The gospel message, centered on Christ crucified, is both the power and wisdom of God, despite being a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles. Drawing from 1 Corinthians 1 and Acts 14 and 17, it illustrates how the apostles preached Christ to diverse audiences, using creation as a bridge to pagan cultures and emphasizing God's sovereignty in salvation. The message clarifies that true evangelism is the clear communication of the gospel, not mere decision-making or church recruitment, and that the gospel itself is inherently offensive to the natural man. Ultimately, it calls believers to be convinced of Christ's power and wisdom and to faithfully communicate It to their generation.
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We want to turn in our Bibles tonight to the book of the first Corinthians chapter one verses twenty two through twenty four the passage that we examined this morning first Corinthians chapter one and then we shall turn back to Acts chapter fourteen Acts chapter one I mean first Corinthians chapter one verse twenty two for the Jews require a sign and the Greeks seek after wisdom. But we preach Christ crucified. Unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness. But unto them which are called both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
Acts chapter fourteen. And here we begin. at verse six. And they were aware of it. That means of the Jews opposition to the gospel at a place called Iconium and the area of Lacaonia. And we read, and they were aware of it and fled unto Lystra and Derby, cities of Lacaonia, and unto the region that Lyath round about. And there they preached the gospel. And there sat a certain man at Listera impotent in his feet, being a cripple from his mother's womb, who never had walked.
The same heard Paul speak, who steadfastly beholding him and perceiving that he had faith to be healed, said with a loud voice, Stand upright on thy feet, and he leaped and walked. And when the people saw what Paul had done, they lifted up their voices, saying in the speech of Lacaonia, The gods are come down to us in the likeness of men, and they call Barnabas Jupiter and Paul Mercurius because he was a chief speaker. Then the priest of Jupiter, which was before their city, brought oxen and garlands unto the gates and would have done sacrifice with the people, which when the apostles, Barnabas, and Paul heard of, they rent their clothes and ran in among the people, crying out and saying, Sirs.
Why do ye these things? We also are men of like passions with you, and preach unto you that ye should turn from these vanities unto the living God, which made heaven and earth, and the sea and all things therein. Who in times past suffered all nations to walk in their own ways? Nevertheless, he left not himself without witness, in that he did good and gave us rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness, and with these saying scarce restrained they the people, that they should not, that they had not done sacrifice unto them. And there came thither certain Jews from Antioch, an Iconium who persuaded the people, and having stoned Paul, drew him out of the city, supposing he had been dead.
Howbeit as a disciple stood round about him, he rose up and came into the city, and the next day He departed with Barnabas to Derby. Now may the Lord bless the reading of his word. Let us pray together. Our loving Father, you have given us a command to carry the gospel to the ends of the earth. The early church turned the world upside down. They were what we would call uneducated men who had been with Jesus. And it is this gospel of saving grace that you have committed us and committed to us in order that we carry it to poor sinners, telling them how to be saved.
And we thank you that you have not only committed it to us for our immediate area in which we live, for which we are responsible, but you have given us that command to see but the gospel goes to the ends of the earth. And we pray, O God, for missionaries who have dedicated themselves to going forth and to telling the message. And we pray for them tonight. There are those who are laboring in difficult areas, areas which to us are difficult, but thou art able. We see thy great work at Lister and Derby.
We don't read of anyone getting saved through Paul's ministry there, apart from the lame man, but we do know there was a young man at Derby by the name of Timothy, who later came forth with the gospel. How blessed of thee, O God, to raise up such a disciple under such circumstances, and therefore not knowing the wise and the wherefores, we would commit ourselves to thee, recognizing that thou art in full control, thou art the sovereign God of heaven and earth, you arrange circumstances, you order events, and you direct your people in accordance with your sovereign will to the accomplishing of your eternal purpose.
And for this we give thee the honor, the glory and the praise for Jesus' sake. Amen. This morning we concentrated on proclaiming the gospel to the nation of Israel. And we took that verse in First Corinthians one, the Jews seek after a sign. And of course the Lord said that the sign of his work is the sign of the resurrection. He says, no sign shall be given to this generation except the sign of the prophet Jonah. And the Jews seek after a sign. and God gave it to them. And throughout the book of the Acts, we see the preaching of the resurrection of Christ, especially to the nation of Israel.
