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James Part 7 · Messiah in Life

• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Messiah in Life podcast.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: This series on the Epistle of James is taught by Bishop Justin D.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: Elwell of Restoration Fellowship International, who also serves as the Messianic Rabbi of Messiah Congregation in Washington Mills, New York.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: From our congregational home, we invite you into a rich and practical study of one of the most direct and challenging writings in the New Testament.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: Over the coming months, each episode will carefully examine James's call to a living faith, a faith that endures trials, governs the tongue, pursues wisdom, and expresses itself through righteous action.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: Rooted in the scriptures of Israel and the teachings of Messiah Jesus.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: This study brings the message of James into clear focus for life today, forming disciples marked by integrity, mercy, and spiritual maturity.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for joining us.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: Now pour yourself a tea or coffee, and may the word we hear shape the lives we live.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: So James chapter 3 is where we shall begin this week.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I'll I'll be teaching through verse 12.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: That'll be enough.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: Trust me, it'll be enough with uh the context or the content of this study.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: Begin reading.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: Uh James chapter 3 and verse 1.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: If I was underlining that, I would underline we.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: For we all stumble again, emphasizing the we in many ways.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: And if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to bridle his whole body.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: If we put bits in the mouths of horses so that they obey us, we guide their whole bodies as well.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: Look at ships also, though they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are guided by a very small rudder, wherever the will of the pilot directs.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: How great a fire is set ablaze by such a small fire, or great forest is set ablaze by a small fire.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Gary.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: The tongue is set among excuse me, the tongue is set up set among our members, sustaining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell or gehenal.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: 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.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: It is a restless evil full of deadly poison.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: With it we bless our God, our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: From the same mouth come blessing and cursing.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: My brothers, these things ought not to be, that's the ethical ought.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: Does a spring pour forth the same open from the same opening, both fresh and salt water?
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives or a grapevine produce figs?
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_01: Neither can salt pond a salt pond yield fresh water.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: This is God's word.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: So we come from the concluding chap part of chapter two, where we're talking about faith.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_01: Faith apart from works is dead.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um faith is demonstrated by how we live, how we're living, what we're doing.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: We're not saved by works, obviously.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: That would conflict with the teaching of the Apostle Paul as well as James.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: But how we're living is demonstrated by what we're doing.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: Paul tells us, of course, in Ephesians 2, 8 through 10, that we've been saved for by grace, we have been saved through faith.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: And that we are saved unto good works that the Lord had prepared beforehand.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: So it's both a directive to the work that we'll do, the vocational work that we'll do.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: And it doesn't matter the category of work.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: Whatever we're doing, we do as unto the Lord.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: And it's an assurance because when we come to the kingdom of God, we have the assurance that we've been accepted by him because he's prepared things for us to do.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: Again, it's another way of Paul assuring his audience that they're part of the family of God.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_01: So as we transition into this chapter, it seems an odd transition.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: For you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: We talk a lot.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: And we talk to a lot of people.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: So we need to bear that in mind.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: So James chapter three moves from faith expressed in action in chapter two to faith revealed in speech and wisdom.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: This is really about showing what is in here, the interior life in the heart.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: So speech in Jewish thought is never neutral.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's never neutral.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: Words possess both creative power and destructive power.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: We can build up and edify the body of Christ.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_01: We can destroy the body of Christ.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: We can build brothers and sisters up, or we can tear them down.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: So James, James confronts the community with this sobering truth.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: Spiritual maturity is not only demonstrated by one by what one does.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's not just about our action, by what, by what we say, and by the kind of wisdom that shapes both our actions and our words.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_01: What wisdom are we taking in?
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_01: What wisdom are we pouring out?
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_01: How is the wisdom of God's word shaping our life?
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: If the word of God, if we're taking in the word of God, but our lives are not being transformed, we need to look closely at the Spirit of God.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: Are we genuinely born again?
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: What have you?
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: So not many of us should be teachers.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: We shouldn't all aim to sit in a position where we're talking, influencing, because of the amount of words.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: Remember that the Messiah says something that is incredibly sobering, that we will give an account for every idle word that we say.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I think over the course of the week, the amount of words that I type, the amount of words that I speak, the amount of words that I share.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: And that is a very sobering reality that if the words that I'm sharing, the words that I'm speaking cause someone to go astray, what is the judgment for that?
