today. His family is here where
Greg and Tricia usually sit. So, but let's open this morning
service with a hymn number 21 from your gospel hymn spiral
hymn book. Number 21, one of our favorite hymns, Sean, the
covenant ordered and sure let's all stand together. Number 21. of the Father and the Son and
the Spirit, three in one, in eternal ages past. Made a covenant sure and fast,
God my Father chose His own In the person of His Son, And ordained
that I should be One with Him eternally. God the Son agreed
to come in the flesh to bring me home. He would keep God's
holy law and retrieve me from the fall. Christ, in love so
willingly, Stood as my great surety. For my price He offered
blood To appease the wrath of God. God the Spirit, heavenly
dove, promised to come down in bringing life and peace and grace
to the chosen purchased race. He seeks the lost, heals the
lame, and he brings us to the land. By his mighty sovereign
call, God's elect are gathered. This poor sinner is secure, For
God's covenant will endure. It is sealed by God's own word,
by His Spirit and His blood. Blessed, holy, covenant God,
I am yours by tithes of blood. ? Ties of grace and ties of love
? ? Hold me to my God above ? Please be seated, Sean. Good morning to everyone. Very
thankful to be here today and see all these loving faces out
here. Some that I remember, some I don't. I apologize for that.
I'm not really good with names. But we are very thankful to be
here amongst you. We're a small group in Lakeland,
and it's good to be with the people of God. If you will, turn
with me and your Bibles to Acts 17 this morning. Acts 17 is where you'll find
Paul's sermon on Mars Hill. As I read through the sermon
this week, the Lord impressed upon me it's just as timely today
and relevant today as it was when he preached it. You know,
Paul, at the beginning of this chapter, I know there were no
chapter divisions in the Word of God, but when he was preaching
at Thessalonica and a group of Jews rose up and opposed him,
basically ran him out of there. So he went down to Berea and
he preached there and they followed him down there and ran him out
of there. So that's where we're going to pick up this morning
before the sermon in verse 16 because Paul now, the brethren
decided to usher him into Athens. Athens was the city of learning.
Athens was where all of the men would gather together to talk
about their philosophies and their thoughts and everything
that was new to man. They loved to hear new things.
And in verse 16 we see while Paul waited for them at Athens,
while he waited for the brethren, his spirit was stirred in him
when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry. And I think about
that this morning, and I think about all of us in the room,
and the country we live in, and the cities that we live in. And
since I was a little boy, things have seemed to have changed to
me. They seem to have gotten worse. I remember a stretch of land
when I was a little boy on the south end of Lakeland I only ventured to once or twice
in my life, and it was all just full of orange groves, and it
was a long street, and it was called 540A, and there was nothing
on it. Today, now, there's at least
10 buildings, 10 different denominations, Hindu places of worship, Indian
places of worship, all along this one street. And just as
Paul, when I drive down that street, I'm bothered. My spirit is stirred within me.
Why is that? And that's what Paul's going
through here as he walks into Athens and he sees it wholly
given over to idolatry. So he went to the synagogue with
the Jews in 17 and he started disputing with them and with
the devout persons there in the market daily. with them that
met with him and then certain of the philosophers, the religious
people, the Epicureans that believed in a religion that led to pleasure
and whatever it was that pleasured you was the God of them. And so they would come and the
Stoics who were more on the moral side, they cared more about moral
things and they encountered Paul there. And they said, some of
them said, what will this babbler say? And others said, he seems
to be a setter forth of strange gods because he preached unto
them Jesus and the resurrection. And that was very strange to
them. And I believe today if I went to the street that I was
telling you about and I went into all of those buildings and
I preached to them Jesus, it would be very foreign to them
too. It's a sad day we live in. But
as I said when I started this morning, I'm very thankful for
the number of people that the Lord does have. To be able to
worship with you today, to be able to proclaim the Lord Jesus
Christ before you today and to have those in the room that love
him, that cherish him, that desire to hear more about him. That's where my happiness is.
