The following message was delivered
on Sunday evening, April 16, 1995, at the Trinity Baptist
Church in Montville, New Jersey. As we did this morning, so again
this evening, I want you to follow with me in your Bibles as I read
from Acts chapter 17, the 17th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles,
And I shall begin the reading at verse 16 and read through
to the end of the chapter. Luke, recording by the inspiration
of the Holy Spirit, this incident in the second missionary journey
of the Apostle Paul and his companions, we read, Now while Paul waited
for them at Athens, His spirit was provoked within him as he
beheld the city full of idols. So he reasoned in the synagogue
with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace
every day with them that met with him. And certain also of
the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers encountered him. And some said,
What would this babbler say? He seems to be a setter-forth
of strange gods, because he preached Jesus and the resurrection. And
they took hold of him and brought him unto or before the Areopagus,
most likely referring not so much to a place, though there
was such a place, but a group, what we would call a professional
think-tank of philosophers. And Paul was brought before this
group of men, saying, May we know what this new teaching is
which is spoken by you? For you bring certain strange
things to our ears. We would know, therefore, what
these things mean. Now all the Athenians and the
strangers sojourning there spent their time in nothing else but
either to tell or to hear some new thing. And Paul stood in
the midst of the Areopagus and said, You men of Athens, in all
things I perceive that 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 an unknown God. What therefore you worship in
ignorance, this I set forth unto you. the God that made the world
and all things therein. He, being Lord of heaven and
earth, dwells not in temples made with hands, neither is He
served by men's hands as though He needed anything, seeing He
Himself gives to all life and breath and all things. And He
made of one every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the
earth, having determined their appointed seasons and the bounds
of their habitation, that they should seek God, if happily they
should feel after him and find him, though he is not far from
each one of us. For in him we live and move and
have our being, as certain even of your own poets have said,
for we also are his offspring. Being then the offspring of God,
we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold or
silver or stone, graven by art and device of man. The times
of ignorance therefore God overlooked, but now he commandeth men that
they should all everywhere repent. inasmuch as he has appointed
a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by
the man whom he has ordained, whereof he has given assurance
unto all men, in that he has raised him from the dead. Now when they heard of the resurrection
of the dead, some mocked But others said, We will hear you
concerning this yet again. Thus Paul went out from among
them. But certain men clave unto him. Literally, certain men were glued
to him and believed. Among whom also was Dionysius
the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them. Now, in our consideration of
the Word of God this morning, we focused our attention on verse
31 in the passage that has been read in your hearing. There,
as Paul preached at Athens in the midst of an array of pagan
idols, In the hearing of a group dominated by people who were
professional philosophers, though not obviously exclusively such,
as the last verse indicates, there he focused upon what we
considered under three simple heads. The day appointed by God,
inasmuch as he has appointed a day in which He will judge
the world in righteousness. Secondly, the man ordained by
God, God will accomplish this work of judgment in righteousness
by the man whom He has ordained, who is none other than the God-man,
the Lord Jesus Christ. Then having considered the day
appointed by God, the man ordained by God, we looked at the assurance
given by God, and he has given assurance, a certain pledge and
guarantee that that day will come, and that that man will
be the judge in that he raised him from the dead. and thereby we concluded that
the divine pledge of a day of judgment to be administered by
Jesus Christ, the risen Lord, is the fact of his resurrection
from the dead. And this insistence upon the
connection between the fact of the resurrection of our Lord
Jesus And his appointment as the judge of the world is a fundamental
note in divinely mandated gospel preaching. For if you will turn
back to Acts chapter 10, we find Peter sounding a very similar
and even more explicit note. In Acts chapter 10, as Peter
is preaching in the household of Cornelius, notice concerning
Jesus Christ, verse 38, Jesus of Nazareth, whom God anointed
with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good
and healing all that were oppressed of the devil, for God was with
him. Concerning this Jesus, Peter
says, And we are witnesses of all things which he did, both
in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem, whom also they
slew, hanging him on a tree. Him God raised up the third day
and gave Him to be made manifest, not to all the people, but unto
witnesses that were before chosen of God, even to us who ate and
drank with Him after He rose from the dead. And He charged
us to preach unto the people and to testify that this is he
who is ordained of God to be the judge of the living and the
dead. To him bear all the prophets
witness that through his name everyone that believes on him
shall receive remission of sin. Peter clearly indicates that
the gospel that the risen Christ charged him and the other apostles
to preach was a gospel that not only proclaimed the remission
of sins, not only heralded a remission of sins to be received by believing
upon his name, but it was a gospel that was to sound as a dominant
note that the crucified risen Christ, through whom there is
remission, is ordained of God to be the judge of the living
and the dead. So that whenever the gospel is
preached in the sweetest and the most enticing of its overtones
of mercy and kindness and the pardoning heart of God, It must
also throb with the solemnity that a day of judgment is coming. And if you come to it unforgiven
by Christ, it were better for you that you have never been
born. And any gospel preaching that
does not sound the note of free, full pardon through the work
of a crucified, risen Christ is no divinely mandated gospel. Nor is any gospel that while
proclaiming a full, free pardon through the death and resurrection
of Christ a biblical gospel. If it comes in a light and frothy,
take-it-or-leave-it kind of an ethos, if it comes not with the
shadow of that awesome future day cast over its joyfully solemn
declarations, it is something other than the gospel mandated
by the Savior Himself. So you see, folks, this is not
a matter of a reformed Baptist emphasis. This is not a matter
of, well, that's Pastor Martin's thing, you know. He was born
with a wrinkled brow and he sort of got to put a somber note.
