When the tongue is not controlled then it has all kinds of dramatic and serious consequences in people's lives, but when the tongue is controlled, when we begin to yield our tongue and master the words we speak and begin to learn how to speak words that are God-given words, if we get into agreement with God and begin to speak the things God is saying about our life, our circumstances, our condition, our future, then we make way for God to move in those situations.
Okay, would you open your Bible with me. We're going to just carry on where we were last week. We're talking about Taming the Tongue. The Bible says that no one can tame the tongue, but God can. God can, when he changes the heart, and I just want you to pick up where we were in Joshua 3:5, Joshua, Chapter 3, Verse 5. It's got nothing to do with the tongue really, but it's just the scripture God put in my hand in relationship to just speaking about this area. And Joshua said to the people, sanctify yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you. Sanctify, or separate, or prepare your heart, prepare your lives, for God desires to do unusual things, impossible things, miracles among you.
Or another way of putting this, he's saying position yourself today, so that God can do unusual, different things in your life tomorrow. The choices you're making today, decisions you're making today, are preparing your tomorrow. Now here's one of the interesting things on that story, that they went from that place there, into their first encounter in battle to possess the Promised Land, and do you know what God required for them to do? Nothing. They had to actually master the tongue.
Now I want you to think, sometimes we read this story the Bible tells us in Joshua, Chapter 6, that they walked around the city of Jericho for six days. Every day they went around it several times. Every day they went around it, and no one was allowed to speak, or to talk, or to say anything. Now I want you just to imagine what that's like. Here you are, it's your first conflict. This is the first battle in the Promised Land. This is a history-making battle, and the strategy that Joshua's come up with is, no one talks. Six days they walk around, and the seventh day they walked around it seven times, and then at the end he gave the command to give a shout, so for six days they had to walk around. Now I want you to think what that is like for a man who's armed, who's got a shield and sword, and they've got trumpets playing. He'll be thinking what kind of battle is this? What kind of leadership is this? We just walk around the place.
Every day they walk around it, they see how big the walls are, they hear the jeering of the enemy. Every day they're walking around, and no one's allowed to say anything. No one is allowed to speak a negative thing. You can't say anything positive, well don't say a negative. For six days they had to walk around, and in that period of six days, they developed in their heart a vision of the city falling down, and on the seventh day, when they let the shout out, can you imagine the anticipation on the seventh day, and they go round it seven times, then they all stop and face the city. Then the whole lot let out a shout - seven days in the making! Actually 40 years in the making - and a shout went out, and the Bible tells us that God heard this, and the walls fell down flat, and they went straight into the city.
It's interesting. This is the first battle in the Promised Land, and they had to control the tongue; the very first encounter in the New Testament with the church, the Holy Ghost came on them, and they spoke in tongues and magnified God. God got a hold and control of their tongue. The tongue, I suppose it's a very little thing, but it says it actually controls the whole of your life. James 3 says like the rudder on a ship, it'll control where it goes. It's like a bridle in a horse's mouth, it'll control where you go. I only have to listen to what you're saying, and I can tell where you're going. Think about that. So we're going to just share a few words. I want to just follow this theme with taming of the tongue, but I want to pick up today on some diseases of the tongue - some diseases of the tongue.
But first let's just have a look at a couple more verses. I want you to have a look with me in Psalm 34. We shared last week that the words you agree with in your heart, and the words you speak, shape your future. We talked about a wedding; you get married, you had something in your heart, you come into agreement with it, and then you spoke the words out, and there it is, you're hitched. You're hitched. You made a commitment, and there it is, so before you say the words, think it through. It's a good principle to success - think it through. Anyway, let's have a look in Chapter 34 or Psalms, Verse 11; Come and listen to me, and I'll teach you the fear of the Lord, so he's talking about having the fear of the Lord, which is the beginning of wisdom, beginning of success in life. And he says, who is the one that loves life, and wants many days, that he may see good?