Cornerstone Church October 2, 2005
SEEING GOD WITH 20/20 VISON
Acts 17:16-34
There were six blind men who lived in India. One day they decided to visit the palace. In the courtyard stood an elephant.
The 1st blind man reached out and touched the elephant’s side and said, “an elephant is like a wall.”
The 2nd blind man touched the trunk and said, “an elephant is like a snake.”
The 3rd blind man touched the tusk and said, “an elephant is like a spear.”
The 4th blind man touched the leg and said, “an elephant is like a tree.”
The 5th blind man touched the ear and said, “an elephant is like a fan.”
The 6th blind man touched the tail and said, “an elephant is like a rope.”
NO ONE AGREED WHAT THE ELEPHANT WAS LIKE.
It is understandable that blind individuals would have a great amount of difficulty in trying to understand what an elephant really looked like!
People throughout our world are groping and looking for answers much more complex than trying to define what an elephant looks like.
Ever since the beginning of time mankind has wrestled with questions such as these:
WHERE DID I COME FROM?
WHY AM I HERE?
WHERE AM I GOING?
HOW CAN I COPE WITH A WORLD OF HARDSHIP AND TRAGEDY ALL AROUND ME?
Mankind has tried to answers these questions scientifically, philosophically and religiously.
Science has tried to define from where we have come.
Philosophy has tried to discover why we are here.
Religion has tried to explain the meaning of it all.
They grope and yet remain blind!
People without Christ throughout the world live with a great amount of fear and anxiety about life.
Man is, however, empirical enough to understand that after a while, death comes to everyone. This is the most frightening aspect of life.
Is this all there is?
The Ancient writer Job asked this question (Job 14:14):
“If a man dies will he live again?”
WHAT IS YOUR ANSWER TO THAT QUESTION? Seeing that you will one day die it would be good for you to have an answer to that question!
What is sad is that most people are like the six blind men in the story I just told. In trying to understand God they look at Him from a purely human perspective. Their conclusions about Him are faulty.
Please, do not presume that God is like your conception of Him!
Ps. 50:21 NIV These things you have done and I kept silent; you thought I was altogether like you. But I will rebuke you and accuse you to your face.
In recent days Pastor Jim has been teaching a series called: “A New Portrait of God.” He has been looking at what God has to say about injustice.
In seeking to compliment Pastor Jim’s messages I wanted to take a look at God’s Portrait this morning.
In order for us to see God’s Portrait with clarity all of us need to have a vision test. A test to see is we are:
“Seeing God with 20/20 Vision”
We know that the unsaved are blind and that satan works continually to keep them blind concerning God.
I fear that Christians have developed cataracts – they see God but see a blurred vision of HIM! Or worse, they have a false vision of HIM!
Please note: Any false view that we have of God is considered Idolatry!
If we do not test our vision from time to time it becomes easier and easier to settle for blurred vision.
Blurry vision can cause the following:
We can forget who God is and think that HE is just like us.
We can reduce God to measurable and controllable terms
God is not our servant or genie. God is not safe and tamable! He is the Creator of All and HE IS LORD of All.
HE is knowable
HE has revealed HIMSELF in HIS Creation
HE has revealed HIMSELF in HIS Word
HE has revealed HIMSELF through HIS SON – Jesus – GOD the SON!
So as we look at Paul’s message to the Athenians – who were looking for God, I hope that the Lens of God’s Word will test our vision to see if we are:
Seeing God with 20/20 Vision
“What you think about God shapes your whole relationship with HIM. In addition, what you believe God thinks about you determines how close you will grow towards HIM.”
Pg. 20, God As He Longs for You to See Him, By Chip Ingraham
THE INCOMPREHENSIBILITY OF GOD
That is a big word which simply means, that God cannot be known exhaustively.
Man is finite and GOD IS INFINITE!
The Word of God has revealed the One true living God to all the people of the earth. God is knowable in what He has revealed to us through His Word!
Deut. 29:29 NIV The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.
THE WESTMINSTER SHORTER CATECHISM
Question 3: What do the Scriptures principally teach?
Answer: The Scriptures principally teach, what man is to believe concerning God, and what duty God requires of man.
Question 4: What is God?