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: So we have to, you know, the this is also, let's say, a check valve.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's a when we're evaluating someone for ordination, we want to see their maturity.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: We want to know people who have walked with them, that have learned from them.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: We want to know the character, the quality of the character of the person, because this is a guard against, we we might say, pridefulness or arrogance.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: And it's also called to humility to take with great seriousness the vocation of teaching, the vocation of discipling.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: So James is giving us a warning right at the beginning of this because we all speak, we all share.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: But for those who do so with regularity, we we have a greater level of accountability.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: So it'll be a greater level of strictness by which we're judged.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: But that's not judged by humanity, it's not judged by man, it's judgment by God, right?
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_01: People will hold this against these the this uh 3 verse 1 against preachers, use it as a battering ram.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: And that's not what it's intended for.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's in it's it's inspired by the Holy Spirit to measure, to guard, um, and to keep us ever mindful of the fact that, you know, as I jokingly say, this call is being monitored for quality assurance.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you can't just say whatever you'd like and not think that the Lord is not, oh, the Lord wasn't listening on that day.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: This is being recorded for quality assurance, we might say.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: So in Jewish culture, Torah teachers have and had and still do have an incredible level of responsibility, accountability, and to mislead others was considered a grave offense.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_01: So when you uh in the rabbinic uh world and the orthodox world, um you're you usually study for seven years.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: We would say at a graduate level, and excuse me, at a graduate level, if you want to put it in the academic uh sense.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: So seven years, think about that.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: That's after you've finished your undergraduate study.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: Seven more years before you can even be considered to sit for your examination.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not just a couple hour examinations, you have your written exams that you have to do, you have your oral exams you have to do, you have to show competency in uh seven major areas of Jewish life that you are able to lead a community.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: And at the same time, they're evaluating your character.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: They're not putting it out.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_01: This is your character evaluation.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: They're watching how you handle situations, how you handle the stress of the situation.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: They, of course, know that the teachers who have led you and instructed you.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: How is his character over the last seven years?
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: What have you seen?
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: What have you witnessed?
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_01: What have you observed, and so on.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: So rabbinic uh tradition cautions against teaching without humility, emphasizing that the misuse of words can distort God's truth.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: We have to rightly divide, rightly handle the word of God.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: Why?
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: Because people uh orient their whole lives around what they're learning from scripture.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: And that, you know, this is why teaching is not done in isolation.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not a lone wolf out among the sheep doing what I want to do.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: I'm under accountability here with leadership.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: I'm under accountability, even though I lead an association, I'm under accountability of leaders within the association.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: So you want to surround yourself with accountability.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: You want to hold yourself to that standard because of the seriousness of which, with which we will be judged.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: So his concern is not to discourage people from teaching, but to show the seriousness of it.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: And that goes for how we interact with people in our, you know, our regular life.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_01: Just you speaking to your sons, your daughters, your friends, your co-workers, and so on.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: So it confronts ambition, it confronts carelessness in speech.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: And the teacher's role demands, of course, integrity.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_01: Lives must be shaped by integrity.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: Remember, the author of Hebrews tells us to consider the faith of our leaders, consider their lives.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_01: What has been the outcome of their faith?
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: How do they handle uh situations of great complexity?
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_01: How do they handle situations where they are struggling, wrestling, and under trial, they're in tribulation?
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_01: How do they handle that?
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_01: What is their response?
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: What is the outcome of their faith?
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: What is the outcome of their training, their preparation, their yielding, their prayer life, and so on?
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: All of that has to be uh kept in mind.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: So Yeshua, Jesus warns against hypocritical teachers, right?
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: We see that in uh Matthew 23.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: The, you know, it's Matthew 23 is not anti-Pharisee, it's correction.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: So if I'm correcting a group of pastors, woe unto you, pastors, hypocrites.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's how you speak.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's how, and that's one of the things that we witness.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_01: He's speaking to Pharisees largely because, you know, was Yeshua a Pharisee?
