Engage the Culture with the Gospel part 2

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[41:29] And we're good.

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[45:00] Thank you. Christ.

[46:00] And you're good. Thank you.

[47:00] Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. God, God God, God in three.

[48:32] And you're good. And you're good. Thank you. Thank you. And you're good. Thank you.

[48:43] Thank you. Thank you. And you're good. And you're good. And you're good. And you're good. And you're good. And you're good.

[48:55] And you're good. And you're good. And you're good. And you're good. And you're good. And you're good. And you're good. And you're good.

[49:07] And you're good. And you're good. And you're good. And you're good. Holy, holy, holy Though the darkness hide Thee Though the eye of sinful man Thy glory may not see Only Thou art holy There is none beside Thee In perfect power and love and purity

[50:16] Holy, holy, holy Lord God Almighty All Thy works shall praise Thy name In earth and sky and sea Holy, holy, holy Merciful and mighty God in three Persons Blessed Trinity

[51:19] God in three Persons Blessed Trinity Let's pray Let's pray Let's pray You are so holy, O God You're so unlike us Otherness Godness Godness Set apart from us

[52:21] The creation Creatures And You are the Creator We humbly come into Your presence Holy, holy Triune God And yet we come with great confidence That You love us Not because we're lovable Not because we're worthy Not because You're a God who loves unconditionally No Love us Because of Your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ The Eternal Son of God Who took on flesh Who lived Who died Who rose We put our trust in Him alone

[53:26] And so You see Not us But Him You see a people united to Him So now we stand before You Holy and blameless Only because of Jesus Christ And You hear us when we pray It's the only reason why You hear us When we pray It's because of Jesus Christ And we pray For Travis and Karen We pray that Travis would Embrace the responsibility of a deacon Maintaining that unity in Your church Caring for Your people as they already do And taking on things that helps me To serve Your people

[54:28] We pray that they will continue to love Your people Your church Which it shows that they are abiding in the light Obeying Your commands Give them assurance Each day that their sins are forgiven That they know You And have overcome the evil one We pray for their marriage We display the gospel Grace and compassion Towards each other Outdoing each other In gracious ways Fulfilling their roles Travis is a leader With great love Karen Joyfully submitting to Him In all things And we pray that all three of their boys One is a man One Is becoming a man These three Love the Lord Jesus Christ

[55:28] And worship Him alone We pray for another church At this time We lift up Summit Bible Church Dear to our hearts Is Eric and Lori Woods May they as a church Take refuge in You Save them from the pursuits Of the evil one He wants to Destroy them Be their shield That they will be a church That is unified Under the gospel Giving thanks to You According to Your righteousness Singing praises to Your name Lord Most High And we pray specifically for Eric Give him wisdom Grace Love for Lori For Zach Thank you that he's home For Victoria For Paisley For your people Direct them Give them guidance We pray We pray for those in our government

[56:30] We pray at this time For the U.S. Supreme Court Justices John Roberts Selena Kagan Antonin Scalia Anthony Kennedy Clarence Thomas Ruth Ginsburg Stephen Breyer Samuel Lito Sonia Sotomayor We pray they'll judge According to righteousness And justice Upholding the constitution Not their own biases Not deciding what is true But to acknowledge truth We graciously say They've been foolish This past year In their decisions So they need the light Of Your word To decide in true knowledge And wisdom They need the fear of Christ Because that's the beginning Of wisdom Be gracious in that way To them we pray And God we pray For the Syrian refugees Give wisdom to our representatives And the vital decision

[57:33] Between stewardship And trusting Your sovereignty Before the refugees We pray You would open hearts To the gospel And they would see That Islam Is a sham A doctrine of demons And those who follow Allah hate them And want them killed Those who love The Lord Jesus Christ Want to see them Follow Jesus Christ And care for them And as opportunities Arise for us Help us to be willing To reach out with grace And compassion Alongside wisdom We would build gospel Relationships With gospel Motivated service Towards them And for us Who are here today Continue to give us Courage To proclaim To live Your gospel In each situation That You place us in We can pray this

[58:36] In the holy name Of Your Son Jesus Christ Amen Please be seated If you would take Your Bibles And go to the book Of Acts Or take your devices And go to the book Of Acts Chapter 6 Excuse me 17 We're going to look at Starting in verse 16 Chapter 17 Starting in verse 16 If you're visiting with us You can pull that black Bible Out in the chair In front of you And go to page 107 Go towards the back Page 107 107

[59:38] And you'll find Acts 17 We're going to look at Verse 16 Through 34 16 through 34 This morning Probably one of the most Talked about passages In all the Bible There's actually books Written on this Particular passage Numerous books And articles written On verses 16 Through 34 Of Acts 17 We'll try and get this Done in one Sure That would be interesting Hello Hello Hello Is this on It went out Didn't it cut out Did it No No Okay I'm going Swigling crazy Okay So Verse 16 Now while Paul Was waiting For them In Athens His spirit Was being provoked Within him As he was beholding

[60:38] The city Full of idols So he was Raising in the synagogue With the Jews And the God Fearers And in the marketplace Every day With those who Happened to be present And also some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers Were conversing With him And some were saying What would this Idol babbler Wish to say Others He seems to be A proclaimer Of strange deities Because he was Preaching Jesus And the resurrection And they took him And brought him To the Areopagus Saying Maybe you know What this new Teaching is Which you are Proclaiming For you are Bringing some Strange things To our ears We want to know Therefore what These things mean Now all the Athenians And the strangers Visiting there Used to spend Their time In nothing Other than Telling or Hearing something New And Paul Stood in the Midst of the Areopagus And said Men of Athens I observe That you are Very religious In all respects While I was Passing through And examining The objects

