The Power Of Your Tongue

Having considered with you as teenagers the contents of Lord’s Day 42 of our Heidelberg Catechism (Questions 110-111) on seven occasions, we will now proceed to consider for the next several occasions lessons from Lord’s Day 43 (Question 112) on the ninth commandment, “Thou shalt not bear false witness.”

The Lord has given us many gifts and powers not provided to any other creatures. One such remarkable gift is a mouth to speak. “Who has made the mouth of man? Have not I, the Lord?” Through a combination of brain, tongue, mouth, lips, teeth, and throat, you can share a diversity of words and ideas with others. Language is a precious gift which can be used for much good when it expresses love, concern, and kindness.

In Paradise we have damaged this gift severely. James tells us that our tongues are worlds of iniquity. Our tongue is like fire. It is full of deadly poison. With our tongues we can even curse our Creator and our neighbor while we appear to bless. Through our tragic fall, our tongue has become a powerful weapon which we use against God and our enemies.

No weapon on earth has caused so much sorrow and so many tears as our tongue. Division, enmity, hatred, war — all this and more have been promoted by our tongue. “The tongue can no man tame” (James 3:8).

Sadly, the sins committed by our tongue are usually ignored or minimized. If someone is a thief, we are quick to condemn him. If someone is a murderer, we imprison him. But if someone exercises the thievish, murderous power of his tongue, we call it weakness or sickness rather than sin.

A minister once said, “I would rather that you steal all my possessions than slander my name, for it is possible to restore my possessions more readily than my reputation.”

A Scottish forefather, McGowan, has rightly said, “When we look at our own sins, we look, as it were, through the wrong end of a telescope, reducing their size. When we look at the sins of others, we move to the other end of the telescope to enlarge them.” How similar to Jesus’ teaching about the beam and the mote (Mt. 7:3)! Only grace can turn the telescope around, for grace causes us to think most severely of our own sins. Then our tongues are quieted in judging others, but confess to God against ourselves.

The ninth commandment, “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor,” condemns sins of the tongue. Make it your prayer, “Set a watch, O LORD, before my mouth; keep the door of my lips” (Ps. 141:3).

— JRB

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