In his sermon, Trent Moody discusses Paul's experiences in Athens as recorded in Acts 17. While waiting for Timothy and Silas, Paul is deeply disturbed by the city's idolatry, which reflects the Athenians' spiritual ignorance and misplaced worship. Moody emphasizes that God is jealous for His glory and worship, drawing from Deuteronomy 4 to explain God's intolerance for idolatry. The sermon highlights Paul's strategic approach in addressing the Athenians at the Areopagus. Instead of reacting with rage, Paul uses his provocation to perceive the Athenians' worldview, understanding the beliefs of Epicureans and Stoics, and then proclaims the true God whom they ignorantly worship as 'unknown.' Moody stresses that God, as the Creator, is self-existent, does not dwell in man-made temples, and does not need anything from humans, contrasting the Athenians' gods who supposedly required human service. The sermon culminates in the call for repentance, as God's ultimate purpose for nations is that they seek Him. Moody underscores that despite the Athenians' ignorance, God commands all people to repent and know Him through Jesus Christ, who is the true light in the darkness of human understanding.

It's good to see everyone. Acts 17, I want to begin in verse 16, but then from 16, we will jump to 22, just to grab a quick context. Acts 17, verse 16, and then to 22, There we go. Thus says the word of the Lord. Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him when he saw that the city was given over to idols.

Verse 22, 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 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 all the face of the earth, and has determined their pre-appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the 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 poets 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 from among them.

However, some joined him and believed. Among them Dionysus the Areopagite, a woman named Demaris and others with them. Let us pray. Our Heavenly Father, we just want to thank you, O God, for the Word of God, just as we just sang, just as we have just read. Father, we have not come to hear the words of man.

We have not come to hear philosophies. We have come to hear the living Word of God through Jesus Christ, your Son. And Lord, we pray today that above all things that the name of Jesus Christ would be proclaimed and exalted because He is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And Father, I pray today that you would draw every heart towards yourself. That there would be none, Lord, who would leave this place mocking or uncertain, but that they would leave here believing on the Lord Jesus Christ.

So Father, we pray now by the Holy Spirit, speak to your people. And Lord, to those who are not yet yours, I pray that you would give them hearts to perceive. Lord, give them ears to hear. And Lord, we ask all of these things in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

You may be seated. This morning, I want to speak to you on the subject, as you see there on your outline, jealous for the glory and worship of God. Jealous for the glory and worship of God. One of the things that is so interesting is that as we see Paul as he's waiting here on Timothy and he's waiting on Silas in Athens while he was here in verse 16 we see that as he was there his spirit was provoked within him when he saw the city was given over to idols. One of the things that provoked Paul to this extent was that he saw that there was this people, some most commentators say some 250, 000 people living in this city, and they were given over to idolatry.

They were given over to what this world comes to when it uses its wisdom. So as we think about this, one of the things that we as Christians should consider is that our God is a jealous God. This is what the scripture teaches us in Deuteronomy chapter 4 and verse 23. God says, take heed to yourself lest you forget the covenant of the Lord your God which He made with you and make for yourselves a carved image in the form of anything which the Lord your God has forbidden you. For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God." It struck me as I was thinking about this and considering the jealousy of God towards his worship and towards his glory and even towards his people, God is jealous over you with a godly jealousy.

But since God is jealous over His glory and for His glory and for His worship, because we see this here in Deuteronomy 4. It was the point at which He was jealous because He was warning them not to make idols and worship and go after them because they were in covenant with God. Don't make any carved images in any form of anything which the Lord your God has forbidden you. But because God is jealous of His glory and of His worship, it struck me that we should likewise be jealous for God's glory and for His worship. I believe that this is what motivated the Apostle Paul.

This is what provoked him when he came into Athens and he was looking around him. And as some men said, it was easier to find idols than it was men. And he was so provoked in his spirit over this that the whole city had been given over to idolatry. A whole city of some 250, 000 people who were not giving glory and honor and worship to the very God who created them. And this was provoking to Paul.

I'd mentioned this a couple weeks ago, too often that we are provoked by the things that we should not be provoked about, but we are not provoked about the things that we should be provoked about. How quickly our spirits within us become provoked over things that offend ourselves, that offend our glory, or offend our reputation or offend our name when we should be provoked when God's name is not worshiped and when God is not receiving the glory for which He is so worthy." Paul's provocation, I believe, was rightly justified. He was in the right. He could not stand the thought that idols and ultimately we know demons should receive the worship that only God deserves. However, I also want to point out that he did not let his provocation turn into hatred.

