Matthew 12:33-37
Essential Prerequisite for Bridling the Tongue
In this sixth sermon on the use of the tongue, Albert Martin argues that the essential prerequisite for overcoming the sins of the tongue is a regenerated heart -- specifically, the new heart and new spirit promised in the new covenant as prophesied in Ezekiel 36:26-27. Drawing on the two analogies of Matthew 12:33-35 (the good tree and its fruit; the hidden treasure and its outflow), Martin demonstrates that corrupt speech is merely the symptom of a corrupt source, and that no external discipline can remedy the problem apart from inward renewal. He then presents two reasons why regeneration is indispensable: without it, believers have neither gospel-born power (grounded in union with Christ as expounded in Romans 6 and Colossians 3) nor gospel-born motives (love to Christ, love to the body, a good conscience, desire to please God, and fear of grieving the Holy Spirit) to govern the tongue. The sermon concludes by qualifying the doctrine against two satanic distortions -- the temptation for the unregenerate to abandon tongue-control entirely, and the temptation for parents to neglect external discipline of their children's speech on the grounds that only regeneration can ultimately change it.
Primary Texts
Topics
Outline 9 sections · 65 min
- Introduction and Scripture Reading 0:00
- Series Context and Sermon Orientation 3:17
- Defining the Terms: Prerequisite and Essential 7:54
- The Essential Prerequisite Identified: A Renewed Heart 10:55
- The Essential Prerequisite Justified: Gospel-Born Power 30:53
- The Essential Prerequisite Justified: Gospel-Born Motives 39:39
- Searching Application: The Tongue as Evidence of Unregenerate State 50:33
- The Essential Prerequisite Qualified: Two Satanic Distortions 57:00
- Closing Appeal, Self-Examination, and Prayer 61:20
Key Quotes
“In the day of judgment, God will need nothing more to send some people to hell than a transcript of their words. That's all.”
“A good tree is essential to good fruit. That is, a good tree is essential to healthy, healing, God-honoring words.”
“when God lays upon us the duty of doing what only he can do It is to the end that we make the business of applying ourselves to the God who alone can do it.”
“Without this renewal of your heart in regenerating grace, you will have no gospel-born power to govern your tongue as you ought.”
“Lord Jesus, give me grace to please you in what I don't say.”
“the way you use your tongue is the evidence that the tree is still bad is the evidence that the treasure is still rotten”
“God puts your railing tongue alongside idolaters and adulterers And he said, you'll all go to hell unless you repent.”
“lying was as easy to me as breathing when I could cut and wound with sarcastic words and I was a master of bloody repartee and I could enter the joust with anyone and cut and slash God's taken that away from me”
Applications
All listeners
- Take the use of your tongue with ultimate seriousness: on the last day, a transcript of your words alone will be sufficient to condemn you. This is not a minor matter of etiquette but an issue of eternal consequence.
- Do not attempt to overcome sins of the tongue through mere willpower, external rules, or self-help techniques. Identify and pursue the one essential prerequisite -- a renewed heart -- without which every other directive will prove ineffectual or self-deceptive.
- Every person must ask and answer from an open Bible: what is the essential prerequisite for overcoming the sins of my tongue? If I do not overcome them, I will be damned. This is not optional theological curiosity but a matter of salvation.
- If you have not experienced the inward radical transformation of heart that Christ and the prophets describe, give yourself no rest until you have. Go to Jesus as mediator of the new covenant and cry out for the new heart, new spirit, and indwelling Holy Spirit He has promised.
- Approach tongue-control not as cold, naked obedience but through the gospel dynamic of union with Christ. Present your tongue to God as a raised-from-the-dead tongue over which sin has no rightful lordship -- do this specifically and personally in prayer.
- When tempted to use words as a weapon in conflict, bring the love of Christ to bear in that moment: 'Lord Jesus, you died for me that I might live to you. Give me grace to please you in what I don't say.' Let love to Christ actively govern your speech decisions.
- Cultivate the motive of maintaining a good conscience before God and man. Ask yourself regularly whether you can look into God's face with no conscious controversy and into the faces of your brethren with no charge of hypocrisy -- and let that desire keep words back.
- If your tongue is dominated by a pattern of sin -- angry words to spouse and children, lying, railing -- take that pattern as serious diagnostic evidence that you may not yet have experienced the transforming work of the Spirit. Do not dismiss it. Face it.
- Do not accept the lie that because you lack gospel-born power and motive, it is hypocritical to try to control your tongue. Attempt to control it with whatever power you have -- this effort will expose your bondage and drive you to Christ.
- Parents must govern their children's external speech through consistent instruction and discipline even before regeneration. You cannot change the tree or the treasure, but you can and must condition conscience and govern external behavior. Do not abandon this duty in the name of avoiding hypocrisy.
- If you are a believer, acknowledge daily that you sin with your tongue and go to Jesus daily for those sins. But bless God that gospel-born power and motives are governing your tongue more than they once did, and pray for increasing sanctification of this member.
A full transcript is available on the tab. 148 paragraphs, roughly 65 minutes.
Introduction and Scripture Reading
The following sermon was delivered on Sunday morning, January 5, 2003, at Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey.
Now I would ask you to follow as I read two portions of the Word of God, passages to which reference will be made and some attention given, though I will not be giving a detailed exposition of either one of them. The first is Matthew chapter 7, verses 15 through 20. Towards the conclusion of what we commonly call the Sermon on the Mount, our Lord Jesus says in Matthew 7, 15, beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravening wolves. By their fruits you shall know them.
