Proclaim Christ | Acts Chapter 17 | Pastor Keith

Open your Bibles to the Book of Acts, chapter 17.

Acts 17 · chapter mention

Book of Acts, chapter 17. Paul is on his second missionary

Acts 17 · chapter mention

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

Romans 1 · chapter mention

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

Revelation 6 · chapter mention

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.