"A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man our of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil: for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh." (Luke 6:45)
In writing this piece, I'm aware that it may not make me very popular. In fact, this piece could make me unpopular. I'm aware it may cause people to think of me as very judgmental and as a "holier than thou" kind of person. I'm really not at all "holier than thou"! And, I am far from perfect. I have a number of faults, and there are (frankly) a number of matters I struggle with in my Christian walk. I implore my readers to understand I'm not trying to be judgmental or legalistic here. But, this is something I've been "sitting on" for awhile, and I've reached the point that I think I need to just say it!
About eight years ago, my wife Mary Ann and I were sitting in the office of our pastor and his wife. His wife is an Ordained minister, as well, and serves as an associate pastor. There were issues and problems being discussed which are way too personal to share publicly here. But there's one thing I said during that meeting I do want to talk about here. The pastor asked me how I was feeling and how things were going in my life. I abruptly and firmly answered, "I feel like hell!" In fact, I think I may have even made that statement twice during that meeting. I was in "a bad place" at the time. I felt my world had fallen apart and pretty much that everything and everyone was against me. I still read my Bible and prayed and I believed in God, but my "Christian walk" was, to use an expression a friend of mine often uses, "shaky at best". Not long after we left that meeting, Mary Ann let me know how upset and disappointed she was with what I'd said. She was appalled that I could go into a meeting with a couple of pastors and just say right out loud with a rebellious tone, "I feel like hell!"
Mary Ann was right! She was absolutely right.
In the years that have passed since then, I've thought of that outburst and her reaction many times. And she was right. It was no way to answer my pastors, it was no way to speak in front of my wife, and it was no way to speak in front of God. Seriously! That's one of those events from my life that I'd love to do over! I'm just so thankful that God is so loving and merciful that He forgave me for that.
I often listen to K-Love Christian radio in the morning. It's been great that for the past couple of years, we've had it at 95.5 F.M. in eastern Massachusetts. There's a contest they feature most mornings. It's called You Got This! They ask "five easy questions" - well they're not really that easy - and if you answer all of them correctly, you win a truly fabulous prize. Each time they bring a contestant's call onto the air to play the game they ask that caller, "And, what's the rule?" to which the caller immediately responds, "NO CUSSING!"
I "got saved" in mid-1970. I was fifteen (almost sixteen) at the time. I'm not proud of this, but as a thirteen through fifteen-year-old I "had a mouth like a cesspool". I couldn't get through more than a couple of sentences with my friends without an F-Bomb, or saying "suck" or "sucks" or at least a few usages of "hell" or "damn" or even an occasional use of Jesus Christ's name in a very profane manner. With my folks I toned it down, but there were still plenty of usages of "hell" and "damn". One of the items my friend who'd "witnessed" to me about faith in Christ had told me is that born-again Christians don't swear. That did bother me. I was really afraid it would be something I could never live up to! I couldn't imagine going through a day without swearing, let alone a week, or a month, or the rest of my life! But, after I received Jesus Christ as my Personal Lord and Savior in July of 1970, I must say, I really lost my desire for swearing. Admittedly, the words still came into my mind, and after forty-nine years, they sometimes still come into my mind, and I will admit that does bother me a bit, but I just haven't had much heart to use them. I'm not sure I've verbally uttered profanities even more than fifteen times since I got saved in 1970 and that includes that one or two times in the pastor's office. I just didn't want to dishonor the Lord nor did I want my fellow Christians to think I was some kind of a profane jerk.
Younger people may find this hard to believe, but back in the pre-1990 days, there wasn't a lot of swearing heard in born-again Christian circles. I can probably count on my fingers the number of times I heard fellow evangelicals utter profanities in those days. Sadly that's changed. I've found in these days, it's pretty much impossible to get through a month without hearing maybe five or ten profanities from fellow evangelicals! One thing that sort of "cracked the eggshell" on the whole swearing thing was the television show Kate & Allie featuring the word "sucks" used in an acceptable manner on their show. That was in the late 1980s. In society over the next few years, it became acceptable for politicians, teachers, motivational speakers, leaders, and even theologically conservative ministers to publicly say things like, "this sucks" ... "that sucks"..."this will really suck"... etc. I have good friends, among evangelicals and non-evangelicals who use those phrases. For me, I just could never get on board with that word; not even in my cynical, dark days such as when I was in the pastor's office earlier in this decade. During the past fifteen years, profanity of all kinds has become acceptable everywhere, and even in very conservative, evangelical circles. Some people ask, "How can evangelicals accept Donald Trump's swearing?" If they heard many evangelical's speech patters, they wouldn't ask that question! I don't want to turn this into a political post. I did vote for Donald Trump, but I don't like his swearing nor some of the inappropriate things he says.
There are all sorts of New Testament passages that warn God's children about the use of profanity. James chapter 3 verse 10 says, "Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be." And, Ephesians 4:29 says, "Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers." (Ephesians 4:29)
It may surprise you that I really believe that the most sinful words before God are not the F-Word or some other vulgar profanities. I think the most sinful are words (used out of context) such as hell, damn, and g--damn. I think it would have been better to drop an F-bomb when the pastor asked me how I felt, although of course that would have been wrong, inappropriate, and sinful, but it would not have been as bad as what I said! Again, Mary Ann was right! When we use hell, damn and similar words, we're actually mocking God! We're thumbing our noses at Him! We're dishonoring and disrespecting Him! We're treating eternal damnation as a light thing. We're treating God's love and Jesus Christ's sacrifice for our sins as a big joke! Yeah, Mary Ann was right. There are some churches and pastors who make a big deal about the specific words we speak and that tell us we must be very circumspect about what we confess. Listen, I know the "faith and positive confession" movement is controversial, and I don't agree with everything the "faith and positive confession" pastors and churches teach, but let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater, because when they say we must be very circumspect about what we confess- about the words that come out of our mouths, they're one hundred percent correct! We're going to be held accountable for every word, folks; every word!
Some may think this is a little too far but even a lot of euphemisms such as heck, golly, gosh, darn, screwed, and so forth should probably be banished from our vocabularies.
I hope none of my readers feel like swearing after reading this piece, but I'm quite serious. I've been thinking about this for a long time. Before you react, would you pray about it?
As they say on K-Love: "What's the rule?" and then the response "NO CUSSING!"
EMMYS 1970: My World...and Welcome To It
1 year ago