Revive Us Again | Week 14 | Acts 17

Acts 17 and the Call to Revival

All right, if you will at this time, take your copy of the scriptures. Well, since you're already still in Acts 17, let's remain there. Acts chapter 17, we will consider verses 30 and 31. Acts chapter 17, verses 30 and 31.

This is the 14th message in the series. Let me open us up in prayer. Oh, God, Lord, I stand before you this day, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And God, I ask that with this spirit that you have given me, Lord, that you will speak forth from this vessel to your people, Lord, that you will cause a shakening, if I can use that made up word, to come upon us as a church that serves you, that will cause us to leave and serve our community, serve the surrounding communities, serve those on the other side of the world.

Lord, we see this impossible task, but we serve you, a God that does impossible things through regular, ordinary people. God, please, in the name of Jesus Christ, the Nazarene, move in us that we may serve you.

In Jesus' name, amen. Let's begin with the text, Acts 17, verses 30 and 31. Paul, still speaking, says, The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now has commanded all people everywhere to repent, because He has fixed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom He has appointed.

And of this He has given assurance to all by raising Him from the dead. Our overarching theme as we've been moving through this book is revive us again. Ladies and gentlemen, we need revival. I don't know if you pay attention to what's going on in the world and if you're like me, you see the evil.

You see the transitioning that's taken place. You see that Satan still is at work. You see that the world's power and the political system is coming with their long arm to bear upon the people. And you can see this church that's in the world, that's looking to Jesus, and it seems like we have met our match.

It seems like we have come to the point of no return. It seems like there's nothing that can be done for things to overturn. Ladies and gentlemen, we serve a God that's in control, that has ordained all things.

So as we're looking in the landscape and we're seeing these things that it looks to be like no end for us. It looks like this even might be the end for the church. We need to understand that this has not caught God by surprise.

That He has ordained these things. And He has ordained His church to thrive. And He has given us what we need to bring about this revival. He's given us His Word. He has told us what to do. He has showed us what it looks like.

And as we're going through the book of Acts, we're seeing what it looks like. We're seeing the command given to the apostles to go out and make disciples. And you're seeing nations transformed by the power of God's Word.

And so right now as we're in this position, we can look with our eyes and see turmoil. But we can look in the Scriptures and see a time of turmoil where the church is being persecuted. And yet the church is transforming the world.

And we can say, oh, Paul's so bold. And he was. But Paul is given a power. And it's the same power that we have. Stephen Olfert, I hope I said his last name correctly, says this, quote, It is my conviction that we are never going to have revival until God has brought the church of Jesus Christ to the point of desperation.

I'll read that again. It is my conviction that we are never going to have revival until God has brought the church of Jesus Christ to the point of desperation, end quote. Ladies and gentlemen, if we are not at that point right now, I don't want to see what that point looks like.

Are we desperate for God? Are we desperate for Jesus Christ? Are we desperate for revival to take place in our time? In other words, until Jesus is all that we need, we won't have revival. Our theme as we're going through this book, this section that we're looking at today, is the blessing of knowing God.

Do you ever sit and think about how blessed you are because you know God? John 17, 3. Jesus in His high priestly prayer says, now this is eternal life. They may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

Eternal life is knowing God. So ladies and gentlemen, as you sit here as Christians, as people who know God, you have eternal life. You are blessed. You are blessed. You have the blessing of God on you.

You have a book that tells you all you need to know about God. We have God. We have eternal life. We are blessed. Unless you are worshiping the one true God, listen to me church, you are going to be weighed in a balance.

And in that balance, you're going to be found wanting on the day of judgment. Unless you are worshiping the one true God, you're going to be weighed in the balance. And in that balance, you're going to be found wanting.

Ladies and gentlemen, there is no time to waste. That's that saying, there's no time like the present. There's no time to waste. The day is coming. That day is fixed. And that day could be any day. And I just say this, despite your eschatology, if you think that there's no way that that day could not be today, you need to change your eschatology.

