David: Have you ever been near a fire that suddenly blazed out of control? It’s surprising to me, Karen, how many people have such a memory?

Karen: Yep, I’m one of them. These aren’t fires where anyone’s injured or killed, but they’re scary anyway because we see the potential of fire in them and we remember. Yeah, I remember that.

Intro: Welcome to the Before We Go Podcast featuring Dr. David Mains and his wife, noted author, Karen Mains. Here’s David and Karen Mains.

David: Maybe you were burning leaves and a puff of wind carried some of those embers to a field and caught the underbrush and fortunately you were able to race there and stop it out before the fire spread, but it was scary.

Karen: Yeah, scary. I remember at Christmas time I’m always tempted to take the old greens and burn them in the fireplace. The cut greens, not the Christmas tree. Oh my goodness, those dry greens can just flame up so fast. I still burn them in the fireplace, but I put very small pieces of the branches in at a time. It could be out of control. In fact, I think we still have some scarring, some smoke scarring above the fireplace in the living room for my little episode with that.

David: Usually with that you also get the smoke alarms.

Karen: Of course. In warning chorus, I’ll open that.

David: You’re waving towels or whatever trying to clear the air.

Karen: Clear the air underneath each one of them.

David: There’s also the sound Karen, we’re right two houses away from Route 59, which is not a huge route.

Karen: But it’s a major intersection.

David: Yeah. And when three or four fire trucks go by, I mean one is one thing, but you can tell the number of trucks as they go by. And at a certain point you go out sign and say, I wonder if there’s smoke out there somewhere because this is a big fire.

Karen: And because of the nature of the street, we hear those trucks quite a bit during the day. There’s usually a car that goes ahead of the trucks honking. And we have a four way stop, like an intersection close to our house. And so we hear that a lot. You know what, David, I always try and pray for whoever’s in need of that kind of attention because it’s such a loud reminder that someone is hurting or need needs to be rushed to the hospital.

David: What we’re going through or even in our memories can go through is nothing, Karen, compared to what’s happening in our western states.

Karen: Oh my goodness. Yes.

David: We’re talking about Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, those, but most of all in California, huge number of fires recently.

Karen: I think it was about a million and a quarter acres.

David: Yeah, that’s almost unbelievable.

Karen: Was it that much? It seems unbelievable.

David: Maybe it was bigger than that. I think I heard on NPR that it was a million point six. Number of wildfires in California have been in the thousands. You know, some of those are not huge, but some of them are massive.

Karen: I read there were seven fatalities so far, which doesn’t seem like a lot in relationship to the amount of fire, but it’s a terrible way to die and you can get caught quickly in fire corridors that you can’t escape from. So it’s frightening, very frightening.

David: The loss of homes has been in the hundreds. So that’s a lot of homes and tens of thousands of people have been evacuated from some of those areas. I think about the animals, Karen.

Karen: The wildlife, maybe or corral animals who are caught in a storm. Yeah.

David: Karen, you know, even in the middle of this, there are record breaking heat waves in California so that in the evening, sometimes you have triple digit temperatures.

Karen: At night, middle of the night.

David: Yeah, very, very hard. The fires season, some people think it’s over. It’s not over. In fact, the autumn winds, which will be coming because we’re in that season now, will be an added factor. They can’t control the direction that the winds are going to blow.

Karen: And sometimes we don’t always know. They seem to change. Coming down off the mountains, there’s a system that is variable.

David: Like those winds, which can suddenly switch direction, I want to change where we’re headed by reading a text from an ancient book. Here’s the sentence, consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark.

Karen: Now, this writer didn’t say, consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small match because centuries ago they didn’t have matches. The writer is believed to be the son of Joseph and Mary, and therefore the half-brother of our Lord Jesus himself. His name was James. He had a lot to say about the time.

David: Yeah, he’s a prominent figure in the book of Acts. And of course, there’s the epistle of James that comes right after Hebrews in the New Testament. Let me read what I read before, and then also just a few sentences that follow. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body.

