In Peter Allison's sermon titled 'Preaching to Pagans,' he discusses the significance of Paul's sermon on Mars Hill in Athens, as documented in Acts 17. Paul encounters a city filled with idols and speaks to the Athenians, addressing their philosophical confusion and desire for new knowledge. Allison emphasizes that Paul does not seek common ground with the Athenians' pagan beliefs but rather presupposes the existence of the God of the Bible and proclaims Him as the Creator and sustainer of all life. Paul highlights God's self-sufficiency, the inherent religious nature of humans, and the accountability to God, urging repentance. He contrasts the biblical worldview with the Greek philosophies, pointing out that without God, the Athenians' worldview lacks coherence. Allison explains that Paul uses a presuppositional apologetic approach, asserting that ultimate standards must be presupposed. The sermon also outlines key attributes of God, including His sovereignty, omnipresence, self-revelation, and grace. Ultimately, Paul calls for repentance, emphasizing the resurrection of Jesus as the assurance of God's truth. Allison concludes by urging Christians to proclaim the gospel to an increasingly pagan world, starting with the acknowledgment of God as Creator and Judge.

Acts 17 Paul has come to Athens and founded to be a place overrun with idols. And he is vexed, provoked, and begins to preach in the synagogue, in the marketplace, and with Gentile worshipers. We pick up this account at verse 19. And they took him, that's Paul, and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, May we know what this new doctrine is of which you speak. For you are bringing some strange things to our ears, therefore we want to know what these things mean.

For all the Athenians and foreigners who were there spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear something new. Then Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious, for as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription to the unknown God. Therefore, the one whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you, God who made the world and everything in it, since He is the Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands, nor is He worshiped with men's hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things. And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on the face of the earth, and has determined their pre-appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord in the hope that 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 have our being, as also some of your own prophets have said.

For we are also His offspring. Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the divine nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man's devising. Truly these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising him from the dead. And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked.

While others said, we will hear you again on this matter. So Paul departed from among them. However, some men joined him and believed, among them Dionysius the Areopagite, a woman named Amaris, and others with them. May we choose these as precepts that His hand may become our help. Heavenly Father, please open Your Word to us.

Open our eyes that we may see and our ears that we may hear, and our minds that we may understand. Your Word, Lord, is spiritually discerned, and we need Your Holy Spirit to understand it. And I ask that you would sanctify my lips and purify them, that they may proclaim with your gospel of grace and keep me from error. I pray in Jesus name. Amen Well this sermon of Well, this sermon of Paul on Mars Hill must certainly be one of the most studied and debated passages by apologists in all the Bible.

I would hazard a pure guess that more Ph.D. Dissertations on apologetics have been written about this passage than probably any other. And I won't even attempt to address all the various apologetical approaches that are argued from this passage. Some see Paul trying to find neutral ground with the pagan Greek philosophers. Some see Paul bringing arguments from natural theology, while others see a purely and thoroughly biblical message.

There really, I would say, isn't even good agreement on how to classify the various apologetical approaches. So I'm not going to try to summarize them. It would be beyond our time this morning. And probably beyond my ability. I believe though that Paul here uses a presuppositional apologetic.

Presuppositions are the preconditions of thought and of logic. They are the lens through which we see and evaluate everything else. Everything else. And everyone has them. We all have them.

It's impossible for us as humans to operate without presuppositions. Even if you don't know what they are, does it mean you don't have them? The presuppositional apologist recognizes that any ultimate standard must be presupposed. It can't be proven by some other method. Because you see, if there was some other method by which an ultimate standard could be proven, then it would cease to be the ultimate standard, wouldn't it?

If something can be proven by some means outside of itself, then it's no longer the ultimate standard. There is something that is more ultimate that is used to prove this ultimate standard. And so this circularity, this necessity of presupposing our ultimate standard is unavoidable. It's everybody, every human, engages in this. If somebody wants to say, for example, that all questions must be proven by logic and reason, then we could ask, well, what is the proof of that statement itself?

