Quest For The Unknown

Quest For The Unknown

Acts17:16-34

QUEST: A seeking; hunting; pursuing

As hounds who have caught the scent of game

You & I - for 1999

History’s Quest

- 1999 World Almanac

Nobel Prize in Medicine = Viagra

- The most influential people for the last 1000 years

• William Shakespeare

• Isaac Newton

• Charles Darwin

- Mine would have been Christopher Columbus

1. A Quest Involves a Search

2, A Quest Results In A Discovery

3. The Quest Demands a Change

4. The Quest leaves a Record

1. The Quest Involves A Search - v.21

- Acts 17:21(KJV)

(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.)

- 17:16 - Athens - Surroundings

- Paid no taxes to Rome

- A city of cultural pride

- The center of enlightenment in science, art, and literature

- Temples galore

- Full of breathtaking Architecture

Areopagus - Center Piece

- “Ares’ Gk. god of war was murder

- Corresponds to Roman god “Mars”

- Hill is 370 ft.

- Place where homicide were tried

- 3 sides have benches

- 2 white stones where the defendant and accuser stood

- Called - The Stone of Shamelessness

- The Stone of Pride

Our Athens

- We want familiarity with our surroundings

- Maintain a standard of living

- A routine with out risk

- Give to our families

Our Areopagus

We want morality to be legislated

but not our hearts

- 17:16 - Idols - Feelings

Acts 17:16 (KJV)

Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was stirred in him, when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry.

Acts 17:22 (KJV)

Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars’ hill, and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious.

- NKJV - you are very religious.

- City crowed in every direction with temples idols and objects of worship

- Our idols today is on a tree shaded lot

- Is parked in the driveway

- Seeking an education for our kids

- Having great vacations

- Most often the color of our idol is green - $$$$

17:18 - Philosophers- (Ideas)

Epicureans

- Teaching Personal Individuality

- Personal Happiness

- Present Happiness over future Happy

- No life after death

- Materialism

- Paul did not criticize pleasure but the denial of the Resurrection

- Personal experience most important

- If I have to risk let me risk it on an amusement ride

- If my marriage is unhappy - get out

- Get rich schemes

Stoic - Acts 17:28 reference comes from the

Stoic poet Aratus quoting from Phenomena”

- “For indeed we are his offspring”

- Thinking above feelings surpress your desires

- Live disciplined lives

- Live in harmony with nature

- Pantheism god is in everything

- Protect the environment but not the unborn

- Today’s thinking New Age - we are gods

17:20-21 - Exchanging ideas

2 The Quest Results In A Discovery

* Jesus - v.18 - Takes God’s Wrath

Acts 17:18 (KJV).

Then certain philosophers of the Epicureans, and of the Stoicks, 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.

• Resurrection - v.18 - Central to faith

Acts 17:18 (KJV)

....... " because he preached unto them Jesus and the resurrection

Romans 10:9 (KJV)

That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.

• Regenerates our Sp.

Philippians 3:10 (KJV)

That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death;

• The power that raised Christ works in us

Ephesians 1:19-20 (KJV)

And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power,

20 Which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places,

• For victory over sins’s power

Romans 6:5-6 (KJV)

For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection:

6 Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.

• Power for ministering

Acts 1:8 (KJV)

But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.