No, Peter says the risen Christ charged us to preach that he
is the appointed judge of the living and the dead. as well
as to proclaim remission of sins in his name to all who believe. And so we established from our
study of verse 31, and I've simply buttressed it by this additional
text by way of review from Acts chapter 10, that God is the God
who is validated, that the message of Easter is a day of judgment
is coming. Now tonight we focus our attention
primarily upon verse 30, the very verse which led into the
truths that we contemplated this morning. I likened this morning's
text to the foundation on which the command recorded in verse
30 rests. And so we'll study verse 30 tonight
under the heading God's gracious command to prepare for the judgment
assured by the resurrection of Christ. We saw this morning that
the judgment is assured by the resurrection of Christ. Verse
30 is God's gracious command to prepare for that very judgment
assured by the resurrection of Christ. Listen as I read the
text again, and then seek to unpack it in your hearing. The
times of ignorance therefore God overlooked, but now he commands
men that they should all, everywhere, repent. And the first thing to which
our text draws our attention is what I'm calling the setting
of this command in human history. The setting of this command in
human history. The times of ignorance is a reference
to large epochs of human history. And to what epochs of human history
is Paul referring when he says, the times of ignorance? Well, think back through the
preceding recorded emphases of the sermon. He has just rebuked
the practice of these very Athenians, saying that since we are the
offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is
like unto gold or silver or stone, graven by art and device of man. Why should we make gods of objects
that have less dignity than the one who makes them. If we are
the image bearers of God, if we are the offspring of God by
creation, then surely whatever God is like, He is grander, greater,
and more glorious than the people He created. Why then should we
worship something we make? When God is obviously greater
than what He has made, why should we bow down to that which we
make? He has underscored the wickedness
and the folly of idolatry. In the previous verses He has
spoken of the nature and character of God as Creator and Sovereign
Lord and Ruler and Governor of the entire universe and the sweep
of human history and the apportionment of the nations and the bounds
of their habitations. A God so great and vast and capable
of so many things surely cannot be this object. that you people
have made and set up here on your idol shelves. And what he's
doing here is he is referring, when he says, the times of ignorance,
therefore God overlooked, he is referring to those epochs
in human history prior to the coming of the Lord Jesus when
the second person of the Godhead was enfleshed, when God in Christ
procured a redemption for a vast multitude out of every kindred,
tribe, and tongue, and nation, and having raised his son from
the dead, commissioned his apostles to preach the gospel to the whole
creation, so that in the gospel, all of the glorious attributes
of the God who is, are most fully displayed now, not in a limited
way, in pipes and shadows, in one little spot there in the
Middle East called Palestine, Among those people who were God's
chosen ones, who alone had a temple and a worship and a priesthood
instituted by God, there was a benevolent forbearance in the
heart of God toward the wretched idolatry of the nations in the
time prior to the coming of His Son. You find a similar emphasis
when Paul is preaching to pagans back in Acts chapter 14. Acts
chapter 14, preaching to a group of pagans who want to make gods
even of Barnabas and Paul and worship them. Verse 16 reads,
who in the generations gone by suffered all the nations to walk
in their own way. In other words, as Paul is about
to issue this gracious command to prepare for the judgment assured
by the resurrection of Christ, he is careful to underscore the
setting of this command in human history. This command comes after
the times of ignorance in which God exercised an unusual benevolent
forbearance. The times of ignorance, therefore,
God overlooked. That does not mean that He did
not regard the sins of the idolatrous nation For human history and
biblical history is full of the accounts of God's judgments,
but they were tempered with forbearance and with patience. One commentator
