Father’s Day, 2001
James 1:19
The Greek philosopher Xnthus was expecting some very special friends over for dinner, so the day before, he explained to his servant that he wanted a very special meal. He instructed him to go to the market place and buy the very finest items to serve his friends. The next day, Xanthus sat at the table with his friends, eagerly anticipating a wonderful meal and great conversation.
The first course was served. Soup made with beef tongue and vegetables. The second course - Poached tongue. The third – broiled tongue. In all, five courses of tongue – each served a different way. Finally Xanthus lost his patience with his servant. “Didn’t I tell you to get the very best food at the market for this meal?” “I did get the very best thing at the market.” Replied the servant. “Isn’t the tongue the organ of sociability, the organ of kindness, the organ with which we worship?” Xanthus sighed, “Very well, for our meal tomorrow, bring us the worst thing at the market!”
The next evening the first course was served. A salad made with beef tongue. Five courses again of tongue. The philosopher again lost his patience. “Didn’t I tell you to get the worst the market had to offer?” He demanded. “But I did,” the servant replied. “Isn’t the tongue the organ of blasphemy, the organ of defamation, the organ of lying?” I wonder if Xanthus was the great philosopher, or if he stole all his words of wisdom from his servant!
I saw a war movie a while back while back in which one of the characters let loose with a tirade of anger against his superior officer. One of the sergeants said “Whoa, whoa, whoa! You kiss your mama with that mouth?”
The tongue is perhaps the most amazing instrument in all of God’s creation. With it we are often times swayed to love or pledge our loyalty to someone. With it we are lead in praise to our God, and praise Him ourselves. With the tongue we can inspire and encourage, we can belittle and destroy. Some of the greatest of our childhood memories may be words of praise we received from dad, or the deepest and never healing wounds of our past may be words of criticism or abuse from him.
With the tongue we can give direction and instruction, but in order for communication to occur, it takes a both tongue and a listening ear. This week I was riding along and training a new salesman in the New London, Waupaca, and Antigo area. I was to meet him at a selected spot, and then we would ride around in his car to all his customers while I observed, and illustrated techniques for effective salesmanship. All went well on the first day. On Tuesday, we had agreed that we would meet at a Citgo truck stop in Freemont. I got up on Tuesday, after the terrible storm we had, and it was much worse as I drove north through Oshkosh and then Northwest toward Freemont. I got to the truck stop, where they were without power, and waited. Brian didn’t show up. I waited a little longer – still not there. I began to worry that perhaps his home had been damaged, or his car couldn’t make through some of the streets.
After a half hour, I went to a phone booth and called his cell phone. He answered, and I said, “How are you?” “Fine.”
“That’s good, quite a storm last night.”
“Yeah.”
“So, where are you?”
“I’m at the Citgo.”
“Which Citgo?”
“The one in Freemont.”
“Where? I’m at the Freemont Citgo! The one with the Subway.”
“Uh-Oh. My Citgo doesn’t have a Subway.”
As it turns out, I was still about 12 miles from Freemont. Our communication had been pretty good, but not good enough.
You can probably relate. In a day of unprecedented communication capabilities, our culture faces more communication barriers than ever before. Even with all our cell phones, beepers, cordless phones, e-mail, overnight mail, snail mail, voice mail, instant imaging, palm pilots, lap-tops, personal organizers, Franklin planners and Day Timers we still can’t seem to have a meeting tat everyone hears about, and if they do hear about it, there’s always someone who forgets.
And as tough as successful communication can be in the work place, it is even more difficult in the home. But effective communication is an absolute necessity in the family. It is certainly one of the foundation stones of a strong family.
The Bible has many lessons for us about communication; the book of Proverbs is especially replete with words of wisdom on the mouth. Here are just a few examples:
Proverbs 10:19
When words are many,
sin is not absent,
But he who holds
his tongue is wise.
Proverbs 11:9
With his mouth the
godless destroys his neighbor,
But through
knowledge the righteous escape.
Proverbs 11:12
A man who lacks
judgment derides his neighbor,
But a man of
understanding holds his tongue.
Proverbs 12:19
Truthful lips endure
forever,
But a lying tongue
lasts only a moment.
