I appreciate your making it out on a snowy evening. If you will, take your Bibles and turn to James, James chapter 4. We’ve been working our way through this epistle. This morning in the Sunday school, we dealt with what I think is just a wonderful, wonderful theme: the greatness of God as we see it in creation, the glory of God as creator. And then in the morning worship service, we had just a glorious theme of our union with Christ.
This evening, I doubt that anyone will go home and say, “Well, that was glorious.” James chapter 4, verses 11 and 12 address the sin of slander. It’s not a subject any of us delight in, necessarily, but it is one of those subjects that every congregation needs to be acquainted with and hear the biblical teaching on it and the biblical exhortations about it. I didn’t have time to deal with this in connection with the last passage. I don’t think it really fit. And it doesn’t go with the next passage. So here we have these two verses alone. I don’t want to sell them short. We’ve come to them, and I want to deal with them. And so this evening we look at this sin of slander.
James chapter 4, verses 11 and 12:
Do not speak evil against one another, brothers. The one who speaks against a brother or judges a brother speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law, but a judge. There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?
Maybe we should read through it again. It’s a brief passage.
Do not speak evil against one another, brothers. The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law, but a judge. There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?
Let’s bow for prayer. Our Father, it says something about us that there’s this tendency in our hearts to speak evil of brothers and sisters in Christ. We pray that you will help us not only to understand the exhortation of this passage, but we pray that you would work it into our hearts to see the evil of this sin and give us such an abhorrence of it that we will never be guilty of it. We pray in Jesus’ name, amen.
The Biblical Concern for the Tongue
Anyone who reads the Bible at all will notice, not too far along, that God has great concern for the way that we talk. In the Old Testament, we have it primarily in the Book of Proverbs, although there are other indications of the sins with the tongue elsewhere, and also in the Psalms; but primarily it’s in the Book of Proverbs in the Old Testament. In the New Testament, we find it in Paul, which he’s not well known for that, but you have a surprising amount of exhortation from the Apostle Paul regarding the right use of the tongue and sins of the tongue as well.
But it’s most famously James who deals with it most pointedly. It seems that he had problems with that in his congregation. We’ve seen that on our way through this letter. He has wide-ranging kinds of commands through this letter, prohibitions regarding the use of the tongue. Most of his commands are negative. “Don’t do that.” That’s mostly what he has to say, and we’ve seen that along the way—that James does not seem to have had the model congregation. He has to tell them not to do this, not to do that, not to talk like that, not to talk like the other. And he has lots of instruction about the use of the tongue, and we’ve seen a good bit of it as we’ve come through James.
Of course, what we speak must be true. God abhors lying and deceit, but beyond that, our speech is to be appropriate, is to be kind, is to be helpful, is to be edifying, is to be honoring to God, and all of those kinds of considerations are to shape the way we talk, and particularly the way we talk about one another. As I say, in the Bible, sins of the tongue seem to have a particular kind of seriousness. Speech that’s inappropriate, speech that’s not edifying, speech that’s not honoring to God, speech that is slandering of a neighbor or gossiping—these tend to have some pretty stern comments associated with them in the scriptures.
Proverbs chapter 6, for example—I’ll just read this for you. Famous passage, verses 16 to 19: “There are six things that the Lord hates, seven are an abomination to him.” You find that it’s kind of a Hebraism. It’s a way they speak. If they want to emphasize something, often the emphasis is on that last one. You find that in the prophets as well: “For three sins of Edom, yea for four, I will not withhold judgment. For three sins of Egypt, yea for four, I will not withhold judgment.” The emphasis often falls on that last one. And we have that here. Six things the Lord hates, yea seven are an abomination to him.
And I’ll read through these seven; count the ones—there’s three of them that have reference to our use of the tongue. There are six things that the Lord hates, seven are an abomination to him: one, haughty eyes; and then here we are, a lying tongue; hands that shed innocent blood; a heart that devises wicked plans; feet that make haste to run to evil; here’s your second, a false witness who breathes out lies; and then number seven, one who sows discord among the brothers. God hates it. The emphasis, as I say, probably falls on that last one.
