James 3 Part 4 - The Tongues of Vipers

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Main Text:

James 3:7-8 (KJV) 
7 For every kind of beasts, and of birds, and of serpents, and of things in the sea, is tamed, and hath been tamed of mankind:
8 But the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.

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​Summary & Intro

    Despite man's natural abilities to tame animals, his own tongue requires an outside power to subdue it. Consider, for a moment, the taming and controlling powers of mankind. In this text in James, animal nature is presented as an inferior kind of nature that is subdued, tamed, and controlled by human nature. Man, in all his ability, has subdued all sorts of different kinds of animals, even some unlikely characters historically. Charmers make serpents appear to dance at the end of a flute, carrier pigeons bring messages great distances to their intended targets, dolphins have been trained for military purposes, even the Egyptians apparently succeeded in taming honey bees. Each animal was enabled to be utilized for purposes beyond what would be natural to them. Yet, to man's own embarrassment, the nature of the tongue is such that he is insufficient of a force to bring it's great power under control. (the tongue can no man tame) This implication then is that: There is something so inherently evil, if you will, about the way the tongue is used by men, which requires more than man to subdue and control it, that he needs constraint from a source above that of his own nature. The supernatural grace of God must be at work in the heart, if the tongue is to be properly subdued and bridled for higher purposes. Until then, the poison of asps is under their lips. Apart from this supernatural constraint, the tongue will remain ungoverned, will wreak havoc, and dispense a fatal, death dealing venom into the vitally important areas of our lives and our relationships.

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