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: I wouldn't say he was a Pharisee, but he was certainly influenced by the Pharisaical sect.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: Every Jew living in Judea and Galilee was.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's just a reality of life at the time.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_01: Their position was the most dominant position, it remained the most dominant position, so it influenced.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: But because of that influence, remember, he said, those who sit in the seat of Moses, what is the seat of Moses?
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: This is the judgment seat.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's Sashita's seat of leadership.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_01: Do what they say, but not what they do.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: They're telling you the right thing, but they're not living it.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: So he points out the hypocrisy of those who are presuming to sit in the seat of Moses.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: And every synagogue around the world, you'll look up, you'll have the president's seat, you'll have the seat of Moses.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_01: Moses' seat is still in every synagogue around the world.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: And in the church, it's called the bishop's seat now, but it's uh in traditional synagogue, it's seat of Moses.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: Online for cutting that out.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um so James admits that we all stumble.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_01: What do you say?
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_01: For we all stumble.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: This is an apostle.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: This is the brother of Messiah, right?
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_01: This is the brother, the younger brother of Yeshua.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: This is the leader of the Jerusalem congregation.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: For we all stumble in a few ways, in a way, no, in many ways.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_01: So he doesn't articulate, he doesn't give us a long list, a laundry list, because heaven forbid we'd look at it and go, you know what?
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: I stumbled and it's not on the list, so it doesn't count.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: Humanity would do that.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: We'd find a loophole around it.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: For we all stumble in many ways.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: If anyone does not stumble in what he says, how do we understand this perfect?
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: He's perfect.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: That's beautiful.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: No, he's mature.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's a maturity.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: He's mature.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: Now, I have yet to meet anyone who's fully mature.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: We have varying degrees of maturity based on our experience, our time with the Lord.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: But I have yet to meet someone who has reached that point of maturity where they uh they don't stumble anymore.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: But if anyone does not stumble in what he said, he's a perfect man, also able to bridle his whole body.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_01: He's able to control his whole being.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: And it all comes down to this little thing right here.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_01: So this is where it's gonna be a little painful.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_01: So he's speaking of maturity and disciplined speech.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_01: Disciplined speech.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_01: What is in here?
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: How do we know?
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_01: If you go for your annual examination, one of the things that they do is they tell you, stick out your tongue, right?
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_01: They're not always necessarily looking directly at your tongue, but you have to stick out your tongue anyway.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: Especially, you know, older times, they would look.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_01: What is the condition of someone's tongue?
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_01: It was a it was an evaluation of general health.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: So, how do we judge and evaluate our spiritual health?
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: This little thing.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: What is our tongue doing?
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_01: So words reveal in many ways the condition of our heart, the condition of our faith.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_01: It's a powerful little thing.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: So let's consider it again.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_01: Looking at verse three.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: If we put bits into the mouths of horses so that they obey us, we guide their whole bodies as well.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_01: Look at ships also, though they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are guided by a very small rudder, wherever the will of the pilot directs.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_01: I remember after we, uh I shouldn't say we, after my uh wife bought her sailboat, I'm only uh I'm only a uh deck hand.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_01: I'm maintenance on that thing.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: But I remember the first time I there's a lot of physics involved with sailing.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's incredible the amount of physics that's involved.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember the first time that I had controlled the rudder where we were uh pitched perfect into the wind and we caught the wind, and it was just an incredible feeling of sailing.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm thinking of the dynamics of this.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: We have the sail, it's you know, I think we were we had uh full sail out, um you know, it's 20 feet tall.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um we had our uh dagger board down, rudder was down.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_01: Now the rudder is only three feet, three and a half, maybe maybe 40 inches, it's not very big.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_01: And you think about how the rudder, the dagger board, and the sail all work together, and you can feel it in the rudder.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_01: You can feel the power, you can feel the physics at work in the rudder.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_01: And if the rudder is off at all, you might roll, you may pitch into the wind, and you know, the sail will die, the wind will die.