Behold How Great A Matter A Little Fire Kindleth!

“The tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things…The tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity…it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell.  The tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison” (James 3:5-8).

Grace and peace to the brethren, and greetings to those still in the world.

I hope that you had a blessed Thanksgiving.  Ain’t God good all the time?

Now back to business.

No doubt you have heard of the cheerful Wal-Mart shopper who pepper-sprayed a crowd of people on Black Friday in an effort to fend off contenders for some Xbox consoles.  

This story made me both angry and sad.  After reading it, I sat back and reflected on the depravity necessary to transform a simple shopping day into a trip to the emergency room.  No one was robbing this lady and she was not being sexually assaulted.  Yet she deemed it necessary to brandish a can of pepper spray.  And for what?  An Xbox.  Imagine if she were going for the last jug of water and hurricane Gladys was about to slam the East Coast.  

Of course, if most people knew why it is called “Black Friday” they would stay far away from any shopping center on that day; but I spare you.

For some reason, this incident reminded me of a news story of a few months ago which reported a very unfortunate stabbing incident.

It seems that a man and his son were returning from the boy’s high school graduation.  When they got to their car in the parking garage, the father discovered that the bottle of cologne he had purchased as a graduation gift for his son was missing from the back seat.  Believing it to have been stolen by the two parking attendants, he confronted them.  A confrontation ensued, and one of the attendants brandished a knife, fatally stabbing the man’s son.

No charges were filed against the parking attendant because, according to the news story, the boy’s father allegedly attacked the attendant.  Eyewitnesses and surveillance cameras allegedly confirmed that the attendant acted in self-defense.

What makes this story so sad and troubling is that this man lost his son forever over a $150 bottle of cologne, which I’m sure was not worth the loss of his son.  It is important to understand that it wasn’t the missing cologne that sparked this incident: it was the verbal confrontation that led to the physical altercation ultimately ending in the death of this boy.  The photos I saw showed a man covered in blood and in obvious shock.  How tragic!

This man probably wishes daily that he can have that day back.  He probably wishes that he had just told his son that he had gotten him a nice gift, but someone had stolen it.  His son would likely have been grateful just knowing that his father thought about him.  If he was anything like me, the real gift was just having his dad come to his graduation.  There are endless alternative endings to this story, all of which are preferable to the actual one.

As Christians, we must be careful to avoid situations like this.  We must be very careful in our dealings with unbelievers.  The world is getting increasingly hostile to the Gospel and to the messengers of that Gospel, the Body of Christ.  Persecution often begins with verbal attacks.  People will intentionally orchestrate situations in an attempt to provoke us to retaliate.

• A neighbor, for instance, might make a derogatory, inflammatory or otherwise threatening comment designed to provoke a verbal altercation.

• People may react to a benign situation in a manner totally disproportionate to the perceived offense.  An example would be a person who curses you or threatens to harm you for stepping on his foot.
  

• People could get physical with you.  For example, someone in a grocery store could nearly run into you with a shopping cart or one of those small cars for the disabled, pretending not to see you.  Or maybe while walking down the street, several people “accidentally” bump into you.

• Perhaps someone follows you on the road at night shining his high beams.

• Maybe one of your neighbors parks in front of your house when there is a perfectly usable space in front of his own.

• Your neighbors or their friends allow their dogs to run up to you barking or leave a noxious little present on your lawn.

These things happen to believers and non-believers alike, but Christians must be extra careful not to overreact when something like this happens.  There are many who will expend a considerable amount of energy to get us to react in an un-Christ-like manner. 

Hatred for Christianity and all Christians is growing exponentially and with it, aggression.  This is all part of a chain of events that will ultimately lead to the outright physical persecution of the Christian church, such as we see in Nigeria, Indonesia and other countries.

In a YouTube video I watched last week, a Christian leader discussed how historically Christians have been persecuted under a variety of false pretenses which were skewed to make the Christians look evil.  Christians, he said, were never persecuted ostensibly for their faith, but were always maligned under another guise.  

Those times are upon us, so we must take care.  Our enemies would like nothing more than to get us heated up to the point that we say or do something inappropriate.  That way, we look like the bad guys.  They want us to appear a menace to society and a threat to “peace and security” so that even decent, peace-loving people will want us out of the way.  Then when they come to round us up, no one will stand up for us. 

This will happen.  But we must make sure that we are blameless.  The Bible says that if we are persecuted for well doing, this is acceptable to God, but when we are persecuted for doing wrong, God gets no glory.  We should, therefore, avoid potentially volatile situations.

