Let Everyone Be Quick to Listen, Slow to Speak, and Slow to Anger

James chapter 1, beginning with verse 18. It says here: “…God, of his own will, caused us to be born through the word of truth, so that we might be the firstfruits of his creatures…”

I spoke about that last time. We talked about every good gift, about the generous God who gives us beyond what we sometimes expect, deserve, or dare to believe that he can give us. And one of those things God has done in our lives is precisely to cause us to be born through the word of truth.

I was saying that we are not born spiritually by ourselves. We talked about how there is a new birth that takes place in the lives of those who receive Christ as Lord and Savior. It is a change of nature, and only God does that. We do not come to God because one day we just happen, of our own good will, to wake up wanting to repent and come in; rather, God himself initiates that process of repentance in us and of drawing near to him. And then he performs a miraculous work in our hearts, in our nature, and causes us to be born, and gives us a new nature, a new identity; that is why it is a new birth.

If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation, so that we might be the firstfruits of his creatures. Then, from there, he speaks of the consequences of the fact that God is the one who does all things; God is the one who initiates the process of salvation in our lives. God is the source of every good thing in our lives. Therefore, since he is so great, so powerful, so sovereign in everything he does, what is our role before that generous God, that God who takes the initiative, that sovereign God? What should our posture be? How should we conduct ourselves before such greatness, before that almighty God? It says:

“…For this reason, because of the nature of God, beloved brothers and sisters, every man and every woman must do the following; this must be our attitude: be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to become angry. What does ‘slow’ mean? It means taking it slowly, waiting until the last moment, not rushing in immediately, not throwing ourselves into it right away.

I believe that one of the most important qualities of a person who is mature in the Gospel is sobriety. Everyone say, ‘Sobriety.’ Do you know how you can tell that a person is mature in the Spirit? When that person is sober-minded and takes time to weigh things. They are not carried away by great enthusiasms, nor are they excessively skeptical and cynical; rather, they do things at precisely the right moment.

When some news arrives, or a new revelation comes, or an opportunity to do something presents itself, they first take time and think things through. That person is self-controlled; they do not act on emotion. The opposite of a sober-minded person is an impulsive person, someone who fires from the cartridge belt without even drawing the revolver, like those cowboys of old.

I have always loved that concept of sobriety, and we should all ask the Lord, ‘Father, make me a sober-minded person; make me someone who weighs things and gives time time before I act.’ A young person, an inexperienced young person, is generally impulsive. You see that young people are always rushing from one place to another and doing things quickly, without reflection.

God wants us to be restrained and sober-minded people. Before we rush in, before we say things… very often one of the most harmful things in marriage and in friendship is when someone speaks impulsively, and if they have anger inside, they simply let it out. If they have a thought, they immediately let it fly. You know that this kind of person is always walking around with black eyes, always apologizing, or someone has pounced on them, or they have had a fight or an argument with someone, and they are always in trouble because they do not weigh things.

We have to ask the Lord, ‘Lord, always help me to think things over, to think before speaking.’ I believe that comes from the awareness that the world is a serious thing, that the world is dangerous, and that words… the Bible says that a man’s life is in his mouth; that is why one has to be very careful when speaking.

There is a passage—I do not remember where it is—that says, ‘Be careful before making a promise.’ I am sure it is in Ecclesiastes. It says this: Be very careful before speaking, because God is in heaven and you are on earth; therefore, let your words be few. Isn’t that right? Amen.

One has to be very careful before saying to the Lord, ‘Oh, Lord, I am going to do this for you; get me out of this mess, and I promise that I will walk all the way to Rome on my knees.’ Be very careful before saying things. Ecclesiastes 5:2 says here, ‘Do not be hasty with your mouth, nor let your heart be quick to utter a word before God, because God is in heaven and you are on earth; therefore, let your words be few. For a dream comes through much busyness, and a fool’s voice through a multitude of words…’

Brothers and sisters, there is a direct relationship between many words and foolishness. Look at elderly people of great wisdom: quiet, while you talk and talk, and they sit there weighing what you are saying and also thinking before saying anything. Because they have already seen much and lived much.

So, one of the things one must always work on in life is being a person… It is like economics: in finance there is a law called the law of supply and demand, of availability and demand. Why is dirt cheap if you buy a handful of it? Now, diamonds are expensive, right? A tiny diamond is worth a fortune, but a handful of dirt is worth almost nothing. Why? Because dirt is everywhere. You go out into the street, anywhere at all, and you will find a handful of dirt; but try finding yourself a diamond, because they are scarce. And that is how it is with people.

