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Acts of the Apostles and chapter seventeen, Beginning there in verse twenty two. And Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, You men of Athens, in all things I perceive that you are somewhat superstitious. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription to the, to an unknown God. What therefore you worship in ignorance, this set I forth to you.
The God that made the world and all things therein, he being Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands. Neither is he served by men's hands, as though he needed anything, seeing he himself giveth to all, life and breath and all things. And he made of one every nation of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed seasons and the bounds of their habitation, that they should seek God, if happily they might feel after him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us, for in him we live and move and have our being.
As certain even of your own poets have said, for we are also his offspring. Being then the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold or silver or stone graven by art and device of men. The times of this ignorance, therefore, God overlooked. But now he commandeth men that they should all everywhere repent. Inasmuch as he has appointed a day in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom he hath ordained, whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.
To that we add some words from chapter eighteen, verse twelve: But when Gallio was proconsul of Achaia, the Jews with one accord rose up against Paul and brought him before the judgment seat, saying, This man persuadeth men to worship God contrary to the law. But when Paul was about to open his mouth, Gallio said unto the Jews, If indeed it were a matter of wrong or of wicked villainy, O you Jews, reason would that I should bear with you. But if there are questions about words and names and your own law, look to it yourselves.
I am not minded to be a judge of these matters. God give us good understanding of his holy word. Hitherto we have found in the book of the Acts of the Apostles that Luke has been concerned to describe Christianity against the background of Judaism, and what is more, to define Christianity by describing to us those major points and issues over which early Christianity diverged from Judaism.
In the fifth section of the book, which falls to our study this evening, we shall find Paul still doing that self same thing. He will again contrast Christianity with Judaism and show some of those fundamental points at which Christianity diverged from Judaism. But at the same time, Paul, uh, Luke will go further tonight because in his narrative he follows Paul as Paul eventually leaves Asia Minor and comes over into Europe, visiting the large cities of Greece, with their highly developed culture and philosophy.
And against that background too, therefore, he now describes nascent Christianity. So that he will show us Christianity diverging still, but not merely diverging from Judaism, but diverging from some of the great movements of thought and practices that characterized the ancient European, Greek, and Roman world. We shall see Christianity in this part of the book contrasted with pagan spiritism. We shall find it also contrasted very vigorously and clearly with Roman politics and Judaistic political messianism.
In the central speech that is recorded in this part of the book, we shall find Paul addressing the Areopagus, and there we shall have ample opportunity to contrast Christianity and its gospel message with those sundry philo- sundry philosophies preached by the Greeks, and notably Epicureanism and Stoicism. And finally, we shall find Christianity described as diverging even from that message which John the Baptist preached, as we come across disciples of John that were not yet Christian, and how they were led on into full Christian faith, and what was necessary to turn them from being simply the disciples of John Baptist into fully fledged Christians, and how, when they became Christians, Paul insisted on the difference by insisting that these men now be baptized again, this time
in the name of Jesus. So we start our, our, our study this evening with some narrative that helps us to perceive the contrast between Christianity and pagan spiritism. For in chapter sixteen, as Paul comes eventually to Philippi, we are told that he was there accosted by a woman that had a spirit of python. A woman owned by certain businessmen who made a great deal of money by hiring out her services as a soothsayer to all in that city who were looking for guidance.
The ancient world, in many respects, was a very bleak place. The pagan world is still. When men have used the very last ounce of gray matter they have, and pondered the many problems that come across their path and tried to devise plans that they hope will be successful, there come upon men oftentimes a feeling of loneliness, that life is too big for them. They need more than human wisdom to live life successfully, to know how to decide the multitudinous and worrying problems that meet them in the family and in business.
And therefore, it is not to be wondered at that in the ancient world, pagan people looked out and stretched out for guidance of some sort, for more than human. And here is one example of a woman who was used by her employers as a soothsayer and made money because people did crave for guidance in life and thought that they could get it from this source. Even as today in far eastern countries, not only the ignorant and unlearned, but the shrewdest of businessmen will consult spirit mediums on what is the wisest move to take next in business.
And parents will consult such people as to what is the best for their children in marriage and in education. Christian people too, of course, are heard quite frequently talking about guidance, aren't they? Being led of the Spirit, seeking to know the will of the Lord, asking God to direct them in their path. Pray, what is the difference between this matter of Christian guidance, being led of the Holy Spirit, and the kind of guidance that the non-Christian and the pagan world seeks.
Whether we can answer that question fully tonight is a doubtful matter, but we can at least look at the narrative and observe what it tells us. By your permission, we may step back a verse or two into the declining verses of section four, where Paul and Barnabas set out on their next missionary journey. That too is interesting in this, in connection with this matter of guidance. From verse thirty six of chapter fifteen, we are told what happened when Paul and Barnabas went on their journey, and what kind of things led them in their decision.
And a very interesting few verses they are. First of all, in verse thirty six of chapter fifteen, Paul said unto Barnabas, let us return now and visit the brethren in every city wherein we proclaim the word of the Lord and see how they fare, which they, uh, Paul proceeded to do, and verse forty one tells us he went through Syria and Cilicia, confirming the churches. So far, you will not notice any mention made of particular guidance. You will in the verses that follow from chapter, uh, 16, verse six following.
