Elijah’s grouse to the people of Israel was not just their apostasy, but that they kept on vacillating between Jehovah and Baal. Going after Baal was bad enough, but if they cast their lot that way there would be no issue of confused identity. So he had to challenge them. “And Elijah came to all the people, and said, “How long will you falter between two opinions? If the LORD is God, follow Him; but if Baal, follow him.” But the people answered him not a word.” (I Kings 18:21 NKJV). In His teaching, Jesus averred that this type of indecision or vacillation was unacceptable. He claimed that a man cannot serve two masters simultaneously.
“As long as the tongue is engaged in speaking evil, it automatically reduces the quality of our worship when we turn around to bless God with it.”
Ironically, this is the problem with the tongue. It always plays the hypocritical game. In one stroke, it is blessing God to the high heavens. In another stroke, it is churning out curses and obscenities. It keeps moving back and forth between good and bad uses. In real life, spring does not produce both fresh water and bitter. We have a contradiction when we speak of the tongue. It is one source producing good and bad in equal measure. As long as the tongue is engaged in speaking evil, it automatically reduces the quality of our worship when we turn around to bless God with it. As hinted in the previous meditation, this strange situation does not amend itself to human engineering. It has already been declared that no man can control it. So we go back to David to end today’s meditation. Yesterday, we referred to his supplication where he begged God to set a watch over his mouth. Here is another prayer that we can add to the list: “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart Be acceptable in Your sight, O LORD, my strength and my Redeemer.” (Psalms 19:14 NKJV). Prayers like this remind us that we are engaged in a war that can only be won by the supply of grace from above.