Open your Bibles to the book of Acts chapter 17. So, Acts chapter 17. We're continuing talking about Areopagus. The Mars Hill speech is occurring and we'll be looking at the speech starting at verse 22. Verse 22. 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 the 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 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 to all life, breath, and all things. And he has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all 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, while 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, Dionysius the Aropagite, a woman named Damaris, and others with him. I've spent a good deal of time trying to dissuade you of certain false interpretations of this text. Remember that one of them was a more flattering view where the idea is Paul is coming in saying you're very religious people, very pious. The other one coming in and saying you're very religious and that's a neutral statement and I'll gradually get to something offensive. I have told you that in reality he starts out by saying I have noticed that you are a very demon-fearing people. Which remember is a phrase that the Epicureans would use, the Stoics would use to mock the general pagan population as being superstitious. And so, since we're dealing with those people, there is reason to understand that that would be the meaning that would be understood. And from there, we have the deconstruction of the position of the Stoics and the Epicureans, both in the destruction of their materialism, naturalistic materialism, destruction of more sophisticated polytheism by the Epicureans and the destruction of a pantheism by the Stoics. And so let's consider that as we go down. Remember also that when Paul in the Agora, the marketplace, was engaging with people there, he came across Stoics and Epicureans who thought he was preaching foreign gods, because he was preaching the gospel of Jesus and the resurrection. And so he has a context of preaching the gospel. And so his outline is to proclaim the truth, tear down falsehood, and then proclaim the truth again. So Continuing with this examination of this particular speech, he calls them fearers of demons. He tells them that they worship idols while being skeptical of them, and that they admit the existence of an unknown God whom they worship without knowing. Paul then tells them he knows the God, but they don't, and is proclaiming that God to them. And he talks about this God as being the creator of all, the ruler of all, and then discusses the nature of God and the work of God. Now, God as creator of all. If we look at verse 24, God who made the world and everything in it, This denies polytheism. This makes it so that there is an eternal God that is distinct from the Greek pantheon. If you try to have a more complex version of the Greek pantheon, with the pantheon being attributes of one God, then there is a danger here of the reality that there is a a lying way of dealing with that one God. And now there's things to be considered, and that's going to come up down the road. So we have a crass polytheism that's deconstructed by the claim that God made the world and everything in it. That destroys pantheism. A creator God does not allow for pantheism. If everything is eternal, if God is everything and everything is God, then you don't have a creator-creature distinction. This destroys monism, which means that everything is one. And so pantheism is a type of monism. So this destroys the idea that there's just one thing and that would include naturalistic materialism. Okay. So when you have the Epicureans and some of them saying that all there is is atoms in the void, that's a type of monism. It's materialistic. and the Stoics have a pantheism where they make everything God and God everything. And so those two monistic views are contradicted by the claim of a creator. It also is destructive of dualism, which you would have in Plato and also in Aristotle, depending on how you interpret Aristotle. And so you have the, monism, the dualism, they're both contradicted. Polytheism is contradicted by this one creator God. And so you have him setting himself up against all of the views represented in the Areopagus. So verse 24, God who made the world and everything in it, since he is Lord of heaven and earth, now we have the claim of not only being creator, but also being the ruler. He is Lord of Heaven and Earth. Since he is Lord of Heaven and Earth, he does not dwell in temples made with hands. This is an attack on their religious institutions, which they have made. Now, the making of these temples by hands is a reference to the human origin. Not just them making them, but them being kind of their own divisor. God obviously commanded a temple be made for him in Israel, right in Jerusalem. And so he had the choice of commanding that and then to have a special dwelling there in the sense of having a theophany, an appearance of his presence. And he made it so that there was the symbol that he cared about, which was his word, The word being written is symbolic, language is symbolic, and it represents thoughts, it represents propositions. And so the Ten Commandments being written out in Hebrew and being put in the Ark of the Covenant is about the presence of God, the word being present. And then that dwelling in the people is his presence with the people. Now, that was instituted by God, these temples that are instituted by man, they are not only insufficient to keep God there, but he has no obligation to go and give a special presence there. In fact, he hates and opposes all false temples. He does not dwell in temples made