The Rumblings of Judgment

Rev. Mark C. Alvis, Union Congregational Church — Easter II, April 15, 2007

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After this, Paul left Athens and went to Corinth. There he met a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had ordered all the Jews to leave Rome. Paul went to see them, and because he was a tentmaker as they were, he stayed and worked with them. Every Sabbath he reasoned in the synagogue, trying to persuade Jews and Greeks.

When Silas and Timothy came from Macedonia, Paul devoted himself exclusively to preaching, testifying to the Jews that Jesus was the Christ. But when the Jews opposed Paul and became abusive, he shook out his clothes in protest and said to them, “Your blood be on your own heads! I am clear of my responsibility. From now on I will go to the Gentiles” (Acts 18:1-6 NIV).

There was an enormous judgment of God coming upon the nation of Israel when the New Testament was being written. It was a judgment which affected the whole Roman Empire, but centered upon Israel. The Lord Jesus alluded to it just before He rode into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. In Luke 19:43-44, with tears in His eyes Jesus looked at the city and said, “The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you [ancient cities had walls for protection. Embankments enabled the enemies to scale the walls] and encircle you . . . They will not leave one stone on another.”

Later in that week Jesus announced to his disciples:

“When you see Jerusalem being surrounded by armies, you will know that its desolation is near [the disciples would have naturally concluded that the armies surrounding Jerusalem would be Roman armies because the Jews were under the yoke of Rome and Rome would not let another nation attack what belonged to them]. Then let those in Judea flee to the mountains . . . there will be great distress in the land and wrath against this people. They will fall by the sword and will be taken as prisoners to all the nations [was this judgment hundreds of years in the future? No, Jesus went on to say] . . . this generation will not pass away until all these things happen” (Luke 21:20-32).

A biblical generation is about 40 years. It was almost 20 years after the Lord Jesus gave these warnings that the Apostle Paul arrived at Corinth in Acts 18. The rumblings of this great judgment were beginning to be heard at this time. Let me read Acts 18:1-6, and see if you can hear them?

After this, Paul left Athens and went to Corinth. There he met a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus [the northern part of modern day Turkey south of the Black Sea], who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius [emperor of the Roman Empire] had ordered all the Jews to leave Rome [rumble, rumble]. Paul went to see them, and because he was a tentmaker as they were, he stayed and worked with them. Every Sabbath he reasoned in the synagogue, trying to persuade Jews and Greeks. When Silas and Timothy came from Macedonia [Philippi, Thessalonica and Berea were located there], Paul devoted himself exclusively to preaching, testifying to the Jews that Jesus was the Christ. But when the Jews opposed Paul and became abusive, he shook out his clothes in protest and said to them, “Your blood be on your own heads! I am clear of my responsibility. From now on I will go to the Gentiles” [rumble, rumble, rumble].

Of all people who should have understood that the Roman Empire was exceedingly capable of devastation and destruction, it was the inhabitants of Corinth. During its heyday in the sixth century BC this city had a population of about 700,000, of which 500,000 were slaves. It was conquered by Rome in 196 BC. Fifty years later the Corinthians tried to revolt against Rome’s authority — a very poor decision. The city was literally leveled to the ground and its inhabitants were sold into slavery. After it had lain desolate for about 100 years, Julius Caesar had it rebuilt. Why? Because in that area of the world there are few good harbors and Corinth has three.

The Apostle Paul arrived in Corinth around AD 50. By this time the city once again numbered over 200,000 and was the capital of the Roman province of Achaia. The first thing Luke writes concerning Paul’s arrival at Corinth was his meeting with Aquila and his wife Priscilla. What we must not overlook is that Aquila and his wife were both Jews and had just recently been kicked out of Rome, along with all other Jews, by the Emperor Claudius. A number of commentaries believe this happened because of controversies amongst the Jews concerning Christ. All that we have seen thus far in Acts would confirm this. In Acts 8, Christian Jews were driven out of Jerusalem. In Acts 13, unbelieving Jews “stirred up persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and expelled them” from the region of Pisidian Antioch. Acts 14 tells us that, at Iconium, Paul and Barnabas had to flee because of plots by the Jews. While in Lystra, Paul was stoned and left for dead because Jews from Antioch and Iconium came to the that city and won the crowds over. In Acts 17, Paul was driven out of Thessalonica by unbelieving Jews. When Paul went to Berea, the unbelieving Jews from Thessalonica came and began “agitating the crowds and stirring them up.”

It is not hard to imagine that in Rome the same problem was occurring. The solution of Claudius was to kick all the Jews out of Rome. Let me remind you that at this time in world history, about one out of ten people in the Roman Empire were Jewish. In the area of Macedonia and Achaia, it was about one out of five.

Aquila and Priscilla were Christian Jews, just as Paul. Before I leave that thought, let me remind you that much of modern day Judaism would say that a Christian Jew is an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms. If you are a Christian, you are not a Jew. If you are a Jew, you are not a Christian. Jewish people who think this way believe that being Jewish is primarily a religious conviction and not a bloodline or nationality. If that is true, then 75% of the Jews living in Israel today are not Jews since they are agnostic which means they believe that man cannot know if there is a God or not, so why bother? By the way, the underlying foundation of the “politically correct” movement of our day is agnosticism in its broader sense; which declares man cannot know any truth with certainty. Another term for this thinking is “postmodernism.” If we are not aware of that term or what it means, we should be, because our colleges and universities are like seminaries for this viewpoint. If you want to cause a postmodern thinker to see red, say the word “truth.” According to postmodernism, people who think they know truth are the scourge of the earth. We will see why they say that in a moment.

What a Godsend for Paul, Aquila and Priscilla to meet up with each other at Corinth. Christian fellowship is exactly what Paul needed at this time because he tells us, in I Corinthians 2:3, that he came to Corinth “in weakness and fear, and with much trembling.” It is easy to understand why, since Paul had been horribly beaten at Philippi and stoned so badly at Thessalonica that he was left for dead — by people who knew what dead looks like. He had also left behind new believers being persecuted for their faith. In spite of his fear and weakness however, every Sabbath day Paul reasoned in the synagogue, trying to persuade Jews and Greeks. Friends, Christianity spreads through persuasion, not bloody Jihad. Postmodernism teaches if we want to stop wars, everyone must stop claiming to know truth. Christianity teaches that genuine peace and unity can only be built upon truth; but it is truth spoken in love. Orthodox Christianity teaches that only God can open peoples’ minds to truth, and so man must not try to force what only God can grant.

Another source of encouragement for Paul at Corinth was the arrival of Silas and Timothy recorded in verse 5. Paul had left Philippi and Thessalonica in the midst of great turmoil and persecution against Christianity. Paul’s great concern was how were the brand new believers in these cities coping with these kind of trials? What Paul learned from Silas and Timothy is that the new Christians were standing strong and united in Christ. This was great news for Paul and God’s kingdom; however, it was bad news for unbelieving Israel. Why? Because unbelieving Israel was at the forefront in persecuting Christianity, and the ascended Lord Jesus was not going to allow that to go on indefinitely. When unbelieving Israel mistreated Christ’s Church, they were messing with His bride and the apple of His eye. Paul explained this to the Christians living in Macedonia by writing his first two letters recorded in the New Testament, I and II Thessalonians. Let’s listen to what Paul says in I Thessalonians 2:14-16, written about AD 50, not long after Silas and Timothy joined him at Corinth:

For you, brothers, became imitators of God’s churches in Judea . . . You suffered from your own countrymen the same things those churches suffered from the Jews, who killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets and also drove us out. They [the unbelieving Jews of Paul’s day] displease God and are hostile to all men in their effort to keep us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved. In this way they always heap up their sins to the limit. The wrath of God has come upon them at last [in other words, their doom was sealed].

