“The (Now) Known God”
From Jerusalem to Pennsylvania: The Book of Acts
February 5, 2012
Acts 17:16-34
We’re with the Apostle Paul on his second missionary journey. And strangely enough, we’re with Paul alone. Normally, Paul has a missionary team with him. Silas, Timothy, Luke, and so on.
But where we left off last week, Paul was shipped out of Berea all by himself and escorted to Athens, and then left there by himself with instructions left for Silas and Timothy to eventually join him.
But now he’s alone in Athens. Athens, Greece.
Athens was one of the most important cities in the ancient world especially a few hundred years before this because of all of the philosophers that came from Athens.
The most famous being, of course, Socrates and his student Plato. And all of the other philosophies and philosophers. Nearly every philosophy there is had a start in Athens.
And much more came from Greece and out of Athens, of course, including the Olympic Games and the Greek gods, and so on.
I’m sure most of us have had a least a smattering of world history that has dealt with Athens.
Now, what does Paul do when he goes to Athens?
What does Paul do when he goes anywhere?
He looks around. He finds the Jews. He takes them the gospel. Then he branches out to the Gentiles.
Guess what he’s going to do in Athens! You guessed it.
He looks around. He finds the Jews. He takes them the gospel of Jesus Christ. Then he branches out to the Gentiles.
And this time, he gets a unique ministry opportunity.
Every once in a while, God gives you and me a unique ministry opportunity. Somebody special to talk to. Some opening that isn’t normally there. Some door opens that was not expected. A unique ministry opportunity.
And Paul, because he is used to making the most of every opportunity, makes the most of this unique opportunity.
Acts 17:16.
“While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols.”
Now, as I understand it, that was an understatement.
This city was covered in idols. It was pasted with idols. There were idols here, there, and everywhere.
One scholar that I read this week said, “We might say that it was ‘smothered by idols’ or ‘swamped’ by them. . . . Xenophon referred to Athens as ‘one great altar, one great sacrifice.’ In consequence, ‘there were more gods in Athens than in all the rest of the country, and the Roman satirist hardly exaggerates when he says that it was easier to find a god there than a man.’ . . . There were innumerable temples, shrines, statues, and altars. In the Parthenon stood a huge gold and ivory statue of Athena, ‘whose gleaming spear-point was visible forty miles away.’ Elsewhere there wer images of Apollo. . . . Jupiter, Venus, Mercury, Bacchus, Neptune, Diana, and Aesculapius. The whole Greek pantheon was there, all the gods of Olympus.” (Stott) And he goes on and on.
Athens was plastered with idols.
And it about made Paul sick. Verse 16 again. “While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols.”
What is an idol?
And idol is a substitute god.
Do we have a society full of idols of today?
We’ve got a TV show called American Idol!
Today, we’ve got the biggest religious event of the year for America–the SuperBowl for our sports idolatry.
Our society idolizes entertainment and money and status and sexuality and youth.
I’m sure that Paul would look around at our culture and be greatly distressed to see that our society is full of idols.
But these were literal idols. Stone, precious metals, in the images of the gods.
What does Paul do about it? He doesn’t just rant and rave about the idolatry in his culture. He positively sets forth the gospel. V.17
“So [notice that “So”] he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there.”
First the Jews, then the Gentiles.
And he goes right out into the world with this gospel message.
We should be going out into the world with this gospel message.
The gospel is not just for Sunday morning in church.
The gospel is for the world.
And Paul was out there in the marketplace with the gospel.
Talking to people.
Meeting them where they are.
And he’s talking about Jesus. V.18
“A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to dispute with him. Some of them asked, ‘What is this babbler trying to say?’ Others remarked, ‘He seems to be advocating foreign gods.’ They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.”
Now, these two philosophies were radically different from one another.
The Epicureans didn’t believe that the gods (if they existed) cared much about us and that the point of life was to maximize their happiness by any means doesn’t hurt anyone. (Sound familar?) They were very into sensualism.
And the Stoics actually believed in denying your feelings and keeping a stiff upper lip. Suppressing desire and doing what is right by your own bootstraps.
