Turn back to Acts 17. Acts chapter 17. I titled this message, We Preach
Nothing New. That's what they said. We've come together to hear this
new doctrine that you've come up with. Well, that's not new. It's as old as God is. So you
figure that one out. But Paul here, let's go back
to verse 10 before we get to that. Paul left Thessalonians,
Thessalonica, and he came into Berea. And the
Bereans, it says, were more noble than those in Thessalonica. Grace had gone before Paul to
prepare this people for the Word of God. God was already at work
among His people. They took the Scriptures. They
took the Word of God and they compared Scripture with Scripture
to check Paul out to see what was being said. And they looked
at that and they said, you know, that's right. That's right. They were willing to listen.
What's that verse, Sandy? I wish I'd listened more, I'd
probably be a half a point smarter. But they were willing to listen.
Intently listen. God arrested their attention.
He got their attention. And God taught them out of the
scriptures, through his servant Paul. And the results, in verse
12, many of them believed. Many of them believed God. If
you would be wise unto salvation, you must take heed to the word
of God. It says in Psalm 119, I've read this this morning,
wherewith shall a young man cleanse his ways by taking heed unto
thy word. The scriptures are they which
speak of Christ. You cannot know Jesus Christ
apart from the scriptures. And notice God's providence here.
We've been going through the book of Acts. Paul goes to Philippi
by vision. He saw a vision. And he meets
a woman there named Lydia, and God opens her heart. And then
Paul was beaten in Philippi, and he's thrown into jail because
God's going to save his jailer. And then he is sent quietly out
of town. And he goes to Thessalonica because
God has a people in Thessalonica. And then he's run out of town.
They run him out of town because God has a people in Berea. And all of them must hear God's
messenger. He must hear God's messenger
preach the gospel at the set time of life, just like you and
I. God is always on time, isn't He? I can't say that I'm never
always on time, but he's always on time. And notice also here,
they received the Word of God, it says, with all readiness of
mind. Their mind was engaged in this. They were listening. They were
ready to hear what God had to say. With all readiness of mind,
they were hungry and thirsty to hear from God. I told you
this last week. Hungry people eat. Thirsty people
drink. Those who are not hungry and
are not thirsty, they find fault with the cook or they'll find
fault with the food. But to a hungry man, you know
what Scripture says, every bitter thing is sweet. Even telling me who I am or what
I am. The end result in hearing the gospel, every bitter thing
is sweet. They were hungry and thirsty.
It takes the grace of God to make you ready for Him. It takes
the grace of God, the work of God to make you hungry for Him. and thirsty for Him. David said,
My soul thirsteth after God like the heart pants after the water
broke. So my soul, my heart pants after Thee, O God. When I read
scriptures like that, I want to crawl under my desk. It takes God to do that. Now
it says here they were more noble. This doesn't mean that they were
a better people. It doesn't mean that. It means
that God had prepared them for this hour and that they had a
greater reverence for the Word of God and the worship of God
and God's servant. They paid attention. And they
were open-minded to the Word of God. They weren't closed-minded. They did not bring their prejudices
with them. They left them. And they listened. They listened. They heard the Word of God as
the Word of God and not as the Word of men. When they heard
Paul speak, they listened to Paul speak, but they listened
to God speak. They heard God. They heard God. And it says they searched the
Scriptures. They went to the source. They took the Word of
God and took what Paul was saying, and they turned to Scriptures.
They turned. They had the Old Testament Scriptures.
And they searched the Scriptures. And when they read the Scriptures,
you know what they did? They bowed to the Scriptures. They
did not put question marks. They bowed to God's Word. That's what they did. They didn't debate it. They bowed
to it. They believed the scriptures. To believe this, I'm telling
you, to believe this is to believe God. To truly believe it is to
believe God. And many, it says, were saved.
Many of those Greeks, God saved them. He saved them. They used
the means, the scriptures, and God saved many of them. God is
a God of means, and the Scriptures is part of the means that He
uses. He doesn't say depart from the Scriptures. The Word of God. And we should be very familiar
with the Scriptures. It's our bread. It's the children's
bread. This is our bread. And then persecution arises now.
It's time for Paul to leave Berea. So God allows this persecution
to come along. The Jews from Thessalonica heard
that Paul was preaching to the Bereans, and that just upset
them, and they went down there to persecute Paul. But little
did they know and realize, this is the providence of God, the
wisdom of God, little did they realize that their persecution
was only a means of spreading the gospel. Like God uses wind
to spread seed. God blows the wind through a
grain field and that wind just scatters that seed. And that's what he did here.
