I thought Acts 17 would be, I know it's review, but I think it's an encouragement, a passage that we ought to consider frequently. Paul at Athens, specifically beginning in Acts chapter 17 at verse 16 to verse 34. I'll read, and then we'll look at the setting, the sermon, and the summary. of Paul's speech here in Acts chapter 17. So beginning in verse 16, 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.

Paul's Response to Provocation

Therefore, he reasoned in the synagogue with the 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 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 God. Therefore, the one whom you worship without knowing, him I proclaim to you. God, who made the world and everything in it, since he is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands, nor is he worshipped 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 pre-appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings so that they should seek the Lord 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 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 God overlooked. but now commands all men 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 Emerus, and others with them.

Amen.

Introduction

Well, this is a crucial time in the life and ministry of the Apostle Paul. It is his second missionary journey. Remember that the Apostle was set apart when he was in the church at Antioch by the Holy Spirit. The church was praying.

The church was fasting. The Spirit comes and says, separate unto me, Paul. and Barnabas for the work that I have called them. The first missionary journey takes place in chapters 14 and 15 of the Book of Acts, and the second missionary journey picks up in Acts 15, verse 36, and continues to chapter 18, verse 22. It covers the years of AD 49 to A.D. 52.

So the apostle went about various parts of the empire preaching and teaching the gospel, and that's one consistent thing you see. Everywhere he goes, every place he visits, the message is the same. He goes to preach the gospel. of the Lord Jesus Christ. And here, this is no exception.

In the city of Athens, which was one of the most preeminent cities at one time. By this time, it wasn't as preeminent, but it was still a very prestigious place. One has said Athens had lost the political preeminence she once enjoyed but continued to represent the highest level of culture attained in classical antiquity. It had been home to Socrates and Plato and the adopted home of Aristotle, Epicurus, and Zeno.

So it was a very popular place, a place of culture. Ryle says, here lived the most learned, civilized, philosophical, highly educated, artistic, intellectual population on the face of the globe. So here comes Saul of Tarsus, having been converted by the Lord Jesus Christ, he's the Apostle Paul, He's going from city to city preaching and teaching the truth. And he happens into this place wherein lived the most learned, civilized, philosophical, highly educated, artistic, intellectual population on the face of the globe.

It truly is an amazing situation wherein the apostle brings the truth to the people there. So the setting.

The Setting: Idolatry in Athens

Notice first the specific sin of the city. Verse 16, 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. His spirit was provoked within him. Now, I suppose that if we went to Athens today, we would marvel at the architecture.

We would delight. in the construction. It would be something that we might want to Google when we get home tonight, just to kind of see the lay of the land. Bonson comments on this. He says, what is today taken by tourists as a fertile field of aesthetic appreciation?

And it looks good, filled well, construction. He says, the artifacts left from the ancient Athenian worship of pagan deities represented to Paul not art, but despicable and crude religion. Religious loyalty and moral considerations precluded artistic compliments. These idols were not merely an academic question to Paul.

They provoked him. As Paul gazed upon the Doric temple of the patron goddess Athena, the Parthenon standing atop the Acropolis, and as he scrutinized the temple of Mars on the Areopagus, he was not only struck with the inalienable religious nature of man, but also outraged at how fallen man exchanges the glory of the incorruptible God for idols. So he is provoked. And the word is strong.

It means to stimulate. It means to provoke to wrath. It means to irritate. The passive form of the verb means to be angry.

And it's interesting because the verb is regularly used in the Greek version of the Old Testament with reference to God and His reaction to idolatry. So when God looks down upon the Canaanites, God looks down upon the Egyptians. God looks down upon sinners worshiping their idols. He is provoked.

He is brought to wrath. There is an anger that wells up in him. So Paul, sitting in Athens, realized that the second commandment is still binding upon men. The second commandment isn't simply confined to the church of the Lord Jesus Christ.

It wasn't simply confined to old covenant Israel. But the second commandment addresses man as man. First commandment, you shall have no other gods before me. The second, you shall not worship this God in a false manner.

Idolatry is condemned from the book of Genesis all the way to the book of Revelation. And so when Paul happens into the city of Athens, he is provoked within him when he sees that the city is given over to idols. He is affected by this. I oftentimes read this, or when I do read this, I wonder at how comfortable I've become in a nation filled with idols.

