James 3:6

"And the tongue (the physical tongue) is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; it is set on fire of hell." The tongue is pretty much the beginning of a lot of wickedness, and James is emphasizing that. All right, in the next verse he speaks of everything in nature.


James 3:7

"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:" Now you know what that tells you? I was just thinking about that on the way up here to our taping. I suppose Iris wonders why I'm so quiet, but I'm thinking, thinking, thinking. You know, I just thought of a little cliché in light of this very verse and I think it may come out of the evolutionists - that "the more things change, the more they stay the same." And isn't that true?


Here we think, that in our modern era, this is the first time that people have been able to tame the wild animals and do all the various things. No. They've done it from time immemorial. And so, even James could write that, even at that time already, men were training all of these wild animals for their various circus acts or whatever you want to call it. See, men have always needed to be entertained. That's what the Coliseums were for, to keep people entertained. So everything is tamed. Now verse 8:


James 3:8

"But the tongue can no man tame; (no one can tame the tongue) it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison." Now again, I'd better stop right here and remind all of us that James is writing first and foremost, not exclusively, but first and foremost, to Jewish believers, who I feel had been scattered out of Jerusalem and the Jerusalem congregation, by virtue of Saul of Tarsus' persecution, as we see in Acts chapter 1. I don't think these are part and parcel of Paul's congregations whatsoever. I think these are strictly Jews. In fact, remember the last program? It wasn't the church where these Jewish believers were meeting, it was a Synagogue. And so there's no Church language in the letters of James and Peter and John - not a word. I went through it all again last night to make sure I was on solid ground when I say this. You cannot find one word of Church or what we call Church -- the Age of Grace -- language. In other words, there's no reference to the Body of Christ. There's no reference to the working and the controlling of the Holy Spirit - as over against the keeping of the Law - and it's 'legal.' It's like we're seeing here. It's not that the Spirit is going to control us, but that they have to go by what James is telling them. So, as you read these little Jewish epistles, remember there is no Grace-Age language in here. You also won't find the plan of salvation in these Jewish epistles.