So, Paul is getting attacked from two different sides. And they call him a “babbler” or more literally, a seed-picker, a dumb bird that picks up pieces of this and pieces of that and parades around as if he knows something. Brock, brock, brock.
“What is this babbler trying to say?”
Others remarked, ‘He seems to be advocating foreign gods.’
You know, that’s what they got Socrates on.
“They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.”
And they couldn’t figure out what in the world he was talking about.
It was a big collected, “Huh?”
And strangely enough, that’s what earned him the unique ministry opportunity. V.19
“When they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, where they said to him, ‘May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we want to know what they mean.’”
The Areopagus was literally, the Hill of Ares (the Geek God of war) or Roman Mars. So, we call this Mars Hill. And it was not just a hill where they met but the actual council of the city.
Kind of like a cross between the city congress and a talk show.
Larry King Live. V.21
“(All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.)”
Sounds to me like Talk Radio or the blogworld or Facebook or Cable Television.
Talk, talk, talk, talk, talk.
And when you go before this city council, they think that they’re the chief philosophers of the town, so you have to present your ideas there. V.19 again.
“May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we want to know what they mean.”
We’ve never heard anything like this.
And Paul see his opportunity. Here it is. And he takes it. V.22
“Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: ‘Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.”
This is masterful.
He sees the open door, and he provocatively walks through it.
“I see that in every way you are very religious.”
He starts with something that they can all agree on.
I’m mean, just look around you.
He’s not saying that they are very Christian or that they are on the right track.
But he is saying that they obviously care about religion. They care about spirituality.
Have you ever heard anyone say, “I’m not a Christian, but I’ve very spiritual.”
Paul would say, “Yes, yes, you are. You are very much worshiping something.”
In fact, little object lesson here. “For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.”
Why would there be an altar to an unknown god?
I think the best reason is to hedge your bets.
Just in case we’ve missed any of the other gods–especially any important ones.
Here’s one for a god whom we don’t know anything about.
Now, what really hit me this week in studying the passage was that Paul has just accused the Athenians of ignorance.
These are the guys who spend all day every day talking about the latest ideas.
And Paul has brought out their ignorance about what truly matters.
And they can’t really argue with him. They just said,“May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we want to know what they mean.”
Allrighty then, I’ll tell you. V.23
“Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.”
Here’s the title for today’s message.
“The (Now) Known God.”
You have been ignorant, but no longer.
I will tell you what God is truly like.
No longer will He be some “unknown god.” He will be known.
I think that Paul’s lecture on the true nature of God could be summarized with three words.
Here’s the first one:
#1. MAKER. V.24
“The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else.”
What an awesome description of the God of the Bible.
God made the world and everything in it.
And that makes Him “Lord of heaven and earth.”
You guys have all of these little idols, little temples, little churches as if God could or would live inside of them.
But God “does not live in temples built by hands.”
I know what people mean when they call a building like this one, “God’s house.”
But God doesn’t live here in some way like he doesn’t live at your place or at mine.
This place is a great ministry tool. I love our facility.
But this isn’t God’s house.
“God does not live in temples built by hands.”
If anything, we are God’s house.
God is the maker of everything. He’s not going to get shrunk down to live in a little box that you can set on a shelf. V.25
“And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else.”
We just saying, “Nor wanting, nor wasting, Thou rulest in might.”
God doesn’t have needs that we fill.
He is not a taking God.
He is a giving God. V.25
“Because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else.”
Man’s religion tries to contain and control God, that’s what most religion is.
The guys who built this altar are trying to control the unknown god by making sacrifices on the altar or putting gifts on the altar to appease him.
Trying to earn brownie points with God.
But it doesn’t work that way. God is not impressed. And He doesn’t have needs so that you if you scratch His back, He’ll scratch yours.
He makes us. We don’t make Him.
Here’s an application for that.
Humble Yourself and Be Thankful.
Understanding that you and I are made. That we are creatures. We are creations is humbling.
We don’t own ourselves. We didn’t make ourselves.
And we certainly don’t make God!
That’s humbling.
We realize that we owe God for (v.25) “life and breath and everything else.”
Raise your hand if you have life and breath today.
Where did you get that?
Is it just yours? Or did someone give it to you?
Tell Him “thank you” today for the gift of life and breath and everything else.
