Acts 17

Introduction

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16 Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols.

Paul is waiting for Timothy and Silas to join him, so he does a little sight seeing.

Athens was no longer at its height, but it was still a very important city with a lot to see.

There was certainly a lot to see in Athens at that time, yet what Paul sees is the idols.

Paul SAW idols and lack of true worship

It was once said that it was easier to find a god than a man in Athens.

The Message of Acts 1. What Paul Saw

There were innumerable temples, shrines, statues and altars. In the Parthenon stood a huge gold and ivory statue of Athena, ‘whose gleaming spear-point was visible forty miles away’

Artemis: goddess of prosperity, money. If you wanted that, you went to her temple and made offerings.

o Athena: the goddess of wisdom; politics. In her temple they had this picture of Zeus’ head being split open and her being taken out... If you wanted to be smart, to have wisdom, you worshipped her.

Ares - God of war. Represented the physical, violent and untamed aspect of war

o Nike: the goddess of victory, worshipped by athletes and warriors and Michael Jordan, who made you run faster, jump higher, and soar above the competition.

o Aphrodite: goddess of sexuality, beauty, fertility.

o Cloacina "The Cleanser" - the goddess of the sewer system. was the goddess who presided over the Cloaca Maxima ("Greatest Drain"), the main trunk of the system of sewers in Rome.

The Message of Acts 1. What Paul Saw

The adjective Luke uses (kateidōlos) occurs nowhere else in the New Testament, and has not been found in any other Greek literature. Although most English versions render it ‘full of idols’, the idea conveyed seems to be that the city was ‘under’ them. We might say that it was ‘smothered with idols’ or ‘swamped’ by them.

Athens was a city full of idols.

But that is not too far from the culture around us. While we may not have marble statues of Apollo, we do have large lighted billboards where advertisers display in larger than life the things we must have to satisfy our lives.

Idolatry is rampant in the world and in our hearts. 

Paul FELT a stirring

his spirit was provoked within him

used twice in NT

Provoked can be to anger, to be irritated, but at least to do something.

used many times in LXX and often to how God feels about idol-worship

Isaiah 65:2–3 ESV

2 I spread out my hands all the day to a rebellious people, who walk in a way that is not good, following their own devices; 3 a people who provoke me to my face continually, sacrificing in gardens and making offerings on bricks;

Deuteronomy 9:7 ESV

7 Remember and do not forget how you provoked the Lord your God to wrath in the wilderness. From the day you came out of the land of Egypt until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against the Lord.

Psalm 106:28–29 ESV

28 Then they yoked themselves to the Baal of Peor, and ate sacrifices offered to the dead; 29 they provoked the Lord to anger with their deeds, and a plague broke out among them.

The Message of Acts 2. What Paul Felt

So Paul was ‘provoked’ (RSV) by idolatry, and provoked to anger, grief and indignation, just as God is himself, and for the same reason, namely for the honour and glory of his name

Paul’s spirit was provoked because the city was

The idols diminishing God and deceiving the people. That’s what idols do.

He could not simply stand around and do nothing.

So, what did Paul DO?

Paul SPOKE the truth about God.

17 So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there. 18 Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also conversed with him. And some said, “What does this babbler wish to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities”—because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection.

Paul met with three different groups of people:

Jews and religious people

Common crowd

Philosophers

Epicureans were basically hedonists. They believed that the gods were composed of atoms so fine they dwelt in the space between the worlds, and they don’t care about this world, so live it up.

The Stoics were pantheists, who believed god was in everything, similar to today’s Hindus. They were all about self-control. Their ideal was imperturbability: Unable to be perturbed. Pain doesn’t bother you; pleasure doesn’t seduce you. Think Spock.

The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament 17:16–21—Entering Athens

“Babbler” (NIV, NASB) translates a Greek expression applied originally to birds pecking up grain but came to apply to worthless persons; an English equivalent to the reproach might be “birdbrain.” But in the same verse Luke lets these critics demonstrate their own stupidity: they think Paul is preaching gods (plural),

19 And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? 20 For you bring some strange things to our ears. We wish to know therefore what these things mean.” 21 Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new.

22 So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. 23 For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: ‘To the unknown god.’

What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.

The first step away from idols is to speak the truth of God.  Idols compete for our fears and desires, but they cannot compete with God.

They were religious why? Because they were trying to find satisfaction and looking for a savior.

what what are you afraid of?

illust - when I was a child I had the irrational fear that I would be replaced by an imposter and look alike, and my parents wouldn’t know who the real Jason was -dont psychologize that

i’m not talking about having a fear of scorpions, ? , Or that the Cowboys will lose to the Eagles today. That’s just a fact.

What are you really afraid of?

Because our fears will chase us to find a savior,

Exodus 32:1 ESV

When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, “Up, make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.”

bull likely represented Apis or Baal - neither of these were nice gods

The idol to the unknown god:

Ancient story - Plague in Athens - no way to stop it - they assumed gods were upset - not sure which god - someone suggested hungry sheep on a lush, green hill - the sheep that do not eat but lay down would be doing something unnatural (supernatural?) - altar built on that spot - sheep sacrificed - altar to unknown god - story says plague quickly stopped.

when we fear we look for a savior and often land at one that is familiar

alcohol

food

denial , detachment, distraction

self-harm

this is what our hearts do in the world draws, and Satan lies. We end up worshiping an idol.

not only does fear build idols, but so do desires

We want a god we can control to get what we want

Idols are not simply statues of wood, stone, or precious metals.

