Did you know that 7,111 languages are spoken today around the world? Almost 3,000 (2,895) languages are endangered today. These numbers change almost daily as more is learned about different people groups around the world.
Endangered languages are mainly those where the language is not taught to the children of a society or people group. However, one Language is said to disappear every 14 days.[1] Most of the languages of the world are spoken by less than 1,000 speakers.[2] More than half the world’s population speak at least one of 23 languages.
200 years ago the German explorer Alexander von Humboldt stumbled upon a village in what is now Venezuela. While there he heard a parrot speaking and asked the villagers what it was saying. No one knew since the parrot spoke the last words in the Atures language.
Two elderly brothers who live in a coastal village in Scotland are the only two people left who can speak a particular dialect of the Scots language. Their people made their living fishing on the water and now that the fishing industry has disappeared nobody has learned the dialect in two generations.
What they discovered is that when a way of life begins to disappear, so do the words and the language that describe that life.
In a multicultural, multilinguistic setting, SIL describes a heart language for a people group as the most effective language for communicating deeply as well as for learning new concepts.[3]
The heart language for many peoples are going away. What about our heart language? Is it dying too? Has the Christian way of life so disappeared in American that we have lost the language to describe our Christian experience and to share it? More importantly, have we lost our ability to hear God? Has the media and modern secular society, and the churches move toward an inclusive language, threatening our Christianity and our Christian way of life with extinction? [4]
What language and life do we practice?
John 8:42–47 (NKJV)
In John 8, Jesus is debating with Pharisees on just who He is. the problem was then and the problem today is people just don’t get it. They do not understand. Jesus asked a very pertinent question in verse 43:
John 8:43a (NKJV) Why do you not understand My speech?
It wasn’t because Jesus was speaking in another language, or speaking in riddles. In fact Jesus spoke often in parables, but only those in tuned with God would understand.
Matthew 13:13 (NKJV) Therefore I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.
The parables Jesus spoke involved everyday things and events. Yet, only to those that were close to Jesus understood the message the parable conveyed, and even then Jesus had to explain many of the parables. When He spoke of bread, they thought only of literal bread. When He spoke of water, they never connected it with spiritual water. Why was it that they could not understand His speech? It was because they were unwilling to tolerate His teachings.[5]
Communication is tricky thing. I took a course in communications [called "Interpersonal Relationships") in seminary. What someone speaks and what is heard and understood are often two different things. Hearing with understanding is a process that does not always come naturally. What we hear and understand are influence by our values, prejudices, biases, a predispositions.
In the passage preceding our focal verses Jesus was discussing who the Pharisees’ father was. They were descendants of Abraham in the physical sense and they claimed God as their Father in the Spiritual sense. Their presuppositions was wrong. Jesus corrected them.
John 8:42 (NKJV) Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and came from God; nor have I come of Myself, but He sent Me.
If God was their Father, then they would know who Jesus is.
1 John 5:1 (NKJV) Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves Him who begot also loves him who is begotten of Him.
If we claim to love God the Father, we must also love God the Son. Jesus was sent from God and Jesus is God And God the Father sent God the Son on a mission:
John 3:17 (NKJV) For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.
But that mission of being the Savior of the world was rejected.
John 8:43 (NKJV) Why do you not understand My speech? Because you are not able to listen to My word.
They do not understand Jesus’ speech because they have rejected His word. The Greek for “speech” is <lalian> meaning a manner of talking or speaking. “Word” in the Greek is <logos> the same word used is John 1:1 and its meaning is the message. The Pharisees did not understand Jesus’ speech because they both could not understand the message and what they did understand they thoroughly rejected. Why? It was because of who their spiritual father really was.
John 8:44 (NKJV) You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.
This is a serious accusation made by Jesus. Their spiritual father was the devil. “Devil” means slanderer, deceiver. Why does Jesus say they are the children of the devil? Because the do as their father the devil, they possess his nature. They lie, they cheat, they want to kill. There is no truth in the devil. Lies is the language of the Devil.
“He was a murderer from the beginning” is a clear reference to Adam and Eve, the devil deceived them thereby orchestrating their very deaths. And we know that the pharisees, together with the high priests and the religious officials had Jesus put to death. They were murders as well.
The Pharisees lied. They pretended to be godly, deceiving themselves and others. According to 2 Tim 3:5, they had a form of godliness but denying its power, and 2 Tim 3:7 they were always learning yet never coming to the truth.
They were followers of the ruler of this world. The ruler of this world and age is the devil according to Jesus:
John 12:31 (NKJV) Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out.
John 14:30 (NKJV) I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming, and he has nothing in Me.
The truth has no place with the ruler of this world. Why? Because the devil “does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him.” The devil, the deceiver who rules this world is covering the ears of the those who follow the ways of the world.
