Spirit-empowered Preaching: Overcoming idolatry with the truth about the One True God & His resurrected Christ

Hyde Park

There is a public speaking square in London, england called Hyde Park. It has been an open-air public speaking forum since 1866. Over the years it has seen the likes of Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, and George Orwell use the squre to speak ontheir idealogies.

A friend of mine in Seminary got the chance to go to Speaker’s Square, as it is also called, and hear poeple debate different ideas. He came across all minds of crazy philosphies. My friend could not help hismself. He was an evangelist at heart and he began to break down these philosophies with a Christian worldview in the crowd. Eventually he was urged to take the platform and do open-air preaching, like George Whitfield.

He proclaimed that God is holy and just and that he has made hismelf known to this world. He put forth that man is sinful and wicked and needs salvation, to which the crowd agreed. The majority of the crowd were muslim. A good muslim can agree with everyhting he said. They stayed with him until he said that the Jews were God’s chosen people, Jesus was His divne Son, and God riased him from the dead and all who call upon His name will be saved. At this point he was riduculed and taken as a fool. He wasn’t stoned or attacked. It was a friendly forum, however, his messgae was rejected. The crowd preferred its idoltry and wordly philosophy over the truth of God’s salvation.

Humanity’s problem is that we are idolators by nature. As sons and daughters of Adam’s race, our hearts naturally love something other than God. Love is the rigth word here because we worship what we love. Martin llyod Jones describes how humanity loves its idols. He says

The Speaker’s Quote Book Idolatry

A man’s god is that for which he lives, for which he is prepared to give his time, his energy, his money, that which stimulates him and rouses him, excites, and enthuses him.

For Aemricans, our idols consist mostly of wealh, health, power, and prosperity. We love making money. We spend the bulk of our life, from the time we get our workers permit until we die in pursuit of wealth, living for the American Dream. We worship our health. The health industry in America is a billion dollar industry. We spend massives amount time and money and energy trying the latest fad deit or excerise program in pursuit of the fountain of youth. Furthermore, if that don’t work, we have sugeries that will speed things up. And I don’t need to say much about our love for power considering last years election nonsense. Love of power seems synonmous with being American.

It’s not just Americans or wesrterners that have this probelm. It is all of humanity, men, women, and chidlren of all ethnicities.

John Calvin rightly points out that

300 Quotations for Preachers from the Reformation Experts in Inventing Idols

Every one of us is, even from his mother’s womb, expert in inventing idols.

Paul David Tripp speaks in a similar vein when he calls our hearts “idol making factories.” The truth is, idolatry is a deadly plague in every human heart.

Idolatry is why missions exists. Remember, John Piper once said, “missions exists because worship doesn’t.” And I said, amen, for our context in Acts, however, I clarified that missions exists becasue “ theright worship doesn’t exist.” Idaoltry is worshiping the wrong god and false worship leads to God’s judgement.

We love our wealth, health, power, and prosperity, but for the people of Athens, it was a multitude of false gods. in Acts 17:16-34, Paul is on mission to correct the people of Athen’s worship so that they can worship the one true God rightly.

Athens is where Paul finds himself in the last leg of his missionary journey. Athens was a city-state located five miles inland from the port of Piraeus which is on the Saronic Gulf. At one time, Athens was the epicenter of philisophy, intellectualism, and deabte. Also, no city in Greece would have rivaled its architecture and stautues, as it was asthetically wonderful to behold.

As Paul walked the streets of Athens, he would have encountered one staute after another of famous men and the gods of greek mythology. The statues of the gods were so prominent that Paul was overwhlemed with indignent emotion.

Why is Paul’s heart stirred up? (Acts 17:16)

If you look at verse

Acts 17:16 ESV

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.

