Gtcotr/ws011619
This
evening we will be continuing our study of the New Testament Book of James and
we will begin reading in Chapter 3.
Only you can prevent forests fires! (Smokey Bear)
Smokey
Bear was created on Aug. 9, 1944, when the U.S. Forest Service and the Ad
Council agreed that a fictional bear would be the symbol for their joint effort
to promote forest fire prevention. The first poster of Smokey Bear depicted a
bear pouring a bucket of water on a campfire and saying “Care will prevent 9
out of 10 fires.” Smokey Bear soon became very popular as his image appeared on
a variety of forest fire prevention materials. In 1947, his slogan became the
familiar “Only YOU Can Prevent Forest Fires!”
Indeed,
still each year 90% of the destructive fires are started by people.
More
than 260,000 fires each year are intentionally set by arsonists.
There
are accidental fire laws in Utah that disallow a person from being charged with
a felony or tried as a criminal if the fire is determined to be accidental. But
states like California have included charges allowing for the criminal
prosecution of “reckless burning” on its law books in efforts to curb the
number of accidental fires caused by negligence and increase the amount which
can be assigned and recovered for damages.
What
would you say about the person who accidently caused a fire that injured a
family member or destroyed a neighbor’s home?
Now,
what would you believe about that person if you found out they had been the
cause of multiple fires which had destroyed 12 homes resulting in multiple
injuries within their community?
Julio
Gonzalez was responsible for only one fire.
Julio Gonzalez was responsible for
setting
fire to the Happy Land nightclub in Bronx, New York,
in
1990, which killed 87 people. The night of the fire,
Gonzalez
was thrown out of Happy Land after getting into a
fight
with his girlfriend who worked there. Gonzalez returned
to
the nightclub intoxicated and poured a can of gasoline
along
the club’s only stairway and started the fire. Most
victims
were trampled or suffered from asphyxiation.
Gonzalez
was charged with multiple counts of murder.
Raymond Lee Oyler was arrested and
charged with murder during the 2006 Esperanza wildfire that destroyed 40,000
acres across the San Jacinto
Mountains.
This deadly fire was caused by arson and worsened when Santa Ana devil winds
picked it up. Five firefighters were killed while defending a vacant home that
was destroyed by the fire. Oyler
was
arrested for the Esperanza fire, as well as two wildfires in the summer of
2006. He was convicted of five counts of first-degree murder, 20 counts of
arson and 17 counts of using an incendiary device, in which a jury called for
the death penalty in a 2009 hearing.
Look
with me at our text for tonight in:
James 3 NJKV
1 ¶
My brethren, let not many of you become teachers, knowing that we shall
receive a stricter judgment.
2
For we all stumble in many things. If anyone does not stumble in word,
he is a perfect man, able also to bridle the whole body.
3
Indeed, we put bits in horses’ mouths that they may obey us, and we turn
their whole body.
4
Look also at ships: although they are so large and are driven by fierce
winds, they are turned by a very small rudder wherever the pilot desires.
5
Even so the tongue is a little member and boasts great things. See how
great a forest a little fire kindles!
6
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.
7
For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and creature of the sea, is
tamed and has been tamed by mankind.
8
But no man can tame the tongue. It is an unruly evil, full of
deadly poison.
9
With it we bless our God and Father, and with it we curse men, who have
been made in the similitude of God.
10
Out of the same mouth proceed blessing and cursing. My brethren, these
things ought not to be so.
11
Does a spring send forth fresh water and bitter from the same
opening?
12
Can a fig tree, my brethren, bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Thus
no spring yields both salt water and fresh.
13 ¶
Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show by good
conduct that his works are done in the meekness of wisdom.
14
But if you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts, do not
boast and lie against the truth.
15
This wisdom does not descend from above, but is earthly, sensual,
demonic.
16
For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil
thing are there.
17
But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle,
willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without
hypocrisy.
18
Now the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.
James 1
19 ¶
So then, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to
speak, slow to wrath;
20
for the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God.
21
Therefore lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness, and
receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.
22 But
be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.
23 For
if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing
his natural face in a mirror;
24 for
he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he
was.
25 But
he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is
not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what
he does.
26
If anyone among you thinks he is religious, and does not bridle his tongue
but deceives his own heart, this one’s religion is useless.
27
Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit
orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from
the world.
Things
the unbridled tongue does that defiles the person who owns it:
·
Lying
·
Selfish
Boasting
·
Unruly
conversation
·
Cursing
others
·
Starts
fires that injure others
o Accidental = A true
accident
o Negligence =
Haphazard or inconsiderate actions
o Arson =
Intentionally setting a fire
o Pyromania = The
insanity of getting a thrill by watching things be destroyed by the fire you
cause.
The
unbridled/unruly tongue is motivated by three things:
·
Earthly
= Carnal logic
·
Sensual
= Human emotions
·
Demonic
= Demonic inspiration
Here
are two steps that will help to keep us from kindling destructive fires with
words.
1.
Examine yourself …
o
Learn to recognize sin in your own life (The
mote and beam)
o
Judge yourself … (1 Corinthians 11:31)
2.
Take a step in a new direction …
o
Say to yourself – I’m not going to speak evil
of any other person. (Titus 3:2)
o
I am not going to let any corrupt
communication come out of my mouth. (Ephesians 4:29)
o
Verbally give the Holy Spirit permission to
interrupt you when He knows you about to say something about someone or to
someone that is less than edifying. (Psalms 141:3)
o
Change the water in your well.
Luke 6:45 “A good man out of
the good treasure of his heart brings forth good; and an evil man out of the
evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil. For out of the abundance of the
heart his mouth speaks.
Remember: Only you
can prevent forests fires!