Proverbs has a lot to say, and we’ve seen this before in our studies on Proverbs a couple of years ago. Has a lot to say about gossip, breaking confidence, talking about things that ought to have remained private, bringing up things that people that you’re talking to don’t have any right to hear, should not be hearing, saying things that might be true but they’re harmful, bringing up issues that just divide brothers, sow discord. Proverbs has so much to say about that, and continuously it’s the fool, it’s the scoundrel that talks like that.
Ephesians chapter 4, verse 29, Paul gives a broad statement about the use of the tongue that I think would just handle it all by itself: “Let no corrupt talk come out of your mouths.” Now you might think that has just to do with cussing. And I’m sure it covers that. But notice where he goes with it: “Let no corrupt talk come out of your mouth, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.” So much more than saying, “Don’t cuss,” he is saying you use your tongue, you talk in a way always that builds people up and ministers grace to them. It’s a positive injunction. Use your tongue in that kind of a way that is ministering grace.
The Sin of Slander
And now we come to James, and we’ve seen it all here as well, where we have the most pointed exhortations. As I say, his congregation doesn’t seem to be a model of Christian harmony. He’s having to deal with the fightings and the squabblings and the wars among them and all of that that we’ve seen.
But in chapter 1, verse 26, he says the tongue must be bridled. We saw that. Chapter 2, verse 19, he exhorts us: be slow to speak. Don’t be so quick to talk. Hold your tongue. Wait. Count to ten, and then just don’t talk. Chapter 3, verses 1 to 12, we saw the power of the tongue to inflict pain, and James warns us there about the inconsistent use of the tongue. With that same tongue—imagine the hypocrisy of it—with the same tongue, we bless God and curse man who’s made in his image. Chapter 4, verse 1, he talks about strife, division, arguing, and fighting among them.
And now we come to verses 11 and 12, and he deals specifically with this sin of slander: speaking evil against one another. “Do not speak evil against one another.” The idea of that is very obvious. You just don’t slander; don’t say something harmful against the other person. And then he refers to it as judging your brother. The obvious idea there is not that you can’t make evaluations and assessments of people, but what he is saying is you’re not condemnatory in your language; you’re not critical in your language regarding other people. So don’t speak evil and don’t be judgmental toward others.
Now there are a couple of ways in the Greek to say “don’t do this.” And the way this is done in the Greek here, you learn this in second-year Greek, evidently what James means here is: stop doing it. It’s not just “don’t do it.” Stop doing it. Stop speaking evil of one another. Stop being judgmental of one another. So again we have this indication that James doesn’t have the model congregation. It might be a typical one, but it’s not a model one.
And before I go any further, I have to make these caveats every now and then, because I don’t want someone to misunderstand. I think you do understand. But just to clear the space here: he is obviously not saying that you can’t form an opinion, that you can’t make assessments of other people. Jesus says, for example, in Matthew chapter 7, “Don’t cast your pearls before the pigs.” In order to do that, you have to judge who’s a pig. There it is. In John chapter 7, Jesus says, “Don’t judge by appearances, but judge righteous judgments.” That is, make righteous evaluations. In Matthew chapter 18, he gives us the procedure for what we call church discipline, where assessments have to be made, judgments have to be called. Obviously, James is not talking about that. In the pastoral epistles, we have commands, particularly for those in leadership of the church, to rebuke those who create division in the congregation. All right, so we have that. We can set those aside. That’s obviously not what James is talking about here.
But what he is talking about in terms of interpersonal relationships, in terms of how we relate to one another in the congregation at large: don’t be critical of one another. Stop slandering. Stop speaking evil and being judgmental of one another. So he has in mind here, then, speaking of others in such a way that would hurt their standing with others, hurt their reputation with others; being critical of others in some way that would harm them.
