Acts 17, 16 through 34. The title of the message is The Perennial Gospel of the One True God. The Perennial Gospel of the One True God. And perennial just means that it's ongoing. It's ongoing, it never ends, it never changes, it's always relevant, it's always the same, and it's relevant to everyone, everywhere, for all time. It's the perennial gospel of the one true God. So let's read it. Acts 17, starting in verse 16. Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was being provoked within him as he was observing the city full of idols. So it was reasoning in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Gentiles, and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be present. And also some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers were conversing with him. Some were saying, what would this idol babbler wish to say? Others, he seems to be a proclaimer of strange deities because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection. And they took him and brought him to the Oropagus saying, may we know what this new teaching is which you're proclaiming? For you're bringing some strange things to our ears, so we want to know what these things mean. Now all the Athenians and the strangers visiting there used to spend their time in nothing other than telling or hearing something new. So Paul stood in the midst of the Orophagus and said, men of Athens, I observed that you're very religious in all respects. While I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription, to an unknown God. Therefore, what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and all things in it, since he is the Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands, nor is he served by human hands as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all people life and breath and all things. And he made from one man every nation and mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation. that they would seek God if perhaps they might grow for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us. For in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, for we also are His children. Being then the children of God, we ought not to think that the divine nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and thought of man. Therefore, having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent, because he has fixed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness through a man whom he has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising him from the dead. And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some began to sneer, but others said, we shall hear you again concerning this. So Paul went out of their midst, But some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius, their araphagite, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them." Father, we thank you for your word, and we thank you for another day that we get to come together and worship you and look into your word together. Oh Lord, we pray that you open this word up to us today, that you apply it to our hearts, Draw us near, Lord, that we see more of your glory and your purpose and your good gospel that you have given us and that you have accomplished in this world. Lord, help us to glorify you as we look into this together. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Well, in the message last week, we looked at Paul's mission to the city of Berea. It's likely that Paul didn't intend to stop at Berea when he left Philippi and went to Thessalonica. It's actually very likely that Paul intended to establish a church at Thessalonica and then continue on the Via Ignatia, the Ignatian Way, which was the Roman road that Paul had got on when he got to Macedonia, and he went to Philippi, Then he went to Thessalonica and the Via Ignatia goes all the way across the top of the peninsula that is Greece. And it goes from the Aegean Sea all the way across Macedonia to the Adriatic Sea that is between Greece and Italy. It's very likely that Paul just intended to go all the way across Macedonia to Dyrrhachium, which is the city on the Adriatic Sea, and then cross it to Italy and end up in Rome. He always wanted to go to Rome. Now, that's speculation, but it makes sense because there are several major cities along the Ignatian Way And Paul viewed Rome as the strategic crossroads of the world, and it literally was. I mean, that's where we get the saying, all roads lead to Rome, because they did. The Romans were great road builders, and as they would go forth and conquer new territory, they'd build a road to make it easy to transport troops and supplies. And so there was a spider web of roads going to Rome Europe and just all over the known world, everywhere that they conquered, there's roads going, which made travel not really easy in the day, but a whole lot easier than it had been before that. It made it doable. And so it's very likely that that's what Paul had in mind as he was going over there. Actually, six years later, after the time where we're at right now, Paul would write to the Romans in a letter, I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that often I have planned to come to you and have been prevented so far, so that I may obtain some fruit among you also, even as among the rest of the Gentiles. That's from Romans 1.13. If you remember when Paul and Silas and Luke and Timothy were still in Galatia, before they crossed over the GNC to Macedonia and came to Philippi, we could see very clearly that although they had this idea of where they were gonna try to go and what they were gonna do, they had a general idea, but the Lord was actively directing them, was actively directing their mission. And there were several directions that they tried to go. They tried to go into Asia, The Holy Spirit said, no. They tried to go north, but the Spirit of Christ said, no. And then all of this culminated in Paul having a vision of the Macedonian man standing and beckoning for him to come over here and help us. Well, I believe that Paul getting driven out of Thessalonica to Berea, and Berea was off the beaten path. It was south of the Vieg Nation. It was off the main road, and I believe that Paul getting driven out of Thessalonica down to Berea, that was the Lord. The Lord took him off the path where he was thinking about going and directed him down his path. You know, the mind of a man plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps. The Lord gave the Bereans a heart for the truth and directed them to the scripture to find it. You know, it's really simple, but if you want to know whether any movement or spiritual excitement or anything that's going on, if you want to know whether it's from the Lord, is it being generated and led by the spirit of Christ or is it the spirit of the world? Here's your test. If it's coming from the spirit of God, it will lead you to the word of God. To the law and to the testimony. If they did not speak according to this word, it is because they have no dawn. There's no light in them. That's Isaiah 820. The spirit of the Lord took the Bereans to the scriptures. They were led to examine the word of God daily to see if the message that Paul was proclaiming was true. They proved themselves to be Israelites indeed by wrestling with God and his word because they loved the truth more than the certainty of their religion. As a result of that, the text says, therefore, many of them believed. along with a prominent number of Greeks, or a number of prominent Greeks. But the jealous Thessalonian Jews heard that the gospel was going forward in Berea and they came there also to incite the crowds and to try to prevent people from believing, try to prevent people from entering the kingdom. And you know what? This is the bottom line end goal of all antichrist religion. And you know what that is? That sounds really ominous to us. It sounds like, oh, it's kind of spooky, anti-Christ religion. We have pictures of beasts and things like that. And we have pictures of scary movies or something when we think about that. But you know what anti-Christ religion is? It's just simply any religion that doesn't direct you to faith alone and Christ alone. You know, and it doesn't matter how moral and righteous that those religious views may appear. If they don't take you to Christ, it's anti-Christ religion. Jesus said, woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you shut off the kingdom of heaven from people. For you do not enter in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in. That's Matthew 23, 13. That's antichrist religion. It can look really good. It could be very moral and upright. But if it doesn't take you to Christ, and faith in him alone, it's antichrist. But when the Jews from Thessalonica began to agitate and stir up the crowds, the brethren from Berea sent Paul away with an escort to the sea. And they accompanied Paul down to Athens, where he determined to wait until Silas and Timothy arrived. So the escort returned to Berea with a message from Paul for Silas and Timothy to come to him in Athens as soon as possible. I believe this is more of the Lord directing their steps. Because although Rome was the center of the world, politically and commercially speaking, Athens was the center of the world, culturally, philosophically, and spiritually speaking. Roman culture, philosophy, and even religion was modeled after Greece. Even the Roman gods are just the Greek gods renamed. That's all they are, they're just the Greek gods with Latin names. Roman culture was modeled after the Greeks. Rome was the center of government and commerce, but Athens was the marketplace of ideas. What better place to challenge the gods of this world with the gospel of the true and living God than right in their own house? Right in their own house. And that's where we're at in verse 16. Now, while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was being provoked within him as he was observing the city full of idols. Paul's just hanging out in Athens. He's waiting on Silas and Timothy. And you know what? It's a beautiful place to hang out. I got to go there. I highly recommend it. If you ever get to go to Athens, it is one of the, it's my favorite place I've ever visited. I got to stand on Mars Hill, the Oropagus. And actually, I got to stand on Mars Hill and read this text from Acts 17. For everybody that was around, I loved it. I'd love to go back and do it again. It's a beautiful place to hang out. And as Paul is waiting and checking out the city, he sees all the idols that are being worshiped. And his spirit was provoked. When was the last time that your spirit was provoked because people worship idols instead of the living God? Ask yourself that question. We don't really think about that much, do we? Well, I'll submit to you that the world and the culture that we live in is no less idolatrous than the culture that Paul was witnessing there in Athens. That was 2,000 years ago. Yes, the church that Jesus is building exists in the world today, all over the planet. We have the church. But the world outside of the church is just as idolatrous as it ever was. Psalm 96, five says, for all the gods of the peoples are idols, but the Lord made the heavens. See, everyone worships. They either worship God as he's revealed himself to us, and he's revealed himself to us in Jesus. That's very important. Everybody worships, and they're either gonna worship God as he's revealed himself to us, that's Christianity. We should just think on the implications of that. God's final revelation of himself to man is in Jesus. the way, the door, the gate. That's how Jesus describes himself. He's the way, he's the door, he's the gate, and apart from him, no one comes to the Father. That means that no matter what your ethnicity is or your national heritage, it means that no matter what law you keep or what religious rituals you perform, If you aren't coming to God by faith in Jesus, the Messiah, then you aren't one of God's people. What you're engaged in is idolatry. But aside from that, even if you claim that you don't worship a God at all, you still do. See, whatever you depend on, whatever you find your security in, whatever you value the most is what you worship. All the gods of the peoples are idols and they're all around us. We've just forgotten what they look like. So let me refresh your memory. Some people worship education. Now, and before I go through this list, understand that most of these things are really good things, as long as they're just things. And we worship the God who provides things, but not the things. But some people worship education. You know, Athena was the goddess of wisdom, the Greek goddess Athena. Some people worship pleasure. Aphrodite was the goddess of love and beauty. Some people worship nature. That's a big one in our world today. Some people worship nature. Gaia was the Greek goddess whose name was the literal personification of land or earth. If you're wondering if that looks familiar, a lot of the movies that you see on TV, if you watch Hallmark movies, a lot of them are produced by a production company named Gaia. named after this. But Gaia was the Greek goddess whose name was the literal personification of land or earth. She was seen as the mother of all life. Mother Earth or Mother Nature, that's where those concepts come from. Some people live for distraction, entertainment. Dionysus was the god of plays, festivals, and wine. Some people worship power, strength, status. Zeus was the king of the gods and the source of thunder and lightning. Some people worship prosperity. The Greeks achieved a lot of their wealth from the sea. Poseidon was the god of the sea, whose favor they looked for in commerce and trade. You get the point that I'm making. Do you recognize any of these idols from the world that we live in today? The ancient Greeks weren't worshiping statues. The statues were simply representations of the same idols, the same false gods that people worship today. This should provoke our spirit. This should provoke us and stir us up to proclaim the gospel, to tell people what God has done. The whole world is deceived into devoting their lives to these idols instead of living by faith in Christ alone. Verse 17, Paul was provoked so he was reasoning in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Gentiles and in the marketplace every day with those who happen to be present. Well, the gospel message is the same for everyone. It's the same for Jews. It's the same for God-fearing Gentiles. That just means that they're not Jews, but they They believe in God, and it's the same for everybody out there in the marketplace, no matter what they believe or don't believe. All those who happen to be present. The gospel's not just a Sunday at church message. Now, it is a Sunday at church message, but it's also an everyday in the marketplace message. The gospel message, and Luke, In the context of Acts, he refers to the gospel as the word of the Lord. The word of the Lord is what they're going around proclaiming and preaching. And that's the gospel from the scriptures. Jesus, from the Old Testament scriptures, from all of the Bible, is the word of the Lord. That should be the primary focus of our lives every day. Whether then you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. You see, all of our, everything we do in life, whether we're doing commerce, whether we're being entertained, whether we're playing a sport, whether we're pursuing a spouse, whether we're engaging with people in the marketplace or going to a restaurant, everything in our lives is affected by the gospel. because God is the one who has given us life and breath and all things, and God is the one who is making our heart beat, and God is the one who's redeemed us and given us the ability to enjoy these things. So everything that we do is touched by the gospel. It should be The primary focus of our lives should be glorifying God through enjoying what he's given us and pointing other people to the provider of all these things in life. Verse 18. It says, and also, some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers were conversing with him. Some were saying, what would this idle babbler wish to say? Others, he seems to be a proclaimer of strange deities because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection. Well, Epicureanism is a system of philosophy based on the teachings of Epicurus, and it was founded about 307 BC. Epicureanism is a system of naturalism, materialism, That sounds kind of familiar. That's kind of the foundation of our secular society. Naturalism, materialism, no supernatural or divine intervention. The driving force of Epicureanism is that pleasure is the greatest good. And it's achieved through modest living and self-control. Kind of Dave Ramsey meets Dr. Fell. Epicureanism, modest living and self-control. The goal of Epicureanism is ordering your life to achieve the maximum pleasure and comfort with the least amount of pain and discomfort. It kind of sounds like the American dream, doesn't it? What we want for our children, really. Most people, this is what they want. for their children, that they will achieve the maximum amount of pleasure and comfort and experience the least amount of pain and discomfort in their lives. That's Epicureanism. Stoicism, and so Paul is disputing with the Epicurean and the Stoic philosophers. Stoicism was founded by Zeno of Sidium in Athens in the early third century B.C. It's a system of personal ethics formed by applying the laws of logic to the natural world. Stoicism taught that virtue is the only good where human beings are concerned. Now that sounds good, doesn't it? It taught that virtue is the only good where human beings are concerned. True happiness comes from a virtuous life, not from external circumstances. To live well, a person needed to understand the rules of the natural order and live their life accordingly. You learn how the thing works and you just punch in the right code and everything will work out for you. Things that come to my mind are modern psychology, self-help philosophy, those sort of things. Figure out how the world works, get in line with that and your life will be good. So when you think about their gods, their idols, and the values that they represent, then you combine those with the schools of philosophy that form the intellectual foundation for their society, I really don't see any significant difference between the culture of Athens in the first century and the culture of Lake Charles in 2023. I really don't. People still worship the same things. And much of our modern thought comes directly from these two schools of philosophy. Well, what did Paul preach to them? Jesus and the resurrection. The message hasn't changed. The gospel is not to be mixed with worldly thinking and philosophy. It's meant to deliver us from worldly thinking and philosophy. 19 through 21, and they took him, these philosophers, they gathered Paul up and they took him and they brought him to the Oropagus, saying, may we know what this new teaching is which you're proclaiming, for you're bringing some strange things to our ears, so we want to know what these things mean. Now, all the Athenians, And the strangers visiting there used to spend their time in nothing other than telling or hearing something new. Well, the first thing I want to point out, it says Oropagus. Now, what happened to Mars Hill? Didn't Paul preach on Mars Hill? Wasn't that where this took place? Well, they're the same thing. Mars, Eros, Aries actually is, and Mars are the same, God, they're the same deity, it's the God of war. And so Aries Hill or Mars Hill is the same place, and the Oropagus was just a council meeting place there at Mars Hill where the city council would meet. The Oropagites, which we read about, one of the people that believed the gospel was Dionysius the Oropagite, In verse 34, the Arapagites were those city council members who would come there and they would render decisions. And so that's where the philosophers took Paul. They took him, they were interested in this discussion, but they also wanted to get a ruling from the council. A ruling of, well, should we let him keep preaching these things or should we shut him down? Is this worthy of discussion in our society? So they take him before the Orophagus to get a ruling on this, to present his case. And this is, this text says that they come together because they spend their time in nothing other than telling or hearing something new. This is just more evidence that the people then were no different than us. It's more evidence that they were no different than us. Think about the popularity of programming like Fox News or CNN, the Discovery Channel. The Daily Wire, I think, is the one that's popular today with Ben Shapiro and Jordan Peterson. People watch that all the time to keep up with what's going on, to see what new happened. You know, I'm guilty. I scan the headlines on my phone probably at least three or four times a day just to see if something's happened that I need to know about, something interesting. People are constantly looking for something new, something different that will capture their attention and amused them for a bit. And then what happens, it's old news. And they're again looking for something new. It's like a kid with a new toy. We get the kids toys at Christmas or their birthdays and they get them and they play with them for a week. That's all they want to play with is this new thing that they got, a new bicycle. But then after a week or whatever, the new kind of wears off and it gets parked over by the wall. And it's old news and they're looking for something else new. Something new never brings lasting satisfaction or contentment. But we're always looking for something new and the media and the government play into that. They take us from one crisis to another. Have you noticed that? Have you noticed that we go from one crisis to another? And what this does for lost people is it keeps them distracted from the real problems of sin and death. And for Christians, how many times do we let the next new crisis that's going on in the world distract us from our true calling to love our neighbors and engage them with the gospel? How much time do we spend doing that versus how much time we spend thinking about whatever's going on in the Middle East or whatever's going on in Mexico or South America or what's going on in Hollywood or Washington, D.C.? ? Our calling is to love our neighbors and engage them with the gospel. You know what brings real satisfaction and contentment? Looking to Jesus. Jesus said to them, I'm the bread of life. He who comes to me will not hunger, and he who believes in me will never thirst. That's John 6, 35. People are looking for something new, but they don't need something new. They just need the Lord. Verse 22, they get to Mars Hill, they get to the Oropagus, and so Paul stood in the midst of the Oropagus and said, men of Athens, I observe that you're very religious in all respects. Everyone is religious, no matter how strongly they claim otherwise. Our secular culture has convinced us that our that our national religion, which is secularism, is not actually a religion, but it is. We have a national religion, it's just secularism. It's like our, and that's what teachers are trained, that's what we're, it's kind of like the myth that the media is neutral. They're not neutral. They used to, actually, I'm not gonna get into that, nevermind, that's a different thing. There is no such thing as neutrality, let's just leave it at that. And there is no such thing as a nation without a religion. Everyone is religious. There's a famous atheist agnostic named Neal deGrasse Tyson. He's an astrophysicist. He worships the stars. Instead of man being made in the image of God, he believes that we consist of stardust that evolved over millions, maybe even billions of years and eventually became human beings. Actually, you know, in a manner of speaking, he does believe that he's made in the image of his God. Now, I'm not trying to be mean, and I think he sincerely does believe that he's either an atheist or at least an agnostic, but his belief system personifies someone who has exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature, the created thing, rather than the creator who is blessed forever. That's Romans 1.25. See, everyone has a religion. Everyone thinks they came from somewhere. You wanna know who your God is? Where do you think you came from? Everyone has a religion, even if they call it something else. Verse 23, Paul says, for while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I found an altar with this inscription. to an unknown God. Therefore, what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you, to an unknown God. You know what this mentality's like? Have you ever heard something like this? This is one of the latest ones that gets to me. I'll see somebody say something like, throw up some prayers for me. Light a candle, send me some good vibes, rub your rabbit's foot or whatever it is you do. You know what that is? That's pagan spirituality. It's just covering all the bases just in case. We'll just throw a bucket of mud at the wall and see if something sticks. That is not worshiping God. The latest thing, and you hear it a lot in the Hallmark movies, I'm kind of down on them today, They'll say something like, well, you know, the universe wants us to be together. Or the universe doesn't want me to get that job. It's just pagan spirituality. Spirituality and the worship of the living God are not the same thing. There is one God and there's only one way to get to him. There is one God and one mediator between God and man. The man Christ Jesus. 24 and 25, he said, the God who made the world and all things in it, since he is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands, nor is he served by human hands as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all people life and breath and all things. The God who is, he's looking around at these glorious temples they've got built there. And if you ever go there and you see the Parthenon on the top of this mountain, that thing is amazing. It's an engineering marvel. These huge blocks of granite that they carried up to the top of that hill 3,000 years ago, 3,500 years ago with no construction equipment. And somehow they got this stuff up there and built that thing. And it's huge, it's massive, and it's beautiful, and it's glorious. And Paul's looking at that and he says, that can't contain God. The God that is cannot be contained by a temple made of stone. No building, no statue, and no image is capable of expressing his glory. He's infinite, he's limitless, he's transcendent. He's not served by human hands. There isn't one solitary thing in existence anywhere that you or I could give to God, either that he needs or that he doesn't already own. Not one thing. Our God is in the heavens. He does whatever He pleases. Psalm 115, three. We don't give anything to Him. He gives everything to us. Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow. James 1, 17. Verse 26, Paul said, and he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation. In the immediate context, Paul is actually addressing a myth that the local Greeks there had that they were superior to people from the rest of the world, that they came from that area, and that they were unique. They weren't related to people from other parts of the world. And Paul's saying, no, every human being comes from one man. There is no such thing as race. There's only the human race. The concept of race is just a social construct, and it's just a construct that groups of people use to differentiate themselves from other groups of people. And they do it based on external physical attributes that are sometimes imaginary. Racism is just simply evil. That's all it is. It's just evil. There's only one race. God is sovereign over all the people groups of the world. He decides where they live. He decides when and if they rise to prominence. And He decides when they fade into obscurity. Job 12, 23. He makes the nations great, then destroys them. He enlarges the nations, then leads them away. See, God is sovereign over all people groups. Verse 27, but He made them that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He's not far from each one of us. God has created humanity that we might seek after Him and that we might glorify Him by trusting Him as our sole provider of life and breath and all things. He's not a detached deity who is unaware of His creatures. He didn't... See, before I was a Christian, that's what I believed. I actually grew up in a denomination that Really, what they believed could be called deism. Moral therapeutic deism, really. Basically, God, there is a God, he created everything. He wound up the clock and set it in motion and let her go. And now what you do with it's up to you. But as to me, it's up to me. That's not God. Paul's saying that's not God. He gives to all men, life and breath and all things. He is actively engaged. We only continue to exist in Him because He wills it so. He's actively preserving and giving existence to us and everything else that exists, and He's doing it constantly and perpetually. Hebrews 1.3 says, he upholds, present tense, all things by the word of his power. There's nothing that exists outside of or separate from God. That's what Paul is preaching to them. Verses 28 and 29, he says, for in him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, for we also are his children. I'm gonna stop at 28 for just a second. So, some new information. I'm gonna kinda give you something to wrestle with and chew on here, because in this verse, in verse 28, Paul is quoting from two different Greek poets. The first quote is from the Cretan poet, Epimenides around 600 BC. And the line is addressed to Zeus. And the line says, for in thee we live and move and have our being. The second quote is from the Cilician poet Eratus. who lived from 315 to 240 BC, and the line from that poem is, it is with Zeus that every one of us in every way has to do, for we are also his offspring. Now, before anybody takes that information and goes down a rabbit hole with it, let me assure you that Paul is not equating Zeus and Yahweh. He's not equating Zeus, he's not recognizing Zeus. What he is saying there is even your poets understand and recognize that humanity is made in the image of God. He's using lines from the Greek poets to show them that even their own poets, even their own culture recognizes and understands that humanity is divinely generated and made in the divine image. He's making that very, and the reason why I know that he's not equating Zeus with God is because he began the message by telling them that they don't know the God he's proclaiming to them. He tells them, I see this altar to an unknown God. What you worship in ignorance, this I'm gonna proclaim to you. So he's not, and they wouldn't have understood him to be equating God with Zeus. So just make sure you understand that. And then he goes on in verse 24 to declare that this God whom they don't know made the world and all things in it, which would include them. So in verse 28, He's telling them that even though they're ignorant about who the creator is, even though they don't know God, even their own poets understood that humanity is divinely created in the image of its creator. And another thing that Paul is not saying is he's not saying that everyone is a child of God, as in born again, or adopted into the family of God. What he is saying is that every human being is generated by God and bears the divine image. So verse 29 says, being then the children of God, we ought not to think that the divine nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and thought of man. See, a man is not just a physical creature. Man is not just an intelligent animal. Man is a spiritual creature with a mind and a heart that cannot be portrayed by any physical material or image. If we take a picture of you, a snapshot, and we put it on the wall, you can see that image and you can say, well, yeah, that looks like him, but that tells you nothing. You don't know what's in that person's heart. You don't know their minds. You don't know their personality. You don't know anything really about them because they're not just a physical thing. They're a spiritual creature. that cannot be portrayed. Well, if this is true about the created creature, the man, how much more so about the creator? That's Paul's logic there. The God who has created everything, who no one has ever seen. He's invisible and he's transcendent. And he gives everything to everybody. And he's causing everything to exist right now. If you can't portray a man accurately with an image, how are you gonna portray him? How are you going to portray the God who holds it all together? John 4.24 says, God is spirit. Those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth. Verse 30 and 31, he says, therefore, Therefore, remember, that's based on everything I've just said. Therefore, because of all this, having overlooked the times of ignorance, you didn't know, but now you do. God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent. because he's fixed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness through a man whom he's appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising him from the dead. There's a day coming that God has already chosen and fixed. God is sovereign over history. God doesn't react. God's not waiting on humanity to do this or that, and then He's going to act. He's already fixed the day. He's already chosen it. He's already decreed. We don't know when it's gonna be, but He does. God is not reactive, He acts. He purposes, decrees, and he acts to work all things after the counsel of his own will. And he's fixed a day when he will judge everyone who's ever lived and he will judge them righteously with perfect justice. That means that he will by no means let the guilty go unpunished. Now that's really bad news for you if you're found outside of Christ. because God is going to judge the world both through Christ and by Christ. That means he's both the judge and the standard. If you think you're gonna be judged by the law of Moses, you're wrong. You're gonna be judged by Christ. He's the righteousness of God incarnate. And on the day of judgment, the only righteousness that will be accepted is His. That's it. He fulfilled the law of God perfectly, not just externally, He didn't just check boxes, but from the heart. He always loved the Lord, His God, with all of His heart, with all of His mind, with all of His strength. And He always loved His neighbors, Himself. And you know what? The resurrection is the proof Death had no hold on Christ because there was no sin in Christ. There's nobody here today that can make that claim. If you do, raise your hand. Can you say death has no hold on me because there's no sin in me? No. If you were to raise your hand, I'd say, well, there's one, because you just told a lie. I met a man one time who told me he hadn't sinned in seven years, and I think there's one right there. If any of us or any other human being anywhere else in the world were to die outside of Christ right now, that person would perish without hope. Because there is sin in all of us, and the wages of sin is death. Our only hope is to repent. That's what Paul says, repent. Well, what does that mean? Does it mean be sorry? No, that's not what it means. There's a godly sorrow that leads to repentance, but sorrow's not repentance. Repent literally means to think again, to think differently. Stop trying to establish our own righteousness and entrust ourselves to the righteousness of God, freely given to us in Jesus Christ. That's what it means to repent. Change your mind. Understand you can't justify yourself before God. That's why Jesus came. He did it for us. If we do that, if we believe in Jesus and we throw ourselves on the mercy of God, we will find that he is both just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. We can then be confident that death has no hold over us, not because there's no sin in us, but because there's no sin in Jesus and Jesus is in us. And that's the gospel. That's the gospel. Verses 32 through 34. Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some began to sneer, but others said, we shall hear you again concerning this. So Paul went out of their midst, but some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius the Araphagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them. Well, you know that first verse there is the universal response to the gospel. Some sneered, some were curious, and some believed. One commentator that I read said that Paul would have gotten a lot more favorable reception if he hadn't talked about the resurrection. The Greeks believed in the idea of an immortal soul or spirit that would go on. But you know what, the Christian hope is not that we have a spirit that will go on existing after we die. The Christian hope is that because Jesus rose from the grave as a complete human being, incorruptible, we will too. And we'll live forever with him in the new heavens and the new earth. You know that? You're not gonna be floating around up in the, Some ethereal state. You're going to live forever with Jesus in the new heavens and the new earth as a complete human being. Free from the curse of sin and death. He's making all things new. That's the message they couldn't take. The resurrection from the dead. That's the stumbling block. Well, although he doesn't reference it directly in this sermon, I believe that Paul was proclaiming the message of Psalm 96. And a lot of it is word for word. He took it right out of Psalm 96. I'm gonna read Psalm 96 and then we'll close. And while I'm reading it, listen carefully to what it says about the Lord. Think about the foolishness of giving the glory of the Lord to idols. to these lesser things that we devote our lives to. And think about His goodness and His mercy toward us and toward this world. Sing to the Lord a new song. Sing to the Lord, all the earth. Sing to the Lord, bless His name. Proclaim good tidings of His salvation from day to day. Tell of His glory among the nations, His wonderful deeds among all the peoples. For great is the Lord and greatly to be praised. He is to be feared above all gods. For all the gods of the peoples are idols, but the Lord made the heavens. Splendor and majesty are before Him. Strength and beauty or in his sanctuary. Ascribe to the Lord, O families of the peoples. Ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. Ascribe to the Lord the glory of his name. Bring an offering and come into his courts. Worship the Lord in holy attire. Tremble before him all the earth. Say among the nations, the Lord reigns. Indeed the Lord, indeed the world is firmly established. It will not be moved. He will judge the peoples with equity. Let the heavens be glad and let the earth rejoice. Let the sea roar in all it contains. Let the field exult in all that is in it. Then all the trees of the forest will sing for joy before the Lord, for he is coming. For he is coming to judge the earth. He will judge the world in righteousness and the people This is Paul's message to Athens, and it's the message to Lake Charles, to us here today. It's the gospel, and the Lord Jesus Christ is the one true God. Will you turn from idols today and worship him? There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word and we thank you for your glorious gospel and your grace and your goodness. For making yourself known through your creation, through your word. Oh Lord, we ask that you provoke us, Lord. We look around at all the lesser things that are being worshiped in our world today. Would you provoke us and make us those like Paul who can't help but point to you and glorify you in whatever we say, whatever we do. We thank you for these things in Jesus' name, amen.