Do men gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles? Even so, every good tree brings forth good fruit, but the corrupt tree brings forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, Neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that brings not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire.
Therefore, by their fruits you shall know them. And now to Matthew chapter 12. where the good tree, good fruit, evil tree, evil fruit imagery has a particular area of focus namely the matter of the tongue in the context the tongue of these Pharisees speaking words of blasphemy but in addressing that particular evil use of the tongue our Lord articulates some very vital generic principles concerning the use of the tongue. I begin the reading at verse 33 and conclude at verse 37.
Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree corrupt and its fruit corrupt, for the tree is known by its fruit. You offspring of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. The good man out of his good treasure brings forth good things.
And the evil man out of his evil treasure brings forth evil things. And I say unto you that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. For by thy words you shall be justified. and by your words you shall be condemned.
Series Context and Sermon Orientation
Our Creator, in His creative design and wisdom, has made us with two feet, with two hands, with two eyes, and with two ears, but with only one tongue. and as a preacher from a past generation has quaintly observed having given us only one tongue he has shut up the use of that tongue with two rows of teeth and it's a quaint way of stating that reality however this marvelous creation by which we frame the words
which convey to others the thoughts of our minds, the affections and dispositions of our hearts, has been so radically influenced by the intrusion of sin into the human race that in the letter of James we are told that this very instrument of communication, our tongues is likened to a raging fire and to a deadly poison. And it is with a deep pastoral pressure that our tongues be instruments of grace and healing and not tools of sin and destruction that we are engaged in a series of studies
which I have entitled, Now Concerning the Use of Our Tongues. In the first sermon some weeks ago, I set before you five categories of biblical truth, each one of which underscores the critical importance of this matter of the use of our tongues. We saw in those five categories of biblical truth, this is no little thing. We were reminded of one of those categories in the reading of this second passage.
In the day of judgment, God will need nothing more to send some people to hell than a transcript of their words. That's all. To make evident to the entire moral universe that His judgment that this is a wicked, sinful man and belongs in hell, all He'll need for evidence is their words. By your words, you shall be condemned.
And then we spent several weeks identifying and describing some of the major sins of the tongue as they are identified, defined, and described in the Word of God. we looked at the sin of the tongue called lying the sin of the tongue called corrupt speech the sin of the tongue described as abusive speech and the sin of the tongue set before us in scripture as gossipy meddlesome and intrusive speech now this morning I plan to preach the first of two or possibly three sermons on the subject divine directives for overcoming the manifold sins of the tongue.
Having demonstrated from the Bible that this is a big deal, having sought from the Scriptures to identify some of these major sins of the tongue, we now come to consider divine directives for overcoming these manifold sins of the tongue. and as we do we want to focus our attention on how to lay hold of God's provisions that our tongues may more and more be instruments of grace and of blessing rather than instruments of sin and of cursing and the biblical materials for these two or three sermons on this subject
will be set before you in two major categories The first we'll deal with this morning. I've called it the essential prerequisite for overcoming the sins of the tongue. And then in a second or possibly a third message as well, some additional directives for overcoming the sins of the tongue. So we come directly then to our subject for this morning, the essential prerequisites for overcoming the sins of the tongue.
Defining the Terms: Prerequisite and Essential
Now what is a prerequisite? Well a prerequisite is something that is required before something else can be done. Requisite, require, pre, beforehand. A prerequisite is something you must do or possess before you can do or possess something else.
A healthy eye is a prerequisite for seeing. without a healthy eye no matter how much light is around you how many vivid objects you can see them functioning lungs are a prerequisite for breathing and breathe no matter how much air no matter how much oxygen is around you a prerequisite for breathing is healthy functioning lungs a knowledge of the alphabet is a prerequisite for reading if you don't know the alphabet you don't know the combination of the letters, you can't read. So a prerequisite is something that is necessary in order to do or to possess something else. And we're going to consider what I have described as
the essential prerequisite. And something that is essential is absolutely necessary. It is indispensable. You Latin students, it is the sine qua non, the thing without which the other cannot be or you cannot do.
Oxygen is essential to breathing.
A functioning heart is essential to life. Cut out a man's heart, he's not going to live. Stop the heart from beating, he's not going to live unless you have him on a heart and lung machine. I'm fully aware of these exceptions, but we're talking now in the ordinary course of things.
So what we're going to focus upon this morning is to seek to discover from our Bibles what is the essential prerequisite, singular, for the overcoming of the sins of our tongues. The thing without which any of these other particular directives will not prove effectual. In fact, they could prove to be self-deceptive. We're going to focus our attention this morning upon this one thing.
The essential prerequisite for overcoming the sins of the tongue. And as we do, we'll do so under three headings. The essential prerequisite identified, what is it? The essential prerequisite justified, why is it an essential prerequisite? And thirdly, the essential prerequisite qualified. And we're going to address some wrong implications that people draw from this essential prerequisite.
The Essential Prerequisite Identified: A Renewed Heart
First of all then, the essential prerequisite identified. When we ask the question, what does God say is the most important issue to face when considering how to overcome the sins of the tongue, what is the answer? or to make the question a bit more pointed if I were to ask you what do you think the Bible says is the one most basic requirement to overcoming the sins of the tongue how would you answer?
now let me make it even more personal if sitting here this morning you you are to overcome the sins of your tongue what is the one most essential issue that you must face?