has written, God overlooked the times of the ignorance by looking
at Christ and the plan of salvation for the coming ages. He bore
with the idolatries of the Gentiles He ceased not to reveal himself
to them in nature and in providence, and because of their guilty ignorance,
he made them feel his wrath by giving them over to the effects
of this ignorance, their depravity. But at last, the great day for
which God had so long been preparing and waiting in patience and in
love had arrived. But redemption was complete. The gospel could now go forth
to all the world. So Paul says, and then he quotes
the Greek word, panun, as regarding things now. since a new era has
begun for all mankind through Christ. Now God is passing along
the order, the command to all men in every place to be repenting. And so this gracious command
to prepare for the judgment assured by the resurrection of Christ
comes in a setting in which the apostle takes account of the
fact that he's speaking to these pagan Athenians subsequent to
the mystery of Mary's womb subsequent to the miracles and the validated
messianic identity of Jesus of Nazareth he is speaking to them
subsequent to his crucifixion under Pontius Pilate subsequent
to his resurrection validated by many eyewitnesses and therefore
This command comes with tremendous intensity and with tremendous
weight and with tremendous urgency because God is no longer exercising
that measure of forbearance which he exercised prior to the coming
of his dear son. Now do you see the very relevant
application of this to those of you sitting here? If Paul
could say to these Athenian pagans, just a matter of a few years
after the coming of Christ, and the living out of His life and
His death and resurrection and ascension back to the right hand
of the Father, prior to a completed canon of Holy Scripture, prior
to the Church possessing the full, final, written revelation
of the mind of God, if He can say to them in that setting,
The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now at this time, in this
setting, when the Son of God has become incarnate, when He
has lived His perfect life and died His substitutionary death
and been raised from the dead, validating that a day of judgment
has come, now at this time He commands something, you had better
pay careful attention. to a command that comes in the
setting of this epoch of human history. You and I live in the
most responsible epoch of human history. Remember how Jesus emphasized
it in his own day? He said it will be more tolerable
in the day of judgment for Sodom and Gomorrah than for those who
were privileged to see the living Christ performing His miracles? How much more would He say to
us, with almost two thousand years of church history, when
we could read out the litany of lives transformed by the grace
and power of God? whole nations transformed from
idol worshippers, where murder and rape and every form of social
injustice reigned, and God has made places on earth veritable
havens of peace and love and harmony and equity, all through
the mighty power of the gospel. You see, God takes cognizance
of the historical epoch in which his command to repent comes to
us, and you sitting here have a solemn responsibility to take
note that that command comes in this particular setting of
human history. But then having looked at the
setting of the command in human history, note with me in the
second place the author of this command. Our text says that times
of ignorance, therefore God overlooked, but now He, God, commands men
that they should all, everywhere, repent. who is the author of
this command and the verb translated command is translated that way
consistently through the New Testament The jailer received
commandment to put Paul and Silas in stocks. When Jesus gave marching
orders to apostles, it says he commanded them not to depart
from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father. Well,
who is the author of this command? Well, we have the simple word,
God. But you see, the word God is
just a three-letter word, G-O-D. In Greek, a four-letter word,
theos. But you see, the word represents
a reality. And in this setting, to Paul,
when he says, This God, who has overlooked and borne with unusual
forbearance and patience these epochs of ignorance prior to
the coming of the Son of Man, this God now commands What God
is he talking about? Well, he's just been proclaiming
that God to these who had an inscription to the unknown God.
