Paul’s Timeless Witness to a Pagan City

Andy Davis preaches a verse-by-verse expository sermon on Acts 17:15-34. The main subject of the sermon is how Paul shares the Gospel of the resurrected Christ with pagans who reject the true God.

– SERMON TRANSCRIPT –  

Well, as Chase said, I’d like to ask that you turn in your Bibles to Acts 17. We’re gonna be walking through this incredible text and it brings to mind a very special memory. Back in June of 2007 I was ministering to some international mission board missionaries in Greece and I was with my daughter, Jenny, and we had the opportunity to visit Athens, and I’ll never get walking up the winding road to the Acropolis of the ancient high place of the city of Athens with thousands of tourists who are going up, and as we were making our way up, I noticed a small rocky outcropping off to the side. And I was looking for it, but I was amazed at how small it was and unimpressive compared to the Acropolis. It was Mars Hill, the Areopagus, the very place where Paul was when he preached the message that we’re about to study. And so Jenny and I turned off and we looked and we actually went up the stairs went on the top of this rocky knob off to the side and I was amazed how the very tiptops of the rocks up there had been polished smooth by the feet of people over 2000 years that had gone to stand where Paul was and preached. But other than that, it was very unimpressive and the Acropolis hundreds of feet above that, just soared above it. And as we came down the stairs, there was a plaque and in the Greek language there was the entire text that you just heard Chase read for us a moment ago, the text of Paul’s great message to the Athenians, to the philosophers at Mars Hill. But sadly, off to the side, there was some graffiti done by some irreverent people, and far below us was the bustling city, the modern city of Athens. And it occurred to me how ignorant people are of the central message that Paul gives in verse 31.

This is what it says, “For [God] he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He is given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead.” And as we stood and looked at those words written there in the Greek language, I was mindful of how ignorant people are of this coming Judgment Day. It occurred to me how urgent is our mission in this world. We are called on to bring the message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to a bustling modern world that can barely notice the beauty of creation around us and can barely think of the brevity of life and people that are not aware of the coming Judgment Day, and it’s our task as Christians to take that clear message of hope in the face of death, that we’re going to celebrate with Christians around the world a week from today, Resurrection Sunday, that we have to be ready, we have to get our hearts ready to be servants of the Gospel to the people who live here in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area.

“How urgent is our mission in this world.”

Back in the beginning of February, a number of us committed ourselves to extraordinary prayer for the spreading of the Gospel, and this was going to be the final week of that time as culminating in Easter. And then we’re gonna move into a time of training for evangelism. In the meantime, those prayer meetings, many of them in the pattern that they were in had been suspended because of the shelter at home order has come in because of COVID-19. And as we stand and look at the effects of the greatest pandemic that this country has ever seen, we realize more than ever for how acute is the need for the Gospel. The time is powerfully here upon us to share the Gospel with neighbors and co-workers and unsaved family and everyone that we know, and we trust that God in his kindness and his goodness will soon remove this scourge from us. But as he does, we are aware, we are mindful of the fact that people will be thinking about death, that they’ll be thinking about the brevity of life, and they’re going to be eager and ready to hear the Gospel.

I. The Gospel of Christ and the Calling of Paul

And this morning we’re going to get to walk through one of the greatest examples of, I would call it pre-evangelism, that you could ever have. We’re gonna talk about how it’s pre-evangelism and how they cut them off before he got to the opportunity to preach clearly the message of repentance through faith in Christ although he does mention the basic facts, but we’re gonna see how Paul speaks to these philosophers, these brilliant men at Mars Hill in a timeless witness to a pagan city. Now, the backdrop of this, we’re in the book of Acts just for this one Sunday, and Acts is part of a two-volume set written by the doctor Luke, as far as we can tell, the only Gentile writer of scripture in the New Testament, and the first volume, the Gospel of Luke unfolds very clearly the person and work of Jesus Christ. And it begins with the extraordinary message of the angel Gabriel to Mary, the mother of Jesus. In Luke 1, it says Gabriel said to her, “You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David.”