You need to fix your eschatology. Jesus can come back anytime. The biggest problem we see in the New Testament is that the Jews had their eschatology wrong. There were certain things that they saw in the Old Testament that was going to happen supposedly the first coming of Christ.

It did not happen. So to them, Jesus was not the one. Ladies and gentlemen, eschatology is something you have to discuss with your hands and mind open. We all could be wrong about certain points that we think we're right about.

Jesus could come anytime.

Anytime.

We have to live like He could come today. That's the way we are supposed to live. He's coming today. That's how we are supposed to conduct ourselves. That's how we are supposed to live when we're out in the world.

And that's the incentive that we should have to go out and witness. It could be any day. In our outline, Paul calls the men of Athens to repent and he gives them four reasons as to why they should repent.

Reason number one, they are no longer overlooked. Reason number two, the day of judgment is fixed. Reason number three, they will be judged by a man. And reason number four, our assurance of this judgment.

And as we transition, so as we have left Acts chapter 15, Paul has been doing amazing things. Paul was able to preach the gospel and as Paul was preaching, the Lord opens a woman named Lydia's heart to receive this message.

She was baptized along with her household.

Paul gets arrested. Paul is thrown into prison.

But the Lord shook things up. The Lord shook things up in such a way that their shackles fell off and Paul did not run away from that prison cell. Instead, Paul uses the Philippian jailer. God uses Paul in the Philippian jailer's life, the man who was looking over him in this prison to bring him the knowledge of truth.

And this Philippian jailer became a believer. He was baptized, him and his household. Paul has not stopped. In preaching, the way that we're doing here, as we're going through the book of Acts and we're looking at the gospel presentations, I've made this statement before, there's no way that I could cover everything.

So we're basically hitting the highlights. But I want you to know that just because we've skipped some chapters, Paul has been at work. The problem is the way that we're doing it is there's no real gospel presentations.

The word gospel is mentioned, but you don't see them given the presentations, which is why we're skipping over that. But I understand Paul has been at work. And I also want to point out the boldness of Paul.

I mentioned that earlier, that Paul was bold. But the reason that he was bold is because he had the Holy Spirit. Ladies and gentlemen, you can be bold this day too, if you have the Holy Spirit. I want to point out the boldness of Paul.

And in that and to say that the same spirit that he has is the same spirit that we have. There's nothing that Paul was given that you are not given in Christ. So as we look and we read these scriptures and we see these magnificent works done by Paul, Peter and Silas and all these other guys, we don't need to think that there are some different tier than we are when it comes to the church and the faith.

They have the same spirit. The difference is, is they were obeying the word of God. We sometimes, in our bubble, don't. We can be about what we're reading about if we do. I just want to point that out.

You and I can change and turn our world upside down through the proclamation of the gospel. That's what was taking place in the book of Acts. They're turning the world upside down through the proclamation of the gospel.

Start out with 12, 120, 3 ,000 were saved, 5 ,000 were saved. Nations are beginning to be conformed to the image of Christ. So reason number one as to why they should repent, they are no longer overlooked.

They here speaking of the Gentiles. Paul finds himself in a position where he is around the Epicureans and the Stoic philosophers. These are the educated. You read that verse and we're about to look at it in Romans where Paul talks about that he comes to the Greeks and the barbarians.

Right? In context, in historical context, this is speaking about, so if you could speak Greek, you were known as the educated. If you could not speak Greek, they called you the barbarians. So look with me real quick as we look at this passage in Romans.

The Gospel to Greeks and Barbarians

Romans chapter 1 beginning in verse 14. Paul's speaking. I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians. So he's saying both to those that speak Greek and to those that don't speak Greek, to the educated and the non-educated.

This is what this is speaking about. Both to the wise, that would be the Greeks, and to the foolish. These are the non-speaking Gentiles. So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. To the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it, speaking of the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith.

As it is written, the righteous shall live by faith. And we looked at that last week on how we as Christians, we who are righteous in Christ are to live in faith. We're not to live in the law. We are to live in faith.

