Strong Words 10/29/44
Scripture: Psalm 27
Text: Job 4: 4; “Thy words have upholden him that was falling, and thou hast strengthened the feeble knees.” (Moffatt translation - “Your words have kept men on their feet and have nerved the weak”)
Certain Oriental peoples love grandiloquent expression. I remember this especially of certain Filipino speakers who lived in Hawaii more than 20 years ago when I lived there. When it came time for the speeches at their December 30th celebration of Riyal Day (their national Independence Day) the more “flowery” the expression, the better many listeners seemed to like it.
I imagine that General MacArthur’s fiery and colorful statement, when he had set foot again in the Philippines after 2 and one-half hears away during World War II was carefully calculated to get maximum response from Filipino patriots.
Other oriental peoples of the Near East, too, have liked grandiloquent speeches. We see some of that in the book of Job. You recall that this book, written around the character of Job, deals with the problem of evil and with some of the common explanations of evil. A man who is accounted a good man, a righteous man, in the eyes of all his neighbors, is afflicted with a series of woes - loss of property, loss of his children, loss of his home and of his health; he is plunged into human misery. His friends come to sympathize with him as he sits in the customary rough sack-cloth and ashes of anyone who makes this penitential acknowledgment of his troubles. Some insisted there must have been some sin in his life. Was not trouble always the consequence of some wrong doing? But neither Job nor his friends could think of any sin committed for which such misery could be termed the punishment.
The book turns out to be a triumph of the trust which a faithful person can have in God even through the darkest, most difficult, and even seemingly undeserved trials. One verse, however, in the discourse of one of Job’s friends, suggests a line of thought which seems to me significant enough to follow for a while just now. Eliphay begins an elaborate speech attempting to analyze Job’s trouble. First he pays tribute to Job, speaking the simple truth about Job as a man of good character and influence.
It was his recognized righteousness and his unfailing faith that had always impressed these friends and now made Job’s present collapse so lamentable and so hard to understand. Job now seemed to have gone all to pieces. But they remembered that he had once seemed like steadying strength to tired men. They could not understand how this trouble had come about.
We shall not concern ourselves further with the main problem of the discourse of Eliphay, nor that of the entire book. Will you, rather, look up the 4th verse of the 4th chapter of Job which King James’ translators render thus: “Thy words have upholden him that was falling, and thou hast strengthened the feeble knees.” Moffatt translates it in these words: “Your words have kept men on their feet, and have nerved the weak.”
That sheds considerable light on the character of Job! It was a splendid tribute to the man to show that he had been upright, fearing God and shunning evil. But this doesn’t set us on fire with enthusiasm. There have been many men and women, of power and influence and means, who are conventionally correct - orthodox in belief and scrupulous in conduct - who are nonetheless solitary and not loved, because they are not kind. There have been hosts of poor and unknown people of the same stripe.
When Eliphay says of Job that he was the type of man who steadied others in the strain of living we understand why, rich or poor, powerful or humble, the man had friends. Any man who goes about speaking a word of comfort, hope and encouragement, is going to accumulate friends.
Clark Lee, an International News Service reporter, pays high tribute to General “Teddy” Roosevelt - not only to his ability and his rare kind of courage, but to what he was able to do for the men in his command. To compliment a soldier’s company, making him feel that there was no better unit in the United States army, was one way Teddy had of restoring faith and pride to a tired fighter.
Some place down in Africa, about 14 years ago, one member of a transport crew decided that he had had enough of his job. He was sick of wartime flying and was going to find some way to get through with it. The rest of the crew were anxious about him. They didn’t want the efficiency of their teamwork spoiled; and they didn’t want any of their number to be a quitter. They got the chaplain in on the problem, and the chaplain did some very direct talking. He pointed out to the crew man that he would not only incur the disfavor of the men with whom he had worked, but that he would never again be able to respect himself, nor live happily with his own soul, if he were to quite now. Weeks later another member of the crew wrote a letter of appreciation for what the chaplain had done for their man, and said he was OK now - he had decided to stick. Words of encouragement, that “have kept men on their feet!”
The phrase kindles imagination. “Your words,” it says. We commonly estimate the quality of a life in the light of Jesus’ saying, “By their fruits ye shall know them.” [Matthew 7: 16]. What are the results a man can show? Of course words, with no appropriate deeds may be hollow. And yet it is also true that human speech reveals much about character.
“Inasmuch as ye did it - or did it not” [Matthew 25: 40, 45] - these are disquieting teachings of Jesus.. But likewise disquieting are other Christian teachings - “By thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.” [Matthew 12: 37]. Do you remember what Jesus said of one who gets so far out of temper as to call his brother a fool?