To what does the phrase “his spirit was provoked within him’ refer? The Greek word used by Luke conveys the meaning of becoming irritated or angry. The verb means to be provoked or upset at someone or something involving severe emotional concern. Within the context, it means Paul was at the very least grieved, if not angry, but also concerned that the people of Athens were worshiping false gods instead of the one true God. His spirit was provoked with a godly jealousy becasue of their idolatry. The Greeks were enthralled with deities of the Greek pantheon, commonly considered to be Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Demeter, Athena, Apollo, Artemis, Ares, Hephaestus, Aphrodite, and Hermes. To these fales gods the Athenians were aroused, excited for, and enthusiastically gave their time, money, and energy; to which when they died only brought them God’s eternal wrath. That is why Paul was provoked. His heart was stirred to indignation that Satan had deceived these people so greatly that they gave so much of their life to a god who did not exist, only to meet the one true God in death under his condemnation. Thta is the heart of an evanegelist! That is the heart of every Christian,amen?

When I think of Paul being stirred up over the Athenian idolatry, I see the fruit of obeying the two greatest commandments. Christians are to love the Lord their God with all of their heart, mind, soul, and strength. There is no room for any other god in that commandment. God is the sole treasure of our heart.

Second, we are to love our neighbor as ourselves. That is, as much as our hearts are stirred to joyfully advance the kingdom of God by making much of Jesus in the church, community, and home, we must be just as passionate for our neighbor to do the same; which means we have to warn our neighbors of the consequences of their idolatry.

Church, Hell is the consequnce of idolatry. How many of our neighbors are going to hell becasue they love sports more than God? So trivial, don’t you think? How many of our neighbors are going to hell becasue they love their jobs and reputations more than Christ? How many of our neighbors are going to hell becuase they love their politics more than Jesus? How many of our neighbors are going to hell becasue the love their sexual immorality, their fornication, their adultery, their homosexuality more than Jesus?

I see this in young couples all the time. The realtionship moves faster and faster toward intimacy, but with no intention of marriage. When marriage is finally brought up, I have to ask, “Are you keeping your marriage bed holy? Are you sexully acive outside the marriage covenant? The culture may condone it, but God forbids it. You must stop your fornication or any other sexual immorality. You must make a life committment to each other, a covenant of marriage between a man and a woman. That is God’s command on your life reagrding sex and marriage. So many people in our culture, even young professing Chrstians, will walk out of my office like the rich young ruler-sad, indignant, and refusing to compromise their commtiment to their idol of sex. What is sad and disheartening is so few in the church are willing to them the truth.

As you consider the consequnces of your own idolatry, do you weep over the consequnces of your neighbors idolatry?

Paul is grieved over their idaoltry and sets out to do something about it in the remaining verses. In verses

Acts 17:17–18 ESV

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.

Paul begins in the Synagogue with the Jews as was his custom. He quickly moves out into the marketplace. His audience changes the moment he hits the public square. Paul is now engaging pagan greeks who have no undersanding of the Torah or of Yahweh. The text reveals two differnt worldviews listening to Paul. The first are the Epicureans.

Who are the Epicureans? (Acts 17:17-18)

Epicureanism began with Epicurus who lived 341-270 BCE. He was a philosopher who taught that lifes greatest goal was to maximize pleasure. A person must seek to obtain tranquaility (Ataraxia) by learning about and practicing virtous living. He emphsized having close realonships, avoiding negative people, having no fear of the gods or the afterlife. The epicurean beleived much like a Deist, God was not involved in or relavent to his creation. This was obviously at odds with Paul’s wordlview becasue the bible teaches

Proverbs 9:10 ESV

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.

Fearing the one true God is the beginingg of having tranquailtiy, a peace of heart and mind.

Soem of you might think that epicureanism sounds a lot like Hedonism. Epicureans, however, were not hedonist. A Hendonist lives to maxmize pleasure at all cost. For example, a hedonsit will drink to get drunk and continue doing so regardless of the consequnces. Epicureans would see that becoming drunk would acutlly cause more pain and suffering and aovid it altogehter. Epicureans tempered their their desires much morethan hedonist. It is worth noting that Epicureans consisted mostly of upper class greeks who were educated and prominent on Greek soceity. The Stoics, by contrast, were on the opposite end of the spectrum.

Who are the Stoics? (Acts 17:18)

Stoicism was founded by a 3rd centuy philosopher named Zeno. He was deeply influenced by Socrates and devleoped his school of thought in Athens. Stoics believed in many gods (Pantheism) but that the universe named logos, was an intellgent being with a will, kind of like the force in Star Wars. This force connetced the divine with the material. So Stoics were big on observing and following natrual laws.

Stoics also believed that the human race orginated from one point, like Adam and Eve, and that man should live in accordance with his “indwelling god” or “divine principle within them.”

Stoics opposed pleasure and taught that humanity should live by reason and strive to achieve a virtuous life. Piety and virtuous living was good. Virtue was sought in surpressing your pleasures, happiness, and to be self-controlled. No exceessive joy or pain. One must stay abalanced at all times.

Stoics were really big on self-sufficiency. The way to find happiness was to learn to think and live independently and allowing nature/fate to take its course. This kind of independent thinking and self-suffcient living gave their hearts over to pride.

Paul’s audience was a spectrum of pagan belief. On the one side you have the more liberal Epicureans who were borderline henonist with a touch of virture, and on the other side he had the fudnalmental leaglist Stoics who worked hard at denying themselves pleasure so they can live happy virtuous lives.

As Paul begins to preach about Jesus and His resurrection, both groups are beside themselves. The Epicureans and the Stoics do not have a catgory for physcuial resurrection. Furthermore, there is some confusion about what Paul is saying and how they are recieving it.

The phrase “Jesus and the resurrection” is understood in the text as his hearers thought he was speaking of two different dieties; Jesus being the male diety and the resurrecton being the female diety. That is why they say he is a preacher of “foreign divinities” (plural) in verse 18.

The confusion incites them to call Paul a babbler, which literally means “seed picker.” It was a derogatory term that referred to someone being like a bird who picks of scraps from a gutter. In thier mind, he was one who picked up scraps of information appearing to look intelligent, but has no idea what he’s talking about. They are intrigued to some degree and invite Paul to speak in a opne public square, like Hyde Park.

Paul is taken to the Areohagus (hill of Ares) or also called Mars Hill. He speaks to a council of twelve judges who convine everyday to listen to new ides and philsiphy to judge their value and worth. You get the idea in

Acts 17:20–21 ESV

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.

Paul was not arrested nor in danger if being arrested. This was a friendly invitation to speak freely. Paul was given the opportunity to give them soemthing new, so he gave them the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Paul Responds to Athen’s Idolatry (Acts 17:22-31)

As we said before, Paul is not speaking to Jews or sympathetic gentiles. He is speaking to pagan Greeks who have no idea of Yahweh or the Messiah. Knowing this, Paul keeps the content of the gospel the same. Paul never compromises the truth of Jesus Christ, as we should never compromise the content of the gospel. That being said, we can be more versitile in how we present the truth of God’s salvation.

We must know our audience. Speaking to a lecture hall of professors is differnt than speaking to a garage filled with welders. It’s fine to contexualize the gospel for the sake of those who are listening, but we never compromise the gospel itself. Paul knows his audeince, he knows their strugle with idoaltry, he knows their worldview, and he knows he needs to show his listeners that

The One true Sovereign Self-Sufficent Creator God calls humanity to repent and put it’s hope in His resurrected Christ.

Paul’s 3 Point Sermon (Acts 17:22-31)

Verss 22-23 serves as Paul’s intorduction. he makes teh point to expose their idolatry and ignorace of the one true God. Athens was very much like our culture in that it was pluralistic. It did not discriminate by neglecting one’s diety. Thye were so relgiously consciencious that they made an alter to a god they did not know but who could possibly exist. They wanted to cover their bases. Oaul uses this alter to launch into the gospel. he says, “What you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.”

