This is Living Waters of Grace, the teaching ministry of Clark
Wofford, senior pastor of Calvary Chapel of Westmoreland,
County of Greensburg, PA. Now here's Pastor Clark as he
continues teaching through God's Word.
The Bible tells us faith comes by hearing and hearing by the
word of God. Even today, despite listening,
Holy Spirit will increase your faith because the power of of
faith comes from the word of God.
And so this group of people in Berea are just amazing and
fascinating people. Therefore many of them believed.
Why did they believe? Were they found in the
Scriptures that the things he was teaching were true?
That's why they were able to have the confidence to believe
in what it was they were hearing and what was being taught.
What are the most important things to bring when you visit a
new place? Well, a map should be close to
the top of your list. Whether you're in a new city or
exploring a National Park, having a map or a compass is a
good way to make sure you can find your way when your
surroundings become unfamiliar. Today, Pastor Clark reminds you
that God's Word is the map you need to find your way through
life. And becoming intimately familiar
with that map will help you grow your faith in the Lord.
Now here's Pastor Clark in the book of Acts Chapter 17 with
today's edition of Living Waters of Grace.
Jason is being accused here as harboring them or giving them a
safe place to be, and these are all acting contrary to the
decrees of Caesar. So they're basically saying that
Paul and Silas are causing a rebellion against Caesar as a
king, and that was never the case.
Jesus was accused of causing problems in the political arena.
Jesus could care less about the political arena, he said.
My Kingdom isn't of this world. Politics isn't what gets the
Kingdom established here in the earth.
Jesus Christ is the only one that can establish the Kingdom,
and the Kingdom isn't of this world.
It's not of America or Russia or China or Saudi Arabia or the
Mideast or Africa or whatever. It's a supernatural Kingdom that
Christ is going to bring forth when he returns again.
And that's what our eyes need to be on, not what happens 2 years
from now in Washington. Now I have my desires and you do
too. But whether they come to pass or
not is immaterial to the Kingdom of God.
Because Christ said He will build His church and the gates
of hell will not prevail against it.
His church isn't dependent upon Republicans or Democrats or
communists or socialists. His Kingdom is rooted in
supernatural power. He said His Kingdom will come
and when his Kingdom comes, it'll last forever.
There will be no war, no nation, no person, no leader that can
tear or destroy or circumvent the Kingdom of God.
And so all this upheaval that's happening throughout the ages in
the book of the Acts to the day that we live now, people are
paranoid about people like us that have a stand for the Lord
Jesus. And so they were saying that
there's another King Jesus. Well, yeah, King Jesus, he is
the King of kings and the Lord of Lords.
He's been that before the foundation of the earth.
And that's his throne. And he's on the throne in spite
of what we see happening in this world today.
His will will be done as it is in heaven.
It will be done on earth. He promises that in his prayer,
the Lord's Prayer. And so they're having to listen
to this nonsense of this crowd, these authorities at the time
and these comments that are being made.
And as they're saying this, it says in verse 8, and they
troubled the crowd and the rulers of this city when they
heard these things. So they're really getting
uptight. We got a problem here.
There's an insurrection going on there.
They want to bring down Caesar and they're thinking mentally,
if Caesar is diminished in the eyes of the city of
Thessalonica, they'll lose all the benefits of being part of
the Roman Empire. It was all self-serving
politics. So when they then took security
from Jason and the rest, they let them go.
So the whole deal was Jason had to give them a certain amount of
money, promising them that he would get Paul and Silas out of
the community and then he get his money back.
So verse 10. Then the brethren immediately
sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea.
So I don't want to lose any money here.
Paul and Silas, you know you, I mean, we're glad you're here,
but you're probably better off going on down the road now,
going somewhere else. So when they arrived, they went
into the synagogue of the Jews and now they're in this place
called Berea, this other city, these people in Berea it says in
verse 11, very powerful. A comment made about these
people, may it be said of us, these were more fair minded than
those in Thessalonica and that they received the word with all
readiness and search the Scriptures daily to find out
whether these things were so. We need to be Bereans.
I'm thankful for the focus that Calvary Chapel has around the
world and their churches to go through the Bible
systematically, verse by verse, line upon line, precept upon
precept. I don't have the right or the
privilege to make it up as I go or to go somewhere that the
Bible doesn't tell us to go. You know, we're locked into a
responsibility as teachers to teach the whole council of God.
And the privilege of being able to do that is we learn things
like we're learning today. And I hate to say it, but in
most churches a day you will not hear this kind of teaching. 30
years ago, a lot of the Bible churches taught this way.