2 Corinthians 4:3–4 (NKJV) But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, 4 whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them.
“he speaks from his own resources” I like the NIV which says “When he lies, he speaks his native language” The Greek implies the Devil speaks out of his nature or character. Lies is the language of the Devil. It was from this reading from the NIV that I came up with the title of this message. What is our heart native language?
Herein is the failure of the church. We become so accustomed to the native language of the ruler of this world we begin to lose the what should be our heart language, discerning the things of the Spirit.
1 Corinthians 2:14 (NKJV) But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
Which language are we hearing and speaking? We cannot have it both ways. In the spiritual sense, we cannot be bilingual. James was quite clear to the Christians he was writing to.
James 4:4 (NKJV) Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
Listening to the world can be deadly to the life a Christian. Following the world is following the ruler of this age.
Satan is above all things “a liar,” and the Lord was saying that those who follow the devil are characterized by deceit.
They deceive themselves about their own hearts.
They deceive themselves about life.
They deceive themselves about Christ.
They deceive themselves about God.
They deceive themselves about the way of salvation.
But the ultimate deception is to imagine you are a child of God when you are not. [6]
The truth is disbelieved by the world if for no other reason is because it is the truth.
John 8:45–46 (NKJV) But because I tell the truth, you do not believe Me. 46 Which of you convicts Me of sin? And if I tell the truth, why do you not believe Me?
The children of God will so love the truth that they will believe in Jesus; the children of the devil will be so characterized by lies that they will not be able to accept the truth, precisely because it is the truth.[7]
John 8:47 (NKJV) He who is of God hears God’s words; therefore you do not hear, because you are not of God.”
This statement is quit clear, Jesus speaks the very Words of God. Only those who belong to Him can hear and understand the timeless truths of the universe. Those who reject Him, by nature will reject His truths. Those who hear and understand His words will also obey His words.
1 John 2:3–5 (NKJV) Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. 4 He who says, “I know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. 5 But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him.
The devil deceives. He lies and leads astray many. And the world all around us have bought into the lie.
Romans 1:25 (NKJV) who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.
Is it any wonder that Christians are under attack today? America has lost its moral compass. America as a whole can no long understand the word from God. We have literally turned our backs on God and do not acknowledge Him in any way shape or form. Now from the highest levels in our government and courts, God truth is being systematically rejected:
America has endorsed perversion, same sex marriage and call it a viable alternative lifestyle;
We reward laziness and called it welfare;
We kill our preborn children and called it choice;
We neglect to discipline our children and we call it building self-esteem; and when we do discipline, it’s child abuse.
The Government abuses it’s power and call it political savvy;
We have polluted the airwaves, TVs, movies, and the internet with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of expression;
We have ridiculed and methodically torn down the time honored values of our forefathers and we call it enlightenment.
It is clear, America is under the authority of the god of this age, the “ruler of this world.” America has lost the heart language on which we were founded. Have we, as the United States of America have passed the point of no return? I don't know but what I did know is this: Judgment is coming. The prophet Isaiah foresaw this 2,700 years ago:
Isaiah 5:20–21 (NKJV) Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; Who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! 21 Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, And prudent in their own sight!
So how are we to come to believe in the truth? It is not by anything we can do, it is only by the moving of God through His Spirit. Jesus told us that we cannot come to Him on our own:
John 6:44 (NKJV) No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day.
It is only by the drawing of God, and by the Holy Spirit opening our eyes that we can even have the capability of believing the Truth, which is Jesus. It is only at this point of drawing to Him that we have a choice, and the choice is clear: to accept and believe the truth or reject it.
The question this morning is whether or not you know the truth. The lies of world want to lure you away. The Scriptures tells us that if it were possible, the lies of the world and the ruler of this world would lure away the very elect, the saved (Matt 24:24).
Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Do you belong to the World or to God? You can only come to the Truth, this Jesus, if the Spirit calls. Will you answer that call?
[1] www.thestar.com/news/world/2013/04/15/dying_languages_scientists_fret_as_one_disappears_every_14_days.html
[2] www.ethnologue.com/guides/how-many-languages
[3] www.sil.org/about/multilingual-communities
[4] Borrowed heavily from Eldon Reich’s sermon found at www.sermoncentral.com/sermons/2-finding-our-native-tongue-eldon-reich-sermon-on-workplace-evangelism-110836?ref=SermonSeriesDetails
[5] William MacDonald, Believer’s Bible Commentary: Old and New Testaments, ed. Arthur Farstad (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1995), 1518.
[6] R. Kent Hughes, John: That You May Believe, Preaching the Word (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1999), 254.
[7] D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Leicester, England; Grand Rapids, MI: Inter-Varsity Press; W.B. Eerdmans, 1991), 353–354.
