All these children and what a wonderful privilege
it is to be able to teach these
children the way of salvation.
It is also so nice to see all
of you and now about four or five
weeks have passed since I was here last.
We have had the joy and privilege, my
wife and our two sons, to be in
the Bahamas now for about two months.
We come, as you perhaps know, from the
Faroe Islands and if you don't know where
the Faroe Islands are, they are about 300
miles north of Shetland or Scotland about 200
miles south of Iceland.
So, in that part of the world, today,
it is very cold.
I spoke home last night or yesterday and
they said that.
Although they felt that the spring was coming,
it was still very cold and what a
difference it is to be here in your
lovely warm climate.
But what means most of all to us
is the spiritual heat and warmth that we
feel among you and can enjoy the Christian
fellowship with you and we thank you so
very much for it.
I would like this morning for us to
turn to the Acts of the Apostles and
we will read a few verses from chapter
17.
Acts of the Apostles, chapter 17 and we
shall read from verse 30 to 34, the
end of the chapter.
Acts 17 from verse 30.
This is the message or the sermon that
Paul preached on Marsh Hill in Athens.
Verse 30, he says, and the times of
this ignorance God winked at, but now commanded
all men everywhere to repent, because he hath
appointed a day in the which he will
judge the world in righteousness by that man
whom he hath ordained, whereof he hath given
assurance unto all men, in that he hath
raised him from the dead.
And when they heard of the resurrection of
the dead, some mocked, and others said, We
will hear thee again of this matter.
So Paul departed from them, howbeit certain men
claim unto him and believe, among the which
was Dionysius the Areopagite, and a woman named
Damaris, and others with them.
We celebrate Easter, and this is Easter morning.
The Russian Christians, when they greet each other
on an Easter day like this one, they
say, which means, Christ is alive.
And the answer is, yes, indeed, Christus Vaski.
Yes, indeed, the Lord Jesus Christ is alive,
because he rose again from the dead.
We can never stress enough the importance of
the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.
And Paul wrote to Timothy and asked him
to remember that Jesus Christ of the seed
of David had risen from the dead.
There are many today who do not believe
this fact.
This actually is the best proven fact of
history, that the Lord Jesus Christ rose again
from the dead.
And now about two thousand years have passed,
and there has been no one who was
able to deny that the Lord Jesus Christ
is alive.
But on the opposite, there are thousands and
millions of people who have experienced the resurrection
power and saving power of the Lord Jesus
Christ.
I read somewhere that a missionary in India,
coming into a city or a town, saw
that crowds of people were gathering together and
had a celebration.
So when he was asking what the celebration
and procession was all about, they said it
was because they had found a bone of
Buddha, and they were so glad about that.
But when we think of it, if someone
had found a bone of the Lord Jesus
Christ, we would not have any reason to
celebrate or be happy.
But praise God, he is risen from the
dead, he is alive, he is not in
the grave.
There is no bone to be found of
him, because the Lord Jesus Christ is risen
from the dead.
And Paul the Apostle had the privilege here
to stand on Mars Hill and deliver this
message, the message of the gospel, of which
the resurrection is of such utmost importance.
And he preached unto them, it
says new things, news from different
parts of the country and from all over
the world.
But they had never heard anything like these
news that Paul preached that day, that a
dead man had risen and become alive again.
And we saw in the end of the
chapter the reaction of the people, some of
them mocked.
And there are many today also, when they
hear the Christian message and when they hear
the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, they
mock, they do not believe in it.
But we saw here in the first place
that we have the assurance of the resurrection
of Jesus Christ.
We read in verse 31, because he that
is God hath appointed a day in which
he will judge the world in righteousness by
that man which he hath ordained, whereas he
hath given assurance unto all men in that
he raised him from the dead.
So we have this assurance, first of all,
that he is risen and it is a
wonderful divine miracle that the Lord Jesus Christ
rose again from the dead.
Materialistic and unbelieving men mock and disbelieve it.
And the Lord Jesus Christ said to the
Pharisees that you err because you do not
know the scriptures nor the power of God.
But those of us who have read the
Bible and know the scriptures, we know that
the resurrection is a wonderful assurance.
First, a fulfillment of the Old Testament, all
that was said concerning the Lord Jesus Christ,
and then also what he himself said, that
he would rise again on the third day.
And then also this assurance concerns the faith
of the human race as well as the
faith of every individual.
Every one of us is one day going
to meet God.
