Acts 13:13–37

Is there a purpose, goal, or culmination to history? Or is it merely a succession of sunrises and sunsets, a meaningless series of swiftly flowing years leading nowhere? Is history, as the Stoic philosophers of Paul’s day taught and Eastern religions of today teach, an endless series of cycles?

The French existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre expresses the bleak hopelessness of such a view in his novel Nausea. “While you live, nothing happens. The scenery changes, people come in and go out, that’s all. There are no beginnings. Days add on to days without rhyme or reason, an interminable and monotonous addition” there is nothing, nothing, absolutely no reason for existing” C. Stephen Evans,

Viewing history as purposeless appeals to sinful people, since it grants them freedom to do as they want with no fear of accountability to a divine moral judge. As one of the brothers in Dostoyevsky’s novel The Brothers Karamazov expressed it, “If there is no God, then everything is permitted. Such “freedom” is in reality, however, a crushing burden of despair and hopelessness. For removing God from the picture reduces man to “a chance configuration of atoms in the slipstream of meaningless chance history”. Francis A. Schaeffer

One of the greatest questions that face men, and … and I think faces all men, not only historians, but everybody, is the question, “Where is history going?” Now historians always hassle with it. What is … what are we here for? What are we all about, and where are we going? What does this life mean?

A writer by the name of Hendrikus Berkhof wrote a book called Christ, the Meaning of History. And in that book he focuses on the old and crucial issue of where is history leading, where is it going, what is its purpose, what is its meaning, how does it end, does it have a goal?

He makes the statement in the book, quote: “Our generation is strangled by fear, fear for man, for his future and for the direction in which we are driven against our will and desire. And out of this comes a cry of illumination concerning the meaning of the existence of mankind and concerning the goal to which we are directed. It is a cry for an answer to the old question of the meaning of history,”

How are we to live … how are we to work … how are we to love … how are we to play … in the chaos and confusion of the meaninglessness of life?

There are three possible popular interpretations to history.

Number one, the first view of history is a cyclical view. What this says is that history is an endless circle of repetition. It just continues to circle back through the same things over and over and over again. And we as people are also caught in that endless series of cycles through a process called reincarnation in which we reappear and reappear and reappear and reappear. This view of history basically says that there is no end, there is just the same over and over and over again. It gives no meaning to history, it has no meaning. It cannot gain any meaning because it can only repeat what has already been. And if there’s been no meaning, there will be no meaning. A person might have goals in his life but history has no goals.

John Marsh in his book The Fullness of Time writes, “If such a view be true then historical existence has been deprived of its significance. Responsibility and decision disappear and with them any real significance to historical life which in fact becomes a rather grandiose natural cycle.” The events of history are devoid of significance,”

And those who seek to find relief from this endless series of cycles, who seek to be freed from it, believe that the only way to get out of it is somehow to rise to a higher level of mystical consciousness that transcends reality and puts you in the nebulus unconsciousness of nirvana.

There’s a second world view that is quite popular, the atheistic existential view of history.

It says that history is a line, it is not a series of repetition, it is a line but it’s started by accident and no one knows how in the world it’s going to end. There is no God. We are all the result of a collocation of atoms or some kind of primeval slime that out of it oozed something or other that eventually became what is and who knows what will eventually happen. There is no God. There is no rhyme or reason. There is no method. There is no purpose. There is no creator.

We are simply in an accidental existence and the only way to live it is to cram it full of every bit of gusto you can possibly get and make it as meaningful in its meaninglessness as you possibly can. Existentialism of this type, no significant pattern, can be found in history, no movement toward a goal, only a meaningless succession of events.

The third alternative to those world views is that there is a sovereign creator God who is working out His purposeful plan in history.

That is the Christian view of life. It has several components. The Christian view of history says that history is the working of God’s purposes as explained in the Scripture. God is sovereign over all history.
The Stoics believe that history was a series of cycles that went about a thousand years, and the whole earth was burned up and the cycle started all over again. Nothing ever went anywhere and just kept repeating going nowhere; and that’s a very common view. Sartre said this, “Nothing happens.”