Now, the Word of God also says, the Greeks seek after wisdom. And we must keep in mind that we not only are confronted by the nation of Israel to present the gospel to them, We are confronted by the Gentiles, known here in First Corinthians one as the Greeks. Our commission is to go into all the world with the gospel. In the Acts, the apostles used the Old Testament scriptures, and you get this especially in chapter seventeen when Paul is in the synagogue in Thessalonica. He opened an alleged, the scripture says.
He argued. And that word argue, it means what it says. He didn't argue for heat. He argued for light. Paul wasn't defending himself. It wasn't a personal thing with Paul. It was an objective arguing to manifest who the person of the Messiah is, that he has come, and he has come in accordance with the Old Testament scriptures. Now, we proclaim the gospel and we preach Christ and we must use the Old Testament scriptures. They are given for our learning, for our admonition.
We read in Romans chapter fifteen and verse three, the whatsoever things were written aforetime are written for our learning that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hoped. Now, evangelism is a task to which we are summoned as Christians. And what evangelism means, it means the communication of the gospel. It means a proclamation of the evangelical, the message of the gospel, the good news, the good news about God. Now, it's a very observable fact if you do any witnessing at all that there are different gospels that are different.
communicated by different people. I heard James I. Packer make the statement about a woman in England who said, I've just read Robinson's book. And if you know anything about this Robinson, Bishop Robinson, he was a liberal of the First Order, a denier of the gospel. And he was quite well known, and he wrote a book called Honest to God. And she said, oh, I'm so glad I read that book. Now I know I don't have to believe all that stuff concerning redemption through the blood of Christ. There are different Gospels that are being proclaimed.
And anyone who knows their Bible knows that without the shedding of blood, there's no remission. The life of the flesh is in the blood, as we read in Leviticus chapter seventeen in verse eleven. And God says in that verse, I've given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for the soul. It is the blood that make us an atonement for the soul. So there are different gospels that are communicated by different people. But evangelism is not what many people suppose. And I want to mention three things that evangelism is not.
It is not calling for decisions. That is not evangelism. Evangelism is not an invitation at the end of a meeting. That is not evangelism. Nowhere in the book of Acts do you find the apostles appealing to the audience. you find the audience appealing to the preachers. That's evangelism. As I said last Sunday, the report cards are starting to come in on the evangelistics, on the evangelism of the past thirty years around the world, and the report cards are not good.
Evangelism is not a calling for decisions. When I was in Haiti, and I went with my friend Peter Galinsky, who is a good evangelist and a good preacher, and we were in this church, and there were people at the windows. Every window was open. There were no windows. It was just openings. And the openings were full, and the church was full. And a young missionary was there from America. He was a head of a missionary organization. He was dressed like he was from Wall Street in the midst of the poverty of Haiti.
He irritated me from the word go because he was chewing chewing gum. He had a spree. He looked like a cow chewing cud. I'm being a little sarcastic because if there's anything I hate, it's to see somebody on the platform chewing chewing gum. I think it's a disgrace. And between the time that he was interrupted by the interpreter, he'd be standing up there chewing a whale. It was disgusting. But what was worse? He had no message.
And what was worse yet? Then he gave an invitation at the end. To what can a person respond? I was next to preach. And my friend, my friend, Peter Galinsky, was the interpreter. And what a delight I had preaching the gospel that night. You know that missionary didn't come near me after that. I preached the gospel. I didn't attack him. I preached the gospel. The gospel is a message about God.
The gospel is a message about sin. And the gospel is a message about Christ, who is the answer to both God, who satisfies the throne of God, and who is the answer to man's greatest need. Man is a sinner. So the gospel, to proclaim the gospel is not simply giving an invitation, friends. Martin Lloyd Jones, who I believe was the greatest preacher in our generation who recently died. He never gave an invitation at the end of a meeting.
And multitudes of people were saved under his ministry. He closed the meeting the same way every time. He said, I'll be in my office. He said, I want you to turn to the Lamb of God. Because today is the day of salvation. And the next time the Lamb of God appears, he will not appear as a lamb. He will appear as a lion. And it will be too late. If you need help, come and see me. Multitudes of people appealed to the preacher. They came to him.
Now a second thing that evangelism is not. Evangelism is not to be equated with recruiting people into our churches. Now all of us like to see more people coming along. But evangelism is not recruiting people into our churches. Because people can join a physical organization and go to hell. Evangelism is the announcing and the communicating of a message. So no more. Evangelism is not summoning people to join in a quest for religious truth. Now let's join together and find out what's right.
