Open your Bibles to the Book of Acts, chapter 17.
Book of Acts, chapter 17. Paul is on his second missionary
journey. He's in Macedonia, Greece, we
call it. Although the Macedonians, you
can't say that to a Macedonian, they go, no, I'm Macedonian and
there's the Greeks and it says verse one.
Now when they had passed through Amphibolos and Apollonia, that's
in central Macedonia and northern Greece, they came to
Thessalonica where there was a synagogue of the Jews
everywhere. There was more than 10 men, ten
families, they gathered together and it was their responsibility
then to build and form a synagogue.
So, as was Paul's custom, he heads to the synagogue.
Why then Paul, as his custom was, went into them and for
three Sabbaths reason with them from the scriptures explaining.
Scriptures need to be explained and demonstrating what that the
Christ Messiah had to suffer, rise again from the dead and
saying then OK, to be a Messiah. The Messiah according to the the
scriptures, the prophets, he would come, he would be cut off,
he would die, but then he would also rise again from the dead
and then stop. He says, okay, that's how you
identify the Messiah. Well, this Jesus who I preached
to you, he's the Christ, he's the Messiah.
He's the one you're looking for. Now remember he's in a
synagogue. They know the scriptures.
They know the scriptures off by heart and while he's in there,
all these scriptures, if the Holy Spirit is working upon
their hearts, that is, if their hearts and minds open to the
leading of God, what's happening is then all the domino pieces
begin to fall in place. They go, Oh yes, yes, and now I
see it. And some of them were persuaded,
and a great multitude of the devout Greeks, not a few of the
leading women, joined Paul and Silas.
Some said yes and a great multitude belief.
I find it fascinating. You know, today you go to
churches, they're always looking for the the next new thing.
You go to a Christian bookstore and this is the latest thing you
gotta read. But you know, when I read the
Bible, I don't see any of the latest thing.
I see the same same repetitive message from Christ.
Repent and believe, repent and believe.
And then when he died and rose again, all that his apostles did
was say Jesus died, he was the Messiah and he rose again.
Seen by 500 / 40 days and and then they would say the same
thing. I kind of wonder these days in
many churches if the gospel is not good enough.
I mean, we, we want more. No, you don't.
You want something to soothe the itch.
You want something to to play with.
Because when we get the gospel and we take it to heart, then we
live according to the gospel. We don't need any more.
It's like they did remember the the Jerusalem Council that we
dealt with back in Acts 15? They get yeah, yeah, that's all
good, this Jesus stuff. But you're going to be
circumcised and churches have this thing or you've got to be
baptised a certain way. I remember we did a baptism down
on the beach here and I remember someone running up and going,
oh, the person's elbow didn't go in under the water, the person's
elbowing. And they were very serious.
I'm thinking you're missing the point.
You're missing the point. Somewhere along the line, you're
missing the point. And so he was resurrected.
Jesus was crucified, resurrected.
Guess what? That covers everything.
An evil and adulterous generation.
Jesus said what seeks after a sign?
But there is one sign and then Jesus spoke of the prophet Jonah
being 3 days and three nights in the valley of a great fish.
Now it says, but the Jews who were not persuaded.
So here's the interesting thing and you and I see it today.
There are people hear the gospel and go, Nah, not interested, I
don't want it, I don't care. But the Jews who knew the
Scriptures, knew the scriptures, lived religiously, kept the
Sabbath, were not persuaded. And what happens?
And here's the fruit of a religious life.
They got jealous, it says. They became envious envious
because they saw the people going and turning to Christ,
though we're going to lose power and control over the group that
they previously had power over. And So what did they do?
They took some of the evil men. This is what the Bible says from
the marketplace and gathered a mob.
That's the we have it today. You're you're a professional
protest hires the antifa. You know, those that just have
and continue to be Greta Thunberg, they're paid by Iran.
They get, they get they don't work, they travel all over the
place. They get bused, they get their
signs made up. Here's a here's a free, you
know, keep forget the kiefar or whatever they call it, you know,
from the Palestinian movement, wrap that around you.
They don't buy any of that stuff.
They provided all that stuff. And here same thing happened
back here, a gathering mob set all the city in an uproar and
attacked the House of Jason. Now who's Jason?
Well, Jason's a Christian and Jason is, is part of the church
that's already there. And so they take their their
their malice out upon Jason sought to bring them out to the
people. But when they did not find them,
Paul and Silas aren't there. They're not at Jason's house.
So they grab old Jason. He's connected and some brethren
part of the church to the rulers of the city, crying out the
magistrates, those these who have turned the world upside
down have come here too. Now here's the deal.
The book, the book of Isaiah, the prophet Isaiah says in these
last days there'll be those who call evil good and those will
call good evil. And this is the same.
The church turns the world the right way up.
God gets our lives, which we are before Christ.
We are upside down. We're we're living for
ourselves. We're not serving God.
We're not interested in God. Here they accuse the Church of
turning their their world, how they wanted to live upside down.
Jason has harboured them, He's had them staying at his place.
And these are all acting contrary to the decrees of
Caesar. We heard those words before.
Remember this Jesus, he's making himself king.
That was the same. He said the devil never comes up
with anything new to attack us with.
It's the same old stuff, saying there is another king, his name
Jesus. And they troubled the crowd and
the rulers of the city when they heard these things.
So when they had taken security from Jason and the rest, they
let them go. In other words, Jason's on bail.
OK, here's the deal, Jason, as long as nothing goes wrong,
you're free. They've had to pay some money,
but if Paul and the others and you play up, your bail will be
forfeited and you'll end up in gaol.
Then the brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away by
night to Berea. When they arrived, they went
into the synagogue of the Jews. He is the same custom.
These were more fair minded then those in Thessalonica.
Why one in that they received the word with all readiness.
It's funny how people can come to church, sit there, be bored
out of their brains as the Bible is taught, and the person
sitting next to them or behind them or in front of them can go.
And God just spoke to me today and I was just so convicted and
it was wonderful what the scriptures, how they spoke to
me. In other words, I didn't get
anything, you see, and that's why the Bible says, pray that we
hear what the Spirit, he was wise.
Here's what the Spirit says, pray that our hearts are,
remember, there's four soils. Our hearts are soft, ready to
receive the word of God that it may bear fruit, that we're the
wise man who when he heard the word of God, obeyed, not the
foolish man who heard the word of God and build his house on
straw on sand. These were more fair minded than
those in Thessalonica in that they received the word with all
readiness and search the scripture just on Sundays, no
daily to find out whether these things were so.
Here's the deal. These were people of the Bible.
And so as Paul's teaching, they have their Bible open.
They're checking out everything that he's saying.
I often wonder about seeing churches where there's not a
Bible open on anyone's laps. And people just sitting there,
I'm thinking, you don't know whether you're getting fed
poison or whatever. You have no idea.
And here these people went, oh, well, that's, yeah, that's what
the Bible says. Yeah, that's what the Bible
says. Search the scriptures daily to
find out whether these things were so.
And thirdly, therefore many of them believed also, not a few of
the Greeks, prominent women as well as men, they searched the
Scriptures for these things. So they received the word gladly
and they believed now. But when the Jews from
Thessalonica learned here they Come, that the Word of God was
preached by Paul at Berea, they came there also.
And what stirred up the crowds then?
Immediately the brethren sent Paul away to go to the sea.
But both Silas and Timothy remained.
That's a bit of courage there by those two.
So those who conducted Paul brought him to Athens and
receiving a command from for Silas and Timothy to come to him
with all speed and they departed.
Good question. Why didn't Paul stay?
Paul, Silas, I mean, Silas stayed, Timothy stayed.
Because you see Paul's ministry, he would go, he would preach,
he'd plant a church. His job was done.
Then he would go off. Paul would preach, plant a
church. Silas and Timothy, their job now
was to equip and build up, encourage the church that Paul
had planted. Now, while Paul waited for them
at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him.
And that is Paul's spirit was grieved, man, every time I read
the paper and I read letters to the editor and I get the paper
every day. I don't know why I do, but I
read the letters to the editor and our country and the way
people's opinions are, it's we're so ungodly and so foolish.
