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Well, let's turn in our Bibles to the book of Acts, Acts chapter 17.
I've referred to this
portion of Scripture many times, but I believe this is the first time I've worked through it
in some detail, and I thought it would be an appropriate passage for us to consider today.
This is Resurrection Day, of course, and so we want to consider reading
two verses from extended passage that we'll be reading in a few minutes, and
these words are from the Apostle Paul in which he delivered this message to a pagan
crowd in the public arena of Mars Hill in ancient
Athens Greek.
It was in the Europagus, which was an actual official place where people
spoke in that day, and so we read the record of Acts 17 verses 30 and
31, and this was really the conclusion of Paul's sermon
to this group of people in which he declared to the crowd, gathered to him,
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, and he has given assurance
of this to all by raising him from the dead, and so that was the concluding
statement, a command, if you'll note, God commands all people
everywhere to repent.
So these few words in which Paul declared that God commands all men everywhere to repent is what we may term
the imperative of the resurrection.
The resurrection of Christ brings a command to everyone, to you, to me, it's an imperative
from God himself.
What God had done in and through Jesus Christ demanded a response from all people in all places at all
times.
It signaled a great event and now all people are responsible and all people are
accountable everywhere to obey God, and so
they are commanded to repent with view to a day of judgment that is
coming, and this Jesus whom God raised from the dead, his son, will be the
judge on that throne on that great day.
And so the one great sovereign God who created the heavens and the earth and all that is in them sent his son into the world on a
great mission, and he accomplished that mission.
The world of course had been in rebellion against God from the beginning, and so the sinful
world lie under God's wrath, and this creator God has
appointed a day, a day of judgment when according to his holy justice God would
recompense all people for all their sins that they had committed in his world.
This is God's world, not my world, not your world, it's God's world, and we're accountable to him.
And Paul declared that his hearers may be absolutely convinced that this day of judgment is coming.
It will arrive for God had raised Jesus Christ from the dead who would be the judge on that
great day.
It made certain that this event would take place, and
so all the world lies in wickedness.
He raised his son to be the judge on that day of judgment, yet thankfully God purposed
in himself that the entire world would not perish due to his judgment upon them for their
sin, but that he would save a people from their sins, save them from his eternal wrath upon
their sin.
He would deliver them from God's wrath that would be poured out on that day of judgment.
They would escape God's wrath, and so God purposed in Christ to restore a
sinful people unto himself, to enable them to have and enjoy a close, intimate,
and eternal relationship with himself through Jesus Christ, and they would live out this
existence in eternity in a new heaven and on a new earth.
But given the inability and the willingness of people, his people, to bring remedy to themselves, God assumed this task
to themselves.
They couldn't bring remedy to themselves for their sin.
God took it upon himself to deal with this matter, and so he sent his son into the world
in order to do for his people that which they could not do for themselves.
As we just sang in one of our hymns so wonderfully, not anything our hands did that can save or deal
with our sin.
It had to have been a work of God and only God through Jesus Christ.
And so the eternally begotten son of God came into this world.
He joined himself in the incarnation to our human nature, the divine person,
added to this divine person a human nature and became a man,
God -man.
He's described as the man here appointed to judge the world by God, and through his own faith
and obedience, Jesus lived out a life of perfect righteousness, perfect obedience
before his father.
And God had purposed that through faith in him, through his son, after he had died upon the cross as a sacrifice for
sinners, and after he was raised from the dead, God purposed through faith in his son
that he would pardon these believers from all their sin and grant them the gift of righteousness.
And that's what we're all in need of if we're going to stand in that day of judgment.
We need a righteousness which you and I currently don't have apart from Jesus Christ.
And so when a sinner comes humbly through the gospel to embrace
Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, the gift of righteousness, his life of
righteousness, of whole obedience, is regarded and given as a gift by
God freely upon the believer, the guilty sinner.
And that gift of righteousness will enable that believer to stand exonerated on the day of
judgment.
He'll not stand in his sins because his sins had been paid for by Christ, but rather he'll
stand in the righteousness of the gift of righteousness that God gave to him through faith in
Jesus Christ.
And so through the death of Jesus Christ on his cross, God paid for the penalty that was due
his people.
