SINGLE-PURPOSE FOUNTAINS
Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on June 26, 2024 under AM Bible Study |
AM Bible Study Group: June 26, 2024 from James 3:9-12
Theme: Because He cannot use contaminated fountains, we must ask God to purify our mouths.
(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).
Over the past few weeks, we’ve been learning together from an extended section of Pastor James’ letter—in James 3—that deals with the use of our tongues. It began with a warning that he issued to those who wish to be teachers in the church. In verse 1, he wrote;
My brethren, let not many of you become teachers, knowing that we shall receive a stricter judgment (James 3:1).
Because of the potential danger inherent in our tongues—and because of the seriousness of our accountability to God for the things we say—he warned that it’s unwise to rush hastily into the role of a ‘teacher’ in God’s household. And as we saw last week, he then went on to explain that this is because of the tongue’s dangerous potential—and also the human impossibility of taming it and of bringing it under control. In verses 2-8, he said;
For we all stumble in many things. If anyone does not stumble in word, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle the whole body. Indeed, we put bits in horses’ mouths that they may obey us, and we turn their whole body. Look also at ships: although they are so large and are driven by fierce winds, they are turned by a very small rudder wherever the pilot desires. Even so the tongue is a little member and boasts great things. See how great a forest a little fire kindles! And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. The tongue is so set among our members that it defiles the whole body, and sets on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire by hell. For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and creature of the sea, is tamed and has been tamed by mankind. But no man can tame the tongue. It is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison (vv. 2-8).
And now, we come to his closing words in this section. In them, he shows us what a frustrating condition we’re in because of this inherent danger. He shows that we cannot have the kind of pure mouths before God that He desires for us to have; and that we end up defiling our mouths by using them for good and for evil purposes at the same time. In verses 9-12—still speaking of the unruliness of our tongue—he wrote;
With it we bless our God and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the similitude of God. Out of the same mouth proceed blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be so. Does a spring send forth fresh water and bitter from the same opening? Can a fig tree, my brethren, bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Thus no spring yields both salt water and fresh (vv. 9-12).
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When I think of these words, I remember the day I made a helpful discovery in a fast-food restaurant. It was back in the days when the person behind the counter would almost always pour your fountain drink for you. I would ask for a cup of water with my meal; and when it was handed to me, I’d always notice that the water was a dingy color. It didn’t look like the water was clean. But I finally figured out the problem. The water dispenser that the food server used had the same opening that dispensed orange soda, and I was getting leftover orange soda in my water. So; I simply asked the person pouring my drink to let the water run for a second or two before they poured it into my cup—which cleared the residue of orange soda away. From then on, I got the pure, clear water that I wanted.
Nowadays, you have to pour your own soft drinks or water in a fast-food restaurant, or get it out of an automatic dispenser that shares the same opening with every other drink they serve. When it comes to soft drinks, a tiny trace of orange soda in my root beer isn’t too big of a crisis. But I still let the water run for a second or two before I pour it into my water cup. It just doesn’t work very well to constantly use the same opening for two completely different things. That’s because there’s a basic principle—in fast food and in life: you have to have a purified opening in order to dispense the pure form of what you do want without it being mixed up with any leftover residue of what you don’t want.
And our heavenly Father wants the same kind of purity from our mouths that we would want from our fountain drink dispenser. The ‘opening’ is our mouth. And tucked into that mouth is that dangerous tongue of ours that speaks both good and evil. Before we came to the Lord Jesus in faith, we almost constantly used our tongues for evil purposes—almost always defiling our mouths. But now that we’ve been washed clean by the blood of Jesus, our heavenly Father wishes to hear only the things that please Him coming forth from us. And as His children by faith, we wish for the produce of our mouths to be pleasing to Him too. But because of the sin that still abides in our hearts, the same opening for the good things God desires to hear from us is being repeatedly contaminated because of the evil things we also dispense from it.