He did not let his provocation turn into rage, as so many in our day do, but rather that provocation that Paul had motivated him to thoughtful perception of their worldview. Paul's main concern, again, it was the glory of God and the worship of God but in the desire to see men glorify and worship God he took that rage or that it not rage but that provocation and he turned that provocation into a perception That's kind of what we see here. I'm playing on some of the P words here in this passage. But we see that he was provoked and then in verse 22 it says, then Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious. He was perceptive in their worldview.

I want us to recap really just in a nutshell the nutshell belief of what the Epicureans and Stoic philosophers believe because it's really instructive for us to understand this passage of Scripture. He's coming to them. He has been brought to the Areopagus and he is going to combat doctrinally what they believe. And he's going to just lay the axe to the root. He's going to tear it down.

And so I want us to understand just again in a nutshell, Epicureans taught that the number one goal of man was to avoid pain and discomfort. They were materialists. They did not deny the existence of God, but did not think that he would become involved in the interest of men. It was somewhat of a clockmaker mentality. He was out there, but did not know him.

Death to them meant the end of both body and soul. And so later on when you see that when Paul preached to them the resurrection that some mocked, I would say the some were the Epicureans. But it goes on from there to help us to understand that the Stoics, on the other hand, taught that the chief end of man was to reach a place really of indifference, whether towards pain or pleasure. They were not going to be moved by either. So they had self-mastery over their emotions and over their feelings.

And again, this is just a nutshell view of what they believed. But I want it to help us as we go through this passage of Scripture to see exactly what Paul was getting at. Interestingly, Paul was led by some of these philosophers, these Epicurean and Stoics, to this very hill, the Areopagus. The former part of this passage in verses 16 through 21, we see that he gets into a conversation with them and they were saying, what does this babbler have to say? What does this ignorant show-off have to say?

But now they were bringing him up to the hill. They were bringing him to present him before all of those who were the high-minded, all of those who were who were full-headed but empty-hearted. As I mentioned last time, this babbler, this seed picker, if you will, that's another translation of that. In other words, they viewed him as a man who went around just picking little seeds from different philosophies, and he wanted to just take all the little seeds and try to combine them all. And they were looking down on him as if he couldn't come up with his own ideas.

So he was grappling with all the seeds that were just plucked from the heads of grain. But he came here not as an ignorant show-off, but as one who had a direct revelation from the Lord Jesus Christ. He came to proclaim the gospel to them. This man, again, he was provoked in his spirit because of the idolatry. He was now looking into and perceiving what their worldview was.

He knew, he had studied, he understood what was going on. But he noticed from his perception that throughout the city, and in specific one place, perhaps more, there might have been more than one idol there listed to the unknown God, but he references that here and his understanding of their worldview. They thought that once he stood before the assembly group, that all of these ideas of him, all of these little seeds that he had picked would be picked apart, that they would be scattered to the wind. And so they brought him before and up to the Areopagus, and he stood in the midst of them, it says. Not on the outskirts, but there he was, right in the middle, ready to give a defense, ready in season and out of season to proclaim the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, some commentators believe that Paul began with a bit of a slap in the face, if you will, of calling them very religious or too superstitious. But there was also the view that perhaps it was a gentler remark and to make a pathway for the gospel. Not to agree with them, but also not to greatly offend them on the very first word. But one view is that what he said meant that they were extremely religious. Therefore, lest any of the gods should be neglected by them, they erected an altar to the unknown God." One commentator says he used a word which, like our word for devotee, though not offensive, was neutral with a slight touch of disparagement.

He wanted to make his point but also wanted to keep an open ear that he could proclaim the gospel to. Either way, Paul's aim was to put his finger on the very most important part of those men and women. And really that is to some degree my desire here this morning that God through His Word by the Spirit would put his finger on the very point and the heart of that which matters most to you. Because that which matters most to you is that to which you worship. Paul was going after the very heart of their worship.

And brothers and sisters, we know that Puritans who have gone before have declared this, that our heart is like a little idle factory. There are so many things that we grab after and that we are devoted to, that we give our money to and give our time to, we give our devotion to, we give our affections to, and that is what Paul was doing here. He was putting his finger on that very point, the point of their religious worship of the unknown God and all the plethora of other gods at which they had. But Paul knew all too well that all men are religious by design. God made you to worship.

The problem is that because of the fall we worship everything but God until God comes and awakens us and renews us and gives us a right spirit within so that we would worship Him and Him alone. But every man, no matter they're an atheist, agnostic, or some worshiper of pagan idols, whether they say they believe in nothing or believe in everything, every man worships something. And the question is, what do you worship? When you figure out what someone believes, then you can get right to the point that is most important to them. Again, all men either worship and serve the Creator, as Paul says in Romans, or the creation.