And so there, we have the mystery of the Incarnation, how he is fully God the Son of the Most High, and fully man, he is the descendant of David to sit on David’s throne. Then the Gospel of Luke unfolds in 24 chapters, the mighty words and the mighty deeds of this Godman, Jesus Christ, how there’s clear evidence in his teachings and in his miracles, and in his sinless life of the deity of Christ. But there’s also clear evidence of his humanity in his bloody death on the cross. Everything culminated in his sacrificial death, he died in the place of sinners like you and me. He was nailed to the cross and he died. But God raised him from the dead on the third day, and in Luke 24, he gives clear evidence of the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ, which we will celebrate with Christians around the world next week, but we Christians celebrate it every single day.

And then Luke 24:39, Jesus said to the disciples gathered there in the upper room, “Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.” Then over a period of 40 days, he got them ready to share the gospel, to take the gospel to the ends of the earth. And at the beginning of the book of Acts, we have the promise of the outpoured Holy Spirit as the sufficient power for the mission to the ends of the earth. Jesus said in Acts 1:8, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” And then, in verse 9, it says, “After he said this he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.” So these were Jesus’ final words to the Church, his final marching orders to the Church, the great commission to take the gospel to the ends of the earth. And in Acts chapter 2, we see the out-poured Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. The Church was assembled in the upper room. They were praying and the Holy Spirit came with the sound of a rushing wind with tongues of fire, and they poured out from that upper room and they began to change the world.

Peter and the other apostles preached the powerful message of Christ crucified and resurrected. And that day, 3000 people believed and were baptized and added to the Church. And so, the gospel unfolds, it spreads throughout Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria, and in the course of time, God raised up a special instrument, Saul of Tarsus, who we know is the Apostle Paul, to take the gospel to the gentile world. Now, Saul of Tarsus was a man uniquely prepared for this mission to be the Apostle to the Gentiles. It was really a triangulation of three great world cultures. He was the quintessential Jewish man. He was saturated in the traditions of the elders as a Jewish man, sat at the feet of Gamaliel in Jerusalem, was trained in the traditions of Judaism. So he was a quintessential Jewish man. He was also steeped in Greek culture for he was born and raised in Tarsus, which was a very Hellenized city, a Greek saturated city. Alexander the Great had swept through Turkey, that’s where Tarsus is, and down through Palestine and to Egypt and even as far as India with his Macedonian army spreading Greek culture everywhere, and Tarsus was part of that. And so Paul studied Greek philosophers, he even quotes some Greek poets in this message. So he was steeped in Greek culture. And thirdly, amazingly, he was a Roman citizen. His father, it seems, was a Roman citizen and conveyed upon Paul at birth the exalted status of a Roman citizen. Well Paul himself, however, was not initially in any way a follower of Jesus Christ. He was converted by the sovereign power of God through the Holy Spirit on the road to Damascus and the story is told three different times in the Book of Acts. That’s how important it was, repetition. 

Paul was actually the henchman of the Sanhedrin, the Jewish Council, religious council, who hated Christ, who had already decided that any Jewish person who believed that Jesus was the Messiah, the Christ, would be thrown out of the Synagogue. Paul was hardily on board with opposing the Christians and so he began to destroy the Church going from house to house, dragged off men and women and threw them in prison, and he had received letters from the Jewish Council to go to Damascus and arrest any there that he found who are followers of “the way” of Christianity. And the story is told in Acts 9 of his great conversion, “As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?’ ‘Who are you, Lord?’ Saul asked. ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,’ he replied. ‘Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.’”