But in these verses, first of all, no mention of any specific and particular guidance. You will say, well then, what launched these men on such a positive step as this second missionary journey? Why, it would appear if we've been told all the truth, simply the sheer pastoral necessities of the situation. Paul and Barnabas had been on a first missionary journey, and they had preached, and multitudes of men and women had got converted, and then they had been obliged to leave them. Still lingering in their hearts and minds was concern for these young converts. They wanted to see how they fared and how they were coping with the difficulties of their early Christian days and how they were coping with the difficulties of forming churches and living church life.
Said Barnabas to Saul and Saul to Barnabas, wouldn't it be an idea to go and see how they're getting on and give them a well, a helping hand and confirm them in their faith? If they sought special guidance on it, they don't tell us. Obviously, the sheer duty was enough to alert them to the need to take this missionary journey. That strikes me as being very, uh, sensible, spiritually healthy. To use an analogy, I don't know, I cannot say, for I've never been in the position of a mother who wakes up at half past seven in the morning, and, uh, I wouldn't know whether, in fact, they do, as a whole, Christian mothers, I mean, get down on their knees and ask the Lord should they, uh, get up and make the breakfast for their seven children and their husband about to depart to work.
There might conceivably come situations in which a Christian mother would have to ask the Lord whether it was his will to get the breakfast. In times of persecution, when the food is low, getting low, might be a real need to wait upon the Lord. But normally, I suspect most Christian mothers, uh, don't even mention the matter. They take it as the normal duty imposed by the wise Lord that mothers, bless them, do get the breakfast ready, and husbands sometimes cooperate. Uh, the children have to be fed. You don't have to ask special wisdom of God and particular guidance, nor do children have to be fed on Tuesdays.
The normal understanding is, when God gave the children to you, that you would feed them as many times as children have to be fed, or as you are able to feed them. And if God has given converts into our hands, along with it comes the normal duty to see after them, to confirm them in their faith. Other things being equal, we shall be expected to do it, and we shall not need special guidance to know whether it needs to be done or not. That, it seems to me, brings a certain sanity into matters of this question of guidance.
As they went on their way, however, chapter uh sixteen from verses six following, does tell us of certain matters of particular guidance. And right interesting they are, for I find that on two occasions at least, Paul and his company sought to go in one direction, and the Holy Spirit did not allow them so to do. Verse six says that they went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been forbidden of the Holy Ghost to speak the word in Asia. And secondly, and when they were come over against Mysia, they assayed to go into Bithynia, and the Spirit of Jesus suffered them not.
And passing by Mysia, they came down to Troas. Now, I know not how you read that, uh, uh, honest confession, that Paul and company tried to go somewhere, and then the Holy Spirit didn't allow them to. You may, for all I know, read it as a criticism of Paul. What an unspiritual man. But he attempted to do something, and the Holy Spirit had to stop him. But the likes of me secretly will rejoice. For wicked motives, no doubt. For, to be frank, sometimes I hear good Christian men and women saying what marvelous guidance they've had from the Lord, and sometimes they give me the impression they have guidance every Monday, morning and afternoon as required, Tuesdays as well, sometimes Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays.
And I find myself saying, well, Gooding, you must be a inferior Christian. Well, that stands to reason, of course, that is so, but more inferior than you might think, because how many times have I sought guidance of the Lord and not received any. And if you think that's a wicked thing to say, well then pray tell me your secret when you have had particular and specific guidance over everything you've asked for, and I shall be grateful to learn your secret. Here was a Paul, if you please, pionish- pioneering in his missionary work for the Lord, in process of bringing the gospel to Europe, attempting to go somewhere.
And the Holy Spirit didn't allow him. Shows me one thing, that as he set out to go to such and such a place, he had no specific guidance one way or t'other. Now, I'm not disposed to think that Paul was unspiritual this morning, or deliberately went against what he know- knew was the Lord's will. I suspect it was one of those days when no specific guidance comes, and we do what seems the best thing to do in the fear of God, in the light of the circumstances. Oh, of course, along with that, he then tells us that when they came to the next place, do you see, they came down to Troas, a vision did appear to Paul in the night, and God was pleased to give him special and particular guidance.
There appeared to him a man of Macedonia saying, come over and help us. Though even so, I gather when it came to breakfast next morning, they talked it over as to what the visions would mean, and they still had to use their wits and intelligence to deduce the significance of the vision. But there we have it, at the beginning of this missionary journey, God's guidance coming, sometimes from the plain, ordinary, everyday, run-of-the-mill duty, not requiring any specific command or guidance, but just the general rule, see after young converts. Secondly, the guidance came very often by Paul attempting to do this, but then he wasn't allowed, and attempting to go there, and he wasn't allowed that either, in the form of negative things that made it impossible or considerations that arose that prompted them to think that fully Christian principles wouldn't allow them for the moment to do this or that or the other.
So, left without any particular guidance still as to what they should do, they did what seemed the next obvious thing. And all they knew was that the door here had been shut and the way there had been closed, so they went somewhere else. By that means, the Holy Spirit was bringing them to a position where they should both need particular guidance and where the particular guidance would then make sense. So that very often the closing of doors is as much guidance as the opening of doors. And sometimes the absence of specific guidance is as much guidance as a particular and specific command.
My reaction to this story is to, again, to be struck by the sanity of it. A mixture of direct, you might call it miraculous guidance, with the ordinary fulfilling of a daily duty and the carrying out of our Lord's general commission to go and preach the gospel and to feed his sheep. Not every day spectacular, miraculous guidance, but a great deal of common sense and moral duty. On the other occasions, yes, genuine, direct, miraculous guidance, but a mixture of the two.