It's terrible. Paul's spirit was provoked.
My spirit is provoked when I see our nation within him.
When he saw that the city was given over to idols, in other
words, they were swamped. There was an idol anywhere,
everywhere. Therefore, he reasoned in the
synagogue. Third time you've heard this,
isn't it? What's he doing?
He's in the synagogue and he's going, let's look at the
Scriptures now. He's only doing this in
synagogues because these are people of the Word.
The Jews are the people of the word with the Jews and then the
Gentile worshippers in the marketplace daily with those who
happened to be there. Then certain Epicurean and Stoic
philosophers encountered him that has confronted him, and
some said, what does this babbler want to say?
So Athens is filled with statues and we have these groups, two
groups of people, Epicureans. Who are they?
Followers of Epicurious, That's the fellow's name.
He lived 340 to 270 BC and Epicurious, his religion was
this. The chief end of man was
pleasure and happiness. It's called hedonism.
That is, you avoid excesses and you just live to please
yourself. You don't have a fear of death
because it's just life now. Eat, drink and be merry.
You seek to be free from pain. So anything that's confrontive
and I think that's painful, well, I'm not dealing with that.
I'm out of here. I'll I'll leave that, I'll walk
away. That by seeking tranquilly
sounds a lot like Buddhism where it's all about just seeking
tranquilly. A friend of mine who used to
surf with, he went to Queensland to become a Buddhist monk.
And while he was there, he said he was, he was starving, he was
ill. And he would sit in front of the
monk and the monk would slap him in the face, just slap him in
the face saying no, no, you're not thinking right.
You're not thinking. It's like you can't read my
mind. And he was so, so forlorn.
He thought Buddhism was, you know, the life of tranquilly,
you know, just here we are, just one with everything.
And he was walking out of the temple where he was staying down
the street and he came across a rubbish bin.
And he was going through the bin because he was starving.
And in the bin was a Jesus tract.
And he read the Jesus tract, gave his heart to the Christ.
And today he's a pastor in the church.
The Epicureans also said the gods, well, if they exist, they
got nothing to do with humanity. Bette Midler, remember, she
wrote that song, Sing it. It was a big hit from a
distance. God.
In other words, it's like, there you are, I'm watching you.
I don't have anything to do with you, but good luck.
That's the opposite. That's many of the gods that we
deal with. You know, the Stoics, the other
crew, they were like the Oxford and Cambridge crew.
They were followers of fellow called Zeno.
Zeno sounds like a magician. No, no, today we have folks, the
prophet, the magician Zeno, he lived from 3:20 to 2:50 and he,
they were pantheists. Now, what's a pantheist?
A pantheist sees God in everything.
That's a lot like Hinduism, pantheism.
There's a God in the in the elephants and the monkeys and
the rats, and they have a temple for the rats, a temple for the
monkeys, and they take their food there and give it to them.
They're just covering all bases. And their purpose in life was
just guided by history. It's a lot like why do you see
beggars in the streets of Calcutta and Mumbai and places
like that? People just carry on because
they go well, in the previous life that they lived, they lived
and now what's happening to them is a result of karma of how
they're living now. So we don't touch and have
anything to do with them because they're getting what they
deserve. So that's why people just ignore
beggars, etcetera. Where Mother Teresa came in and
began to look after these people, bringing the Christian
faith to them. So the Stoics were full pride,
self sufficiency. So he's dealing with these two
groups. So this is the the those that
confronted Paul. Some said, what does this
babbler want to say? Other said he seems to be a
proclaimer of foreign gods. You can just imagine, because he
preached to them. What did he preach here again?
Jesus in the resurrection. Paul didn't come up with
something new. Hey, folks, didn't work down
there. I want to tell you about
something else. Something woo, something cool,
something will get you excited. You know, Jesus in the
resurrection. You see, if the gospel is not
good enough, then you can't get saved.
Nothing's good enough. And they took him and brought
him to the Aeragopias or Arapaegus.
That's simply means a Rocky Hill and the Rocky Hill of Paris, who
was the God of War. The Romans used to call him
Mars. It was 370 foot high.
May we know what this new doctrine, this new teaching is
of which you speak? For you are bringing some
strange things to our ears before we want to know what
these things mean. For all the Athenians and the
foreigners who were there spent their time in nothing else but
either to tell or hear some new thing.
Pontification. Well, you know, I've read
through the Scriptures and I have a view, my view on the book
of Moses and not my view on the resurrection and my view and all
that's interesting. So let me share you what my view
is. It's nonsense.
Nonsense. Then Paul stood in the midst of
the Arabocus and said, men of Athens, I perceive that in all
things you are very religious. Now, this wasn't a compliment.
He was saying, man, you're religious in a bad way.
You, you, you, you just got every, you're, you're confused
about everything. For as I was passing through and
considering considering the objects of your worship, the
idols that you worship, I even found an altar with this
inscription to the unknown God. Well, we just in case we got all
our bets covered, you know, the unknown God.
Now Athens as a says and I, I've been to Athens and I went
through the museum just down from the Parthenonism.
Now figure what they call it up on the on the top of the hill
there in Athens and it's revolting Athens and the Greek
culture was as immoral as you can get, just wicked.
Now they have statues to all the gods. 600 years before Paul
arrived in Athens, a plague hit the city.
And a fellow called Epimendes, not Mexican, he's Greek.
To try and stop the plague, he said bring a flock of sheep.
And they ran them through Athens.
And wherever that a sheep would lay down and rest, they then
would sacrifice that sheep to the God that had the nearest
shrine or temple. Oh yeah, that would to him.
This one. I used to that one, even to the
unknown God. They just covered everything.
And so Paul says, do you even have one to the unknown God?
Now we have another one of Paul's sermons.
But notice this, Paul doesn't go back to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob,
because he's dealing with people who have no knowledge of the
Scriptures. So what does he do?
Again, like you and I can do, and in Australia, you know,
previously we could probably talk to people about Jesus.
I remember talking to people about Jesus Christ that at the
football club that I am the chaplain at, and some had never
even heard of him, never even heard of him.
And so Paul says, therefore, the one whom you worship without
knowing him, that's the one I want to talk to you about.
He's the God who made the world. What's that?
Genesis 11 In the beginning, God, God created heavens and the
earth. I want to talk to you about the
God who created everything, including you.
Notice where Paul's coming from to these people.
He's the Lord of heavens and Lord of earth, and everything in
it He created. Since He is Lord of heaven and
earth, He does not dwell in temples made with hands.
He's not a God that sits in the temple.
You can go out and worship Him. You can't make one of him
because He made the world. You can't contain him.
Nor is he worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed
anything. God doesn't need anything since
He gives to all life, breath and all things again, Paul's
drilling down, He says you only breathe.
You're alive today because of him.
He created you and he keeps you living and he has made from one
blood. And notice this what he's going
to talk about every nation of men to dwell on all the face of
the earth and that's determined their pre appointed times and
the boundaries of their dwellings.
He says God created man and the first man was Adam.
We all come from him. Do you know that you come from
Adam every time you bag Adam, just think you're talking about
great, great, great, great great grandfather giving him a hard
time. But also we all come from
because after the flood, who do we come from Noah?
So we're all related to great, great, great, great grandfather
Noah, so that they should seek the Lord.
God has placed with all of us an ache, a desire to seek the Lord.
Romans chapter 1 and 2, Paul deals with what you do with that
is how you try and fill it. Some people fill it with
alcohol, some people fill it with drugs, some people fill it
with immorality. But there's only one person that
can fill the the void that God made you to.
He made you to seek the Lord in the hope that they might grope
for him and find Him. Though He is not far from each
one of us now. Why?
Because in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some
of your own poets have said. For we are also his off
offspring. In other words, God controls
everything. This God controls everything.
He's the one that guides your your everyday.
He's the one in charge of your life.
Now notice OK, when you see it, therefore you ask, what's it
there for? You go back.
Therefore, since he's the Creator, he created you, made
you. Since we are the offspring of
God, we ought not to think that the divine nature is like gold
or silver or stone. In other words, that the thing
of God, the the, the character of God, is something that you
can make bashed together, something shaped by art and
man's dividing. No God's outside of that.