Well, that’s an amazing story. You know what it says to me as a Christian, as an evangelist, as a lover of missions, is that God can convert anyone at any time by his sovereign power through the Gospel. And so, if you are hearing this today, if you’ve tuned into this live stream, I want you to hear this. God has the power through faith in Christ to forgive your sins, that you might have eternal life, that you might live forever. Paul himself said, effectively, “If God can save me, he can save anyone anytime.” That he is an example of God’s unlimited patience and his sovereign grace. Well, by the time we get to Acts 17, Paul was on his second missionary journey among the Gentiles. He’s already gone on his first missionary journey with Barnabas, he went throughout to Cyprus, and then up through Asia Minor, modern-day Turkey, Paul’s home region, and planted churches everywhere he went. He was incredibly fruitful. Now on his second missionary journey, he has crossed over into Greece. He’s gone west toward Europe, and he’s already with Silas beginning to plant churches. He’s been in Philippi and Thessalonica, and Berea. But now as he comes to Athens, he is alone. He’s persecuted everywhere he goes. He was hammered by the opposition to the gospel. The Jew first then the Gentile would oppose him. He was beaten in Philippi. His enemy started a riot in Thessalonica. Paul had to escape in the night. And by the time he gets to Athens, probably one of the lowest points of his ministry emotionally, he’s alone in this great city and he’s waiting for his friends to join him.

II. The City of Athens: Brilliant but Dark Paganism

Now, we come to the city of Athens, this city, brilliant city but dark in paganism. It was one of the greatest cities of the ancient world, magnificent buildings, architecture that stands even to this present day. I mentioned how Jenny and I; we went up to see the Acropolis after seeing Mars Hill, and the Acropolis soars above the city of Athens far above. It’s got three temples including the Parthenon. It was built incredibly around the year 447 B.C. and it’s still standing, almost 25 centuries later. The Greek philosophers, mathematicians and scientists’ knowledge of geometry and materials and architecture was staggering, still is. Athens itself was a center of human knowledge, of science and philosophy, boasting some of the greatest thinkers the world has ever known, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Pythagoras, Democritus and many others, either lived in Athens or came to Athens to ply their trade as philosophers. So we see in the city a reflection of both human potentiality, but also human corruption. Potentiality, as God said, concerning the Tower of Babel, “If as one people speaking one language, they’ve begun to make this incredible tower, then nothing they propose to do will be restrained from them.” And so, humans have amazing abilities created in the image of God, brilliance, and science, and technology. But there’s also a corruption in our hearts in that we are essentially idolaters. We worship and serve the created thing rather than the creator.

In verse 16 of our text, “The city was full of idols.” And Paul would later write in Romans 1, “Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.” One ancient writer said, it’s easier to find a god than a man in Athens. And so, therefore, the city was overwhelmed with gods and goddesses, or at least shrines to them and idols. And because of that, Paul said in 1 Corinthians 10:20, it was filled with demons because “the sacrifices of pagans are offered to demons…” And Paul said, “I do not want you to be participants with demons.” So it was a demonic city, dark, with idolatry. And we see, therefore, Paul’s reaction to this. Alone in this great city, he looked around to see what was there and, instead of being impressed with their technology and their architecture, he was overwhelmed with sorrow and deeply distressed at their idolatry. Look at verse 16. “While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols.” The Greek word implies, a high level of emotional anguish. He walked around looking at their objects of worship and he was torn up inside over it.

I heard a story of the great missionary, Henry Martin, to India in the early 18th century. And he heard a story at that time. A Muslim prince was killing many Christians. And a Muslim man told Henry Martin of a dream that he had, in which Jesus, whom Muslims exalted as a prophet in their religion but lower than Muhammad, came down from the highest heaven to take hold of the hem of Muhammad’s garment, and plead with him that he would intercede with this Muslim prince to get him to stop killing Christians. When Henry Martin heard this, he wept and was torn up inside at the dishonor to Jesus, of an image of Jesus kneeling before Muhammad and holding onto the hem of his robe. This tore him up inside. And when his Muslim friend asked him, “Why does this tear you up inside?” he said, “If someone plucked out your eyes, would you have to answer why you felt pain?” And so, Paul felt that way, I believe, as he looked around and saw God dishonored by idolatry, God’s glory and honor taken away from him by this idolatry. Do you have, dear Christian friend who lives in the triangle region, Raleigh-Durham Chapel Hill, do you have that kind of reaction to the modern day idolatry that we see around us? Do we grieve over the lost-ness of our neighbors and co-workers, even many of them, brilliant philosophers and scientists and technicians of their own, but having empty hearts and souls just like Paul saw in his day? Do we see the spiritual darkness behind the brilliance of non-Christians around us?