And through the gift of righteousness granted through faith, God would equip his people to withstand
scrutiny on the day of judgment.
And so it was that this God -man gave his life as a sacrifice to pay for the sins of his people.
He suffered and died on the cross, thereby securing everlasting redemption for his people.
And then upon his resurrection on the third day and his consequent ascension into heaven and enthronement as the God
-man on the very throne of God, the work of his life and death imposed an
obligation on every member of the human race to acknowledge it and bow to it and turn from sin,
confessing him as Lord.
And so again, verses 30 and 31, Paul declared, truly these times of ignorance, he's referring to their
times of idolatry, God overlooked but now commands all men everywhere to repent.
Do you want to know the will of God?
The will of God is for you and for me to repent with view to the Lord Jesus Christ.
And the reason given, Paul says, God has appointed a day on which he will judge the world in
righteousness by the man whom he has ordained.
And he's given assurance.
It's a certainty.
You can cut it in stone.
He gave certainty by raising Jesus from the dead.
And so the resurrection of Jesus Christ at first Easter places a responsibility and a great accountability
on every one of us who can hear and intelligently receive the news of what God has done in Jesus
Christ.
It's an imperative.
There's a command that God gives to each of us.
It's imposed upon us, every man, woman, and child of understanding.
We are to repent of our sin, that is, turn from our sin, embrace Jesus Christ as Lord.
In other words, you abandon the idea and the thought that you're your Lord, you're your God,
and acknowledge Jesus Christ as Lord, to whom the Father gave kingly authority over heaven
and earth.
And again, those who do so and who live out their lives having done so are granted the
free and full forgiveness of sins, and they will most assuredly escape condemnation on that day of
When they come before King Jesus on that day of judgment, they will be exonerated of their sin through
faith in Jesus Christ.
And so the outcome of their judgment, the judgment of true believers, will be their grand entrance into
the everlasting kingdom of God that God prepared for them from eternity past.
Now, I want us to consider in some detail this passage.
And some of the implications of it, and the weight of it, this sermon that Paul recorded.
And so even though it's a lengthy account, it's important that we read it in context to understand
what and why it was that Paul proclaimed these words to this particular group of people in
Athens.
And so Acts 17, 16 begins.
Now, while Paul waited for them at Athens, that is, he was waiting for his fellow workers in the
gospel, his spirit was provoked within him when he saw 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.
And then certain Epicurean and Stoic philosophers encountered him.
And some said, what does this babbler want to say?
And 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 Europagus saying, may we know what this new doctrine is of
which you speak.
For you are bringing some strange things to our ears.
And 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.
And then Paul stood in the midst of the Europagus 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.
And 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 hope that they might grope for him and find him, though he's not very far from each 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
all his offspring.
And 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.
And then here's the verses we've already read.
Truly these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent,
because he has appointed a day on which he would judge the world in righteousness by the man whom he has ordained.
And he's given assurance of this to all by raising him from the dead.
And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked.
Others said, we will hear you again on this matter.
And so Paul departed from among them.
However, some men joined him and believed.
Among them Dionysius, the Eropagite, a woman named Amaras, and
others with them.
So there we have that extended account in Acts 17 of Paul preaching in Athens.
In order to understand the development of this
account, I've got an outline before you that will follow in these next few minutes.
First, let's give attention to the fact that Paul proclaimed the gospel to every creature.
Acts 17, 16 through 18.
We read of Paul arriving in Athens.
He began to preach Jesus Christ in every place to everyone that would hear him, even though he was alone.
His concern was for the souls of people.
Even while he was appalled by their gross idolatry, it moved him.
Their idolatry moved him to stand forth and proclaim Jesus Christ and salvation in him.
Even though his companions in the gospel had not yet joined him from up north,
Thessalonica, Berea.
And so again, verse 16 tells of this.
While Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit woke within him when he saw that the city was
given over to idols.
He knew of the consequences of their life.
He knew the judgment was coming, and he wanted to warn them that they might escape God's
wrath.
Paul arrived in Athens in the middle of his second missionary journey, in which he had ventured into Europe from Asia
Minor.
He first traveled across the Aegean Sea, across the north part of the Aegean Sea, and arrived at
Philippi on the coast of Macedonia.
