Today, as in Athens 2000 years ago, we are tempted every day to worship idols, or false gods – by putting our hope and seeking our joy in created things, such as technology, entertainment, other people, etc. – rather than the one true God who created all things. When we put all our hope in created things, we will sooner or later be completely disappointed. Let’s listen as Paul brings us to the only true God, who is worthy of our worship.

Teaching Notes:

Who Is The Only True God?

Acts 17:16-29

            Jesus said in John 17:3 “This is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”  Jesus spoke of the Only True God.  Is there really a God? If so, what is He like? What attributes does He possess? Can He be known?  That’s what we want to look into this morning.

            We left Paul alone at Athens last week. He had previously planted churches in Philippe, Thessalonica, and Berea, and had been run out of town in the last 2 cities. He has left Luke in Philippe to help the fledgling new church, and he left Timothy & Silas in Berea to help the believers there. Paul finds himself in this great city alone, hated, hunted, and pursued. He’s on the run. There are people in every city he has been in that want him dead. I imagine Paul would have liked to just get a breather, just lay low and recupe for a few days. But, as always that’s not the way it turned out.

            Before we get into our text I need to give you some background on the great city of Athens.  It was the native home of Socrates and Plato, and the adopted home of Aristotle, Epicurus and Zeno. It was the Intellectual, Political, Architectural, and Religious Center of the World.

            Intellectual:  it was the world leader in Mathematics, Astronomy, and Science.  Philosohy was virtually a Greek invention – Plato and Aristotle have dominated Western thought for the last 2,400 years. Athens was known as the University of the World.

            Political:  The Greeks pioneered the way in political science, originating the concepts of law, democracy, and parliament.

            Architectural:  Athens was the home of the Parthenon, built in 447-432 B.C. and still considered to be one of the greatest architectural masterpieces of human history. It is situated on the Acropolis, a flat topped rock that rises 490 feet above sea level, and comprises 7.5 acres of land. It must have been absolutely breathtaking in its day! Athens was home to some of the most amazing and beautiful buildings, statues, and temples in the world.

            Religious:  It had become a saying that it was easier to find a god on the main street of Athens than a man! Everywhere you looked there were altars, temples, shrines and statues of various Greek gods – over 3,000 of them! There were idols and images devoted stars and constellations, powers of the underworld, and vices and virtues of men. If a Greek wanted to get drunk he turned to Dionysius; if he wanted to indulge his lust he turned to Aphrodite; if we wanted to steal he looked to Hermes; if he loved violence and savagery and was into a Clint Eastwood “Make My Day” mentality, Zeus was his god. The Greeks’ gods had no morals. How could the worshipers of these gods have any morality?

            Athens was the epitome of what man could achieve by his own brilliance and still be ignorant of God. Philosophy and religion had not enabled the Greeks to know God. 

First of all, notice what Paul SAW:  17:16. When a window cleaner visits a city, he sees windows. When a architect visits a city he sees buildings. When a policement visits a city, he sees the criminals. When a Man of God visits a city, he sees idolatry! No doubt Paul walked through the city, visited the Acropolis and saw the Parthenon, the Aeropagus, and the Agora, beheld the great artistic paintings, and breathtaking statues, but those are not the things that grabbed his attention and wowed him. What got his attention was the Idolatry! The phrase “full of idols” is kateidolos, which literally means “under idols” as though the city was smothered or swamped with idols. Instead of being impressed by the gold, ivory, and marble images and statues, he was oppressed by the sight of them.  Now what is an idol? It is a God-substitute. It is any person or thing that occupies the place which God should occupy. Paul saw a city submerged in idols.

Secondly, notice what Paul FELT:  17:16. His spirit was provoked within him. The Jerusalem Bible puts it this way, “His whole soul was revolted at the sight of a city given over to idolatry.”  The word provoked is regularly used in the Greek version of the Old Testament of God’s reaction to idolatry. Often we read of Israel ‘provoking’ the Lord God to anger. Why does idolatry provoke God to anger? Because He is a jealous God (Ex.34:14). Jealousy is the resentment of rivals. Whether it is sinful or righteous jealousy depends on whether the rival has any business being there. It is sinful when we are jealous of someone who threatens to outshine us in beauty, intellect or sports, because we can’t claim a monopoly of talent in those areas. But to be jealous of a third party who comes in and threatens to take your place in your marriage is righteous, because that person has no business being there! God has a right to our exclusive allegiance and worship, and He is jealous when we give that allegiance or worship to anyone or anything else. When it seemed like the whole nation of Israel was turning away from God, Elijah said, “I have been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts” (1 Kings 19:10). Elijah was provoked because God’s honor was being profaned.  Paul was experiencing something very similar. He saw the idols and was provoked to anger, grief, and indignation at the thought that man was so corrupt that he would give the glory to idols that should go to the Only True God. 

