ACTS "A Tale of Three Cities"- Acts 17 - Part 2

Brett Meador: How many of you, when you first heard the gospel the first time, just quickly and just believed and accepted Christ? How many of you heard the gospel, but it took quite a while before you finally softened up and you finally accepted the Lord? It took a long time. But can I just say, if you're preaching the gospel to your friends, don't be shocked when people don't accept Christ?
Guest (Male): Pastor Brett Meador says God's plan of salvation includes His perfect timing. Don't give up and don't be weary in preaching the good news of the gospel, because eventually that seed might take root in the heart of those that are listening. Paul's second missionary journey continues in Acts chapter 17, as he visited three cities with three radically different responses to the gospel. As Pastor Brett Meador observes in today's word, how the people of Thessalonica, Berea, and Athens reacted, we learn how to share the word effectively and why we should never give up on those who initially reject the gospel.
Brett Meador: We looked at chapter 16 of Acts and we've begun Paul's second missionary journey. This time without Barnabas, but Paul and Silas, and then Luke and Timothy are going to join them along the way. We have three cities here in Acts chapter 17 that they're going to visit, and really it's a tale of three cities. One of the things that I want you to notice is the different responses to the gospel of Jesus Christ that Paul and Silas would see. It was very different from one city to another. This is where we pick it up in chapter 17, verse one. It says, "Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where was a synagogue of the Jews: And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three sabbath days reasoned with them out of the scriptures." I love how he opens the word of God. That was Paul's emphasis, always out of the scriptures, it says. Verse three: "Opening and alleging, that Christ must needs have suffered, and risen again from the dead; and that this Jesus, whom I preach unto you, is Christ. And some of them believed, and consorted with Paul and Silas; and of the devout Greeks a great multitude, and of the chief women not a few. But the Jews which believed not, moved with envy, took unto them certain lewd fellows of the baser sort, and gathered a company, and set all the city on an uproar, and assaulted the house of Jason, and sought to bring them out to the people." "And when they found them not, they drew Jason and certain brethren unto the rulers of the city, crying, These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also; Whom Jason hath received: and these all do contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, one Jesus. And they troubled the people and the rulers of the city, when they heard these things. And when they had taken security of Jason, and of the other, they let them go." Here we have the response of the Jews in Thessalonica, and the Jews soundly rejected and resisted the good news of the gospel message, the scriptures that Paul opened. Now, some of the Gentiles, almost wherever Paul goes, the Gentiles are going to receive the good news. But it's the Jews that really resist. In fact, that's the first city that we're going to put on our three-point teaching today of chapter 17. Thessalonica, we're going to call that the city that resisted the word. Paul and Silas were staying with this guy at his house, his name was Jason, and they came and arrested Jason and threw him in jail. At the end, it says they had taken security of Jason; that means they paid his bail and they let him go. But the city's in an uproar and they don't want to hear it. This reasoning from the scripture that Paul's doing in the synagogue is the way to go. If you're going to preach the gospel, use the scripture. Don't just use your own logic or your own knowledge, but lean on the word of God. I'll tell you why, because the Bible is powerful. Hebrews 4:12, "The word of God is living, and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword." There's actually a supernatural power behind the word. That's why when you're preaching, teaching, or sharing, use the scriptures. That's where the power is. What was Paul reasoning with them about? Verse three says he opened and alleged that Christ must needs have suffered and risen from the dead and that Jesus Christ, whom I preach to you, is the Christ. The word alleging there that Paul employs, our word allege in modern English means you're making a claim, but it may or may not be true. The Old English word has nothing to do with that. The King James uses alleging. The word for alleging in the original Greek is this word paratithēmi, which means to set food out on a table and make a presentation. It's like when you lay out a beautiful meal and you want to present it beautifully. That's what Paul's doing. He's laying out the gospel of Jesus Christ, that He is the Messiah. In doing that, some of the Gentiles get saved, but the Jews resist. That's why we see this as the city that largely resisted the word with the Jewish population. That's the first city, Thessalonica, the city that resisted the word. But then he's going to go from Thessalonica to 35 miles away to a little town called Berea. Paul and Silas are getting out of town or getting out of Thessalonica because it's a riot. They go over to Berea, and that's our second city. Verse 10 says, "And the brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night," because of the rioting, they had to sneak out, "unto Berea: who coming thither went into the synagogue of the Jews." Just like he did at Thessalonica. "These," the Bereans, "were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so. Therefore many of them believed; also of honourable women which were Greeks, and of men, not