Full of Deadly Poison - Glenn Conjurske
Full of Deadly Poison
Abstract of a Sermon Preached on December 27, 1998
by Glenn Conjurske
I suppose that if any of us were to be solemnly informed that we have a mouth full of deadly poison, we would be struck with the utmost consternation. We would spit, and gag, and wash our mouths with soap, and run to the doctor. We would take immediate and drastic steps to eject the poison, by any and every means.
But the fact is, there are many of us who do have our mouths full of deadly poison. The tongue fills the mouth, and every one who has a bitter, sarcastic, reproachful tongue has in fact a mouth full of deadly poison. The Bible says, “But the tongue can no man tame: it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.” (James 3:8). And yet with this mouth full of deadly poison, people are as complacent as a cat on a cushion behind the stove. They feel no evil and fear no evil. How is this?
No doubt because they are in no danger of swallowing their tongues. The poison which fills their mouths proceeds only outward, never inward. They only spit it out, and never swallow it. In short, it only hurts others, and not themselves. They would be greatly offended and incensed if they must hear such things of themselves, as they are quite ready to say of others. Indeed, they are greatly incensed if another but points out to them the poison of their tongue. If we would know just how deadly that poison is, we need only reprove the dealer in it. Such a reproof, though as true as truth itself, and as righteous as heaven, is likely to be met with a shower of venom, first to our face, and afterwards behind our back.
The serpent’s mouth is full of deadly poison also, but he does not fear it. The poison which he carries is a deadly weapon, which he freely uses against others, but he never feels it himself. So also the poison of the tongue. If those who deal out this deadly poison were to feel it themselves, they would be crushed and overwhelmed, yet they deal it out to others as though it were but candy. This is not surprising, for those who are the most sensitive to their own injuries are commonly the least sensitive to the injuries of others. So long as the deadly poison is reserved for others, but does not hurt themselves, why should they trouble themselves about it?
You will say I paint a dark picture. ‘Tis true enough, but it is not my picture, but God’s. It is God who says, “it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison,” and can any man suppose that people carry deadly poison in their mouths in order to swallow it, and deal death to themselves? No, they carry it for others.
Yet we are willing to soften the picture, for all who have this deadly poison in their mouths are not equally guilty. Some may intend more evil than others, though they all do plenty of evil. All who deal out the poison of curses and maledictions and invectives and execrations—-all who deal in bitter sarcasms and caustic reproaches—-must certainly know that this is poison, though some may be actually unaware of how deadly the poison may be, and if they are brought to behold its deadly effects, they may be quite devastated themselves. They only meant to hurt, not to kill. But as with fists and knives and clubs, many a man has committed murder when he only meant to hurt, so it is with the tongue also. It is perfectly legitimate for judge or jury to distinguish between first-degree intentional homicide, and unintentional murder of a lesser degree, but still the man is dead, and it was his assailant’s blows which killed him. It may be he knew not the power of his blows, or the deadliness of his weapon, or it may be that in the passion in which he delivered his blows, he did not pause to consider it, but his blows were deadly for all that.
And so it is with the tongue. We fear that many who deal out their poisons are really unaware of how deadly they are. Wives curse their husbands, and husbands their wives, and parents their children, with little conception of the deadliness of their poisons. At any rate we hope that this careless cursing and reproaching proceeds from such ignorance. We are quite willing to believe that it does, but deadly blows are deadly for all that, and it will be well for all the dealers in poisoned speech to learn that this is deadly poison, before its awful effects come home to them.
Earlier in the chapter James calls the tongue a fire. “And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. So is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature, and it is set on fire of hell.” Hell does not mean to hurt, but to kill, yet those whose tongues are set on fire of hell may be actually unaware of the awful nature of the fire. I frankly suppose that many of those who are so free with their tongues are really unaware of the danger, as many others seem to be in their use of fire.
When a house burns down, we often hear it blamed on an over-heated wood stove, or a defective wood stove. Wood stoves, therefore, have a bad name, especially with insurance companies. But the trouble is not in the stove, nor in the fire either, but in the people who use it. They are careless with fire, precisely because they have no proper sense of the danger of it. They no more intend to set the house afire than others intend to set on fire the course of nature with their fiery tongues, but they do it nevertheless, because they have too little sense of its danger. They fill the stove up and leave it to itself, and the next they know the flames are pouring out the windows and through the roof. They start some small bonfire, with little sense of its danger, and before long the fire spreads where they never intended, and they are running frantically to stamp out the flames here, to water them down there, or to turn them back yonder. But the fire can run faster than they can, and it can run to ten places at once, while they can run only to one. They never feared such a thing—-never thought of it—-when they started the fire, and they took no proper precautions, precisely because they had no proper sense of the danger. And so it is with the tongue. When men speak their bitter words, they never expect that these will run with the swiftness of flames driven by the wind, till the town is in an uproar, or the church divided. We may charitably suppose that in many cases people would be more careful with their tongues if they could but foresee the danger, the same as they would with their stoves and bonfires, if they saw the danger of those. But they see no danger. They mean only to scorch some soul which has irritated them, not to set the course of nature on fire. They mean only to bolster their own pride, or to make themselves look good by making another look bad, and not to divide the church or the family.
I have seen some church splits, and heard of others, and I think it is safe to say there never was a church split but the tongue did it. In most cases there is probably one tongue at the bottom of it, but one warm tongue sets another on fire, and those two blaze so much the more together, till they have ignited the tongues of half the church. Passion reigns, reason hibernates, and evil triumphs, and one small tongue is at the bottom of it all. Truly “the tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things.”
Those who set the woods on fire never meant to do so, but they had little sense of the danger of what they did intend to do. In like manner do they seem to be ignorant of the deadly nature of the poison in their tongues. I must confess that I myself was long slow to understand the strong language of James. “Deadly poison.” “A world of iniquity.” This is strong language, and yet we can easily enough see its truth in the case of the wicked. “Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips; whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.” This all belongs to Paul’s description of the wicked, and is the undoubted and literal truth. But James strikes nearer home. “Therewith bless we God, even the Father, and therewith curse we men, who are made after the similitude of God. Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing.” Is this some piece of “oriental hyperbole”—-as the modernists explain everything they don’t happen to like—-or is this the literal truth? And if this is the literal truth, who blesses God and curses men out of the same mouth?
The answer is not far to seek. Christian fathers. Christian mothers. Christian wives. Christian husbands. Parents are especially guilty of this. What curses and maledictions proceed out of the mouths of some fathers and mothers! How they reproach and grind and crush their helpless offspring, whenever their passions happen to heat their tongues. Then their children must hear how stupid they are, and how worthless they are. Then they must hear, “Why can’t you be like your brother? He never was a lazy bum like you are.” Then they must be told, “I never wanted you in the first place, and you have been nothing but trouble since the day you were born.” And if this is not deadly poison, what is? Some children have been driven to suicide by their mothers’ tongues. Many more have been driven to rebellion, against their parents and against God. This is poison, to be sure, and deadly also.
No doubt most of this poisoned speech is as unmeant as it is untrue. The old proverb says, “In wine is truth,” for when the brain is heated by wine, the tongue speaks the truth, which it would never dare to speak otherwise. But it is just the reverse when the spirit is heated by anger. Then the tongue speaks falsehood, which it would never dare to speak otherwise. But how is a child to know this? He only knows that his mother, to whom he looks for love and comfort and every good, passionately affirms that he is worthless, and that she never wanted him.
But sometimes, we grant, the poison is less than deadly. Though deadly enough in its tendencies, it may be administered in such doses as fail to kill. It only hurts. It is only intended to hurt, not to kill. But I tell you, you have no more right to hurt than you have to kill. And those reproachful, sarcastic, resentful words certainly are intended to hurt. When I was a boy we had bickering enough in the house, and when someone spoke hard words to me, my mother taught me to say, “Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me.” But this is not true. There is deadly poison in the tongue, and words may in fact be more deadly than sticks and stones. A husband may speak some bitter thing in ten seconds that a tender wife will never recover from in ten lifetimes. It will do little good to apologize later. You tell her you are sorry you said it, but she knows you said it because you thought it, and this is where the hurt lies. Let a man tell his wife once that he never loved her, or that he wishes he had never married her, and she will never recover from this for a thousand apologies. Those words will haunt her till her dying day. It is usually altogether vain to attempt to recall reproachful words. The wound is deep, and the scar will remain. A deadly poison, once administered, spreads through all the veins, and there is no recalling it. A little prevention here is worth a great deal of cure. “Least said is soonest mended,” and when the speech is such as will require mending, nothing said is best of all.
But if the deadly poison of the tongue appears in our speaking to others, it appears much more in our speaking about them. People will say a hundred things behind a man’s back that they would never say to his face. And if the hard words spoken to a man’s face injure one, the words spoken behind his back defile many. He that speaks evil of another, and expects his reproaches to be buried in the ear of the listener, might just as well start a fire in the woods, and walk away and leave it, and expect it to die out of its own accord. If you have the liberty to reproach a man behind his back, why should not the listener have the same liberty? He repeats the matter to another, and he to another, till the whole course of nature is set on fire. And how great a matter a little fire kindleth. You did not intend all this. You meant only to make the man look bad in the eyes of one or two. You never intended to split the church. But the fire once kindled cannot be stopped. It runs to every point of the compass, till the fire departments of ten counties are powerless to stop it. And the tongue which struck the original match is as powerless to stop the fire as anyone else. You may stand up before the whole multitude and solemnly declare that every word you spoke was a lie, and yet the fire will run on. The passions are excited. The original lie has stirred up the pride and resentment and ill-will of the people, and though it were proved ten times over to be a lie, the passions which it has aroused will find a hundred other matters against the man, all true, of course, and all very grave. I have seen many intelligent people perfectly immune to reason under the operation of such passions. Thus are churches divided, families alienated, friends parted, and the whole course of nature set on fire, and at the bottom of it all is a reproachful tongue.
James speaks strong things concerning the tongue, but they are no exaggeration. “It is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.” “The tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. So is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature: and it is set on fire of hell.” What more need we say? “My brethren, these things ought not so to be.”
Glenn Conjurske