Okay, let's turn in our scriptures
to Acts chapter 17. I want to read this speech. I
want to look at a couple of issues this morning. I'd like to later
on have a look at what repentance is. The man Dionysius in verse
34 appears from the title given him there was the head of the
Areopagus. So he was like a professor of
philosophy. at a major university. Think
of the brightest person you can possibly imagine in this world,
and Dionysius is one of them. Dionysius' name means someone
who is devoted to Bacchus. You might have heard of the god
of Bacchus. He's the god of agriculture, he's the god of wine, and he's
the god of theatre. And so it is just the epitome
of worldliness and worldly philosophy having reached its zenith. It's hard to imagine a place
like Athens where you look back on the history of Athens and
you saw Socrates and Plato and Aristotle and Zeno and all of
those extraordinary men in the eyes of philosophy, Alexander
the Great. And all these others saw Athens
as a place that was extraordinarily precious in terms of worldly
power and worldly wisdom and the esteem of men. Athens was
right there at the pinnacle, a pinnacle of man's achievement
in terms of knowing man. The Dionysius was one of those
that repented. But I want us to think, as I
read through this, I want us to think about the way Paul addresses
these people in this university city, amongst all of these extraordinarily
well-educated philosophers in this city. He says, in verse
24, he passed by and he was upset when he found this inscription
to the unknown God. And in John chapter 8, of course,
the Lord Jesus Christ reveals himself to those people and he's
the unknown God to them. He's standing in their midst
proclaiming himself to be God. And the thing that's so challenging
about John chapter 8 is that he was unknown to them even though
he declared himself to be so. It is the gift of God for him
to reveal himself to his people. But the remarkable thing in John
chapter 8, if you look there just briefly at chapter 8 verse
31, it says, then said Jesus to the Jews which believed on
him. So these were professing people
who believed amongst all of the Jews who rejected him. Here is
the Lord Jesus talking to a group of people who believed on him,
just as in John chapter 6 he had an enormous crowd of people
that followed him. And by the end of the chapter,
these people that believed on him, they took up stones to cast
at him. and Jesus hid himself and went
out of the temple going through the midst of them and so passed
by. There is the unknown God of man,
but there is the unknown God in terms of the religion of this
world and the so-called believing religion of this world that doesn't
know the true and living God. So let's read Acts chapter 17
and this last part of it, the sermon on Mars Hill, and I'd
like us to think briefly for a little while this morning about
how these people in this This city of Athens, with all of their
devotion to their gods, are not unlike the gods of modern Christianity
that are paraded before us. Let's just think about it for
a little bit. Let's read it first. May God use his word to enlighten
our hearts and cause us to see the Lord Jesus Christ. Verse
24, Acts 17, God that made the world and all things therein,
seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples
made with hands. Neither is worship with men's
hands as though he needed anything, seeing he gives life to all and
breath and all things. He has made of one blood all
nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth. and
has 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. For in him we live and move and
have our being. A certain also of your own poets
has said, for we are his offspring. For as much then as we are the
offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is
like under gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's
device. And the times of this ignorance
God winked at, God tolerated. But now commandeth all men everywhere
to repent, because he has appointed a day in which he will judge
the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained,
whereof he has given assurance unto all men in that he hath
raised him from the dead. And when they heard of the resurrection
of the dead, some mocked, And others said, we will hear thee
again of this matter. So Paul departed from among them. Howbeit certain men clave to
him. This is the true sign of repentance.
That word clave means to glue, to fasten firmly together. And it's not something that's
done by the act of man, it's an act of God. Howbeit certain
men clave unto him and believed, among which was Dionysius the
Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them. I'd like us to have those thoughts
in mind as we contemplate what Paul is saying about the gods
of this world and how similar the gods of this world and the
gods of this creation, wherever man creates God, he creates a
God in his own image, a God that is moved and manipulated by him. But Paul wants these people,
as all of God's witnesses want them to do, is they just want
people to come into the presence of the true and living God. So I'd like us to look just at
five stark contrasts between the true and living God and the
ignorant God, the God that people worship in ignorance. The first
one is, of course, that God, as Paul begins, God made the
world and God has given made of one blood all the nations
for men to dwell in Acts 17, 24 and 26. So the God of all
creation has made us. He's made us his and he's made
us his worshippers. But what did they do in Athens
with their philosophy and their religion? The worshippers of
idols make their gods. They said there were 30,000 idols
in Athens. There aren't 30,000 in Nauru,
but probably a similar number. The second one is, of course,
the true and living God is known only as He chooses to reveal
Himself. It's in the revelation of truth
and grace that's in the Lord Jesus Christ. But all man-made
idols are dependent upon human teachers. See, the true and living
God is dependent upon no one. He's completely and utterly independent
of man, which is what Paul says there, isn't he? For in him,
and we live and move and have our being, we ought not to think
that the Godhead is like under gold and silver. See, man has
to build his idols, he has to promote them, he has to defend
them. In Acts 14 you might recall when
Paul healed that man. What did they do? They said,
the gods have come down to us in the likeness of men. So the
true and living God is the God of all creation. The true and
living God reveals himself as he chooses to reveal himself
to his people in the Lord Jesus Christ. The true and living God
creates and motivates the work of all of his servants. And idols
must be prompted by their worshippers. The God of idolatry is prompted
by the worshippers of him. The fourth one is that the true
and living God commands his position by the might of his own power
and grace. Our God sits on a throne. He
rules over all men. He has power over the flesh of
all men to give eternal life to as many as he should choose
to do so. He sits on a throne, our Lord
Jesus Christ, and he rules and reigns over all things. See the
idols of men are manipulated by the hands of men. The true and living God performs
his own mighty deeds and he commands his worshippers to be still. Man-made idols are still and
their worshippers busy themselves with their religious commotion. See, that's what Paul says in
Acts 17.25, isn't it? He doesn't need anything. Our God is not deficient in anything
at all. Those five star contrasts can
be related to the idolatry of Athens, but they can be related
to the idolatry which is much more dangerous, the idolatry
of Christian idolatry in this world. The idolatry of those
people in In John chapter 8 that Graham read to us about those
ones that looked as if they were believers amongst all the ones
that weren't believers. And then the Lord Jesus Christ
revealed himself to them as who he really is. And you find that
they pick up stones to stone him. Such is the idolatry of
so much of the religion of today, isn't it? They're happy to call
themselves Christians. It's a term that is biblical,
and I love to use it, but I have a real caution about it these
days. I much, much prefer the terms
that the scriptures use, believers and brethren. Because when someone
claims to believe, you can ask them whom they believe, and you
can ask them to describe whom they believe. And brethren, as
Dionysius and Damaris proved to be, brethren are those who
are born of the same mother. They are family. So who do you
believe? Describe who you believe, and
who do you associate with, or who do you disassociate with? Let's just look at these five
star contrasts, that God of all creation, he makes his people,
he makes us, he's made all of us, he makes us his own, and
he makes his worshippers. I love reading that passage in
John chapter 4 where the Lord Jesus met that woman at the well.
I love the fact that he said at the beginning of that passage
that he must go to Samaria. Why did he must go to Samaria?
Because there was this woman that had five husbands and was
living with another one. She was the shame of that town.
She was a Samaritan and so she was the shame of Israel as well. But the Lord Jesus must go there. But then he speaks to her about
worship. He says, Woman, verse 21, believe
me, the hour cometh when you shall neither in this mountain
nor at Jerusalem worship the Father. You worship what you
know not. You worship ignorantly, just
like the people in Athens, just like multitudes today. We know
what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour
cometh and now is when the true worshippers shall worship the
Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeketh such to worship
Him." And he finds them. He found one at this town, didn't
he? And he found a whole town full of them there. Whatever
God seeks, God finds. Verse 24, God is a spirit. God
is spirit. And they that worship Him must
worship Him. in spirit and truth. See God
makes his worshippers, I love quoting that verse in Psalm 110
verse 3, thy people shall be willing on the day of thy power. The Lord God makes his worshippers
as he makes his creation, he makes his worshippers as a new
creature, created anew in Christ Jesus. So to be born from above
is to have a life put in you that was never there before.
It's a new creation. It's not reformation of the old,
but it's a new creation. God creates his worshippers,
whereas man are always making their gods, and then they are
making their worshippers. It has become popular these days
to have church covenants, and especially in conservative and
reform circles, they have church covenants, where you actually
sit down and sign a membership agreement. So Adeline and John
went back to America and they had signed a membership agreement
in this church, and the pastor of the church has written them
a letter saying, why haven't you been here? What's
the problem? You signed a promise. You signed
a covenant. And they bring that against them.
I have one here from an Australian church and I'm sure like all
of these things the yeast grows and grows and grows. And this
is what religion does. This is what religion does to
people. It binds people and yokes people.
