Good evening, everyone. We'd
like to give a warm welcome to Aaron Greenleaf. He attends Todd's
Road Grace Church, Lexington, Kentucky. We all know that, but
say it for Dave. And we're very thankful to have
you here, Aaron, and the sacrifice driving all those miles. Let's
begin this evening's service. We're going to stand, sing number
17 from your blue hardback hymnal, Come Thou Fount Number 17, standing. Come, Thou Fount of every blessing,
to my heart to sing Thy grace. Dreams of mercy never ceasing,
call for songs of loudest praise. Each and each sound melodious
on it, sung by flaming tomes above. Praise the mount of thanks
upon it, mount of thy redeeming love. Here I raise my Ebenezer,
Bitter by thy help I'm come, And I hope by thy good pleasure,
Safely to arrive at home. Jesus, only when a stranger,
Wand'ring from the fold of God, Thee to rescue me from danger,
interpose this precious blood. O to grace how great a debtor,
daily I'm constrained to be. When thy goodness, like a fetter,
bind my wandering heart to Thee, Grown to ponder, Lord, I feel
it, Grown to leave the God I love. Here's my heart, O take and seal
it, Seal it for Thy courts above. Thank you. You may be seated. We're going to turn to Psalm
7, please. I'm going to read from Psalm
7. I'll give you just a second to get
there. Psalm 7, O Lord my God, in thee
do I put my trust. Save me from all them that persecute
me, and deliver me, lest he tear my soul like a lion, rending
it in pieces, while there is none to deliver. O Lord my God,
I have done this, if there be iniquity in my hands. If I have
done this, if there be iniquity in my hands, if I have rewarded
evil unto him that was at peace with me, yea, I have delivered
him that without cause is mine enemy. Let the enemy persecute
my soul and take it, yea, let him tread down my life upon the
earth, and lay mine honor in the dust. Arise, O LORD, in thine
anger, lift up thyself because of the rage of mine enemies,
and awake for me to the judgment that thou hast commanded. So
shall the congregation of the people compass thee about, for
their sakes therefore return thou on high. The Lord shall
judge the people. Judge me, O Lord, according to
my righteousness, and according to mine integrity that is in
me. O let the wickedness of the wicked come to an end, but establish
the just, for the righteous God trieth the hearts and reins.
My defense is of God, which saveth the upright in heart. God judgeth
the righteous, and God is angry with the wicked every day. If
he turn not, he will wet his sword. He hath bent his bow,
and made it ready. He hath also prepared for him
the instruments of death. He ordaineth his arrows against
the persecutors. Behold, he travaileth with iniquity,
and hath conceived mischief, and brought forth falsehood.
He made a pit and digged it, and it has fallen into the ditch
which he made. His mischief shall return upon
his own head, and his violent dealing shall come down upon
his own pate. I will praise the Lord according
to his righteousness, and will sing praise to the name of the
Lord Most High. Let's pray. Father, we're thankful for our
time together with Aaron. And Father, we ask that you have
him bring the message that you need for us to hear tonight.
And Father, open our eyes, ears, and hearts to hear that message.
And Father, we ask wherever your gospel is preached that it flourish
and that many people hear it. And Lord, that their hearts be
opened as well. And Father, we just ask that
you watch over and care for us in Christ's name. Well, good evening, everybody.
Good evening. It's good to be back with you. If you would,
turn your Bibles to Acts chapter 17. Acts chapter 17. I was excited to come back and
speak with Jamie. She couldn't come, but she thinks
of you all a lot. And you're in our thoughts and
prayers daily. As you all know, maybe you know,
maybe you don't, my pastor, Todd Nybert, he does a preacher school
back in Lexington. And we meet about once a month,
and he talks about preaching the gospel. More than anything,
he talks about the gospel. That's it. As we're sitting around
the table, I like to sit in the corner. He looks around the room,
and he gets a real serious look on his face. And he said, listen
to me. And he goes, never hesitate to preach another man's message.
It's better than yours. And he was looking at me when
he said it, so I took it to heart. Now, I believe in that. If a
man preaches a message and it's a blessing to me, I will turn
around and preach that exact same message to another man.
Absolutely nothing wrong with that. I'm going to take that
thought a step further tonight. I'm going to preach a message
to you. It's another man's message. It was preached by a very famous
preacher. You all know him very well. His name is the Apostle
Paul. Here in Acts chapter 17, Paul
is going to preach a message. He's in Athens, Athens, Greece.
Athens at this time is the epicenter of intellectualism, of learning,
of trade. It's one of the great cities
of the world at this time. And he's preaching to a bunch
of people who do not know who the Lord is. Now if you would
pick up in verse 22. Then Paul stood in the midst
of Mars Hill and said, ye men of Athens, I perceive that in
all things you are too superstitious. That word superstitious there,
what that means is religious. That's all that means. The historical
accounts of Athens at this time record that there were more than
30,000 public monuments to false gods all over that city. Those
are just public monuments. They weren't the ones that were
in the homes, the private ones. 30,000 public monuments. These
people were the most religious people on the face of the earth,
but it wasn't according to knowledge. These people did not know the
true and living God, and the gods they were worshiping was
not the true and living God. And I find it interesting that
Paul uses this word superstitious, because the connotation there
is that it's to be mocked. And man's religion is to be mocked. Any belief system, any thought
we have about the Lord, there's not grounded and settled in the
scriptures. It's nothing. It's just superstitious. It's
just as silly as somebody broke a mirror out there and came crying
inside here saying, I've got bad luck for 10 years now. What
would you say to him? It's foolishness. That's man's
religion. It's foolishness. Nothing more.
