Peachtree Baptist Church - Part 2 — Paul Washer

God’s Glory as the Ground of Salvation

This morning we spoke on the first three verses of the text that I read and made it clear that God does everything that God does for his own glory, for the great love that he has for his own name. And if it were not so, there would not a man be saved among us.

That if God were to look for motivation to love or to save from humanity, he would find no motivation whatsoever. The only thing a fallen, wicked, adamic humanity could ever do is motivate a holy, just God to condemn them all.

But he does them for his glory. His grace and his mercy is manifested for that reason. That when we speak about God doing everything for his own name and for the great love he has for himself and for his own glory, many people will always object and say, well, what about love?

You have to understand the most loving thing God could ever do is take center stage and do everything he does so that his glory might be revealed because the greatest gift he can give unto a man is a revelation of himself.

And the greatest act of judgment God can ever pour out on an individual or a nation is to hide his glory from them. We also spoke this morning about holiness. Just for a moment. That holiness is not simply separating from all that is evil.

There is a real sense in which a Pharisee can do that and not have one drop of love in his heart for God. You have to understand. Understand me here, young men. This is very, very important. Things like external piety, things like theological knowledge, things like ability to speak can be all for self.

They can all be used for self. And there is great power in these things. If you know more, you will be asked to greater conferences. If you speak with eloquence, people will marvel at the mention of your name.

And all those things are for self. They're not for God. So you can even separate from all that is wicked and have for yourself a name that you are holy among men and yet have a God-hating heart. Never forget, probably the most terrifying words in all of Scripture was that the Pharisees desired the glory of men and God, in His graciousness, His terrifying grace, granted them their reward in full.

To put it this way, you'll get exactly what that heart of yours wants. I hear young men so often, and they'll be crying out, Oh God, use me, use me God, I want to be used by you. And sometimes I'll tap them on the shoulder, like I wish someone had tapped me on the shoulder and said, young man, why do you want to be used?

Do you want to be great in Emmanuel's land? Do you want accolades? Do you want reward in heaven? Why do you want to be used? Wouldn't it be better to pray, Oh God, use my brother and let me carry his bags.

I wish I had not prayed so much to be a good preacher. I wish I had prayed more to be like Jesus Christ. For that is the greater thing. A donkey and a rock can speak for God. A prophet who is false and does not even know God can be used by God to proclaim a word for God.

But the goal is to be like Jesus Christ. And when we talk about being drawn out of the nations, as Ezekiel talked about, it is in order to be drawn unto the things of God. A word that old theologians would use was God besought.

Just literally just saturated with God. To desire to do nothing. Desire not to wage great wars. Not a desire to do great things. But this is one thing I ask of thee. To behold your presence. The person who has desired that has desired the greater thing.

To know Him. Because everything else can be false and an idol. Go on, he says in verse 25, Then I will sprinkle clean water upon you and ye shall be clean. Now, I want us to know something before we go any further.

Regeneration as God’s Work

I want us to put special attention on the first person pronoun I. And in verse 24, look what he says. For I will take you from among the heathen. I will gather you out of all countries. I will bring you into your own land.

Look at 25. Then I will sprinkle clean water on you and ye shall be clean. From all your filthiness and from all your idols will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you. And a new spirit will I put within you.

And I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh. And I will give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you. And I will cause you to walk in my statutes. Is that telling you anything about how salvation really works?

The reason why there is no falling away of the truly converted. The reason why every child of God will make progress in sanctification. And the reason why there is no such thing as a continuously carnal Christian is because it is God's work.

And it is God's reputation that is riding upon that perk. Birth. One of the most hellish doctrines that's ever been birthed. And it didn't come from Jehovah Witnesses. It came from Baptists. And it is this.

The doctrine of the carnal Christian. Can a Christian sin? Christians do sin. Can a Christian fall into sin? Most certainly. Can a Christian fall into carnality? Yes. Can he stay there? No. We see here a work of God.

For the glory of God. Not for men primarily. When you see things preached that are not preached correctly. It should make you almost fierce inside. Just recently I heard an extremely well-known author today speaking about someone who'd read one of his books and was marvelously supposedly put back on the path.

A lady who was basically giving herself to prostitution and heroin addiction and everything else. Crack and everything. And the reporter asked him, you know, how did this come about? And he said, well, now, first of all, you need to understand that woman was born again when she was about eight years old.

