There was an old preacher years
ago who said, I preach as one who may never preach again, as
a dying man to dying men. What should I preach, this last
message? Maybe my last, maybe your last. What should I preach? Well, certainly
preach the Word of God. I certainly should be preaching
about God, about Christ, about life and death, about sin, judgment,
eternity. These are the issues of life
and death. And this is the one thing needful
that we all know because we don't know if we have another day upon
this earth. Well, as I was reading God's
Word, came before my eyes. Acts chapter 17. The book of
Acts chapter 17. I began reading in verse 16.
It says, While Paul waited for them, that is Silas and Timothy,
his companions, at Athens, Athens, Greece, his spirit, his heart,
his soul, his mind was stirred up in him. He saw the city wholly
given to idolatry, that is, full of idols. Idolatry means anything
or anyone that you love and pursue and give your time and energy
and effort and your money and you adore more than God. It doesn't
just mean statues and pictures and so forth that people bow
down to, but anything or anyone. God is to be worshipped. He said,
Thou shalt have no other God before me. And so it is idolatry
to be taken up with the things of this world, the people of
this world, and not God. We saw the city wholly given
to idolatry. And what he saw also was a religious
town or city full of superstitions, full of tradition, full of man-made
beliefs, and things handed down from generation to generation
that was not based on the Word of God. And I see the same thing
all around me. It went on to say he disputed
in a synagogue with the Jews, the religious people, the devout
persons. Well, don't they know God? Don't they know The true
God and Jesus Christ? No. They seemed to be religious
or seekers of God, but they didn't know God. They didn't know the
living and true God. They didn't know Jesus Christ.
They were religious in a form of godliness, but they didn't
know God. Paul knew that because he himself
was a Pharisee, a religious Jew who didn't know the true God. Maybe somebody listening to this
today is a devout Catholic or Methodist or Southern Baptist
or Episcopalian or whatever who believes, who thinks he knows
God, but does not know the living and true God. Well, I'm here
to declare, as Paul did, These Athenians, the true, the living
and true God and the true Christ and the truth. It says in verse
18, certain philosophers, Epicureans, Stoics, these were the wise men
of the world. These were the educated people
of that day, of society, the leaders of intellectual world. But they didn't know God. Romans
1 says, professing themselves to be wise, they became fools. Any so-called knowledge of man
that doesn't start with God is foolish. Hath not God made foolish
the wisdom of this world? Well, it goes on to say in verse
18, they said of Paul, what will this babbler say? What is this babbler going to
say? One time Paul said to the Corinthians, which was the seat
of the center of the educated, modern, technologically advanced
world, modern-day equivalent of Paris or New York or Los Angeles,
where it's full of the arts and crafts and science and politics
and sports and so forth. But the people were fools. They
didn't know God. And they call this preacher of
this old-fashioned gospel, the Word of God, a babbler. Paul
said, it didn't come to you with words of man's wisdom preaching
the Word of God. It didn't come with excellency
of speech. No, Paul preached mostly as the
Lord did, with one- and two-syllable words from the Word of God. Thus saith the Lord. Well, he
said, what's this babbler going to say? He seems to be a setter
forth of strange gods. He preached unto them Jesus,
the resurrection. So they took Paul, took him to
Areopagus, a place where everyone liked to gather and sit and listen
to the philosophers and the Stoics and the so-called wise men of
the world expound their philosophy and espouse their beliefs. Well,
they took him there and said, we want to know, may we know
this new doctrine whereof thou speakest." They said, you bring
strange things to our ear. We would know what these things
mean. Now, Paul was not preaching new
doctrine. Paul was preaching the old paths
wherein is the good way which Jeremiah wrote of, which the
Lord told Jeremiah to write of. Search and seek and find the
old paths wherein there is a good way and walk therein. But no,
the people then, as now, said, we will not walk therein. We've got a new way, a new vision,
church, new doctrine. It says in verse 21, the Athenians
and strangers were spent their time in nothing else but to either
tell or hear of some new thing. It's the same way today. I look around me and every empty
storefront, someone opens up a so-called church in that storefront. We've got a new revelation. We've
got a new way, new vision, Baptist church. Come here and hear this
new doctrine. Well, the gospel, the truth is
not new. It's old as God. It's the old
path. It's the old, old truth. It's
God's Gospel that began with God. But the truth is not new. But it was strange to the people
then. New doctrine to them is something
they weren't hearing. And perhaps what you're hearing
this morning, what you're going to hear, will be strange to your
ears, strange, new to you. You don't hear it much. No, it's
not heard much today. When a man dares to proclaim
God as He is, it's strange to the ears of people. Listen as
I read. So Paul stood in the midst of
Mars Hill and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all
things you are too superstitious, meaning you believe Everything
you hear, everything you read, isn't that relative to today? Isn't that what's going on today?
