SPEAKER_01: This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.
SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
SPEAKER_00: You're all here this morning for one of two, maybe three reasons.
SPEAKER_00: Number one, you feel a little guilty if you're not here.
SPEAKER_00: Number two, because you're devoted to the Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Either way, I'm glad you're here.
SPEAKER_00: But as we open up to Acts chapter 17 this morning, I want to ask you to do something very difficult.
SPEAKER_00: What is the thing?
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's an activity, maybe it's a desire of your heart, maybe it's a person.
SPEAKER_00: What is the thing that you hold dearest in your heart in this world?
SPEAKER_00: In this life?
SPEAKER_00: What is the thing that that is elevated above all other things?
SPEAKER_00: A job, a family, retirement, fun activity.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's a sin that you harbor in your heart.
SPEAKER_00: Take a minute and think about that.
SPEAKER_00: What is something in your life, in your heart, that holds the greatest value?
SPEAKER_00: I won't look at you so you don't feel guilty.
SPEAKER_00: Now, can you give that thing over to Jesus because of your allegiance to him and him alone?
SPEAKER_00: Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, yes, that's his full name.
SPEAKER_00: Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus was born a few years before the Lord Jesus in what is now Lyon, France.
SPEAKER_00: He was the nephew of Emperor Tiberius and the grandson of Livia Drusilla, who was one of Caesar Augustus' wives.
SPEAKER_00: Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus was an intellectual.
SPEAKER_00: He also specialized in history, having written at least eight volumes.
SPEAKER_00: But he also had some speech difficulties, and he walked with a limp, which resulted in much ridicule all throughout his life.
SPEAKER_00: He wasn't quite what we would call a recluse, but public life definitely didn't suit him.
SPEAKER_00: He was appointed emperor only after the imperial guard assassinated Emperor Caligula and found Tiberius Claudius hiding behind a curtain.
SPEAKER_00: Claudius, as he is most commonly known, was married four times.
SPEAKER_00: And it was his fourth wife, who happened to be his niece, who is believed to have killed him, supposedly with poison mushrooms, all so that her son from another marriage, Nero, could become emperor instead of Claudius' son from another marriage.
SPEAKER_00: Claudius was a very capable ruler.
SPEAKER_00: Like many Roman emperors, however, he could be quite suspicious.
SPEAKER_00: He had soldiers around him at most banquets.
SPEAKER_00: He had visitors searched before he would entertain them and see them.
SPEAKER_00: He had multiple numbers of people, including members of the Roman Senate, executed whenever he felt threatened by them.
SPEAKER_00: That's why Claudius is known to richly reward those who were especially loyal to him.
SPEAKER_00: Claudius was an excellent administrator.
SPEAKER_00: He expanded the Roman Empire all the way to Britain.
SPEAKER_00: But along with his successes came suspicions of potential rivals.
SPEAKER_00: Claudius was the Roman ruler when Paul, Silas, and Timothy visited the Macedonian city of Thessalonica in Acts chapter 17.
SPEAKER_00: Thessalonica was an important city because it sat at the crossroads of a north-south and east-west trade route that kept the city of Rome connected with the rest of its empire.
SPEAKER_00: But Thessalonica also held the special status of a free Roman city.
SPEAKER_00: As a free city, they possessed peace and security with the city of Rome and with the Roman Empire, which meant there were no Roman soldiers stationed in Thessalonica, and they owed no taxes to the Roman Empire.
SPEAKER_00: They were free and secure.
SPEAKER_00: Claudius also had a questionable relationship with the Jews.
SPEAKER_00: If you look over in your Bible at chapter 18 and verse 2, you will see that Claudius removed all of the Jews from Rome at one point.
SPEAKER_00: Some Roman sources suggest that Claudius expelled the Jews around the beginning of his rule, sometime around 41 A.D.
SPEAKER_00: But it's much more likely, according to other Roman sources, that it was closer to AD 48 or AD 49.
SPEAKER_00: The Roman writer Suetonius in his biography of Claudius says that it was 49 A.D.
SPEAKER_00: And our best reckoning says that Paul was in Thessalonica one or at most two years later.