Look at verse 23. Paul says, for as I passed by
and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription,
to the unknown God, whom therefore you ignorantly worship. Him declare
I unto you. Now, I have a few questions right
off the bat. Paul has traveled all over Athens, all over. He's
seen all these monuments. And he finds one, one altar,
one monument that's made, and the inscription is to the unknown
God. With 30,000 idols all over that
city, why would they erect such a monument to an unknown God?
Two reasons. Fear and uncertainty. That's
it. Number one, they're afraid of
men. I thought, listen, many travelers come to this country,
and we want to keep the commerce up, right? This is a big city.
It's diverse. We want to be tolerant. We want
to include everybody. We don't want anybody to feel left out.
So what we're going to do is we're going to erect this monument
to an unknown God. That way, if somebody comes by and they
say, where is my God represented here? I'm offended. No, no. We
have him right here. I'm sorry. We didn't know about
him. We don't want you to be left out to the unknown God.
That's for you right here. Also, this reason. They didn't
want any misfortune. That's what they would have called
it. They thought, listen, if there is another God out there,
we've got 30,000 of them. If there's another one out there
that we don't know about, and if he has any power at all, we don't
want to upset him. We don't want any misfortune.
So here's your altar. We've at least paid you some
homage to the unknown God right here. And folks, this is man's
religion at its best. It's the religion of our day,
the religion of the flesh. Compromise, motivated by fear and uncertainty. Now you hear people say things
like this, listen, You believe your way, I'll believe mine.
We're both sincere, so we're both heading the same place.
We worship the same God. He's the same thing. Your doctrine's
just a little bit different than mine. We're all fine. We're all going
to the same place. And what they're motivated by
is fear and uncertainty. They do it under the banner of
tolerance, for love's sake. We all just need to get along.
That's not it. Little voices creep up in the back of their
head. What if he's right? What if I'm wrong? And they cover
all their bases. just to make sure, listen, if
he's right at the end of the day, at least I've paid enough homage
to his God that maybe I'll work out okay. They believe absolutely
nothing, and they trust absolutely no one. That's man's religion,
full of fear and uncertainty. With this, why would Paul use
this as the launch pad for his message? Why would this be his
theme, the unknown God? It's for this reason. He's displaying
these people A terrifying truth. They did not know the Lord. And
that is a terrifying thought that your creator, the one that
you are accountable to, they did not know him. Now, folks,
I don't know what any of you are going through tonight. And
there may be somebody here who's struggling through the greatest trial of
their life right now. That may be the case. But all that perils
in comparison to this one question, do I know the Lord? not just
do I know some things about him, do I know him, and more importantly,
am I known of him? Does he know me? And if you have
an interest in that question, who is the Lord? I would invite
you to listen to Paul, because he's going to declare this unknown
God to these people who do not know him. First, what I'd like
you to do is look back at verse 16. I want to get there from
here. What did Paul do before he preached this message? Now
while Paul waited for them in Athens, His spirit was stirred
in him when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry." Now, normally
when we think of idols, what do we think of? We think of a
statue. We think of a monument. We think
of a shrine. False impressions of the Lord. That's true. Those
are. But an idol is this. At its root form, this is an
idol, any false impression of the Lord, any belief about him,
any thought about him that is not grounded and settled in the
scriptures. That is an idol. But furthermore,
it's this. You can give it this description
just as easily. An idol is anywhere a man would look outside of Christ
alone to find hope of salvation. I'll give you some examples of
that. We're going to start with some things that we can touch, that we can
see. All right? What about this? What about my
church? I attend a church where the gospel
is preached. Therefore, I must be saved. If that is a man's
hope, where he attends services, And he is not relying on the
Lord Jesus Christ. He is not looking to him. His church is
his God. His church is his idol. And where
he will spend eternity, that is determined by where he attends
services. And that, folks, is salvation by works. What about
my family? My wife believes the gospel.
My mother, my father, and my brother, they all believe the
gospel. I must be saved. That's the case. A man's family
is his idol. That's his God. And his eternal
destination is based on what someone else believes, not Christ,
not his shed blood alone. What about this? What about my
sorrow over my sin? I feel really bad about my sin,
so I must be saved. That's the case. That's what
a man believes. He's not looking to Christ. He's
looking inside himself. He's looking to his sorrow. His
sorrow has become his God, become his idol. And the determining
factor of where he will spend eternity is based on how sorry
he is. Well, how sorry do you have to be? salvation by works. We'll have this one. This one
is easy, the will. The man says, listen, I have
made the appropriate decision. I have allowed the Lord Jesus
Christ to be my Savior. If that's where a man's looking, then he
has become his God. He has become his idol. His eternal
destination is mapped out by him making the appropriate decision.
He's his own God. Folks, we can make an idol out
of anything, absolutely anything. When it says here that Paul's
spirit was stirred in him, what that means is provoked. He was
provoked. There's a couple reasons for
this. Number one, Paul saw his Lord and his Savior being misrepresented,
and that was provoking. And to any child of God, if any
of us tasted the sweetness of who Jesus Christ is and what
he has done, any false impression of him is provoking. His person is too awful. Awful,
and I don't mean in a terrible sense. I mean he's full of awe.