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: But how you are holding that rudder and controlling that rudder is incredible, it's an incredible feeling.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_01: So when James is connecting this to that image of the rudder, this little thing directs our whole body, it directs our spirit in a manner of speaking, it directs our life.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_01: So we have to be mindful of just how this little thing that seems so insignificant, how it can direct, impact, influence, lead us, lead others, and so on.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um so he employs this imagery and he uses the bit, he uses the rudder, he uses the fire.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we've talked about humility before, humility being, you know, the in the in the image of the Greek or meekness in the image of the Greek was the war horse under control.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_01: You think of a Clydesdale, you think of, well, any farm horse, the amount of power that's in that animal, and it can be, you know, you see the Amish children just leading these massive horses around with a little, you know, uh a little rain.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_01: And that horse at any moment could break free, do whatever it wanted to do.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_01: I remember, you know, leading my sister-in-law's horses uh back to the barn out of the field one evening.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, I was still I wasn't as big as I am today.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_01: You know, my my tent had not yet expanded quite as much.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_01: But the horse stuck its head up, and this was a cantankerous, miserable horsey.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: He stuck his head between my legs and lifted me up off the ground.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not talking about an inch, I'm talking about he lifted me up off the ground almost to his head being straight.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_01: And he was a he was a tall boy.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I slid off his nose and I turned around and gave him a good slap across the face, and he's just stopped and looked at me.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_01: He never did that again.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: But as a guy as big as I am, as was big as I was, he had no problem.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: And now you think back in the ancient Greek world, the power of the horses that was restrained by something so small as a bridle.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_01: That's meekness, especially for men of God.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: Being a man of God isn't that you're always throwing your weight around and your bravado around.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's that you're restrained by the Holy Spirit.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's restraint, it's power under restraint of the Holy Spirit.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_01: So he's using these images because they're very striking.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: And you see a disproportionate excuse me.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: A disproportionate influence of the bit, the bridle, or the bit and the bridle, we could say, um, the rudder and the fire.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: A disproportionate influence that has just an incredible impact on the life around us.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_01: So in Jewish wisdom literature, we find that, of course, echoing what we find in scripture, um the tongue is often described as both the source of life and a weapon of destruction.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: Life and death is in the power of the tongue.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_01: Think about that.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_01: Now, some of you I'm seeing you went to the buffet, and now you're now you're making choices.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: I'm seeing it.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: Your eyes are getting heavy.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: Some of us made smart choices today.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: We just had a salad.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_01: I did too.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_01: Because I forgot to pick up the other thing that I wanted, and I was already in the car and I was too lazy.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, we'll deal with my laziness on another occasion.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_01: So life and death are in the power of the tongue.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: I've talked about this many times that you may not have murdered anyone with your hand, but you can murder someone with your tongue.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: That is an incredible power.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_01: And it's something that we need to take for response uh with a great deal of responsibility.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: So James describes the tongue as a fire, a world of unrighteousness.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_01: And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness in verse 6.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's a world of unrighteousness.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_01: What is he talking about?
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_01: Think about how careful, how safe.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_01: Now remember the context of this.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_01: These would all, to put it in the vernacular of the day, today, it would be, these were all very froom, very kosher, very religious Jews, meticulous in their observance.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_01: But their tongue can stain all of that.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there's an entirely different perspective when you walk around with a kippah, you're not going to yell at the person behind the counter, heaven forbid.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_01: Why?
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_01: Because you're making a statement with this.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_01: You're saying, I love the Lord, I trust in God.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_01: The traditional understanding is that you're always, the Lord is always above you, the Lord is always there with you.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_01: And unfortunately, there are times, especially if you go to New York City, heavy Jewish communities, an Orthodox world where, you know, New York City, a lot of rudeness, just generally scattered across every culture that's there.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_01: But with those who are making a confession of faith by their appearance, there should be a higher standard, a higher degree of how we are conducting our lives.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_01: So this little thing can make all of that religious religiosity just disappear, look as if it's nothing.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_01: So you have to be careful, you know, we uh heaven forbid, I would to come out with a talis on and a kippah on and walk down the hallway and start screaming at Gary before Shabbat morning service.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody'd be in a really holy state of mind at that point, wouldn't they?
