By Kevin Airrington

When I lived in West Germany I was friends with a German man.

One day we were sitting around discussing languages. I asked him what the German words were for different English swear words. What else? 🙂 Ironically there was a German equivalent for every English word except one.

The F Word…Helmut tells me proudly with a hideous laugh, “we say it in English!”

So, what makes one word a swear word…and others not? We even have replacement, or our generic swear words that aren’t really swearing, only…yes, it is. We think by changing a few letters we are not actually saying the word in our mind…or somehow when we say frig that God doesn’t know what we mean? Wow, we smart we fool da crea’er of universe!

It really doesn’t matter who decided certain words we’re swear words or even that certain words are swear words. The fact is they are…and in any language, these are still cuss words.

And if not, like my friend Helmut, we will just pick a swear word in another language.

1 Thessalonians 5:22 in the time tested good il’ King James Bible, The Apostle Paul tells us to, “Abstain from all APPEARANCE of evil.”

Modern trash gives us the biggest, “well duh” moment, “Abstain from every form of evil.”. Well duh…of course we are to shun evil…but Paul actually took it a step further. He said to avoid the appearance of evil. The modern versions water down the Gospel and may be the very reason we are in this mess.

The Bible could not be clearer about sin…

James 5:12 – “But above all things, my brethren, swear not…”

Ephesians 5:4 – “Neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient: but rather giving of thanks.”

Matthew 12:34-37, “…for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. ”

Proverbs 4:24 – “Put away from thee a froward mouth, and perverse lips put far from thee.”

Proverbs 8:13 – “The fear of the LORD [is] to hate evil: pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the froward mouth, do I hate.”

Leviticus 19:12 – “And ye shall not swear by my name falsely, neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God: I [am] the LORD.

Ephesians 4:29 – “Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth…”

So, now that I have shown you that your foul mouth is sinful. What are you going to do about it? Here is comes…”BLANK OFF!!! Don’t judge me.”

In your stammering and feigning innocence, now you are adding the sins of deception and deflection to Strong Language. I guess my mother was right, one sin does lead to another. And we shouldn’t use bad words.

When I hear a Christian swear I just cringe. In this society of if it feels good do it…we ignore Psalm 101:3 – “I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes: I hate the work of them that turn aside; it shall not cleave to me.”. As we do the entire Bible. And let me just bookend this for you. Colossians 3:2 – “Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.”

You see it’s cool these days to be a Christian who swears. It gives the curser an “I’m into Jesus, but I’m not legalistic” badge.

The problem is we are desensitized to swearing, public nudity, public sex…we are away from God. I said a moment ago that I cringe when I hear so called Christians swear. What’s worse is hearing someone take my Lord’s Name, a Name above all other names in vain. That’s right…MY LORD! Because if you do this…He is not your Lord. You and your OM- in your text! It used to hurt me…now it makes me angry.

Someone, I will not mention either parties name because I believe the perpetrator has repented. But someone called me and said, “Kevin, listen to this hateful message left on my machine.”. And they were quite noticeably upset —- shaky voice, crying, etc. I listened to about a two-minute message of an angry person…every other word profanity…and then they say said F you! And more insults, adjectives and swear words come out…and they ended with these words, in a calm. voice, almost sounded like a different person they say, “God bless you, I love you.”

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

I’m not even going to comment further…we all know or should know.

The other day, someone asked me, “Kevin, the other day I hurt myself and a swear word just slipped out. Was that a sin?”

First of all the Bible declares that, “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;” – Romans 3:23. And I may not swear, and the more you read your Bible, the more you pray, the closer you get to God, the more you declare war on sin and swearing…

Micah 3:8 – “But truly I am full of power by the spirit of the LORD, and of judgment, and of might, to declare unto Jacob his transgression, and to Israel his sin.”

… profanity will not leave your lips. Does that mean that I am sinless? No way…I struggle with my own sin….but not deliberately and I try not to sin. So, while they sinned when they swore, and I asked them, ” did it just come out or is swearing part of your vocabulary?”

They assured me that it just slipped…so, while sin…sin we can repent of and ask God to help us not to sin. In Psalm 119:11, the author, probably David in his Prayer for Help, he says, “Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.”

READ HIS WORD…the more we read it the less we sin. It’s a fact my friend!

But until you declare and as the Hebrew writer… probably Paul declares, “Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin.” – Hebrews 12:4

So, until we resist sin with our whole being and declare war against Satan and all of Hell…we will always struggle with sin.

Now, if you are a new convert or you just “slip” once in a while…then you are probably saved…but need to apply Hebrews 12:4 and Psalm 119:11 and we’ll actually…the whole Bible…until you do…you will never have VICTORY in your life.

However, and someone isn’t going to like this but I must be obedient…if your swearing is out of hand, part of your daily vocabulary and you make no effort to resist the devil…and as my mother used to say…one sin leads to another and I will bet that if swearing is part of your normal vocabulary…you have more sin. Probably a potato sack full of sin …and YOU ARE NOT SAVED! Meaning, and let me be clear…

Isaiah 59:1-5, 11-13 (read the whole chapter)

“Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear:

But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you, that he will not hear…

We roar all like bears, and mourn sore like doves: we look for judgment, but there is none; for salvation, but it is far off from us.

For our transgressions are multiplied before thee, and our sins testify against us: for our transgressions are with us; and as for our iniquities, we know them;

In transgressing and lying against the Lord, and departing away from our God, speaking oppression and revolt…”

Our sin…our deliberate sin separates us from God and if that is you then you are going to HELL…forever and ever. And listen, forever is a long time my friend.

Finally, we, mere mortal humans measure sin and classify it. Some sin or this sin…MY SIN is not that bad…but oh my goodness look at his sin…I’m not that bad.

God looks at sin. Period. Period. Yes, the double period is for emphasis. I heard Joe Biden do that and I thought it was cool. 🙂 So, to God swearing is just as bad as lying and sexual. Sin, although sexual sin is the ONLY SIN God tells us to flee or run from, but you see to God sexual sin is no worse than cussing. “Oh, come on.” You gasp! Don’t look at me, I didn’t write the Book.

Should a child rapist go to Hell? Sure…I think we would all agree on that. Should you go to Hell for swearing? God says, ABSOLUTELY! And don’t forget what my mother used to say

Romans 6:12,23 Gives a strong warning.

“Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof…For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

But ends with encouraging words. My friend do not be angry with me. Stop sinning…stop cussing. IF YOU CUSS YOU DO NOT BELONG TO GOD.

“For when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness.

What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death.

Romans 6  – “But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life.”

There, that’s good news…and incentive not to cuss. I hope as Paul says…you are ashamed. And I have just shined a big bright flashlight, you know one of those uber cool police flashlights, super bright with like 50 million LEDs.

If you say, “yup, that’s me and I am ashamed, ashamed for not abstaining from all APPEARANCE of EVIL. I am ashamed of my sin and I need the blood of Jesus to cleanse me and help me never to swear again. Acts 3:19… Repent and turn from your side no sin. May God bless you and yours.