It's too wondrous. His sacrifice is too great. His
love is too enduring, even though we kick against it every single
day. Too enduring. His mercy is too long-suffering,
and his person inspires godly fear. To see him misrepresented
in any way is provoking. Paul had another motivation here,
though. Paul had a genuine concern for
these people. Here's what Paul could have done. He could have
been so provoked that he said, you know what? Fine. And he could
have stomped away saying, you know what? You're going to get
yours. just wait, never said a word to them, but he did the
most loving thing any man could ever do. Look at verse 17. Therefore
disputed he in the synagogue with the Jews and with the devout
persons, and in the market daily with them that met with him.
It's the most loving thing a man could ever do, is preach the
gospel to another man. Now we have family members that
don't know the Lord, we have friends that don't know the Lord,
and sometimes conversations can be uncomfortable. What if it
ruins Christmas? What if we get in a fight over
this and he gets mad and it ruins Christmas? Folks, it ruins Christmas.
You love someone, you can tell them the truth. Tell them the
truth about who God is. As he preached, he gained some
attention. Look at verse 18. Then certain philosophers of the Epicureans
and of the Stoics encountered him. And some said, what will
this babbler say? Others some, he seemeth to be
a setter forth of strange gods because he preached unto them
Jesus and the resurrection. Who's attention did he gather?
Two people, Epicureans and the Stoics. And I don't want to spend
too much time on this, but we're going to talk about them throughout the
message. So I want to talk about them. The Epicureans were followers
of a philosopher named Epicurus. He lived about 342 years before
Christ. What the Epicureans believed
is that there was a God, but he did not create the universe.
He did not create the world. It all just came together through
a cataclysmic course of events, kind of like the Big Bang Theory.
And while their God did not create the earth, he didn't govern anything
down here. He wasn't interested in what happened down here. And
they believed the chief blessedness a man could attain to was happiness.
And that happiness came through pleasure. Not a hedonistic pleasure. It wasn't all wine, women, and
song. It was more pleasures of the mind, pleasures of intellectualism,
knowing stuff. That's it. On the other hand,
you had the Stoics. The Stoics believed there was a God, but
in contrast to the Epicureans, they believed he did create the
world. But just like the Epicureans, they believed their God did not
govern what happened down here, that he was not in control. They also
believed the chief blessedness a man could come to was happiness,
but it was come through through moral virtue, being upright,
but also through this, through stoicism. That's being non-reactionary. No matter what happens, something
great happens. You win a million dollars. I have no opinion. I
have no thoughts on that. Stoic. Your child just died.
I have no opinion. And I thought through that, they
would achieve their chief blessedness, happiness. Now I've told you
that for a reason. We're going to come back to it. What I do want
to deal with is Paul's message. He preached Jesus and the resurrection. This is Paul's message. Now,
this message right here, Jesus and the resurrection, this is
the gospel. This is it. I'm going to preach it to you
in about three minutes here. And we're going to go through
this. Number one, who is he? Who is Jesus Christ? It's the
first question we have to ask. In him dwelleth all the fullness
of the Godhead bodily, and you are complete in him. Folks, Jesus
Christ is no one less than the one true and living God. That's who this man is. Who is
he and what did he do? Matthew 121, Thou shalt call
his name Jesus for he shall save his people from their sins. The
gospel is right there. Thou shalt call his name Jesus
for he shall save, not he will, if they do some sort of great
work. Not he will if they make the appropriate decision. Not
he will if they feel really sorry about their sins. Not he will
if they do anything. He shall save. He shall save
his people. He's an effectual redeemer. But
who did he do this for? Every man without exception?
Thou shalt call his name Jesus for he shall save his people. His people. Every man without
exception? Let's get this out of the way
in the beginning. Does God love every man? Did Christ die for
every man? Folks, if that was the case,
every man would be saved. Because the world is going to
say this, God loves you, Christ died for you, He wants to save
you, but you have to do your part. Folks, if God can love
a man, and Christ can die for a man, and He can go to hell
anyways, what good is the love of God, and what good is the
shed blood of Jesus Christ? No, He did not die for everyone.
He died for His elect, those the Father gave Him, chosen in
Him before the world ever began. He shall save His people. You
say, great, who are His people? Who are these people that have
been effectually redeemed, that will be preserved all the way
to the end? Thou shalt call His name Jesus, for He shall save
His people from their sins. Folks, there's a lot of names
you could give the elect. the chosen, loved by God before the
foundations of the world, believers because they are made to believe
in time. But this is our chief attribute. We are sinners, low
down, good for nothing, wicked, evil people who cannot save themselves
and can't contribute in any way. Right there, folks. That's the
gospel in about three minutes. Where is he right now? He is seated
at the right hand of his father, and he is making intercession
for his people. And this is how it goes. This is not a sobbing
pleading. A name of the elect comes up, and he says, well,
please forgive him again, forgive him again. No. A name of the
elect comes up, and he says, hold on. Look at these nail prints. You see the spear mark? I say
he's good. You know what the father says? He says he's good. This is not
a God who pleads and sobs, this is a God who makes demands, and
his demands are always met. Now what happened when they heard
this message? Look at verse 19. And they took him, and they brought
him unto Areopagus, and for the sake of understanding this, Areopagus
is like a court, a court, but he's not on trial here. They're
going to give Paul a hearing. They want to hear what he has
to say. And this Areopagus, Mars Hill, it's full of all the influential
people of the day, all the philosophers, all the religious leaders, all
the politicians, everyone who is influential in that city is
come here to hear Paul in the Areopagus. They took him and
brought him on the Areopagus saying, may we know what this
new doctrine, whereof thou speakest is, for that bring a 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 some new thing." And you notice, previously, these
people had referred to the Lord as a strange God. And now they
refer to Paul's preaching as a new doctrine. New doctrine. They've got 30,000 gods all over
that town. What hadn't they heard before?