And here we read of the assurance of
it.
And the assurance of it, Paul says, is
that he hath raised the Lord Jesus Christ
from the dead.
The man who the Jews as well as
the Romans thought was dead, and it was
done with him.
But the Lord rose again on the third
day.
And because of that, we have the assurance,
Paul says, that we will one day meet
him.
And if we do not acknowledge him as
our Saviour and our risen Lord, one day
every human being is bound to face the
Lord Jesus Christ, not as their Saviour, but
as their Judge.
And here Paul is speaking to these wise
Greek people.
They were so wise, humanly speaking.
There were philosophers among them, but they did
not understand, they did not believe this simple
but wonderful and divine message of salvation.
Their wisdom had not been able to lift
up their nation, or even to lift up
sinners who had fallen into adultery and sin
out of the mire.
But when Paul came to Greece, to Athens
and Corinth, and he was preaching the gospel
to them, there were people who had been
slaves of sin and Satan for many years,
who, when they heard the message, accepted the
Lord Jesus Christ as their Saviour and were
completely changed.
When we read 1 Corinthians, especially chapter 6,
we see how and what a wonderful change
this message of the gospel and the resurrection
of Christ had done to them and meant
to these people.
There is no message, no philosophy in the
world that can do what the gospel has
done and has proved through the centuries, saving
people and changing lives and families and even
countries.
And so here we see that we have
the assurance of men one day facing God.
As it says in Amos, that we must
prepare to meet our God because a judgment
day is coming.
And then also in verse 31, Paul says
that God has appointed a day.
In verse 31, He has appointed a day
in which He will judge the world in
righteousness by that man whom He has ordained,
whereof He has given us assurance, assurance unto
all men.
So God has appointed a certain day.
In other words, this is saying that God
has appointed a day for you and me
and every human being that we must face
God.
And God has an appointment with you and
with me.
When I was a teenager, only about 16
years of age, not quite 16, it was
my joy and privilege, after going to Sunday
school all my childhood, to receive the assurance
of salvation and meeting the Lord Jesus Christ
personally and receiving or accepting Him into my
life and receiving the assurance of salvation.
I remember this night when my father asked
me, and he said, Zachs, are you saved?
Do you have eternal life?
And I had sometimes been asked this question
before, and I had said to persons who
had asked me, yes, I was saved, I
have eternal life.
But I really didn't.
I had no assurance of salvation.
But this evening, when my father asked me,
I saw that I could not carry on
like this.
I had to be honest.
I had to face this question with my
personal salvation and have an appointment with the
Lord Jesus Christ before it was too late.
And that night, as I struggled there in
my parents' bedroom, knowing all the scriptures that
I had learned in Sunday school by heart,
I could not grasp the assurance of salvation.
I knew it was only by faith, only
by believing.
But I tried so hard to believe, but
I didn't really understand what it was to
believe.
And then my father said to me, you
remember that the other day you told us
that you had read in the papers that
a young man from the Faroe Islands had
drowned in Aberdeen in Scotland.
Tell me, when you read that, did you
believe it?
I said, of course, I believed it.
I'm sure that it was true.
And then my father turned to 1 John,
the first epistle of John, and chapter 5,
and he read from verse 9, If we
receive the witness of men, the witness of
God is greater, for this is the witness
of God which he hath testified of his
son.
And when he read those words, if we
receive the witness of men, the witness of
God is greater, then I realized what my
father was getting on.
If I could believe the papers, if I
could believe what men said, and what the
papers were saying, then surely I also could
believe what God said, because God cannot lie.
And I thought to myself, of course, but
what does God say?
God says that he who believes or trusts
in my son hath eternal life.
And then he read on in verse 10,
He that believeth on the son of God
hath the witness in himself.
He that believeth not God hath made him
a liar, because he believeth not the record
that God gave of his son.
And I thought to myself, I don't want
to make God a liar.
And that is exactly what I'm doing if
I'm doubting, and not trusting in what God
says, and what Christ has done.
And God says concerning his son, that if
I that believe in what he did on
the cross, then God says that that hath
eternal life.
And I was doubting what God testified regarding
his son.
And then God also was testifying to me,
that if I believe, then I have eternal
life, not because of anything I did, or
because what my father and mother said, but
because of what God says concerning his son,
and what the Lord Jesus Christ his son
hath done on the cross of Calvary, shedding
his blood, and then on the third day
rising again, and he is alive today.