Answer: God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in his being,
wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth.
While Paul was waiting for them in Athens,
Acts 17:16a NIV
Paul is on his second Missionary Journey. Circumstances had heated up that necessitated that Paul leave Thessalonica and Berea. He was placed on a ship and he left his traveling companions Silas and Timothy.
He is alone in the great city of Athens. Paul often targeted the economic and cultural centers for the gospel message. What begins in the big city usually filters down to the cities surrounding in the outlying areas.
What a city! Paul is seeing Athens years after the pinnacle of her glory. Athens and Sparta ruled Greece’s Classical Era. The Greeks influenced much of the world in the areas of: Art, Literature, Philosophy and Government.
Athens is the home of Socrates and Plato and the adopted home of Aristotle, Epicurus and Zeno. Hippocrates was part of this era as well.
At the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC which took place on the plains just outside of Athens the Greeks defeated the Persians (ancient Iran). This proved that Persia was not invincible. Herodotus said, “free men fight better than slaves.”
At Thermopylae the Spartans held off the Persians until a traitor showed the Persians a pass through the mountains which led to their defeat. Aided by the Greek navy the Persians were defeated in 480 BC
During the Peloponnesian Wars (431-404 BC) between Sparta and Athens the influence of Athens declined. This void led to the weakening of the entire nation until a Macedonian named Alexander conquered most of the then known world.
Like individuals who have their fifteen minutes of fame so too is it with nations. God’s prophecy in the Book of Daniel concerning the fall of the Third Great World Empire (belly and thighs of bronze) took place as the Romans took over. The Glory of Greece had now ended!
As Paul was viewing the city notice what happened.
“…he was greatly distressed…”
Distress (paroxysm) = greatly distressed in his spirit, upset, violent emotion)
WHY?
“…to see that the city was full of idols.”
FULL OF IDOLS = Literally smothered in idols
Athena’s spear stood so high that it could be seen 40 miles away.
It is said that there were 30,000 idols in Athens!
A Roman satirist once said,
“...that it was easier to find
a god there than a man.”
This is the god capital of the world!
Please understand that the Apostle Paul was not provoked at the people. He had a heart of compassion for them. The Athenians obviously had a hunger for God.
We might illustrate it like this:
WHAT WOULD YOU SEE IF YOU WENT TO SAN FRANSCISCO?
The Rock – Alcatraz, Fisherman’s Wharf, The Golden Gate Bridge, China Town, the beautiful homes and architecture of the city?
Or would you see the people?
People who are lost.
People with a myriad of fears and questions about life.
People who when Christ returns will be judged and placed in an eternal hell!
2 Pet. 3:10 NIV But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare.
Paul saw the people of the city trapped in bondage! Watch Paul put some shoe leather to his prayers. He began to witness to anyone who would listen.
So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there. A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to dispute with him.
Acts 17:17-18a NIV
He reached out to:
The Jews in the Synagogue
The Common Folks in the Marketplace/Public Square (Agora)
The Cultural Elite – the Philosophers
Philosophical Groups
EPICUREAN PHILOSOPHERS (342-270 BC) Pleasure is the chief goal of life.
They were not hedonists. They desired a life of ease, free from pain, hardship or anxiety. Truth is discover by experience not reason. If God exists he has shown no real interest in man – He is absent. No afterlife.
“Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die.”
STOIC PHILOSOPHERS (340-260 BC)
Pantheists/Fatalists who believed one should: endure hardship, rely on reason and self-sufficiency. This bred spiritual pride. God is in everything.
“Grin and Bear it.”
The people of Athens were talking about Paul. Soon, two thoughts about Paul began to circulate throughout the city.
SOME THOUGHT THIS:
Some of them asked,
“What is this babbler trying to say?”
Acts 17:18b NIV
Babbler = seed picker
Like birds following behind a farmer planting seeds
A merchandiser of second-hand ideas
OTHERS THOUGHT THIS:
Others remarked, “He seems to be advocating foreign gods.”
They said this because Paul was preaching the good news
about Jesus and the resurrection.
Acts 17:18c-d NIV
Jesus and Anastasis (resurrection)
They thought Paul was proclaiming the teachings of two new gods that they hadn’t heard of yet. Remember the city had over 30,000 idols already.
