No it’s not the Atomic bomb or the Hydrogen bomb, but the tongue bomb. We’re quick to avoid murder, stealing, and drunkenness, but we often assassinate other people and leave destruction in our wake by the way we use our tongues. Husbands have stabbed their wives with words that are as sharp as daggers and wives have lashed out with tongues that cut and pierce. Parents have devastated their kids by repeated blasts of venom. Children have exploded at their parents with volleys that have leveled the family like a bomb. Lives have been devastated by wagging tongues that have sliced, diced, and chopped people to shreds.

I don’t know about you, but my biggest mistakes are the ones I make with my mouth. They’re words that I say that I shouldn’t say or words that I don’t say that I should. 99% of the trouble that I find myself in, in the church, in life, and in my family is a result of my tongue. This is an extremely powerful instrument. Just like the bit in the mouth of a horse that guides its entire body, or the small rudder on a large ship that directs the ship even in a powerful storm, so the tongue even though it’s a small part of our body is perhaps the most powerful part.

The havoc that the tongue can wreak is monumental! It is the tongue that can either build things up or tear them down. It is a beast that is too frequently out of control. As Christians we are admonished to tame that beast and rather than inflicting wounds use it to build the Kingdom of God. I don’t think any of us would deny that we have problems with our tongues. Some of us struggle more than others, but each of us needs to find a way to tame that beast.

When you get upset and you say something you shouldn’t you have a few seconds to mute it before the person to whom you’re speaking hears it! But it doesn’t work that way. Most of the time our problem isn’t that we don’t say enough but that we say too much. James 1:26 says that if you think you’re religious but you don’t bridle your tongue your religion is worthless. It’s not ok to always speak your mind. Sometimes it’s better to bite your tongue. The truth is we can’t control our tongues. I don’t have the ability to tame my tongue and neither do you, the only way that we can use our tongues to build others up rather than tearing them down, and to build the kingdom of God rather than being used as a pawn of the Evil One to destroy that Kingdom is by surrendering our tongues to God.