They figured I got a God for this one, God for this one. In
case we missed one, let's put up a plaque and put up an image
and say, to the unknown God. And remember how he declared
that God to them back in verse 24? This God that you worship
in ignorance, I set Him before you. And He begins with the fact
that He is the God of sovereign, creative wisdom, might, and power,
the God that made the world and all things therein. What a God! In that short statement,
the God that made the world and all things. When He says, God commands us,
who is this God? Is He some little piddling notion
that you and I can dispense with in a cavalier attitude? No! He is the Almighty Creator, who
when He decided to spangle the empty spaces with galaxies, He
just opened His mouth and And out of the womb of nothing, galaxies
came into being. And you know how God describes
it in the original creation? And he made the stars also. And he made the stars also. That's
the God who made the world. I lose my breath just looking
at some of the wide-angled pictures of the mighty mountain rangers
at times, pictured in my National Geographic. The few times I've
stood beneath and alongside or flown over some of those mountains
have taken my breath away. And the Scriptures just says
that God made the dry land. And the McKinley's, God opens
His mouth and they come into being with their incalculable
tens of thousands of tons of massive rock. This is the God
who issued this command, the God that made the world and all
things therein. But He's not a deistic God who
made it and then went off to fold his hands and watch it work
itself out, but notice what else he said. He being, present tense,
he being Lord of heaven and earth, he being not only the sovereign
almighty creator, but the imminent, present, sovereign governor of
all that he has made in every realm in heaven and upon the
earth. Then he goes on to describe him
in the immensity of his spirituality. He cannot be contained in any
temple made by man. He describes him in what the
old theologians called his aseity. God is utterly independent of
all of his creation. He doesn't need one thing from
his creation to satisfy him, to fulfill him, to make him complete,
to sustain him. The whole notion that God made
man because he was lonely is blasphemous. What could God ever
find in man, the creature that he could not find in the infinite
fullness and glory of his own inner Trinitarian life? What
could God find in a worm of the dust that he could not find in
himself? It's ludicrous. It's blasphemous. It's unbiblical. Neither is he
served by men's hands as though he needed anything. God never
had a twitch of loneliness, of unfulfillment. God was totally
self-sufficient and satisfied within his own glorious, ineffable
being, but he chose to create, and he chose to give life and
breath to all things. Do you get something of the kind
of God that Paul was preaching to these Athenians? Was he some
cute little comfortable god that they could feel free to snuggle
up to and become his buddy? Was He some kind of God that
they ought to be persuaded to accommodate because He somehow
needed them and they were so important to Him? As we hear
in all of this babbling nonsense about self-worth and you're so
important to God that God is frustrated if He doesn't have
your love and your trust. Nonsense heresy, Robbie! This God needs nothing. Yet He has been gracious enough
to command us to repent. The author of this command is
God Himself, the Almighty God of creative power and wisdom,
the Sovereign Lord of heaven and earth, the immense God who
cannot be contained in temples, the self-sufficient God, the
imminent God who gives life and breath to all things, the sovereign
disposer of the nations, the God who is knowable and accessible. As he says in verse 26 and following,
this is the author of this command. Now hear me for a moment. Do
we not regard any command that comes to us in direct proportion
to our esteem or lack of esteem of the one who gives the command?
You take the son or daughter who sees mom and dad placed over
him or her as God's representative to administer God's rule You
take that child whose heart is sensitive to the significance
of the Fifth Commandment, honor thy father and thy mother. And when mom or dad give commands,
their response is in direct proportion to the regard they have for the
dignity, the worth, the character, and their esteem of the one who
gives And as in human relationships, so with the living God. You see,
the apostle did not begin his sermon to these Athenians deep
in the ignorance of idolatry. He didn't begin by saying, God
commands you to repent. He began by telling them enough
about God that when he says God commands you to repent, there
would be some substantial content to the word God. And I ask you, young people,
children, adults here tonight, when you hear that the author
of this command is God Himself, what is your response? God, schmod,
heard it a thousand times. For when you hear God command,
this is the great, eternal, almighty, sovereign Creator of Heaven and
Earth! This is the Lord of heaven and
earth! This is the one who holds me
in His hands! He got the whole wide world in
His hands. He got everything in His hands. He got you and me, brother, in
His hands. He got the whole world in His
hands, and all He needs to do is squeeze, and I'm done. If he gives life and breath,
all he needs to do is withhold my breath, and I've had it. This
is the God who is commanding. So having considered the setting
of this command in human history, the times of ignorance God overlooked,
all of the epochs of human history steeped in idolatry prior to
the coming of the Son of God and the proclamation of the gospel
among the nations, then the author of the command is God himself,
God defined by Paul's very brief but succinct and powerful summation
of many of his attributes. But now then, thirdly, what is
the essence of this command? Look at What is the essence of
this command? The times of this ignorance God
overlooked, but now He commands all men, or men, that they should
all, everywhere, repent. The essence of the command? Let's
ask a couple of questions of it. To whom does it come? Our
text says it comes to men. And sometimes the Greek word
used for man means someone of the male gender. Sometimes it
means all mankind, male and female, young or old, of any station
and walk in life. And obviously it's that meaning
in this context that the essence of this command, when we ask
the question to whom does it come, it comes to men. But it
comes to all men and to all men in every place. Someone has suggested
that to capture the sense of the Greek in English, we would
rightly translate the times of ignorance. Therefore, God overlooked. But now he commands all men everywhere
to repent. All men without distinction. good men, bad men, moral men,
immoral men, religious, irreligious, all men everywhere. You see the breadth of this command,
all men in every place. That's the answer to the question,
to whom does it come? But now what does it demand?