[61:39] Of your worship I also found An altar With this inscription To an unknown God What therefore You worship In ignorance This I Proclaim to you Verse 24 The God Who made the World and all Things in it Since he Is lord of Heaven and earth Does not dwell In temples Made with hands Neither Is he served By human hands As though He needed Anything Since he Himself Gives to all Life and Breath And all Things And he Made from One every Nation of Mankind To live On all The face Of the Earth Having Determined Their Appointed Times And the Boundaries Of their Habitation That they Should see God If perhaps They might Grope For him And find Him Though he's Not far From each One of Us For in Him we Live And move And exist As even Some of Your own Poets Have said For we Also are His Offspring 29 Being then The offspring Of God We ought Not to Think that The divine Nature is Like gold

[62:39] Or silver Or stone An image Formed by The art And thought Of man Therefore Having overlooked The times Of ignorance 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 Whom he Has appointed Having furnished Proof to all Men by raising Him from the Dead Now When they Heard of the Resurrection Of the dead Some sneered But others Said we shall Hear you again Concerning this So Paul went Out of their Mits But some Men joining Him Believed Among whom Also were Dionysius The Areopagite And a woman Named Damaris And others With them From grocery Shelves To pop Culture A century Of coca-cola Bottles It's the title Of the article Thursday November 19th This past

[63:40] Week Coca-cola Celebrated A century Of coca-cola Bottle Sold in Over 200 Countries Flashbacks Says the article To 1915 When a bottle Of coca-cola Just Cost A nickel My father Was 20 Years old At that time I think I couldn't Resist Sorry dad As the Soft drink Gained in Popularity It faced A growing Number of Competitors People trying To steal Their logo So according To coca-cola Historian Ted Ryan That's a Coca-cola Historian That's kind of Weird It decided To come up With packaging That couldn't Be duplicated Ryan says This Quote The company Issued a Creative Brief It was Wonderfully Simple That creative Brief And that Went to Eight Glass Companies Across America Workers At the Root Glass Company In Tera

[64:40] Hout Indiana If I'm Saying That Right Got That Request And began Flipping Through the Encyclopedia At the Local Library Landing On Coca-pod Though Not an Ingredient Of the Soda They Designed Their Bottle Based On The Pods Ribs And Bulgy Middle And Won Over Coke Executives In Atlanta And Would Go On To Receive Its Own Trademark Spur Collections And Earn Coca-Cola An Iconic Image That Made It A Main State Of Americana For A Century So Much So If I Were To Hold Up A Bottle Just Like That What Do You Immediately Think Of Coca-Cola It's So Much In Grained And Part Of A Way Of Life For A Group Of People Behaviors Beliefs Values Attitudes Ideas Coke It's Ingrained It's Part Of Our Culture It's It's How We Live It's

[65:41] How We Think It's How We Behave And We Started Last Week How We Must Engage The Culture With The Gospel And I'm Just Carrying Over The Title From Last Week Engage The Culture With The Gospel This Is Part Two Because It Flows Over This Title Into This Passage Acts 17 Verses 16 Through 34 Engage The Culture With The Gospel We're Going To Do Some Review In Just A Moment I Said A Few Moments Ago That This Passage Is Probably One Of The Most Important Passages In The New Testament And Definitely In The Book Of Acts Possibly In The New Testament There Are Books Written On This Articles Written On This There Is A Thick Book That I Didn't Read Through This All Week About 50 Pages Though And Part Of This Book Deals With This Passage Greg Bonson Wrote This Book Called Van Till's Apologetic 760

[66:41] Pages Worth So As I'm Preaching Through This Passage Questions Might Come Up In Your Mind From Last Week I Just From Last Week's Message I Had Five Questions From Last Week's Message So I'm Assuming Given The Nature Of This Text There Might Be More Questions About This Passage So This Is What We're Going To Do So Here's Your Title Engage The Gospel Part 2 Text Your Questions To My Cell Phone So Write Down My Cell Phone If You Want Put Questions This Is My Cell Phone Number And While I'm Preaching If Questions Come Up Text Me Those Questions And Then Next Week What I'm Going To Do Is I'm Going To Take The Questions That You Text To Me And I'm Going To Deal With Those Questions Next Week I'm Going To Deal With The Five I Had Last Week Because They Coincide With This Passage Too And Any Of Questions You Have You Can Text Those To

[67:41] Me This Is My Cell Phone Number I'll Leave It Up There For A While You Can Write That Down On Your Notes Or Somewhere Else And As I'm Preaching If Questions Come Up Please Text Those To Me And Then I'll Deal With Those As Best As I Can Next Sunday So That's Going To Be The Message Next Sunday The Message Next Sunday Which I Think Is In Your Bulletin A Q A I'm Going To Answer Those Questions As Best As I Can For You Give It Again Give It The Nature And The Importance Of This Text And As We Go Through It You'll Understand Why I'll Give You A Few More Moments Nine Two Last Week I Proposed That We Engage Our Pop Culture With The Gospel Whether It Be With Those Familiar With The Bible Or Those Totally Unfamiliar With It This Goes From Muslims Jehovah Witnesses