Now, the fact that she lived 25, 30 years in absolute immorality has nothing to do with it. When she read my book, she just rededicated her life. That's pathetic. That is pathetic. But that is the course of the day.

I hear preachers stand before men and say, you're a Christian. Stop acting like a homosexual. No, you're acting all the time. You're acting out what you are. And salvation, again, is not simply a human decision.

It is a supernatural work of God. And I know that I'm getting close to the edge here, but I would dare say that the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit stands on par with the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead in regards to a manifestation of power.

And there is no doubt that it equals or supersedes the work of God in creating the entire universe. And I believe that is why John, the gospel of John starts off with in the beginning because John's writing about a new creation.

And we have so taken that into this deity who can bring people out of Egypt, but he cannot bring them into their own land. He cannot bring them into greater grace. He can only save them. But then he must stand there and wring his hands back and forth saying, oh, if only my people would cooperate.

Has nothing to do with this passage. His people are going to cooperate. As a matter of fact, their cooperation is the sign that they are his people. You see, something you need to understand, the nation of Israel was by and large...

I hear people thinking everybody in the Old Testament that was in the nation of Israel was saved. It was a nation. A nation. Yes, called out. Yes, God's not through with them. All these different things.

But you have to understand, we are a new thing here. Everybody in the... There's no remnant in the church. The church is the remnant. Every one of us is taught of God. Every one of us has been given the Spirit.

Every one of us knows that our sins have been forgiven and our iniquities he'll remember no more. There is a real, tremendous work of God and God's name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of pulpits that preach salvation as though there was no power whatsoever.

And it is wrong. And it is the reason why we come under such scoffing. Sometimes I just want to stand up. I want to go to NBC, CBS, ABC and just say, listen, would you just sit down with me and a few small church pastors I know so we could explain to you what Christianity really is?

Because everything you're putting on this television in your interviews has nothing to do with the Christianity we know. And he says, now listen, he says, then I will sprinkle clean water on you and ye shall be clean.

Justification and Progressive Sanctification

Now Baptists, be careful here. Our Baptist theology many times are speaking about this with the pastor. We're reactionary. You can see that down through our history. We'll see someone run off over here with a false doctrine and instead of holding our ground just in Scripture, we'll run the other way so that we're not identified with them.

Many times we're reacting against the Roman church, if you can call it that, Catholicism. We have this idea of when he's going to sprinkle clean water on us and we shall be clean that he's just talking about justification.

He's just talking about our position and he's not talking about our lifestyle because we're not saved by our works and we go through all this thing because we do not want to be identified with people who talk about a work's salvation.

But my friend, when God cleans a person, He cleans a person. It is not only that I am justified before God because of the blood of Christ, but that same God who saved me and gave me a right relationship is also going to work to make me clean.

And he says, I will sprinkle clean water on you and you will be clean. So I'm about being raised as a farm boy and the one way you can tell about a farm boy, at least until he starts getting old enough to care about how he smells, is this.

He's got dirt everywhere. My mom used to say I could grow potatoes in those ears of yours. Every crease in your body has dirt because that's all you do. You're a dirt farmer. And I remember coming in one time about nine or ten years old and my mother said, take a bath.

I said, mom, I'm not going to take a bath tonight. I don't think I need one. And that was back in those days when it was legal to kill your children. But no one ever had to because the children knew that they would.

And my mom just looked at me and she said, you will take a bath. It was over. There was no argument. There was nothing. I was going to take. And when I was 16 and could wrestle a greased hog better than anybody else in the county, you will take a bath.

You took a bath. You just took a bath. There wasn't any bickering, fighting, even any question of what was going to go on in that house. You'll take a bath. And yet here we have this deity. I think one old prophet said one time, he goes, isn't it amazing?

Jesus Christ is the only Lord in the universe that can't make anyone do anything. So guarded about this free will silly notion that we have. Friend of mine was preaching. I don't want to run any rabbits, but a friend of mine was preaching a while back and I just loved it.

He's from Texas. Very straightforward. He goes, I am so sick and tired of all you people talking about Jesus Christ and this door at your heart and the doorknobs on the inside of your heart. And you're the only one who would open the door.

