Lars Larson Live Stream

First Baptist Church Leominster iconFirst Baptist Church Leominster

3 views

0 comments

00:24
Well let's turn in our
00:36
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
00:51
I've worked through it in some detail, and I thought it would be an appropriate passage for us to consider today.
01:00
This is Resurrection Day of course, and so we want to consider reading two verses from an extended passage that we'll be reading in a few minutes, and these words are from the
01:14
Apostle Paul in which he delivered this message to a pagan crowd in the public arena of Mars Hill in ancient
01:24
Athens Greek. It was in the Europagus, which was a 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
01:52
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,
02:18
God commands all people everywhere to repent. So these few words in which
02:24
Paul declared that God commands all men everywhere to repent is what we may term the imperative of the resurrection.
02:31
The resurrection of Christ brings a command to everyone, to you, to me, it's an imperative from God himself.
02:40
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
02:57
God, and so they are commanded to repent with view to a day of judgment that is coming, and this
03:08
Jesus whom God raised from the dead, his son, will be the judge on that throne on that great day.
03:15
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.
03:25
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
03:35
God has appointed a day, a day of judgment, when according to his holy justice
03:42
God would recompense all people for all their sins that they had committed in his world.
03:48
This is God's world, not my world, not your world, it's God's world, and we're accountable to him.
03:55
And Paul declared that his hearers may be absolutely convinced that this day of judgment is coming, it will arrive, for God had raised
04:04
Jesus Christ from the dead who would be the judge on that great day, it made certain that this event would take place.
04:13
And so all the world lies in wickedness, he raised his son to be the judge on that day of judgment, yet thankfully
04:22
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
04:43
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.
05:05
But given the inability and the willingness of people, his people to bring remedy to themselves,
05:10
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.
05:19
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
05:36
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,
05:54
God -man, he's described as the man here appointed to judge the world by God.
06:00
And through his own faith and obedience, Jesus lived out a life of perfect righteousness, perfect obedience before his
06:09
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,
06:19
God purposed through faith in his son that he would pardon these believers from all their sin and grant them the gift of righteousness.
06:29
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.
06:39
And so when a sinner comes humbly through the gospel to embrace
06:45
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.
07:01
And that gift of righteousness will enable that believer to stand exonerated on the day of judgment.
07:08
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 right, the gift of righteousness that God gave to him through faith in Jesus Christ.
07:22
And so through the death of Jesus Christ on his cross, God paid for the penalty that was due his people.
07:29
And through the gift of righteousness granted through faith, God would equip his people to withstand scrutiny on the day of judgment.
07:37
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.
07:49
And then upon his resurrection on the third day and his consequent ascension into heaven and enthronement as the
07:55
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.
08:10
And so again, verses 30 and 31, Paul declared, truly these times of ignorance, he's referring to their times of idolatry,
08:17
God overlooked but now commands all men everywhere to repent. Do you want to know the will of God?
08:24
The will of God is for you and for me to repent with view to the Lord Jesus Christ.
08:30
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
08:46
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
09:00
God has done in Jesus Christ. It's an imperative, there's a command that God gives to each of us.
09:09
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
09:18
Jesus Christ as Lord, in other words you abandon the idea and the thought that you're your
09:24
Lord, you're your God, and acknowledge Jesus Christ as Lord to whom the
09:30
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 judgment.
09:47
When they come before King Jesus on that day of judgment they will be exonerated of their sin through faith in Jesus Christ.
09:55
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 had prepared for them from eternity past.
10:07
Now I want us to consider in some detail this passage and some of the implications of it and the weight of it.
10:16
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.
10:35
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.
10:47
Therefore he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and with the Gentile worshippers and in the marketplace daily with those who happened to be there.
10:56
And then certain Epicurean and Stoic philosophers encountered him and some said what does this babbler want to say?
11:05
And others said he seems to be a proclaimer of foreign gods because he preached to them
11:10
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.
11:29
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.
11:38
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
11:50
I even found an altar with this inscription to the unknown God. And therefore the one whom you worship without knowing him
11:59
I proclaim to you God who made the world and everything in it since he is
12:07
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.
12:19
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
12:32
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.
12:58
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.
13:17
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.
13:29
However some men joined him and believed among them Dionysius the
13:35
Eropagite a woman named Emerus and others with them. And so there we have that extended account in Acts 17 of Paul preaching in Athens.
13:48
In order to understand the development of this account
13:54
I've got an outline before you that will follow in these next few minutes.
14:00
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
14:12
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 he it moved him their idolatry moved him to stand forth and proclaim
14:29
Jesus Christ and salvation in him even though his companions in the gospel had not yet joined him from up north
14:38
Thessalonica Berea and so again verse 16 tells of this so while Paul waited for them at Athens his spirit vote 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
15:02
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
15:14
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
15:26
Jewess as well as the Philippian jailer a Gentile and the jailer's family who came to faith in Christ and then
15:36
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 while 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
16:11
Christ in the Jewish synagogue and then to the Greeks in the marketplace and finally he preached
16:19
Christ on Mars Hill in the Aeropagus before some of the more supposedly intellectual citizens of Athens.
