when we begin to implement it. But so what? Are we convinced it's a Biblical discipline? Then we begin to implement it.
Some of you may have to remind yourselves of this matter of specific prayer by putting a little three-by-five card in your Bible in the chapters that you read for your devotions and put down there, pray about your tongue until it becomes second nature to you to pray that God would help you. If you come into social gatherings, and you find that that's there where you fail to be watchful, then before you go out, make that a matter of specific prayer. Maybe you ought to write on a little piece of paper, or maybe you ought to just print in, with a felt marker on your hand, watch your tongue, and every once in a while look at your hand. You say, you crazy?
No, I'm dead serious. If that's what it's going to take to break the pattern of careless speech, then so be it! Keep that pattern by the grace of God. Break it!
This is cutting off right hands, blocking out right eyes. I have reason to believe that this is not an unwarranted exhortation, even with regard to our Sunday afternoons downstairs, that sometimes our conversation ceases to be edified. When it does, at the risk of being considered a little prudish, if you've not been engaging in unedifying conversation, you speak out and say, brothers and sisters, this doesn't fit what we've been hearing. If you haven't, I've been guilty, and the Lord reminds you of it, you stand up and say, look, I've been sinning with the rest of you here, but as for me, I'm done.
Either the conversation changes or I'm leaving. That's the kind of honest, transparent obedience to the Word of God that we must have in our own dealings with one another, as well as with our dealings with the Lord. A bridal tongue, the measure of true religion. Let me ask you this morning, how much true religion do you have?
Is there a bridal on your tongue constructed of consistent prayer, constructed of constant watchfulness, constructed of continual remembrance of the warnings of God? If not, though the Scripture says that you're to do no work on the Sabbath, the work of constructing bridals of this nature is pleasing to God. Why don't you go home this afternoon and do some bridal construction? And get alone with God and ask Him to help you that that bridal shall be upon your tongue to His praise and to His glory.
When the Scripture says, Thou shalt call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins, this is one of the sins He came to save you from, the sin of an unbridled tongue. And He's your Savior only to the extent that He saves from specific sin. So look to Him, call upon Him, trust Him to be your Savior from the sin of an unbridled tongue. Let us pray.
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Passages Expounded
James 1:26
This verse provides the overarching theme and definition of a bridled tongue as the measure of true religion, setting the stage for the practical instruction.
Psalm 141:1-3
David's specific prayer to God to 'set a watch' and 'keep the door of my lips' is expounded as the primary example of consistent, specific prayer for speech.
Psalm 39:1
David's resolution to 'take heed to my ways' and 'keep my mouth with a muzzle' is expounded as the primary example of conscious watchfulness over speech.
Texts Expounded
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This verse serves as the foundational text for the entire sermon series, defining the bridled tongue as the measure of true religion.
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Paul's instruction on 'how ye ought to walk' is used to demonstrate the apostolic precedent for specific, detailed instruction in practical godliness.
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This verse is used to establish the profitability of all Scripture for 'instruction in righteousness,' meaning child-training in godliness.
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David's prayer 'Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth; keep the door of my lips' is presented as the first raw material for constructing a bridle: consistent, specific prayer.
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David's prayer for his words and heart to be acceptable to God is another example of specific prayer for speech.
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David's resolve 'I will take heed to my ways... I will keep my mouth with a muzzle' introduces conscious watchfulness as the second raw material.
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The instruction 'swift to hear, slow to speak' is presented as a key aspect of conscious watchfulness over speech.
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This proverb, 'In the multitude of words there wanteth not transgression,' warns against unrestrained speech and commends refraining the lips.
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This proverb, 'He that spareth his words hath knowledge,' encourages being stingy with words as a mark of wisdom.
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This proverb, 'He that guardeth his mouth keepeth his life; but he that openeth wide his lips shall have destruction,' is presented as a sober warning from God.
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David's declaration 'Whoso privily slandereth his neighbor, him will I destroy' is presented as a divine warning against slander.
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Jesus' warning about giving an account for every idle word is presented as a sober warning concerning the tongue.