And that includes even ideas and devisings of man, the things in which you dream up of yourself, the things which you're meditating upon. And so Paul again is wanting to get to the very point of this. And in verse 29, he mentions this. He says, 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 divisings He had seen around him in this great city of Athens, and he had seen it all over the place, all of these idols, and even this idol to the unknown God by which he uses to point to the very heart of their problem and their religious worship. And he's pointing out, Paul's design was again, to put his finger on that object of religious worship and bring them face to face with the true and living God.

This is what we do when we evangelize when we share the gospel with people We want to come provoke that they are not worshiping God, but we don't want to just get all agitated and angry. We actually want to become perceptive and think to ourselves and examine what is it that this person actually worships? What God are they serving? And when we do that it helps us to know how to bring the gospel to that very point. Oftentimes when we go out on our evangelism Sundays I look as I'm going up to the front porch and I'm looking to see what it is that they are displaying and oftentimes it will give you a window into what it is that means much to them.

You can be perceptive in those things and look for those things. And then to begin a conversation, sometimes you ring the doorbell and 25 dogs start barking. Then you know. You know what means a lot to them. And so it gives you an opportunity to speak to them regarding these things.

But this is where we must begin with wise and perceptive evangelism. We need to be inquisitive. We need to be perceptive. We need to investigate what is most important to that person, and then we can make use of those things to point them to the reality of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is what Paul did.

To the Jew, Paul used the law. He went to that which they profess to be the most important thing to them. To the Greek, he used conscience and he used creation. Over and over again we see this. And now to the Athenians he does use creation, but he's speaking here regarding their idolatrous worship and the creator God.

And that's what he did. He would go to them. Most strikingly, We see that what he was doing was that there was an idol that literally proclaimed their own ignorance. Again, think about this. Here he is in this city full of idols, and he's among these people who considered themselves to be the most wise and philosophical of the whole world.

They believed that they actually sprang up not from one man. That's why we get to that a little bit. They believed that they were just derived from themselves, that they were a special group of people above all the peoples on the earth. And in fact, we know that the Greeks looked down on everyone else and called everybody else a barbarian because they believed that they were the cream of the crop. But here it was right in the midst of their city and perhaps even within view of where Paul was standing and proclaiming to them, there it was, an idol with this inscription, to the unknown God.

They were proclaiming, they were advertising something here. They were showing forth their own ignorance in what they thought they believed. They wanted to cover all the bases, if you will. They wanted to make sure that they got all of the gods in the plethora of gods that they had. But to the unknown God, The God who did not make himself known to man as one man describes it.

This is a helpful description because it shows why Paul then lays out for them who the unknown God is. And let me say this, not the God of that very idol. That's not what Paul was doing. He wasn't saying, that idol, I'm going to tell you who that God is. It wasn't like that.

It was going at the heart of the message. To the God whom you do not know, I'm going to proclaim Him to you. To the very one that you do not know. Here at the very epicenter of the height of the wisdom of man, he finds an idol that declares their ignorance. Kind of ironic.

They couldn't deny it. They made an idol to their ignorance. They made an idol of the things that they didn't know and Paul runs with it. He's very perceptive indeed. He points it out and therefore he says to them, the one whom you worship without knowing, to not recognize, to be unacquainted with, or to be ignorant of something.

Charles Ellicott relates this story which I believe is helpful. A story connected with Epimenides of Crete, which demonstrates the ignorance of their worship. Epimenides, who was a prophet of great fame, was invited to Athens at a time when the city was suffering from a pestilence, and he offered this as a probable explanation of its origin. As one man relates, that he turned sheep loose in the city and then had them sacrificed where they were stopped, to the God thus pointed out to the one whose image and altar was nearest to the spot in which the sheep stopped." And there it was, the altar without a name, or the God that didn't have a name, were thus to be seen in many parts of Athens, he says. And it has been supposed that this may have been one of these altars erected where there was no image near enough to warrant a sacrifice to any known deity.

And as Epimenides is stated to have offered sacrifice on the Areopagus, that such an altar may have been standing within view as St. Paul was speaking this very message. So think about the ignorance of These high-minded people who thought that they were the cream of the world. And here they were in the midst of an epidemic and this problem that was sweeping through the city. They had the great idea, let's figure out which God this is.

Let's throw a bunch of sheep loose and whichever one comes closest to the idol, that will be the God we try to appease and we'll offer sacrifices to him. Foolishness. Total ignorance. And that was what Paul was getting to. Can you imagine the scene of Paul standing in the midst of this hill surrounded by the world's best and brightest and pointing out that what they worship they didn't even know.

Brothers and sisters, we have come not to worship what we know not, but to come and worship Him who has made Himself known to us through the person of Jesus Christ. We have a knowing faith. We have a knowing religion. We know Jesus Christ. This is eternal life that you might know Him.