Very often, when we talk too much, when we are always saying things, talking, and offering our opinion on everything, our words are so readily available that they are worth little; people do not take them into account. But when one thinks things through, then when one speaks, one’s words carry weight. Therefore, as far as possible in our lives, we must try to be sober-minded people, people who weigh their words, and make sure that our conversation is the product of prior reflection and of allowing what we are going to say time to simmer within us. Then, when the word springs forth, it springs forth with power; it springs forth with meaning.

So this is very important. As you can see, the Lord calls us, in light of his greatness—and it says, because God is in heaven and you are on earth—not to speak too much. Do not always be promising the Lord everything: I am going to do this for you; I am going to do the other…

It is also the same thing James says elsewhere—I do not know whether it is James—that we should not lay hands on anyone hastily. Why? Because if you are constantly laying hands on everyone, anointing everyone, making declarations over everyone, ordaining everyone for the Gospel, and all of that, it loses its value. Things have to be done at God’s moment, when God wills it, when the Holy Spirit is present, when there is a move of God; then one enters into that move of God.

But sometimes people want everything to be a circus all the time, for everybody’s hair bun to be falling off all the time, with people on the floor and all of that. A time comes when there is no longer any difference. It becomes a cheap ritual like anything else. Therefore, it is important for it to happen at God’s moment; when God commands, when God speaks, then one moves. One does not have to go around showing one’s anointing to everyone everywhere; that is foolishness. It is when God says things.

And that comes from an inner conviction, from a security one possesses. When a person is sure of himself, he does not have to keep proving himself to people, talking to them, or giving his opinion on everything; rather, in his own time, God does things.

I believe that is why James says that before this mighty God whom we have, this God who causes us to be born again by his power, this God who gives us so many good things in life, this God whose character is like pure silver and gold, holy—before his greatness and majesty, we have to walk humbly and be very careful about what we say and how we move.

Then it says we must be quick to hear. Someone has said that God gave us two ears and one mouth so that we would hear twice as much as we speak. And that seems like excellent advice to me. Listen. Always be gathering information. You are like a spy who is always collecting intelligence; intelligence services are always gathering information, which is why they have their spies all over the world. Ah, so-and-so is going to be elected; look, this man seems to be rising in politics. They send a telegram to Washington, or whatever it may be, saying, ‘Here is such-and-such a person who seems likely to have influence,’ and the CIA is already watching him and gathering information about who he is, where he comes from, what his weaknesses are, and so on. One must always be gathering intelligence and listening, speaking less. If one talks too much, one cannot listen, and then one does not know what one is talking about.

Then it says that we must be quick to hear and slow to speak, and it also says, slow to become angry. That is another thing, brothers and sisters: if we suffer from anger, let us immediately ask the Lord to deal with our lives, because anger is one of the most terrible and harmful things. I would say that we must be slow to take offense, period.

Some people take offense at anything. They have an ego that, as the saying goes, is like Bethlehem glass: they break over anything. Have you heard that expression? Like Bethlehem glass. People who are too sensitive cannot serve the Lord, because they are going to offend you so much, and they are going to talk about you so many times, that if you take offense at everything they say about you, forget it—you are no good for anything. Honestly.

If every time you are told that so-and-so said something about you, you stop talking to that person, look, you had better lock yourself in your house and never come out, because the moment you step outside, something will hit you right away. And if you are doing something good for the Kingdom of God, someone is going to criticize you, and someone is not going to be happy with you. Yes or no?

So you have to put on plenty of polish, smear yourself with plenty of grease, so that things continually slide right off you. You have to be sure of yourself, so sure that you do not care what people… If they want to talk, let them talk, because, for goodness’ sake, if they said it about Christ, how could they not say it about you?

All of that is there in that passage. I like it. I did not finish reading. It says:

‘It is better not to promise than to promise and not fulfill it. Do not let your mouth cause you to sin, nor say before anyone that it was a mistake. Why should you make God angry because of your voice and cause him to destroy the work of your hands?’

There is a passage I was looking for right here; I saw it for a moment, and then I lost it. It says that we should not pay attention to everything people are saying about us, because, remember, you also said something about others. Yes or no?