Thirdly, Notice what Paul Did:  Acts 17:17-21.  Paul reasoned with 3 groups of people:  1) The Jews and the God-fearing Gentiles in the synagogue on the sabbath as was his usual practice; 2) The Passers-by every day who were in the marketplace; and 3) The Epicurean and Stoic philosophers.  It appears that Paul started out reasoning with the Jews in the synagogue on the Sabbath. But he was restless the rest of the week. He couldn’t just sit by and do nothing when his God was being so profaned by this city submerged in idols, so he ventured out into the marketplace every day to talk to anyone who would engage in conversation with him. So, we see him engaged in 3 kinds of witnessing:  to the religious, to the every day man on the street, and to the intellectual. It is quite impressive to see how Paul was able to speak to every kind of person and reason with him about Jesus Christ with equal ease.

Now, who are the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers?  The leaders of these groups were
Epicurus and Zeno, both born around 340 B.C. Epicurus believed in the gods, but taught that they had no interest in mankind, and had left the world to itself. He taught that the events of the world happened by chance. He said that indulgence was the key to life and pleasure was the highest good. He denied the existence of life after death. “You only go around once in life, grab all the gusto you can!” Zeno was a pantheist, teaching that God is everything, and everything is God. He emphasized fatalism. He said that man should be above passion, unmoved by joy or grief, pleasure or pain. In other words, he taught that indifference was the key to life. Sadly, neither one considered eternal life.  Interestingly, 300 years later, the teachings of both of these guys were still holding sway, and there were philosophers that were still propagating their teachings. 

How did these philosophers view Paul?  In 17:18 they refer to him as a babbler. The word literally means a “seed-picker”. They were saying Paul was like a bird who flew around picking up scraps of information from others. Others said he was a preacher of foreign divinities. Here came this Jew from Jerusalem into Athens, the great intellectual center of the world, and what does he preach? Jesus Christ – that he had died for sins and risen from the dead. To the philosophers it seemed like Paul was preaching about a strange god – this crucified Jew named Jesus.

What did the Philosophers do to Paul?  17:19. They took him to the Aeropagus, which was a council of the elders of the city that met at Mars Hill. They were responsible for the religion and morality of Athens. They exercised great power and authority in these areas. Paul was brought before them to give an account of his strange teaching. It doesn’t appear that this was some sort of legal interrogation, for the motive seems to be curiosity (vs.21). When it comes to Biblical truth, if it is True, it’s not new, and if it’s New, it isn’t true. Oh, watch out if someone comes along teaching something new!

 Fourthly, Notice what Paul Said: Here in Acts 17:22-31 we have Paul’s address to this august body of leaders in Athens. Now, how will he handle himself? How will he speak to them? There is only 2 messages of Paul recorded in Acts which were addressed to Gentiles. The first is in Acts 14, and is addressed to the simple heathen. The other is here addressed to the intellectual heathen. In both places, Paul departs from his practice of quoting the OT Scriptures when speaking to the Jews. In this place, he actually quotes a couple of their own poets in illustrating divine truth.  In this instance, he fastens upon an altar he had seen recently with an interesting inscription, “To the unknown god.” Evidently, if there were any other gods that they weren’t aware of, they didn’t want to offend them, and so made an altar to it as well. And so Paul comes along and says, “You’ve got hundreds and hundreds of gods. But this God that you don’t know – that’s the One I want to tell you about.” What Paul is going to do is introduce these intellectuals to the Only True God. So, how does he describe the Only True God?  By telling them 7 things about God. Notice that Paul’s main burden in this message is the foolishness and wickedness of their idolatry. He mentions it in vs.23 and in vs.29, making idolatry the 2 different bookends. So Paul is going to contrast the Only True God with the idols of man.

1.  He Is Creator:  17:24. “He made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth.” This One True God made everything, including the heavens and earth. The Epicureans are wrong in believing the world is just a chance combination of matter and time. The Stoics are wrong in believing that God is everything and everything is God. No. He is distinct from His creation. He is above His creation. There was a time when He existed apart from His creation. No, matter is not eternal, you’re not God. God is God, and He made everything including you.”  Nor is the Mormon doctrine true, that God is a perfected man who was once a creature like us and kept getting better and better. No, God is not, nor ever has been a creature. He is the Creator of all things. And how did He create? He did it apart from any pre-existing materials. He spoke all things into existence. Think of every kind of tree, bush, shrub, flower, and grass. Think of every kind of reptile, mammal, bird, and fish. Then consider all the kinds of people on the earth. God made all of that. Then consider the starry heavens, which are so vast that we can’t comprehend it. The earth rotates once every 24 hours while orbiting the sun every 365 days, which has a surface temperature of 10,000 degrees Fareinheidt. The solar system is spinning, flying through space at 134 miles per second. It is part of a collection of stars called the Milk Way Galaxy, which has perhaps 200 billion stars, 6 billion of which having planetary systems like ours.  The Milky Way is one of over 125 billion galaxies that make up the visible universe! It would take 8 light minutes to travel from the earth to the sun. It would take 4.2 light years to reach the next closest star. And it would take 2.6 million light years to reach the next closest galaxy (Andromeda Galaxy). And remember, there are 125 billion galaxies; this is just the closest one to the earth!! Do you start to get the idea that God is very, very powerful? He is Creator.

