Is IT True?

This sermon was preached at Cornerstone Baptist Church in Cherry Log, Georgia on Sunday, April 28, 2013 by Pastor Paul Mims.

Acts 17:1-15
Man is often the prisoner of his own preconceptions. French mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) said this: “I only know that on leaving this world I fall into nothingness or into the hands of a wrathful God, without knowing to which of these two states I shall be everlastingly consigned.” William Lane Craig, a modern theologian says, “Man’s condition ought to impel him to seek to discover whether there is a God and a solution to his predicament. But people occupy their time and their thoughts with trivialities and distractions, so as to avoid the despair, boredom, and anxiety that would inevitably result if those diversions were removed.”

Timothy Keller in his book, The Reason For God: Belief In An Age of Skeptcism, tells the experience of Kevin who was searching for truth:

“While sitting in a coffee shop reading C. S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity, I put down the book and wrote in my notebook, ‘the evidence surrounding the claims of Christianity is simply overwhelming.’ I realized that my achievements were ultimately unsatisfying, the approval of man is fleeting, that a carpe diem life lived solely for adventure is just a form of narcissism and idolatry. And so I became a believer in Christ.” We are living in an age when the question is being asked of Christianity: “Is It True?” The measure of uncertainty in a world that demands answers is appalling. The Barna Research Group found the following:
“Bible reading has become the religious equivalent of sound-bite journalism. When people read from the Bible they typically open it, read a brief passage without much regard for the context, and consider the primary thought or feeling that the passage provided. If they are comfortable with it, they accept it; otherwise, they deem it interesting but irrelevant to their life, and move on. There is shockingly little growth evident in people’s understanding of the fundamental themes of the scriptures and amazingly little interest in deepening their knowledge and application of biblical principles.

The problem facing the Christian Church is not that people lack a complete set of beliefs; the problem is that they have a full slate of beliefs in mind, which they think are consistent with biblical teachings, and they are neither open to being proven wrong nor to learning new insights. Our research suggests that this challenge initially emerges in the late adolescent or early teenage years. By the time most Americans reach the age of 13 or 14, they think they pretty much know everything of value the Bible has to teach and they are no longer interested in learning more scriptural content. It requires increasingly concise, creative, reinforced, and personally relevant efforts to penetrate people’s minds with new or more accurate insights into genuinely biblical principles. In a culture driven by the desire to receive value, more Bible teaching is generally not viewed as an exercise in providing such value.”

Our text today is the continuing story of the Second Missionary Journey of Paul, Silas, Timothy, and Dr. Luke. After leaving Philippi, where they established the first church on the continent of Europe, they travel about 100 miles to a city on the coast of the Aegean Sea called Thessalonica. We were on a flight from Tel Aviv to Rome and the Captain pointed out Thessalonica just below us. I thought, “I hope to visit the places of Paul’s journeys someday.” But I do visit them in the scriptures and learn about what happened there. Paul answered three questions to the Thessalonians that every generation must ask anew for themselves:

I. IS IT TRUE THAT JESUS IS THE MESSIAH OF THE OLD TESTAMENT? (vv.2-3) “As his custom was, Paul went into the synagogue, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the scriptures, explaining and proving that the Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead. ‘This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Christ.’”

Did you notice the didactic method he used? Over a period of three weeks, from the scriptures he reasoned, explained, and proved that Jesus was the Christ to the worshippers at the synagogue.
What scriptures did they have? The Old Testament, written over a period of about 1000 years, was in use much as it is today by 350 BC. These were the scriptures that Paul used in the synagogue to present Jesus of Nazareth as The Christ. Picture him reading from the scroll of Genesis and finding the passage we know as 3:15; “And I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and hers: he will crush your head and you will strike his heel.” He might have said, “This is the first promise of the Savior given after the entrance of sin into the human lifeline in the Garden of Eden.”

Again, in Genesis he found the place we know as 22:8; “Abraham answered, ‘God himself will provide a lamb for the burnt offering.’” He could have said, “You know the sacrificial system that we have followed for hundreds of years in offering perfect lambs as sacrifices to God for our sins. He offered his Son as a perfect lamb. Abraham did not have to give up his son, but God freely gave his only Son as the sacrifice for our sin.”

“Bring me the scroll of Exodus.” He then could have found the place in Exodus 12:13 which says, “The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are; and when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt.”

“Bring me the scroll of Isaiah.” He likely would have found the place we know as 53:6, “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each one of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” That is what he has done for you in the fulfillment of this and over 300 other prophecies found in the Scriptures.

The results were glorious as the response indicates: “Some of the Jews were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a large number of God-fearing Greeks and not a few prominent women.” (v.4)
But there is another side to the story. In presenting Christ Paul always had triumph and travail. The travail part of it happened when some Jews rejected what he said, rounded up a mob, and started a riot in the city shouting, “These men who have cause trouble all over the world have now come here…The are defying all of Caesar’s decrees, saying that there is another king, one called Jesus.” (vv.6-7).

There was such turmoil that “As soon as it was night, the brothers sent Paul and Silas away to Berea.”
II. IS IT TRUE THAT THE MESSIAH DIED AND ROSE AGAIN FROM THE DEAD? (v.11) “Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.”

The believers of Thessalonica surrounded Paul and as Jason was held responsible for allowing the missionary team to stay at his house, they got him and the team out of town under the cover of darkness. They then proceeded to Berea, which was sixty miles away. There were a few weeks of teaching with the hearers examining the scriptures for themselves to see if what Paul said was true.
Here again, triumph and travail. “Many of the Jews believed, as did a number of prominent women and many Greek men.” Luke says that they were more noble than those in Thessalonica.

It is interesting that Luke notes the response of the women of this culture to the claims of the Gospel. Why did they respond so readily? What did the Gospel have that Greek mythology did not? The women did not find hope or comfort in Athene or the sex goddess Aphrodite. The women were tired of the degradation of womanhood as they saw in Greek philosophy and mythology. The Jewish men saw the fulfillment of their scriptures and the Greek men saw that which spoke to the deepest needs of their hearts.

Look today where Christ is not known and you will see the degradation of women. Find people today that are tired of false religions and unproven philosophies and you will see people turning to Christ. People who are willing to search the scriptures to see if Jesus really did die and rise from the dead are turning to him.

Here are the words of Lee Strobel who examined the Scriptures to see if it was true: “For most of my life I was an atheist. I thought the idea of an all-loving, all-powerful creator of the universe–I thought it was stupid. I mean, my background is in journalism and law. I tend to be a skeptical person. I was the legal editor of the Chicago Tribune. So I needed evidence before I’d believe anything.

One day my wife came up to me–she’d been agnostic–and she said after a period of spiritual investigation she had decided to become a follower of Jesus Christ. And I thought, you know, this is the worst possible news I could get. I thought she was going to turn into some sexually repressed prude who was going to spend all her time serving the poor in skid row somewhere. I thought this was the end of our marriage.

But in the ensuing months, I saw positive changes in her values, in her character, in the way she related to me and the children. It was winsome; and it was attractive; and it made me want to check things out. So I went to church one day mainly to see if I could get her out of this cult that she had gotten involved in.

But I heard the message of Jesus articulated for the first time in a way that I could understand it. That forgiveness is a free gift, and that Jesus Christ died for our sins, that we might spend eternity with Him. And I walked out saying–I was still an atheist–but also saying, “If this is true, this has huge implications for my life.” And so I used my journalism training and legal training to begin an investigation into whether there was any credibility to Christianity or to any other world faith system for that matter.
I did that for a year and nine months until November the 8th of 1991, and on that day I realized that, in light of the torrent of evidence flowing in the direction of the truth of Christianity, it would require more faith for me to maintain my atheism than to become a Christian. Because to be an atheist I would have to swim upstream against this torrent of evidence pointing toward the truth of Jesus Christ. And I couldn’t do that. I was trained in journalism and law to respond to truth. And so on that day, I received Jesus Christ as my forgiver, and as my leader.

And, just like with my wife, my life began to change. Over time my values, my character, the purpose of my life began to be transformed over time in a way that, as I look back, I can’t imagine staying on the path I was on compared to the adventure and the fulfillment and the joy of following Jesus Christ.” He found that it was true.

A final question needs to be asked:

III. IS IT TRUE THAT JESUS IS THE ONLY WAY TO GOD?

The Associated Press reported a survey that was made in 2008 that found: “Nearly across the board, the majority of religious Americans believe many religions can lead to eternal life: mainline Protestants (83 percent), members of historic black Protestant churches (59 percent), Roman Catholics (79 percent), Jews (82 percent) and Muslims (56 percent).”

It is troubling that such a large part of the world is not Christian and does not know of Christ. It is also troubling that so many Christians of today do not examine the scriptures but believe according to their own emotions. But Pauline Theology would never agree that there are many ways to God. He would readily proclaim the words of Jesus, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6)

If you examine the scriptures to see if this is true, you can come to no other conclusion. Some things must be left to God for he has not told us everything He is going to do with the unbelieving world. It is true that there is no other Savior. Peter and John stood the Sanhedrin and said, “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12)

John Hart was an English teacher in London in the 1700s. He was writing a tract on “The Unreasonableness of Religion.” He was a rebel, but he came under conviction and wandered into a Moravian chapel and heard words of hope. He went home and knelt in prayer and gave his life to Christ. He wrote the Hymn, “Come Ye Sinners, Poor and Needy” of which the last stanza says,
“Come, ye weary, heavy laden, Bruised and mangled by the Fall;
If you tarry till you’re better, you will never come at all;
Not the righteous, not the righteous;
Sinners Jesus came to call.”

PRAISE BE TO HIS NAME!