The other day, I saw a person who was telling me that so-and-so is a gossip. So I said to him, ‘And aren’t you doing the same thing?’ He was complaining that so-and-so gossips while he himself was doing precisely that in front of two or three of us sitting there in a meeting.

All of us—it says, remember when you said something about others. Brothers and sisters, that is the nature of the world. I know there are people who love me and would give their lives for me, but they talk about me behind my back. I know it. That does not bother me, because I know that I sometimes do the same thing regarding others. So I let them talk, and they love me, and people tell me that so-and-so said such-and-such—amen. I know that person loves me, and I love him too. I do not take things too seriously, because one cannot be constantly fighting and confronting everything one hears. One becomes exhausted and burns out. That is what the devil wants: for a person always to be saying, ‘Oh, you said I-don’t-know-what; someone told me you said…’ Leave it alone; let the water flow.

Just yesterday I was at a place outside Boston, and a brother came to talk to me about another brother who had been talking about me and about him. I told him, ‘Look, leave that man alone. Let him say whatever he wants; that person has no power. Everyone knows who he is, so do not start fighting with him.’ The man was completely bitter. I told him, ‘Do not become bitter. Why are you going to start…? Let him wear himself out; let him get tired. When he gets tired, he will stop talking, and you will still be just the same. But if you keep fighting with him all the time, you are going to wear yourself out, and that is what the devil wants.’

So we have to be slow to take offense, slow to become angry. We have to be sure of who we are in Christ Jesus. If you are right with God, no one can harm you, my brother, my sister. Make sure that you are right, solid in Christ. If the Lord is with me, who can be against me?

Many times, when we are fragile, that is when we feel as though we are offended by anything people say. Let me tell you something: the weaker and more fragile you are, the more you will fight. A strong person fights very little, because he fights only when he has to fight and chooses his battles. Ninety percent of the time, if he can walk through the crowd, he does so, and he fights only when it is absolutely necessary, because he is confident in himself. He does not have to be constantly… He identifies what is truly worth confronting and fighting about, and what is not, he leaves alone. Why waste his energy? He is sure of who he is, he trusts in God, and he knows that the Lord will watch his back and that the truth always prevails.

There is nothing like your enemy stumbling because of his own wicked conduct instead of your pushing him or tripping him. Let him fall under his own weight. You will heap burning coals on his head.

When you know that someone is behaving improperly toward you and your life… now, if he is causing you truly significant harm, then step in. But as long as he is merely doing something over there, leave him alone, pray, and remain calm; heap burning coals on his head. There will be so much burning coal on his head that his hair and skin and shirt, and everything else, will burn when it catches fire. Let the Lord… There is nothing like the Lord knocking down an enemy of yours, and when he falls, do not rejoice, it says, lest the Lord bless him. Leave him there on the floor so that he remains there for a long time, because if you rejoice too much over his fall, then perhaps God will forgive him and bless him.

That is what the Bible says. Let us not rejoice even when our enemies fall. God is very complex, and the Christian life is very complex and mysterious. There is something beautiful in the wisdom of God; it is so important. We must be slow to anger. If we are very sensitive people who take offense when others do not look at us or when they do look at us, when they call us or do not call us, when they visit us or do not visit us, we have problems. We are going to wear ourselves out. The devil will do whatever he wants with us. He will bait us like a bull is baited by a matador.

The devil uses those unresolved emotions within us. He connects to those emotions, and then he does with us whatever he wants. That is why anger is one of the most terrible things in the world, because it is purely diabolical, and when the devil detects anger in us, he runs a connecting line, as an electrician connects to a power cable, and through it he communicates with us and we with him. He cannot communicate through love, or truth, or righteousness, or forgiveness, mercy, or grace; he communicates through anger, hatred, sensuality, the love of money, and all the passions that are like him. Through those things he can work in us. He uses the lust within us to connect, and what we must do is clean all of that out, remove all of it from ourselves, so that he has nothing to grab hold of in us.

That is why all of this is involved in the matter of our being slow—quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger—because the anger of man can never produce the righteousness of God.

I am going to leave you with that. Go home nice and peacefully, sleep well tonight, and think about it. Let us ask the Lord, ‘Lord, deal with my emotions, deal with my wounds, deal with those areas of my being that are not of you, that are not fitting.’

Right now, ask the Lord: if there is anything within you that does not obey those principles of God’s order, right now let us rid ourselves of it in the name of Jesus. I rid myself of and renounce those unredeemed emotions, everything that does not come from the Father, everything that does not obey.