One more confession might be, uh, permissible, if not necessarily in order. It is strange, isn't it, how some twisted characters will pervert even the loveliest things? So it came to pass in my youth that I turned this whole matter of guidance into a, a, a miserable bondage of law, rather than treating it as a delightful gospel. I heard Brother X say how he'd been guided, it left me open-mouthed with wonder. I heard Sister Y tell us of extraordinary providences that made me as jealous as jealous could be.
I said to myself, well, of course, you have to be a super duper saint before that kind of guidance, uh, would ever come your way. I'm sure you do. I set out to be that super duper saint, but the guidance didn't come, and I thought, dear, oh dear, what a desperately difficult thing life is. First of all, I got to do the job. That was difficult enough. Then I had to be guided, and that's even more difficult. And you perceive my silly mistake, don't you? That I was looking on guidance as a something very difficult that you have to go in for and only succeed in if you are of special excellence. That made life more worrying than it was before, to why you didn't get the guidance, and so forth, and so on.
Well, surely this business of God's guidance is not law, but gospel. Here is a shepherd, and there are his sheep in the field. Not every second comes a clod of earth by the sheep's ear to turn it in that direction, or the crook on the other side of the head to move it there. No, the shepherd has brought the sheep there to eat grass. Grass there is. And the sheep goes here, and the sheep goes there, and the sheep goes somewhere else, and it's eating grass, and the shepherd is delighted. And so long as the sheep is within what the shepherd intends by bringing him into that situation, the shepherd sees no need to give the sheep special guidance.
The sheep started going too dangerously near a precipice there might come a clod of earth, as I've seen it done in the Middle East, and you too, perhaps, warning the sheep not to go in that direction. And if the sheep was given, given to going through wrong holes, uh, the shepherd might put a bar across it. But ordinarily, ordinarily, the sheep would go about its business, secure in the knowledge that over there was a shepherd whose eye never, never closed, not one minute, and the sheep was being watched.
It was to enjoy the security of knowing it was being watched. Oh, my brother and sister, you haven't got a shepherd whom you have to implore to guide you because he wasn't thinking of doing anything of the sort and couldn't be bothered to guide you until you came and implored him to. Shepherd who gave his life's blood for you watches you moment by moment. Never is his eye from you. We would be wise to keep in touch with him constantly, wouldn't we? At the same time, we should understand his guidance of us to be gospel and not a burdensome law.
What next, shall we say, is to be learned from Paul's treatment of the woman with a spirit of soothsaying that he found in Philippi? It is interesting and doubtless significant that Paul didn't rush to cast out the demon the first time he set eyes on the woman. Lesser people, perhaps, should take a leaf out of Paul's book. Secondly, we must notice as a major lesson that he was not deceived by the attitude adopted by this evil spirit within this woman.
She constantly shouted out to the public, these men are servants of the Most High God that show unto us the way of salvation. And it might have appeared to the unwary that whatever the spirit was w- was within her, it was on their side. That they were really in the same business of bringing guidance to men and gospel to men. It is instructive to notice that Paul would not tolerate it, but insisted on the difference. And when Paul insisted on the difference and cast out that evil spirit, you will then perceive the true colors of that spirit, for it stirred up severe opposition against the apostles and eventually landed the apostles in jail.
That evil spirit that purported to be on the side of the gospel was nothing but an enemy of a gospel. There was no such thing in the ancient world as Christian spiritism. There is no such thing in the modern world as Christian spiritism or Christian spiritists. Though, to be sure, there are those that claim to be Christian spiritists, but it is false. And no sense of kindliness or toleration should allow anybody to give the impression that spiritism and the gospel are working to the same ends.
They are not. Had we time, we should have to read the solemn warnings given us by the apostle of love himself, the apostle John, in his first epistle, where he is at pains to point out those marks that, uh, demonstrate that evil spirits are against the gospel. You may think I'm talking of things only to be found in foreign distant lands. I talk of things to be found here in Belfast. Says John the Apostle in his epistle, whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ and not of God, who is the liar, save Je- he that denies that Jesus is the Christ.
You will find people here in Belfast that will tell you that Jesus, yes, he tells us the way of salvation. If you were to probe them and ask them, is Jesus the Christ, they might well give you some unsatisfactory answer. Oh, we believe that the Christ, uh, filled Jesus, that Jesus gave himself to the Christ perfectly, and therefore Jesus is now exalted in his present position. But if you were wise, you would push him a little bit farther and say, now tell me, I didn't ask, did Jesus give himself to the Christ? I asked, do you believe that Jesus is the Christ?
And if you push them hard, they will then say, oh no, Jesus isn't the Christ. The Christ is the great world spirit. Jesus couldn't have got the infinite world spirit within his human body, they will tell you. No, Jesus gave himself to the Christ. The Christ filled Jesus, but Jesus isn't the Christ. And yet they would profess to tell you that the gospel they preach is founded on the Bible, and that they agree with everything Jesus said and doesn't ask. And if you haven't come across them, don't.
Don't bother anymore. Now, sometime in life, maybe, you will come across such people, and they need to be delivered from a deception of the devil. No amount of preaching of love and being kind and loving to everybody should allow it to obscure in your mind that spiritism and things that deny that Jesus is the Christ are not of God. At the end of our section five of the Acts of the Apostles, interestingly enough, Luke has seen fit to record another instance, instance involving evil spirits and spiritism in general.
For in chapter nineteen and verse eight onwards, he tells us how that many spectacular miracles were done by Paul. Evil spirits were cast out. Verse thirteen: but certain also of the strolling Jews, exorcists, took upon them to name over them which had the evil spirits the name of the Lord Jesus, saying, I adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preacheth. There were seven sons of one Sceva, a Jew, a chief priest, which did this. And the evil spirit answered and said unto them, Jesus I know, and Paul I know, but who are you? And the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them and mastered both of them and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded.
Which incident resulted in a tremendous triumph of the gospel and the burning of the books of black magic in, in, in, in, in Ephesus by the tongue. Again, what lessons may we draw from this? Well, it would appear that these sons of Siva seem to regard the name of Jesus as a kind of a magic name. They had no personal faith in the Lord Jesus. It would appear they knew nothing of redemption and forgiveness of sins and eternal life, nothing of union with Christ.
They were simply in the business of dabbling in spiritism, of turning out demons, and Jesus was a kind of a name that you chanted over the victim, and hey, presto, somehow or other, it worked. God was at pains to show that that kind of thing is pseudo. Jesus isn't the name of a charm, a mantra to be recited, some impersonalized power that you can call upon.
Jesus is the name of a person no less than God's Son incarnate, now risen from the dead and ascended to heaven. And for the proper use of the power that he has to dispose of, there is needed in the man that would use it a personal relation with the Lord Jesus. I'm not saying that everybody that is used to cast out demons is necessarily a believer, for if I did, you would quote me the gospel by Matthew chapter seven and verse twenty two, where our Lord straightly warns us that in the coming day people shall come to him and say, Lord, but in thy name we cast out demons.
And he shall say, but I never knew you. God reserves himself the right to do as he pleased, to use whom he will. And he who once used the jawbone of an ass, and on another occasion an ass himself to speak, reserves him the right, I say, to use whom he will. But the norm is... that the power of the Lord Jesus is not an impersonal power to be used in magic, or in spiritistic seance, or as a charm by unconverted people.
It is the name of a glorious person, God's own son. And if we would genuinely know the power of his Holy Spirit in our work for God, we must start by ourselves first having a moral and spiritual relationship with the Lord Jesus himself. It is all too dangerous to get caught up with interest in spirit and forget things moral. I once was invited to preach in a church, and I went, that began its life as a spiritist church.
But when I went to preach in it, I hasten to tell you it was no longer a spiritist church and hadn't been for many a long, long year, but it began its life as a spiritist church, led by a group of men who had become very interested in spiritism and were in touch with spirit powers. Their leader, now an elderly and delightful Christian man, told me when I asked what it was that first made him think that the spiritism in which he was engaged was evil. He said, you know, well, I will not tell you there was a wise man.
I will not tell you some of the experiences we had. But what I did notice was, he said, that in all these experience, there was never any moral progress. It was spiritism, power, no moral progress. The thing that, uh, first made me see the difference, he said, was reading the Sermon on the Mount, with all its moral imperatives. And the matter of sin and guilt, and the need for repentance and for personal salvation.
And he found the Savior and abandoned his spiritism. And if we know our job as Christian preachers, we shall certainly see to it that we keep the centerpiece of the gospel at the very center of all our preaching. It is the personal relationship with Jesus Christ, our Lord, and his glorious salvation. It seems to me, I must confess, a very important thing to observe. How little is said in the Acts of the Apostles about turning out e- uh, turning out evil spirits. Have you noticed how little?
Paul turned out evil spirits. Here in Ephesus, for instance, the verse tells us that many evil spirits went out. How little we're told about it. I don't know if they had paperbacks in their day. I think they rather didn't. They perhaps had their equivalent. Couldn't paint them in such lurid colors, that I know. What a tremendous book trade he could have made, couldn't he? If he'd have written, if Luke had had seen the possibilities, commercial and otherwise, of writing Christian thrillers all about demons and Satan and witches. They would have sold in their thousands, more than the commentaries on scripture sell.
Yes, if I tonight had announced I was going to speak on the devil, I should have had three times a congregation this size. It is so perilously, perilously easy to minister to bad taste and unspiritual appetite, seeking excitement, and playing into the hands of Satan by concentrating people's eye and minds on spirit things, when they ought to be concentrated on the Lord. My brother and sister, would you permit a little word of advice from the man whose hair goes- grows gray, if you find it much more interesting to read books about witches and casting out of demons than you do find it interesting to read the Gospel of John, well, there's something gone wrong with your spiritual taste.
Mark as we pass how little is said in all this book of the Act on that business of casting out evil spirits, and learn therefrom true healthy proportions in the work of the Lord. Now we must look at another matter that came up in Philippi and again in Corinth, where Paul was obliged to insist on the difference between Christianity and politics. First of all, when he came to the Roman colony at Philippi, the crowd and the businessmen behind who had lost their money over that, uh, woman, the soothsayer, set it abroad that Paul was teaching the people to observe customs which it was not lawful for them to observe as Romans.
That, of course, was a complete lie. Paul was doing no such thing. He was cast in prison nonetheless, publicly untried, beaten, put in the stocks. In the morning, when it came to the ears of the authorities in the city that they had beaten Roman citizens uncondemned, of course, the authorities were alarmed. They had done something very seriously illegal. And Paul, we notice, was quite ready to forgive them the bodily injury they had done to Paul himself and his colleague. What he was not prepared to have happen was for those magistrates, having acted illegally and besmirched the fair name of the gospel, he was not prepared for them to have Paul and Barnabas, uh, Paul and his colleague Silas, uh, quietly released, nobody know about it.
