Author: Sjirk Bajema
Last saved by: Andrew Nugteren

ACTS 17:16
	(Reading: Acts 17:1-16)

	A Restless Pause

Congregation...

	It was a stop-over for Paul which he had not actually planned for.
		But Paul had ended up here when his scheduled visits to Thessalonica and Berea had resulted in such a terrible persecution from the Jews that he had had to get out.
			Putting Paul on the long boat to Athens until Silas and Timothy caught up was the thing the believers there thought of to quickly get him out.

	So the apostle has some time to kill.
		In the words of our first reflection on the text, this is...THE PAUSE FOR PAUL.

	Perhaps being a scholar familiar not only with the Jewish classics, but also conversant with many of society's literary and philosophical great, Paul was interested enough to take the walk from the port into Athens proper.
		It doesn't seem that he has been before, and he certainly wouldn't want to miss either any possible opportunity for the gospel there.
			Unlike the way many would see a stop-over as a time to do something different, or just do nothing at all, the apostle does what he always does. 
		
	Let's, then, follow his footsteps from the port into the city.
		When he comes off the boat, which sight will first fill his eyes - a big hill, a magnificient garden?
			Well, there right before him and almost towering above him is the imposing temple of Ceres. 
				Virtually next to that is the temple of Minerva; and another next to that again of Jupiter.
	A little farther on there's some altars.
		He stops to have a look; there are quite a few.
			One even has this inscription as a dedication, "To the unknown God."
	And what's the temple a little bit on, the one without doors or a roof?
		Why, it's Juno's, burnt by Mardonius at the time of the Persian invasion.

	Now he's on the columned road to the city centre to the Market Place, and along this road there are long rows of statues in bronze of the most celebrated heroes and heroines of legend and history.
		There will be the likeness of Hercules, even Xena perhaps, gods and godmen they worshipped.
			Everywhere on the way, and all around the different ways into Athens there are hundreds and hundreds of idols!

	The great city which had bred the philosophers which emphasised what people could do themselves, had become a plethora of gods for everything under the sun.
		John Calvin notes, "...the city which was the abode and seat of wisdom, the fount all the arts, the mother of humanity, surpassed all the others in blindness and madness." 
			Of all the places Paul has ever visited, this city in particular sickens him with its paganism.

	But before we see just how much it affected Paul, let's consider a little of who this apostle is whom we meet in our text.
		Well, without much doubt, this man would have to be the most prominent character of the New Testament, after Christ Himself.
			A man, who, like his Master, certainly suffered at the hands of his fellow man, whether the Jews who kept up an incessant campaign against him or the local religions whom he appeared to keep putting out of business.
				And then there are the Christians right up to the present age; whether mocking him like those of the Corinthian church who felt he lacked any personal charisma whatsoever; or those of the Galatian church who had a different gospel altogether, and certainly they didn't like Paul being around to say that their's was not a gospel at all.

	Aside from all these criticisms, however, what exactly was Paul's position?
		Who was he in the Lord's overall plan for the proclamation of His Word?
			And how did that calling equip him for his missionary journeys; and now to tilt against the capital of worldly philosophies - Athens itself?

	We come to a second aspect to the text, for congregation, this is no other than...THE PERSON OF PAUL, the one whom Christ appeared to after having appointed the apostles who were those He ministered with while on this earth.
 		This is the one who was converted and called after that flash of the brightest light struck him on the Damascus road he was travelling; the road he was travelling along then for the specific purpose of persecuting the Christians.
			This is the man Ananias hesitated to meet, because of his past hatred of the church, and yet the one Ananias was told would be the one to carry Christ's Name before not only the Israelites, but even more so the Gentiles.
	And that's what Paul was told to do, especially directly by the Lord.
		The total change to his life on the inside was shown by the change of his name on the outside, for he was Saul the Pharisee no longer, but Paul the apostle.
			No more would he imprison either himself or others in the law which no one could ever fulfil, but now he was the great messenger of the Gospel's freedom, the law which sets you right forever because of Christ's atoning death.