What was it? I'll tell you this. The reason they said new doctrine
is this reason, because Athens was full of boilerplate gods.
What do I mean by that? Traveler would come in, and he'd
start talking about who his god was and his powers. And they'd
listen very intently. They'd love to hear something
new, something new. Yeah, yeah, we'll listen to you.
And the traveler would start talking about who his god was and what his
powers were. And all of a sudden, they'd just
lose interest. because that man's God was just like every other
God they had in Athens. Mars was just like Jupiter, Jupiter
was just like Venus, Venus was just like Apollo. Different name,
different set of circumstances, same power. And folks, under
the banner of Christianity being preached today, we got Protestants,
Catholics, Baptists, we've got all kinds of people preaching
under the banner of Christianity, but it's a boilerplate God. He
loves you, he wants to save you, but he's impotent and he can't.
You gotta do your part. Nothing new there, same old story.
So what was it about this Jesus and the resurrection they had
not heard before? There's another place in the
scripture this term new doctrine is used. I want you to turn there.
Turn to Mark 1. Mark 1, look at verse 23. What
was this new doctrine they had never heard before? Verse 23, And there was in their
synagogue a man with an unclean spirit. And he cried out, saying,
Let us alone. What have we to do with thee,
thou Jesus of Nazareth? Art thou come to destroy us?
I know thee who thou art, the Holy One of God. As a side note,
folks, who's speaking here? Is it the man or is it the demon? I have no idea. All I know is
he says this, let us alone. What have we to do with thee? If you want to know something
about the natural human condition, if you stack him next to a devil,
you can't tell the difference. That's human being by nature.
And if a man has a choice of taking sides with the Lord, taking
sides with a demon, he'll take sides with that demon all day
long. That's our depraved state. Pick up on verse 25. And Jesus
rebuked him saying, hold thy peace and come out of them. When
the unclean spirit had torn him and cried with a loud voice,
he came out of them. And they were all amazed, insomuch
as they questioned among themselves, saying, what thing is this? They couldn't have a name for
him. They couldn't come up with a name. What thing is this? What are the next
two words? New doctrine. Same thing the
Athenians said. What is that new doctrine, folks?
For with authority commandeth he even the unclean spirits,
and they do obey him. Folks, this strange God and this
new doctrine they had never heard of is this Jesus Christ and his
absolute and utter authority. And that isn't the God that is
not being preached in our day. That is the unknown God, Jesus
Christ. And no man knows unless he reveals
himself to him. Now what does Paul have to say about this God
of absolute authority? Go back to your text and look
at verse 24. What's the first thing Paul said?
God that made the world and all things therein. Paul declares
this first. He is the creator. Creator. Now we often use this term, it's
called creativity. Creative. We call somebody creative.
Maybe a great sculptor. We say that man's very creative.
That's actually not an accurate term. Men don't create. We don't
create. We don't have that power. We
take existing material and we form it. We change its shape.
But only the Lord has the power to create. Everything you see
right now and everything you can't see, He created. And here's how He did it. Simply
by His omnipotence. His almighty power. By His omniscience. His infinite wisdom. And armed
with His incontestable will and motivated by nothing else but
being willing to glorify Himself. He spake. And it was. This is the God I declare to
you." The first words in the Bible in Genesis 1-1 is, in the
beginning, God. It's the very first four words
in the Bible. I was talking to a man recently. I've known this
man for a while now, and he does not know the Lord. He's a student
of religion, a professed atheist. He does not know the Lord. He's
an avid outdoorsman. He said he was outdoors one night, and
he looked up at the stars, and it came over him. There must
be a God that created all this. And then he backtracked the thought.
This man does not know the Lord. He backtracked the thought. He
said, if he created all this, that means nobody created him.
That means he never had a beginning. That means he's never going to
have an end. That means he's eternal. And he said when he
had that thought, he actually got weak in the knees, and he
had to ground something, to ground himself, to kind of bring himself
back to the reality because his head was spinning. And folks,
that's exactly how we should respond to this thought that
he created out of nothing. Because this same one who has
the power to create just like this is the one you and I are
accountable to. Accountable to. Now I told you
before we have the Epicureans and the Stoics, right? Brief
run through again. The Epicureans believed in a
God. They did not believe God created the world. The Stoics
believed there was a God. They believed he did create the
world. And no doubt when Paul says this, the Stoics kind of
sit back and they're like, Told you so. We're right. What Paul's
going to say next is going to wipe the grin off your face.
Look back at verse 24. God that made the world and all
things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth. Now, while the Stokes and the
Epicureans disagreed on a whole lot of things, they agreed on
this one thing, that God wasn't sovereign, that he wasn't in
control, he wasn't governing what happened down there. What
Paul's going to declare He's going to declare. He's done disputing.
It's time to declare. What that word means, He's bringing
from on high, bringing it down. He's declaring that this God,
this God of the Bible, is in absolute and utter sovereign
control of everyone and everything at all times. That He is the
first cause behind everything. That He holds all men in the
palm of His hands, and He has the power to save and the power
to damn, and it is right, just, and fair, whatever it is He does.
And we can't manipulate Him in any way. or change his will. You sit right now in the hand
of a sovereign God. It's an awesome thought. What's
even more awesome is that these people had no idea. Now, this
revelation that we all sit in the Lord's hands and he can do
whatever it is he wills with us. Somebody says we're like
puppets on the string, is that what you're saying? Yes. Yes,
that's exactly right. He is the first cause behind
everything. Somebody says, I don't like that.
I don't like that. He's in control of that, too. He's sovereign. He's in control. This revelation
of the sovereignty of God is going to have two reactions.
One of two reactions. That's it. Number one, if the
Lord leaves a man to himself and does no work of grace in
that man's heart, it will be rebellion. I will not have this
man to reign over me. And he will stomp away in a rage.
The Lord will just leave him to do what he wants to do by
nature. But if the Lord does a work of grace in a man's heart,
you know what he's going to do? He's going to worship. He's going
to worship a sovereign God. He's going to fall face down
in the dust before that sovereign God, begging mercy, fully understanding
that if he's not shown it, God is still worthy of that worship. I want you to ponder that for
a second. What if he passed you by? We're going to find out if you're
a sinner right now or not. What if he passed you by? Would he
still be worthy of your worship? This question has to be settled.
The Lord's not going to go any further with a man until he settles
this question, is he worthy of worship outside of what he does
for you and me? Folks, the answer is yes, whether
we believe it or not. But if the Lord ever does settle
this issue of worship in a man's heart, that's when peace comes.
Peace is found in verse 24 as well. Look down. 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. You say, that's
the peace. Dwelleth not in temples made
with hands. It is when you get there. Now on the surface, this
is a slam on their idolatry. Paul's saying this, what you've
done is you've created a God in your imagination, based on
nothing else than what you think, and you've created a monument,
you've created a shrine, you've created a temple, and by doing
that, you've brought your God into your own captivity. I've
created you in my imagination, and now here's your shrine, and
you're now captive in that shrine. I've brought you into my captivity,
and as my slave, you will now do what I tell you to do. That
is the natural man's God right there. Nothing but a shame. But this thing of, he dwelleth
not in temples made with hands, there's a greater thought here,
all right? Paul has used this term before, back in Acts 7,
he makes the same statement. He dwelleth not in temples made
with hands. And as soon as he said that,
the very next thing he did was quote Isaiah 66, verse 1. Let's continue the thought and
turn over there. Look at Isaiah 66. Isaiah 66, pick up in verse 1.
I'll give you a moment to get there. Thus saith the Lord, the heaven
is my throne and the earth is my footstool. Where is the house
that you build unto me? He says, you're going to build
me a house? You don't build me a house. You
can't contain me. You don't build me a house, but
I build my people a house. What's a house for? What's a
house for? Comfort. Shelter. Peace. That's what a house is
for. He's built a temple and that temple is Christ. And all
his people are in him. And in him we find shelter. In
him we find peace. In him we find confidence. You
don't build him a house. He builds you a house. Pick up
reading. Thus saith the Lord, the heaven
is my throne and the earth is my footstool. Where is the house
that ye build unto me? And where is the place of my
rest? For all those things have mine hand made, and all those
things have been, saith the Lord." Now that is a scary thought.
It's a scary thought. This God, this Creator, this
Sovereign, the heavens is His throne. He uses the world as
His footstool. And everything down here is just
specks of dust to Him. Folks, we are just worms fighting
with each other to be King Worm. That's what's going on down here.
Why would He ever pay attention to any one of us? Why would he
ever look to any one of us with any care, with any concern, considering
who he is? Can you think of a reason? This
is beautiful. Pick up back reading. But to this man will I look. What that word actually means
is look with respect. Look with care. Look with concern.
Even to him that is poor. Poor. You know what a poor man
is? A man who can't pay the bill. He's in deep sin debt and he
can't make the payments. He's void of righteousness. He
can't help up with the goods. God is holy and he demands holiness
and we can't come up with it. He's poor. He's got nothing to
pay with. He's a beggar. And of a contrite
spirit. You know what that means? It
means a broken heart. What do you do with something that's
broken? You throw it away. Folks, these are the Lord's people.
They're poor. They're bankrupt of any righteousness. And they
got a broken heart. They got a heart that doesn't work. It's
no good. It can't believe. It can't repent.
It can't love God. It's no good. It's got to be
thrown out. They need a new one. A new one. The poor. The broken
hearted. The next one. And trembleth at
my word. He fears God. What is the fear
of God? In a very simple term, what is
it? Being afraid to look anywhere but to Christ alone. This is
an interesting experiment. I tend to watch people a lot.
If you're standing in a crowd of people, just stare intently off
in a distance, just at a particular point, just stare intently at
it. What you will notice is people around you will start looking
at the exact same thing. It's the way we're conditioned. Folks,
I want to look only to Christ. only to Christ. I'm not going
to find any hope in here. I'm not going to find any confidence
in here. I'm not going to find a reason that God would look
favorably upon me in here. But here's the thing, I don't
want the Father to look in my direction either. I don't want
Him to see me outside of Christ. I want to be fixated on Christ.