Is it true that there is no reason? Is it true that history goes nowhere? That there’s no point. There’s no purpose. There’s no rhyme … If that’s true, Dostoyevsky is right. “If there is no God, there is no purpose. If there is no purpose, then everything is permitted. If everything is permitted, we’re a disaster.”

This is the first sermon in the book of Acts Paul is the preacher. His sermon points out two important facts for the Jews and Gentiles.

One point is that everything in the history of Israel was leading up to the coming of Jesus and the great salvation for sinners that he would accomplish when he died and rose again.

The other point in this sermon is that the story behind Jesus is God’s story. This text is saturated with God. Sixteen times Paul presses home the truth that God is the central Actor in history.

Turning the church into a therapy group or entertainment center undermines that authority of biblical preaching. Strong biblical preaching also upholds the authority of God’s Word. How strange it is that many who affirm the inerrancy of the Bible fail to preach it expositionally .

The church has exploded in Jerusalem. When it was finished there, the Lord had designed that it would go to Judea and Samaria, and to the uttermost. God had designed it from that little congregation in that famous city, missionaries would be sent to reach the uttermost part of the earth.

At the very beginning, the Holy Spirit said, “Separate Me Barnabas and Paul for the work unto which I have called them,” and He sent Paul and Barnabas out on the first great historical event of the missionary outreach of the church as they went to the pagan world to preach Jesus Christ They preached the Gospel from one end of Cyprus to the next.

Then the Spirit of God directed them north. The Spirit of God directed them to Antioch of Pisidia, and there was a ready-made audience in a Jewish synagogue, so Paul preached there.

Paul’s evangelistic message falls logically into three parts. He presents Jesus as the culmination of history, the fulfillment of prophecy, and the justifier of sinners.

The Holy Spirit had set it up, Paul just stood up to preach. He begins this tremendous sermon in verse 16, with the words, “Men of Israel and ye that fear God, listen!”

There are two kinds of people in the synagogue. Israelites and those that fear God. God-fearers, and that’s a proper term referring to converted Gentiles.

Jesus Christ is presented first as the culmination of history; secondly, as the fulfillment of prophecy; thirdly, as the justifier of sinners.

Paul’s first point, that Jesus is the culmination of history. The question is often asked, “Where is history going?” There is the answer. It’s going toward Jesus Christ.

Paul reminds them that God has always and still is in control of the world and is moving things along to fulfill His purpose of salvation.

Sixteen Declarations of God’s Acts in History

1 God who chooses Israel from all the people of the earth for his special purposes.
2 God made the people great during their stay in Egypt.
3 God led them out of Egypt with an uplifted arm
4 God carried Israel in the wilderness.
5 God destroyed the seven nations in the land of Canaan.
6 God who gave Israel the land of Canaan as an inheritance.
7 God who gave them judges.
8 God who gave to Israel her first king, Saul.
9 God who removed Saul.
10 God raised up David the son of Jesse.
11 God who brought to Israel a Savior, Jesus
12 John the Baptist. And what Paul quotes him as saying is that he takes attention off himself and put it on the Christ, God’s anointed Savior.
13 Paul says, “To us has been sent the message of this salvation,”
14Paul goes out of his way to show that even those who did not know God—who were out of step with God and could not understand his “manual of operation”—nevertheless did what God planned and prophesied.
15 “And when they had fulfilled all that was written of him,. It was God’s plan laid out in Scripture.
16 God raises Jesus from the dead: Paul’s point is that God has been at work from the beginning and was at work in the death and resurrection, and is at work now in sending the message of this salvation.

Men have long wrestled with the question of where (if anywhere) history is going.

Is there a purpose, goal, or culmination to history? Or is it merely a succession of sunrises and sunsets, a meaningless series of swiftly flowing years leading nowhere? Is history, as the Stoic philosophers of Paul’s day taught and Eastern religions of today teach, an endless series of cycles?

“History is His story.”

Christians affirm, in contrast to all other views, that history is ‘his story’, God’s story.

For God is at work, moving from a plan conceived in eternity, through a historical outworking and disclosure, to a climax within history, and then on beyond it to another eternity of the future.

