R1504 Standing Strong in the Cross Currents

Standing strong in the cross-currents, that's today's message from the Bible-based preaching of Dr. Don Wilton on The Encouraging Word. In just a few moments, Dr. Don's taking us straight to the book of Acts chapter 17, but he wants you to know we're here for you. Taking your calls at 866-899-9673 or meeting you online at www.tewonline.org.

And now, Dr. Don Wilton. I'm going to ask you to open your Bibles to Acts chapter 17. Acts chapter 17. Here it is, standing strong in the cross-currents.

Now friends, I want you to get a hold of this as we open God's Word because I promise you God has an encouraging Word for you today. Just one simple statement. Today in America, we are living in the crossfire of multiple cross-currents. It's been like that for many, many years, but today particularly, every kind of philosophy, religion, way of thinking, perspective, ideology is being thrown at our people.

And here's the question. How do I, as a Christian man, witness in the world in which I live? Because God's Word gives me quite a challenge. This is what God says to you and me, that we ought to be in the world, but not of the world.

Nowhere does the Bible suggest that you and I go and build a cave, we go and live in a cave, and shut ourselves off. God's Word says that as Christian people, we ought to engage our world in the middle of the cross-currents of our world. That's exactly what happened to Paul. Paul found himself in the city of Athens. He'd been traveling all over the world, telling people about Jesus, and this is what happened. Acts chapter 17 and verse 15, those who had accompanied Paul brought him as far as Athens, and after receiving a command for Silas and Timothy to come to him as soon as possible, they departed.

Now while Paul was waiting for them in Athens, his spirit was provoked within him because he saw that the city was full of idols. And so he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there. Some of the Epicureans and the Stoic philosophers also conversed with him, and some of them said, What does this babbler wish to say?

Others said, He seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection. And so they took him and brought him to the Areopagus saying, May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? For you bring some strange things to our ears. We wish to know therefore what these things mean.

Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new. So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said, People of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along and I observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription to the unknown God. What therefore you worship is unknown.

This I proclaim to you. The 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 himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live upon all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and having determined the boundaries of each man's dwelling place. That 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 we move and we have our being. For even Athenians, as some of your own poets have said, we are indeed of 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. The times of ignorance God overlooked. But now He commands all people everywhere to repent because He has fixed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by man whom He has appointed, and of this He has given assurance to all by raising this one from the dead. Now, when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. But others said, we will hear you again about this.

So Paul went out from their midst, but some men joined him and believed, in fact, among whom was also Dionysus the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris, as well as others who were with them. Isn't that a wonderful, wonderful story encounter? Sounds just like us, really.

Really does. Let me just tell you something about the Areopagus. I was just there not too long ago with a group of our people. I've been there many times. The Areopagus, today it's known as Mars Hill. It stands just below the Acropolis in Athens. If you've seen all the pictures of Athens, show the temple standing on the hill.

It's one of the hallmarks of the great city of Athens. The Areopagus, it was named Mars Hill by the Romans. It was a meeting place.

It was named Mars Hill after the god of war. And interestingly enough, at Mars Hill, this huge rock that I've had the privilege on many occasions of standing there and preaching on that same place, this was where the courts came to settle issues. The elders of the city would gather there. It was the meeting place of philosophy and of religion and of the law. The philosophers would come and they would give forth and espouse all the things that they believed were important. And the religious zealots would come by and they would talk about their varied forms of religion, whether they believed in the earth or the roundness or the upness or the downness or the trees or the whales or the fish or the air that we breathe.

Or whether it was just simply a vibe that you feel in the human heart based upon the non-existent existence of God. This was the meeting place, and this is where Paul found himself. A man who was learned could debate with the best of them, could get down in the trenches with them, was considered to be very religious among them, and yet he did not know the Lord Jesus. And he met Jesus.

And so here's Paul. So my question is, what did he do? Well, he did a number of things. Number one, he was burdened by them. You know, in verse 16 the Bible says that his spirit was provoked within him.