Many situations begin with a verbal altercation and morph into something far worse.  So we must be careful what we say.  Our speech must always be pure and blameless.  Paul says that we should use “sound speech that cannot be condemned, that he that is of the contrary part may be ashamed, having no evil thing to say of you” (Titus 2:6-8).  

Though it may be difficult at times, when we find ourselves in a potentially volatile situation, we must take a moment to collect our thoughts and make sure that anything we say would not bring shame and reproach on the cross of Christ.

King Solomon has this to say about our speech:

“Put away from thee a froward mouth, and perverse lips put far from thee” (Proverbs 4:24).

That means we should not use profanity when dealing with people.   Profanity always complicates matters.  Notice the difference in these two statements:

“Why did you do that?”

“Why the !@#$# did you do that?”

See the difference?  It’s hard to get angry with someone who simply asks your motive for doing something.  But it is very easy to get mad at someone who curses at you.  The actual question takes an immediate back seat to the curse word.  No matter what happens to us, we don’t want to be guilty of this one.

Another problem some Christians have is that of joking around.  Have you any idea how many deadly arguments were the result of a joke that went horribly wrong?  People who like to start trouble are often itching for a person to say something that they can pretend to take the wrong way and lay hands on you.  

If you have a penchant for jest, you need to go to God in prayer and ask His help in breaking this habit.  The enemy will eventually take notice of this weakness in your character and try to use it to his advantage and your hurt.  Paul tells us that we should avoid foolish jesting.  We would do well to heed that advice.

We should also use discernment when we are witnessing.  While we should take every opportunity to witness to the unsaved, especially our neighbors, not all are honorable men.  There is a thin line between making every attempt to witness to someone who desperately needs it and getting ourselves mixed up with a fool.  Again King Solomon is our resident expert on this subject:

“Go from the presence of a foolish man, when thou perceivest not in him the lips of knowledge” (Prov. 14:7).

A foolish man cannot hide this fact for long.  At some point, it will become obvious that he is a fool, and you had better do everything you can to get away from him.  That doesn’t mean you should not pray for him or her, but understand that you cannot risk involving yourself with a loose cannon.  At some point, there will be trouble.  Solomon knows this; that is why he says,

“If a wise man contendeth with a foolish man, whether he rage or laugh, there is no rest” (Prov. 29:9).

Understand that a foolish man is so called because he is incontinent: he lacks self-control.  He cannot help but do, say, or think foolishness.  He is somebody’s problem waiting to happen.  But that somebody needn’t be you.  A wise man will do everything he can to avoid such a person.  Like Solomon said, whether you are joking around with him or going off on him, it will come back and bite you—hard.  Leave him be.

One sure-fire way to avoid many situations is to use Godly speech.  A friend once told me how she was once confronted by the enemy in a grocery store.  The lady greeted her in a cordial manner, but instead of a standard greeting, my friend responded with “Hallelujah.”  At this, the person growled and hurried away. 

This is an excellent example of how Satan hates the things of God.  Scripture says that God inhabits our praises, and “Hallelujah” is the highest form of praise.  My friend praised the Lord and the devil fled.  I love it!

The more we use Godly speech and not worldly, our conversation changes and we become less fleshy.  I have an example of this.  My three youngest children were very young when I got saved.  Most of their recollections of me, then, are of their daddy as a saved man.  I was not always that way though, and my speech reflected it.

Recently I sent them some home movies I made when they were just babies.  When I called to ask how they liked the movies, my youngest daughter replied that I sounded “funny.”  I asked her what she meant, but she couldn’t tell me.  I explained to her that I was an unsaved man at the time I shot those videos, and that I often said and did things that were not pleasing to God.  I then apologized for any colorful language they may hear, since I didn’t think to check for that sort of thing when I put the movies together.  

When I thought about it, I realized that it was a great teaching point: their daddy was an unrepentant sinner and acted like one.  Now he is a changed man thanks to the washing and regeneration of the Spirit.  I praise God for the work He wrought in me, which is so profound that even a child can see it.  

Since words lead to actions it follows that the timbre of our actions will match those of our words.  If we use Godly speech, therefore, our actions become Godly and likewise our responses so that we glorify God no matter what we do—even when we get angry.

This is not an exhaustive dissertation on the subject, but it needn’t be.  Let common sense prevail.  Better yet, let the Holy Spirit prevail.  Let everything we think, do, and above all, say, reflect Christ Jesus in us.  Remember that we are the sons of God.

“Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath:

“For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God” (James 1:19-20).

Be encouraged and look up; your redemption draweth nigh.

The Still Man

Copyright © 2011 Anthony Keeton, The Still Man ®.  All rights reserved.