“Whatever your heart clings to and confides in, that is really your God, your functional savior. ” Martin Luther

The greatest threat to our devotion to God is our subtle devotion to anything else.

Idols may be good things until they become God-things.

“Idols are not limited to primitive societies; there are many sophisticated idols too. An idol is a god-substitute. Any person or thing that occupies the place which God should occupy is an idol. Covetousness is idolatry.40 Ideologies can be idolatries.41 So can fame, wealth and power, sex, food, alcohol and other drugs, parents, spouse, children and friends, work, recreation, television and possessions, even church, religion and Christian service.

— John Stott

good desire to provide can become coveteousness

Good desire to eat can become our source of satisfaction when things are not going well

good desire for sex with your spouse can lead to lust when we don’t feel satisfied

Good desire for fairness can become selfishness

the danger is, when a good thing becomes a god-thing we will sacrifice things and even relationships for our idols

What are the idols you sacrifice for?

Effects of idolatry:

You believe in God but 

Church attendance has become more ritual than real

You believe God helps those who help themselves

You think little about eternity but think a lot about tomorrow. 

You can’t understand why God won’t let you be happy

You fear death and do all you can to avoid it. 

“In brief, all idolatry tries to minimize the gulf between the Creator and his creatures, in order to bring him under our control. More than that, it actually reverses the respective positions of God and us, so that, instead of our humbly acknowledging that God has created and rules us, we presume to imagine that we can create and rule God.”

— John Stott

Tim Keller:

 Idolatry is always the reason we ever do anything wrong.… [Martin Luther argued that] the fundamental reason behind lawbreaking is idolatry. We never break the other commandments without breaking the first one. (pp. 165–66, emphasis in original)

Idolatry is not just a failure to obey God, it is a setting of the whole heart on something besides God. (p. 171)

how much do you want a God in control as opposed to a God you can control?

are you pursuing to become a person of faith or the master of your own fate?

Paul will state five descriptions of God which will confront the idols of the heart and reveal their worthlessness

24 The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man,

God is the Creator of everything (24)

25 nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.

God is the Sustainer of all life (25)

Jeremiah 29:10 ESV

10 “For thus says the Lord: When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place.

Jeremiah 29:13–14 ESV

13 You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. 14 I will be found by you, declares the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.

God is the Ruler and King (26)

26 And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, 2

7 that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, 28 for “ ‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, “ ‘For we are indeed his offspring.’

God is our Loving Father (27-28)

God is the Judge and Savior (29-31)

29 Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. 30 The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, 31 because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”

Idols fall with repentance and worship

now he commands all people everywhere to repent,

32 Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. But others said, “We will hear you again about this.” 33 So Paul went out from their midst. 34 But some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them.

I don’t believe very many of us intend to become pagan idle worshipers - where we reject God and follow another of this world.

but I do think Christian today find idols in their hearts as a way to hedge their bets.

(isn’t this what the israelites did?)

we want God AND:

plenty of money in the bank account

our hearts current desire

assurance we will know (and control) the future

God and our gods

But stands alone - His glory he will not share with another

“You shall have NO other gods before me.”

there is only one drivers seat of your life

idols always fall

they will either fall when they fail you or when you push them over

Remember Gideon?

(I was thinking of Gideon this week as your ministry staff was watching Veggie Tales)

Judges 6:25–27 ESV

That night the Lord said to him, “Take your father’s bull, and the second bull seven years old, and pull down the altar of Baal that your father has, and cut down the Asherah that is beside it and build an altar to the Lord your God on the top of the stronghold here, with stones laid in due order. Then take the second bull and offer it as a burnt offering with the wood of the Asherah that you shall cut down.” So Gideon took ten men of his servants and did as the Lord had told him. But because he was too afraid of his family and the men of the town to do it by day, he did it by night.

Judges 6:31 ESV

But Joash said to all who stood against him, “Will you contend for Baal? Or will you save him? Whoever contends for him shall be put to death by morning. If he is a god, let him contend for himself, because his altar has been broken down.”

How do we push them over?

Repent and worship

I realize ___________ has been consuming my thoughts, time, energy because of my attempt to control my life due to my fears or my desire

Gideon tore down the idol and rebuilt the reminder of God

God was about to do something supernatural and he didn’t want anyone to mistake who had the real power - it would be for their good or his glory

smashing idols does not mean life will be easy or immediately better - after building the altar to Yahweh Gideon still had an army to face, but he had the Living God to go with him

When you are in the fight of your life, would you rather have a lucky charm or the Living God?

Worship = worthship = ascribing to God his worth

Thomas Chalmers, “ The Expulsive Power of a New Affection”

ILLUST - two ways to remove the emptiness in this bottle - vacuum or to fill it - a vacuum will never hold and requires constant work The best way to remove the emptiness is to fill it with something real

What is the idol that is closest to God in your life? What idol could replace God in your life if you are not vigilant?

What competes for your heart - your time, energy, imagination?

Deuteronomy 7:5–9 ESV

But thus shall you deal with them: you shall break down their altars and dash in pieces their pillars and chop down their Asherim and burn their carved images with fire. “For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations,