Truly, to be here among you again
to share this time together, I appreciate you more than you
could ever know, more than I could ever say. You've been a constant
friend and supporter of the work there in Cherokee and I am forever
grateful for it. This is a friendly place for
me and I'm always glad to come and it's been especially nice
this trip Last time I was here, you were without a pastor. And
though you were happy and joyous and full of beans as usual, there
was just a little bit of anxiety and waiting till the Lord opened
the door and brought someone here. And this time, y'all just
seem as happy as you've had good sense. And that's a pleasure
for us, it really is. Genesis chapter 11. Genesis chapter 11. Read verses 1 through 9. The whole earth was of one language
and of one speech. And it came to pass as they journeyed
from the east that they found a plain in the land of Shinar
And they dwelt there. And they said one to another,
Go to, let us make brick and burn them thoroughly. And they
had brick for stone and slime they had for mortar. And they
said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower whose top
may reach unto heaven. Let us make us a name, lest we
be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. And
the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the
children of men built, and the Lord said, Behold, the people
is one, and they have all one language, and this they begin
to do. And now nothing will be restrained
from them which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down
there and confound their languages, that they may not understand
one another's speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad
from thence upon the face of all the earth, and they left
off to build the city. Therefore is the name of it called
Babel, because the Lord did there confound the language of all
the earth, and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad
upon the face of the earth." This was our Lord completing
and assuring that the command to Moses or Noah's sons would
go forth and replenish the earth, which they didn't do after the
flood. They hung around and began to rebel against God in a way that
was obvious and plain. They were all of one language
and that's the title of my message tonight. I was talking with a
gentleman today and I asked him about a certain preacher and
I said, Does he preach anything? And he said, just words. That's the title of my message
tonight. Just words. Many years ago, there was a famous
lawyer who went to hear a preacher and the preacher was waxing eloquent
that day or as Donnie Bell says, he was waxing elephants that
day. He was doing a wonderful job of oratory. And after he
finished, he went to the back of the church to shake the hands
of the folks who had heard him preach. And the lawyer came up
to the preacher and said, I have a book in my library that has
that sermon you just preached in it word for word. And the preacher was upset. He
was taken aback because he had just the night before written
that sermon down word for word. And he told the lawyer, well,
I'd like to see that book. And so the lawyer took the preacher
home with him for Sunday dinner. And after dinner, upon entering
the lawyer's library, he went to his shelf and took a large
volume and handed it to the preacher. It was a dictionary. The preacher thought the lawyer
was playing a joke until the lawyer looked at the preacher
and said, your sermon was just words. Just words. The problem with the lawyer was
that he heard words and was able to define the words he heard. But those words made up a language
and that language made up the words of the scriptures. To men
who hear men preach the gospel, if they preach the gospel, if
they don't know Christ, it's just words. And we have to live
with that. Because we are, though we have
been brought to a knowledge of Christ for many years now, still
in wonder of this thing called spiritual life. We can't see
it, we can't feel it, we can't touch it, we can't reveal it,
we can't show it, we can't find evidence for it, we can't prove
we have it, and yet we know we do. We run across scriptures like
the spirit bears witness with our spirit that we're the children
of God. Would you like to try to explain that to me please?
It's a wonder. Everyone who knows God knows
what that means. They've experienced it personally
but ask them to explain it to you and they'll go, I can't do
that. I don't know how to explain it. The fact is that what we
believe is based on only on words, words, a language. The Bible is a book, a book filled
with words and these words are from God himself and to many
they are just words. They can be defined as to tense,
as to doctrine, as to voice, as to syntax, but these words
form a language and to all but those who have been made spiritual,
given spiritual life, that language is beyond their ability to grasp. God has a language and God speaks
that language. You see, language defines and
distinguishes and unites a people. We saw it right here. They were
of one language. They could all speak one language
and they were united and they were defined as a people. But it does not always unite
people for good. No natural or carnal language
has ever and will ever unite a people for the cause of God.
