Counterfeit Gods

Acts 17:16-31 – Paul in Athens

Move #1 – What idols do you see in Canada?

(Hockey?… a minor god at best…

Success? Money & greed? – yes - the bible told us this truth 2000 years ago.

A relatively new god is the Self! …and its attractive, but misleading nickname - “Happiness.”

This is the triumph of personal fulfillment!

Indeed, to be honest - these are a function of the widespread rejection of Christianity and the bible.

Spiritual ignorance always leaves a vacuum that must be filled.

Look around you - Yoga is in… church, not so much.

Please don’t think that we believers are immune to these gods!!!

In the opening pages of “Counterfeit gods”… Tim Keller tells of successful executives committing suicide in the wake of the economic crisis of 2008 – prompted by sub-prime mortgages – prompted by greed and fraud.

Quote: After the global economic crisis began in 2008 there followed a tragic string of suicides of formerly wealthy and well connected individuals.

The chief financial officer of Freddie Mac - the federal home loan mortgage corporation hanged himself in his basement.

the chief executive of “Sheldon Good” the leading US real estate auction firm shot himself in the head behind the wheel of his red Jaguar.

the French money manager who invested the wealth of many of Europe’s royal and leading families and who had lost $1.4 billion of his clients money in Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme slit his wrists and died in his Madison Ave. office.

A Danish senior executive which HSBC Bank hanged himself in the wardrobe of his £500 a night suite in Knightsbridge London.

When a Bear Stearns executive learned that he would not be hired by JP Morgan Chase - which had bought his collapsed firm - he took a drug overdose and jumped from the 29th floor of his office building. It was grimly reminiscent of the suicides in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash.

And now in 2025, another economic crisis looms over our nation and indeed much of the world.

The USA is starting a tariff war

Russia is destroying Ukraine

Ukraine feels abandoned

Israel's conflict is unabating.

And of course, now CANADA is in economic chaos.

So…Welcome to 2025 – remember “happy new year” – It's only March 16, 2025 - but it seems so long ago now…(may I remind you that we learned to say “happy forever” instead of happy new year!

Tariffs …jobs & the Economy is the no. 1 issue on people's minds now… perhaps its always been the case - given our hopes being placed in money & materialism for so, so long.

Many say we now face an existential threat to Canada… tariffs and even talk of “annexation” is now everyday bluster in coffee shops, hockey rinks, classrooms, and news media.

American nationalism – while often complained about - has now been met with Canadian nationalism.

It's not exactly a Christian vision for society… rather it's now an “every man for himself” attitude.

It’s all served to scratch away the veneer and expose what we really build our lives upon – the false gods of money, prosperity and power.

And it begs the question – where is our hope? Where is our future?

Does the gospel have anything to say in this hour?

“The incomplete joys of this world will never satisfy the human heart.” Alexis de Tocqueville.

Move #2 - Read text 17:16ff

16 While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols. 17 So he reasoned in the synagogue with both Jews and God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there. 18 A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to debate with him. Some of them asked, “What is this babbler trying to say?” Others remarked, “He seems to be advocating foreign gods.” They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection. 19 Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, where they said to him, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? 20 You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we would like to know what they mean.” 21 (All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.)

Move #3 Athens was very religious but had a spiritual void – they didn’t know the true and sovereign God… the best they could do was build an idol to “the unknown God…” as a way of covering their bases … in a city of many, many idols…and a very religious culture there was actually a spiritual darkness.