We Need More Troublemakers in the Church — David Wilkerson

Lord Jesus, we pray over any one spirit who came in here tonight, out of curiosity, or just to mock, because we've had so many say, we're going to come in and demonstrate, we're going to mock you. But Lord, we take your authority over every spirit in the name of Jesus, that the word of the Lord will go forth unhindered, and let anyone here that's unlike you, Jesus, know that there's love for them here tonight.

That their love, but their spirit will not be allowed to overtake any spirit of the living God here tonight. Let the word of the Lord go forth with your power and your authority and your unction. I need Jesus, I need your Holy Spirit.

I believe you put this word in my heart. Give me the heart of a shepherd tonight. We believe you put a shepherd's heart in every one of the pastors here in this church. Five men of God who came to New York City with a pastor's heart.

We didn't come to beat the sheep, we came to lead. We came to be like a nurse to the sick and the afflicted, as a father to children. So give me love, Lord, as I preach it tonight. But give your authority and your power and your might.

In the name of the Lord Jesus, I pray. Amen. David, just give me a little bit more in this monitor, if you will, please. Thank you. That's fine. I'm going to say it again. We need more troublemakers in Times Square Church.

Holy Troublemakers for the Gospel

You heard me right. We need a whole army of troublemakers to become so full of the Holy Ghost, they'll stir and shake New York City. We need to trouble all the wicked institutions in New York. We need to challenge established dentists.

We need to trouble all the leaders, the mayor, the city council, neighborhood leaderships, in other words. Holy troublemakers move in the Holy Spirit, moving in righteousness, proclaiming that Jesus Christ is the King.

And stirring the whole city. Now, the scriptural Paulans were the biggest troublemakers. They went around stirring up cities. The Bible says these men, along with Timothy, Barnabas and other great apostolic preachers of the New Testament, the Bible said they wrote their very lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

They risked their lives. They put their bodies and their spirits and put it on the line of Jesus. They held nothing back. These men did walk before God. The Bible says when the Holy Ghost told them not to speak a word in Asia, they obeyed the Holy Spirit.

They didn't do it. When they wanted to go to Egypt, but the Spirit ripped them. Or when they tried to go to Bethany, the Spirit said, don't go. So the Spirit said, go to Troas. They obeyed. The Spirit said it.

They obeyed. Paul gets ready to go to Macedonia, so immediately he sets out to fly to the chief city, Macedonia. I'm going to Acts, the 16th chapter, because I'm going to be preaching from the book of Acts tonight.

Paul and Silas Trouble Philippi Through the Power of the Spirit

Boy, if you're going to talk about trouble, you've got to go to the book of Acts. It's a book of trouble for a lot of people, for entire cities. We're full of the Holy Ghost. Do you remember when we used to go down to Philippi?

And God begins to multiply. And the fortune teller there followed him everywhere. So Paul and Paul and Silas, everywhere they went, said, these men are the servants of the multi-god, which came to show us the way of salvation.

To have a demon-possessed person around, a fortune teller said, hey, listen to these men. They came to bring revival to our city. They came to preach the true God. And Paul was not going to take a commercial from the devil.

God doesn't need a commercial from the devil. In fact, God won't let the devil glorify his name. He causes the wrath of men to praise him at times, but the devil cannot praise the name of Jesus. He will not take it from the devil or any of his cohorts.

But Paul put up with long enough when he turned and he rebuked her in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. He said, I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. That's what he said to the spirit that was in her, a spirit of fortune telling, a spirit of divination.

I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And he came out the same hour. And suddenly this woman, who was a tourist attraction, I mean, people came from everywhere to hear the wisdom of this woman.

She was what we would call today a channeler. She was channeling to the spirit of the devil and people came from everywhere. And she raised a lot of money for the mafia at that time. I mean, the whole city was shaken by it because this woman is now full of Jesus.