We are so quick to complain.
We are so quick to grumble and murmur and whine.
We need to humble ourselves and say, “Thank you” just for our very being.
Thank you!
We just sang it. “To all, life Thou givest–to both great and small.”
Thank you!
And we need to humble ourselves to receive salvation. Because we don’t make God in our own image. He is not customizable. God as we want Him to be.
He is God as He is.
And we should be thankful that he doesn’t have needs.
What would it be like if God got hungry, and it was up to us to feed Him?
Like a cosmic Jabba the Hutt?
But verse 25 says that He is self-sufficient and that means that He has everything He needs for Himself and for being generous with us.
Not a Taker-God but a Giver.
#2. RULER.
Paul continues in verse 26.
“From one man he made [maker] every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live.”
From Adam to Asia. From Eve to Europe. From one man to every nation of men so that they should inhabit the whole earth.
And he determined. He rules. He is sovereign over the times set for them and the exact places where they should live.
God is sovereign over where and when we live.
And where the boundaries are going to be.
I think that this says something about who your neighbors are.
You know, most of the time, you don’t get to choose your neighbors.
But somebody has for you.
You don’t get to choose who your siblings are. But somebody has for you.
You don’t get to choose who your parents are. But somebody has chosen that for you.
“He determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live.”
That doesn’t mean that we can’t move around.
But it does mean that there is someone with a overarching plan that determines where we will move to and who else will.
Application?
Seek God and Trust Him. V.27
“God did this [determining] so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out 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 some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.' ‘Therefore since we are God's offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone–an image made by man's design and skill.”
God put everybody where they are with a purpose.
And one of His purposes would be that they would reach out wherever they are and grope towards God.
Because He’s not far away.
It’s interesting that Paul knows their poets. Epimenides said, “For in him we live and move and have our being.” and Aratus said, “We are his offspring.”
And Paul is not saying that they knew what they were talking about.
But he is saying that they were right in this case and let me show you how right.
We are God’s offspring. We are all made in the image of God.
So we should not think that the divine being is LIFELESS like gold or silver or stone–an image made by man’s derived design and skill.
That’s not God!
God is alive!
God is real!
God is personal!
We are the image of God. We’re not supposed to make images of God!
Seek the true God!
That’s why He put you where you are.
And trust Him.
He is the ruler of everything.
If He can perfectly set people when and where He wants, then I can trust my life to Him.
Are there people in your life right now that you wonder if God was asleep at the wheel to put them there?
He wasn’t asleep.
Trust Him.
He’s got good plans for you.
That doesn’t mean that you can’t move or that you can’t ask God to move them.
But their presence in your life right now is God-ordained.
He is sovereign over it. He rules.
And you can trust Him.
Seek Him and Trust Him.
Or else.
Paul ends his talk by saying that this kind of ignorance about God and not seeking Him was on some level overlooked, but not now. Now, because of Jesus, everything has changed. V.30
“In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead.’”
Number three and last.
#3. JUDGE.
God has set a day when he will judge the world.
The Athenians didn’t like to hear that.
Americans don’t like to hear that.
We don’t always mind hearing that God will bring judgment on someone else.
But this is total accountability. V.31
“For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed.”
Are you ready for that day?
Paul started his talk with something everyone could agree about.
The Athenians are religious.
But are they ready for the judgment?
How do you get ready for the Judge?
Application: Repent & Follow Jesus.
V.30 again.
God “commands all people everywhere to repent.”
All people, everywhere.
All people, everywhere.
All people, everywhere.
Turn from your sin.
Get right with God.
Repent & Follow Jesus.
V.31
“For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed [Who’s that? The Lord Jesus]. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him [the man He has appointed] from the dead.’”
v.32
“When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, ‘We want to hear you again on this subject.’”
Either way, notice that they are shutting him off.
Ooops, sorry Paul. We’re out of time. Gotta go to a commercial break!
A word from our sponsors.
We’ll have you back on the program again soon.
Other just sneer and jeer.
Yeah, right, someone coming back from the dead!
V.33
“At that, Paul left the Council. A few men became followers of Paul and believed. Among them was Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus, also a woman named Damaris, and a number of others.”
They repented and began to follow Jesus.