with hands, nor is he worshipped with men's hands. Now that word, worshipped, is not what you would think of as the ordinary words that are used for worship. Latria is one, which kind of has to do with priestly service, and dulia, having to do with being a slave of God. This is the root of the word therapy, okay? The idea here is a service, that either assuages or is therapeutic to God or there's this service that is something where he needs it. That's the idea. He is not served. He does not have something he needs that he's given by the hands of men. And that's made clear by the context, right? Nor is he worshipped with men's hands as though he needed anything. since he gives to all life, breath, and all things." Right? The origin from God of all the things that man has. Now, Psalm 50 verses 9 to 12 emphasizes this well. It says, I will accept no bull from your house, nor he goat from your fold, For every beast of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills. I know all the birds of the air, and all that moves in the field is mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell you. For the world and all that is in it is mine. God obviously isn't hungry. He doesn't need anything. This is the doctrine of the aseity of God, that he is without need. He is independent. He has nothing that he is dependent upon. No need of anything. And so, the view that God created man because he was lonely, needed somebody, that's nonsense. There was perfect community between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit before creation. There is no need that God has that he gets from men. God created men to display how without need he was. He created to show the overflow of abundance of his greatness. He created to display his glory, which was not obtained by creation or redemption, but is displayed in creation and redemption. Verse 25, Nor is he worshipped with men's hands as though he needed anything, since he gives to all life, breath, and all things. Verse 26, And he has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their pre-appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings. This is part of God as ruler. He providentially governs. He's the lawgiver who judges, but he providentially governs. And as the Creator, and we as the creatures, we are under His authority. He is transcendent. He is above us. So both the transcendence of God, that He is above us, are displayed in this text, and the imminence of God, that He is everywhere present, will soon be discussed, and that everything is in Him. So we have those things laid out. People in the Greek world who emphasize the transcendence of God would sometimes try to have some sort of theory of emanation that the Gnostics picked up on. The theory of emanation would try to take God or the good and say the world is so messed up and so grimy and disgusting and matter is even evil. What we're going to do is explain how matter and the griminess and the evil of the world exist by having God and then God made something and it was really, really, really, really good and really close to God even. And then that thing made something that was a step below there. You have this series of emanations down to make it so that eventually you get to matter. And that's something that was in a number of philosophies in the Greek world and denies the creator creature element in terms of us having a close relationship to God, any sort of element of our nature. And Paul's going to attack that by saying, look, we're like God in that we're his offspring, or we're of the same race is actually the word that he uses. And that point is that he's pointing to the likeness or the image of God. And so it's the point of similarity is not the matter, The point of similarity is in our minds. He's going to show, look, your own philosophers have proclaimed this. So verse 26, and he has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth. So we talked last time about the fact that there's this Athenian racism that existed about coming out of the land and being of a separate race and how that was common. He's denying that. We're one race. There's a commonality to humanity, a shared human nature. "...and has determined their pre-appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings." He predestines where the nations are. 27, "...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." So I told you about how That was a terrible translation and I tried to give you some sense of it with reading you a wooden Greek translation. I've come up with an English translation to try to help to make it a little bit easier to follow. Okay, so the text in the New King James says, So that they should seek the Lord in the hope that they might grow up for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. Now, I believe this text is saying man is responsible for seeking God, that man is inexcusable for not finding God, but in our darkness of mind, we grope around in the darkness. responsibility, the absurdity of our own invented views. And yet at the same time, when we're presented with the attributes of the true God, the clarity, the inexcusability, and that in fact, these thoughts get presented all over the place, including in their own poets. Okay, so it was going to show how they contradict themselves. So here's my translation for you. As opposed, we're not talking about that they had some sort of ability to successfully grope for God to come to a saving knowledge. What's being said here, here's my translation. So that they should seek the Lord, there's obligation, not ability, obligation. So that they should seek the Lord by groping for him, and find him. They have an