She's no longer the devil. And you see, Paul upset the status quo of the whole city. He had challenged the devil, for the devil had been having his way for years. Can you imagine for years that city sits there quiet?

And nobody's there to disturb it. And here come two lowly holy ghost preachers in town preaching holiness. And it's not very long until the whole city is stirred up. These men, look at 16 verse, well, let's read from verse 16.

It came to pass, as we went to prayer, a certain damsel, possessed with the spirit of divination, met us, which brought her masters much money by her fortune-telling. The same followed Paul and us and cried, saying, These men are the servants of the Most High.

She did this for many days. But Paul was grieved and he turned and said to the spirit, I command you to depart. When her masters saw, verse 19, that the hope of their profit or their gain was gone, they caught Paul and Silas and drew them into the marketplace under the rollers and brought them to the magistrates, saying, These men being Jews do exceedingly trouble our city.

Troublemakers. And they teach customs which are not lawful for us to receive, neither to observe being Romans. And the multitude rose up together against them, and the magistrates ran or tore off their clothes and commanded to beat them.

And when they had laid many stripes upon them and cast them into prison, they charged the jailer to keep them there safely, who, having received such a charge, thrust them into the inner prison and made defeat fast in the stocks.

Do you know that night those religious leaders, those backslidden religious leaders, those profit-makers, and those demon-possessed men, those city officials, the mayor, all the city council, who had beat Paul and Silas and put them in jail, they go to bed that night thinking, We sure did it to them.

That's the last we're ever going to hear of those vagabond troublemakers. We really shut them up. What kind of a God did they serve? He gave in so easy. Can you imagine the Christians too at Philippi, seeing them locked in jail, saying, Where's the power of the Lord?

And it had to shock those baby converts. It had to shock them that the magistrates seemed to have that much power, and the magistrates go to sleep thinking, This was too easy. But boy, what a commotion the next day.

The sergeants of arms went out early in the morning, started knocking on the doors, the door of the mayor, the city council members, all the religious leaders. And you know what they were saying? Quick, get down to City Hall.

We've got a problem, a big problem. And so they gather all the city magistrates together, and it goes something like this, A what? An earthquake? The doors all sprung open, all of the chains came off, and they never ran, and the jailer is now one of them?

You see, that happened his time. The devil had his day, but you always just say, wait and see. One of my favorite expressions goes, We'll see. We will see. Hallelujah. You know, first thing, you're not going to say we got to heaven?

Oh, so that's how it is. That wasn't all. If that was it, that would have been bad enough, but listen to the mayor. What do you mean, get out of town? They're what? They're Romans? And by the time they heard that they were Romans, panic struck that city council.

Because Paul was a free-born Roman suicidalist, and a Roman cannot beat a Roman by law. By penalty of death, if they pressed the charges in Rome. And I mean, there's trouble. And they said, well, Sergeant says, they're not leaving, until you come down and apologize, and escort them out of town.

You say that's not in the Bible? Well, look at it. It's there. Verse 24. Having received the charge, thrust them into court. Verse 25. And at midnight, Paul and Silas, they were really worried about the power of the devil, weren't they?

They were really crushed. At midnight, Paul and Silas prayed and sang. Praises unto God. And the prisoners heard them, and suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken, and immediately all the doors were opened, and everyone's bands were loosed.

And the keeper of the prison, waking out of his sleep, and seeing the prison doors open, drew out his sword, and would have killed himself, supposing all the prisoners had fled. But Paul cried with a loud voice, saying, Do yourself no harm.

We're all here yet. You know the rest of the story. But look down. Verse 35. And when it was day, the magistrate sent the sergeant, saying, Let those men go. He said, Send them down there quickly. Get them out of town.

Before they press charges on us. And the keeper of the prison told this saying to Paul, The magistrates are sent to let you go. Now therefore, depart and go in peace. But Paul said unto them, They have beaten us openly, uncondemned, being Romans.