	Imagine brothers and sisters, what our Bible would be like with more than half of the Book of Acts missing?
		And then add to that at least thirteen more books of the New Testament - all those letters of Paul to different churches and people. 
			It was Paul who took the Gospel, through a series of extensive missionary journeys, around Asia Minor, into Macedonia, and then to the heart of the empire - Rome itself!

	Knowing all this, you would think that nothing would fluster Paul now.
		If he was so used to addressing the pagan world, why do we have the words of the text telling us how greatly distressed he was to see all those idols?
			Congregation, what we have seen thus far in THE PAUSE FOR PAUL and even further in THE PERSON OF PAUL comes out, thirdly, in THE PASSION OF PAUL.

	Someone once noted that what we are like when we are on our own, that time we sense there's no one else is looking on, is an insight into what we are really like.
		I mean, how would you spend your spare time in a different place?
			It can say a lot about what you're like underneath.

	And what's your reaction, dear friend, when you're confronted by such an obvious display of blindness and madness?
		As yet another New Age store appears, or you're confronted by those explicitly witchcraft stickers, the increasingly pornographic weekly publications, and the selfishness of those advocating abortion and euthanasia, what do you feel?		
			Or is it all just passe - just a matter of indifference, like a "That's them but not us" kind of attitude.

	The way the devil works is to subtly introduce the worship of different things.
		It says a lot for his power in Athens that there were literally gods for everything - there's even an unknown god who covers any possible exception.
			Who could ever have imagined an entire city saturated with idolatry, as people desperately tried to obtain happiness and success.
				A city only interested in life now, because when you die, well, what does it matter?
		
	The amazing thing is that this lie had been so elaborated and developed that people came from all over Europe to study about it.
		How many similarities there are to our society today - not only with its New Age nonsense and its talk of extra-terrestrial channelling, transpersonal energetics, cranio sacral balancing and persephonically harmonic counselling - but also with a scientific edifice where the latest enlightened research will stretch the lie even further. 			

			If Paul's great distress is that the pure worship of God was nowhere to be found there, how different is it in our city today?

	Congregation, it's that theme of the true worship of God which is really upon Paul's heart as he is there in Athens walking through that darkness.
		Indeed, the phrase in the N.I.V. "he was greatly distressed" is more accurately translated "his spirit was being provoked".
			You see, it goes deep into his very soul!

	The word "spirit" is the "soul"; it is the heart in which our faith lies.
		So when Paul's spirit is provoked, his relationship to God itself is at stake.
			Here is no simple indignation, or being offended by a particular sight - this is the heat of a righteous and holy anger, a reaction he just cannot put aside.
	As in John 4 when the word "spirit" is used in describing the attitude we have when we come to worship, so Paul has the attitude now of a holy anger at the terrible profanity of the name of God.
		For all these things are claiming what can alone be ascribed to the One True God.
			It's such a corruption of what religion	ought to be because nothing is more precious to him than the glory of God.

	Mind	you, Paul's reaction here should be one we all have.
		The words of David in Psalm 69, "zeal for your house consumes me," have to be the theme for our lives too.
			Another apostle, Peter, gave the example of the godly man Lot being tormented in his soul because he couldn't correct the lawless deeds he saw and heard. 
	In that same way we have to be one with Paul here.
		This is no narrow-minded, bigoted and obscure Jew, trumpeting some wacko ideas, on the streets of Athens - he's the example for all those who witness for Christ today in Auckland.

	And I wonder, dear Church of Christ, could this be a situation of the ambassador of Christ, Paul, recognising the great force of evil that there is in this city so dedicated to what man has thought and said and done, that he sees also the future danger that this philosophy will be?
		For it was gnosticism and neo-platonism, born and breed within this city's walls, which was the greatest threat and caused the most damage to the early New Testament church.