As we look at the essence of this command, that all men everywhere
repent. repent. What does the word repent
mean? That's what God who made us,
made the world, is Lord, sovereign Lord of heaven and earth. This
God who has given us assurance of the day of judgment in that
he raised his son from the dead has commanded us to repent. What does that mean? There's
no better uninspired definition of biblical repentance unto life
and salvation than that given in the Shorter Catechism. What
is repentance unto life? Repentance unto life is a saving
grace whereby a sinner out of a true sense of his sin does
with grief and apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ does
with grief and hatred of his sin, turn from it unto God with
full purpose of, and in never after, new obedience. What is repentance unto life?
It is a saving grace. Yes, it is a duty commanded. And as with so many other things,
the very duty God commands is the grace that he imparts. For
Christ has been exalted, we are told in chapter five, to be a
prince and a savior, to give repentance to Israel and remission
of sins. It is a saving grace in which
a sinner out of a true, listen, sense of his sin, doesn't say
mere admission of sin, In our day, gospel tracts and gospel
preachers say, well, if you'll admit you're a sinner, and then
you will do this and this, you will be saved. I've only met
one person in my whole life who didn't admit he or she was a
sinner. The problem is not getting people to admit they're sinners.
It's seeing them brought to a true sense of their sin. A true sense
of their sin. That's why Jesus said, when He,
the Spirit, is come, He will reprove the world of sin. A true
sense of sin that prepares us to embrace the Savior is a supernatural
work of the Spirit of God, so that we are brought to the place
where we cry out, as David did against thee, and thee only have
I sinned. done that which is evil in thy
sight." A true sense of sin is at the root of all true repentance. Repentance unto life is a saving
grace whereby a sinner, out of a true sense of his sin and an
apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ, In other words,
gospel repentance can only be exercised in the context of the
proclamation of God's way of forgiveness through the bloodletting
of the Son of God. And it's clear that in the subsequent
interaction of Paul with those who are willing to listen to
him, he proclaimed this, for we read in verse 34 that this
man Dionysius believed he came to faith And the object of saving
faith is always the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul said in Acts 20,
21, wherever he preached, he preached repentance towards God
and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. And so implicit in this
command is not only that we come to a true sense of our sin, but
an apprehension, not a comprehension. How can we ever comprehend? that
God would so love a bunch of rebel hell-deserving wretches
as to send His Son to die for the likes of us, but to apprehend
means to lay hold of. So true repentance is a saving
grace whereby a sinner, out of a true sense of his sin and an
apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ, does with grief
and hatred of his sin. and hatred of his sin. Paul says,
You sorrowed with godly sorrow unto repentance not to be repented
of. Grief and hatred of our sin,
that which we loved we now loathe. And we loathe it enough to turn
from it, be divorced from it with a full purpose of and endeavor
after new obedience, the disposition of a penitent heart is that of
the apostle who cried after he was smitten by the risen Christ,
Lord, what will you have needed? From here on in, Lord, you call
the shots. I've gone out of the God business.
I've gone out of the plan my own life, do my own thing, adjust
my own schedule business. I'm done, Lord. What will you
have needed? to do. Now notice the command
in its essence says nothing about getting tingles up and down your
spine. It says nothing about just juggling
a few notions in your head about Jesus and the cross. It says
nothing about bursting into gales of mindless, thoughtless, irrational
laughter and falling on the floor, being slain by the Spirit. That nonsense has nothing to
do with repentance and everything to do with the delusive Spirit
that will damage thousands. Rather, it's an experience of
a radical and pervasive change of mind concerning God, and sin,
and Christ, and the way of salvation. And Paul says the God, who at
this epoch in human history, no longer deals as he did in
the times of ignorance, This God now commands all men everywhere
that they should repent. Having looked at the setting
of the command, the author of the command, the substance of
the command, fourthly, what's the issue at stake as you consider
the commands? What was the issue at stake there?