He used his persecution to spread the gospel. And those Jews, see
how ignorant men are? The wrath of man shall praise
him and the rest he'll restrain. It's all under his control. And
then Paul goes to Athens, the seat of learning. Isn't it? And here's what's so amusing.
God makes foolishness. It says this in Corinthians.
God makes foolishness the wisdom of this world. Here is the seat
of learning. And they got more false gods,
more idols on every corner than any place in the world right
there. In this seat of learning. So
Paul goes there in verse 15. And in verse 16, Paul waits for
Silas and Timothy. He's waiting for them. And while
he's waiting for them, he's walking through the streets. Waiting,
you know, as he waits, he just kind of goes out and visits and
walks around. His spirit, it says, is stirred
within him. He's troubled. He's troubled
when he saw the whole city given to idolatry. Not just a Section
of it, not the poor section of it, the whole city was given,
he said, to idolatry. And this stirred Paul up. I read
in one place this week that they had 30,000 plus gods set up in
that city. 30,000. You think we've got a
lot of places on each corner? They had 30,000 plus set up in
that city. They were on every corner. So
Paul, this hit me as I was reading this. So Paul, having the cure
for idolatry in the gospel that he preached, couldn't sit quiet.
He could not sit quietly by and watch this idolatry, this darkness,
and this ignorance go on. Paul is about to enter into a
fight. You're going to see a fight go on here. I thought this, what if a doctor
had the cure for a deadly illness, a deadly disease, and he kept
it to himself? Wouldn't he be one of the worst
persons on this earth? Paul has the gospel. This is
the gospel of liberty. This is the gospel that sets
men free. This is the gospel that sets the captive free. And he's got it in this earthen
vessel. God has put it in this earthen
vessel. We have this treasure in earthen
vessels. And Paul just couldn't sit by
it. See, he couldn't just tolerate. He wasn't going to tolerate it.
He had to tell out the gospel to them or bust. He washed his hands of their
blood. That's what he did. Here's the watchman. He's in
the city. Is he going to let him just go
on by? No, he's going to warn them. He's going to preach to
them. O Cain said to God, Am I my brother's keeper? You know
what the answer to that is? Yes. Yes, you are. Yes. Here comes the fight. Paul disputed. And he first went
into the synagogue with the Jews. He disputed with the Jews in
the synagogue with devout persons, important persons in the city,
the most important persons in the city. Paul disputed with
them. And it says, and in the marketplace
there in verse 17, everywhere Paul went, he disputed with them. He took them on. I was out reading
this yesterday and day before yesterday. I had to write this
down. I thought, get him, Paul. When I read that, I thought,
get him, Paul. It's like, sick him. Get on him. They picked
on the wrong man. They picked on God's man. And
Paul went after him. He went after him with a vengeance.
Here's this frail man. You know Paul was a frail man.
They said his bodily presence is weak. His speech is contemptible. You think mine's bad? Paul was
not a man to listen to, not in preaching. In knowledge he was,
but evidently he was not a speaker. But here's this frail man standing
there taking on the Jews, the Epicureans, and the Stoics. All the wisdom leaders of that
town. All the high philosophy. All the intellects. Paul's taking
them on. They're coming at him. The Jews, they were the ones
who claimed to worship the one and true God. They had all the
ceremonies, plus a lot more that they added. Traditions of the
elders. The Epicureans, these were philosophical
liberals. They admitted that some sort
of God created all this. They admitted that. But they
believed that He was like themselves. Not great. Not real glorious,
not overly glorious. And they denied the resurrection. And they lived for pleasure.
They lived for pleasure. And like these others, they wanted
to hear something new. Something new. Something new
was coming into town. Let's find it out. And the Stoics,
they were the philosophical conservatives. They believed in creation by
a God. They believed in the resurrection
of the body. They taught moral virtue. They believed in the
power of human will, free will. They believed that. And they
denied the sovereign reign and rule of God Almighty over everything.
They denied that. Now all these have one thing
in common. You know what that is? They were religious but lost,
every one of them. the Jew, the Epicurean, and the
Stoics. They were lost. And they called Paul. There in
verse 18, certain of the philosophers of the Epicureans and Stoics
encountered him, and some said, what will this babbler, this
base fellow, what will they just, that's what they thought of Paul,
this base fellow, what will he say? He seems to be a setter-forth
of strange gods. You know what he must have done? A setter-forth of strange gods,
plural. And I've never read that. It
never really hit me before. But you know what he did? He
was there disputing with them over several days. He preached
to them the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And they
said he's a setter-forth of strange gods. Who are these three people
he's talking about? He didn't say he's the setter
forth of a strange God, but strange gods. When I read that, I thought,
I know during all that time he spoke to them of the Father,
of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. He had to for them to say that. And this says there, because
he preached unto them Jesus. Well, now he started with him.
No man knows the father save the son and he to whom the son
will reveal him. He started with Jesus. He started
with this man. He started with this man. He
started with his name of humiliation. And I have no doubt he worked
his way up to God. This man is God. This man is
the son of God, which means he has a father. And let me tell
you about the father. Let me tell you, he's one who
chose. He's one who made the covenant of grace. And His Son
is the surety of it. His Son is the mediator of it.
His Son is Jesus Christ. That's who He is. And they took Paul. He said this
and they took him to Orophagos. This is the highest court in
Athens. Paul always ended up in court.
Always ended up in court. Somebody else's court. He ended
up in court. And this is what they wanted
to know. May we know, may we know what this new doctrine whereof
you speak. They said this is new doctrine.
It's not new. It's not new at all. What we're
preaching is not new. Let me read something to you.
I've debated on this, so I'm going to read just a portion
of this to you. An email I got this past several days. I want you to hear a few things
here. It says, I know you receive these
small notes. Whether or not your reply is
immaterial, what you think doesn't mean anything. Whether or not
you divulge them to others is also immaterial, so I'm going
to, because he says I speak the truth. You may be interested
in a following article by Spurgeon. He gives the article. A portion
deals with your position, and he names two men and others,
and this new doctrine. This new doctrine on the importance
of the Holy Spirit in one's salvation. That's not new. That's not new. This is why we're here. This
is not new. I do not know where you all came
up with the premises that the work of the Spirit is equal to
the work of Christ. Isn't that amazing? Isn't that
amazing? I do not know where you all arrive
at the conclusion that one is not saved until they are awakened
by the Spirit of God. You are lost. You are absolutely
lost until God saves you and awakens you. I was just dumbfounded. I was
just dumbfounded. He says, the Spirit will quicken
the Lord's sheep. I know. But I'm just as saved before
I knew this by the work of the Redeemer. The Spirit only made
me aware of it. No, He didn't. He gave me life. The Holy Spirit did not make
Paul aware of it. He said, when He revealed His
Son in me. I'm not going to read the rest
of it. They wanted to know what is this
new doctrine. It's not new, it's old. It's
old. It's new to them, but not new
to Paul. Not new to Paul. It's not new
to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David. It's not new to them. It's as
old as God. What we are preaching here is
as old as God. Now the thing has changed. It
originated with him. Now let's look at Paul's message
and see if it's new or old. Paul stood on Mars Hill and he
said, As I went by, I beheld your devotions, your worship
of these false gods, and I perceived that in all things you are too
superstitious, you are overly religious. You ever notice how people who
miss Christ become that way? They become so religious you
can't stand to be around them. I read something to me yesterday.
I said, that sounds like the PTL. Somebody from the PTL club
wrote it. They become overly religious.
They had an altar risen up to the unknown God. Whom therefore
you eagerly worship, declare I unto you. This is the one I'm
going to preach to you." He says, now listen to me. You know, worship does not mean
that one knows God. It doesn't mean that. Men worship many things. That's
not God. And that's not the worship of
God. So Paul starts with God. In the beginning, what's Genesis
say? In the beginning, God. That's
how the Bible starts out. In the beginning, God. You go
back and look at the message of all the prophets and they
all say, God who created heaven and earth. This is the one I'm
going to preach to you. This unknown God is the one who
created heaven and earth. Here's what he's saying. There's
only one God. You can just throw all those
others away. There is only one God. It says in Deuteronomy 6,
He says to Israel, He says, Behold, the Lord thy God is one Lord. There are many so-called gods
made by men and worshiped by men, whether you can see it,
whether it's just an imagination of a god. But there's only one
real God. There's only one. And He's the
One who created all things. This worship Paul's saying that
you're doing is wrong. It's wrong. You've missed it.
And secondly, He's Lord of heaven and earth. He's the Sovereign. And here's what Paul is doing. He is excluding fate, fortune,
and chance. They believed in that so much.