a few." In Berea, he gets a much different reception. We're going to call Berea point number two today. While the Thessalonians resisted the word, the Bereans were the city that received the word. Don't you love that? I love the word that's used there, and they received the word, verse 11, with readiness of mind. I love that. So that's Berea, city number two. Let's read verse 13. "But when the Jews of Thessalonica," the ones that all started the riots in Thessalonica, "had knowledge that the word of God was preached of Paul at Berea, they came thither also, and stirred up the people" there. Verse 14, "And then immediately the brethren sent away Paul to go as it were to the sea: but Silas and Timotheus abode there still. And they that conducted Paul brought him unto Athens." Silas and Timothy are coming a little later, but he makes the big trip down to Athens. Athens is an amazing place. You need to understand, this is not like the other cities. Athens was the Hellenistic epicenter of academia and philosophy and thinkers. Verse 16: "Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was stirred in him, when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry. Therefore disputed he in the synagogue with the Jews, and with the devout persons, and in the market daily with them that met him." Verse 18: "Then certain philosophers of the Epicureans, and of the Stoics, encountered him. And some said, What will this babbler say? other some, He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods: because he preached unto them Jesus, and the resurrection. And they took him, and brought him unto Areopagus, saying, May we know what this new doctrine, whereof thou speakest, is? For thou bringest certain strange things to our ears: we would know therefore what these things mean. (For all the Athenians and strangers which were there spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell, or to hear some new thing.)" What happens? Paul ends up by himself because Timothy and Silas are several days behind him in the journey. He goes and starts preaching in the market. The Epicureans and the Stoics came up to him and said, "What are you talking about, this Jesus who rose from the dead?" You might say, who are these Epicureans and Stoics? The Epicureans were the philosophers that had an opposite view of the Stoics. The Epicureans believed, "Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die." Live it up, party down, because that's it. The Stoics believed you should deny your flesh at all costs. The Stoics lived up on poles and had people throw food up to them because they didn't want to look at a woman with lust in their heart and stuff like that. That was the Stoics. Both of them came and said, "Paul, what are you talking about? we want you to go up to Areopagus," which is also called Mars Hill. Mars Hill is literally where Socrates, Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle pontificated and hypothesized and talked about philosophy and stuff like that. Those guys, by the way, were all before Paul. Paul is coming after all these guys. But they say, "You need to go up to Mars Hill and talk to the heavyweights, the philosophers." Paul makes his way up to the Areopagus, Mars Hill, and gets ready to preach the sermon of his life in front of the smart people up on Mars Hill. The question is, what did he preach? Some would say it's the greatest use of the Greek language in the history of the world. Paul's wording, Paul's sermon there at Mars Hill. Verse 22: "Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious. For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions," the word devotion you'll see in your modern, gods that you worship, that's what it means really literally. "When I passed by and beheld your gods that you worship, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you." Pause for a second. 3,000 gods and goddesses they have. This is funny. We know from extra-biblical literature, one of the things they did was to make sure they didn't miss one. In case they missed a god, they had 3,000, but in case they missed one, they had the altar to the unknown god, just in case they forgot one. Paul uses their own weird polytheism and says, "That god that you forgot, the one you didn't know, that's the one I want to declare to you." Paul's going to give us the this is artful when you think about Paul pulling out, using their question mark in their own culture. He says, "That's the one I'm going to talk to you about." Verse 24: "God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands." I wonder when Paul preached that, I wonder if he said, "made not with temples," pointing up to the Parthenon at the top of the Acropolis with all the pillars. The God I'm talking about doesn't live in one of those. Paul's using the surroundings of his preaching there. Verse 24, "God made the world and he dwells not in temples made with hands." Verse 25: "Neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things." Do you understand this would have been very much against what the Greeks believed? Because they had a god for every occasion. They had a god for every thing. But Paul's saying, "This is the God of all things. He created everything, and He's the God of every occasion. This is the one I'm preaching to you." This is going to be heavy for these people to hear Paul's sermon. Verse 26, speaking of God, "And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us." In other words, he's not way up on Mount Olympus like your gods that are untouchable or don't know us. I'm talking about God who knows you and is close to you. Then he says, verse 28, "For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also of his offspring." Notice this verse 28, "in him we live and move." He's quoting from their own Greek poets. By the way, I went to a secular college, it was a little miniature Berkeley. One of the literature classes I had, the professor had us read some of the Greek literature. We had us read Homer and others. One of the things that he made us read, shockingly, was Acts chapter 17. The reason why is because Paul's, whether you're a Christian or a Bible believer or not, nobody even comes close to the academic level of the Greek language in this part of the Bible. When he's speaking here, he's using eloquent Koine Greek. It'd be like if you're hearing the brightest college professor lecturing on something, you're like, "I don't understand, he's so smart." That's what Paul's trying to do here. In fact, my professor at the Southern Oregon said Paul's use of the Greek language here makes Homer's Greek use look like kindergarten level, which is interesting coming from a secular professor. There's some interesting things about this. Even though Paul's being pretty smarty-pants kind of thing, is this going to be very effective? That's the question. But he says, "in him we live and move," he's quoting from their poets. What is this about? It's really reaching into Paul saying it's in God, not their gods, but our God, that we live and move and have our being. How does your heart beat? Do you think about that? When you're breathing, "I got to take another breath because I forgot to breathe a minute ago." No, it's part of instinct is what Paul's talking about. The God of creation does that. Have you ever thought about how instinct is amazing? If you're an evolutionist, that's a hard one. How did the Arctic tern know every year to fly up to the Arctic region, and then once a year fly back down? There's actually one island, I forget the name of the island, but it's a tiny little island way down in the South Pacific where the Arctic tern flies every year. Tens of thousands of these Arctic terns fly. The Arctic tern has no GPS, no compass. How do they know to fly? Do you realize if you're off in your direction by .0001 percent of your direction, you're going to miss the island by miles and miles? How does the Arctic tern know how to do that? God built that in to the bird. The bird has a built-in GPS. That didn't happen through evolution. That's part of God. This is what Paul's reaching into when their philosophers, they were saying, "In the gods we live and move and have all our being." But Paul's saying, "No, it's in Him, the God I'm talking about, that we live and move and have our being." End of verse 28, "as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also of his offspring. Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device." He's looking at all the statues around, and all the gold and all the fanciful Athenian gods. He's saying God is not that. He's not made with hands. He doesn't dwell in a temple and He's not made with hands. But then he gets heavy here in verse 30. "And the times of this ignorance God winked at." The word winked at is better translated overlooked. For a while, God overlooked man's ignorance on this, but he's saying that day's coming short. He says God winked at, "but now commandeth all men every where to repent." Why is it that Paul's saying now people have to repent, but before God overlooked all of man's stupidity on idolatry? He says in verse 31, "Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead." What's Paul saying? He says the reason you got to know this now is because no longer is God overlooking this idolatry of paganism, but there's a judgment coming and you got to repent of your sins and believe in the one who rose up from the grave. He never names Jesus in this sermon, never once says the name of Jesus. Some scholars criticize him and say that's why this sermon's not as effective. Maybe. But he does refer to Jesus as the resurrected one, and he's trying to get that out. When it seems like Paul's sermon now is cut short, he's interrupted, and that's the end of his sermon. How do the men of Athens receive his sermon? Verse 32: "And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked: and others said, We will hear thee again of this matter." Later on, dude. "So Paul departed from among them. Howbeit certain men clave unto him, and believed: among the which was Dionysius the Areopagite," he was a guy from Mars Hill, that's the Areopagus. Dionysius was a Mars Hill guy. He believed, "and a woman named Damaris, and others with them." A tiny little group of people accepted Christ. This was a failure in a lot of ways. I know there was a couple people saved and you got to admit, when someone is saved, it's worth it, right? Preaching the gospel, even if one person, one soul gets saved. Paul's most flashy sermon in the Bible, the one that even the secularists study today as something great and amazing, is probably his biggest failure sermon, which is sad. Was it Paul's fault? We'll talk maybe more about that later. But for sure, the people of Athens, that's point number three. I told you the men of Thessalonica, the city that resisted the word. The city of Berea received the word, but the men of Athens, that's the city that ridiculed the word. They made fun of the word of God, the resurrection. They mocked it, it says. And they said, "We'll hear you later on this stuff." They put it off and said, "Later, dude." This is a bummer because you wish they all got saved right there. But can I just say, if you're preaching the gospel to your friends, don't be shocked when people don't accept Christ? Question: How many of you, when you first heard the gospel the first time, just fell hard and sound and quick and you just believed and accepted Christ? How many of you heard the gospel, but it took quite a while before you finally softened up and you finally accepted the Lord? It took a long time. See, that's something you should be aware of. Don't be discouraged when people