He said, let me tell you that Jesus owns the door. If he wants to, he'll kick it down. And it's the same way with cleansing. It's the same way with cleaning. Now, my mother would go in and she'd say, take a bath.

You took a bath, period. But sometimes you would take a bath where you just have enough water to smear the dirt around on your body. But my mother would come in there and my mother, she could haul hay better than any man.

And this is no exaggeration that my mother's hands were so calloused that she would put a washcloth between her hand and your body. Just because when we were little babies, just because her hands were so rough.

And if you went in there and you dabbed a little bit of water on you and you were just reeking still, the worst thing that could ever happen to you is my mother coming around that corner and looking into that bathtub.

Because my mother would grab a bar of soap and when she got a hold of you and you came out of there, it looked like the Shekinah Glory coming off of your skin. The skin you had left would shine like the noonday sun.

Because when my mother said, you will be clean, you will be clean. Well, I want to tell you something. God says, for my own sake, my own reputation, I am going to call forth a people from the dung heap.

And I am going to bring them to glory. And all along the process, I am going to zealously and jealously guard after them. What would you think if I was the pastor of this church? What would I do if I was the pastor of this church and I came home from a meeting one night really late, about 12 .30 in the morning, and I come across some corner of the city here and I see under a street light your 14-year-old daughter out there with a bunch of young men.

What am I going to do? Well, I'm going to stop my car and if I got a cell phone, I'm going to call you. If I don't, I'm going straight to your house. And I'm not going to have a problem with your daughter.

I'm going to have a problem with you, sir. I'm going to step you outside and I'm going to say, you're a derelict father. And yet I want you to know preachers all over this nation are making God out to be a derelict father.

He's got all these children that either he doesn't really care about or is not going to get involved with or he's just not. Well, he just can't violate their will. God can violate their will, but here's something else you need to understand.

If they're a true child of God, He's changed their will. And He's made it theirs. He's made it His. He's made it His. Now, then I will sprinkle clean water on you and ye shall be clean. Now, I want to say one other thing.

Sanctification as the Mark of True Conversion

In the South, there is so much romanticism, emotionalism, and everything else in the gospel that you can't even cut your way through. And so many people have this idea, I'm just an old chunk of coal, but I'm going to be a diamond someday.

And they have this idea that they're saved, they're not changed, they live their entire life in ungodliness, but boy, when they jump across Jordan, they're going to be perfected. That is not the New Testament teaching on sanctification.

The New Testament teaching on sanctification is that the moment He saves you, He is doing a work of sanctification, He is working that all the way through, and He is a tenacious God. Isn't it amazing that there are some, if we were to base our interpretation on most preaching today, we would have to say that there are some Christians that God is tenaciously involved in their lives so that if they do one tiny thing wrong, He comes down on them and captures them.

And yet there are other believers who can literally commit every immorality under the sun and God turns His head. My friend, that is not the New Testament. And if you're a Christian, God will jealously and zealously guard over you.

Now, He says this, and I will sprinkle clean water upon you and ye shall be clean. Now, this next part of this text applies in so many ways. It's so beautiful. It's a warning, yet it's an encouragement.

He says, ye shall be clean from all your filthiness and from all your idols will I cleanse you. I have been a Christian for 23 years. I have been preaching for 22 years. If I had to take a verse of Scripture out of the Bible and say, this is a summary of Paul Washer's life, it would be this.

For the last 23 years, God has been cleansing me from my filthiness and my idols. And if I live another 23 years or another 46 years, if I live to be a hundred and can stand in a pulpit and give a testimony, the testimony will be this.

God has been working all these years to cleanse me from my filthiness and my idols. You say, well, Brother Paul, yes, in justification. The moment I believed, I was justified and I stood before Him, not just forgiven, but clothed in the very righteousness of Christ.

But in sanctification, God has been just working and working and working to cleanse me from all my filthiness and all my idols. And throughout my days, that's what God will be doing. Is that a reality in your life?

Is that a reality in your life? Can you honestly look at your life and say that it is marked by this? A labor intensive, a work of God that He has been working in circumstances, He has been working in trials, He's been working in blessings.

You can look back through your life and see that what God has been doing is sanctifying you, cleansing you from your filthiness and your idols. You can say, oh, but He's got so much farther to go. We all know that.