Proverbs 12:22
The LORD detests lying
lips,
But he delights in
men who are truthful.
Proverbs 13:3
He who guards his lips
guards his life,
But he who speaks
rashly will come to ruin.
Proverbs 15:1
A gentle answer turns
away wrath,
But a harsh word
stirs up anger.
Proverbs 16:23
A wise man's heart
guides his mouth,
And his lips
promote instruction.
Proverbs 18:13
He who answers before
listening--
That is his folly
and his shame.
Proverbs 21:23
He who guards his mouth
and his tongue
Keeps himself from
calamity.
Proverbs 29:20
Do you see a man who
speaks in haste?
There is more hope for a fool than for him.
There are some powerful verses in that collection, but for our text today, I have selected a verse from the New Testament that I believe speaks directly to the issue of communication in the home. It is found in James, chapter 1, and verse 19
So then, my beloved brethren,
Let every man be swift to hear,
Slow to speak,
Slow to wrath.
The Message states it this way,
Post this at all the
intersections, dear friends:
Lead
with your ears,
Follow
with your tongue,
And
let anger straggle along in the rear.
There are three very clear points in this verse. We need to be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger. It has been cleverly noted that God gave us two ears and one mouth, so we should listen twice as much as we speak. We should not be prone to flying off the handle in a fit of rage. This little verse speaks volumes to me. I personally am challenged by every phrase of this text. I ten to be one who does not listen as well as I should. I tend to spend the moments I should be listening developing brilliant answer to what I think the problem is. I am far too quick to speak, and slow to listen. I also tend to be one who gets angry, though I am much better than I used to be. While I now have a much better handle on not bursting out in rage when I am angry, I do tend to wear my anger on my sleeve. My staff at Mayville High School knows that when I am angry, my lips ten to get thin and pale. They have taken to calling me “Tin lips.” Which helps me remember that I have to be careful with my emotions.
I’d be willing to bet that I’m not the only one here today who could use a better understanding and application of the three truths in this verse. Effective communication is extremely important to having a strong family, and we are going to briefly look at a story of a family where these commands were ignored with tragic results, and an example of a great relationship that resulted from these three principles being followed.
You’ve heard the phrase “Like Father, Like Son.” The implication is that our children grow up with the traits of their parents. In this story, that was not the case. Flip back in your Bibles toward the front to the book of I Samuel. We are going to look at two episodes from the life of Saul, the first king of Israel, and Jonathon his son.
In I Samuel 15, we find the story of King Saul, who is given instructions from God, through the prophet Samuel to go out and utterly destroy the Amalekites. In verse 3, Samuel tells Saul to “Go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them, do not spare them, put to death every man and woman, children and infants, cattle sheep and donkeys.”
Pretty clear direction. Saul passes the instructions on to his men. He then leads the army to attack the Amalekites. Now look at verse 9:
But Saul and the people spared Agag
and the best of the sheep, the oxen, the fatlings, the lambs, and all that was
good, and were unwilling to utterly destroy them. But everything despised and
worthless, that they utterly destroyed.
“But.” How many times have we seen a situation where this three-letter word comes up? BUT. It means that something was done in contrast to the way it was supposed to be done. Instead of doing what God had said, Saul decided to spare the life of the king, and the stuff that looked appealing. He decided that he had a better plan than God. Saul was slow to listen. He had heard the words of instruction, but he interpreted them to fit his plan. “Surely God didn’t mean to kill all these beautiful sheep and oxen! If I keep the king alive, and take him as prisoner, then I can use him as an example of what will happen to all my enemies! If I keep some of this stuff, it will make me a rich man!”
Saul was definitely slow to listen.
God let Samuel know that Saul had disobeyed Him, and He sent the prophet to pronounce God’s judgment on the king for his disobedience. Here we see that Saul was not only slow to listen, he was quick with the words. In verse 12, Samuel comes and finds that Saul has built a monument to himself. When Saul sees him he says, in effect, “God bless you pastor, uh, I’ve done just what you told me to do!” There are some really comical parts of the Bible, and this is one of them. Samuel puts his hand up to his ear and says, in verse 14, and says,
"What then is this bleating of the sheep in my ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear?"