[68:42] Atheists Different Spectrums All Over The Place All Over The Map Taoist Shinto Sikh Hindus Buddhists Agnostics Anyone I Proposed We Engage Our Culture With The Gospel Whether They're Familiar With The Bible Or Not And What Does It Mean To Engage What Do We Mean By That Engage To Establish A Meaningful Connection Or Contact Or Cause Someone To Become Involved In So We Want To Establish A Meaningful Connection With Them With The Gospel We Want To Establish A Meaningful Contact With Them With The Gospel That's What We Want To Do That's That's Our Objective Now This Is What God Did With Us That's Why We're Doing This The Motivation

[69:43] Behind This Is What God Did With Us In The Gospel In The Gospel God Engaged With Our Will By Becoming Like Us I Mean Jesus Will Forever Be God Man There Will Never Be A Time Where God Will Not Be Connected With Humanity That's How Much He Is Engaged With Our Culture He Incarnated Himself And So In The Same Way We Must Incarnate Ourselves With The Culture With The Gospel That's What God Did With Us That's Where You Have Jesus Becoming Man And Take It On Flesh Living Dying Rising Repent And Believe That's The Gospel Now Why Can Are We Able To Engage With Unsafe People With The Gospel Why Because Of Our Point Of Contact What's Our Point

[70:43] Of Contact Everyone Has A Sense Of Deity Everyone Believes In The True God Everyone Everyone Believes In The True God Everyone Everyone Believes Even Whether You're Talking About The Atheist Or The Muslim I'm Not Talking About Their God I'm Talking About The Christian God The God Of The Bible That's The God They Believe But They Suppress It They Spit At It They Suppress It And Then They Exchange It They Suppress It And Then They Exchange It It's Like Default All The Time This Is Why We're Able To Engage With Them Another Question How Do We Engage With Them This Is All Review We Talk About This Last Week How Do We Engage We Reason We Explain We Prove Or Demonstrate We Proclaim We Persuade Towards The Gospel Use God's Word With All Our Listeners Everyone

[71:44] We Use God's Word We Use The Scriptures The Bible Were This The Atheist Or The Muslim Whether It's The Agnostic Or The Shintoist We Engage Them With The Gospel We Give Them The Scriptures How Did Paul Address A Purely Gentile Audience We Can Talk About This Pagans Pantheists Agnostics How Do He Engage That Culture With The Gospel The Same Way He Did For The Jews Man He Used The Scriptures As His Ultimate Starting Point His Point Of Contact Was The Fact That They Truly Believe In The One True God But It's Marred And It's All Said And Done At

[72:45] The End Of The Day What Are Our Applications To This Text I'm Going To Give You The Applications Now And I'm Going To Give You At The End Of The Message When It All Comes Down To It We're Going To Look At All These Different Things In This Passage And You're Going To Be Engaging With Me In This Passage I'm Going To Establish A Connection With You When It's All Said Done It Comes Down To Three Different Applications One Humans Are Totally Unable To Embrace The Truth Of Christianity You Got To Get This They're Totally Unable To Embrace The Truth Of Christianity Two We Must Give A Consistent And Yet A Gracious Proclamation Of The Gospel We Must Give A Consistent And Yet Gracious Proclamation Of The Gospel Number Three As

[73:46] We Speak The Gospel We Must Firmly Rely Tenaciously Cling To The Grace Of God Because You Won't Convince Them God Needs To Do Work In Their Heart The Heart That's Hardened To The Truth It's By His Grace That He Saves Sinners So At The End Of The Day As We Look Through This When It's All Said And Done What's The Point Here They're Unable To Embrace The Truth Of Christianity But We Must Give A Consistent Gracious Proclamation Of The Gospel And As We're Speaking This Gospel We Rely Firmly We Hold Tenacity To God's Grace Knowing That His Grace Will Open Their Heart Change Their Will And They'll Run Into The Arms Of Jesus So

[74:50] Those Are Three Applications And Again I'll Put Those Up There Later On At The End Of Our Message So If You're Writing Those Down You'll See Them Again Let's Get Into Our Passage Who Was Paul Speaking To Pagans Pantheists And Agnostics Oh That's A Great Audience Now Verse Sixteen He's Waiting For Them In Athens His Spirit Was Being Provoked Within Him Beholding A City Full Of Idols Athens The Philosophical Center Of The Ancient World Four Major Schools Plato Aristotle Epicurus And Zeno From Where You Get The Stoics Known For Their Idolatry Of The Masses They Place High High Value On Knowledge And They Are Preoccupied With The Latest Fads The Latest Ideas As We'll See In Verse 21 Paul Was Vexed Is What The Word Means He Was Disturbed

[75:50] Annoyed Over All The Idols Notice 17 As Was His Custom Went To The Synagogue Reasoning Reasoning With The Jews And The God Fears And He Went To The Marketplace Every Day With Those Who Happened To Be Present So He Went To The Synagogue To Speak With Jews And God Fears But He Also Went To The Marketplace Ah In The Graeco-Roman World The Marketplace Was The Hub Of Urban Life An Equivalent Maybe The Mall I Guess It Was A Center For Commerce And Trade Sharing Ideas The Marketplace Was Just Lined With Idols Everywhere And Here He Encountered Greek Philosophers Now I Just Want To Point Something Out Real Quick To You Paul Is Not Going To Use Anger Ridicule Sarcasm Give Names Name Calling He Is Not Going To Do That He