It is all very well to observe that a man’s “bark is worse than his bite.” But our Lord made it clear that we are accountable for our speech - not so much for the vocabulary as for the spirit of our speech; for the effect that our words have on the souls of others. “I say unto you that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.”
That raises the whole question of the influence of our words - a question we do not often enough stop too consider. It is enough to bring each of us up short in the middle of our sentence, when we say lightly that we “spoke without thinking.”
Here is this solemn assurance, that the things we say are of lasting significance as revealing what we are. It was no light compliment that Eliphay offered Job; it was a very genuine tribute to him to say “Your words have kept men on their feet.” Job was the kind of man whose sincere speech revived faith and self-respect.
Isolated words or phrases have little significance on our speech, but we all possess certain tones and qualities in our conversation. We dub a man a cynic, a pessimist, a skeptic, an optimist - forming the judgment largely on the basis of the man’s talk. Whether we speak of our business, or of trifles, we give our hearers, by our speech, an intimation of what we are in our spirit.
And our speech does something to others. Either they are being helped or hindered. Do they learn from our words of “things pure and lovely and of good report?” Do we help to keep men on their feet?”
Morale is tremendously important, and is profoundly affected by atmosphere. A newspaper has a tremendous influence in this matter. To a considerable extent, the newspaper reflects the temper of the community and of the nation. But it also has much to do with creating that temper. To be an editorial writer is a large responsibility.
To be a public speaker is an equal responsibility. We may hope that speakers from political platforms, as well as from pulpits, may realize this.
We are all talkers, whether in public or in private. Much of what we say has little significance, though it is always revealing. And - trivial, emotional, rational - whatever it may be, it has its effect on the morale of others. Careless words leave an unfair uncertainty with others as to our dependability. Rational, confident, faithful words bring confidence to others.
The principle of free speech is vital to free, democratic life. But one of its characteristics is that free speech can build or destroy, according to the character of the speaker. We sometimes wish that those who rush headlong into print, or into verbal utterance, would consider more carefully the morale of the community or nation. Our news commentators, our political candidates, and for that matter, all of us have the opportunity and the duty so to speak to our fellows as to reinforce their faith and their courage and their hope.
There is an accent of Christian speech that we ought to be learning and using if we are to be among those whose words keep men on their feet.
1) For one thing, it is the part of honor and of kindness to refrain from speaking, if we can not say the thing that strengthens and gives hope. If we are too tired or discouraged to do aught except bring trouble to others, we had better not inflict the doubts of our weariness upon them. Let us not contribute by our words to a low view of our prospects.
We are told that it is a standing rule in the British Navy, that “no man shall speak discouraging words to his fellows before action.” It would be a good rule for us in all of our nation. On the whole, it has been our rule.
2) Another aspect of our speech that concerns Christian viewpoint is this: it is a sin for one so to talk that he corrupts others. An obvious illustration of corrupting speech is one understood particularly by men - the so-called humor which is obscene.
There is a difference between swearing and obscenity. Swearing is usually just a bad habit, unthinking speech, and much of it unintelligent. Sometimes it is the recourse of men who have not been well enough educated to express themselves forcibly in better language. It is vulgar vocabulary, used for lack of better vocabulary. It is not to be excused, but it is largely careless.
But obscenity is another matter. It is usually deliberate. Vulgarity may be and unfortunately sometimes is, very funny - Obscenity never. Its defilement sticks with its hearers with the tenacity of wet clay or tar. The curse of a vile story is the way it sticks. One with honorable intent may do his best to blot it out, but the devil in the subconscious retains it.
Words from the lips of a man with an unclean mind have the power to drag others into the “quicksand.” The safe and honorable thing, for any well-intended person, is never to repeat a story he would not tell in the presence of anyone he honors and loves.
3) On the positive side, this should be emphasized. Speak with faith in your fellowmen, your country, your church, your family. You have abundant reason to speak so if you have the Christlike faculty of seeing the good in others.
A musician’s ear will always detect a discord, a “sour” note in the orchestra; but the musician’s chief ability lies in his ability to call out the harmonies, the cadences, the appreciated qualities, that make the composition lovely.
Lend your voice to the recognition that employers do have a regard for the men who work with them, that laborers will cooperate, that there are sincere government officials, that church people will work at the practical expressions of their faith and fellowship.
We must not keep silent in the face of evil. We are fighters against sin. But we must be promoters of right! Judge the world not by its villains but by its willing folk, its honest, its faithful people.
Speak with dignity and idealism of the meaning and purpose of living. Man lives by bread, and by more than bread. He lives for great ends.
And speak with faith in God, in Jesus Christ, in the religion that lies in the hearts of countless people. You will be uttering words of strength, the fruit of a tree planted by the water and rested in right.
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Dates and places delivered:
Wisconsin Rapids, October 29, 1944
Wisconsin Rapids (Union Service) August 18, 1957