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? You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we want to know what they mean.” (All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.)
Acts 17:19-21 NIV
There is no need to assume that they arrested him. These folks were use to dialoguing about various philosophies. They took him to the Areopagus.
The Areopagus = The Supreme Court (Hill of Aries or Mars Hill)
The Court had it’s beginning some 750 years prior to the birth of Christ. In Greece, today, it is still the name of it’s Supreme Court.
The place of those who were the guardians of:
Education
Morals
Religion
While this court was responsible for the welfare of its citizens it appears that they may have grown bored. They wanted to hear about the latest philosophy or religion cropping up.
(All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.)
The Athenians are sitting at Starbucks or over lunch shooting the breeze!
Sounds like our own day! What does Dr. Phil have to say?, or Oprah, Montel Williams, Dr. Laura or Jerry Springer?
PAUL CONNECTED WITH THE PEOPLE
Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.
Acts 17:22-23 NIV
Paul was not an isolationist. He built relationships with people. He wasn’t freighted or scared off by the world views of others. He tried to find areas that he could bridge with the gospel.
Paul found an Altar – not an Idol – to an Unknown god
The ONE who is unknow has made Himself known!
He isn’t hiding!
Don Richardson Story – Eternity in their Hearts
In short, the story begins sometime in the sixth century before Christ, with the city of Athens was being devastated and decimated by a mysterious plague. When no explanation for the plague could be found, and no cure was in sight, the approach was to assume that one of the city’s many gods had been offended. The leaders of the city sought to determine which of the gods it was and then determine a way of appeasing that god. This was no easy task, since the city of Athens had literally hundreds of gods, which Richardson refers to as the “god capital of the world,” a place so full of gods that the Athenians “must have needed something equivalent to the Yellow Pages just to keep tabs on the many deities already represented in their city.”
When all efforts failed to discern which god had been offended, and which had brought the plague upon the city, an outside “consultant” was brought in from the Island of Cyprus, whose name was Epimenides. Epimenides concluded that it was none of the known gods of Athens which had been offended, but some, as yet, unknown god. He proposed a course of action which, if it worked, would at least provide a possible remedy for the plague. He had a flock of choice sheep, of various colors, kept from food until they were hungry. On the given day, he had these sheep turned loose on Mars Hill, on what was a very succulent pasture. For any sheep not to have eaten his fill would have been unexplainable. He had the sheep turned loose and watched carefully, to see if any sheep would lie down and not eat, even though hungry and in prime grazing. Several sheep, to the amazement of those watching, did lie down. Altars were erected at each spot where a sheep lay down, dedicated to an “unknown god.” On those altars, the sheep which lay in that spot was sacrificed. Almost immediately, we are told, the plague began to subside.
Even if a lost person has never heard the gospel message they know by observing creation and by their conscience that God exists.
Palms 19:1-4 NIV The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.
Rom 1:18-21 NIV The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.
Rom 2:14-15 NIV (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.)
PAUL CORRECTED THE PEOPLE
“The God who made the world and everything in it
is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not
live in temples built by hands.
Acts 17:24 NIV
Paul begins to answer one of the key questions of life, Where did we come from? It is pretty hard to deny the universe, world and man. While an individual can deny God Who cannot be seen, they cannot deny the world He has created. Explaining that the universe and world were not made by God is a difficult challenge at best.
GOD IS OMNIPOTENT (ALL POWERFUL)
God created everything! This is confirmed in other scriptures.
Gen. 1:1 NIV In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT (Cause and Effect)
There is a cause behind every effect. When one looks at the world and the universe and all of the mass it took to create what we have before our eyes then the cause had to be even greater than the effect we have before us.
“The probability of something physical coming from nothing is zero, and not a single physical state or event being observed or otherwise known is known to originate from nothing.”
Dallas Willard – “DOES GOD EXIST?”
TELEOLOGICAL ARGUMENT (design = a designer)
When we look at a hand-crafted watch we know that watchmaker made it. It did not suddenly appear. When we observe all of the intricate design in the world and the universe we understand that there must have been a grand designer.
Our world functions by laws such as the Law of Gravity and The Laws of Physics. Mathematical calculations are possible because of the order God has built into the universe. We can calculate days and months and years with precision.