That's not evangelism. Evangelism is to proclaim good news. It is to communicate a message. It is not the meeting, friends. It is the message. Evangelism is a message. Therefore, friends, genuine evangelism is being clear about what we are going to communicate. What is the message? What are the contents that need to be communicated? Why is this so important? It is so important because a half-truth, treated as a whole truth, is a whole falsehood.
I want to say that again. A half-truth, treated as a whole truth, is a whole falsehood. It misrepresents the reality if it's acted upon. A person is bound to go wrong with a half-truth. Now we want to look at Acts chapter fourteen and we also want to look at Acts chapter seventeen. As I was considering this message, this morning we dealt with Acts chapter thirteen and proclaiming the gospel to the Jews. I have a Jewish friend that I've been preaching to for the past seven years in this city.
At the present time, he's one foot, he's in the grave and the other one, he's on a banana peel. He's not far from eternity. I mentioned this morning that a Jew should have a knowledge of the Old Testament scriptures. They did in Paul's day, but they don't in our day. They have a knowledge of tradition, but they do not know the Bible. I have not met a Jewish person in my lifetime. who was not saved. I met some that are saved who knew their Bibles and they knew that well.
But I have not met an unsaved Jew who knows his Bible. They are ignorant of the Holy Scriptures, the Old Testament. And they are ignorant of the new because they do not accept the New Testament Scriptures. So when you're talking with a Jew, you're talking with a pagan. And when you talk to the average Gentile today, you are also talking to a pagan. They may go to Sunday school. They may belong to a church. But their knowledge of the Scriptures is very, very limited. Unless they belong to a good Bible-believing evangelical church.
And thank God that there are quite a few of those around. I thank God for everyone that exists proclaiming the gospel. But to multitudes the knowledge of the scriptures is very limited. Now how do we present the gospel to a person who knows nothing about God? Where do we begin? How do we do it? Now when Paul was a the region of Lacaonia, to Iconium, to Lystra, to Derbys. These people had no knowledge of God.
They didn't know anything concerning the one true God. It's quite evident from Acts chapter fourteen. Now, you can be rest assured on this. God worked with him. For Paul heals a man who was born lame. He was born lame and the word of God tells us this. In verse eight of Acts fourteen it says, And there sat a certain man at Lystra impotent in his feet, being a cripple from his mother's womb who never had walked. It reminds me of the country preacher who was preaching on the blind man of John chapter nine. He said he was a blind man.
In fact, he was stone blind. In fact, he never saw. And here we have a man who is lame on his feet, and he never walked. And Paul, of course, saw that God gave this man faith to be healed. He could tell by the way in which the man looked at him. And by the way, let me say this, when you're preaching, and God is working in a soul, you can usually see it on their face. It shows. I remember preaching one night in Ireland Street Chapel, and there was a stranger there, and I watched her.
And I tell you, I saw a concern and conviction settle over that woman. The very next morning, my telephone rang, and she said, can you come out to see me? I went to see her. She didn't get saved while I was there, because I would not decision her. I made sure, however, when I was there that she understood the gospel with her head. And before I left, I said, do you understand how God justifies a sinner? She said, yes, I do. And that's her problem.
You see, now am I willing to submit to Christ? Not to the preacher, but to Christ. I said, I'll tell you what, I've gone over this with you three times. For three times I went over the gospel and I brought her to the point of decision and she wouldn't do it. I went over it again. I prayed. Nothing happened. I went over it a third time. Nothing happened. And she called me. I didn't call her. So when I said to her, do you understand how God justifies a sinner?
Do you understand it with your mind? She said, I sure do. I said, I'm going home. I'm going home. I said, now then you trust Christ, call me. Let me know when you do it. You see, it is the Spirit of God who does the saving, not the preacher and not the Christian worker. It's the Spirit of God. And unless God does it, it isn't done. That afternoon the telephone rang. I knew who it was before I picked it up. Oh, she said, I got peace. I got peace with God.
God works, friends. And you see, it takes all the load and all the worry off of you. And God takes all of that. He just tells us, preach the gospel. And now the message, communicate the gospel, proclaim the truth. Now, Paul saw that this man, God had given him faith, and he had faith to be healed. And you see, immediately when that happened, the pagan priests of the city came to Paul and Barnabas and wanted to make offerings to them. You see, they recognized that the gods have come down. And this was a pagan activity, you see.
