The following message was given at Emanuel Baptist Church, Coconut Creek, Florida. Well, I used to think until now that Pastor Nick was interested in what I was saying. He paid such close attention. And now I realize he was trying to figure out what I was saying. I'm so disappointed. Yeah. Well, I hope you can understand me. For some of you, this is the way your forefathers spoke. So we're going back to the good old days. So we're here, we're gonna get back into Acts chapter 17, and we're gonna read together from verse 16. Paul is waiting for Silas and Timothy to come to him from Thessalonica. And as we take up the reading, this is what we hear. Now, while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him when he saw that the city was given over to idols. Therefore he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and with the Gentile worshipers, and in the marketplace daily with those who happened to be there. Then certain Epicurean and Stoic philosophers encountered him, and some said, what does this babbler want to say? Others said, he seems to be a proclaimer of foreign gods, because he preached to them Jesus and the resurrection. And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, May we know what this new doctrine is of which you speak? For you are bringing some strange things to our ears. Therefore we want to know what these things mean. For all the Athenians and the foreigners who were there spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing. Then Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious. For as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription, to the unknown God. Therefore, the one whom you worship without knowing, him I proclaim to you. God who made the world and everything in it, since he is the Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands, nor is he worshipped with men's hands as though he needed anything, since he gives life and breath and all things. And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on the face of the earth, and has determined their pre-appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us. for in him we live and move and have our being. As also some of your own poets have said, for we are also his offspring. Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the divine nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man's devising. Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, because he has appointed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom he has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising him from the dead. And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked, others said, we will hear you again on this matter. So Paul departed from among them. However, some men joined him and believed. Among them Dionysus, the Areopagite, a woman named Demarius, and others with them. Well, Paul has shown the intellectual elites of Greece, and really the cream of the crop as far as the world is concerned, that they are but mere creatures who have been made and who are also sustained by the one true God who is the creator of all things. This God has placed them where they are in Greece, And indeed, he is the one who sets up and knocks down nations and empires. He is the living, reigning, and ruling God over all. Yet most amazingly, quite stunningly, he can be known. Not because the Greek thinkers are able through their own intelligence to find him, because as we saw this morning, they are spiritually blind, and they can't find him if left to themselves. But he's nevertheless still right there. And Paul is obviously, as he's saying these things, praying, Lord, make yourself known to them. The comfort is that God can be known. Right there in Greece, right here, right now. We've already noted, even yesterday, that Paul, as he walked around Athens, I think I said in one of the sessions, he wouldn't have been shocked by the idols in Athens. He was grieved. He was somewhat perturbed because he knew the glory that they were giving these idols belonged to God. But he understood why they were there because he knew that there was an ache, there was a lack in the human heart that due to its depravity and its blindness could not find God. So it would concoct and create false deities to try to fill that need. albeit unsuccessfully, to no avail. Yet while Paul knew what was going on, understood it all, he longed to point them away from it and point them to Christ. Indeed, there was a real elephant in the room, and it was their idolatry. So he began by using this idol to the unknown God and saying, look, you admit, look, to the unknown God, you admit that you don't know everything. Let me tell you about the true God. And then over the last two or three sessions, we looked at some of the theology that just then flowed from Paul as he was teaching them who the unknown God was. But he had to get back to the issue of their idols. because it truly was an elephant in the room. It had to be dealt with. There had to be some sort of sober confrontation regarding this matter. So he's shown them who God is, and now he moves on to the implications of, if this is who God is, let's talk about your idols again. Let's look at this. And we're gonna delve back into the passage and see more of how Paul confronted this pre-Christian congregation, if you like, and we're gonna try to learn and pick up some principles to help us deal with the post-Christian culture that really, for the first time in the history of America, This generation are gonna have to deal with the next generation unless God moves in revival. And we believe he can, and we trust he will. But nevertheless, we've got to make ourselves and equip our kids to be ready. So what is it that Paul does to begin with? Look at verse 29. Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the divine nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art or man's devising. Paul here seeks to show them that idolatry is foolish. Idolatry is silly. Now, one of the advantages I have of being around Reformed Baptists for about 30 years now, actually it is, October 92, and here we are, over 30 years I've been in our circles, our little bubble, right? I know that some of you are thinking, I don't like the way you put that there. Idolatry is silly, it's more than silly. You've got to be firm here. We'll get there, right? So I'm saying that just so that I don't lose you just now and you don't start going, is this guy one of these compromisers that's coming to our pulpit? Hydrology's just silly. We'll get to where you're gonna be happy in a moment, right? But what does Paul do? He starts off by saying, you know what, folks? This is dumb. He addresses what's happening and he just points out the foolishness of it to begin with. He uses simple yet profoundly marvelous logic. You see, he's quoted one of their poets. One of their poets simply said, and he's quoting him, we are also his offspring. And they would know what's going on here, and he quotes the poet, and he says, so if your poets are saying we're of his offspring, then just as one of your poets says, I agree, I'm on board. Yeah, that's a good thing for him to say. You see what he's doing as well? He's borrowing from their ideas. He doesn't go into this context and say, you know what, men of Athens, everything that you've said and all that lovely poetry that you have, it's just a lot of rubbish, a lot of trash. Just ignore it. I've got the message. No, where he can, he picks out truth and he says, you know, just as your poets say, We're of his offspring, so yeah, he's right. If that is so, and I tend to agree with him on that, isn't it silly to think of him as then silver and gold? Hey, show me your silver and gold. Now I know some of us could show it now in our teeth, right? We could show, I've got a bit of gold in my back tooth as well, but, This is back into ancient Greece. This is apostolic days. They weren't walking about with fillings such as I have, and maybe some of you have. But the reality is, he's saying, think about it. Where is offspring? Where's your gold? You're not made of silver and gold. If at the end of the day, your artistic abilities determines who God is and what God is like, are you not kind of limiting him? If it's up to you to imagine him, he's less than you, is he not? Because your imagination has created him. And this is the kind of reasoning that we find he's using at this point. And again, clever, not manipulative, not deceitful, Just wise, being able to draw in their teaching, their ideas, and use it, and then point out that these materials are lifeless, and they owe any formation into something beautiful to your own skills. Is that your God? Paul shows them the folly of their thinking. It's silly. I think one of the best analysis of idolatry that I've ever come across was written by John Stott. And this is what he said. It's a fairly lengthy paragraph, but it's nice to read. You'll enjoy it, I think. All idolatry, whether ancient or modern, primitive or sophisticated, is inexcusable. Whether the images are metal or mental, material objects of worship, or unworthy concepts in the mind. For idolatry is the attempt either to localize God, confining him within limits which we impose, whereas he is the creator of the universe. It's an attempt to domesticate God, making him dependent on us, taming and taping him, whereas he is the sustainer of human life. It's an attempt to alienate God, blaming him for his distance and his silence, whereas he is the ruler of all nations and not far from any of us. It's an attempt to dethrone God, demoting him to some image of our own contrivance or craft, whereas he is our father from whom we derive our being in brief. All idolatry tries to minimize the gulf between the Creator and His creatures in order to bring Him under our control. More than that, it actually reserves the respective positions of God and us so that instead of our humbly acknowledging that God has created and rules us, we presume to imagine that we can create and rule God. That's no logic in idolatry. It's a perverse, topsy-turvy expression of our human rebellion against God. Isn't that a great analysis of idolatry? And it really could, again, be summarized by saying, come on, folks. Idolatry is silly. It's dumb. Yes, idolatry