Do you know what that means? It means that when Paul came into the cross current, it bothered him. It just bothered him because he was a Christian man. He didn't just see the ball game for the ball game. Oh yeah, he saw the ball game, but he saw the people who watched the ball game. He didn't just hear the talk. He saw the people behind the talk. He didn't just hear the questions. He was bothered by them. They were asking why, where, how, and many of them were providing their philosophical and religious and legal reasons, providing the basis upon which they could extrapolate and interpret the world in which they lived. He was burdened by them. Didn't mean that he turned and ran, but he was troubled. For Paul, it wasn't business as usual.

When he came in and he stood and he looked at the crowd, he really prayed for them before he got there because he knew that there were people amongst them that didn't know Jesus. Please forgive the interruption. We'll be back with the rest of today's message, Standing Strong in the Cross Currents with Dr. Don Wilton in just a moment. It's coming up in its entirety, so don't go away, but I pray that you would consider connecting with us and discovering more about who we are at The Encouraging Word. Our website, TEWOnline.org, is filled with wonderful resources right now.

The Laura Story book and a wonderful series from Dr. Wilton are being featured right now. They'll be right there on the front page, TEWOnline.org. It's a brand new website, and we're discovering new opportunities and ways to connect every day.

That's online at TEWOnline.org. We don't have energy, but we also still continue to connect with people and pray with folks on the phone. If you don't know our number, it's 866-899-WORD. That's 866-899-9673. Available 24 hours a day, as Dr. Don would say, happy to be your 2 a.m. friend. If you need to talk or pray with someone or need to connect you with some resources, it'll help you grow in your faith.

That's 866-899-9673. Now back to today's message with Dr. Don Wilton. Do you know, he also recognized them. He wasn't just burdened by them, he recognized them. You know, verse 17 tells us, so he went there and he began to rub shoulders with the very people that he was not only burdened by, but that he recognized.

You know what he did? He recognized what they believed and he recognized what they thought of him. In fact, in this particular passage, there are two groups that are sort of picked out here. You may be wondering who they are. The Epicureans.

Did you see that in the text? The Epicureans. Interesting designation for a group of people. Do you know who the Epicureans were back in Paul's day? Used to hang out there around the Areopagus and permeate the society in which they lived. These were a group of people who generally believed that God actually did exist, but that God was not interested in humanity, and most certainly was not interested in being involved in human affairs. In fact, the Epicureans very classically had a main purpose in life.

Do you know what their main purpose in life was? Pleasure. So now watch this. Paul recognized them.

He knew who he was dealing with. He knew that he lived in a world where there were vast numbers of people, that their real goal in life was just pleasure. Go, do, get as much as you can. I mean, just have fun. Party. Let's just have one big party.

Let's go for it. And he recognized that you could go to any one of those people and you could say to them, do you believe God? And they'd say, but of course we do. Of course we do.

Are you kidding? We're from Athens. We're from the most learned world. This is where the big shots come from. This is Greece. This is the home of the future. This is where the money is made.

This is the meeting point of the power of the world. We're Epicureans. Of course we believe in God.

But are you kidding me? God's not interested in what we do. He doesn't mind. God doesn't mind.

He doesn't mind what we do or how we do it. So our whole life is not to concern ourselves with what God thinks. Our whole life is driven by what we think. Oh, but then there were the Stoics, of course. The Stoics, of course, philosophically would have fallen into the category of having somewhat of a world view. They would, if you'd gone to a Stoic in Paul's day right here in Athens, the Stoics believed that God actually is the world's soul. That's pretty impressive.

I mean this is impressive talk here. God is the world's soul. But to the Stoic, their entire drive in life was to rise above all things, to transcend humanity, to get above, to show no emotional response, either to pleasure or pain.

Live today, tomorrow you're going to die. They were kind of the original Mardi Gras specialists. The Stoics fused in with the Epicureans. What about Paul? He was burdened by them.

It just bothered him because he saw this and he recognized them. He recognized what they believed, but he also recognized what they thought of him as a result. See, he was a Christian man. Paul.

Paul loved the Lord Jesus. And he knew that these people out there, some would kind of be very sarcastic with him. Some would try and back off from him. Some would listen to him. Some would debate him. But he knew that not a whole lot of them would readily just fall out of the window and accept him. How could you accept someone who believed in something so foolish as God rising from the dead?