The Bible has this linear understanding of time, and it tells us that the center of God’s eternal-historical plan is Jesus Christ, together with his redeemed and reconciled people.

James A. Garfield called history “the unrolled scroll of prophecy.” If God’s Word controls our lives, then the events of history only help us fulfill the will of God. “I am watching over My word to perform it,” promises the Lord (Jeremiah 1:12, ).
Is there a pattern to history? Is anyone in charge? The British historian Edward Gibbon called history “little more than the register of crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.” Arthur T. Pierson said that “history is His story.” Which one is right?

The architect of history is Jesus Christ who said, “I will continue to build My redeemed people.” That’s the reason for history. And if you’re not part of the redeemed people, you will be cast into hell forever, you will be removed if you refuse to give God glory. History is His story. That is the only explanation that makes sense.

The future salvation of Israel is demanded by the promises of God. The redemption of the Jews will come in spite of a long history of rejection. In spite of killing God’s messengers and God’s prophets, in spite of killing God’s son. God took even that and turned it to His saving purpose. For without the death of Christ, there would be no salvation and therein lies the great providential irony of all history.

History is His story. He arranged the circumstances of everything for His own divine purposes. Sin Had a Definite Beginning in Human History and Will Finally Be Defeated

The biblical story arises out of three historical events: the creation of the universe, the intrusion of sin, and the redemption accomplished by Christ. It is a drama in three parts: the happy beginning, the tragic rebellion, and the spectacular finish. The story begins with a plan to create a world that reflects the wonder and majesty of the Creator

(Rev. 4:11). Everything he creates is “good.” The crown of that creation bears his exclusive image and is declared “very good” (Gen. 1:31). In this idyllic world God communes with his creation in perfect harmony.
With the appearance of sin, first among spirit beings who have been created to serve God, then among his personal image bearers, it seems that the Creator has lost control of his creation. Each new step toward final reclamation reflects his personal involvement

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.” (Rev. 21:1–4)

“Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.” The civilization of antiquity was the whole world, and men no more dreamed of its ending than of the ending of daylight. They could not imagine another order unless it were in another world. G. K. Chesterton

He is the fulfillment of history. He is the only one that can right the wrongs and reverse the injustices. He is the only one that can remove the curse that separates men from God. He is the only one who can give meaning to life individually and life collectively, which is history. God has been designing to redeem men, and the Redeemer is Christ. If Christ does not come, men are not redeemed. If men are not redeemed, history is a mockery, going nowhere but to an eternal hell.
Paul was wise, because the Jewish people just live for their historical place. They live for the fact that they’re in the plan of God. They have based their eternal salvation for centuries on the fact that God is their God. So Paul recites their history. “Yes, God is controlling your destiny. God is controlling your history. Your history is going toward a Savior, the seed of David

So Christ is the culmination of history. Without Him, history has lost its meaning, because man can never be reconciled with God with Jesus.

Jesus is the culmination of history, “Because of the fulfillment of prophecy.” God’s laying all these prophecies about Messiah. Every Jew knew that. Jesus comes along and fulfills every one of them.

Paul outlines the fulfillments of prophecy in the life of Jesus of Nazareth that qualify Him to be the Messiah.
Jesus fulfilled the prophecy of being of the line of David.

The prophecy that there would be a forerunner to Messiah. When Messiah was to come, there was gonna be somebody who would come before Messiah and get everything ready,

Centuries before Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, Zechariah 9:9 predicted Messiah would do just that. Psalm 41:9 predicted Judas’s betrayal, and Zechariah 11:12 the exact amount of money he would receive for doing it. The fulfillment of those prophecies and dozens more provide overwhelming proof that Jesus of Nazareth was indeed Israel’s prophesied and long-awaited Messiah.

He was the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies of the coming Messiah. In Him God’s promise in the Old Testament was realized.

John the Baptist

John would preach, “Messiah is coming.

Malachi 3:1 “Behold … says the prophet … I will send My messenger, and he shall prepare the way before Me.
Jesus is the Savior, His salvation is for us. And by Him all believe are justified.

History’s going somewhere. It’s going toward Jesus. Prophecy’s going somewhere. It’s going toward Jesus.
If Jesus is, as you say, the Messiah why didn’t our leaders recognize Him?