Do I get provoked within me when I see, you know, the Muslims worshipping their idols, or when I see these people going after their particular idols? Paul saw this, and it moved him, and we see that it not only provoked him in his spirit, but it also drove him to action. He acted upon that provocation. Notice verse 17.

Therefore, that's an implication. He sees the city given over to idols, so what does he do? Well, too bad for this city, off I go. No, he is moved to activity.

Therefore, he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews. So he goes to the place of religious worship, and he reasons with them concerning the Lord Jesus Christ. He goes to the synagogue and with the Gentile worshipers. And then notice, he goes as well to the marketplace daily with those who happen to be there.

So he goes not only to the place of religious, formal religious worship, But he goes to the marketplace. This would be somewhat like a swap meet. Do you have swap meets in Canada? I don't know that I've ever seen a swap meet.

No? OK, you do have swap meets, where people set up little booths and they sell things. And some say yes, some say no. You probably do.

Maybe you just haven't all seen them. But it's just a place where people sell things. They probably had a marketplace, or like an outdoor market. And also, there would be a place where there would be the exchange of ideas. the interchange of ideas, and so Paul seized upon that opportunity.

He goes to the marketplace daily and he reasons with those who happen to be there. So you see, he doesn't confine himself to one audience. He doesn't just say, you know, my ministry is to these Jews and Gentile worshipers who come alongside the Jews, but he goes to them and he also goes to the pagans in the marketplace who have subscribed to pagan philosophy. So his spirit is provoked within him.

He takes the knowledge of the gospel of Jesus Christ and he goes to these people and he confronts them. Now you may be saying to yourself, my spirit gets provoked within me with reference to the idolatry that I see, but you know I'm not Paul. I'm not going to go into a synagogue of the Jews. I'm probably not going to go into the marketplace and reason with Epicureans and Stoics.

God hasn't called me in that particular way. Well, God has called you to pray for those who do that particular thing. God has also called you to seek boldness so that whether you go into a Jewish synagogue or the marketplace of the pagans, give me the grace and the opportunity to be provoked in such a way so that I confront people that I meet and that I know with the gospel of Jesus Christ the Lord. There is obviously some sort of application that we can derive from this.

We can pray for people. we can ask God to give us opportunity to speak to particular people wherever our marketplace may happen to be.

Epicureans and Stoics Defined

Then notice, he reasons, well, I just want to explain what the Epicureans and Stoics were. Epicureanism is a Greek ethical view which emphasizes that good exists in pleasure. In other words, pleasure is good. But for the Epicureans, pleasure wasn't sex, drugs, and rock and roll.

I mean, we hear that and we think, oh, they were the most debauched people in the world. No, for the Epicureans, pleasure equaled life of tranquility, freedom from pain, disturbing passions, and superstitious fears. They just wanted to sort of, you know, live and let live. Don't mess with me.

I won't mess with you. They weren't looking for all of the sensual pleasures. I'm sure some of the Epicureans did. but as a philosophical system, was just seeking some form of tranquility, some form of calm, and realizing that good exists in pleasure. Now they did not deny the existence of gods, they didn't deny they weren't atheists in that regard, but they maintained that the gods took no interest in the lives of men and women.

Does that sound like any sort of a religious approach you've ever heard of? What is it? Buddhism, yeah, they have that kind of a view. What's another one?

Deism. Deism is the idea that God is only transcendent. God made this world and everything in it and then he left it. It'd be similar to a watchmaker or a clockmaker who makes this beautiful clock and then he puts it on the shelf and then off he goes, he forgets all about it.

So a deist has an idea that God is transcendent. That means he's removed from and over creation. Okay? That's what transcendence means.

Don't get blown away by some words tonight. We're going to define them. Transcendent means God is removed from and over the creation. So the deists have that view.

Epicureans shared that particular view. The gods take no interest whatsoever in the human situation. Everybody with me? Stoicism, the Stoics emphasized harmony with nature and freedom from emotion.

You've heard that before. That person's a real Stoic. It's like they have no emotion whatsoever. Well, that's where it comes from.

Emphasizes harmony with nature and freedom from emotion, thus enabling one to endure the fluctuating fortunes of life. They were able to just press on through the various things going on in the world. It's just sort of a resignation to just knuckle under and deal and move forward. Now the Stoics were essentially pantheistic.