How did Paul respond? Paul saw this as an opening to present the gospel. He responded by declaring to them the truth of creation. He began with creation. You have to have a bridge into their culture. And the bridge into another person's culture who knows nothing of the Bible is through that which is about us that speaks of Christ. Romans chapter one declares that creation declares His eternal power and Godhead. And that's exactly what Paul did, you see. In verse fifteen he says, Sirs, why do ye these things?
We also are men of light passions. There's nothing about me that should cause you to offer anything to me. Paul didn't take a high position. He took a position as one with them. Not above them, speaking down to them, but as one with them. And he says, And we preach unto you that ye should turn from these vanities unto the living God, the living God who made heaven and earth and the sea and all things that are therein. In other words, the God I present, the God I tell you about, Is the God of creation.
The one who made everything. He is the one true and living God. My what a bridge he built. And he built it in a few words. But then Dr. Luke does something else. Dr. Luke who wrote the book of the Acts. He leads us to believe that Paul was appealing here. To a concept of deity. That these pagans had. in common with himself. They should have that in common with everybody. The universe did not just happen. There's a design to the universe and to have a design, there must be a designer, and the designer of the universe is the one through and living God.
Now Paul argues at length with him here, and especially in verse seventeen, that God made himself known by the rain which falls from heaven and the harvest of the seasons and the good things that God gives. Oh, what a way to get into a people. He says, Nevertheless, he has not left himself without witness in that he did good. You know, the gods that the pagans worshipped, they were scared of them. They looked at the gods. as harming them if they didn't do everything according to that which they thought the gods wondered but you see the answer here is nevertheless he has not left himself without witness in that he did good God is good he gave us rain from heaven and fruitful seasons filling our hearts with food and gladness you see The rain, the season, the good things that he gives reveals his character and his person.
Now, this is a complete and incomplete account of Paul's sermon. But one thing is clear. The pagans understood the stark reality of the conclusions to which this read Paul. Namely, they must repent and believe the gospel. How do we know that? Well, it didn't take long for the people from Iconium that we read about in the first five verses of this fourteenth chapter, who hated Paul's message to get over there and stir up their mind. Now, the Word of God says the Greeks seek after wisdom.
Acts chapter seventeen. In Acts chapter seventeen, we have the other sermon of Paul's to the Gentiles. And here were people religious. Here were people who were superstitious. They had many gods. And in order that they don't miss any, they had an altar to the unknown God. And Paul begins to preach to them of the true and the living God from this unknown God. This one that you worship as being unknown. You don't know him. That's the one I'm talking to you about. And then he speaks of the greatness of God in creation. Again he begins with creation.
For here is an area that a pagan can understand. We don't talk about things that a pagan can't understand. We must speak to them on something that they know and to be able to speak about creation in a way that a pagan who knows not God will be directed toward God. And in verse twenty-four he says, God that made the world and all things the rim, seeing he is Lord of heaven and earth. In other words, he's a transcendent God. But the transcendent God is imminent in his creation. He is not far from anyone.
He has not started, created, and then stepped back from creation. But rather he is involved in the ongoing process. of the worlds that he formed. And then he goes into the details thereof. And finally, you see, he gets down to verses thirty and thirty-one, and he says to these people, by the way, the Jews seek after wisdom in the process via Apostle Paul, he quoted two of their Greek poets to get their attention. He quoted their poets.
In other words, he's building bridges. He's showing that he is acquainted with where they are, and he builds the bridge. And then he says in verses thirty and thirty-one, And the times of this ignorance God winked at. But now commandeth all men everywhere to repent, because he hath appointed a day in the which he will judge the world in righteousness for that man whom he hath ordained. Whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, In that earth raised him from the dead. Paul found common ground with them on two things. Number one, belief in God. He said, the one that you ignorantly worship, I declare to you.
He's a God who made heaven and earth creation. The second thing is accountability to God. Because God made all things and because God is immanent. Involved in his creation, man is accountable to God. And furthermore, he's going to bring men into judgment, for men must give an account to him. You see, there are two things that go together. And these two things always go together. Number one, redemption is through the work of Christ. And number two, judgment is also through Christ.
In John's Gospel, chapter five, the Lord himself says that judgment is committed to the Son of Man because he is the Son of Man. All judgment is committed to him. Now, from its inception, the Church pointed to the resurrection of Jesus as a fundamental key in understanding Christ's role as Lord. Peter in his sermon in Acts two he says the one that you rejected God has declared both Lord and Christ.