That's not the point. The point is, from where you started to where you are today, is there just a long continuous view of God working in your life to cleanse you from your filthiness and your idols? Oh, my goodness, what a precious revelation that is.

If you can look back and say, I cannot escape this God. This God is constantly... I sometimes will hear people say, you know, it's unbelievable. I know one believer, he can commit immorality, he can do all sorts of things, it's not even a problem for him.

He goes, I tell one white lie and it's like God destroys my entire world. I say, praise God, behold the salvation of God. For it is the mark of one being lost under condemnation and the other one being saved unto eternal life.

Let me give you a wonderful passage. Jacob I loved, Esau I hated. Now, hated there in Hebrew is very important. You need to really understand the Hebrew to understand what it means, understand the context, understand what it means.

It means hatred. And if it meant anything, I suppose if it meant anything else, it would have translated something else. It means hatred. In the same way that he loved Jacob and his love was manifested toward Jacob, his hatred was manifested toward Esau.

That's all there is to it. Now, but when you look at Esau, this is an amazing thing. Every promise that God ever gave anyone about that man, God fulfilled. Not only that, but Esau was in a sense tremendously blessed by God.

He was so wealthy that when Jacob came back over into the land, he needed nothing from him. God had given everything he'd promised Abraham. God had done it all. God had done a tremendous work. The providence of God had fallen on favorable lines for Esau in a sense.

So how is it that God demonstrated hatred towards Esau and love towards Jacob in this? Never once in Scripture, never once, does God do a corrective work of discipline in Esau's life. God cut the rope and let Esau go.

God let Esau be Esau as long as he wanted to be. And then you look over at Jacob and as my mom would say, he beat the living daylights out of that boy every day of his life. And that is the difference between the love of God and the hatred of God.

The greatest manifestation of the love of God for the believer other than the cross of Jesus Christ is continuous, enduring, never give up work of sanctification. And the greatest mark of the judgment of God upon a person or a nation is when he cuts the rope and lets him go.

Trials, Discipline, and Conformity to Christ

And so I want you to just look. That is why I just can't understand people sometimes. You know, I preach on these things and they'll say, oh, you're stepping on my toes. And I preach on the same thing and another brother goes, says, I'm so happy I can't even see straight.

Because when you understand Scripture and you understand what God is doing and his goodness and the work of salvation, you glory in trials, you glory in difficulties, you glory in discipline. 43 years old, when I was 31 years old, 32 years old, both my hips were replaced.

This has been operated on several times. My elbow is going to have to be replaced. My back is really in trouble. I'm hurting right now. I've got this degenerative thing and it just, it hurts. And if Benny Hinn were to walk in the door right now and tell me, and for once spoke the truth that he really had a prophecy from God that God was going to heal me, I'm not so sure that I would want him to lay hands on me.

Because this thing has been used of God more than anything could have ever been used of God to cleanse me from at least some of this filthiness and some of these idols. Oh, what a perverted type of Christianity there is in America.

To the winds with health and wealth. I want godliness. I want to be like that old, old preacher who was B .B. Caldwell, one of those men, just stood there right before he died and he just goes, I... Sanctification to the point I can say with that old man that I can say with God, I hate sin and I love righteousness.

I want it. That is something I want to hell with everything else. And I mean that. Comes a time when you just got to cut all the frivolous stuff out and say, this is what God saved me for. Saved me for this.

No matter what it costs, He saved me for this. And we'd be like Him. Set that as your goal. You say, well, brother Paul, how does health, wealth and all these... Let me just share with you, clear it up for you really quick.

Here's how it all works. You just put it all in the context of God's great purpose for you and that is conformity to the image of Christ. And if through health, God can conform you in a greater way to Christ and get greater glory for Himself, He'll grant you health.

And if through grinding your body into powder, God can make you more like Christ and get more glory for Himself, He'll do it. Same way with wealth. Same way with anything. It is all in the context of this great purpose in the plan of God and that is to make every one of His children like His Son, who will not be ashamed to call them brothers.

So He says, I'll sprinkle clean water on you and you will be clean. He says, from all your filthiness and from all your idols now, I will cleanse you. And here's the promise in this. Especially for the young men here.

Personal Testimony of Cleansing from Sin

There are some sins that a moment you are converted, they're gone. I'll give you an example. I was a drinker. I had the foulest mouth you've ever heard in your life. The moment I was saved, it was gone.