2.  He Is Lord:  17:24.  Lord means that God is the undisputed supreme ruler of this world. He not only made the world, but he rules over it. He decides what will take place in it. He determines what is right and what is wrong. He as Lord calls all the shots.  He owns this universe, because he made it.

3.  He Is Transcendent:  17:24. The Only True God can not be limited or localized to some man made shrine or temple built by man! The word “transcendent” means “outside the universe.” Since God created the universe, he can’t be contained by it. He is bigger than it, and outside of it. It is always a mistake to think of God in terms of space and time. This was the mistake of the Jews, in thinking that God was contained within their tabernacle or temple. This is what Stephen said before the Sanhedrin in Acts 7:48-50. 

4.  He Is All-Sufficient:  17:25.  This Only True God doesn’t need anything, including us. He has no needs. Instead He is the Supreme Giver. He is like an ever-flowing fountain, slaking the thirst of multitudes of people. Everything we have has come as a gift from this God. Every beat of our hearts, every breath we take, every moment we live and are not destroyed is a gift from this God. That’s why God’s creation of man was not because he was lonely and needed companionship. He already had all the companionship he could ever need in Himself – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. That’s why salvation can never be of works. God is the Giver, not the Taker. Romans 11:35 says, “who has given a gift to Him that he might be repaid?” God is never a debtor to any man. He is never under any obligation to save any man. That is why our salvation is a gift of sovereign grace – because He Is All-Sufficient. We never give God something He wants or needs in exchange for salvation. Salvation is a produce of His overflowing goodness and grace. 

5.  He Is Sovereign:  17:26. He determined to create all men from one man. He determined which nations would come into existence, where they would live, and when they would live. He determines the rise and fall of earthly empires:  Babylonian, Medo-Persian, Greek and Roman empires.  Now this declaration of the sovereignty of God would strike right at the heart of the Athenians’ pride. They viewed themsevles as self-made men. They thought they were special and unique, sort of a super-race, not too unlike the Nazis in the 1930’s. They viewed the uncultured and illiterate barbarians as inferior. But Paul says that the truth is that they hadn’t made themselves what they were. They were what they were because God decided it would be. God had appointed them as a nation at that time and dplace in history. God is sovereign over history, because history is His Story.

6.  He Is Immanent:  17:27-28.  This truth is the corollary to transcendence. Transcendence speaks of being outside the universe. Immanence speaks of indwelling the universe. Transcendence speaks of God being outside of time and space. Immanence speaks of God being near and close to us. In other words, He is knowable. He’s not so far and distant that you can never know Him.  Ps.145:18 says, “The Lord is near to all who call on Him, to all who call on Him in truth.”  And to point out God’s immanence, Paul quotes 2 of their own poets, Epimenides and Aratas. Paul is saying that God is so close that we live, move and have our being in Him. Now, Paul did not quote “For we are indeed His offspring” to prove that all men are God’s children. I hear that all the time, “Well you know that everyone is God’s child.” There is a sense in which that is true. All men are God’s children by virtue of creation; but only believers are God’s children by virtue of redemption. 

7.  He Is Living:  17:29. Paul’s point here is that God is not like their idols, made by man, out of gold or silver or stone. Those things are inert and dead. God, on the other hand, is very much alive! In 1Thess.1:9 Paul said, “you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God.” These idols are dead and false gods. He is the living and true God. Because He is alive, you are going to stand before Him one day and will be judged by Him. He is the One who will sentence you to either eternal blessedness in heaven or eternal torment in hell. But that is the subject of next week’s sermon. 

What about you? Are you making the fatal mistake the Athenians made? Are you a worshiper of idols or a worshiper of the Only True God? Is there someone or something in your life that occupies the place that God should occupy? Is it your husband, wife, or kids? Is it your money, job, bank account? Is it drugs, alcohol, food, sex, fame, TV, recreation, church, or religion?  Let’s take some time in a few moments of prayer. Ask the Lord if you have allowed an idol, a God-substitute, to come into your life.  If he shows you any idols, take the time right now, this morning, to repent of them. Confess them, ask the Lord’s forgiveness for allowing them to occupy His place, and then pray for grace to resist them!  

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