…and preach the gospel to you in order that you should turn from these vain things to a living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea, and all that is in them. And in the generations gone by He permitted all the nations to go their own ways; and yet He did not leave Himself without witness, in that He did good and gave you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness.”
The last time we were here we charged the people of Lystra, both pagans and Jews, with failing to listen. We concluded that they missed out completely on what Paul and Barnabas had to offer because they weren’t really hearing what was being said to them.
In verse 18 of this chapter, the verse following our text verses today, Luke tells us that “…even saying these things, they with difficulty restrained the crowds from offering sacrifice to them”. Meaning, they still weren’t paying attention.
So before we move on from this chapter I’d like to stop and look at what Paul was trying to tell the people of Lystra, and as we do let’s be careful not to repeat their error. Let’s go slowly and carefully so as not to miss the blessing.
THE WITNESS OF GOD IN CREATION
Ps 146:6 I Cor 8:5,6 Rom 1:18-20
The first way God witnesses to man concerning Himself is in creation. We call it general revelation, and for some of you this point might take your mind back to Romans 1, where Paul says,
“18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness,
19 because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them.
20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.”
These pagans already believed that all the natural world was a result of creation. What Paul wanted them to understand was that it was done by the one true God, not the many gods that they worshiped.
The ‘vain things’ he referred to in verse 15 were those very gods and the forms of worship and sacrifice that were exercised in their ceremonies. The gods were false and therefore the rituals were useless. Vain.
This is a topic Paul had many opportunities to address; probably many more than are recorded for us in scripture.
To the Corinthians, he wrote: “For even if there are so-called gods whether in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are many gods and many lords, yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and we exist for Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we exist through Him.”
Christians need to realize that the greatest stumbling block to the preaching of the gospel to the unchurched world, is the theory of evolution.
At least these pagan worshipers were starting from a place of recognizing their duty to some deity; someone higher than themselves.
We now live in a society where two and going on three generations of people have been brought up in a school system that subtracts God from the equation completely.
If the universe began by accident and has developed on its own over a period of billions of years, then there is no God to be accountable to or grateful to or obedient to or respectful of.
Evolution is the most demonic lie Satan has ever fostered upon the minds of mankind, and Christians only play into his hands when they attempt to find some happy blending of its teachings with the creation account.
The Christian church is the last bastion against the onslaught and the ravages of this deception, and if she fails through neglect to counter it with the truth about the Living God, neither this nation nor its churches will remain free for a fourth generation to decide for themselves what to believe.
When Paul addresses the Athenian philosophers in chapter 17 of Acts he will tell them about the God who made the world and all things in it, and will introduce Him as “Lord of Heaven and earth”.
Because if there is a God to whom all things and all men owe their very existence, then He is indeed Lord of all and therefore is to be worshiped and adored.
And no one in the world understands this but Christians. And they aren’t going to hear unless we stick to our guns concerning sound doctrine and then tell them with the same urgency of spirit that brought Paul and Barnabas to tear their garments, that the Lord of Heaven and earth wants them to know Him.
Listen to MacArthur on this:
“To the unbelieving world, rife with skepticism, antisupernaturalism, rationalism, mysticism, and the hopeless despair each produces, the Christian offers the only message of hope. Man is not a cosmic accident, a personal being trapped in an impersonal universe. There is a God, who is both the creator of the universe and its sovereign ruler.
Not only does He exist, but He is also knowable and has revealed Himself to man. God created men to know Him and through that knowledge to glorify Him. Man’s intimate knowledge of God was lost in the Fall but is restored through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Sin is forgiven, and alienated people are reconciled to God for time and eternity”.
-The MacArthur New Testament Commentary, Acts 13-28, Moody, 1996, pg 129
So God witnesses of Himself in His creation. Paul makes this first point to the gentiles of Lystra and later to the Philosophers of Athens, and so must we to a society that serves and worships gods of their own making.
There is a God who is maker and ruler of all, and He wants to be known by men, therefore He reveals Himself in many ways.
Paul’s next point to them is that God has been patient in their ignorance, but that the times of ignorance are over and they are called to choose.
THE WITNESS OF GOD IN HIS FOREBEARANCE
Acts 17:30,31 Romans 3:25,26
Paul says ‘…in the generations gone by He permitted all the nations to go their own ways”
Let’s break this line down for clarity’s sake. First, he says, ‘in the generations gone by’. That is inclusive of all the generations of men, from the Fall until the time of the coming and sacrifice of Christ.
