Shabbat shalom and a warm welcome to those joining with us today as here in Sweden the very short summer starts drawing to an end and as we anticipate the autumn/fall. Our goal, to remind those of you who were with us for our three part series of Shavu'ot sermons, is evangelism and witness for the 21st century. I have a number of themes I want to talk about over the coming weeks before we 'bolt down the hatches' during these dangerous days of revolutionary uprising so let's plunge into it!

Let us embark in our imaginary time-machine where we shall join Paul and Silas in first century Greece, and specifically its capital city, Athens. Turn with me to Acts, chapter 17, beginning at verse 16 (Evidence Bible, p.1579):

"Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him when he saw that the city was given over to idols. Therefore he reasoned in the synagogue with the Yehudim (Judahites, 'Jews') and with the Gentile worshipers, and in the marketplace daily with those who happened to be there. Then certain Epicurean and Stoic philosophers encountered him. And some said, 'What does this babbler want to say?' Others said, 'He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign gods,' because he preached to them Yah'shua (Jesus) and the resurrection. And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, 'May we know what this new doctrine is of which you speak? For you are bringing some strange things to our ears. Therefore we want to know what these things mean.' For all the Athenians and the foreigners who were there spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing.

"Then Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, 'Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious; for as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO THE UNKNOWN ELOHIM (GOD). Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you: Elohim (God), who made the world and everything in it, since He is Master of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. Nor is He worshiped with men's hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things. And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek Yahweh, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; 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.' Therefore, since we are the offspring of Elohim (God), we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man's devising. Truly, these times of ignorance Elohim (God) overlooked, but now commands all men [and women] everywhere to repent, 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.' And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked, while others said, 'We will hear you again on this matter.' So Paul departed from among them. However, some men joined him and believed, among them Dionysius the Areopagite, a woman named Damaris, and others with them" (Acts 17:16-34, NKJV).

I have titled today's teaching, 'From Athens to Seattle' because it is in Seattle, Washington State, andPortland, Oregon, and other cities like them, that some of the worst revolutionary chaos has been happening in the United States, where Postmodern communists have been trying out their modern Marxist revolution. On the face of it, it doesn't look as though ancient Athens and modern Seattle have a lot in common, and they don't, except for one thing: Paul and Silas were confronted by a pagan culture completely alien to their own Hebrew one just as we are in Postmodernism. How do you present the Besorah (Gospel) in such circumstances? Athens was, as Albert Mohler points out, "the most intellectually sophisticated culture of the ancient world, and even in Paul's day it basked in its retreating glory" [1]. Yes, it was a part of the Roman Empire, and though Rome was in charge of politics and the military, Athens was arguably the cultural and intellectial hub of that Empire. It was a Greco-Roman affair. And though you might not think so, Postmodernism has a highly sophsiticated philosophy undergirding it that has been gestating for decades and is only now hatching its latest hideous chimera. And though I have promised you we will look at that presently, today I want to keep things very simple and face the Postmodern phenomenon in exactly the same way Paul faced off the Athenian intellectuals.

Now many theologians will tell you - and I admit I have been amongst them at sundry times in the past - that Paul's mission to Athens was a disaster, producing only a small handfull of converts. But I hope you will agree with me that Luke, who wrote Acts, is not in agreement with that sentiment. Not only is it true to say that big outcomes start from small beginnings, like most things in this life, but we have, in this text we have just read, the necessary components for the proclamation of the Besorah (Gospel) and the defense of the emunah (faith). Everything we need is here. Now obviously, this is only an extract or summary of what Paul said, otherwise this would have been one of the shortest and most unimpressive speeches even given at the Areopagus on Mars Hill (in reality this is a summary of several days' worth of discourse).

The folks there used to discourse for hours. If you have ever been to a preaching service in Eastern Europe as I have, when I visited Baptist and Pentecostal churches in the Ukraine and Bulgaria, respectively, you'll know the sermons typically last 2-3 hours or more. In the West, our attention span is now so low that we can't concentrate for more than 25-30 minutes, with some churches having sermons lasting no more that 15-20 minutes! So my 45-90 minute-long sermons can strain many! However, the Greeks did not suffer from ADHS (Attention Deficit Disorder Syndrome) as the drugged-up masses do nowadays, something the Messianic Community (Church) has got to break out of. And by drugs I don't just mean narcotics but the numbing effects of hypnotising music and the dumbing-down of our minds causes by poor health, education and a breakdown of the family unit and national identity. More of that anon.