And you immediately see the problem. If it's proven by something else that all things must be proven by reason and logic, then that refutes its statement. Because all things aren't proven by reason and logic. That statement itself is proven by something else. But if that statement that all things must be proven by reason and logic is proven by reason and logic, then they're reasoning in a circle.

They've presupposed what they're proving. So this is unavoidable. The question is what is your presupposition? What is your ultimate standard? And is it a consistent ultimate standard?

Or does it lead to internal contradictions? And so we as Christians say that the Word of God is the foundation of all knowledge. We must begin with God. And we then can show the impossibility of starting anywhere else. Without God, as He has revealed Himself in the Scripture, nothing else can be accounted for.

The existence of morality, the existence of laws, the existence of the world, even the existence of logic itself. None of these things can be rationally accounted for unless we begin with God. The God as He is revealed in the Scriptures. And so we're going to see today that Paul does not attempt to use premises or some foundation or some statement that is agreed by these philosophers. He doesn't pursue some neutral method of argumentation.

He doesn't begin with some place where they are in agreement, and then try to move them from the circle of their pagan beliefs into the circle of his own theistic convictions. Paul simply presupposes the existence of God and begins by declaring God to them, proclaiming God to them. And Paul is an ideal herald to preach to the pagan Athenians. And Paul uses that word, proclaim. It's a technical word.

Paul was from Tarsus of Cilicia, which was home to a number of well-known and highly regarded schools of philosophy and logic. And so being academically oriented, Paul would have been exposed to many of the leading thinkers of his day and would have encountered them also in the years that he was preaching following his conversion prior to his calling and commissioning in Acts 13. Paul was in Tarsus and those surrounding regions. His course of study under Gamaliel would have included a study of Greek culture and philosophy. And his familiarity with Greek literature and culture is reflected in his letters.

See, in many ways he's like the Moses of the New Testament. Moses was schooled in the learning of Egypt, and he acquired significant leadership experience as an Egyptian prince growing up in the house of Pharaoh, as a son of Pharaoh's daughter. And so, just like Moses was uniquely prepared to lead the children of Israel out of Egypt, Paul is uniquely prepared to address the pagan philosophies of Athens at that day. He was uniquely prepared to, as we say, bring Jerusalem to Athens. Because this is a theme, even the title of many books, Jerusalem and Athens.

These two competing philosophies of life. And So by the time Paul arrives in Athens, the past 400 years has exposed the inadequacies of all the major schools of philosophy to answer the most fundamental but very significant questions regarding things like the nature of the universe, the source of truth, who we are, where we come from, why are we here, and where are we going. These are the most significant and fundamental questions of our lives. And the Greeks were unable to answer them. The Greek philosophers were really unable to answer them satisfactorily.

And so the philosophical landscape in Athens at this time was one of confusion and uncertainty. Skepticism Reigned. Men were turning every which way in a search for truth and for security. And as Solomon notes in Ecclesiastes 8.15, this produces hedonism. This philosophical confusion and uncertainty.

He says, so I commended enjoyment, because man has nothing better under the sun than to eat, drink, and be merry. That was Solomon's conclusion. Seeing the futility of all human pagan philosophies to account for the fundamental questions of life, where we are going, who we are, why we are here, who made this world, it results in hedonism. Eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die. And so Luke describes this, well, this describes the Athenians.

They were unsatisfied with their current philosophies and they were thirsty for novel schemes of thought. And Luke describes this in Acts 17 saying, now all the Athenians and the strangers sojourning there spent time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear something new. The curiosity of the Athenians was well known, and actually well attested to even by their own writers. Earlier, Demosthenes had reproached the Athenians for being consumed with the craving for, quote unquote, fresh news. And the Greek historian Thucydides tells us that Cleon once declared, quote, You are the best people for being deceived by something new which is said.