Well, you know how it goes. “I can’t imagine how in the world you could have voted for that guy. He must be nuts.” You know, “I disagree, so therefore you must be an idiot or something.” We can convey that in more polite terms, but that’s the kind of thing that is going on here. It’s destructive language rather than constructive. It’s unkind language rather than kind language when we speak not only to one another, but about one another in the congregation. All of that, he says, is to no good purpose. It’s just unnecessarily harmful. It’s uncharitable, and that is what James is condemning here in verses 11 and 12.
Another word we could use is gossip. What is gossip? Well, it’s a lot of things. Some people seem to think that gossip is only spreading lies. Well, that’s one kind of gossip. Gossip in the book of Proverbs very often is not that; it’s just revealing things that ought to remain hidden. It’s telling things that shouldn’t be told. It’s speaking evil; it’s speaking slanderously against a brother. Part of what James is after here is just what we call griping about other people—those little innuendos that we make about other people, and we can do them in such clever ways. “I really love Brother So-and-so, but…” “He’s really a good guy, but I just have to say…” We have clever ways of getting around it, and that’s what James is gunning for here.
The world is just full of that kind of stuff. And James is saying that just has no place in the church at all. It’s surely—I alluded to this earlier—it’s surely a mark of our depravity that somehow we feel better about ourselves after we’ve slandered someone else. Like if I can cut you off at the knees, then I know I’ll stand taller. It’s just a horrible thing about us that we have that kind of tendency in our heart.
In fact, one I think helpful study, even if unpleasant, would be to look through the scriptures and see: what does God think of the one who slanders? Proverbs 6 that we have read: He hates it. That’s what he thinks of it. Proverbs chapter 10: whoever spreads slander is a fool. That’s what God thinks of it. Proverbs chapter 11, verse 9: with his mouth, the godless destroys his neighbor. Proverbs 16:27: it’s the scoundrel that speaks slander or gossips. Proverbs 16, verse 28: it’s a perverse man that stirs up dissension. And in Psalm 101, verse 5: “Whoever slanders his neighbor secretly I will destroy.” That’s what God thinks of it. A horrible, horrible sin.
Well now, what is it that makes—and this is what James deals with here—what is it that makes slander such an evil thing? And I think first of all what’s evil about it is the harm that it does to the person being slandered. It’s a kind of verbal murder. Now I don’t know if you’ve ever been the object of someone else’s slander to other people. If you have, you understand this. Someone slanders you unjustly, says something about you that may be true but shouldn’t have been said. The people that heard it had no need to hear it. What happens then is that your reputation has been marred. And from that time forward, those people that have heard it and have entertained that thought, they never think of you the same way. They don’t hold you in the same esteem. It’s a kind of verbal murder. In Proverbs chapter 18, verse 21, “The tongue has the power of life and death.”
What would be a good habit for each of us—and I think I’ve dealt with this before here in the context of James, but I’ll say it again. What would be a good habit for all of us in terms of controlling our tongue and what we say is ask ourselves the question before we speak: Is this good? Is this true, what we’re going to say? Is it true? Three things: Is it true? Is it kind? And is it necessary? If it’s not true, then of course, shut up. If it’s true but unkind, keep your mouth closed, unless it’s necessary. But if it’s unnecessary, keep your mouth closed. Is it true? Is it kind? Is it necessary? It seems to me those are the considerations that the Bible guns for and presses on us in terms of guarding and guiding our tongue. If it’s not true, if it’s not kind, if it’s not necessary, then just don’t say it.
Now, I want to say something else, too, in connection with this. I think this is implicit in what James is saying here, if not explicit, and that is: if it is wrong to speak slanderously, it’s wrong to listen to slander. If a slanderer is going to speak but gets shut down, you’ve contained the problem somewhat. And it’s a real mark of strength in a congregation when the people know when to stop the slander. “No, no, no, you should not be saying this to me. I should not be hearing this.”