	But whatever the outside implications Paul might have seen, it is the heaviness on his heart as he sees God's glory debased which drives him on.
		It's passion for the Lord here, is as he wrote of his passion for the Corinthians, "I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy. I promised you to one husband, to Christ, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to him." (2 Cor.11:2)

	And notice what Paul does with his godly anger.
		Here is no man who, though feeling so upset at all the evil around, yet gives up in despair, showing that terrible apathy which is the death of so many churches.
			He is not making the excuse that if we can do what the world does that we then might get an opportunity to present the gospel to them.
	And he's certainly not swayed by the thought that a strong negative reaction will lose whatever friendly contact we could have with those outsiders.
		Not for him the concern that he's part of a very small minority in society, like we are today in opposing the evil of abortion.

	Paul is provoked in his spirit to do something!
		The Holy Spirit is not prompting him to inaction but into the most vigorous response for the sake of the gospel.
			And then he would be a fool for Christ.
 	As he expressed once what his ministry was: "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written: 'I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.'" (1 Cor.1:18f)
		That was the strength in Paul.

	But, dear congregation, is it the power we show in our lives today?
		As Paul called us to follow his model, for example, in Philippians 3, have we followed him in this way too?
			You know that he gives himself for us to model because he follows Christ!

	Friend, is that the way you are travelling right now?
		Like Paul, are you determined in your own mind to know nothing but Christ and Him crucified?
			Are they Christ's Kingdom claims which you are driven to extend wherever His Spirit leads you in this world? 

	Unless we are disturbed in our spirit for the sake of our Lord, we cannot enter any further into the Athens of today.
		Then those lifestyles and the philosophies behind them will only overwhelm us, as they did so many in the early church.
			But to be moved by God's Spirit because His Word is in us, is the only weapon we can bring to this battle.
				Paul wrote of this to the Ephesians, "For our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms."

	Paul saw nothing less than the devil and all his evil hosts before him in Athens. 
		Yet, because he saw it, he moved in the power and guidance of the Lord against it.
			And that's no different today.

				We cannot be of any earthly use unless we heavenly-minded.
				
	So - what's on your mind now?
		Let's pray that it will be Christ's mind! (1 Cor.2:16).

			AMEN.

PRAYER:
	Let's do that right now, yes, let's pray...
		O LORD God, It is only by our communion with You that we can have any hope at all, let alone engage this world in spiritual battle.
			It is only Your Spirit, who moved in us, that may move in others too, opening their hearts up to be able to understand that You really are the only Saviour God and Creator and Sustainer of all things.
	We plead for Your Spirit to move mightily through wherever the Word would be proclaimed - from the pulpit, in teaching, in our personal words and witness, wherever Lord we would be open to being led by You.
		For it is in the name of the Living Word, Jesus Christ, that we pray, Amen.

HYMN (RESPONSE TO WORD):
	In response to God's Word let's sing, while seated, No.3...

OFFERINGS:
	Psalm 50 ends with the words, "He who sacrifices thank offerings honours me, and he prepares the way so that I may show him the salvation of God."
	Let's give thankfully now. Let's show that we are saved.

[OFFERTORY PRAYER:
	Let's pray...Who are we LORD to now be part of Christ's Body; we who were the cause of His death?
			And who are we that we should become Your servants in this world; we who are so sinful ourselves!
	Yet, by Your grace, we are not only forgiven of all our sin, but we become the co-workers of Your divine will, extending Your forgiving grace to sinners around us.
		May these offerings serve Your purposes O God, whether by the preaching and teaching and living of Your Word, or showing that Word by Christ's compassion through us.
			In Jesus Name, Amen.]

BENEDICTION:
	Congregation, we stand now to receive God's blessing and we sing after that Psalm 148, which is No. 304, with the stanza sung after the last verse...

	"May God Himself, the God of peace,
		sanctify you through and through.
	 May your whole spirit, soul and body
		be kept blameless 
			at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
	 The One who calls you IS faithful
		and He will do it..."

DOXOLOGY:
		[304]