16:28
Athens was still one of the great cities of the Roman Empire it had once been the center of civilization of course under the
16:35
Greek Empire Rome supplanted Greece but when
16:41
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.
16:49
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.
17:02
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 an adopted home of Aristotle Epicurus and Zeno in all these fields
17:20
Athens retained unchallenged prestige and her political glory as a cradle of democracy was not completely dimmed.
17:28
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
17:37
Roman Empire and again even though it was the Roman Empire ruled by Caesar nevertheless the culture was
17:45
Greek in nature they call it a you know Hellenism Hellenization a word associated with Greek it was a
17:52
Greek culture even in the Roman Empire and so here was the
17:58
Apostle Paul Hebrew of Hebrews we read he had grown up become a staunch
18:03
Pharisee a keeper of the law and he came to Athens and one can well imagine his reaction and response when he saw this idolatry rampant within this city again
18:16
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
18:50
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 the worship of gods which were no gods as he wrote in another place for the things which the
19:09
Gentiles sacrifice a sacrifice 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
19:51
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
20:01
Lord of heaven and earth but depending on who whom he stood before he shaped his message or I rather his beginning point of instruction and declaration varied he'd always end up at the same place preaching
20:18
Christ raised enthroned as the Lord and Savior of sinners but depending on whom it was he was addressing
20:25
Paul would shape the content of his message and so we read in Acts 17 that Paul initially reasoned with the
20:32
Jews in the synagogue of Athens this was his common practice in the town or city to which he traveled
20:41
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
20:53
Jews in the synagogue but there were also present some Gentiles who had embraced the faith of the
20:59
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
21:09
God of the Hebrew scriptures they read the scriptures there every week they knew the true
21:17
God was the creator and the sovereign king a ruler of all his creation Paul knew they knew
21:23
God's law which reflected and revealed God's holy nature and revealed to them their sin and God's holiness and justice
21:32
God's wrath upon sin Paul knew they knew this true God had promised to send a savior the
21:39
Messiah he didn't have to go over all this in front of this synagogue crowd and so Paul could stand before these
21:47
Jewish people in their synagogue and some of the Gentiles who were also quite informed and declare to them
21:53
Jesus of Nazareth is this promised Messiah we've been waiting for whom
21:59
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
22:32
Paul spoke with those who happened to be there there in the marketplace a different crowd
22:37
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 this these marketplace people did not have the worldview of the
22:50
Jewish people shaped by the Hebrew scriptures these people in the marketplace embrace 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
23:13
Athens was the center of philosophical thinking of the day it was in the marketplace that Paul encountered certain
23:22
Epicurean and Stoic philosophers Luke records for us in Acts 17.
23:28
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
23:45
God's Word to these Athenians differently than when he preached the Word of God to the
23:51
Jews in the synagogue Matthew Henry the Puritan commentator wrote we have here
23:58
Saint 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
24:06
Jews or such Gentiles as had an acquaintance with and veneration for the Old Testament and worshiper were worshippers of the true and living
24:13
God and all they had to do with them was to open and allege that Jesus is the Christ in other words the
24:19
Messiah but here we have a sermon to heathens that worship false gods and were without the true
24:26
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
24:39
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
24:56
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
25:11
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
25:20
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
25:32
Holy Spirit to bless his word to accomplish a work of grace in their souls this is what
25:37
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 in 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
25:55
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
26:04
Paul did he stood up and he declared that God was their creator and the king over their lives whether they knew it or not he was an unknown
26:13
God to them but Paul was about ready to inform them just who this God was we read that Paul had encountered certain
26:22
Epicurean and Stoic philosophers verse 18 who were the Epicureans well the founder of this movement was
26:28
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 of the
26:41
Epicureans around today in our society aren't there that was the 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
27:06
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
27:21
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 world view and philosophy of life of the
27:36
Stoics were to live in harmony with nature got some of those today too don't we they emphasize 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
27:58
Christian scientist a Unitarian Scientology things like this the
28:06
Unitarians would be present would be a present -day close cousin of the philosophy of Stoicism of the first century
28:12
Stoicism advocated a high standard of morality as well as a high sense of duty but Stoics were a proud people sinfully proud they believe strongly in their self -sufficiency and their own ability to live according to the standards of morality there's a modern
28:29
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 is the pit from pole to pole
28:48
I thank whatever gods may be for my unquenchable soul in other words
28:53
I'm to congratulate myself in the fell clutch of circumstance I've not winced or cradled out see
29:00
I'm strong self -sufficient under the bludgeonings of chance my head is bloody but unbowed
29:05
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
29:15
I'm not afraid of any future consequence the way I live it matter not how straight the gate how charged with punishments to scroll
29:24
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
29:41
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
30:00
Paul addressed he eventually arrived at the declaration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ and we see we see this in the description descriptive reaction of those who heard
30:10
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 proclaimers foreign gods why because he preached to them
30:24
Jesus and the resurrection he preached Jesus and the synagogue and he's preaching
30:30
Jesus and the resurrection in the marketplace on the one hand they discredited
30:37
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
30:45
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
31:00
Athenians and the foreigners who are 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
31:23
Athenians they said that Paul is proclaiming strange things to our ears and folks increasingly even what
31:32
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 believe to be true and so as we have said many times it's harder to unlearn than it is to learn the