Nowadays there's less and less. It says in the last days there
will be a famine for the word of God.
Men will be lovers in themselves rather than lovers of God and
it'll be hard to find places that teach sound doctrine.
And so these Bereans were already developed by the power
of God to does not take anything they heard lightly and say,
well, this guy taught this. He seems to know the Bible.
So I guess it's true. You have to know the Bible like
I'm responsible to know the Bible.
All of you guys are responsible to know the Scriptures so that
when you're listening, if something's going the wrong way,
you're going to know right away it's going the wrong way.
It's going to convict you, it's going sideways, it's not true.
And you're going to hold the teacher accountable to something
that they taught that isn't founded in the scriptures.
It's fascinating. And in Second Timothy chapter 1,
he talks about this importance of preaching of, of the word of
God and of sound doctrine. It's important to not make it
up. It's important to, to stay with
the truth. You know, whenever we don't stay
with the truth, we're going to, we're going to be in falsehood.
You know, Second Timothy 113 hold fast the form of sound
words which thou has heard from me in faith and love, which is
in Christ Jesus. That's being spoken to Timothy
and the church. And this is your responsibility
as well as mine to hold fast to the form of sound doctrine.
And so as we're studying this, these Bereans understand the
importance of sound doctrines. They're searching.
They're just not listening. They have the ability to read
these manuscripts or how the scrolls, whatever they had at
the time. He's talking about Isaiah.
What did Isaiah really say in chapter 53?
I want to see it for myself and they probably found it and
underlined it or whatever memorized it to find out whether
these things were so it's really important for you and I to know
that these things are so the Bible tells us faith comes by
hearing and hearing by the word of God.
Even today, just by listening, Holy Spirit will increase your
faith because the power of of faith comes from the word of
God. And so this group of people in
Berea are just amazing and fascinating people.
Therefore many of them believed. Why did they believe?
Were they found in the Scriptures that the things he
was teaching were true? That's why they were able to
have the confidence to believe in what it was they were hearing
and what was being taught. Therefore, many of them believed
and also not a few of the Greeks, prominent women as well
as men. So again, a move of God and
people getting saved, women in the synagogue and influential
women. We're also coming to faith in
Jesus Christ. Verse 13, the troublemakers
again. But when the Jews from
Thessalonica learned that the word of God was preached by Paul
at Berea, they came there also and stirred up the crowd.
So there's this group of people. We're going to shut these people
down. Let's let's inflamed these
troublemakers and pay them money to cause anarchy in the street
so that we can dissipate this energy of this movement.
Then immediately the brethren sent Paul away to go to the sea.
So they've learned enough now that every time this crowd
comes, get out of town and this goes somewhere else.
And I believe this is one of the ways the Holy Spirit stirred
Paul's heart continually to go to the regions beyond.
He never wanted to build upon another man's foundation.
He never got like, hey, I'm comfortable here.
He was an apostle, a church planner.
He wasn't called to be in one place his whole life.
He was itinerant. He was a tent maker.
He made his living by making tents.
And in the interesting, in this particular chapter, you'll find
when you study Philippians of the Philippian believers
provided revenue or financial support so that Paul and Silas
had the ability to really concentrate on the ministry that
they were doing in these missionary journeys.
So they send Paul away to go to the sea, but both Silas and
Timothy remained there. So those who conducted Paul
brought him to Athens. So now he's going to Athens.
Exciting place and receiving a command for Silas and Timothy to
come to him with all speed. They departed.
So Silas and Timothy are hanging out in these places to help
these new churches develop for a while.
They'll eventually catch up with Paul, but Paul now is going on
his own to Athens now. Athens, Greece back then as
today, is a incredible city. It's a city of influence.
It's a city of intellectualism. It's a city of philosophy.
This is a place of Socrates and Plato, these philosophers,
Aristotle. This is what caused people to
think about a lot of things in life.
And whether they were true or false, they were, their minds
were stimulated by the the brilliant people that lived
there. It was a city of idolatry.
To this day, there's the Parthenon and the Acropolis and,
and all these kind of places that you can go and actually see
these buildings that have stood the test of time throughout the
centuries of history of some idol and just every street
corner but a memorial to some God or goddess who lived at one
time that the people were influenced to worship Pagan
idolatry. And so Paul, he's, he's here in
Athens now. Verse 16.
Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was
provoked within him when he saw that the city was given over to
idols. So he's there like a Taurus
maybe initially, but he knows why he's really there.
He's fascinated by what he sees, but he's like, I can't believe
that these people are so deluded into worshipping all these false
gods. These beautiful buildings
they've built. They're void of truth.
