God Is Closer than You Think
Series: Acts
Chuck Sligh
July 9, 2017
TEXT: Please turn in your Bibles to Acts 17 starting at verse 16.
INTRODUCTION
Illus. – Have you ever noticed on a side mirror of your car the little writing on it that says, “Objects may be closer than they appear”? That’s supposed to keep you from having a wreck, right?
Well, the first time I owned a car that had that on the mirror, I had never noticed it until I was driving on the Interstate months after buying it. I looked in the mirror to see if a car was coming so I could change lanes on the Interstate, and it was then that I noticed the writing.
So here I was driving down the Interstate at 70 miles per hour reading the writing on this mirror, and I didn’t notice the car in front of me putting his brake on. Suddenly I saw the red brake lights and just narrowly missed rear-ending him.
Well, the writing on my mirror is SUPPOSED to be a message to me to help me.
Paul had a message for the Athenian intellects who were all wrapped up in empty philosophy. As we’ll see, to these philosophers, God was distant and unknowable and unreachable. But Paul’s message to them was this: No, this God is WAY bigger than anything you ever imagined, and He’s real, and He’s personal—and He’s closer than you think.
Let’s begin at verse 16 – “Now while Paul waited for them [his coworkers] at Athens, his spirit was stirred in him, when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry.”
Here was a city built on man’s wisdom and totally given to idolatry. When Paul saw it, it STIRRED HIM, and whenever Paul got spiritually stirred about people’s spiritual need, it urged him to share Christ with them.
Which he did in verse 17 – “Therefore disputed he in the synagogue with the Jews, and with the devout persons, and in the market daily with them that met with him.”
This led shortly thereafter to a historic meeting between the intellectual litterati of Athens and Paul, the Apostle of Christ. I would like us to notice two things about this fascinating incident in the life of Paul:
I. FIRST, NOTICE WITH ME PAUL’S AUDIENCE – Verses 18-21 – “Then certain philosophers of the Epicureans, and of the Stoics, encountered him. And some said, What will this babbler say? other some, He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods: because he preached unto them Jesus, and the resurrection. 19 And they took him, and brought him unto Areopagus, saying, May we know what this new doctrine, whereof thou speakest, is? 20 For thou bringest certain strange things to our ears: we would know therefore what these things mean. 21 (For all the Athenians and strangers which were there spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell, or to hear some new thing.)”
Verse 18 tells us there were two main philosophic belief systems in Paul’s audience that day:
1) First were the EPICUREANS whose philosophy was formulated by a man named Epicurus, who lived from 342-270 BC. – Here’s what they believed:
- First, they were evolutionists: They believed the world came into being merely by chance. – So, you see, Darwin didn’t come up with anything new!
- Second, they believed in polytheism—the belief in many gods, illustrated by the multitude of idols scattered throughout Athens.
It was said that you would sooner find an idol than a man in Athens, it was so full of them. But these gods were remote and uninterested in the affairs of humankind. They didn’t care about those who worshiped them. They were selfish and self-centered, just like those who worshiped them.
- Third, they believed there was nothing after death—no heaven, no hell, no future reward or punishment—no justice for life’s wrongs; just death.
- The foundational teaching of Epicurus was that the ultimate purpose in life is to experience pleasure or happiness.
Whatever pleased the Epicureans, they were free to do. So they “did his own thing” so to speak, by indulging themselves. “Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die”—that’s what they believed and lived out.
2) The second main philosophical system represented in Paul’s audience were the STOICS, whose philosophy was articulated by Zeno, who lived from 336-264 BC.
Here’s a summary of their beliefs:
- First, they were pantheists—believing that god (with a little “g,”) is everything and everything is god.
You are god; I am god; this building is god; a tree is god. So “god” is not a personal being, but more like a force, as the Hindus and New Age people believe today.
- They also believed in fatalism—the idea that everything will happen because it is fated to happen and there’s nothing you can do about it. – You’re not a free agent; but a puppet living out a script written out for you by fate.
- The main purpose in life for the Stoic was to endure your fate with courage and dignity and make the most of a bad situation by quenching all desire for anything pleasurable or soft (the opposite of the Epicurean philosophy.)
But Stoicism gave no more purpose to life than Epicureanism did. In fact, the first two leaders of the Stoic school committed suicide!
The EPICUREANS said, “Enjoy life!” and the STOICS said, “Endure life.” You know, there are a lot of people who believe those two things today. Our world is full of Epicureans today, and even many Christians live like Epicureans—making pleasure and fun their chief goal in life. And many, like the Stoics, have adopted New Age pantheistic ideas and many simply ENDURE LIFE because it has lost all meaning to them.