at the Areopagus in the midst of that philosophical think tank
and others who were gathered there to listen to Paul. As you
contemplate this command, what is the issue at stake? Well,
that's what we studied this morning. Verse 31. Inasmuch, he commands
all men everywhere to repent, inasmuch, in the light of the
fact that there's a day appointed with a judge chosen and the fact
that it all validated by the open. You see, the problem with
some of you that sit under the gospel week after week and month
after month, you won't stop and think of the issues at stake
as you consider the command that comes not from a mere mortal. This was Paul, the former murderer
and persecutor of the church. But when he said, God commands
you to repent, he was the mouthpiece of the living God. And the issues
at stake are nothing less than being prepared or ill-prepared
for the day of judgment. That's why he graciously commands
all men everywhere to repent. Why? Because he's appointed a
day in which he's going to judge the whole world, all men everywhere. And if they come to that judgment,
impenitent and unbelieving and untransformed, they come to the
judgment only to be publicly identified as goats. publicly identified as the wicked
who should be bound hand and foot and cast into outer darkness. And that some of you would only
take a half an hour to sit with no TV on, no headphones on, no
magazine, no newspaper in front of you and bring near that day. And you will stand before the
living I doubt you'd go to your bed
uncompacted. Then since we expounded that
text, I pass over it and come fifthly and finally now to the
recorded response to this command. What happened when it was preached?
We have the recorded response in verses 32 to 34. Three different
responses, some mocked, Some politely excused themselves from
immediate obedience, and some attached themselves to the servant
of God and believed his message. Look at it. Now when they heard
of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked, and apparently they
must have been the ones who showed their colors first. And the only
other place this word mocked, this verb is found in the New
Testament, is in Acts chapter 2. And the disciples, after being
filled with the Spirit, began to speak in languages that they
had not acquired in a now normal way. And the visitors there at
Jerusalem heard every man in his own language, the mighty
works of God being spoken. It says, Some mocked, saying,
These men are full of new wine. They mocked. They poupard all
of this. They did not want to see in it
the hand of God. The hand of God was so evidently
in it. You see, usually the one who's
so quick to mock is the one whose conscience has begun to be so
active he must begin to mock to try to still its voice. And
often the quickest and the loudest mockers are those who, if they
would be honest, are beginning to have serious doubts about
their unbelief in their You see, mocking these realities won't
make them go away. All the mocking of the resurrection
of the dead won't put Christ back in His tomb. And the fact
that He came out of that tomb is God's assurance that He's
on His throne, and one day you and I will stand before that
throne and be judged by it. Now you could, if possible, gather
all four and a half billion inhabitants of the world in one place and
all mock in unison. It won't take Christ off His
throne and put Him back in His tomb! They heard the resurrection. Resurrection of who? Resurrection
of Christ! Paul had just said he's given
assurance unto all men in that he raised him from the dead. And to these pagans, the concept
of the resurrection of the body was something totally outside
the sphere of their belief system. Some of them believed in the
immortality of the soul, but the concept of the resurrection
of the body, totally outside the sphere of philosophical acceptance,
and so they mocked. Well, I say mockery does not
affect reality. And reality is that Joseph's
tomb is empty, and the throne at the right hand of God is occupied. Don't mock. Go out of here and
under your breath, and with your buddies and with your girlfriends,
say, hey, wasn't that something? Hey, old Pastor Martin, he still
gets all worked up, and he hollers, and he stomps, and he does his
best to get to us. Mock all you want. There's an
open, empty tomb in Palestine, and there's a throne at the right
hand of God. And your mockery won't cancel
reality. Some mocked. But look what the
second group did. It says of them, But others said,
We will hear you concerning this yet again. Now we can interpret
that probably at least two ways. It may be that they began to
be interested. But the very fact, you see, that they said, we'll
hear you yet again while they still have Paul there. He hadn't
left yet. The next verse says, Thus Paul
went out from among them. If you've got a man of God, who
knows God, and is preaching the word of God, and the way of the
salvation of God, then you're serious. You don't say mañana. You say like that Philippian
jailer did in the middle of the night, springing in, crying for
life. Sirs, what must I do to be saved? I know this is an inconvenient
time for an evangelistic house meeting, but I've seen the power
of God in your lives. I've seen the power of God in
the earthquake in this prison. I've seen the power of God restraining
the prisoners who are not held in prison by shackles, but by
the constraint of God. And I'm not ready to meet this
God. And it's the wheat hours of the
morning, but O servants of God, tell me what must I do to be
saved. No, I believe this response when they said, we will hear
you concerning this yet again, was a polite way of trying to
persuade themselves that they were not utterly rejecting the
message in the messenger. There is a possibility that there
was the inkling of a little desire But oh, how foolish to presume
that they'd have another time, for the scripture says, Boast
not thyself of tomorrow, for thou knowest not what a day may
bring forth. Behold, now is the accepted time. Behold, now is the day of salvation. Some mocked, some politely excused
themselves from immediate obedience. But now notice the third group. Some were attached to the servant
of God and believed this message. This is one of the most fascinating
texts in the Bible, and I never realized it until I was studying
to prepare for tonight's message and was studying it in the Greek
text. This is the way it would read,
literally. But certain men were glued unto Paul. Now, what's
the difference between an active and a passive verse? There's
my glass of water. If I say I took the glass of
water and drank from it, that's an active verb. I am the subject. I act upon the glass of water.