They're void of God. There's no evidence of Christ
anywhere here. He sees and he saw that the city
was given over to idols. That broke his heart.
He wasn't judging them. He was like, these people are
messed up and they need to hear the truth.
Therefore, verse 17, he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews
and with the Gentile worshippers.
So again he has this privilege and this opportunity to go into
the synagogue and get some things going.
He also has this opportunity to deal with the Gentile
worshippers. So you had Jews and Gentiles in
the synagogue and and it says he didn't end there.
And then the marketplace daily with those who happen to be
there. That's interesting.
St. Ministry, how do you do that
Nowadays? Anytime I see St.
Ministry, it's never real attractive because it's some
wacko out there with signs saying God hates fags or he
hates this and you're all going to hell.
And it's not like endearing. I go to State College lots of
times on business, and there's the Willard preacher there who's
very gracious and how he stands outside the science building and
tries a dialogue with people about spirituality and that kind
of stuff to build a bridge to be able to have a conversation with
someone who's reasoning out of philosophy versus the truth of
the gospel. But sometimes you'll see people
out there screaming with a microphone telling all the Penn
State students that they're on their way to hell.
You know, that's not the way. I think you start with the
communication of the gospel. I think you best start with
God's love, because that's what softens the heart.
A God who's going to send me to hell.
I don't want to even know who he is, right?
Because I don't even think he loves me.
And when you tell people first about the love of God and what
he did for them, then all of a sudden the message of the need
for repentance to be saved from hell begins to sink in and make
good common sense. So as they're preaching here,
these other philosophers, verse 18, certain Epicurean and Stoic
philosophers encountered him. Some said, what does this
babbler want to say? The Epicureans were developed
about 300 years before this incident took place.
They were the people that believed in the good life, the
best wine, the best food, the best entertainment, the best
buildings and property, the ability to have, you know, the
best sensuality or whatever sin they might be able to experience
in their flesh and their body. It was all reasoned on.
This is how we're to live and enjoy all this good stuff.
They didn't want to deal with any negativity, nothing.
It was painful. Anything that had to do with
suffering. Their whole focus was your best
life now, right? You know, someone that proclaims
that the best life now that's Epicureanism, multimillion
dollar mansion, expensive jets, the best clothing, one of the
most influential churches in our country today.
And it's all rooted in Epicurean spirituality.
It's it's sad, it's tragic. And then the Stoics or the other
group where they were like real hard nosed kind of people.
They believed in this idea that God was in everything and good
and bad and evil whatever, and different, and they didn't want
to participate in life like these Epicurean kind of people.
Both of these philosophies are very warped and distorted, but
they had their followers at the time, and so they're calling
Paul a babbler now in that community.
At the time, this was known to discuss heady spirituality, new,
new stuff. So when someone came into the
community, they would go up on Mars Hill and they had the Agora
marketplace on the bottom. And as you went up, there was
these rocks these brains would sit on and they would talk until
midnight, I'm sure about their philosophy of what they think
truth is. And up on the top was a
Parthenon. It was very influential in the
in the wisdom of of Greek mythology, whatever.
And so they're here to have a conversation with him, with
Paul. Others said this is about Paul.
He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign gods because he preached
to them Jesus in the resurrection.
They never heard anything like this before.
And so they took him in verse 19 and brought him to the Areopagus
saying, may we know what this new doctrine is of which you
speak for you're bringing some strange things to our ears.
So they're, they're sort of inquisitive here.
Therefore we want to know what these things mean for all the
Athenians. Verse 21 And the foreigners who
were there spent their time and nothing else but either to tell
or to hear some new things. So this was a cool place to go
to. You got an idea of philosophy, a
new religion, a cult, a false teaching.
They're all weird. They want to hear what you have
to say. This because it fascinated them.
So he goes up there and addresses them in verse 22.
Then Paul stood in the midst of the Aeropagus and said, men of
Athens, I perceive that on all things you're very religious.
So he starts with a compliment. He doesn't condemn them about
their idolatry and put them all down.
He's saying, like you guys seem to be involved in spiritual
things, that in all things you're very religious.
That probably puffed them up a little bit.
Well, this guy's pretty cool. He thinks highly of us.
Yeah, we, we got our act together here, for as I was
passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I
even found an altar with this inscription to the unknown God.
Very intriguing way of dialoguing with people about
their need of Christ. Try to find common ground with
someone when you're talking with them to see if there's any
ground that you can have to have a conversation about the gospel.