Paul gives more assurances and details about this coming judgment in II Thessalonians 1:3-8, “We ought always to thank God for you, brothers, and rightly so, because your faith is growing more and more, and the love every one of you has for each other is increasing. Therefore, among God’s churches we boast about your perseverance and faith in all the persecutions and trials you are enduring.” I don’t desire the persecution these believers were going through, but the depth of fellowship in those congregations is probably only tasted by Christians undergoing severe persecution. The Christlike manner in which these believers handled their trials also added to the condemnation of their persecutors. Paul went on: “All this is evidence that God’s judgment is right, and as a result you will be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are suffering. God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well.” Was Paul speaking about a far off judgment hundreds of years into the future? No. The judgment in view would come upon the very people persecuting the believers at Thessalonica. “This will happen [their judgment] when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire [fire speaks of judgment] with his powerful angels [we cannot see angels, but they are always involved when God judges wicked people]. He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.”

Where was the Lord Jesus when Paul wrote these words? He was at the Father’s right hand, seated on His heavenly throne. Would it require Christ’s Second Coming to deal with those unbelieving Jews who were persecuting the churches Paul had just planted? No — Jesus can take care of wicked people from His heavenly throne. And when King Jesus did that, it was an unveiling of His power from heaven.

How did King Jesus judge these ringleaders of persecution? By raising up an emperor in Rome who caused the Jews to revolt against Rome. When unbelieving Israel revolted against Rome in AD 66, all of the Jews in this area had to flee for their lives. Most of them ended up taking refuge at Jerusalem. Initially, even Christian Jews took refuge at Jerusalem because Rome did not distinguish Christian Jews from non-Christian Jews, as we have seen in Acts 18:2. Did both Christian Jews and non-Christian Jews suffer the same fate? No. Jesus told his followers that when they saw Jerusalem surrounded by armies, they needed to get out of the country. Christian Jews took Jesus at His Word and fled Jerusalem before the bloodbath came. The unbelieving Jews stayed and were slaughtered by the Romans, who did not leave one stone upon another — just as they had done to Corinth earlier. Friends, when everything Jesus said would happen happened, it was a compelling sign that Jesus is the Son of God and is sitting in the seat of power at the Father’s right hand.

The Apostle Paul knew this judgment was coming down the pike. One of the reasons he focused on evangelizing the Jews of his day was because their time was short. He wanted as many of them as possible to believe in Christ and escape the blood-bath that was coming. We will not properly understand verse 6 if we do not keep those facts in mind: “But when the Jews opposed Paul and became abusive, he shook out his clothes in protest and said to them, ‘Your blood be on your own heads! I am clear of my responsibility. From now on I will go to the Gentiles.’”

What was the meaning of Paul shaking out his clothes? The explanation is given by Jesus in Matthew 10:14-23: “If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake the dust off your feet when you leave that home or town. I tell you the truth, it will be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town. I am sending you out like sheep among wolves.”

Paul had devoted his full efforts to reaching the Jews at Corinth, but they became abusive. Not only did they reject the gospel themselves, but they became committed to stopping Paul from sharing it with anyone else. This was another nail in their coffin.

Christians, we need to remember that when God got his belly full of Sodom and Gomorrah, He merely bowed the heavens and destroyed them (see Isaiah 64:1-3). God was about to do the same to apostate Israel. And if God needs to deal decisively with the United States one day, it will not require the bodily return of Christ or end of the world to do it.

Many Christians today have an impotent Jesus, who either cannot or will not deal with wickedness until He bodily returns to the earth. That simply isn’t the Christ of the Bible, who is God the Son and has the same power as God the Father who judged nations all through the Old Testament.

When Paul said to the Jews at Corinth that their blood was on their own heads, he meant they had brought this judgment upon themselves and they had nobody to blame but themselves.

Do people walking the streets of North Aurora today have anything to worry about? Friends, no matter what postmodernism says, there is such a thing as truth. Jesus said, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one come to the Father except through Me.” Because of mankind’s sin problem, our bent is away from Christ and truth. Are there consequences for this? Yes. When a person dies not knowing Christ, who is the only mediator between God and man, that person faces judgment and eternal separation from God, which the Bible calls hell.

Christians, shouldn’t we love and be concerned about people who don’t know Christ? The Alpha Program we have been viewing is designed for friendship evangelism. Would you prayerfully consider becoming involved with the Alpha program? Please talk with me if you want to know more. Let’s pray.

Sermon text ©2007 Mark C. Alvis
Bible text © as applicable