Verse 27, “For they that dwell at Jerusalem … people of Jerusalem … and their rulers, because they knew Him not nor yet the voices of the Prophets which are read every day, Sabbath day, they have fulfilled them in condemning Him.”

They didn’t even know what the Prophets were talking about. It’s an indictment.

John 5, 39, where He says, “Search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life,” and then He said this, “and they are they which speak or testify of Me. If you really knew what you’re reading, you’d see Me.”
verse 27. “They have fulfilled them in condemning Him.” Did you know that God knew what they’d do? Did you know that? God knew every single thing they’d do. All of the rejection of Christ and the condemnation of Christ was put in the plan from the very beginning.

Psalm 69:4,“Those who hate Me without a cause are more than the hairs of My head.” The Prophet said that the Messiah would be hated without a cause.

Jesus Himself said in John 15:25, They hated Me without a cause
Paul says, “And when they had fulfilled all the prophecy, they took Him down.” God is no victim. Neither was Jesus,
Isn’t it an interesting thing. Most crucified victims were driven from the rear, because of the panic and the terror, or they were dragged, tied and dragged to the cross. Jesus was what? Led. Isaiah 53:7 simply says this, “He was led as a sheep to the slaughter.”

verse 18, “They crucified Him.” Do you know that to a Jew, that kind of execution was absolutely an unknown thing? Jews didn’t crucify anybody. What did they do to execute? They stoned people. Numbers 24, there’s a beautiful picture. Israel was infested by snakes, and God said, “You raise up a serpent,” and you look up at that serpent, and you’ll be healed.” John, in
the conversation between Nicodemus and Jesus, records the fact that Jesus was the one who was gonna fulfill that prophecy, John 3. And later on, Jesus said, “And I, if I be lifted up, shall draw men unto Me.”

Jesus Justifies Sinners

Therefore let it be known to you, brethren, that through Him forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and through Him everyone who believes is freed from all things, from which you could not be freed through the Law of Moses. Take heed therefore, so that the thing spoken of in the Prophets may not come upon you: ‘Behold, you scoffers, and marvel, and perish; for I am accomplishing a work in your days, a work which you will never believe, though someone should describe it to you.’ ” (13:38–41)

The Jewish people were profoundly aware of the ravages of sin and its consequences. They had clung to sin individually and nationally throughout their existence.

The critical issue for the Jewish people was what to do about sin. As the ancient book of Job expressed it, “How can a man be in the right before God.

To those laboring in vain to earn their salvation through keeping the law Paul dramatically proclaimed the most glorious, liberating truth imaginable: through Jesus forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and through Him everyone who believes is freed from all things, from which you could not be freed through the Law of Moses.

As Paul the ex-Pharisee well knew, keeping the law freed no one from his sins. To the Romans he wrote, “For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law” Romans 3:28

Paul gives a warning

Paul closed his sermon with a warning against rejecting the salvation offered in Jesus Christ. He solemnly charged his hearers to take heed therefore, so that the thing spoken of in the Prophets may not come upon you, namely judgment on impenitent and unbelieving sinners. Habakkuk 1:5: Behold, you scoffers, and marvel, and perish; for I am accomplishing a work in your days, a work which you will never believe, though someone should describe it to you. Those words were spoken about God’s judgment that was coming on Judah. Paul used it to illustrate the destruction that the Old Testament pledges to sinners who refuse to repent and submit to the Lord.

Conflict will often occur when the true gospel is preached today.

The People Reacted

And as Paul and Barnabas were going out, the people kept begging that these things might be spoken to them the next Sabbath.

Jesus is the Messiah. He is not only the culmination of history, He is the fulfillment of prophecy. We can only judge the future by the past, people; and in the past, God always kept every promise, didn’t He? Fulfilled is the key word all through there.

God has appointed a future day of judgment. The Bible says, ‘That for every man who rejects Jesus Christ, there will be the judgment of eternal hell.” Has God kept His promises in the past? Yes. Will He keep them in the future? Yes. God’s predictions come true, for one who rejects Jesus Christ … it is a fearful thing to fall under the hands of the living God.