SPEAKER_00: Do you understand what that means?
SPEAKER_00: The Roman Empire expels all Jews from his capital city, and two years later a Jew enters Thessalonica.
SPEAKER_00: You can imagine how community leaders in Thessalonica might react to a Jewish foreigner in their city announcing the presence and the rule of another king, Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: So Paul, Silas, and Timothy, and the city leaders could very likely be charged with sedition and opposing Caesar and be justly executed.
SPEAKER_00: And Thessalonica could lose its privileged status just like that.
SPEAKER_00: It's a big deal.
SPEAKER_00: That historical context is the key element of the next section in our study of the book of Acts.
SPEAKER_00: The king of kings is encroaching on Caesar's rule.
SPEAKER_00: Not through bribery, not through reward or threats or force, but by faith in the king's death, burial, and resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: We've already seen hints of this all throughout the gospel record and through the book of Acts.
SPEAKER_00: You remember when the Jews brought Jesus before Pilate on that Passover week, right?
SPEAKER_00: They brought Jesus before Pilate with the claim that he was a threat to Caesar.
SPEAKER_00: Pilate interrogated Jesus to see if he was a threat to Caesar, and Pilate found him innocent.
SPEAKER_00: But in that dialogue between Pilate and Jesus, Jesus said that yes, he was a king, but his kingdom is not of this world.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, he's not a typical king like Caesar.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus is a king.
SPEAKER_00: He is the true king.
SPEAKER_00: He rules over all.
SPEAKER_00: He sets all the world's rulers in place.
SPEAKER_00: He gives them their territory.
SPEAKER_00: He gives them their subjects.
SPEAKER_00: But at the same time, Jesus is no threat to Caesar.
SPEAKER_00: At least not in the way that Caesar perceives.
SPEAKER_00: The irony isn't, the irony is that Jesus isn't after Caesar's throne.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus isn't after Caesar's power, after his wealth.
SPEAKER_00: No, he is after the hearts, minds, and souls of Caesar's people.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the king who will subvert Rome and every other kingdom that has ever existed on this planet by turning the hearts of Caesar's people away from Caesar and to himself?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is no political threat, but Jesus will impact everything that Caesar holds dearly.
SPEAKER_00: And the question for us is: does Jesus impact everything that we hold dearly?
SPEAKER_00: This true king sent his messengers into the heart of the Roman Empire.
SPEAKER_00: Paul travels here in Acts chapter 17 to Thessalonica, to Berea, to Athens, chapter 18, and to Corinth, and ultimately to Rome itself.
SPEAKER_00: And he would begin the true king's work of building his kingdom within the world's kingdoms from among the world's peoples.
SPEAKER_00: That's what we begin seeing in chapter 17, is with the crossing of a sea from Asia Minor into what we now know as Europe, a transition begins to take place.
SPEAKER_00: Where Rome itself would be undone by Jesus turning the hearts of people to himself.
SPEAKER_00: Let's look first at Acts chapter 17, verses 1 through 9, in Thessalonica, where this theme opens.
SPEAKER_00: We see here in these first nine verses the truth that the true king provides ultimate peace, while at the same time upsetting those who possess peace and security.
SPEAKER_00: And this map here on the screen, you can see in the top right-hand corner, kind of cut off there, is the city of Philippi.
SPEAKER_00: That was the passage that we talked about last time.
SPEAKER_00: It's only a short distance from Philippi to Thessalonica, maybe about a hundred miles, some by foot, some by sea.
SPEAKER_00: It's about another 50 miles from Thessalonica down in the left third to the very left-hand side to the community of Berea.
SPEAKER_00: Then the red line going south takes us down to Athens.
SPEAKER_00: Paul follows his very same pattern that Luke has already presented to us.
SPEAKER_00: We aren't told why some communities like Amphipolis and Apollonia are passed by.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's because there was no gospel reception there.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe they weren't welcomed into the community.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe there wasn't a synagogue there.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe Paul knew there was a synagogue in Thessalonica, let's go there.
SPEAKER_00: And so Luke reports that Paul followed a typical pattern.