The Lord Jesus spoke those words that we read in John chapter
8, isn't he? When the Son makes you free,
you're free indeed. You don't have to be bound. You
don't have to be bound by men. And the great binding, the great
binding of God's people to himself is in that eternal covenant.
And how does the eternal covenant run? All through the scriptures. It is in the simple terms of
I will and they shall. All works religion turns that
upside down. So let's just, I'll read some
of the promises that these people, promised. They have a whole bunch
of I wills. We affirm. We will regularly
meet together. We will commit to work loyally
with one another. We will encourage, pray for and
submit. We will urge the elders to teach
the whole Council. We will accept the teaching That
is, that this system of theology is confined and confirmed by
the Westminster Confession of Faith. We will pursue holiness. How are you going? You've signed
a piece of paper saying, we will pursue holiness in our lives
and in the church, and we will say no to ungodliness. How are you going? Who's checking on whom? How do
you measure it? There's only one possible way
of measuring it, isn't it? Here's the law of God, and you've
promised it. Do you remember when this happened
in the scriptures? At Mount Sinai. Three times at
Mount Sinai, those Jews said, you just tell us what to do and
it's a piece of cake, we'll do it. No problem at all. It's very
easy to worship God and it's very easy to serve God. You just
tell us. All we need to do is have some rules. We will pursue holiness. We will
say no to ungodliness. We will say yes to what is upright
and godly. We will gladly work and pray. to maintain our unity in Christ.
We will walk together in brotherly love, affectionately and responsibly
caring for one another. We will pray for one another.
We will rejoice in each other's joy and tenderly bear each other's
burdens and sorry. We make this covenant and commitment. We make it. These are becoming really popular.
I can give you a copy of it if you like. These are becoming
popular. Churches in this town are getting people to sign up
to them. Do you see the problem, brothers and sisters? If your God cannot make you to
worship and cannot make you to love Him and cannot make you
to serve Him and cannot make you to love His people and cannot
do those things, then what's he trying to do? Why is he failing? Where is he failing? I used to
always be amazed that we would be continually told in another
place to do all these things and yet God actually promises
that's what he's going to do in the lives of his people. So
there's one covenant that matters, brothers and sisters. There is
one covenant that matters, and that's the covenant God the Father,
God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit made before the foundation
of the world. And that is the only covenant
that is ever going to get people to be worshippers of God, which
is exactly what the Lord Jesus said. I'll go to a Samaritan
village, and I'll go to what would be considered in that world
a loose woman who would probably be considered by many to be a
prostitute, like Rahab the harlot. I'll go to her and I'll make
her to worship. I'll make her to worship because
I reveal myself to her. I won't make her to worship because
I'm going to bring down a set of rules. We've got to 17 chapters
in Acts, haven't we? And we have yet to see a rule.
We have yet to see a law. Why is that? Because our God,
our God commands and our God gets what he wishes. He seeks
his worshippers. That's why Paul wanted these
people in the Areopagus. to hear and know that this God
that he's talking about is unlike those idols out there. He's not
manipulated and motivated by men. He sits above all creation
and he rules all creation, absolutely. And he makes his worshippers. See, men are yoking other men
in religion all the time and binding them to it. And the reason men are making
idols is because of what they were in the fall and because
of the fact that God reveals himself to his own at a time
of his choosing and he hides himself in justice and mercy
and truth and grace. He only only is known as he reveals
himself. That's the testimony of the man
who gave that speech, isn't it? If you read Galatians chapter
1, Paul has a remarkable description of what happened to him. He says in verse 15, but when
he pleased God, he was talking about how there he was in the
Jewish religion. He would have been in that synagogue
in Antioch and he would have been there as passionate as the
rest of them, living in the midst of that pagan world if he'd been
there. He was doing well in the religion of the Jews. He was
exceedingly zealous for the tradition of my fathers, but When it pleased
God, who separated me from my mother's womb and called me by
His grace to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among
the heathen." He reveals His Son in His people. He's known by revelation. The
heart of Lydia was opened. As the Lord Jesus said to that
woman at the well in John 4, he said, if you knew the gift
of God, you would have asked and he would have given you living
water. If you knew the gift of God,
God is revealed by revelation, which is why Paul, wherever he
went, he preached exactly the same message. He preached the
Lord Jesus Christ as the Christ of God. He preached the Lord
Jesus Christ as God himself. He preached the Lord Jesus Christ
in the perfection of his humanity, his obedience to the law of God.