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_01: And Gary would be laying hands hastily.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: But how would you, what would you think of my religious appearance?
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: Was it actually uh is there any actual substance to it at that point?
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think so.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_01: So the imagery recalls prophetic warnings about that we receive all through the prophets about destructive speech, false testimony.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_01: And Yeshua, Yeshua intensifies this in Matthew 5, 21 and 22, where he's equating harmful speech to violence of the heart.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_01: If you say to someone, Racha, if you speak to someone in this way, this is violence that is coming.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_01: It may not be violent of the fist, but it's violence that's coming from the heart.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_01: And the tongue has given life to that.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_01: Remember, our faith is one of create the power.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to use an Aramaic expression, Abara Kadabara.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_01: That's Aramaic, it's not magic.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_01: As a abarah, as I create, kadabara, as I speak.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_01: That's why it became a magical uh formula as abakadabra, you know, I'm changing something.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_01: But it literally means as I I create as I speak.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_01: So what are we creating?
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_01: What are we creating?
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_01: And that is something that comes from in here, in this inner reality.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_01: Now you might not even you might not even give vocalization to what's going on in here, but you know you can internalize that and destroy yourself.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: Continually condemn yourself, continually criticize yourself.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_01: That is just as wicked and unrighteous.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_01: Why is it unrighteous?
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_01: Why is it wicked?
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_01: Because it is a false testimony about what the Lord has said about you.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_01: So you can speak against yourself and murder you without it ever impacting anyone else.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_01: And this is where the greatest uh battleground, I know people go nuts over spiritual warfare.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_01: They're up there Randai Shandying on the roof and youting out into the world and the ether and their in the spirit and their but the greatest battlefield of spiritual warfare is right in here.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's inside.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_01: The devil is looking for any opportunity, any occasion.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: Now, as I've said before, he can't read your mind, and he doesn't know what you're gonna do until you say it.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_01: He's not omnipotent, he's not omniscient, he cannot know everything, but he looks for the door that you open.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_01: And as soon as you say, I am blank, blank, blank, blank, whatever the blank might be, that's contrary to what the Lord has said about you, he said, open door, legal access, here I come.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: So that's why we have to be so careful about our speech.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I rebuke myself over that as well.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's like I'm having a multi-personality uh, you know, conversation here.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'll and I'll say, Oh, I'm a tripartite being, Lord, I understand that, but sometimes those triparts they speak to each other.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_01: Somebody's gonna have me committed over that, right?
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_01: I could use a nap, so it'll be all right.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_01: But I will literally catch myself repeating something from some point in my history, and the Spirit of God will begin to arrest that and convict it and rebuke it.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_01: So it's not just about my words to you, it's about my words to me.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_01: So that's that's why he is and he's using such incredible terminology.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_01: How great a fire, a forest, is set ablaze by such a small fire.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_01: You can go up into the Adirondacks and you can see the evidence of forest fires over the history.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_01: There's one beautiful and striking area.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um on your way up, it's in the high peaks.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_01: On your way up, it's called over the noonmark shoulder as you're making your way up to Bear Den and Um uh boy, I'm forgetting my high peaks, and I need to rebuke myself about that.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, Colvin and Blake.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um so you're up, not Colvin and Blake, nippletop and dial.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, dial.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_01: So you're making your way up to Bear Den and Dial, and you walk through a forest that is unlike any other forest in the Adirondack High Peaks.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_01: And you say to yourself, what happened here?
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_01: And then you learn 100 years ago there was a forest fire that nearly burned that entire mountain.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_01: And you're walking through the new growth that's there.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_01: And you think about the how massive these mountains are, and how small.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_01: All it took was a lightning strike, all it took was a small campfire, all it took was a spark and ignited that.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_01: And these are the types of things that that we all need to bear in mind.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_01: All it takes is one unmeasured word to set someone's life on fire.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_01: And so we have to be careful about that.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_01: So the tongue and the image of God, as he shifts in the latter half of the sec section.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_01: It's a very noisy furnace, I apologize.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_01: With it actually let me read before that.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's a restless evil.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_01: What is?