And the Holy Spirit that's in us causes us to keep the law. We're to live in the law, the old covenant. We're to live in the new covenant, the righteousness of Christ. And that Spirit that's given to us causes us to keep the law.

If you have the Spirit of God, that Spirit will cause you to keep the law. And Paul says that I am not ashamed of this message. I preach it to the wise as well as the foolish. And when you look in 1 Corinthians, I truly believe that this part right here, this section that we're dealing with in 1 Corinthians, as Paul is writing it, this part in Acts must have already taken place.

I feel like as I'm reading it, it seems familiar, like he's looking back at a memory. He says, verse 18,. For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God.

For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the discernment of the discerning. I will thwart. Where is the one who is wise?

Where is the scribe?

Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom. It pleased God through the folly of what is preached to save those who believe.

For the Jews demand signs and the Greeks seek wisdom,.

But we preach Christ crucified.

Listen, a stumbling block to the Jews. They did not believe that their Messiah was going to come and die. Their eschatology was wrong. And folly to the Gentiles.

How can you worship a God who died?

Listen again. But we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews and folly to the Gentiles. But to those who are called both Jews and Greeks, we Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God.

For the foolishness of God is wiser than man. And the weakness of God is stronger than man. For consider your calling. Listen, listen, listen clearly, brothers.

Listen to this.

If you're like me, this fits you. This is your bill. For consider your calling, brothers. Not many of you were wise according to worldly standards. Not many were powerful. Not many were of noble birth.

But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God chose what is low to despise the world, even things that are not to bring to nothing the things that are.

So that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of Him, you are in Christ Jesus. Because of God, you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that as it is written, that the one who boasts, boasts in the Lord.

Ladies and gentlemen, we are not to boast in our intellect. But we are to boast in the power of God, who sent His Son and in sending His Son, who lived the life that you and I cannot live, keeping that law that condemns us and Him taking our punishment in His death, being buried and rising again on the third day, that message which is a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles.

He's saying it's the power of God. And that's what's going to change the world. That message is what's going to change the world. And the reason why a lot of people don't go out and share their faith is because they see that that seems foolish to the wise.

Because it's foolishness to the wise, they are afraid to approach the wise man with what the Bible says is foolishness to them and therefore causing fear to come upon them. Ladies and gentlemen, when you understand that it is not by your power or might that salvation is brought to someone, it can change your outlook on how we are to present this.

I am an ex-gangbanger. I got kicked out of high school at the age of 15 for gang violence. I am of the foolishness. Before coming to Christ, my conversations were more or less grunting. I barely could say anything, right?

Conversation was little. God has taken the foolishness of the world and he will confound the wise. You, like me, represent the foolishness. And if you want to know if God can use you, be obedient to his word.

I guarantee you he will use you. Don't be afraid when you're standing before the wise to proclaim to them what they see as foolishness. Ladies and gentlemen, God will use you. The Greeks, they did not deny the existence of God.

And as a matter of fact, they surrounded themselves with false gods. Look with me in verse 22. We're going to read from 22 to 29. So Paul, standing in the midst of the Ariocopans, said, Man of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious.

For as I pass alone, I observe the objects of your worship. And I found also an altar with the inscription to the unknown God. What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. That God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands as though he needed anything.

Since he therefore gives to all mankind life and breath and everything, and he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place.

And they should seek God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us. For in him we live and move and have our being, even as some of your own poets have said.

For we are indeed his offspring. Being then God's offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. I want to point out several things.

Paul uses the earthly to explain the heavenly. Paul is doing the same thing we see Jesus did. Jesus takes the earthly to explain the heavenly. And I'm going to be bringing that out more clearly in my message when the conference comes.

Paul here found an altar with an inscription to the unknown God. You see, they did not want to miss out on something they did not know about. They did not want there to be a God out there that they did not worship, that they were unfamiliar with.

Whenever the Roman army would take over nations and they'd see these nations and they would worship other gods, sometimes these gods that they were worshiping were very familiar to them, but called by a different name.