The One True God created all things (Acts 17:24)

Paul begins revealing ot the council that there is not many gods, but one true sovereign creator God. Paul desribes God as the

Acts 17:24 ESV

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

The One True God is not made by human hands, like the idols they have along the streets of Athens. He is the sovereign Creator God who rules over all of heaven and earth. As Paul is preaching, mayebe he cites

Nehemiah 9:6 ESV

“You are the Lord, you alone. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them; and you preserve all of them; and the host of heaven worships you.

maybe he is thinking of Asaph who says

Psalm 50:7–12 ESV

“Hear, O my people, and I will speak; O Israel, I will testify against you. I am God, your God. Not for your sacrifices do I rebuke you; your burnt offerings are continually before me. I will not accept a bull from your house or goats from your folds. For every beast of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills. I know all the birds of the hills, and all that moves in the field is mine. “If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and its fullness are mine.

Or maybe Moses who says

Deuteronomy 10:14 ESV

Behold, to the Lord your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it.

There are hundreds of scriputres that say the same thing: Yahweh is the One True Sovereign Creator God. He created Heaven and Hell and everything in between to bring glory to His name: the heavens declare the Glory of God.

Colossians 1:16–17 ESV

For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

Christ is holding everything together: from the laws of creaton to laws of man. There is not one circumstance on this earth that God the Father, Christ the Son, and the Holy Spirit are not soverignly ruling over and working to their end.

How do you deal with someone’s idolatry? You start by revealing the One True Sovereign Creator God.

The One True God claims his rightful rule over all humanity (Acts 17:25-29)

In verses 25-29, Paul moves from teh sovereignty of God to God’s self-sufficiency. One of my favorite verses in the bible is in this text.

Acts 17:25–29 ESV

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.

Acts 17:25, reveals that God does not need anything from man to be God. He is compeltley self-sufficient. When God revealed himself to Moses in a burning bush, Moses didn’t marvel because the bush was burning. He marveld becasue the the bush wason fire, but not consuming the wood as fuel. God revealed to Moses at the moment, I need nothing of creation to exist or be happy or be satisfied. My fire does not need wood to burn. I AM slef-sufficient.

3 points to consider:

First, What that means is God does not need you to make him happy or to accomplish His will. He does nto follow the same social contracts you and I follow. Human beings like to put stipulations of relationships. The more of my needs you meet and the more I meet your needs, the better our relationship will be. We need each other to be happy. We d that with our idolas as well. We like to make them in our image and say to them, such as wealth, I will devote my life to obtaining wealth, if you, wealth, will make me happy.

God does not operate like that. He does not come to us needy. There is nothing we can do for God or give to God to make him better. We are the ones who benefit from Him. So, why does he coem at all if he does not need us? He comes because he wants to. He comes with pure unadultrated desir to lavish His love on you knowing you can do nothing to repay him or benefit Him.

Second, God created one race and authors all of life. Paul makes a point the Stoics cna probably agree with him. God mae maknind from one race, Adma and Eve, and he rules all life on earth. This squashes racsim by the way. There is one race, the human race made in God’s image. Adam race is beautfully displyed in many ethnicities; nations of people groups with differrnt langaues and customs. But all originate from one point of orgion, Adam and Eve.

He made man to seek him. God is fully enagged in his creation and his creation cries out His glory and existence (Psalm 19). Creation preaches to you every day there is a God. Our hearts interpret creations message through idoaltry, which is why we make gods out of silver and gold and wood of the sun, the moon, and the stars.

Thirdly, God rules over time: past, present, and furutre. He is not bound by time, but made time for man. He contorls all the seasons of life and history, aiming all time and hsitry toward an end-

Revelation 11:15 ESV

Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.”

Because God is self-sufficent, he is the author of life, and becasue he rules over time, he has the right to claim his authority over mankind.

All of you will amen this until God starts dealing with your idoaltry. Your fine with God have authority in your life until he says to you to stop loving that thing more than me. God has the authoritative right to direct your life, speak into your life, and confront anything in your life that opposes him, amen? So you would agree that God has the right to tell you to stop having sex outside of marriage and that you probably need to end that relationship. You would agree that God has the right to tell you to stop your homosexuallity. That God made both male and females to be united as one in marriage.