There he began a church through the conversion of Lydia, a Jewess, as well as the Philippian jailer,
a Gentile, and the jailer's family who came to faith in Christ.
And then Paul journeyed westward from Philippi to Thessalonica.
He founded another church, but after being there a couple weeks, people got stirred up and ran him out of
town basically.
He went to Berea where he found people more noble than those at Thessalonica.
He was there for a several months, and then he traveled southward and
arrived to Athens where we find him in the passage before us.
Wherever Paul traveled, he proclaimed the gospel of Jesus Christ, and we see that he did so as soon as he
arrived in Athens.
We read he first proclaimed Christ in the Jewish synagogue, and then to the Greeks in the
marketplace, and finally he preached Christ on Mars Hill in the Aeropagus
before some of the more supposedly intellectual citizens of Athens.
Athens was still one of the great cities of the Roman Empire.
It had once been the center of civilization, of course, under the Greek Empire.
Rome supplanted Greece, but when Alexander the Great ruled the world, I think he died
in 322 BC.
Here's a description of Athens in Paul's day written by F .F. Bruce.
Athens, although she had long since lost her political eminence of an early day, continued to represent
the highest level of culture attained in classical antiquity.
The sculpture, literature, and oratory of Athens in the 5th and 4th centuries BC have indeed never been surpassed.
In philosophy, too, she occupied the leading place, being the native city of Socrates and Plato,
and adopted home of Aristotle, Epicurus, and Zeno.
In all these fields, Athens retained unchallenged prestige and her political glory as the cradle of
democracy was not completely dimmed.
In consideration of her splendid past, the Romans left Athens free to carry on her own
institutions as a free and allied city within the Roman Empire.
And again, even though it was the Roman Empire ruled by Caesar, nevertheless the culture was
Greek in nature.
They call it a, you know, Hellenism, Hellenization, a word associated with Greek.
It was a Greek culture even in the Roman Empire.
And so here was the Apostle Paul, Hebrew of Hebrews, we read.
He had grown up, become a staunch Pharisee, a keeper of the law, and he came to Athens.
And one can well imagine his reaction in response when he saw this idolatry
rampant within this city.
Again, F .F. Bruce wrote, today when we visit Athens and view the workmanship of the great architects and
sculptures of the age of Pericles, we're free to admire them as works of art.
To no one nowadays are they anything more, but in the first century of our era they were not viewed simply as works of
art, they were temples and images of pagan deities.
Temples and images of pagan deities were no new thing to a native of Tarsus, that's where Paul was from.
But this native of Tarsus, Paul, had been brought up in the spirit of the first and second commandments.
Whatever Paul may have felt in the way of artistic appreciation, the feeling that was uppermost in his
mind as he walked here and there in Athens was one of indignation.
The beautiful city was full of idols, dedicated to the worship of gods which were no gods,
as he wrote in another place, for the things which the Gentiles sacrificed, they sacrificed to demons and not to God.
And so one could well imagine his horror, his indignation.
Now wherever Paul went, he preached the gospel.
He proclaimed the life, death, resurrection of Christ.
That's not to say, however, that the content of his sermons was always the same in every place.
Rather, whenever and wherever Paul proclaimed the gospel, he did so with consideration given
to the background and capabilities of his hearers.
After he assessed the spiritual condition and knowledge of spiritual truth of his hearers, he then brought to them to
understand Jesus Christ.
As he had been crucified in order to atone for sinners, and that Christ had been raised from the dead and
enthroned as the Lord of heaven and earth.
But depending on whom he stood before, he shaped his
message, or rather his beginning point of instruction and declaration varied.
He'd always end up at the same place, preaching Christ raised, enthroned as the
Lord and Savior of sinners.
But depending on whom it was he was addressing, Paul would shape the content of his message.
And so we read in Acts 17, that Paul initially reasoned with the Jews in the synagogue of Athens.
This was his common practice in the town or city to which he traveled.
Paul could assume in the Jewish synagogue that his hearers already knew and believed much that he would proclaim to them.
He didn't have to go over that.
They were primarily Jews in the synagogue, but there were also present some Gentiles who had embraced the
faith of the Jews.
And they attended synagogue each week, even though they were Gentiles.