Pantheistic means that God is everything. I want you to see something here. The deists teach that God is transcendent. The pantheist teaches that God is imminent.

Imminent means that God is right there with us. But for the pantheist, God is right there with us because God is everything. This would be Hinduism, the Brahman, and all of the nirvana, and entering into the one. God is everything.

So we have deism and we have pantheism represented by the Epicureans and the Stoics. Now, Christianity, or Christian theism, has a doctrine of God's transcendence. He is holy. He is Lord of the Nations.

He is overall, and Paul is going to assert that in his preaching. But conversely, or not conversely, additionally, God is imminent. He's with his people. He's conscious of what goes on in the world.

He is provoked when he sees the nations raging against him. So you see, in Christianity, you have transcendence. And you have imminence married together. Deism gets rid of imminence.

Pantheism gets rid of transcendence. Now that you're all thoroughly confused, let me just tell you that what Paul preaches answers specifically to the groups represented here. He preaches that God is transcendent. He made the world.

He sustains the world. He governs the world. But he's also imminent. He sees your idolatry.

He is going to judge the world in righteousness by the man he's furnished. God is both transcendent and imminent.

God's Transcendence and Immanence

Turn to Psalm 113 where you see this fleshed out. These false approaches, pantheism and deism, though they are not called Epicureanism and Stoicism today necessarily, pantheism is alive and well, and so is deism. I've always thought Psalm 113 highlights both aspects of God with reference to this issue. Notice, there is a call to praise, verses 1 to 3, and then there are reasons for praise in verses 4 to 9.

Let's just look at Psalm 113, verse 1. Praise the Lord. Praise, O servants of the Lord. Praise the name of the Lord.

Blessed be the name of the Lord from this time forth and forevermore, from the rising of the sun to its going down. The Lord's name is to be praised. Now here's why you ought to praise Him. The Lord is high above all nations, His glory above the heavens.

Who is like the Lord, our God, who dwells on high? This is transcendence, isn't it? He's above. He's over.

He's removed from creation. But then notice verse 6, who humbles himself to behold the things that are in the heavens and the earth. Do you realize it's a humbling and a condescending thing for the high and lofty God to even look upon the creation. And that's what the psalmist says.

He humbles himself to behold the things that are in the heavens and in the earth. And then he furnishes some concrete examples. Verse 7, he raises the poor out of the dust. You don't get that in deism.

There's no prayer hearing God in deism. There's no God you can cry to with your anxiety. There's no God you can unburden your heart to in deism. He doesn't listen, and he doesn't care.

But imagine if it was pantheism, and God is everything. How can he help you? How can he possibly deliver? What position of advantage does he maintain to come to the aid of his people?

It is the transcendent, imminent God presented by the Bible that man desperately needs. He raises the poor out of the dust and lifts the needy out of the ash heap, that he may seat him with princes, with the princes of his people. He grants the barren woman a home. like a joyful mother of children, praise the Lord." That is a wonderful psalm concerning theology proper. Who is God?

What is He like? How does He function with reference to His creation? That small psalm tells us a whole bunch of stuff and refutes both deism and pantheism in one fell swoop. So those were the philosophical personages represented there before the Apostle Paul in the city of Athens.

And then notice, back in Acts 17, verse 18 says, then certain Epicurean and Stoic philosophers encountered him, and some said, what does this babbler want to say? What does this seed picker want to say? If you've got the new King James, you'll see in the margin. An idler who makes a living picking up scraps.

That's what they said he was. He was picking up all these little bits of a philosophy and of religion, and he was going to sort of combine it all together. a seed picker, a slang term first used of birds that pick up grain, then of men who pick up odds and ends in the market, and then applied to men who were zealous seekers of the second rate at second hand, and finally to generally worthless persons. So they were basically dismissing Paul. He's a babbler.

He's a seed picker. He really doesn't have anything to say. Bruce says, Stoics and Epicureans alike, much as they might differ from each other, agreed at least on this, that the newfangled message brought by this Jew of Tarsus was not one that could appeal to reasonable people. They looked on him as a retailer of secondhand scraps of philosophy. a picker-up of learning's crumbs, a type of itinerant peddler of religion, not unknown in the agora, that's the marketplace, and they use the term of disparaging Athenian slang to describe them.

It's somewhat like if I were to say, what does this nutjob have to say? I don't want to offend. But that's the kind of an approach that these Epicureans and Stoics took to the Apostle Paul. What does this guy have to say?