Because Paul was interested not in his own reputation merely, but in the reputation of the gospel. He was not prepared to have petty little magistrates quite illegally besmirch the gospel as something worthy of prison and against the political authority of Caesar, when all the while it wasn't no such thing. So that he insisted on his citizen rights, and he had the magistrates come personally and make their personal appearance on TV and correct the mistake. And own that they had wrongly imprisoned these men, and that their gospel was not against the Roman Caesar.
On the other hand, who could understand some of the Romans getting a little bit nervous, could you not, about the gospel that the Christians preached? Particularly when some of the Jews deliberately misrepresented the gospel. We are told, for instance, in chapter seventeen that when, uh, Paul came... the Lord. My brother and sister, would you permit a little word of advice from the man whose hair goes- grows gray? If you find it much more interesting to read books about witches and casting out of demons than you do find it interesting to read the Gospel of John, well, there's something gone wrong with your spiritual taste.
Mark as we pass how little is said in all this book of the Acts on that business of casting out evil spirits, and learn therefrom true, healthy proportions in the work of the Lord. Now we must look at another matter that came up in Philippi and again in Corinth, where Paul was obliged to insist on the difference between Christianity and politics. First of all, when he came to the Roman colony at Philippi, the crowd and the businessmen behind who had lost their money over that, uh, woman, the soothsayer, set it abroad that Paul was teaching the people to observe customs which it was not lawful for them to observe as Romans.
That, of course, was a complete lie. Paul was doing no such thing. He was cast in prison nonetheless, publicly untried, beaten, put in the stocks. In the morning, when it came to the ears of the authorities in the city that they had beaten Roman citizens uncondemned, of course, the authorities were alarmed. They had done something very seriously illegal. And Paul, we notice, was quite ready to forgive them the bodily injury they had done to Paul himself and his colleague. What he was not prepared to have happen was for those magistrates, having acted illegally and besmirched the fair name of the gospel, he was not prepared for them to have Paul and Barnabas, uh, Paul and his colleague Silas, uh, quietly released, nobody know about it.
Because Paul was interested not in his own reputation merely, but in the reputation of the gospel. He was not prepared to have petty little magistrates quite illegally besmirch the gospel as something worthy of prison and against the political authority of Caesar, when all the while it was then no such thing. So that he insisted on his citizen rights, and he had the magistrates come personally and make their personal appearance on TV and correct the mistake. And own that they had wrongly imprisoned these men, and that their gospel was not against the Roman Caesar.
On the other hand, I could understand some of the Romans getting a little bit nervous, could you not, about the gospel that the Christians preached? Particularly when some of the Jews deliberately misrepresented the gospel. We are told, for instance, in chapter uh seventeen that when, uh, Paul came, uh, uh, to another place, uh, they grabbed Jason, did the crowd, and the Jews in particular, hailed them before the rulers of the city, and said, these that have turned the world upside down are come hither also, whom Jason hath received, and these all act contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, one Jesus.
Now, of course, that was a very serious charge to bring against the gospel before a Roman magistrate. For if Paul was indeed preaching that Jesus was another king in a political sense, then the Roman political authority, uh, authority would have been well within its political rights to have squashed the whole movement by force. Paul, of course, was very careful on all occasions to point out that this was a serious misrepresentation, and we ought to stay and ponder it, because nowadays it in some quarters is less clear than it used to be.
That Christianity is not a political movement. You see, among many Jews, belief in the Messiah was directly a political thing. The right-wing Jews, certainly many of them, still believe that one day the Messiah would come, and when the Messiah came, he would be a political savior. He would gather the armies of Israel. He would drive out the imperialists and the oppressors, and he would set Israel free and give her political independence and give her economic independence and superiority.
And every man would dwell in his house enlarged, and in his garden with suitable garage for a bigger chariot. And therefore, of course, the Roman authorities were very suspicious always of political messianism. And in Israel, when the great feasts drew near, the Romans would naturally redouble their guard and keep their watch on the temple, lest some hot-headed zealot roused the people to think that some Messiah had come, and belief in the Messiah meant taking to arms to break the power of Rome and drive out the imperialistic tyrant.
Of course, there was a body of Judaism that didn't any belong- longer believe in that such political messianism. Caiaphas belonged to that group, didn't he? And what he feared, or at least so he made out, he feared at the last Passover that our Lord attended, that our Lord was going to raise the crowd against the Romans as a political Messiah. And then said Caiaphas, if he does that, you see the Romans will come and they'll take away our place in nation. They'll steamroller the whole of us into the ground. That was not what our Lord stood for. It is alas true that the Pharisees did slander our Lord before Pilate and Herod.
They said, we found this man perverting the people and stirring the people up politically, and forbidding them to pay taxes to the government. They were representing him to be a political activist. Even Pilate could see that that was nonsense. They, those fantasies, showed their folly and their duplicity when Pilate tried, uh, to maneuver them and said, all right then, you say Jesus is a political activist and you don't like political activists. All right, now choose.
Which one shall I, uh, set free to you? Barabbas, who of course everybody knows is a political activist, who'd even done murder and terrorism in the cause of his political activism. Shall I release him? You don't like political activists, do you? Or Jesus? I said, give us Barabbas. These things, of course, were not just theory, as our Lord warned indeed. Later on in history, in AD sixty six, the section of Judaism that was for interpreting its faith in this political sense forced the hand of the Jewish leadership and led a tremendous revolt against Rome, that eventually Rome put down in a bloodbath.
