Chapter 14, that portion of scripture
that was read to us a little earlier, 1 Corinthians chapter
14. Here's the subject that is being
dealt with in this scripture. It is that of speaking in other
languages and therefore the necessity of having an interpreter. There were those among the people
of the Church of Corinth who evidently were given the gift
of speaking in other languages, that is, preaching in a foreign
language without having any Having been instructed in those
languages, God in those days gave gifts to men to set forth
the gospel in other languages, languages they'd never studied
before, so that the word of God would go forth more abundantly. Evidently, there were also some
people in the church who, they decided, as many have decided
today, that they would speak some kind of a heavenly language,
a gibberish, if you will, that they said only God could understand. So this is what the apostle is
dealing with in this passage of scripture. And the gist of
it is this. It isn't any use in speaking
unless people understand what you're saying. To just take all
of those verses that our brother read to us, that's kind of the
statement that best summarizes what these are all about. He's
dealing with the subject of speaking in languages, and he says quite
simply this, listen, if you're going to speak, you speak so
that people can understand what you're saying. That's it. Look at verses 6 and 7. He says,
Brethren, if I come unto you, 1 Corinthians 14 and 6, speaking
with other tongues, and that word just means languages, what
shall I profit you? How's that going to help you
unless I speak to you either by revelation or by knowledge
or prophesying or by doctrine? And even things, he gives this
illustration, even things that don't have any life, they give out a sound, whether
he gives to it a pipe or a harp. In other words, an instrument
you blow in or an instrument that has strings. How do you
know what the music is? How will music be conveyed to
you unless there's distinct notes being hit, something you're familiar
with? And I would best illustrate what
he's saying this way. There is a piano. It's a string
instrument. It has 88 keys on it. And you
know what? All of us can play the piano.
Well sure, you can go over there and you can hit a note. You can
hit over here. All of us, we have that ability
to take our index finger and go over there and hit a few notes. However, putting those notes
together with both hands takes somebody with some skill. And
to present music that then we say, that's such a blessing.
Thank you for that. You've got to have an understanding
of what you're using, like the piano, and how to use it in order
to convey a message of music to us. He says in verse 8, he
gives another illustration. Here's the illustration. This
is another illustration of something about having a live trumpet.
He said if it gives an uncertain sound, well, who's going to prepare
for battle? Here's a guy who's a bugler,
let's say, in the army and he gets sick and another guy says,
hey, I can play the bugle. I used to play in high school,
okay? And so he picks it up and they
say, oh my, here comes the enemy. And this guy, he just starts
tooting his horn. And people say, what does that
mean? I don't recognize that music. I don't recognize that
song. Are we supposed to get up? Are
we supposed to prepare for battle? Or is it time to go eat? It's not a distinct melody. It's nothing that we're familiar
with. We don't know what to do. On
the other hand, the regular bugler, he grabs the bugle and he starts
playing and it's the sound of, okay, two arms. And then everybody
knows. And once again, this is all that
the apostle is doing. He's saying, if you're presenting,
he's talking about a message, preaching the gospel, If you're
preaching to people, you've got to preach in such a way that
people understand you. You've got to use words that
they understand, speak in their language, in their language. And that's what he says in verse
number 9. He says, so likewise you, you
people. And here were people who were
speaking gibberish, and others evidently, kind of in an arrogant
way, preaching in other languages so as to impress. I've got some
gifts, and I want to show you the gifts that I've got, so I'm
going to preach to you this morning in Russian, let's say. Well,
you say, well, that's all well and good, but I don't understand
Russian. So, well, then what would be
the use of me speaking in Russian? So this is what he says. So likewise
ye, except ye utter by the tongue words easy to be understood. That's the title of the message.
Words easy to be understood. How shall it be known what is
spoken? He says, for you shall speak
into the air. And that's just another way of
saying if a man speaks and you don't understand what he's saying,
he's wasting his breath. That's what he's saying. He's
just wasting his breath. And I want to say to you this
morning as I deal with this subject this morning and this evening, The subject, words easy to be
understood. Unless the speaker addresses
us in words that are easily understood, easy to be understood, what's
the use of listening to him? And what's the use of him speaking? Most of the preachers who will
be preaching today are not going to be setting forth a message
consistent with the Word of God. And therefore, in that sense,
they're not setting forth a message that's easy to be understood.
