This message is primarily for those who call on the name of Jesus Christ as their own Lord and Savior from sin, and serve as a Chaplain or a gospel minister in a jail, prison or a follow-up ministry such as a rescue mission – in the United States.
All Scripture quotes are usually taken from the New King James Version (NKJV) of the Bible, copyright 1979, 1980, 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. When quoting a text, any deviation from the NKJV text is placed within parenthesis signs (). These usually occur as direct translations from the original languages, or as notes from the original setting to help apply the text to today’s culture.
ALL CAPITAL LETTERS are sometimes used to emphasize words in a text, or to make a comment about a biblical text, or emphasize a statement.
Our society is very humanistic and it is becoming increasingly pagan. Just look at the evening news or watch just about any “talk show” to see the evidence.
In humanistic thought, man is the center of everything. He thinks he knows right and how to fix things. Humanists believe all the answers reside within the human mind. He also seeks only to please self. In humanism, the individual becomes their own god.
Classic paganism, though connected to humanism worships man-made gods or idols. In humanism self or the ideas of other men, become in effect god. In pure paganism idols are worshiped. But when you think of it both replace the true God with something or someone else, so they are both idolatrous.
Both humanism and paganism have crept into American evangelicalism and into the "Christian" religion practiced in most of our correctional institutions. When the Apostle Paul first visited Athens in the first century he was shocked at the numerous idols that culture worshiped.
Acts 17:16 reads,
16 Now while Paul waited for them (Silas and Timothy - who stayed on awhile in Thessalonica) at Athens, HIS SPIRIT WAS PROVOKED (irritated, aroused to anger, - one translation even renders this word ‘painfully excited’) WITHIN HIM when he saw that the city was given over to idols.
Then in the cultural center of Athens, on Mar's hill, before the idolatrous Athenian philosophers he said these momentous words – in Acts 17:29-31.
"... since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or bronze, SOMETHING SHAPED BY ART AND MAN'S DEVISING. Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, BUT NOW commands all men everywhere to REPENT (of their idolatry), because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness BY THE MAN He has ordained. He has given assurance of this (judgment) TO ALL BY RAISING HIM (the Man who is to be the Judge) from the dead."
The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead guarantees God's righteous judgment against man-made religion and idolatry. It also guarantees that he, the Lamb of God and sacrifice for the sin of His people is the Righteous Judge. Revelation 6 pictures part of this judgment as He opens the sixth seal of judgment and is about to take back the earth for God.
Revelation 6 -
15 And the kings of the earth, the great men, the commanders, the mighty men, every slave and every free man, hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains,
16 and said to the mountains and rocks, "Fall on us and hide us from the face of Him who sits on the throne AND FROM THE WRATH OF THE LAMB!
17"For the great day of His wrath has come, and who is able to stand?"
“The Lamb," is the risen, glorified and returning One, Jesus Christ.
As I said earlier, paganism is creeping into what purports to be Christian. It is doing so on a much larger scale than we can imagine, ever so subtlety. In an effort to "close the ranks" many churches and denominations that were once known for a commitment to truth are throwing out biblical doctrine which is absolute truth, to join forces with paganized Christendom. This mentality also exists within many prison ministries.
I have a missionary friend who loves a people group that are trapped in a false Christianity. He told me they actually worship statues and icons. Therefore, he tells them about the biblical Jesus, and what he did.
Furthermore, I recently visited a "Christian" venue where they were actually advertising walking through a mystical floor map, which they claimed could help you "get closer to God!" Why didn't they simply say, "If you want to get closer to God, get closer to Jesus. And the way to do that is to know and respond to His word, the Bible?" Yes, I am sad to say it, but paganism has crept into American evangelicalism.
But a risen Savior is a good reason to do like the ancient Thessalonians, who "turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God." They also learned "to wait for His Son from heaven whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus who delivers us (believers) from the wrath to come."
That is what you need to tell people this "Easter." You need to tell people that the fact of Christ’s resurrection should motivate them to break away from idolatry.
The language spoken by the ethnic culture group my missionary friend is trying to reach even calls the Easter holiday "Cristos Anastasis - Christ Rose Again." But he tells me while they say those words they take more pleasure in looking for specially colored eggs and imbibing in alcohol than in following the Risen One. So, while they quote the truth they resist responding to it and do not live according to it. They are still lost in their man-made idolatrous form of Christianity.