What nonsense. This Christian message, it's kind of like going overboard with these philosophers. They were religious zealots. Many of them believed that the law of the land was the only thing that mattered, that their politics would change the world in which they lived, and they were totally wrong.

They were totally wrong. So what about Paul? Well, he engaged them.

You know, I love that about Paul. He engaged them, verses 19 through 21. I mean, he just, right there, he didn't walk away. He just opened his front door, stood there, welcomed them, loved them, and engaged them. I'm not putting words into his mouth, but he not only engaged them, but he connected with them. Did you notice in verse 22 and verse 23, I mean, he says here, people of Athens, I perceive in every way that you are a very religious people.

You know what I noticed about Paul? He didn't get up there and just shake his finger and break a sweat. He didn't get up there and get out his Bible and just throw it at them. He didn't say to them, look, I'm going to have nothing more to do with you.

He didn't do that. He stood right in the middle of them. He engaged them, and then he connected with them.

How did he connect with them? He spoke their language. He spoke their language. He said, I see that you're a very religious people. And then later on in verse 28, get this, he says, even your own poets have said.

I like that. He took their very own words and implanted into that the living truth of the gospel. You see, that's what he did next. He spoke truth to them.

Truth. Verse 24 through verse 31. What a sermon.

What a message. I mean, he begins right there in verse 24, this God, he made the world and everything in it. And he made you and he placed you and he's involved with you and he loves you and he engages you.

And he's not far from you. He just spoke the truth. And he got down to that point at which he said, now look, just you need to understand, God demands that everyone repent of their sin. Paul didn't shy away from that because it's sin that separates man from God. He was looking at them and saying to them, people of Athens, you take God in and through the Lord Jesus out of your world, you're going to have nothing left.

You will implode from within. And that's exactly what happened. He stood there and he just simply opened up the gospel. And in the final analysis, he left them. He did what he did. And then verse 33 tells us that he went out from their midst. In other words, what Paul did at his front door was just be every bit of who he was.

He was. And he left it there. Do you know what happened? The Holy Spirit did his work. Oh yeah, there were some there that they just couldn't handle this part about the resurrection that Jesus is alive.

But you know what the Bible tells us? That there were quite a number there that began to ask questions and there were quite a number there that came to know the Lord Jesus and were set free and their lives were changed forever. Do you know there's enough potential, listening to this message, you know Christ, to turn our world upside down for Jesus? Just by being the people of God that God has caused us to be. And it begins with that personal relationship with him, doesn't it?

Indeed it does. As the pastor has been preaching, I pray that you've heard not just Dr. Don Wilton's unique South African brogue, but you've heard the voice of God speaking through his servant, Dr. Wilton. And these moments next, as he comes into the studio, it's just from his heart. I pray you open your heart to what Dr. Don has to ask. Are you ready to give your heart and life to the Lord Jesus Christ? Why don't you pray this prayer with me right now?

Dear God, I know that I'm a sinner and I know that Jesus died for me on the cross. Today I repent of my sin and by faith I receive you into my heart. In Jesus' name, my friend, I welcome you today into the family of God.

This is exciting news. Welcome to the family of God. Some of you I know have prayed, maybe not in the specific words, Dr. Don, but in your heart you're knowing that this is the time to start with Jesus, to give your life to him. We have wonderful resources and friends that will connect you to those resources on the other end of this phone number, 866-899-WORD. That's 866-899-9673. You'll find that number on our website as well at www.tewonline.org. That's T-E-W online dot O-R-G. We stand ready to see God do some great work in the 2021 ahead of us as you have committed yourself or recommitted yourself to Christ.

Let's connect. Online is the place you'll find great resources like this Laura story offer as well. Here's Liz with all the details. Discovering the paradoxical peace and joy of surrendering your will and giving God control. In this four part study, Laura uses her own story to explain why giving up is important, whom we are submitting to, how to go about doing it and the effects of this decision on the lives of the people around us. I Give Up! The Secret Joy of a Surrendered Life by Laura Story is available for your gift of $18 and support to the Encouraging Word this month. Limited quantities available. The Encouraging Word is a viewer and listener supported ministry. Thank you for listening today. Our time's gone for today, but we're still connecting on the phone at 866-899-9673 or online at tewonline.org.