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I wonder how many would agree that your biggest problem is your mouth. James would agree. He spends a lot of time in this little letter helping us put a bridle on it. Verse 26 – “but doesn’t bridle his tongue.” What a great picture for that three pound hunk of muscle seated in your mouth.
In James 1:19-20 God is going to tell us how to quit talking and start listening, especially to God’s Word. Before we get into the three prerequisites for preparing to hear God’s Word, let’s back up a little so we don’t lose our way through James, the epistle about a living faith.
- James 1:2-4 says God is in the trials of your life for your good, so rejoice.
- James 1:5-12 assures us God has all the wisdom you need for your trials, so ask Him for wisdom.
- James 1:13-16 reminds us God will never tempt you to sin, so ask Him to help you fight and resist every temptation.
- James 1:17-18 tells us God in His goodness chose you and gave you a new life through His Word, so thank Him and listen up.
And that brings us to verses 19-20.
James 1:19-20, This you know, my beloved brethren. But everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; 20 for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God.
James challenges us, “This you know” or “Know this.” Like a coach prepping his team for the game, he says, “Listen up, people! I’ve got something really important for you.” He wants to tell us something we definitely need to hear if we are going to make progress in our spiritual lives. James again endears himself to them with “my beloved brethren.” Like any good pastor or parent or coach, he loves them and wants them to do well in their spiritual lives. “Listen up. I want to give you three important prerequisites to prepare your heart to receive God’s Word.” No one is excused here. James uses the imperative, a command: “But everyone must.” This includes every believer, men and women. So listen up, people!
FIRST PREREQUISITE: GET YOUR EARS ON – “be quick to hear.”
Be quick means do it right now. To hear means to listen carefully with full attentiveness. Take every opportunity to hear the Word of God that gave life to you. Little babies want to be near their mothers who gave them birth. They want to snuggle skin to skin and hear their mother’s voice. That picture of how new-born children of God love to hear God’s Word. When God saved you He gave you a new set of ears to hear His words in the Bible. But this hearing is more than just listening; it means being teachable as you hear God’s Word. Be a learner as you go through your day and when you experience trials and difficulties. You were born again by the Word of God and you need to keep your ears tuned in to the Word of God. Don’t become dull of hearing (Hebrews 5:11).
The Bible is constantly calling sinners to hear God’s truth, warning them to listen. Deuteronomy 8:20, “You shall perish because you would not listen to the voice of the Lord your God.” Isaiah 30:9, “This is a rebellious people, false sons, who refuse to listen to the instruction of the Lord.” Jeremiah 13:10, “This wicked people who refuse to listen to My words, who walk in the stubbornness of their hearts.”
One of the greatest evidences of regeneration is that new desire to hear God’s Word. When we first got saved back in that farmhouse in Pennsylvania, we got right into a Bible study. A young man named Tom Moses came up from the Philadelphia School of the Bible and taught us. We were amazed at what we were learning from the Bible and we believed every word. This was so different from our former lives when we may have argued and philosophized, “So if there really is a God, why….yadayada, blah, blah, blah.” “So if the Bible is true, tell me this, where did Cain get his wife?” That was my argument against the Bible. But when God saves you and gives you a new heart, you love and believe the Bible from Genesis to Revelation.
My seminary professor Dr. Whitcomb told us about his days of evangelizing at Princeton University. One day he and his more mature mentor were talking to a student who was stumped by the idea that Jonah was swallowed by a whale. Dr. Whitcomb went home and researched the matter and came back to prove the Bible was true. Meanwhile, that student had come to Christ and was no longer stumped by the big fish story. That’s what happens when God gives you a new heart with a new pair of ears to hear and believe His Word.
Paul thanked God for those new Thessalonian believers in 1 Thessalonians 2:13. Why?
1 Thessalonians 2:1, For this reason we also constantly thank God that when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but for what it really is, the word of God, which also performs its work in you who believe.
So James is urging these Jewish believers to keep their hearts and ears open to God’s truth. The Puritans loved God’s Word. The Puritan Richard Baxter begged his readers to “love, reverence, read, study, obey and stick close to the Scripture.” (Leland Ryken, Worldly Saints, p.139). They also loved preaching. One Puritan preacher in Cambridge apologized to his congregation for preaching for two straight hours. They cried, “For God’s sake, Sir. Go on, go on!” Apparently they didn’t have nursery workers! But they loved hearing God’s Word.