For our deaf friends and hearing impaired friends how to overcome the sins of your hands that frame your words and your thoughts and become an extension as it were and a substitute for your tongue. What is the one most essential prerequisite if this thing that sits between your jaws, guarded by your two rows of teeth, is to be mastered and so governed that it becomes more and more an instrument of grace and of blessing. And remember, this is no little issue.
For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned. If any man thinks himself to be religious and bridles not his own tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is vain. Don't take this as more preachers blow from the pulpit, folks. This is vital stuff.
And you must ask and answer with an open Bible this question. What is the essential prerequisite for the overcoming of the sins of my tongue? And if I do not overcome them, I'll be damned.
If the sins of the tongue govern me, they are the evidence that I am still under sin's dominion. And my Bible says sin does not exercise lordship over a Christian for he is not under law but under grace. well we're going to answer by going to the Matthew 12 passage and I ask you to turn there if you've turned away from it we're going to consider the words of Jesus in Matthew 12 33 to 35 the context I've already alluded to it's one in which Jesus is dealing with the sin of words look at verse 32 Whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of Man. The context is speaking a word.
The context has to do with words. Again, verse 36. I say unto you that every idle word that men shall speak. Verse 37.
For by thy words you shall be justified. By your words you shall be condemned. It is a word-saturated context. I hope you see that with your own eyes. You hear it as I articulate and underscore with emphasis those particular parts of the text.
Now in dealing with this sin of words In the context the sin of blasphemy But our Lord is dealing with broader principles He uses two analogies And do you see the two analogies he uses? He uses first of all the analogy of a tree and its fruit Verse 33 Either make the tree good and its fruit good Or make the tree corrupt and its fruit corrupt for the tree is known by its fruit. Our Lord injects into this context of dealing with words the analogy of a tree and its fruit. But then he uses a second analogy, that of a secret treasure and its open manifestation.
Verse 35, the good man out of his good treasure. In a parallel passage in Luke 6, Jesus says the good man out of the good treasure of his heart. It is a secret treasure. The good man out of his good treasure brings forth good things. It is the secret treasure and its open manifestation. The bringing forth of the stuff out of the treasure. The good man out of the good treasure brings forth good things. And the evil man out of his evil treasure brings forth evil things.
Now do you see how our Lord is using two different analogies to make one central point with respect to this issue of the use of the tongue as he is homing in on this horrible use of the tongue by the Pharisees engaging in that which he describes as blasphemy against the Holy Spirit Our Lord brings these two analogies into sharp focus and he says to these people, if there's ever to be a change in what's coming out of your mouth, this issue of the tree that is evil that brings forth evil fruit or the tree that is good that brings forth good fruit must be faced. This issue of the hidden treasure that brings forth out of a good treasure good things
or a bad treasure bad things. He says to these Pharisees and he says to you and me, you can never think as you ought about this matter of words and evil words and dealing with evil words unless you understand the principles embodied in the analogy of the tree and its fruit. the hidden treasure and the manifestation of the stuff in that treasure. Now what is the common denominator in both of these figures as they relate to this issue of the tongue, the words that we speak?
Well I think you will agree with me that the common denominator is this. It is the necessity of having a good source or a good origin if we are ever to speak good words. That's the common denominator. It is the corrupt tree that brings forth corrupt fruit.
For the tree is known by its fruit. The source is bad. Therefore, what issues from that source is bad. The bad treasure is manifested in the bad stuff brought out of the treasure.
What our Lord is doing is pressing home this issue that the source of our words is the great concern. That until the source is what it ought to be, what comes from that source will never be what it ought to be. A good tree is essential to good fruit. That is, a good tree is essential to healthy, healing, God-honoring words.
A good treasure can alone bring forth good things, healthy, healing, God-honoring words. Now by these two analogies and the common denominator, our Lord is making it clear that the essential prerequisite for overcoming the sins of the tongue is that of a renewed heart. That's what our Lord is teaching. He's saying to these people obsessed with externalism, your problem goes as deep as your heart.
What's coming out of your mouth, like the fruit on a tree that manifests the nature and the quality of the tree, your words are the revelation of the state of your heart. What is brought out of the treasure reveals the nature of the treasure. And the treasure is either a good treasure or an evil treasure. The good bringing forth good things, the evil bringing forth evil things.
So our Lord is saying that the essential prerequisite for overcoming the sins of the tongue is that of a renewed heart. that we must experience that wonderful radical spirit wrought change of the inner man called in Titus 3.5, regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit. By nature, each of us in his heart is a bad tree.
And being bad trees, evil trees, what comes out of the mouth is evil, For the tree is known by its fruit. For from within, out of the heart, proceed. Mark chapter 7. That what we are in our external lives, except in those instances where we are being calculating hypocrites, is but the profusion, the overflow, the manifestation of the state of our hearts.
By nature, we are born with an evil treasure. And out of that evil treasure come evil things, that is words, that are suffused and marked by evil. And so in these figures of the good tree and the good treasure, our Lord is pointing to one of those four fundamental blessings that He Himself will mediate to sinners under the new covenant, under the covenant that Jesus sealed with His own blood, That very ceiling we will remember in this place tonight at this table. This is the new covenant in my blood.