And so they said, what will this babbler say? Another said, you
know, he's seeming set forth a strange God, because he preached
unto them Jesus in the resurrection. And they took him, and they brought
him unto Oropagus, which is the courtyard there where they all
heard people speak. And they said, saying, may we
know what this new doctrine whereof thou speakest is? New doctrine. Paul was preaching to them what's
been around since eternity, before eternity. the Lord Jesus Christ. But to man it's always a new
doctrine. I'm amazed by what quote-unquote
religious people coming in contact with them and when you preach
to them the totality of Christ or you speak to them about everything
subsisting, consisting in Christ and everything flows from Christ,
it's a strange doctrine. And they'll just look at you
bewildered. You know the look. They said, for they'll bring
us certain strange things to our ears. We would know, therefore,
what these things mean. For all the Athenians and strangers
which were there spent their time in nothing else, but either
to tell or to hear something new. That's the desire of man,
to hear something new. And the thing is, for the child
of God, and only the child of God, when he hears the gospel,
It's always new. It's like we have a desire and
a thirst and that living water that dwells and bubbles up in
us. We can't get enough of Christ
and what he is to the church and what he's done for us. And so I don't know about you,
but many times as I'm reading his holy word, there are times
I've read the same passage 10, 20 times before. But on this
occasion, the Lord brings me deeper into it. And all things
are new. But they're deeper in Christ. There's nothing new under the
sun, but the Lord in his faithfulness reveals himself over and over
to his children. and brings them deeper and deeper
into a knowledge of Him, growing in the grace and knowledge of
the Lord. So then after all of that, Paul
begins his sermon and he stood in the midst of Mars Hill and
he said, you men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are too
superstitious. And the word there is religious.
You are too religious. As he walked into the city and
he saw all, he says in 23, I passed by and beheld your devotions,
your gods, your statues, your altars. As I walked in and I
looked at all of them and I saw them, I see that you're just
too religious. You seem to have a God or something
for everything. And he says, I found an altar
with this inscription. It was to the unknown God. Now
why would they have an altar to an unknown God? They had one
for everything. They figured they covered all
of their bases. But what if they missed one?
What if they forgot one? So they erected an altar to the
unknown God. And why is it that men are so
easily at home in religion, where they can accept any religion,
and they can accept anything. Why? It's because of fear. And it's because of uncertainty.
And it's because of doubt. Because they're just not sure
about their God. That maybe the person across
the street that's worshiping in another place, maybe it's
their God. Maybe it's the one on across
the street or down the road. But that's not the case for the
child of God. Paul was stirred. Paul, there's
in the child of God's soul, he cannot participate in false religion. He can't. He can't compromise. He can't nod his head. He can't
sit in agreement. He has one Lord. He has one faith. He has one baptism. He's been
baptized into his Lord. He has been put into his Lord,
and his Lord is his life. And as Paul saw all of these
altars, and he saw all of the religion, and then he saw this
altar, and he said, you know, him whom therefore you ignorantly
worship, today him I will declare unto you, I'm going to tell you
who this Lord is, the one that you're so uncertain to that you
build an altar to. I know that we live in a day
and age where offending someone is in the headlines, it's in
the workplace, you better be politically correct, You better
have the best terminology and the right terminology or you
get vilified. For the child of God, our terminology
is Christ. Our life is Christ. And when
he is not exalted, and when man is exalted, and when false religion
is exalted, it stirs us up. And the feeling is not a peaceful
feeling. But Paul knew what he had to
do. He had the gospel upon his lips and he had to declare the
one thing needful. And so he began and he said,
God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he
is Lord of heaven and earth, He declared to them first the
Creator, the sovereign Lord of all things. Everything begins
with this Lord. Everything is in this Lord. The
very first thing is He tells them that there's only one true
God. If you hold your finger here,
turn with me back to Psalm 115 for a moment. As we read, the
beginning of Psalm 115 and what the Lord gave David.
But he begins this Psalm by saying, not unto us, O Lord, not unto
us, but unto thy name give glory. Lord, you are due all praise.
You are due all honor. You are due everything that utters
from my mouth You are my life. I want to proclaim you. Not unto
me, Lord. Not unto these gods made with
hands. Not unto all of these. This is
why Paul is declaring to them, there's one Lord. But unto thy
name give glory for thy mercy and for thy truth's sake. Wherefore
should the heathen say, where is now their God? but our God
is in the heavens, and he has done whatsoever he has pleased. I declare to you today the one
true and living God." That's what Paul's saying. Look what
David said. He said, their idols are silver
and gold, the work of men's hands. They have mouths, but they speak
not. Eyes have they, but they see
not. They have ears, but they hear
not. Noses have they, but they smell not. They have hands, but
they handle not. Feet have they, but they walk
not. Neither speak they through their throat. They that make
them are like unto them. And that's the state of man. He carves his gods. He makes
his gods. And listen, we live in the year
2024. We don't readily walk down the
street and see wooden gods or stone gods. Our society has made
gods out of mammon, out of wealth, out of false religion. You fill in the blank. These
things are the things that we struggle with in this life because
the tempter is always there to tempt. The world is always there
to pull us to it. Our fallen nature always gravitates
to those things. Anything that's not the Lord.
We need Him every hour. David says, they that make them
are likened to them. So is everyone that trusteth
in them. O Israel, trust thou in the Lord.
He is their help and their shield. He is our help and our shield.
Let's turn back to Acts 17 now. So Paul said, God has made the
world and all things therein. David said in Psalm 135, six,
whatsoever the Lord please, that did he in heaven and earth and
in the seas and all deep places. We know that the scriptures tell
us that none can stay his hand. We know that he is the creator
and we know it by faith. And yes, faith is a gift of God.
And if everyone in this room has been blessed by that faith,
it is a tremendous gift and a tremendous mercy. Because the world just
doesn't believe. Our second message today, Lord
willing, will be about unbelief. We know we're full of it. As
I said already, and you'll probably hear me say it many times today,
we do need him every hour, every minute of every day. And Paul said, this is the Lord. He is the Lord of heaven and
earth. And then he tells them something. He says, this Lord,
he dwells not in temples made with hands. He doesn't dwell
in temples made with hands. Now once again, understanding
what he's looking at. He's looking at all of these
handmade altars and religious symbols. Our Lord God is a spirit. And they that worship Him must
worship Him in spirit and in truth. Our Lord is not, there's
no such thing as the house of the Lord. We have a building that we worship
in. We're thankful for the building
the Lord has given us. But this isn't God's house. The
Lord dwells in his people. He tells us plainly here, he
dwells not in temples made with hands. Men erect big buildings
and huge buildings and they call them God's house. But the Lord
has made it clear to his people. that we worship the Lord in spirit
and in truth. This is today we're gathered
here to worship. Let's go to 2 Chronicles. I wanna
share with you this passage. We know that the Lord commissioned
and called Solomon to erect a temple. And Solomon knew
this about the Lord. He says this in 2 Chronicles
2, in verse 1 he says, And Solomon determined to build a house for
the name of the Lord, for the glory of the Lord. It's not to
house the Lord. Look at verse 4, he says, Behold,
I build a house to the name of the Lord my God, to dedicate
it to him, and to burn before him sweet incense, and for the
continual showbread, and for the burnt offerings, morning
and evening, on the Sabbath, and on the new moons, and the
solemn feast of the Lord our God. This is an ordinance forever
to Israel. And the house which I build is
great, for great is our God above all gods. But who is able to
build him a house? Seeing the heaven of heavens,
the heaven and heaven of heavens, cannot contain him. Our Lord
is omnipresent. Who am I then that I should build
him a house? Save only to burn sacrifice before. It's for worship. It's for worship. And what is Paul trying to get
at here? What is Paul teaching them? He's teaching them that the Lord's
work that he does in his children and how he is to be worshipped
is within. He looks on the heart. And all
of these idols and all of these altars that they have, it's just
religion. It's dead religion. And for every
doctrine they had and every God they had, we worship Not a doctrine. We worship the person of Christ.
He is where life is. And so Paul said, he dwells not
in temples made with hands. He's not a Catholic, a Baptist.
He's the living God. David said, where can I flee
from thy presence? He said, if I ascend into heaven,
you are there. If I descend to hell, you are
there. If I go to the depths of the sea, you are there. Our
Lord said, lo, I'm with you always, even to the end of the world.
Our Lord is with us wherever we go. Aren't you happy for that? That when we leave this building
today, that our God doesn't stay here. That he goes with us and
goes before us as a faithful shepherd. leading us in the path
of his righteousness, for his namesake, for his glory. I'm thankful for that because
as soon as Monday rolls around, I'm back in the workplace. But praise be to God, he goes
before me. My Lord is with me all the time.
But then Paul says in 25, neither is he worshiped with men's hands.
