Sin City

God refers to the elect in Corinth. Now, it's not so amazing to me that a sovereign God knows who the elect are. What amazes me is that there are elect in Corinth, not in this city, not in Sin City, not in this town. And you notice God said, I have what? Many people. You ought to underline that word and let it encourage your heart when things are dark and ministry is like a rock. You're chipping away at it.

And those peers around you could care less. I have many people in this city. In other words, this city is ready for the gospel. Today on Wisdom for the Heart, we're going back to our vintage wisdom archives and bringing you a series from the book of Acts. Stephen Davey has a three part series through this book.

And this is the third in that series. We're looking closely at the life of Paul. You know, the more persecution and opposition Paul faced, the more confident he became in sharing his faith. But sometimes even Paul's faith was tested to the limit.

Has that ever happened to you? In this lesson, it took a vision from God in the night to bring him back. Here's Stephen with today's message called Sin City. We arrived this morning at chapter 18 in the book of Acts.

The first phrase of verse one reads this. After these things, he, that is Paul, left Athens and went to Corinth. And as I studied this city, the differences between Corinth and Athens are obvious and rather stark.

Both are searching for the cure now and in need of direction. But each city seeks for it in different places. Where the Athenians dialogued, the Corinthians drank. In fact, during Paul's day on the theater stages of that part of Greece, if a Corinthian or if an actor was on stage playing the part of a Corinthian, he was usually drunk. While Athens dialogued and Corinthians drank, I also saw a distinct difference in that the Athenians had 10,000 idols. Corinth had 10,000 religious prostitutes.

In this day when abortion was a blight on its society, infanticide as well, a day when the practice of having a baby that you didn't want, you'd put that baby out on the stoop, especially if it were a girl and unable to carry on the family name and the slave traders would come by and pick those little baby girls up. By the time Paul arrived in Corinth, 10,000 of these little girls had been enslaved to the temple of Venus. And every night, it was their role to descend on the city of Corinth and reenact the religion of this city. Where Athenians debated in philosophy, Corinth was addicted to pornography. In fact, by the time Paul arrives here in this incredibly wicked city, the Greek word Corinthian had already become a nickname for immorality. Corinthians, oh my, if attached to a woman, would be saying that this woman was loose. If you called a man a Corinthian man in Paul's day, that meant he was dishonest, he was an adulterer, he was a fornicator.

That word had come to mean any form of immorality, dishonesty, or debauchery that you could imagine. One author that I read referred to Corinth as a rip-roaring town where none but the tough could survive. What I want to do by way of introduction here is just simply draw out of this passage, as Paul approaches this evil and needy city, six principles. If you're following in your notes, you may care to do so.

Principle number one is this. There has never been an easy place to live for Christ. You climb into the sandals of the Apostle Paul and you will likely never complain again about how tough it is to live for Jesus Christ in your city. Oh, but you don't know the temptation. You don't know my pressures. You don't know my peers, my professors.

You don't know my family. No, my friend, you do not know Corinth. This place was sin city. Now for the Apostle Paul, there were a number of reasons just at the outset of his ministry that created a great and difficult chapter in his life.

Let me give you three of them. First of all, as I've already mentioned, he faced not only spiritual but moral darkness with its primary religion of immorality, a place where every vice would be out in the open. Homosexuality was rampant. Divorce was epidemic. In fact, by this time, the high-bred women of Greece, it was said of them that they would date their or name their years by the names of their husbands.

One author said that this city of 200,000 people was a sweltering reflection of inner city New York, Las Vegas, and Hollywood, sort of all rolled up into one city. And Paul would confront it all with the gospel of Christ. Third, or secondly, Paul experienced financial difficulty in Corinth to make matters worse. In fact, verse 2 tells us that when he arrived, he eventually moved in with some tent makers, obviously, in order to make ends meet. Fortunately, he gets to fall back on this trade that he had learned as a little boy the rabbis used to teach.

If you don't teach your son a trade, you teach him how to steal. And so the trade that he had evidently learned as a boy was how to make a tent with coarse goat's hair or leather. But it was a difficult time because we find him having to make tents to survive, to put food in his stomach. Third, just in setting the stage, Paul endured also physical and emotional discouragements, and we'll get into that in a little bit.

But for now, at least know that he just completed a 500-mile walk. He had been beaten some time ago. He'd fled three cities already. He just left the city with very little result, and now he makes this long journey, but this time he's alone. His companions are in another town. And so he arrives in Corinth with no place to stay, very little money, in fact, in need of money. He doesn't know anybody.