SPEAKER_00: The gospel went to the Jews first and then to the Gentiles.
SPEAKER_00: The presence of a synagogue made that pattern pretty wise because a Jewish Pharisee, or former Jewish Pharisee, would have an open door, an open reception to a Jewish synagogue.
SPEAKER_00: So Paul goes into these synagogues and he shows them how their Hebrew Bibles, our Old Testament, reveals that the Messiah had to suffer, die, and rise again.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, if your Bible shows that and Jesus did that, he must be the Messiah.
SPEAKER_00: Pretty simple message.
SPEAKER_00: But take that to heart, folks.
SPEAKER_00: You can lead someone to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ with only your Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: You don't need your New Testament.
SPEAKER_00: Leading someone to Christ is possible with just the first portion of your Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Now, the New Testament book of Galatians may have been written by the time of Acts 17.
SPEAKER_00: But the only other scriptures available were the Old Testament books.
SPEAKER_00: So those first Christians were led to faith in Christ through the Old Testament itself.
SPEAKER_00: Every Christian should grow in their knowledge of the Old Testament to the point that they can show someone how the promised Messiah had to suffer and rise from the dead to conquer sin and death.
SPEAKER_00: If you can do that, you can share the gospel with anybody.
SPEAKER_00: So Paul reasoned with the Jews.
SPEAKER_00: He went back and forth, question and answer, teaching, maybe reading from the synagogue scrolls, quoting certainly from the synagogue scrolls.
SPEAKER_00: He did this for at least three weeks.
SPEAKER_00: The text says three Sabbath days.
SPEAKER_00: That's his pattern.
SPEAKER_00: Then notice the people's response.
SPEAKER_00: Some Jews were persuaded.
SPEAKER_00: They listened to this back and forth and they were convinced.
SPEAKER_00: An unknown but significant number of God-fearing Greeks and leading women of the city believed.
SPEAKER_00: So Luke paints a picture here in which the ratio of Gentile converts to Jewish converts favored the Gentiles by a wide margin.
SPEAKER_00: Some of the Jews believed, but a good number of the Gentile Greeks believed.
SPEAKER_00: That's all good.
SPEAKER_00: That's all positive.
SPEAKER_00: But that's where Paul's time in Thessalonica worsened.
SPEAKER_00: Because the unbelieving Jews were jealous of Paul and his ministry.
SPEAKER_00: So they stirred up a dangerous, rabble-rousing mob who went looking for Paul and his team.
SPEAKER_00: It seems as though they were staying at Jason's house, but they weren't there when they went looking for Paul at Jason's front door.
SPEAKER_00: So the mob considers Jason to be complicit with harboring these so-called criminals.
SPEAKER_00: And so they take him and a few other unnamed believers.
SPEAKER_00: They drag him down to the city council where they are presented before them as problem makers.
SPEAKER_00: Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Daniel Brown has shown that the legal route taken by the mob wasn't exactly just vigilante justice.
SPEAKER_00: It's very consistent with the Roman law at the time.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, these laws were designed to protect people, and they were designed and established by none other than Claudius Caesar himself.
SPEAKER_00: All the way down to the bail that Jason had to pay before being let go.
SPEAKER_00: The fingerprints of Claudius are all throughout this passage.
SPEAKER_00: What led to all the trouble?
SPEAKER_00: These are men who have turned the world upside down and violated Caesar's laws by opposing Claudius Caesar.
SPEAKER_00: Because these Christians are saying that there is another king.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Of course that's going to disturb the city leaders.
SPEAKER_00: Jason, being a citizen of Thessalonica, maybe even a Roman citizen, is the one who pays the financial price for harboring some missionaries.
SPEAKER_00: Now, why would a why would a simple message about a crucified and risen man be so troublesome to Thessalonica?
SPEAKER_00: The answer seems to be found in Paul's first letter back to Thessalonica.
SPEAKER_00: Last Sunday we we looked in a lot of detail of how Paul's time in Philippi helps us understand his letter to the Philippians.
SPEAKER_00: The same thing is true about Paul's two letters to Thessalonica.
SPEAKER_00: When we look at what happened in verses 1 through 9 of Acts chapter 17, it helps us understand 1 Thessalonians and 2 Thessalonians.
SPEAKER_00: In 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, Paul wrote about the coming day of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: That's a time of God's judgment that will come upon the world and take people by surprise.
SPEAKER_00: Then in chapter 5, verse 3, we read that Paul says, While the people are saying there is peace and security, then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.
SPEAKER_00: That phrase, peace and security, is significant.
SPEAKER_00: If you remember your world history classes, you've probably heard that phrase, Pax Romana, the Roman peace.
SPEAKER_00: Security was another part of that.
SPEAKER_00: The Roman peace brought Roman security.
SPEAKER_00: And it was a costly peace because it came through the Roman military force.
SPEAKER_00: But it wasn't just peace that Rome provided, they also provided security, the ability to be free and to do whatever you wanted to do in life because they made you secure.
SPEAKER_00: Thessalonica, of course, possessed even more than peace and security.
SPEAKER_00: They possessed ultimate freedom, no taxes, no Roman legions in their community, no obligation between them and Claudius.
SPEAKER_00: Paul, Silas, and Timothy.
SPEAKER_00: Proclaiming that eternal peace and eternal security can be found in another king of the Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: You can imagine the unrest that might generate in a pagan city.
SPEAKER_00: Now we might expect the Jews to receive the message of a Jewish Messiah well, especially one who fulfilled God's expectations of the promised one.
SPEAKER_00: But most chose Caesar's peace and security, which they were already experiencing.
SPEAKER_00: They chose the present peace and security over eternal peace and security in Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: They showed that their allegiance was to Caesar, not to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Those non Jews had no interest in Paul's message because they were protective of their status with Rome.
SPEAKER_00: They're unwilling to jeopardize their sense of freedom in exchange for a crucified and risen Messiah.
SPEAKER_00: That's the reality of genuine faith, friends.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus doesn't want to rule your country as president or king.
SPEAKER_00: He is no political threat.
SPEAKER_00: But he ought to be a threat to everything that we hold dear besides him.
SPEAKER_00: Especially those things that are worldly, that are sinful, and that are opposed to God.
SPEAKER_00: And that threat comes through an allegiance that he demands from all who follow him.
SPEAKER_00: He is the true king who demands our hearts and our lives, and the world run by Satan sees that as a threat.
SPEAKER_00: So don't be surprised by that.
SPEAKER_00: At the same time, there's a challenge there for us as we live in this world.
SPEAKER_00: Do we live out our faith such that the world around us feels threatened by our king?
SPEAKER_00: And feels threatened by his command of our hearts, minds, emotions, and will?
SPEAKER_00: Do we live out our faith such that the world feels threatened by our king's hold on our morality, on our work ethic, on our time?
SPEAKER_00: Do I need to be more specific?
SPEAKER_00: Let me try.
SPEAKER_00: Are our employers caught off guard by our loyalty to Jesus in the way we labor, in the ethics of our business dealings, in our commitment to truth?
SPEAKER_00: Are our friends and our families surprised and turned off by the things we will not participate in because they oppose our loyalty to Christ?
SPEAKER_00: Is the world disturbed because the life of Christ is lived out in us?
SPEAKER_00: The situation was so intense in Thessalonica that Paul and Silas were whisked away in the middle of the night.
SPEAKER_00: In the middle of the night, they had to walk 50 miles or so to the community of Berea.
SPEAKER_00: It's the modern city of Varea, northern Greece.
SPEAKER_00: It's a little off the main road, so theoretically it was a safe place for Paul and Silas to go in the middle of the night.
SPEAKER_00: And it's there in Berea that we see that the true king can be found by those who seek him.
SPEAKER_00: Most Christians know of Berea because of verse 11, where Luke says that the Bereans were nobler than those in Thessalonica because they searched the scriptures to verify what Paul said.
SPEAKER_00: If you've been around churches long enough, you will know that that spirit has become a mantra of sorts among evangelical Christians and churches.
SPEAKER_00: Be like the Bereans, we sometimes hear.
SPEAKER_00: If something sounds amiss to you, search your Bible and see if it's true.
