The Problem of Gossip, Part 2

We encounter all kinds of problems every day, but one thing that each of us faces is involve ourselves in talking about others as well as listening to others talk about others And we need to go back and study what the word of the Lord says concerning gossip So, what is gossip? Gossip is using my words either maliciously, that is, a malevolent way, or in a benevolent way to damage, destroy, or defame another individual And we've got to be very careful about that

And I think that if you were to guard your conversation, you'd begin to see how many times we say things that really are bringing others down, not building others up Up What does gossip do? That's point number two What does gossip do? So, word number one: what does gossip do? The word number one centers around division It separates close, intimate friends to dissension It causes all kinds of disruption All kinds of turmoil, all kinds of contention within the body, whether it be our church family or our own personal family Number three, destruction

It goes down into the innermost part of the soul And our lives come to ruin because we want to speak against those that we should be building up And the last word I want to give you is quite revealing, and that's the word demonstration Because gossip truly demonstrates the hatred of our hearts It truly demonstrates the hatred Of our hearts If we're a whisperer, if we are a slanderer, if we are a gossip, we listen, have hate In our hearts Proverbs chapter 10 Proverbs chapter 10 Verse number 18 He who conceals hatred has lying lips, and he who spreads slander is a fool

Now, when you read that, you think, well, you're not supposed to reveal your hatred You're supposed to bile it up, right? Well, the proverb is stated in such a way that the second part of the verse describes the first part of the verse And we need to understand that the one who conceals hatred is the one who is concealing his hatred by spreading slander And that is a definition of a man who has lying lips because what is really in his heart is the fact that he hates his brother In fact, over in the book of Leviticus, it says it this way Leviticus chapter 19, verse number 16

You should not go about as a slanderer among your people In other words, you're not to go around among the people being a whisperer or a gossip or a slanderer And you are not to act against the life of your neighbor. I am the Lord You should not hate your fellow countrymen in the heart In other words, if you go around as a slanderer, you hate your fellow countrymen You may surely reprove your neighbor In other words, if your brother has sinned, you need to reprove him You don't go around and speak against him to other people

In fact, if you don't go to your brother and reprove him because of his sin, you demonstrate the fact that you do hate him Why? Because you go around talking about him instead of dealing with the reality of the sin And so what happens is that what gossip does is demonstrate that we hate the person We're speaking against

Now, the question number three is: why do people do this? You ever ask yourself the question, why do we gossip? Why do I slander others? And why is it I like to listen to people slander others? Why is it we like to buy those magazines filled with all the Hollywood gossip? Why is it we like to watch the TV shows that are filled with the Hollywood gossip? Well, what is it that draws us to that? And why is it people do that? Let me give you three reasons There are probably more But let me give you at least three why people do this Number one, we do this primarily because we desire attention

We desire attention The Bible says in 2 Timothy 3, we read it to you earlier, that in the end times, men will be lovers of themselves Let me, let me Let me speak it very clearly to you Please understand this There has never been a man who hated himself There has always been men and women who love themselves And in the end times, there will be a greater demonstration of man's love for himself than ever before Don't get caught up in society's teaching that we are filled with people with low self-est Don't get caught up and say, oh, poor individual Look where they were raised

Look what's happened to them They don't think very highly of themselves No, the Bible says completely the opposite Everybody thinks highly of themselves, and every man loves himself The Bible says that no man ever hated his own flesh Now, who's right? The Bible Or what you hear on television, or what you feel What is right is what the Bible says No man ever hated his own flesh In the end times, men will become great lovers of themselves Why do people gossip? They do it because they desire attention They desire attention They want the focus on. them

It was Will Rogers who said that the only time people dislike gossip is when you gossip about them And that's true But man truly loves the attention It's a stroke of the ego when I have your attention In your asking me for information, when you need me to feed you information, when you need me to know what's happening When you are in the know because of me, I like that And therefore, my att, my ego, takes center stage And when I know something about somebody else that you don't know, I'm in the driver's seat. I'm in control

And I'll only give you so much information because I want you to keep coming back and asking me for more And I have it, see And therefore, I have your undivided attention And when I have your undivided attention, I am the focal point of the conversation, the focal point of the convers It is so important that when you're in a conversation with people to listen to what they say about themselves and about others Those who desire attention don't ask questions They always give answers That's important And that's why people go

It was Will Durant who said that to speak ill of others is a dishonest way of praising ourselves To speak ill of others is a dishonest way of praising ourselves So that So the Bible says in Psalm 15 that the man who dwells with God is the one who honors those who fear the Lord The man who dwells with God wants to honor others He wants to lift up others He wants others put on display He wants others to be seen He wants others to have the attention He doesn't want the attention

That's why the Bible says over in Philippians chapter 2, verse number 3, these very familiar words, do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit But with humility of mind, let each of you regard one another as more important than himself Boy, that's a good verse to memorize in the new year To regard others as more important than you But we gossip because we desire attention Number two, not only do we desire attention, we desire Elevation We desire elevation And that is, we truly des to look better and be better than others

