Paul finds himself on the Acropolis of Athens before the Areopagus - the city’s rulers and leading philosophers, who ask him to share the message he has been preaching in the agora (the city’s marketplace).
Transcription (automatically-generated):
His life. Being in imminent danger from Jewish persecution, Paul has had to change plans, flee Berea, and journey south via the Aegean Sea to Athens, where his heart is grieved and righteously. Angered by a city filled to the brim with idolatry, they filled seemingly square inch of Athens with temples, shrines, altars, statues, and buildings dedicated to thousands of gods. Paul's heart is disturbed to see the people of Athens caught up in hopeless living. For indeed, the Gospel of Christ is the only genuine message of hope.
It declares that man is not a cosmic accident or some random collection of atoms loving through a meaningless and impersonal universe. There is a God who created all things and has authority over all things. And this God is good, creating men and women to know him, be known by him, enjoy him, and glorify him. Man's connection to his maker was lost in the fall but is restored through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus on the cross of Calvary. And through him, sins are forgiven and alienated.
Enemies of God are reconciled to him and adopted into his family as sons and daughters for all eternity. The key to contentment, peace, and happiness in this life is found in knowing this Jesus and being ruled by him, filled with the Spirit of God. Paul was filled with God's love for the men and women of Athens, and he sprang into action, sharing the Gospel in the synagogue on the Sabbath and reasoning with men in the marketplace, the agora, as Socrates had centuries before him. So, let's jump back in. In Acts, chapter 17, verse 18, some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also debated with him, with Paul.
As we mentioned last week, Athens was the philosophical center of the world. It was where the world's greatest men of reason and logic studied, taught, and debated. Epicureanism and Stoicism were two of the leading schools of philosophy and had both existed for over three centuries. All genuinely developed philosophies are in fact worldviews. They are lenses through which we perceive and explain the nature of reality.
All religions are worldviews, as are philosophies, such as materialism, naturalism, and even atheism. The question, though, is which worldview explains the nature of reality best in light of science, history, observable reality, and logic? I won't get into it today, but I will share the punchline with you. It's Christianity, and it's the reason I am a more devoted follower of Jesus Christ today than I've ever been. There is simply no other worldview, philosophy, or religion that can match the explanatory power of the Christian worldview.
In Athens, Epicureanism and Stoicism were two of the major schools of philosophy that dominated the city's philosophical landscape. Epicureanism was founded on the teachings of the Greek philosopher Epicurus around 307 BC. He was a materialist meaning that he believed the material world was all that there is. He would have likely been expelled from society for teaching straight atheism. So, he instead taught a form of agnosticism that declared the gods have no interest or involvement in human affairs.
He would rail against the foolishness of Athenians who spent their lives preoccupied with trying to please the gods. Epicureanism was a form of hedonism, but not in the way you may think of when you hear the word. The hedonism part comes from their belief that pleasure is the goal of life. However, they also believed that the absence of pain and fear led to the greatest pleasure and so they would therefore pursue modest, sustainable, uncomplicated lives that minimize their risk of exposure to pain or fear through worldly entanglements. They sought to live in harmony with the natural world and these goals unsurprisingly led them to withdraw from politics as it would inevitably lead to much frustration and unhealthy ambitions.
Stoicism, on the other hand, was founded on the teachings of Zeno of Citium around 300 BC. He perceived at least some of what's theologically termed general revelation. Zeno observed and agreed that there was a Logos - a divine order to nature and reality that bore the fingerprints of an intelligent creator. He also recognized the internal Torah conscience that God has put into every man and concluded that virtue was a necessary part of achieving a well-lived and flourishing life. In contrast to the Epicureans, the Stoics concluded that the key to achieving a well-lived life was a disciplined life.
They observed correctly that emotions can easily get in the way of leading a disciplined life. And so, they sought to gain mastery over their emotions by avoiding emotional entanglements and not allowing their behavior and speech to be determined by their feelings. They sought to be courageous and temperate and master themselves by reaching the point where they Derbe emotionally dead. There were not a lot of Stoic artists. The Stoics even believed that humanity proceeded from a single point of origin.