SPEAKER_00: I want to challenge that mindset because I think we've taken something that Luke recorded, and we've run with it so far that we've forgotten what Luke meant.
SPEAKER_00: Paul followed the same pattern in verse 10.
SPEAKER_00: They arrived and they went into the Jewish synagogue.
SPEAKER_00: He went first to the Jews to tell them of Jesus' death and resurrection and to prove that he is God's Messiah.
SPEAKER_00: Nothing new there.
SPEAKER_00: Same pattern.
SPEAKER_00: Those Jews, Luke said, recognized Paul's use of scripture.
SPEAKER_00: And they eagerly received the proclamation of the Word of God.
SPEAKER_00: And that's where Luke's comment enters in.
SPEAKER_00: Luke describes how they received the Word of God.
SPEAKER_00: He says they received it with all eagerness, so much so that they examined the scriptures daily to see if these things were so.
SPEAKER_00: Now notice verse 12.
SPEAKER_00: Many of them believed.
SPEAKER_00: The results of Paul's ministry of the Word of God, which was received eagerly and checked with Scripture, resulted in many Jews and Greeks believing in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Now that we've reviewed that, we have enough information to ask some critical questions.
SPEAKER_00: Were the people in Berea, in the synagogue in Berea, were they believers or unbelievers when they received the word with all eagerness?
SPEAKER_00: It says they were unbelievers.
SPEAKER_00: If you look carefully in verse 12, it says, many of them therefore, as a result of this, believed.
SPEAKER_00: As a result of their eagerness and their attitude, they believed.
SPEAKER_00: Another question: Were the people in Berea believers or unbelievers when they examined the scriptures daily to see if these things were so?
SPEAKER_00: They were unbelievers.
SPEAKER_00: So there is the first clarification we desperately need about Berea.
SPEAKER_00: The attitude and actions displayed here were evident first in unbelievers, not believers.
SPEAKER_00: The eagerness and the searching were part of their processing of the gospel message from the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: These are people hearing the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ for the first time, and they're thinking, wait, what?
SPEAKER_00: Really?
SPEAKER_00: Is that what it says?
SPEAKER_00: Are you sure about that?
SPEAKER_00: What about this?
SPEAKER_00: They're eager and they're trying to make it all make sense.
SPEAKER_00: Now, is it good and righteous and healthy for Christians to examine what we hear?
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00: We need to strengthen our discernment and our search of the scriptures.
SPEAKER_00: But Luke doesn't imply that Christians should do that.
SPEAKER_00: Luke is describing the excellent character those unbelieving Jews possessed in contrast to those in Thessalonica.
SPEAKER_00: In Berea, the Jews at least considered what Paul had to say about the scriptures.
SPEAKER_00: There's another element, though, that we need to clarify.
SPEAKER_00: Most of our translations say that these Bereans in verse 11 examined, or maybe your Bible says, searched the scriptures daily as Paul spoke.
SPEAKER_00: It's probably not the best understanding of what Luke wrote.
SPEAKER_00: Scholar Roy Champa has shown pretty conclusively that this word that we have in our Bibles translated, examined or searched, doesn't mean that they opened their Bibles and they flipped through the pages to find if this was actually true.
SPEAKER_00: Given the very low literacy rates in the Roman Empire, very few people would have been able to read.
SPEAKER_00: And an even lower percentage of that would have any, any portion of the scriptures as their own possession.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, Champa has shown that the word here, translated examining or searching, always means in Greek literature to ask questions.
SPEAKER_00: It's a word that is about dialogue.
SPEAKER_00: It's going back and forth, it's thinking and processing and asking questions to clarify and to search and to make sense in your own heart and mind what's going on here.
SPEAKER_00: So in this context, it means that their nobility, their high character, was displayed in that they asked questions with eagerness in order to determine what is real, what is true in this good news about the gospel of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Do our Bible, does our Old Testament really say that?
SPEAKER_00: Is Paul really right?
SPEAKER_00: Is this stranger who's come into our synagogue, is he saying the right thing?
SPEAKER_00: So rather than dismissing his arguments, they went back and forth in dialogue asking questions to see if his teaching aligned with their understanding of their synagogue teaching.
SPEAKER_00: So imagine this image.
SPEAKER_00: Paul, Silas, and Timothy flee from Thessalonica in the middle of the night from Jews who refuse to listen and instead stir up mobs, and they flee to Berea, and they go to the synagogue where the unbelieving Jews are such high character that they not only listen, but they engage in Paul every day to evaluate whether what he said was true and complied with what they heard in the synagogue.
SPEAKER_00: That kind of character led them to believe Paul's message.
SPEAKER_00: Contrast that with what occurs next.
SPEAKER_00: The rascals from Thessalonica, I think I'm okay saying that right, the rascals from Thessalonica learn that Paul and his team showed up in Berea.
SPEAKER_00: So they travel the 50 miles to stir up the rabble crowds there too.
SPEAKER_00: So this whole idea of being noble and asking questions is all there to point to the difference of character between two communities.
SPEAKER_00: Is one open to the gospel?
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: Is another open to the gospel?
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: So we see now how Luke's account of Thessalonica and Berea go hand in hand.
SPEAKER_00: If your heart and mind are not open to considering the truth of Scripture, then the peace and security of the true King that He offers will merely upset and irritate you.
SPEAKER_00: It will be rubbish to you.
SPEAKER_00: But if your heart and mind are open to hearing and genuinely considering the good news of Christ, you can find the true King.
SPEAKER_00: It's a study and contrast.
SPEAKER_00: But we're not surprised if we know the gospel accounts.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord Himself, as did the apostles, encountered the same thing.
SPEAKER_00: As will you and I, if our allegiance is to the true King.
SPEAKER_00: But openness and eagerness can lead to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, it's not our duty to open the ears.
SPEAKER_00: Only God can do that.
SPEAKER_00: But we must make sure that other people hear about the true King.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you may have to run away in the middle of the night.
SPEAKER_00: But that may lead to discovering an eagerness in someone else.
SPEAKER_00: And we could spend three weeks just on the next section.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to condense it to a few minutes.
SPEAKER_00: We move from Berea to Athens.
SPEAKER_00: Because of the rabble-rousing crowds from Thessalonica coming to Berea, verse 14 tells us the brothers immediately sent Paul off on his way to the sea, but Silas and Timothy remained.
SPEAKER_00: And so Paul gets on a boat and he goes as far as Athens, where we see the true king gives the ultimate wisdom, all while making the wise appear foolish.
SPEAKER_00: All the way down to a region known as Achaea.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 14 tells us that the situation in Berea became so dangerous that Paul was immediately sent off.
SPEAKER_00: We see him end up in Athens while Silas and Timothy remain up north in Berea for a while.
SPEAKER_00: And the pattern continues.
SPEAKER_00: Paul goes to the synagogue and then to the public forums daily, reasoning, talking with whoever happened to be present.
SPEAKER_00: Athens, though, is unique because it's the heart of Greek philosophy.
SPEAKER_00: It's been the home of Socrates and Plato, of Aristotle and Xenophon and others.
SPEAKER_00: Athens largely birthed the elements of learning, like logic and rhetoric, history and politics, metaphysics and philosophy and ethics.
SPEAKER_00: Everything sort of comes to a head here in Athens.
SPEAKER_00: Luke describes Athens as where people would spend all their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new.
SPEAKER_00: What a way to waste your time.
SPEAKER_00: But guess what?
SPEAKER_00: The gospel is new for Athens.
SPEAKER_00: The section is heavy with echoes.
SPEAKER_00: On one side, scholars think that this section has many echoes of the life of Socrates.
SPEAKER_00: If you have questions about that, you can see Webb.
SPEAKER_00: He'll help be happy to help you see those connections.
SPEAKER_00: The other side of the echo is it's full of echoes to the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: Paul enters this place of wisdom and philosophy and says, Let me tell you where you get the true wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you where true learning is discovered.
SPEAKER_00: These echoes become the basis for Paul's reasoning in Athens.
SPEAKER_00: He feels God's hatred, excuse me, hatred for idols, and he's zealous for God as the creator of all things.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul then employs the style of speaking and arguing and debate.
SPEAKER_00: He employs the patterns and the methods of Athenian argumentation to preach Christ crucified and risen.
SPEAKER_00: He proclaims the true king as the ultimate wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: But that wisdom isn't displayed through empire administration, through legal codes or worldly philosophy.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says to this place of learning and education and wisdom that true wisdom is not found in those things you'll find in the world.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, it's found in the perceived foolishness of a crucified and risen king.
SPEAKER_00: And that king is working to rescue the hearts, minds, and souls of men, women, and children who have been captivated by the world's philosophy and under the rule, not of Caesar, but of Satan.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says the God who made the world and everything in it is Lord of all.
SPEAKER_00: And we are now in an age where he commands everyone to repent.
SPEAKER_00: Because judgment is coming.
SPEAKER_00: Oh.
SPEAKER_00: You enjoy the peace and security of Rome.
SPEAKER_00: In a day when you least expect it, the judge will come.
SPEAKER_00: Judgment is coming for those who refuse to listen to the word of the true King.
SPEAKER_00: Judgment is coming for those who refuse to seek Him out of their own ignorance.
SPEAKER_00: Judgment is coming for those who rest in their own knowledge and the wisdom that the world has given them.
SPEAKER_00: Judgment is coming for those hoping in the world's thinking and philosophy.
SPEAKER_00: Judgment is assured because God the Father raised the true king from the dead.
SPEAKER_00: And all that happens to the Caesars is they get knocked off one after the other.
SPEAKER_00: You can dismiss the true king as a real, as no real threat, like Pilate did.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he's just an upstart.
SPEAKER_00: Big deal.
SPEAKER_00: You can dismiss the true king as just foolish talk.
SPEAKER_00: Crucified?
SPEAKER_00: The king?
SPEAKER_00: You can dismiss the true king out of fear of some earthly retribution like the wrath of Caesar.
SPEAKER_00: But you will still face the judge of all the earth.
SPEAKER_00: And it would be wiser, in his own words, to trust in him who can destroy both soul and body and hell than merely somebody who can take your earthly life.
SPEAKER_00: No, Jesus is not a threat to Caesar's throne.
SPEAKER_00: But he is a real threat.
SPEAKER_00: He's a threat to you, too.
SPEAKER_00: He's a threat to your self-centered lifestyle.
SPEAKER_00: He's a threat to your me first attitude.
SPEAKER_00: He's a threat to your covetousness.
SPEAKER_00: He's a threat to whatever idols you put up in your life ahead of him.
SPEAKER_00: He's a threat to every pet sin you hide within the deep dark recesses of your soul.
SPEAKER_00: He's a threat.
SPEAKER_00: And if you refuse him, he is your ultimate judge.
SPEAKER_00: But the profound wisdom of this king, crucified, buried, and risen.
SPEAKER_00: The profound wisdom of this king that is beyond the awareness of this world, that lies in the power of the evil one, is that he will give to you everlasting peace and eternal security through his payment of your guilt and your sin if you will repent of your sin and trust in him.
SPEAKER_00: And he will consume all of your allegiance.
SPEAKER_00: And you will become a threat to everything that rules this world.
SPEAKER_00: So come, my friends, and find your true king.
SPEAKER_00: For he's not far from you.
SPEAKER_00: He made you to seek him and to find him.
SPEAKER_00: So see all other kings, all other rulers, all other things, all other people that demand your allegiance, see them as the falsehoods that they are, see the temporariness of their promises that they give, and look only to the true King, the one who is the ancient of days, who entered time and space to garner your heart and your soul and your mind forever and ever.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Lord Jesus, may we exalt you as the true King, not just of this universe, not just in a knowledge kind of way, where, yeah, we know that, but where you hold our hearts and our minds and our souls and all that is precious to us.
SPEAKER_00: May you be exalted, not just now, but forever and ever.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Free Church.
SPEAKER_01: Our mission is to declare the Word of God and disciple believers into mature, devoted followers of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: You can learn more by visiting our website at faithfree.com.