If I say the glass of water was taken by me and drunk, the subject
is the glass of water. It was acted upon by me. That's
a passive verb. or a passive use. Now here you
have an aorist passive of the verb that means to attach, to
be clued to, to join to. It's the verb used in Acts 5.13. No man dared join himself to
them, attach himself to them. It's the verb used of Paul when
he came to Jerusalem in Acts 9.26 and he sought to join himself
to the disciples. It's the verb used in Romans
12.9 when Paul says, cleave, attach yourself to that which
was good. But here the Holy Spirit says,
but certain men were glued, attached to him, to Paul. Well, who was
the actor? Who was the one who attached
them? Luke doesn't tell us here, but
he does tell us in other parts of the book of Acts, whose heart
the Lord opened so that she attended to the things that were spoken
by Paul. I think it's a subtle stroke
to underscore again. that in the midst of this crowd
to whom Paul was preaching, there was another one present, very
active, God the Holy Spirit. And while some were given up
to their native unbelief and mocked, and others given up to
the folly of tentativeness and delay and procrastination, There
were certain ones whom God, by His mighty power, glued, notice,
not to Christ, but it says unto Him, that is unto Paul, the messenger
of God, and then it says they believed. Isn't that very interesting? I find that fascinating. Because
it reveals a very vital principle, and I want you to get hold of
it. According to the Scriptures, with but few exceptions. Your
response to the gospel will be determined by your disposition
to the messenger who conveys the gospel to you. That's why Jesus said when he
sent out his disciples, he that receives not your message, he
says he that receives you, receives me. Why did he say he that receives
you? Because we are so constituted
that if we don't receive the messenger, we will not receive
his message. And that's why the devil does
his dead-level best to put suspicion and disaffection in your heart
to your God-given message. He'll give you tons of love for
a thousand other preachers who don't bring the Word of God to
you. But if He can distance you from
the mouthpiece God puts among you, He knows He'll cut you off
from the message which His mouthpiece conveys. Now that should say worlds to
all of you. As it should say worlds to me.
The text says I didn't write it. The text says certain men
were glued onto him and in that attachment to him. What do you
think Paul did? Start a personality cult? A fan
club? Oh no. He'd been cut off in the
middle of his message. He hadn't even got to talking
about the cross and the blood of Christ. And when they said,
Paul, you're bringing the truth. You're a messenger of God. I
can just imagine the delightful hours Paul spent opening up the
glorious truths of the gospel until what happens? It says these
certain men who were glued onto him, he leaves. They turned from
their sins to this great and glorious God. They, in the language
of 1 Thessalonians, turned unto the living God from their idols
to serve the living God and to wait for His Son out of heaven. And this is given, I think, to
encourage us. God could have left the record
there, and certain men were glued unto Him and believed. But then
the Holy Spirit moved Luke, who just gives these little summaries
of gospel endeavors. He singles out two names, among
whom also was Dionysius the Areopagite. He was one of the ruling council
of twelve hotshots in this philosophical think-tank that composed the
Areopagite. What's that tell us? That tells
us that God the Holy Spirit can penetrate into the mind of a
man that has a thousand walls against the truth, steeped in
pagan philosophical thought. The message of God broke through,
laid hold of him, and by the Spirit he was glued to the apostle
as God's messenger, and he was brought to faith. I tell you
that gives me great hope every time I stand and preach. To believe
that the God who is present by the Spirit, who in conjunction
with the preaching of the Word, can bring sinners to life. He
can lay hold of a Dionysus. Someone who comes into this building
full of skepticism, and a thousand walls of so-called intellectual
barriers, and all the kinds of barriers, and when God says,
I'm going out to get my man, he gets him. And then it says,
and a woman. And a woman. to let us know that
though this philosophical think tank was made up of men, somehow
some women got in on this, and a woman named Damaris. And the
scholars like to debate who was she, why is she named, and at
the end of the day, as far as I know, they don't know any more
at the end of the day than they did at the beginning of the day.
