Now Is The Time To Repent!
Notes
Transcript
Our text for this morning is Acts 17:16-34.
But we will only read from verses 29-31 as we open...
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. The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, 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.”
Paul is now in Athens after getting forced out of Berea.
Though first-century Athens was a shadow of its former greatness during the days of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle (fifth to fourth century BC), it was still one of the prominent intellectual and cultural centers of the Roman world. It was full of grand buildings, works of art, and pagan temples
The culture and atmosphere of Athens in the first century resembles much of the culture and atmosphere in the West now.
I have three things I want you to see as we work through this text together.
The first thing I want you to see here....
Idolatry Is All Around You
Idolatry Is All Around You
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. 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. 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.
“Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens...”
Paul is waiting for Timothy and Silas.
“...his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols.”
Paul was internally, deep down, in the core of his life existence, distraught by the fact that...
Jesus wasn’t getting the worship he deserved...
People were deceived and on a one way course to wrath...
remember, Athens was a culturally eclectic, successful, and artistic city.
The ESV Study Bible Chapter 17
Paul, however, was deeply troubled by the idolatry that the art represented.
This is how blatant idolatry should effect Christians.
Notice, the text doesn’t say...
“Paul was so frustrated with the moral liberalism of the society...”
“Paul was so angered by the systemic social injustices that caused certain people to not prosper in life...”
The Text shows us that Paul knew the root issue behind every evil we see.
Idolatry.
Not having God in His proper place in our hearts and in our culture.
John Calvin Said “The human heart is an idol factory.”
Idolatrous practices in the first century included...
Sexual immorality.
Infanticide.
Defrauding of the poor.
Oppression of certain types of people.
Blatant immorality and deception.
The only difference between the idolatry of then and the idolatry of now are the physical shrines we choose to point our idolatry at.
Now many “christians” just look like the idolators...
Interestingly enough, while people have made idols of their belly’s or themselves, and seek to gratify every desire of their idol (themselves), our culture has embraced a practice of marketing to our self idolatry using symbols and names of the idols from the past.
Nike - The Greek God Nike
Starbucks - Twin Tailed Siren
Versace - Medusa on their logo
NBC - Peacock is a symbol for Hera
Dove Soap - Aphrodite, the goddess of beauty and love’s symbol was a dove
I’m not saying this to say that it’s always idolatry when we buy products from these places. What I’m saying is that idolatry has evolved yet remained the same. People will worship something. Period.
How did Paul respond?
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.”
Paul seeks out anyone he can to reason with them...
Jews - Israelites. People who embraced the Law of Moses.
Devout Persons - God fearers who kept the traditions and laws of Moses.
People in the marketplace - Normal everyday people. Probably people Paul encountered while practicing his trade of tent-making.
So Paul intentionally sought to expose people to their idolatry… He sought to reason with them...
What was the content of Paul’s reasoning with the Jews, devout persons, and everyday people of the town?
“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.”
Did you catch that last sentence? What did he preach?
Jesus and the resurrection.
The content of Paul’s reasoning was Jesus and the resurrection.
Not...
Morality.
A message for your best life now.
Social remedies and a new system of equality to eradicate perceived injustices.
Not even a campaign idea for a new governor in Athens who can “MAGA” - Make Athens Great Again.
To these Epicurean’s and Stoic philosophers, Paul was a “babbler” or “arrogant know-it-all who really knew nothing”. That’s how they viewed him when he preached Jesus and the resurrection. They were used to enjoying more “philosophic” ideas about self-gratification or naturalistic harmony (sound familiar?)
What can we do with what we see here?
Let me ask you these questions...
Are you spiritually provoked by the idolatry around you?
or...
Are you apathetically participating in the idolatry around you?
Is your solution for the mess of the world around you a new philosophy and worldview concocted by a mortal man?
or...
Is your solution for the mess of the world around you to preach how, in order to save this world, God humbled himself and became a man?
What is your response to idolatry
What is your remedy for idolatry?
And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? For you bring some strange things to our ears. We wish to know therefore what these things mean.” Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new.
“And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting?”
Paul has peaked the curiosity of these professional philosophers.
“For you bring some strange things to our ears. We wish to know therefore what these things mean.” Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new.”
Up to this point in their lives, these people weren’t necessarily interested in discovering the truth but they were interested in speculating about the truth.
This could be very similar to “relativism”
Relativism
The doctrine that knowledge, truth, and morality exist in relation to culture, society, or historical context, and are not absolute.
Literally, people who embrace relativism and view the world through that lens “spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new.”
Because truth cannot be concrete. It is not absolute. But, It can change. It can develop. They are in an endless cycle of...
always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth.