From Jerusalem to Pennsylvania: The Book of Acts
February 5, 2012
Acts 17:16-34
We’re with the Apostle Paul on his second missionary journey. And strangely enough, we’re with Paul alone. Normally, Paul has a missionary team with him. Silas, Timothy, Luke, and so on.
But where we left off last week, Paul was shipped out of Berea all by himself and escorted to Athens, and then left there by himself with instructions left for Silas and Timothy to eventually join him.
But now he’s alone in Athens. Athens, Greece.
Athens was one of the most important cities in the ancient world especially a few hundred years before this because of all of the philosophers that came from Athens.
The most famous being, of course, Socrates and his student Plato. And all of the other philosophies and philosophers. Nearly every philosophy there is had a start in Athens.
And much more came from Greece and out of Athens, of course, including the Olympic Games and the Greek gods, and so on.
I’m sure most of us have had a least a smattering of world history that has dealt with Athens.
Now, what does Paul do when he goes to Athens?
What does Paul do when he goes anywhere?
He looks around. He finds the Jews. He takes them the gospel. Then he branches out to the Gentiles.
Guess what he’s going to do in Athens! You guessed it.
He looks around. He finds the Jews. He takes them the gospel of Jesus Christ. Then he branches out to the Gentiles.
And this time, he gets a unique ministry opportunity.
Every once in a while, God gives you and me a unique ministry opportunity. Somebody special to talk to. Some opening that isn’t normally there. Some door opens that was not expected. A unique ministry opportunity.
And Paul, because he is used to making the most of every opportunity, makes the most of this unique opportunity.
Acts 17:16.
“While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols.”
Now, as I understand it, that was an understatement.
This city was covered in idols. It was pasted with idols. There were idols here, there, and everywhere.
One scholar that I read this week said, “We might say that it was ‘smothered by idols’ or ‘swamped’ by them. . . . Xenophon referred to Athens as ‘one great altar, one great sacrifice.’ In consequence, ‘there were more gods in Athens than in all the rest of the country, and the Roman satirist hardly exaggerates when he says that it was easier to find a god there than a man.’ . . . There were innumerable temples, shrines, statues, and altars. In the Parthenon stood a huge gold and ivory statue of Athena, ‘whose gleaming spear-point was visible forty miles away.’ Elsewhere there wer images of Apollo. . . . Jupiter, Venus, Mercury, Bacchus, Neptune, Diana, and Aesculapius. The whole Greek pantheon was there, all the gods of Olympus.” (Stott) And he goes on and on.
Athens was plastered with idols.
And it about made Paul sick. Verse 16 again. “While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols.”
What is an idol?
And idol is a substitute god.
Do we have a society full of idols of today?
We’ve got a TV show called American Idol!
Today, we’ve got the biggest religious event of the year for America–the SuperBowl for our sports idolatry.
Our society idolizes entertainment and money and status and sexuality and youth.
I’m sure that Paul would look around at our culture and be greatly distressed to see that our society is full of idols.
But these were literal idols. Stone, precious metals, in the images of the gods.
What does Paul do about it? He doesn’t just rant and rave about the idolatry in his culture. He positively sets forth the gospel. V.17
“So [notice that “So”] he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there.”
First the Jews, then the Gentiles.
And he goes right out into the world with this gospel message.
We should be going out into the world with this gospel message.
The gospel is not just for Sunday morning in church.
The gospel is for the world.
And Paul was out there in the marketplace with the gospel.
Talking to people.
Meeting them where they are.
And he’s talking about Jesus. V.18
“A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to dispute with him. Some of them asked, ‘What is this babbler trying to say?’ Others remarked, ‘He seems to be advocating foreign gods.’ They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.”
Now, these two philosophies were radically different from one another.
The Epicureans didn’t believe that the gods (if they existed) cared much about us and that the point of life was to maximize their happiness by any means doesn’t hurt anyone. (Sound familar?) They were very into sensualism.
And the Stoics actually believed in denying your feelings and keeping a stiff upper lip. Suppressing desire and doing what is right by your own bootstraps.
So, Paul is getting attacked from two different sides. And they call him a “babbler” or more literally, a seed-picker, a dumb bird that picks up pieces of this and pieces of that and parades around as if he knows something. Brock, brock, brock.