And if I can say something evil about you, I can bring you down a couple of notches in the eyes of the church And they won't look at you so high and mighty anymore, but instead, they'll look at me as high and mighty And so there's that desire for ele Proverbs 17:9 says, He who covers a transgression seeks love You see, the reason we don't cover a transgression, the reason we don't hide a transgression, that's not talking about not confronting someone in sin That's talking about not exposing someone else's sin And the reason we don't do that is because we seek love

Love truly, as 1 Corinthians 13 says, bears all things, it bears with all things And it covers all things It doesn't go around exposing all things And so the reason people gossip is because if I can expose your sin, then I look better If I can expose your bad marriage, my marriage, as bad as it is, looks better If I can expose your financial difficulty, then my finances, as bad as they might be, look better If I could expose anything negative about your life, it makes my life higher than yours And that's why People gossip They desire to be elevated above others

They don't desire to honor others They don't desire to Deny themselves, they desire to elevate themselves above everyone else That's why Romans 12:3 says that we are not to think of ourselves more highly than we ought to think The reason the Bible says that is because our natural tendency is to think of ourselves as being pretty good, as being pretty high See, we tend to think of ourselves as good That's why the Bible has to say there is none good, no, not one The reason the Bible says that is because our tendency is to say we are good

The Bible says that there is none who ever hated his own flesh, but each man loves himself The reason the Bible says that is because we want people to say, well, we don't love ourselves Yes, you do And so the Bible speaks very clearly that at the core of our being, we want to lift ourselves up over everybody else And if I can get myself up higher than you, guess what? I am no longer a low man on the totem pole. I don't want to be at the bottom And if you're below me, I can step on you all the time And if I step on you, I can step on somebody else and slowly work my way to the top

And that's why people gossip They desire attention They desire elevation And thirdly, they desire retaliation They desire retaliation They really want to get back at someone else Proverbs 25, 23 says, The north wind brings forth rain, and a back-biting tongue, an angry counten Let me tell you something about the tools of revenge The tools of revenge are primarily gossip and slander

How am I going to get back at you? How am I going to get back at what you have done? How am I going to expose you for who you really are? I will say and do just about anything to make sure you are brought down for bringing me down And we desire retaliation We want to get back We don want to get back We want to get even We want to get ahead And so, how do we do that? then we begin to spread secrets We begin to speak falsehood We begin to rip and tear and shred another individual's characters apart so that we look better than they do and we can gain the upper hand

And therefore in our minds we win Pro 19: says, The discretion of a man def his anger, and it is his glory to pass over a transgression It is a man's glory to pass over a transgression The Bible says that we are not to return evil for evil, but we are to return good for evil That's what our response is to do When we're driving down the road and someone with road rage cuts us off and they want to get back at us, we have to blow them kisses and love them and let them have their way We're to do good to those people We're not to step on the gas and run them off the road

But our natural tendency is to really rip and shred and tear and cut and slice and dice As much as possible And that's what gossip does And that's why people do it We want to get back And if we can rip someone else apart With our words, and tear them down, we have sought vengeance But God said, Vengeance is mine. I will repay, says the Lord See, whenever you retaliate, you are acting out of vengeance And whenever you act out of vengeance, you take the place God Whenever you retaliate against someone, you are telling them you are God That's the essence of vengeance

God said, Vengeance is mine. I will repay And what do we say? No, Lord, vengeance is mine. I will repay We set ourselves up as God, see? We take His place And God says, Let me handle it Let me handle the individual Which leads us to a point number four What do we do about the problem of gossip? It was Will Morris who said If your lips would keep from slips, Five things observe with care To whom you speak, Of whom you speak, Of how and when and where You know, it's important to realize that when we need help, we search the scriptures Proverbs 11, verse number 9

With his mouth, the godless man destroys his neighbor, but through knowledge, the righteous will be delivered How is it we will be delivered from our gossip? Through the knowledge of the Word of God, right? By knowing what God says and reading what God says, that begins to set the pattern for deliverance So, let me give you a couple of principles, six of them to be exact Six principles that will help you in terms of how to deal with your gossip Number one: acknowledge gossip when it happens That's number one Acknowledge it when it happens

Acknowledge it when you do it, and acknowledge it when others do it That's step number one If I have said something against my brother, I need to recognize what I've done Psalm 17:3 says, I have resolved that my mouth will not sin

The psalmist said in Psalm 19, Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer. I first of all need to acknowledge Wh I gossip, if I've said something against a brother, if I've said something to destroy or damage another person's character. to speak against them in any negative way whatsoever, I need to, number one, acknowledge that. I also need to acknowledge when someone else does it