However, they were also pantheistic believing in many gods and a form of universalism where they sought to live in harmony with the natural order, the Logos. There's quite a bit in Zeno's teachings that is indeed praiseworthy. But of course, the fatal flaw of Stoicism is the goal is said to be to kill the emotions. I'm being ruled by my emotions, therefore I need to completely kill my emotions. But emotions are part of being human and any philosophy that seeks to kill part of what makes us human is destined for failure.
Because the solution is not to become less human by killing part of your humanity. The only solution is to submit every part of your humanity to the lordship of Jesus Christ that he might redeem it and bring wholeness and redemption to it. That it might begin to function more as it was originally intended to. Emotions are a gift from God. They are not a curse.
Emotions out of control will rule you and dominate you and be a curse. But emotions under the lordship of Jesus allow us to experience so many of the good things that God has given to us in his grace. As you can see, these philosophies were worldviews. They were lenses through which to perceive reality and to try and make sense of reality and instruct how to live in light of it.
F.F. Bruce commented on both philosophies stoicism and epicureanism represent alternative attempts in pre-Christian paganism to come to terms with life, especially in times of uncertainty and hardship. And post-Christian paganism, down to our own day, has not been able to devise anything appreciably better. In response, it says some said to Paul, what is this ignorant show-off? Or what is this seed picker trying to say?
The Greek word translated "show-off" was generally used to describe birds scavenging for seeds. And so, some of these philosophers who were debating Paul in the Agora used the term metaphorically to insult him. They were implying that he was a religious charlatan, plagiarizing bits of information from other religions and trying to pass them off as his own. One scholar suggested a contemporary equivalent for the term would be heckling a speaker by calling them a third-rate journalist. That's the idea of what they're insulting Paul with.
Then it says others replied, he seems to be a preacher of foreign deities because he was telling the good news about Jesus and the resurrection. So, they say deities - plural - because others are mistaking his message to be referring to two gods one named Jesus and another named Resurrection. So, they haven't really figured it out yet. Verse 19 - they took him and brought him to the Areopagus collectively, the philosophers listened to Paul and engaged with him enough that they decided his message needed to be brought before the Areopagus. More than a place, the Areopagus was the regular gathering of the city's political leaders and philosophers that took place on the Acropolis, that famous hill in Athens upon which sits the Parthenon even to this day.
Now, contrary to the widely held belief, it's not certain that the Areopagus convened on the part of the Acropolis known as Mars Hill, the hill of Ares, only that they convened somewhere on the Acropolis close to the Parthenon. And so there is Paul on top of this hill. One of the most famous hills in the world, engaging with the most brilliant men of Athens. And for centuries, the men of Athens had understood that a culture's philosophies drive its politics. They took seriously the debate of reason and logic and were determined to expel illogical, bad ideas from their midst.
The leading philosophies would be recognized by the Areopagus and then taught to children in the schools of Athens. Today, our culture's philosophies drive our politics and public education system. However, those philosophies are not determined by the most intelligent among us or the most reasonable, but by fools. They are not formed by rigorous debate, but by censoring contrary opinions. They are not founded upon reason and logic but upon weak-minded emotionalism.
They are not implemented by a council of thoughtful and respectable men, but by corrupt cowards who are slaves to corruption, power, and other demons. Yes, I have thoughts where reason is scorned, and the truth is considered dangerous. A culture is doomed. Let the hearer understand. Paul was brought to the Areopagus because the men who ruled Athens wanted to know what he was teaching in their city.
Could it stand up to the scrutiny of their questions? What a journey Paul has been on. He has taught the Gospel in small towns, off the beaten track to farmers and rural agricultural folk. And now he stands before the greatest minds on earth at the time to present the Gospel and give a defense for it. They said, "May we learn about this new teaching you are presenting? Because what you say sounds strange to us and we want to know what these things mean."
Now, all the Athenians and the foreigners residing there spent their time on nothing else but telling or hearing something new. The Areopagus was a Joe Rogan podcast that never ended. You can hear in Luke's tone his observation that for most among the Areopagus, their interest in Paul's message was recreational. Philosophy was not simply their job; it was also their hobby and their passion.
