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Amazing Facts

Joe Crews

Whispers

The day following Lincoln's immortal Gettysburg Address, leading newspapers all over the world ridiculed the President's speech as colorless and silly.

History's most gallant heroes have suffered from false accusation and malicious rumor.

I'll be back in a moment to talk about the cruelest word in the English language.

Hello, this is Joe Cruz from the Amazing Facts broadcast, facts which affect you.

Say, today we're going to study about the most cruel word found in all the Bible.

Now this word describes a class of people who indulge in the most devilish, despicable work ever invented by the evil 1.

And I appeal to you to let this message do its searching work in your heart.

Don't try to remember how many other people might need this message.

So terrible is this sin that only a few have ever openly admitted being guilty of it.

But few can escape the inward sense that they've been guilty at some time or other.

Our main text today is in Proverbs 16, verse 28.

And in Leviticus 19, verse 16, thou shalt not go up and down as a tail-bearer among thy people.

Now, listen, friends, there are many types of sin that God despises.

Some of them are too awful to even discuss on the air.

Sometimes I think we deceive ourselves by classifying sin.

We look at certain ones as being quite disrespectful, and then others we think are very respectable.

Those that are considered acceptable and respectable are usually the sins of the Spirit, such as envy and pride, and so forth.

Then on the other hand is the disrespectable class of sins, which is usually the sins of the flesh.

But listen, in Proverbs 6, 19, 7 deadly sins that God hates are listed, and right in the middle of them we find this 1 of which I am now speaking.

Notice in verse 19, He that soweth discord among the brethren, and a false witness that speaketh lies.

In other words, friends, a whisperer, that's what we're talking about today.

This is the word that has such a loud echo.

It's a soft-sounding word, but it has the noisiest, loudest echo of any other word, And it has broken more hearts than any other word probably.

It has wrecked more homes, destroyed more friendships.

He's the bearer of false rumor and report.

We might as well face it, friends, 1 of the natural evil traits of the human heart, of human nature itself, is in telling evil things about other people.

By the way, it is a sin which often besets those who were Saints in every other respect.

The whole body might be brought under the control of Christ, but the tongue is very difficult to control.

In fact, it is practically impossible to control it.

In James 3, verse 2, we read this, 2 If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body.

3 Behold, we put bits unto horses' mouths, that they may obey us, and we turn about their whole body.

Behold also the ships, which though they be so great and are driven by fierce winds, yet are they turned about with a very small helm, whithersoever the governor listeth.

Even so the tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things.

Behold how great a matter a little fire kindleth!

And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity.

So is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature, and it is set on fire of hell.

But the tongue can no man tame, it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison." O friends, how true those words are!

Here is where alienation and disaffection is often created.

Why did He say it was 1 of the 7 deadly sins of men?

I think because it is often done with a flair of religious sanctity.

The gossiper often speaks as though he is defending some violated religious principle.

Usually it is to justify conscience that he only implies or intimates some evil tidings about another individual.

Listen, 1 false insinuation has more power than a hundred good deeds.

A slanderous whisper never completely dies out.

It will outlive a thousand sound arguments.

The trouble is no 1 will let it die until it has scorched and slashed and slain a soul, scarring it for all time to come.

You know, friends, Satan is the father of lies.

Remember that question, Yea, hath God said ye shall not eat of every tree?

I mean, why did the devil put it in those words?

Because he's the 1 who asked that question.

He knew that God had said that they should only refrain from 1 tree, yet he implied that God had forbidden them to eat of any tree.

Friends, that is the earliest form of misrepresentation and exaggeration that we find in the Bible.

The devil is the father of lies and the father of exaggeration, but his modern disciples are called whisperers.

They don't come out of the open very often and speak, they just go around whispering, And the intimations of what they whisper are very, very poisonous and deadly.

What an unfortunate experience that poor girl had.

Or maybe they'll say this, many people have made mistakes, but we can't hold it against her.

No details, mind you, just the basic material there of some good juicy gossip, and then somebody else picks it up and makes it a little bigger and passes it on in a more exaggerated form.

And very soon that poor individual has been sliced by tongues that can kill.

Yes, there's plenty of irresponsibility when it comes to this matter of the tongue.

Imaginations begin to work overtime and to repeat half-truths that have been twisted out of proportion, and by repetition They become horrible in their content.

The self-righteous soul who started this suspicious rumor is ready to blame everybody else when the results are brought into the open.

I heard of 2 women who were walking along the street 1 day, and they met another woman as they walked along.

And 1 of them said, Do you see that woman over there?

And I'm afraid this is very, very true concerning a lot of other women, a lot of other men as well.

Why is this mania so widespread to tell everything bad that we know about another person?

In much talk there is usually no lack of sin.

1 old minister was approached in his study 1 day by a young woman of the parish, and she said, Pastor, can you keep a secret?

And you know she had nothing else to say, because she was about to tell him something that should never have been told.

What a solemn thing Jesus said in Matthew 12, verses 36 and 37.

He said that we will give an account of every word we speak.

A record is being put down in heaven and the books of heaven.

Those phone conversations will all be recorded up there.

The idle chatter that takes place in the home, the unkind words we say about somebody behind their back.

Who is not condemned by these verses, friends?

Who cannot look back and blush to remember things that have been spoken in secret?

Who hasn't spoken and would then have given a hundred dollars to take back the words again?

But all the damage has been done, and usually there's no way to retract it or repair it.

The story is told of an old farmer and his wife who were riding back from town in the old country wagon.

As they rode along, the wife made this observation.

She said, wouldn't it be wonderful, husband, if we could pull along together like those horses are pulling the wagon?

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