When we landed on the moon we did this because God’s order is constant!
When we were building our home the Building Department had to look over the plan. Why? Because they need money from the permit, well that is part of it.
More specifically, they understand God’s laws of gravity and the forces which exist and they wanted to know if our house will hold up.
Design = a DESIGNER
Ps. 94:9 NIV Does he who implanted the ear not hear? Does he who formed the eye not see?
It is futile to deny the evidence of what God created!
Saying that it all happened from a big bang of by evolution is foolish.
Let’s go back to the idea of our home. What would you think if all the materials were dumped on our unexcavated lot: the plumbing, the electric, the roofing materials, the drywall, the siding, the windows and doors and suddenly I took several sticks of dynamite and blew it all up and there was my house!
Isn’t that the Big Bang? Order out of chaos? Exploding matter does not create order!
Evolution says, “Everything is getting better all the time.” The Second Law of Thermodynamics (Entropy) reveals, a certain disorder, randomness and winding down of the universe.
WHAT KEEPS PEOPLE FROM ACKNOWLEDGING GOD?
Ps. 14:1 NIV The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, their deeds are vile; there is no one who does good.
The problems with these arguments is that they do not tell you anything about the God Who is the Creator. They do not tell us how to know Him or whether He wants to have a relationship with us.
Paul goes on to tell them:
“…and does not live in temples built by hands.”
GOD IS OMNIPRESENT (everywhere present - He is Spirit)
Acts 7:48-50 NIV “However, the Most High does not live in houses made by men. As the prophet says: “ ‘Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. What kind of house will you build for me? says the Lord. Or where will my resting place be? Has not my hand made all these things?’
Just look at how we are put together! God is greater than all we see. Why would the Greeks even think that they could fashion a god out of marble or some precious metal? It makes no sense!
God is big but HOW BIG IS HE?!
Passages from Isaiah 40:12 NIV
“Who has measured the waters
in the hollow of his hand,”
All the water on the planet (912,500 cubit miles of water – in the palm of HIS hand!
“…or with the breadth of his hand
marked off the heavens?”
Michael Jordan might be able to Palm a Basketball but stand back – God can Palm the whole created Universe – A billion stars in each galaxy and over a billion known galaxies exist.
“Who has held the dust of the earth in a basket,
or weighed the mountains on the scales
and the hills in a balance?”
The Himalayas, Sierras, Alps, Rocky Mountains, Cascade Mountains, etc… weighed them!
He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth,
and its people are like grasshoppers.
He stretches out the heavens like a canopy,
and spreads them out like a tent to live in.
Isa 40:22 NIV
He opens the created Universe like an umbrella!
Surely the nations are like a drop in a bucket;
they are regarded as dust on the scales;
Isa 40:15 NIV
It was then I was thinking about the Men’s Retreat Tee-Shirt
You Got A Problem?
Bring it on!
If you love the LORD
If you are walking with the LORD
If you are faithfully serving the LORD
And you have a problem – God says – Bring it On!
In light of Who God is – He has all power to make all grace abound to you! Or has your cataracts blurred your vision? Have you forgotten HIS AWESOME Power!
Look at the blindness of the Human Heart!
Isa. 44:15-17-20 NIV It is man’s fuel for burning; some of it he takes and warms himself, he kindles a fire and bakes bread. But he also fashions a god and worships it; he makes an idol and bows down to it. Half of the wood he burns in the fire; over it he prepares his meal, he roasts his meat and eats his fill. He also warms himself and says, “Ah! I am warm; I see the fire.” From the rest he makes a god, his idol; he bows down to it and worships. He prays to it and says, “Save me; you are my god.”
They know nothing, they understand nothing; their eyes are plastered over so they cannot see, and their minds closed so they cannot understand.
No one stops to think, no one has the knowledge or understanding to say, “Half of it I used for fuel; I even baked bread over its coals, I roasted meat and I ate. Shall I make a detestable thing from what is left? Shall I bow down to a block of wood?” He feeds on ashes, a deluded heart misleads him; he cannot save himself, or say, “Is not this thing in my right hand a lie? ”
30,000 Idols in Athens and they were still looking for the One True God!
False idols and religions abound in our world today! People are still in darkness if they haven’t found the ONE true God who has revealed HIMSELF
In HIS Creation
In HIS Word
In HIS SON – Jesus God the Son
And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed
anything, because he himself gives all men life
and breath and everything else.
Acts 17:25 NIV
GOD IS SELF-EXISTENT AND ETERNAL
I AM WHO I AM
God has no beginning point (origin) and no ending point.
God has eternally existed and there never was a time that He didn’t exist.
God sees the past and the future as they were present.
Benefit: God will always exist!
GOD IS SELF-SUFFICIENT
God has no needs and needs nobody!
This one may injure our pride a bit. God is totally independent of His creation and us.
GOD IS OUR SUSTAINER
His common grace is experienced by all!
“…because he himself gives all men
life and breath and everything else.”
Acts 17:25b NIV
Matt. 5:45 NIV that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
GOD IS SOVEREIGN OVER HIS CREATION
From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live.
Acts 17:26 NIV
He created all of the races of people from one man – Adam. All human beings are made in the image and likeness of God.
God controls when and where nations rise. He establishes their boundaries: lakes, rivers, oceans and mountains.
God is sovereign even over world rulers, dictators and terrorists!
Where is Alexander the Great, Napoleon – not Dynamite, Adolf Hitler?
What about Osama Ben Laden? Isn’t he still around? Maybe for 2 more minutes!
Newsflash Remember WHO IS IN CONTROL!
Isa 40:17 NIV Before him all the nations are as nothing; they are regarded by him as worthless and less than nothing.
Isa 40:23 NIV He brings princes to naught and reduces the rulers of this world to nothing.
Next Paul quotes from two of their own poets:
Epimenedes
Aratus
Poets and songwriters are often trying to find the answers of life!
God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out 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 some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’
Acts 17:27-28 NIV
GOD IS IMMANENT (speaks of His nearness)
God did this so that men would seek (grope) him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.
Seek / Grope is from a word used in the story of Odysseus in The Odyssey by Homer.
Odysseus and his men are captured by the Cyclopes. Wanting to escape, Odysseus gets the Cyclopes drunk and then pokes the eye out of the Cyclops. As Odysseus and his men are trying to escape the Cyclopes gropes blindly along the wall trying to catch the men.
All of mankind lives in the fixed system that God has created. We owe Him our lives as a offering of gratitude to Him.
Some people still doubt:
“Do you remember when the Cosmonauts made that primitive little journey around the earth for the first time? They came back with their thumbs under their suspenders bragging, ‘We have been in the air. We have been around the earth. And we did not see God!’ The following Sunday morning W. A. Criswell, pastor of the First Baptist Church in Dallas, made a classic statement. He said, ‘Ah, if those cosmonauts had stepped out of their spacesuit, they would have seen God.’”
TALE OF THE TARDY OXCART by Chuck Swindoll, pg. 232
PAUL CALLED THE PEOPLE
After stating his case clearly the Apostle Paul extended an invitation to those who were listening. He calls them to repentance!
Repentance is a 180 turn!
Positively, it is turning to God.
Negatively, it is turn away from sin!
In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead.”
Acts 17:30-31 NIV
GOD IS JUST AND RIGHTEOUS
The day is already set on God’s Daytimer!
“For he has set a day when he will judge
the world with justice…”
You can take that to the bank! This is as sure as the world and universe that you observe all the time. A world that reflects design has a designer.
He is coming again.
He is going to judge the world
DO YOU WANT MORE PROOF?
“…he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead.”
God’s incontrovertible proof is the resurrection!
1 Cor. 15:16-19 NIV For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.
HOW DID THEY RESPOND? Acts 17:32-34
When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered,
but others said, “We want to hear you again on this subject.” At that, Paul left the Council.
A few men became followers of Paul and believed. Among them was Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus, also a woman named Damaris, and a number of others.
WHERE ARE YOU AT THIS MORNING IN YOUR WALK WITH GOD?
Are you starting to see better? Has the vision test helped?
Are you Seeing God with 20/20 Vision
Maybe you need to spend more time with the lens of HIS Word
Do you know Him personally?
If you know Him are you a witness and testimony for Him?