And Luke is tipping us off here in his narration that they brought Paul to the Areopagus to find out what was being taught in their city, but they also brought him there as a form of entertainment. A new religion or a brand-new worldview or a new idea would be like a blockbuster movie opening in town. Have you heard the worldview of Paul from Israel? Have you heard Paul from Antioch? And Luke is cautioning us not to think that most in the audience were sincerely interested in the Gospel.
He's letting us know they were mostly looking for intellectual stimulation and debate. Paul naturally, though, gladly accepted their invitation and now moves into his famous Areopagus address. In verse 22, it says, Paul stood in the middle of the Areopagus and said, people of Athens, I see that you are extremely religious in every respect. Now, sucking up to the audience was frowned upon in the Areopagus, to their credit, and that's not what Paul is doing. He's actually opening with a joke based on how glaringly over the top the Athenians were into their worship of these thousands of gods.
And the epicureans, who were materialists, would have likely chuckled with glee as Paul made this little opening joke. I see you are extremely religious, to put it mildly, in every respect. For as I was passing through and observing the objects of your worship, I even found an altar on which was inscribed, to an unknown god, therefore what you worship in ignorance. This I proclaim to you. Paul brilliantly connects his message to the city of Athens, saying, you are aware that you don't know everything about the spiritual world.
In fact, you're concerned that there may be a god you're unaware of. That's why you have an altar to an unknown god. I am here to tell you about that god, the God who made the world and everything in it. He is lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by hands. Paul Clarifies, the god he's speaking of is not a minor god, is not a demigod.
He is the god of gods, the supreme god, the Lord of heaven and earth, and the maker of all things. Paul is speaking of the Logos that was perceived by the Stoics but not known to them. Paul continues and now reasons with these men who pride themselves on their ability to reason. And he's going to point out three illogical beliefs about the supreme god who made the world and everything in it, starting with the idea that such a god would live in shrines made by hands. It's an illogical idea because a man-made structure could never contain that kind of god.
You can't confine the living god as Solomon was dedicating the first temple. This is on your outlines. He prayed to the Lord, but will God indeed live on earth? Even heaven, the highest heaven, cannot contain you, much less this temple I have built. And David pondered God's omnipresence in Psalm 139 lord, you have searched me and known me.
You know when I sit down and when I stand up, you understand my thoughts from far away you observe my travels and my rest. You are aware of all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue, you know all about it. Lord, you have encircled me. You have placed Your hand on me.
This wondrous knowledge is beyond me. It is lofty. I'm unable to reach it. Where can I go to escape from Your spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to heaven, you are there. If I make my bed in Shiol, that's Hades, you are there. If I fly on the wings of the dawn and settle down on the western horizon, even there your hand will lead me. Our right hand will hold on to me. If I say surely the darkness will hide me and the light around me will be night.
Even the darkness is not dark to you. The night shines like the day. Darkness and light are alike to you. So write this down it is illogical to believe the supreme god could be contained by manmade structures. It is illogical to believe the supreme god could be contained by manmade structures.
Paul continues in verse 25 neither is he served by human hands as though he needed anything, since he himself gives everyone life, breath, and all things. The second illogical belief Paul highlights is the idea that the god who gives everyone life and breath in all things would need anything from the human hands. That he created as the sustainer of all life. He does not need to be sustained by us. As John Stott put it, we depend on God, he does not depend on us.
And as Paul wrote to the Romans, from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. Write this down. It is illogical to believe the Supreme God needs anything from the humans he created. He doesn't need anything from us.
Paul says he himself gives everyone life and breath and all things, not only believers, but also unbelievers. Our brother James tells us that every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights. If it's good, it's from God. Delicious food, the beauty of nature, the joy of laughter. These are examples of what we call common grace, given by God to everyone as a taste of his goodness and character.
Paul is going to point out the third illogical belief about the Supreme God when we reach verse 29. Let's keep going. In verse 26, from one man, he has made every nationality. A belief shared by the Stoics, but not by Greeks in general, who viewed their race as vastly superior to non-Greek barbarians, in a similar way to how the Jews look down on Gentiles as being kindling for the fires of hell. So, Paul's picking a little bit of a fight here, saying, you're not special just because you're Greek.
Everybody ultimately comes from the same man and Romans. And I want to point something out here that we can easily miss as we fly through the text. There are contemporary Christian who do not believe that humanity could have descended from one man and one woman. From Adam and Eve. The eminent philosopher William Lane Craig is one such Christian.