I'm going to look only to Him because I want the Father only
to look to Him. I want Him to look to Him for everything He
requires of me. Folks, a man who fears God is
simply a man that trusts the Lord Jesus Christ alone. That's
it. And we have good reason to trust
him. Look down here, look at verse 25. Paul says, "...neither is worshipped
with men's hands, as though he needed anything, seeing he giveth
to all life and breath and all things." Now the word I want
you to key in on there in all this is worshipped. Worshipped.
In the entire New Testament this is the only time this root Greek
word is translated worshipped. Every other time is either translated
heal or cure. And if you put that in the context,
the meaning couldn't be clearer. He does not need your help to
heal you. He is absolutely independent. He has no needs. He said, if
I were hungry, I wouldn't tell you the cattle on a thousand
hills are mine. He is an independent God and he saves independently
with absolutely no help from the object he saves. You know
who that's good news to? The poor and the broken hearted
and those that tremble at his word. People who can't help. He doesn't need your help to
heal you. Now, in reference to healing,
you don't have to turn here, Luke 9-11 says, and the people,
speaking of Christ, when they knew it, followed him and he
received them and spake unto them of the kingdom of God, and
healed them that had need of healing." Out of what I just
read there, what did he require of these people to heal them?
He said, listen, here's what you need to do. Go down to the
doctor, get some salve, get some bandages, bring them on back,
I'll apply them. Listen, go get some medical advice. Go talk
to a doctor, get some advice, bring it back to me, and me and you
will reason together. We'll see what we can do for you. He healed them. with absolutely no help from
them. And what was the prerequisite for being healed? He healed them
that had need of healing. Folks, do you have a need? Do
you have a need of healing? That need is dealt with in verse
26. Look at this. And have made of one blood all
nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth and
have determined the times before appointed and the bounds of their
habitation. Now, first and foremost, this
is a continued declaration of his sovereign character. The
time of your birth was predetermined and pre-appointed. What you will
do while you're here is predetermined and pre-appointed, and the day
of your death has been predetermined and pre-appointed. You can't
add a second to it. Where you live right now, where you have
been put on this earth, where you work, it's because he put
you there. Your bounds have been set, and
you will go no further. you are in His hand." That's
the truth. But, key in on this, He hath
made of one blood all nations of men. We're talking about our
need. One blood. One blood. We all come from one
bloodline. We all come from one family.
We all come from one Father. Who is that? Adam. According to 1 Corinthians 15.22,
in Adam all die. What happened in the garden?
Adam disobeyed God. He ate the fruit, and when he
ate the fruit, he died. He didn't die physically, he
died spiritually. He lost all spiritual ability,
and he's past that dead nature, down to you and me. Dead in trespasses
and sins. Say, how dead? Doorknob dead. No ability. Now folks, I have
many needs. I'll rattle off a few. I need
something to be done about my sin. Something has to be done
about my sin. You want to know why? Because
God is holy. As evidence at the cross, if God finds sin on a
man, what is he going to do to him? He kills him. When God found sin on his only
begotten son, what did he do to him? He killed him. How would you and I escape that
wrath then? Something has to be done about my sin. I need
the Lord Jesus Christ to have borne my sin in his body and
bled and died and put away that sin. Number one, something has
to be done about that sin. Furthermore, I need this. I can't
just be a zero-sum game. I can't just be neutral. I need
a righteousness. God has a holy law and that law
must be honored. I can't honor that law. It's
impossible for me. I need the Lord Jesus Christ
to have lived for me. so much so that I was in Him, when He
walked the paths of righteousness, I walked them too. In Him, it
really is mine. These are demands of God, demands
I can't meet, not me in and of myself. I need to be irresistibly
drawn in a manner to where I can't get away, and I can't refuse
it. Because folks, if we know anything about ourselves, we
know we would. Drawn irresistibly to where all I want to do is
come, and I can do nothing but come. I need to be kept, preserved,
all the way to the end. Folks, just as much, because
in Adam Old Eye, I need to live. I'll tell you how that goes. The best example I can give you
is Lazarus. Lazarus was in the grave. Lazarus was dead. He was
not near death. He wasn't suffering from a great
disease. He wasn't asleep. Lazarus was so dead that his
body began to rot and decay. That's how dead he was. Lazarus
couldn't come to the Lord Jesus Christ, impossible. He couldn't
believe anything he said. He couldn't cry out for mercy.
He couldn't repent. He couldn't do any of these things
because, folks, he was dead the same way you and I are born in
this world, doorknob dead. But the Lord came to him where
he was at, in that dead state, and he issued that man a command,
Lazarus, come forth, and a dead man came forth because with the
command comes the ability. That's the kind of Savior I need.
If He needs me to meet Him halfway, if He needs me to do something
to make His work effectual for me, I'm gone. I'm gone. He has
to come to me where I'm at. Look down at verse 27. If you have a need similar to
this, look at this verse, 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." Folks, I want you to understand
what this is. This is not an invitation. This is not good
advice. Seek the Lord. That is a command. It's a command
from God to every man, woman, and child on the face of the
earth. Seek the Lord. Now, I think sometimes the simplest
concepts in the scriptures are the ones that boggle me the most.
I've thought about this for a while. What does it mean to seek the
Lord? What does that mean? I'm going to give you a few things.
I went through all the scriptures where it talked about that. What
does it mean? Where should I seek him? Number
one, seek him here in this book. This book is the revelation of
who God is, who Jesus Christ is, and what he has accomplished.
If you want to know who God is, seek the Lord. Read what's written
in this book. And somebody says, I've read
it. I don't understand much about it. You're in good company. You're
in good company. Walk in the light that you have.
Ask the Lord to give you more. Read this book. This is the declaration
from God concerning who He is. Seek Him in the preaching of
the gospel. It's like you're doing a night. Go where the gospels
preach. Hear it preach. Get your families
under the sound of the gospel. Do it under the sound of the
gospel. Seek the Lord in prayer. Folks, sometimes I think we forsake
this. We have this amazing gift that we get to speak to our Creator. This Lord of heaven and earth,
this one who created everyone and everything, this amazing
gift that we get to speak to him, speak to him. Say, what
do I talk about? These are all scriptural. Seek
his strength. Are you unable, completely and
utterly unable to do anything for yourself? Folks, he's strong.
He has all strength and all power. He can save even you, and he
can save even me. It's not even hard for him. Have
you ever asked him to? Have you ever asked the Lord
to save you? Seek his face, and that continues. You know what
the face is for? Identification. Identification. Do you need to
know who he is? I'm not just talking about some
things about him. Do you need to know who this
man is in Jesus Christ? Ask him to reveal himself to
you. Ask him. He's the one that does the revealing.
Speak to him. Seek Him with all your heart
and all your soul. This thing of seeking the Lord
comes with a commitment. Paul said this, I know whom I
have believed, and I am persuaded that He is able to keep that
which I have committed unto Him against that day. And here's
how this commitment works. If you ever get to the end of
your rope, or you find out you've sent away all hope, that you
really are dead in trespasses and sins, and you've got nowhere
else to go, and no one else to turn to. Folks, that's when you'll
seek Him with all your heart and your soul. When you have
to. When you've got nowhere else
to go. You ever get to the end of the rope? That's when you'll seek
the Lord. Seek Him speedily and early. There's an urgency to
this thing. Because the scriptures speak of a time when the Lord
will no longer hear. A time when He returns. When men are crying
for the rocks to fall on them to shelter them from His terror. Because I'm not going to hear
anymore. I'm done. The books are closed. Seek Him
in rejoicing. Number one, seek Him with rejoicing.
The Lord has done all things well. Today is the best day there
has ever been because He has predetermined all things. Seek
Him with rejoicing. Also, folks, seek Him in times
of rejoicing. The greatest trial you and I will ever face, it
will not be trouble and tribulation, folks. It will be prosperity.
When there's a lack of a conscious need, when you're lukewarm and
everything seems fine. That's war and trouble. Seek
the Lord. Seek Him in weeping. When the
trials and the tribulations do come, seek Him. But also in this,
when your sin feels like a crushing burden, and you couldn't possibly
bear it, and you are face down in the dust abhorring yourself,
hating yourself, and you feel like it's going to kill you,
seek Him in weeping. Ask the Lord to carry your burden.
Ask Him to take on your sin. Seek Him in fear. Never forget
who you are speaking to. This is the Lord, the Creator,
the Lord of heaven and earth, the one that dwells not in temples
that are made with hands. And do it fully recognizing that
it will bear all resemblance to a blind man groping in the
dark. I want to bring this out because
this speaks to my experience. Folks, we see just the tip top of Him. just the tip of the iceberg,
the very top portion, He's too high, He's too holy, He's too
great, He's too mighty, we can't even comprehend who He is, He
can't give the full revelation of who He is, we couldn't comprehend
it, He's too great, He's too big, we see just that much. Paul
summed it up like this in 1 Corinthians 13 verse 12, "...for now we see
through a glass darkly, but then face to face now I know in part."
We see in part folks, but this is beautiful, "...but then shall
I know when I meet him face to face, even also as I am known. Folks, I want to know him. I
want to seek his face. I want him to reveal himself
to me. My confidence is not in me knowing him. My confidence
is that he knows me. Knows me in a loving and a saving
way, because if that's the case, folks, everything's fine. And we have this blessed promise.
He's not far from every one of us. He says wherever there are two
or three gathered together in his name, he's there in their
midst. That means he's here right now. We've come to worship the true
and living God, have we not? I'm preaching his gospel, am
I not? Then he is here. But he is also this close in
this respect, if you ever do actually seek the Lord from a
broken heart, it is for this reason, it's because he sought
you first. That's how close he is. Look at verses 28 and 29. I'm
going to try to speed up, I'm going long. Verse 28, for in him we live
and move and have our being. As certain also of your own poets
have said, for we are also his offspring. For as much then as
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 man's device. Now I love what Paul does here.
He's going to use their own logic against them. He's still talking
about the concept of seeking the Lord. What he's doing here,
he's quoting a Grecian poet, a poet of the day. And this is
what the poet said, we are also his offspring. Here's the logic
Paul is using here, saying, you who have not the scriptures,
you have no scriptures, you have not a prophet, you're Gentiles,
by the light of creation only, You have some understanding of
what is relayed in Genesis 127, that man is made in the image
of God. This monument you made over here,
where this thing is part horse, part dragon, and part fish, that's
not God, and you know it. Because you know, by the life
of creation alone, that man is created in God's image. Now this
is in reference to seeking the Lord. Let's go over this first. Number one, the Lord is nothing
like us. Nothing like us. We are darkness, and he is light.
He is holy, and we are evil. He is in control. We are controlled.