How does Acts 17:16 tell us we are to witness to a Postmodernist world such as the one we find ourselves in now? In the New King James Version (NKJV), we are told that Paul was "provoked" in his spirit which I don't think is the best translation, as that can convey a sense of anger. The Greek word paroxuno - a 'paroxysm' - can also mean 'stirred' (KJV) which is an improvement, but the Aramaic literally means 'pained', meaning that he was 'distressed' or "overcome with concern" (AENT) by all the spiritual confusion. In Evangelical parlance, that means 'having a burden' for someone or a group of people. The beginning of any successful evangelistic endeavour has to begin by our inward spirit being deeply moved out of concern for the spiritual welfare for lost souls. When Paul looked around this city filled with idols everywhere, he was overcome by grief.

What this means is that we preach Messiah not because Christianity or Messianism is merely a superior philosophy to Postmodernism, Modernism, Atheism, or any other kind of '-ism', nor because we have been really clever in embracing the Besorah (Gospel), but because we have met, and been claimed by, the Messiah and so know Him personally to the renewing of our minds and hearts. We're owned by Him! Our witnessing is not a matter of intellectial pride but of heart-felt spiritual concern. We want to witness to them because we want them to have what we have received, to enjoy an amazing future in eternity, and deliverance out of darkness both on earth now and after death later. Thus the big question is this: do we, as we look at the spiritual confusion of Western culture, experience the same kind as paroxysm - deep spiritual distress - with which the apostle Paul was grieved? That is not only where we must start in all witnessing but perhaps even more importantly, we can only start there if we have been spiritually regenerated ourselves!

The idols of Athens may not be the same as our own. What are today's idols? Self-realisation, material comfort, psychological salvation, sexual ecstasy, ambition, power, and success. Modernists for the last 50 years or more have been embracing New Age spirituality in a desperate quest for personal fulfilment and self-transcendence. And now Postmodernists, wholly dissastiafied with what the Modernists and those before them sought to do, want to dismantle everything and start from scratch, building from nothing, by wonton destruction and condemnation of everyone and everything who will not embrace their new philosophy. Now you can believe in whatever you want and imagine yourself to be whatever you want by simply helping yourself from a giant smörgåsbord of realities. And never have people been more isolated and alone in their own fantasy worlds, even as parts of collectives whose ground of reality is continually shifting so that you don't know what's acceptable or unacceptable from one day to another.

I can only imagine what Paul would think if he could see us today as once Christian civilisations, for all their undoubted faults, are imploding and making the millions of their followers the slaves to the peculiar idols of our age. Western Postmodernists mock the Hindus for having millions of gods, as the ancient Egyptians had, but are they really any different or to be less pitied? So, the first thing we can learn from Paul's encounter with the Athenians is the need to see, feel and experience the tragedy of what lies before us and to feel a real grief and burden for the people, and a desire to bless them with the only Person who can set them free.

The second thing we learn in verse 17 is that the solution is a gospel proclamation. As Paul reasoned with Jews and Gentiles, we we must reason with those of other religions and no religion at all. And remember this: the goal of preaching and witnessing is not to win philosophical arguments but to win souls. What did Paul do as soon as he arrived? He preached the basic Besorah (Gospel)! He presented the claims of Messiah and called men and women everywhere to believe in the Master Yah'shua the Messiah (Jesus Christ) and be saved. He did not attempt to reduce his witness to philosophical structures and rational arguments. What this means is this: every theologian is an evangelist, and every evangelist is a theologian, or he is not a theologian or an evangelist in the sense Paul was, and remember, Paul was the first theologian!

The Besorah (Gospel) possesses content and presents truth claims that demand our keenest arguments and - simultaneously - our boldest proclamation. Christianity/Messianism is not merely a truth to be proclaimed but Good News to be received. When he saw all the idols, Paul preached the resurrected Christ and called for his hearers to believe his testimony. Notice that he did not preach the Torah because that has to do with the discipling of those who believe in the resurrected Messiah!

The third observation we make from Paul's witness in the synagogues and on Mars Hill is that we may assume a context of spiritual confusion. The intellectuals just didn't get it. Listen again:

"Some of the Epicurian and Stoic philosophers were disputing with him. 'What can this word-scatterer be on about?' some were saying. 'He seems to be proclaiming foreign divinities,' declared others - since he was preaching 'Iesous (Yah'shua, Jesus) and Anastasis (Resurrection). So they took him up to the Areopagus (Mars Hill). 'Are we able to know,' they said, 'what this new teaching really is you are talking about? You are putting very strange ideas into our minds. We'd like to find out what it all means.' All the Athenians, and the foreigners who live there, spend their time simply and solely in telling and hearing the latest novelty" (Ac.17:18-21, KNT).

