International Mission Board president Jerry Rankin spoke with passion as he related an incident that had taken place in a remote part of Asia. Speaking during a banquet at First Baptist Church, Birmingham, April 9, Rankin shared about a group of Baptists being surprised to meet an English speaker in an area where few, if any, Westerners had ever gone.
The young man was eager to practice his English, which he had learned at the university, so he attached himself to the group.
The inquisitive young man asked who the visitors were and why they had come to his inaccessible part of the world. The Baptist visitors told him about themselves and about their trip. They also seized the opportunity to tell the young man about Jesus.
Before the group left the area a few days later, the young man had asked many questions about their faith. Finally he asked if he could receive Jesus Christ as Savior. The visitors gathered around the young man, Rankin said, and led him in the sinner’s prayer.
Then the young man asked if he could pray that prayer in his own language. Of course he could, the Baptists assured. Then they listened as the young man prayed in his own language to receive Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord.
Rankin said the man who told him of the experience commented that this may well have been the first time anyone had ever prayed to become a Christian in that particular language. It is hoped that others will follow the young man’s example and many, many more who speak this distant dialect will confess Jesus as Lord and Savior.
Different languages have been a human problem since the Tower of Babel recorded in Genesis 11. Pride, the Bible says, caused people to want to make a name for themselves. In response to such selfishness, God confused the languages and scattered the people across the land.
No longer could they understand one another. No longer could they use the same words. Confusion reigned. Sometimes destruction resulted from the inability of people to understand one another.
Anyone who has traveled in a foreign land knows something about the difficulties of language differences. Ask a question and people look at you with a blank stare because they do not understand.
On those rare occasions when someone thinks they have caught the gist of a question, then we cannot tell if his response is offered in anger or excitement. Someone could offer to help and we might miss the opportunity because we do not understand the sounds and words of the different language.
The villagers around the young man of whom Rankin spoke had no idea what he was saying when he prayed in English with the Baptist visitors. But when he prayed a second time, this time in a language they understood, all who heard knew something unusual was taking place.
God may have initiated the language difference at Babel, but His ultimate Word to humanity is unmistakable. The Bible says God “is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9).
God is as concerned for the young man in that mountainous, hard-to-get-to village as He is about one living at the most prestigious address in the largest city. To all, God spoke in a clear, understandable way.
God’s message was communicated in more than words. God acted. He “gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). One writer noted, “Now in Christ, (God) reconciles people and peoples and brings the scattered together.”
From every tribe and tongue and people and nation come those who pray the sinner’s prayer, like the young man mentioned above. They come because people who love God and want others to love Him overcome language barriers to help people see the clear and certain love of God made known in Jesus Christ. They come because the Holy Spirit draws them to the God who does not want any to remain lost in sin.
The clear message of God acting in Jesus Christ overcomes the Babel in which people live. The clear purpose of God is accomplished as people respond to this message of love and forgiveness.
Imagine the results. On that final judgment, believers of every tribe and tongue and people and nation will sing, “Worthy is the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world.” Each will sing in their own language, their own tongue. It will not be confusion that reigns.
Rather, a cacophony of harmonious praise will rise to the God of Creation, the author and finisher of our redemption. Oh what a day that will be!
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