He is nothing like us, yet we are created in his image. So
with that understanding, how do you react to the next following
things? I'm going to round them off to you. Number one, arrogance.
How do you react to arrogance? How do you react to self-entitlement?
How about dishonesty? How about insincerity? you being
evil, how do you react to those things? Poorly. I hate those things. I pick those
out because those are the things I hate about me the most. Poorly is
how we react to them. So when a man approaches God
and he says things like this, I've made a conscious decision
to allow you to forgive me. If someone had done you wrong
and they approach you like that, are you going to have any forgiveness
for them? No. The answer is no. That's full
of arrogance. It's full of self-entitlement.
No. What about this? I know I've
done wrong, but you know what? I've done my very best to make
up for what I've done. And because I've done my very
best, you are now obligated to forgive me. That going to work on anybody
here? Then us, being so much less than
him, being the polar opposite, his ways are not our ways. His
thoughts are so much higher than our thoughts. Why would we ever
think that we would approach the Lord on those grounds? How
did the leper approach him? Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst
make me clean. Lord, you're in control. And
I'm filthy. Filthy. And you can cleanse me. You have that great ability.
It won't even be hard for you. But it's up to you if you will. Not if I will. If you will. This is what he said to that
man. I will be thou clean. Folks, anyone who comes to the
Lord on those grounds, he says the exact same thing. I will
be thou clean. Look at verse 30. And the times of this ignorance
God winked at, but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent. That word wink is a bad translation.
What that means is he overlooked it. All those Gentiles over all
those years worshiping those idols, he overlooked in this
sense, he just let them do what they wanted to do. Just left
them to their selves to worship their idols and to run towards
the gates of hell as fast as they possibly could. He just
overlooked them. But he now commandeth, key in on that word, commandeth
all men everywhere to repent. You are commanded to repent.
I'll tell you a little story. Todd's sitting around a table.
He's talking about faith, and he says, listen, faith has nothing
to do with what you think about yourself. It has everything to
do with what you think about Christ. He's like, and here's
repentance. Repentance is nothing more than
a change of mind. And he looked at all of us real
mad, and he's like, now don't mess that up. You confuse yourself
and confuse everybody else out there. Repentance is a change
of mind. Folks, understand this. You will
not change your mind until you've had your mind changed. Change
of mind about what? Acts 20 verse 21 says, repentance
toward God. Change your mind about who you
naturally think he is. He dwelleth not in temples made
with hands. You don't create him, you don't bring him into
your captivity and he's not subject to you. He is the Lord of heaven
and earth and he rules over you and he will do with you as he
sees fit. Change your mind about who he is. Hebrews 6.1 says the repentance
from dead works. What's a dead work? It's any
work that cannot produce life. That's your works. That's my
works. Working, working, working. You
know what it does? It does not produce life. We can't keep the
law. We can't work our way into favor
with God. Change your mind about your works.
They're just sins that have to be atoned for. This was John's
message. John preached the baptism of
repentance for the remission or the forgiveness of sins. Change
your mind about when, how, and why God forgives sins. This is the world's equation,
the salvation equation. They put the forgiveness of sins
at the end of the equation. If you do this, this, and this,
minus this, God will forgive your sins. Change your mind about
that. Salvation begins with God and
His sovereignty. freely and fully forgiving a
man of his sins for Christ's sake. And everything that happens
after that is simply because, before the foundations of the
world were ever built, God, for Christ's sake, freely forgave
a man of his sins. Why do you believe? Well, it's
very simple. Before the foundations of the
world were ever built, God, for Christ's sake, forgave my sins,
and in time, He caused me to believe. Why do you love God?
Why do you have any speck of love for God? Because before
the foundations of the world were ever built, before I was
ever born, God, for Christ's sake, forgave my sins in His
sovereignty, because He could, and He will to. And in time,
He gave me a heart that loved God. The equation begins with
God, in His sovereignty, forgiving a man of his sins. And everything
that happens after that simply because he freely forgave a man
of his sins and the man's not involved. Change your mind about
that. And wherever you have repentance,
it's one side of the coin. The other side of the coin is
faith. Just as you are commanded to repent, you are commanded
to believe. What is my right to believe the
gospel? What is my right to look to Christ alone, to trust Him
completely? Folks, I don't think you need
anything else other than this. I know you don't. Because you're commanded
to, and to do anything else is complete and utter disobedience. I thought he elected the people.
He did. He did. He absolutely did. And he's going
to cause all those elect in time to look to him. You, pretend
you were the only one here right now, you are commanded to look
to Christ. Obey the command. I've gone long, so let's get
to the end here. Look at verse 32. There are three possible reactions
to this message. And when they heard of the resurrection
of the dead, some mocked. You may hear this message tonight,
and you may mock. Say it's not true. If you will,
OK. But understand who you're mocking.
It is the God that holds you in the palm of his hand. And
when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked, and
others said, we will hear thee again of this matter. Somebody
may take an interest and say, well, I'd like to hear some more
about that. I found that interesting. I might revisit this at some
more convenient time. Okay. Can you guarantee you won't
drop dead before you hit the parking lot out there? Look at verse 33. So Paul deported
from among them, how be it certain men clave unto him and believed. Here's a third reaction. The
Lord does a work of grace in your heart. If He blesses this
to you tonight, you'll cleave to Christ and cleave to Him alone. I'm going to leave you there.