That’s the problem that James brings to our attention in this passage. It certainly isn’t hard to understand the meaning of what he writes in this passage; because we all feel it regularly. But do you notice something very frustrating about James’ words? He raises the problem, but he doesn’t seem to give us a clear solution. He makes it clear in verse 10 that “these things ought not to be so”. But he seems to leave us hanging in suspense about what to do to make them not so.
I believe that—in many respects in this letter—Pastor James tells us at least some things to do. He tells us, in 1:19, to be “swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath”. He tells us, in 4:11, to “not speak evil of one another”. He tells us, in 4:15, to avoid boasting by prefacing our plans with the qualifier “if the Lord wills”. He tells us, in 5:9, not to “grumble against one another”. He tells us, in 5:12, not to swear by oaths but to “let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes’, and your ‘No,’ ‘No’”. But because he seems simply to raise the problem in this passage—causing us all to admit the sad ways we have indeed defiled our mouths—I believe James is calling us, most of all, to continually confess our failure in this area, and continually yield ourselves over to God’s help. It’s as if he causes us to admit that we have a problem and to sincerely desire to be free of it.
That seems to be the basic point of these words at the end of James’ treatment of the tongue. It serves a kind of ‘awareness-raising’ purpose. It teaches us that, because our holy heavenly Father cannot use contaminated fountains—and because we cannot purify those fountains on our own—we must rely on Him and ask Him to purify them for us.
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Now; let’s begin by considering what James tells us about …
1. THE WRONGFULNESS OF OUR INCONSISTENCY (vv. 9-10).
After telling us that no one can tame the tongue; and that it’s an ‘unruly evil, full of deadly poison’; James went on to declare the wrong we do with it. In verses 9-10, he wrote; “With it [that is, with the tongue] we bless our God and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the similitude of God. Out of the same mouth proceed blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be so.”
In his book A Christian Directory, the great Puritan pastor Richard Baxter described some of the several holy “duties” God calls us to through the use of our tongues. Paraphrasing Pastor Baxter, our tongues are given to us by God for such holy purposes as:
- to glorify God by magnifying His name,
- to sing praise to Him in worship,
- to give Him thanks,
- to pray for and intercede for others,
- to swear by His name to tell the truth,
- to make lawful covenants and vows before Him,
- to preach and teach His word to others,
- to defend the truth against falsehood,
- to exhort fellow Christians to their duties and to rebuke their sins,
- to confess our own sins to God and to one another,
- to ask advice and counsel of others regarding God’s will and the way of salvation,
- to praise that which is good in others,
- to bear witness of the truth when called upon to do so,
- to defend the cause of the just and innocent,
- to share with others the good things God has taught us, and
- to carry on common conversation and transact our business in life.
And of course, to this list, we could also add, “to declare the soul-saving gospel of Jesus Christ”—one of the highest services the human tongue can offer. Just think of how much good would not be done if we didn’t use our tongues to bring it about! And as Pastor Baxter said, it’s not enough to not use our tongues for evil. We must use them for the good work God has given us to do with them.
But who can tame the tongue and bring it to obedience in doing only ‘good’ work? Because our tongues are humanly impossible for us to control, they sometimes produce good and they sometimes produce bad. And because of our fallenness, the bad they produce is often very bad! We may sincerely desire to use our tongues in a way that is only consistent with God’s will and in accord with His holy standards. But the principle of sin in us wages war against that desire. In Romans 7:18-23, the apostle Paul expressed powerfully the struggle we all feel:
For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members (Romans 7:18-23).
Certainly, we feel that struggle in a multitude of ways. But we especially feel it in what we do with our mouths. James said that if we can control our tongue, we can control our whole body. But who can completely control the tongue? As James pointed out, the very same tongue with which we’re meant to praise God is also used by us to curse other people who have been made in His image. Humankind is the highest and most noble work of God’s creation; and the image of God in other people is like the ‘signature’ of the divine Artist upon His masterpiece. And yet, we dare to both praise the Artist and curse His signature at the same time!
