When our kids were small, and we were living in Canada, Judy and I would buy season’s passes to the very excellent Calgary zoo.
We would visit in the middle of summer, in the middle of winter, and several times in between.
They had outdoor displays for some animals, and some were indoors or both.
In those years the zoo was in the process of replacing cages with enclosures without bars.
I’m sure that the animals were happier in compounds rather than cages, and they were certainly more appealing to the human eye.
But one advantage to the cages was that visitors could get up quite close to the animals.
We were separated by only a few feet or by just a piece of plexiglass.
I used to wonder, when we were visiting, who it was who was on display.
The monkeys were just as interesting in the humans as the humans were interested in the monkeys,
One would scratch and the other would scratch;
one would make a funny face and the other would make a face.
Who is it that is the real monkey?
Do you suppose they are ever thinking about the taste and quality of the meat in each of us who paid money to see them?
As I said this morning, I don’t think Paul was permitted to finish his message to the philosophers in Athens.
He got as far as repentance and the need for repentance – judgment.
He touched on the Lord Jesus without getting to develop that theme; in fact he didn’t even get a chance to mention the Lord’s Name.
But he did show that it would be Jesus who would eventually judge them.
As I was reading and re-reading Paul’s sermon, it occurred to me that it was all about judgment.
See if you don’t agree with me.
On the top of the ACROPOLIS were several buildings, including the famous temple to Athena.
Down the hill on the north side was the large Athenian agora or market place.
Towards the top of AREOPAGUS, the rocky outcroppings had been cut and smoothed into seats, making it possible for people to hear someone in relatively comfort.
I can’t tell you that there wasn’t a regular county courthouse,
but I can tell you that there had been some famous trials held on Mars’ Hill – this Areopagus.
And part of the authority of this court extended to religious and spiritual matters.
For this reason the Epicureans and Stoics were very careful about how they taught their doctrines.
They didn’t claim to teach new religions or gods; just new systems of thinking within the Olympian religion.
About a hundred years before Epicurus and Zeno, in 399 BC, Socrates was brought to this very spot and tried for heresy.
The ruling went against him, and he was executed.
Paul may not have actually been arrested, and the court appears to have been lenient, but Paul was in a precarious spot.
As I have been learning this week, when Paul was told that some of the Areopagites wanted to hear more of his doctrine, this may not have been a very good thing.
Even though there may not have been formal charges against him, he was in danger of proving himself to be a heretic in the eyes of these judges.
And the fact that he departed from Athens before Timothy and Silas arrived, may be an indication that he fled for his life.
These things may help to explain why there wasn’t an extended ministry in Athens or why a mission wasn’t established there.
There was a philosophical pluralism and some religious tolerance, as towards the Jews, but there was the potential of disaster there for Paul.
It seems that the authority of this court existed until one of the edicts of the Roman Emperor Vespasian, who ruled from 69 to 79 AD.
This meeting on Mars’ Hill was all about judgment.
“Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.”
“The times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent.”
It has always been true to some degree, but it’s clearly escalating these days:
People don’t like to be judged by others.
98% of those people don’t think that there is anything wrong in THEIR judgment of others,
but they somehow think that a crime has been committed if someone judges THEM.
An obvious case in point are those who judge the Christian for appearing to judge the homosexual.
We are condemned for judging people,
but before being condemned for judging others,
WE are being judged by those people who say that we have judged the homosexual.
Remember my opening illustration about the zoo: who is judging whom and where is the crime?
This world is just one big zoo.
Christians often have their own scriptures misquoted at them, in an effort to shut them up.
For example we often hear Matthew 7:1 – “Judge not that ye be not judged,”
but those who quote this verse in this way need to stop and think.
This cannot be the forbidding of legal judgment and the abolishment of criminal justice.
That would throw the world into chaos and anarchy.
This has to be talking about some special kind of judgment.
Later, in John 7:24, the Lord Jesus explained what he meant when He said:
“Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment.”
In that statement from the Sermon on the Mount the Lord was saying that no one has any business of making rash, unjust, censorious judgments about others.
If you look at the way a man’s eyes appear and determine that he must be a criminal,.
then you can expect others to look at you and make the same conclusion about you.
But if on the other hand you have seen that man with the funny eyes commit a crime,
or if three unbiased neighbors saw him rob a convenience store,
then by all means it is proper and necessary to judge the man to be a criminal.
Christians have the responsibility to study evidence and judge fruit.
When the fruit hanging from the branch is bitter, sour or otherwise bad,
then it is not only proper, but wise, to judge that the tree is somehow bad.
You and I are obligated and commanded by God to be fruit inspectors.
And that is what Paul was forced to do during his few weeks in Athens.
His spirit was so in tuned and enmeshed with the Holy Spirit,
that when he saw that the city was wholly given to idolatry,
his human spirit cried out in agony.
Yes, he judged those people, but it was based on the evidence of the case and the revealed will of God.
And his judgment was not censorious; it was not just an exercise in rebuke and attack.
It was the desire of Paul to rescue as many of those idolaters as he could.
There was no mean-spiritedness in him, as we find in so many Christians today when they judge people whom they seem to hate.
The same nearness to Christ which made his heart break as he saw the foolish idolatry of Athens, made him risk his life to warn them.
Yes, Paul was judging those people.
And he spoke about what he saw, because he knew that Jehovah was judging them as well.
“The times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where 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.”
I hope that there is no need for me to prove that there is a day of judgment coming.
This is an unavoidable theme which is found in every corner of the scriptures.
“Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.”
“When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: and before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats.”
“And Jesus said, For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind.”
“Thinkest thou this, O man, that judgest them which do such things, and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God?”
“We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.”
“And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.”
“For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries.”
“The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished:
“There shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?”
“Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.”
“And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.”
“And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.”
It is not to my point this evening, as it wasn’t to Paul’s so many years ago,
to prove that there will be different judgments for different people,
but the point is that everyone will be judged,
And those who have not been saved by the grace of God will be cast into the Lake of Fire to be punished for eternity.
Paul’s judgment of the Athenians was accurate and appropriate, because the judgment of God hangs over every man’s head.
The last judgment to which this scripture refers is that of the Athenians against Paul.
“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 among them.”
Paul had been brought to Areopagus to be examined, and examined he was.
But there were several problems with the Athenian conclusions.
First, they didn’t hear all that Paul had to say, and therefore they couldn’t render a proper verdict.
And secondly, they didn’t possess or believe the scriptures which were witnesses for Paul’s defense.
They mocked; in fact this trial was a mockery.
Third, for the most part they couldn’t understand what he was saying because this was a part of those things which are only spiritually discerned.
Although they hadn’t condemned Paul, for the most part they were headed in that direction.
But the Lord did open the hearts of a very few.
There were a few who heard the evidence with ears and hearts made alive by the Holy Spirit, and those people judged Paul guilty – of telling the truth.
“Howbeit certain men clave unto him, and believed: among the which was Dionysius the Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.”
I suppose that there isn’t a man on earth who can tell us what happened to those believers after the departure of Paul.
But one thing for sure is that they are in glory today.
They weighed the evidence and believed the truth – they believed on the Saviour.
The Lord judged them and they went to their homes and into eternity JUSTIFIED.