To them they worship what they did not know and really what they could not know. But I want to point out what one of our brothers said on Tuesday that struck me. Notice that Paul's provocation gave way to perception and that his perception turned into proclamation, not condemnation to the extent that he was going to proclaim the gospel to them. You know, it's easy to be provoked in this go-around telling everyone else how provoked you are. That's what the social media is for.

You're provoked about something and then you want everybody else to know what you're provoked about. But you actually don't do anything about what you're provoked about. This is the plight of man, is it not? We love to complain. We love to tell everybody what we're upset about, but rarely do we ever come to the point and do like the Apostle Paul here and use that provocation to turn it into Biblical perception and turn that into Biblical proclamation.

Because Paul was not satisfied that they did not worship God. He would not be satisfied until he told them who God was so that they could worship the true and living God. He was there to proclaim to them the one true God. In verses 24-29 we see this. God who made the world and everything in it, since he is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands.

Paul's proclamation was not primarily regarding what the Athenians did not know, but on what he did know, what Paul knew. They worshiped a God they did not know, but Paul was going to proclaim to them the God he did know, because he had revealed himself to them through the person of Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus. Jesus Christ revealed himself to Paul. Paul knew who he was. It's important to understand that Paul was not equating this idol, again, with the true God, but was rather playing off this inscription to the unknown God so that he could then tell them the God whom he knew.

And brothers and sisters, that is what we do. We profess and proclaim a God we know. We know because He lives within us through the work of the Holy Spirit. His Spirit dwells in us and we know Him. As in Hebrews 1 verse 1 says, God who at various times and in various ways spoke in times past by the fathers, by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by his Son, whom he has appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the worlds, who being the brightness of his glory, the expressed image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power.

When he had by himself purged our sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high, having become so much better than the angels, as he has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they." Paul's first description here is regarding the creation order, God who made the world and everything in it. This was who God was. Creation to the Gentiles was Paul's message and it was scripture to the Jews. But here we see in verse 24 the Creator laid out by Paul. We read in Isaiah 40 and verse 28 these words.

God says, have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth neither faints nor is weary his understanding is unsearchable the psalmist writes in psalm 95 for the Lord is the great God and the great King above all gods In His hand are the deep places of the earth. The heights of the hills are also His. The sea is His, for He made it.

And His hands formed the dry land. Oh, come let us worship and bow down. Let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker." This was Paul's proclamation to these people. They needed to know who God was, that God was the one who created them, and yet they ignorantly were worshiping a God they did not know and did not understand, though he was near to every one of them. He was the Creator.

He was the God who made all things. This is really where Paul goes in Romans chapter 1 and verse 8. Listen to what Paul writes here. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness because what may be known of God is manifest in them for God has shown it to them. How has God shown it to them?

He has shown it to them through creation. And so this is what Paul was getting to. He was putting his finger on their point of worship. He was trying to prick their conscience. He says in verse 20 of Romans 1, for since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.

Because Although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. Is that not an exact description of what was taking place right here in Athens? They had suppressed the truth. They had denied what God had made clearly observable in creation, that there was a God.

They also had changed the glory. Remember what the theme of this message is? It's jealous for the glory and worship of God. They professed to be wise, but they changed the glory of God, the incorruptible God, into an image like corruptible man. They were ignorant in their worship.

MacArthur notes, this teaching flatly contradicted both the Epicureans who believe that matter was eternal and therefore had no creator, and the Stoics who as Panathiest believed God was part of everything and could not have created himself. That's what you call confused. They were confused. They were ignorant of the one true living God. And Paul goes straight to the heart and with one message of the Creator God, who is the Creator over all things, he chops away at the root of their philosophy of both of them.

Because they're both wrong. Neither of them had an understanding of what it was that God was declaring through creation. What a declaration by Paul in the midst of these people. Can you imagine? Here he is, They called him the babbling seed picker.

This man who they thought was ignorant and just a loudmouth. And here he comes. They bring him in. And I cannot help but believe that they brought him there to Mars Hill, to the Areopagus, so that they could strip away and show that he didn't know what he was talking about. Boy, were they in for a surprise.

But here, God had made all things. Matter was not eternal. God is eternal. Their little gods of the pantheon were not gods at all. This is what Paul is saying.

He's chopping at them. He's saying your gods are not gods. The true and living God. He created the earth. He created the heaven.

He created everything in it. He's Lord of heaven and earth. He is the God who created all things. God was their creator. And since God made all things, and since God made all things, and their worship of idols was blasphemy against the one true living God.

And Paul was provoked, but not to rage, but to proclamation. Again, He's proclaiming the truth of who God is to these people who worship in ignorance. You see, Paul says He is the Lord. He is the kireos. He is the supreme and ultimate authority.