And there are four great blessings promised in that covenant. In Hebrews chapter 8, you have them listed as the writer to the Hebrews summarizes the teaching on the new covenant out of Jeremiah 31. and those blessings are these God says I'll give them a new heart and I'll write my law upon them I will cleanse them and purge them from all of their sins I will commit myself to them to be their God and I will bring them into a saving acquaintance of myself they shall all know me their sins and iniquities I will remember no more I will write my law upon their hearts. These are the great blessings of the new covenant. God giving a new heart,
writing his law upon the heart. God forgiving us all of our sins. God committing himself to be our God. And God bringing us to a saving knowledge of himself. But I want us to focus our attention on that blessing which results in making the tree good and making the treasure good.
It's that first blessing of new covenant salvation, the taking out of the heart of stone, the giving of a heart of flesh, the imparting of the Holy Spirit. And that blessing is most clearly articulated in the prophecy of Ezekiel. And here I want you to turn with me to Ezekiel chapter 36.
Ezekiel chapter 36. Verses 26 and 27.
For God speaks of the gathering together of his people. Sprinkling clean water upon them. Cleansing them from their filthiness and their idols. Verse 26.
A new heart also will I give you and a new spirit will I put within you and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh and I will give you a heart of flesh and I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and you shall keep my ordinances and do them. Here is God's promise. In covenantal commitment, God says, This is what I will do under this gracious covenant that I will enact after the gathering together of my people. A new heart will I give you.
I will do something that touches the very springs of your being. You see, the imagery of the good tree and the bad tree is just another way of expressing the same reality. God is saying, I will take the bad tree that brings forth bad fruit. I will take the evil tree that brings forth the evil fruit of evil words, lying, abusive speech, unclean speech, meddlesome speech, gossiping, slander, hurtful speech that is all part of the fruit of that heart.
I will take out that heart, and I will give you a new heart, and I will put my spirit within you, and I will cause you to walk in my statutes and to keep my judgments, even those that pertain to your speech. Let no corrupt speech proceed out of your mouth. I will so work that that statute will be embodied in your life. wherefore putting away lying speak truth every man with his neighbor God says I'll so put my spirit within you that lying will not be a dominant sin in your life I will so put my spirit within you and you will love your neighbor as yourself that as you do not like people
to probe and to pry with meddlesome speech with you you will not probe and pry with meddlesome speech with them I'll put my spirit within you and cause you to keep my statutes and judgments, even those that pertain to the use of the tongue. That's what God says he'll do. He had previously made the same promise in chapter 11 of Ezekiel, verses 19 and 20. And I want us to see this in the previous passage as well, because we're going to see another reference to the new heart and the new spirit in chapter 18.
and it's critical to see that the reference in chapter 18 is bounded by the reference in chapter 11 and 36. Ezekiel 11, 19 I will give them one heart and I will put a new spirit within you and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh and give them a heart of flesh that they may walk in my statutes and keep mine ordinances and do them and they shall be my people and I will be their God. Here are two of those four dominant blessings of the new covenant highlighted. God taking out the heart of stone, giving a new heart, a heart of flesh, which will enable us by the indwelling spirit
to keep his statutes. And we will come into this intimate, personal, saving acquaintance with this God of the covenant as our God. Now, when Jesus said in the context focusing on the sins of the tongue. Make the tree good and its fruit good.
He was echoing this theme. Even the theme of Ezekiel chapter 11, chapter 36. But now I want you to notice how God expresses that theme in chapter 18 of Ezekiel.
And he's not a God who contradicts himself. but he is a God who knows how to press us into the corner and strip away our excuses for who we are and what we are and what we're doing and to press us with our ethical and moral responsibility notice what he says in Ezekiel 18 in verse 31 just a moment about the context this whole chapter is the prophet dismantling the excuses by which these people were charging God with unrighteousness and injustice and injustice and all the rest. And the prophet just strips away these things one by one. And then he concludes with this appeal.
Cast away from you all your transgressions wherewith you have transgressed and make you a new heart and a new spirit. For why will you die, O house of Israel? You who have the new King James, it says, Get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit. The NIV.
get a new heart and a new spirit. The old ASV and the authorized version cast away your transgressions and make you a new heart and a new spirit. I have no power to make a new heart and a new spirit. That's right.
No more power than these Pharisees had to make the tree good. Yet Jesus told them to do it, didn't he? Make the tree good. make the treasure good what do you think the Lord would have said if they said but wait a minute Jesus we read from the prophet Ezekiel that only God can take out the heart of stone only God can give a heart of flesh only God can put his spirit within us what do you think the Lord would have said to them you see when God lays upon us the duty of doing what only he can do It is to the end that we make the business of applying ourselves to the God who alone can do it.
And the use of every means he has given to us make it the one business of our lives. And that's what he's telling these Pharisees. He says as long as you go on the way you are. Content with your external religion.
Going up to the temple every time the doors are open. Offering the proper sacrifices. Praying the proper prayers. Fasting and all the rest.
You'll go on with the corrupt tree. And what comes out of your mouth will be the evidence that it's an evil tree. Content with your externalism, you'll go on. Manifesting that the true treasure is an evil treasure.
Because out of that treasure will come forth bad things. and he's telling them give yourself no rest until you know that you have experienced this inward radical transformation of the heart that will turn the bad tree into a good tree that will change the evil treasure into a good treasure so I say the essential prerequisite for overcoming the sins of the tongue is the blessing of a new heart and a new spirit and the indwelling presence and power of the Holy Spirit one of those fundamental graces and blessings promised in the new covenant.
