Standing Firm on the Truth

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You may be seated.
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I want to invite you to take out your Bibles and turn with me to the 17th chapter of the book of Acts.
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And when you have them open, you may find your place at verse 22.
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For those of you who were here last Sunday, you will remember that we began looking at Paul's journey into Athens.
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And with great excitement, I thought I'd get through all of the trip to Athens in one shot.
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Well, I was wrong.
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I only made it about halfway through and I stopped.
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So I want to pick up where we left off last time.
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But as I always realize, we have folks who either weren't here last week or maybe this is your first Sunday with us.
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And if it is, we're glad that you're here.
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I want to just sort of bring you up to speed as to where we are.
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This is Paul's second missionary journey.
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He is with Silas and Timothy on this journey and he's made his way into Macedonia.
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And he has passed through.
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He's gone now to Thessalonica.
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And then from there, he went on to Berea.
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And the text tells us there was a distinction between Thessalonica and Berea in that those people in Thessalonica didn't really want to hear what Paul had to say.
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The Jews particularly pushed him out of town.
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That's what led him to Berea.
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And when he went to Berea, it says the Jews of Berea were more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica, willing to search the scriptures to see if what Paul was saying was true in accordance with what the Bible taught.
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And the Bible for them, of course, being the Old Testament, the Tanakh, the Torah, the Netivim, and the Ketuvim, the Old Testament scriptures, that which we would call the Old Testament.
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So they were comparing Paul's words with scripture.
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And then, of course, the Jews in Thessalonica find out that Paul was preaching in Berea.
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And so they go to Berea and force him out of there as well.
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So now Paul has made his way to Athens, and he is alone.
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Silas and Timothy have stayed behind in Berea.
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And there he is, alone at Athens.
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And he begins to make contact there with those in the synagogue.
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Paul always went to the synagogue first.
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And people say, well, why did Paul go to the synagogue first? Well, the Bible says that the gospel is to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
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And so we could see that, that the Jew would receive the gospel first as in God's plan.
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But also the synagogue would have been the place where Paul would have had an immediate connection with someone regarding how they understood the world.
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Worldviews are hugely important.
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We're seeing this ever increasingly in our own day.
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If you go out and talk to people, it's from a different perspective.
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Oftentimes, it seems like they're on another planet.
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It's like they don't even connect with you in any way at all.
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From the very foundation up, it seems like everything's just totally different.
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This last week, you know, we've had our fishing hole out at the fair.
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And every night, we've had people there who've gone out to hand out gospel tracts and have gospel conversations with people.
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We've given out thousands of tracts and we've talked to many, many people.
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And I tell you what, many people have a worldview that's totally inconsistent with the biblical worldview.
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And when you try to talk to those people, it's like you're on a different planet.
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So in Paul's immediate arrival in a city, he would go to where there would be a common ground, at least a place to start from within a community.
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And that would be the place where they already had their Bible.
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They already had the Old Testament Scripture.
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And he could go and talk to them and he could prove to them from the Old Testament that Jesus, in fact, was who He said that He was.
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And he could show them Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22 and other places in the Old Testament.
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He could say, see, this pointed towards a suffering servant.
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This pointed towards a Messiah who would come and die for His people.
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This pointed...
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Isaiah 53, if you've never read it, Isaiah 53 is written over 500 years.
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And we have archaeology to prove this.
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It's not something that was written after the fact.
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It was written over 500 years before Jesus Christ ever walked the earth.
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And it so explicitly talks about Him and what He did on the cross that it's almost undeniable to just say, well, this can't be talking about Jesus.
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You read it to somebody who doesn't know that it's about...
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that doesn't know it's Old Testament.
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And they'll say, that's about Jesus.
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Say, yeah, but it's 500 years before He walked the earth.
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So Paul is going into these texts.
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He's going into these places and he's reading the Scripture and he's talking to these people.
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The Bible says he's dialoguing with them.
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He's allowing them to ask questions.
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He's answering their questions.
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He's dealing with their objections.
