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Dr. John R. Waters, my father-in-law, used to say to me, “Brother Dennis, we sometimes forget how powerful a word is; we hear so many of them each day.” The tongue is a weapon for building or destroying. “Death and life are in the tongue:” (Pro. 18:21) You can kill a testimony, a church, a Christian school, a Pastor and his family, a new convert, a Sunday School teacher, or you can bring life to all just mentioned by your words.

Dr. J. Harold Smith has a famous sermon he preaches on God’s three deadlines. The tongue commits three of the deadlines. Dr. Smith said, “God so feared the tongue when He made it, He put it in a spit bath and put a set of teeth around it and then set of lips, because it is so deadly.”

The tongue has power to DIRECT people to love the church, pastor and the work of God. The tongue has power to DESTROY lives, bus ministries, Christian schools, and families in the church, outreach ministries and so much more. The tongue has power to DELIGHT and lift the spirit of individuals, missionaries, Christian workers, new works just getting off the ground and new ideas put forth by the pastor of a church.

When I was a student at Tennessee Temple, I remember two elderly ladies complaining about the expenses of the bus ministry. A new convert was sitting behind them listening unknowing it to them. He left the church and as a result his wife left him and tragedy struck his home. He had just gotten saved and volunteered for the bus ministry and by their razor tongue they destroyed his spirit and love for the work of God.

Dr. Dennis Carter