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's a restless evil.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_01: Full of deadly poison.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_01: Isn't he a encouraging teacher?
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_01: He is descriptive.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_01: He is very descriptive.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_01: So he is telling us, he's giving us the 411, he's giving us the skinny on the on the tongue, on the power of the tongue.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_01: Just when we think that it's full of righteousness, we find out no.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_01: Just when we think it's pure and holy and right, he says, no, it's a world of unrighteousness.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_01: It's a fire, it's full of deadly poison.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_01: And think about how much it can poison us or poison others.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_01: James didn't get invited to a lot of conferences back in the day.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_01: So with it, he says, with it we bless our Lord and Father.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_01: And with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_01: You can't go out into the hallway, go up one side of someone down the other, come in and praise you, Lord.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_01: That's hypocrisy.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_01: For the same mouth, from the same mouth come blessing and cursing.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_01: My brothers, these things ought not to be.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_01: Remember when I talk about your ought and your is that we need to check our ought with our is?
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_01: Where is we and where ought we to be?
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's a way of just evaluating where we are, what we're doing.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_01: And how we are monitoring, we might say.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_01: So this contradiction violates both creation theology, as I was saying, that abracadabra, that uh abaracadabra, that Aramaic phrase.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_01: In it is expressed creation theology.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_01: How do we understand that?
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_01: God spoke and it was.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_01: God said, Let light be, and light was.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_01: We're creating his image and his likeness.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_01: Think about how our tongue or the tongue of others can influence what we see in creation, how we perceive creation, how it can form our worldview.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_01: Think about that, how we can view others.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_01: Think about when you've heard something negative about someone that was probably gossip and not true, and how you always look at that other person through the lens of that information as compared to truth.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_01: That's why gossip is so strongly spoken against in scripture.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_01: Gossip can, you know, the Torah cannot be any more clear.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_01: Do not be a tail bearer among your people.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_01: And what is the image of that?
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's going from this person to this person to this person to this person to tell the tail.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_01: Don't do that.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_01: So we all need to be cautious and careful of that.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_01: And this also violates covenant ethics.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_01: Remember you, the ought.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_01: My brothers, this ought not be.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_01: So that put it puts it into the character of how we're living in covenant.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_01: How we're living in covenant.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_01: To curse another human being is to dishonor the Lord's image bearer.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_01: The only aspect of creation that images God is humanity.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_01: You've got how many, Lord have mercy with the black flies in New York State.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_01: You have untold black flies, not a single one of them image God.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_01: Praise the Lord for that.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_01: Not one mosquito images God.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_01: Not one planet, not one universe images God.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_01: Not one fish images God.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_01: But humanity does.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_01: So covenant ethics comes into play.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_01: We can't dishonor the image of God.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_01: That's why we have to be careful and cautious.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_01: No matter how much.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_01: And think about this, beloved friends.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_01: I was praying about this yesterday.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_01: One of the things that we see with the seedy underbelly of social media, which is just the revelation of exposure of social media, is if you don't think God is going to judge your words that you post on social media, uh, and I see some of the comments that Christians make directed at each other.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not even talking about directed at political adversaries.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just thinking of this ism doesn't agree with this ism.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_01: So in the comments section, there is an unholy war raging.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_01: And no one is focusing on Christ at all.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm thinking, do you genuinely believe the Lord is not going to judge those words?
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_01: And so I don't make, you know, I don't comment on people's posts.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_01: I don't, very rarely do I comment.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_01: And if it's a comment, it's a good for you.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's not a, I don't comment on people's political posts, I don't comment on people's adversarial posts.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_01: I keep myself why?