Lord, sometimes we have distortions and do not know where they come from. A father who did not love us, a person who abused and harassed us, insulted us, took advantage of us, or humiliated us in front of our little friends. Father, we have been wounded all these years, and we lash out when we are criticized and take offense easily. We ask now, Father, that you help us.

We feel insecure and want to prove that we know what we are, and that is why we sometimes boast and say more than we should. Help us, Lord, and cleanse us of all that, Father. We are impatient and act quickly, and we do not think things through beforehand. Cleanse us, heal us, Lord; help us to be people like Christ, firm, planted in our relationship with you, anchored to our mighty God.

Oh Lord, heal every wound from the past; Lord, heal every tendency we have to take offense quickly, my God. Heal every insecurity that causes us to keep watching to see what they said about us and whether they said anything about us. Lord, heal us of any tendency to be hurt too easily because someone looked at us the wrong way or made some sort of comment, and then we blame you or the church and leave the church because we feel offended.

Father, remove that right now in the name of Jesus. I declare over your people an anointing of wisdom, Lord, of understanding, of maturity, of being grounded in you. If you are our God, you are our defender. Lord, help us. Father, cause the character of Jesus, the fruit of the Spirit, to be manifested in our lives, Lord. Deal with my brothers and my sisters.

Father, if there is anything right now, any offense that we are holding in our hearts against someone, we cast it off, Father. We forgive our debtors; we forgive those who have offended us, Lord. If we are resentful because of a word someone said about us, right now we set it aside. Your anointing is here, Lord—an anointing of maturity, an anointing of Christlike character, an anointing of change, Father. In the name of Jesus, I rebuke every work of the devil in your life; I rebuke all immaturity in your life.

I declare the order of Christ in your heart and in your mind. I reconfigure your character in the name of Jesus according to the character of Christ. Father, we ask that you order and kill everything that is yours, Lord. Order our lives, Father; in the name of Jesus, order our lives. We reject everything that is not like Jesus; we reject whatever does not conform to the patterns of the Kingdom of God. Hallelujah!

Thank you for your word, Lord. Thank you for your word. You are my God; you are mighty. We want to humble ourselves before you. Oh Lord, we humble ourselves before your greatness. We humble ourselves before your righteousness. We humble ourselves before your great power and your lordship, Father.

Help us to walk humbly before you, with complete humility, Father. We know who we are, and we do not deserve to stand in your presence, Father; we do not deserve to handle your word; we do not deserve to lead others, Lord; we do not deserve to be teachers in your church, Father, because only you speak without offending, Lord. We continually offend; forgive us, Father. Forgive the pride, forgive the arrogance and presumption within us, Lord; begin with me, Father. Make us humble; make us simple-hearted, Father.

We welcome the character of Christ into our lives tonight. Cleanse us and keep us from anger; keep us from violence, Lord. Keep us from offending others with our words, Father. Help us to be good people; may our mouths be used to bless, Father, and not be as your word says, that there are men whose mouths are like sword thrusts, Lord. Let it not be so, Father; rather, let our mouths be used to heal, bless, inspire, encourage, enlighten, anoint, and proclaim the blessing of God. Make us meek and humble, Lord, like your Son Jesus.

Thank you, Father, thank you. Spirit of peace, we declare peace, Lord, over your people, over my entire church, Lord. Peace, meekness, humility, grace. May the love of God abound, Lord, among these people. Beloved Lord, every sharp edge that is not fitting, we remove right now, Lord, from these people, from those who are here and those who are not here, Lord. May this church be a church where the love of Christ prevails, Father, where meekness and the character of Jesus are its distinguishing marks, beloved Lord.

We renounce every diabolical, carnal, animalistic, earthly spirit, Lord. We welcome the Spirit of Jesus tonight. Thank you, Lord, thank you. You are here, Lord. Your presence is here. Take us to our homes, Lord, with your blessing. Father, resentment has done so much harm—I have done too much harm, Father. We want your people to be different, Father. Tonight you have spoken to us, Lord, and we open our flesh so that you may enter the depths of our being and do your work, Father.

We renounce everything that is not yours, Father, everything that does not please you. We declare our rejection, Father, our repudiation of everything that does not reflect the excellence of the character of your Son Jesus Christ. Lord, thank you. Thank you. Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Thank you, Lord.