May turn in your Bibles to Acts chapter 17. Acts chapter 17 is one of those familiar passages of Scripture. I oftentimes say that if I've preached on it before. So that way, when I say many of the same things, you say, oh yeah, I remember this.
But it is a passage we ought to go to often to remind us, to encourage us, to strengthen us, and to see the Apostle Paul basically in action, bringing the gospel to bear upon a godless culture. Specifically, we find Paul here in Athens in Acts chapter 17, verses 16 to 34. He's on the second missionary journey, which took place in about A.D. 49 to A.D. 52. It starts in Acts 15.36 and goes to Corinth in Acts 18 and verse 22.
So the Apostle Paul here stays, or he stops rather, at Athens. And I just want to give you a brief word about Athens. One man has said that Athens had lost the political preeminence that she had once enjoyed. In other words, she was a political center at one time.
By the time the Apostle Paul had arrived, it was no longer that political preeminence. However, Athens 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. Those were philosophers.
It's interesting that a couple of centuries, about four centuries prior, to Paul being brought to the Areopagus to testify concerning what they perceived to be strange deities, Jesus and the resurrection. A few hundred years prior to that, Socrates was in the very same place and executed for the very same crime, though it wasn't Jesus that Socrates proclaimed. J.C. Ryle says that here lived the most learned, civilized, philosophical, highly educated, artistic, intellectual population on the face of the globe.
So the apostle comes to preach the gospel here in Athens. So I'll just pick up reading it. Verse 16 says, 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. 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. than 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 young woman, excuse me, a woman named Emerus, and others with them. Amen.
Well, let us pray. Father, thank you for your word and thank you for what Paul does here in Athens, and I pray that you would just help us to see the glory of the Christian message, help us to see its power, help us to see, Father, its cohesiveness, the fact that Paul here presents the God who made all things and the God who governs all things, the God who calls all men everywhere to repent. We pray that in a nation steeped in idolatry, a nation given over to idols, that we would have sort of the same burden, that we would have the same provocation in our own spirit, that we would be moved, Father, to speak the truth in love to those in our generation. Do forgive us now for all of our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness, and we pray through Christ Jesus our Lord.
Amen.
Introduction
Well, we're going to do two things this evening. We'll consider the setting in verses 16 to 21. I've already sort of mentioned what Athens or the significance of Athens. And then we'll look at the sermon proper, the preaching of Paul in verses 22 to 31.
The Setting: Athens and Its Idolatry
But it's interesting for us to consider the particular sin of the city of Athens. Notice 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. The particular verb that Luke uses here to describe Paul's provocation is the same verb that we find in the Greek translation of the Old Testament.
God is described in this term with reference to the idolatry of the nations around. It means to stimulate, to provoke, to wrath, to irritate. to be angered. This is how Paul looked at this city given over to idols. He didn't just say, well, you know, they have their way of worship.
This is a pluralistic society. After all, we can just watch them try and achieve the same status that we have in and through the Lord Jesus Christ. That's not it at all. His heart was broken.
He felt the pain. He understood the reality that the second commandment of the Decalogue was being broken here in the city of Athens. Greg Bonson makes this comment. He says, what is taken today, or today taken by tourists, as a fertile field of aesthetic appreciation?
If we were to go to Athens, we'd probably take our cameras and we'd click a whole bunch of pictures. Some might even go home tonight, hit Google Images, and look at these particular sites that Paul was setting his eyes upon. Monson says, what is today taken by tourists as a fertile field of aesthetic appreciation, 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, as he looked at 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. It probably wouldn't be a stretch to suggest that when Paul wrote Romans 1, he certainly had in his mind his experience at Athens. Romans 1 tells us all too clearly that man knows God exists.
Man knows through the created order, through the fact that he is made in his image, that there is a God. But what he does is he suppresses that truth in unrighteousness. He exchanges the glory of the incorruptible God for images, for idols, for those things that he can bow down to and express his religious nature. God has made man, God has constituted man with a sense of deity.