However, Paul is explicit here in verse 26 that God created every nationality from one man. There are not multiple ways to interpret that the Scripture is speaking emphatically. Therefore, those who disagree are wrong. And it's only a matter of time before science catches up to the Scriptures, as we have seen countless times over the centuries. You do not want to be taking the position of, well, here's the thing.
I know more than Paul. I'm more enlightened than Paul was. Listen, when you're tutored for a few years in the desert of Arabia by Jesus Christ personally, then you can talk. But until then, we're loving to go with Paul, who is documented and certified as an apostle of Jesus Christ. Paul affirms a literal interpretation of the Book of Genesis, just as Jesus did when he was on the earth.
From one man, he has made every nationality to live over the whole earth and has determined their appointed times and the boundaries of where they live. Part of God's plan for humanity and for the earth includes specific destinies for ethnic groups and nations at different times in history. We see this in places like the Book of Daniel, where God's plan is revealed in advance for the great empires that would rise on the global stage between the time of Daniel and the time Jesus was born on the Earth as a child. But now tune in here because I want to talk more about this because Paul's about to allude to something fascinating and we're about to take one heck of a rabbit trail right here. Okay?
Verse 27. Paul says he did this. In other words, God created every nationality and determined where they live so that they might seek God and perhaps they might reach out and find Him. Though he is not far from each one of us. Underline though he is not far from each one of us.
When did God create different nationalities and ethnicities? The groups the Bible calls the nations? The Ethnos, in the Greek, it happened all the way back at the Tower of Babel in Genesis, chapter eleven. If you want, you can leave your outline in Acts 17 for a minute and turn with me to Genesis eleven.
Just go to the front of your Bibles. Genesis is the first book and find Genesis. Chapter eleven, verse one. I want to show you some stuff here. It says, of that time the whole Earth had the same language and vocabulary.
The whole earth. There was one people, one language, one vocabulary, one Ethnos. As people migrated from the east, they found a valley in the land of Shinar and settled there. That's in Mesopotamia. Present-day Iran.
Iraq sort of area. They said to each other, Come, let's make oven-fired bricks. They used brick for stone and asphalt for mortar. And they said, Come, let's build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the sky. Let's make a name for ourselves, otherwise we will be scattered throughout the Earth.
There's a lot more going on there than you think. It says, then the Lord came down to look over the city and the tower that the humans were building. The Lord said, if they have begun to do this as one people, all having the same language, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let's go down there and confuse their language so that they will not understand one another's speech. So from there, the Lord scattered them throughout the Earth and they stopped building the city.
Therefore it is called Babylon Babel, which sounds like the Hebrew word for confuse. It's where we get our word babel. For there the Lord confused the language of the whole Earth, and from there the Lord scattered them throughout the Earth. So, what's going on when they build this tower, most likely under the leadership of a man named Nimrod is they are loving together and they are actually, historians tell us, becoming united around the world's first pagan religion. They are rejecting Yahweh, they are rejecting their Maker, and they are building this giant tower, which is really a spiritual structure, a temple of sorts, to go as high into the heavens as they can, to try and commune with God on their terms, their way, get to heaven without Yahweh and worship pagan gods instead.
That's what's going on here. And God looks down and he says, my goodness, my goodness. Paul clarifies God's reasoning behind the creation of languages and people groups. God did this because when humanity was united, it didn't bring out the best in them, it brought out their sinful tendencies. And they became united in their rebellion against God, which would have doomed the entire human race to damnation.
As they raised all of their children, all subsequent generations, in rebellion against the Lord, the whole human race would have been lost. So, in order to save as many as possible, Paul tells us that the Lord divided the people up into nations so that they might seek God. In other words, so that some individual groups, each individual group would have a chance, would have an option, would have the ability to turn to the Lord, which would not be possible in a singular homogenized global culture that collectively rejects God under the leadership of a single ruler. Do you understand the difference? If they're all one, there's just one opportunity to turn to God, and the leader is saying, we're not going to do that if he breaks them up into people groups.