is foolish. But it is more than foolish, isn't it? It's way more than foolish. It's just profoundly sinful. It's a violation of the first and second commandments. You shall have no other God before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image, any likeness of anything in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them nor serve them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me. God is saying, idolatry is a sign that you hate me. And I take it very, very seriously. In fact, the Old and New Testaments together actually show connections between demons and idols. Deuteronomy 32, 16 and 17, we read that they stirred him, that is God, to jealousy with strange gods, with abominations they provoked him, to anger. They sacrificed to demons that were no gods, to gods they had never known, to gods that they had only come to recently, whom the fathers had never dreaded. And we read here, Moses is saying, you know what? Behind the idol, there's just demonic forces that are deluding and deceiving and corrupting and damaging the worshipers. And that same teaching Paul drew from, I believe, Deuteronomy chapter 32, and he put it in a different way, but very similar, in 1 Corinthians 10 verses 19 and 20. He says, what am I saying then? That an idol is anything? Or what is offered to idols is anything? rather the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God. And I don't want you to have fellowship with demons. No, no, no, no, no, Paul. It's not a demon, it's a cute little idol. It's a beautiful little Buddha. It's a really nice little statue of the Virgin. No, no, no, no, it's not an idol, it's a lovely elephant, or it's a beautiful little Hindu goddess so wonderfully expressed by that artist with all her little arms, and it's so pretty. Yeah, in itself, it's the imagination and the concoction of somebody. Maybe a good artist, maybe so. Maybe a skilled sculptor, maybe so. Maybe a great painter. But the reality is when the heart of man is devoted and when there's worship, there's demonic influences that are behind that so that the sacrifices and the adoration is not really just going to the wee statue or the painting. It's, Paul says, Moses said, it's going to the demons. So we're talking about something that's silly, because it's just silly, but we're talking about something that is sinful. Idolatry is bad. It's an offense to the true and living God. It always has been. And it is tonight in Florida. Always has been, always will be, everywhere. And this relates to Florida. It relates even to this post-Christian world in which we live. The idolatry of ideology. some of which we've talked about this week in the neo-Marxism, the LGBTQ agendas, the wokeism, the social justice movement. Not that we're against justice, by the way, and even justice in society, by no means, but we're talking about the movements that are around today. We see that there's an idolatry, it's a religion. It's a religion. Did you see the riots in Atlanta last night? Did you watch any of it? I just saw wee tiny videos that have been put out on Twitter, and you just see the passion, the zeal, the commitment of the Antifa crew. It's a religion. They're worshiping the God of their ideals. but it's also the idol of a good reputation, the idol of the perfect family, personal idols, idols that we've made for ourselves even regarding our careers and our success and the name that we have within our chosen careers. Idolatry comes in all shapes, forms, and fashions. The idol of our house, the idol of our bank accounts, the idol of our car, material idols, all kinds of idols. Behind it all, there's demonic influences to turn us away from the true and living God and to enable us to be satisfied being official haters of God, even though we might not imagine that that title could be used of us. So idolatry is bad, it's foolish, sinful, and the apostle comes to a point where having presented who God is, having used their own poets, he goes into this. Now, he didn't start with that. I confessed to the men yesterday that I was a wee bit of a zealot when I was a teenager. I thought that was being spiritual. We did some stupid things in the name of evangelism that I'm embarrassed by now, just thinking we were being bold for the Lord. We were actually just cheeky little rascals sometimes, to be perfectly honest. But the reality is Paul, he didn't jump in and stand up and go, men of Mars Hill, your idols are foolish. No, what he did first of all, he says, here's who God is. And he got the rear and he presented truth. But he also knew, right, there's actually practical implications of this. In case they say, oh, that's who God is, okay, let's worship this image, this idol, and let's call this idol Jehovah, Yahweh, Jesus. No, no, no, no. He's got to deal with that as well, and he does, and he does it faithfully, doesn't he? He does it faithfully. In this post-Christian age, we can learn from this, I think. It's not a case of us, making sure that everybody knows what they think and what they believe is wrong. It's first of all, here's the truth, here's the truth, here's the truth, and here's the implications. If