It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell. All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles, and creatures of the sea are being tamed and have been tamed by man, but no man can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil full of deadly poison. With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be. It’s pretty pointed in terms of what he’s saying.

Karen: Well, Dave, I have been known to have some trouble with my tongue in the past, and so that pushed me to write a book on tongue trouble. The title of the book is Medicine for Mouth Disease, a Miracle Cure for Troubles and Tongues. The whole premise of the book is based in what Scripture says about the tongue. And as I was studying the Scripture because I had tongue trouble, or if you want to put it more succinctly, mouth disease, I just went to the Scripture and I discovered that the Scripture has as much to say more, I think, really, about the use of the tongue and the danger of the misuse of the tongue than almost any other topic. There are dozens and dozens and dozens of Scriptures, as is my habit when I’m trying to work in an area in my own life that needs help. I’ll write out all the Scriptures I can find.

And the book has a whole section. It’s a devotional that’s designed to help people cure themselves of tongue disease. But it’s only from Proverbs. 30 days readings from Proverbs. And that doesn’t even include the rest of the Scripture. Just Proverbs and what it has to say about the tongue. And I’ll read a little bit of that from Proverbs just to remind us as we go on in this broadcast.

David: Okay. I think it’s important also to say, Karen, that this is a serious problem, the problem of tongue in America. In fact, it’s called lying. People don’t like to have someone say to them, you’re a liar. So what we, we’re careful, but what we now call this sin of lying, we call it spinning. We have spin doctors.

Karen: It makes it sound better.

David: It sounds a little bit better.

Karen: We can nudge it off the real center of the truth about it. Or, you know, if they’re trying to, and we see it a lot in our political discourse, particularly today, because we’re pre-election, and oh my goodness, on all levels, not just the national level, but then all the way down, you know, to local government.

David: Well, you’re talking about fact checkers. So no matter what someone says, someone will come along and say, we’re going to fact check. And I think now we’re to the place where we have fact checkers on the fact checkers.

Karen: You and I were contrasting this with a earlier, older generation, of course, as our generation. But we didn’t have so many sources of news or news opinion. And you had your major networks, ABC, NBC, CBS, and they had commentators and those news commentators had a gravitas about them. And I think there was a high regard for what the meaning of journalism was at that time, not that there wasn’t slanted journalism or opinionated journalism, but there was a standard in which you attempted to get the true story.

David: I think when you tuned into Edward R. Merrill or Walter Cronkite, or, you know, you name those people, you didn’t expect to get spin. You expected to get an accurate assessment of what was actually happening.

Karen: Whereas now we, as we’ve said before on the podcast, we have so many sources of information. Many of them are not based in respect of fact. They are spinning. They’re promoting, they’re influencing. Their motivation for telling anything is to influence or persuade. So we lose what the aspect of truth is in our news reporting in a way that it’s very hard to distinguish what is actually the truth. So and generally what we do is we go with the news outlet that enhances the opinion we already hold instead of saying, okay, well, let’s see what the other side has to say and going into that with an open mind to hear what it is that they have to say that will help frame us and form us in our thinking.

David: I think the spinning, it’s an attempt to cover the truth.

Karen: Oh, I think that’s true too.

David: It’s devious and at the same time sounds like truth, but it puts the emphasis on what isn’t really the factual thing that is going on. I fear there is a sense even in other countries that you can’t trust America’s word like it used to be. That’s a sad thing. I think it’s even possible. This sounds funny, you know, but it infiltrates the whole of the society, including the religious world. I don’t know if it’ll ever come to the place where I would preach somewhere and then we say, now we’re going to have a fact checker. I just say whether the Mains tell the truth or not.

Karen: The fact checker should be the word.

David: But Karen, they spin even in the religious world. It happens.

Karen: We have a friend, for instance, right? Who overexalts the impact of his or her ministry.