It was gone. But prior to being saved also, I was one of the most vicious liars you could have ever imagined. I could lie so well that if my friends would have me go lie for them, one of them said one time, he says, Paul, you know, you are frightening.

He goes, I was sitting in that office. You were lying. I knew you were lying and I was believing you. And when I was saved, that didn't leave, did it? Oh, I couldn't get away with it anymore. But it didn't leave.

Not immediately. It was a thing that God, just like in the promised land, He took them out gradually. He takes some out immediately, some out gradually. Now, what's the point? The point is this. There is a difference between being sinless.

No one is sinless. But there are certain areas of our life where we walk in victory and other areas where we do not walk in victory and we call that besetting sin. Now, some believers, some believers, you've got a certain sin in your life, maybe, that you just sit there and you've basically done like Pavlov's dog.

You've just given up. Well, this is just going to be something I'm going to have to deal with all my life. This is just one area that just doesn't seem like it's going to change. That is a lie straight out of the pit of hell.

Why? Look at this promise. He says, from all your filthiness and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. How should you be praying? You've got a sin in your life. You just can't seem to get victory over it.

Pray this promise. Cleanse me from all my filthiness. Cleanse me from all my idols. Do whatever it takes, but hold on, because that is a very dangerous prayer. The one prayer I never would have prayed if I knew what it would have cost to pray was this, Lord, make me like Jesus.

The Cost of Praying to Be Like Jesus

But God withholds wisdom from young men so that they will pray that prayer. Because if they knew what they were praying, they would not have the courage to ask for it. I'll never forget when I was in Peru and it was before my operation on my hips and I'd come into the city of Lima.

I was hurting so bad. My last trip up into the mountains, I literally grabbed to hold the horn on the mule and let him just drag me up the mountain. And I was hurting so bad and I got into this pity party and I was laying on this couch there in the city of Lima and I came out on this platform, this kind of the top of a house.

You can walk on houses up there or down there. And I walked out and I said, Oh God, why? Why am I hurting so bad? You know, I need to go up in the mountains. I need to go down the rivers. I need to do this.

Why, why, why? And no, God did not speak to me, at least not in an audible voice. But I began to see all the times in college, all the times in seminary just started coming to mind when I was down on my knees with other friends or alone saying, Oh God, make me like Jesus.

And it was basically, Why am I doing this? Son, this is the very thing you asked me for. Now I can relent if you choose not this thing. I'll give you an open door. Just run through it, son. Never touch you again.

But if you'll submit to my hand, I'll do a work with you. Yes, when I found you, you were the worst. I'll do a work with you for that very reason. To get glory for myself. Now, what do you choose? So many people want to escape trials, escape hardship.

And what they are, is they are escaping conformity to Jesus Christ. There are two Russians that I heard speak and they were talking about, they had been in America for several months and they were just, they explained how terrified they were in America, of living here in America, how dangerous it was for their Christianity.

Worldly Comfort as a Danger to Christian Faithfulness

And I spoke to one of them, I said, I just don't understand. You know, you as young boys, witnessed the KGB coming into your church, knocking the door down, grabbing your pastor and cutting his tongue out of his head.

How can you tell me it's dangerous to live here? He said, there's no jacuzzis in Russia. There's no nice houses in Russia. There's no air conditioning in Russia. There aren't strip malls in Russia. There's no wealth, there's nothing to distract you.

He goes, here is the danger. You talk to a missionary living in a tent on the Amazon River and ask him if it's difficult to serve Jesus. No, he'll tell you when he lands in Miami is when the difficulty starts.

That's when the clouds start filling into your mind. When you sit down beside that young man, who's not any smarter than you, but he's making $250 ,000 a year and he's got the respect of everyone on the plane, they think you're an absolute fool.

You sit down beside him and watch your vision get cloudy. Oh, my dear friends, the things that we maybe love about this country, God hates. Oh, you can't get a meal like this in Burma. Oh, I tell you what, America's...

I've been overseas. I hear people say, America's like a place paved with gold compared to overseas. Well, it could be that very pavement of gold that's keeping us from being like Christ. I think they asked J .I. Packer one time, they said, who's the greatest preacher alive?