The Essential Prerequisite Justified: Gospel-Born Power
I hope I've carried your judgment from the Bible. Now then, having sought to identify this essential prerequisite, we come secondly to the essential prerequisite justified. In other words, why is this the essential starting place? Is this an arbitrary thing? No. I answer for two basic reasons. Two basic reasons as to why this renewal of heart is the essential prerequisite to overcoming the sins of the tongue.
And here are my two reasons. Without this renewal of your heart in regenerating grace, you will have no gospel-born power to govern your tongue as you ought. And secondly, without this renewal of your heart in regenerating grace, you will have no gospel-born motives to govern your tongue as you ought. Without this regenerating grace, you and I lack both power and motivation to govern our tongues as we ought.
again you see the connection with Matthew 12 Matthew 7 what comes out of the mouth is a revelation of the state of the heart and we have no power to change our hearts and when God gives specific directions with respect to this matter of how we use our tongues and the members of our bodies He does so in the context in which He is assuming that the directives come to people who are within the orbit of gospel power The dynamics of grace given through the gospel are operative in them. Let's look at a couple of examples. Romans chapter 6. Romans chapter 6.
The apostle has opened up the great truth that in union with Christ we died with him, we were buried with him, we've been raised to newness of life. And now he says in the light of that, verse 12 of Romans 6, Do not let therefore sin reign in your mortal body that you should obey the lust thereof. neither present your members unto sin as instruments of unrighteousness but present yourselves unto God now notice as alive from the dead whatever I'm asking you now to do and this is the first imperative in the whole of the book of Romans verse 11 rain let not sin rain in your mortal body
I'm sorry verse 11 is the first imperative Reckon yourself to be dead indeed unto sin. And here's the outworking of it. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body. Don't allow the sins of the tongue to govern you.
And it's as though someone says, but Paul, how can I do that? He says, because in union with Christ, you have died with Christ. You have been raised from the dead in union with Christ as alive from the dead. You must now present yourself unto God, now notice, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.
For sin shall not exercise lordship over you, for you are not under law but under grace. You see what he says? Here is this unruly member, the tongue. What am I to do with it?
I am not to deal with it detached from the dynamics of grace, of gospel-born power. But in the power of union with Christ, my living head, in whom and with him I died to sin. I have been raised from the dead as a new man raised from the dead. I say, Lord, I'm yours.
I'm your resurrected man. I'm your resurrected woman. I'm your resurrected young woman. I'm your resurrected young man.
Lord, here's my whole body. And Lord, I'm going to get specific. I give you my eyes, that they might function as raised from the dead eyes. Eyes over which sin has no rightful lordship.
Lord, I present them to you. Ears, Lord, they are raised from the dead ears, and I present them to you. My tongue is a raise from the dead tongue. I present it to you to be an instrument of righteousness.
a tongue over which sin has no rightful lordship because sin's claims over me were exhausted in my union with Christ in death, burial and now in resurrection life you see, Paul does not ask them to present their members in cold, naked obedience detached from gospel born power but as those in whom that power is operative Am I making sense? You see And that's why Jesus said You've got to make the tree good and its fruit good You've got to get the treasure good If you want good things to come out of the treasure For without that renewing Regenerating grace and power
And union with Christ We have no power To deal with these sins And then in Colossians chapter 3 You have a similar emphasis One of the main texts we looked at in dealing with specific sins of the tongue was here in Colossians chapter 3. Shameful speaking out of your mouth wrath and malice, verse 8. Now look at the context. Paul has demonstrated that we are united to Christ in death and resurrection.
And he says in chapter 3, verse 1, If then, since then would be a better rendering, you were raised together with Christ. Seek the things that are above. Verse 5. Put to death therefore your members upon the earth.
Fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, covetousness. For which things sake the wrath of God comes on the sons of disobedience. Wherein you once walked when you lived in these things. But now put them all away.
Anger, wrath, malice, railing, shameful speaking out of your mouth. Don't lie one to another. Why? you have put off the old man with his doings and have put on the new man that is being renewed unto knowledge after the image of him that created him.
Since you have put off the old man. Here's another biblical category of imagery. What is regeneration? It is not only this new heart.
The heart of stone removed. The heart of flesh given. The spirit imparted. It is not only being united to Christ in death, burial, and resurrection.
It's a putting off of the old man and a putting on of the new. He said, now since you put off the old and have put on the new, as those within the orbit of gospel-born power, you are to put away these sins of the tongue, lying, malice, railing, shameful speaking out of your mouth. Those were things characteristic of what you were when you were old man. You have put off the old man.
In union with Christ you've put on the new. Let your tongue be reflective of who you are as a new man in Christ. That's the emphasis of scripture. And that's the explicit teaching of our Lord when he said, Without me, apart from me, severed from me, you can do nothing.
Nothing. They that are in the flesh cannot please God. Romans 8 and verse 8. That's why the essential prerequisite for dealing with the sins of the tongue, for overcoming them, seeing the tongue cultivated and developed into an instrument of grace and blessing, the essential prerequisite is regenerating grace.
We've got to make the tree good. We've got to make the treasure good. Reason number one, without this renewal, you will have no gospel-born power to overcome the sins of the tongue. And secondly, without this renewal, you will have no gospel-born motives to govern your tongue as you ought.