He's the Lord and master over all things, both in heaven and on earth. Where their supposed pantheon was in heaven of these false gods they dwelt and over the earth where they were where they had the idols of the false gods that they worshipped in ignorance. He's Lord over both. And in fact they're nothing at all. Though there were temples all over the Roman world and in Jerusalem, Paul proclaimed that God does not dwell in temples made with hands.

And in fact this was the declaration from the very beginning. Do you remember Solomon's prayer in 2nd Chronicles? Solomon prays this, but will God indeed dwell with men on earth? Behold, heaven, and the heaven of heavens cannot contain you. How much less this temple which I have built.

Solomon understood this. He understood that this temple that he was building could not contain the living God, but was just a representation of God's presence among them. He goes on in 2 Chronicles 621, hear from heaven your dwelling place and when you hear forgive. He understood that God dwelt in heaven. He was so much bigger than man's concept of God would be.

And yet these idols and in these temples all over the Roman world, they could contain their little god's, but they could never contain the Lord of heaven and earth. You see our God is the God of heaven and earth. Not only is he the creator, but we see in verse 25 He's the self-existent one. Asiati, the Asiati of God. He says in verse 25, Nor is he worshiped with man's hands as though he needed anything.

I love that. He's not worshiped with man's hands as though he needed anything since he gives to all life breath and all things there is nothing that that you have that has not been given to you by God including the very breath in your lungs it is by God's hand It's interesting this word worship here this translated in the New King James is not the normal word that we would see in the Bible to describe worship as your mind might think of it. The NASB translated translates it as served so nor is he served with men's hands. The word is where we get our word therapeutic from. It is the idea to serve in the sense to heal and to restore, to heal a sickness, to restore someone to a right condition.

So throughout the Gospels and in the book of Acts, the most common use of this word is to describe the physical healing of an individual from an illness or affliction, writes one man. So you can see why Paul was going to the very heart of this, nor is he served with men's hands. You see, the Athenians and the Romans were constantly trying to serve their gods to pacify them. They were trying to give them some form of worship. They believed that the gods were working in the midst of their lives because, like I read before of this plague that was going around they wanted to appease the gods they that the gods needed sacrifice they needed something from their hands and in fact man served their gods in such a way that those gods needed man.

But Paul is coming and saying, no, that is not God at all. If God needs us, He's not God. God doesn't need you. He doesn't need me. God doesn't need anything.

And in fact that's the beauty of the grace of God. In that He would make Himself known to us. He would reach down to us in the person of Jesus Christ and rescue us, not because of any need within Himself, but because He loved you. It wasn't that He felt a need to love something. He actually just demonstrated His love.

He poured forth His love upon a people that could never do anything to serve Him in this sense. We do serve God. We want to live for God, but we're not serving Him in the sense that He is lacking in any way. Because brothers and sisters, He is not. He doesn't need anything from us.

He is the self-existent One. He is the God who needs nothing. He's not served by us. He is God and we worship Him because He's worthy of our worship. In Psalm 50, God says this, if I were hungry I would not tell you.

I wouldn't tell you if I was hungry. He goes on and he says, for the world is mine and all its fullness. If I needed something I'd provide for it for myself, but he doesn't need anything. Verse 13 of Psalm 50, will I eat the flesh of bulls? Will I drink the blood of goats?

See this is the the wrong concept of man when they are worshiping and offering sacrifices to God. Oh God, he must need the meat. He must drink the blood. It is utter foolishness in the concept of who God is in reality. He says in verse 14, offer to God thanksgiving and pay your vows to the Most High.

Call upon me in the day of trouble and I will deliver you and you shall glorify me. That's what God says. You see the difference there between the idea and the concept of this God that they do not know and the true and living God that Paul was declaring and proclaiming to them. What a difference! It was so different that he is saying that we do not have a God who needs us.

You need Him! In their mind, their gods needed them to serve them and to provide for them their meat and their substance. But not our God. He is the one who provides everything for us. He is the self-existing one.

One source describes this attribute of God in this way. His attribute of independent self-existence. God is the uncaused cause. He is the uncreated Creator. He is the source of all things.

He is the one who originated everything and who sustains everything that exists. The Asceti of God means that He is the one in whom all other things find their source, their existence, and their continuance. He is the ever-present power that sustains all life. There is no other source or life and none other like Him. For I am the Lord and there is no other.

I am God and there is none like me says in Isaiah 46. You know the most ridiculous thing in the world are these men who truly believe that They are in the process of creating God. S-A-I. They believe that they are going to be in the room when they create God. There is nothing new under the sun.

My God doesn't need electricity. My God doesn't need man to make him. The true and living God needs nothing. He is self-existence. He doesn't need water to cool him.

He doesn't need anything. He is the true and living God. He is the one who gives to you life. He is the one who gives you breath. He is the one who gives you all things.

