The Gospel According to Jesus' Enemies

So we're in acts 17, 16 to the end of the chapter. While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed see that the city was full of idols. So he reasoned in the synagogue with both Jews and god fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happen to be there. A group of appear occurring and stoic philosophers became to debate with him.

Some of them asked, what is this Babler trying to say? Others remarked He seems to be advocating foreign gods. They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection. Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Arab pagus where they said to him. May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting?

You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we would like to know what they mean. All the athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas. Paul then stood up in the meeting of the areopagus and said, people of Athens, I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walks around and looks carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription to an unknown god. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship.

And this is what I am going to proclaim to you. The god who made the world and everything in it is the lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. And he is not served by human hands as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. For 1 man, he made all nations that they should inhabit the whole earth, and he marks at the appointed times in his in history and the boundaries of their lands.

God did this say that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any 1 of us. For in him we live and move and have our being. And some of your own poets have said, we are his offspring. Therefore. Since that we are since we are god's offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone.

An image made by human design and skill. In the past, god overlooks such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead. When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, we want to hear you again on this subject.

At that poll left the council. Some of the people be some of the people became followers of Paul and believed, among them was Diana Isisis. A member of the Arabagus and also a woman named Demaris and a number of others. Thanks, Kanita, for reading that. So if you wanna keep that passage open, in front of you, be be a great help.

As Leon said at the beginning, my name's Philip Cooper. I'm 1 of the elders here. And we're gonna be looking at this, this passage, really, of of Paul and his experience in Athens, So let's pray, and then we'll we'll get into the passage. Father, thank you for your word. Thank you for bringing us here together this evening, help us now to put aside, you know, what's going on, in our heads, the heat, the things that have sort of bothered us during the day, perhaps, things that we're dealing with tomorrow.

And help us just for this little short time now to look into your word to to look for you to speak to us through it, that you will take it, put it in our hearts and minds. Change us, move us, and help us to want to, or help us to leave here wanting to be more like Jesus. In Jesus' name, amen. So, yes, we're continuing this series looking at the response, really that the gospel engenders from god's enemies. Sometimes, as we've seen, making statements, which perhaps they've seen as an insult or a slur or negative, but are in fact truth.

This evening's a little different, though. Because they don't say much, as you'll see, as we go later on, they talk about him being a Babler. But we'll get to that. But there isn't much else in terms of what they say. I think the opposition comes, in a different way here.

But we're in the middle of, effectively Paul's second missionary journey. He's in Athens. He's on his own. And he's waiting for silas and Timothy to join him. So he's just sort of hanging out in this city.

The previous couple of chapters they've encountered lots of opposition. There was demon possession. They got rid of the demon. They were, I think, arrested for that. But there's definitely been imprisonment there's been riots, there's been arrests of Jason, 1 of their followers.

They were pursued from 1 town to another, And so Paul had to flee. And he flees Burir and he ends up here in Athens on his own. But the opposition that we'll see here tonight is completely different from any of that. There is no hint here of the enemies of god rioting. There's no physical violence against Paul in Athens when he speaks.

He doesn't even have to flee She's unusual for Paul. But if you look at 18 verse 1, which, wasn't read versus the next bid, after this, Paul left Athens and went to corinth. He wasn't run out of town. He wasn't chased. He just, you know, moved on.

So what did he encounter? In Athens? What was the opposition, if you like, to the gospel message? Well, the answer, I think, is intellectualism. The answer is that the mindset of the city that loved new ideas, loved hearing and debating.

But in the end, that's all they wanted. They just wanted a chat. They just wanted a talk about stuff. The people enjoyed the process but not the conclusion. They didn't wanna change their lives.

They didn't wanna make a decision as you'll see. And isn't it true? I think this is true in our lives, a decision that we put off gets harder and harder. They're not hostile, as I've just said. We'll see how Paul works the town really to get, the gospel adhering.

But when he does speak out the gospel, it's a pretty muted, fairly intellectual response to it. And that's the problem. That's the opposition. And it's our first point. You see, Paul identifies the athenian culture.

As being the enemy of god. It's the culture that's the enemy of god in this city. Look at verse 16, while Paul was waiting for them in Athens, He was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols. Now Athens, at this point, is not the center of the world that it once had been prior to the Roman Empire, but it was still a very important city full of philosophers full of ideas. Rome, if you like, was the administrative, you know, the government bit like Washington, I suppose, the government capital.

But Athens was the intellectual city with the people still following, aristotle and Plato and all those philosophers that had gone before. Everywhere you went in Athens, There were temples and statues to the Greek guards like Zeus and Apollo and Afrodite. And in the center of this city, was the parthenon. Standing on a hill, you could see it from miles around, and it was a great temple to the god Athena. Now if you've been to Athens, you can still see the ruins of the Path and Un.

And they're very, very impressive, even now. I've I've been I was 8. So they were very impressive then because it was closer to Paul than ring. But, yeah, quite a few years ago now. But they were very impressive, and they are.

But at the time, when Paul was there, it must have been awe inspiring. It wouldn't have been a surprise, would it, for Paul to be inspired by the city, inspired inspired by the beauty. But what does verse 16 say? He was greatly distressed to see the city full of idols. You see, Paul is so spiritually awake, I suppose, so aware that he sees through the external beauty, and what he sees is idolatry.

He sees a people building places of worship to someone other than Yairway. And it distresses him. And that word distress in the original is much more than what we would call distress like upset. It's enraged He's enraged by it. It's provoked to anger.

Paul was physically enraged at the sight of such idolatry. He knew the truth about Jesus Christ. He knew the truth about god And so he knew that these man made objects have no power to protect those people. No power to save them. No power to forgive them.

But it wasn't just that knowledge. That stirred Paul. You see, Paul like all Christians, and if if you were there on Wednesday at the big home group that Leon was advertising for the next few weeks, it was really good. We were looking at the Holy Spirit and how the Holy Spirit dwells in us. And Paul had that And the reality is the closer we walk with god, then the more sensitive, the more aware We will be of the leading of the Holy Spirit, and the more we'll be stirred by something like idolatry.

Paul's heart was moved because he sees a lost city. Because he sees idolatry, but also because he has a jealousy forgot In Isaiah chapter 42, verse 8, you don't need to turn to it. I'll just read it out. It's quite short. God says this, I am the lord.

That is my name. I will not yield my glory to another. Or my praise to idols. And yet when Paul looks around this city, that's what's going on everywhere. So I want us just to stop for a minute.

It's our first application. Let's just think about that. Ask yourself when were you last moved? When were you last upset? When were you last stirred because of what you see going on around you?

It's awful. It's amazing, you know, how often when I do preach in the evening, how the morning fits in, you know, almost like it's planned. But it is remarkable because I thought this morning, again, you know, Morris was on the same theme, really. He was talking on Habercook, wasn't he? But he was saying, look, Think about anguished prayer.

When were you anguished in your prayer? When did that last happen to you. People all around us are worshiping idols, not perhaps statues like in Athens, but they're still lost. When did that last distress you in the meaning of distress here? So I I worry for myself really and and, well, for all of us, that we've become people who are so focused on our own lives.

Even though some of that, we will argue is good, you know, our own bible study, our own worship, our own church family here at Cornerstone, but we've become so individualistic in our faith that the people we work with, the people we interact with every day are on the road to hell, and it doesn't really touch us. It doesn't really move us. There's no anguish felt by us as we look at them. So let's just apply that. Let's think about that.

Let's take that away. When will we last moved when we looked at the idolatry round us? Well, that wasn't all that was going on in Athens. In the culture. Yes.

They were idol worshipers, but they also love new ideas. New things, new things to talk about. Look at verses 19 and then 20. They say to Paul, may we know What this new teaching is that you are presenting, you're bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we want to know what they mean. But then look at the side note versus anyone.

I love this. All the athenians and the foreigners who live there spend their time doing nothing. But talking about and listening to the latest ideas, waste of time, but what can you say? They wanted to discuss stuff without achieving anything. There was no end game in what they were doing.

And that was the culture Paul was facing here. And within that culture, it says in the passage, he basically engages with or he is engaged by 2 little groups, the epicureans and the stoics. We haven't got time. I'm not inclined to go in lots of detail about this, but I'll try and give you a broad outline. The epicureans didn't deny the existence of gods.

That would be quite quite difficult actually in Athens. Although the stoics manager, I'll come onto that, but they didn't. But they basically didn't see the gods as having any involvement with them. They were distant. They didn't get involved in human affairs.

So the epicurean's approach to life was basically you want the maximum amount of pleasure you can get and the minimum amount of paint. Now as a rule, I'm largely happy with that. I can't see any reason why we would go a different route. But that works because They don't believe in an eternity. There's no future.

So if you only live once and it feels good, do it. That's what they said. The stoics on the other hand, the other group, they knew they couldn't control everything. They knew that things are gonna happen to you that you won't like. But they believed, ah, yes, but you're in control of your response.

You're in control of yourself. So you can make the decision to stand tall, if you like. You can make the decision to take the pain. Interesting about stoics is when you read about them, they were quite good citizens. The epicureans weren't.

Stowicks were quite good citizens because they would endure hardship for some future game. The problem was they had no sense of a divine presence. You're just doing the best you can in this life. So all of that is the background here. All of that forms the culture that Paul found in Athens, and these people put together the intellectuals, the stoics, the epicureans were the enemies of god, not because they persecuted pause.

We've seen before, not because they've said things against him, but because in the end, they wouldn't follow Christ. They worship other gods. Their worldview was a function of the philosophers they listened to and they spent all day just chatting and theorizing and in theory looking for the truth. And when Paul steps in, starts talking to him, they brand him a Babler verse 18. And that doesn't mean they didn't understand what he was saying, and he was just babbling on.

It's a word which really means, he was they think he's pecked like a bird pecks. He's pecked at different ideas to get his theology. So it's a sort of, the way they just thought he jumped around. In fact, when it says in the verse that they thought he was advocating foreign gods. A lot of the commentators think they actually thought the resurrection was a god, so I don't understand at all how they got that.

But they clearly thought he was just talking stuff, which he'd sort of gleaned from other things. They were intrigued by him, But Paul could sense, Paul knew that the culture itself was the enemy. So how did he tackle it? And that's the second point. Paul speaks into their culture.

First 17, so he reasoned in the synagogue with both Jews and god fearing Greeks as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happen to be there. So the opening word in that verse, so means in response to it, in response to this culture, in response to the idolatry, in response to the sort of intellectualism, poor speaks. While we were on holiday, a few weeks ago, we watched a film we've seen before, called the Jesus Revolution. There aren't many in my view, good Christian films, they're normally made terribly, but this is quite good. And we're friends we're with haven't seen it, so we watched it.

It's a it's about a revival in the US in the late 67 early seventies. And, 1 of the main characters is a hippie, and he's also a Christian, and he's talking to this rather staid pastor, and he's trying to explain the hippie movement, if you like. And he's saying to this guy, This generation, my generation, they're searching for god, they're searching for meaning, but in all the wrong places. And he means drugs and sex and rock and roll and the stuff from the sixties. They are sheep without a shepherd, he and then he quotes Romans 10 verse 14.

I love these verses. How then can they call on the 1 they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the 1 of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And Paul obviously wrote those verses, but he's applying it.

He's applying that here in in acts. Now look, I'm trying to put this together with where we are. It's not a perfect match, but I hope hopefully we'll get the point. Because I want us to think about what's our strategy, what's your strategy as a person, what's our strategy as a church, What's our strategy for speaking out the gospel to those who can't believe because they've never heard? So in Athens, the synagogue was the soft audience for Paul.

They knew the Old Testament, they knew the God that Paul referred to. There was a scriptural literacy there. Paul could use it as a platform to move on to Jesus. There was an element of respect for Paul of Tarsus, you know, Hebrew of Hebrews. If you look at the previous journeys, as he goes through Philippines and thessalonica, and straight away to the synagogue every time.

What's our equivalent? What's our equivalent of a of a soft audience? Well, is isn't it Cornerstone? You know, it's the Sunday school, isn't it? It's the youth work.

It's you and I coming on a Sunday and listening and applying scripture to our lives. You know, most of us here have a little bit of biblical literacy, and that we have a desire to know god, I hope. In fact, I would think we're softer in many ways than the synagogue was to Paul. And we have non believers Coming in here. Fairly regularly signing up on the iPad, saying they wanna know more about Christianity, just walking in.

That's a joy, isn't it? And so we wanna take the gospel to them in our meetings, in our sermons every Sunday. We wanna speak it out in our kids' work in Seoul, en route to the gospel. People with open hearts who are looking for an answer to their life, looking to an answer for what it's about, are coming in to this building and the building we meet at in the morning of their own accord. It's amazing.

And so we're to preach the word. And for those of us who know Jesus Christ as lord and savior, well, we benefit from being taught and reminded and stirred up, which we talked about at the beginning, because we have our eyes opened to the culture around us. But is reaching that soft audience? Really, the totality of our effort to help people hear of the 1 whom they have not heard. So is that it?

We're gonna put on a high quality, bible based program on a Sunday, and we're gonna wait for people to walk through the door. Now it's a blessing that god is bringing a trickle through that door all the time, The great work at International Cafe in particular comes across people who have not heard about Jesus So does breakfast church? Some of the other kids works in the week. But still, I'm thinking, is that all? Is that all we can do?

Paul speaks at the synagogue, sure. That's what he does on the sabbath. But look at his other tactic. Every day, he's in the marketplace speaking to people with no background in scripture, no knowledge of yahweh, have never heard of Jesus, and yet it yields unexpected fruit. Look at verse 19.

Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the areopagus, where they said to him May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? You're bringing some strange ideas to our ears and we want to know what they mean. Paul standing there in the marketplace has caught the attention of some of the elite, the intellectuals. The epicureans, the stoics that we've just looked at, and so it gets invited to the areopagus, where he gives a wonderful sermon. I'm gonna look at it in a minute.

But do you see the point? If he'd stayed in the synagogue with a soft audience, if we only stay here, amongst brothers and sisters on a Sunday, then how will those who have not heard ever hear? The areopagus was was the council of Mars Hills' other name. It was the highest assembly in Athens of about a hundred men who met regularly, they listened to oratory, and it said in the commentary they decide on matters of great importance. Which given that they do absolutely nothing about from chat, I think is highly unlikely, but that's what they were there to do.

So being asked to speak there for Paul is the equivalent, I guess, of us, of us going to speak to, I don't know, Kingston Council, or even Parliament. But he gets that because he stood in the marketplace, preaching and debating with anyone who would listen. Now having gained that hearing, Paul's approach to the sermon is fascinating. Because when he gets the opportunity, he speaks straight into the culture that he's found. He doesn't go back to scripture as he would in the synagogue.

You know, they wouldn't know what he was talking about. He starts with a sort of compliment, if you look at verse 22, a bit backhanded, I think, but People of Athens, I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription. To an unknown god. He's saying, look, you're worshiping people.

You are people looking for something in your lives. You're so preoccupied with all the different things that you worship that in order to cover all bases, in case you've missed 1 out, we've got this unknown god altar. Just in cases there. That's an amazing, weird idea, but there you go. Do you notice, by the way, he uses the phrase objects of worship, doesn't actually call them gods.

But then he takes them from that position. The position that he's found them in, and he says, you worship an unknown god. Let me tell you about the 1 true god. Who you can get to know. And off he goes.

He even I thought, this was fascinating. Uses a couple of apparently fairly minor Greek prophet, Greek poets. In his argument verse 28, as some of your own poets have said, we are his offspring. So Paul is showing his red widely. He knows the culture that he's speaking into, and he tackles it.

Now, again, I think we need to hear this. You know, second application, if you like, sometimes we can be gripped or fascinated. Now, I don't know, by some minor theological point that's been debated for centuries. And I can tell you the athenians would love that. But we have no idea we don't pay any attention to the riots going on in this country what they tell us about society.

We have no view on whether the Ukraine and Gaza conflicts are really proxy wars. Fits in again with what Morris was saying this morning, doesn't it? When he was talking about anguish prayer, when he was talking about, you know, how do you feel this He said, will you all you gotta do is switch on the TV and watch the news? Well, that's a good idea, but I wonder if we're already in so much of a bubble it still doesn't mean anything to us. I mean, personally, I have to say, I, you know, we get the Sunday times at home.

I read sport if the football season's on. And the business section, that's it. And so I was convicted when I read this. On a more basic level, how do you talk to the other mothers at or whoever at the school gates? How do you talk to the people at work?

Do you watch the latest TV series that everyone outside of church is watching and talking about? Do you listen to the latest music or or see who the latest influences are on YouTube? You see, we live in a post Christian world view country, and how do we intend to speak into this culture How are we gonna open conversations if we're disengaged from everything they're doing? Many of us, I think, are basically in Christian bubbles. It it's lovely.

Not now I understand how it happens. Know, we're staying busy with our families. We're staying busy with our church family. We have no time really for the biblically illiterate. No time for the lost people Kingston.

And most importantly, of all, we have no contact point with them if at all possible. That's the equivalent of Paul staying in the synagogue, debating whether Jesus fulfills the Old Testament, that they were familiar with, but he'd have been dismissed by the Greek culture as just another Jewish minority teacher. This morning, I was introduced to I met this girl who'd come to Cornerstone. I think it was her second visit. And I was talking to her, and, I asked, how did you come to find us?

How do you knew the church existed? And she said she was sitting in a park, and she was parked quite down. She's not from the UK, and I think she was missing her family. She wasn't crying when I think she did, I was just staring into space. And, this late other lady came up and sat down and started talking to her.

Instead of you okay, you look you know, upset, and then started talking about Jesus. And, this girl said, oh, she said, no, I have her faith and was sort of talking they were talking the same language, so they had a nice chat. And then this lady said, oh, if I were you, I'd go to Cornerstone. You'll you'll be happy there and sent her to us, which is why she turned out. And I said, oh, is she here this other lady?

And she don't know. She said, I I don't go there, but it'd be great for you. But what really struck me about that was several things. In fact, I was telling somebody at lunch, she said, you know, it could be an angel. Which actually I don't wanna rule out.

But what really struck me was, firstly, would I've even noticed somebody staring into space? Probably not. Secondly, would I have stopped and spoken to them? Definitely not. Because We don't have any time.

We don't allow ourselves to have any time. And it's a worry that we're in this bubble of busyness. And, you know, Paul is every day in that marketplace, just talking to he says whoever we've listened. You know, and I'm immediately reading that, thinking, yeah, you're gonna get all the nut cases come along. And why'd you wanna put yourself through it?

But but he's preaching the gospel is what we're there to do. Paul, you see, identified that the culture that he found himself in was idolatrous It was intellectualism, it was, you know, pride, and it was the enemy of god. And so he speaks into that culture once he understands it, and we've got to understand where we live. And then what does he do? Third point, last point, he speaks the gospel out clearly.

Look at verses 24 to 31. The god who made the world and everything in it is the lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands, and he is not served by human hands as if he needed anything. Rather, he gave rather he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. From 1 man, he made all the nations that they should inhabit the whole earth and he marked out there appointed times in history in the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far away from any 1 of us.

For in him, we live and move and have our being as some of your own poets have said we are his offspring. Therefore, since we are god's offspring, we should not think that the divine being is gold or silver or stone, an image made by human design and skill. In the past, god overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.

So as he talks to them, He starts by telling them there's 1 god, the creator of all things, but it's very important. Did you notice he doesn't stop there? In fact, he moves on quite quickly. Because they're pluralists. So they might happily add another god.

If you said to them there's a creator god, he's created the whole world, but he doesn't get involved now. He just sits over there as the creative god. They could just add him to 1 of their other gods. So he moves on very quickly rather he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else From 1 man, he made all the nations that they should inhabit the whole earth, and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. So he's talking very quickly about a sovereign god, a god who's in control of everything in this world, including whether we live or die today.

Including whether we wake up tomorrow morning, including whether a whole nation prospers or fails, or when the Roman Empire will cease. This guard is not passive. He's not like their idols, which are silent. He's in charge of everything. And then he says to them, verse 27, you can know this god.

God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him. Though he's not far from any 1 of us, for in him, we live and move and have our being. So he's saying, look, when you seek god, genuinely, you will find him in the person of Jesus Christ. The son of god, who was killed on a cross for our sins, taking the punishment we deserved rose again, very important here, rose again conquering death to sit at the right hand of god, the father. That's how he gets to the resurrection.

And look at their reaction. Verse 32, when they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered. But others said we want to hear you again on this subject. Paul speaks out the gospel really clearly, and it divides as it always does. Some sneered, some were intrigued, some verse 33 believed.

I was struck actually by how intolerant Paul is with those who want to chat. Verse 32 others said we want to hear you again on this subject. Verse 33, and that Paul left the council. So I love that. He's like it's like he's saying, look, I've told you what you need to know.

You're not listening. I'm off. And it, and again, it makes me wonder, the intellectualism of the culture in Athens, Athens, Is it very different from our culture of, you know, what's true for you? Aren't these these things more insidious, more effective in opposing the gospel than actually persecution and violence. It's interesting when you read round this.

Athens was really the big city that Paul goes to where he doesn't plant a church. Corinth where he goes next, he does. Thessalonica, but he doesn't in Athens, and I wonder whether it's because the response was so lukewarm. But there's a key verse, and we're gonna finish looking at this verse that we haven't talked about yet, and it's verse 30. So let's look at verse 30.

In the past, god overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. That's an extraordinary verse. He's just said, god created everything. He's sovereign over everything. He decides whether you breathe today.

He cannot be contained in gold and silver and stone statues. He cannot be made by man. And then he says, in the past, god overlooked such ignorance, See Paul say, look over history, including Israel's history, actually, nations went their own way, and god left them to the consequences of their sin, their idolatry, I suppose. But he's changed here. He's saying that age is gone.

Earlier in acts, I think it's chapter 14, Paul's talking to people in Listra. And just listen to this verse. We too are only human like you, says, Paul. We are bringing you good news, telling you to turn from these worthless things to the living god who made the heavens and the earth and the sea and everything in them. In the past, he let all nations go their own way.

Same point. Did you hear it? There was a time when god let man do his own thing. But he's saying in acts, 14, 17, those days are over, the age of ignorance has passed. Now why has it?

Because Jesus has come. Because through Jesus, We might be saved, we might be restored into relationship with god. And so in the knowledge of that, The days of not knowing god's plan, not knowing god are over. A thinking which causes a city to build a temple to an unknown god is no longer excusable. Because god is personally knowable through Jesus.

And if it was true then, how much more is that true of us today? They didn't have the Bible. They didn't have god's word like we do in their hands. Everything we need to know is here. There is no excuse in today's age for ignorance.

And that's why those verses in Romans should really hit us because the only reason for people to be ignorant now is because they haven't heard. And the only reason they cannot not have heard when we have this is because we haven't told them. But just as provocative is what Paul says our reaction to the age of ignorance being over should be. Look at verse 30 again. In the past, god overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent.

And that word command really has really got me thinking this week. Do we command people to repent? Or, like the situation in Athens, is our society in the UK, the enemy as well. So we're too worried. We're too wary of saying what god says.

Because we're too frightened of the reaction, or we're too respectful of the individual. You know, we've stopped being direct because of this, what's true for you is good for you sort of thing. I remember asking my son, Matthew, well, it'd be 4 or 5 years ago now, I guess. When he was at university, you know, what's it like in the university culture being Christian? He says, absolutely fine.

No problem at all. As long as you don't invite anyone or try and persuade anybody. You can be what you like. You just can't talk about it to anyone else. See, I remember I had to look this up because a long time ago, I remember going to a Billy Gray admission, wembly in 19 89, it was.

And him calling people in this stadium down saying, I want you tonight to come down here and give your life to Jesus. It was as clear as that, and thousands of people went. I remember a few years later, being a different, evangelistic meeting. And the guy's saying, look in a minute, I'm gonna pray a prayer. And if you want to respond, why not just say it along with me and your heart.

See how it's watered down there. Feels much nicer, gentler. But I'm failing to feel command in it. But I wonder if we even do that now. Don't we just invite people to think about things or attend another course?

You know, I wonder if we just adopted this individualist it culture we live in and combined it with a comfort zone that we like living in. And so what we now do is we put on an event say, this is fantastic. We'll pray about this event. We put on this event, and we hope someone comes. And if no 1 does, We sigh and we shake our heads, and we we say, oh, that's the world around us.

I read this, secular journalist, in the Daily Telegraph, we're going back the quotes 4, 5 years ago, I think. But it's very, very scary. And he wrote this. He wrote evangelism is a game that Christians play amongst themselves. Evangelism is a game Christians play amongst themselves.

In other words, churches grow by taking people from other churches. That is terrible. It is true. How far away from I command everyone to repent? Is that approach.

And what I find extraordinary when I when I thought about it is that the people around us are probably more biblically ignorant than any generation before. And yet we hope they'll make the right decision on their own, do we? Paul looks at the Greeks, the gentiles in Athens, and he says your time of ignorance is over. Jesus has come, and through him, all people can be saved. Your time of ignorance is over.

And a time of repentance and salvation is here. And brothers and sisters, we are still in that time of repentance and salvation today And god calls, but he doesn't you see, commands that all repent and turn to him. Now have you done that? I know most of you have. If you have, praise god, But what I wanna ask us tonight is, are we ready to take this gospel out to those who haven't heard?

To bring an end to their personal age of ignorance. Let's pray. Father, thank you for this wonderful passage. Thank you for the way Paul, arriving in Athens doesn't get taken in by the the power and the glory if you like of the city. But sees through to the culture, sees the idolatry, sees the the playing ideas, with no decision.

But most of all, lord, we thank you that he takes your message, the gospel, into that, culture speaks into it, understands it, knows where to start, knows how to talk to them. Father help us to be the same. Help us to want to talk to the people we we work with and, meeting the street and meet on park benches like that lady this morning. Help us to want to speak out for you. We thank you that because of Jesus, the age of ignorance is over.

Lord help us to talk to people in a way that they will hear you commanding them to repent. They will hear you calling them to change their lives, and they'll do it. Lord, we don't want to be, Christians just playing at evangelism amongst ourselves. We want to be a people that take your word out to those that don't know you that have never heard of you. Help us to do that, in our everyday lives.

Help us through as a church. In Jesus' name, we pray.