If I'm in a conversation and someone is saying something about another brother, my response should be, you know, what would they think about what you are saying? Would they appreciate the words that you have said at this time? That's not a holier than now attitude That's just an honest question Because you see, that then puts everybody on notice that the conversation is going the wrong way and needs to be turned around and go the other way That's important, isn't it? Romans 13: says that love does no harm to its neighbor It doesn't

And so instead of taking up a reproach against my friend, as Psalm 15 says that we read earlier in our time, that we need to defend our friend And we defend our friend by taking up a stand for him and say, you know, maybe he would not appreciate what we're saying right now Maybe it would be best, brother, if you go to him and talk to him individually In fact, if you want me to go with you, I will See? But you're acknowledging that there's gossip You're acknowledging it in the conversation, and you acknowledge it in your own life That's number one

Number two, after you acknowledge it, you need to ask forgiveness Ask forgiveness We, as Ephesians 4 says, need to be tender, forgiving one another even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven us The Bible says in Ephesians 4, lay aside all bitterness, all wr, all malice And forgive one another If I have said something against someone else and caused them harm, I need to go to them and ask their forgiveness That's important Now, number three: if I acknowledge that I have gossiped, or I acknowledge that others gossip

And number two, I ask forgiveness from my God and from the individual about what I've said Number three, I must ac the fact That if I live godly, people will gossip about me If I live godly, people will gossip about me We need to accept that Matthew chapter 5, verses 10 to 12 Christ said, if you live the beatitude kind of life, what's going to happen? He said these words in verse number 10: Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven Blessed are you when men cast insults at you, persecute you

And say all kinds of evil against you falsely on account of me Now, the reason people say things against you a lot of times is because you're seeking to live a righteous life So, one of the ways we deal with gossip is to accept the fact that there's probably going to be people who say things against me on a regular basis And Matthew 5 tells us that that's what's going to happen if you seek to live a godly life Number four, you need to ask God for help Ask God for help You can't do it alone James 3 Says very clearly, no man can tame the tongue

You can tame shamu, you can tame lass and trigger. I'm dating myself You can train your dog You can train your cat You can train your rat You can train your falcon You can train your bird You can train your elephant You can train your lion But you cannot train your tongue You can't The Bible is very clear No man can do it Only God can do it That's why the Bible says, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks The clearest indicator of one's spiritual condition are their words Because from the heart, the mouth speaks The mouth speaks what's on the inside

And so, therefore, we have to be changed on the inside so that our words can speak those things that are true, and pure, and righteous, and holy James said in James 1:2, If anyone among you thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue, he deceives his own heart, for this man's religion is worthless If a man thinks himself to be religious, but can't control or bridle his tongue, that man's religion is worthless Why? Because a truly righteous man is going to be controlled by the Spirit of God who can control his tongue, because that man can't do it

And that's why the Bible says in Psalm 141 and verse number 3: Set a guard over my mouth, O Lord, and keep watch over the door of my lips Can't do it yourself, only God can do that Number five, avoid those who gossip Avoid those who gossip Proverbs 20, verse number 19, says very clearly, do not associate with them. 2 Timothy 3, verse number 5 We read it earlier about those in the end times who will be malicious gossips It says in verse number 5: from such people turn away If you know someone who gossips, don't even hang around them Don't call them on the phone When they call you, don't answer

Avoid them The Bible says, avoid them That's what it says Why? Because I got news for you If they're talking to you About somebody else, they're talking to somebody else about you Mark it down as sure is your eternal security They're going to talk to somebody else about you Avoid them Because they will expose things that are untrue They will do things that aren't right And when they come and talk to you about why he doesn't talk to me anymore, why do you avoid me? You read them Proverbs 20, verse number 19 You say this, the Bible says, he who goes about as a slanderer reveals secrets

Therefore, do not associate with a gossip That's what you read There's their answer, right? There's no discussion Case closed And they either repent and ask for help, or they'll get angry and turn around and walk away But the Bible says avoid them Okay? And lastly, you need to apply the scriptures to your life You need to apply the scripture to your life Ephesians 4:2, let no unwholes word proceed out of your mouth Know what that means? That means, number one, that every word out of my mouth must be consistent with the primary motivation of building you up, every word

Every word must be consistent with the primary motivation of building you up Number two, no word I say will ever violate my basic commitment to be used of God to edify you No word that comes out of my mouth will ever violate my basic commitment to be used of God to edify you And number three, never am I going to say something that is going to interfere with the opportunity that I have to influence you for God That's what it means by not letting any unwholes word proceed out of your mouth

Folks, wouldn't it be good if if if if that that that verse was committed to memory and that verse was was taped on the steering wheel of our car, on the mirror in our bathroom, on the door of our refrigerator, it was plastered across my forehead So that everybody who saw it would read it That's the verse that needs to control our lives, right? That's the verse we need to apply to our lives Let no unwholes word proceed out of your mouth May God give us the grace to accomplish his purposes Let 's pray.