“What is this babbler trying to say?”
Others remarked, ‘He seems to be advocating foreign gods.’
You know, that’s what they got Socrates on.
“They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.”
And they couldn’t figure out what in the world he was talking about.
It was a big collected, “Huh?”
And strangely enough, that’s what earned him the unique ministry opportunity. V.19
“When they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, where they said to him, ‘May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we want to know what they mean.’”
The Areopagus was literally, the Hill of Ares (the Geek God of war) or Roman Mars. So, we call this Mars Hill. And it was not just a hill where they met but the actual council of the city.
Kind of like a cross between the city congress and a talk show.
Larry King Live. V.21
“(All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.)”
Sounds to me like Talk Radio or the blogworld or Facebook or Cable Television.
Talk, talk, talk, talk, talk.
And when you go before this city council, they think that they’re the chief philosophers of the town, so you have to present your ideas there. V.19 again.
“May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we want to know what they mean.”
We’ve never heard anything like this.
And Paul see his opportunity. Here it is. And he takes it. V.22
“Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: ‘Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.”
This is masterful.
He sees the open door, and he provocatively walks through it.
“I see that in every way you are very religious.”
He starts with something that they can all agree on.
I’m mean, just look around you.
He’s not saying that they are very Christian or that they are on the right track.
But he is saying that they obviously care about religion. They care about spirituality.
Have you ever heard anyone say, “I’m not a Christian, but I’ve very spiritual.”
Paul would say, “Yes, yes, you are. You are very much worshiping something.”
In fact, little object lesson here. “For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.”
Why would there be an altar to an unknown god?
I think the best reason is to hedge your bets.
Just in case we’ve missed any of the other gods–especially any important ones.
Here’s one for a god whom we don’t know anything about.
Now, what really hit me this week in studying the passage was that Paul has just accused the Athenians of ignorance.
These are the guys who spend all day every day talking about the latest ideas.
And Paul has brought out their ignorance about what truly matters.
And they can’t really argue with him. They just said,“May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we want to know what they mean.”
Allrighty then, I’ll tell you. V.23
“Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.”
Here’s the title for today’s message.
“The (Now) Known God.”
You have been ignorant, but no longer.
I will tell you what God is truly like.
No longer will He be some “unknown god.” He will be known.
I think that Paul’s lecture on the true nature of God could be summarized with three words.
Here’s the first one:
#1. MAKER. V.24
“The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else.”
What an awesome description of the God of the Bible.
God made the world and everything in it.
And that makes Him “Lord of heaven and earth.”
You guys have all of these little idols, little temples, little churches as if God could or would live inside of them.
But God “does not live in temples built by hands.”
I know what people mean when they call a building like this one, “God’s house.”
But God doesn’t live here in some way like he doesn’t live at your place or at mine.
This place is a great ministry tool. I love our facility.
But this isn’t God’s house.
“God does not live in temples built by hands.”
If anything, we are God’s house.
God is the maker of everything. He’s not going to get shrunk down to live in a little box that you can set on a shelf. V.25
“And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else.”
We just saying, “Nor wanting, nor wasting, Thou rulest in might.”
God doesn’t have needs that we fill.
He is not a taking God.
He is a giving God. V.25
“Because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else.”
Man’s religion tries to contain and control God, that’s what most religion is.
The guys who built this altar are trying to control the unknown god by making sacrifices on the altar or putting gifts on the altar to appease him.
Trying to earn brownie points with God.
But it doesn’t work that way. God is not impressed. And He doesn’t have needs so that you if you scratch His back, He’ll scratch yours.
He makes us. We don’t make Him.
Here’s an application for that.
Humble Yourself and Be Thankful.
Understanding that you and I are made. That we are creatures. We are creations is humbling.
We don’t own ourselves. We didn’t make ourselves.
And we certainly don’t make God!
That’s humbling.
We realize that we owe God for (v.25) “life and breath and everything else.”
Raise your hand if you have life and breath today.
Where did you get that?
Is it just yours? Or did someone give it to you?
Tell Him “thank you” today for the gift of life and breath and everything else.
We are so quick to complain.
