 start with a the title of this session is duties that preserve marriage and that is the title of one of the essays in this book. How many of you are familiar with this? Do you have it? Some of you one, two. Well I'm gonna start by arguing that you need to get this. This book is first published in 2014. It is A Theology of the Family and it's 56 writers. I'm gonna read you some of the names of these writers. Let's see names you will recognize probably Richard Baxter 1615 to 1691, Thomas Boston 1676 to 1732, John Bunyan 1628 to 1688, Matthew Henry 1662 to 1714, John Gill 1697 to 1771, Jonathan Edwards, William Gouge is the writer I'll focus on most today is 1575 to 1653. So writers who who had who wrote about the subject of marriage a long ago but then there are some contemporary writers as well. There's a chapter in here for example on the subject of abortion. Chapter 9, R.C. Sproul, Joel Beakey, some of the writers there. I wanted to just read you the titles of some of these chapters. Chapter one is Family Worship. Chapter two, Godly Manhood. Chapter three, Virtuous Womanhood. Chapter four, Marriage and so on. It's a real treasure of wisdom about applying the word of God to the way that we live and in particular how families, family life, how Christians should conduct their family life. The jacket cover says this book presents a perspective on the family largely forgotten by the modern church. There are 56 authors featured in this volume. Each of them gives a powerful testimony that the 21st century church needs to be reminded of. These authors bring a measure of the correction and the balm necessary to heal our amnesia and return us to biblical order. It's available on Amazon for 37 bucks. You can get the Kindle version for 9 or 10, I think it is. Within the section on marriage, most of which I read this past week, The Excellence of Marriage, Arthur W. Pink. What are the duties of husbands and wives? Richard Steele. Mutual duties of husbands and wives. John James. A husband's love for his wife, Richard Steele. A wife's submission, John Bunyan. A wife's respect for her husband, Richard Steele. Duties that preserve marriage. And that is William Gooch. He is 1575-1653. He was the chairman at one point of the committee that wrote the Westminster Confession of Faith. He was a pastor for 48 years in London in a church that's long since been demolished but that was in central London. And the book that he's, I guess, most famous for is called Domestical Duties. And you can get that on Amazon on a Kindle book for 99 cents. It's amazing. And so within his essay that the title of this section is taken from, the first thing that he talks about is the importance of maintaining mutual peace. And he gives some specific instructions about how to do that, how a man and wife can maintain peace with each other. And so he's got several pieces of advice. I'm going to actually end up focusing on just one of them, which he doesn't elaborate in here. But it seems to me that one of the best ways to understand this one idea, the first principle he gives for marriage is that you should avoid causing offense. And so how do you do that? I think one way that we can understand that idea in a helpful way is by looking at what James says about the untameable tongue. And so that's where we're going to spend most of our time today is in James chapter 3. But I wanted to start with a quote from the first chapter, the first essay in this chapter from A.W. Pinkway just talks about marriage. He says, this is the excellence of marriage. It is perhaps a trite remark, yet nonetheless weighty for having been uttered so often, that with the one exception of personal conversion, marriage is the most momentous of all earthly events in the life of a man or woman. It forms a bond of union that binds them until death. It brings them into such intimate relations that they must either sweeten or embitter each other's existence. It entails circumstances and consequences that are not less far reaching than the endless ages of eternity. How essential it is, then, that we should have the blessing of heaven upon such a solemn yet precious undertaking. And in order to do this, how absolutely necessary it is that we be subject to God and to His word thereon. Far, far better to remain single unto the end of our days than to enter into the marriage state without the divine benediction upon it. So the duties that preserve a marriage, William Goode starts, this is, it's an excerpt actually, if you read his book, and I read parts of it, the editors here have taken sections and sort of put them together in this one essay. But so the for maintaining peace. So this is a very simple thing, right? I mean, so you need to be at peace with your spouse. It's such a simple thing, but it is easier said than done. I run a business and Marion and I started it in 2008. And we started it on the basis of it's just a very simple idea that we had had in home care help for Marion's mother for several years. And those companies did, you know, from time to time, we had a really good caregiver who was reliable and did good work and things went well. But with something happened to her, you know, the car broke down, there was a family emergency, she got sick. The company that they worked for, that was when they needed to step up and make sure that for us, the experience of, you know, the care of Marion's mother was uninterrupted and consistent. And so, you know, the concept was very simple. It was just make sure that we maintained the level of service regardless of what's happening, you know, with the caregivers and, you know, with all of the other things that they can go wrong. So it's a simple concept, but it's extremely challenging to deliver. And so I think about that in a way with, you know, maintaining peace with your spouse. It's a simple concept and it seems very obvious, but it can be challenging. So Goode says that to maintain peace, the first thing we need to do is avoid offense. All offenses, so much as possibly may be, must be avoided. The husband must be watchful over himself that he give no offense to his wife. And so the wife on the other side offenses cause contention. So how do you give offense? Certainly it's by the things you say, by the things