Transcription
[Music] greetings to Jesus name. I'm Bishop Chester right, and this is the video teaching series, praying in the spirit. This is part 1 of that series of lessons. And the focus of this series of lessons, part 1, is learning to pray in the spirit. This is lesson number 19. We want to talk about in this lesson, bridled tongue, bridled body. That sounds strange, but give me a moment, maybe that'll make sense here a little bit.
James chapter 1, verse 26 says, "If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain." Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this: to visit the fatherless and the widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.
Now, the suspended translation says in verse 26, "If, as is the case, anyone imagines himself to be religious, not holding in check his tongue with bit and bridle, but it's deceiving his own heart, this man's religion is worthless." So Paul is referring here to someone's pure devotion to God, that it can only be demonstrated when the tongue is bridled. Now, keep that in mind when we begin to read in James chapter 3.
But before I read in James chapter 3, let me make this statement to you, okay? And these verses we're about to read, it's going to say, the Bible's going to say that the tongue is the most unruly member of the body. Now, God does things differently than everybody else. Man starts with the simple stuff and builds up to the heart. But God, in demonstrating his deity and the superiority of his deity over all men, when God institutes something, he doesn't start with the easiest; he starts with the hardest.
So when God had been dealing with man all these years, and he wanted to turn from dealing with a man and his family to dealing with a nation, he didn't start with just dealing with a man's family with 70 people. Because that family went down into Egypt because of famine, but while they were there, they were taken into captivity. And so that family multiplied, multiplied over 400 plus years. And so when, when that group of people came out of Egypt, that 70 plus people that went into Egypt came out of Egypt, depending on who you're talking to, being a group of people between 2 and 4 million people, not counting all their animals and all their other possessions that they left Egypt with.
So when God wanted to have a congregation, he didn't start off with it with a family to plant a church someplace. He started off with this entire huge body of people. And so when God wanted to prove his dominion over humanity, over flesh, God didn't start off by healing cancer. He didn't start off by, by giving us victory over some enemy. He started off by taming the most unruly member of our body, and everybody's got the same one, male or female, old or young, married or single, and that's our tongue.
So God proved from the beginning his ability. If any man's really, any man's religious, seem to be religious, but bridle it not his tongue, his religion is vain. So what is this? Let's read what the scripture says here. There's more details I want to bring out.
James chapter 3, verse 1 says, "My brethren, be not many masters, knowing that we shall receive the greater, the greater condemnation." The word masters there means teacher, not slave owners, but teachers. For in many things we offend all. If any man offend not in word, with his tongue, James 1:26, the same is a perfect man. That doesn't mean flawless; it means complete, mature, fruitful. The same is a perfect man and able also to bridle the whole body.
So, you know, James 1:26 says if you seem to be religious, but your tongue's not bridled, your religion is vain. And then James 3 says that if we offend no one with our tongue, then we have matured into the kind of person that God wants us to be, and that's proof that we're able to bridle the whole body.
But then he says, "Behold, we put bits in the horse's mouth, that they may obey us, and we turn about their whole body." You pull on one rein, and it turns the horse's head, he turns his body, he changes direction. And the other, a well-trained horse only has to feel the slightest bit of pressure to understand he's supposed to turn, and he does that. And hopefully, that doesn't hurt the horse's mouth, but that's how you control a high horse. They learned thousands of years ago, I'm assuming, that you put some kind of bit in a horse's mouth, a bar across there, and with a string attached to each side, you pull it, it directs the horse's head, and obviously, it was going on before the Bible was written here, because this is what the Holy Ghost referred to to help us understand how God works.
But behold, we put bits in the horses' mouths that they may obey us, and we turn about their whole body. And going back to last lesson, Jeremiah chapter 7, verses 9 and 10, that the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? The Lord said, "I try the hearts, I try the reins." Reigns, r-e-i-n-s, are the strips of leather that are connected to the bits going in the horse's mouth. And so the Lord tries the reins, meaning he sees if we're going to respond to him, obey him, if we're going to let him be the rider, the master, the Lord.
Well, we know from Paul's writing in Romans 7 that he had a problem with that, and he was greatly concerned about it. He said, "The willing is present with me, but how to find out how to do what I will, I find not." He said, "Those things I want to do, I don't. Those things I don't want to do, I do." Again, "How to will is present with me, but how to find out what to do and what how not to do and how to do, I, I don't know how to do that." He said, and then finally, in his frustration, he says, "O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" And he said, "I thank my God through Jesus Christ my Lord." So he understood the frustration of an unbridled or an uncovered body.
So how do we do that? Well, we need to respond to the reins. We need to be submitted to God. But how do we get edified? How do we get our faith built up enough that we are able to trust God and his direction enough so he can bridle our body? Well, let's read some more.
Next verse: "For behold, all the ships, which though they be so great, are driven of fierce winds, yet are they turned about with a very small helm, whithersoever the governor listeth." Now, I've been on aircraft carriers, they were over a thousand feet long, a thousand feet long plus, and they had a rudder. And that rudder wasn't small, but compared to the ship, it was small. But that rudder is connected all the way up to the bridge. And on the bridge, they still have the wheel where the little dowels coming out of it so it can be turned quickly. You grab it, turn it quickly, and that entire ship turns.
Because the one guy standing on the, of the bridge, taking orders from the person that's got the conn or has command to give the orders to control the ship, and does that, he turns the ship. And when he turns that wheel, all those tables and everything, all the way back to the, through the, the rudder turns the rudder, and the ship turns. So we, we turn ships which, so they be so great, are driven, it, and are driven of fierce winds, yet are they turned about with a very small helm. The helm is that ship's wheel, that's what it's called. It's called the helm. The helm controls the rudder, and you can control the ship that the governor.
So, you know, they're turned about with a very small helm, whithersoever the governor listeth. I think it's really important to get this image here. The image is that there's someone on the bridge giving the commands. And on a ship, maybe in your, your own powerboat or whatever you've got, your bass boat or whatever it is, you've got, you, you, you, you got that your hand on the helm or whatever the rudder or whatever the stick is that you're controlling the rudder, however you're controlling the rudder in your boat. And you don't give orders to yourself; you just think and do it.
But not so in a ship. That ship gets any size at all, probably over 50, 60 feet, you're not going to have the same guy governing your ship that is on the helm. Why? Because the guy that is giving the orders has to be able to walk back and forth and see both sides of that ship, and he can't keep his hand on the helm. So you've got somebody who's hands on the helm that steer, see, steering the ship, but there's someone else giving the orders to control the ship. Well, who's got their hands on the helm? Us. Who's giving the orders? Hopefully, Jesus.
So I'm reading again, "Even so, a, so the tongue is a little member and boasteth great things. Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth." You can start a barn, my bonfire, you can, you can burn a house down starting with a match. You only need a match. So a little fire, that little fire kindling can kindle a great fire. Now, and the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. And what have we been teaching about iniquity? It's iniquity is us doing our will rather than the Father's will. So the tongue is directly connected to the heart, where iniquity is, when we're running our own lives.
So is the tongue among our members that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire course of nature, and it is set on fire of hell? Why? Because the Spirit is working in our world today is the spirit of iniquity. And Jesus said in Matthew 7:21 through 23, again, I'm using those verses, that those that call him Lord but don't do not the things which he says, that they're not surrendering their will to him. Because the word Lord means supreme ruler, the one who owns you. He said, "Depart from me, I never knew you, you worker of iniquity." I don't know you because you have never surrendered to my will, and I don't know the relationship we have, into your relationship we have, I don't approve of because you're doing your will, wanting to get me to bless it. But I want you to surrender my will and do my will all the time.
So the tongue, because it's directly connected to the heart, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh. That's where we express our iniquity. I want, I like, I desire, give me, do for me, fix this, change that. And I'm praying my own will; I'm not praying his will. And the problem with that is when I am praying iniquity, I am praying with an offense. I'm praying offensively to God. I'm praying offensively.
So verse 7: "For every kind of beasts, and a birds, and of serpents, and of things in the sea, is tamed, and hath been tamed of mankind. But the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison." Therewith we bless God, even the Father; and therewith we bless, we curse men, which are made after the similitude of God. Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing, my brethren, these things ought not so to be. Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter? Can a fig tree, my brethren, bear olives, or a vine figs? So can no fountain both yield salt water and fresh?
So again, verse 9, 8, again, I'll read verse 7 and 8. "For every kind of beasts, and a birds, and of serpents, and of things in the sea, is tamed, and hath been tamed of mankind." Every kind of beasts, birds, and serpents, and things in the sea have been tamed by man. But the tongue can no man tame. Now, if I, if I want my religion to be acceptable to God, I cannot. I've got to have my tongue bridled. And if I offend not in word, I am a mature man, because my whole body is now bridled. Once my tongue is truly bridled, then my whole body can be bridled because the tongue is connected to my will. It expresses my will instead of God's will until it's bridled. And after my tongue is submitted to God, so that it's doing God's will and not my will, then the Spirit of God can go from that point and bridle my whole body.
But if I don't do that, then it's a world of iniquity, and I set on fires, fires from hell. It's so sad when a child of God, who claims the Holy Ghost, sets fires that hell. When it started, there's probably in God, very few sins that are any more damaging to the kingdom than the sins that are done with the tongue: gossip, whispering, backbiting, murmuring, complaining, accusation, etc., etc., etc. All of these things expressing the will, the human will, which is contrary to the will of God, and it's iniquity. The tongue is a little member. Tongue is a little member. Tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity.
Now, if I cannot, if I cannot please God without my tongue being tamed, and the tongue can no man tame, verse 8, James 3, how in the world do I have any hope of pleasing God? Because when the Lord first gave me the Holy Ghost, he filled me with the Spirit, and I began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave the utterance. And in order to speak in tongues, truly biblically, comes that God claims the only way I can do that is through my being, my being there. And if I yield my being to him, I have to first yield my will to him. And to be able to yield my will to him, my faith needs to be built up. I need to be edified in him. I need to be able to do that. And how do I do that? Well, I need some way for that to work in my life. And how is that? Praying in the Holy Ghost. Praying in tongues in the Holy Ghost. God is taming, God is taming my tongue. For me to speak in tongues, I had to yield. I have to surrender my will to God and give that tongue over to his words.
In Jesus' name. Let me read. I'm not going to read all the different translations I've got here, but let me, let me read one. Let me read Wiese. I'm encouraging you to get your Bible out, and if you have other translations, to read them all. Get all the translations from these verses, it'll help you see it more clearly. Even though each one will say a little bit different, they're all saying it, they're all pointing to the same thing, and they're all taken because again, there's no divinely inspired translation.
So reading Wiese, not many of this is verse 1 of chapter 3. Not many of you should become teachers, self-constituted censors and recruiters of others, my brother, for you know that we teachers will be judged by a higher standard and with greater severity than other people. Thus we assume the greater accountability and the more condemnation. For we all often stumble and fall and offend in many things. And if anyone does not offend in speech, never says the wrong thing, he is fully developed, is a fully developed character and a perfect man, able to control his whole body and to curb his entire nature. If we put bits in the horse's mouth to make them obey us, we can turn their whole bodies about. Likewise, look at the ships, though they are so great and are driven by rough winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the impulse of the helmsman desires are determines. Verse 5, even so the tongue is a little member, it can boast of great things. See how its wood, or how great a force the tiny spark can set ablaze. And the tongue is a fire, the tongue is a world of wickedness set among our members, containing and depriving the whole body, in setting on fire the wheel of birth, the cycle of man's nature, being itself ignited by hell, Gehenna. For every kind of beast and bird of reptile and sea animal can be tamed and has been tamed by human genius or nature. But the human tongue can be tamed by no man. It is a restless, undisciplined, irreconcilable evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse men who are made in God's likeness. Out of the same mouth come forth blessing and cursing. These things, my brethren, ought not to be so. Does a fountain send forth simultaneously from the same opening fresh water and bitter? Can a fig tree, my brethren, bear olives, or a fig tree bear, excuse me, can a fig tree, my brethren, bear olives, or a grapevine figs? Neither can a salt spring furnish fresh water.
So how do, how do we have a pure spirit? First and foremost, by doing the will of God. And I can't do the will of God except by the Spirit of God bringing me to the place that I'm willing to completely give up my whole self to God. I give up my will to God. I'm willing for him to be in control. I'm willing for him to give all the orders on the bridge of the ship. The illustration I was using earlier, I have had the conn of a heavy guided missile cruiser. And the guy that had his hands on the wheel that day was a very experienced helmsman, because that, that cruiser was probably about 800 feet long, if I remember correctly, the CLG 3 Galveston, USS Galveston. And I was a midshipman on board that day. We'd been there for six weeks or more, and I was in charge of doing the Man Overboard drill. And so I'm standing out on the, on the wing of the bridge. And the helmsman, I'm just a kid, I'm only 21 years old at the time. And the helmsman is a seasoned, experienced man with his hands on the wheel. But he didn't do anything he wasn't told to do. Didn't matter, didn't matter how experienced, didn't matter what he thought of me. The captain gave me the conn. And the captain's standing there with me because he's explained the Man Overboard drill, he demonstrated it, and then for whatever reason, he picked me out of the group and said, "Mr. Wright, coming here and do the Man Overboard drill." It was my highlight of the whole summer because I'd practiced that in the Chesapeake Bay on a, on a yard patrol craft, which is about a hundred ten foot long wooden ship, that are about 20 on the side of the Naval Academy to practice ship handling drills. And I had done that, and I knew how to do it because I'd done it several times. But it was my turn to have the, the command of one of the yard patrol craft. And so I'm standing there, and this kid who's not even an officer yet is given the authority by the captain to give the orders to the helmsman, this seasoned helmsman. And he didn't do anything I didn't tell him. Now, you talk about trust, but he didn't just trust me. See, he trusts just the captain. But that was true, no matter whose own has the conn when you're underway or at sea. You stand for our watches. And so every four hours, a new guy gets on the helm, and a new guy has the con, or has the, the charge of guiding the ship from the bridge. And the whole thing works, and all those people on that ship trust their lives to those two people: the one given the orders that should know the right orders to give, and the one who has his head, hands on the helm, obeying the orders of the officer of the deck. God is the officer of the day. At best, we are the helmsman. What are we going to do? We got to trust God. We're going to surrender our will to him and let him do these things through us.
Well, the way that you practice it, and I'm using the word practice there, the same way that doctors call what they do practicing medicine. The same way that lawyers do what they do when they're handling the case, that's everything to you, they're practicing the law. The same way, they're practicing. We practice when we are praying in the Spirit. But every time we do that, we're learning how to be sensitive to the Holy Ghost. We're learning how to do that. We're learning how to yield. We're learning how to be submitted. And the Lord wants to take that experience by his Spirit and apply it to the rest of our lives if we will allow him to. Therefore, the title of this lesson, bridled tongue, bridled body. In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, I pray for you and me that we will allow God to talk to us, that we would allow God to work in our lives, allow God to bring us to the place where we would trust his word enough to trust his Spirit, to trust his Spirit to tame our tongues, so that his Spirit taming our tongues would lead us to the place that our lives would be tamed by him. In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, the grace of God be upon you to empower you to do that. In Jesus' name. Amen. That we together like please the Lord. Amen.
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