Truly these times of ignorance, that's man's sin God overlooked.
Now we can stop there and go, well, how come you know, the
kids the other day at the youth said, why didn't God just kill
all the evil people? Why doesn't he just get rid of
all the evil people? It was interesting that
statement and I said, well, OK, we're all dead then because the
Bible says there is none righteous.
No, not one. We're all sinners who fall short
of the glory of God. So God has allowed man to go on.
Then God sent His Son. Why?
To save us from ourselves. So truly these times of
ignorance God overlooked. But now and that's today.
He commands, He doesn't suggest, all men everywhere.
Notice. Isn't this the very same old
message? You know, we should hear about
repentance every Sunday, probably every time you want to
talk to someone about leading them to Christ.
You can't lead someone to Christ, you can't have them come
to Christ unless there is repentance.
You can't get saved on your wrist unless you you say
yourself I need saving, I'm a Sinner.
You're going to realise that first.
And so he says everywhere, men, all men everywhere.
And that covers everyone, doesn't it, to repent because,
and he's the reason that we need to do that now, because God the
Creator, he has appointed a day in which he will judge the world
in righteousness. How is God the Father going to
judge, bring judgement upon this world By the man capital M
Jesus, whom he has ordained, selected, appointed.
So Jesus Christ is going to either be to every man, woman,
boy or girl in this world. He's either going to be your
Saviour or he's going to be your judge.
You'll all see Jesus. The book of Hebrews says 927 is
appointed men once to die and then what?
Judgement. And this is what people, this is
what? I cannot fathom why churches are
so weak today. We don't realise we've escaped
judgement. It's not like it's all good now
you know we're good. We escaped judgement, eternal
damnation, eternal separation from God.
And because what's happened in churches today is there is No
Fear of God. There is no awe or reverence of
the God who created everything. People call him the man
upstairs, the big guy or something like that.
Churches do that. But I tell you, we are moving
towards the time when as the church is taken and everyone
that's left, the judgements of God begin to be poured out upon
the earth. In Revelation chapter 6, the
people run into caves and ask for the rocks to cover them.
From the judgement of the Son of God, it says whom he has, He has
given assurance of this to all by raising him from the dead.
In other words, yes, Jesus saved us, but you know what?
You know how true judgement is going to come, that the
tribulation is going to come and that will all stand before God.
You can tell because Paul says because Jesus rose from the
dead, it's happening. This is what's going to happen,
the resurrection. Paul doesn't give a soft gospel.
He's not there to make friends and you know he's there to give
them the gospel. You got to repent.
You worship all these statues and these idols, they do you no
good. The unknown God, you've ignored
him. And he sent his Son Jesus.
He rose from the dead, and unless you receive him, you'll
be judged by him. Jesus is the judge now.
And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, OK,
here's the one sign. Some mocked, you're kidding
someone back from the dead. What a joke.
While others said we will hear you again on this matter.
So Paul departed from among them.
However, some men joined him and believed.
Among them, Dionysies, the our Apagite, a woman named Damaris
and others with them. Here's the deal, I one of the
most frustrating things about being a pastor of church is
preaching to a brick wall or is seeing people.
You know, they're living, they're coming to church, but
they're living ungodly lives. You just know you don't have to
be Sherlock Holmes. And here's here's the thing.
We wish that everyone would get saved.
Our desire has all come to Christ.
But you know, we have this free will choice.
Some said, yeah, that's a lot of rubbish.
We've heard that. Some said, yeah, let's talk
about this a little bit more. And others said I'm on to this.
You know, the neat thing about each one of you here tonight is
that somehow God has enabled us and allowed us to be called, and
by His grace we've received Christ and we've been saved.
You sit here tonight, those watching at home who have
received Christ. You've moved from judgement.
You've moved to blessing and it's by the grace of God, it's
by you going simply. I accept your forgiveness.
I accept your Son Jesus, and he died for me on the cross.
I repented. He died for me on the cross.
He rose again on the third day. And I believe he's coming back,
not to judge me, but to Take Me Out.