From the same God-given instrument—an instrument that is meant for high and glorious purposes—comes both blessings and curses. What a horrible impurity and evil inconsistency this is! How could we expect God to accept our praises to Him when they come out of such a contaminated and defiled dispenser? This ought not to be!
Now; I love how James puts things to us in a way that is both ‘tender’ (in that he calls us his ‘brethren’) and ‘strong’ (in that he tells us that things ought not be this way). He is tough with us, but we need such tough love. And it seems that he’s also tough with himself because he includes himself in the matter; saying that with our tongues “we” bless God but “we” also curse men. He puts these actions in the present tense of the verb; which suggests that this frustrating inconsistency is—sadly—the ongoing habit of all of us. Including himself. Me too. And you too … too.
So; James goes on from there to show us …
2. THE NATURE OF OUR INCONSISTENCY (vv. 11-12).
First of all, a mouth that speaks both blessings and curses involves a contradiction. He illustrates this to us by asking in verse 11, “Does a spring send forth fresh water and bitter from the same opening?” This is meant to be a rhetorical question. Obviously, if a fountain did this, it would defile the opening of the fountain; and would show that there was bitterness in the well—not fresh water. I heard once about a Christian who—in anger—insulted a co-worker. He apologized and said, “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I said that. It isn’t like me.” And the co-worker said, “It wouldn’t have come out of you if it wasn’t already in you.” That’s the contradiction that’s revealed in us when we use our tongue to both bless and curse.
Second, a mouth that speaks both blessings and curses proposes an impossibility. It claims to do what it cannot do; namely, to be something of one nature while producing something of another nature. James asks in verse 12—again in a rhetorical manner—“Can a fig tree, my brethren, bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs?” In the natural world, God designed things to produce after their kind. You can tell what kind of plant a plant is by what kind of fruit it produces. Fig trees only produce figs, and grape vines only produce grapes. Pure praises to God only come from a heart that has been made pure before God. But praises that are impure—that is, that are mixed with bitter curses—come from a heart that still has unrighteousness in it. Such a heart cannot produce pure praise.
And finally, a mouth that speaks both blessings and curses results only in impurity. It cannot produce what is good but only what is contaminated. As James puts it at the end of verse 12, “Thus no spring yields both salt water and fresh.” If it produces salt water at all, it does not produce fresh water. If you want a drink of fresh, clear drinking water, you won’t dip your cup into the Dead Sea; because you won’t get fresh water there. God is seeking praise from people whose hearts are cleansed of bitterness and impurity, and whose lips are purified for His holy use. That way, when He looks for pure praise from them, He knows that it won’t be mixed with something else because it comes from single-purpose fountains.
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Now; James has made it already clear to us that we cannot tame our tongues and make them do what God wants them to do. He has raised a problem and drawn our attention to it, but he hasn’t told us a solution. It’s very frustrating.
But not hopeless. How grateful we should be for the blood of Jesus that redeems us from our sins and washes us clean of every guilty stain—including every guilty thing that has come out of our mouths. And from a practical standpoint, it seems that Pastor James—under the guidance of the Holy Spirit—is intentionally stirring up a sense of frustration in us so that we will learn to rely on God’s help. We must rely on Him and upon His grace through Christ.
So; what can we do with this ‘awareness-raising’ passage of Scripture? We should (1) recognize that God desires the praise of His people and has a right to that praise in pure form; (2) recognize that indwelling sin has given a horrible potential to our tongues; so that we are prone to offer praise to God with impure lips; and (3) recognize that things shouldn’t be this way and repent of our inconsistency
And that should drive us to a sense of utter dependency upon our heavenly Father. With reliance on the indwelling Holy Spirit’s help—let’s ask the Father to enable us to follow the pattern set for us in Ephesians 4:29-32:
Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption (Ephesians 4:29-30) …
and all to the glory of our Savior Jesus Christ—who, in glorified purity, we will praise forever!
AE
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