28 October 2005 Devotion for Today "A Little Fire" James 3:5-6

28 October 2005  Devotion for Today  “A Little Fire”  James 3:5-6

 

            Last week I was on my way to pick someone up to take them to our annual associational meeting when I noticed a fire truck in the driveway in the home of someone I knew.  As I slowed down I was shocked to see that this double-wide mobile home had been all but destroyed by a blaze a few hours before.  A disabled couple lived there with their teen-aged son.  The parents both suffered from severe lung ailments and were on oxygen.  Apparently an oxygen tube had caught fire somehow, igniting the oxygen tanks, causing an explosion.  Thankfully the family managed to escape although all of their worldly possessions had been destroyed.  Their daughter recently relocated here from New Jersey, so the family had a place to go.  But counseling with this family in their grief was very difficult.  They poured out their hearts to me and they cried in spite of my attempts to take hope in Jesus Christ.  Their loss was enormous, and it would be hard for this couple, in their mid-fifties, to start over again on a disability income.  All of the memories they possessed with photographs and mementoes of their children were gone.   Everything that had taken them years to build and accumulate was gone in the course of about twenty-five minutes.

 

            James reflects upon this very thing in James 3:  “Even so the tongue is a little member and boasts great things.  See how great a forest a little fire kindles!  And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity.  The tongue is so set among our members that it defiles the whole body, and sets on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire by hell.” 

 

            The Apostle does not hide his feelings about the use-or abuse- of the tongue.  Had he seen the house fire that I had witnessed it is likely James would have said that although the home could be replaced, he had known more vicious fires that have destroyed what could not be replaced that were even more costly.  A reputation, for example, can never be replaced once someone has destroyed it through vicious lies or gossip.  Precious relationships in marriage and family-built up over the course of decades- have been torn down by a hasty word spoken in anger in the heat of a moment.  I have seen the sweet spirit of Christian unity and communion utterly decimated by an ill-chosen time or place to spout off words of frustration.  The charred wreckage of fellowship and friendships past dot the landscapes of our souls that no insurance could ever award highly enough to replace were they be able to do so.  God is grieved by it also.  No wonder James says that it is set on fire by hell.

 

I could comment upon why this happens so often.  The tongue boasts great things, James says.  Personal arrogance and over-estimation of importance has ignited more fires than can be counted.  Someone once said that information is power.  Some people derive a sense of security and power by possessing knowledge about others which they wish to share.  Others cannot control what goes in one ear and out their big mouth.  However the fire is started, the outcome is just the same; leaving others to pick up the pieces of another’s destruction. 

 

            Perhaps you are looking at the charred remains of what another ignited through the improper use of the tongue.  If so it should be a great lesson to you not to abuse the trust that God has in your through the use of your tongue.  And if you must use it, keep a fire extinguisher near by.  Have a blessed day!

 

 

Rev. Jeffery C. Russell
Salem Baptist Church
Elizabeth City, NC
jefferyrussell@earthlink.net

 

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