How to Tame the Untamable Poison Within Us

James 3:7-10

James brings down the hammer and convicts us all when he clearly and boldly says, "For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so." (ESV)

Before we start I would just like to mention that these verses are my top three favorite verses in the bible for reasons you shall see. It's time to start. "For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue." This bluntly says that it is impossible for us to control what we say! We have been able to domesticate and tame every single kind of animal, but we cannot tame our own human tongue. and never will be able to. "It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison." Wow, our own tongue, the part of our body that we use to speak, is restless and full of lethal poison. So, we are being told that we are not able to control the one part of our body that is full of killing poison and is also unable to sleep. Our tongues are the source of evil in our bodies and we cannot control it, no human can. "With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God." This is how James shows how the tongue makes us all to be hypocrites. He says that we sing praises to God and pray to Him and worship Him, while on the side we are slandering our fellow human beings; the very creatures God made in His likeness. That sounds absolutely terrible when you really take it in: we are worshipping our God with the same instrument that we are cursing His image with. How dare we?! "From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so." James wraps it up here by summing up what was said above and strictly tells us that "this ought not to be so." He commands us saying that what we are doing needs to go, NOW!

So when you read all of that, it seems like we're pretty helpless, right? We contain a restless and deadly poison that makes us to be living hypocrites, and worst of all, we can't control it. What are we supposed to do then? Well, it's hard, but it is the true solution: we need to allow the Holy Spirit to speak through us and take control of our tongue at all times. In the text, it is said that no human can tame the tongue, James never said that God can't tame it. The only way for our tongues to be tamed is not by our own doing, but by the Spirit talking through us and keeping control of our tongues. This requires major obedience along with total submission to God's will, and in order to know God's will we must pray. God will tell us what He wants, He will take over when we are unable to do so. By communing with God as much as we possibly can, we will soon lose control of our tongue, not for it to go into darkness, but for God to take hold when we lose hold. Let the Spirit speak, He certainly has more wisdom and knowledge to share then we do.