Be quick, ready to hear, especially God’s Word. Be teachable, not a know it all. John Calvin described his conversion like this: “God, by a sudden conversion subdued and brought my mind to a teachable frame.” No wonder he could write the Institutes when he was 27 years old. He loved and devoured God’s Word. Jesus described the good soil hearts in Mark 4:20, “They hear the Word and accept it and bear fruit.” Be quick to hear. Take the learner’s stance here. As you hear or read, ask yourself, “What do I need to learn from God’s Word that I haven’t yet learned?” When a trial or temptation or some new teaching comes your way, take the learner’s stance of being quick to hear and ask, “What does God say about that?”
SECOND PREREQUISITE: PUT A SET OF BRAKES ON YOUR TONGUE – “slow to speak.”
There’s an old song, “You talk too much, you worry me to death. You talk too much, you even worry my pet.” This prerequisite is tough. We love to hear ourselves talk. And we think we know stuff and we talk when we should be listening. Twice in my high school days (I know you won’t believe this) I was talking when I should have been listening. It was in history class when I said something and Mr. Yoder walked right up to me and gave me a swift slap in the face, right in front of the whole class! If that wasn’t enough, in gym class one day Mr. Kauffman heard me talking when I should have been listening and stepped over and slapped my mouth. Did I go home whining to my parents about cruel and unusual punishment? Are you kidding? As far as I knew, they never found out, which was just as good.
Here in verse 19 God says put the brakes on your tongue. God doesn’t mean we should never talk, but He is saying we should not be a chattering fool. Wisdom is knowing when to talk and when to listen. Some people talk to avoid taking responsibility. I recall counseling a husband and he had an explanation for everything. “Well, I do that because….” Finally I had to bring him to reality, “One of your problems is that you’re an explainer. You need to stop explaining yourself out of your problem and start listening to what God has to say.” Incessant talkers aren’t learners. Someone said, “Listening is the art of closing one’s mouth and opening one’s ears and heart.”
Proverbs compares the babbling fool with the wise man. Here are a just two of many.
- Proverbs 10:8, The wise of heart will receive commands, But a babbling fool will be ruined.
- Proverbs 13:3, The one who guards his mouth preserves his life; The one who opens wide his lips comes to ruin.
James is saying as long as you are talking you aren’t listening, especially to God. We try to talk God’s convictions away, like a barking dog when someone gets too close. We talk so we don’t have to admit our sins. Incessant talkers are all about who? “So I said…then he said, so I said.” You’ve all heard it; the talker drones on and on.
Garfield the cat was droning on and on to his teddy bear and best friend Pooky all about himself when he finally stopped and said, “Hey Pooky, I’m tired of talking about me. You talk about me for a while.” Listen to Solomon in Ecclesiastes 5:2, “Be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven and you are on earth. Therefore let your words be few.” Be slow to speak.
THIRD PREREQUISITE: GET A HANDLE ON YOUR ANGER – “slow to anger.”
There’s a deadly link between unproductive talk and anger. When we engage in complaining talk, self-pitying talk, or self-focused talk, we can easily let our emotions or passions kick in, especially if someone opposes us. Then we escalate into angry talk, angry words, and even angry actions like stomping out or worse. I’ve had both a man and a woman stomp our while I was trying to counsel them. People who are not learners and are not willing to stop talking and start listening often respond to direct principles from God’s Word to them personally by taking umbrage and leaving in anger. Nothing opens the door for Satan to come in and make a mess of your life, your family, your marriage, even your reputation at work like anger. Paul warns us in his letter to the Ephesians.
Ephesians 4:26-2, BE ANGRY, AND yet DO NOT SIN; do not let the sun go down on your anger, 27 and do not give the devil an opportunity.
The word “opportunity” is literally a place or room. Your sinful, unresolved anger is a personal invitation to Satan to come in and make himself at home. Nothing destroys relationships like uncontrolled anger.
God gave us all the capacity to get angry at the right things. Jesus got angry at the Pharisees for their callous hypocrisy and was fired up enough to throw the cheaters and rip-offs out of the temple, turning over their tables and sending their shekels in every direction. Anger is a motivating energy God gave us so we can go after a problem and get it solved. Martin Luther said, “I never work better than when I am inspired by anger; for when I am angry, I can write, pray, and preach well, for then my whole temperament is quickened, my understanding sharpened, and all mundane vexations and temptations depart.”
