ROK-10c
Short Clip
The Angered Judge Returning, is the theme that covers the Bible from Acts 2 to Revelation 22. Probably the most profound summary of the Gospel ever preached was preached by the man that most embodies the message. That man wrote most of the New Testament, preaches the most messages recorded outside the Gospels, and really shaped all that we do in church today.
There was a day when Paul was called upon to explain Christ, God’s Word and the plan of salvation simply and concisely. This message was to be given before perhaps the most educated, sophisticated, and erudite group ever assembled at one place and time.
In the very center of humanity’s greatest schools of philosophy, education, and the sciences: stood one man. There before the faculty of humanism’s best, he was given less than 2 minutes to summarize in just 275 words in our English Bible: God’s Plan; and Paul did it. It was perfect because it comes to us as an inspired sermon.
What we get is exactly what God wants us to hear, understand, and use when we also have to explain our God. Turn there with me to Acts 17:24.
You see, as we open to the message of the Gospel after the Cross we see here, the same theme repeated over and over again by Peter, James, John, and here by Paul. What is that theme?
Don’t Ignore & Reject Your Creator & Savior
It is a warning: Watch Out, the ignored and rejected Creator, came as a man who was the Crucified & Risen Savior; but He will return as the Angered Judge.
Listen to Paul actually use this three-part division as He introduces them to their Creator:
The Creator: 24 “God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. 25 Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything since He gives to all life, breath, and all things.
The Savior: 27 so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; 28 for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’
The Judge: 31 because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.”
How did the Apostles describe the proper response to the ignored and rejected Creator, who became the crucified and risen Savior? Listen to what Paul says right there in Acts 17:30: “but now commands all men everywhere to repent”!
There is Only One Acceptable Response