David: I’ve tried to share with this person in a racist way, but it’s an over exaggeration. Instead of saying hundreds, it’s always thousands or tens of thousands. It’s almost like the Bible doesn’t have enough pop in it. So we’re going to make it sound even more than what the Bible actually says. And it becomes a way of life that is very sad. I think that on a larger scale, instead of addressing, say, the problem of the pedophile priesthood or whatever, we cover it or we say it in ways that aren’t exactly what people want to hear as far as the facts are concerned. So, it has invaded the religious world. And it’s just something that I’m very sad as to where it’s going. I want to take it out of the culture and I want to put it into our world. Okay.

Karen: But this is the only world that we can hope to influence or to share our thoughts with or what we believe scripture is teaching. And it’s the world that I think has the potential for the most impact. If it would just recognize the fact that we are given to salt society, the church, the people who follow Christ, are to be the salt of society. And this day where there is such angry discourse and this day when there is such name calling, I mean, these things are really forbidden in scripture. So those of us who are Christian need to look and we examine our hearts and say, am I getting swept up into this kind of verbiage that’s going on in our culture that is strictly forbidden in scripture and Christ himself taught that we were not to be this way.

David: Let’s just give a list of some of the sins of the tongue that are spoken of in scripture and that are very prominent in today’s world. Lying is one of them. The top one. I would say that another one close behind in terms of our culture where there’s been an immense change is in the area of profanity. That’s all through the media now. It’s not dirty tongues, but you pick it up all the time and you say, you didn’t have to use that, but they didn’t strike it out as they used to do.

Gossip. I think we border on gossip in many, many areas. Name calling. It’s crazy on an adult level. It sounds like little kids in some ways. Finger pointing. Here’s one that I picked up in scripture. In fact, Karen, last night I was going to sleep and I was just trying to think, what are these sins of the tongue that we need to be talking about? Mocking. They mocked Jesus. It just breaks my heart. But it’s a big part of the culture today. Delittling. Ridicule.

Karen: Well, one of the words that I think you were going for is licentious, where we begin to move into the area of verbiage that is so common in our culture that has mood meaning. And this is absolutely forbidden to us.

David: Yeah, it’s a huge problem. It’s a huge problem.

Karen: Dirty jokes. How easy is it to tell dirty jokes? If we hear it all the time, then it’s funny and so we repeat it. But that is forbidden. That is absolutely forbidden.

David: I think these words I can say them so quickly, but they have terrible pain connected with them, blaming and shaming. That’s a big part of our world. It starts when people are little sometimes. And I think that, you know, little kids, they tease until somebody is crying. And they tattle. They poke fun. Here’s a word that recently has come into my experience that I haven’t run into before, which is, it’s not a tongue word, but it relates to the tongue as to how this person was talking. It’s rage. Rage. I saw a person who was totally out of control and the words were just coming out with anger, terrible, terrible anger.

Karen: Uncontrolled anger.

David: Uncontrolled, yeah.

Karen: I think that part of the COVID-19 experience that we’re going through, our country has never gone through anything like this before. I mean, we had a pandemic earlier, but we didn’t have a national press like we have now. And I think even when we’ve not been affected economically or, you know, our lives are going on.

David: You’re talking about us now because there are many, many people.

Karen: Well, we haven’t, but those who aren’t, there’s something in the environment with this COVID-19 pandemic that is poisoning us in our normal social relationships. And sometimes when we withdraw from those social relationships, as we’ve had to do with this isolation, we forget how we’re supposed to act or it is impacting us in ways where the only thing we can do is express rage in inappropriate ways to people who are innocent in the thing that you’re mad about. You know, you’re mad about something that comes out and has nothing to do with the person you express that anger to. So, it is a time when we really need to be very, very careful with the way we use our words. We need to be very conscious of how words can wound and cause damage. We need to think before we speak hastily.

David: Yeah, I think we need to reflect, which I want us to do right now. We need to reflect on our own lives. And I’m thinking back at a time where I’m humiliated to think of something I said that was untrue. In fact, this is a memory that goes back probably 25 years. And even as I’m thinking about what I said now about someone, my body’s reacting because I can’t believe that I did that. It is so shameful to me. And I think we need to personalize that because as we talk these things, people are responding to the flaws in their own lives. And I don’t want this to be a negative thing. I want it to be a positive thing. Can you remember a time like that in your life?