this is true, what you believe is wrong. I said yesterday, and I'll say it again, there was a time in Scotland, in Northern Ireland, two countries I know well, and I believe also in America, when maybe back in the 50s, when open air preachers could get up and just berate everybody and people would take it. They'd take it, be like, yeah, he's right, he's right, he's right. You can't do that now. Well, you can, and they're doing it, and they're capturing it on YouTube. We talked about that yesterday. I'll not go over it all again. But the reality is, Paul shows us how to deal with things. There's wisdom here. There's just little principles tucked in here that I think are so helpful to us, dealing with a world that is just absolutely impatient. with the truths that we love, we hold, and we will take to them. So, idolatry is foolish, but Paul, at this point, injects the fact that God is patient. God is patient. Truly, these times of ignorance, God has overlooked, he says, verse 30. God has been very long suffering, of man's sinful ignorance, of his idolatry, of his rebellion. When Paul says God overlooked this sinful idolatry that is demonic, that is a sign of hatred towards him, when God overlooks it, it doesn't mean that God's accepted it up until now. I remember as a young Christian reading this and thinking, that's kind of weird. It's almost like he's saying God's just kind of went, oh well, okay. I'll just put up with that just now. No! He's always hated idolatry. It's always been a sin. But what does this mean? It definitely doesn't mean that God agreed with it, because he told Moses, tell the people not to, I'm a jealous God, but in grace and in patience, he has withheld and restrained his rightful indignation. Every ounce of worship that's gone to idols since the beginning of idolatry, every ounce of it has incurred the wrath of God rightly, justly, and God has graciously withheld, graciously withheld his wrath. And that's how God works. He's always holy. He is always grieved with sin. There's never a point, he just shrugs. He's always offended by idolatry. Be it the idol of the temples, or the idol of a secular culture, or the idol of your own heart. He's always offended by it. Yet, as Paul points out, he's patient. Oh, thank you, Lord. Think of how patient, just generally as a whole with humanity, how patient is God? Not just with idolatry, but think of how patient he is with all of the hate. I'll tell you this, I just got onto Twitter about six months ago, less, five, four months ago, I forget. I don't tweet, I just watch. And it's like, man alive, people are just so expressive of their hatred. It's incredible just how bitter and how poisoned humanity is. There's another little thing that I'm on. I have been for a bunch of years. It's called nextdoor.com. Do you people have that in Florida? Yeah, and where I live is kind of rural and it's actually handy, you know, guy in blue car sitting at bottom of street casing houses, you know, things like that. But every day I just get a laugh, I just get a real laugh at just the way neighbours, they just need to say one wee thing, well I don't think that, and then before you know it there's a full-blown neighbourhood dispute going on. and it happens every day. People can't contain themselves, their pride, their anger, their jealousy, it just spews out on neighborhood, what they call it, nextdoor.com. It's pathetic. And God has held back. He's seen all of this. I'm just starting to see the Twitter stuff. I've seen the next door stuff, and I've known even my own heart, and I've had pretty good guests at the hearts of many other people I've come into contact with in life. The hatred that God has, he's held back. What a great God, all the vice. the underbellies of every society. You drive on the freeway, you pass Fort Lauderdale, and you go, that's a really nice city. Look at the way the buildings are structured. It looks so nice and clean. God looks at it and says, it's perverted. I see the prostitution, the human trafficking. I see all the corruption. I see all the wickedness. I see the theft. I see the violence. Meanwhile, we speed off on the freeway and say, well, that was good. I'm glad I got a picture of the skyline. He is so patient. Psalm 86, 15, you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abundant in loving kindness and truth. Well said, David. Here, Paul is saying in times of ignorance, God has overlooked it. So idolatry is foolish, God is patient. And then he confronts them with something that they need to hear and something that when we deal with any kind of community society, but certainly pre-Christian society needed to hear this. Post-Christian society needs to hear this. See all your sin, folks. See all your wickedness. See all your hatred of God. You need to repent of it. And that's what he says next. Repentance is required. Verse 30, truly these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands men everywhere to repent. Repent, repentance is required. The command is repent. Paul is declaring to these people who for millennium have lived with only natural revelation, which they could not properly interpret because of their depravity, because of the fall. They were smart, they were clever, they could see a lot of things that maybe less smart, less clever people would have seen. They would have noticed all kinds of aspects in creation and cycles, because these guys were clever. Remember I mentioned Pythagoras? He was part of this community. He understood mathematical principles. He helped to develop the mathematical systems. These were good guys. They were clued into natural revelation, but they couldn't understand really what it was saying. John Gerstner said, natural revelation is as authoritative as special revelation, but it's not as clear. And it's definitely not as clear because of the fall, because the God of this world has blinded the minds of them that believe not. They see all that God has put on display and they read it wrong. They say, there's a son. Instead of saying that the God that made that son is stronger than that son, wow, they say, let's worship that son. You get the idea. They see it, they feel it, but they read it wrong. And the apostle says, look, you can no longer claim ignorance because special revelation today has arrived in Athens. The Word of God has been opened to you. The God of the Word is being revealed to you. Up until now, the Lord has very graciously put up with your highfalutin nonsense, your pride, your worshiping of your own intelligence. That ends today, folks, because today I'm here to tell you who the God that you don't know really is. The gospel was coming to them. Special revelation has now parked itself in Athens, and they now are called to repent. Oh, now you're being told, sure up until now you weren't told doesn't mean they weren't guilty doesn't mean people before them didn't die and go to a lost eternity because of their rebellion against God and their hatred of God and their idolatry and their perversions and all the rest of it their sin the wages of sin always has been death But there's a sense in which there's a new day that's come today, Paul is saying, and I'm telling you who the true God is, and he's calling you to account. To fail to repent will bring certain judgment. We'll talk about that in a minute. This call to repentance fills the Old Testament scriptures. The prophets especially, They loved to call people to repentance because they knew how holy God was and how men needed to repent. Jeremiah 25, five, repent now everyone of his evil ways and his evil doings. Ezekiel 14, six, thus says the Lord, repent, turn away from your idols. Turn your faces away from all your abominations. The Old Testament's full of it. The New Testament is just brimful of it. We've got John the Baptist, the forerunner of our Lord Jesus Christ. His first word in his public ministry, you know what it was, repent. There he is. Well, what's gonna be the first sermon I preach? Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. He was a forerunner of Christ. He brought the message of Christ. And then when Christ came, you know what his first sermon was? The exact same as John's. Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. It's a call that we would see sin as something that needs to be shunned rather than embraced, something that needs to be hated rather than loved. By the time Jesus arrived, there had been no prophet for 400 years until John the Baptist The worship of the temple had declined to such an extent that the priests were not even offering regular oblations to God. General neglect and indifference to God reigned. But meanwhile, there was a fascination with man-made rules, man-made regulations. That was what was prevailing. The Pharisees, by the time Christ arrived, had been around for about 160 years. And this was, you know, the birth of Christ was the time when the Pharisees were at their pinnacle of influence as far as Jewish thought was concerned. And it was in this context that Jesus comes in and says, repent, change your mind, see that there is a heart turning to God away from sin. So you had the prophets, you had John the Baptist, you had Jesus, and then of course he sent out his disciples, didn't he, to the towns preaching the gospel? And we're told in Mark 6 that they went out and preached that men should repent. It's everywhere! And then on the day of Pentecost, what does Peter say as he starts his sermon? Repent and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins. The call to repentance indicates that the big problem is not insecurity. Not that I'm not saying to be insecure is not a problem. The big problem is not anxiety. It is a problem if you're suffering from anxiety, but that's not the big problem. The big problem is not loneliness. It can be miserable, but it's not the big problem. The big problem is not unfulfilled dreams and aspirations. The big problem, John the Baptist knew, Jesus knew, the disciples knew, Peter knew, and the day of Pentecost, the prophets knew before them. The big problem is sin. Our confession of faith defines repentance as an evangelical grace whereby a person, being by the Holy Spirit made sensible of the manifold evils of his sin, doth by faith in Christ humble himself with godly