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Reading Acts 17:30-34 where the Apostle Paul finishes his sermon at the Areopagus warning about God's judgment and telling the people to repent and believe in Jesus. Visit wwutt.com for all our videos!
When Paul preached to the Greeks at the Areopagus, he told them the judgment of God was coming. And the only way to be saved is to believe in the one whom God had raised from the dead, Jesus Christ, when we understand the text.
Many of the Bible stories and verses we think we know, we don't. When we understand the text is committed to teaching sound doctrine and rebuking those who contradict it. Visit our website at www .utt .com.
Here once again is Pastor Gabe.
Thank you, Becky. In our study of the book of Acts, we finish up the sermon at the Areopagus in Acts 17, verses 22 to 31. I'll start out by reading the passage. Hear the word of the Lord. So Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, Men of Athens, I observe that you are very religious in all respects.
For while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription, To an unknown God. Therefore what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you, the God who made the world and all things in it, since he is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands, nor is he served by human hands as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all people life and breath and all things.
And he made from one man every nation of mankind to inhabit all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.
For in him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, for we also are his offspring. Being then the offspring of God, we ought not to suppose that the divine nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the craft and thought of man.
Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now commanding men that everyone everywhere should repent, because he has fixed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness through a man whom he determined, having furnished proof to all, by raising him from the dead.
And as we finish this up today, we'll also consider this part, verses 32 to 34. Now when they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some began to sneer, but others said, we shall hear you again concerning this.
In this way, Paul went out of their midst, but some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius, the Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them. All right, let's review what we have looked at thus far concerning this sermon.
It opens with Paul calling attention to their religion. I looked at all the objects of your worship. We read this at the beginning of Paul's time in Athens. His spirit was provoked within him because he saw a city full of idols.
And along with these idols that he looked at, he found this altar with an inscription to an unknown God. So there's a God out there somewhere. We don't know who he is, but so we don't make him mad, let's make an altar to him and say, this is an altar to an unknown God.
And Paul says, so you know the true God. He is the God that I proclaim to you as known. You think he is unknown. He has been known. He has revealed himself in this way. But Paul knows that he is speaking to people who have suppressed the truth with their unrighteousness, as said in Romans 1 .18.
But he's going to call them to repentance when we get to the end of the sermon here. Second part of the sermon, though, as we looked at yesterday, is verses 24 to 29, where Paul then calls their attention to the true God.
So he calls their attention to their religion, and then he calls their attention to the real God. And then having professed to them their own knowledge of the real God, though they refused to acknowledge him, he is now going to tell them, in the section that we look at today, verses 30 and 31, to repent.
Now we have a call to repentance. And Paul isn't looking around at these people and wondering, do you understand the concept of God yet? I want to make sure that you know there's the true God, and you have to acknowledge that the true God exists.
Once I get that from you guys, okay, yeah, you're good, all right, now I'm going to tell you to repent. We don't see that in this sermon. And the reason why I draw that out to you is because the way that we evangelize to people who are unbelievers, we should be imitators of this.
Paul doesn't go into long diatribes to convince them that God is real or that he exists. On the contrary, what he does is he draws from what he sees around the city and points out to them, you already know this God exists.
Let me show you how I know that you know that he exists. They may not know him relationally, but they know of his existence. And Paul doesn't wait for them to acknowledge it before then telling them, okay, now that you know that God is real, now I have to tell you to repent.
Now he's going to hope and trust in God's work, the Holy Spirit doing a work in their hearts that when he gets to the part that says repent, the Spirit will have softened their hearts to receive that word and they will be cut to the heart and they'll listen to it.
God's command to everyone everywhere to be a Christian. And that's really at the heart of what we are looking at today. As we close out this sermon, everyone everywhere is commanded to follow Jesus Christ.
So let's come back to verse 30 here. We're picking up in verse 30 where it says, therefore, having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now commanding men that everyone everywhere should repent. Now when we read that Paul is saying God is overlooking the times of ignorance, that doesn't mean that God excused you in the past when you didn't know who he was.
