A Terrible Edge-Tool

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 4, 1871

A Terrible Edge-Tool.

There are certain tools which are made by welding thin layers of steel and iron together. The iron being softer wears away as the instrument is used, leaving the cutting edge of steel always sharp; so that use that dulls other tools, makes these sharper and sharper.

The human tongue resembles these tools. The more it is used, the sharper it grows. Cutting and wounding and tormenting all within its reach, it pierces like sharp arrows; it burns like coals of juniper. “His words” says the psalmist, “were smoother than butter, but war was in his heart. They were softer than oil; yet were they drawn swords.” Again he asks, “What shall be given unto thee? or what shall be done unto thee, thou false tongue?” No art of man can tame the tongue. It never becomes reformed and trustworthy. Treat fire as you will, it will burn when it gets a chance. The only safe way to deal with it is to shut it up, and fence it in with earth, and iron, and stone. So the human tongue must be kept under constant constraint. It needs no whip or spur. But he who would not have his Christian life a failure must bridle his tongue, lest deceiving his own heart, his religion proves vain. “He that would love life, and see good days, must refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile.” “In the multitude of words, there wanteth not sin,” and the wounds of the tongue pierce to the depths of the heart.

Only God's grace can bridle and control the tongue. It begins with the heart, renewing, changing, converting the inner man; and when the word of Christ dwells richly within, when love and joy take up their abode in the soul, when Christ, the great guest, comes in to sup with us, and we with him, then the tongue shall talk of God's righteousness, and proclaim his praise, and declare his gospel, and speak words in season to those that are weary in heart, and thus prove itself the glory of the saint, as well as it has been the curse and bane of the sinner.

The tongue is an index of the soul. Men are known by their words, as well as by their works; and in the great day, Christ has said, “By thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.”—The Christian.