If there's not a foundation of some kind of place of ground
that you can communicate, you're not going to get too far with
people. But if you're able to listen and
thank and ask God for wisdom to, to get into their minds and
their hearts a little bit, the Lord will show you how.
And Paul is an ultimate specialist in this kind of
communication. Of course, he's gifted and he's
apostle and the Holy Spirit's in him and all through him and on
upon him. But nonetheless, he says God who
made the world and everything in it, since he is Lord of heaven
and earth does not dwell in temples made with hands.
So right away these people have these facilities, these
structures that, you know, convey spiritual atmosphere.
You go in and you can say, oh, this is so beautiful.
The gold, the silver, the the artwork, whatever.
This is like really special here, very majestical, whatever.
And maybe that made them feel like there was some sense of a
God that was in the building. And then Paul gradually begins
to explain to them that this Lord of heaven, this Creator
does not dwell in temples made with hands.
Now, how many people in our culture today think that God's
only in the in the house? We come here.
This is where God is. When we leave, he's not here
anymore. I mean, he's not with us
anymore. He's at the house, nor is he
worshiped with man's hands. So they make all this great
stuff. And I'm not putting down, you
know, artwork or beautiful structures and that kind of
stuff. He's educating them here that
that God doesn't get excited about everything you built or
made or spent to give people this atmosphere of worship as
though he needed anything. God doesn't need anything.
We can be out on the hillside, we can be out in the
countryside, we can be at the ocean, we can be in the woods,
whatever. You can worship God really
anywhere. If you know who God is, you're
going to be able to worship anywhere.
The benefit of the church is we get to worship God together,
which we're called not to forsake the assembling of
ourselves together as a man or some, but exhort one another so
much more as we see today approaching.
So we get together and we encourage each other through the
Word and worship and praise, but God doesn't need anything.
We're providing for Him in the sense of our human ability.
It's all what He's given to us. And so the most you can give God
in a way that would honor Him is to be thankful and to follow the
truth of His Word. It says He gives to all life,
breath and all things. It's like you might want to
underline that in your Bible. He gives to all life, breath and
all things and he has made from one blood every nation of men to
dwell on the face of the earth and is determined to purported
times and the boundaries of their dwelling.
So the sovereignty of God, evidence in these scriptures.
God created us from one blood. We're all descendants of Adam,
every nation, doesn't matter what color of skin or what
ethnic background or what culture people have been from.
We all come from this one God, one blood, every nation of men
to dwell on all the face of the earth.
God knows the time that you and I have.
He knows before we get here and He knows the time and when we're
going to go. So he says in verse 27, so that
they should seek the Lord and hope that they might grow for
him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.
And that's the picture of of someone in darkness.
It's, it's tragic. Where's the answer to life?
I'm feeling here, I'm touching this, I'm experiencing that, I'm
trying this. I still can't find an answer.
People grope. People groped all day long, all
night long, bottles of alcohol by the bed.
They're trying to find an answer to life.
They're depressed. People take their lives because
they're groping. They can't find the truth.
Jesus is the truth, He's the way, He's the life, and the only
way they're going to know is by you and I and people like Paul
and Silas and Timothy telling these people the gospel so they
don't have to grope anymore. They can find the Lord because
faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
We're so glad you joined us today on this edition of Living
Waters of Grace. Pastor Clark is teaching through
the Book of Acts, which is the only book that chronicles the
history of the early church immediately after Jesus
ascension. It gives us a front row seat to
how the Gospel began to move outwards, starting in Jerusalem
and reaching into the heart of the Roman Empire.
In just three decades, a small group of frightened ordinary
believers became a bold, spirit empowered movement that
transformed the known world. Acts is not just a history
lesson. It's a reminder of what God can
do when His people are surrendered, obedient, and
filled with the Holy Spirit. Their perseverance still
inspires us today. May we follow their example and
live faithfully for Christ in our own time.
We hope today's message encouraged you.
Living Waters of Grace is a ministry of Calvary Chapel,
Westmoreland. If you're in the Greensburg, PA
area, we'd love to have you join us in person.
Our Sunday service begins at 10:30 AM at 400 E Pittsburgh St.
Unit 6B. Be sure to visit
calvarychapelonline.com to confirm times and learn more.
If you are in the Greensburg area, you can listen to Grace FM
on the new 91.7 frequency. Please pray about supporting
this outreach. Gifts can be sent to Grace FMPO,
Box 716, Greensburg, PA 15601. Stay connected through Facebook,
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Join our e-mail list, submit prayer requests, and give online
all at calvarychapelonline.com. Thank you for tuning in and
spending this time in God's Word.
Be sure to join us again for Living Waters of Grace.