sorrow, detestation of his sin, and self-abhorrence, praying for pardon and strength of grace with a purpose and endeavor by supplies of the Spirit to walk before God. unto all well-pleasing in all things." Repentance. Truly, we must be clear in what it's not. It's not a virtue. It's not something that endears us to God. It doesn't pay for our sins. Christ has paid for our sins. But as Paul looks at a community that's just given over to idolatry, he knows there has to be a turning from that to the true and living God. Repentance is also not an awareness that you've sinned. Just to be aware that you've sinned, don't think that you're repenting. Felix heard the preaching of the Word of God, and in particular, preaching against his own sin, and we're told that his knees smote together. What must that be like? I've actually never seen somebody's knees smiting together. as far as just being afraid is concerned. I was telling the guys last night, your pastors, that I climbed this big rock structure in California and I got to the top and I realized there's a cliff, I don't know, maybe 70, 100 feet, I don't know, at the other side, cliff, and I felt my knees going a wee bit kind of jelly-like. I was like, whoa, and I had to get down on my hands and knees. It was the weirdest feeling, never had it before. But to have your knees smite together, it's like something out of a cartoon. And Felix knew that he had sinned, he was aware of his sin, but he didn't repent. Sometimes you, young people, boys and girls, you're aware of your sin. You know that you've done something wrong and you're a wee bit terrified. And you just hold on and hold off a day, two days, three days, oh good, time's passed, mom and dad don't know, and you move on. You can see why, just to be aware of your sin. It means nothing, even sometimes to be sorry for your sin. It's not repentance in and of itself. The Apostle Paul speaks of the kind of sorrow over sin that bears no eternal fruit. Feeling sorry about your sin is not repentance. It's just that you realize that you've done something that could really bring bad consequences. Even sometimes hating sin is not repentance. You think, surely if I hate sin, it's me repenting? Not necessarily. Many people hate certain sins. I know people that hate drunkenness because they have felt what it is to be living in the home of a drunkard. I know some that hate adultery because they've been the victim of a cheater. To be able to hate sin as you see it in others. is a condemnation of yourself if you're not repenting. Because you look at sin and you go, I hate that sin. Oh, I hate that. But there's sin in you that you're not repenting of. Why would God not look at you and go, and I hate that? Why would he not? You feel justified saying, I hate that sin. That really disgusts me. And you're not repenting of your sin. You've got a cheek. You should be embarrassed. because God looks at you and he probably even sees the seed of that sin in your heart. Maybe not your behavior, but in your heart. Neither is promising to do better in its self-repentance. I'll do better. Many people make this a lifelong habit. Always promising themselves, always promising others to do better, to try harder. But who said the way to hell is paved with good intentions? Don't know who said that, but we've all probably repeated that, haven't we? It's all of these things in some way, but it's more than that. Repentance is a change of mind, a change of attitude. It involves turning from and turning to the Lord. And that's what our confession pointed out, didn't it? It's not just it's turning from sin, but it is turning to the Lord. Anything less than that isn't repentance. It's that hatred of, that regret, that remorse, that sorrow, etc. Carnal, anybody can do it. The murderer can hate murder and still go out and murder again. Anybody can do it. But what is repentance? It's turning from sin to Christ. That's repentance. I love the way the confession put that together, actually. It makes it more than just something that we think of then as a work. No, it's an evangelical grace that actually is gonna bear fruit in bringing us to Jesus. And Paul is presenting this truth to these people on Mars Hill. He's saying to them, you know, folks, the reality is you, need to turn from these idols to this living God that I've just presented to you. So idolatry is foolish. God is patient. Repentance is required. Judgment is certain. He really does go there. His first sermon on Mars Hill, his first sermon to these Greek individuals, these learned individuals, And he uses the J word. He talks about judgment. Oh, Paul, no, don't be too harsh. I think he's been really wise up to now, hasn't he? So this isn't him now being foolish. This is him realizing that at the end of the day, there is an end to all things that people must know about. I'm gonna present the truth. And these people who were full of a sense of their own cleverness, who felt that they were just above any kind of consequences, like so many today, that's the character of a post-Christian world. Just do what you want to do, just live out loud, live out loud. You only live once, YOLO, you only live once. No, not true. We've got to make that clear. We've got to make that clear. We can't be embarrassed by it. Oh, you're so judgmental. Oh, that's the worst thing. You're a racist. Number one bad thing that can be said about you. Number two bad thing that can be said about you. You're so judgmental. It's up there. No, no, no, I'm not judgmental, no, no. Even Christians don't want to be called judgmental, you know, it's like, huh. You go home in the car so defeated, they think I'm judgmental, you know. Don't be a pain in the neck. Don't be somebody that's always, eh, that, that. Don't do that, that doesn't honor God. But be somebody who makes it clear that you're gonna stand before the judgment seat of Christ. There is a conclusion, there is an end to all of this. The day of judgment is coming, without a doubt. And who will be the judge? Well, the apostle makes it very clear in our text. He says there in verse 31 that he has appointed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom he has ordained. Now remember, the men will remember this, maybe you've picked it up, but we emphasized that when he was in the marketplace, the beginning of his time, at Athens, the apostle was just talking about Jesus, Jesus, Jesus and the resurrection. That was a summary. It's not that he just said Jesus and the resurrection, he explained who Jesus was. He told them about the victory of Jesus. That was the busyness and that's the stuff that got the ear of these men and they said, hey come here, Come on with us up to the Areopagus and give us a rendition of what you believe. We're interested in this." And when he got there, he then started this sermon that we've been looking at all day. And it concludes with judgment. The man Christ Jesus, he will judge. Jude tells us, the Lord comes with ten thousands of his saints to execute judgment, to convict all who are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they've committed in an ungodly way, and all of the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against him. Paul says to the Thessalonians, who he had to leave and he ended up in Athens as a result, he says to them, the Lord Jesus will be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels and flaming fire, taking vengeance upon those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our God, of our Lord Jesus Christ. These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power. And all of that is absolute pure justice. All the cry today is no justice, no peace. You want justice? We need to help this age to know what justice really is gonna look like. The holy God, the patient God. Hey, don't let this patience deceive you. Don't think that because he's patient that you can just do what you want to do and be what you want to be. That's just also silly. You need to thank him for his patience and then run to him for his grace and just rest in Christ. How vital. So we've seen how Paul has brought his sermon to a conclusion. Let's have a wee glance at the response. You ever sit in a service and you think there is no way that anybody could leave here tonight and not be a Christian? Right, we've all been in those meetings. And then you're shocked that the first thing that unbeliever, sometimes even Christian, you know, but the first thing that unbeliever does is turn around and say to you, so did you hear the football result? You're like, man alive, you know, you should be sitting there trembling. The apostle Paul, has presented just glorious truths. Of course, everybody's gonna raise their hand and walk the aisle, right? No. I know he didn't do that, and you know that too. The typical response, Paul had it everywhere. Some went wild with ridicule. Some were intrigued. And others said, okay, we'll give you more time later on. Verse 32, when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. while others said, we'll hear you again in this matter. So Paul departed from among them. However, some men joined him and believed among them Dionysius the Areopagite, a woman named Demarius, and others with him. The philosophers listened well, give them credit for that, that's good. But then when the doctrine of the resurrection came up, they just couldn't contain themselves, they had to ridicule. And Paul, rather than saying, you know what, I better just quit this because this message isn't suitable for the day, he would just persevere with the same message the next place he went because he knows this is the truth. And we will be ridiculed, we will be mocked, we will be scoffed. You are mocked, you are scoffed. Unless there's a great revival comes, it's not gonna get better. But the truth of the matter is, We press on, and we don't change the message a bit. Like Paul, we learn the contextual when he would go to the Jews in the synagogues. He dealt with it differently. He would open up the Old Testament. He would go into Isaiah. He would show them, you know, the promises of the Christ. And then we see the wisdom, he's now in a pre-Christian context, there's no sense of who the one true and living God is, and he deals with them in this clever, careful, but truthful way. And