Speaking Truth Amid Chaos

Speaking Truth Amid Chaos

Luke Morrison / General

Introduction

A couple of men were serving on the same university campus. One was a professor of astronomy and the other one was the dean of students in the divinity school. Both of them were at a cocktail party conversing about their different fields of interest even though neither one had much respect for the other’s area of study. In a rather sarcastic way, the astronomer said to the theologian, “I suppose everything about religion could sort of be boiled down to the Golden Rule; you know, love your neighbor as yourself. That’s kinda it, isn’t it?” The theologian looked at him and said, “Well, I suppose it could be put that way. Kind of like in astronomy, everything boils down to ‘Twinkle, twinkle, little star’.” (Charles Allen. Quoted in, Swindoll’s Ultimate Book of Illustrations and Quotes).

That’s it isn’t it? When we disdain something, we tend to attack it. We tend to insult rather than engage rightly. We tend to go off the rails to prove our point. Or we are so angry that we just attack rather than speak in love to those who have angered us.

We see this a lot in today’s climate. The world is on attack mode all the time. It is on criticism mode, hate mode, plain violence towards others mode. All of this is done to prove that those on the opposite side are wrong and need to believe what you believe.

This does not work. It only makes matters worse. It is not how we should engage the culture.

We need to engage. We need to Speak Truth Amid Chaos. But this must be done in a manner that will evoke change and not more hate and vitriolic speech.

This is what we are going to look at today. We will be studying Paul’s Mars Hill address.

But before we do, let us look at the context.

Paul was in Athens. It was an idol filled city. They had multiple idols. They had idols for any and everything you could think of. They even had idols for the unknown God. They were covering all bases.

Paul was provoked in spirit upon seeing all these idols. But he did not attack and condemn the people. No, he took pity and began to proclaim the true God. He spoke truth with love. He Spoke Truth Amid Chaos.

A question is raised here.

How can we speak about our faith, speak the truth, to people outside the church?

What is the answer to this question? What can we do?

That is the question I will answer for you this morning from the Word of God. The answer is found in Acts 17:22-34. Let us look now to the Word of God.

Recognize the Lost have a Religion all their Own

• They are ignorant of God and salvation, but we do not win any by calling them ignorant.

A. Paul knows that to call them ignorant would be offensive and they would most certainly reject. He was highly grieved and offended deeply by the idolatry in Athens. Acts 17:16 says “his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols.” He was highly offended by this. As we are when we see the evil and wicked behavior happening now. Even though we get offended and angered we must be as Paul was here.

He stated that the people of Athens were “Very Religious.” Also, could be superstitious but as a leading Greek lexicon says this means devout, religious in this context. It is a play on words.

deisidaimonesterous from deidō (“to fear or revere”), daimōn (“deities, evil spirits”), and stereos (“firm, hard”).

“The idea is that the Athenians were firm and rigid in their reverencing of their deities. This was a carefully chosen word. Hearing it, the men of Athens would have thought of their deities or gods. But Paul subtly implied that their deities were evil spirits or demons, not gods. Behind idols are demons.” (BKC Toussaint 403).

Regardless of the word play, he complimented them on their devotion to their beliefs. He did not affirm their beliefs; this we must not think. He simply spoke to them of their devotion. He made inroads with them by not condemning but acknowledging.

There is a difference in this. We must be this way. To win someone over we do not come in all hot and offensive. We must contain this for another time. Paul here gives us an example. We acknowledge and compliment, but we do not affirm the religiousness of the lost.

They are very devout to their religion even if they do not say they have a religion or worship anything. They do and we must find what that is and bring it into play as inoffensively as possible. We must tell them that they are worshipping something and what they are worshipping, or trying to worship is unknown to them, we must proclaim this to them.

B. Even though we recognize their religiousness we must recognize it is sacrilegious.

i. It is idol worship that they are doing. This idol may be of self, money, power, fame, or many other things. Whatever it is they are seeking to fill a void of unknown by what they know. They are seeking material items, much like the people of Athens had with their idols, to fill this Godless void.

ii. It is ignorant worship. It is because they are worshipping falsely or something unknown because they have heard of it. They may even be like the people of Athens and have several so-called gods and even something to an unknown to make sure they do not miss one.