[76:50] Is To Be Gracious In His Defense Of The Faith So Look Verse 18 He Encounters These Epicurean And Stoic Philosophers They're Conversing With Him Who Are These People Stoics Followed Zeno They Were Pantheists What's A Pantheist God's In Everything God's In These Flowers God's In This Wall God's In This Thing God's In This Microphone God's In The Plates God's In The Pulpit God's In Your Spits God's In Everything Pantheists And The Themes That They Held To Reason A World State Self Sufficiency Obedience Discipline Live In Harmony Through Logic And Discipline Those Were Stoics And There's A lot More Stoics Than Epicureans Who

[77:51] Were These Epicureans They Were Agnostic Secularists So With The Stoics You Might Have Just Gods All Over The Place Epicureans They're Secular Agnostics One Epicurean Here's A quote From Them Nothing To Fear In God Nothing To Feel In Death Good Pleasure Can Be Attained Evil Pain Can Be Endured End Quote That's Epicurean They Pursued Happiness Apart From Divine Intervention With Humanity Now Some Might Say Okay Yeah Maybe God Did That But He Doesn't Care About Us Almost Like Deists Like God Creates Us And Then You Don't Care Certainly There's Not To Be No Retribution From God Either These Are The Ones He's Dealing With Notice Verse 18 So We're Saying What Would This I Babbler Wish To Say And They Said It

[78:51] In English Accent What Would This I This Babbler Used To Say I Don't Know Maybe They Didn't Do It But Anyways I Don't Babbler It Means Actually Scrap Monger Picking Up Bits Of Info Acting Like He Knows What He's Talking About But He Has No Idea What He's Talking About That Type Of Guy You Know Like People You See On TV Nothing But A Show Off And Notice The Snootiness Of The Athens Of The Athenians Who Is This Guy Who The Heck Are You He's A Plagiarist But Notice Some Others He Seems To Be Proclaimer Strange Deities Because He Was Proclaiming Jesus And The Resurrection Literally Gospeling Evangelion Gospeling Jesus And The Resurrection So All These Ideas These Strange Things Not He's Not Saying That Jesus Is A God And Resurrection

[79:51] Is A God Not Saying That It's A New Religion New Ideas Basically They Had No Clue What He Was Talking About So Notice Verse 19 They Brought Him They Didn't Arrest Him It Wasn't Like Hostile Brought Him To The Are Latin Is Mars Hill Saying May We Know What This New Teaching Is Which You're Proclaiming For You're Bringing Some Strangling To Ears We Want To Know What These Things Mean Quite Possibly They Brought Him Before The Council Of The Areopagus There Was Actually A Council And This Council Had Great Power They Would Try Crimes They Regulated Education Lectures Morality Cults Maybe He Was Before The Council Luke Doesn't Tell Us They Discuss Matters Of Interest And Curiosity Notice Verse 21 They Always Want To Know What's A New Strange Fad Hey What's Really Cool Right Now Let's Talk About That That's What They Want To Know Now 17

[80:55] Chapter 17 22 Through 31 I Want us To Land Here Going to Be Here Most Of Our Time First I Want To Give You Just Kind Of The Points Run You Through This As Well Different Questions And Then Answers To Questions What Did Paul Use When He Was Going To Talk With Them He Used The Scriptures How Did Paul Use It He Reasoned He Explained He Proved Demonstrated He Proclaimed He Persuaded Why Did Paul Use It Because Of The Point Of Contact So I Want to Give Those To You Right Off The Bat And As We're Going Through The Passage Here I'm Going To Give You Some Implications Of What He Says To The Athenians There At The Areopagus I'm Going To Give You There's Seven Of Them Seven Implications From Our Passage By The Way I Attribute Much Of This To Greg Bonson In His Article On

[81:55] This Very Passage In Acts 17 16 Through 34 So Let's Begin Stand In The Middle Of The Areopagus Verse 22 Men Of Athens I Observe That You In The Greek It's Weird There's No English Equivalent Literally It's From The Greek Fearers Of The Supernatural Spirits It Can Be Used In A Positive Way Or It Can Be Used In A Negative Way Well How Is It Being Used I Don't Know And Scholars Debate It's Being Positive Nobody Really Knows And You Know I Think Paul Did That On Purpose He Was Being Vague On Purpose With Them Notice He Says I Was Passing Through Examining Objects Of Worship I Found An Altar With This In Scripture To Unknown God Would Therefore You Worship In Ignorance This I

[82:55] Proclaim To You Something Something Something We Need To Understand Humans Are Made To Be Worshippers Specifically Worshippers Of The Living God But It's Been Degraded By Sin In Rebellion They Pervert The Knowledge They Have Of God And In This Way They Become Ignorantly Foolish Or Willfully Ignorant Notice He Says In Your Idol To An Unknown God Which They Worship In Ignorance He's Telling Them Something First He's Telling Them That They Admitted Their Knowledge Of God Or Groping After God They Admitted Their Ignorance Of God And Their Perversion Of God And Just That Title To An Unknown God For This Idol The Knowledge Of God Their Ignorance Of Him And Their Perversion Of Him So They're Aware Of God And Yet They're Also Ignorance And I'll Be Using This Phrase

[83:55] Culpable Ignorance In words They're Guilty Again If you Have Questions Text Those To My Phone Please So What You Worship In Ignorance I'm Going To Proclaim To You In Other Words I'm Going To Tell You The Absolute Truth Of What You Worship In Ignorance Here's The Absolute Solid Real Truth And It's Completely Reasonable So Notice Here Here Paul Paul Paul Paul Was Not Building Some Common Ground With Them But Using The Point Of Contact Their Sense Of Deity Which Is Marred By Their Rebellion I Mean How Do You How Do You Gain Common Ground With Someone That You Have Absolutely Nothing In Common With Spiritually Which I'll Talk About In A Moment And This Rebellion Is Going To Call Them To Repent Now I'm Going To Move Us Now To There's There's Four Implications That We See Here From Just These Few Verses Four Implications Four Implications