some of them just can't hack it, they just can't take it. But some of them do, because God's got his elect. And Paul had no idea. In fact, it's interesting. There's the guy called Dionysus. We don't know anything about him. Some people think that he ended up an elder in the church at Athens. That's more to do with the great tradition, you know. But we don't actually know for sure. Maybe he did, the fact that his name is used, you know, because Paul says, and other people too, but he says, oh, by the way, Dionysus, it assumes that maybe Theophilus who got this book as a letter from Luke, that he might have went, oh, that's where Dionysus became a Christian, you know? So it seems as if he became a known man, but there's a woman by the name of Demarius. Just so you know, you ladies wouldn't have been too welcome at the Areopagus. There was female deities, but unless you were a goddess, you didn't really get much attention at the Areopagus. This was the men, the Greek men. But somehow, this woman heard the gospel, and she got saved. And maybe it would have been a surprise. You know, Paul's looking over here, preaching. All these men, stuffy-looking men, noses in the air. There's a wee woman over there going, what is he saying? And our heart was won. And that's the confidence we have in a post-Christian world, that the Lord, he'll bring people in from those that we are dealing with and working with, but God's gonna surprise us. He's gonna do good things. The church will still be built until Jesus comes back to claim her for himself. That's how he does it. You'll notice it says that they joined him. Did a nice little word study on the verb to join. It could read they glued themselves to Paul. What a nice picture. He left the philosophers, the Stoics, the Epicureans, the Cynics, he left them. She left what she was doing and they stuck themselves to Paul. They're going, you know what? We realize that we're in a wicked, wicked world. Oh, I bumped into another idol. You know, they're surrounded by idols. And you know what I realize I need, Paul? I need to be taught. I need to be connected. I need to join myself to you. They were glued to Paul. And in a post-Christian world, It's absolutely vital that those who do repent, those who do trust in Christ, those that do know new life, that they're joined to God's people, to the church, committed to the kingdom of Christ here on earth. Now, at any time and place in history, this is an absolute necessity. I mentioned kind of lightly a wee bit the 1950s, you know, the good old days. I don't remember them. I wasn't born. But some of you do. Maybe not remember them. Some of you were here anyway. But the fact is, even then, when it was so nice, so sweet, God's people needed the church even then, because the devil was still a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. That was still a fact. And we can see this, if that's the case, it's an absolute necessity in a day of conscious rejection, deliberate opposition to the gospel, that God's people, who are called haters, haters, troublemakers, because we won't bow the knee to their idols. It's vital that we're connected to the people of God, that we've got the accountability, the fellowship, the regular teaching, the means of grace are available to us. We need it. They're joined. So our confidence is that while it's a dark day, the church will be built. And true believers, sometimes it takes them a wee bit of time. We get it. Maybe you're here going, I'm not yet formally committed. I just kind of come in and go out. You need to be committed. We're in a war like never before. May the Lord give us grace to be in the right place, hanging out with the right people. I pray that as we've looked at this passage now six times over this weekend, that we will see things clearly, not as the world sees it, but as those who are regenerated see it. we'll be clear on why we're here and what our great purpose is. I pray that we'll be able to faithfully present God to such a lost and ignorant and even aggressive world. I pray that we'll be able to effectually encourage those that we engage in to find Him. We'll call on men to repent, we'll point them to Christ, and the Lord will use it to gather in his people. What a wonderful thing. May God aid us, help us, and use us for many years to come. Let's pray. Our gracious God, thank you for your word. Thank you for all that we've been able to talk about and consider. Lord, there's been moments we've been rebuked. There's been moments we've been challenged. There's been moments that we've been encouraged. And Lord, your word is just magnificent. It deals with us in a way that is profoundly beyond the mere rhetoric of man. Thank you. And we ask that as we go to our homes that we would do so. with a sense of encouragement that your work will go on. And yet, Lord, we want to be skilled, useful, and helpful at the same time. In Jesus' name, amen. We hope you were edified by this message. For additional sermons, as well as information on giving to the ministry of Emmanuel Baptist Church and on our current building project, you can visit us online at ebcfl.org. That's ebcfl.org.