To make matters worse, he's arrived in one of the ungodliest cities on planet Earth. It leads me to the second principle. There is never a time when you will not benefit from friends of like spiritual passion. Look at verse 2. And he found a certain Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontius, having recently come from Italy with his wife, Priscilla, because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to leave Rome. He came to them, and because he was of the same trade, the Western text inserts, and of the same tribe, he stayed with them, and they were working, for by trade they were tentmakers. Now, most believe that Aquila and Priscilla were already believers, having come to faith in Rome, where church already existed. We do know by putting the clues together that they are a tremendous couple who knew the Word well enough so that in a few verses they're going to straighten out this visiting preacher named Apollo, who was a little off. They will also, by the way, follow Paul to Ephesus. They become team members of the apostle Paul. One author that I read some time ago said that every believer has in their lives a couple of different people. There are those who sap your spiritual passion, and there are a few who share your spiritual passion.

You could always use a little more of them, right? Well, this couple was a couple that shared Paul's spiritual passion, and maybe you're thinking, you know, this is what I'm missing in my life. Where is my Aquila?

Where is my Priscilla? Lord, why don't you make them find me? Well, if you look closely, you'll discover that they didn't find Paul. Paul found them, verse two, and he found them. To Paul, he found kindred spirits who shared his spiritual passion.

There's more encouragement ahead along this line. Notice verse five. But when Silas and Timothy came down from Macedonia, Paul began devoting himself completely to the Word, solemnly testifying to the Jews that Jesus was the Christ. Now we know from other scriptures that Silas and Timothy bring with them monetary gifts from the believers here in Philippi. In fact, the only church to support Paul, as he mentions later financially, and you notice the result here, Paul was able to devote himself completely to the Word. In other words, he can set aside his needle and his goat's hair and his leather. He doesn't have to make tents now.

He's supported in the ministry full time. What a delight that must have been. So Paul receives good news, grocery money, and godly fellowship. There isn't any time in any of our lives when we couldn't use a little more of one of those things, right?

Well, he got all three here, and what a great day. Principle number three, there's never been a great opportunity without great opposition. Look at verse four. And he was reasoning in the synagogue every Sabbath and trying to persuade Jews and Greeks. Skip to verse six. And when they resisted, this word literally means when they lined up in battle array.

This isn't just, okay, we don't want to hear that. No, they put their dukes up, were ready to go to battle with this man that had invaded their synagogue with the truth of this Messiah that they could care less of. And they ultimately blasphemed. Paul shook out his garments, the text says, and said to them, your blood be upon your own hands or heads.

I am clean. From now on, I shall go to the Gentiles. Now, in the Old Testament, two different phrases were highly significant that you've read.

I'm sure Paul uses one of them here. A person who has blood on his hands is meant to indicate that this person bears the responsibility for the life and death of someone else. Their blood is on his hands. But to have blood on your own head, as Paul says here, means that you are responsible for your own death. And the judgment that you will incur one day from a holy God will be all at your own fault.

The blood is on your head. That's what Paul told them. You're responsible having heard the truth.

You will stand before God one day having heard the truth and judgment will come and you will have no one to blame but yourself. Of course it didn't make him very happy. Now, Paul declares he's going to preach to the Gentiles. With that, he sort of shakes the dust off his garments as if I don't want any of that stuff clinging to me. And he says, I'm going to go preach to the Gentiles. And he does leave.

He goes all the way next door. Look at verse 7. And he departed from there and went to the house of a certain man named Titus Justice, a worshiper of God, whose house was next to the synagogue.

I like that. He didn't get very far away. In fact, they could probably still hear him now. Notice verse 8.

And Crispus, the leader of the synagogue, believed in the Lord with all his household. Well, if the enemy was angry at Paul before, he's livid now. Why?

Because as Warren Wiersbe states in reference to this paragraph, Satan knew that Paul was invading his territory and liberating his slaves. And there is never an opportunity without accompanying opposition. You want some trouble in your life? Would you like a little trouble? The right kind of trouble, by the way. Live for Jesus Christ.

There on that job site, bow your head before you eat. You stir things up. Mention the name of Christ.

Christ as someone that you're devoted to. You can stir it up. I like the way Spurgeon said it. He said it really well. And that Satan never kicks a dead horse.