He preached the Lord Jesus Christ in his death on Calvary's tree.
He preached the Lord Jesus Christ buried. He preached the Lord
Jesus Christ raised from the dead. He preached the Lord Jesus
Christ sitting now in heaven's throne. He just preached him
all the time. That's all we have to do, brothers
and sisters. Where God opens a door of utterance,
we just preach, we talk to people, we bear witness to who the Lord
Jesus Christ is, and we wait for God. We wait for God. All man-made idols are dependent
upon human teachers of lies. To build them up, to defend them,
It's ignorant worship. Paul has got nothing complimentary
to say to this philosophical masterpiece of man's activities
on this earth. The true living God creates and
motivates all the work of his servants. See, true worship occurs
necessarily when God is revealed to a sinner. You think of the
time when the Lord first came and opened the eyes of your heart
for you to realise that your sins were completely put away,
that he sovereignly reigns and rules over all things. The wonder
of the gospel. What flows out of all of that?
Worship just flows naturally out of that. None but him. He sends, he creates and he motivates
all the work of his servants, not by some legalistic set of
rules and things, but by spiritual work in the hearts of his people.
He moves their hearts to love him. We love him because he first
loves us. His very being inspires worship. Very being inspires worship. Meeting him produces worship. I do love reading those opening
chapters of Ezekiel. Ezekiel saw God. He saw God on a throne. A God who spoke to him. Just, we don't have time to read
it today, but I beg of you to go and read it and just be amazed
at what Ezekiel saw when he describes it. He scribes it in verse 28
of chapter 1, and as the appearance of a bow that is in the cloud
in the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness
round about. This was the appearance of the
likeness of the glory of the Lord, and when I saw it, I fell
upon my face, and I heard a voice of one that spoke. In chapter
3 it says, Then the Spirit took me up, and I heard behind me
a voice of great rushing, saying, Blessed be the glory of the Lord
from his place. I heard also the noise of the
wings of the living creature that touched one another, and
the noise of the wheels over against them, and the noise of
a great rushing. So the Spirit lifted me up and took me away,
and I went in bitterness in the heat of my spirit, but the hand
of the Lord was strong upon me. Then I came to them of the captivity
at Tel Abib that dwelt by the river Chabar, and I sat where
they sat, and I remained there astonished among them seven days."
Such was Ezekiel's meeting with God. He was speechless for seven
days. This is the true and living God. He sends his witnesses. He inspires
worship. He sends his witnesses like Paul
out into the vineyards of this world and he gathers his sheep
and he brings them into a fold. He provides pastors after his
own heart. You might recall what happened
at Mount Carmel. There they were, hundreds, hundreds
of these prophets of Baar, weren't they? Hundreds of them. And Elijah stands there and he
mocks them, and he mocks them, and he mocks their God. And they
beat themselves and they cut themselves and they dance around.
What are they trying to do? They're trying to get their God
to do something. Elijah, He asked for that sacrifice
that he put there, he asked for it to be watered and they had
to get so much water that they covered the sacrifice and they
covered the wood and they made a great trench full of water
all around it. And what happened? Fire came
down from heaven. Fire came down from heaven. God
reveals himself. The idols of men must be prompted
by their worshippers. Mount Carmel and the scene at
the foot of Mount Sinai are just so typical of modern worship,
isn't it, where people are working as hard as they possibly can
to get God to do something, to reveal himself in some way, to
respond in some way to all of their activities. Our God creates
the activities of his people and he creates worship. And our
God, as we saw with Ezekiel, the true living God, commands
his position. by the might of his own power
and grace. Paul went to Athens because there
were two people and a few others in that great city. Paul went
there because they were there. God sent him to them. In the
next chapter, we'll see that Paul in Corinth is told by the
Lord Jesus Christ, he said, you preach on in Corinth because
I have many people in this city where God sends his servants
There will be his people gathered. He has power over all flesh. The idols of men. The God of
this world is manipulated by the hands of men. These are times
of ignorance, brothers and sisters. Times of ignorance of the true
and living God. And the greatest thing is, isn't
it, that God performs his mighty deeds and he commands his worshippers
to be still. What happened at the Red Sea?