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And he's encouraging people to believe and he's receiving believers.
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As he's doing this, believers are coming to faith in Jesus Christ or people who are coming to believe in Jesus Christ are coming to faith.
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Well, now Paul is in Athens.
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He's talked to the people in the synagogue.
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We see that earlier in the text.
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It says he's gone into the synagogue.
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He's talked to them.
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But there are also philosophers in Athens.
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There were the Epicureans.
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And if you remember from last week, the Epicureans were the ones who believed and they didn't really have an afterlife belief.
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They believed this life was pretty much all that there was.
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If there was an afterlife, they didn't know anything about it.
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So they were focused mostly on this life.
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And their philosophy was about the pursuit of pleasure.
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Try to avoid as much pain as possible and encourage as much pleasure as possible because if this life is all that there is, we certainly don't want to spend it not enjoying it.
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We want to have as much enjoyment as we can.
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The Stoics, on the other hand, were the other philosophers of the day.
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They also wanted to avoid pain.
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But the way that the Stoics sought to avoid pain was their philosophy was designed as a philosophy of detachment.
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You're not going to become attached to anything and then you won't have any pain when it's lost.
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If you don't have any connection to anything, any love or any hate or anything like that, you just, if you just sort of, and we know we talk about Stoicism today, someone who just seems to be emotionless, right? That's what we call him a Stoic because that's where the philosophy comes from.
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So Paul's dealing with these people.
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He's talking to them about their philosophies.
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He's talking to them about Christ.
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And they say, who is this guy? He's weird.
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He's not like anyone else we've heard.
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He's preaching foreign divinities.
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They called his preaching of Jesus the preaching of a foreign divinity.
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And they said, we got to take this guy to the Areopagus.
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Now, the Areopagus, again, was the place where the philosophers met and they made decisions and they listened to people.
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And they, it was, if you would, they were, these were the philosophy teachers.
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These were the men of renown.
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These were the intelligentsia of the day.
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We're going to take Paul there and we're going to have Paul make his case before them.
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So that's where we end up in verse 22.
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And that's where we're going to start today.
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And we're going to stand and give honor to God's word as we read it.
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And we'll read verse 22 down through the end.
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It says in verse 22, so Paul standing in the midst of the Areopagus said, Men of Athens, I perceive in every way that you are very religious, for as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription to the unknown God.
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What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.
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The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.
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And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God and hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him.
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Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for in him we live and move and have our being.
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And even some of your own poets have said, for we are indeed his offspring.
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Being then God's offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art or an imagination of man.
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The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he gave assurance to all by raising him from the dead.
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Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked, but others said, we will hear you again about this.
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So Paul went out from their midst, but some men joined him and believed, among whom also was Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them.
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Father in heaven, I thank you for your word.
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I thank you for this event in the life of the apostle Paul that we can now study and break down and look at, interpret it and make application from it.
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And I pray, Lord, that my interpretation would be correct and that you would keep me from error, for I am certainly fallible and capable of preaching error.
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I pray also, Lord, that you would open up the minds of the people in this room to the truth and that your spirit would teach them what you would have them know.
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Lord, for the believers in the room, that this would cause us to have further confirmation to the person of Jesus Christ.
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As your word tells us, we've been predestined to be conformed to the image of your son.
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And for those, Lord, who may be here today who do not believe in Jesus Christ, that this might be the time that they hear the apostle Paul say that God has commanded all men everywhere to repent and that they might respond to that call.
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And Lord, for all this and in all this, we pray in Jesus' name.
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Amen.
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The title of the message is Never Abandon the Foundation.
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And the reason why that was the title beginning last week, in case you forgot, was there is a strong push in theological circles today, particularly in the area of apologetics.
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Apologetics is defending the faith.
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And there is a strong push in the area of apologetics today for us to try to find neutral ground with unbelievers and to start our evangelism or our attempt to reach people on neutral ground.
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And one of the ways that this is often said to do is, well, just don't use the Bible.
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Go to them and talk to them, but abandon the scripture and just try to philosophize with them.