The Essential Prerequisite Justified: Gospel-Born Motives
Now I want you to think for a minute. This is not an age that thinks a lot about anything. except how to make money and how to have sex.
That's the definition of the average American. Half his time is spent thinking how to have money and the other half is thinking about sex.
Sad, but that's true. If you don't believe it, just watch any sitcom between 8 and 10 on network television.
I want you to think now. I'm saying that the second reason why the essential prerequisite to overcoming the sins of the tongue is that without that renewing grace, we have no gospel-born motives to govern our tongue. Why is this motive business so important? A motive is described in our dictionaries as an inner drive or intention that causes us to do something or to act in a certain way.
I tried this out on my wife when I was trying to think through some imagery I like to think of our motives as the motors of our soul our motives set in motion the things we do they are the motives they are the motors of our lives I mean the motives are the motors of our lives and of our actions not of our souls the internal motors we do what we do because we desire what we desire and motive is critical motive can mean the difference between an action being virtuous
or vicious being pleasing to God or displeasing to God remember what Jesus said to the Pharisees all their out external religious activities were all right in themselves They prayed, they gave alms, they fasted. But what made them wrong? It was motive. He said, they do these things, why?
In order to be seen of man. So, a noble action in itself was made rotten and stinking in God's nostrils because of the wrong motive. Remember what James says? He says, you have, but you don't get what you ask for.
Why? Because you ask with the wrong motive. You ask in order to consume it upon your own lusts. Motives are critical.
And I am saying that one of the reasons Jesus said you've got to make the tree good. You've got to make the treasure good. This essential prerequisite for controlling our tongues is renewing grace. for without it there will be no dismantling of the internal sinful motives that drive the actions of our tongue.
We need to have God come into the motive factory, which is the motor of the soul, and dismantle the machinery and set up a whole different set of motors. and our motives are the motors, motives of the soul. Well, what are some of them? Well, when God takes out the heart of stone and gives a heart of flesh and puts his spirit within us, with that mighty renewing work comes a whole new set of motives.
Now, they need to be nurtured and cultivated and sometimes through carelessness and backsliding of heart, Some of them can be dimmed and dulled and the motors of the soul that ought to be driving us are just barely moving. And sometimes it seems like a bearing in them is burned out and it needs repair. I'm fully conscious of all the vicissitudes, but the Spirit of God implants a whole new set of internal motors, our motives. And what are some of them?
Well, first of all, love to Christ rather than love of self. 2 Corinthians 5. The love of Christ constrains us. For we thus judge, Paul said, one died for all, therefore all died.
And that he died for all, that they who live should henceforth no longer live unto themselves, but unto him who for their sakes died and rose again. Paul can go on to say in 2 Corinthians 5, Wherefore we are ambitious to be well pleasing to him. That's a motive implanted in the soul of every single regenerate man or woman, boy or girl. If you do not know what it is to some real degree to be constrained by the love of Christ, no longer to live with yourself at the center, you are not a Christian.
Write it down. Now, if you're a stranger to this motive of wanting to please Christ, out of gratitude for what Christ has done, His love holds you in its grip. The love of Christ constrains me. It presses in upon me in such a way that I no longer am committed to a self-centered, self-pleasing, self-willed life, but to a Christ-pleasing, Christ-centered, Christ-governed life.
That's the motive of the soul. Now think of that relationship to the tongue. here someone's done wrong to me and my initial tendency is to want to take words and make a club and beat them take a sword and pierce them but I say Lord Jesus I'm not living to please myself and to give vent to the passions and the pressures of my remaining sin and some of those old motors that used to drive all that I was Lord Jesus, you died for me, that I might live to you. And I know that saying this word will not please you, and making this club and this sword will not please you.
Lord Jesus, give me grace to please you in what I don't say.
Love to Christ becomes a motive for the restraining of our speech. Not only love to Christ, but love to the members of the body of Christ. Remember how Paul put this central in Ephesians 4? He says, lie not one to another.
Why? Seeing we are members one of another.
When we do something to a brother or sister, we do it to Christ. 1 Corinthians 8, he says, when you abuse your liberty and wound a weak brother in so sinning, he says, you sin against Christ. When you touch the members of his body, you touch Christ the head. And surely this motive of wanting to do good to the fellow members of the body is a powerful motive.
It's one of the motives implanted in our hearts in regenerating grace. There is the motive of maintaining a good conscience to God and man. Acts 24, 16. Paul said, herein do I exercise myself to have always a conscience void of offense to God and to man.
I want to look up into the face of my God at any moment and know I have no conscious controversy. I want to look out into the faces of my brethren and know that there is no just cause to charge me with hypocrisy or inconsistency. That's a motive that burns within the soul. Oh, how many words will be kept back when we are governed by that motive of the maintenance of a good conscience.
Furthermore, the motive of pleasing God, Paul said in 1 Thessalonians 4 and verse 1. He said, in our instruction to you, what was the thing we were conveying? Finally, brethren, we beseech and exhort you that as you received of us how you ought to walk and to please God, even as you walk. Paul said, I assume you people have this motor in you that says, please God, please God, please God.
not to earn His grace not to earn His favor but because you received His favor you want to please Him Paul said we taught you how to please God that's a motive in the heart of every regenerate man or woman you know anything what that is? I want to please God I want to elicit the smile of God in what I say in what I don't say in what I refuse to say in what I constrained to say that a gospel born motive love to Christ love to the members of the body of Christ The maintenance of a good conscience Seeking to please God Fear of grieving the Holy Spirit. Ephesians 4, in a context that deals with words and attitudes of the heart, he says, And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you are sealed to the day of redemption.
Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away from you. It's the context, the words. And when I realize that what comes out of my mouth can grieve the very one who has come as my gracious gift, an indwelling guest in new covenant blessing. Everything I know of Christ savingly, the Holy Spirit has shown me.
Everything I know of the consolations of the presence of Christ, the Holy Spirit mediates it to me. Everything I receive of new light from the Word, the Holy Spirit gives it to me. Do I want to grieve so gracious a guest? What a powerful motive is this motive of not wanting to grieve the Spirit?
Well, I could go on. Have I given you enough to persuade you? That when God renews us, friend, He comes in and dismantles a whole bunch of motors that drove us and motivated and governed what we did. And He puts up a whole new shop of motors within us.
And that's why the Lord's going to make the tree good. part of making the tree good is implanting within that heart these gospel motives now do you see in summary why I've said that this powerful spirit wrought internal renewal is the essential prerequisite for overcoming the sins of the tongue only as you have a new heart and are given the gift of the spirit will you have sufficient power and sufficient motivation to overcome the sins of the tongue. Only as you've had a demolition of your native internal motors and the installation of a new array of motors will you be able to control and overcome the sins of your tongue.
Searching Application: The Tongue as Evidence of Unregenerate State
So for some of you, hear me carefully now, and here I'm reading what I've written because I want to cut very carefully. For some of you, the greatest evidence that you are a stranger to the transforming work of the Holy Spirit is your tongue.
You're not out womanizing. You're not out stealing. You're not staying up late at night when wife or husband has gone to bed and using your computer to drink in pornography.
All kinds of sins all around you. You're innocent. but the way you use your tongue is the evidence that the tree is still bad is the evidence that the treasure is still rotten the words you speak to your husband the words you speak to your wife the words you speak to your children there is a dominance of sin in this member and my Bible says if you're a Christian, sin does not exercise lordship over you.
You've deceived yourself. Because you're not guilty of some of these grosser sins that the Bible says are inconsistent with professing to be in a state of grace, I remind you that in such a list where Paul says, don't be deceived, you Corinthians, no adulterers, no fornicators, no unclean people, no idolaters. Remember what he put right in the middle of those? No railers.
No people who have a pattern of abusive, aggressive, ungodly, hurtful, wounding speech shall enter the kingdom of heaven. I didn't write it. God's written it. God puts your railing tongue alongside idolaters and adulterers And he said, you'll all go to hell unless you repent.
And some of you need to face that issue. Not only adults, but some of you kids that have learned the unholy art of picking, of pricking and probing with your words, needling to get a negative response from your siblings, from your classmates. You've become masters of using your tongue to provoke others to sin.
And it's the evidence you've got an unchanged heart.
You need to face it. And I've cried to God, oh God, use your word. Use the preaching of it to cut through the self-deception of some children and young people and adults sitting in this place.
Make the tree good, Jesus said. Make the treasure good.
What's the true state of your heart? It's what comes out of your mouth. For the tree is known by its fruit.
And if I could have a transcript of the words that a number of some of you have spoken this week. And just push the button. Play them back. And say, alright folk, impartial judgment.
Are those the words that you'd call good fruit from a good tree? Or are they the rotten fruit from a rotten tree? Are those the words of a good treasure? Opening itself out in good things?
Or an evil treasure? Pulling out its evil things.
Now remember, I am not denying the words of James. In many things we all offend. If any offend not in word, the same is a perfect man able to bridle a whole body.
Rarely does a week pass that I don't have to confess, at least to my wife, some sin or other with my tongue. I'm not talking. Don't anyone sit here and say, oh, you're telling me about sinless. You know me better than that.
Now, don't cop out. Don't do that. Don't do that. have enough love for your soul to let me love your soul to be honest with you without that kind of cop out I'm not talking about perfection I'm talking about a pattern and the pattern of your tongue is a tongue under the governance of sin and my Bible says sin will not exercise lordship over you if you're under the domain of grace you're still under the condemning galling power of the law you are outside of Christ you need to go to Jesus mediator of the new covenant and say, Lord Jesus, you said in that covenant, you'd take out the heart of stone, you'd give a heart of flesh, you'd give your spirit, you'd make your people keep your statutes.
Lord Jesus, give me a new heart. Give me a new spirit. Place your spirit within me, giving me power and motivation to deal with this rotten, foul, sinful member that exists between my cheeks and my jaws. Lord Jesus, as I come to you as mediator of the new covenant to pardon and cleanse my sin, to bring me into a saving acquaintance with God, to bring me into covenant, commitment of the whole Trinity to me and my salvation.
Lord Jesus, give me this great blessing of the new covenant. take out my heart of flesh give me heart of stone give me a heart of flesh write your law upon it that I might begin to do what Paul said as one alive from the dead present my members including my tongue to be an instrument of righteousness unto you well we've considered the essential prerequisite identified, justified and now very quickly and briefly the essential prerequisite qualified. We've seen that Jesus teaches under the figures of a tree and a treasure that the essential prerequisite
The Essential Prerequisite Qualified: Two Satanic Distortions
for a governed tongue is a renewed nature. We've seen why this is so. Without it there will be no gospel-born power nor gospel-born motives to govern our tongue. Now the devil will seek to abuse and distort this truth in two areas and I want to address them briefly.