you do, by your attitudes, and we're going to come back and look specifically at your speech, what James says about your speech. You know, I had thought when I first began to put this together, well, we'll take, you know, we'll take each of these seven ideas that Goode has and we'll sort of develop them and, as it turns out, there's really only time to really deeply get into one, part of one, really. And that is your speech and how to avoid offense with your speech. But so the second thing that he talks about is take not offense. So you don't offend your spouse and you don't take offense. And that's not how we normally respond when somehow we're crossed. Right? We often respond offended. And that makes the case for Goode's second, a third point he says, if both be incensed together, the fire is likely to be the greater. With the greater speed, therefore, must they both labor to put it out. Wrath must not lie in bed with two such bedfellows, neither may they part beds for Wrath's sake. That this fire may be the sooner quench, they must both strive first to offer reconciliation. There's is the glory who do first begin, for they are most properly the blessed peacemaker. Not to accept peace when it is offered is more than heathenish. But when Wrath is incensed to seek atonement is the duty of a Christian and a grace that comes from above. So the third idea here for maintaining peace is to offer reconciliation. Be the first to do that. Take the initiative, regardless of the issues, regardless of what the disagreement may have been about. And when it's offered, receive it. He goes on, these other points I'm just going to skim over very quickly. Take no part with others. So, you know, don't get others in your household to sort of take up your side of the argument against your spouse. He says, make not comparisons. I love this old English. He says, they must forbear to quit one another in the teeth, which is a way of saying persistently criticize. So definitely if you're going to keep peace in your household, do not have that critical spirit. Be not jealous and please one another. In all things that may stand with a good conscience, they must endeavor to please one another and suffer their own will to be crossed rather than discontent to be given the other. So that is really good advice. We're going to look at how to avoid giving offense in your speech. And I think the, when you think through these seven points that he makes, they all manifest themselves in speech. They all find expression in some way. You can give offense by the way you speak and you can exhibit offense that you've taken by the way you speak. If you're both offended together, it turns into a conflagration. Jealousy produces a certain kind of speech. Criticism is a certain kind of speech and so on. So the, the thing that I wanted to then focus on is what James tells us in chapter three, which there are a lot of verses and a lot of scriptures in the Bible about how you speak to one another. I encourage you to just do your own study about that. But this is one of the most extensive treatments. And so let's just read it. James chapter three, verses one to 12. In my, in the New King James, that section is titled The Untameable Tongue. My brethren, let not many of you become teachers knowing that we shall receive a stricter judgment for we all stumble in many things. If anyone does not stumble in word, he is a perfect man able also to bridle even, to bridle the whole body. Indeed, we put bits in horses mouths that they may obey us and we turn their whole body. Look also at ships, although they are so large and are driven by fierce winds, they are turned by a very small rudder wherever the pilot desires. Even so, the tongue is a little member and boasts great things. See how great a forest, a little fire kindles. And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. The tongue is so set among our members that it defiles the whole body and sets on fire the course of nature. And it is set on fire by hell for every kind of beast and bird of reptile and creature of the sea is tamed and has been tamed by mankind. But no man can tame the tongue. It is an unruly evil full of deadly poison. With it we bless our God and Father, and with it we curse men who have been made in the similitude of God. Out of the same mouth proceed blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be so. Does a spring send forth fresh water and bitter from the same opening? Can a fig tree, my brethren, bear olives or a grapevine bear figs? Thus no spring yields both salt water and fresh. I wouldn't need to really exposit that much, really, right? For you to get the basic message that this is a huge problem for us. And I didn't, you know, when I think back to the first time I really thought about that passage it was when I, you know, flashed out at somebody in the workplace who was seemingly single-handedly burying the publication I was trying to run at the time. But that doesn't excuse the sin of the way that I offended her. And, you know, it was I had been converted for a while, two or three years, and I know that she thought, wow, is that how Christians behave? That's been thrown up in my face a few times over the years by people who are not Christians but who know that I am and, you know, expect that a Christian is going to behave in a certain way. I can think of too many instances, right, of how that's happened and with regret. The reason that I, and so part of it is, you know, some of you may have studied through this and if you have that will just be a good reminder to you, but maybe you were like me and you, you know, the first time you really thought through it was because you had really sinned against someone. The, so it's convicting to Christians who lose control of their tongues and say things that are, that reflect badly on Christ, you know. But it's just, I think, so with your spouse, with whom you will spend more time than anyone, you know, with whom you will be more intimate than anyone whose faults you will most often encounter. That is the person you must be the most concerned not to offend. It is sometimes the case though that the words to our spouses are because of our lack of self-control and to some degree because of our ignorance. The