No one can give to Him. He gives to all. And listen, He gives to all, even to those who curse Him. His grace abounds even to those who, like these men, in their arrogance, think that they know about God, and they know about life, and they know about all the other things in this world and yet God causes the Sun to shine on them he causes the rain today it rained this morning what a beautiful sound that was and God caused it to rain on people who hate him and their crops will grow and their yards will flourish. Why?

Because God is good. He gives to all. It's just the amazing thing as though He gives all things to all people, Yet all people do not give glory and praise to God. Do you see what is such an affront to God when His creation does not acknowledge Him as Creator? This is what provoked Paul.

Truly there was none good, there is no not one good, and all deserving of death and hell forever because we do not give God the glory that is due to Him. Apart from Christ, we can't even worship God. We don't pray to God right. We don't do anything right apart from Christ. It is only when God by His grace saves us, when He gives us a heart, when He gives us a new thought process, when He changes us, we become new creations, then we are enabled to rightly worship the Living God because we worship Him then in knowledge.

But he goes on from there in verse 26, the ascendancy of God. Verse 26, and has determined their pre-appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings. This refers to God's absolute authority and sovereignty, supreme power over all things. Like there is nothing outside of God's sovereignty, there's nothing outside of his power, there's nothing outside of his authority, all of creation is at his command. In this verse it is specifically in the political sphere of peoples and nations and boundaries and their times and the length of their existence.

So notice again what he says in verse 26, he has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth and has determined their pre-appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings. Did you know that you live where God put you? You thought you decided that, didn't you? God did that. God is the one that, but it's way bigger than that.

I'm being somewhat funny about that. He did do that though. I'm not negating that fact, but he has determined not only the boundary of your house and your property but the boundary of nations which is made up of individuals. This is who God is. And again, what is Paul getting at?

Paul is getting at the fact and he's pointing at the Epicureans and the Stoics and the other philosophers that were there, and he's getting to the fact that God is sovereign over all. Their gods are nothing. Zeus is a figment of their imagination. He's nothing before the true and living God. Isaiah 46 10 says, God speaking of Himself, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things that are not yet done, saying, my counsel shall stand and I will do all my pleasure." This is God.

This is the God who declares the end from the beginning. This is the God who says, this nation you will go this far. He says to the ocean, this far and no further. Until God allows any nation to move, they cannot move. What you see going on in the world today is the determination by Almighty God in the mystery of His providence.

I'm not here to declare to you I know all why He's doing what He's doing, but I know He's doing it because the Word of God says so. It's the God who determined these pre-appointed times and the boundaries of all the nations. It's not man who determines times of war and peace. It is God who does this. It is written throughout the Scriptures.

We see it all over the Old Testament. It includes the ethnic identities, the geographical locations, and the limits of their conquest. Deuteronomy 32 says this in verse 7. He says, Remember the days of old. Consider the years of many generations.

Ask your father and he will show you your elders. And they will tell you when the Most High divided their inheritance to the nations, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the children of Israel. God did this. He is the one who determined it and he has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on the face of the earth. What is he getting out here?

The word blood is actually just added there for our help us to understand what he's talking about but it says he has made from one he's speaking about Adam from the very beginning Adam we all came from that first man the first Adam and it's plain to see that that first Adam is in every one of you and me. Just hang around me a while you'll see him he's there. Adam is in all of us and we all came from him we all came from him we are all equal in the sight of God in this regard that we are all from one. This statement though is meant to burst the bubble of the pride of the Athenians. The Athenians thought that they had somehow just come forth from the ground as if they were something special that they were not like the barbarians of the rest of the world.

They were special, they were the cream of the crop, and they were arrogant. In reality though, Paul was saying all men are barbarians. Can I just tell you, we are all barbarians apart from Christ? If you don't have Christ, in the sight of God, you're a barbarian. You need Christ.

You need the Lordship of Christ. You need the salvation of Christ. You need to have your affections turn to Christ. Paul was stripping them of their pride and showing them that all men came from one man. In reality, all of them were barbarians.

All of them were apart from the grace of God. It was the Lord who made anything to differ among any of them. It is God. Listen, why are you different? Who made you differ?

It is God who made you differ. God didn't look down the corridors of time and see that you would be just such a fine church member of Hope Baptist Church and say, yeah, I think I'll choose that one. No. He actually saw the opposite. He saw that you were absolutely hopeless unless He rescued you.

And what did He do? He rescued us. Isn't that a glorious thing? He rescued us because it is God who does all of these things. What do you have that you've not received?

And what makes you differ? There's nothing good in ourselves apart from Christ. From one every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth God did this. All the nations that you see on the earth are God's design. The boundaries move and they change and throughout all of history this has happened.

And God did every bit of it. This is not to say that all cultures are equally good. I'm not saying that. Some cultures are superior to other cultures. Oh, in what way?