[84:56] Here's The First One Number One Every Human Has A Knowledge Of God The One True God But That Knowledge Is Degraded By Sin Sin Sinners Have A Sense Of Deity That Condemns Them But They Do Not Have The Sense Of Deity That Which I Think You Understand The Devil Who's A Real Person Does He Have A Knowledge Of God Yes Does He Have A True Knowledge Of God Yes Does He Have The True Knowledge Of God That Saves Him No Same Thing With Every Human Upon This Planet Same Thing Those Who Do Not Know The Lord Jesus Christ They Have A True Knowledge Of God They Have A Knowledge Of God They Have A True Knowledge Of God But Not The Kind Of Knowledge That Can Save Them Just Like The Evil One So

[85:58] Every Human Has A Knowledge Of God The One True God But That Knowledge Is Degraded By Sin Implication Number One Implication Number Two This Clear Knowledge Of God From Creation From Logic Morality It Suppressed Resulting In Culpable Ignorance They Take That Truth And They Suppress It They Take This Truth They Know About God And They Suppress It And Actually They Exchange It For A Lie Because Of Their Depravity Because Of Their Sinfulness Implication Number Three Thus The Mindset And Philosophy Of The Unsaved Which Produces Only Ignorant Foolishness By The Way Is Completely And Totally Contrary To That Of A Believer Believer Believer Non Christian Christian Unsaved Saved The Mindset And Philosophy Between These Two Are Dimentially

[86:58] Opposed To Each Other Totally Opposed You Don't Build Common Ground With Them There Is No Common Ground What Does Bel Have Anything To Do With God Paul Says In 2 Corinthians Chapter 6 Nothing What Does The Devil Have Something To Do With God Nothing They're Dimentially Opposed This Clear Knowledge Of God They Suppress It So Therefore We Have No Common Ground With Them I Mean It's Complete And Total Contrary To Christians Believers Followers Of Jesus We're Totally Contrary To them Greg Bonson Says This The Unbeliever Response To God's Revelation Is A Deliberately Self Serving And Self Protecting Effort To Act Out Being What He Desperately Wants To Be An

[87:59] Unbeliever People Want To Be Totally Autonomous From God In Every Way Fourth Implication Number Four So Our Point Of Contact Is The Inescapable Knowledge Of The True God That All People Have In Virtue Of The Fact That They Have Been Made In His Image And His Revelation Is Given Through Nature And History They Know That But They Suppress It They Know That But They Want Nothing To Do With It They They Because They They Have To Do To Do With It Then They Have To Realize That They're Accountable To This God Whom They Must Serve And They Don't Want To Serve Him They Want To Serve Themselves Right That's Why This Knowledge Of God You Need The Right Glasses On You Need Special Revelation To Now

[89:04] Notice What Paul Does Now In Verse 24 He Gives Us A Synopsis Of Genesis Chapters 1 And 2 Even Isaiah 42 Verse 5 The Gracious God Who Made Everything The World And All Things In It Lord Of Heaven Earth He Has Not Served By Human Hands As Though He Needed Anything He Himself Gives Lives To All Breath To All He Gives All Things How Can God Be Contained In Temples Made With Hands When He's The Maker Of Everything Plus Humans Don't Serve Him As If God Needs Something Because He Is The One Source Of All Life And Breath He Needs Nothing From Us God Is A Creator Who's Not Contained In A Temple Not Reflected By Some Idol He's The Sustainer Who Sustains All Creation And Therefore He Is

[90:04] Self Sufficient We Need Him Notice He's The Creator He's A Sainer Self Sufficient Sovereign And Father Of All He's Going to Mention This Everybody Comes From Adam Were His Creatures Were Responsible To Him Thus He Has The Right To Be Our Judge To Tell Us What To Do And How To Worship Him On His Terms Humans Are Dependant On Him Notice Every Statement Paul Makes Is Rooted In The Bible The Old Since Paul Was Giving Scripture His Ultimate Starting Point Was The Authority Of The Revelation Of Jesus Christ Here For What Paul Is Doing Is The Old Testament Which Leads To The Fifth Implication We As Christians Take The Bible God's Revelation Authority As Our Starting Point And The Controlling Factor In All Our Reasoning With

[91:04] The Unsaved Whether They Know The Bible Or Not Friends This Is Self Attesting To Itself This Is Self Authoritative This Is It's The Standard I Mean You Don't Say To A Builder Who Has His Tape Measure You Don't Say You Know Did You Get That Tape Measure From Home Depot Because Those Tape Measures Are Home Depot You Know They Kind Of Squirrel I Not Sure About Those Tape Measures From Home Depot You Don't Do That A Tape Measure Is A Tape Measure What do You Get From Home Depot A It Might Be More Expensive Than One Or The Other Couple Bucks More What are They Doing They Trying To Ripping Me Off That's True But A Tape Measure Is A Tape Measure It's Self Attesting You Don't Question A Tape Measure Nor Do You Say It's About A Couple Feet Then We'll Build The House Like This Or That You Be Excuse Me I'm Paying You About Twenty Thousand Dollars To Do That No You're Not Gonna Do That Right Willard