obligation to search for him in the darkness and to try to find him. And indeed, he is not far off from any individual. So that's the question is, how is that? How is he not far off from any individual? And that's going to be explained. And the basic answer is, the light that lights the minds of all men is the same thing in John 1, Romans 1, and here. And it establishes inexcusability because the eternal power and the divine attributes of God are being suppressed in their own minds. So it's a statement of obligation and not of ability. The in the hope that is not in the text. It's this taking out of the idea that they as individuals are obligated to seek the Lord, and that even in their darkness, they should be searching, seeking God, to try to find him. And there's also a reality that God is not far off since he is omnipresent, since he lights the minds of all men, so there's an excusability. That's what this is about. So it's about responsibility, clarity, and inexcusability. Now, let me show you Romans 1, 18-21 as a comparison text. Romans 1, verse 18. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them. That's why it's not far off from an individual. For God has shown it to them. By the light of nature, by having the image of God be what man is, by having the reason and the attributes of God present in men's souls innately manifest in them. Verse 19 because what may be known of God is manifest in them for God has shown it to them for since the creation of the world his invisible attributes are clearly seen being understood by the creature By the things that are made. That's one word in the Greek. It's by the creature. That creature is man. Being understood by the creature. Even his eternal power and Godhead. His eternal power and his divine attributes. So that they are without excuse. Because although they knew God, in the sense that they have the attributes of God in their minds, And when they apply those to other things wrongly, it's obviously absurd. It leads to contradictions. They did not glorify him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools and changed the glory of the incorruptible God, into an image made like corruptible man and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things." So there's the idolatry. And Paul goes on to talk about how that results in being given over to a deepening sin. Now, Paul is saying the same thing in both places. He's talking about the suppression of the truth and the duty to not suppress but instead to seek out. But no one seeks, no one understands, no one does what is good. That's what Paul says later in Romans. No one seeks, no one understands, no one does what is good. So they should seek, they should grope and attain understanding by finding and by when they come across the oracles and ordinances, you know, It's not as though the Jews hadn't been around and preaching. So there's this, the light that lights the minds of all men, reason and the innate ideas, these attributes of God. They are deconstructing, creating idols, putting it into a new form, suppressing it to avoid responsibility, and then coming across the ordinances and the oracles of God. They aren't grabbing hold. And so, there's not this ability to say, well, you know, the Word of God hasn't come here. And also, there's not the ability to say that any man, even somebody in the Americas at this time, or Australia, could say, well, I had no way of knowing that there was a creator God that I'm responsible to. Ah, so it seemed to you that there had been a long succession of change forever, that the universe was eternal, You didn't make up any gods. There's this need to find something eternal. So now let's look at the quotes that Paul cites. One last thing I want to point out actually, when Paul talks about all the nations having their boundaries set by God, he is referencing, there's kind of a famous line in Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy 32 verse 8. So we're talking about every nation being made by God and governed by God. We have not only the creation, we have providence, right? God's creating and God's ruling. Deuteronomy 32 verse 8 says, when the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of men, He fixed the bounds of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God. So God set up, he's governed, he's ruled, he has set up things to be the way they are and has spread out the nations. Now, we carry on. Let's look at the text now. So we've seen the creation of providence. We've seen that these ideas are from the text of the Bible. Paul's presenting them without citation, just saying, here are truths. Verse 28. He's continuing now with the argument for responsibility. So let's actually reread 27. Verse 27, I have it. So that they should seek the Lord by groping for him and find him. And indeed he is not far off from any individual. 