They're superior in this way. None are good enough to make the people within it right with God. I don't care what, how good or superior our culture may be, it's not good enough to make you right with God. So get off your high horse and remember that you are a barbarian apart from Christ. You need the Lord Jesus Christ.

None are good enough to make the people right with God. The Athenians thought that they were right and superior. They thought their culture was superior at that time, and Paul was going to soon humble their pride in this. But from a biblical standpoint, the culture that more closely adheres to biblical revelation is the superior culture, because it is functioning according to the commandments of God and its precepts of the Creator. The danger, however, in this is when those people who have been recipients of the grace of God who are who are just inheriting the blessing of a of a Christian nation if you will when we receive all of those benefits and we think because we have received the benefits that we are superior but in actuality we should not the response should not be pride the response should be thankfulness God thank you thankfulness.

God thank you. It is God who calls you to be born into this country. It is God who gave you the parents that you have that brought you to church this morning. It is God who puts you in this church to hear the gospel this morning. It is God who determined you to live in this place.

The proper response should be that of thanksgiving and not a superiority complex. You have been given much grace and to whom much is given, much is required. So what are you doing with the much that you've been given? Abounding in thanksgiving, offering to God the sacrifice of praise. Abound in thanksgiving that you believe what you believe, that you live where you live, that you have what you have, because it's all a gift of God.

And always remember to whom much is given, much is required. Be like Paul who when provoked by idolatry turned that provocation not into self-righteous condemnation, but into self-sacrificial Proclamation. That's where we need to go with it. Proclaiming the truth of the gospel. He knew that the only hope for any nation in all nation is the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And that's why we go and we we preach if we are unfaithful and unfruitful with his good gift, then I see not why we will not also see the chastening of the Lord like Israel did. As in Isaiah 10, we will see a brutal culture, much like the Assyrians, bring the judgment and discipline of God upon a nation who squanders their inheritance. Isaiah 10 says, woe to those who decree unrighteous degrees, who write misfortune, which they have prescribed, to rob the needy of justice and to take what is right from the poor of my people, that widows may be their prey and that they may rob the fatherless. What will you do in the day of punishment and in the day of desolation which will come from afar? To whom will you flee for help and where will you leave your glory?

Without me they shall bow down among the prisoners and they shall fall among the slain for all this his anger is not turned away but his hand is stretched out still and then in God's ascendancy he brought punishment upon the Assyrians who brought the punishment upon God's people. That's how God works. Because why? Because they were prideful. He was going to humble them because of what they had done.

Because of their pride, God humbled them. For sake of time, I'm not going to read all of that, but Isaiah 10 12 through 15 you can read that later, Isaiah 10 12 through 15. So the purpose of this verse was that Paul was cutting away the pride of the Athenians. It was God who made them. It was God who set their bounds.

It was God who had determined their time limits. But what does Paul say is the purpose of God revealing himself through creation and through his sovereign rule over the nations? What was Paul getting to? Listen to what he says in verse 27. So that, wait a minute, back up.

He has done this. He has created from one every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth. He has determined their pre-appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings so that it tells you the reason why He did it. What is it? So that they should seek the Lord.

That's why He did it. All peoples over all the face of the earth, no matter where their boundaries were, the purpose of those boundaries and the hope of the gospel was that, or the hope of their boundaries, is that we would seek the Lord, that in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from any one of them. This is the eminence of God or the closeness of God. But it's amazing because the closeness of God even to the unbeliever though he is there though he is sustaining the very breath of their body they do not acknowledge him or even know Him. So God can be that close as controlling and giving you the very breath in your lungs and you not even know it.

He's that close. And He did all of these things so that they would grope for Him, so that they would seek the Lord. God is calling you, seek the Lord. That's why He's doing all of this. Natural revelation was for the purpose of motivating the people to seek God in hope or better if perhaps they might grope or fill around in the dark.

All men are in the dark. They're groping around like blind men. Do you remember the picture there of those outside of Sodom and Gomorrah and the angel blinded them and they're groping around. That's what men are like apart from Christ. We're groping around in the dark as if they were seeking the doorway.

And all men are seeking God and they cannot see Him because they're blind because of their sin and their pride, because they are from one man Adam. And what God was going to do was going to bring about the light that shone in a dark place. You see, worldly wisdom will get you as far as paganism, agnosticism, idolatry, and ignorance. That's how far worldly wisdom will get you. You may have all kinds of understanding of all kinds of mathematical equations, whoop-de-doo, in eternity that won't really matter.