J .I. Packer said, you don't know him. His point was this, he's over in some squall somewhere overseas preaching to three people and more like Jesus Christ than we could ever imagine. So here's the thing, do you want to be cleansed from your filthiness and your idols?

Then ask it of God. But oh, don't think, my friend, he's going to send a video to your house on 10 steps on how to grow in sanctification. No, he's going to visit you. But it will be hard. It will be hard.

It will be hard. Is he really most precious to you? I now understand Abraham and Isaac and that sacrifice that was called to be given up on that mountain. If I lost my two boys that I love so much, if I lost them, would I be able to get down on my knees, raise my hands to heaven and worship God?

Would I be able to acknowledge that it was his sovereignty that ordained the loss? And then kiss his hand. God, the most precious. And is his working in my life the most precious? Or are there idols? Are there idols?

Regeneration and the New Heart

This is a wonderful text. And I, verse 26, a new heart also will I give you and a new spirit will I put within you. And I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh and I will give you a heart of flesh.

Now, there are two things that I will probably spend the rest of my life preaching on. People ask me about the book of Revelation. I know absolutely nothing about it. I'm about right at the same level with everybody who thinks they do know something about it.

If I could have a pulpit that would take in this entire nation, everyone were to listen to me. First of all, I would preach on the cross of Christ above all things, but it would be this. Not that we are saved from our sins because a Roman whip fell on the back of the Messiah.

But we are saved from our sins because the Messiah bore sin, became a curse, and His own Father crushed Him under His wrath. The real cross. And secondly, secondly, I would teach on this passage that regeneration is a supernatural work of God.

Whereby the very heart of a man is transformed. I want us to look at a few things here. He says a heart of stone and a heart of flesh. Usually, especially in the New Testament, when we come to this idea of flesh, it is always in the negative.

Always in the negative. But here, don't take it so. What is He speaking about? If I had a statue of stone here, of the mightiest man in this county. Statue of stone. I could walk up to that statue of stone, I could prod it, I could kick it, I could pinch it, I could cut it, I could stab it.

I could do any manner of things to that statue of stone. And how would it respond? Not at all. It's stone. It's inanimate. It can not respond. It is not a living thing. It doesn't matter what I do, it will not respond to divine stimuli.

Any type of stimuli. Now, imagine I had the biggest man on the face of the earth here, and I caught him under the tender part of his arm with two fingers like this, and I pinched with all my might. It doesn't matter how strong, how tough that man is, I'm going to get some response out of him.

Why? He's flesh. He's alive. And what is God saying? You're unregenerate, sinful man, the man who does not believe in Jesus, the average man in the pew on Sunday morning. It's not no Christ. His heart is a heart of stone.

It can not respond to anything. And it's going to take a lot more than some soupy story about his grandmother in heaven wanting him to be there also. It's going to take something more than that to make that man a child of God.

It is going to take a supernatural work of God's. Whereby that heart of stone is taken out, and a heart of flesh, a heart that can respond to divine stimuli is put in its place. That, my friend, is what it means to become, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation, a new creature.

Biblical Preaching and the Power of the Spirit

That is why preaching is pitiful. That when you're standing there preaching, you have no armament. You have nothing in your pockets. You have no tool, no device, no trick. You have nothing that can change a man's heart from stone to flesh except the promise of the Holy Spirit blessing biblical preaching.

And that the power of God for salvation is revealed in the message. Martin Lloyd-Jones one time, I remember reading the story, I can't remember it all, but he was on the platform and was to speak second with a man who had been converted, who was of mighty intellect.

He'd been a mighty man in the academic world and everything else, and now he'd been converted and he was going to speak. So he gets up and he speaks and he says, we need to reach academics who are lost with other academics.

We need to get the men in the university that are Christians, we need to get them together because they are the best men that God can use to reach other men like them. And his whole sermon was based on that.

When he finished Martin Lloyd-Jones, classical Martin Lloyd-Jones, he gets up and he goes, I appreciate everything the brother says, but he's wrong on every point. He said, Wesley could speak as eloquent and as well as any man.

He was high bred, went to the best university, and he preached to coal miners, street urchins, and God did a mighty work. Dwight L. Moody, that American, he doesn't even speak English well for an American.

God brought him over here and used him to save aristocrats and people of brilliance. Use the likely instrument. God will use the unlikely one to get glory for himself. See, if you're not pitiful, you can't preach.