Each group has an opportunity, has the potential to turn to the Lord, and you now have multiple opportunities for people to turn to Yahweh. That action by God is alluded to in Deuteronomy 32 eight, where we are told that God appointed one of his spiritual beings, one of his angels. The Hebrew word is Elohim over each individual nation, but he saved Israel for Himself. Israel was God's portion, God's people, but he assigned an angel over each different nation. Israel was supposed to be a missionary nation, modeling what it looked like to be the people of God, to be blessed by God, to walk in fellowship with God, and then invite those other nations to come in and be part of the people of Yahweh.
Tragically, Israel completely failed at her mission. The gods of the nations, those angels appointed over the nations rebelled against Yahweh. And now the church is called to model what it looks like to be the people of God and invite the nations to join in the worship of Christ. So, write this down and I'll explain something else. God divided the nations to prevent humanity from uniting in rebellion against Him and thereby damning the entirety of the human race.
Now, let me connect some dots for you here to the present day. If you understand what was happening at Babel, if you understand what Satan was trying to do at Babel, and if you understand why God had to intervene, then you will understand what is behind the drive for Globalism today. The drive behind United Nations Agenda 2030 the drive to erase borders the push to homogenize global culture by policing language, viewpoints, currency mobility, etc. Satan is attempting the same thing again in our day. He is attempting to reverse what God did at Babel and reunite the world once again around a single leader who will lead the world in the rejection of God.
That's what's going on. It's not only what's going on, it is what will happen. And that leader will emerge. And he will be the Antichrist. But praise God, the Church will be gone by then.
We've got an appointment with heaven. But what we see going on in the world today, presidents, prime ministers diving headfirst into this notion of globalism all of the laws they're passing, all the pacts they're signing, the treaties and the decrees, it is all preparatory for the one world government that will be established in the near future. We need to understand that both Satan and God have plans to establish a one-world government. Do you know this? Satan wants to unite humanity around the rejection of God.
God wants to unite humanity around the worship of Christ. Satan is doing his work through governments, corporations, and wicked men. God is doing his work through the Church. When Christ died, we forget this. It looked as though all hope was lost.
For three days, Satan was partying. But the story wasn't over yet. There was another chapter coming called The Resurrection. When the Church is raptured, an Antichrist rises on the global stage, leads a one-world totalitarian government. It will look as though all hope is lost.
Satan will celebrate for several years, but the story won't be over yet. There's another chapter coming called The Second Loving. There will be a one-world government that will endure, but it will be under the reign of Christ. As the prophet Isaiah wrote, For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us, and the government will be on his shoulders. He will be named Wonderful Counselor. Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. The dominion will be vast, and its prosperity will never end. He will reign on the throne of David and over his kingdom to establish and sustain it with justice and righteousness from now on and forever. The zeal of the Lord of Armies will accomplish this. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, man, I get it.
I get it. I feel you. Just go and listen to or watch our study through the Book of Revelation on the website even if you're like. I think this guy is out of his mind. I have to know more.
Just do it. Okay, back to Acts chapter 17, acts 17 and verse 28. Paul continues for in him we live and move and have our being, even as some of your own poets have said, for we are also his offspring. Paul quotes two famous Greek poets of antiquity the first is a little bit uncertain, while the second quotes from Phenomena, a poem by Aratus of Cilicia, which was written around 300 years before Christ. He wrote, Humans are the offspring, the children of Zeus.
Paul is saying, yes, we come from our maker as children come from their parents, but our maker is not Zeus. Since then, we are God's offspring. We shouldn't think that the divine nature is like gold or silver, our stone an imago fashioned by human art and imagination. Here's the idea, just a little complex. To understand what he's saying, let me clear it up.
If we are God's creation, then God must be more than we are. Yet the foolishness of idolatry led the Greeks to worship gods and demigods whom they imagined as looking like themselves, just in really, really good shape and with superpowers. And Paul says that's stupid. It makes little sense to think that you could accurately depict the glory of the creator God by building a statue of a man or a woman out of gold or silver or stone, an image fashioned by human art and imagination. Logic says he must be so much more.