don't just accept the gospel right away. The reason I bring that up is because Paul's sermon here is relatively unsuccessful and the people ridicule him. They do say, "We'll hear you later on the matter." But as it turns out, Athens would become a place where Christians would flourish. Was it Dionysius? Was it Damaris that continued the spreading of the gospel? Eventually, if you go to Athens today, and I'm not going to say they're all Christians, but if you ask the men of Athens what faith are you, they'll all say, "We're Christians." Why do they say that? Because "We're Greek and we're Christians." That's what they believe now. Is that true that they're all Christians? Probably not, by true definition of Christian. But there was a great work of the Lord in Athens. There's all the evidence archaeologically of the paganism and the Hellenism of Athens. But Christianity did take root there in Greece and in Athens. There will be those who will mock the resurrection of Jesus Christ like they did in Athens. There will be those who say, "Whatever, we'll hear you later on the matter." But don't give up and don't be weary in preaching the good news of the gospel, because eventually that seed might take root in the heart of those that are listening. With that said, if you have yet to accept Christ, don't delay. Paul was right, judgment is coming for your sin. But good news: the Lord loved you so much that He sent His only begotten Son, Jesus, to die on the cross for your sins, that you might be saved. If you confess with your mouth and believe in your heart Jesus, and believe that He died for your sins and that He rose from the grave, the Bible says you will be saved. If you're not a Christian, accept Christ. You say, "Brett, what if I don't like Christians?" I didn't ask if you like Christians. I'm with you on that. I don't like a lot of Christians, too. There's some real weird ones out there. But I didn't ask if you like Christians. I asked if you're willing to accept Jesus Christ. Christ-followers are flawed, sinful people who are needing salvation because they're flawed and sinful. But Christ is the good one. He's the one that you choose to accept or reject, the one who rose from the grave. If you accept Christ and believe in Him, you will be saved. How do you do that? You repent of your sins, acknowledge, "Lord, I'm a sinner and I deserve punishment for my sin, but I receive the free gift of salvation and forgiveness of my sin by accepting and believing in Jesus, that He died on the cross for my sin and that He rose up from the grave." If you confess that with your mouth and believe it in your heart, the Bible says you will be saved. That sounds too easy. It was easy for you because He did all the work. He died for your sin.
Guest (Male): Pastor Brett Meador concluding a verse-by-verse study of Acts chapter 17 in Today's Word by summarizing the good news of the gospel, encouraging those yet to make a decision to accept God's forgiveness through Christ's work on the cross. In just a moment, Pastor Brett will be back to join me in and share some great hope regarding how you can make that decision. But first, our teacher, Brett Meador, is the senior pastor of Athey Creek Church outside of Portland, Oregon. If you missed any portion of our time today, you'll find all of his messages online at todayswordradio.com. I have Pastor Brett with me now. Brett, I imagine there is somebody listening who might be feeling some anxiety about all the things that are going on in the world right now, maybe even some stress about their own future and they want to know for sure that there is hope for them. Can you share the hope that Jesus revealed for us in the Bible?
Brett Meador: The hope that Jesus shared, I think, is really based on Him, which I love. If my hope is based on my own doing or being right, then I don't have a lot of hope, I have a lot of fear. But my confidence, the peace that I have, is really through Christ. The Bible says as Jesus said, this world tries to offer a peace, but it's sort of a pseudo peace. It's not real. But Jesus said, "Peace I give unto thee, not as the world gives." That's where we really find our peace, is putting our trust in Christ alone and then knowing that He'll get you where you need to go, ultimately to heaven. Christ is the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father in heaven but by Christ. So we really put all of our trust and hope in Him. It's a true, not just a hope like I really hope this happens, but it's an absolute expectation of Christ coming through with His promise.
Guest (Male): How does it work for someone who says, "I'm all in for Jesus. What is their next step?"
Brett Meador: Once you repent of your sin, that just means acknowledge that you're a sinner and you acknowledge before God and then to seal the deal, you just ask. That's the simple part. You ask to be saved and to be forgiven. That's where Romans 10:9-10 says, "Confess with your mouth that the Lord Jesus was raised up from the dead by the Father in heaven." It says, if you confess that and believe it, then it says you will be saved. That locks you in. It's nothing you did to earn it or deserve it. It's a free gift from God.
Guest (Male): That's great news, Pastor Brett. Thank you. And friend, if you've chosen to accept God's free gift of salvation today, we have some next steps on our website that will provide encouragement and support as you begin this new relationship as a Christian. Just go to todayswordradio.com and click on the link, "Are you a new believer?" That's todayswordradio.com and click the link, "New Believer." Well, that's all the time we have. Next time, Pastor Brett will continue sharing Paul's missionary journeys from Acts chapter 18. Today's Word with Pastor Brett Meador is an outreach of Athey Creek Church in West Linn, Oregon.