Remember, only YOU can prevent a wild tongue

Mike Hosey, Elder

In 1944, Smokey the Bear was created by the U.S. government to educate its citizens on how they could prevent forest fires. Three years later, in 1947, Smokey got his most famous slogan: “Only YOU can prevent forest fires.”  His image and his slogan are recognized by 95% of American adults, and 77% of American children.  The ad campaign was highly effective. It needed to be, because the U.S. government realized that just one small unattended campfire, or one small cigarette, or one small match could wreak havoc and devastation on whole ecosystems and thousands of acres of forest, killing untold numbers of plants and animals, and wasting untold numbers of dollars. Carelessness was a destroyer.

In the early church, James understood the same thing that the U.S. government understands today. He argued in James 3:1-6 that an untamed tongue is like a deadly wildfire. He recognized that its destructive power can spread rapidly through the whole body of believers.  He likened that tongue to a carrier of deadly poison, and a restless evil (James 3:8).

If you’ve ever seen a fellow Christian drop a careless word, or say something in a moment of unexamined anger, or who just wasn’t getting his or her way on something, and so vomited a bit of negativity in the wrong place at the wrong time, then you know how quickly a body can be burned, poisoned or damaged! And this phenomenon is not limited to the church. You will find that it is also true in your work place, your biological family, or any group in which people communicate and are banded together!

Luckily James tells us how to remedy this problem. He tells us to seek wisdom from above (James 3:13-18).  In teaching this, James was simply expanding on what Jesus had already said: “Out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks” (Luke 6:45). If your heart is full of hatefulness and a destructive kind of criticism, then you will speak hatefulness and evil criticism. And your words will burn and poison the body to which you belong.

So get Jesus in your heart, and purge selfish ambition, evil, bitterness and jealousy (James 3:14). Remember, only YOU can prevent wildfires.  And you do that by letting Jesus tame your tongue.