And as if they hadn't had enough of that, in the years one hundred and twenty AD onwards, a certain Bar Kokhba in the south of the country led another revolt against Rome and succeeded in maintain- in obtaining political independence for Judea, as far as Jerusalem at any rate, for uh three or four years, and actually minted his coinage. One of the leading Jewish rabbis of the time gave it out to the nation that Bar Kokhba was the Messiah. And the Romans came this time and flattened Jerusalem and turned it into a Gentile city.
It was an exceedingly important thing as Paul went preaching the gospel around the Roman Empire in the big city centers, amidst all sorts of nationalities where sometimes resentment against the Roman imperialists would be simmering under the surface. It was an exceedingly important thing for Paul to make it abundantly clear that his message had nothing to do with politics. Certainly he was preaching that Jesus is king, but in what sense? What sense king? Not certainly as a competitor to to the Caesar upon the throne.
Listen to how Paul had very carefully phrased himself, you'll see, uh, in chapter seventeen when he went into the synagogue at Thessalonica. He opened reasoning with them from the scriptures, opening and alleging that it behoved the Messiah to suffer and to rise again from the dead, and that this Jesus, whom said he, I proclaim unto you, is the Messiah. Notice two things about that, if you will. What Paul was so very careful to point out in the synagogue were two somewhat separate things. First of all, that the Messiah, whoever he turns out to be, the Messiah, according to scripture, must suffer, die, and be raised from the dead.
That's what the Old Testament preaches. Does not preach simply a Messiah who comes, raises the armies of Israel, fights the imperialist government, and breaks their power and gives Israel political independence. Far from it. It preaches a Messiah who shall suffer and die. And then be raised from the dead. That's Christianity. Secondly, he preached that the Jesus whom I'm preaching to you is that Messiah. He has died, not led Israel against the Romans.
He hasn't attempted to break the political structures of society. He has accepted the cross, died. Now he's raised from the dead. King indeed, but if you want to get into his kingdom, pray notice from this book of the Acts of the Apostles how you get in. You're not voted in by a majority of the democracy. You are not coerced into it by the armies. You come in personally by repentance and faith of your free will.
That's how it's done now. The notion that by terrorism you can, uh, advance the kingdom of Christ is a sorry notion indeed. Except a man be born again, he cannot even enter. Mark what will happen when he comes to take up his kingdom on earth and reign. He will not come and stage an ordinary human battle in competition with the powers of the earth. No, he comes from heaven descending.
And all the nations of the earth shall mourn because of him. Man in his puny folly shall try to fight the Lamb as he comes with the myriads of his saints. This will be when God Almighty intervenes, and human government as we know it, uh, is dismissed. And from that other world, Christ returns to reign. That's Christianity. And you could, and I could if I got the chance, but you could certainly stand by Her Majesty the Queen and preach Jesus as king without any fear that you were preaching some disloyalty to Her Gracious Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
Christ is not in competition for the throne of England. Why do I spend so long on it? Why not because I think you infinicky in the church that has so kindly invited me and tolerated me these last, uh, long sessions. Not because I think that you're about to go over into politics. But it is wise that we know that great sections of Christendom nowadays do preach that Christianity is politics. And the World Council of Churches, having given up on any idea that the Christ will come again, apocalyptically, preach that the true way of extending the kingdom of Christ is politically.
And therefore it is right in the name of Christ, if fascist dictators won't yield any other way, to get Christian activists to engage in guerrilla warfare, to bomb and to blast and terrorism, and if need be, to fight. And this somehow is forwarding the cause of Christ. That, in my estimation, is a ghastly mistake. If it was God's gospel, if it was the gospel of Christ to put down fascist dictatorships, why didn't Christ do that to the Roman government? It is no good you're saying, ah, well, of course he hadn't that the time wasn't opportunity, he wouldn't have had a chance to succeed.
Who do you suppose Jesus Christ was? A little Che Guevara or something? Fidel Castro? Who would like to turn down and smash the, uh, political opposition, but he hadn't quite the strength to do it. Come, come. The very notion demeans our Lord to a point of blasphemy. You talk of one who is savior of the world, God incarnate, God's own son. When the time comes for his enemies to be made his footstool, for him to reign from shore to shore, God will do it for him.
Till then, it is a Messiah who has willingly accepted death at men's hands, and risen from the dead, that men through him might be reconciled to God. Christianity and Roman politics, Christianity and Greek philosophy, and what shall we say about that? Well, if you are fearing, you need not fear that I shall now discourse at length on the doctrines of the Stoics and Epicureans. There are many philosophical handbooks from which you might learn, if you care or need to learn, what the doctrines of those philosophical sects were.
So be it allow me to say that they weren't mumbo jumbo. Stoicism, perhaps, if one may talk for a moment in human terms, was one of the most noble faiths invented. Not Christian, of course. Not ultimately true, but a noble attempt by pagan men to behave rightly. Epicureanism may not have been quite so noble, but on their side of their physical theory, Epicureans were the people, were they not, who perpetuated the atomic theory of Democritus, and that was a brilliant piece of thinking, wasn't it, that first perceived that our universe was made up of atoms.
We should not despise the efforts of the pagan Gentiles to try and understand their world and to devise systems of morality that keep men acting, in some sense, honorably. Wherein is the difference between Christianity and men's philosophy? Perhaps I best do that by briefly reminding you of the heads of Paul's sermon to the, or address to the Areopagus. I submit that what we have is not a word-for-word account. He might even have lectured longer than I preach.