This is much like the movie The Mummy. There is a man named Bennie in this movie. He is a slippery backstabbing type of man. In the movie there is a mummy brought back from its tomb. It has killed many people and Bennie is hemmed up by him. Bennie then pulls out a wad of necklaces and starts praying in the language of the religions he has around his neck. Until he hits the Star of David and the Hebrew dialect.

This is many now. They seek and use whatever is going or looks good. They worship what they do not know. Ignorant worship. But we must reach them and not run them off. We must recognize their religiousness. Whether they know it or not, they are seeking the true God, and it is this one true God of which we must speak to them of.

Once we have caught their attention through complimentary actions, we then...

Show them the Futility of their Religion

We do this by showing them

A. (v. 24) Gods power in creation. We must start at the beginning and demonstrate to them that the creation was started by an all-powerful being. This being is the one true God because without Him being all-powerful, nothing would exist. If He made it all, isn’t it futile to worship something that a man has made? Futile to worship something of your own making? A temple you created? It is futile and nonsensical.

Next, we show them through

B. (v. 25) God as the sustainer of life. If God is the one who has created all and is the one who continues to sustain life; is it not absurd to think that He needs to be sustained? Does the one real God need to have anything from you to be sustained? No, He made everything and is the one who sustains all things. If we reduce God to this it is ridiculousness at its finest. We depend on God not the other way around. If those you are speaking to do not think this way then ask them why they rely on nature, self, or whatever they rely on to help them. They must rely on a God of some sort and this they do whether they want to admit it or not.

We show them that God answers the questions of life

Who am I? Why am I here? What is the point of it all?

C. (vv. 26-28a) Here is the answer to who am I?

God is the ruler of all things and nations. Every person is from Him. He made all people. This means we are all on equal basis before God. Even those who are against Him. They are created in His image as we are.

The answer to what is the point of it all?

Not only this but all the tyranny and hate and evil in the world are under His control. He has allotted periods and boundaries of their dwelling places. This means that all the things that have happened in the world have done so so the people God has created “should seek him.” By this they may “feel their way toward him and find him.” Simply, there is nothing in the world that has happened, is happening, or will happen that God has not known of, or knows of. He is not far from anyone. He is omnipresent. He is around and seeing all things happening. No evil or anything is outside of Hid knowledge or power. It is all to draw them in that they may be saved.

We are the ones far from Him, not Him from us. Sin has separated us from Him, not Him separating Himself from us. If He seems distant or non-existent, it is because of us, not Him. He is readily accessible and available to us.

In these quotations from the pagan poets Paul gives the ultimate answer to the question.

Why we are here? God made you for a reason.

Paul makes a profound statement, using secular authors to make solid theological implications. All people are God’s offspring. Here is where it is intriguing. He says offspring, not children. One must have believed in Christ to be a child of God. All people are offspring of God. All people, remember, are made in His image. And it is because of this that we have life and being. And because of this, we can create and because of that creative aspect, we create gods of our own making.

As God’s offspring, then how can we think that something of gold or silver or stone made by us can be a god. It has come from our imagination. It is something we have made. We made it. We made it and we worship it.

Isaiah 40:18-22, speaks of the majesty and glory of God and the futility of making an idol. He makes it clear in verses 18-20 that someone must make this idol. It is built by someone, at someone’s commissioning, and worshipped by another. It is ludicrous.

Isaiah 44:12-17 mocks those who do this. In those verses it says that on works it over the coals and then hammers it out. The carpenter marks it out and shapes it into s figure. How he takes part of the wood and builds a fire for warmth, and cooking food over and the rest he makes into an idol and then falls down before it in worship.

This is plain crazy. This is exactly what Paul is saying here. You make this idol and you worship this idol. Can’t you see the silliness of this? Can’t you see that there is no God there but you? How can anything we devise be a god? It is something we created so essentially this would make you god and you made something to worship so you know that you can’t be god because you can’t fix the problems.

We must recognize, and make them recognize, that there is a God that is the creator of it all and He has made a way available to Him.

Which leads to the next point...

Show them God has Provided the Way to Him

A. God has overlooked the times past filled with ignorance.

This does not mean that he has not judged those who sinned in the past. No, this means that God did not turn His back on sinful humanity which would have left us with no hope of salvation.