Now if you've ever listened to liberal theologians or the Postmodernist philosophers who are heavily indoctrinated by Marxism, you'll get some idea of what Paul was up against. The Epicurians, incidentally, were the forerunners of the modern secularists, or to the Stoics who were pantheistic rationalists, and both accused Paul of speaking nonsense. But really they were no more or less confused than your modern atheist or New Age pantheistic spiritualist. And in addition to those, the West - especially in America - is full of nominal Christians who behave like atheists. Most Western Christians have no idea what Christian/Messianic belief or discipleship is, which is why Christian churches themselves, with the 35,000 of so denominations, are a smörgåsbord of whatever you fancy.

A few years ago I came across a bishop in either the American Episcopalian or Lutheran Church who claimed to be both a Christian and a Buddhist! Others claim to be Christians and Shamans and to believe in reincarnation! That's confusion because it means they have no idea what the Besorah (Gospel) actually is...or who Yah'shua (Jesus) actually is, and in the majority of cases, what the resurrection is! So naturally, to the Athenians as well as to modern Christians and secularists like the Postmoderns (who also call themselves Hypermoderns, Posthumanists, Postmaterialists, Post-structuralists and even - yes - Post-postmoderns) - to all of these, the preaching of the authentic Besorah (Gospel) will of course sound strange, if not outrageous and offensive.

Ask most Americans or Europeans on the street if they consider themselves to be good, decent people, and nearly all of them will say Yes. Not only that, but if you point out to them, as Ray Comfort is always doing in his ministry, that they are sinners against Elohim (God) and in need of repentance they will usually be amused and sometimes hostile. As Christianity dies and the afterglow of it fades away into distant memory, so the whole idea of grace has now become alien to our culture where once before grace had defined it for centuries. If you don't believe me, go into a Twitter discussion and experience the aggressive, downright nasty, 'Cancel Culture' there and you will know that grace - undeserved loving kindness - has now become as meaningless to them as it was to the ancient Viking raiders who terrorised our shores.

Indeed, any talk of 'sin' or 'guilt' is politically incorrect and 'wicked' - strictly verboten - in their eyes. Substitutionary atonement is regarded as unfair, and the idea that Elohim (God) became incarnate in human flesh is just, well, too much for them to take. Yet we preach all of these things because they lie at the very core of our faith. We cannot do otherwise. If we fail to, then we aren't Bible-believing Christians/Messianics anymore.

Athens and its many tourists loved to spend their time telling or hearing something new ('philosophical gossip', if you like) but Paul's message was just too much for them. We in the 21st century West are now more like the ancient Athenians than we realise, consuming not just cars and clothing but new ideas too. For today's Postmodernists, like the Athenians of old, believers are just "too strange, too counter-cultural, too propositional, and too exclusive". To contend for the Besorah (Gospel) and for morality in this culture, like the qodeshim (saints, set-apart ones) of old, is to run the risk of being arraigned for 'hate speech'. Why? Because the Besorah (Gospel) not only sounds strange but it is threatening to the local deities - to the controlling demons of our countries, to the territorial spirits invited in by rebellions people.

The fourth point I want to make is covered in verses 22-23 which tell us that in spite of the confusion and blindness there is a spiritual hunger which only Christ can address:

"So Paul stood up in the middle of the Areopagus. 'Men of Athens,' he said, 'I see that you are in every way an extremely religious people. For as I was going along and looking at your objects of worship, I saw an altar with the instriction TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Well, I'm here to tell you about what it is you are worshipping in ignorance" (Ac.17:22-23).

Paul realised in coming across this statue that the Athenians lived in fear - fear that they would miss any new philosophy or neglect any unknown deity. Postmodernists, on the other hand, are increasingly nihilistic - they just don't care about 'truth' and are in denial about the existence of any sort of objective reality or indeed that objective moral values exist.

As I mentioned last week, they don't believe in any kind of Story or Metanarrative. There is no coherence to their thinking. Logic and reason are artificial mental constructs that are not universally valid. Everything for them is relative. Truth is always contingent on historical and social context rather than the universal. It is the ultimate philosophy of purposelessness, the ultimate unfolding of atheism.