most careless, the most cutting, the most ungodly, the most unloving, the most destructive. Christian couples sometimes speak in ways to each other that they would not imagine in settings with others. So as we look at this passage, some of you may have to think for a time about the last time you said something hurtful to your spouse. Whether intentional or not, but I bet your spouse wouldn't have to think about it very long. Others of you are immediately convicted by the ways you've abused each other with your words. The remedy in every case is the same. Repent, believe the gospel and cry out to God for his spirit to lead you in turning away from the sins of your speech, believing that God's will for you is to be like Christ who never sins and especially not with his words. His words were life to us. So as we go through this passage on James, you know, the one thing I want you to take away from this session this morning is that your words are powerful, not in a charismatic sense, you're not going to speak things into existence, but in the way that James means when he writes, it sets on fire the course of nature and it is full of deadly poison. So James chapter 3, Alec Mottier is an Irish pastor and scholar who died in 2016. Just recently he was 91. He wrote a commentary on James and it was extraordinarily insightful, I thought. And so much of what I'm going to share with you is based on his commentary. But in the very first verse here, my brethren, let not many of you become teachers knowing that we shall receive a stricter judgment. The question is, who is the teacher? And not all commentators are in agreement about exactly how that's to be understood. Mottier believes that someone who's been appointed in a public with a responsibility to public teaching. Calvin thought that it was anyone really who's teaching someone else. So if you're making disciples, you're the teacher. Henry thought that the context here was a warning against putting on an air about being a teacher. But they all agree that the influence that we have on others, especially in terms of how we're to understand the Bible, is a serious matter about which God will hold us accountable. And Mottier frames this issue in a really powerful way. He said, there is hardly a sin more pervasively exposed and condemned than sins of speech. And he starts by looking at Genesis 312. He says, that verse, the woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me over the tree, and I ate the first actual sin following the fall was a sin of speech. Paul makes the point in that passage in Romans 3, which we're all very familiar with, talking about no one being good. Listen to what he says in verses 13 and 14. Their throat is an open tomb with their tongues. They have practiced deceit. The poison of asps is under their lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Isaiah explained his alienation from God by saying, I am a man of unclean lips. So this underscores the point that it is pervasively exposed and condemned. And so he makes this statement about this issue of the sins of speech. It would be impossible to pretend that ordinarily, we see the tongue in this light. We rarely stand alongside Genesis or Paul in finding our speech, the primary evidence of our fallen state. We do not share Isaiah's sense that here is a sin which in a special way separates us from God and brings us to condemnation. Matt, you're also quoted Peter from 1 Peter 3, 10, where Peter says a controlled tongue is a key to blessing. In 1 Peter 3, 10, he who would love life and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit. So it's a key to blessing, according to Peter. And Matt says, nor has anyone ever told us that a controlled tongue is the key to blessing as Peter does and as we are about to hear from James. So in Matt's commentary, he outlines the points that are made in verses 2 to 12. This way, six points. 1. The tongue holds a key place in holy living. 2. The tongue has enormous power for actual harm. 3. The tongue is humanly uncontrollable. 4. The tongue involves us easily in the deadly sin of inconsistency, because with it we bless some and curse others. 5. The pollution of the tongue, not its sweetness, prevails. And 6. The tongue that utters bitter words has as its source a bitter heart. So let's go back and look at verses 3 to 5a. For we stumble in many things. If anyone does not stumble in word, he is a perfect man able also to bridle the whole body. Indeed we put bits in horses mouths that they may obey us and we turn their whole body. Look also at ships, although they are so large and are driven by fierce winds, they are turned by a very small rudder wherever the pilot desires. Even so, the tongue is a little member and boasts great things. So if anyone does not stumble in word, he is a perfect man. Only a perfect person is able to keep his speech free of sins. And who among us is able to do that? Mottier describes some of those sins. He says they are the hasty word, the untruthful statement, the sly suggestion, harmful gossip, innuendo, impurity. But a central point, not the central point, a central point is that if we are able to control our tongues, we would be able to control our entire being. And Mottier says here, this is the main point in his commentary, listen to this. The tongue is the key factor in controlled living. We ask ourselves how we are to control the powerful forces within us that drive us into sin. And James replies by talking about something we never considered, do we control our tongues? The tongue is the key factor in consistent living. Circumstances vary. There are pressures of adversity. And the often greater pressures of prosperity. There are sudden and unexpected shocks. The blows which life administers to us. Can we hold our course? James' marine illustration is not at all wide of value. The mark is a description of life with its tides, currents and storms. Once again, there is a rudder to hold the ship on course, and the tongue is that rudder. The control of the tongue is more than an evidence of spiritual maturity. It is the means to it, let that sink in for a minute. We should be so thoughtful and so careful about what we say, even when we are, have no ill intent. When we sometimes, and