His lordship includes redemption but his lordship also includes judgment. Now I think there are a number of lessons that we can learn from this and we want to be practical. in our application. Notice the first thing that we learn, and we want to read verses thirty-two, thirty-three, thirty-four, and thirty-five in order to apply to our own souls in the ministry of the gospel. And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. The Jews seek after, require a sign. The Greeks seek after wisdom, but we preach Christ.
Now notice. To the Greeks foolishness. No. And to the Jews of stumbling block. But to them that are called. Both Jews and Greeks. Now we read them when they heard of the resurrection of the dead. Some mocked. And others said. We will hear thee again of this matter. So Paul departed from among them. How be it. Certain men clave unto him and believed. Among the which was Dionysus the Arapagite. and a woman named Amarius and others with them. There were some that believed, and the very fact that there were some that believed condemned all who would not believe.
Just as Noah, when he built the ark, Hebrews eleven says that he condemned his generation and he became heir to the righteousness that is by faith. Now what are the lessons that we learned? Lesson number one, measured by the standard of numerical conversions, this strategy does not appear successful. There weren't many out of the crowd, the trusted crowd. And today we measure things by success. How big is it? When we look at the ministry of our Lord, the greatest preacher of all time, How many can you name that really were saved among his followers?
See, our job tonight is making sure we are. Measured by this standard of numerical conversion, this strategy does not appear successful. Now, there's a second lesson here, and the second lesson is important. Conversion was not the only goal of Paul. Paul's goal in preaching the gospel was not only conversions, he had more in mind. For the same son that softens wax, hardens clay.
Second Corinthians chapter two verse fourteen says we are a sweet savor of God in the proclamation of the gospel to the one we're a savor of life unto life to the other death unto death. But there's a third lesson. The third lesson is we must stop preaching and defending Jesus on the premise that he's not offensive to unbelievers. The gospel, friends, is offensive. The gospel declares that a sinner is dead, that a sinner is depraved, that a sinner is lost, and that's offensive to the natural man.
The natural man thinks he's okay. The natural person says, oh, he's a good old boy. But if he's lost, he's lost, and he's lost for eternity. We must not have that notion in our minds that the gospel is not offensive. The gospel, when it's proclaimed properly, is offensive. It declares to the sinner that he's lost. And the early church preached that. Oh, they got in trouble doing it. But they didn't quit. The gospel is offensive.
Furthermore, there's another lesson. The early church was firmly convinced that the gospel is counter to both the Jew and the Gentile, to the one it's foolishness, to the other it's a stumbling block. But out of that group, both you and Gentile, God calls people. And to them who are saved, the gospel is the power of God. And that is what is important. This is another lesson. The other lesson is this. The Gentiles may believe in some vague notion of a creator.
But the conviction that this creator is a very God who became incarnate in Jesus Christ. And that he will bring them into judgment is repugnant to the Gentile. But that's what Paul preached. That was the climax of his message. This one whom God raised from the dead is going to bring every man to account, and every man must give an account to him. That's what he preached. There are two things in closing, real quickly.
Number one, in preaching the gospel, In announcing the gospel, we must be completely satisfied that Christ is both the power and the wisdom of God. Unto us who are saved, unto us who are called, Christ the power of God, Christ the wisdom of God. We must be convinced of that. And third, we must be ready to communicate that message to men and women. to boys and girls in our generation. In the synagogue in Antioch and Pasidia that we studied this morning, there's an interesting verse.
It says this, David served his generation by the will of God. That's an interesting verse. Are we going to serve our generation by the will of God? This week, friends, We're going to have vacation Bible school. I'm going to get together with the teachers for a few minutes tonight, and we're going to change things around here so that we're ready to go tomorrow night. Will you pray that we're so clear in our presentation of the gospel that those who come will be convinced and convicted in their own soul.
Will you do that? That's the message. You see, apart from the work of God, we don't accomplish anything. Oh, that we may come to grips with presenting the claims of God to men and women and boys and girls. for his name's sake. Let's pray. Our Father, we thank you tonight that you've given us a message to proclaim. Give us wisdom, our Father, that in speaking to boys and girls, in speaking to men and women, that we have a message to communicate and a word to exalt and a saving message that convicts and brings men and women face to face with a Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
Meet with us, our Father. Give us a week to be remembered. Cause thy name to be glorified in our midst. Deliver us, our Father, from anything that would in any way detract from the gospel. and detract from the glory of Christ. But may he be exalted in our midst and used this week to bless our Sunday school in a unique way for Jesus' sake. Amen.