No natural language will. The statistic declared recently
of the world's 6,800 languages, between half of them and 70%
of them would be extinct by the turn of the century. That was
spoken last century in 2000 or 1990 something. And that statistic was used to
support the idea that the world in the not distant future would
be of one language again. that as other language dropped
off there would be one language again. Language is important. What I'm doing to you tonight
and with you tonight is language. It's language. How important
is it? I remember hearing a story Henry
Mahan told back in the 90s and I researched it. Back in the
90s there was a story in the papers about a Hungarian man And the headline read, Hungarian
man comes home. Comes home. This story was significant. And
what was significant about it was that he had spent 50 years
since World War II in a Siberian labor camp in Russia. And in that place he was considered
a madman or a lunatic. the guards at the prison were
Russian and they did not speak Hungarian and did not speak the
dialect that this man spoke they thought he was a man speaking
gibberish as though they assigned him to the asylum wards of the
prison and all the while he was merely speaking a language they
did not understand he understood it but they didn't fifty years
for half a century That poor man resided in a small cell isolated
from the world in the frigid Siberian tundra. He was isolated
from those around him by the language that he spoke. In the 90s, after perestroika
and glasnost came to be, things loosened up a little bit in the
Soviet Union. and a doctor was sent to the
Siberian outpost to check on the health of the prisoners.
That day was a blessed day for that sad Hungarian man. The doctor
that came to his prison was Hungarian also and understood the gibberish
that this prisoner spoke. The doctor was not only Hungarian
but was from the same dialectical region that the prisoner was
from and he heard the man's story and when it was related to his
superiors the man was let go. I wonder what light entered into
that cell that day when the poor man doubly imprisoned first with
iron bars and razor wire and much greater imprisoned behind
the impenetrable walls of the inability to communicate. I thought
of the old song. Long my imprisoned spirit lay,
enwrapped in dark Egyptian night. Thine eye diffused a quickening
ray. I woke my dungeon filled with
light. My chains fell off. My heart
was free. I rose, went forth and followed
thee. This man got to go home. What a moment that must have
been when he was talking in what the Russians thought to be gibberish.
And this doctor looked at him and started talking back to him
in his own language. And they understood each other. In that moment, though still
in bondage, behind men's bars, language had
made him to mount on eagle's wings and soar the stratosphere
of freedom and hope. His mind was loose and his heart
was free. A short while later, he was released
from that prison and was returned home. Why? Because his physician spoke words he understood and understood the words that he
spoke, language. Communicated language set him
free. And our text is the record of
language and the breakdown of human language and human language
being broken down by God Almighty. because it is the Lord who said
to here to confuse the tongues, to confuse the tongues. They
were all of one language. This is where language barriers
were established by God, which resulted in the disbursement
of humanity throughout the world to the four corners of the earth,
the fulfillment of the command that he had made to Noah's sons.
This disperse congregated in mass with those of like language. They found somebody who could
speak the same language and they went off together with them.
And they formed communities and created cultures. Borders were
established and nations rose from the dust. Commerce was established. Everything changed except for
one thing. Though the inhabitants left Babel, linguistically confounded They
carried the religion of Babel with them. And it goes on today. They still speak a singular language,
though in their natural language, they may not be able to commune
with each other. Babel is Babylon, the great whore church, the mother
of Christless religion. It is the religion of human merit.
manifest in collective effort and incorporation of politics
and media and religion to bring about a state where men by their
power and will can build their way to heaven. That was what
their desire was. In verse four it says, go, let
us go and build a tower that'll reach heaven and make a name
for ourself. It's motivated by the power of
man to ensure the exaltation of himself. Let us make a name
for ourselves. It is designed to increase numbers
and control men by political and sociological and religious
influence. Fallen humanity is joined together
even across language barriers in a single enterprise of self-deification
to erect a man-made way to heaven. That's going on still. Unrestrained
It wields great influence. God said, if I leave them to
themselves, then no telling what they'll do. No telling how far
they'll go into their depravity. But it is restrained. Its efforts
at power to employ the faculties of its depraved cerebral cortex
to manufacture a justification and a sanctification and a righteousness
that will satisfy God is thwarted by God himself. the true and
living God. And you know how he does it? He uses language. He uses language. He dispersed humanity by confounding
their language and put them in a state of eternal and futile
struggle to build their way to heaven. He has destroyed their
end by bringing his people to a singular language. He brought
you all to one language again. one singular language. He who
destroyed the pipe dreams of human religion by confusing tongues
has instituted true religion by returning his people to a
common language. That's what he promised in Zephaniah.