And some were in this synagogue in Athens.
Paul knew this gathering, knew the true God of the Hebrew scriptures.
They read the scriptures there every week.
They knew the true God was the creator and the sovereign king, a ruler of all his creation.
Paul knew they knew God's law, which reflected and revealed
God's holy nature and revealed to them their sin, God's holiness and justice,
God's wrath upon sin.
Paul knew they knew this true God had promised to send a Savior, the Messiah.
He didn't have to go over all this in front of this synagogue crowd.
And so Paul could stand before these Jewish people in their synagogue and some of the Gentiles who were also quite informed
and declare to them, Jesus of Nazareth is this promised Messiah we've been waiting for,
whom God had sent to die by crucifixion so that he would then be raised and enthroned as the promised
son of David over the long anticipated and now realized kingdom of God.
But we also read in Acts 17 that he left the synagogue.
He didn't stop preaching the gospel in the synagogue, but he preached the gospel also
just outside in the marketplace and he met a whole different crowd.
And so we read in Acts 17, 17b, there Paul spoke with those who happened to be
there, there in the marketplace, a different crowd.
Paul could not assume that these people were informed of the truth of God's word as though as those in the
synagogue a few minutes before.
These marketplace people did not have the worldview of the Jewish people shaped by the Hebrew
scriptures.
These people in the marketplace embraced the worldview and the belief systems of the world in which they lived and
moved.
They thought entirely differently, they had different values, they had a different worldview,
they saw and interpreted the world differently than those in the synagogue.
Athens was the center of philosophical thinking of the day.
It was in the marketplace that Paul encountered certain Epicurean and Stoic philosophers.
Luke records for us in Acts 17.
These were the two most popular philosophies at the time, but there were others.
These people saw and interpreted the world from the perspective advocated by these two philosophical, even
religious thought systems.
And so Paul tailored his message to proclaim God's word to these Athenians differently
than when he preached the word of God to the Jews in the synagogue.
Matthew Henry, the Puritan commentator wrote, we have here St. Paul's sermon at
Athens, he's talking about the one up on the hill.
Diverse or different sermons we have had which the apostles preached to the Jews or such Gentiles as had an
acquaintance with in veneration for the Old Testament and were worshippers of the true and living God.
And all they had to do with them was to open and allege that Jesus is the Christ, in other words the Messiah.
But here we have a sermon to heathens that worship false gods and were without the true
God in the world and to them the scope of their discourse was quite different from what it was to the other.
In the former case their business was to lead their hearers by prophecies and miracles to the knowledge of the
Redeemer and faith in him.
In the latter it was to lead them by the common works of providence to the knowledge of the
Creator and the worship of him.
And so that was the focus of Paul when he initially began to preach to this
Gentile pagan crowd.
And so a wise assessment of the ones we are addressing will enable us to present the word of God to them in a more
appropriate and understandable manner.
We should ask the Lord to help us understand the social and cultural context of those we desire to tell the
gospel to whom we desire to tell the gospel and then ask the Lord to help us as we present the word of God
to them.
As we apply the word to their mind, as their thinking, their affections, how they feel
and their will as we trust the Holy Spirit to bless his word to accomplish a work of grace in
their souls.
This is what Paul did and this is what we're to do also.
Some people kind of have a cookie cutter presentation of the gospel, you know four verses and a prayer and they
present this to anybody and everybody they come across.
And the very fact is we're living in a world more like Mars Hill today than we are a Jewish synagogue.
And you just can't assume people understand and know.
And oftentimes you got to start farther back at the beginning and that's what Paul did.
He stood up and he declared that God was their creator and the king over their over their lives whether they
knew it or not.
He was an unknown God to them but Paul was about ready to inform them just who this God was.
We read that Paul had encountered certain Epicurean and Stoic philosophers, verse 18.
Who were the Epicureans?
Well the founder of this movement was Epicurus who lived in Athens from 342 to 270 BC.
He advocated that the best way to view the world and live life was to live for pleasure.
There's some Epicureans around today in our society aren't there.
That was the soul, that was at the heart of life to live for pleasure, to
be free from pain, from disturbing passions, superstitious fears, which included the fear of
death.