In Acts 17, I want you to see the strength of the command, there in verses 29-31,
29 Therefore, since we are the offspring of God (the meaning is we are all of the human family God made in His own image in Genesis 1:26,27), we ought not to think that the Divine Nature (or, ‘The Deity’) is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man’s devising (mankind’s thoughts or imaginations).
30 Truly, these times of ignorance (the word used applies to a lack of knowledge of Divine things AND of a moral blindness) God overlooked,
This statement adequately describes at least one side of idolatry. Natural man turns to self-made gods and self as god because he is spiritually dead and blind to the truth. Yet, God holds all men grievously guilty of SIN when they invent false gods. The very next part of this verse commands everyone, everywhere, to repent from this "ignorant" sin.
"BUT NOW" (since the death and resurrection of Jesus the Christ).
There is a definite time orientation here. This point of time and onward in human history is in contrast to the former time of Gentile ignorant idolatry that verse 30 says, "God overlooked." That phrase does not been He did not notice the grievous sin of idolatry, but rather that God did not universally attend to it by judgment. It was as if He put up with mankind’s ignorance, BUT NOW HE WILL NOT PUT UP WITH IT ANYMORE!
Continuing in verse 30 we read:
BUT NOW COMMANDS (in context, God commands) all men everywhere to repent, (of their humanism and self-made pagan idols)
31 BECAUSE (here’s strong motivation to repent) He has appointed a day on which HE WILL JUDGE the world in righteousness
The final part of verse 31 tells how God will judge – AND who the Judge will actually be!
31 … by (or through) the Man He has ordained. He has given assurance of this (the Judge and the righteous judgment He will meet out) TO ALL by RAISING HIM FROM THE DEAD.
God will judge the world through One who is fully Man, yet somehow at the same time, fully God. The Judge who is a Man must also be God - because the text says in verse 30, "God overlooked... but now … and then in verse 31 “He (antecedent 'God') will judge ... THROUGH the Man..."
The language there means that just like in redeeming His people "God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself' (2 Cor. 5:19) so this verse in Acts 17 means God will be in the Man judging the world of unrepentant idolaters in righteousness!
There is only one that fulfills that description, being at the same time fully God and fully Man - Jesus Christ! God the Father APPOINTED (that’s the sense of the word translated ‘ordained’) Jesus to be the Judge of all the earth. John 5:26-27 makes it very clear just like our verse in Acts 17:31, does.
26 For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself,
27 and has given Him authority to execute judgment also, because He is the Son of Man.
Furthermore, Acts 17:31 says the final Judge is the resurrected Man, and that can only be Jesus Christ. Tell inmates and others He is either their Lord and Savior now or their Judge for all eternity later. His resurrection from the dead confirms that and puts it fully into effect.
So, Jesus Christ is not only the reason to turn from humanistic idolatry because of His RESURRECTION, proving He is the true God and Savior, but also because it guarantees His sudden RETURN to meet out judgment on unrepentant sinners. If we realize the truth and reality of His rising from the dead we then are to know the same power that conquered death will bring Him back in glory to judge the world in righteousness.
However, His resurrection truly believed in (and celebrated at "Easter") once and for all time, transfers the believer’s sins - even their idolatry, to His cross. But, on the other hand, a rejection of Him as Savior from sin and Lord over all means a person is under the wrath of God.
John 3:36 puts it succinctly, it says: "He who believes in the Son has everlasting (eternal) life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life; BUT THE WRATH OF GOD ABIDES (remains) ON HIM."
2 Thessalonians 1:7-10 stresses the certainty and severity of this coming judgment -
7 ... when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels (this is when He returns to earth in glory),
8 in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ (they do not obey it - by not repenting and not believing).
9 These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power,
10 when He comes, in that Day, to be glorified in His saints and to be admired among all those who (have believed*), ...
(*NKJV marginal reading, based on the earliest manuscripts)
These are hard words, but we live in a hardened time of apostasy and misguided unbiblical religion. Therefore, it is not, nor has it really ever been a time to pussy-foot around these serious eternal truths. Let God say what He wants to say through your ministry, since it is God who saves, those He wants to save will not stumble into an eternal hell for hearing it!
Man-made religion executed Jesus and they thought they won a great victory, but His resurrection proves they lost. It proves they were wrong in rejecting Him. Man-made ideas on how to be right with God and how to live are always wrong. Only God is right. The resurrection of Jesus from the dead proves it!
That’s my word to you dear Chaplain and dear gospel minister this time of year as we remember His empty tomb.
Rich Hines
Minister To Chaplains – Aurora Ministries
