The little brother of Jesus, James, only talks one time in his little letter about hell. But I find the one time that James talks about hell to be very interesting. This week we have discovered that we can end up in hell based upon our relationship with others in the church, our outlook towards the poor, racism, and doing good things. In the verses that James talks about the tongue he mentions hell. Lets take a look.
James 3:5-6
Likewise the tongue is a small part
of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on
fire by a small spark. 6 The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil
among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole
course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.
In these few verses James links the tongue to hell. Have you ever thought about the fact that your tongue and how you use your tongue could get you sent to hell? I never did. I have never linked the use of my tongue to going to hell. Jesus also linked the tongue specifically back in Matthew 5 to hell but Jesus also had a bigger picture in mind in how we deal with one another overall. Here James links the tongue, and the sinful evil use of it, to going to hell. James is saying the tongue is like a fire and however you use your tongue for evil can spread and effect others like a wild fire. Then James links the fire of the tongue to the fires of hell. Simply put, James is telling us that if you use your tongue for fire and hurting others, your tongue will end up where that fire came from, hell. Our tongues could end us up in hell. If we do not use our tongues for good and for things that honor, praise, and worship Jesus, than our tongue will send us to hell.
James it letting us know that if we love Jesus and do the wise things Jesus tells us to, than our tongues will be used for God. But if we do not know and love Jesus, than we will use our tongues for evil and will end up in hell. So a simple question to ask now is, what do we use our tongues for? If we find our tongues continually being used for praise, worship, and honor of Jesus and telling others about Him, than we know and love Jesus. But if we continually find our tongues being used for evil; like critical speech, gossip, lying, slander, profanity, and other deceitful things, than we do not know and truly love Jesus and our tongue is driving us to hell. So we need to check our tongues because it is a good sign whether we are destined for hell or not.
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