Let's eat, drink, and you know and be happy for tomorrow we die.
It advocated a life of peace.
Epicureans did not deny the existence of God but they held that they, the gods, in no way were involved in the
day -to -day existence of people.
They were practical atheists.
Much like the world in which we live today of many.
Who were the Stoics?
Well they were followers of the philosophy of Zeno who lived from 340 to until
265.
He was therefore a contemporary of Epicurus.
The worldview and philosophy of life of the Stoics were to live in harmony with nature.
Got some of those today too don't we.
They emphasized the primary role of the intellect, the mind, and the self -sufficiency of man.
And so Zeno advocated that God was a world mind that permeated all living
things.
He was a pantheist, like a Christian scientist, a Unitarian,
Scientology, things like this.
The Unitarians would be present, would be a present -day close cousin of the philosophy of Stoicism of the first
century.
Stoicism advocated a high standard of morality as well as a high sense of duty but Stoics were a
proud people, sinfully proud.
They believed strongly in their self -sufficiency and their own ability to live according to the standards of morality.
There's a modern English poet W .E. Henley, he died I think in the early 2000s,
and he expressed the philosophy of Stoicism in the present day.
You'll probably recognize the last line of this poem.
Out of the night that covers me, black as the pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be for my
unquenchable soul.
In other words, I'm to congratulate myself.
In the fell clutch of circumstance, I've not winced or cradled out.
See, I'm strong, self -sufficient.
Under the bludgeonings of chance, my head is bloody but unbowed.
I can endure it all.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears looms the horror of the shade and yet the menace of the years finds and shall
find me unafraid.
I'm not afraid of any future consequence the way I live.
It matter not how straight the gate, how charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my
fate.
I am the captain of my soul.
And again, that's the philosophy that many advocate today.
This is their worldview.
This is their view of themselves.
And so it was to these rather self -assured and arrogant Athenians from both the Stoic and Epicurean schools of
philosophy that Paul preached Jesus Christ and the resurrection.
It's the same message ultimately to no matter who you speak to, but again, you may have to start at a different point in
time to get where you want to go.
Regardless of whom Paul addressed, he eventually arrived at the declaration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
And we see this in the descriptive reaction of those who heard Paul in the marketplace.
What did they say?
Some said, what does this babbler have to say?
They had no regard for him, no respect for him.
Others said he seemed to be a proclaimer of foreign gods.
Why?
Because he preached to them Jesus and the resurrection.
He preached Jesus and the resurrection in the synagogue and he's preaching Jesus and the resurrection in the
marketplace.
On the one hand, they discredited Paul, dismissed him as a babbler.
On the other hand, their curiosity was aroused, or at least among some.
And so verses 19 through 21, they took Paul, brought him to the Europagus, that would have been up on Mount Mars Hill,
saying, may we know what this new doctrine is of which you speak, for you are bringing some strange things to our ears.
And therefore we want to know what these things mean.
For all the Athenians and the foreigners who were there spent their time, nothing else, but either to tell or to
hear some new thing.
When we encounter those who have thought and lived according to one worldview,
and we are confronting them with an entirely different worldview, their
reaction is commonly as these Athenians.
They said that Paul is proclaiming strange things to our ears.
And folks, increasingly, even what I've said so far today, that's how most people in the world would
regard you and me, if they heard these things.
You're preaching some strange things, pastor.
The fact is, we tend to examine and evaluate what we hear people tell us based on what we've always heard, what we've always
believed.
It's a relative rarity to find a man or woman who will seriously question his own belief when he hears
something new or strange.
We fall back on what we've known and believed to be true.
And so, as we have said many times, it's harder to unlearn than it is to learn.
The Lord Jesus spoke of this when he said of those who heard him, no one puts a piece from a new garment on an old one,
otherwise the new makes a tear.
Also the piece that was taken out of the new does not match the old.
And no one puts new wine into old wine skins or else the new wine will burst the wine skins and be spilled and the
wine skins will be ruined.
But new wine must be put into new wine skins.
There has to be a work of grace in the soul by God, the Spirit of God, before people will receive
that which is new through the Lord Jesus.
New wine must be put into new wine skins and both are preserved.
No one having drunk old wine immediately desires a new.
That describes fallen man's reaction to the gospel
when confronted with it.
For what does he say?
The old is better.
I like my way of understanding the world.
I abused, I'm ashamed to say it, I abused them.
But they loved me and were patient with me and prayed for me and witnessed to me.
It's the Holy Spirit alone who can reveal the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ to such ones that they
are turned from their former ways of thinking and living and set upon a course following Jesus Christ in
faith and obedience.
It's a work of God's grace, sovereign grace.
But regardless to whom we speak, we are to proclaim Jesus Christ and him crucified, buried, risen, and enthroned.
The Holy Spirit will use this message of the gospel to convert sinners anywhere and
everywhere to the one true God and his Son whom he has sent into the world to save sinners.
And so we've got a powerful message that God has chosen to use.
Paul declared elsewhere, I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ for it is the power of God to salvation for
everyone who believes to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
And here Paul was reaching Greeks.
Paul proclaimed to these people that God had raised his son Jesus from the dead and enthroned him as Lord, as the promised King
over the long awaited but now realized kingdom of God.
And Paul declared that all people everywhere were now responsible and accountable to Christ Jesus the Lord.
But Paul's confidence in his proclamation was in the power of God to convert sinners to faith in Christ to his
gospel, which he proclaimed openly and widely.
And that's what we ought to be doing.
Not making excuses for it, not trying to tailor it, not trying to trim the edges to make it palatable and
acceptable to sinners, but we proclaim the gospel knowing that when we do
it's going to be, if it's understood by them, it's going to be like a slap in the face.
But when they go away, the Holy Spirit is going to cause them to continue to think about it and dwell upon it and
hopefully become troubled about their life and their sin until they come to faith in
That's how God brings people to salvation in Christ.
And so we are to be as the apostle, regardless of who it is with whom we speak, whether in the synagogue, marketplace or on the
hill, we need to proclaim Christ and trust the Holy Spirit to
do the work.
Now notice Paul proclaimed the unknown God to them as the knowable God.
I think that's important.
Verses 19 -23, we read of these wise men in their own eyes.
They took Paul, escorted him to the top of Mars Hill where everyone would be able to hear him and engage him in his
teaching of these strange things.
And so they took him, brought him to the Europagus saying, may we know what this new doctrine is of which you speak.
For you're 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 Europagus and said, men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you're 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.
That was a clever beginning point of Paul to these people.
The Europagus on Mars Hill is viewed as a formal high court for the people of the ancient world.
In early centuries during the Greek empire, the Europagus was a center of political, religious, and moral life.
Of course, Rome was now the center of political life, but the Europagus maintained
its priority in the thinking and life of religious and moral
thought in the ancient world.
And so even in the days of the Roman empire, the Europagus was regarded as a place of great power and
influence.
It was both a great honor, a great privilege for Paul to be speaking in this place.
But there's a sense in which these people were putting Paul on trial,
not with legal liability, but it was a place in which Paul's ideas could be heard and then critiqued
seriously and directly.
Demand would be placed upon Paul to justify his reasoning and his assertions.
One older expert in Pauline studies, Sir William Ramsey, wrote these words.
The scene described in verses 18 through 34 seemed to prove that the recognized lecturers could
take a strange lecturer before the Europagus and require him to give an account of his teaching and pass a
test as to its character.
When they took him, Paul, to the court to satisfy the supreme university tribunal of his qualifications,
they probably entertained some hope he would be overawed before that august body or
that his teaching might not pass their muster as being of unsettling tendency.
In other words, what Ramsey thinks is they drug him up there to discredit him officially and
openly and publicly.
Paul began his address by acknowledging they were a very religious people.
As he walked up the hill, he was passing idols on the left, on the right, and he even saw this one dedicated to the
unknown god.
The Athenians wanted to be certain that they had given due reverence to all gods and so in order that they not miss or
neglect inadvertently an important god, they had this idol to an unknown god.
The story is told that several centuries before this first century, before this event, there had been a
great pestilence of some form that plagued Athens.
In fact, there was an early church father, Theodore of Mopsuestia, who
commented on an inscription he found which told of this event.
