Thou deceitful tongue. Describing this tongue, the psalmist adds, "It is as the sharp arrows of the mighty man, as coals of broom." The sin specially in the view of the psalmist is that of the slanderer. What shall be done to him? "The law of retaliation can hardly meet the case, since none can slander the slanderer, he is too black to be blackened; neither would any of us blacken him if we could. Wretched being! He fights with weapons which true men cannot touch. Like the cuttlefish, he surrounds himself with an inky blackness into which honest men cannot penetrate. Like the foul skunk, he emits an odor of falsehood which cannot be endured by the true; and therefore he often escapes unchastised by those whom he has most injured. His crime, in a certain sense, becomes his shield; men do not care to encounter so base a foe. But what will God do with lying tongues? He has uttered his most terrible threats against them, and he will terribly execute them in due time" (Spurgeon). "From gossips, tale-bearers, writers of anonymous letters, forgers of newspaper paragraphs, and all liemongers, good Lord, deliver us!"

(1) A man may sin with his tongue against himself, and seriously injure his own success in life.

(2) A man may sin with his tongue against God, misrepresenting him, his truth, his working, or his people. Or

(3) a man may sin with his tongue against his neighbor. Then his wrong doings and sayings may be classed under the term slander, the peculiarity of which is that it has enough truth in it to carry it, and enough lie in it to make it mischievous.

I. THE GENESIS OF SLANDER. As a fixed disposition. It comes out of failing to teach the child always strictly to match statement with fact. It comes out of failing to gain full self-control. It comes from letting feeling rule language. It comes from the disposition which finds pleasure in the suffering of others (see cruelty of children to animals). It comes from envy at the success of others.

II. THE OCCASIONS OF SLANDER. These are often merely times of idle gossip. They may be times of jealousy or revenge. They may be only the delight a man has in mischief-making.

III. THE PUNISHMENT OF SLANDER. It comes in the deterioration of the slanderer's own character; in the lost confidence and love of his neighbor; and in the just judgment of God. - R.T.

A watch that cannot be depended upon is of very little use. It may have a beautiful gold case, it may be sparkling with jewels, but yet it will be of no service to me as a watch unless I can depend on what it tells me about the time. And so one of the things by which we judge of the real value and worth of men or women, of boys or girls, is this — Are they truthful? Do they mean what they say? Are they really what they seem to be? If so, then they are like a watch that keeps good time. But one of the effects of sin on our hearts has been to take away from them the love of the truth, and to incline them to lying.

I. THE DISGRACE WHICH ATTENDS LYING.

1. It should make little difference to us what wicked men consider to be disgraceful. But if anything will bring shame and disgrace to us, in the opinion of God and of good men, then we should be very careful not to do that thing, whatever it may be. But there is nothing that will do this sooner than lying (Proverbs 6:17; Proverbs 12:22).

2. It is always disgraceful to follow the example of a very wicked person. But we know that Satan is the most wicked person in this world, or in any other. He is "the father of lies" (John 8:44). When we tell lies, we prove ourselves to be the children of Satan. And there cannot be a greater disgrace in the world than to be closely related to such a person, and to have it proved that he is our father. But liars are not only the children of Satan; they are his servants also (Acts 5:8). Lying is Satan's work. And when we engage in lying, we let our hearts become Satan's workshop.

3. In some parts of India, if any person is proved to be a liar, he receives the penalty of the law, which requires that his mouth be sewed up. The offender has his hands tied behind him. He is led out to a post in a public place, to which he is tied, and one of the officers of the government, appointed for that purpose, sews up his lips with a needle and thread. Then he is allowed to go. And every one who sees his closed lips, and the blood flowing from them, can say to himself, "There goes a liar!" What a disgrace that sewed-up mouth would be to a man! David tells us that "the mouth of them that speak lies shall be stopped" (Psalm 63:11); Solomon tells us that "a lying tongue is but for a moment" (Proverbs 12:19); and in another place David says that "lying lips shall be put to silence" (Psalm 31:18). We are not told how God will do this; but we may be very sure it will be in some way that will fasten shame and disgrace on those who have not prayed earnestly, as David did, in the language of our text, "Deliver my soul, O Lord, from lying lips."

II. THE INJURY THAT IT DOES.

1. The first sin ever committed in our world was a lie. It was in the Garden of Eden. Satan was tempting Eve to break God's commandment. He did it by telling her a lie, and getting her to believe it. And now it is impossible for anybody to count up all the injury that has been done by that sin. That one sin was like poisoning a fountain, and then all the water that flows from it is poisoned too.

2. And when we tell a lie now, we never can tell where the injury that springs from it will stop. It is just like loosening a great rock at the top of a mountain, and letting it go rolling and plunging down the side of the mountain. Nobody can tell how far it will go, nor how much injury it will do before it stops rolling. Telling a lie is like letting a wild beast out of a cage. You can never tell how many people that animal will wound or kill before he is caught again. Telling a lie is like dropping sparks in powder. It is sure to make an explosion, and no one can tell beforehand how much harm that will do. Telling a lie is like going out from the plain beaten path into a tangled wood. You can never tell how long it will take you, or how much you must suffer, before you get back again.

III. THE PUNISHMENT THAT FOLLOWS IT (Proverbs 19:9; Revelation 21:27, 28). But it is not only after death that punishment follows lying. The Bible shows Us how God often punishes people for lying even in this life. There we see Gehazi telling a lie, and the very same day on which he told it brought the punishment. And then we read about Ananias and Sapphira. They agreed together to tell a deliberate, dreadful lie; and they were both struck dead with that lie upon their lips.

(R. Newton, D. D.)