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Try to use philosophy to reach people.
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In fact, one very prominent apologist, if I said his name, some of you would know him.
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He said if you really want to be a good apologist, you need to stop studying theology and start studying philosophy.
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And by that, he meant worldly philosophy.
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That's not true, but that is what is the popular mindset, is that to reach the community of the world, we have to start thinking like the community of the world.
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We have to start believing as the world believes and finding our ground and neutrality.
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The problem is there is no neutral ground with the unbeliever.
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The unbeliever is not an unbelief simply from a neutral perspective.
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The Bible tells us in Romans chapter 1 that all men have a knowledge that God exists, that God has given them that knowledge and that to deny that God exists, they actually have to deny what God has already revealed to them.
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And so when you talk to someone who is denying that God exists or denying the God of the Bible, it's not as if this person is simply neutral and saying, well, I've looked at all the evidence and this is where I've come to.
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The reality is, according to the Bible, that this person knows that God exists and they're suppressing that truth in unrighteousness, Romans chapter 1.
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The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness and ungodliness of men who by their ungodliness suppress the truth.
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Now, I don't walk up to an unbeliever and say, you know God exists.
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Well, not always.
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I mean, I don't walk up with that type of an attitude, but it helps me to understand when I'm talking to a person to understand sort of where they're coming from.
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If a person said, well, I just don't believe that God exists because I don't have any evidence for that.
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Well, how do you respond to something like that? Well, what kind of evidence would satisfy you? What would satisfy you to believe that God exists? One, back in the 80s when Greg Bonson debated Gordon Stein, that great debate that happened in the mid-80s.
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Bonson asked Stein that question.
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Bonson was a Christian, Stein was the atheist.
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He asked the question, he says, what evidence would you accept? He said, well, he said, if that lectern right there, the podium they were both talking from, he said, if that lectern, and I've listened to this debate several times, I remember this specifically, he said, if that lectern just started to hover right there, if it just lifted up a few feet off the ground and hovered in mid-air, and I knew that it wasn't with wires or some other type of magic trick, if I knew that that was God doing it, he said, then I would believe.
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You know, Bonson said, he said, no, you wouldn't.
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You would suppress that in some way.
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You would find some way to explain it that was other than God.
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Because your problem is not a lack of evidence.
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Your problem is a suppression of the truth.
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So when we're dealing with people, people say, well, you need not use the Bible because they're not going to believe the Bible.
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It doesn't matter.
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You don't abandon the truth simply because someone doesn't believe it.
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And so when we come to this place with the Apostle Paul, there are people who argue, well, Paul never used the Bible.
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Paul never uses Scripture when he talks to the Athenians.
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And I will admit, from the beginning, Paul never quotes Scripture chapter and verse.
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Of course, they didn't have chapters or verses at this time in history, but he doesn't say, in the prophet Isaiah, you know, he doesn't say it that way.
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But I'm going to show you, as we walk through this text, that Paul also doesn't abandon the Scripture.
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Paul uses the truth of Scripture, and he stands on the truth of Scripture, though he does it in a way that he doesn't appeal directly to verses and texts.
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So he's not abandoning his foundation, but he is speaking in such a way that the people can understand.
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Because if he started quoting Isaiah or Jeremiah or Moses, the vast majority of the people under the sound of his voice wouldn't know who Isaiah, Jeremiah, or Moses was.
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But he speaks truth from Scripture, and he stands on the foundation of the truth from Scripture as he goes through his message.
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So let's walk through it, and we'll see that.
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Now, last week, we looked at the section about the unknown God.
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We kind of backtracked our reading a little bit.
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When he talks about the unknown God, here is Paul.
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It says earlier in the text that he was provoked.
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Verse 16 says he was provoked within himself because he's seeing all of these people worshiping all these false gods, and it's bothering him, it's provoking him in his heart.
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So when he gets before the Areopagus, he says, Men of Athens, I perceive that you're very superstitious.