And if they were not familiar to them, what the Romans did was they adopted that God. They brought that God into their pantheon of gods and they worshiped this God. And so they always had an altar to a God because they knew that they were more, they believed in a pantheon of gods, and so they did not want to leave this God that they weren't aware of out.

And so they offered prayer incense and burned things to this God and maybe even sacrificed to this God. And Paul is using what is there, this earthly altar, to explain to them. Paul uses that altar as a launching point to explain to them the God that they didn't know personally.

Eternal life is to know God. These people did not have eternal life. They did not know God. Paul is going to use this to explain to them. Paul points out to them who the true God is. He tells them that He is Creator.

He walks through that He is the Creator of not only heaven but earth. God created everything. He tells them that this God who created heaven and earth is not served, meaning that He cannot be held. Even as God is depicted in the Old Testament and also parts of the New Testament as being behind the veil, we know that He is omnipresent.

Although the Shekinah of glory dwelt in that temple, the presence of God was everywhere. The presence of God was everywhere. You cannot contain the presence of God. He made mention that we are made from one man, every nation.

He points back to Adam. We are made of one man for every nation. Ladies and gentlemen, this right here should kill all racism, especially if you're a Christian. Every one of us come from one man. I don't care the melon in your skin.

We come from the same one man, Adam. We are kinfolk, right?

Hallelujah, South.

We are to be connected together. We allow the stupidest things to come between us. The color of our skin, the way that we talk, whether if you're from Cali or Tennessee. Me and Ash are trying to defeat this thing, right?

It does not matter. We come from one man, and yet we look for every reason to fight and bite and to fight with each other and to hate each other and to throw one another out of the kingdom. He points out that this God is sovereign.

Not only has He created heaven and earth and that He cannot be contained and that through Him we come from one man but that He is sovereign, meaning that that was His plan. He is in control of all things.

He foreordained all things. Anything that comes to pass has come to pass because He has foreordained it. He points out that we are His offspring, meaning that although He created the heavens and the earth, you cannot contain His presence.

We all come from one man to all nations. He's in control of all things, and we are created in His image. We are His offspring because we are created in His image. We have the imago Dei. Then He also makes mention of that in this true God cannot be an image.

He's not contained in temples. He's not contained in images. You cannot form Him out of gold, out of silver, from the art and the imagination of your mind. We had a friend not long ago who was talking about building Jesus.

Jesus is not something that you can make up from the imagination of your mind and say that this is what He looks like. The Bible tells you who Jesus is. You get your Jesus from the Bible or you don't have Jesus.

You get your God from the Bible or you don't have God. And Paul is laying down this message. And then verse 30, after he gives this message of who is the creator. This God is creator. He is not to be served by human hands.

That from Him all nations came to be from one man that He's sovereign. We are His offspring and you cannot form Him into an image. He says this in verse 30. The times of ignorance, God overlooked, but now He commands all people everywhere to repent.

They shall, you and I, no, they should have, you and I should repent because the times of ignorance that God overlooked is no more. If you are familiar with the scriptures, then you are familiar with the story of Noah.

God tells Noah to build an ark for him and his family, eight persons in total, as well as for the beast of the earth. God at that time did not overlook the evil in the earth and He with water judged the earth.

God did not overlook their evil. Paul is saying the reason why God has not done that again is because He was overlooking your evil. Judgment came on the earth during the time of Noah. And after Noah, God focuses His attention on Abraham for the most part, the Jewish people, the physical descendants of Abraham.

And the purpose for the physical descendants of Abraham was to bring about the promised seed, which is Jesus Christ, and that through Jesus Christ is that blessing fulfilled in Abraham that all the nations are going to be blessed.

And that's what Paul is doing. Because Christ has come, the nations are to be blessed through that proclamation we see in the book of Acts. Paul fulfilling, Paul being obedient to what the Bible says by going and telling, by proclaiming this light.

