Most of us are familiar with the little phrase, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me.”  In my experience that has not proven to be true.  I suggest that the person who came up with it probably didn’t have a very balanced view of things. Either they never had anything negative said about them at all, or they had so many hurtful things said about them that they went into some sort of state of denial.

Compare the meaning of that phrase with what the wisdom writer of Proverbs had to say about the power of words: “Death and life are in the power of the tongue” (Prov. 18:21).

As part of our ongoing series through the Letter of James I preached out of James 3:1-12 this weekend at my church.  Perhaps more than any other passage in the Bible these 12 verses describe the devastating power of the sinful words and ways in which we speak.  My message was titled, “The Power of the Tongue.”  Give it a listen.

• Here’s the sermon audio for this message.  Just click the ‘Play’ button (the little triangle pointing right) to listen now.

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• Or you can download the sermon and listen to it later via mp3 player or burnt CD by visiting my Sermon Download Page, finding the word “Download,” right-clicking on it, and choosing the ‘Save As’ option.

Unfortunately I was not able to record the second half of this sermon.  Due to time constraints it was broken into two parts and the second half took place during our Sunday PM worship service which is not recorded.

In case anyone’s interested, here’s the outline I preached from.  I’m always interested to see how others put their thoughts together.