Gossip can be the result of hatred

In Psalm 109:3 the Old Testament King David said of his enemies, "With words of hatred they surround me; they attack me without cause." When we allow hurt, anger, bitterness, and rage to live in our hearts, we entertain thoughts of hatred, retaliation, and revenge (Eph 4:31). One way that we vent our anger, bitterness, and rage is through gossip. We wound people behind their backs by badmouthing them. We retaliate by shooting people in the back with verbal bullets. Unless we find comfort for our hurt and resolution for our anger, we often vent our hurt and anger with our tongues.

Gossip is a product of idleness

1 Tim 5:13 tells us how idleness can lead to gossip: "Besides, they get into the habit of being idle and going about from house to house. And not only do they become idlers, but also gossips and busybodies, saying things they ought not to." People with too much time on their hands often become gossips and busybodies. As the saying goes, "Idle hands are the devil's workshop."

Sometime ago the LA Times carried a horrific story about a college student who visited a prostitute. As his lips approached hers, she moved a razor, hidden in her mouth, between her front teeth. With two quick swipes, she cut off his lips. Gossip is a razor blade in our mouths.

II. The Trouble with Gossip

Gossip is always trouble. Gossip obscures the truth. Gossip drives us from God. Gossip ruins reputations. Gossip destroys relationships. Gossip divides churches. The trouble with gossip is ...

Gossip is incredibly destructive

James 3:6 and 8 says, "The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell. No man can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison."

Gossip is a wild fire gone out of control. We try to put it out. We try to control it. But the gossiper keeps pouring gas on the fire. Like a forest fire that is beyond control, gossip takes on a life of its own. The story grows and changes the more the gossip is spread. The story even grows within the mind of the gossiper.

Not only is gossip a wild fire. Gossip is "full of deadly poison." I got food poisoning last year. The poison of bad barbeque got into my stomach. My stomach was so sick that I'd make you sick to describe it. I had 24 hours of misery and was washed out for days. Gossip is a deadly poison. It'll make you so miserable that you will wish that you were dead.

Gossip is a characteristic of unbelievers

Romans 1:29-30 describes the lives of unbelievers who have shunned God: "They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents." Gossip and slander belong to unbelievers who have rejected God. When we gossip, we talk like people who have rejected Christ.