Who does he think he is? He's just knit together some ideas and he thinks that it's a cogent whole and he wants to present it. Let's send for him, and let's listen to what he has to say. Because he's preaching this Jesus and the resurrection.

This piqued their interest enough to summons him to the Areopagus, or to Mars Hill, the place where, politically, business would have been conducted, and philosophically, where, formally, ideas would be exchanged.

The Sermon: Paul at the Areopagus

So notice, that brings us then to the sermon. So Paul, this man. we know and love is being looked at as kind of a kook at this point. And what is he going to say? How is he going to address the situation?

Verse 19, 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 and nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing." This was the philosophical equivalent of Facebook.

Talk about a waste of time. That's what these guys did. What'd you do today, honey? I sat at the Areopagus and we talked about theory.

We talked about ideas. We talked about whatever. So Paul now comes into their midst.

Paul's Introduction: Religious Nature

Notice first his introduction, verses 22 and 23. 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 God. Therefore, the one whom you worship without knowing him, I proclaim to you." So first he appeals to their religious nature.

He appeals to their religious nature. Now, if you were listening a couple of weeks ago when we studied Romans chapter 1, you will know that the Apostle was convinced that there's no such thing as an atheist. The Apostle Paul in Romans 1 tells us that man knows God exists. He cannot escape the knowledge of God.

He tries to suppress the truth in unrighteousness, but because man is made in God's image, and because the entire created order screams God to the sinner, he can't escape being a religious person. Now, that religion finds expression in all manner of false ways, right? Hinduism, and Islam, and Roman Catholicism, and I'm sure there's people out there saying, oh wow, you can't say that. Yes, it's wrong.

Every man has a religious element to him. Paul appeals to that. They're very religious, or it could also mean superstitious, but man intrinsically in the image of God knows there's something out there. And then notice he highlights their theological ignorance.

For as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription to the unknown God. Isn't that amazing? Let's just throw up these altars and just write to the unknown God just to sort of cover our bases, right? Just to try and make sure that we're okay and that we appease that one out there that we're not familiar with that may look down and say, oh, well, at least they remembered me in that sense.

Paul is highlighting their ignorance at this particular juncture. Again, here I want to quote R.C. Sproul. He says, according to Paul, false religion is not the fruit of a zealous pursuit of God, but the result of a passionate flight from God.

Get that? They're religious. They construct their idols. They build their altars.

This tells us they're running from the true and living God. He goes on to say, the glory of God is exchanged for an idol. The idol stands as a monument, not to religious fervor, but to humanity's flight from an initial encounter with the glory of God. He says the practice of idolatrous religion is not viewed as an approximate form of authentic religion, but as a negation of it.

Paul doesn't say, I see that you're trying, and that's good that you're trying, and I want to help correct you. That's not how he addresses this. He doesn't try to marry Jesus with the gods of the empire. He doesn't try to marry Jesus with Epicureanism or Stoicism.

He doesn't say, it's okay to be an Epicurean, it's okay to be a Stoic, just adopt Jesus in your life as well. You see, the Bible not only forbids idolatry, it forbids, what's the word, when we take Jesus and try to marry him with Allah, or with Muhammad, for instance. What do we call that word? It's not idolatry flat out, it's a form of idolatry.

Begins with an S. Syncretism, that's right. You'll see it in the Old Testament. They wanted Baal and Yahweh.

Paul does not address men that way. It is wrong for the church to try and accommodate people by fitting Jesus into their lives. Jesus is Lord of all, or he's not Lord at all in your particular realm. You see what I'm saying?

Paul doesn't say, it's good that you have this. Let me just help you complete yourself. No. Sproul says it is one thing to deny the existence of God.

It is another thing to add insult to the denial by worshiping as God something that is clearly of the created order. What we find in Acts chapter 17 is a living illustration of what Paul writes in Romans chapter 1, verses 18 to 32. In fact, perhaps as he's penning Romans, he's thinking about his time in Athens. Or when he's in Athens, he's thinking about, well, no, he hadn't written Romans at this particular point.

So when he writes Romans 1, perhaps Athens is in his mindset. But he appeals to their religious nature. Now, notice the specifics of his sermon. Beginning, well, just before we get to the specifics, look at what he says in verse 23.