And Paul’s response to that darkness was to preach the Gospel with reasoned arguments, both in the synagogue and in the marketplace. Look at verse 17. “So [because of that idolatry] he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there.” So Paul always went to the Jew first, to the synagogue first, and his procedure was on Sabbath days to open up the Old Testament prophecies and reason with them from the Old Testament scriptures, proving that Jesus was the Messiah, by those prophecies. But then, he would go out in the marketplace every day. The marketplace was as pagan as it got, a noisy din of meat vendors, and merchants, and political figures, and individuals that were preaching their own philosophies, their own political agendas, you could imagine like a carnival barker saying, “Step right this way.” It was a noisy din of paganism. And Paul dove right into that marketplace, and he began to talk to whomever, it literally says, he chanced to meet. Now, we know there’s no luck, no chance. Paul was sovereignly led by the Spirit to talk to Greeks there in Athens and share the gospel. And notice his zeal, he did it daily in the marketplace. But as time went on, he began to get into some discussions with some philosophers in the marketplace, and it says a group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers listened to him and they invited him to Mars Hill, to the Areopagus to debate with them. 

Now, the Epicureans believed that the goal of human life is personal happiness, resulting from an absence of physical pain and an absence of mental disturbance. They also amazingly believed in atomistic materialism and in a naturalistic account of evolution from the formation of the world to the emergence of complex human societies. Does all of that sound familiar? We deal with a lot of that right here in the triangle. Epicurus believed he could disprove the possibility of the soul’s survival after death, and therefore effectively disproving Judgment Day, there is no Judgment Day, the elimination of the fear of judgment day, then set people free to follow whatever pleasures of the flesh and of the mind that they desired. Those were the Epicureans. Now, the stoics were a little bit different, they were one of the newer philosophical movements there in Athens and they believe that emotions like fear, envy, or even impassioned sexual attractions or attachments, passionate love of anything in this world, was really a sign of weakness and it rose from false judgments. And the true sage, the true philosopher, would be able to set himself free from these deep desires, he would not undergo strong passions. The sage would be utterly immune to misfortune and that virtue is sufficient for all happiness. We get our image of somebody with stoic calm, in all circumstance, just not moved by much. Those were the Stoics.

Well, they used to debate each other all the time but along comes Paul. Now, it says of the Athenians that they did nothing but talk about and listen to the latest ideas. So they were just debating each other all the time. I don’t know if you are aware of some of these chess experts and hustlers in Central Park in New York, who would sit around there with a board ready to play you. And they would wipe the board with you. They’re expert chess players, and they’re fast talkers, and they could take your money ’cause they wanted to bet that you could beat them, etcetera. I picture these philosophers the same way, they’re ready to debate Paul and wipe the floor with him philosophically. They have a lot of disdain toward Paul.

Think about this statement, the arrogance in it. “What is this babbler trying to say?” The word babbler in the Greek is “seed picker”. And so it’s very disparaging of him as a philosopher, like an intellectual vagabond, a philosophical hobo who goes from place to place with a tattered bag of ideas, and picks up a little of this, and a little of that, and adds to his collection of philosophy and ideas without any filter or organizing theme. And yet, as they listen to Paul, they’re intrigued. Now, Paul does clearly preach the Gospel to them ’cause he’s talking to them about Jesus and the resurrection, but we don’t have that account in Acts 17. And so they invite him to Mars Hill and give him time to speak. Now, given that our own culture is becoming more and more scientific, philosophical and pagan, in love with science and technology, and more and more hostile to Christianity, it is beneficial for us to sit at the master’s feet and learn from him how to preach.