Most preachers are just wasting their breath. Now, I don't want
to waste my breath. And I don't want to waste your
time. You have invested an hour and
15 minutes or so this morning of your time to come here. Let's
see if we can spend these moments wisely. And let's see if God
would enable me to set forth words easy to be understood. I mean to be understood. Now,
I cannot make the Gospel understandable to your soul. I can't do that. Only the Spirit of Grace can
make the Word of God make sense to you in the heart, in the mind. I realize that. But it is my
job as a preacher of the Gospel to take the things of God and
to lay them out before you in a way that's easy to be understood. Easy to be understood. In other
words, I want to give a good, distinct message to you this
morning. Like a man playing a harp or
a flute or a piano or a trumpet player I want the notes to be
nice and crisp and clear, so that when you walk out those
doors, you will have no doubt about what's been said to you,
and you can carry the message out the doors with you and on
to your home, and maybe God will make the message real to your
soul. Let me make several observations. I want to sound forth a note,
a clear note. I want to speak words that are
easy to be understood about our God and His glory. About our
God and His glory. I have absolutely no patience
with those whose message seems to be to get you to feel sorry
for God. I don't have any patience with
them. I want to have patience with people. I want to try to
be nice to people. But I must confess to you, I
watched TV a little bit this morning, and I was watching a
preacher on the television, and I got so frustrated with him,
because the words that he spoke about our God did not lead anybody
to worship God, Adore God? Fear God? Respect God? Or stand in awe of God? But rather
His words would make you to feel some pity for God who needs you. And if you don't activate His
authority and His ability by your faith, then God stands,
as this guy said, by the sideline and He can't do anything to help
you. I have no patience with a man
who says that sort of thing. He leads us to feel sorry for
God. You see, such a God, a God who
needs you, a God who needs your cooperation, is no God at all. He's just a figment of somebody's
imagination. I said before you, the God of
the Bible, I want to do this in words easy to be understood. He's the High and Lofty One. The Scripture says, God speaks. He says, I am the High and Lofty
One and I inhabit eternity. God Himself says, Heaven, that's
my throne. The earth, that's my footstool. Now your God may be little. The
God you worship may be small. The God that you adore might
not be able to exercise His will and do what He wants to among
the peoples of the earth. But the God of the Bible, He
rules over all things and He rules over all people. He is
the King of Kings. And He is the Lord of Lords.
He's higher than all the kings. He's higher and greater than
all the empires. In fact, He raises up one king
and He brings down another king. He puts somebody in Washington
and then He takes them out of power. He puts somebody else
in Washington. He raises up a nation over here
and He brings that nation down. He does all things according
to the counsel of His own will. All things, all things have already
been marked out by God, determined by the God who made everything
by the Word of His power. He is exalted infinitely above
even all the honors and glories and praises of His people and
of angels. The angels adore Him today. All
of the heavens are absolutely filled with angels and they sing
the praises of our God. And among the saints of God,
those who died in Christ Jesus, those for whom the Savior laid
down His life, they were washed in His blood and the Spirit of
God has quickened them. He made them alive. He gave them
faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And then God has taken them home
to glory and lo, all these 6,000 years, saints of God have been
going home to heaven as the Lord calls them home. All of them
in heaven sing God's praises and all of the saints of God
on earth sing His praises as well. We sing all glory and honor
to the Lamb who bought us out of every nation unto our God,
but all of the glories the angels can give, all of the glories
that the exalted saints of God above can give, and all of the
glories and the honors that all of the saints on earth can give
to our God, He is infinitely above all of that. And we worship Him. We worship
Him. Because He doesn't want to be
God. He's not asking you to let Him
be God. He is God over all, blessed forever,
and we worship Him. I hope you've understood that.
Is that word easy to be understood? We're talking about the God of
the Bible. Listen, we've not even begun
to imagine to get started understanding how great God is. We sang this
song during our Bible conference and we love to sing it. How great
thou art. We don't have any idea of the
greatness of our God. I think about Luther. There are
a lot of things about Martin Luther that I can't agree with
and sometimes I wonder about him. But he wrote a letter to
his to a man by the name of Erasmus. And if you've ever read Luther's
book, The Bondage of the Will, it's in the book, The Bondage
of the Will, this letter that he wrote to Erasmus. Erasmus,
of course, was a man who thought the world revolved around men. But Luther wrote and he said
this to him, your thoughts of God are far too low They're far
too low. And I think that's an accusation
I would lay at the doorstep of most every preacher in this world
and of all of us by nature. Our thoughts of God are far too
low. He's infinitely greater than
we imagine Him to be. His thoughts are higher than
our thoughts. His ways are higher than our
ways. His knowledge, it's too wonderful
for us. We can't even comprehend the
knowledge of God. All things are light to Him. Our God is everywhere. He's everywhere. Can you imagine that? He's everywhere. There isn't anywhere but what
God isn't there. David said, if I ascend up into
the heavens, thou art there. God's there. And then he said,
behold, behold, if I descend to the depths even of hell itself,
thou art there. And he uses the word behold there.
Behold, thou art there. He need not say, Behold, thou
art in the heavens, because everybody who has any lick of sense at
all knows God's in the heavens. Our God's in the heavens, He's
done whatsoever He's pleased. We all know God's in the heavens,
but when we think God is everywhere, even God's in hell, That's deserving
of a behold. Be amazed, be astounded. He's even there. You can't go
anywhere but what God isn't already there. That's the greatness of
our God and His omnipotence. His power. He spoke the world into existence. All of the universe. I know to our eyes, there are
lots of stars out there, but way beyond those stars, there
are galaxies, billions and billions of stars. And all of these things,
let men say what they will, but in the beginning, God created,
God made them all, and He just spoke! and they came into existence. It's not easy to understand what
the words are, but you can't comprehend that. You see, Earth,
this ball that we live on, it seems so large to us, and indeed
it is. It is to us because we're ever
so small. But this earth in God's entire
universe is just a speck. It's just a speck. And all of
us are just little nothings in this world. The Lord says all
of mankind, all of the people together, we're like a drop in
a bucket. That insignificant drop. Some
of you used to have to go out and draw water. You go out to
a well, go out to a pump and prime the pump, pump the bucket
full of water and go in and pour it out and go back for another
bucket full. Did you give any consideration
to that final drop or two or five or 10 that was in the bucket?
Well, you didn't even pay any attention to it. It's not worth
your consideration, that drop in the bucket. That's all of
mankind. That's all of us. That's the
whole human race. That's the whole shooting max
added together. We're like an insignificant drop
in a bucket. And yet, out of this insignificant
drop, God loved and chose a people unto salvation and Christ came
and died for them. Us insignificant nothings. This is the greatness of our
God. I hope those are words easy to
be understood. Don't you ever feel sorry for
God. Feel sorry for yourself if you
want to. Feel sorry for the rest of us.
Don't pity God. He doesn't need your pity. He
commands you to bow down and worship Him. And you'll worship
Him willingly. through the blood of the Lord
Jesus Christ and be accepted, or you'll worship Him, you'll
be forced to bow the knee, and you'll confess the greatness
of God forever in hell. But I guarantee you, you're going
to bow before God. You're going to acknowledge His
greatness. His greatness. He's so great,
He's able to destroy all of His enemies. The Bible has, there's an abundance
of evidence in the scriptures of God's ability to judge the
unrighteous. You read in Genesis chapter 6,
God looked down from heaven and He, in examining the hearts
of men and women and young people, He said, every imagination of
the thoughts of their hearts is evil continually. God said, I'm going to wipe them
all out. He said, my God would never do that. Well, you got the wrong God.
The God of the Bible does that, and He saved A remnant according
to the election of mercy. Put them in the ark, a picture
of all of his people safe in Christ Jesus. And God opened
up the windows of heaven and he opened up the fountains of
the deep and he flooded this whole earth. Don't you tell me
God won't judge sin. God's so great, he can wipe this
whole thing out. Just like that. I know he put
a rainbow in the sky. He said, I'll never destroy the
earth again by water. But he sure is going to destroy
it by fire. He's going to renovate it. Renovate
it. This earth is in for a torching. Well deserved, I might add. And
we, you and me, all of us together, we all deserve to be torched
with it. We all deserve to be just more
kindling on the fire because of our enmity against God. Our hearts are enmity against
God. Romans chapter 8 verse 7 says
that. But behold the greatness of God's
mercy. He doesn't destroy us. He doesn't
wipe us out. In fact, before the world began,
He chose a multitude of people unto salvation. This great God,
this great and glorious God, who has his way in the whirlwind,
who does what he will with whom he will. He said, I will show
mercy. I will show mercy to whom I will
show mercy. Before Adam ever fell in the
garden, God extended his mercy, his saving, sovereign grace to
a multitude of people which none but he can number. He said, I
will save. freely. They won't deserve it
because they're going to fall and they'll have their fists
in my face, but I will love them freely and I will be gracious
to them. I will be merciful to them and
I will give my only begotten Son to save them from my wrath
and judgment that ought to fall on them. It'll fall on Him in
their stead. That's our God. You see, He is
great no matter how you look at Him. He's great! He's great
in power! He's great in authority! He's
great in mercy, and I tell you, He's great in wrath. He's great
in justice. His greatness, His supremacy,
is seen in creation, in providence, and in salvation. one of the things that people
have difficulty with today. And I think we see this quite
a bit. There's a lack of principles. People don't have any principles
anymore. There's no standard anymore.
What's the standard? There's a passage of Scripture.
Go with me to Judges. Look at Judges chapter 17. People just do what they want
to do. There's no standard. There's no sense of right and
wrong. And you listen to some people talk and they say, well,
right is whatever you deem it to be. Whatever you decide is
right and proper, then that's what's right and proper. You
want to say, is there no standard? Is there no principle? Is there
no right and wrong? Would you not agree that we live
in a day, and I mean to speak in words that are easy to be
understood, would you not agree that today with many people,
as far as they're concerned, there is no right or wrong except
which they decide, which they determine to be right or wrong.
That's the way lots of people live today. And you know what? Therefore, they thank God. God,
He doesn't have any principles either. He just reacts. It's the most interesting passage
here in Judges 17. And I've been reading on it yesterday
and today. It's about a man by the name
of Micah. Judges chapter 17. Not to be confused with Micah
the prophet. In verse 1 of Micah 17, there
was a man of Mount Ephraim whose name was Micah. Micah said to
his mother, he said, the 1,100 shekels of silver that were taken
from thee, his conscience got to bother him. He had stole this
1,100 shekels of silver from his mother. I don't know, maybe
she hid it under the bed or under the mattress. I don't know where
she had it. It didn't have banks back then. Maybe she buried it
out in the backyard or something. But anyway, he stole it. And
I suppose his conscience got to bother him. He goes to his
mother and he says, you know, the 1,100 shekels of silver that
were taken from thee by which thou cursed, you pronounced a
curse upon whoever took it. And maybe she said a few choice
words, curse words, about her life savings that somebody had
taken. And you even said that in my
ears. He said, behold, it's with me. I took it, Mom. I took the money. His mother
said, blessed be thou. She removed the curse. She had
cursed him. Now she blesses him. Blessed
be thou, the Lord, my son. I'm so glad you came to your
senses. I'm so glad you brought my money
back. And when he had, verse three,
and when he had restored the 1,100 shekels of silver to his
mother, his mother said, I had wholly dedicated the silver unto
the Lord from the hand of my son. If the verse ended there,
you'd say, bless her heart. She's such a dear Christian lady. But she said, I had wholly dedicated
the silver unto the Lord from my hand for my son to make a
graven image and a molten image. You see, she was one of those
like the children of Israel during the days of Aaron when he collected
their earrings, their gold, and so forth, and fashioned a golden
calf, they wanted a visible representation of God. All the nations around
them had visible representations of their gods. Well, what about
us? What about us? Well, of course,
God told them to build a tabernacle in the wilderness. They had Shekinah
glory, a bright light coming out of the Holy of Holies. That's where God dwelled. But
they said, no, we've got to have something tangible, something
we can lay hold of, something we can see, something we can
bow down to, statues and idols and that sort of thing like people
still want today. Well, verse 4, he restored the
money unto his mother. His mother took 200 shekels of
silver and she went down to the founder. And she said, I want you to make
me a god. Could you make me a god? Make
him pretty. Make him attractive. Shine him up real good. Here's
the silver. And I want a molten image. And
she said, I'm going to give them to my boy. And they were in the house of
Micah. And verse 5, and the man Micah
had a house of gods. And he made an ephod, just like
the priest's war of Israel. and Teraphim. That's many, many
gods. That's what Teraphim means. He
had a bunch of gods all consecrated, and he consecrated one of his
sons who became his preacher. What's the reason for this? What
led to this? And so often this is a verse
that we quote, and it certainly is a good verse, This is what
is said in light of what has just been revealed to us. In
those days, there was no king in Israel. There was no authority
to say, hey, these statutes are wrong. These idols are wrong. Idolatry is ungodly. Our God
is in the heavens. We worship Him by means of a
burnt sacrifice. There was no king in it. There
was no leader in Israel to speak up and say, these things are
wrong. You can't be like these nations,
these other nations that are ungodly. Remember, the Lord said,
Thou shalt have no other gods before Me. Thou shalt not make
any graven image of anything in heaven or on the earth. Don't
do these things. God is Spirit. They that worship
Him must worship Him in Spirit and in truth. They said, but
we want to be like all the other nations. So there was nobody to guide
them. No voice to rebuke them. No preacher to say, don't do
that. That's vile. Get rid of them
gods. Get rid of them pictures of Jesus.
Get rid of your crosses. Get rid of all that junk. All
that religious rubbish. Get rid of all of it. Worship
God in your heart through Jesus Christ the Lord. Nobody to say
that. Therefore, every man did that
which was right. in his own eyes. In other words,
there was no standard. There was no principle. And if
you read the rest of this story, and I advise you to do this,
don't do it now. But a little bit later on, here
comes a Levite passing by. He stops by the house of Micah.
How are you doing? Fine. He says, I'm a Levite and
I'm looking for somewhere to preach. I'm looking for a church. I'd be glad to put my resume
in right here. And Micah said, hey, would you
be my preacher? He said, I sure will. And Micah
said, I got my gods in here. That's fine. That's fine. I can
bend with whatever. And so he hired him a preacher.
You get into the next chapter, the Danites didn't have any inheritance. They sent five men out to spy
out the territory. They found out about this guy
Micah. And Micah, he had a Levite to be his preacher. They go into
the house of Micah. You want to read? Look at chapter
18. I don't have time to read all of this, but look at verse
17 of chapter 18. Let's give this to you quickly. The five men that went out to
spy out the land went up and came in thither into Micah's
house, took the graven image, the ephod, the teraphim, the
molten image, and the priest stood in the entering of the
gate with the 600 men that were appointed with weapons of war.
And these went into Micah's house and fetched the carved image
and the ephod and the teraphim and the molten image. Then said
the priest to them, what are you doing? They said to him, will you hold
your peace, lay your hand upon your mouth, and you go with us,
you be a father, you be our preacher. We're a bigger church anyway,
we've got 600 people in our church. It's better for thee to be a
priest in the house of one man than to be a priest under a tribe
and a family in Israel. He said, well, I'm trying to
climb the ladder of success. I'm looking for a bigger church.
So verse 20, and the priest's heart was glad. He said, I'm
going with you. But let me get my ephraim, the
teraphim, the graven image. Let me get all my gods. Let me
pack up my gods and go with you. They turned and departed. Micah, he's upset. Verse 24, he said, he run after,
he said, you've taken away my gods, which I made. You've taken away my preacher
and you're gone away. And what have I more? What is
this that you say to me? What aileth thee? I'll tell you
what ails me. You've taken away my gods and
you've taken away my preacher. But I would say, what kind of
gods have you got that somebody can steal them away from you? You see, this was a day with
no principle, no standard of what's right and what's wrong. You say, preacher, is there a
standard today? You got it in your hands. There
is a right and wrong. There is truth. There is truth. And I'll tell you who truth is.
Truth embodied is the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the one we must
know. Without Him, we're going to perish.
I speak to you hopefully in words that can be understood. This
is the God of the Bible. The God of the Bible does His
way among the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of
the earth, and none can stay His hand or say unto Him, What
doest thou? That's the God of the Bible.
The God of the Bible is the God who saves sinners His way, not
your way. His way, and that's one way. Christ Jesus is the way. He said,
I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto
the Father but by me. And I know in religion, see,
there are people without standards in religion. They say, it doesn't
matter what you believe. Be a good person. Do good to
your neighbors. Live by the golden rule. Is there
not a standard? Is there not what's right and
what's wrong? Is there not the Bible? Is there
not the Word of God? Has not God spoken to us? Has God not revealed His will
concerning who He is? Has he not made a declaration
of the way of salvation, that it's by grace alone, through
Christ alone? Oh, God help me to speak in words
that are easy to be understood. If you follow the gods of this
world, you'll perish in your sins. They can't help you. They're like the gods of Micah.
They're like the gods that Isaiah spoke about in Isaiah chapter
46. Where the Lord, Isaiah quotes the Lord and says, the Lord says,
I'm not like the gods of this earth. You pack up your gods
and you carry your gods on your shoulders. And then you put them
wherever you want them to be. God said, I'm not like that.
I do all my pleasure. I do all my will. I mean to be
understood. The God of the Bible has the
standard. Here's the standard. Righteousness. That's the standard. It's not
whatever you think it is. It's whatever God says it is.
And I'll tell you who the ideal is. Here's the standard. Jesus
Christ the Lord. He's the standard. And if you
would be accepted by God, you'll be accepted by God in Christ
Jesus only. Or God will reject you and put
you away in hell. You understand? Huh? Can I see your head? You understand? You understand the words that
are spoken to you? I'm not speaking in a foreign
language to you. I'm trying to speak good old
southern English. And try to exalt the God of the
Bible. And we'll continue this message tonight. The Lord will. Well, let's sing.