We are so quick to grumble and murmur and whine.
We need to humble ourselves and say, “Thank you” just for our very being.
Thank you!
We just sang it. “To all, life Thou givest–to both great and small.”
Thank you!
And we need to humble ourselves to receive salvation. Because we don’t make God in our own image. He is not customizable. God as we want Him to be.
He is God as He is.
And we should be thankful that he doesn’t have needs.
What would it be like if God got hungry, and it was up to us to feed Him?
Like a cosmic Jabba the Hutt?
But verse 25 says that He is self-sufficient and that means that He has everything He needs for Himself and for being generous with us.
Not a Taker-God but a Giver.
#2. RULER.
Paul continues in verse 26.
“From one man he made [maker] every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live.”
From Adam to Asia. From Eve to Europe. From one man to every nation of men so that they should inhabit the whole earth.
And he determined. He rules. He is sovereign over the times set for them and the exact places where they should live.
God is sovereign over where and when we live.
And where the boundaries are going to be.
I think that this says something about who your neighbors are.
You know, most of the time, you don’t get to choose your neighbors.
But somebody has for you.
You don’t get to choose who your siblings are. But somebody has for you.
You don’t get to choose who your parents are. But somebody has chosen that for you.
“He determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live.”
That doesn’t mean that we can’t move around.
But it does mean that there is someone with a overarching plan that determines where we will move to and who else will.
Application?
Seek God and Trust Him. V.27
“God did this [determining] so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out 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 some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.' ‘Therefore since we are God's offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone–an image made by man's design and skill.”
God put everybody where they are with a purpose.
And one of His purposes would be that they would reach out wherever they are and grope towards God.
Because He’s not far away.
It’s interesting that Paul knows their poets. Epimenides said, “For in him we live and move and have our being.” and Aratus said, “We are his offspring.”
And Paul is not saying that they knew what they were talking about.
But he is saying that they were right in this case and let me show you how right.
We are God’s offspring. We are all made in the image of God.
So we should not think that the divine being is LIFELESS like gold or silver or stone–an image made by man’s derived design and skill.
That’s not God!
God is alive!
God is real!
God is personal!
We are the image of God. We’re not supposed to make images of God!
Seek the true God!
That’s why He put you where you are.
And trust Him.
He is the ruler of everything.
If He can perfectly set people when and where He wants, then I can trust my life to Him.
Are there people in your life right now that you wonder if God was asleep at the wheel to put them there?
He wasn’t asleep.
Trust Him.
He’s got good plans for you.
That doesn’t mean that you can’t move or that you can’t ask God to move them.
But their presence in your life right now is God-ordained.
He is sovereign over it. He rules.
And you can trust Him.
Seek Him and Trust Him.
Or else.
Paul ends his talk by saying that this kind of ignorance about God and not seeking Him was on some level overlooked, but not now. Now, because of Jesus, everything has changed. V.30
“In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead.’”
Number three and last.
#3. JUDGE.
God has set a day when he will judge the world.
The Athenians didn’t like to hear that.
Americans don’t like to hear that.
We don’t always mind hearing that God will bring judgment on someone else.
But this is total accountability. V.31
“For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed.”
Are you ready for that day?
Paul started his talk with something everyone could agree about.
The Athenians are religious.
But are they ready for the judgment?
How do you get ready for the Judge?
Application: Repent & Follow Jesus.
V.30 again.
God “commands all people everywhere to repent.”
All people, everywhere.
All people, everywhere.
All people, everywhere.
Turn from your sin.
Get right with God.
Repent & Follow Jesus.
V.31
“For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed [Who’s that? The Lord Jesus]. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him [the man He has appointed] from the dead.’”
v.32
“When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, ‘We want to hear you again on this subject.’”
Either way, notice that they are shutting him off.
Ooops, sorry Paul. We’re out of time. Gotta go to a commercial break!
A word from our sponsors.
We’ll have you back on the program again soon.
Other just sneer and jeer.
Yeah, right, someone coming back from the dead!
V.33
“At that, Paul left the Council. A few men became followers of Paul and believed. Among them was Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus, also a woman named Damaris, and a number of others.”
They repented and began to follow Jesus.
In Jesus, God was now known!
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