The Last Days Message

Acts 17:29-31

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.”

Today, we continue our series of sermons from the famous encounter that Paul the Apostle had with the judges, academics, and philosophers who regularly gathered on Mars Hill in the city of Athens.

We had spoken of how Paul, in the situations leading up to this dialogue on Mars Hill, had found himself to be quite burdened. He had been run out of two cities for preaching the Gospel and now found himself alone, without his companions in the city of Athens.

Now, again, Athens was what the world considered to be the ideal city. The architecture in the city was indeed the finest of its day, the city and the people in it oozed with sophistication, some of the most intelligent people in the world called Athens home. But for all of their beautiful structures, their sophistication, and their great knowledge, they were among the most spiritually ignorant.

This proved to be the case when Paul walked through the city and saw that it was full of idolatrous shrines. Seeing this, knowing that the most influential city in the world was a cesspool for pride, immorality, and religious ignorance greatly troubled his spirit and made him all the more desirous and willing to speak out against the popular religious practices in the city and speak for the truth of the orthodox gospel.

Paul began to preach the gospel in the synagogues where the local Jews gathered and in the marketplace where the people of the city in general were prone to gather.

Some of those in the marketplace who Paul preached to were Epicurean and Stoic philosophers. They were interested in what Paul had to say and wanted to hear more about it, so they brought him to Mars Hill so that he could explain more fully to them and the judges, academics, and other philosophers who regularly gathered there the theology of what he had been preaching in the marketplace.

When asked this, Paul responded by saying first, that this faith which he preached and the theology surrounding in consists in legitimately knowing and worshipping the one true God that all people instinctually know exists and deserves to be worshipped.

We spoke of this in our sermon from last week, man naturally knows that there is a Creator, a Sustainer, a Ruler Who demands worship, Who deserves worship, but man, in his naturally darkened state has perverted the true and sincere worship of the only true God.

Man comes into this world knowing that he must worship, even those who are far from God have a conscience, a natural inclination that testifies of the Being and the magnitude of God. But without special, gracious, God-given revelation, this God cannot be known.

So, rather than truly worshipping God, man, in his natural state, outside of a state of gracious salvation, devises other things and worships those other things as God. In the days of antiquity, man would oftentimes form and fashion idols of gold, silver, or stone and worship such creations as though they were God.

And the theology or philosophy that would make up the worldview of those who worship such “gods” was always a manmade theology or philosophy that came from human reasoning and fleshly desires. So, because they instinctually know that there is a God Who they are made to worship, yet they are naturally depraved, they form a “god” in their own image and worship that “god”. A “god” that is thought up, that is created by the creature.

Well, Paul says that this is absolutely ridiculous, it is absolutely ridiculous reasoning, and he stresses how ridiculous it is in verse twenty-nine of our reading, when he says:

Acts 17:29 ESV

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.

Like I said, all people come into the world knowing that they were created by God and so, that obviously means that God, the Creator and not those He created is the One Who says Who He is. That means that God is the One Who defines how we worship Him.

Now, again, as we said in our sermon last week, even those who regularly gathered at Mars Hill had philosophers and poets that they admired and followed, who, in their writings, had stated that there is indeed a God from Whom everything has its beginning, and so, it’s pretty foolish for what is created to try to say that the Creator ought to be this way or that way, that they, the creature, can create for himself a “god”, a “god”, who, after having being created by the creature, the creature worships and says that this “god” created him!

Paul mentions people thinking of God as gold, silver, or stone being formed into an image, an idol, by the art and imagination of man. But think of this; gold is very valuable, silver is very valuable, stone can be very valuable, especially if it’s sculpted into something beautiful, but all of these things are inferior to man.

They’re worth a lot, they’re beautiful, but we don’t look at gold or silver or stone as being superior to people. They’re objects, valuable objects, but objects nonetheless and we know that these objects are inferior to us as people.

Now, with that in mind, Paul says isn’t it ridiculous for people, who are created by God and thus inferior to God to take things that gold, silver, and stone, things that are inferior to people and then say that these things which are inferior to us are in fact God, and thus, superior to us? That just doesn’t make any sense, that’s just plain idiotic! We don’t get to tell God Who He is, He tells us Who He is!

And so, having shown those on Mars Hill their error, Paul then goes on to say in verse thirty:

Acts 17:30 ESV

30 The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent,

So here, Paul positively identifies what we have been talking about as “ignorance”. Now, ignorance means to be without understanding, to not know. And so, when Paul speaks of “the times of ignorance” here, he speaks of the ignorance, the “not knowing” that so many people, including the intelligent Athenians had of the one true God. Paul says, “Yes, you’re all really guys, and you know a lot, but what you don’t know is the most important thing to know, you don’t know about God!”.

So, these are “times of ignorance”, times in which so many people don’t even have basic knowledge of God and instead, go out of their ways to create crazy theories about God, and in so doing, create “gods” that aren’t really God.

Well, Paul says that God had “overlooked” these times of ignorance, and when he speaks of God “overlooking” such ignorance, what he is not saying is that God had given them some kind of a pass. He’s not saying that God had said, “Well, they don’t know about Me, so I’m just not going to count any of that as sin against them”.

No, I think that an old Baptist commentator from the 1700’s named John Gill speaks of what it means for God to “overlook” this ignorance, when he said that God “was displeased and angry with them; and as an evidence of such contempt and indignation, he overlooked them, and took no notice of them, and gave them no revelation to direct them, nor prophets to instruct them, and left them to their stupidity and ignorance.”

So, God overlooked them, He didn’t send them a clear message, a clear theology, He overlooked them and left them in darkness. Now, you may why God did this, why did God leave them in darkness? Why did He overlook them and not send them a clear message before?

And the answer is because that’s what they deserved, that’s what I deserve, that’s what everyone deserves, but God graciously wills to bring some to know Him and to love Him and to be saved by Him.

And so, Paul tells those at Mars Hill that they didn’t know before, they had had no clear message before, but now, today, he says, “God has sent me to you, to tell you that He is commanding you here and now to repent of your sins, your arrogance, your pride, your ignorant worship of “gods” that are no real gods at all!”

And so, if God has chosen to overlook not only these Athenians, but almost every Gentile for so long, why does He now command them to repent of their foolishness, worship Him rightly, not through idols, and to believe on Him as He truly is?

The last verse in our reading tells us why as Paul concludes his speech to those on Mars Hill, when he says that God does so now,

Acts 17:31 ESV

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.”

We live in the “Last Days”, which doesn’t mean what you think it may mean. It doesn’t mean that we are just a few days away from the return of Jesus. We could indeed be but a few days away from the return of Jesus, but the term “Last Days” signifies the time period from the ascension of Jesus to heaven and His physical return to earth from heaven.

And when He will return, we don’t know, but Paul says that God has “fixed a day”, He has determined a day when Jesus will return, and it will be on that day, he says, when He will judge the world.

And the determining factor of that judgment will be based on what you have done with Jesus. Did you flee to Him as Savior from your sins, forsaking all and making Him your everything? Or did you despise Him? Did you look at Him in disgust? Did you look at Him and say, “He can partially be my Savior, He can save me from the sins that I committed in the past, but I’m going to work hard to earn my way the rest of the way.”?

You know, an extremely prominent politician said something like that, you might be surprised who, but then again, you might not be that surprised. They asked this man if he ever asked God for forgiveness and he said, “No. I don’t do anything that makes me need to ask God for forgiveness. And if I do, rather than asking for forgiveness, I just try harder next time.” An attitude like that is definitely an indicator that you have not come to trust in Jesus as your Lord and Savior.

To come to Jesus and embrace Him as Lord and Savior means that you place no trust in anything or anyone, not even in your own obedience to save you, but with complete abandon, you cast yourself completely at the feet of the Lord Jesus, trusting in His merit, His death, His blood, His resurrection to save you. It means, as Paul tells the Colossians, that “you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God”.

It will be a righteous judgment; indeed, it will be the most righteous and holy judgment. There will be none who will be able to legitimately say, “The judgment is not a just judgment! The judgment is not a fair judgment!”

And indeed, it is a certain judgment, a judgment that is guaranteed to come to pass, and Paul says that God has given assurance that this judgment will come to pass by raising Jesus, the One Who will give the final judgment, from the dead. Jesus is the Judge, He will indeed return to judge, and He will be able to judge because He is alive!

Indeed, this is a sober reminder for everyone. It is a sober reminder for everyone because this judgment that will come to pass at the day in which God has fixed is not a judgment that will affect only those who had a sufficient knowledge or who had ample opportunity, the most opportunity to trust in Jesus. It isn’t a judgment in which God will pass over those who are ignorant or in which God will pass over those who didn’t trust in Jesus but were overall nice people. This judgment is for all.

And so, we need to ask ourselves, “What am I banking on?” Are we still trusting in our own best efforts? Or have I ceased trying to please God through my own efforts and trust in the finished work of Christ?

And if we recognize that we are living in the “Last Days”, if we know that Jesus could return at any time, we then must be all the more fervent to the gospel to all.

Amen?