And now that Christ has come, the times of ignorance God overlooked has come to an end. Ladies and gentlemen, that means what we do matters. Right now what you and I do as Christians matters and what the people do outside of our context, outside of Christianity, it matters.

Now, the command is for all people, not just the Jews, not just for Noah, all people to repent. Reason number two as to why they should repent. Because a day of judgment is fixed. Look at verse 30 and we'll read a portion of 31.

The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now has commanded all people everywhere to repent because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness. Paul here, I believe, has the story of Noah in mind as he's pointing to a future day of judgment that's going to come upon the world.

The only difference is that this time all humanity is beginning to be warned as Noah was warned. After Noah had built the ark, Noah had to enter into the ark to be saved. Noah builds this ark. If Noah doesn't enter into the ark and that flood comes, Noah's not saved.

Noah builds the ark, but in order for him to be saved, he has to enter into the ark. And although the ark that is Christ came in the flesh through Abraham, his descendants, the Jews, have to enter into the ark to be saved.

And you and I, who are not his physical descendants, have to enter into that ark as well. The whole world is called to enter into this ark. God's warning to Noah was for Noah and his family alone. Alone.

I don't care what you've been taught. Alone. You may be thinking, but Noah was a preacher of righteousness. And he was. But he was told to bring his family on the ark outside of the beast of the earth.

Turn with me to Matthew 24. I'm going to read something from this pathetic part of the Scriptures that a lot of people overlook. Matthew 24. We'll begin in verse 37. For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.

For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark. Right here, verse 39. And they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away.

So will it be of the. So will be the coming of the Son of Man. They were unaware. They were unaware. Noah was not told to go and proclaim the message that a flood was coming. But where it calls him a preacher of righteousness,.

I would argue that.

With every swing of that hammer. He was preaching Christ every time he add up a piece of wood to another piece of wood and swung that hammer or put pitch on that ark. He was pro claiming Christ. Judgment is coming.

Repent. But never with his words. The Bible tells us that that ark was for him and his family and for the beast of the earth. They weren't warned because there was no provision made for them. There was no provision made for them.

The ark, as big as it was, was too small for all humanity at that time. Peter in 1 Peter 3 describes Jesus as being the ark of the new covenant. And if you have called upon the name of the Lord, the name of Jesus, you have entered that ark which is Christ.

God himself sent the ark. We have to enter into the ark. The Bible tells us it's by calling on his name. If you have called upon his name, you have entered that ark. If you have not called upon his name, you are outside the ark and judgment is coming.

There's a day when judgment is coming. God's delegates, Paul and Peter, you and I are supposed to give this warning of a future day, a day in which God is going to once again judge the world in righteousness.

This means he's not going to judge the world in love. He's not going to judge the world in mercy. He's going to judge it in righteousness. And that righteousness has to do with law keeping. If you have not loved God with all of your heart, with all of your soul, with all of your mind and with all of your strength and loved your neighbor as yourself, you're going to be found wanting.

You're going to be weighed.

In the balance and found wanting. And that is every one of us. None of us have kept that law. All of us are unrighteous and he's coming to judge the world in righteousness. So he sends an ark. This ark has loved the father with all of his heart, with all of his soul, with all of his mind.

And with all of his strength.

And has loved his neighbor as himself. And whenever we call upon his name and we enter that ark, that ark protects us from the wrath. That ark is the righteousness of God in Christ. Why is he judging the world?

If you're paying attention, that is, you will know that our world is very religious. There's a Petra of gods.

That they believe in.

Some of them are formed from the imagination.

Of their mind.

Some of them think themselves to be God. Our world is very religious. They know there's a God because of creation, so therefore they worship and serve the false gods of their imagination. They know there's a God.

Everyone knows there's a God. According to the Bible, God, the God of the Bible, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is supposed to be our first love. And ladies and gentlemen,.

I'm going to speak to you.

Christians for a second. Confess to me what occupies your mind and I will reveal to you the God you worship. Confess to me what occupies your mind and I will reveal to you the gods you worship. Does Father, Son, and Holy Spirit occupy your mind?