God has allowed us to be ignorant for some time. He has overlooked the idolatry for some time. He has let things sit as they are because He has shown all through creation and conscience that He is God and what they see is not.

God has overlooked this twisting of Him. But now He calls for there to be a change.

He calls for those who are religious to turn, repent, from what they are doing and turn to Him.

He has set this in motion for the people of the world. He has set this in motion for those who have rejected what nature has shown them as being a creation and have regarded it as the God.

God has overlooked this so that people have time to believe and be saved.

As the next verse states.

B. God has fixed a day for all to be judged.

This judgment will be done by righteousness by the righteous one: Jesus Christ.

Jesus is the man appointed to be the judge (John 5:22-29).

Jesus was the only person alive who lived a life of perfection and never sinned. He is the only truly righteous man ever.

He is the judge and we will be judged against His perfection.

We are to be perfect as He is perfect (Matthew 5:48). Jesus fulfilled the law and the prophets (Matthew 5:17). He did not just live them, but He fulfilled them. He is perfection and perfectly righteous. He is worthy to judge. And no one can meet that, especially if they have made their own God to save them. They have failed the law right there because they have broken the law by creating a god other than God (Exodus 20:3-5). Also, they have broken the law that Christ stated in Matthew 22:37 where we are to love God with our all.

Simply, we will face judgment by the righteous one. That is why it is so important to get the point across about turning from your own god and religion to the true real God.

Here is the punch line though, this is what got them then and what gets them now. This man who is the righteous one, the man appointed to judge, was raised from the dead. He was dead and now lives forevermore. He has conquered death and the grave and He has the right to judge.

Because Christ has been risen, He effectively shows that He is God and is worthy to judge. He did not stay dead. He did this for all to have salvation. He gave His life for them and us to have eternal life with Him. This is an absolute must for people to know Christ. They must hear the message of the resurrection.

When they do, we must be braced for and...

Expect rejection and mockery

A. Some will mock us as they did Paul then. This is okay. We have delivered a message to them. We have tried to reach them.

These people have no desire to hear anything Jesus or God the Father. They are the died in wool hard-shelled atheist. They want to do what they want to do and how they want to do it.

Do not let that get you down or keep you from speaking truth to all people. Rejection comes. Just remember two things when this happens.

1. It is God they are rejecting not you. They may make it personal and insult you, but it is God they reject not you. It is God they insult not you. I know this because of what God told Samuel. Back in 1 Samuel 8: 17, the people were demanding a king to rule them and Samuel was down and angry about this but God told him to go ahead and do it for it was Him they were rejecting and not Samuel. God knows that this is hard and that you will get mocked, but it is He they are mocking not you, just remember that.

2. We know to expect to be hated and scorned. Jesus warned us of this (John 15:18). But in that warning He also said that it is okay because the world hated Him first. We will be hated because of Him also (Matthew 10:22). But the end of that verse in Matthew states a strong blessing. We must endure because of this, but also because...

B. Some will want to hear more about this amazing story you just gave them. They will want more. They are seeking because they have heard something amazing, they have never heard before. It is that amazing that it can break through too many and make them desire to hear more.

But there is a deeper reason to continue to speak truth amid chaos...

C. Some will hear and believe. Yes, some will mock. Yes, some will ask to hear about this again. But some will believe.

This is what we do it for. Those who will believe. Those who will pass from judgment to glory. Those who will become our brothers and sisters in Christ. We proclaim this amazing message for those who will hear it and receive it.

What is so amazing about this message is that it reaches all. From those in the upper echelon to the lowliest person.

We see this in these verses. Dionysius the Areopagite. He was one of the elites in the Areopagus. He was in the council. He was one of the sophisticated ones.

But there was this woman named Damaris. This is all we get from this statement. She was a woman who believed and joined Paul.

The highest to the lowest. It is worth it. It is especially worth it in today's climate.

There is enough vitriolic speech and hate being flung around. It is high time we get out there and speak as Paul did to the Athenians. We must speak truth amid the chaos in an irenic, jovial, but firm manner. We speak the truth in love because the truth is worth the hate and mockery we will receive.

Who knows, maybe some will believe and leave behind their idols and gods.