I remember one time years ago in Schuylkill County when I was pastoring there, a man was upset about some things. He’d come into the congregation, we’d helped him a number of ways, and he was upset about something. And he called one of the men on the phone and started in on someone else in the congregation. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, stop, wait, wait. Have you talked to him about this? I shouldn’t be hearing this. You talk to him.” I heard all about this after the fact, of course. And he calls another man in the congregation, starts in on him. “Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. Have you talked to him about this? I shouldn’t be hearing this. This has got nothing to do with me. It’s not my business.” He calls a third person. Same thing happened. “I shouldn’t be hearing this. You don’t need to be talking to me about this.” The man left the church, criticizing the church because “you can’t talk to anyone there.” And I thought, well, thank you, Lord. That is just a wonderful mark of strength in a congregation.
I’ve been looking somewhat in the life of David recently in connection with studies in the Psalms. And there’s that episode when Saul is chasing David, and they’re at the wilderness of En Gedi, and he’s in the cave there in En Gedi. And the Bible can be pretty explicit about things, and they’re chasing after David, and David’s way in the back of the cave with his men, and Saul has to go relieve himself, and so he goes into this cave right where David is, but David’s way back, and Saul doesn’t see David there, and he’s relieving himself, and David’s men say, “This is your chance.” And David’s not gonna kill Saul. He is God’s anointed. That’s God’s property. “I’m not gonna do that.” But he sneaks up and he cuts off part of his robe—you know, you remember that? And then the text says that David’s heart was smitten by that. You don’t attack God’s anointed. Shouldn’t have done that.
Anyway, Saul finishes up, leaves the cave. David comes out after him. “See this? I could have killed you, I didn’t.” And then he makes this interesting statement: “Why do you listen to all those people that say I try to harm you?” Isn’t that a great question? Why are you listening to that? It’s not true. I felt like that many times in college. What are you listening to that stuff for? You ought to know better. And that is part of what, at least implicitly, is what is going on here. And as I say, it’s a real mark of strength in a church when we know when to say, “No, no, I shouldn’t be hearing this.”
Now James tells us here in verses 11 and 12 just why slander is such an evil thing. There are three, at least three reasons here.
Slander Is a Violation of the Law of Christ
Again, verses 11 and 12: “Do not speak evil against one another, brothers. The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law, but a judge.” Now, there’s more here and we’ll get to that in a minute, but at least what he is saying here is that to slander your brother is a violation of the law. What law? Well, the Old Testament law has laws regulating the use of the tongue. I suspect what law is in view here is the law of love that was mentioned back in chapter—alluded to back in chapter 2, verse 8. Love demands better, and slander is wholly contrary to that. We’ll see more of that in a minute as we go along. The first reason why this is so sinful is that it’s a violation of the law of Christ.
To Slander Your Brother Is to Slander the Law of Christ
Now that’s verse 11 again, the second half of the verse: “If you judge the law, you’re not a doer of the law, but a judge.” I’m sorry, back at the beginning of the verse: “Do not speak evil against one another, brothers. The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother speaks evil against the law and judges the law.” That’s a fascinating thing. You slander your brother, you are slandering the law. What’s the logic of that? How does that make sense?
I suspect what’s going on here is that the law forbids it. The law of Christ, the law of love, it forbids that kind of treatment of your brother. And when you do it, what you are saying is, “Oh, that doesn’t apply to me.” And you’re standing above the law as a judge over the law? “That’s not for me.” It’s a denial, a practical and implicit denial of the authority of the law over you.
Now that is just, I think, has fascinating implications. We may say that we have a high view of scripture, but when we don’t obey the scriptures, what does that say about our view of the scriptures? Are we saying we’re above it? I’ve seen this on more than one occasion, where a critic of Christianity will say, “Do you believe that the Bible is the Word of God?” “Yes.” “Do you obey it?” “Well, I do some. Not always.” “You don’t believe it. If you believed it, you’d obey it.”
That happened once, I remember, on Facebook. I have a friend on Facebook who is a gay man, an unbeliever of course, and some discussion under something—I don’t know what I’d posted—but he was in a discussion with some other people, and he brought that up. “Christians don’t believe the Bible. Bible says you shouldn’t divorce. Christians divorce. They don’t believe the Bible.” And you know, there’s something about that that’s not fair. And it’s obvious that it’s not. But there’s something about it that’s really powerful, and it makes it difficult to answer. And that’s what James is saying here. You say you have a high view of Scripture, and you don’t obey it. You’re slandering it. You’re saying it doesn’t apply to you. Well, I think that’s what’s going on there. So in slandering one another, we slander the law, we violate the law.
To Speak Evil Is to Arrogantly Assume a Prerogative That Belongs to God Alone
Then number three, to speak evil of someone is to arrogantly assume a prerogative that belongs to God alone. Let me say that again. To slander someone, to speak evil of someone, is to arrogantly assume a prerogative that belongs to God alone. That’s verse 12: “There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?”
I think what’s going on there is that God alone knows how to render accurate judgment. God knows the context. He knows what’s going on in the mind. He knows what’s going on in the relationship. He knows what’s happened before. He knows everything about it. He knows the motives. And when God judges, He sizes it up exactly right and calls it by the numbers and it’s right on target. You, on the other hand, and I, we don’t have enough knowledge to do that.
And what he asks here, this rhetorical question: “Who are you to judge your neighbor?” To put it in common lingo, who do you think you are to presume that prerogative of judging your neighbor and speaking evil of him? By what superior knowledge, by what superior wisdom do you presume to speak? Or might we say, by what superior holiness do you presume to slander? Are there no skeletons in your closet? It’s presumptuous.
And so as we saw last time in verses 8 to 10, James calls us to humble ourselves before God. In verses 11 and 12 now, he’s telling us that to speak evil of our brother is a presumptuous thing. There is wisdom in that old saying—I don’t know if you’ve heard it: “There’s so much bad in the best of us and so much good in the worst of us that it behooves none of us to speak of any of us.” I think there’s wisdom in that and I think that would help guard us and keep us within the parameters that James is giving here.
Notice in verse 11 again how James shapes his appeal: “Do not speak evil against one another, brothers.” “Do not speak evil of one another, brothers.” Well, obviously what’s in view here is union with Christ. We’re joined to Christ the Son, and we each, because we are joined to Christ, are sons, daughters in Christ, sons and daughters of God. And because we’re sons and daughters of God, we’re brothers and sisters of one another and in the family. And how in the world, what kind of a person is it that would slander his brother?
John picks that up in his epistle in some famous ways. It’s born in the heart of every genuine believer. It’s born in their hearts to love the brother. James picks it up as we’ve seen in terms of showing that love. It’s not just a verbal thing, but it’s something that’s demonstrable and tangible. All of these considerations certainly ought to put a halt to slander, to gossip, and give us pause before we speak about one another.
The New Testament epistles are filled with exhortations to congregational unity. We see them in Paul quite often. Dwell together in peace. Dwell together in love. Dwell together in harmony. Be of one mind. It’s a heavy concern of the apostles. Few things, I think, few things are more ugly and more self-contradictory than a congregation of believers bickering at one another or slandering one another. Evidently, that’s what James had in his congregation, and he writes and just says, “Stop it.”
These men and women with you in the congregation are your brothers and sisters in Christ. They belong to him, and they are men and women just like you. They’re redeemed sinners in whom God’s work has not yet been perfected. They’ve got faults. Put up with it. Be patient. You’ve got faults. We’re patient with you. Be patient with one another, determined to love one another, and never harm one another by the way we speak about each other.
Now having worked through that, I want to say what I said last time in James when we dealt with this subject, and that is: I am as happy as I can be that this is not a problem at RBC. I’m not gunning for someone; I’d tell you if I were. This is not, as far as I can tell, this is not a problem that we have in our congregation. God has blessed us wonderfully with our fellowship here. But there’s not a church in the world that doesn’t need these exhortations. Every one of us has this awful inclination in our heart to speak evil of one another and somehow feel better about ourselves after we do. We all need this reminder to keep check on our hearts, keep checks on our tongue, determined to honor God in the way that we talk, and determined to honor one another as brothers and sisters in Christ in the way that we speak of one another.
All right. Let’s stand and be dismissed in prayer. Pastor Greg, would you pray for us, please?