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_01: Because I I need to keep me pure, keep me unstained from that wickedness.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't think people take into consideration social media.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_01: You know, social media is the it really is, if you want to understand the downfall of Western civilization, social media is the eulogy.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_01: It really is.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_01: And it's sad.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_01: And it all falls under what James is saying here.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_01: And this isn't the stuff that gets people excited and whooping and gets the checkbooks out and going.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_01: This is not the stuff that people want to talk about.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_01: They want the hoot and the holler, the rah-rah, rah stuff.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_01: But Jewish tradition kind of uh consistently affirms that humiliating another person publicly is akin to shedding blood.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_01: And when you look at how people respond to each other, it's the constant one-upmanship in the attempt to slay their adversary.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_01: You publicly humiliate someone, and this is the thing in social media it's a day, it never goes away.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_01: So the very shame that Christ went to the cross to bear on behalf of that brother and sister that you've disagreed with, you've left him to open shame once again.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_01: And that's akin to shedding blood.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm being judgmental about that.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think so.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_01: So we can murder with our tongue, we can murder with our digits.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_01: When we let our fingers do the talking, we can do that just as well.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_01: So Messiah echoes the principle that we see here, or James really echoes it, but when he teaches about reconciliation taking priority over ritual worship in Matthew 5, 23-24, when we think about we have an issue with a brother or a sister.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_01: And he's speaking about, and this is the thing, we don't we don't hold this in the in the in the right frame that we should.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_01: When he's saying leave that leave leave that offering before the altar and go make be reconciled to your brother, there's an expiration on how long that sacrifice, which was very costly, could stay there before it was considered spoiled.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_01: So he this is something that was devastatingly expensive to your family.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_01: And the Lord is saying, no, reconciliation with them is far more important than that.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_01: And we handle it very cheaply today because we don't keep Christ as our sacrifice.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_01: We don't sit and say, why are we exposing him to open shame once again?
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_01: Again, we want to be right, we want to be vindicated.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_01: So we need to be mindful of that reconciliation that is causing division and distinction, uh not distinction, uh division and separation.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_01: So true devotion to God, to the Lord cannot be separated from how one speaks about and to others.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_01: So inconsistency is what what James is speaking about, being inconsistent in our in our walk.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_01: And it's a call to integrity.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_01: I know that's a dirty word in this day and his age, but integrity is is incredibly important.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_01: So he insists that blessing and cursing cannot come from the same fount.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_01: How do you think the Lord receives it?
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, you're blessing me?
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_01: You just cursed this person over here.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_01: Just as a spring cannot produce both fresh and bitter waters.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_01: So it's a call to consistency, it reflects a covenant demand for integrity and wholeness of life.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_01: Faith is not compartmentalized.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's my faith life.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_01: This is my secular life.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_01: This is my faith life, this is my street life.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_01: Scripture never gives us that permissiveness.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_01: So faith is not compartmentalized, our speech will often reveal our allegiance.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_01: Our tongue will often reveal our spiritual health.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_01: So there are times when we definitely need to stick out our tongue and let the great uh great physician see how our health is, right?
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_01: So it's a hard, this is a hard section.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_01: This is why this is an example of why people do not like to study James.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_01: He's not making us into legalists, he's not making us into robots.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_01: He's simply saying, if you're going to walk the walk, talk the talk.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_01: Let your speech be measured, let your speech be holy, let your speech be glorifying to God.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_01: We're all, and again, we're all going to what did he say?
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_01: We all stumble.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_01: Did you notice he didn't say we all fall?
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_01: Doesn't Paul say the same thing?
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_01: Have they stumbled yet to fall?
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_01: We will all stumble.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_01: Why don't we fall?
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_01: Because of the Holy Spirit.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_01: So we all stumble in many ways.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to stumble, you're going to stumble.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_01: We all do.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_01: Alright, does he say let me read the amplified version?
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_01: For we all stumble in many ways, and we are all disqualified.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: From going any further, so just drop over and die now.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_01: That's how people read it, but that's not how he wrote it.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_01: For people who are listening online, I'm I'm amplifying to absurdity.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_01: We all stumble.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_01: And if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he's mature, he's perfect, able to bridle the whole body.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_01: That's what the aim is.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_01: That's what the goal is.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_01: And what is it?
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_01: What do we call it?
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_01: What does Paul call that?
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_01: Being conform to Christ.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_01: So that is where we'll pause for this week.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_01: We'll conclude with the wisdom of God next week that comes from above.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_01: But we will uh open to some questions.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_01: Those of you listening online, feel free to submit.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for joining us.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_00: And until our next episode, may the Lord bless and keep you in the name of Messiah Jesus.
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.