All we know is that God's grace that can break down the prejudice
and the pride of a man can seize hold of the peculiar sinful bent
of a pagan woman in a pagan city brought up immersed in the worship
of pagan gods and save her too. Maybe she was a woman of some
note. Maybe a woman of some influence in the town. But then less people
think, well, maybe only God saves the big shots. Look at the last
phrase in the text and others with that. and others with them. Others with them. Maybe some
teenagers sneaked in. Maybe some boys who were accompanying
their dads. Being apprenticed to be part
of the philosophical think tank. I don't know. It just says others
with them. And there you can let your imagination
run wild. And put in any sinner of any
age and any background and any moral and religious strife and
say, there's room for others with them. Others with them. All who would obey the divine
command to repent, taking seriously that there's an appointed day.
And there is a marked out man, and there is valid proof, because
of his open tomb. And all who acknowledging they
are not ready for that day, and flee in repentance to the living
God and faith in his Son, the Lord Jesus, they are welcomed. My friends, this ain't Easter. I don't know what is. A risen
Christ. lays hold of dead, hell-deserving
sinners and brings them into the orbit of His gracious salvation. Oh, that this day I might persuade
some of you to heed this gracious command. You see, it's a gracious
command. If God were not ready to forgive,
why would He command you to repent? Because He promises that all
who repent will be forgiven. And if he were not ready and
anxious to forgive, he might invite you to repent. But when
he commands you to repent, he is making it so plain that he
stands ready to forgive. Oh, that you would this day obey
this gracious gospel command, recognizing you stand at a place
of unique privilege and redemptive history. and God has sent His
Son and raised Him from the dead, and His resurrection has been
validated by the eyewitnesses, and the record is here in the
Word of God. May God grant that this day you
may lay hold of the risen Savior and all of the marvelous salvation
that is in Him, and if by grace you have been a Damaris or a
Dionysius or one of those unnamed others, what a blessed thing
to think of the Day of Judgment with no fear. With no fear. Because Jesus said, Verily, verily,
I say unto you, He that hears my word and believes on him that
sent me shall not come into judgment, but is passed from death unto
life. There is therefore now no condemnation
to those who are in Christ Jesus. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea,
rather that is risen from the dead, who is at the right hand
of God, who also makes intercession for us, who shall separate us
from the love of God. I am persuaded that neither death
nor life nor things present nor things to come, even the day
of judgment, shall separate us from the love of God which is
in Christ Jesus our Lord. That day of judgment will be
the day of the public validation of what we are now. Justified,
adopted sinners! It will be the declaration before
the whole moral universe that we belong to Christ and He will
own us without shame. Even so, Lord Jesus, come, let
us pray. Our Father, how we thank
you for such a glorious gospel. Thank you for this portion of
your Word we have been privileged to study today, and how we plead
with you that by the mighty ministry of the Spirit You would so work
that some this very night will heed this gracious gospel command
to repent and to lay hold of the offered Savior. May none
join the ranks of the mockers. May none be so foolish as to
presume upon another day. But, oh, may the urgency of the
issues so grip them that this day they will flee to Christ. Seal your word, we pray. May
the enemy not be able to snatch it away, but may it be enfolded
in our hearts and bring forth fruit. And in those who are yours,
who, like these named in the latter part of the chapter, were
wrought upon by your Spirit, Lord, give us a renewed sense
of the wonder and the glory of our salvation, a renewed sense
of urgency as we think of all men everywhere who are yet in
their sins, who are yet facing that day of judgment with no
hope, with no solid ground of assurance that they will be anything
other than indicted, condemned and banished. Increase our burden,
increase our passion to bring this message to their ears, and
we beg of you to take it to their hearts. Dismiss us now with your
blessing as we give you thanks for this day in your courts.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.