They've cast us into this jail, and now they're going to just thrust us out privately? Paul said, No way. No, verily, but let them calm themselves and fetch us out. Tell them to come down here. And the sergeants told these words unto the magistrates, and they feared when they heard that they were Romans, and they came, and besought them, they apologized, and brought them out, and desired them to depart out of the city.

Where'd they go? Instead they went to the house of Lydia. And when they'd seen their brethren, they comforted them and departed. And Silas, they came down, all the magistrates, city council, they come and say, Please, would you just leave quietly?

And Paul says, We'll leave in our time. We're going to stop first, and visit all the saints at the house of Lydia. And when we're done with our prayer meeting, we'll go. Can you imagine what that prayer meeting was like?

When Paul and Silas said, It was midnight, we were singing, that place shook. I believe the jailer must have gone with them, because he's a new convert now. Oh, and I just love it. I'll read again this afternoon.

And they came and begged them and brought them out, flaunting the spiritual authority Jesus gave them. But they were ambassadors of the King who has might and glory and power. These men had mocked Jesus Christ and His power.

Paul and Silas wanted that little riverside group of believers, that little prayer group, that house group, to say, See, brother, sister, the devil can rage. The powers that be may threaten you. But God, in the final analysis, has all the power.

God will stand by you if you take your stand for Christ. Friends, this church preaches a lot on prayer. We all pray. I know all these behind me are all praying men. And we believe in the effects of fervent prayer for a righteous person.

But, you know, just going and praying alone is not enough. Praying with two or three is not enough. Praying corporately with a whole group on Tuesday or Friday night, that's not enough. Going to large prayer meetings, that in itself will not shake up cities.

Elijah, Righteousness, and Confronting Idolatry

Now, Elijah has been used by the Scripture as an example of what prayer is all about. He was a man of light passions, the Bible said, and he prayed and the heavens were shut. He prayed again and the heavens were open.

But it was not Elijah's prayer that arranged things. That was the Word of the Lord that came to him through time studying with God. He could stand before Ahab and say, I come to you because I have stood before God before whom I stand.

That means, I've been studying with God. But it was not just his prayer time that shook the kingdom of Ahab and enraged Jezebel. No, he came out of his prayer chamber in the wilderness and he stood against the whole kingdom of Ahab and he wants you to gather every prophet of Baal, meet me up at Mount Carmel.

And they brought their hundreds of false prophets and they built their altar. And this prophet of God, Elijah, says, pray to your God. And the God who answers by fire is the God of Israel. We're going to see who has power.

We're going to see who has the might and the majesty. And so the prophets of Baal all day long are cutting themselves. It's a sadomasochistic masochist kind of scene where they have swords, they're cutting themselves, they're bleeding, they're throwing themselves on the altar.

And I want you to know Elijah wasn't a very sweet, gentlemanly person at this moment. Because these were mocking a holy God. This was idolatry. The nation was given to idolatry. There were 7 ,000 believers who were silent, were not taking a stand.

Nothing was being done. No one had challenged Jezebel. She had turned all of Israel to idols, the idolatry of Baal. And the sacrificing of little children. And you know Ahab was so bothered by this man he called him the troubler of Israel.

I'm preaching tonight about troublemakers. He was not a troublemaker. In fact, Elijah looked at Ahab and said, I'm not the one that's troubling Israel. You're the troubler of Israel. You're the one that's causing trouble.

You know what happens up on that mountaintop? The Bible says they leaped upon their altars and Elijah mocked them. He derided them. Now the churches of late in New York City and the United States have cowered before the devil.

They've cowered before the principalities and powers of drugs and alcohol and pornography and every other principality of Satan. The church has seemed powerless. But my Bible said the righteous are as bold as a lion.

And the reason there's been a cowardice against the things of this world, against drug abuse, against alcoholism, against all of these things that are happening in the wicked city of New York, is because there had not been a spirit of righteousness that would bring forth the boldness of Jesus Christ.

You say, well, Jesus was meek. He never did open his mouth when he was taken to be crucified. Well, folks, that was only because the hour of darkness had come, the Bible said. And that was the time he was to be given into the hands of the enemy.

But he was not a meek, smiling, Colgate-grinned Jesus when he took the whip and went into the temple and drove out the money changers. He was not a meek, Colgate-smiling man when he looked against the Pharisees and called them snakes and vipers.

When he looked at all the blindness of the Pharisees and said, they're blind, they're headed for the ditch, leave them alone. He was not a meek, lowly Jesus when he called them the sons of the devil. He said, your father is the devil.

New York City churches are full of silent, gentlemanly diplomats. We've got diplomats in the pulpit, doesn't want to shake anybody. They don't want to make waves, just everything quiet. Nobody wants to make trouble.

So the devil's kingdom goes unchallenged. We've got more silent, mousy Christians in New York probably than any place in the face of the earth. I had a businessman call me on Friday and he said, Mr. Wilkinson, I want to make you a bet.

And I told the people Friday, and he said, I want to make you a bet. Because we were outside his building demonstrating against the abortion chamber on the third floor. And he said, I want to make you a bet, just between you and I, reverend.

And he's a fine man. And I still consider him a friend. He said, I want to make you a bet. He said, you people don't change anything. He said, you are absolutely powerless. Nothing is going to change.

You're wasting your time. And I just thought, I know where that came from. I know who's saying that. That's not him saying that. That's an outright challenge to God's power. That's a challenge to Jesus Christ himself.

He said, you'll get a little publicity out of it, but nothing's going to change. You can't shut anything down. You're absolutely powerless in this league. In other words, this city. And you can detect the mocking of Satan.

There's almost a dare now. What the devil's trying to say, you people who talk about being filled with Jesus are spiritual wimps. Fast along here. You're going to give up when the opposition comes, and you'll run back to your safe walls of your safe churches.

I'm going to tell you what one of the men said. I'll tell you later. He said, hey, look. Because we're out here demonstrating right next door. He said, you don't know what you're up against. He said, you don't know who you're fooling with.

See, he doesn't know who he's fooling with. If you're on the face of the earth, I can touch the power I'm going to tell you about here tonight. I'm not railing against the devil. I'm trying to wake up Christians here in the Times Square church to believe in the power of Christ and His resurrection.

This is not a cheerleader. I'm not trying to enrage your heart and stir up your spiritual blood. I believe God has a principle for us tonight. I'm trying to establish something. I'm going to talk to you about how the apostolic church of Jesus Christ in the first church age challenged the powers of darkness in the same areas that we need to challenge.

Challenging Dead Religious Systems Through the Kingship of Christ

First of all, Paul and Silas challenged a dead, corrupt religious church system. I want you to go to Acts 17. In fact, about Monday or Tuesday, the Lord just clearly spoke to my heart. Your message is in Acts 17, and I read it five or six times.

I couldn't find it. The Lord said, Stay with it. It's there. And, boy, He showed it to me. Paul and Silas, Acts 17, verse 1. 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 or his custom, went in unto them. Now, I don't know what it says in your Bible, but King James says, He went in unto them three Sabbath days, reasoned with them out of the Scriptures, opening and alleging that Christ must needs have suffered, and risen again from the dead, and that Jesus, whom I preach unto you, is Christ.

Look this way, if you will, please. This synagogue at Thessalonica, by the way, even today, someone claims recently that there were probably 30 synagogues still in that area. But the synagogue at Thessalonica, in Paul's time, had probably conducted quiet meetings for years.

They just sat there, nothing changed. And if you went there, it looked like a rather spiritual experience. They taught the Scriptures there. Outwardly, they kept the law, and they appeared holy. They appeared meek, mellow, quiet men who had a measure of hunger for God.

But you see, in come these two holiness preachers again, Paul and Silas. Now, they had already stirred Philippi, and now they moved to Thessalonica. And Paul has a habit. He goes right in among them. He goes right to the seat of it.

He doesn't hide. He doesn't go in and say, well, go and pray for them. I'm going into the den. Now, Paul knew that everywhere he went in a synagogue, there were some devout people. In every church that's dead, you'll find some devout people.

Now, if they're going to stay devout, they're going to get out eventually. If they're going to stay true, God's going to show them the way, and He's going to lead them out. He's going to send a Paul with the true word.

And in just three weeks, preaching on the kingship of Jesus, Paul turned that synagogue inside out, and the whole area of Thessalonica upside down. Knew from experience that there would be some of these devout.

Look at verse 4. 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 to themselves certain lewd or wicked fellows, men of a 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 had found them not, they drew Jason and certain brethren into the rulers of the city, crying, These men have turned the world upside down, and they've come here to our town. Listen. I know what Paul preached to those men.

I know what Paul said. Because in writing to the Thessalonians later, he said, We were shamefully entreated, as you know, at Philippi. Yet we were bold in our God to speak unto you the gospel of God with much contention.

Boy, you talk about an understatement. Much contention, that means, in your New American Standard, it says, with much opposition. He said, We came and we were just preaching a resurrected Jesus who has power and authority.

And he said, There was contention. Where was the contention? The whole religious system of Thessalonica got mad at Paul and Silas. Why were they so enraged? So much so that men who sat there for years, Meek and Nello, they're assaulting the house of Jason.

And they're making false accusations. The whole town, they said, is turned upside down. What is this? It wasn't that Paul and Silas were flaunting. They were not sticking their fingers in the face of anybody.

They were not confronting people or daring them to believe. I read to you also from Thessalonians. You don't have to turn it, but listen to what Paul says, describing how they conducted themselves when they were in Thessalonica.

He said, Our preaching, brethren, was not of deceit to you, not of uncleanness, not of guile. We don't speak like that. Not as pleasing to men, but to God, which tries our hearts. And not at any time did we use flattering words.

We never used a cloak of covetousness. God's our witness. But we were gentle among you. He's talking about those visits to the synagogue. He's talking about the ministry he had at Thessalonica, because it was a very short ministry.

We were gentle among you, even as a nurse cherishes her children. We were willing to have imparted to you not just the gospel alone, but also our very souls, because you were dear unto us. Now listen to me, folks.

What was it? What was it that enrages religious people? We're not talking now about street people. We're not talking about mafia people. We're talking about church people. And why are they so enraged?

Why are they so angry? These are not the same kind of people at Philippi who were trying to make money out of demon-possessed women. This was the house of God. This was the synagogue. This was the church.

And why are they so enraged? The same kind of anger they got at Philippi. What's going on here? Here's the source. Look at verse 17, verse 7. And Jason hath received, and these all do contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there's another king, one Jesus.

There's the source of the enragement. These men are saying there's another king. There's a man named Jesus who's over all. And I want to tell you something. The kind of kingship of Jesus that Paul preached in that synagogue for three weeks is not the same kind of preaching of the lordship of Christ we hear in the pulpits today.

Not at all. You see, today about all you get is a cheerleader who says, Give me a J, give me an E, give me an S. Yay, Jesus! You can talk all you want about the lordship of Jesus. But until it gets that pack of cigarettes out of your pocket, until it gets a hold of that pornography, until it gets...

Hold, let me preach. Until it gets a hold of that spirit of adultery that's in you, until it gets that rebellion out of you and that stubbornness, don't even begin to comprehend what we're preaching about the lordship of Jesus.

Paul, when he preached the kingship of Christ, he was saying, you lay down your idols. You give up the places of sin. Paul preached self-denial. He preached suffering for the glory of Christ, even to martyrdom.

He said, you will no longer follow men or teachers or doctrines of man. You're not going to be led around by merchandisers who make merchandise out of you. That's what Bob preached about this morning.