III. Paul’s Strategic Message

Now, as I said, Paul doesn’t actually preach the Gospel, he does what I call, pre-evangelism. He begins to set everything up but I think they cut him off. You can imagine a radio talk show host that’s got his finger on the button, and at a certain point they push the button and shut him down. But yet he does so much of the laying of the groundwork and we need to listen to him. So he begins with this issue of, to an unknown God, an altar he saw to an unknown God. Look at verses 22 and 23, “Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.”

Paul was a fascinating speaker. I think one of the basic lessons of evangelism is, be interesting. Dig into their worldview. Try to listen to them and ask questions. Find out where they’re coming from. And he does that. But notice also, be urgent. Paul goes immediately to the matter at hand. He doesn’t waste any time at all. He goes right to the issue of religion. And he talks about this altar of an unknown or to an unknown God, and how tragic and pathetic is that in all of their polytheism they have hundreds, even thousands of gods and goddesses, of shrines, and temples and monuments, they never feel comfortable. It’s never enough. They’re afraid they might have missed someone in the pantheon of all the gods and goddesses, so they just wanna cover their bases. And so someone made an altar, maybe off to the side in an obscure place, to an unknown God. And Paul seizes on this as a beachhead, like D-Day, Normandy, to try to get a toehold into the discussion, this issue of, to an unknown God. And Paul’s mission here is very, very plain, “What you worship as something unknown, I am going to proclaim to you.” It’s not enough for us to be kind to our unsaved neighbors, and to be nice to people at work and to be kind and nice people, we have to proclaim the Gospel, we have to speak the words of the Gospel, and Paul gives us clear example. 

Now, look where he begins, he begins with God the Creator, verse 24 and 25, “The God who made the world and everything in it is Lord of heaven and earth, and does not live in temples built by hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all [people] men life and breath and everything else.” So Paul begins with this clear assertion that God made the world and everything in it. Now, I wanna talk about just an approach that we should take. Some call it apologetics but they’re just some basic questions that everyone has to face in life. Like the question of origins or the question of existence, “Why is there something rather than nothing?” Materialistic atheism makes a God of the creation of atoms and matter itself. And that philosophy was there back then, as well. Now, atheistic, materialistic evolution cannot answer the ultimate questions of life, like the questions of origin, cannot answer it. 

I have been studying evolution for a long time. I had the privilege to go to MIT. I love science. I love theology more. I don’t see any disunity between genuine good science and good theology, but evolution, friends, is just bad science as well as bad theology. Why is it bad science? Well, there are three questions in particular, the atheistic, materialistic evolution can never answer. First, the origin of life. Where did the first living cell come from? How do you go from a bunch of non-living amino acids or proteins or whatever to the first living cell with a cell wall, and all of that? It’s impossible. There’s no explanation for it. Secondly, why doesn’t the fossil record show a continuous development of species? The fossil record is against evolution. Darwin knew that. He was hoping for thousands of missing links, not just one. And thirdly, what about exquisitely complex organs or capabilities? Like the eye or the wing of a bird. Imagine that that took thousands, hundreds of thousands, even millions of years to evolve. What good would 60% of that evolution be if you still can’t fly or can’t see?

These three questions, I’ve never gotten a good answer to. I was talking to a guy who was writing a book on evolution on the plane. And all it did is get him angry. I didn’t wanna make him angry. I just wanted some answers and I wanted to point to a creator who actually makes all things.

So evolution cannot answer the questions of origin. Neither can it answer the question of purpose. If everything evolved from non-personal matter, what is the purpose of life? We are purposeful beings, we need to know, “Why am I here? Why am I alive?” Evolution cannot answer the morality question. “Why is there right from wrong, good from evil?” Those kinds of things. We have a strong sense of morality in our hearts. But evolution doesn’t give us a sense of that. And it can’t answer the destination question. “Where are we heading with all this?” These questions, the questions of origin, the question of purpose, the question of morality, the question of destination, of where we’re heading, the scripture gives us answers to all of these and it begins with God the Creator as Genesis 1:1 said, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” and Paul preaches it clearly here, “The God who made the world and everything in it…” The God who made the world. Now, I will say this, it’s only by faith that anyone will ever accept this truth: God made the world. The author of Hebrews tells us, it is by faith that we realize that the visible world was made by an invisible God. But because God is the creator of all things, God is the ruler of all things. 