I don't care how much you wave your hands, and I usually talk
with my hands. I'm trying to be better with
that today. But it doesn't matter what you do with your hands,
what you hold in your hands. It doesn't matter about your
feet or how fast you run down to the front. God's not worshipped with men's
hands, as though he needed anything, seeing he giveth to all life
and breath and all things. You know, Jesus said that. He
said that in Matthew 20, 28. He said, I came not to be ministered
to. I came not to be ministered to,
but to minister. You know, that was one of the
very first texts that the Lord revealed to me. When I was raised,
I was raised in an Armenian church. I was raised in a free will Methodist
church. But when the Lord brought that
text to me, that he came not to be ministered to, but to minister,
that hit me hard. He hit me with the meaning of
that. He doesn't need anything from me. He does it all. And I'm proclaiming and praising
the name of the Lord today because he does. Because without him,
I can do nothing. But with him, I can do all things
through his strength that strengthens me. The rest of that verse is he
came not to be ministered to but to minister and to give his
life a ransom for many. Turn with me back to Psalm 50. This is a Psalm of Asaph. I wanted
to read something to you along these lines about Paul saying
he doesn't need anything from man He doesn't need man's hands. Look at Psalm 50. We'll just
start in verse 7. Hear, O my people, and I will
speak, O Israel, and I will testify against thee. I am God, even
thy God. I will not reprove thee for thy
sacrifices or thy burnt offerings to have been continually before
me. I will take no bullock out of thy house, nor he goats out
of thy folds. For every beast of the forest
is mine, and a cattle upon a thousand hills. I know all the fowls of
the mountains, and the wild beast of the field are mine. I love
this part. If I were hungry, I would not
tell thee. for the world is mine and the
fullness thereof." Our Lord doesn't need anything from us. In fact,
we can't even praise Him properly or worship Him properly without
Him. Every one of us that walked in
that door today was dependent upon the Lord to bring our spirit
and our minds and our hearts captive to Him. to lay us at
His feet, to make us willing in the day of His power to be
instructed out of His Word. That's how much unbelief we have.
That's how hardened we are every day. That's what this world does
to us. We get polluted by it every day.
But our faithful Lord, oh, His long-suffering toward us, how
much we complain and murmur Our Lord is there to succor us,
to correct us when we're needed to be corrected, to show us the
way that's in Him, to show us the path, the light, the path.
He's the light, He's the path, He's the way, He's the truth,
He's the life. Paul said, no, He's not to be
worshipped back in our text, neither is He worshipped with
men's hands as though He needed anything, seeing He gives to
all life and breath and all things. And then he tells them something,
he said, he's made of one blood, he and his man hath made of one
blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the
earth and hath determined the times before appointed and the
bounds of their habitations. It doesn't matter where you are
today, if you're in China or Russia or United States or India,
We all come from one root. We all come from Adam. That's
what Paul's telling them. We all come from one source. In Adam, all are dead. By one man, sin entered into
the world. He's the head of all of mankind. Paul's telling them that. You
make all of these You make all of these idols. You make sure
you cover all of these gods. But there's one God. There's
one Lord. And the problem that all of mankind
has is the same problem. It's a sin problem. He's made of one blood all nations
of men to dwell on the face of the earth. He's preaching to
them sovereignty, the sovereign Lord. He's put the men in the
places that they're at. He's appointed their boundaries. He's put them in all of the nations
where they are today. But it doesn't change the fact
that we all come from one man. And we all have the same sentence
upon us. Praise God for Christ. The second Adam. He's made of one blood all nations
of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth and he's determined
the times before appointed and the bounds of their habitation
that they should seek the Lord if happily they might feel after
him and find him, though he be not far from every one of us.
Paul said, the whole purpose of man, of fallen man, my desire
is that every man would seek the Lord. Your answer to life
is seeking the Lord. The Lord is where life is. There
is no life outside of him. that they should seek after the
Lord. Not religion, not superstition,
not altars, not false gods. Seek the Lord. He's pointing
them to Christ as every true minister will. We don't have
any potions or remedies. There's one, Christ. He's life. that they should seek the Lord
if happily they might feel after Him. We must experience the Lord. You must feel Him in your soul.
You must know His presence. The Lord promised us they shall
all be taught of God. We know one of the favorite verses
Romans 828 says, and we know. How do we know? He teaches us. We learn in the school of Christ
at His feet. Paul said, that's who you should
be seeking. Seek the Lord, if happily they might feel after
Him, and find Him, though He be not far from every one of
us. Once again, making reference, the Lord is not in a building.
The Lord is not far from every man. The Lord is omnipresent.
He is everywhere. The Lord is in His people. He
dwells in his people. When the child of God goes outside
and he sees a cat or he sees a dog, he understands the Lord
made that creature. Every intimate and intricate
design, the Lord did. He sees his Lord, the creator
in it. He sees the beautiful tree and
he knows that his Lord created that. The Lord's not far from
all of us, Paul said. There's not a place you have
to travel miles to. The Lord is everywhere. This
is my father's world. It's his. The Lord is everywhere. Seek him. Seek the one who is
life. That's my message to you. I told you it's just as timely.