The accomplished intellectual Arthur Koestler realised that, decided life was therefore pointless, and committed suicide along with his wife. I guess that is what scares me the most about the victims of Postmodernism because once they have succeeded in their revolution and destroyed everything, they won't know how to cope with the primitive life of their distant ancestors that they have condemned themselves to. What will result will be something like the movie, Lord of the Flies, about some schoolboys who get marooned on an island and how they cope with their radically new circumstances. They soon descend into barbarism.

What the Postmodernist has, like everyone else who believes in a lie, is spiritual hunger. They can deny they are spiritual beings all they want but hungry in their souls they will still remain. Yahweh has placed that spiritual hunger in every soul so that it might desire Yah'shua the Messiah (Jesus Christ). Ours is the stewardship of satiating that hunger, however mysterious and incomprehensible to them as puposeless materialists that may seem, by preaching Messiah and letting the Ruach haQodesh (Holy Spirit) draw them. That means we must muster the courage to confront confused Postmodernists (and others) with the reality of their spiritual ignorance.

One thing Paul never did - and this is something we must imitate him closely in - was to allow this ignorance to become an excuse. When people are feeding on a false diet of superstitions and myths, whether it be a false religion or the ultra-materialism of nihilistic atheism, our job is to go directly to the point of need which is that relentless hunger. How we do this is one of the things we shall need to discuss at length. But in two words, 'preaching Messiah' is how we are to do this.

The fifth point is that Paul does not begin his witness with the Cross but with the Creation - with Yahweh the Creator's nature, character, power and authority:

"The Elohim (God) who made the world and everything in it, the One who is Master of heaven and earth, doesn't live in temples made by human hands. Nor does He need to be looked after by human hands, as though He lacked something, since He Himself gives life and breath and all things to everyone. He made from one stock every race of humans to live under the whole face of the earth, allotting them their properly ordained times and boundaries of their dwellings. The aim was that they would search for Elohim (God), and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him. Indeed, He is actually not far from each one of us, for in Him we live and move and exist; as also some of your own poets have put it, 'For we are His offspring'" (Ac.17:24-28, KNT).

I have been preaching for years that we must preach Genesis and Creation as much as we do the Cross. There are elements in this passage that many Postmoderns will be able to relate to particularly as they are keen to denounce the hypocrisy of religion. Here Paul says that Elohim (God) is not looking for Corinthian columns and the magnifient Parthenon which are sought after tourist attractions in modern Greece - they were even more glorious back then when they were unruined. Indeed, Paul said that the Creator doesn't live in temples made with human hands, and that includes church buildings and synagogues, because He is the author of life itself, and He needs nothing from us. More importantly, He has made humanity itself and is Sovereign over all the nations, determining their times and boundaries.

We must structure our own witness upon the biblical foundation which was greater than anything the Athenians could comprehend. This same foundation remains yet greater than anything Postmodernists can comprehend in spite of our fantastic knowledge 2,000 years later. We must talk about Elohim (God) the Creator first of all, as Paul did, otherwise they will not understand who Elohim (God) the Redeemer is, which is what the unsaved obviously most need. We live in a scientific age, and even though Postmodernists are highly suspicious of science now, we can maybe get out a pair of good binoculars or a telescope and show them what the moon looks like close-up. Most people have never done this. I remember one man did this in California, just put his telescope out on the street, and invited passers-by to peer through it at the moon. They were enraptured in wonder! Showing something as huge as the moon close-up moves something deep within people, puts them in contact with something bigger than themselves. Make them aware of how incredible the Creation is and show them the intense beauty and wonder of it all. That's a wonderful way to open a door to the spiritual side of those in denial. And, of course, there are other ways.

The sixth point I would make to you today is the absolute necessity of confronting error in a constructive way. Paul used a statue of the Unknown God as his doorway into the hearts of some of his listeners; we can use the moon, the amazing beauty of a flower, or something else from nature like a dog or a bird:

"Well, then, if we really are Elohim's (God's) offspring, we ought not to suppose that the divinity is like gold or silver or stone, fortmed by human still and ingenuity" (Ac.17:29, KNT).

Just as within the Body of Christ we must oppose and correct heresy and false doctrine, so in our witnessing we must oppose and correct false ideas about the physical universe in which we live and the Creator who put it all together. Paul was right to boldly correct the Athenians, saying that we ought not to think false thoughts about Elohim (God). The Athenians made physical idols so in the general sense Elohim (God) is not an image of human art or thought. As materialists, Postmodernists are forced to be evolutionists and atheists.

