Dirty Lips

You are about to enter into the courts of the Lord.  You are at the entrance even this moment.  Are you clean?  You are about to use your lips and tongue to praise the living and most holy God.  What have they been saying up to this point?

James warns us that you can’t spew hatred, vile words, complaining and whining at God, blasphemies, lewd porn-language, or any other vain thing – you can’t spew those things out of your mouth in one moment and then praise and thanksgiving to God in another – and think He will not notice.  Not only will He notice, not only will He not receive it, He will hate it and bring His discipline down upon it.

This is true for us as individuals, it is true for us in our homes, and it is true for our nation.  Our national leaders cannot speak blasphemies about or to God, or speak of the world in such a way as to deny His existence or sovereign lordship on the one hand, and then turn and say such things as “God bless America” on the other hand.  God’s hand of discipline is hard upon our land and growing harder.  He will not have such idolatry.  He will not have such hypocrisy.

And so what to do?  This is why we come to worship this God, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who transforms us from the inside out so that there is no longer vileness, nastiness, malice, envy, pride, self-pity, whining or complaining.  Having saved us from our bondage to such things, we may notice them in us still striving to rule, but we have the authority in Christ to put them off now – and we have the strength to do so in Christ by His Spirit – and to put on Christ – and to now dwell on and speak of things true, good and beautiful – of things strong and powerful for the kingdom, of things that tear down the strongholds of fear, abuse, and scorn.  The Gospel has saved you from such things and from the author of those things, even the devil himself.  Amen.