Something very offensive to modern man. Therefore, the one whom you worship without knowing, him I proclaim to you. What does Paul assert here? They don't know him, absolutely.

What else does he assert? That he knows him. That God can be known. That there is truth.

That we can hold to it dogmatically. And that we can proclaim it to other people as well. Paul does not do what would have been typical for an idle babbler in that day to do. Just want to give you some thoughts.

Want to give you something to think about. I just want to share. Any preacher that stands with his hand in his pocket who just wants to share isn't worth his weight. We need to proclaim with vigor the God of the Bible.

And that's what Paul does at Athens. He is in the bastion of learning, the bastion of culture, philosophical sophistication. And what does he do? He says, you're wrong, and I'm right, and I'm going to tell you about the God I serve.

Truly beautiful. This is what our generation needs. I mean everything goes except this form of dogmatism. Everything goes except asserting the truth.

You can believe anything you want in modern North America. Very similar to what we have in the empire here. You can believe anything you want except the truth as it is in Jesus Christ. It really is bizarre, isn't it?

Did you know that the crime of the Christians in the Roman Empire, do you know what they were accused of being? Atheists. Isn't that a strange juxtaposition, right? They were accused of atheism, not because they denied the God of heaven and earth, but because they only affirmed the God of heaven and earth.

Their denial of the pantheon of the gods of the empire, that earned them the badge of atheism. Early Christians were accused of being atheists because they maintained fidelity to the one true and living God, and they objected to this pantheon. That means a bunch of gods, the gods of the Roman Empire. Kind of an interesting twist that we have in modern society.

So

God as Creator of the Universe

notice the specifics. Paul first asserts that God is the creator of the universe, verses 24 to 26. God who made the world and everything in it, since he is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. Nor is he worshipped 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 pre-appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings." What view is this refuting? The Stoics who believe in pantheism. Right? This God is removed.

He made the heavens and the earth. He created everything. He's over everything. He is not something that you can contain in a box.

He is not the table. He is not the chair. He is not the rock. He is God the Lord who made the world and everything in it.

He is Lord of heaven. He is Lord of earth. He 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." As well, the entire audience needed to learn something of God as creator. When Paul would go to the synagogue of the Jews, he didn't spend time on highlighting the fact that God created the universe.

Do you know why he didn't spend time on that? Because they already believed that. Their problem was with Jesus as the Messiah. Paul didn't have to set up the context in terms of God created the world.

God governs the world. God sent his son to redeem the world. The Jews already affirmed there was a creator. The Jews already affirmed there was a governor.

The Jews rejected Jesus as Messiah. So what Paul would do when he was in synagogues very often is appeal to their scriptures, appeal to their history, and show how their scriptures and history pointed to fulfillment in the Lord Jesus Christ. But when he comes to a pagan audience, when he comes to heathen, when he comes to those who did not have the oracles of God in terms of the Old Testament, he has to put the Christian message in its larger context and framework. He wants to show them how Jesus and the resurrection fits in the Christian worldview.

You see, that's what he's called upon to talk about, Jesus and the resurrection. Well, if he just started with, there was a man named Jesus and he rose from the dead, they'd be like, what significance does that have with anything? But God made the world, God governs the world, and God sent his son to redeem the world. You see, he's providing not only the particular facts, but the worldview in which those facts make sense.

He's masterful at what he's doing in the space of a few verses. Again, Bonson says, the apostle understood his audience at Athens. They would have needed to learn of God as the creator and of his divine retribution against sin, even as the Jews knew these things from the Old Testament, before the message of grace could have meaning. This is their life.

All they do is engage in idolatry. Why is idolatry wrong? Because God made the world. He's not contained in boxes.

He is not shaped or devised by men's hands. What you're doing is not representing God. It's wrong. And He's going to bring you to judgment as a result of that.

You see, He is giving them the rationale behind the gospel message He is teaching them not only about who God is, but who they are in relationship to God as idolaters who have rejected and rebelled against Him. It truly is masterful. Some have said that Paul puts down his Bible and he just rationalizes with them. No, everything Paul says comes from Scripture.

Again, it is adjusted to the pagan audience, some of the emphases perhaps, but the prophet Isaiah says, Thus says God the Lord, who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread forth the earth and that which comes from it, who gives breath to the people on it and spirit to those who walk on it. Isaiah 42. That's what Paul has in mind. That's what he's bringing to bear upon these Epicureans and Stoics that didn't learn it in Sabbath school.