[92:04] Right Christine You're Building Our House You're Going To Do Right There Fella Where's Your Tape Measure Why Do We Not Do That With The Bible This Is Your Standard Christian This Is Your Starting Point We Always Accentuate The Antithesis Between The Truth Of The Bible And The Other Philosophies Of The World Islam Judaism Hinduism Buddhism Sikh Taoism Agnostics Or Atheists It Doesn't Matter Our Ultimate Authority Is Christ And His Word Not Independent Speculation Or Reasoning Not Facts Of Your Own Experience Not I Have Peace Within My Heart None Of That Stuff None Of That It Means Nothing It's Good That It's Done A Change In Us But That's Not The Truth This Is The Truth God's Word Is Our Starting Point And You Might Say

[93:04] Well That's Circular Reasoning So What Do You Think Their Starting Point Is Their Starting Point Is The Bible Is Not The Word Of God Right For Buddhists It's The Eightfold Path For Hindus It's Their Own Scripture Sacred Writings For Atheists It's Science That's Their Starting Point That's Where They Begin And That's How They Work Their World View This Is Our Starting Point This Is How We Work Our World View And Just So Happens Ours Is Right So Notice He Says In Verse 26 He Made From One Every Nation Of Mankind He Determined Their Appointed Times Their Boundaries Of Habitation God Is Sovereign Determined In Appointed Times Their Boundaries What's His Intention So They Inhabit The Earth And Notice Verse 27 That They Should Seek God If Perhaps They Might Grope For Him And Find Him Though He's Not

[94:04] Far From Each One What's He Talking About Here What's He Doing Here Groping Means Blindly Feeling About For God You Know When You're It's Dark In The Middle Of Night And You Go I Gotta Turn On That Light I Know Where That Thing Is And You're Trying To Look For The Doggone Light What Is That Thing It's Right Here Somewhere Right Yeah Before So You're Trying To Find Oh There It Groping It's Like Blindly About Feeling After God But He's Not Far He's Present With His Creation Ultimately Seen In His Son Jesus Christ They Should Have Known God From His Great Works They Should Have Known Him From Who He Is They Should Have Known God For His Goodness And Repented He's Imminent In The Created Order He's Spiritually Personal He Can Be Truly Known But

[95:06] They Suppress It He Says In Him We Live And Move And Exist In Other Words God Is A Personal Being He Can Be Known Understood He Can Be Trusted He God Made Humans To Have Relationship With Him But Man Searches In Vain Because Of Their Blindness And Stubborn Human Eyes Are Blinded To The Light Of His Revelation They Don't Interpret Natural Revelation Correctly They Grow Up About In The Darkness Looking In An Uncertain Way They Seek After God But Immediately Suppress And Exchange That Truth Which Is The Ultimate Form Of Sin Sixth Implication Unless God Changes The Heart Or The Presuppositions Of The Unsaved A Proper Knowledge Understanding And Embration Of The Goodness Of Jesus Christ Is Practically impossible It

[96:06] Is And Yet Number Seven The Only Appropriate Thing To Do Is To Set The Biblical Christian Worldview With The Scriptural Presuppositions And Authority In Antithetical Contrast To The Worldview Of The Unsaved Present It Give Them The Scriptures Present The Christian Worldview Because It's The Only One That Makes Sense It's The Only Rational Scientific Understanding Of How The World Functions Because The Unsaved Will Never Interpret This Correctly Coming To The One True God No They Grew Up About In The Darkness And For This Dare To Blame They're Guilty Culpable Ignorance They In Their Rebellion Suppress This Knowledge They Will Only Turn The Other Way Notice He Says As Well How The Unsaved

[97:07] Are Responsible Because They Possess The Truth But They're Guilty For What They Do With That Truth With That Truth They Need The Glasses Of Special Revelation To Understand The Truth Notice He Says For In Him We Live And Move And Exist As Even Some Of Your Own Poets Have Said We All Are His Offspring Why Does He Quote Them Like This He Says This Not That Pagans Have Some Great Understanding Of God But He Says This Because It Manifests Their Guilt Even More Paul's Not Commending The Stoic Philosopher The Stoic Philosopher Eratos Who Said This He Appealed To Their Distorted Teachings As Evidence That They Perverted The Knowledge Of God So They Say Something They Have This And Then It Perverted They Say This

[98:07] And Then They Perverted Because Notice What He Does In Verse 29 Being Then The Offspring Of God If God Is Our Creator If God Is A Sustainer If God Is A Self Sufficient Sovereign One If He's The Father Of Us All If Humans Are Made In His Image We Ought Not To Think That The Divine Nature Is Like Gold Or Silver Or Stone In Image Formed By Art And Thought Of Man I Mean Really Really Humans Are Personal Beings We Relate To Each Other With Love Communicating Trusting Therefore God Is Our Creator He Can't Be Anything Less Than That He's An Idol He's Some Thing Really That Doesn't Make Any Sense He's Not In Temples He's Not Served By Humans He's Not Represented By Some Gold Image See They Take The Truth

[99:07] And They Pervert It They Take The Truth And They Suppress It And Then They Make An Idol Or They Worship The Sun Or They Worship The Moon Or They Worship The Stars Or They Worship Science Or They Or They Worship The Mormon Jesus Who Is Satan's Brother And The Father Heavenly Father Is One Of Many Gods See How It's Perverted They're Groping After God And They Perverted They Have This Knowledge Of God And They Perverted They Always Devolve To That He Says This Bringing This Up Bringing This Up Showing Them Scripture Showing Them Scripture So What Should They Do Repent Why Should They Repent Repent Because God Is Kind And Because God Will Judge The World Notice Therefore Having Overlooked The Times Of Ignorance God In His Grace