And this was the case in Athens in the first century. And the apostle doesn't just say, well, you know, you have that sense of deity that's going to bring you into the promised land. No, rather, what we find here is that his spirit was provoked within him when he saw that the city was given over to idols. We ought to pray that we would not grow hearted. that we would not grow callous, that we would not grow indifferent to the whole soul movement of idolatry in our own day.
We ought to pray that God would provoke our spirits, that we would be grieved over the violation of the second commandment, that we would be grieved over the fact that God is not being glorified and honored. Isn't this something of what we ought to consider when we pray, that God's will be done on earth as it is in heaven? We all the time witness men exchanging the glory of the incorruptible God for the image of fallen things, or rather of idols, that they would rather worship and bow down to.
Paul's Response: From Provocation to Action
Notice his particular response, verse 17. He's not only provoked within himself when he sees that the city is given over to idols. He doesn't just leave them. He doesn't say, I can't take this.
This is too difficult for me. This is too hard for me. I don't like to think about the fact that these people are engaged in idolatry. No, this provocation of spirit led to action.
It's what I'm suggesting. We ought to pray that God would so burden our hearts with the idolatry going on around us that we would act as a result. Paul, therefore, reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews, with the Gentile worshipers, and in the marketplace daily with those who happened to be there. You see, he's provoked, and what does he do?
He goes to the synagogue. Whoever's in the synagogue, he will reason with them. He doesn't just stay in the synagogue. He then goes into the marketplace of the Agora, and there he engages in witnessing.
There he engages in evangelism. There he engages in bringing the gospel to sinners. I just want to say something here in light of this fact. Because we emphasize the preaching of the word in the church, that does not mean for a moment that we don't believe in the necessity of witness, the necessity of personal evangelism.
There seems to be a division coming in the Reform Baptist movement. There seem to be some churches that are more open to what's called the New Calvinism. And one of the continual arguments, or one of the continual things that we read from these New Calvinists is that we old Calvinists, or Calvinist classic, I like to call it, actually Phil Johnson entitled it that, I think he's right on, New Calvinism and Calvinism Classic. You'll remember many years ago, New Coke and Coke Classic.
I think that's what Phil Johnson had in his mind. But what they say is that our emphasis upon the centrality of preaching means we don't believe in witnessing. We don't believe in personal evangelism. We don't believe in handing out tracts.
We don't believe in telling sinners about Jesus. That is simply untrue. If my wife were to say, what do you want for dinner? Well, I really love steak.
I hope she doesn't conclude from that, he hates hamburger. I like a good burger once in a while. I might like the steak more, but a good burger has its place. Because we emphasize the centrality of preaching with biblical warrant, I might add, God was well-placed through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.
While we emphasize that and we highlight that reality, we should never make the illogical conclusion or the illogical jump that, therefore, they don't believe in passing out tracts. It simply doesn't follow. Can't we affirm the centrality of preaching with reference to the gathered church, and as well affirm the necessity for the people of God to go into their places of work, their places of family, their places of influence, and tell people about Jesus? Never make the assumption that because Free Grace Baptist Church puts emphasis on the preaching of the Word when we gather together, You don't ever have to tell anybody about Jesus.
You do. You should. You should want to. You should ask God to provoke my spirit, to give me a broken heart such that it would move me into the marketplace, such that it would move me into action, such that it would affect me so that I will want to be a soul winner.
Paul engages the culture. Paul speaks to those in the city. Paul addresses them. Notice in verse 18, after having ministered there in the synagogues and in the marketplace, verse 18 says that a 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.
The Epicureans and Stoics Encountered
Now, the Epicureans and the Stoics were philosophers, as is indicated here, and they were so far apart. And yet they were even further apart from the God of the Bible. Epicureanism is a Greek ethical view which emphasizes that good exists in pleasure. Good exists in pleasure.
Now, before you throw your 21st century connotation on that, for the Epicureans, that did not mean sex, drugs, and rock and roll. That wasn't the sort of pleasure they thought good consisted of. For the Epicureans, pleasure was a life of tranquility, freedom from pain, disturbing passions, and superstitious fears. They did not deny the existence of the gods, but rather they maintained that the gods took no interest in the lives of ordinary folk.