32:14
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
32:38
Spirit of God before people will receive that which is new through the
32:44
Lord Jesus new wine must be put into new 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
33:06
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
33:20
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
33:41
Jesus Christ in 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
33:52
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
34:01
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
34:09
Jew first and also to the Greek and here Paul was reaching Greeks and Paul proclaimed to these people that God had raised his son
34:18
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
34:30
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 knocking making excuses for 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
35:03
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 Jesus Christ that's how
35:15
God brings people to salvation in Christ and so we are to be as the 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
35:27
Christ and trust the Holy Spirit to do the work now notice
35:33
Paul proclaimed the unknown God to them as the knowable God I think that's important verses 19 through 23 we read of these wise men in their own eyes they took
35:45
Paul escorted him to the top of Mars Hill where everyone would be able to hear him and engage him in his teaching these strange things so they took him brought him to the
35:55
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
36:06
Athenians and the foreigners who were there spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing then
36:14
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
36:23
I even found an altar this with this inscription to the unknown God therefore the one whom you worship without knowing him
36:31
I proclaim to you that was a clever beginning point of Paul to these people the
36:40
Europagus on Mars Hill is viewed as a formal high court for the people of the ancient world in early centuries during the
36:48
Greek Empire the Europagus was the center of political religious and moral life of course
36:53
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
37:11
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
37:28
Paul on trial not with legal liability but it was a place in which
37:33
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
37:50
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
38:01
Europagus and require him to give an account of his teaching and pass a test as to its character when they took him
38:07
Paul to the satisfy the supreme university tribunal of his qualifications they probably entertained some hope he would be over awed before that august body or that his teaching might not pastor muster as being of unsettling tendency in other words what
38:25
Ramsey thinks is they drug him up there to discredit him officially and openly and publicly
38:31
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
38:47
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 they had this idol to an unknown god the stories told that several centuries before this first century before this event there had been a great pestilence of some form that plagued
39:09
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
39:21
Athenians consulted a wise man Theogenes laterists who advised the
39:26
Athenians to release a flock of both white and black sheep on the 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
39:45
AD there were probably more altars to the unknown god all over that place
39:52
Paul references one of these altars and began to preach these people about the one true god of the
39:58
Bible now it's important to recognize in doing so Paul was not legitimizing their worship of this idol
40:03
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
40:35
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
40:52
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 are 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 I 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 sinner 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 to 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 twofold inability we're finite and sinful if God is to be known to us and by us
43:42
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
43:53
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
44:04
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 is whom the
44:14
Father sent in 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
44:29
God understand God the Lord Jesus himself affirmed this he said all things have been delivered to me by my
44:36
Father and no one knows the Son except the Father no nor does anyone know the
44:41
Father except the Son and the one to whom the Son reveals him Jesus Christ is the only one who can truly reveal
44:49
God to you and me to our soul so that it's transformative and redemptive because he is the
44:58
God -man and Paul declared we're gonna have to close up here and so we're gonna have to start really shooting through this
45:07
I hope you read through the notes later Paul began therefore to declare this known
45:13
God in two ways he first declared this God you don't know is the creator of all things and so he introduced
45:23
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
45:31
God has revealed himself to his creatures is through what he's done and the first thing he did was create us
45:37
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
45:56
Paul declared God who made the world and everything in it he's a creator then he said since he is the
46:02
Lord of heaven and earth he's the ruler he's the governor he's the king over his creation and the
46:09
Bible everywhere speaks of these twin ways in which God reveals himself to the human race to his creation and to his providence
46:19
Paul declared that God is the ruler over all things they thought that they were independent self -sufficient individuals the
46:29
Lords of their own life and Paul declared in Acts 17 26 through 29 that's not the case we're in the middle of page 9 as we're moving through here quickly not only did
46:40
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
46:51
God but he knows them they did not see his presence among them but Paul declares he's everywhere
46:57
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
47:15
God is fully everywhere he is his full presence is everywhere in creation and that's what
47:24
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
47:35
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
47:46
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
48:01
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
48:20
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
48:32
Lord even spoke or Paul spoke about the secret things of the heart you see that little clip
48:37
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 a
48:55
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
49:01
Paul quoted some of their own poets a couple Cretans by the way or a
49:06
Cretan and some somebody from Siliski 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
49:22
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
50:12
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
50:57
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
51:12
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
51:24
I could do want to do might do would do know 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
51:38
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
51:53
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
52:02
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