[100:07] Mercy And Compassion Has Overlooked Their Culpable Ignorance And Rebellion He Is Showing His Forbearance So Repent Let God's Patience Lead You To Repentance Think About Should God Even Allow Things To Continue To Happen As They Are Should God Continue To Let ISIS Do The Things That They're Doing Should God Continue To Let The Nations Of Africa Withhold Food From Their Own People Why Does God Allow This Because He's Gracious And Compassionate He Should Destroy Us Immediately He Should Destroy Us 8,000 Years Ago But He's Gracious He's Kind He Calls Sinners To Come Because He Wants To Save Sinners Repent Let God's Patience Lead You To Repentance I Mean Does That Not

[101:08] Lead You Christian To Repentance Even Now Isn't The Fact That God Is So Gracious To You In Jesus Christ Doesn't That Lead You To Repentance Even Now In Your Christian Walk Of Course It Does Are You Here And You're Not A Follower Of Jesus Do You Not Yet Understand That God Should Wipe You Off The Face Of The Earth Right Now And Yet He Hasn't Because He's A Gracious God And He's Calling You To Repent Turn Away From Your Sin Put All Your Trust In Jesus Because Mind You God Holds People Responsible For The Will For Ignorance Turn From Idols To The Living True God Repent Of Your Evil ways Repent Of Your Evil Understand Of Who He Is Because God Is The Creator Of All He's The Sustainer Of All He's Kind To All But He's The Judge Of All He Will Come To Judge He Hates Idolatry Repent Because He's Coming To Judge Having Appointed

[102:08] The Judge Notice What He Says God Is Now Declaring To Men That All Everywhere Should Repent Because He Has Fixed A Day In Which He Would Judge The World In Righteousness Through A Man Whom He Has Appointed Having Furnished Proof To All Men By Raising Him From The Dead The Ground Of Repentance Was The Authority Of The Son Of God Jesus Christ The Proof That Jesus Would Be The One To Judge All Was The Fact That He Was Raised From The Dead How Did God Confirm Jesus Position As Judge He Brought Him Back To Life Jesus Christ Was Appointed The Final Judge Of All Mankind And The Proof Of It Was By Means Of His Resurrection God Attested To Jesus As The Eternal Son To All People By His Resurrection It Proves God's Call That His Son Will Be The One To Judge All He Brought Them Back To Life So We've Gone Through This Seven

[103:08] Implications Walking Through The Testament That's What Paul Does With The Pagans The Pantheists And The Agnostics What Happens When You Do This What Happens When You Present The Gospel Like This The Same Thing That Happened Last Week What Can Happen Three Possibilities Turmoil Eagerness Or Belief 32 To 34 And When They Heard Of The Resurrection Of Dead Some Sneared Oh Come On Greeks Believe Dead People Remain Dead There's No Resurrection So Some Mops Literally Sneered At Paul's Message They Rejected It They They Brought This Message To The Screeching Halt By Their Reaction Hold On A Second No No Resurrection Come On You Don't Want To Hear This Anymore No No No No Keep Quiet You Notice Though But Others Said We Shall Hear

[104:08] You Again Concerning This They Kept An Open Mind There's Eagerness We Shall Hear Again Not A Negative Reaction But Not A Positive One Either Notice Verse Verse 33 And 34 Paul Went Out Of Their Mitz But Some Men Joining Paul Believed Among Whom Also Were Dionysius The Areopagite And A Woman Named Damaris And Others With Them So At least Four At least Four Maybe Maybe There's More Now A Church Wasn't Developed Here We Don't Hear About A Church Until Later On In Paul's Ministry But Look Here's A Fact Whether With Jews Or Gentiles God Brings The Birth And Growth Of His Church Through The Proclamation Of His Word The Gospel That's How He Does It We Confront Them With Their Need To Repent And Believe Because Of God's Great Kindness To Sinners

[105:09] And Also Imminent Judgment Is Coming So As I Said To You At The End Of The Day When All Is Said And Done What Does It Come Down To As We Look At This Passage What Does It Mean What Does It Come Down To The Three Practical Applications Humans Are Totally Unable To Embrace The Truth Of Christianity They're Unable Number Two Let's Give A Consistent Gracious Proclamation Of The Gospel We're Consistent Yet We're Gracious We're Firm And We're Kind Three As We're Speaking The Gospel We Hold Tenaciously We Rely Firmly On God's Grace Because You give Them The Evidences You give Them The Evidences Of The Very Gospel Itself The Scriptures Itself And Yet They Have To Come

[106:09] To A Place Where They Embrace Christ And The Evidences That Point To Christ Friday Was One Of The Hardest Days Jerome Probably The Top Two I Didn't Get The Belief But I Got The Eagerness I Got The Turmoil In That Order Eagerness Of Such Joy Talking I Won't Tell You His Name I Call Him G Talking With G About To Leave We Start Talking And The Very Things That I Told

[107:09] You This Morning Were The Very Things I Had The Opportunity To Tell Him On Friday He Asked The Question What Do You Say About The Person Who Lives Way Out In Africa And They Never Heard The Gospel God Is Going To Send Them To Hell How Do You Make Sense Of That I Was Able To Talk About This Whole Thing About Everyone Knows God He Sitting Looking At Me Just Eager And Listening So Praising The Lord Over That And Face Turmoil Started Talking With Another Guy Younger Guy Not Volatile You Know It's When You Are In A Conversation With Somebody And It's Just Happening So Fast And And Then After It Happens You Go Back Man Why Didn't I Say This Why Didn't I Think Of This Why Did That Happen You Ever Had That Happen That's

[108:10] What Happened With This Guy Just Happened So Fast Rapidly As You've Probably Heard People Bring Up Leviticus Says You're Supposed To Kill Homosexuals He Misunderstood What I Said He Thought I Said You're Supposed To Kill Homosexuals He Got Volatively Mad He Threw Me Out Of His Shop Physically Was Pushing Me Out Of The Shop As He Pushing Me Out I Said I Did Not Say That You're Putting Words In My Mouth That's Not What I Said You're Putting Words In My Mouth And You Just Start Swearing And Cursing At Me I Told Him I I I'm Sorry That I Offended You I'm Sorry Later At Night I I Remembered I Had Paper In My Car So I I Write Him A Note And Told Him Dear M I'll Call Him Please I Set My Apology For Offending You No I Do Not Believe Homosexuals Should Be Killed Sincerely

[109:12] Jim Masters He Wasn't There I Was Going To Give It To Him He Wasn't There His Shop Was Still Open He Wasn't There So I Left It There And I Left And Put It There On His Desk And Left You Face Turmoil Face Eagerness We're Praying That We'll Face Belief Too Huh Tough Day Father We're Thankful That You're You're Much More Powerful Than The Will Of Man Father We're Thankful That You're You're Greater Than The Hearts Of People Who Are Against You Realizing

[110:12] That Humans In and Of Themselves Are Unable To Believe In The Lord Jesus Christ Help Us To Graciously And Lovingly And Yet Consistently Proclaim This Gospel May we Firmly Hold To The Fact It's Only Your Grace That Can Change The Heart Of Sinners This Time If You Would Let's Take A Few Moments And Ponder What We've Seen In God's Word Maybe Questions Have Come up Now You want to Text those to me Feel free to do that A few moments of silence For you to think and to ponder what we've seen here in Acts 17 And then we'll do our time of giving and sing our last two songs in prayer

[111:17] And then we'll do our time of giving and sing our last two songs in prayer Benealtet Quipare With K Qui Who With Bi Auth mount Cons��� ran P fruits Cons Ho computeлен Soci Prop H copون Thank you.

[112:47] Thank you.

[113:17] Thank you. You'd stand.

[113:31] We'll sing you all the way. Thank you. And by the way, those of you who pray on Friday, for us, it's been me by myself for the past few weeks.

[113:52] Thank you for doing that. I really need you to do that. That was a really hard day. And yet a great day, but a hard day. So thank you for praying.

[114:04] And if more of you pray, I would welcome that all the more. Because it's needed. Those people need that. Then transgressions and sins, without God, without hope in this world, then the glorious light of your gospel broken.

[114:39] The Father stood up from His throne, opened His arms as He called out my name. Grace, irresistible, drew me, and opened my eyes to see.

[114:58] See, You are the way, You are the truth, You are the life, Jesus. The only way, the only truth, You are my life, Jesus.

[115:17] Jesus. Jesus. You are the source of new life, the giver of every good thing.

[115:38] Withholding nothing, You lavish Your kindness on me. You emptied Yourself, became poor, humbled and poured out to death.

[115:54] Now highly exalted above all, Your name alone can save. You are the way, You are the truth, You are the life, Jesus.

[116:12] The only way, the only truth, You are the life, Jesus. You are the way, You are the truth, You are the life, Jesus.

[116:31] The only way, the only truth, You are my life, Jesus. Jesus. You are the way, the truth, the life, You are the way, the truth, the life.

[117:09] You are the way, the truth, the truth.

[117:39] You are the way, the truth, the life, Jesus.

[118:09] You are the way, the truth, the truth, the truth, the truth, the truth.

[118:24] We will glorify the King of kings, we will glorify the Lamb. We will glorify the Lord of lords, who is the great I Am.

[118:44] Lord Jehovah reigns in majesty, we will bow before his throne. We will worship him in righteousness, we will worship him alone.

[119:03] He is Lord of heaven, Lord of earth, he is Lord of all who live. He is Lord above the universe, all praise to him we give.

[119:22] Hallelujah to the King of kings. Praise you Jesus Christ.

[119:48] Praise you, you are Lord of our lives. We praise you, you are incarnate of yourself, becoming like us. What grace and compassion.

[120:02] When you were dead, you opened our eyes to the truth of the gospel. And this is our motivation, as you opened our eyes, let us be faithful to proclaim this truth to people who may become your people.

[120:18] To anyone and everyone. To hear that you are gracious and kind God. Calling them to repent. Because of your kindness. And because of your judgment to come.

[120:29] Thank you. Praise you. We give you the thanks that you deserve. Amen. Amen.

[120:41] влад钟 Thank you. Thank you. I freely offer This blood is for your ransom date.

[120:55] I die that you might live. Forever Legged upon my mind Is the look of him who died Well am I crucified And now my life will sing the praise Of pure atoning grace That looked on me Let me tell you I swear it's death my sin displays For all the world Such is the mystery of grace

[121:55] It seals my pardon too With pleasing grief and warmly joy My spirit now is filled That my son should not destroy Yet live by him I kill Forever Forever Legged upon my mind Is the look of him who died Well am I crucified And now my life will sing the praise Of pure atoning grace That looked on me