We might say they were deists in nature. Deism is that approach that says God made the world like a clockmaker makes a clock, and then he puts it into place, and then he just sort of forgets about it. That's deism. The man makes the clock, he puts it up on the shelf, and then he goes and he does whatever.
That's deism. There's no presence of God in deism. There's transcendence. God is wholly other, but there's no imminence.
There's no personal God dealing with people in the creation. That's Epicurean. The Stoics were just about the opposite. They were pantheists.
Pantheism means that God is everywhere. Pantheism has a doctrine of imminence. That means God is among us, but there's no doctrine of transcendence. God is in everything.
God is everywhere. Don't cut down that tree because God is there. The Stoics were essentially pantheistic. They emphasized harmony with nature and freedom from emotion, thus enabling one to endure the fluctuating fortunes of life.
You've heard that before. He's a real Stoic. It means he never smiles. You're real stoic.
That means he doesn't react. He doesn't get all bent out of shape. Just this sort of even keeled sort of fellow. Notice that the God whom Paul was preaching was disagreeable to a city full of gods.
This God that Paul proclaims is absolutely different than what these men held to. And then they actually are making fun of him. That's what they're saying here when it says, what does this babbler want to say? The word here means seed picker.
It is a slang term that was first used of birds that picked up grain, then of men who picked 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. What does this seed picker have to say? He's preaching Jesus and the resurrection. They got wind of it because he was in the marketplace.
The Epicureans and the Stoics now have their interest piqued, at least to the degree they want to find out what he has to say. F.F. Bruce comments, both 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 scrums. a type of itinerant peddler of religion, not unknown in the Agora.
And they use the term of disparaging Athenian slang to describe him. Get him up to the Areopagus. Let's hear what he has to say. And that brings us specifically now to his message, to the sermon.
Paul's Sermon at the Areopagus
Note the introduction, verses 22 and 23.
God as Creator and Lord
He appeals to their religious nature. Verse 22, Then Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious. Again, that sense of deity as image bearers of God, surrounded by the general revelation of God, the fact that God has made his existence evident to us. We can't escape.
We are religious beings. You go anywhere in this world, you will find people worshiping, not necessarily the true and living God, but they are worshiping nonetheless. So Paul highlights their religious nature and then he underscores their theological ignorance. Notice, 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. They're trying to cover their theological bases. Remember when Jesus condemns the praying of the heathen? They think they'll be heard for their many words.
I don't think it meant they prayed for four hours with glorious, flowery, eloquent sentences wherein they appealed to the deity. I think they vainly repeated in a whole host of manner to try to make it stick to one of the gods. These people built this altar to the unknown God to try and cover their bases. So on the one hand, they're religious.
God has made his existence evident to them. But on the other hand, they are trying to escape that religiosity. They're trying to escape, rather, that true and living God. They are trying to suppress the truth in unrighteousness.
R.C. Sproul says, and I think he's right on, According to Paul, false religion is not the fruit of a zealous pursuit of God, but the result of a passionate flight from God. 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.
Again, the practice of idolatrous religion is not viewed as an approximate form of authentic religion, but as a negation of it, a doing away of it. What they're doing here is not noble. What they're doing here is exchanging the glory of the incorruptible for this table. They are trying to cover their bases.
They're trying to throw out the net. They are just trying to keep the gods off their backs. He 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.
That's the issue. And then notice Paul says, therefore, the one whom you worship without knowing him I proclaim to you. That's beautiful. A pluralistic society, a place where basically every God is accepted, a place where every God is encouraged, a place where every religion is looked upon favorably.
Paul has no problem walking into this place and saying, you're wrong and I'm right. He would be tarred and feathered in this modern day climate, wouldn't he? Oh, he's abusive. Oh, he's a bigot.
Oh, he's a prejudiced man. Oh, he's terrible. How dare him say that he is proclaiming the truth of God Most High. Do you realize that in the written revelation of God Almighty, we are able to speak and preach the truth concerning him?
We're messed up. We've got our issues. We've got our foibles. We've got our trials and our challenges and our difficulties.
But to the degree that we properly expound the truth we are speaking what and who God is to the society around us. And basically what does Paul do? He sets forth a Christian worldview. You see they had asked him about Jesus and the resurrection.
Paul does not come to Athens. Paul does not respond to the Epicureans and Stoics by saying, let me give you 15 reasons or proofs for how Jesus rose from the dead. Those aren't necessarily bad. They feed the faith of the believer.
It's nice for us to read the passion narratives that end in the resurrection of Jesus. It's good for us to see how guards were stationed at the tomb for the express purpose to prohibit someone from stealing the body of Jesus. It's good for us to see how that stone is rolled away. It's good for us to hear the angelic report.
He is not here. He is risen. It's good for us to think or see through the eye of faith those grave clothes, those garments folded neatly on the table there in the tomb. It suggests that what happened was not grave robbers.
Grave robbers wouldn't stop, fold up the linen, and put it there neatly. I mean, those are all things for us to be encouraged about as we read through that narrative. Paul doesn't do any of that. You see, if he proves that Jesus rose from the dead, the Epicureans and Stoics will stroke their beards and say, wow, curious things happen in this world.
Kind of an interesting place. Sometimes you put a man in a tomb and he comes right back out. You see, the resurrection of Jesus, Jesus himself makes sense, not that it doesn't make sense elsewhere, but I want you to see this makes sense in the context of who God is and what he is doing in this world. You see, Jesus and the resurrection is interpreted or rather helps interpret the grand scheme of what God is doing in the world.
Paul is not dealing with Jews here. Paul is not dealing with men steeped in the Old Testament. Paul is not dealing with those who are skilled in cosmology. That is the doctrine of how the earth originated.
He is dealing with pagans. So naturally, Paul is going to start with God who made this world. God created this world. God put it together.
God constructed it. When Paul is with a Jewish audience, he doesn't spend time developing the doctrine of creation. When he's with the pagans, he most certainly does. He brings that necessary information to them.
He is not putting down the Bible and thus reasoning with them in their own way, but rather he is bringing other portions of the Bible to bear upon this particular audience. Paul sets forth the person of Christ, verses 18 and 19. This is what he's called to do in the larger context of God's works of creation and providence. We need to understand the Bible.
Bonson again 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. You see, he's portraying, he's painting, he's showing, he's demonstrating what God in history is doing. He will do this in order to show them how foolish their attempt at worshiping idols really is and how desperately they need the true and living God through this Jesus and the resurrection that he himself is preaching.
He wants them to understand who God is, what Christ is about, and that they are sinners who stand in need of God's saving purposes in and through the Lord Jesus Christ. In Isaiah 42 verse 5 we read, God 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 in it. This is precisely what Paul is doing in verse 24. God who made the world and everything in it.
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. You can't domesticate this God. You don't put Him in a box. You don't construct a little altar and say, to the unknown God, and He looks down on that and smiles.
You don't put Him into a temple. You don't localize Him. You don't inhibit him, you don't prohibit him from acting and moving and engaging in all of his sovereign purposes and will. It's interesting, because what the prophet Isaiah is doing in chapters 40 to 48, roughly, is engaging in polemics against idolatry.
Paul's doing the same thing, and he's taking it right out of Isaiah the prophet. You see, what does an idolater need to hear? He needs to hear that little thing that you're worshiping didn't make you, didn't make this world, didn't put Saturn in its orbit, doesn't cause the rain to fall, doesn't cause the snow to fall, doesn't cause the sun to shine. You need to move from that consideration of that little trinket to the true and living God.
You need to open your mind. You need to realize that we serve a big God. The God of Christianity isn't a localized ghetto deity. The God of Christianity is the maker of all things seen and unseen.
The God of Christianity cannot be contained. The God of Christianity is the creator. We are the creature and therefore there is distinction.