No, it's just fate. No, it's God. It's not fate,
it's God. He's Lord of heaven and earth.
There is One who is ruling and reigning all things right now. And it's the God who created
all things. And that God is Jesus Christ. All things are made by
Him and for Him. All things. People do not decide if they
will have Him as Lord God has already made him Lord. He was
Lord before creation. He's the one who said a cow will
be a cow. He's the one who made everything
just as it pleased Him. He did not create Adam and say,
Adam, how should we make this one? You ever notice that the
last thing that was made was Adam? He didn't need any input. The
last thing God made was Adam and Eve. Well, I guess Eve. Eve was the last one. He made all things just as it
pleased Him. He's Lord. He's over all. He rules over all. He's the Sovereign.
Bow to Him. Worship Him. That's what it says
over in Daniel 4. Look over here in Daniel chapter
4. God made an old pagan king say this. The heart of the king is in the
hands of the Lord, like the rivers of water. He turns it with us,
whoever He will. Look what He did to Nebuchadnezzar. And in
verse 34, and at the end of the days, God put this man at the
pasture. And then He brought him back
to his mind. And at the end of the days, I, Nebuchadnezzar,
lifted up mine eyes unto heaven, and mine understanding returned
unto me. And I blessed the Most High,
and I praised and honored him that liveth forever, whose dominion
is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom is from generation
to generation. And all the inhabitants of the
earth are reputed as nothing. And he doeth according to his
will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the
earth, and none can stay his hand or say unto him, What are
you doing? And that makes everybody mad
except those who believe God. That makes everybody outside
of Christ hates a sovereign. They don't want to be told what
to do. People don't want to be told
what to do. He's the sovereign. Bow to him. Worship him. And he says here
thirdly, he does not dwell in temples made with hands. This is where idols dwell. They
dwell in temples made with hands. They dwell where you put them. You can't make a temple big enough
to put God in. You know where the temple of God is? You, the
church. You are the temple of God. No building can contain God.
This was a strong blow against Grecian idolatry. God is spirit. That's what he's saying. God
is spirit. And he's to be worshipped in
spirit and in truth. That's what the Lord told that
woman at the well in John 4. God does not dwell in man-made
buildings. God doesn't dwell in this building.
There's an insurance company that dwells in this building.
God doesn't. God only dwells in what He makes,
a new heart. God dwells in His people. God
has created a people in Christ and He dwells in them. And it says He's not worshipped
with men's hands as though He needed anything. As though He had no hands but
your hands. Well, how did He make me? And
you? He's so powerless. He said He's not worshipped with
men's hands as though He needed anything. God is not in need
in anything, in any way, shape or form. He's not worshipped
with human hands. He's worshipped with the heart.
With the heart. That's how we worship Him. With
the heart. God is the giver of all things.
We depend on Him. He doesn't depend on us. Not
at all. It says there in verse, or the fifthly, it says there,
seeing He giveth to all life and breath and all things. He
giveth to all breath. Take a breath. God just gave
that to you. Do you notice how many times
we do that today and never think about it? Not one time do we
think, God just gave me that breath. God gave my body the
ability to process that air and use it. Everything we have comes from
Him. He said there's this one God. Everything comes from Him.
He's the fountain of life. Every breath is given of Him.
And He says in all things we cannot mention. We can't mention
them all. They're too numerable. Because
all things include everything. Everything. And He made of one
blood all nations. You Greeks, you Athenians, you
intellects are not any better than anybody else on this earth.
He made of one blood all nations. If you were dying, would you
want to know what race your blood came from? If it was Japanese
blood, don't give it to me. No, if you were dying, you'd
take it. Your life depended on it, you'd
take it. He's made of one blood. Here's
what he's saying. All came from Adam. That's what
he's saying. Paul said everyone came from
Adam, Jew and Gentile. Everybody gets into this ancestry
stuff. They get into this family trees. There's a lot of it they probably
don't even put in there. But people get into this family tree. And Paul says all of us came
from one man, Adam, and he fell. This one man, Adam, through him
sin entered the world and death by sin, and therefore death passed
upon all men. Have you Athenians, you philosophers,
figured out yet why we keep dying? Well, I've got the Word of God
here. I can tell you why. Sin entered by this one man,
and we've all been born from him. God created this one man. The rest of us were born from
him. All came from him. And God set
our bounds. Why do you think you were born
in America and not China or Japan or Russia? God set your bounds. God ordered
it so that you were born here in Ashland, Kentucky. Well, you
may have been born somewhere else, but you're living in Ashland,
Kentucky. He scattered the human race over the face of the earth as it pleased Him. What Paul's saying here, we are
responsible to Him. We answer to Him. We're not our own. No man is
His own. No woman is her own. We answer
to Him. Now, He says over here in verse
27, and I'll start winding this down, God has created all of
these. He's made of one blood all nations,
seeing that they should seek the Lord. There's enough like
giving in every country just by the light of nature. and providence
that they ought to seek God. Seek God in the light you have. Seeing that God has done all
this, all came from Him, men ought to seek Him. They ought
to seek Him. He will be found of them, the
Scripture says, that seek Him and feel after Him. Even though
they may be blind, at least they can feel after Him. Walking in
the light they are given. where he says in verse 28, and
he's quoting one of their philosophers here, Paul's an intelligent man.