Number one, with those of you who are not yet regenerate, you're not yet converted, you are not yet the recipient of a new heart. The devil will come along and try to get you to reason like this. Well, since you don't have the power and you don't have the motive to govern your tongue, why be a hypocrite? Isn't it hypocritical to govern your tongue when you don't have either the power or the motive?
He'll come along and tell you that. So then you'll go on and say, oh well, so I can do what I want on my tongue. No, listen, don't do that. Remember what Jesus said, every idle word that men shall speak, do you want to increase your judgment?
If for no other reason than to keep your judgment as a minimum, you better learn to control your tongue insofar as you are able to control it.
You want hell to be hotter? Then just lay the reins on the neck of your tongue and say, go wherever you want. Kick the sides of the horse of your tongue and let it rail on and rant on and cocked and wound and curse and lie. And God will intensify the flames of hell for you.
No, don't believe the devil's lie.
You'll say, well, isn't it hypocritical? You're not a Christian. No, it's not hypocritical. It's a matter of you saying, I must do something with this tongue.
And you want something that will make you feel keenly you need Jesus? You try to control your tongue for one day and you're not a Christian. and you're going to come to the words of Top Lady, what though I cannot break my chains, I cannot throw off my load, God you command me to speak truth, but my tongue lies as natural as breathing, and the Bible talks about people who breathe out lies, some of you can lie as easy as breathing, and you say I'm going to tell the truth, and you're going to see how bound you are to your lies, and that's going to be God's means to remind you, you need Jesus, You need Jesus. Set yourself to control your tongue with whatever power you presently have.
And it will bring you to the persuasion. I don't have power in myself to change it. So that it becomes what God says it ought to be. And in that very effort, God will, with His blessing, bring you to despair.
And to throw yourself upon Christ. And then you'll come to some of your parents. And cause you to reason this way. Well, since my children don't yet know the power of the gospel, and they don't know the motivations of the gospel, I don't want to make Pharisees and hypocrites out of them, so I'll just let them talk meanly one to another.
I'll just let them lie. I don't want to make hypocrites. No, no, parents, remember your duty. You're to rear them, nurture them in the chastening and admonition of the Lord.
You can't change the tree and the treasure, but you can and must condition their consciences and govern their external behavior. They may curse in their heart in their bedroom but you don't let them curse to your face in the living room.
They may speak meanly under their breath in the privacy of the bedroom but you do not tolerate mean speech between siblings where you can hear it. The rod and reproof give wisdom. Give them wisdom about how to use their tongues. And don't buy into this nonsense that since they're not Christians, I can't expect this pattern of behavior from them.
You are God's instrument to impose that pattern of behavior by instruction, by discipline, by the use of the rod. And under God, hopefully, your faithfulness will be a little mirror image of what God will do to them in the last day. if they despise that instruction and despise that correction and become an instrument in God's hands to bring them to seek the Lord while he may be found. Well, that's what I desired to tell you this morning.
Closing Appeal, Self-Examination, and Prayer
What are you going to do with it? Can you sit here and say, by the grace of God, I know from Jesus that great blessing of new covenant salvation. I remember a time when lying was as easy to me as breathing when I could cut and wound with sarcastic words and I was a master of bloody repartee and I could enter the joust with anyone and cut and slash God's taken that away from me I know sin no longer has lordship over me because of what's happened to my tongue can you say that? And even if sins of the tongue were not a dominant sin, can you say sitting here today, the things I do say and do not say have no explanation, but that gospel-born power and gospel-born motives are influencing this little member between my jaws.
Can you say that? While fully acknowledging I sin with my tongue daily. I must go to Jesus daily for the sins of my tongue. But I bless God that sitting here today, I can say my tongue is governed by gospel-born power and by gospel-born motives.
If so, bless God for it. And pray that more and more, that power and those motives will more and more sanctify this tongue. So that what God says will be true of all of us. That our speech will be seasoned with grace.
That in turn it may minister grace to those that hear. Let's pray. our Father we're so thankful that you do not traffic in mere external moralism vapid behavior without internal transformation and we pray that the Holy Spirit would take this word and cause it to be brought home to each of our hearts with power we do thank you many of us can thank you that we can say with judgment day honesty that our tongues have known the transforming grace of the
Spirit's regenerating power and that we do know to some measure those motors, motors of gospel motives regulating what we do and do not do with our tongues but Lord we want more and more of that grace to be operative and evident in all of our interactions that our tongues may be so governed that it may be evident to all that Christ the Lord possesses them. We pray for those who, if they are honest, must acknowledge that their tongues witness against them and their tongues reveal their graceless state. Father don't let them remain in that state
but in mercy draw them constrain them give them no rest until they know Jesus and his saving power hear us and answer us for your praise and honor we plead Amen
Thank you.
This transcript was generated by automated speech recognition and may contain errors. It is provided for study and reference only; the audio recording is the authoritative source.
Passages Expounded
The sermon's primary text: Christ's two analogies of tree/fruit and hidden treasure, teaching that the source (the heart) must be renewed if speech is ever to change
The new covenant promise most clearly articulating the essential prerequisite: God's pledge to give a new heart, remove the heart of stone, and put His Spirit within His people
Paul's grounding of the command to present bodily members as instruments of righteousness in union with Christ's death and resurrection
Texts Expounded
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