God as Sovereign Ruler of the Nations
Notice, secondly, he sets forth God as ruler over the nations, verses 26 to 28. 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. Interesting, interesting that Paul does not back down. from preaching what we might call Calvinism, or Reformed theology, or what we would better call the Bible, the biblical description of who God is. He pre-appoints.
He pre-determines. God is sovereign, not only in creation, but also in determining where men live. He is sovereign, and whether a man is black or a man is white, whether a man is born rich or a man is born poor, it is God the Lord who is the ruler over the nations. You think this idea of the unknown God throwing out this net, hoping to rope a deity so that he'll come and bless you is actually the way things work?
Do you not know that you Epicureans and Stoics living in Athens are here because of a sovereign God? You know, there is great humility in these doctrines. It should promote humility and a genuine seeking after the true and the living God. Notice that he appeals to their own poets.
Not because they agree entirely with Christianity, but because they have that religious nature, because they have that sense of deity, even they have stumbled upon certain aspects of truth. It says, For we are also his offspring. That's what one of their poets says. Verse 28, 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. This was a man by the name of Epimedes, the Cretan. For in thee we live and move and have our being. Eratos, the Sicilian, I'm sorry, the Cilician, said, In every way we have to do with Zeus, for we are truly his offspring.
Paul is not identifying Zeus with the true God, and he's not incorporating these things into his Christian worldview. He is simply highlighting that there are pagan authors recognize something of the true nature of God. And thus, he quotes their own poets to expose their own inconsistency. They've got this religious nature.
One or two of them have actually stumbled on certain aspects of truth, yet they don't pay any attention to that. They build these temples, they build these altars, they localize these little objects, and they bow in worship to them. It's falling. Absolute insanity.
Remember the picture that Isaiah the prophet paints in terms of the folly of idolatry. Remember back in Isaiah 44, 9 to 20, he says a man cuts down a tree. You all know this. I know you know this.
He cuts down a tree, he cuts it up, and he burns some of it so that he can cook his food and so that he can warm his hands. It's a good use of the tree. It's a better use of the tree than what he ends up doing. He takes some more of that tree and he fashions for himself an idol and he bows down to it.
What's Isaiah want Israel to realize? Idolatry is senseless. Idolatry is foolishness. Idolatry is madness.
Idolatry is a rejection of the true and living God and a seeking out of those things that he has created. That's what Paul's doing here. It's foolish for you. to make an altar to an unknown God. It's foolish for you to build these temples.
It's foolish of you to put all these idols in there and then to bow down to them and then to serve them. Paul is showing that. Paul is highlighting this. He says, or Ponson 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.
God Alone Is Worthy of Worship
Paul implies or infers or leads on from this reality in verse 29 that God alone, therefore, is the object of worship and him alone. Therefore, verse 29, 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. Don't worship those things. Don't bow down to those things.
Don't think that those things will bring you lasting satisfaction and joy. It is God, the Lord alone, who is to be worshipped. You see, Jesus in the resurrection finds its meaning, finds its significance in the Christian worldview. If you sit down with a pagan and you successfully prove that Jesus rose from the dead, giving ten good evidential points, He's still not going to understand the significance of that.
Well, who was Jesus? Why did Jesus do this? What was the purpose for his death? What was the purpose for his resurrection?
You see, the theology behind that event helps us to understand it, and that's what Paul is doing.
God as Judge and the Coming Judgment
He sets forth God the creator, God the ruler of the nations, God the one alone who is to be worshipped, but he doesn't stop there. He brings it to a conclusion by highlighting the fact that God is the judge. God is the judge. You see, their sin provoked Paul.
But even more importantly, their sin provoked God. You see, if we go out and we tell sinners, oh, your idolatry really hurts me, hopefully they'll go, oh, wow, that's too bad. I want to believe on Jesus. But more than likely, they won't.
Your idolatry provokes God. When God looks down upon men degrading themselves, worshiping, whatever it is they'll worship, that provokes the Lord our God. So Paul is provoked with the sin of Athens. He sets forth the glory of God Almighty.
