Sins of the Tongue

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 2, 1875

Sins of the Tongue.

The tongue is the glory of the human frame. Ps. 16:9; 30:12; Acts 2:26. It can be put to the choicest and holiest uses. It speaks the glory of the most high God. It utters his lofty praise. It tells of all his righteous acts and wondrous works. It proclaims the story of his love. It unfolds the wondrous tale of Christ’s sacrifice for sins. It declares the fullness of his redemption. It shouts the glad tidings of peace from the mountain tops. It proclaims pardon to the dying, and life to the dead. It confesses before men Him by whom we hope to be confessed before the Father and his angelic hosts. It shall finally lift on high the song of triumph, victory, and peace, when redemption is accomplished and toils and conflicts are forever past.

Such an instrument as this is of vast importance, and no wonder that Satan seeks to control it and pervert its action. How fearfully does he do this, until the tongue which should be touched as with a coal from the altar of the Most High, becomes a devastating flame, which setteth on fire the course of nature, and is set on fire of hell.

How many sins come from a misgoverned tongue! Without its agency there would be no quarrels, no slanders, no falsehoods, no blasphemies, no flatteries, no evil speakings, no foolish speeches, no bitter, sinful, taunting, sneering, idle words; and none of the evil consequences that attend them. Words have broken hearts, blighted hopes, desolated homes, overturned nations, seduced the unwary, deluded the simple, led astray the wayward, stumbled the weak, discouraged the tempted, debased the virtuous, beguiled the intemperate, ruined prospects, blackened reputations, wrecked health—yea, they have destroyed life itself.

No wonder that the psalmist said, “I will take heed to my ways, that I SIN NOT WITH MY TONGUE; I will keep my mouth with a bridle, while the wicked is before me.” Ps. 39:1.

Words once spoken cannot be recalled. Often words which do incalculable damage to others are spoken carelessly, or upon false information. No man can fully know the mischief wrought by the tongue. How many has it cast down! how many afflicted! how many destroyed!

We speak of words as light, and cheap, and vain, and empty. But speech is our most spiritual act; it most fully shows our true character. By our words God reckons all our character. “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.” “By thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words shalt thou be condemned.” “For every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of Judgment.”

Oh, these sins of the tongue! How they shall bow the soul in the awful Judgment day. “In the multitude of words there wanteth not sin;” and what multitudes of words are poured out on every hand from hour to hour!

Let us pause. Let us pray, “Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth; keep the door of my lips!” Let us take heed that we sin not with the tongue, remembering that “if any man offend not in WORD, the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body.” And let our cry be that of the psalmist, “Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength, and my Redeemer.” Ps. 19:14.—The Christian.