He said, I will turn you to a pure language, a pure language. And you can't get anything purer
than a singular language, pure language. but foreign to all,
but those who are God's foreign language. This language unites
his people and separates them from all other peoples on the
face of the earth. His language is the gospel. It
is the gospel of God's sovereign grace in Jesus Christ. That's
the language of God. In fact, Christ himself is said
to be the language of God. God who at sundry times and in
diverse manners spoken to the fathers by the prophets has in
these last days spoken to us in son, in his son. That's the language of God. It's
the Lord Jesus Christ. Debbie told me of a man on Fox
News today that had written a book. I think his name was Limbaugh. I don't know if he was Rush's
buddy or Rush's brother, but he wrote a book on finding Christ
in the Old Testament or something like that. No, the code to finding
Christ in the Old Testament. He missed the boat. Show me anything in the Old Testament
that is about Christ. because it's all about Christ.
It's all that the prophets, all that the apostles had to use
when they preached the gospel. It's what our Lord used when
he preached the gospel when he came to this earth. This is language,
words. They're important. Our Lord said
of his son, in the beginning was the word and the word was
with God and the word was God. The same was in the beginning
with God. He said, you shall know the truth
and the truth shall set you free. Judas, not ascariot, asked the
Lord when he was going to the cross, he says, how shall men
know that you were your disciples and not with the world? How's
the world gonna know that? Christ said, if you keep my words.
Christ said, my words, they are spirit in their life. This is
the Christ, God's dear son, and he is the divine communication.
the heavenly edict from God Almighty, the language of the Spirit. He
is the Christ to whom God has given all things and put all
things in, by whom God created all things, who is the outshining
of God's effulgence, the blinding brightness of God's glory, the
express image of God, the image of the invisible God, yea, very
God himself. The Christ that upholds all things
by the word of his power, originating and terminating, subjugating
all that is, this is the Christ. And he alone, by himself, just
him, without any help, only him, tread the winepress alone, purged our sins by the sacrifice
of himself, put away them, put away our sins. He annihilated
them, eliminated them, did them in, removed them, remitted them,
liquidated, decimated, exterminated, however you wanna put it, propitiated
God and expiated our sin. Our sin, what a blessed generic
observation from God. What a declaration it is. Our
sin, we have so many. Every thought, every work, every
deed is filled with it. Every sermon that is preached
is filled with sin. We cannot do anything but sin.
We are sin. But God doesn't name them. He
doesn't write them down and categorize them. He just puts them into
one big, great big lump and said, that's our sin. And Christ put
our sin away. All of it. Every last drop of
it. The language of scripture says
of him, the mountain of them was brought low and the crookedness
of them was made straight. The scarlet and crimson of them
made white as snow and having done the wonderful. Having succeeded
in the humanly impossible, having finished the work of salvation,
Jesus Christ sat down on the right hand of the Father. He
entered into his rest. As an old lion, it is spoken
of in Genesis 49, and who shall rouse him up? Who shall stir
him up? Who shall molest his eternal
and earned repose? Who shall entice him or bribe
him or change him or charge him? He sits in majestic, inimitable
glory right now, unmoved. by all the exercises of man's
religion, and yet touched with every feeling of our infirmities. His mission is accomplished,
fait accompli. And this is the language of God.