You are the best people for being deceived by something new which is said." So Luke is not telling us anything that they haven't said of themselves. And so when Paul arrives on the scene in Athens and begins preaching and engaging these philosophers in the Agora, the Greek, the Athenian Agora, the marketplace, It's not surprising then that he's taken to the Areopagus and asked to publicly explain this new doctrine of Jesus and the resurrection. The Areopagus that he's brought to here in verse 19 was both a location in Athens, a hill, as well as the name of a judicial body that met at that location. This little hill is located just west of the Acropolis and maybe a little bit north. It's within sight of the Acropolis.

You can stand on Mars Hill and see the Acropolis. The Acropolis is that big butte that stands up several hundred feet above Athens, which held the Parthenon and the other temples. And Mars Hill here is just south of the Athenian Agora, the marketplace, where Paul had been engaging these Athenian philosophers. And the judicial body that met on this hill was a court that heard cases of intentional homicide, of wounding, of religious matters, and apparently also arson of olive trees, I'm told. And over the centuries, the function and the power of this body has waxed and waned.

And so it's not entirely clear whether Paul's appearance before the Areopagus Council was merely satisfying requested information, They just wanted to know more and they brought him here to know more. Or whether he was answering to formal charges because this was a court. Luke seems to imply on one hand that the reason for his appearing is merely to satisfy the curiosity. They wanted to know more, and so they brought him to a place where there was a court, and judges and so on, and people that would be experienced in hearing a matter like this. But Luke also says that they took him.

They took him in verse 19. And that word took is a word that's often used of arresting somebody. It's not always used that way, but it's often used that way. And so it does indicate some level of compelling him to come. The Greek areopagus is in Greek, I should say, areopagus is actually two words that translate to the hill of Aries or Aries Hill.

And since Aries is the Greek idol of war, and he's often considered the Greek analog to the Roman idol of war called Mars, the Areopagus is sometimes called Mars Hill. So your Bible may have a heading that says, Paul's address on Mars Hill, that's where it comes from. It's the same as the Areopagus. And so we come then to Paul's message. Paul establishes the context.

He begins his address on Mars Hill with who God is and what He has done. You see, This is a very different approach from that of the other apostles and himself when he's preaching to Jews. The Jews who knew who God was. They knew about the law and they knew about the sin. And with that background, knowledge, our need for a Savior makes sense.

But pagans, and that includes many people today in America, have no knowledge of the Scriptures. And with no knowledge of the Scriptures, there is no knowledge of the Creator, there is no knowledge of absolute law that all men must obey because there is no one to whom they are accountable. There are only inconveniences. So without absolute laws, there's no sin. And with no sin, there's no need of a Savior.

And so Paul in this sermon does not start with Jesus died for you, as many evangelists try to do today, or as Peter did in Acts 2. Peter began with, Jesus died for you. Paul instead begins with God the Creator, to whom they are accountable. The God who accounts for their existence. And the God who is the basis of absolute laws which they must obey." And this message, Paul's message here proclaims at least twelve truths about the one true and living God.

But there are five, I think there are five things worth noting about Paul's starting point here. One thing he doesn't do and four things that he does do. One thing, As I've alluded to earlier, one thing He does not do is to try and find some common ground with their pagan worldview. He doesn't find a point of agreement with something on their foundation of natural theology and try to reason from there to the Jehovah of God of the Bible. See, and in this sense, he is doing what Proverbs 26 says.

He's not answering the fool according to his folly. It's the fool that says there is no God. And he is not in any way accepting of that position. If he begins to try to prove that God exists, then he is essentially saying, God doesn't exist and we have to prove that He does. He's assuming that He doesn't exist.

And that's a fool's assumption. So he doesn't begin with that. He doesn't accept the need to prove the existence of God. In fact, he begins by pointing out the inadequacy of their own world view. Those are just the opposite of finding common ground.

He highlights the deficiencies of their theology by pointing to the fact that they have an altar to an unknown God. He uses their own admission of ignorance. Their own admission that there is a God about whom they know nothing, not even His name. He uses that as the basis to begin His proclamation of the one true God. He's basically underscoring for them what we might call an intellectual schizophrenia that all unbelievers have in that they both have an awareness of God and an ignorance of God.

They are aware of God, but they suppress that awareness of God in unrighteousness. This is a very strong rhetorical point, and it provides really an unassailable high ground from which Paul can then tell them about the true and living God, because they've admitted there's a God they know nothing about, they don't even know His name. McGregor Wright summarizes Paul's entire discourse in this, and I'd like to give you an extended summary of it. He says, in the course of moving from God's nature to the status of creation and so on to the human dilemma. Paul contradicts at least two dozen popular opinions from the Hellenistic religious and philosophical worldview.

Greek notions are challenged in the area of existence, of knowledge, of moral action, and also with respect to the purpose of everything. The entire structure of the Greco-Roman worldview is meticulously subverted, and A coherent substitute is offered in its place, based on the Bible's creator-creature distinction. There is no way to make these two visions of reality compatible. To accept the one view is necessarily to abandon the other. The two systems have different sources.

One is divine and the other demonic. With incompatible presuppositions, you notice they both have them, and conflicting methodologies, they disagree about what the facts are that leads to different practical lifestyles, and finally they demand different expressions of worship." That's in a nutshell what's going on in this passage. Paul doesn't try to find common ground with them. Paul, secondly, also points out the inherently religious nature of humans. He says, I perceive that in all things you are very religious.

That word is a compound word of fear and demons. And it's a word that the Epicureans and the Stoics also use to criticize Greek culture. So Paul in saying this is saying something that they would agree with. But it's not exactly a compliment. Although some lexicons state that it can be used in a favorable way to mean someone is religious or devout.

Paul is stating something that is true about man. He's stating it in a way that the Stoics and the Epicureans can't really argue with because they've made the same criticism. But it is a criticism. It's just one that he can get away with without offending them too much. Paul is basically pointing out the religious nature of man to people who don't think that people should be religious.

The Epicureans and the Stoics have tried to push God out of the picture, but despite their labors, despite their philosophies, the Greek people are still inescapably religious. Thirdly, Paul announces that he is God's herald. He says in verse 23, I proclaim to you.'" I proclaim. God's prophets always came with, "'Thus says the Lord.'" And Paul does the same thing when he says, the one whom you worship without knowing, him I proclaim to you. I'm coming as his herald to announce and widely disseminate both who He is and what He has done.

And that's a technical word that's used of a herald. It's used when somebody is commissioning somebody as their legal representative. That's what Paul's claiming, that He's God's herald. He's claiming to come with the authority of the God that He proclaims. And finally, Paul is respectful.

He comes in a respectful manner. Peter says in 1 Peter, to sanctify the Lord God in our hearts and always be ready to give a defense to anyone who asks us a reason for the hope that is in us with meekness and fear. With meekness and fear. So that we have a good conscience and when they defame us as evildoers, those who revile our good conduct in Christ may be ashamed. It's a disgrace when we claim to come as Christ's heralds, but do so in a way that is disrespectful.

And so although He is confronting their theology, Paul is respectful, beginning with Men of Athens. He is confronting their theology, but he does not do it with a confrontational spirit. He doesn't do it with sarcasm or anger in his spirit. It's a spirit of meekness. And so here then are the truths that Paul proclaims about the one true God.

He begins first with the existence of God. God exists. He presupposes, as we said earlier, this existence of God. He doesn't seek to prove it in some way that would be acceptable. He simply begins God in verse 24.

God. The God who did these various things. He doesn't even defend His lack of arguments for God's existence. He simply goes on to give them the next truth about God. God is the Creator who made everything, who made the world and everything in it.

See, Paul here is providing the basis for accepting the authoritative Word of God. They had asked about the resurrection. They wanted to know more about this thing, but Paul doesn't immediately address that question. And he certainly doesn't argue with them about all the various theories about the resurrection, like he swooned or the disciples stole the body and so on. He doesn't try to prove how those are all wrong or inadequate.

There are two competing worldviews that are being addressed. And these two worldviews would interpret the same facts in very different ways. And so Paul here has to challenge their underlying world view. And he has to present God as the Creator. Because if He's our Creator, then He owns us.

Then we're His. Paul told the Ephesians in Ephesians 4.17 that the Gentiles walk in the futility of their mind that their understanding is darkened because of their ignorance and hardened hearts, whereas a Christian on the other hand has a renewed mind and has learned Christ in whom is hid all wisdom. And so Paul knows that they can never just receive this fact of the resurrection without first knowing that they are accountable to the God who made them. So he proclaims that God is the Creator. And then he proclaims the self-sufficiency of God.

God is the self-sufficient God. He doesn't dwell in man-made temples. He's not worshiped with men's hands, nor does He need anything. This is a huge doctrine. It's probably worthy of its own message.

Idols need something from the people who worship them. They need the people who worship them to give them a house, to give them protection, to transport them. They need the people who worship them to give them a house, to give them protection, to transport them. They need the people who worship them to give them a voice and a message. But see, God tells us the opposite.

He told David he didn't need to build a house for him. He didn't need his protection. Another example, God didn't need anyone to get the ark back to Israel. Remember when the ark was captured by the Philistines? Because the Israelites had foolishly brought it out to the battlefield, kind of trusting in it as some kind of a thing, and God allowed it to be captured by the Philistines.

Well, God didn't need anybody to get that ark back to Israel. You remember the story. He didn't need an Israelite to go get it. He caused some other cows to act completely contrary to their nature, to leave their calves at home, their nursing calves, and to take this ark exactly where it needed to go. Now if that isn't a clear statement of the complete self-sufficiency of God, I don't know what would be.

He needs nothing from us. And even more, in a stunning display of his sovereign power, he used the very people who took it to of their own volition send it back. They didn't want it anymore. And you remember how he did that. He started bringing all these plagues upon them.

First their God falls down, and they have to raise Him back up. Then He falls down again and He breaks some things. They have to raise Him back up. Then they begin to get worried and they ship Him somewhere else. They're all getting sick.

They're dying. And so they give Him up of their own accord. That's a self-sufficient God. He doesn't need our service or our worship. Psalm 50, He says, Here are all My people, and I will speak O Israel, and I will testify against you.

I am God your God. I will not rebuke you for your sacrifices or your burnt offerings, which are continually before me. I will not take a bull from your house nor goats from your fold, for every beast of the forest is mine." He's got to say, I don't need your sacrifices. They don't add anything to me. I own all these things already.

I don't take a bull from your house nor goats from your fold, for every beast of the forest is Mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills. I know all the birds of the mountain and the wild beasts of the field are Mine. If I were hungry, God says, I wouldn't tell you. You have nothing to give me. For the world is Mine, He says, and all its fullness.

Will I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats? God doesn't need our sacrifices. We are the ones who benefit from worshiping God. He doesn't need our gifts either. Everything that we give Him is only what He's already given to us.

Remember, He says He owns the world and all its fullness. The gold under all the hills is His. He doesn't need our gifts. He doesn't need our wisdom. Job said, can a man be profitable to God?

Though He who is wise may be profitable to Himself. Can a man be profitable to God? No. He doesn't need our testimony of Him. John 2, 25, He had no need that anyone should testify of man, for He knew what was in man.

He doesn't need man to glorify Him. He's already glorious. The Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit glorify each other. He isn't diminished by our disobedience. Job 35 says, If you sin, what do you accomplish against Him?

Or if your transgressions are multiplied, what do you do to Him? If you are righteous, what do you give Him? Or what does He receive from your hand? Job is recognizing here the complete self-sufficiency of God. There is nothing, absolutely nothing that He needs from us or gets from us.

He owns all things and he owes no one anything. Now some atheists commonly claim that Christopher Hitchens is one in his book, God is Not Great, who thinks that God is an arrogant, narcissistic, egomaniac, who needs to be praised by everybody. But nothing could be farther, of course, from the truth. He said He doesn't need our praise. But you see, God isn't selfish that way.

What we see in the Trinity is that the Father glorifies the Son. He says, this is my Son in whom I'm well pleased hear Him. And the Son glorifies the Father. See, they are glorifying each other within the Trinity. That's not selfishness.

That's the opposite of selfishness. Because we are to be imitators of those aspects of God. We are not to be selfish. We are to look at Christ. And so what we see, the example in the Trinity is not selfishness, it's just the opposite.

It's each of the persons of the Trinity praising the other person, deflecting the glory. Paul then goes on with his next truth that God is the life-giving God. He gives to all life and breath and all things." Verse 25, God sustains all things. These people who are rebelling against God are doing so with the breath that He has given them. Their life is a life that He has given to them.

It's not something that they are owed. It's something He's provided them. He is the life-giving God. And everything that they have, God has given them. All of their wealth, all of their ability, all of their honors, Everything, everything about them.

Their homes, their possessions. God has given them everything that they have. He gives to all life and breath and all things. Next, Paul declares that he is the creator of the human race. He's made of one blood every nation of man to dwell on the earth.

He's made of one blood. Right there, Paul is declaring that God has made us all people of one blood. There is no difference, humanly speaking. And this is a rejection of all forms of racism in all its aspects that in some way try to create a distinction between people based on race, on color of their skin or so forth or the nation that they live in. Yes, there are differences in us.

There are differences, there are just as big a differences between people of the same color as there are between people of other colors and other nationalities. Also you notice that He has created us to dwell on the earth. To dwell on the earth. It is the earth that has been given to us as our place of habitation and not the heavens. I think we can explore the heavens.

We may visit them, and we certainly should study them because they declare the glory of God and all those who take pleasure in God's works. The Bible says study His works, so we should certainly study them, but it's not been given to us to dwell in them. The earth has been given to us to dwell. And as you dig into that, you'll see there are many, many, many, many, many things about the uniqueness of the earth and its suitability as a place for us to dwell that are not true of the heavens. So I don't think we'll ever see the heavens used as a place of habitation permanently.

And the next truth that Paul brings is that he's a sovereign God. He's determined their pre-appointed times and boundaries of their dwelling. God determines the rise and the fall of nations. Which armies collapse? Which nations' economies collapse?

Which nations go into oblivion and which nations are raised up? God determines this. It's not governed by chance. It's not just happenstance. He's also declared Him as the God who is with us.

God is everywhere present. He says that we might grope for Him. So we should seek the Lord in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him." There's an imperative here. God created us to worship Him. He is the God who can be found.

Deuteronomy 30 says, "'For this commandment which I command you today is not too mysterious for you, nor is it far off. It is not in heaven that you should say, Who will ascend into heaven for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it? Nor is it beyond the sea that you should say, Who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it. Nor is it beyond the sea that you shall say, Who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us that we may hear it and do it? But the word is very near you in your mouth and in your heart that you may do it.

God is a God who is with us. God is a God who is found, He said, by those who seek Him. The next truth in verse 27 is that God is the self-revealing God. We will find Him. God has revealed Himself in creation.

The creation displays His glory. The Scriptures tell us about Him. God is a God who has revealed Himself. Otherwise, we wouldn't know Him. But He is a self-revealing God.

He's also then in verse 28, the self-existent God. In Him we live and move and have our being. God is the self-existent one who gives existence to everything else. This is a quote from Epimenides, the Cretan. And I think in this declaration that in Him we live is not teaching our mystical union with Christ.

That's another doctrine. It's also, Paul expresses that in terms of our being in Christ. This passage is teaching what he's taught in Colossians 1.15. In him all things were created and in him all things consist. Paul is simply here proclaiming man's absolute dependence on God for existence.

And this is actually the exact opposite of the author he was quoting, Epimenides. Epimenides was trying to prove that Zeus was not dead from the fact that men live. And Paul completely reverses this to teach that men exist because God exists. But then in verse 29, Paul proclaims that God is a transcendent God. He's not of our nature.

And Paul quotes a Sicilian poet Erratus as saying, for we are his offspring. But he's not agreeing with Erratus that we share the same nature of God in some pantheistic sense as Erratus was. There's an element of truth in these pagan philosophies, but it's distorted. Paul is not agreeing that these poets are on the path to knowing the true God. And they just need a little correction.

Paul is completely obliterating their idea that God is not of the same nature as us. He's not like a butter stone or something shaped by man or man's devising. He doesn't share our nature at all. He's completely separate. He's establishing, proclaiming here what we might call the creator-creature distinction.

There are only two categories of existence. God and everything else. God is the transcendent God. He's wholly other from us. That's what God's holiness is.

He's holy other. We don't share in that divine nature. But then He gets now, finally, to what we might call the Gospel. Not that all this is not necessary. It is part of the Gospel.

But we get now to the gracious God. God now commands all men everywhere to repent. God has overlooked this ignorance in former times, but now is commanding all men everywhere to repent. Does God want all men everywhere to repent? Yes.

I think this is a rejection of the denial of the free offer, what was called the free offer. God says He demands, God commands all men everywhere to repent. Does God want those to do what He commands? Does God want us to do? Does God want everyone to do what He commands them to do?

Yes, I think we have to say yes. God does. He's the gracious God. He's God of grace. He has provided a day of grace.

He's provided a Savior. When we repent of our sins, we are forgiven. Our sins are washed away. They are remembered no more. They are cast behind His back, and He doesn't no longer hold them against us, but rather receives us as His children.

That's the gracious God who is calling us to repent, to acknowledge that we are sinners. To acknowledge that we deserve death. We don't deserve to live. And then he also declares that God is the Judge, who is coming again. God is the Judge of all men.

He's established that God's our Creator, that we're accountable to Him, and we're accountable to obey His law. Otherwise there would be no basis for repentance. But now God has revealed Himself to them. And continued ignorance is culpable. And lastly, he says that the evidence of all this is that God raised Christ from the dead.

He's given assurance to all of this by raising Him from the dead. So Paul has made God's verbal revelation, God's written word, to be the starting point for answering the basic questions of reality. And he seeks to contrast this with the Athenians who have begun in ignorance and are worshiping objects made by their own hands. He's made God the creator as a starting point for understanding who He is. There's only two levels of existence.

God, or two levels of existence, two levels of being, God and everything else. He's taught them that we have sinned against God. God's standard of righteousness is the standard of judgment. And finally, he's taught them that God has a purpose in history. It's not merely a meaningless cycle moving nowhere, But that God controls not only the past but the future and there is I mean a judgment where all men will be judged By the absolute standard of God's law People he basically Paul is confronting their idea that people would be reabsorbed into a pantheistic view of the world.

God is saying, no, everyone will be raised and will be individually accountable by Jesus to Jesus Christ at the final judgment. Some heard. Dionysius the Areopagite was apparently a member of the council, and like Nicodemus, he believed. There was a woman named Demarius, and there were a few others, but most mocked, apparently. And others said, well, we'll hear about it again.

They put him off. And so Paul left. Paul left. You don't ever read of him planting a church in this city. That doesn't mean he wasn't successful.

This was a successful mission trip. God saved those who were ordained to eternal life. I pray that we would learn from this passage how we are to proclaim the gospel to an increasingly pagan world around us, that we must begin with God and make no apologies for that beginning. God is the creator, God, who is self-existent, who has revealed Himself to us and who holds us accountable to obey His law. But who has provided a Savior to deliver us from His wrath.

Our Heavenly Father, There is so much in your word, our hearts, our minds can barely contain the glories of your word and how it stands in marked contrast to every vain philosophy of men. Lord, we ask that You would strengthen and renew our confidence in Your Word, our reliance upon Your Word as the sword of Your Spirit, that weapon of offense. We ask, Lord, that we might be more faithful to proclaim You the Creator God. Lord, we ask that you would give us a zeal that more might know you as their savior and not just their judge. We ask this in Jesus name, amen.