They weren't brought up in the Tanakh. They didn't have the law of the prophets in the writings. They weren't educated in these particulars. So Paul, in the space of a few short verses, takes the message of the prophet and brings it to bear upon his audience.

Wright says, with reference to idolatry, this is Christopher Wright, not N.T. Wright, the primal problem with idolatry is that it blurs the distinction between the Creator God and the creation. This both damages creation, including ourselves, and diminishes the glory of the Creator. Don't forget the context.

It's a city given over to idols. Paul is addressing a particular sin. Paul wants these men to repent from their idolatry and flee to the Lord God Almighty for salvation through his son. In order to get them to see that, they have to know the context that there is a sovereign God who made this world.

He's not represented by your statues. So what you're doing is wrong and it's offensive and you need to repent and bow down. the way that we ought to approach audiences. He highlights that God is not dependent upon his creatures. God created all things in general, and the human race in particular.

And God is not contained in men's temples, nor represented by his art. You cannot put on a canvas the glory of God. You cannot put into a picture the glory of God. You simply cannot.

So he highlights that God is creator.

God as Ruler of the Nations

Secondly, God is the ruler of the nations. Verses 26B to 28. Notice. and has determined their pre-appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings so that they should seek the Lord 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." Now what is this combating?

That view that God is only transcendent, that God is only out there, that he's only far removed. You see in Paul's sermon he's telling us that God is Lord of all, God is over all things, but God is involved in the lives of men. He puts this man in that nation. He puts this man in that family.

He puts this man in that place. And he is not far from any one of us so that we might grope after him and find him. For in him we live, we move, we have our being. So God is creator Lord, but he's also present among his creation.

Not a part of it, not pantheism, but he is imminent and he is involved with the people on this earth. You see how he's doing that? He's addressing the two audiences very specifically. He's addressing paganism and heathenism very specifically as well with the Christian worldview, with the context of Christianity.

He quotes one of their own poets. 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. Paul was alert to what was going on around him. Paul knew what was going on in the empire.

Paul knew not because he submitted to it. He had an idea of the philosophical systems and the religious views that were there. And he was able to speak intellectually to those particulars. He cites Epimenides the Cretan.

For in thee we live and move and have our being, in eritus the Cilician, in every way we have to do with Zeus, for we are truly his offspring." Now, he is not identifying Zeus with the true God. He is not incorporating these things into his Christian worldview. He is simply highlighting that their pagan authors recognize something of the true nature of God. Again, you cannot fully escape the God of heaven and earth, Romans chapter 1.

You may try to suppress that truth, you may try to shake it off, you may try to run from it, but there is hardwired in us, because we are in His image, and the heavens declare His glory and His righteousness, there are certain things that we know about God. Even your pagan poets understand this. Paul quotes their own poets to expose their own inconsistency. Again, Greg Bonson says Paul quotes the pagan writers to manifest their guilt.

Since God is near at hand to all men, since his revelation impinges on them continually, they cannot escape a knowledge of their Creator and Sustainer. They are without excuse for their perversion of the truth." So he's out there, he's with us. He is both transcendent, he is imminent. He's answering the Epicureans, he's answering the Stoics.

God to Be Worshipped Exclusively

Now notice, God is to be worshipped exclusively. He's bringing ethics to bear on them now. You see, he's given the Christian worldview, God made this world, God sustains this world, God governs this world, God determines boundaries, God is near, God says, the idea is that we would grope for Him and find Him. Now notice, verse 29, therefore.

You see, Paul isn't just interested in appealing to their minds and saying, isn't that impressive, I presented a cohesive worldview. No, the Bible always goes for the heart, you see. The Puritans understood, we go for the heart through the mind. Verse 29 is implication.

Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, now this is not to be taken as the fatherhood of God, the fatherhood of God over all men. in some liberal Protestant particular, just referring to God as creator over all men. Therefore, since we are the offspring of 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. God is not worshipped with images, representations, or other idols." Here he is addressing the particular sin of Athens. Remember Peter preaching last week in Acts chapter 2?

I mean, he did it not last week, but we looked at it last week. What does he highlight with reference to those Jerusalem sinners? You crucified Jesus, right? When you want to affect the hearer, you tell them they're sinning.