Have you ever just sat and reflected on the fact that our idolatry causes us to view truth as fluid?
This is why cultural views of...
Sexuality change.
Gender change.
Human dignity change.
Race change. And now definitions of racism are changing.
Politics change.
Morality change.
Religious fads change.
Consider the rest of that section in 2 Timothy.
But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people. For among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions, always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth.
The world has been on a downward spiral towards this ever since the fall.
When Paul preached Jesus and the resurrection, it conflicted with the many idolatrous practices and speculations about truth that the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers enjoyed.
This led them to want to try to understand it more.
Perhaps the gospel has the power to break through the downward spiral...
Idolatry Is All Around You
Idolatry Is All Around You
Second thing I want you to see here...
God Created You To Know Him
God Created You To Know Him
So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. 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 God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. 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, 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, 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.’
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.
17:28 in him we live and move and have our being. According to early Christian sources, this comes from the Cretan poet Epimenides (ca. 600 BC) in his poem Cretica.
Paul uses their current human experience, cultural practices, pagan idolatry, and their entertainment to bridge the gap.
Essentially, Paul uses an apologetic that argues that their own hunger for a deity, desire to know the unknown, experience living in creation, and even their own creative inclinations point to the fact that God exists and that we were all created to know Him intimately.
Common Grace
Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Bible Doctrine A. Introduction and Definition
Common grace is the grace of God by which he gives people innumerable blessings that are not part of salvation. The word common here means something that is common to all people and is not restricted to believers or to the elect only
Paul want’s his hearers to understand 2 thing:
God exists
God wants us to know Him personally
Even though God wants people to know He exists and to know Him intimately in relationship, Paul is going to explain how there is something very very wrong with our relation to God.
God Created You To Know Him
God Created You To Know Him
Third thing I want you to see from this text...
Now Is Your Time To Repent And Go to Jesus
Now Is Your Time To Repent And Go to Jesus
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. The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent,
God has been patient with us. Even though we’ve worshiped what He created instead of Him, the Creator.
Paul says, people have been ignorant. And God has been merciful.
But now… God demands a different response.
No longer will God tolerate ignorance. No longer will God tolerate rejections.
Something different has happened.
Someone different has come.
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.”
Paul says we are no longer able to claim ignorance because Jesus has come. Jesus has died. And Jesus was raised from the dead.
Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
And this Jesus, God come as man, is the appointed judge of the entire world.
There is a day coming.
He will judge all people by God’s righteousness, which Jesus, himself, possesses.
Jesus came as a baby. Jesus grew up into a man. Jesus suffered as a servant. But he is coming back as a conquering king and judge to wrap up all of human history.
This is the climax of Paul’s sermon. It is the main thrust of his message. And it’s the part that we must respond to.
Let’s see how they respond.
Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. But others said, “We will hear you again about this.” So Paul went out from their midst. But some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them.
Three types of people here.
Mockers who reject the message
The Curious who want to philosophize about it more
Those who believe and join Paul
Examining the responses
The mockers who reject the message.
These are the ones who blatantly reject it and make it well known that they do.
Characteristics
Hostile
Reject it completely
Work against it.
The curious who want to philosophize about it more.
These are the ones who are likely on the fence and don’t care to reject or embrace it one way or the other. They find it interesting.
Characteristics
Curiously check it out over and over. They will keep the message at arms length just to be safe.
Willing to talk about it and maybe agree on a few things
Probably just go with the current of what is popular
Those who believe it and join Paul.
These are the ones who truly believe and are willing to leave their old identity (Epicureanism or Stoicism) in order to go all in to their new identity.
Characteristics
Completely believe the message of the gospel and will dive into new gospel community. They join their new family.
Willing to be discipled into Christ
Willing to obey Jesus no matter what
These are usually the types of responses you see when people preach the gospel.
But, the point is, we preach the gospel, Paul preached the gospel, because
Now Is Your Time To Repent And Go to Jesus
Now Is Your Time To Repent And Go to Jesus
Summation - With that said...
There is idolatry all around you.
You were born in it and you and I have progressed in it.
God didn’t create you for idolatry… God created you to know Him and Worship Him.
God has made it extremely obvious to all of us that he exists. The idolatry we continue to do is evidence that we are hungry for him.
None of our idolatrous practices satisfy us…
That’s why we always have to look more, learn more, drink more, eat more, find the next best thing.
God is the only one who can satisfy that hunger...
Now is the time for you to repent of idolatry and run to Jesus.
Jesus, God The Son, came to earth from heaven to.....
How will you respond today?
Will you mock and reject Him and His gospel?
Will you stay on the fence and only keep him at arms length?
Will you join Him and continue moving towards Him?