During this pestilence, the Athenians consulted a wise man, Diogenes Laterus,
who advised the Athenians to release a flock of both white and sheep from the Europagus
and at the spot each sheep stopped to graze, there they would offer that sheep as a sacrifice to a god of that
specific place.
And so it was said that these anonymous altars could be seen all over this hill in Athens even in the third century A .D.
There were probably more altars to the unknown god all over that place.
Paul references one of these altars and began to preach to these people about the one true god of the Bible.
Now it's important to recognize in doing so Paul was not legitimizing their worship of this idol.
Paul's point of emphasis was that they believed in a god they did not know,
the unknown god, one of which they were ignorant.
And it was at this point of contact that Paul addressed them.
They believed there was a god who existed but they knew nothing of his nature and Paul would declare to them who this god was
and what he was like.
Clever.
And so Paul was making the unknown god knowable to them.
Now just as these Athenians were ignorant of the one true god, they did not know god and what he was truly like, so is
everyone who is born into this world.
No one knows the true god naturally born into this world.
This is a foundational principle of biblical Christianity.
We cannot know the one true god unless god reveals himself to us.
It's not possible to know the true god.
He is an unknown god to every person who's born into this world.
And there's two reasons for this.
First there's the problem that god is an infinite spiritual being and you and I are finite
physical beings.
There's no way we can know him, what he's truly like, because we're different in nature and
essence.
This renders us unable to know god in truth.
There's a vast even infinite difference between god and you and me.
There's nothing created and physical which can accurately or fully depict or represent him to us
because he's apart from and infinitely beyond every created thing.
Every effort to portray god as fully god is blasphemous for it fails to do so.
It robs god of his true glory.
And so all idolatry according to the second commandment is a manifestation of people who actually
don't love god but they hate god.
They rob him of glory by reducing him to this physical visible
object.
We won't read the second commandment but it's stated there in your notes.
And so god is infinite in all his attributes, he's unchangeable in all his dealings, he's too vast for our comprehension,
he's too holy even to abide in his presence.
He himself declared man shall not see me and live.
Every concept of god, every manifestation of god in the bible except through jesus christ
is a limitation of god for our benefit so we can in a limited way
comprehend him because he's infinite.
But there's a second reason we cannot know god and it's because we're sinners and sin has rendered us
unable to know him through our reason and effort.
The word of god teaches us there is none that seeks after god that is the true god.
We're not capable of doing so.
Not simply because we're finite he's infinite because we're sinful and he is holy.
And so sinful man unaided by god's grace will not seek after the true god, it doesn't come naturally,
it has to come supernaturally through the holy spirit.
And so when the true god reveals to himself the fallen man but that fallen man is
void of redemptive grace, he's like adam who hears the voice of god in
the garden and he flees from god and hides.
And so because of our two -fold inability we're finite and sinful if god is to be known to us and by us
god must reveal himself to us.
It's a work of sovereign grace.
It's a work of god's grace in illumination that he reveals himself to sinners.
God must show us what he's like by what he's done and by what he does.
He must reveal himself to us by communicating to us through his word the bible that he's given us.
And this revelation of the true god can only be mediated to us fully ultimately through Jesus Christ his son
whom the father sent into the world.
It's only through Jesus Christ because he is joined to his divine nature the human nature that we
can understand and relate to him because of our human nature.
And so apart from the incarnation we cannot know god understand god.
The lord Jesus himself affirmed this he said all things have been delivered to me by my father and no one
knows the son except the father no nor does anyone know the father except the son and the one to
whom the son reveals him.
Jesus Christ is the only one who can truly reveal god to you and me to
our souls so that it's transformative and redemptive because he is the
god man.
Then Paul declared we're going to have to close up here and so we're going to have to start really shooting through this.
I hope you read through the notes later.
Paul began therefore to declare this unknown god in two ways
he first declared this god you don't know is the creator of all things.
And so he introduced god god who made the world and everything in it since he is lord of heaven and earth.
And so the one of the ways in which god has revealed himself to his creatures is through what he's done
and the first thing he did was create us.
God is your creator he's the creator of all things.
And then secondly we can know him through his works of providence after he created all
things he continues to manage all things he is the ruler the king of creation because he's a creator.
And that's what Paul declared god who made the world and everything in it he's a creator.