You would agree that God has the right to move you where he wishes, even to unsafe places filledw ith people hostile to the gospel? or that God has the right to keep you in one place until you enter his glory.

You would agree that God has the right to take your health away to serve his purpose? You would agree that God has teh right to determine when you die, even if it is in the prime of your life.

Psalm 115:3 ESV

Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases.

God claims his rightful rule over all humanity becase he created humans in his image to do his will. Paul’s words would have hit his audience hard. The Epicureans would reject the idea that God is so ivnloved in his creation as to have that much authroity. The Stoics would have bulked at the idea that one God has that much authroity to begin with. its funny, becasue if I am honest with myself, I guess I see the both of them inme at times when I have to surrender to God’s rightufl authority in my life. My epicurean side says life is about pleasure. If God is going to take my pleasure away, then who needs him. says The Stoic side of me says God does not need to have this much control of my life. I am my own man. When I need him, I’ll call. Otherise, I’ve got this.

Both sides are horribly worng and dangerous. God is good, and desires nothing but my good. he’s done everyting to prove His goodness to me. He sent his Son to die on my behalf. What more can he do? My idoaltry keeps me from seeing his goodness, and it blinds me to his coming judgement.

The One True God commands all people to repent (Acts 17:30-31)

Acts 17:30–31 ESV

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.”

When Paul says God overlooked our ignorance he means to say that God did not punish mankind as we deserve to be punished. We were ignorant of God’s will in jesus, stuck in our fallne nature. God always had the cross in mind and now calls humanity to repent.

Here Paul gives teh council the gospel. All have sinned and have offended God by breaking his moral law. No one is righteous. becasue we have broken his law, we have violated his justice and deserve his wrath. he wages of our sin is death, eternal death in hell. But od, being merciful, planed to send his one and only Son into the world to make an atonement for our sin. That is, he shed his blood as a perfect sacrifice to cover your sin. His perfect sacrifice not only covers your sin completely, but also gives you the righteousness you need to stand before God for all eternity. God accepted his sacrifice by raising him from the dead. You can have his righteousness and promise of resurrection if you confess your sins and repent, turn from yoursin-stop your idolatry.

You must repent. You must repent now because there is a day coming where God is going to judge your sin. The resurrected Christ who went to the cross for your sin, will judge the unrepentent in his righteousness.

How does the council repsond to Paul’s preaching? (Acts 17:32-34)

Many reject it.

Acts 17:32 says some of teh council members mocked Paul. They made fun of him becasue he beleived in God raising the dead. Resurrection was foreign to Greek thought. Many of them could not phathom the idea that the entire body would be rasied from teh dead. Mayeb the soul was immortal, but teh body was material and could only perish. The reurrection of Jesus was absolute foolishness to some Athenians.

Some are curious of it.

Others were curious, intellecutally at least. These do not show any signs of beleif or a desire to beleive. Keep in mind

Acts 17:21 ESV

Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new.

There were Athenians who loved hearing new things for the sake of leanring soemthingnew, not having a chaneg of heart. Jesus is a curious figure in history. He seems wis ad radical in the way he loved teh poor and broke down soceital norms that inderd the value of women. But he was not the son of God nor our Savior. He was a man, maybe even a good man, but not a resrreucted King.

Few receivie it…but the kingdom advances forward!

Amazing! A few men beleived! One of the council members was persuaded by Paul that Jesus is the Christ. His name is Dionysisus. We know nothing else of him in scriputre, but that on this day, he heard the good news of Jesus, repented of his sin, and accpted him as Lord. The Spirit of God opened the heart of a prominent greek philosopher to understand the gospel, thus stablishing a community of beleivers in Athens.

Another convert came to Christ, a woman named Damarius. It is amazing to see how many women come to Christ, and how eagerly Christianty accepts these women into the fold and equal heirs in the kingdom of God. That was not heardof in relgion in antiquity.