“Evolution cannot answer the questions of origin. Neither can it answer the question of purpose. If everything evolved from non-personal matter, what is the purpose of life? “

Look at verse 24, “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth…” He is the sovereign king. He is Almighty God. He rules the universe. Because he made everything, he has the right to make laws and rules by which everything is to be governed. He rules over it and he has made laws by which we human beings are to behave toward him vertically and toward each other horizontally. For example, most famously, The Ten Commandments. God said, I am the Lord, your God, you shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make any idols or worship any idols. You shall not take the name of the Lord in vain. Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Do all your work in six days and rest on the seventh for God made heaven and earth in six days and rested on the seventh. Honor your father and mother. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor and you shall not covet. That means deeply desire anything that belongs to your neighbor.

Jesus came along later and summed up all of the laws of God, not just The Ten Commandments, but all of those vertically and horizontally in two great commandments. The first and greatest commandment is this, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind. And the second commandment is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. But here’s the thing, dear friends, these laws have come down from Almighty God, they are the basis of human morality. But all of us have violated them. All of us have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. All of us need a savior. And that’s exactly why God sent his son. Because we were rebels. We were violently opposed to the rule of God. We were fighting against him. And therefore salvation is yielding clearly to the yoke of God’s kingly rule in the kingdom of heaven. As it says in Mark 1:15, Jesus began preaching, he said, “The time has come… The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe [the gospel] the good news!”

In other words, “Stop your rebelling against my commands, and submit to my kingly rule, and I will forgive a grand and eternal glorious day of amnesty. I will forgive all of your sins, past, present, and future, by simple faith in Jesus.” Oh, dear friend, do you know that that’s happened to you? Do you know that your sins are forgiven through faith in Christ? All of us are rebels against that rule of Almighty God. Well, and Paul was there to preach that good news. Then he addresses the folly of idolatry. Look at verses 24 and 25, “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and he does not live in temples built by hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else.” And then a few verses later, verse 29 and 30, he says, “Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone — an image made by man’s design and skill. In the past, God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent.” 

Well, Paul zeroes in on this issue of, to an unknown God, and he shows how foolish is this idolatry, and they do not realize how offended God is by their idolatry. How at the core of God’s being, he hates his glory being denigrated by idolatry. And look at the specifics of what Paul says. God does not dwell in temples built by men. Solomon, when he built the temple that God commissioned him to build and God wanted it built in Jerusalem. When he got done, he realized the truth. He said, “The heavens, even the highest heavens, cannot contain you. How much less this temple that I have built!” So God doesn’t dwell in temples built by men and he is not served by human hands as if he needed anything. That’s so important for us to realize. God has never needed anything at all, and he never will need anything. God is a perfectly full being. He is overflowing with fullness. He doesn’t have any needs. He didn’t have any needs before he created the heavens and the earth. And he doesn’t have any needs now. He actually gives to all people life and breath and everything else. 

And so, if I can say this to you, dear Christian friend, as we desire to be evangelists and we desire to serve God with our spiritual gifts, we need to realize and be humbled by the fact, God doesn’t need you at all. He doesn’t need me. He doesn’t need any of us. He doesn’t need us to serve him. We actually need him to serve us. We need him through Jesus to wash us of sin and to die on the cross in our place and to lift us up. We need him to serve us, and if we’re humbled that way, then we can serve him and he will accept our service, but he doesn’t need us. And anything we would ever give to God is his already. Furthermore, Paul says, God is not made by man’s technology. God is not designed by man’s skill out of gold, or silver or anything else. Actually, man is made by God’s skill. Isn’t it beautiful how King David said in Psalm 1:39, “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” Isn’t that a beautiful image? God knitting us together. Stitch upon stitch in our mother’s wombs. We are specially created by the powerful hand of God. So we don’t make God. God made us.

And not only that, God is the creator, the sustainer and ruler of all human societies in human history. From one man, he made every nation of man that they should inhabit the whole earth. So God gives to all people life, and breath, and everything else and he made the entire human race out of one man, Adam. And there goes or should go all racism. We are all from one man. We are all descended from Adam. And not only that, God is the sustainer of every human being, every moment. Look at verse 28, “’For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’” The basic message here is our continued existence depends at every moment on God. How important is that for us to realize during these times of COVID-19, to realize that in God we live, and move and have our being. 

God is a sovereign ruler of every human being. Look at verse 26, “From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live.” Now, that’s staggering. That’s absolutely staggering. God created the whole human race from Adam, and then he orchestrated through his sovereign will and providential control where every sub-group of people would live, where some would inhabit some valley surrounded by some mountains. Others would be in some desert areas, or some tundra and God apportioned to each one their boundaries. What that means, the great empires like of Alexander the Great, the scope of his empire, or the Roman Empire, how far it would go and how long it would last.

Right now I’m listening to a biography of Genghis Khan. And though he did not acknowledge the true God, God gave to him the largest contiguous empire in history. Almost a quarter of the habitable land on earth, belonged at one point to the Mongols. And God determined how long the Mongols would rule and the extent of their rule. We could think even about the North American context, and how God decided how long the Apache or the Navajo would rule, and the extent of their domains before Europeans came and displaced them as they had displaced others before them. All of this is not some swirling mosaic mess but God is sovereignly orchestrating all of this. And why is that? Because God is seeking people to worship him. He wants people to follow him and love him.

Look what it says in verse 26 and 27, “he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that [people] men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.” I want you to see in Paul’s message, it’s so incredible, both the transcendence of God, the infinite majesty of a transcendent God, but also the immanence of God, how close he is to each one of us. Do you realize how important those two ideas are for this present time in this pandemic? We need to realize, God sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and this virus does not threaten his purposes at all. God can actually even use sorrow, and disease and even death to accomplish his purposes of life as we see ultimately in the cross. 

So God is transcendent and majestic and unshaken by any human event. But he’s also imminent. In him, we live, and move and have our being, he is not far from each one of us. And so God does all of this sovereign orchestration of history, so that sinners like you and me can just reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. And then in verse 30, Paul says that God” … commands all people everywhere to repent.” He talks about their idolatry, a great offense to him. Our sins are a stench in God’s nostrils. God has a violent angry reaction against all human sin. And he is calling now, all sinners to repent. Look at Verse 30, “In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent.” The idolatry of these pagans is not okay. It’s not an alternate path to God. It’s not, it’s offensive to him. All of our sins, our lusts, our materialistic idolatries, all of these things are offensive to him. And that’s exactly why God sent his son, the only begotten Son of God, Jesus, to live a sinless life, to die an atoning death for sinners like you and me, and to be raised from the dead, showing a hope of eternal life because God is commanding sinners like you and me to repent.

Friends, if you’re an evangelist, I want you to have just some iron in your backbone on this verse. God is commanding the people you’re talking to, to repent. Sometimes we’re so afraid, we wilt in the face of public opinion. Do not wilt. We are ambassadors from the kingdom of heaven. We’ve got a message from the king of amnesty, the king who is coming, who’s coming with terrifying power, who’s coming to judge the living and the dead is giving now, through his advanced team, his ambassadors, an opportunity for sinners like you and me to repent. And he commands us, all people everywhere to repent. So in the midst of the Gospel is a command from Almighty God, from the king, “Repent and believe the Gospel because Judgment Day is coming.” Look at verse 31, “For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed.”

All of the human philosophies made way for human pleasures and human beings to live how they want. And we live in that era, too. People think it’s going to be fine. They can live, eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow, we die, but the Bible says, Judgment Day is coming. And Christian friends, we need to tell our non-Christian friends the truth. Judgment Day is coming. He has set a day. Now, no one knows when that day is. We don’t know. But it’s coming and he’s going to judge all people. We’re gonna have to give an account on the Day of Judgment for every careless word we have spoken. And Christ’s resurrection proves his role as the judge of all humanity. Look at verse 31, “He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead.” So Jesus is the judge of every human being that’s ever lived, past, present, future, all human beings will stand before his throne for judgment. As Jesus said in John 5, “The Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father [who sent him].” And Paul says that God has given proof of this to all nations by raising that one man, Jesus, from the dead. And that’s what we’re gonna celebrate next week. We celebrate it every day but we get a special day with Christians around the world to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. But here, for our purposes, it’s proof that there is a judgment day coming and that Jesus will be the judge.

IV. The Varied Reactions of the Athenians

Now, Paul had gotten to that point and he was just about to unfold the beauties of the full Gospel and all that but they shut him down. That’s why I call it beautiful pre-evangelism here, and there are various reactions. “When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered.” So that’s just an arrogant philosophical reaction. The Epicureans and the Stoics were not interested in the bodily resurrection of a dead person. That made no sense to them. That was foolishness to them, so they shut him down. But some of them were secretly interested, I think. Paul piqued the interest of some. And so, in verse 32 it says, “We want to hear you again on this subject.” And then, in the course of time, genuine faith by some. Look at verse 34. “A few men became followers of Paul and believed. Among them was Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus, also a woman named Damaris, and a number of others.” And so, it’s incredible the fruit that comes and, first of all, how significant it is. These people have names. If they have genuine faith in Christ, they are in heaven right now awaiting the resurrection from the dead. But also, look at how small the number is. There’s this vast city and this huge number of philosophers and just a few of them believe. Now, as we faithfully share the gospel here in Durham, and Raleigh, and Chapel Hill, and all of this region, we know that we’re gonna meet with the same kind of mixed reactions. Some are gonna mock us. Some are gonna get angry. Some are gonna ignore us. Some are gonna be intrigued and wanna talk some more. And eventually some are going to believe.

V. Applications

So applications. The greatest application we can take from this is just, I wanna say to you, dear viewer, dear friend, thank you for tuning in. What about you? Are your sins forgiven through faith in Jesus Christ? Have you trusted in him? If not, I just wanna urge you, call on the name of the Lord Jesus. Do it right now. Don’t wait. Don’t wait. You don’t know if you’ll even be alive tomorrow. Call on the name of the Lord for the forgiveness of sins. Now, for you Christians, members of First Baptist Church, we are committed and should be committed as never before to take the message of life to people who need to hear it so much. If, as we trust will soon happen, this thing will ebb away like Noah’s flood and it will become a very vivid memory, and there’ll still be some economic repercussions, either way, we know that our neighbors, our unsaved neighbors and family, co-workers, fellow students, other people we meet here in this region, will remember this and they’ll have questions. They’ll have questions about life and about death, and about judgment, and sin, and forgiveness. It is our privilege to walk in the footsteps of Paul and be able to share the Gospel with people. Let’s be faithful to do it. Let’s pray. We’ve had our prayer, our extraordinary prayer meetings kind of interrupted by this, we’ve been praying at home, but we’re gonna renew a commitment, once this thing’s over, to gather for extraordinary prayer to train ourselves on how to do evangelism and then to go out and share; workplace, neighborhood, around the church, as we meet people here in this area. Let’s be faithful to be witnesses for the glory of God. Close with me in prayer. 

Father, we thank you for the beauty of the scripture. It’s timeless. It’s powerful. It’s alive. It never changes and it gives us hope. I thank you for the mysterious message of a transcendent God who is also imminent, who’s right with us. In him we live and move and have our being, and he is the judge of all the earth. Help us, oh Lord, to be humbled by his transcendence and his majesty, to put off all of our anxieties and fears at his feet because he cares for us. He’s a sovereign king. But also to realize he wants us to walk with him moment by moment and to love him. Lord, I pray any that are unsaved, who have listened to this live stream, that they would repent of their sins while there’s time and find forgiveness in Jesus. It’s in his name we pray. Amen.