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The word in the ESV is religious, but as I showed you last week, the Greek word, dezideimon, dezideimon means that you're afraid of deities.
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You're afraid of the supernatural.
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You're superstitious.
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Now, whether or not they took that as an insult, I can tell you Paul wasn't providing it as a statement of, he wasn't complimenting them.
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The use of language and what he's saying, he's not going out, Hey guys, I know you're all religious men.
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I know you're all godly men.
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That's not what he's saying.
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He's saying, I know you're superstitious because every time I walk by, I'm tripping over God statues.
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I walk all through your town, and I see this statue over here to Zeus.
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I see that statue over there to this God, that statue over there to Hermes and all these others.
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And here, there's one over here that even says unknown God, because you guys have so many gods, you can't even name them all.
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And you remember what the unknown God was for us? Because they wanted to make sure they appeased even the God that they didn't know.
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We'll make sure everyone's appeased, everyone's satisfied.
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All the gods are represented, even the ones we don't know.
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He says, what therefore you worship is unknown.
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And actually the Greek, what therefore you worship in ignorance.
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Now think about that.
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These were the most learned men in all of Athens, in all the known world, the Western world.
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These men had gathered to make judgments on truth and wisdom.
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And Paul says, you're worshiping in ignorance, not the most appealing of languages.
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He says, what you're worshiping in ignorance.
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And actually, a lot of people say, what therefore you worship is unknown, this I proclaim to you.
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But actually in the Greek, it could be taken as two sections.
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It could be what you're worshiping, you're worshiping in ignorance.
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Thus, I'm going to proclaim the truth to you.
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It's not, I'm proclaiming this unknown God to you.
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I'm going to proclaim the truth to you, because all you know is ignorance.
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All you have is ignorance, I'm going to share the truth with you.
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So Paul's being fairly bold.
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He's not being disrespectful, and that's important.
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I've seen people who, when they share Christ, they do so in a way that is disrespectful and ugly, and not attempting to be loving at all.
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We can't be that either.
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I don't think Paul is being ugly or disrespectful, but he is pointing out the fact that you've spent now many, many, many years in ignorance.
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And now God has sent me to you to tell you the truth.
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You might say, well, that's kind of offensive.
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Well, but it's the truth, and Paul is speaking the truth to them.
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And he says, the God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth.
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Notice he says the God, not one of many gods.
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The God, the only God, who made the world, everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man.
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Now again, this is direct assault against everything.
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Because they believed in gods, plural, and they believed that every god they had lived in a temple, because they had built the temples themselves.
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And he said, none of this is true.
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He's kicking the foundation of their entire belief system in the face.
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It's sort of like this.
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If you went up to a mason who was laying bricks, right? And you see the top rung of the bricks is off, right? And you say, hey, that top rung isn't level.
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He might say, oh boy, that's not good.
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And he pulls those top bricks off, scrapes off the excess cement, and starts again, right? But if you walk up to a guy laying bricks and you say, hey, this bottom row isn't level, he'll be mad.
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And he's going to argue, yes it is.
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And he's going to go down, he's going to put his level on.
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He might even twist the level a little, try to get the bubble, because he doesn't want the foundation.
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He doesn't mind that top.
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You can talk about the top layer all you want.
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You come and mess with his foundation, he's going to have a problem.
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And that's what Paul's doing right now.
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He's saying, all these gods and all these temples, all of this foundation upon which you've built your entire society, is in ignorance.
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Because God doesn't live in these temples.
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He doesn't live in houses of gold and marble made by your hands.
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In verse 25, Nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.
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Beloved, I think this is a truth that we should imbibe ourselves.
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I think oftentimes we think we're doing God a favor when we do service toward Him.
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You've got to remember that He owns a cattle on a thousand hills, as it says in Scripture.
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And you live and breathe and move and have your being because of Him.
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The dependent one in this relationship is you, not Him.
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It says, He's not served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.
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And this next part, verse 26, is an attack against the Athenian view of self.
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Because He says, And He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place.
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By the way, the Athenians believed that they were created by the gods from special soil.
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That they themselves had a special racial superiority.
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That hasn't died, has it? In a lot of communities, racial superiority.
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They believed they had a certain racial superiority because of who they were.
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Paul is again attacking their world view.
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Not ungraciously, not unlovingly, but he's saying, Look, the God who created everything made every man in this world from one person.
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By the way, that's why racism is ridiculous.
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Racism itself as a world view is ridiculous.
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Because we are all one race, the human race.
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We all have one father who is Adam.
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Extend that out.
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We all have one father who is Noah because he's the only one left on the boat.
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Well, I mean his three sons, but they're all his father.
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Or he's the father of all three of them.
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We're all Noahites, we're all Adamites.
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Sounds funny.
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But we are.
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So these Athenians believed they had sort of a racial superiority.
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And Paul says, No.
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God made.
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And by the way, if you look at verse 26.
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He's not quoting Genesis 1.26, but he is.
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And this is what I was talking about not abandoning the foundation.
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Paul's not abandoning Scripture, he's just not quoting it directly.
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I can talk about Scripture without having to quote it directly.
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And still provide you with the truth of Scripture without having to say, Okay, this is what it says in this verse and that verse.
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We can provide the truth of Scripture.
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Now, I'm not saying we don't use Scripture.
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Let me be clear.
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But just like Mike and I have talked before.
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We can share the Gospel in layman's terms.
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And it's true.
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It's still the Gospel.
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And we appeal to our authority, though, from where? How do I know the Gospel is true? From Scripture.
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And I'm sure if anybody would have asked Paul at this very moment.
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Hey, Paul.
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Where are you getting the authority to say that God has made from one man.
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All nations.
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Genesis.
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He wouldn't call it Genesis because that's a later term we use.
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He would have said Moses.
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Who received that information as a direct revelation from God.
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That's what Paul would have.
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Paul didn't make that up.
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He didn't come up with that on his own.
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He's pulling the authority from Scripture.
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He's standing on the authority of Scripture.
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And he goes on to say that they should seek God.
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God has made all men from one man.
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And He's allotted their places and their periods, their boundaries to time.
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That they should seek Him.
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And perhaps feel their way toward Him and find Him.
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And again, he's kind of pointing out their situation.
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You're out here building all these gods.
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Because there is within you an understanding that God exists.
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There is within you an understanding that you're not alone in this universe.
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But the problem is you don't want to receive the God who is.
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You want to create a God.
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By the way, that's why idols are so appealing to people.
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You know why idols are so appealing? Because you get to make them.
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And if you carve the stone or carve the wood.
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And if you lay the gold over the wood.
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And you make the idol.
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Guess who is in charge? You.
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It's like the prophet who said, you know, the person goes out into the field.
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Cuts down a tree.
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Brings in the wood.
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Uses part of the wood to cook his meal.
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And then another part of the wood he fashions into an idol.
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Are you telling me the same thing that you use to cook your meal is what you're going to now worship? But that's what we do.
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That's what the idolater does.
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Paul says God's not made out of.
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He's not served by human hands.
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He's not made by human hands.
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He made you.
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And he made you to worship him.
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And he's not far from you.
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Remember the Athenians believed that the gods were sort of far away.
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God's not far from you.
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He's not far from any of us.
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Verse 28.
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For in him we live and move and have our being.
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I remember the first time.
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And this is.
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I remember the time I was in my office years ago.
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And that passage.
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Jumped out at me.
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And I had a moment of real clarity.
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If you say illumination of the spirit.
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That one verse.
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And what's funny is he's quoting.
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I think Epimenides here.
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He's quoting an Athenian philosopher.
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He's not quoting the Bible.
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I'm gonna talk about that in a minute.
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But he's quoting a philosopher to point this out.
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Even your own philosophers know what I'm saying is correct.
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This is nothing.
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That God has not revealed.
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But here's the point that came to me.
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I was sitting in my office one day and I was thinking about life and death.
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And thinking about.
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My own existence sort of contemplating myself.
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And I got to thinking.
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You realize.
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That.
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You exist.
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Because God created you.
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And if God so chose.
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Not that he would.
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And I'm not saying that God would do this.
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But if God so chose.
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You could cease to exist.
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And man for a moment.
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I like sat up in my chair.
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I was like.
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Because existence is an interesting thing.
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Because that's all you got.
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If you didn't have that.
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You wouldn't have nothing right.
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If you cease to exist.
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You wouldn't even be able to think about the fact that you don't exist.
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You wouldn't even be able to contemplate.
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Your non-existence.
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And it just caught me.
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This verse caught me.
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Because in him.
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We live.
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And move.
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And have our existence.
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That's what being.
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We have our existence.
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We have that in him.
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If God cease to exist.
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So would we.
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And if God chose that we would cease to exist.
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We would.
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Our entire being.
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Is wrapped up in him.
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And that to me was a moment of clarity.
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Because I realized in that moment.
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My utter dependency.
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Of God.
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And that's what Paul is trying to point out to the Athenians.
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You have such confidence in your philosophy.
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You have such confidence in your ability to build temples.
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And worship plows for these false gods.
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But you don't realize.
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Yet.
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That your entire existence is wrapped up in the one true God.
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And then he goes on to quote another.
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Aratus.
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The philosopher named Aratus.
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For we are indeed his offspring.
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We are God's offspring.
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God created us.
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Verse 29.
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Being then God's offspring.
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By the way.
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If you are God's offspring.
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That means he owns you.
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He created you.
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You are his.
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People say I don't like it that God is sovereign and in charge.
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I don't think he asked for your opinion.
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Not on that.
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He is sovereign.
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He is God.
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I am God and there is no other.
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I am God and there is none like unto me.
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So he says.
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Being God's offspring.
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We ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone.
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An image formed by the art and imagination of men.
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God is not like what you think.
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God is higher than what you think.
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He is greater than what you think.
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You have formulated God into a statue.
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He is not a statue.
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In him.
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You live and move and have your being.
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Verse 30.
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One of the most important statements.
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Ever uttered.
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The times of ignorance.
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God has overlooked.
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Remember what I said earlier about him talking to the Athenians.
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These are some of the most impressive philosophers of his day.
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He called them ignorant earlier.
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He said this unknown God.
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This ignorant thing that you worship.
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But now he is straight out saying.
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You have up until this moment.
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Been living in ignorance.
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You have up until this moment.
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Not known what I am about to share with you.
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And God has overlooked that.
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Because you are still here.
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You realize that the moment that you sin.
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You are worthy of God's punishment.
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And the moment that you sin.
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You are worthy of death.
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And the very fact that you didn't die.
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The very moment you were born.
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Is an act of God's grace.
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Because we are born sinners by the way.
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People say you have to wait until you are 12 to become a sinner.
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I got a 4 year old.
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I can prove that wrong.
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I mean.
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She already knows.
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How to do all kinds of stuff.
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And get angry boy.
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I ain't never seen anybody get as angry as her.
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There is a viper in a diaper.
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She doesn't have a diaper.
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That's JJ.
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What does it say? God makes them small.
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So they won't kill you.
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And makes them cute.
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So you won't kill them.
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But the reality is these.
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These people were ignorant.
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And God had given them grace up until this point.
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To be able to hear this message.
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All throughout history.
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God could have brought the end at any time.
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But he didn't.
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That's why this passage is important.
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Because people say.
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Does this mean that God didn't judge the sins of the past? No.
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But he did allow men grace periods.
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Very many grace periods.
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And Paul is saying.
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God has overlooked so much to this moment.
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To bring you to this moment.
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How much in your life.
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How many times in your life.
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Have you sinned against God? More than you can count.
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And if you are not in Christ today.
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God has overlooked that to this moment.
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To get you here.
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Because he could have at any moment taken you.
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You are here in this moment.
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Right now.
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To hear this.
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What Paul says.
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He says.
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Because he is very clear.
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The times of ignorance.
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God overlooked.
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But now.
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He commands all people everywhere to repent.
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You are hearing the sound of Paul's voice.
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This is what the Athenians heard.
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Gentlemen.
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The Areopagites.
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You men of renown.
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You wise men.
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You have been ignorant up until now.
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But God has sent me to you.
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To say.
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That you need to repent.
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I heard an evangelist say one time.
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You have the right to repent or not.
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No you don't.
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God has given you the command to repent.
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You repent or you rebel.
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That's it.
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You don't have a right to not repent.
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It's a command.
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It's a command.
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And who has the right to command it? Not me.
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I don't command anything.
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The Apostle Paul.
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Didn't command anything.
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He says.
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Overlooked up until now.
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But.
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Now.
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He.
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That being God.
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Commands you.
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Because you are part of the all people.
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Everywhere.
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To repent.
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There is so much I want to say on the subject of repentance.
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And time won't allow me to say everything.
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But I will say this.
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Lack of repentance is rebellion against God.
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Christ.
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His first words that we know of in his preaching ministry.
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Was repent.
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For the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
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Repent.
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When we go out and preach the gospel.
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We preach the gospel of repentance.
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We preach that people should repent towards God.
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And put their faith in Jesus Christ.
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That is what the scripture says.
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And those who would say.
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That repentance shouldn't be preached along with the gospel.
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Do not understand the gospel.
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Now is your repentance perfect? I want to share this.
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Because this is important.
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People say.
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Well I repent.
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But every day I fail.
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And I have to keep repenting.
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Well yeah.
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Keep repenting.
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It isn't perfect.
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I think about Jesus' own model prayer.
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We say it every Sunday.
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As a way of teaching ourselves.
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And our children how to pray.
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And what does the prayer say? Forgive us of our.
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We say trespasses.
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In the old King James it said debts.
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But in the gospel of Luke.
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When this same prayer is reiterated in Luke.
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The word Jesus.
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The word that the Holy Spirit chose.
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To translate Jesus' word.
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Was Hamartia.
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Greek for sin.
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Forgive us our sins.
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As we forgive those who sin against us.
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That is an important reality.
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The life of the Christian.
36:38
Is daily repentance.
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I have talked to people.
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I got saved when I was eight.
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I ain't talked to Jesus since then.
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Did you really get saved? That's a good important question.
36:52
Because if he hasn't affected your life.
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If your life isn't a life of repentance.
36:56
How has your life changed? What does it mean when you say you got saved? Say well why are you spending all this time.
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On the subject of repentance? Because of verse 31.
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Because he has fixed a day.
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On which he will judge the world.
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In righteousness.
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By a man whom he has appointed.
37:20
And of this he has given assurance to all.
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By raising him from the dead.
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That's the key.
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Why do we go out and spend hours.
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Standing on our feet.
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Handing out gospel tracts.
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To people who come by.
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Trying to engage them in conversation.
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Why would we do that? Because we believe that God has fixed a day.
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In which he will judge the world in righteousness.
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I had a guy tell me one time.
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He was in a hospital bed.
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And I was talking to him.
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He's an unbeliever.
37:54
He's an atheist.
37:55
But I went and saw him anyway.
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I was sitting there talking to him.
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And he said you know I came to your church once.
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And he said I didn't like it.
38:08
Because you talked about hell.
38:10
That really turned me off.
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So I never came back.
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Thank you for being honest.
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I appreciate that.
38:19
And we had a long talk about the existence of God.
38:21
And why that's rational and not irrational.
38:25
We had a long conversation.
38:27
Of which I appealed to scripture many times.
38:29
But at the end of the conversation.
38:30
I said you mentioned something earlier.
38:32
You said you didn't like that I mentioned hell in my sermons.
38:35
I said that I believe that it's real.
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And if I believe that hell is real.
38:42
And I didn't tell you about it.
38:43
That would make me the worst of people.
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If I believe that hell exists.
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And I don't tell people about the potential of their going there.
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It would be like me watching a person's house burn around them.
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And say you're fine.
38:59
Sit there.
39:00
There's no problem.
39:04
I said I talked about hell because I believe it.
39:08
And unless you believe in Jesus Christ.
39:09
I believe that's where you will be.
39:17
God has fixed the day.
39:19
On which he will judge the world in righteousness.
39:21
People say I don't believe that.
39:22
It doesn't matter what you believe.
39:24
What you believe doesn't change what's true.
39:27
Stand on a building.
39:28
Say I don't believe in gravity.
39:29
Jump.
39:30
And see how much gravity cares about what you believe.
39:34
Truth is truth.
39:39
I'll finish with this.
39:41
Because Paul goes on.
39:42
It goes on to say.
39:43
And I mentioned this at the end last week.
39:44
It goes on to say.
39:49
That after he mentioned the resurrection from the dead.
39:52
Some mocked.
39:53
And some said we'll hear you again.
39:55
And some believed.
39:56
And one of the ones that believed was Dionysius.
39:58
Who was actually one of those wise men.
40:00
One of those professors actually believed what Paul had to say.
40:04
But I always like to point out that not everybody believed.
40:07
Even the greatest evangelist in history.
40:09
The Apostle Paul.
40:11
He didn't have 100% conversion rate.
40:13
Because men are sinful and they don't want to believe.
40:17
Some mocked.
40:18
Some procrastinated.
40:19
We'll hear you again.
40:20
That's interesting.
40:21
We'll hear you next week.
40:23
But some believed.
40:26
But in all that Paul never wavered from his foundation.
40:30
He did not spare the truth.
40:34
In the hopes that he might win more souls.
40:39
Instead he told the truth.
40:42
And he was willing to let God be the one who saved the soul.
40:53
We certainly have a reason to be concerned about a lot that goes on in our world.
40:57
We look at our land.
40:59
And it's been rightly said.
41:01
There are more lost people today in the world than there's ever been in history.
41:04
Because there's more people in the world.
41:06
7 billion people.
41:07
There's more lost people than there's ever been in history.
41:09
But in our zeal to reach the lost.
41:13
We must never abandon the foundation of the truth.
41:18
In order to reach them.
41:21
Because what we win them with is what we win them to.
41:25
And if we don't win them to the truth.
41:28
What good is winning them at all? Throughout the history of mankind.
41:35
Men have devised all sorts of techniques for combat.
41:38
From wrestling to boxing.
41:40
Fencing to karate.
41:41
Men have sought to overcome other men through the use of trained tactical skills.
41:47
And in almost every form of combat.
41:49
The immediate goal is to take an opponent off balance.
41:52
And ensure his fall.
41:55
The philosophy is that if you remove a man's foundation.
41:58
He will crumble under the weight of your assault.
42:01
In the very same way.
42:03
When you contend for the faith with an unbeliever.
42:06
He will try to make you abandon your foundation.
42:09
Knowing that when you do you will easily fall.
42:16
As the unbelievers assaults come in our proclamation of the gospel.
42:21
We mustn't abandon our foundation.
42:24
But rather as the apostle Paul did.
42:27
We stand confidently upon it.
42:29
And call all men to repentance.
42:33
Let's pray.
42:36
Father I thank you for your word.
42:38
I thank you for the truth.
42:39
I thank you for the command that you've given all of us to go and seek the lost.
42:46
To lovingly proclaim the gospel to them.
42:49
And to do so without fear.
42:51
Knowing that you are the one.
42:54
Who ultimately will save the soul.
42:56
I thank you for these people who have been under the sound of my voice.
42:59
I pray that you would bless them.
43:01
Again for the believers Lord.
43:03
That you would draw them closer to conformity to Christ.
43:07
And for the unbelievers Lord.
43:09
I pray that you would remind them and have it reverberate in their mind and heart.
43:15
Of your command for all men everywhere.
43:19
To repent and trust in Jesus Christ.
43:23
And it's in his name we pray.
43:25
Amen.