He said, you're going to live a life of holiness, separation from the very appearance of evil. You'll have no fellowship with evil, with wicked men. You'll have no fellowship whatsoever. He preached separation, holiness, righteousness as the lordship and kingship of Jesus.

He just didn't get up there and say, Christ is Lord. I hear so many people say, well, in our church, we hear holiness preaching. Our preacher preaches nothing but the lordship of Jesus. If that's so, why is it when some preachers come into town and a church is started and people start really living the kingship of Jesus and the demands of the gospel really lay down on the people and they begin to respond, why do people get mad?

Why do they rage? A preacher's wife asked me recently, she said, Brother Dave, do you realize that Times Square Church has upset every charismatic church in New York? Now, folks, listen to me. I don't know that to be a fact.

Now, if it were because there was arrogance from this pulpit, that's one thing. If we were having people go out of Times Square Church and say this is the only church preaching a true gospel in New York, then we're in error.

And you should never do that if you make this your church home. You don't go out and say this is the only church. God, help us if that's the case. God, help us if that's the case. No, I know it to be a fact that there are some very precious men of God and women of God in this city that are preaching Jesus and holiness and righteousness.

But on the other hand, now, there's always two sides to the coin, isn't there? You say, well, I came out of a dead church. I came out of a dry church. I came out of a church that I know is not preaching righteousness.

And I've met people here in New York City that come to us after the service and they're so in love with their church and so in love with their pastor and they come, they're invited by a friend and they'll come up to us and say, well, we enjoyed the service and this is not a commercial for Times Square Church.

I mean that with everything that's in me. And I don't mean it in any kind of arrogance. There's a Bible principle here and I want you to catch it and catch it good. Because some of you wonder how far you should go in trying to pull people out of what you came from.

Come on now. Do you have a right to go, do you have a right to do something about those who are in deception just like you were? And you know if you don't speak to them, they may die and go to hell. They may live in deception.

You see, people come and say, I hear holiness preaching. Folks, I don't want to hear, I don't want to hear just words. I want to see the unction, the anointing of the Holy Spirit. And I want to see altars filled with people that are having their lives changed.

And they are not under the dominion of a man. They're not under the dominion of a woman. They're not under the dominion of false doctrines. They're under the lordship and kingship of Jesus Christ. Do you have a right?

I told you to remember those words that Paul went in among them. He said in 17 .2, and Paul as his custom was went in unto them. You go in unto them with tapes, telephone calls, letters. Now folks, if you don't do it humbly, you don't do it with a holier-than-thou attitude.

If you don't have a broken heart, Paul said, I came to you tenderly as a nurse. You don't lord it over people. You don't have a holier-than-thou attitude. You have a broken heart. He said, we would have given you our very lives because you were dear to us.

That's what should break your heart. That those of your friends still in deception, it should break your heart. You should weep over them. You should pray with them. You don't beg them, say, hey, just come out of that.

But you present the truth of the Lord Jesus Christ in every way you can. They have to see a change in you. They have to see such a Christ in you that they can't be turned by because that's the greatest testimony of all the kind of life that you show before them.

These men, the scripture says, 17 .16, these who have turned the world upside down have come here also. Well, whose world's upside down? Whose world's upside down? It's this little religious circle where nobody took the kingship of Christ seriously.

They're the only ones upset. I can assure you, folks, the moment the Word of God takes root in your heart, the moment you really begin to come under the kingship of Christ and live it, you are not living like you used to.

You are not indulging like you used to. There's a change and everybody knows it. That, folks, is when you're going to shake up people. You're going to get more people angry at you than any time in your life.

It's such a reproof to dead compromising preachers and churches when the people start walking in holiness. Hallelujah. And the brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night. That's Acts 17 .10.