He was a well-read man. In him we live and move and have
our being. He is the very source of our
existence. This one God of heaven and earth
that I'm declaring unto you, this unknown God, is the very
source of our existence. Not that idol over there in the
corner. Not those 15 idols down the street. This one God, who
is Spirit, who sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to redeem sinners.
This one God, this one God, in Him we live and move and have
our being. He's the very source of our existence. We live. He's
the source of our strength. We move. He's the energy of life. I don't know how to explain that.
I wish I could put that into words. It says over here in John
chapter 1. Sometimes I have to say the gospel
in a row to figure out where I'm going. In verse 4, in Him was life,
and the life was the light of men. In Him we move. He's the energy. He's the energy that keeps everything
moving. It's God. Science will say, no,
it's Adams. It's this and it's that. It's
God. In Him we live. See, Paul is
saying, God's too great, God's too glorious to be in a building, but He can and does have all
of us in Him. Everything's in Him. I know that
every believer's in Christ. But nothing's outside of God's
realm. Nothing's outside of His realm. Nothing. Everything moves. The star, the
sun, the moon, us, everything is energized by Him. God, here's what he's setting
forth here, God is a real living person. That's what I'm talking
to you about, not that statue. He's a real living person. That's
who he is. And God, he says, and the times
of this ignorance as to who God is, He says he winked at it,
talking about the Gentiles, all those years, thousands of years.
He left them in darkness. He said he winked at it. He passed
them by. You realize how many generations, thousands of generations,
have been passed by Gentiles, and you and I are sitting here,
Gentiles, listening to the Gospel? He said he winked at it. He passed
by them. But now commands every man, every man and every woman,
everywhere, to repent and believe the Gospel. I tell you this,
if you're lost, look to Christ. If you're lost, repent and believe
the gospel. Do it. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and what's it say? Thou shalt be saved. Not informed,
you'll be saved. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. And listen. He says all men were
to repent, to believe Him, to believe on His Son. Why? Because
He has appointed a day. It's on its way. I look at days like a train.
This one goes by. You watch trains and you have
to sit there and they go by. That's the way days are. Days go by. Well, there's an
end to that train. It's called a day of judgment. he hath appointed a day in the
which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man,
by Jesus Christ, whom he hath ordained, appointed, whereof
he hath given assurance to all men, and that he raised him from
the dead." He's not dead. And look, and when they heard
of the resurrection of the dead, some of them You reckon they're mocking now?
This has been around 2,000 years ago. They shut that mocking up about
a long time ago. Some of them mocked. They made
fun of it. Oh, this one, he talked about being God, being raised
from the dead, and he's going to judge us? Oh, we're scared.
Oh, that's scary, Paul. I guarantee you they made fun
of him like that. That sounds scary, Paul. And others said, we'll hear you
again of this matter. I bet they didn't. I bet they
didn't. But down in verse 34, and certain
men, who are they? The ones God chose. He didn't
just say some men. He said certain men. Certain men. You know what they
did? It says they claimed to Paul. Remember how Jacob grabbed hold
of that angel? He said, I'm not going to let
you go until you bless me. They claimed to Paul. These men
laid hold on Paul and said, you've got the Word of Life. You've
got the message. But they held on for dear life. They held on to that man. They
held on to him. They claimed unto him and believed. Among the witch was Dionysius
the Arapagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them. Well, God accomplished His purpose,
didn't He? The Word of God did not return
void. God sent Paul down there to preach. He got into a fight. And God
saved some sinners. And we preach nothing new. It's
the same old message Paul preached.