From the very beginning man has been rebellious against God, and yet God has shown Himself to be patient and forbearing with them all. He didn’t show favoritism, He didn’t punish one group and let another go. Sin must have its wage, but in His divine wisdom and kindness God waited patiently until the fullness of time.
“…then implies now.” John B. Polhill, Acts – NIV New American Commentary, Broadman, pg 316
Polhill meant that when Paul says ‘in the generations gone by’, the implication is that things have changed.
When I talk about my younger days and some of the physical abilities of my youth, I talk about them in the past tense. There would be no need to speak of them in the past tense, if I could still do them.
When I see some young guy on television running the length of a narrow brick wall without falling off and say, “I used to be able to do that”, the girls look at me with curled eyebrows.
There are two reasons for that. They didn’t know me then, but they do know me now.
In all the generations of men gone by, God witnessed to His own kindness and mercy by showing forbearance; patience; even though sin raged.
But then implies now, and things have changed.
Paul explained it this way to the Romans:
“…for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed; for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.”
Here again we see the ‘then’ and ‘now’. He passed over the sins previously committed, then, for the demonstration of His righteousness at the present time, now.
In saying He passed over sins previously committed, that is not an implication that He winked at sin and let the sinner off.
This is good news for all who finally come to Him by faith, because they then become recipients in full of His forbearing grace.
But it should also serve as a solemn warning to the unbeliever and the disobedient Christian.
In Isaiah 59:12 the prophet confesses the sins of his people and says;
For our transgressions are multiplied before You,
And our sins testify against us;
For our transgressions are with us,
And we know our iniquities:
We know our sins and cannot fool God into thinking we’re ignorant of them. Just because He seems silent about them doesn’t mean they’re ok. It doesn’t mean He has forgotten, or that somehow it’s different with you than anyone else.
It is His mercy that holds back His anger, waiting for you to confess and repent and come back to His love.
Paul will declare to the Athenians:
“…having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now…”
Hear it again? The then and the now?
“…God is now declaring to men that all everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead.”
God’s forbearance in generations past witnessed two things about Himself. That He is just, and that He is the one who is now, through the propitiating work of Christ, able to justify all who believe in Him.
Make no mistake! Sin does not go unpunished, ever. But because of God’s patience and His grace, all men everywhere can repent and come to the knowledge of the truth and be saved.
Finally, Paul shows them that God has given witness concerning Himself in His goodness.
THE WITNESS OF GOD IN HIS PROVISION
Ps 65:9-13 Deut 11:13-15
You may never have seen the one true God, but you’ve seen His works, and since He has given a general knowledge of His existence in the breast of every man, you are therefore left without excuse.
Listen to the beautiful poetry of the psalmist:
“Thou dost visit the earth, and cause it to overflow;
Thou dost greatly enrich it; The stream of God is full of water;
Thou dost prepare their grain, for thus Thou dost prepare the earth,
Thou dost water its furrows abundantly; Thou dost settle its ridges; Thou dost soften it with showers;
Thou dost bless its growth.
Thou hast crowned the year with Thy bounty, and Thy paths drip with fatness.
The pastures of the wilderness drip, and the hills gird themselves with rejoicing.
The meadows are clothed with flocks, and the valleys are covered with grain;
They shout for joy, yes, they sing.”
The godless man looks at what he calls ‘nature’ and he blesses or curses it according to his present mood.
How arrogant we are in our sin, to talk of the weather and the changes of seasons and the size of crops and the quantity and quality of all provision that comes to us, as though all things should come and go according to our whim.
None of us can make a pinecone. No man can turn a hurricane or cause a seed to sprout and push its growth through solid rock.
Yet men take advantage of all the goodness that makes their lives bearable, and while chewing a prime cut of steak or sipping a fine, age-perfected glass of wine, they’ll deny the existence of the only One who could have provided their comforts.
Remember, Paul wasn’t talking to Christians. He was talking to idolatrous pagans. But he declared to them that this living God was the one who had provided all the good things that come to their land and themselves, and this is one of the few cases in which the NIV seems to give the most effective rendering:
“…He provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy.” Vs 17 NIV
I don’t know if this is a common experience among men or if I’m just weird…maybe a little of both…, but I can remember some years back being strongly impressed with something that came to me out of the pages of C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia and then again from Tolkien’s “The Hobbit”, that changed me in a big way.
Now I’m sure other authors have managed to send this message through their writings, but it was these two who reached me, with their ability to describe some of the most simple pleasures of life in a way that made them seem very important.
They speak of sitting down with a friend on a chilly day near a warm stove or freshly stoked fireplace, with a cup of tea and some small cakes and maybe crackers and slices of cheese, and just enjoying the goodness of it all.
They talk of taking a stroll through a garden area or down a wooded path next to a gently bubbling stream and having time to think about things past and contemplate things to come.
Now I don’t know if all this sounds silly to you or not. I’m just sharing something that was special to me, because when I read these things in these various stories it was during a time in my life when work was very stressful and the future seemed rather dark, and when Bilbo Baggins closed the round door to his under-hill home in the Shire and sat down with his pipe to a cup of hot tea, toast and jam, it made me peaceful. It made me contemplative about how God had blessed me with an ability to derive joy from things that could not be taken away. (for further clarification, read letter 13 in Lewis’ "The Screwtape Letters")
And Christian I hope you understand what I’m telling you today; that no matter what is going on in your life, no matter what the demands are on your day, no matter what your projected image of your future is, the living God wants you to know Him. He has given witness of Himself that can be seen all around you, He patiently waits daily for you to seek Him out for His nearness and listen for His voice, and He wants you to have the peace and joy that comes with the simple things He has given to flood your heart with gladness.
And I also encourage you to think of ways you might express these same thoughts to people with whom you come in contact; both Christians and non-Christians.
Because non-believers and believers alike, I think, envision a wrathful, vengeful God who is angry that we aren’t all walking the straight and narrow. In whose opinion our plans are never quite good enough and the execution of our days is pathetic and wasteful.
Sometimes I listen to radio preachers or hear comments from people that cause me to think that if God thought the way we do He be raining down fire on a daily basis.
I saw a bumper sticker several years ago that said, “Jesus is coming back, and boy is He ticked”. Very sacrilegious, but I believe it expresses the misconception that many folks have about God.
Here’s a challenge for you. Strike up a conversation with someone and tell them you’re doing your own personal survey and you’d like their input. When they agree, ask them to give you their knee-jerk response to a question; ask them not to think about it but to just say the first word that comes to mind, and then ask this question.
“If you picture God’s face, what mood do you think He is in based on the expression you see there?”
It might be very educational for you to gather responses to that from folks around town.
Whatever their response though, they’re going be curious why you asked. That will be your opportunity to say, “Well, as I’ve been reading my Bible it has occurred to me that the kind of God revealed there is one who, although He is creator and owner of all and deserves absolute worship and obedience, yet He has been very patient with me, and wants me to know Him as a friend, and He has graciously provided me with all that I need to supply my physical needs and fill my heart with joy. I hope you know Him like that. Would you like to know Him like that?”
Paul and Barnabas had found themselves in a very stressful situation, and one that caused them great alarm. But Paul, instead of rebuking them in their ignorance, turned their attention back to the good news he had been preaching and then told them about the goodness of the One who had always been their benefactor in all things, even when they didn’t know Him.
We don’t see any immediate good results there in our text, but if you continue to read this chapter you’ll see that when Paul returned through Lystra later on there was a church there to encourage before he continued on his way.
We don’t have to be great preachers, believers.
Listen. Because of the media and the attitudes in our present day culture that polarize groups and put up walls between them, we tend to think that people outside the church believe strongly in something else that keeps them away.
The truth is, they don’t know what they believe, they don’t know what to believe, and for the most part they fill their days with fluff and fizzle so they don’t have to think about it.
And I really think a lot of them would be very interested to hear that the God we serve wants them to know Him, and that He is the benefactor they have been largely unaware of, who has provided all the good things in their life and wants to fill their heart with joy.
I think a lot of our evangelism over the years has been ineffective because we’ve been misrepresenting God. So He can’t bless the message and they don’t want to hear it.
Don’t you think the church could become a welcome thing in our culture once more if people knew that she represented the kind of God Paul declared?
I do.
How could we go wrong, witnessing about God the way He has witnessed of Himself?