Everything, social media, everything that goes on, people believe
anything and everyone but God. They're listening to and reading
and anything and everything that men and women are saying, everything
but the Word of God. He said, I perceive in all things
you're too superstitious, you're too religious. Why are there
so many denominations? Why are there so many different
religions out there? When the Scripture says there's
one Lord, one faith, there are not many faiths like people say.
Many faiths, we're all going to the same place. Oh no, there's
one faith. One hope. One truth. Not many
truths. One truth. One way, one truth,
one life. One way to have eternal life. And let me go ahead and tell
you, it's Jesus Christ. Well, verse 23, Paul said, I
passed by and beheld your devotions. In other words, he was walking
around and saw all these little gods, little idols, little plaques,
little devotions, little sayings, little signs everywhere. Oh,
my, look around you. Look at all the so-called church
signs out in front of their building. Do you see the Word of God on
those signs? Do you? I don't. I see all the
clever clichés of man. I see all the sayings of men,
all the supposed wise things that men have to say, which tells
me that they don't know the Word of God. They don't know the truth
of God. One Word of God, He is pleased to do so is sufficient
to save a soul. No one is ever saved by one word,
one cliché of man, but by the Word of God. If the Gospel is
the power of God unto salvation, the Word of His power, if men
really knew the Word of God, who knew the power of God and
experienced the Word themselves, they would be putting that Word
on their signs. So I immediately know when I
see Anything but God's Word outside, out front of a so-called church
house, those people don't know God. They're not preaching the
truth there. So Paul said in verse 23, I found
an altar that said, To the unknown God. So he said, Him declare
I unto you. And so I hope to do right now.
The unknown God. The God who is God that men don't
know. Verse 24, he said, God made the
world and all things therein. He is Lord of heaven and earth.
He doesn't dwell in temples made with hands. He's not worshipped
with men's hands, and He doesn't need anything. See, and He giveth
to all life and breath and all things. The God of the Bible,
the God who is God, is the God who reigns and rules among the
armies of heaven and the inhabitants of the earth, and none can stay
His hand. It is the God in whose hands
our breath is and all our ways. Yet modern religion, false religion,
says God has no hands but your hand. That's a false God. That's
an idol. The God of the Bible has hands
and you and I are in it. Oh my! What are you saying, preacher?
I'm saying God reigns and rules. He's not trying to be God. He
won't be God if you let Him be God. He is God. And he's not
worshipped with men's hands. He doesn't dwell in temples.
He doesn't need anything. Oh, how false religion says,
God needs your money. God needs you. Church can't be
church without you. When the Bible, God said in His
own book, He said, If I were hungry, I wouldn't tell you. That's Psalm 50, verse 12. He says in verse 21 of Psalm
50, These things you've done I kept silent, Thou thoughtest
I was altogether such a one as Yourself, and I am not. I am
God." Paul went on to say, he said, in him, verse 28, we live
and move and have our being. When people say, God is a big
part of my life, that tells me they don't know God. Oh, we might
be a part of His. He goes on to say, God is not
like gold or silver. description of God in the Bible.
There's no description of Jesus Christ in the Scriptures. Yet
we have all these pictures, all these paintings and photographs
of so-called Jesus. That's not Him. Well, verse 30
says, God at one time winked at this thing. Men in their ignorance,
God winked at it. Not saying it's okay. Boys will
be boys. But He's saying He shut His eyes
to this until everything was fulfilled. But now God commandeth
all men everywhere to repent. That means to bow and say, I'm
sorry, I'm sinful, I'm wrong, to turn from idols. It means
to, I thought I knew God, but I didn't. He says in verse 31,
"...he hath appointed a day in which he will judge the world
in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained, speaking
of Jesus Christ. And he has given assurance to
all because he raised him from the dead." That God is going
to judge this whole world by that man in righteousness, either
standing in him, covered by his righteousness, His blood, or
beside Him, judged by His perfect holiness? Which is it for you? Oh, do you know the living and
true God? Do you know the Christ? Because this is eternal life.
Amen.