Sometimes we ought to get good and angry. I listened to a podcast recently about gender transitioning and surrogate mothering and some of the awful effects. I am angry at the teachers and counselors who affirm and promote gender transitioning, the doctors who are willing to mutilate girls and boys and give them hormones to give them a new gender identity. I am angry at the doctors who are willing to go in that sacred place, a mother’s womb, and murder and destroy a little image bearer. These things ought to stir us up.
But don’t excuse your sinful anger. When do you get sinfully angry? When you’re not getting what you want, like Ahab, who was flooded with anger at Naboth for not selling him his vineyard. Ahab’s evil pagan wife Jezebel took care of the situation, “Come on, Ahab baby. You’re the king. Where I’m from you just cancel out anyone who gets in your way!” So she arranged for Naboth to be killed. She went back to Ahab and said, “Ahab baby, Naboth is dead. The vineyard is yours!”
Sinful anger happens when you’re getting what you don’t want. Someone spreads slander about you and you are ticked off and harboring bitter feelings at them. Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton were inveterate political enemies. When Alexander publicly slandered Burr, something about being a worthless politician, Burr got inflamed and called for a duel. There they were, July 11, 1804, on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River, pistols loaded and walking off the distance. Hamilton had determined to shoot high, which is what he did. Burr shot straight at his enemy. The bullet entered Hamilton’s right hip, through the liver, and into his spine. The next day he died. Remember Cain’s anger? It led to Abel’s murder. Or King Saul, who was so angry with jealousy he tried to pin David to the wall with a spear.
Notice James 1:20, “for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God.” There are times when your honor is questioned, your kids are driving you up a wall, someone cuts you off in traffic, your wife does that little thing she does that ticks you off and she did it again, or your husband isn’t using his ears for the purpose God gave them, or you’re at church and someone insults you, and you light up with anger, inside if not outside. You don’t call for a duel, but how you think about the other person suddenly changes.
Proverbs 15:18 says, “A hot tempered man stirs up strife, but the slow to anger calms a dispute.” The hot-tempered man uses his anger to punish others, maybe his wife or kids or someone at work. Then he blames them, “It’s all your fault. If you hadn’t done so-and-so I wouldn’t be angry.” We knew a father who loved his daughter. She had a boyfriend but dad saw some flaws in his character. When he confronted the young man and told him he wouldn’t be dating his daughter for a time, the young fellow marched out, got in his car, and spun out of the lane, throwing stones behind him. Young ladies, whatever you do, don’t marry a hot-tempered man. If he pouts and slams doors when he doesn’t get his way, he’s history. Walk away.
Proverbs 22:24, Do not associate with a man given to anger; Or go with a hot-tempered man.
James was writing to Jewish believers. If you remember in Acts, everywhere Paul went to preach the gospel the unbelieving Jews came after Him in anger. When the Jews got saved, they apparently didn’t lose their tendency to anger. James will talk about this again in James 4:1, “What’s the source of these fights and quarrels among you?” So James says, “Get a handle on your anger! You are not furthering the work of God with all your angry quarreling.” Paul rebuked the Corinthians for the same thing. “Chloe’s people tell me there are quarrels among you.” (1 Corinthians 1:11) First century believers dealt with the same issues we do. We talk when we should be listening and easily slide into self-centered anger. Sinful anger totally forgets about God, cares only about self, and never accomplishes God’s purpose in the situation.
God says “Listen up, my people!” These three prerequisites are essential for true spiritual growth.
- Be quick to hear and teachable from the Word of God.
- Be slow to speak; think before you make your opinion known. We can all use that one. Proverbs 17:28 says, “Even a fool when he keeps silent is considered wise.”
- Get a handle on that self-centered anger before you destroy yourself and others.
If God has put His finger on an area of your life – maybe you’re that hot-tempered man who stirs up strife or that woman who gives her opinion before thinking. These aren’t just character flaws; they’re sins. Take them to the cross of Jesus Christ and admit how self-centered you’ve been. Realize Christ died for these sins and ask Him to forgive you. The good news is that just as we’re to be quick to hear, God is quick to forgive us for Christ’s sake.