He highlights the reality that he made, the reality that he sustains, but the further reality that he will judge. that he will indeed call all men to stand before his tribunal and give an account.
The Call to Repentance
He brings the sermon to a conclusion by speaking of the coming judgment, verses 30 and 31. Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent. This God overlooking should not be interpreted as he suspended or rather he forgave the guilt. It's rather he posed his wrath.
This postponement, this deferral, this passing over does not mean that he dealt with all men's sin in and by the Lord Jesus Christ. Rather, it is a postponement or a deferment of punishment, of judgment. Verse 31, But now commands all men everywhere to repent. Now, here comes Jesus in the resurrection because he has appointed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by the man he has ordained.
There's Jesus, right? This was the point. He was to come and talk about Jesus. He talks about God, the father, creating God, the father, sustaining and governing.
And now he speaks about God, the son, judging. Now, just so we don't forget, Paul not only was asked to speak about Jesus, but he was asked to speak about the resurrection. Paul's a good preacher. Have you ever gone or listened to a sermon and it was billed as a particular topic, a subject or an exposition, and that's not what you got?
I mean, it might have been good, might not have been good, but you feel gypped, right? We were supposed to consider this particular doctrine, and we were supposed to look at this particular text. So we go, we listen, we hear perhaps a good sermon, good doctrine, but we never touch the text. At the end of it, we scratch our heads and say, well, what about that text?
Wasn't that supposed to be spoken upon? Wasn't that supposed to be preached? Paul doesn't do that. They ask him about Jesus and the resurrection.
He tells them that Jesus is going to judge you. And now here comes the resurrection. He has given assurance, the end of verse 31, of this to all by raising him from the dead. So the Epicureans and the Stoics would have possibly and probably preferred ten lines of evidence as to why Jesus rose from the dead.
Paul's got a different mindset. Paul comes to preach the entire Christian message. He comes to preach God the creator, God the sustainer, God the judge, but God the redeemer as well. He commands all men everywhere to repent.
Let go of your idols. Put down your falling. Stop engaging in this madness and wickedness. Jesus is going to judge you.
God has made this evident by the fact that He has raised Him from the dead. So Paul does, in fact, speak concerning Jesus and the resurrection. This will be a universal judgment. It will be a righteous judgment.
And it will be a definite judgment because there is a day coming. It is fixed. It is in place. God the Lord will not leave his creation undealt with.
It's a beautiful presentation of the Christian system, a beautiful presentation of the truth of God most high.
Christianity: Linear History, Not Cyclical
Now, we are probably to suppose that this is a summary. There were other points, other things, other statements. But you see the broad outline here. You see the categories that Paul is thinking in terms of.
He's truly bibling. He is truly biblical. He is presenting Christianity in all of its multifaceted glory. He starts with God.
He starts with God in creation and he ends with judgment. Perhaps these pagans thought, like so many do, that life or history is just cyclical or circular. You know, there's just these cycles going on. There's no judgment.
There's no nothing. We just sort of keep going. We might die. We might come back.
But, you know, it's just this thing. Christianity is not cyclical. Christianity is not a circle. Christianity is linear.
It begins and it ends. Christianity speaks of creation and speaks of judgment to come. It speaks of everything in between through God's sovereign providence upholding and ruling over all things. This is one of the reasons I actually think that people deny creation.
You deny creation and judgment then follows closely. We don't like judgment, right? Let's head it off before it even gets here. Let's deny God at the beginning and then we can easily deny him at the end.
Christians ought not to do such things. We ought to maintain special creation. We ought to realize that God made all things by the word of his power in the space of six days and all very good. That God is sovereign over his creation.
That he providentially governs all his creatures and all their actions. And that history is moving forward to this particular time when he will in fact judge all men, he will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom he has ordained. He is given assurance of this to all by raising him from the dead.
The Response to the Gospel
And in conclusion, notice the response. You would think hands down, Paul preached, everybody got saved, right? Everybody just bowed to the Lord Jesus. Great presentation, very biblical.