Now you may not be a scientist but you can certainly use some simple philosophy or share some irrefutable history. Since they are challenging Metanaratives, you should challenge their false ones because in spite of being supicious of them, I guarantee they still have some of their own, secretly, deep down - you have to in order to maintain your sanity. Postmodernists believe in their own 'truth' and reality.

You can show them that they are trapped by their own Design by a Creator and like most atheists they are angry with Him even though they don't believe He exists. If they're just random chemical reactions, how can they even trust their own thinking about atheism, materialism, Postmodernism, Marxism, or any other 'ism? Unless we believe in Elohim (God) we can't believe in consciousness or thought. Again, we don't want to get into intellectual debates but rather plant seeds and help them make inward connections with a reality greater than what they perceive in their narrow bandwidth of conscious-awareness.

The seventh and last point I want to make today - and I have kept it until last purposefully - is this: having done what I mentioned earlier, we can then affirm Elohim's (God's) saving purpose, as Paul did:

"That was just ignorance; but the time for it has passed, and Elohim (God) has drawn a veil over it. Now, instead, He commands all people everywhere to repent, because He has established a day on which He intends to call the world to account with full and proper justice by a Man (Yah'shua, Jesus) whom he has appointed. Elohim (God) has given all people His pledge of this by raising this Man from the dead" (Acts 17: 30-31, KNT).

Paul brings his presentation to a climactic conclusion by calling for repentance and warning of the judgment that is to come. He proclaimed Yah'shua (Jesus) as the appointed Saviour who will judge the world and whose identity has been clearly revealed by the fact that Yahweh has raised Him from the dead. Notice how the resurrection figures at the beginning and the ending of any witness. It is the central evidence, the centre point of the Divine Narrative or Story. It's worth investing time carefully examining the evidence and dealing with all the objections to ther resurrection. Journalist lee Strobel's books are helpful in that regard.

Any authentic witness must both declare and defend the whole Besorah (Gospel). The core of our proclamation is Yah'shua the Messiah (Jesus Christ) the Saviour, who was crucified for sinners, was raised by the power of Elohim (God), is coming again in glory and in judgment, and is even now sitting and ruling at the right hand of Elohim (God) the Father Almighty. Learn the Apostles' Creed off by heart - it's very simple and short, 14 points in all, and contains all the essential elements of the Besorah (Gospel). I learnt it as a boy when I was an Anglican, though not in the messianised form we use. Indeed, we should learn to recite it together in the same way believers have recited the Master's (Lord's) Prayer for generations:

• 1. We believe in Yahweh-Elohim, the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth.
• 2. We believe in Yah'shua the Messiah (Jesus Christ), His Only Begotten Son, our Master.
• 3. He was conceived by the power of the Ruach haQodesh (Holy Spirit) and born of the Virgin Mary.
• 4. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.
• 5. He descended to the dead.
• 6. On the third day He rose again.
• 7. He ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of Elohim (God) the Father Almighty.
• 8. He will come again to judge the living and the dead.
• 9. We believe in the Ruach haQodesh (Holy Spirit),
• 10. the universal Body of Messiah,
• 11. the communion of the qodeshim (saints, set-apart ones),
• 12. the forgiveness of sins,
• 13. the resurrection of the body,
• 14. and the life everlasting. Amen.

This means we must defend the truths of Messiah's deity, the virgin birth, the historicity of the miracles, the truth of the incarnation, the reality of His substitutionary death, and the assurance of the bodily resurrection. Yet we dare not stop there either for we must place the Person and work of Messiah within the context of Elohim's (God's) eternal purpose, and so on. So the task of preaching and witnessing in this Postmodern context is comprehensive, even as it is driven by a desire to see sinners turn to Christ in faith.

Preaching and witnessing half-a-gospel, half-converting people, and leading a half-hearted, poorly discipled Messianic Community (Church) is not enough. We have a comprehensive job to do. We'll talk more about this in the days ahead but I hope this has served as a useful introduction. There is no one single way to witness or preach to be sure, but neither must we cut corners so as not to 'upset' anyone because any truth-confrontation is bound to be upsetting at some point. Paul, as we saw, preached boldly, and he did all the things we have spoken about this morning. He left a complete message. I'm not saying this won't be challenging or hard but it will absolutely be worth it.

I hope this has been helpful. Remember to now bolt your hatches down. Until next week, Yahweh bless you all! Amen.

Endnotes