And this is the language that unites. And it also divides,
for we know that natural men receive not these things. And
our Lord back over in Psalm 2 when he talked about setting Christ
on Zion's holy hill, when he talked about the stupidity
and utter ridiculousness of men to think that they can put away
God, I marvel at the temerity and timidity and foolish fear
of men. They're gonna do away with Christians. No, they ain't. They're going, Christianity's
in trouble. No, it's not. Believers are fine. Our Lord said, say to the believer,
say to the righteous, tell them. Look out at this world. Look
at what happened in Paris. Look at all the things that's
going on. Look at the corruption in government. Look at the foulness
of the universe. Look at the way people have let
down all moral standards and the moral compass of what used
to be this nation seems to be going all together. And what
shall I say to you, brethren? It shall be well with thee. That's
what the scripture says. Saying to the righteous, it shall
be well with thee. But our Lord said, those kings
gathered together in Psalm 2, those powerful men on earth,
they heathen, they raged, and the people imagined empty and
vain and foolish things. The kings of the earth set themselves,
and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord. And against his Christ, they
say, let us break their bands asunder. and cast away their
cords from us. And it says, he that sitteth
in the heavens shall laugh at them, shall laugh at them. These little
pismires crawling upon the earth, these maggots moving and writhing
upon the earth have gathered together in a pile and say, we're
gonna get rid of God. like a bunch of maggots saying
to me, I'm going to get rid of Tim James. You know what's going
to happen to them maggots? There's going to be maggot soup
is what it's going to be. There's going to be maggot mush
on the ground. And these maggots lift their heads against Almighty
God and say, we're going to get rid of him. And he just chuckles. He chuckles. The only time Says
that God's laugh is when he laughs in derision. He laughs at people who do stupid
things concerning him. He that sitteth in the heaven
shall laugh, and the Lord shall have them in derision. And you
know what that word derision is? He speaks in a foreign language. That's what that word means,
the original. He speaks in a foreign language.
God in heaven speaks in a manner that these maggots of the earth
who think they're going to overthrow Him, what did He say? What does
that mean? What is He talking about? And
you know how uncomfortable it makes you when somebody's talking
in a foreign language and you think automatically they're talking
about you to start with. Everybody does. I live in Cherokee,
Chalagi, Cherokee, Uluwadi, I live there. And some of the people
still speak the Cherokee language. I understand some. I took it
under three years under a fine fellow who helped me a great
deal. But when I hear two Cherokees talking, you know what I listen
for? Unagi. What's that? White man. I hear that word. I know they're
talking about me. But you know it feels uncomfortable. Think
of the world when they finally meet God, and He continues to
speak in this language that they don't understand. But that's
the language He speaks in. He speaks in the language of
the Lord Jesus Christ, and it divides men. But He speaks in
a language that no one can understand but His own. And that's a mystery
and a wonder, and I appreciate it. I'm so thankful that He's
given me life in Christ. And when I open this book, it's
not a strange book to me. Understand that it's all about
the Lord Jesus Christ. And everyone here either understands
this language or the language of Babel, one or the other. Is
this your language? The language of Christ? Are you
catching just a word here and there but not understand it?
When you hear this language, does it make it seem that you're
on the outside looking in? A stranger to those who hang
their souls on these words spoken. I can't tell you the times, and
I know it's happened here at Alma. I know it has. To all you
dear Michiganders, over the years they've said that crazy group.
I don't know what in the world's wrong with them. Out there and
they talk about God in a way that I can't understand. I don't
want to accept. I can't. What's wrong with them
people? Nothing. They're just talking in a language
you don't understand and can never understand. This is the
power of the language of God. The world looks at it and scratches
their head. What are they doing? Who are
they? What are they talking about?