Just a live one. However, in spite of all of this incredible fruit here and these courageous advances into this territory, principle number 4, let me give it to you and then we'll read further. There is never a moment when the strongest quality of your testimony doesn't need to be carefully guarded. Look at the middle part of verse 8. And many of the Corinthians when they heard were believing and being baptized as an expression of their belief, that is verse 9. And the Lord said to Paul in the night by a vision, do not be afraid any longer but go on speaking and do not be silent. Now stop a second.

This is rather shocking news. Paul afraid. This is the man who said and wrote what became the foundation of what was just sung.

I am not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ for it is the power of God and the salvation. But here fear clutches his throat. You see something was happening during the events in the last part of verse 8. While people are hearing and believing and being immersed, something is happening to Paul. That's exactly the opposite of what you'd expect to be happening to Paul. The original verb translated there in your Bibles, do not be afraid, is a present imperfect with a negative, which means that the Lord is telling Paul to stop an action that is already in progress. The next verb translated do not be silent is different, air subjunctive with a negative. That means that the Lord is preventing or attempting to prevent an action that is about to begin.

I did that just not so you know I did my Greek homework but because you'd probably need a little proof because here's what's happening here. In other words, Paul, if you can believe it, is already afraid. He's told to stop being afraid. It's an action in progress. And then he isn't on top of that contemplating resigning as the chief spokesman of the Corinthian Crusade. I'm stunned by this revelation of Paul the fearless one who is afraid. Why? We're not told.

But I had all week to come up with a guess. Let me tell you what I think is going on. Think about what happened to Paul and we've been studying his life in every city that he went to on this European tour. He begins in Macedonia. What happens? He's beaten with rods and thrown into prison.

He leaves there and he goes to Thessalonica. God is at work. God is moving.

People are coming to faith in Christ. And then the city is set in an uproar and a mob is incited who seek to take his life and he flees in the night to save his life. He flees to Berea and things are sort of clicking there and the church is being established and people there are coming out of Christ. And then Thessalonians come and incite a mob at Berea and he again has to flee in the night to save his life. Now he's in Corinth. And I believe with every new convert, with every advance, with every incredible testimony, something in Paul's stomach begins to churn and fear begins to grip at his throat.

Another riot, another mob of angry killers, another painful beating, another night in jail. The reason why I think this guess is true and this is why Paul is afraid is primarily because of what the Lord will say to him that I think further clarifies it. Look at verse 10 where the Lord says, Paul, in a vision, I'm with you and no man will attack you in order to harm you. In other words, Paul, it happened back in those other cities, but it's not going to happen here.

Now I'm so glad this has been revealed of Paul because he becomes a lot more like us, which is encouraging because then maybe we can become a lot more like him. Fearing the future had seriously deflated his confidence in the direction of the Lord and his own personal courage. And he began to borrow the worst possible scenario from a future. Without ever asking the Lord, he was sure it was going to happen to the point where he was riddled with fear and was already contemplating packing his bags and leaving while the getting out was good. And many of us are good at that, aren't we?

We are professional at borrowing trouble. We know the worst is going to happen, don't we? We suffer a thousand tribulations just waiting for the tribulation to occur and sometimes it doesn't even occur. Ken Hughes writes an interesting story of a lesson Abraham Lincoln learned that he would use later as a president when he was surrounded by bad news, wasn't he? In his circuit writing days as a lawyer, Lincoln and his companions writing to the next session of court crossed many swollen rivers, but the Fox River was still ahead of them on this one journey. And they said to one another, if these streams give us so much trouble, how do we get over the Fox River? When darkness fell, they stopped for the night of the log tavern where they ate with other guests, among them, the presiding Methodist elder of the district who rode through the country in all kinds of weather and knew all about the Fox River. They gathered about him and asked him about the present state of the river. Oh, yes, replied the circuit writing preacher. I know all about the Fox River. I've crossed it often and I understand it well, but I have one fixed rule with regard to the Fox River.

I never cross it till I reach it. Paul was convinced that the future held an uprising, a beating, a mob. But God knew that up ahead was a revival and an extended ministry. And the greatest comfort of Paul, by the way, are in those first few words of verse 10. Look back for I am with you, which leads me to principle number five.

There has never been a challenge or crisis that leaves you on your own. Now, Paul didn't have a copy of Matthew in his hip pocket that he could pull it out during a Matthew chapter 28 and read the promises of God. He didn't have that where God told the church and we have it in our hands and in our laps, go and make disciples, baptize them and teach them and lo, I am with you always, even until the end of the age.

He couldn't pull that out and dust it off and reread it. So God came to him in a vision and gave him basically the same promise. In fact, you know, it's fascinating to me how Matthew 28 is fulfilled this great commission to the T and Acts chapter 18. God said in Matthew 28, go in verse one, Paul goes, God said, make disciples. This happens in verse eight. God said, baptize them. This also happens in verse eight here.

God said, teach them. Paul does that in verse 11 and God promises lo, I am with you always, even until the end of the age. He promises that in verse 10 he gives Paul everything that he has given us. One more principle quickly. Number six, there is never an assignment from God that will not yield some eternal fruit. Verse 10 for I am with you and no man will attack you in order to harm you. Now, notice these next words.

For I have many people in this city and I find those words fascinating. God knows who will believe in him, but more than that, he refers to those who will believe in him in the future as already his in the present. God refers to the elect in Corinth. He knows who they are. Now, it's not so amazing to me that a sovereign God knows who the elect are. What amazes me is that there are elect in Corinth, not in this city, not in Sin City, not in this town. And you notice God said, I have what? Many people. You ought to underline that word and let it encourage your heart when things are dark and ministry is like a rock, you're chipping away at it and your family doesn't listen and those peers around you could care less. I have many people in this city. In other words, this city is ready for the gospel. Now, I've been to Las Vegas.

I know that's hard for you to imagine. That money we used to have in the building. I was a college student traveling for my Christian college in a Christian singing group and we happen to sing at a church in Las Vegas, staying in the home of a fellow that night and a couple other buddies from the singing group.

And his particular job was stocking the Coca-Cola machines in many of the night spots. And after we sang, went to his house, ate supper, he said, hey, you guys, I got to go to work. You want to go with me? I'll give you a back tour of Vegas.

Would you like that? I said, will you keep it a secret? So he took us all through that town. And I have to tell you, never once did the thought ever occur to me as a ministerial student, you know, preparing for the ministry.

The thought never occurred to me going through Vegas. Wow. This city is a ripe harvest field. Yeah, what a great place to start a church. These people are ready for the gospel of Christ.

Never. I don't think that ever crossed the mind of Paul either. And it was time for God to shock him. Notice verse 11. He only does this in three cities.

This is one of the three cities. He settled down there. A year and six months teaching the Word of God among them. John Phillips, who is an outstanding British expositor, writes these words here at Corinth in the filth capital of the world were many hungry hearts. There were lonely people, people disillusioned by pleasure and worldliness, people who had drunk from Satan's broken cisterns and cisterns and poisoned wells, desperate people, people who were not only lost but who knew they were lost. There were sailors tired of lives of drunkenness and debauchery. There were the broken women, the castoffs of the temple where sin was their daily bread.

There were successful businessmen whose money could buy them everything but happiness. There were housewives struggling for a decent home life in a city as foul as Sodom. There were young people whose ideals had been blighted by the diseased state of the society in which they lived. Some were tired of Tinseltown.

The fleshly pleasures had lost their attraction. Some were suffering deep guilt and an awful emptiness of soul. They were ready to receive Christ. And so Paul, to the utter surprise of Paul, a man who was ready to give up, sin said he was ready for the gospel. And he learned some valuable lessons here. He learned and the reason we know he learned is because of the way he would write to this church that would develop. He would write them a letter and tell them, oh, listen, you remember how when I came to you I was filled with weakness and trembling and much fear. He ends that same epistle by saying to them, my dear friends, be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord for as much as you know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. In other words, don't quit and don't be quiet.

Say to the Lord, Lord, do a work inside of me and Lord, do a work through me and then in the midst of your sin city, watch him go to work. If you've ever felt like Paul, I hope this message will encourage you to keep at it. Thanks for joining us today here on Wisdom for the Heart. We're currently in a series from Acts from our Vintage Wisdom Archives. Acts is a critical book as the story of the Bible transitions to the church age.

I hope you'll be with us in the days ahead for this entire series. You can learn more about our ministry if you visit our website, which is wisdomonline.org. Once you go there, you'll be able to access the complete archive of Stephen's Bible Teaching Ministry. We have it arranged by book of the Bible.

That makes it really easy to find what you're looking for. We also post each day's broadcast, so if you ever miss one of these lessons, you can go to our website and keep caught up with our daily Bible Teaching Ministry. The archive of Stephen's teaching is available on that site free of charge, and you can access it anytime at wisdomonline.org. If you have a comment, a question, or would like more information, you can send us an email if you address it to info at wisdomonline.org.

Once again, that's info at wisdomonline.org. We look forward to interacting with you there. Thanks again for joining us. Be with us for our next Bible message next time, right here on Wisdom for the Hearts. We'll see you next time.