Then he said since he is the lord of heaven and earth he's the ruler he's the governor he's the king over
his creation.
And the bible everywhere speaks of these twin ways in which god reveals himself
to the human race through his creation and through his providence.
Paul declared that god is the ruler over all things they thought that they were independent self
-sufficient individuals the lords of their own life and Paul declared in
Acts 17 26 -29 that's not the case.
We're in the middle of page 9 as we're moving through here quickly not only did god create us but he
governs us he is the ruler over every aspect of our lives and the world in
which he made.
People don't know the true god but he knows them.
They did not see his presence among them but Paul declares he's everywhere.
God is spirit.
Now god manifests himself in the human body of Jesus of course but god is spirit
that means he is everywhere and not part here and part in heaven part in some
other church part somewhere else.
God is fully everywhere he is.
His full presence is everywhere in creation and that's what Paul declares.
He's not far from any one of us and he was talking to unbelievers.
You cannot get away from god.
And of course the psalmist declared this in psalm 139.
Where can I go to flee from your presence.
There's nowhere.
And he recited all the different places he could go.
He knew that god was everywhere.
And we need to be aware that the true god who created us who governs our lives whether we know it or not
probably don't know it.
Everywhere we go he is and he's watching us.
And he's recording everything we think everything we say.
Jesus said every word idle word that men shall speak they'll give an account of in the day of judgment.
For by your words you'll be justified by your words you could be condemned.
You hear the coarse crass evil harsh judgmental
merciless things that people say.
And oftentimes I think that word is going to come back on the day of judgment.
Every attitude we've ever exhibited every sinful action we've ever done.
And the Lord even spoke or Paul spoke about the secret things of the heart.
You see that little clip.
I don't know if it was an April Fool's joke or not but on the drudge report they've invented a machine that now can read
your thoughts and put it on text.
And there were some were talking about the danger of this.
Every one of your thoughts are being recorded and they're going to be aired on the day of judgment by
King Jesus.
That's what the scriptures say.
I don't know how it's going to be done but he's going to do it.
Paul quoted some of their own poets a couple Cretans by the way or Cretan and some somebody from Silvestri
where Paul was from.
And even they understood that God was everywhere.
And then he closed out again.
We have to close out with verses 30 and 31.
In the light of all of this Paul declared that God's put up with this ignorance
on your part long enough.
But now he in the light of the resurrection of Jesus Christ he commands every man everywhere to repent of
sin and come to Jesus Christ as Savior and as Lord.
And that's what we're to do.
If we fail to do so refuse to do so we will remain in our damned state throughout
this life.
And it will be affirmed and confirmed on the day of judgment on into eternity.
But if we humble ourselves acknowledge we're guilty sinful ignorant
in need of God's mercy and grace.
And that is all provided in Christ Jesus for sinners.
And you embrace him as a crucified risen Lord Jesus.
God wonderfully mercifully grants you the free and full
forgiveness of sins.
He adopts you as his child his son or his daughter.
He declares you to be righteous in his sight the inheritor of everlasting salvation
a co -heir with Christ one day to be resurrected and glorified just as Jesus was
glorified out of that grave and will enter into an everlasting kingdom that God has prepared for those that love
him and love his son.
It's free and it's offered to every sinner sincerely it
can only be embraced by awakened sinners by the Holy Spirit.
And I pray that he's at least done so in a measure in our souls today.
Amen.
And those who believe may be awakening us afresh that we go forth from this place with a sense of
confidence joy and assurance.
Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior and I don't have a whit of chance apart from him but with him
no concern.
It's secure because of who he is and what he did not because of anything I could do want to do might do would
do did do.
No it's Christ and Christ alone.
Let's pray.
Thank you father for your word and for the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ.
And we pray Lord that you would help us to be wise as the Apostle Paul to present Jesus
Christ and salvation and him in a biblical manner before those we encounter.
May you do a great work of saving grace in our midst today Lord bless your word that goes forth
Lord in all the different ways of our church's ministry and missions.
And we thank you our God for the wonderful results that we're seeing played out today.
It's clearly a work of your your sovereign grace.
And we thank you for it and we're humbled by it and we love to see it rejoice in it.
May Christ Jesus be glorified for we do pray in Jesus name amen.