They talk about a God who does as He pleases in heaven and earth
and all the deep places. They talk about a God who doesn't
give his account to anyone, doesn't account for what he does, he
just does what he does. They're talking about a God who
looked down on a race of putrid humanity and picked some out
because he loved them and chose them to salvation and came in
the form of his son to die in their room instead and actually
accomplish their salvation. They're talking about a God who
does not regard human will whatsoever, that does not regard human religion
at all. In fact, it makes him tired and
weary. That's the language he used in
Isaiah chapter one, I'm weary, away with it. They're talking
about a God who honors one person who ever
lived. And that person is the Lord Jesus
Christ. They're talking about a God who
accepts men only on the basis of what someone else has done
for them and nothing based upon what they do. They're talking
about a God who looks at men and all their works, even His
own, and looks at all their works and say, they matter, but they
don't count. That God. And the world out there
never get it. That's the language. That's the
language. This is the power of language. Paul said, I'm not ashamed of
the gospel for it's the power, the dynamic of God, the power
of God unto salvation to everyone that believes, to the Jew first
and also to the Greek. For there it is, the righteousness
of God revealed from faith to faith, for it is written, the
just shall live by faith. Just shall live by faith. I pray
God to give you ears to hear, to create in you that insatiable
hunger and thirst for Christ, to give you words of language,
his words. Hear his word, hear it. Hear
what he says. Hear his language. God says,
and they shall be my people, and I shall be their God. And I will give them one heart
and one way that they will not turn away from, and I will not
turn away from them to do them good, but I will put my fear
in their hearts that they shall not depart from me. Believers
will never quit. They might stumble, they might
fall, but you can't make them stop believing. Say, well, you
got to deny Christ. Well, if you're pointing a gun
at me, I might die. I might lie and say, I don't know him. But
as soon as that's over with, I'm not going to deny him anymore. I know a man at one time refused
to step on a picture of Jesus and they killed him. Well, I'd
have walked all over that thing. I'd have jumped up and down on
it. People are foolish. Our Lord says, you'll not depart
from me. And what if you get old and get
sick and in such pain and sorrow? And what if you forget him? He'll
never forget you. You're written on the palms of
His hand. They shall not depart from me.
Paul said, We preach Christ and Him crucified, and the Jews a
stumbling block, and the Greeks foolish, but unto them which
are called. Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God.
Paul said, For I am determined to know nothing among you save
Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Christ said, I am the way, the
truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father but
by me. The Lord said, Behold, I lay
in Zion a chief cornerstone, elect and precious, and he that
believeth on him shall never be confused. Well, what y'all preach up there
at First Baptist, that's confusing. It's confusing to you, but not
to us. We're not confused about it because we know just one thing.
If you know one thing, you're never confused. You ever notice
that? There's two things that mess up the works, but if you
know one thing, And that thing is Jesus Christ. You'll never
be confused. Nothing will be added to it.
Nothing taken away from it. What do you know? That's what
I know. That's what I know. We are bound to give thanks always
to God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord, because God has
from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification. The spirit and belief in the
truth were unto he called you by our gospel to the obtaining
of the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is God's words.
This is His language. It is given unto you to know
the mysteries of the kingdom, not to them. That's what He said
to His disciples. It's given to you. What about
that? You know the mysteries of the
kingdom. Wow! What are they? Jesus Christ
and Him crucified. And you know that. And you can
tell folks that and they say, Well, I don't get that. That's
it. From Genesis 1 to Revelation
22. You are given an unction from
the Holy One and you know all things. That's the Word of God. So then faith comes by hearing
and hearing by the Word of God. The Lord giveth the hearing ear
and the seeing eye. Blessed are your eyes for they
see and your ears for they hear. How is it, Lord, that thou will
manifest thyself unto us and not to the world? The man love
me, he'll keep my words, my words. And my Father will love him,
will come unto him and make our abode with him. My words, Christ
said. They are spirit and they are
life. Isaiah said, Who hath believed our report, our doctrine, and
to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? Whom shall he teach
knowledge? And whom shall he make to understand
doctrine? Them that are weaned from the milk and drawn from
the breast, for precept must be upon precept. Line upon line, line upon line,
here a little and there a little, and with stammering lips and
another tongue will I teach this people for I will turn to the
people a pure language. They may all call upon the name
of the Lord and serve him with one consent on that day at Pentecost. Peter stood up and started preaching
boldly, profoundly. He spoke in one language, Jesus
Christ. And everybody up there heard
that in their own language. They heard one language. They
said, How can that be? Because this is God's language.
And no matter what language you speak, if you're one of God's
when the gospel is preached, you understand and you know that
this is the Word of God. They heard the Word of God. This is what we have, folks.
The world will never understand it. They have Sunday school pens
that drape down the front of their shirts. They have things
on the wall that tell how much money they gave or how many Bibles
they brought. They have experiences they can
tell you about when they went down front and cried and carried
on and people patted them on the back. They have big edifices
to go to. They have all kinds of things
they can show you. that they're children of God.
And they look at you and they say, Show me. And you say, Well, I've got some
words. My hope is built on nothing less
than Jesus' blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest
frame. but holy land on Jesus' name. Thank you for having me.
God bless y'all.