Karen: Well, I think when you and I were young, newly married, we had a reformer spirit. And reformers are always uncomfortable or dissatisfied with what is the things that exist. And they see what’s not working and what’s wrong about it. So, there is an analytical process that says this is not working. It can be better. But the problem is for reformers that it often slips into judgment and impatience and fingerpointing. Everything that we’ve just mentioned, actually. So I think that was. ..

David: I just thought of another memory that I’m very embarrassed about.

Karen: Good thing you don’t have to tell it out loud. We’re letting you just keep it private. But I think that was very much a part of our lives as we were younger. I think that judgment of our elders and things did need to change. The church was becoming very irrelevant in certain ways. The church is always in need of generational reformation. So yeah, I think that there was a lot that we were party to verbally, that if we had been older and wiser, would not have taken that kind of approach. One of the scriptures that impresses me is the one that Jesus said, “Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.” The good person, out of the good measure of his heart, speaks forth good. And the evil one, out of the evil measure of his heart, speaks forth evil.

It’s a great way to analyze where our leaders or public figures are coming from, just by the way they use words. We want to be careful that we don’t trust those who misuse words a great deal because of what scripture says here. But we also need to hold one another to the standard that they begin to speak goodness out of the good intent, the good soul, the good place in their heart. And to look for those people who have that capacity to speak blessing. I mean, may not be Christians, or speaking in a Christian context, let’s put it that way, but it can speak blessing into our culture because this culture is so needy of that right now. It’s a healing gift that we can bring to the disenfranchisement that’s going on.

David: This is James earlier in this book I read from chapter three. This is from chapter one. If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight reign on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless. I mean, that’s very strong. I’m going to try to put into a sentence what it is we’re saying. It may not help other people, but it always helps us.

Karen: So we know we’ve said, will we?

David: Here it is. Keep a tight reign on your tongue because it is like a blaze set on fire by hell that does great damage.

Karen: So, what the metaphor we’re using here is to think of the California fire. The tongue has that kind of potential and particularly in a media age where things can be said and then telecast or broadcast or podcast at two hundreds of thousands of people who are listening. So that is an important principle.

David: I’ll say the sentence again. And even as I do it, I’m hoping that has been the result of this podcast that we’re helping people and not pointing fingers or anything of that sort. Keep a tight reign on your tongue because it is like a blaze set on fire by hell that does great damage. I think we’ve analyzed the problem a lot. I wish we could come more to practical help.

Karen: I can do that. Having recognized that there was some tongue trouble in my own life. I did do an extensive period of biblical study on this and then set up exercises for myself that would help me cure my own tongue trouble. And the name of the book is Medicine For Mouth Disease, A Miracle Cure For Troublesome Tongues. Okay.

David: What’s the easiest way for somebody to get a copy of this?

Karen: Someone can just email us and we give out that email address at the end of the podcast or they can write a letter and we’ll give that address as well. I’m not selling the book, but for any gift of $20 or over that anyone wants to give to the podcast ministry, then we will, and if they’ll request it, we’ll send them a copy of Medicine For Mouth Disease. One of the things I did in my own life was I went through proverbs in every single chapter and wrote out every single reference there was just in the book of proverbs to the tongue.

It was amazing. And then I put them into a daily devotional that goes for 30 days that I used on myself. In the back of the book there are all kinds of self evaluation tools, admitting your faults. And then a whole list of things to check and it starts with the scripture. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

David: Yeah, that’s beautiful. The things I referred to in my own life, I’ve asked for the blood of Jesus to wash those away. What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus, but the memory is still there. I don’t think about it. It doesn’t haunt me.

Karen: Then I give a checklist under admitting your faults. Do I say words of affirmation? So, there’s a checklist for self-evaluation. Do I give words as gifts? Do I keep my word? So there are checklists under all of those topics.

David: It’s a great book.

Karen: It’s just a very, it was designed to be very helpful to help people. Lots of little stories. We don’t push our products very much, but I think this is a book that is needed in this time for people who really are sincere about curing their tongue disease. And so that’s one of the reasons we’ve made this available.