Man will never seek after Jesus for forgiveness if he doesn't think he's a sinner, right? That's one of the uses of the law. For by the law is the knowledge of sin." And that's what he's doing here. We ought not to think that the divine nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man's devising.

You see, God's not just upset when covenant community Israel is dancing before the golden calf. He's upset when Athens is given over to idols. He's upset when North America is given over to idols. When I say upset, I don't mean like I get upset.

God's upsetness is a different sort of a concept. That's what we call the impassibility of God. One day we're going to deal with that doctrine, but that day is not today. But God takes notice of idolatry going on.

And he is provoked within himself.

God as Judge of All the Universe

And then Paul brings it to a close with the fact that God is the judge of all the universe. Notice in verse 30, truly these times of ignorance God overlooked. Now that's one of those statements that people stumble on. Does God just excuse all of the sin in the past?

No, he sure didn't with Sodom and Gomorrah. He sure didn't with the Canaanite nations. He sure didn't with the Canaanite cities. I think the idea is that God is long-suffering, and God is patient, and God has forebeared very long.

Now, truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent. You see, this would be completely not what you would get when the philosophical discussions of these people. Ideas, sure, that's interesting to think about. I always picture them as just stroking their bear.

So that's interesting, yeah. That's interesting. Paul says, therefore, you cannot engage in idolatry, and you need to realize that God commands you to repent. And then he says, 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. Isn't that amazing? He's called up there to talk about Jesus and the resurrection. Notice that Paul does not do what is very common for Christian apologists today.

I'm going to give you 10 reasons why you should believe that Jesus rose from the dead. I'm going to give you 15 reasons why you should believe that Jesus rose from the dead. Paul assumes that Jesus rose from the dead and uses that fact to prove the reality that God the Lord is going to judge man. The empty tomb tells the Athenians that you will be judged for your idolatry.

We don't spend 15 years trying to prove the resurrection of Jesus Christ to the unbeliever. You tell them what the Bible says, here's what the scripture says, and here's why you need to believe it. God is going to judge you. And it is proof positive that he's going to judge you because he raised his son from the dead.

It's an amazing proof involved in this text. It is not proving the resurrection of Jesus. It is using the resurrection of Jesus to prove the reality of a future day of judgment. Christ is the agent by which God will judge all mankind.

And Paul uses the fact of the resurrection as a proof of the coming judgment by Christ. Apologetics is that discipline that deals with defending the Christian faith. And there's certain approaches that people take to defending the Christian faith. Suffice it to say, Paul was what was called a presuppositionalist.

Actually, that's reading back into the text statement, but he's evidencing that model. He's not spending his time in an effort to try and convince them of something. He's taking the resurrection and proving that they will be judged.

The Summary: Three Responses

Now, notice finally the summary. When they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. Don't get discouraged when you tell your friends about Jesus and they mock you. Paul got mocked, right?

Don't get discouraged if you preach the gospel and people mock you, or they say you're weird, or that's strange, or that's odd, or I don't know how we can ever believe such a thing. Mocking is commonplace when unbelievers are confronted with the gospel of Jesus Christ. When they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. Others said, we will hear you again on this matter.

Some were curious. Probably always going to get responses like this. It's going to be those who say, forget it. I want nothing to do with it.

It's going to be others that say, hmm, that sounds kind of interesting. I wouldn't mind hearing about that again. But notice, there are those who believe. So Paul departed from among them.

However, some men joined him and believed. Among them Dionysius the Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them. It's commonplace. When the gospel is preached, not everybody always gets converted.

Some mock, some are curious, and some believe. They did that with the great apostle Paul. We ought to expect that we will face the same sort of thing today. Well, that is a brief look at Acts chapter 17.

I'll pray. We'll turn that off. And if anyone has any questions, feel free to ask.

Closing Prayer

Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the truth that Paul conveyed there at Athens and that is recorded for us in Acts 17. God, give us grace and wisdom to know how to rightly speak to our generation, to take your truth, to speak concerning Jesus Christ and the coming judgment and the reality that God made this world, God governs this world, and God will indeed call all men to judgment. We just thank you for your grace and mercy in sparing us.

We thank you for applying your gospel to us and giving us life eternal. Go with us now, we pray, in Jesus' name. Amen.

Scripture References

• Isaiah 42
• Psalm 113:1-9
• Acts 2; 14-15; 15:36; 17:16-34; 18:22
• Romans 1:18-32; 3:20