We have been studying the tongue.  According to Jas 3:8 it is an unruly evil.  Today, we are going to study the flattering, backbiting, piercing tongue.  Notice the unruly evil of a:

Flattering tongue – Ps 5:9 – “they flatter with their tongue.”  Don’t flatter others.  God despises the use of flattery [Job 32:22; Ps 12:3].  If you flatter others, your children won’t know how to judge character [Job 17:5].   And don’t believe others when they flatter you.  They are lying to you [Prov 26:28].  They’re trying to trip you up to get to you [Prov 29:5].  Be particularly careful of a woman who will flatter you [Prov 2:16; 7:5].  Look how the strange woman in Prov 7 brought the young man down with flattery.

Backbiting tongue – Rom 1:30 – look at the company backbiters keep in Rom 1.  To backbite is to slander, reproach or speak evil of someone who is absent.  Don’t talk behind other peoples’ backs.  If you can’t tell them straight to their face, then don’t say it.  In the Old Testament, a man’s righteousness was demonstrated, in part, by how he kept his tongue [Ps 15:3].  If someone is backbiting you, Prov 25:23 shows you how to handle them “The north wind driveth away rain: so doth an angry countenance a backbiting tongue.”  You’re going to see a lot of evolutionists scatter when they come face to face with the Creator after all the lies they’ve told about him.  

Piercing tongue – Ps 57:4 – David said, “My soul is among lions: and I lie even among them that are set on fire, even the sons of men, whose teeth are spears and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword.”  You are seeing this kind of tongue on display every single day now.  In Prov 12:18, Solomon said, “There is that speaketh like the piercings of a sword.”  In both of these verses, the perpetrators, if they could, would kill others with their tongues.  In fact, they are literally trying to destroy them with their words.  We say about a person with this kind of tongue, “He is always cutting people down.”

Conclusion: If someone flatters you don’t believe him for a second.  They’re setting a trap for you.  If someone is backbiting you, don’t react.  But when you see them, let them see your angry countenance.  And know for certain that if you are trying to live in a right relationship with God, there will be those who will speak against you with a piercing tongue.  It just goes with the territory.  You, on the other hand, should never resort to any of these three tongues.