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. So these are two quotes For him, we live and move and have our being. That's from Epimenides, the Cretan. And this is a line that Paul apparently enjoyed a good deal, because he also cites this in Titus chapter 1, verse 12. Here's the context of the quote, okay? So Epimenides, he Plato and Aristotle both reference this poet. They disagree about what century he lived in. Plato thinks he lived in the 500s, and Aristotle thinks he lived in the 600s BC. He is a polytheistic author, generally. And he is yet the one who says, in him we live and move and have our being. Now that makes it so that it sounds like he's a pantheist. So remember I told you these quotes seem to refute the authors themselves while also showing how the quote makes it so that their worship of the idols is absurd. So here's the quote. Here's the full quote from Epimenides. Quote, they fashioned a tomb for you, oh holy and high one. The Cretans, always liars, evil beasts, idle bellies. But you are not dead. You live and abide forever. For in you we live and move and have our being. Now that line about the Cretans, remember in Titus, he's rebuking as he's sending Titus to go to Crete. He's dealing with false teachers and he quotes this. Epimenides is sometimes claimed to have been the author of the liar paradox, the liar's paradox. If I tell you everything I say is a lie, If that's true, then the statement itself is true, and therefore it's false. If it is false, then you end up in a place where, okay, so everything I say is a lie, that's false. So some things I say are true, but that statement is not. But typically, people look at this paradox and they'll say, you know, either everything the person says is true or everything the person says is false, and they get stuck in this problem. But the liar's paradox, if I'm a liar, and I say I'm a liar, then that makes it so that there's this paradoxical circle, unless I don't always lie. Now, this obviously isn't always statement, because Epimenides, he's a Cretan. Okay, so he's from Crete, and he says Cretans, people from Crete, are always liars, evil beasts, idle bellies. So if he's always a liar, then this statement has to be a lie. And if it's a lie, then it's not true. So you see the problem. So anyways, this is the liar's paradox. Now Paul quotes this in Titus, and he says the statement is true. And the point that Paul is making is that the prophecy of the Cretans, that the sources of knowledge that the Cretans are using are contradictory. It's an ad hominem argument. And it's the same way that Paul is using quotes in this text. He's not saying I agree with the authority that I'm citing. He's saying let's examine the other position that we are arguing against and let's see if it leads to a problem. Ah, it does lead to a problem. It contradicts itself. Let's move on. Those are false. I've cleared the way. Let's talk about the truth now. So that's the methodology. It's called an ad hominem argument. Not to be confused with an abusive ad hominem argument. An abusive ad hominem argument is an argument where you are saying this person, you say, you attack the character of the person and therefore say that what they've said can't be true. So rather than engaging with the argument, you're attacking the character of the person. An ad hominem is not an abusive ad hominem. An ad hominem argument is an argument where you are attacking the position by saying, if it's true, it leads to an internal contradiction. And everybody who engages with the liar's paradox understands that it leads to a contradiction. Okay. So they fashioned a tomb for you, O holy and high one. The Cretans, always liars, evil beasts, idle bellies. But you are not dead. You live and abide forever. For in you we live and move and have our being. So that's the line. And Paul cites from this little paragraph, this couple of lines of his writing, He cites from this twice, once in Titus and once here. So this is an important paragraph of pagan literature. So in you, we live and move and have our being. That is, people would often want to label that the doctrine of omnipresence. And it is, it's an implication of it. But it's useful to use the label imminence for this, that God, the imminence of God is such that The omnipresence of God, God is everywhere. The eminence of God, everything is in God. Sorry, I'm sorry, that's the wrong word. Not the eminence, the eminence is the presence of God, forgive me. The immensity, the immensity of God, the largeness of God. Okay, so God is so big that everything's in him. So he's, he's omnipotent. He's omnipotent. He's omnipotent. He's imminent, which means he's present with us, and he's omnipresent. He's present everywhere, but he's also immense. He's large. And so everything's in him. And when we talk about God being in everything and everything being in God, you might start to think that parts of God are everywhere. and that we are in different parts of God. And so what Paul does is he then quotes from a pantheist to show that that's not how it works, because pantheism can say, sure, there's parts of God. So right now, quoting one of these polytheistic writers that the Epicureans respect, The Stoics are sitting there going, ha, that's right. We like to quote this guy back at the Epicureans also and at the Polytheists and show them how even one of their own poets says something that sounds very pantheistic, that in him we live and move and have our being. And you can have God with parts in that, which is what pantheism results in. Now, when we go and continue, the next quote The next quote is from Eratus, who was born in 310 BC. Eratus is a Stoic. He is pantheistic. And so let's read how Paul quotes from him. Verse 28, for in him we live and move and have our being. As also some of your own poets have said, And this is the next quote, 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. So what he is doing is attacking the use of the idols which condemns both the Stoics and the Epicureans for their hypocrisy. And the idea that we are his offspring, that there's something similar in us, not gold, silver, stone, something similar in us to God. And let me give you the context as to this quote, because this quote, when you read back a couple of lines, it helps to demonstrate It helps to demonstrate that we're not just talking about a God who in parts is everywhere, or that we're in different parts of that God. Here's the quote from Eratus. Let us begin with Zeus. Never, oh men, let us leave him unmentioned. All the ways are full of Zeus. All the paths are full of Zeus. And all the marketplaces of human beings. The sea is full of him. So are the harbors. In every way, we have all to do with Zeus, for we are truly his offspring. So this view of Zeus, using Zeus to represent this kind of pantheistic God, the ways are full of him. The marketplaces are full of him. The sea is full of him. The harbors are full of him. So all the paths and all the end locations are full of him. So that's the paths and the locations, the points. Any one place and any stretch of place full of him. In every way. We have all to do with Zeus, for we are truly his offspring." Okay, so the fullness of Zeus present along the way and in the locations. So not a part, and this is a pantheistic author, and so it's a denial of the partialism that God is in parts in different places from a pantheist. So remember how I told you Paul brilliantly selects some very short quotes that destroy the source from which they're quoted and attack the other side? And notice the author that's a pantheist is actually using the name Zeus, which, of course, the polytheists are happy with. Epicureans are happy with that. And so there's a denial of the idea of man being just matter. there's something about us that has an overlap with the category of God or the gods. And so Paul takes that and goes and deconstructs further. 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 and man's devising. God's not dependent upon us, and we shouldn't worship things that are made by us. So what we have is not only the quote from Epimenides that says that God is everywhere and that everything is in God, but we also have the quote from Eratus that shows us that God is a ubiquity. He is ubiquitous. He is everywhere in full, not in parts. And that means that he has to not be matter. So that goes to the spirituality of God. And so we are, his nature is not like gold or silver or stone. His nature is like our souls. The thing about us that's different from matter. And do you see why maybe The Epicureans who believe in nothing but atoms in the void would be opposed to the spirituality of God. So God is omnipresent. He's everywhere. He's immense. Everything is in him. He is ubiquitous. He's everywhere in full, not in parts. And he's spiritual. He's a soul. He's not matter. He's not extended. Now, because I couldn't let myself go with just giving you a bunch of theological terms. I also thought I'd bring in the theological argument that is used as the example of absurd theological arguments. How many angels can dance on the head of a pen? Now, if angels are only spirit and don't have bodies, then an infinite number can dance on the head of a pen. And that's the same sort of idea that makes it so that the whole of God can be everywhere. Spirituality is not matter. Spirituality does not take up space. So the wholeness of God is in every place. And this leads, of course, to the reality that God does not need us. This is the aseity of God, the independence. He has no need of anything. God has. extraordinary power, including the power to be just fine without us. And so what we look at what Paul has done here is he has demolished the human centric philosophies and religion of the Athenians using their own quotes. And he is showing that the Christian religion resolves the problems. And so These people who pride themselves as being knowledgeable, as being wise, he then calls ignorant. Verse 30. 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. Now this is the last verse that gets interpreted by people to try to remove some sort of responsibility of man. The way this gets interpreted, people will say, the ignorance got overlooked. He's going to overlook it, like he's not going to hold people accountable. And then when the gospel goes to people, then they're accountable. You ever heard that from an evangelical? Okay, well, let's stop preaching then. Sending people to hell by telling them the gospel. That makes the end of all things, the glory of God, and the preaching of the gospel and seeking to love men by doing so, that puts those in contradiction. If I'm seeking people's good, I won't tell them the gospel because then they won't be held responsible. And if I'm trying to glorify God, I will preach the gospel because I want him to be known. Ah, paradox. That's not what this is saying. What this is saying, the word that's translated, overlook. is really not attending to. Okay, overlook is fine. It's not overlook in the sense of he overlooks it like he forgives it or just doesn't hold you responsible. It's overlooking as in, I'm choosing to not do anything about this. Now, broadly speaking, most Christians can't handle that. That means God is doing this. I understand that you are going to hell, but I am not going to save you. And so people don't like that. They don't like the idea that God predestines men to hell. That God had a plan to not have the gospel go some places until a certain time. And that in the darkness, his plan was to hold those men accountable for their darkness because they suppress the truth and unrighteousness. So they want this verse to mean God is going to not hold people accountable for that time. But now that the gospel is going out, And what the verse is saying is that God didn't attend to these people in that time of ignorance. He left them to die in the darkness. But now he's commanding them to repent with the explicit command to repent. So verse 30, truly these times of ignorance God overlooked. He didn't attend to them. 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 so this call to repent is because of the fact that he has appointed a day for the judgment and that he has accomplished the demonstration of this in a way that causes it to go out to the world now with the resurrection of Jesus Christ. After which the gospel is to go to the end of the earth. The end of the earth. The ends of the earth. So this is just a reference to the stuff we've already studied in Acts. Resurrection occurred. Ascension occurred. The gospel is going out to the ends of the earth. This is not some novel doctrine that we have never seen before in the Bible, that men are not accountable until the preaching of the gospel went to the nations. Because he appointed, 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 while others said, we will hear you again on this matter. So Paul departed from among them. However, some of them joined him and believed, among them Dionysius the Arapagite, a woman named Damaris, and others with them. Paul is pointing to the resurrection and saying, life isn't meaningless. You're not just a beast of the field who needs to maximize pleasure until you die, Epicureans. There's a judgment to come. Life is not just about tranquility of mind and avoiding pain, Stoics, and trying to reduce the suffering by making it so that things don't matter. It's not meaningless, Stoics. Life is meaningful, and it is everlasting. The consequences are everlasting, which makes it meaningful. There's a God who judges, and he is not Zeus. Morality and purpose require everlasting consequences. The resurrection and the judgment both support everlasting consequences. So the response of some people is to mock. Because they don't want to be responsible. And some of the other people put it off. Yeah, we'll hear you again about this. Paul doesn't seem to take their desire to hear again very seriously. He seems to think they are putting it off. Because then he heads out of town. This isn't a Yeah, you know, I'm really interested in hearing more. Can we, can we, can we talk about this some more? It's okay. I mean, let's talk about this another time. You've been put off, right? But we have Dionysius and we have Demarus and others who join the covenant. They join, they believe they're baptized and they believe. The last thing I'm going to say here, before asking for questions, is Dionysius, the Areopagite. There are a bunch of writings that are called, now they're referred to as pseudo-Dionysius, which means fake Dionysius. And they are about the idea of having contemplative enjoyment of God. And there's this discussion about God being the one. and how he's beyond predication, beyond thinking. And so what you need to do is to have the beatific vision and enjoyment of God, where you have this experiential flow that's beyond thinking. It's super rational. And people go, ah, this is apostolic teaching because it's Dionysius, and this must have been a part of what Paul was teaching. It's not written by Dionysius. It's written far later. But in addition to that, it's nonsense. because you don't worship the God who you know by saying he's unknowable and making him beyond knowledge. Paul very clearly teaches Dionysius that he ought to know the God whom he did not know. And Dionysius repents by believing, by coming to know the God that he previously was ignorant of. It is not a growth in sanctification to say, ah, now I'm going to move beyond knowledge and move to the contemplative oneness of existential flow from beatific vision beyond thinking and rationality. So Dionysius has been used as a name to support contemplative mystical nonsense in the Middle Ages. The Middle Ages were filled with it. So whenever anybody calls you to be holy by moving beyond thinking, say no, thank you. I worship the God whom I know. Comments, questions, objections from the voting members? Mr. Carnavon? Thank you for your teaching today. The question I had is referring to the doctrine that God does not need anyone or anything. That's actually something that I've never heard before, although I understand it and understand So the doctrine that God does not need anything from anybody is the aseity of God. A-S-E-I-T-Y, I believe. Let me check. I've got it spelled out. A-S-E-I-T-Y. The aseity of God. He's independent. He has no dependencies. He has no need of anything. Yes. The doctrine is taught in several places, but one of them is Psalm 50 verses 9 through 12. I will accept no bull from your house, nor he goat from your fold. For every beast of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills. I know all the birds of the air and all that moves in the field is mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell you. For the world and all that is in it is mine. So he owns everything. He doesn't need anything from man, but there's elsewhere, you know, obviously the fact that he's eternal, the fact that he's created everything further. And so there are other verses as well, but that's, that's a common one that's used because it's a powerful mocking line, right? If I were hungry, I wouldn't tell you. Right. So, and that's, that's a conditional if I were, which he is not. Sure. Okay. Great. Thank you. Great. All right, let's pray. Father, we ask that you would bless the teaching of your word. We ask that you'd help us to have a clear understanding of the teaching that the Apostle Paul gave on Mars Hill. And we ask that you would help us to follow his example of clear deconstruction and positive construction of displaying the truth of your word, and that you would cause men to come to repentance. We ask that you would bring our own nation to repentance and cause our churches to reform. And we pray this in Christ's name. Amen.