That's not what Paul is saying. Y 'all didn't even know who God was. And so, you know, there was no divine punishment upon you because you just didn't know. So now Christ is being proclaimed to you and now you have to repent.
That's not what Paul means by this. Rather, overlooking the times of ignorance means that God is not wiping out you Gentiles. That's certainly what you deserve. You deserve the judgment of God right now because you are his offspring being made by him.
You came from him, but you didn't worship God. You were worshiping all these idols, all these false gods all around. What you deserve is to be judged by the one true God. But he is overlooking those times of ignorance and now he's commanding you to repent.
They still needed to turn from their sin before and acknowledge the true God. As we read about in Romans chapters one and chapter two, that the word of God is written on the heart of every person. The commandments of God.
There is a natural law that people just know and understand because the law of God is written on their hearts in that sense. There are civilizations that do not acknowledge the existence of the one true God and yet they can see murdering somebody's wrong, stealing something that belongs to somebody else.
That's wrong. Causing harm to someone else is wrong. You can come to those conclusions without having heard the law of God telling you what you need to do in order to honor God. So these people around here, even as Paul is pointing out to them, you know of the true God.
You're just suppressing the truth with your unrighteousness. Paul is proclaiming the true God to them so that they will recognize that they've betrayed that true God. They haven't been worshiping that true God.
They've been worshiping these false gods that were formed by the craft and thought of man. As Paul said in verse 29, the divine nature, God in his divine nature is not like gold or silver or stone or an image that is formed by the craft and thought of man.
He made us. We did not make him. Remember what Paul said in verse 28, in him we live and move and exist. The reason for your existence, your very reason for being is understood when you look to the true God who made you.
You look around at our culture today and all of the different ideas and philosophies that get people away from that truth that we are made by God. Even Darwinian evolution. We were evolved from other creatures into the people that we are today.
Or as who was it? PZ Myers, the professor up at the University of Minnesota, I believe it was, who said that we're fish. People are fish, meaning that we're just evolved from fish into what we are. It was Frank Peretti who said, from goo to you by way of the zoo, all of these different creatures that evolved into the person that you eventually are.
It means life is meaningless. When you believe that we have just evolved from protozoa, from one cell to organisms, that non-life somehow became life and became these multicellular, multi-organism or multi-organ organisms like we are today.
We're just cosmic accidents is all we are. And even when you have some Christian theologians who adopt that, okay, fine, I believe scientists have proven Darwinism, so okay. But God used the Darwinian process to make us who we are today.
You're bowing to the culture when you come to that conclusion. You have a fear of man and not a fear of God because you think you have to bow to the scientific consensus in order to seem relevant to the culture and therefore people would be willing to listen to you.
You're still preaching Darwinism, even if you put God behind it. This is not what Genesis 1 tells us about how we were made. God made everything after its own kind. We are not evolved from lesser species.
We are made in the image of God. If we evolved from lesser species, then we were not made in the image of God. And everything else could be said that it was all made in the image of God, though the Bible does not say that.
Mankind in particular bears the image of God and we are meant to worship God. In a way, the rest of creation cannot. This is what Paul is calling these people to here in Athens. It's in him that we live and move and have our being.
You have been in ignorance before. And this is the way that he started the sermon, remember. He said, what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you. The times of ignorance, God has overlooked.
He hasn't wiped you out. But now this message from God has come to you. God is now commanding men that everyone everywhere should repent. The God who made us all is commanding you to turn from your sin, to turn from these false gods that you have been worshiping.
The things that you've made in your own image that give you permission to do whatever it is that you want. Turn from that. Repent. Turn from it to God. Why? Why do I need to worship this God that you're talking about, Paul?
And he goes on to say in verse 31, because he has fixed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness. Whose righteousness? His righteousness. What he has defined as righteous. He will judge the world by his standard through a man whom he determined.
And he furnished proof to all by raising him from the dead. Now this was the very thing that Paul was proclaiming in the marketplace, remember. We go back up to where he was reasoning with the Jews and the God-fearing Gentiles and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be present.
That was back up in verse 17. And some of them were saying, what would this idle babbler wish to say? And others were saying he seems to be a proclaimer of strange deities because he was proclaiming the good news of Jesus and the resurrection.
So they knew that's what he was talking about. Now I've heard some people say about Paul's sermon at the Areopagus, he never even mentioned Jesus. Oh yes, he did. He mentions that he's the one who was risen from the dead.
But he's essentially giving backstory to what they know he's been talking about. We know this guy has been in the marketplace proclaiming this deity named Jesus and that he rose from the dead. So let's bring him up to the Areopagus and we'll have him testify to these things in the presence of the gods.
Maybe the gods or the faiths or whatever, they'll judge him accordingly and we'll find out whether he's saying something that's true. And Paul has no fear of any of the gods that they are standing Paul in the middle of because he knows those gods aren't real.
These are just empty statues that were just made in the likeness of men by the craftiness of men. This is not God. These are not gods. Paul fears God only and no one else. But he's saying to these people, you must fear him as well because the day of judgment is coming.
He is fixed today in which he will judge the world in righteousness. And again, this is why, as Paul is saying, he's not judged you yet. This is why there are still so many unbelievers in the world and those who go on worshiping these false gods and behaving in ways that are contrary to what the true God has said.
It's because God has overlooked the times of ignorance. He is patient. But there are those listening to my voice right now who need to repent. They need to turn from their unbelief to Jesus because a day is fixed in which God is going to judge the world in righteousness.
You've not been judged yet because that day has yet to come. But how will you escape on that day? He will judge the world in righteousness through a man whom he determined. That's Jesus. This is the man that Paul had been talking about in the marketplace.
The one that the Greeks understood him to be speaking of even as a deity. He will judge the world in righteousness through a man whom he determined, Jesus Christ, having furnished proof to all by raising him from the dead.
That's how you know that he has the power of life and death even in himself. He can raise you to life or he can destroy you because God has raised him from the dead. You know, there are a lot of apologetic ministries out there that will name themselves after this sermon that Paul proclaims at the Areopagus.
They'll call themselves like Acts 17 ministries or something like that. I'm not digging on anybody in particular. I'm just saying, I'm just using that as an example in case there is an Acts 17 ministries out there.
I'm sure there probably is. But all I'm saying is there are many apologists that will name their ministries something related to Acts 17 because of this sermon. But I have noticed from many of those apologists that they don't talk about the judgment of God that is coming.
And if they're not talking about the judgment of God, then they have missed the entire point of the sermon. Paul is speaking to unbelievers at the Areopagus, people that don't even believe in the true God, people that don't believe that Jesus even rose from the dead.
And yet this does not stop Paul from standing in their midst and telling them, listen, a day of judgment is coming. You want to be saved on that day of judgment? Turn to the one who rose from the dead, who has the power of life and death in himself.
Repent and believe in him and you will be saved. But many of the apologetics ministries out there that will try to model themselves after Acts 17, it's like they missed that entirely. They will love the parts where Paul makes reference to other Greek poets.
In him we live and move and exist or have our being, as some of your own poets have said, for we also are his offspring. You know, they love those parts. So they will use that part of the sermon to justify drawing from the culture and like preaching from cultural examples rather than pointing people back to the judgment that is coming and the salvation that is given only in Christ Jesus.
This is where the sermon is building to. And so even when it comes to our evangelism efforts out into the world, we need to be at least as bold in our presentation of the gospel, calling people to turn from their sin to Christ, or you're going to perish on the day of judgment, just as Paul does here among the Greeks in Athens.
Our evangelism needs to be at least on this level, because as Paul is saying in this message, God is commanding everyone everywhere to be a Christian. And if you're not a Christian, if you're not a follower of Jesus Christ, you'll perish.
There's an attitude even among many self-professing Christians today that you can believe in whatever you want, as long as you're a good person, then you're going to get into heaven one day. Like God may be manifesting himself through Islam.
God may be showing himself to you through Hinduism. God may be showing himself through Buddhism or even the atheist who denies that God exists. At least he's trying to be a good person. And so that will be enough to get him through heaven's gates one day.
No, it won't be because no one has been good. Even Paul here speaking to these Greeks is saying, you're going to be judged according to the righteous standard of God. How can you possibly be saved? If you're going to be judged by his standard, you must turn to Jesus Christ.
It is only through faith in Jesus Christ that you can be saved. Again, as Paul had proclaimed earlier, there's not a God for this people and a God for that people. No, there is one God who made the world and all things in it, and he is Lord of heaven and earth.
And you know that one God and how he is going to judge the world, because he has sent a man that he has determined, the God-man, Jesus Christ, who lived, who died on the cross, who rose again from the dead, so that all who believe in him will not perish, but have everlasting life.
This is the Christ that Paul is proclaiming and telling them you must believe in, in order to be saved. Their worshiping any of these false deities was not going to save them. It is only through faith in Jesus.
Everyone everywhere is commanded to be a Christian, and only by faith in Christ can you be saved. But when Paul gets to this part where he's talking about the resurrection of the dead, verse 32, some began to sneer, because they don't believe in the resurrection of the dead.
And when they hear that, in their minds, they're going, what, we're all going to be zombies? Like our bodies go into the ground, they become all corpse-ified and gross, and we're just going to come up out of the ground, and the resurrection of the dead, is that what you're talking about?
I don't even want that body. That's gross. So they sneer at him, because that's what they're thinking of when it comes to the resurrection of the dead. But remember, Jesus did not see decay when he was risen.
As Peter proclaimed in his sermon in Acts chapter 2, his body didn't see decay. And so likewise with ours, when we will be risen from the dead, we will have a glorified body like Jesus has a glorified body.
But they don't want to listen to this anymore. They sneer at Paul, they make fun of him. But there are others who said, we shall hear you again concerning this. In this way, Paul went out of their midst.
So there are some people that the Holy Spirit worked on, changed their hearts, they received the word that Paul said, and they become believers. Verse 34, some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius the Areopagite.
Now what does that mean? The Areopagite? Well, remember, Paul is preaching at the Areopagus. So Dionysius the Areopagite was somebody who worked there at the Areopagus. There was a man there who was among those judges that would consider these cases.
And he's listening to Paul going, I'm pretty convinced. And he becomes a believer, not just somebody who follows after him, wants to hear more about it. Verse 34 specifically says they believed among whom were Dionysius and a woman named Damaris and others with them.
So as Luke is writing this account of these things that happened in Athens at the Areopagus, if anybody read this account, they would be able to go find Dionysius and Damaris and hear from them personally about what Paul preached there and that there were several people who came to faith because of this bold sermon that Paul had proclaimed in the midst of gods that he did not fear because he knew that they did not exist.
He feared the true God and he told them, that's who you need to fear and you need to repent and turn to Christ because the day of judgment is coming. Again, our evangelism needs to be at least that bold.
So in this sermon, to summarize, we started off with a call to their religion, recognizing their religion, you're a religious people. And then saying to them, you need to know who the real God is. So it was a call to know the real God, verses 24 to 29.
And then finally a call to repentance in verses 30 to 31, turn from your unbelief and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. And may we have the courage to share the truth with others, never being shy, never being timid about these things, because it is only the message of the gospel that has the power to save.
If we love these people and we desire that they would be saved from the judgment that is to come, either when they die or when Christ returns, whatever event happens first, the only way to be saved is to believe in Jesus.
Heavenly father, we thank you that the message of the gospel has come to us. And I pray that we would be bold as to say to others, you must believe in Jesus in order to be forgiven your sins and have everlasting life.
If there is any sinful way in us, may we be convicted of it, God. And may we turn to Christ to be cleansed, washed, and made new. Lead us in paths of righteousness for your name's sake. It's in Jesus' name we pray, amen.
You've been listening to When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, Gabe will be going through a New Testament study. Then on Thursday, we look at an Old Testament book.
On Friday, we take questions from the listeners and viewers. Tomorrow, we'll pick up on an Old Testament study, When We Understand the Text.