His beauty and his grandeur must exceed the imaginations of men. With this argument, Paul highlights the third illogical belief about the supreme God held by the Athenians, to which the Stoics would have certainly replied, here, here, write this down. It is illogical to believe the glory of the supreme God is like that of the humans he created, or that it could be captured by human art and imagination. This is why in the Ten Commandments; we're actually forbidden from making any image of God because they would all be an insult to him. There'd be, like, nothing close. It would be like somebody saying, I'm going to capture your exact essence with this statue. And then they go to unveil the statue. It's literally just like a clump of clay with like two googly eyes on it. And they're like, Behold, it's unreal. Right? It's like I'm looking right at you! Even more so, any attempt to capture the glory of God through art and human imagination, it's a foolish idea to begin with. Verse 30. Therefore, having overlooked underline the times of ignorance the times of ignorance, God now commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has set a day when he is going to judge the world in righteousness by the man he has appointed. He has provided proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.
The Bible teaches men will be Judea based on the amount of revelation they have received. Paul explains in Romans chapters one and two, the idea of general revelation. Everybody gets to perceive the glory of God through the created world around us, and everybody is given an internal moral conscience. Those who were never exposed to the Gospel or to the teachings of Israel will be judged on the revelation they received. How did they respond to the general revelation that was given to them? Paul declares here that Jesus of Nazareth was a special revelation of God that has been given to mankind. Therefore, in light of that special revelation, God now commands men to respond to the revelation of the resurrected Jesus by repenting, placing their faith in him, and worshipping him as Lord. Paul plainly states that the work of Jesus ushered in a new epoch, a new season of history, the age of grace, which will continue until the church is raptured. And by the way, I know there's so much packed in here.
You Bible nerds... If you're not a Bible nerd, don't worry about this. But you Bible nerds... I don't know how anyone can read Paul's Areopagus address and not be a dispensationalist. Like, it's just impossible. If you don't know what dispensationalism is, there's a fun project for you to go look up on the Internet this week. But when you go back and read these verses, when you have actual phrases like the times of ignorance, and then Paul saying, now we're in a different age because of what Jesus has done, that's dispensationalism. I don't know how you get around it.
Paul also warns, though, of the next age that is coming. The next age is called in the Bible, the day of the Lord, which is the time, the season of future history when God will judge the world in righteousness. Before the world was made, before our universe existed, the time was chosen to the second when Jesus would be born on the earth and take human form. Do not think for a second that the Incarnation was a reaction to a plan gone wrong. It was the plan from the beginning.
In the same way, the time of the rapture, the Second Coming, and the judgment of all unbelievers has been sea already to the second. The time is determined, and nothing has the power to alter the plans of the Lord. Notice who will execute the judgment of the earth, Paul says. The man that God has appointed. The man Christ Jesus.
Jesus will judge the living and the dead. Those who refuse to follow Christ as Lord will not be judged by themselves or a jury of their peers. They will be Judea by Jesus, Paul tells us explicitly. Another tip for you Bible students you might just want to go read through Romans chapters one through three this week and then compare it to Paul's speech here in Acts 17. Because Romans one through three is basically a more detailed argument of what Paul shares at the Areopagus.
After connecting with his audience through shared philosophical pointing and quotes from their classical poets, Paul does not cower from the most important part of his presentation - the Resurrection. Paul does not fall prey to thinking, Man, I've connected so well with these people. I mean, they're digging this. They're laughing at my jokes; they're cheering my good points. I don't want to blow it by sharing the harder-to-believe stuff.
Maybe I should just save that for another time. Such can be the temptation for us when we engage in relational evangelism, right? Oh, I'm building bridges here. They're just starting to like me. I don't want to blow it by talking about Jesus now and use up all that goodwill that I've carefully stored up so that I would have a chance to talk with them about Jesus.
What are we going to do? But Paul gives us an example to follow, which is never forgetting that the reason we build those bridges is to share the Gospel. That's the reason. And when that moment comes, we must not cower but boldly and plainly share the good news of the resurrection. Verse 32.
After Paul does that, it says when they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some began to ridicule him. Remember, the Epicureans were materialists, so they would have found the idea of a resurrection ridiculous, just as the atheist, materialists, and philosophical naturalists do in our day, they had pre-dismissed even the possibility of something like a resurrection. In Psalm 14, David declared the fool says in his heart, there's no God. They are corrupt. They do vile deeds.