we're trying to be nice, we say things that are hurtful. And so, if you will, among other things, pray that the spirit would lead you turning away from hurtful speech, walk in the spirit, be conscious of this issue of thinning with your speech, it will cause you to mature spiritually. So, I thought that was a powerful point that Mottier brings out. Look now at the next few verses here, the second part of 5 and then 6. The issue is that the tongue has enormous power for actual harm. See how great a forest, a little fire, tendles, and the tongue is a fire full of iniquity. The tongue is so set among our members that it defiles the whole body and sets on fire the course of nature and is set on fire by hell. That's just stunning language, that is a fire, a world of iniquity. It means that the tongue is inflammatory of all our capacities, doing its utmost to make them the organs of a whole cosmos that is hostile to God. That's the character of your tongue, its influence defiles the whole body. Since the tongue is so fundamentally in all the thoughts, imaginings, longings, and plans which lie behind the whole of our earthly life, it leaves the mark of its own defilement everywhere. It sets on fire the course of nature, which means that it affects the whole range of human life from the earliest days to the latest. And it is set on fire by hell, Montier says. The first feature of the tongue was that it is anti-God. The final feature is that it is pro-Satan. Hell is the place of fire and James sees the fires of Gehenna reaching up to that part of our sinful fallen nature, where they will most easily find their touch paper. The tongue becomes the instrument of Satan himself. So four things, its character, its influence, its evil force, and its affiliation wrapped up in that verse and a half. His third point, the tongue is humanly uncontrollable. Look at verses seven and eight A. For every kind of beast and bird of reptile and creature of the sea is tamed and has been tamed by mankind, but no man can tame the tongue. It is just stunning to think about that. Our creator told us to take dominion and over all of creation and we're able to do that. We have done that, but we can't do that with our tongue. Montier said, the God-given dominion over creation is still being exercised for good and ill by contrast, but by contrast no human being can tame the tongue, a restless evil. Now look at verses eight, the rest of eight and through ten. It is an unruly evil full of deadly poison. With it we bless our God and Father, and with it we curse men who have been made in the similitude of God. Out of the same mouth proceed blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be so. So James makes the point that we will praise Christ and then turn around and curse someone made in the image of God. So we will praise the man who is the image of the invisible God and curse the one we can see, the sin of inconsistency. Verse 11, does a spring sin to forth fresh water and bitter from the same opening? We use that analogy sometimes when we're evangelizing that I haven't used this in a while, but you're making breakfast for someone and you see a break of dozen eggs and it just happens that that last one is rotten. That one rotten egg is going to overwhelm the whole thing, right? It's going to be nasty. A little bit of sin separates you from God forever. A few sinful, hateful words will flavor all of the nice ones that you say. Then finally verse 12, can a fig tree my brethren bear olives or a grapevine bear figs? Thus no spring yields both salt water and fresh. Maier says, this is James sixth reason for keeping a watchful eye on our speech. A fig must have a fig tree as its source. A grape can only come from a vine, an olive from an olive tree. Salt water has a salt source, sweet water, a sweet source, bitter words, a bitter heart, critical words, a critical spirit, defamatory, unloving speech, issues from a heart where the love of Jesus is a stranger. So be careful with your words. When I began to think about this, one of the things that I remembered was an essay written last December in The Cripple Gate. I don't know if some of you, I know, read that. I'm around a lot of Charismatics who are always saying that they're being led by the Spirit. I don't know who it was exactly, but he made the point and it's appropriate to consider here. There are two places in Scripture where that phrase of being led by the Spirit are found. Romans 8, 12 to 14, which says, so then brethren, we are under obligation not to the flesh to live according to the flesh, for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die. But if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. And the other is Galatians 5, 16 to 22. But I say walk by the Spirit and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh. For these are in opposition to one another so that you may not do the things that you please. But if you are led by the Spirit, there's that phrase, you are not under the law. Now the deeds of the flesh are evident which are immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these of which I forewarn you just as I have forewarned you that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. Then he goes on to speak about the fruit of the Spirit. So in both of these passages you see that the one who is being led by the Spirit is the one who is being led away from sin, turn to turn away from sin. And so if you will be led by the Spirit you will speak more gracefully. So you must walk with the Spirit and that means living in a way in which you're consistently conscious of God's presence. And you do that by exercising the means of grace that we've talked about so much. So I've got the red flag back there. Let's pray and our next speaker is Pastor Michael. Let's pray. Father in Heaven, we thank you for this council from your word, the clear teaching of how our sinful nature just erupts in our speech. Help us, Lord, to just be mindful of these words that you've given us here about being careful and thoughtful about the ways that we speak to each other and especially our spouses. Help us to love each other, to take no offense, to give no offense, to be fast, to reconcile, and to glorify you in these things. In Jesus' name, amen.