Good use of the prophet Isaiah. I mean, you could just imagine a seminary class sort of surveying Paul's approach at the Areopagus. Yes, it was peppered with scripture. It was homiletically correct.
He had his major points. His sub points upheld those major points. He had ethos. He had passion.
He had everything. What happens? What happens today when men preach the gospel? Some mock.
I mean, you wouldn't think that somebody would actually mock Paul the Apostle in his preaching when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked while others said, we will hear you again on this matter. Isn't that the response that we are oftentimes faced with? Some mock. That's crazy.
Men don't raise from the dead. People don't leave the tomb, Paul, don't you realize? We surveyed a hundred people. Every one of those who died never came back out of the tomb.
I mean, it's just simple logical deduction or it's induction rather. It is surveying the data. It is hypothesis. It is testing.
It is evaluating. It is realizing that in this world, people don't rise from the dead. You're foolish. You're mad.
You're crazy. You're nuts. Then there was a sort of a curiosity. There were others that said, hmm, we will hear you again on this matter.
It's kind of interesting. You get their curiosity. This is kind of an intriguing story about this Jesus and the resurrection. Certainly, Paul, we will call for you again another day.
But you know what else? So Paul departed from among them, however, Luke tells us in verse thirty four, Some men joined him and believed." Isn't that beautiful? The net is cast. The gospel is preached.
God is well pleased to save, through the foolishness of the message preached, those who believe. God is sovereign. He saves. Paul doesn't have magic power.
Just because he speaks, not every knee bows in submission to Jesus Christ. I actually think that what we find here in verses 32 to 34 is far more typical than the sort of approach that we find very often, where, you know, thousands and thousands of people got saved. Thousands and thousands of people gave their hearts to the Lord. I'm not denying that the Lord can do that.
Three thousand on the day of Pentecost. I'm not denying or excluding the fact that God can, in fact, save a great multitude. But you know, not every claimant is necessarily true. This is probably more what we ought to expect in a faithful gospel ministry.
There will be mocking. There will be curiosity. But lo and behold, there will be some who believe. That ought to put wind in our sails and cause us to be faithful, to preach the word, and to truly, by the grace of God, go into a culture given over to idols, seeking to shine as lights and seeking to hold forth that word of truth.
Application: Know and Proclaim the Gospel
We need to understand the truth. Before you go and witness, before you talk to your neighbor about the gospel, please make sure you understand the gospel. I mean, we all take it for granted, don't we? Gospel means good news, and the good news is this.
Great. Just be correct with it. You know, you might try to do surgery on your neighbor's heart and kill him. And that would be a terrible thing.
I highly dissuade you and discourage you. But it's not as bad as giving him a false gospel. I mean, humanly speaking, he ends up in hell. You twist, you distort, or you just don't get it, or you just don't understand it.
Make sure you know it. Make sure you understand. It's not my faith plus. It's not my works plus.
It's not you have to be a better person. You're going to butcher souls, and you don't want to do that. So yes, we emphasize the centrality of preaching. We also encourage faithful witness and faithful shining as lights and faithful evangelism and testimony.
But get the truth of the gospel down. Make sure you know what the Bible says. Don't say, well, I think it says this or I think it might say that. know the scripture, know the truth. I'm not saying, you know, Spurgeon, no, or Calvin, no, but certainly know how to present the truth that God sent his son into this world to die, to rise again, and that those who believe on him will have everlasting life.
That is the message that mankind desperately needs to hear. Well, let us pray.
Closing Prayer
Father, we thank You for Your Word. We thank You for this passage in the book of Acts. We thank You, Lord God, for what Paul does here. We just thank You as well that You made this world, that You govern this world, that You sent Your Son to die for sinners in this world and to rise again.
I pray that all of us would be ready to meet Him on that day, that all of us would be ready to stand in judgment, not because we have accomplished a righteousness, not because we have kept Your law perfectly, but because by your grace we have believed on the Lord Jesus Christ. Lord God, accept us in and through him and in him alone. And we pray now that you would go with us, watch over this congregation, bless your people with strength and with great grace. And we pray in Jesus' holy name.
Amen.