What we have is presumably a summary of what Paul said before that learned and august body. As you will know, Paul has been much criticized for his speech on this occasion, by men who feel that they have such a grasp of the gospel that they can perceive that on this occasion Paul blundered. It's interesting enough that the criteria which they select by which to criticize him, they get from Paul himself. Interesting. Yes, but they say, you see, here and before the Areopagus, the man was, like we all are sometimes, tempted to argue instead of preaching the gospel, and fell into a philosophical argument with the unconverted, which you say never does any good.
And, uh, really he ought to have preached the cross, but he didn't preach the cross. No word of the cross in all he said, so they maintain. And the results were meager. Well, if it was so wrong, I wonder there was any at all. Eh, the results were meager. And when he got to Corinth, he had learned his mistake, and there he preached no philosophical sermons. Perhaps they weren't up to it. Uh, but he preached the cross, and he wrote it in his first letter to the Corinthians. I determined to know nothing among you, save Jesus Christ and him crucified there, they say, with a wise wag of the head, he'd learned his lesson at last. Oh.
Well, perhaps there would be something in the criticism if in the first place you could prove that he didn't preach the cross before the Areopagus. And that you could deduce of a certainty if we had a word for word verbatim report of the whole address. But if we haven't got that, then pray tell me, he did preach the resurrection. Did he do that without telling them how our Lord came to be dead anyway? He was starting with raw pagans. How could you preach a resurrection without first telling them how he died? And if he should have taught them how he died so that he could then tell them that he rose again from the dead, why didn't he even stop to explain what the cross was about?
But anyway, are you sure he didn't preach the cross? Ah, yes, you say might, kind of in, in passing have preached it, but look at all that stuff at the beginning, when he's talking about God that made heavens and earth and creation and all that, you'll see. I mean, surely he shouldn't have done that. He ought to have got on with preaching the cross. But wait a minute. Do you believe that when he wrote the Epistle to the Romans, he was inspired by Nicom? Because in Romans, before he starts preaching the cross, he has a long, long chapter about the evidence of creation, doesn't he? Proving how men need to be saved because they have sinned against the light of creation.
Moreover, he tells us there that man is without excuse and is standing under the judgment of God. What's the good of preaching salvation to men who don't need- know they need to be saved? And you first got to convict them of sin. Not first to convict them that their very ideas of God are wrong. I, myself, I have to confess, not with some superior wisdom, but because I happen to believe that Romans one is inspired and a very good thing to preach, must approve of what Paul preached on the Areopagus, God that made heaven and earth.
And you're wrong, gentlemen, he said. You oughtn't to think of God like you do. What was wrong in pagan thinking about God? Well, first of all, the God that made heaven and earth, he dwells not in temples made with hands. That's number one thing. Bigger than that? I know that even to the Jews, God from time to time was pleased to localize his presence in the temple, and thus to teach the Jew the difference between sacred and secular. But as it was a temporary lesson, and a very limited one, and one that could so easily go wrong, and very frequently does.
Because people who think that God dwells in the temple made with hands, uh, that there's something sacred in the building, very quickly fall to thinking that life is in two bits. There's God and the sacred when you go to church or to the temple or what have you. Then there's the rest of life. Some of them fall to thinking that you can manage to avoid meeting God so long as you don't turn up in church on Sunday. That's nonsense, indeed. And God is at your very elbow. Other poor folks have it in their head that the only place you could get saved was in church.
I remember once meeting a good gentleman, he had not long been converted, and uh, on fire with his enthusiasm for Christ and his salvation, I said, tell me, old chap, how did you get saved? He began to tell me how he got convicted of sin and so forth and so on, and how uh, one day in the factory, the light of the gospel dawned in the man, and of course he was saved, and home he went to his charming wife to tell her what had happened. Wait a minute, she said, because he didn't know the language to say it in, you know. He said, you're not, you're not saying you've been saved, have you? Yes, he said, I think I have. No, no, she says, you can't, you couldn't be saved in a factory. You should be saved in a church if you're going to be saved, on a gospel mission somewhere.
Can't get saved in a factory? Ah, what damage we do our souls, don't we? By this kind of division. Pity those poor folks who think somehow there's merit in walking from here to Mecca, or from here up the top of a mountain, because these places are more sacred than others, as though somehow there they were nearer God. With what burdens of distance and frustration do men lay themselves by so thinking? God isn't like that. All the real God is right by your elbow.
You must meet him. But if you need him to save you, there he is where you sit. And the real God is not worshipped by men's hands as though he needed something. He gives to everybody. We all love the little child, don't we? It's lovely to see them on dad's birthday, and here is child of four and a half. And mom has given it. five bob to buy dad a present. And the little one walks out with great pride to the present that she has given dad.
And tells everybody, if they don't know, I gave that to dad. And we smile. Her dad first had to earn the 5 bob so that she could have it. To give it to dad. Oh, how God loves us to, us to bring him his gifts. He had to give them to us first, didn't he? But the fact that he loves us to give him his gifts shouldn't make us think that you can buy salvation from him. He's not in business. He's not served by man's hands as though he needed anything, doesn't need anything. And yet it is ingrained in the pagan heart, isn't it, that somehow we have to pay God for salvation.
So says the apostle, to him that worketh, the reward is reckoned not of grace but of debt. God's in my debt. I've done so many good works, now God will have to pay up in the coin of salvation. What an impossible thing. God hasn't got a salvation small enough for you to buy it. Nor a heaven tiny enough for you to pay for it. Goodness, he made you and all you have, you couldn't buy anything from him. What you couldn't buy, he's prepared to give you. Ah, the ancients got it into their head that they had to carry God.
They were so used to looking at idols, and uh, because you wanted your lovely charm with you to help you in days of distress, you carried it with you. If you could manage to get it down small enough to put it around your neck, you did that, but it was there, you had to carry it. No, says God, that isn't what I'm like. You don't have to carry me. I carry you. As the true God, it spells the end of all slavery for those who know him. He gives us his salvation, and he does the saving. And know this, said Paul to those learned men. Life is not a chance thing, you know, is it?
A lot of folks think it is. They think life is one just great chance. Oh, I said my number comes out, they say, ah, well, you know, it's all your luck, they say. Horrible word. The Epicureans believed that. It was all by chance. It isn't, says Paul, God has appointed the bounds of our habitation. He knows where every one of us is. If happily starting from there, we should feel after him and find him. On the other hand, it isn't sheer determination. The Stoics need to be told this, didn't they?
For we are to feel after him. We're to get up and to seek him. We are indeed to repent. No good sitting there in your seat and saying, ke sera sera, what is to be will be, you see, and I have no choice, I'm born this way, and if you're going to be born religious, you'll be born religious, and if you're not going to be religious, well, you're not born religious, and that's that, and there's nothing you can do about it. That's all nonsense. God has given us, and us who sit here tonight, put us in such circumstances where we could find him if we wished. It's for us to get up and seek him and repent of sin and seek the Lord while he may be found.
You could be saved, you wanted to be. And we must repent because this world is a moral universe, says Paul to the learned at Enniaria, because God has appointed a day in which he will judge the world. What gospel that is, isn't it? You don't like to hear the preaching of judgment? Oh, what an insult to your fellows. You don't think it matters what I do. I tell you a better message than that. I know I am tiny beyond description compared with the eternal God, but the eternal God pays me this compliment.
He thinks what I does matter. He thinks what I do matters. There's going to be a judgment. You are not a cabbage, nor a carrot, nor a donkey. God will have you stand before him because you matter, and what you do matters. That's paying you a very big compliment. That's gospel. God isn't going to let the injustice of this world go on forever.
There will come a day of judgment. What gospel that is, isn't it? And here Paul is preaching what he wrote in Romans two, isn't he? Your moral conscience approves of that, doesn't it? How many times you've tried to get what is fair and right, and you've failed. I don't know what it was, from some housing society or something, or for your next door neighbor. Oh, I don't know how it was. And you felt you were done an injustice to, and the big old world rolled by, and they said, too bad, old chap, that's your luck. And you have a burning sense under here, it wasn't fair. Now tell me, is that how you want it to be? You want it to be that way.
So in the end, it's just luck, and it doesn't matter. And all that feeling in your heart that it wasn't fair is all a nonsense, a mirage, a delusion, because the world is one of chance and there is no judgment. Is that how you want it to be? You don't, do you? You want that fairness should triumph. It will one day. Don't look to the politicians to do it, because sometimes they're the ones that perpetrate the unfairness. But there shall be a final judgment. When God shall judge the very secrets of men's heart by Jesus Christ. Oh, what a gospel it is for this world, wearied with the injustices of men.
And Paul, having preached creation, the light of creation, and then the light of moral conscience, now comes with what is distinctively Christian, the preaching of Jesus and the resurrection. This is the evidence of history. How different this from philosophy? This is not a something that was spun out of somebody's head. These are facts of history now. That there was a grave in Palestine, and Jesus Christ was put in it dead. And the third day he rose from the dead.
This is history, this. This isn't theory nor philosophy. The evidence of history, that death has been conquered, that Christ is risen, that he will be the judge. Ah yes, and what's more, there is salvation through him, and you may be justified through him, delivered for our offenses, raised again for our justification. Thus did Paul preach and insist on the difference between Christianity and philosophy. It was a full-hearted gospel, wasn't it? We do well in a world that is rapidly becoming post-Christian. Not to be content with preaching half a gospel.
You'll need to tell your next door neighbor what God is really like. You need to preach him a bit of creation. We shall need to argue with men's moral judgment. If they don't realize they're morally condemned before God, how shall they seek salvation? We shall need to preach the evidence of history that Jesus Christ is risen and can save and is coming to judge. We have not reached the end of our section five, but I've more than reached the end of your patience, and I dare not trespass any longer.
Next week, God willing, which is our last, we shall have to telescope much matter into small time. Shall we pray? Our Father, these are weighty things. And sometimes when we read of these great pioneers that thou didst raise up in these early days to preach thy gospel and to bring it to Europe, we feel like pygmies before them. We thank thee for these tremendous men who understood their fellow men and understood their needs and preached a full and sane gospel, able to speak to men at every level.
Give us the grace, Lord, each within his abilities and limits, to prepare ourselves thus to wrestle with life's questions, and understanding the questions, learn from the what are the answers that thy gospel has to give to men. And give us a heart of compassion for a world that's lost. Increasing faith in thy gospel that it can meet their need. Save us from loss of nerve. Save us, we beseech thee, from getting entangled in things that are not really the gospel and be crowding the real issue. Help us in our pagan world to stand boldly for thee, and as it may please thee, crown the efforts of thy servants with harvests of men and women believing.
Grant us then thine evening peace through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