Man has not come very far in 2,000 years, has he?! Satan, the source for man’s false ideas, is not very creative or original. One commentator I read wrote, “…while unbelief is a revolving wheel, it is not a progressive one; for the very phases of unbelief against which the Church is contending today, Paul met on Mar’s Hill.” Sadly these philosophies did not, and do not, have the answers to life’s dilemmas.
They only lead to purposelessness and emptiness—but Paul had an answer for them.
II. LOOK WITH ME AT PAUL’S MESSAGE IN THE REST OF CHAPTER 17.
Paul realized he needed to get to the root of their problem, which was that the Athenians needed to know who the true God is and what His purposes are in this world. The truth is that most of humanity’s problems are the result of ignorance of, or a defective view of, who God IS and what God DOES. So, Paul gave these learned men a simple primer on the one, true God.
Paul knew that a sermon filled with Old Testament references would carry no weight to these philosophers. So, believe it or not, he referred to one of THEIR idols. The Athenians were afraid they might have missed a god, and they didn’t want to incur his wrath, so they erected an idol to “the unknown god.” Paul used this idol as a springboard to tell them about the one, true God.
His message was brief and to the point, just like all my sermons! (Amen?) [FEIGN SURPRISE OR OFFENCE FOR FUN.]
Illus. – Which reminds me of a lady named Gladys Dunn who visited a church one Sunday. The sermon seemed to go on forever, and some in the congregation fell asleep.
After the service, to be social, Gladys walked up to a very sleepy looking gentleman, extended her hand in greeting, and said, “Hello, I’m Gladys Dunn.”
The old man said, “You’re not the only one ma’am, I’m glad it’s done too!!”
Note seven truths about God Paul told them about in his brief sermon:
1) First, Paul taught them that God is the CREATOR – Verse 24a – “God that made the world and all things therein,…”
Paul did not try to accommodate the Epicurean belief in evolution by chance. The Bible is clear, “God…made the world and everything in it…” And He is SEPARATE from His creation, not part of it, as the pantheistic Stoics believed.
2) Second, Paul taught them that God is the LORD of heaven and earth. – Verse 24b – “God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, …”
Here Paul uses the word Lord in the sense of “supreme ruler, king.” There are not really many gods as the Epicureans taught No, there is ONE God, and He is above all so-called gods they worshiped.
Furthermore, the one Lord is not a “force” as the Stoics taught—but a real personal being who RULES his domain—the heavens and the earth and “all things in it.” This was really different from what they believed. The one, true God is the Creator of the universe, and He is intimately involved in the affairs of humanity.
3) Third, Paul taught that God cannot be contained in man-made temples because He is OMNIPRESENT – Verse 24c-25a – “God…dwelleth not in temples made with hands; 25 Neither is worshipped with men’s hands,…”
God is too big to be confined in a temple like the many gods of the Epicureans. Instead, God is EVERYWHERE at all times.
And again, unlike the Stoic’s pantheism, the true God is a PERSON. So, He cannot be worshiped in an idol made from men’s hands because He’s not IN the idol. He’s separate from all things, and transcendent above all things—yet amazingly, no matter where you go in the universe, God is immediately present.
4) Next, Paul taught that God is TOTALLY SELF-SUFFICIENT – Verse 25 – “Neither is worshipped with men’s hands, as though he needed any thing,…”
The gods of the Greeks were just super-humans. They had needs just like humans did. A need implies a deficiency, or you wouldn’t “need” that thing. But the one, true God has no deficiencies, and hence, He has no needs.
Think of that—God has absolutely NO NEEDS! He has absolutely no financial needs; no emotional needs; no psychological needs; no social needs. He doesn’t need love or this universe, or even you or me.
For some reason, we think that God needs us, our lives, our worship, our offerings, our service. God desires these things, but He doesn’t need them, for He’s self-sufficient. He is not like the defective, deviant gods of the Greeks and Romans. He is the one, true, holy, almighty God.
5) Fifth, Paul taught that God is SOVEREIGN – Verse 26 – “And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation.”
Many people think that history is the record of man’s deeds. How foolish!—History is “His story.”
God is so sovereign that He somehow directs everything that happens to His appointed ends, so that ultimately His purposes and plans are accomplished.
- You clearly see God’s sovereignty in the death of Jesus.
