The Evil Tongue By Thomas Watson

Fgb Spring 1995 Article #2: "The Evil Tongue
Thomas Watson
And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity—James 3:6
The apostle James in this Scripture, describes the evil of the tongue, “The tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity.”
1. “It is a fire.” It burns with intemperate heat; it causeth the heat of contention; it sets others in a flame.
2. “A world of iniquity.” It was at first made to be an organ of God’s praise, but it is become an instrument of unrighteousness. All the members of the body are sinful, as there is bitterness in every branch of wormwood, but the tongue is excessively sinful, “full of deadly poison” (verse 8).
Doctrine: The tongue, though it be a little member, yet it has a world of sin in it; the tongue is an unruly evil. I shall show you some of the evils of the tongue.
1. The evil tongue is the silent tongue; it is wholly mute in matters of religion; it never speaks of God or of heaven, as if it cleaved to the roof of the mouth. Men are fluent and knowledgeable enough in other things, but in matters of religion their lips are sealed up. If we come into some people’s company, we do not know what religion they are of, whether Jews or Mohammedans, for they never speak of Christ; they are like the man in the gospel, who was possessed with a dumb spirit (Mark 9:17).
2. The evil tongue is the earthly tongue; men talk of nothing but the world, as if all their hopes were here, and they looked for an earthly eternity; these have earthly minds, “He that is of the earth, speaketh of the earth” (John 3:31).
3. The evil tongue is the hasty or angry tongue; it has no command of passions, but is carried away with them, as a chariot with wild horses. I know"