And as I pondered this, and I thought,
what am I going to do?
Am I going to make God a liar,
or am I going to believe him, and
trust in what he says, and what God
has done?
And that night, I put my trust in
God, and in the Lord Jesus Christ, just
as I believe the papers, and believe trustworthy
people like my parents and my friends, and
they can fail.
But I knew that God cannot fail, he
cannot lie.
And as I read, as my father read
further, here in 1 John chapter 5, it
says, And this is the record that God
hath given us eternal life, and this life
is in his Son.
He that hath the Son hath life, and
he that hath not the Son of God
hath not life.
These things have I written unto you, that
believe on the name of the Son of
God, that ye may know that ye have
eternal life, and that ye may believe on
the name of the Son of God.
And when I read those words, the Spirit
of God witnessed with my spirit that I
personally have eternal life, not because I felt
anything supernatural, or saw a vision or anything,
only because I trusted and put my confidence
in what the Lord Jesus Christ hath done
for me, and the witness of God and
his word concerning his Son.
And that night, I had the assurance of
salvation.
This is what you can have this morning,
the assurance of salvation, the assurance of eternal
life.
And note what it says, that ye may
know.
These things have I written unto you, that
ye, you that believe on the name of
the Son of God, that ye may know.
Not feel, not hope, but know.
And that's wonderful, the Scriptures is full of
this assurance and knowledge that we can have
if we put our trust in the Lord
Jesus Christ.
This is the simple but wonderful message of
the Gospel.
And when Paul was preaching here on Mars
Hill, salvation, the way of God providing salvation
through his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, who
was crucified some years previous, and then they
heard this news for the first time, that
this crucified, the Lord Jesus Christ, also rose
again on the third day.
Wonderful news, a wonderful message, but so strange
to these wise Greeks.
They did not want to believe it.
They mocked.
And there are many people today, although they
don't mock audibly in their hearts, they are
full of skepticism and disbelief.
They don't want to believe what God has
said.
They don't want to believe this wonderful message
of salvation.
But are you here this morning?
Consider these things.
We have the assurance of man once going
to meet God.
And you and I personally have to face
Him, meet Him, either as our Saviour while
we are here, or as our judge at
the last day.
And then it will be too late.
We have to bow our hearts before Him.
We have to accept His provision of salvation
for us.
So He has appointed the day, He has
appointed the place, and we read of this
place in Revelation 20, when John is seeing
in his vision the great white throne, the
final judgment.
And He has also appointed the persons, each
individual human being, at that day, at that
place.
And He has also appointed the judge.
And the judge is the Lord Jesus Christ,
who now offers Himself to be your Saviour,
prepared to meet thy God.
And you can do that here this morning,
and receive Him as your Saviour.
As we read in Romans chapter 10 and
verse 9, that if thou confess with thy
mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in
thine heart that God hath raised Him from
the dead, thou shalt be saved.
For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness,
and with the mouth confession is made unto
salvation.
You can have the assurance of salvation here
where you sit this morning, just by opening
your heart and receiving the Lord Jesus Christ
as your Saviour, as your King, as your
Lord, who rose again, who is here this
morning.
The truth is that the Lord Jesus Christ
not only rose and became alive again two
thousand years ago, but the fact is that
He is just as alive this morning and
here as He was on that first Easter
morning, the resurrection morning.
And this is what the Lord Jesus Christ
tried to impress on His disciples, that He
was not dead, because it took a great
while before they really understood and grasped it,
that the Lord Jesus Christ was alive and
was risen from the dead.
And therefore He had to appear to them
again and again to make them see it
and understand it and have this assurance in
their hearts that He was alive.
For instance, when Thomas said that he didn't
want to believe it until he had put
his finger into his hand and his hand
in his side, he would not believe it.
But he didn't realize that when he said
that, the Lord Jesus Christ was there, invisible,
and heard it.
And although Thomas didn't see the Lord, the
Lord saw Thomas.
And eight days after when he appeared to
him and asked Thomas to do exactly that
which he had said, he was so amazed
that he had no words except, he said,
my Lord and my God.
He understood and it dawned upon him that
the Lord Jesus Christ was not dead anymore.
And although he had not seen Him, and
not until that day, he heard Him, he
saw Him, and he knew everything about Him.
And this is exactly the same with you
and me.
And has been ever since, every day through
the centuries, till this very hour and minute,
the Lord Jesus Christ is alive and is
a reality.
He is here and He is nearer and
closer to you than the next person, closer
to you than your own breath.
He is here and He is ready to
save you.
And you can just ask Him and hand
over your soul and your faith into His
hand.
And He will save you and He will
deliver you from that awful day when the
world is going to stand before Him and
to be judged.
He has an appointment with every human being.
He has appointed the day of the time,
the place, the persons and the judge.
And here we are this morning.
We can be delivered and saved from that
day.
And then, the Gospel is also a command.
The Gospel is not only a pleasant and
nice message.
It is a wonderful message, a powerful message.
But it is not something that you may
listen to, if you like, and may leave
it alone.
The Gospel really is a command, an ultimatum,
if you like.
Because we read here in
verse 30, and the times of this ignorance,
God winked at, God now commanded all men
everywhere to repent.
So the Gospel this morning, although it's a
wonderful message, a powerful message, it's not a
message that we shall take lightly.
Because it's a command from God, and this
is the only way of salvation.
And therefore, God commands all of us to
heed unto it and to accept it.
He commands every one of us to repent.
And if we do that, God will do
the saving, and He will deliver us.
And His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, will
enter our life by His Holy Spirit.
And He will give us the power and
strength to live for Him.
Because His life, His resurrection life, is a
wonderful reality in our life.
He does not save us and then leave
us alone and let us just carry on
in our own strength.
No, when He saves someone, He gives us
also the power to live the Christian life.
And that's the wonderful thing about Christianity and
the message of salvation.
Now, let me close by just saying that
there were three reactions to the message of
Paul this day.
As I already have said, it says that
some of them mocked when they heard of
the resurrection of the dead.
They could not believe that a dead man
could rise again and become alive again.
That was beyond their human reasoning.
And the Sadducees, they were men like that.
They didn't believe in the resurrection.
They didn't believe in angels or in spirits.
And the Lord Jesus said to them once,
as I said earlier, ye err because you
do not know the Scriptures, neither the power
of God.
The power of God unto salvation is wonderful.
He can save you this morning if you
start believing and stop disbelieving and mocking in
your heart.
Just accept the Lord Jesus Christ by faith,
this wonderful truth of salvation and resurrection and
you will experience the resurrection power, the saving
power in your own personal life.
The second reaction we read in the same
verse, verse 32.
And others said, we will hear thee again
of this matter.
In other words, they put it off, they
procrastinated, they didn't want to come to grips
with it just then.
They wanted perhaps to do it later.
But that is very dangerous to put off
the question of salvation to later.
Because now is the day of salvation.
Actually the only time we have is today.
And it's this very minute that we have.
And God's time is today.
God's time is now.
So don't procrastinate.
Don't put the question of your salvation off
till tomorrow or another day because it may
never come.
But trust in the Lord Jesus Christ now
and he will save you.
And then thirdly we believe, now we see
that some believe in verse 34.
However, certain men claim unto him and believe
and then they mention them by name.
I trust this morning that the result of
you hearing this message again, you have heard
it many times before, will be that you
will be in the third category that we
read of here.
That there were certain men and women who
believed and accepted the message that Paul preached
this day and they were saved.
They received eternal life, the assurance of eternal
life and one day entering heaven.
I trust that you won't be among those
who continue disbelieving and mocking and among those
who put off the question of their salvation.
May God bless his word.
May he bless every one of us this
morning.
And how wonderful it would be if this
Easter day would be the day of your
personal salvation.
You putting your confidence in what the Lord
Jesus Christ did for you on the cross
and on that Easter morning.
And in what God the Father is testifying
concerning his Son and concerning you.
Believe it.
Believe him because he cannot lie and you
will be God's child and you will have
salvation and eternal life.
Shall we pray?
Our Heavenly Father we thank thee for thy
Son the Lord Jesus Christ who thou gavest
for us on the cross.
Send him into this fallen and wicked world.
We thank thee for the wonderful way of
salvation and deliverance and escape from the judgment
thou hast given us.
We pray as we have meditated on thy
word again this morning that thou would speak
to our hearts and if there should be
someone here this morning who has not yet
had the assurance of salvation that thy spirit
at this moment will testify and witness with
his or her spirit that they have eternal
life and are the sons or daughters of
the living God.
We commit ourselves into thy hands thanking thee
for thy word and asking thee to bless
each and every one of us as we
part now in the name of thy Son
the Lord Jesus Christ our beloved Saviour.
Amen.