Think on These Things
June 2000
1. Worldliness: Use of the Tongue
3. God's View of Foul Language
Worldliness: Use of the Tongue
Peter
provided and excellent bad example (i.e., one that makes a definitive point)
when he denied Jesus. Denying Jesus
was bad enough, but on his third denial Peter wanted to make sure that no one
would identify him with Jesus. Matt
26:74: “Then he began to curse and swear, ‘I do not know the man!’ And
immediately a cock crowed.”
Today
those who are of this world (worldly) use bad language to demonstrate that they
have no regard for God nor the teachings of Jesus Christ. Peter’s background, that of a fisherman, would put him in
the environment of some case-hardened sailors.
No doubt he knew every word in the book. And when the temptation came to exercise this part of his
vocabulary, the words came naturally. What
Peter seemed to overlook was that Jesus was watching.
Luke 22:61-62: “And the Lord turned and looked at Peter. And Peter
remembered the word of the Lord, how He had told him, ‘Before a cock crows
today, you will deny Me three times.’ And
he went out and wept bitterly.”
When we use gutter language today, we deny Jesus. We put distance between ourselves and our sacred calling. We refuse to be set apart, sanctified, and different from the world. Allowing evil words to come into our minds and pass over our lips is a sure sign of worldliness. The denial of Jesus cannot be taken lightly; Matt 10:33: "But whoever shall deny Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father who is in heaven.” The tongue can be used to praise God or to curse God and man — it is up to us. The difficulty that we have in controlling our tongue is an indication of our spirituality. Let us delve further into what the scriptures teach to see the remedy for this problem.
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The goal of this page is to promote morality and justice in our society (Prov. 14:23).
Mind
Control.
Most of the children in this country spend dozens of times more hours
watching TV or movies than they do in a house of worship.
Many have no idea at all what goes on inside of a church building, since
they never attend. This
is bad enough, but radically compounding this problem is the continuous diet of
cursing, swearing and filthy gutter language that is totally unavoidable in the
media today. Couple this with the
explicit sexual acts, nudity and graphic violence, and one might wonder how our
youth have any sense of morality at all. Movies
provide the new concentrated “religious experience” for our young —
perhaps the only thing in their lives that resembles religion.
It is what they talk about, what they emulate, and thus, the single most
dominating aspect of their culture.
Given
this, why would the TV and film makers not act more responsibly in molding these
young minds? The answers are
obvious. They want a perverted, immoral generation to emerge.
Perhaps this fits some grand scheme that they have for reshaping our
country into their own moral image. Perhaps
it is just greed, for we know that this brand of “entertainment” is most
profitable. And here is where the average citizen is part of the
conspiracy. For, collectively, we
could shut it down at any time merely by refusing to pay for it or to turn it
on. So when we participate, we have
no one to blame but ourselves.
In
fact, we can’t just point fingers at the film makers or the actors.
There will always be immoral people willing to take our money for their
services. They are merely the
leaders that we demand. We elect them with our ballots at the box office, and by
flipping the channels on our TV — the ultimate in democracy! We get exactly what we want, and exactly what we demand.
Unfortunately, both as a society and as individuals, we are going to get
exactly what we deserve.
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The
New Testament gives us this warning from Jesus (Matt 12:36-37): "And I say
to you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall render account for
it in the day of judgment. For by
your words you shall be justified, and by your words you shall be
condemned." The Greek word for
“idle” is argos, meaning inactive, unemployed, lazy, useless.
The sophistical word for it today is “expletive.”
These are words there to add
punch, but no added meaning. So in
the Nixon tapes, when there was an “expletive deleted” in the transcript, we
had no problem at all understanding what he was saying.
The
Old Testament is even more graphic. For example, in Lev. 4:10f, we find a man
who cursed and blasphemed. The
penalty for such behavior was given by God: (Lev. 24:14) "Bring the one who
has cursed outside the camp, and let all who heard him lay their hands on his
head; then let all the congregation stone him.”
If this were the penalty for such today there would not be many of us
left. But it does show God’s
attitude toward those who commit this sin, and how he wants His people to be
protected from its influence. Prov
8:13: "The fear of the LORD is to hate evil; pride and arrogance and the
evil way, and the perverted mouth, I hate.”
But to the barons of Hollywood, the perverted mouth is free speech, and
free speech is good. And if a
little is good then a lot more must be even better.
So they continue to push the envelope.
Our
tolerance of the perverted mouth is an indicator that we are more comfortable
with the world than we are with Christ. Our
use of bad language is a further indication that we are separating ourselves
from God ... going in the wrong direction.
Take
remedial action today. Get this
part of your life under control. If
you are not a Christian, become one by further hearing the word (Jn.6:44),
believing the truth (Jn. 3:16),
repenting of your sins (Lk. 13:3), confessing your faith in Christ (Mt.
10:32) and being baptized for the remission of your sins (Acts 2:38). Then, each time you are tempted to use bad language (or fall
to this temptation), pray for help (or forgiveness) from the Lord.
This will reverse the direction of this part of your life and keep you in
a saving relationship with God.
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but
Paul stated (1 Cor. 15:33) ...
“... evil communications
corrupt good morals ...”
In
biblical times stories were told by companions — those who we associated with
or socialized with, mostly family and friends.
This process of story telling has changed considerably in our day and
age, so that these communications (especially as they relate to story telling)
are predominately from our mass media. When
we subject ourselves to a constant barrage of this type of communication, it
will corrupt our morals. This is
inevitable, and those who deny it are just refusing to face the reality of what
they are becoming.
We
hear Christians sometimes say such things as: “That movie was not so bad —
it only had a little nudity in it.” This
demonstrates how far we have come in our toleration of sin.
In the past, the phrase “Oh my God” caused most Christians to flinch,
and it still should. But it is heard so often in our media and society, that many
see nothing wrong with it. The fact
that we have become immune to it makes it no less the taking of God’s name in
vain. And so it is with many other
terms. With the acceptance of this
language comes the eroding of the sense of morality that should cause us shame
to even hear it. Instead, many
laugh at it and revel in it. When
this happens, it is a clear indication that we have surrendered a portion of our
beings to worldliness. We need to
take back this part of our spiritual lives.
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