Look at Saul. He comes up with an excuse in a hurry. “The men thought it would be a good idea to
bring back some of the good cattle and sacrifice them to God. Yeah, that’s it. A big sacrifice, right here.
And, uh, I was even building an alter.
Yeah, that’s what this is right here, an alter!”
Imagine! Samuel things he can fast-talk God. But Samuel has a word from the Lord that was one f the first
verses I learned as a kid. It’s I
Samuel 15:22:
So
Samuel said: "Has the LORD as
great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices,
As in obeying the voice of the LORD?
Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice,
And to heed than the fat of rams.
Then Samuel pronounced an awful
penalty on Saul for his disobedience:
the Lord rejected him. It was
then that Saul twisted the third principle in our text – he got angry. He was slow to listen, quick to speak, and
quick to anger – a sure formula for disaster.
Saul reached out to grab Samuel as he turned to leave, and a he tore off
a piece of Samuels robe. 1 Samuel
15:28:
So Samuel said to him, "The LORD has torn the kingdom of Israel from you today, and has given it to a neighbor of yours, who is better than you.
God rejected Saul for his
disobedience, and his life was ruined because of his inability to follow the
Biblical counsel.
But let’s contrast that with
Saul’s son, Jonathan.
In I Samuel 20, we read that King
Saul, who is slipping further and further from God each day, is out to kill
David, his son in law, and Jonathan’s best friend. David has learned of the king’s plan, and is hiding, but Jonathan
does not know.
In verses 1-3, we see that
Jonathon was quick to listen. In these
verses, David asks him, “Why is your
father so angry? Why does he want to
kill me?” Jonathan is shocked, but he
listens as David explains the whole story.
Then we see that Jonathan was slow
to speak. He says, “Whatever you want
me to do for you, I will do.” He didn’t
have the pride of his father that needed to be the one with all the answers; he
wanted to hear what David had to offer.
Being slow to speak is part and parcel of being quick to hear. You can’t listen well and talk at the same
time.
In verse34, we see that Jonathan
was slow to anger. HE and David had
come up with a plan to determine if Saul was really out to kill David. David would miss an appointment to see the
king, and Jonathan would watch to see the reaction of the king. If Saul blew up, Jonathan would know that
David’s fears were legit. When the time
came, and David was missing, Jonathon gave him a perfectly food excuse, but the
king went ballistic! He got angry with
David, he got angry with Jonathan, and he even tried to turn Jonathan against
David. Then the king said, “Bring David
to me, he must die.”
That really made Jonathon
angry. In verse 34 it says that he was
“Fierce with anger,” but we do not see him lose his temper. Instead he got up from the table, went to
his room and grieved. Instead of
getting angry at his father’s poor judgment, we see him grieving over a father
who couldn’t control himself.
The results are all too
predictable. For the remainder of his
days, Saul was tormented by the fact that God had rejected him. He slipped more and more in the abyss of
separation from God, and tried his best to hold on to the kingdom that God had
already taken from him. He had no peace
in his heart, and his life was destroyed by fear and paranoia of David, a godly
man, who was destined to take the throne.
Jonathon, on the other hand,
became a great friend of David. The two
of them served as accountability partners.
In I Samuel 23:16, we read that Jonathan went to David when he was on
the run from Saul and helped him find strength in the Lord. Jonathan lived a life of integrity and
dedication to David.
As we examine our own families,
whose life is most reflected in our own?
Are we like Saul, slow to listen, thinking we have all the answers? Quick to speak, making excuses, hoping to
talk our way our of the problems we get ourselves into, hoping to excuse our
disobedience with a fast tongue? Are we
quick to anger – is our temper something to be feared – temper itself is not a
bad thing – when steel is hardened for a sword it is “tempered.” Temper is a valuable thing – it is a
terrible thing to loose.
Or are we like Jonathan? Are we quick to listen to our family
members? Are we able to slow down our
need to speak so that we can really hear the cry of the heart of our spouse,
our children our brothers and sisters?
Are we slow to anger, able to control our temper and thus be part of the
solution, rather than part of the problem?
When tongue is offered at your
house, is it the best you have to give, or the worst?