Loving Our Neighbor With Our Tongue
Minister: |
Rev. Ronald Van Overloop |
Date: |
9/18/2011 AM
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Text:
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James 3;
Lord's Day 43
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Psalters: |
299, 336, 386, 26 |
- The concept.
- God speaks, i.e., communicates perfectly within Himself and to His creatures, especially His children.
- He created man in His image: able to know and speak the truth and able to communicate thoughts.
- The power of speech is very great.
- Truth is not just facts, but also a moral-ethical tone.
- Sin ruined communication and the ability to use the tongue for good.
- Grace restores the ability to know and speak the truth in love.
- The violations of this command.
- Natural man lives the lie.
- He believes the lie that there is no God, no truth, no standard, no necessity of answering to God one day.
- Natural man denies the danger of hell (Canons III,IV - 15).
- Also the regenerated easily lie.
- The most frequent lie is about ourselves.
- We lie about ourselves also when we see ourselves apart from Christ.
- Sometimes we lie directly, but more often it is a poisonous half-truth (distort the truth) or with cowardly silence.
- All listening to such talk also is to be condemned.
- Every violation of this commandment is most serious (Prov. 6:16-19; 12:22; 19:5,9; 21:28; Psalm 15:-3; Rev. 21:8).
- This command sets before us the duty to express their gratitude by speaking the truth in love (Eph. 4:15,16).
- The speaking God enables His children to be truth speakers.
- Because a part of God?s glory is that He is truth, the glory of believers is that we live and speak the truth.
- We learn the importance of working hard to bridle our tongue (James 1:26).
- We learn the put the best construction on things doubtful, of not entertaining suspicions
- As God?s servants, let us use the gift of speech to glorify His Creator and Master.