There's no one who does good. The Bible teaches that atheists do not exist because of scientific evidence. They exist because men love sin and do not want to believe they are morally accountable to God. In Romans chapter 1, 18 to 23, which just seems to come up all the time because we're living it. Paul writes god's wrath is revealed from heaven against all Godlessness and unrighteousness of people, by who their unrighteousness suppress the truth, since what can be known about God is evident among them because God has shown it to them.
General revelation for his invisible attributes, that is, his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen since the creation of the world being understood through what he has made. As a result, people are without excuse, for though they knew God, they did not glorify him as God or show gratitude. Instead, their thinking became worthless, and their senseless hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man, birds, forefooted, animals and reptiles, and Jesus taught Nicodemus. This is the judgment the light has come into the world, and people love darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil.
For everyone who does evil hates the light and avoids it so that his deeds may not be exposed. It is a difficult thing to gain worldly knowledge and not have it produce pride and arrogance. The knowledge that comes from God is unique in that true Godly knowledge produces humility, because it allows you to see Christ more clearly and yourself more clearly. And if you're doing both of those things, you're going to become more humble over time. But for 99.99% of people.
The more of the world's knowledge you get, the more prideful you become and the harder your heart becomes to the truth. We see this in academia, where scientists today feel that they shouldn't even have to defend or debate their work with anybody except other scientists who agree with them. Of course, the problem is that the entire argument is illogical because they say, okay, well, everyone who's qualified to debate me agrees with me. Well, what about this guy? Well, does he agree with me?
No? Then he's not qualified to debate me. As you can see, everyone who's qualified to debate me agrees with me, and my policies stand unchallenged. That's the flimsy, pathetic state of academia. In our time, colleges and universities contain few students of truth.
Sadly, it seems most are fools who have become blinded by pride and arrogance and surrounded themselves with an echo chamber of their ilk. Far too often we find a pattern in the world of academia wherein the more years a person has been studying, the more prestigious the facility in which they are studying, the more foolish and disconnected from reality they seem to become. If you think that's harsh, go and read Romans 1:18-23 again. Paul tells you exactly what is happening to them. Back to the text.
It says, when they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some began to ridicule him. But others said, We'd like to hear from you again about this. So, Paul left their presence. However, some people joined him and believed, including Dionysius, the Areopagite, who was one of the philosophers who hung out in the Areopagus, a woman named Damaris, and others with them. Apparently, Paul didn't go back to the Areopagus.
He didn't preach anymore to that same group. He could discern their general hard-heartedness. He likely met privately with the small group who did respond sincerely to the gospel and gave them further teaching before leaving Athens, never to return. Out of the entire Areopagus, only a select few chose to respond to the revelation they received and came to know for themselves the unknown God.
I'm going to wrap up with this. If you are here today and you're not a follower of Jesus, I want to share with you an encouragement, an exhortation, and a warning. The encouragement is that God is real, and he loves you, and you were made to know him and find your purpose in knowing him. And through Jesus. You can.
I want to exhort you that the revelation of God has been given to you through Jesus, and you are commanded to respond to it. And lastly, I want to give you a warning. Christ will judge the living and the dead, including you. The time is appointed. It is unavoidable.
The only question is, when your judgment comes, will you belong to Christ or not?
Turn to Christ. As Paul told the Athenians almost 2000 years ago, he is not far from each one of us. He is not far. And for those who love, Derbe and worship Jesus, let me encourage you with these same words he is not far from each one of us. And though he needs nothing from us, he loves us, and he wants to be in fellowship with you.
And incredibly, you have the capacity to bless Him because He is a father. He is your Heavenly Father. And the same way that a child can bring delight to their Father, God has put in us the capacity and ability to bring joy and delight to our Heavenly Father. I do not need anything from my seven-year-old daughter. But, man, can she bless me?
She can, because she's my kid. And if you belong to Jesus, you are a son or a daughter of God, and he loves you, and he is blessed by you. So, when you worship, when you pray, when you study, when you fellowship with Him, understand that he is blessed. Not because he needs anything he doesn't, but just because he loves you and you're his child. If you belong to Jesus, then his spirit is in you, Christ in you, the hope of glory.
And He Himself has said, I will never leave you or abandon you. Therefore, we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper.