because the heart is always the heart of the matter.
Let me show you what I’m talking about - James 3 (NKJV):
1 My brethren, let not many of you become teachers…
It’s amazing how many people want to preach, teach and talk to people.
James says, ‘Please don’t.’
This is what James is saying:
…knowing that we shall receive a stricter judgment.
He said, ‘If you want to stand up in front of people and tell them how to live – there’s coming a
greater scrutiny on you.’
2 For we all stumble (teachers and the listeners) 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.
That’s the biggest problem right there. We’ll shout God down, then cuss somebody out. Why can’t you
talk to your wife like you talk to 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.
Let me stop right there because there is so much I need to deal with. The Bible says, ‘Guard your heart.’
Jeremiah said it’s evil. This is big, okay? This is why I had to come and teach tonight.
We are born into this world with evil.
David said, ‘I was conceived and shaped in iniquity.’
He said, ‘I had bad stuff going on in me before I even came out.’
Jeremiah said, ‘You don’t really know what’s going on in the heart of a person.’
He said, ‘It has potential for tremendous evil.’
You know, I was reading those Scriptures back in the Old Testament that nobody likes to read, where God
is handing out all these orders and ordinances and commandments, and stuff everybody hates and they
just want to skip it and don’t understand it. Have you ever looked in there at the stuff God addressed?!?!
‘Cause He knew He had to put it (people having sex with animals; women with women; men with men; [etc])
in there because its potential was already [in our heart].
He addressed all of it, because it was ALREADY in there.
Ron Carpenter, Redemption World Outreach Center