You have an Egyptian army behind you. You have nine miles of sea,
10, 15 kilometers of sea in front of you. You have no way out. What does God say? You stand
still, children of God. You stand still and you'll see
the glory of God. Our God, Acts 17, 25, he needs
nothing. He has no unfulfilled desires. See, the God of modern religion
is more like the idols of ancient Athens than the awesome sovereign
God of the scriptures. This God of modern religion that
tries to save, multitudes and fails. This God who wants to
do many things with us but we won't let him. This Christ who
died for all people in an attempt to redeem and save all men, but
all of them aren't saved. He could die for them, he could
love them, he could pray for them according to these people,
and yet they go to hell. This modern idolatry has a Holy
Spirit that calls all men alike to Christ, but his power can
be resisted. Let go and let God. What idolatry. As if somehow we can command
God. As if somehow his power can be
resisted. This God has done all he can
to save sinners, but some will not allow him to save them. This
God of modern religion is to be pitied, not worshipped. This God, whose will is limited,
whose power can be broken, and whose purpose can be thwarted,
is nothing different to the idols of the heathen. So the God of
heaven is sovereign, he's majestic, he's glorious, and he says, my
council will stand and I will do all of my pleasure. God is
not at man's disposal, man is at God's disposal. God is not
obligated to man, God is not subject to man's will. Christ's
blood is powerful, it's efficacious, it's redeeming, it's cleansing,
it's saving. Don't you love when he says he
shall not fail? He'll have all those that he
bought. He shall see the travail of his
soul and be satisfied. For the joy set before him, he
now reigns in heaven and he's taken all of his church to be
with him there. And he's redeemed all of his
own from the curse of the law. And they're free, they're free-born
children. They're free to worship, they're
free to love, they're free to serve. That's why Peter kept
saying, it's precious blood. It's precious blood. The Holy
Spirit comes as a mighty, sovereign God, and he invades the hearts
of dead sinners. That blasphemous painting that
was so famous, wasn't it? The one that used Revelation
chapter 3, that the Lord stands at the door and knocks as if
somehow he can't get in. There was no handle on the outside
of the door if you look at that painting. What blasphemous nonsense
is that? The handle was on the inside
because it was man who could let him in or leave him out. The Holy Spirit, the blessed
Holy Spirit, our blessed Saviour, He just invades the hearts and
He says, they're mine. And He gives them eternal life
and He creates faith in their hearts and He gives them repentance. And he causes the Lord Jesus
Christ to shine before them in something of his glory, and they
long for more. And he draws sinners to himself
with a sovereign hand of infinite power. Thy people shall be willing
in the day of thy power. As I read earlier, blessed is
the man whom thou choosest and causest to approach unto thee
that he may dwell in thy court. We shall be satisfied with the
goodness of thy house. One of the few things that I
remember with clarity and joy from my time at Bible College
all those years ago was that we were given an exercise to
read Isaiah 40 to 55 and summarise and make notes on it. I had the
most wonderful time doing it. I don't think I did very well
in the essay, but I had a wonderful time reading the text of scripture.
If you ever get a chance, if you ever find your faith flagging
in any way at all, and you want some scriptures, they're just
up to lift you in the most amazing ways. Read those chapters. It's
just remarkable. It's full. It's full of the glory
and the sovereignty of God. I'll just read a few verses.
Isaiah 45, verse 20. Assemble yourselves and come,
draw near together ye that are escaped of the nations. They
have no knowledge that set up the wood of their graven image,
and pray to a God that cannot save. Tell ye and bring them
near ye, let them take counsel together. Who has declared this
from ancient time? Who has told it from that time?
Have not I the Lord? There is no God else beside me,
a just God and a Saviour. There is none beside me. Look
unto me and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth, for I
am God and there is none else." And he talks about a promise,
he says, I have sworn by myself the word has gone out of my mouth
in righteousness and shall not return, that unto
me every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall swear. Surely one shall say, in the
Lord have I righteousness and strength, even to him shall men
come, and all that are incensed against him shall be ashamed. In the Lord shall all the seed
of Israel be justified and shall glory. All the seed of Israel
shall be declared by God to have no sin. All the seed of Israel
will be declared by God to have never sinned. That's what justification
is. Let's pray. Heavenly Father,
we pray that you'd bless your words to our hearts and you would
again reveal yourself in the preaching of your gospel. Heavenly
Father, grant us the privilege of seeing your son in something
of his glory here, for one day soon, Heavenly Father, we will
all see him in the majesty of his very person. Make that for
us, Heavenly Father, a day of rejoicing and a day that we look
forward to as we go to be with our Husband, our Friend, our
Saviour, our Redeemer, our Lord, and our God. Bless us for His
sake, our Father, and we pray in Jesus' name.