I'm glad you study hard if you're a Christian do it for the glory of God. But don't think if you're not a Christian, that's going to somehow earn you favor. You see, unless you find the truth of the gospel, or should I say unless the truth of the gospel find you, God has demonstrated throughout all of world history, He has got it on display all of world history to show you that man left to himself and his own wisdom at his best, gropes around in the dark. That's the best man's got. We're gonna grope around like a bunch of blind people in the dark seeking for something that we cannot find.

And we're gonna create idols, we're gonna do all kinds of stuff, and we're gonna worship those things because that's the best that we can come up with. But God has demonstrated these things. He is so close to us and yet so far from fallen men because of their sin and because of our sin without Christ we cannot see God who is close. And Paul so is setting the stage up for the gospel And Paul's design in this argument and this discourse was to reprove the idolatry of these high-minded Athenians and bring them down. That every mouth would be stopped.

Remember what Paul said in 1st Corinthians chapter 1 verse 21 for since in the wisdom of God the world through wisdom did not know God. It pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe, though he's not far from each one of us. God is determined by his wisdom that not that only through the foolishness of the message preached, the faith in Jesus Christ, faith in the gospel, is there any hope for any of us. Read 1st Corinthians 1 and he will tell you about the foolishness of preaching and the wisdom of man and the wisdom of God in the gospel. But he says in verse 28, in Him we live and move and we have our being.

That's how close God is. Their own poets knew that they were the offspring of God, but could not even understand what that meant. The writer of Hebrews in 1.3 says, The brightness of His glory and the expressed image of His person and upholding all things by the word of His power. This is our God who holds together all things. For in Him we live and move and have our being." Who is continuing your life right now?

Jesus Christ. Colossians says, He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created that are in heaven and on earth visible and invisible whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers all things were created through him and for him and He is before all things and in Him all things consist. Nothing consists outside of the sovereignty and the power and lordship of Jesus Christ. There's more things here I want to share but I want to get to another point and I'll pick up some of these other things in the second session please be here I would love to see this room just as full after lunch as before because there's more I want to tell you but I'm going to skip over some of this and bring it back afterwards because I want to get to something that is extremely important and I don't want anyone to miss it.

I want to proclaim to you the fourth point that I have on your paper there. What is the answer to all of this? In verses 30 and 31, all of this ignorance going around, Paul says, Truly these times of ignorance God overlooked. What is the proposition or what is the prescription rather that Paul was getting to? I love what he says here because he is casting away any hope of anything else.

It doesn't matter where you live, it doesn't matter what your ethnicity, it doesn't matter any of those things. This command, the times of ignorance are over. No more groping around in the dark because a great light has dawned and it is shining upon those who sit in darkness. And the great light is Jesus Christ. You're no longer in ignorance.

The gospel is brought to you and proclaimed to you. Now is the day of salvation. Now you are commanded to repent, to turn from your sins and to serve the true and living God. And if you continue in your ignorance now, it will not be winked at by God. It will be brought into full judgment.

But Paul commands all men everywhere. That statement is amazing. It matters not your nation or your station. Whether you are a plumber or a politician. Whether you're a jailer like the Philippians or a judge.

Whether you're a seamstress or the Caesar it's for everybody whether you live in Argentina or America whether you're in California I'm thankful you're not there anymore brother whether you're in California or Cambodia whether you're in North Korea or North Carolina It doesn't matter whether you're in the ivory towers or on the Ivory Coast. God commands all men everywhere. All men everywhere. All men everywhere to repent because all men have sinned against a holy God. There is none righteous and it matters not had the size of your brain and your powers within those mental faculties.

What matters is is that you humble yourself before a holy God. Because we've all fallen short of the glory of God. We all need to be saved by the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Can you imagine how this message landed upon these high-minded Athenians? Here they were, he was in the midst of these men and Paul the babbler, this seed picker, this ignorant show-off, who was this man who was telling them this cream of the crop to repent and to turn from their sins.

This would be like going to the ivory towers in our college campuses and telling all those professors, you need to do one thing, you need to repent. That's about how well it would have been received. But I stand here this morning before each of you with this message, not upon my authority, but upon the authority of the Word of God that all men everywhere must repent and if you do not repent that means to turn away from your sin and turn towards the Lordship of Jesus Christ, you cannot be saved. But if you will repent and humble yourself and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ by the authority of God's Word, all those who believe and call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Whether Jew or Gentile, Greek or barbarian, it matters not.

The gospel is for you. Turn to the Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world. Let us pray. Our Father in heaven, oh God, how you peel away the layers of our pride. I pray, oh God, that today you would help us to see you as you are, not in ignorance, but in revelation.

The revelation of the Word of God, you have shown us in your Word who you are. You have commanded us, all of us, to repent and turn to the Lord Jesus Christ. And Lord, I pray that you would honor and glorify yourself today, even as was read earlier, that the deaf ears would hear. Only by your spirit oh God and for your glory. Amen.

Thank you.