We have all of the false religion around us. Everywhere. I know, you know, in my workplace,
I'm inundated with it every day. Seek the Lord. Seek the Lord
in those times. The Lord will get you through
those times, as He's done for me so many times. Our Lord is reigning. He is King
of Kings. He's Lord of Lords. He is the
Great Creator. And then, what I believe, He
sums everything. This is the sum and substance
of it all. This is the sum of the whole
matter. Verse 28, for in Him we live. In Christ we live. In Christ we move. I'm shaking
my hands up here. I'm nodding my head to you. You're
moving around in your Bible. You owe that all to the Lord.
We don't live presumptuously to believe that we have one more
breath in us. The Lord is the giver of life.
He's the sustainer of life. And He's the giver of our spiritual
life. And He's the sustainer of our
spiritual life. He's the author and finisher
of our faith. We're enjoined to look away to
Him who is the author and finisher of our faith. Because if He's
the author, if He's the beginning of it, and He's the ending of
it, He must be everything in between. He doesn't leave us. He carries us like a faithful
shepherd. Yes, in him we live, in him we
move, and in him we have all our being. We owe everything
to him. These are the words on the child
of God's lips. This is how we speak of him.
This is the conversation. that's glorifying to the Lord.
We don't go out into the world and speak to the world about
what we've done because we owe it all to Him. Without Him we can do nothing.
In Him we live and move and have our being. And He says, as certain
also of your own poets have written about. They've all said it. For
we are also His offspring. And how foolish is that? Because
he says in the next verse, he says, for as much then as we
are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead
is likened to gold or silver or stone, graven by art and man's
device. And I would add in there mammon
or the love of entitlement or titles and jobs or riches or
whatever idol. The Lord created us in His image. And if it's in His image, then
we are made, we are His offspring. He's not wood. He's not gold. He's like us. He made His Son. His Son took on our flesh. And
He came and He died for His people. and stood in their place that
we will have life and have it more abundantly. I tell you, I love, my greatest pleasure on this
earth now is just speaking with the people of God. I do. It just encourages me so much
to hear what the Lord has done in your life. to hear that the
Lord is your life. But oh, how grievous it is when
we don't, when we become the God of our
life, when we speak with that word, I, that Paul fought so
much against. Yet not I. Yet not I. I don't want you to think that
I'm speaking of me. I'm speaking of Him. The faith
that I live, I live by the faith of the Son of God. It's His.
He gave it to me. Don't say, Paul, that's your
faith. It's mine by imputation, by gift, by Him alone. Verse 30 tells us in the times
of this ignorance, God winked at, which means He suffered it. suffered through it, but not
so much anymore. But now he commands, commandeth
all men everywhere to repent. And that was the message of the
gospel that came forward from John, from Jesus, repent, turn
from your idolatry, turn from your wicked ways and follow me. The Lord now in these last days
has spoken to us by his son. Praise God for that, that in
his faithfulness he speaks to his children every day. Don't
you love those texts that say his mercies are new every day?
Do you get up looking for them? The Lord taught me a while back
to pray for those mercies the very first thing of the day.
Lord, reveal to me your mercies. You've already shown me that
they're new every day. Let me see Thee, Lord, for Your
glory. We owe it all to Him. He truly
is our King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And then He tells them
in 31, He says, because He has appointed a day. And yes, dear
ones, He has appointed a day. And I know time has come and
time has gone and nations have rised and nations have fallen.
And men start to think, well, it's been a long time. I don't
think he's coming. But God's not mocked and his
scriptures are true. And Paul tells us he's appointed
a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by
that man whom he has ordained. And you know how happy I am that
he's gonna judge the world by that man? I can't tell you how thrilled
I am because of that. Because faith in the Holy Spirit
has revealed to me that I'm in that man. That's my righteousness. That's the only way I could stand. Praise God. He's appointed a day in which
he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he has ordained,
whereof he has given assurance unto all men in that he has raised
him from the dead. Yes, our Lord is alive. Our Lord is the resurrection.
Our Lord is the life. And our Lord is eternal life. And when they heard of the resurrection
of the dead, some mocked and others said, we will hear thee
again of this matter. May the Lord enjoin us and call
us and give us a desire to be in that number that we desire
to hear it again, over and over again. because it's food for
our souls. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you,
Lord, for this time. Bless the words for the edification
of thy people. Remove any error, Lord. Bring
all thoughts and all praise and honor to thee, Lord, for truly
thou art worthy. For this, I ask in Jesus' name.