Well, it looks again like the devil's winning the battle. They're sneaking out of town in the middle of the night. Can you imagine the next Sabbath after Paul and Silas are gone? That Sabbath, everything's quieted down now.

They're back to their tradition and their doctrines. And they said, boy, it didn't take much to get those holiness preachers out of town, did it? And they thought they'd won the day. I don't even know what the Christians of Thessalonica thought at that time, but it must not have hurt them.

And I'll tell you what. The reason I believe God wanted Paul and Silas out of town, He wouldn't even let the devil touch them. They got them out of town because the whole city was upside down. But Paul and Silas, in just three or four short weeks, had so turned them away from themselves to Jesus.

They had so focused them, not on the personality of Paul or Silas. They had so rooted them in looking to Jesus as the author and finisher of their faith that out of Thessalonica came the greatest church.

And in fact, Paul called the church of Thessalonica the joy of his heart. In fact, it was a testimony to all of Asia, the strength and the faith of the church of Thessalonica. Paul and Silas moved out of town, leaving a Holy Ghost church.

The devil couldn't touch. Proved by leaps and bounds. Hallelujah. Well, secondly, Paul and Silas stirred things up in the marketplace. Now, folks, I believe God is challenging the church in New York City.

I believe God's going to raise up little fires all over this city. He's going to do it in New Jersey. He's going to do it in Long Island. I've had pastors in Long Island recently, this past week, just with tears and hunger, said, Bro. Wilkinson, we heard about the prayer meetings down in Times Square.

We're beginning to pray. We're beginning to seek God. And there's a turning toward the Lord. And you know, some of them are doing it just so they won't lose people. Well, that's fine. I don't care how it's done.

That's great. Hallelujah. Folks, if you're getting fed in your church, you're not going to want to come here. If you're already getting a Holy Ghost gospel, you can come and visit all you want. But we're looking for the hungry people.

We're looking for the outcasts. We're looking for those who don't fit anywhere else. We sure have them here. Would you look at chapter 17, verse 16? So Paul, he goes off by himself in the middle of the night.

He goes off to Athens. He goes off to Athens, and he's waiting for Timothy and Silas to come. And I want you to look at verse 16. We're getting to read now, When 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 in the market daily with them that met with him. Then certain philosophers, the Epicureans and the Stoics encountered him.

And some said, what will this babbler say? Have you ever been called a babbling troublemaker? Paul sure was. And some, he seemeth to be setting forth a strange God because he preached unto them Jesus and the resurrection.

What did he preach to them? Jesus and the resurrection. Now, listen to me. Look this way. If there's any one place that Christians are more silent about their Christ than any other place, it's on the job.

It's in the marketplace where they work. Look, I know people that come to Times Square Church and I say it with love, I pray with tenderness. There are some of you come here and loudly proclaim your devotion to Jesus.

You raise your hands and you talk about how intensely you love Jesus and then why is it when you get to the job, you never ever say anything about His name. You are absolutely quiet because you fear rejection.

You may fear losing your job. Who on the job says, I don't know the man. At least by their silence, I don't know the man. Why is it? Why is it that we don't challenge New York City in the marketplace on your job?

Do you know something that if we could send out, this place seats I think 1 ,250 people, if we could send out that many people on jobs throughout New York, New Jersey, Long Island, it wouldn't take long, if everyone took their stand for Christ, it wouldn't take long to trouble the city.

We need troublemakers on the job. That's my point here. See, you know why Christians don't witness for Christ on the job? It's because their hearts are not sturdy in them like Paul's was. Because all around them there are people given to idolatry.

You say, well Paul's a preacher. He was called to that work. No, the Bible said we're all ambassadors for Jesus Christ. The Athenians were exactly like the people you work with. They're the same kind of people in Athens.

The Bible said they spent... Tell me if this doesn't describe the people you work with. Now, think it's Joe right next to you, or Marian, whoever it is, think of that boss of yours. Think of all the ladies gossiping, and all the men gossiping.