Are you giving over to the truths of Christianity? Is this what drives your life?

I pray it is.

This week, this is all script. Please forgive me. How many of y 'all know that pastors struggle with sin as well?

We're not sinless.

And if you think we are, keep reading the Bible. God deals with me, right? There's certain things that I don't even think is a sin and then as I get older,.

I'm like, oh,.

The Lord's dealing with me. I didn't even know this was a sin, right? The Lord deals with me as He should, as He should be dealing with you. And as I'm studying the scriptures, I'm studying and all of a sudden, I see that He's dealing with me.

In this sin.

I immediately shut the Bible, open it somewhere else, speaking of the same thing. Shut the Bible, open it somewhere else. Same thing! And I knew right then, I can no longer, I can no longer go to that.

I can no longer go to that.

The Lord has spoken. The Lord has spoken.

I can no longer look back at that. That cannot enter the ark. We have to repent. We have to look to Christ. Confess to me what occupies your mind and I will reveal to you the gods you worship. And oh, if there were more people like Paul today, who used the gift that was given to them.

Paul, who stood before the public square and proclaimed to the people that the times of ignorance that was overlooked are no more. God is going to judge the world in righteousness. Point number, reason number three as to why they should repent.

They will be judged by a man. We're back at our text. Verse 30 and 31. Again, we're only going to read a portion of 31. As we leave here today, you should have 30 and 31 memorized. We're going to read it so much.

The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now has commanded all people everywhere to repent because he has fixed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness, right here, by a man whom he has appointed.

This man that he has appointed is the God-man. We have all come forth from one man, which is Adam, and we are going to be judged by a man, the God-man, Jesus the Nazarene. The Bible calls this Jesus the Nazarene, the last Adam.

The life that you lived will be compared to the life lived by Jesus. If that's not the scariest statement you ever heard, keep reading the Bible. The life that you lived will be compared to the life lived by Jesus.

You're breaking the perfect law of God compared to Jesus keeping the perfect law of God. I've given this illustration before, but I've thought of a way to make it better, so bear with me if you've heard it.

I heard a preacher preaching one time, and he's a golfer, and he spoke about how he went to this arena-type thing. It's kind of like a game room system at this golf place, but they had it to where you could swing a club, and then you could see how your swing looks compared to Tiger Woods' swing.

And so you would get up there, and you would swing the club, and then they would do a side-by-side visual of what you look like compared to Tiger Woods. Imagine your life compared to Jesus Christ. That's what judgment's going to look like.

If you have believed in Jesus, and you have been given the Holy Spirit to love your neighbor, to believe in God and love your neighbor, you are given the perfect righteousness of Christ. Now imagine if they could take that video.

Imagine if I swung, which would probably look really bad.

I don't even know if I'm.

Holding my pen right. If I swung that golf club, and they were to take those pictures of Tiger Woods and put them side-by-sides, but imagine if they could take that video of Tiger Woods and overlap it with my video.

And then the next thing you know, you cannot see my swing, but you see Tiger's swing. That's the Christian in the eyes of the Father. He does not see our breaking the law. He sees the righteousness of Christ.

But if you have not believed in Jesus, that means you have not been given His Spirit to love God and neighbor,.

And therefore,.

You have not been given the perfect righteousness that when you are judged, God is going to clearly see you're breaking the law compared to His Son keeping the law.

And ladies and gentlemen,.

That's what's called being weighed in the balance and found wanting. You do not tip the scale compared to Christ, the life that He lived in our stead. Reason number four as to why we should repent. Our assurance of this judgment.

Again, look back at those two verses. The time of ignorance God overlooked, but now has commanded all people everywhere to repent because He has fixed the day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom He has appointed and of this given assurance to all by raising Him from the dead.

The assurance that this judgment of righteousness is going to happen is that God raised Him, this man, Jesus Christ, from the dead. Could you imagine that message being brought to the world today? Telling you know that God is going to judge the world.