David: Medicine for mouth disease. One of the individuals that I’ve been reading his books, so he’s fresh in my mind is John Meacham.

Karen: He’s an American historian.

David: Yeah. His, his book is His Truth Is Marching On. It’s about John Lewis, the recent representative, civil rights leader who, who died. I noticed with Meacham, when I see him on television or when I, and I’m reading this book, I’m about a third of the way through it. I just got it, His Truth Is Marching On, he is very good at what we’re talking about.

Karen: He’s very comfortable about interjecting, when appropriate, something from Christian faith or scripture. He doesn’t push it. It’s not out of hand and he’s used quite a bit on various outlets and his written work is wonderful, but this starts out with, you read the first chapter to me saying if there was a saint who ever lived, it was…

David: John Lewis.

Karen: John Lewis. So, and he points out what those qualities of sainthood are. And the whole premise of the book is to show that’s what this man had become.

David: Well, it’s amazing to me. Meacham is even more outspoken and gracious and kind in his writing because obviously he’s had time to think about what he’s writing down. Then he is just when he’s having to ask a question off the cuff on television or radio. But I’ve said to myself, who is an illustration of someone whose tongue is gracious and who I don’t think I ever worry about him being baited into saying something that is going to be out of line, out of character, whatever. And I have thought to myself, I kind of like to be like John Meacham. It’s a good thing. I want to bring what we’re talking about to a close in a special way in regard to the wildfires in California. I notice in the reporting that there are some wonderful little stories that are coming out of the goodness of people, which is what we’re wanting to emphasize about people who are doing gracious things, even in the midst of terrible, terrible times.

Karen: Neighbors. Yeah. Extraordinary stories.

David: Yeah, a caring for one another. Right. You know, someone who’s lost a house. That’s a huge thing that has happened. And now, you know, neighbors who are saying, let us care for you. Come here. I don’t know why, but ours was spared. You know, here’s food. There was one report of a house that’s the animal house, which is the pet house. That’s a better one. You know, dogs and cats, you know, you got enough problems with having to worry about your pets, bring them over here and we’re taking care of that. Those are lovely little touches of what is going on. And Karen, one of the most beautiful aspects of those firefighting stories are some of the best firefighters are people who have been in jail, who have learned the trade of firefighting.

Karen: Have been trained to be firefighters.

David: These are not the people who are desperate risks.

Karen: Committed violent crimes.

David: Yes, not those, but these people are on the cruise that they give the worst of the situations to. They’re wonderful. The stories are wonderful about what these convicts are doing in terms of their bravery. You know how much they’re paid?

Karen: I have no idea. Not a lot, I doubt.

David: Well, they’re not complaining. They’re grateful. They’re paid a dollar an hour. So you’re in this terrible situation of fighting fires, you know, and exhaustion. Sometimes they talk about people, they finish a shift and they just stretch out on the ground and go to sleep right away because they are so totally spent. They’re being paid a dollar an hour and they’re glad for it, but they’re also learning a vocation.

Karen: But their lives have meaning. You know, all of a sudden when you’ve just been wiling away time, all of a sudden, your life has meaning. That’s extraordinary.

David: I think they’re wonderful stories. I would like for us in our discussions to bring about wonderful stories. I don’t want any of the finger pointing or the accusations or why aren’t we better? Did you see what he said? You know, none of that. I just want us to say, let us be those who help raise this to a whole new level where we are Christian, where we are Christlike in the words of our mouths, the meditation of our heart. Let it be acceptable at thy side, O Lord, our strength and our Redeemer.

Karen: Amen, David.

Outgo: You’ve been listening to the Before We Go Podcast. And if you would like to write to us, please send us an email at the following address. hosts@beforewego.show. That’s all lowercase letters. hosts@beforewego.show. If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please remember to rate, review and share on whatever platform you listen. This podcast is copyright 2020 by Mainstay Ministries, Post Office Box 30, Wheaton, Illinois 60187.