We know from the Gospels that it was evil men who apprehended Jesus, falsely accused Him, and nailed Him to the cross. Yet Peter makes a curious statement in his sermon on Pentecost: Acts 2:23 – “Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain.”
Similarly, Acts 4:28 talks about Herod and Pontius Pilot being gathered together… “…to do whatsoever God’s hand and…counsel determined before to be done.”
- You also see God’s sovereignty as the Last Days approach.
Satan is frantically working against God on this earth and people rebel against God as if they could will God out of existence! Yet, folks, all of history is culminating inexorably in a series of events that will occur exactly as foretold in the book of Revelation and as planned by God before time began. Mankind acts on his own, making his own wicked choices; and yet, God is overruling and controlling and directing events and circumstances to accomplish His will perfectly!
THAT’S the powerful God we serve!— Not a puny god of wood or stone that can be cooped up in a building like the God’s the Epicureans worshipped! Nor is He some impersonal force that does not know us personally, that is not intimately involved in our lives, that does not care. He is the God of the Bible—an awesome, caring, involved God!
6) Paul also taught them that God is APPROACHABLE – Verse 27 – “That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us.”
This is the culmination of Paul’s thoughts. The true God is so different in every way from the gods of either the Epicureans or the Stoics. The multitudes of the Greek gods the Epicureans worshipped were distant, unconcerned, only intersecting in men’s lives to cause havoc and to be appeased.
And the so-called “god” of the Stoics, was not a real god at all. He was just a force, a universal principle of nature. You cannot HAVE A PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP WITH a force; you cannot personally KNOW a force; you cannot LOVE a force.
Paul says that the one, true God is very near every person. He is invisible and universal and everywhere present, yet He is also a PERSON who thinks, acts, loves, cares.
He is not very far away; in fact, He’s closer than you think.
Paul says this one, true God—this God who was unknown to them—CAN be known by those who are willing to seek Him out! It is in this context that Paul introduces the problem—the problem of sin that kept them from knowing the one, true God.
7) Finally, Paul taught them that God will JUDGE THE WORLD – Verse 31 – “Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.”
Every Epicurean and every Stoic, and every one of you and I know that we have sinned. Verse 31 just mentioned Christ briefly, but as I previously pointed out, Acts is mostly a summary of events, so I suspect Paul elaborated more fully who Jesus was and what He did.
What DID He do? He provided a way to have a personal relationship with this personal God. He was the one ordained by God to die for our sins, and then Paul says in verse 31 that God raised Jesus from the dead.
That’s something the Greek gods could never do. Here was a PERSON—a person who loved you and me and each of these Athenians; a person who cared for you and me and them. He cared enough to send His Son to die for all of our sins.
But he gives this warning: There is coming a day when God will judge the world. That’s true today just as it was 2000 years ago. Someday Jesus will come again and the very One who died for your sins will judge you if you have not received Jesus as your Lord and Savior.
CONCLUSION
What can we learn from this passage of Scripture? Let me share two thoughts with you to bring this home to where we live, and then look at three possible responses:
1) First, if you are without Christ, dear friend, God is closer than you think.
You are separated from God by your sin and He will judge your sin. But though you are separated from God by your sin, God has already judged your sin in Christ on the cross. When He was crucified, he paid the penalty for your sins. If you’ll turn from sin and just believe what God has said, He’ll come into your life, save you from sin, give you eternal life in heaven, and give your life purpose and meaning and significance because you will be a child of the King. I invite you this morning to put your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.
2) Second, if you’re a believer already, have your forgotten how awesome God is?
He’s the creator; the Lord of heaven and earth; the omnipresent, totally self-sufficient One; the sovereign God of history; the God who cares and loves and is very close and near. We can let God become blasé and forget how wonderful He is. I invite you to bow your head this morning and worship the Lord, and in our final son, praise Him for all He is, and lift Him up and glorify Him. And resolve to serve Him with greater resolve than ever, because He deserves it!
I would like you to note three responses to Paul’s sermon:
1) Some mocked – Verse 32a – “And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked…”
Oh, don’t do that! God is a God of love; but He’s also a God of judgment.
2) Others procrastinated – Verse 32b – “…and others said, We will hear thee again of this matter.”
I wonder if any of these who procrastinated ended up forgetting Paul’s message and are in hell today because they put off a decision for Christ. When God speaks to your heart—respond to His voice IMMEDIATELY.
3) Finally, some believed – Verse 34 – “Howbeit certain men clave unto him [stayed around to hear more], and believed.”
What will your response be in today’s message? Be among that third group. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and worship the one, true God today.
