The challenge today is to repent. If there is no repentance, no transformation you don’t have Christ. That’s why we have believers’ water baptism by full immersion – you are buried with Christ through baptism, and you are born again into the Kingdom of God! In Acts 17, Paul and Silas continue their missionary journey and come to Thessalonica, where Paul begins discussing and debating with the Jews in the synagogue. He’s preaching Christ, who suffered, died – and rose from the dead. The teaching of the New Testament is centred on the resurrection and our need of repentance! - ‘Repent and be baptised for the remission of sins.’
“Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, 31 because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.” (Acts 17:30-31, NKJV)
When Paul preached Jesus and the resurrection in Acts 17, it was regarded as strange… In disputing with the Jews and Greeks, the contentious issue was the resurrection. Are we today as Christians certain and positive in our own minds of the resurrection, the fact that we are literally going to be bodily resurrected from the dead?! It disturbs me to watch films where they show a funeral service; to me, it looks as if the priest is deceiving the people. Because here in the film is an unbeliever, a sinner, being laid to rest, and to comfort the people, the priest recites the words, ‘…in sure and certain hope of the resurrection…’ Oh yes, we are all going to be resurrected, but those who don’t know Christ will be resurrected to damnation.
So the philosophers take Paul to the Areopagus (Mars Hill) saying, “We want to know what this new doctrine is that you are speaking of, because you are bringing strange things to us.” V21 tells us that the Athenians and all the visitors to the city spent their time in nothing else but in telling or hearing different new things. So Paul stood in the midst of Mars Hill and said, “You men of Athens, I see that in all things you are too superstitious.”
Three years ago when I went to Athens for a time of prayer. I hadn’t been there for many years, not since my frequent visits many years ago when I had a tour company and was Bible smuggling. Now I was staying close to the centre, where Paul stood preaching from Mars Hill looking up at the Acropolis, a rocky outcrop above the city where they had built the Parthenon and many other prominent temples.
And it was looking up at the Acropolis, standing in the midst of mars Hill, that Paul said, vv23ff, “As I passed by and saw your devotions, I saw an altar TO THE UNKNOWN GOD – I want to declare Him to you.” On the Acropolis they had altars to ‘99 gods’ – gods of war, of fertility, you name it, they had a god for it – they were so superstitious that they created an altar dedicated to the ‘Unknown God’ for fear of offending whoever he might be! Even today, there is the same close link between religion and superstition. In the Orthodox and Catholic Churches, if people are afraid, they cross themselves. In fact, where our Bible says ‘repent and be baptised’, in the Russian Bible it’s written, ‘repent and cross yourself’ –this is the word they use for baptism, though the original Greek word is clear, immersion! There is so much superstition attached to religion, because to so many people the Truth is unknown. We NEED to know the Truth!
That’s why Paul says here, “I found this altar TO THE UNKNOWN GOD – whom you worship in ignorance. I want to declare this God to you! God who made the world, is the Lord of Heaven and earth – He doesn’t dwell in temples made with hands, nor is He worshipped with men’s hands, seeing that He gives life and breath to all things, and has made of one blood all nations and men to dwell on the face of the earth, and has determined the times and the bounds of their habitation.” In other words, there is only ONE true God!
Paul says, God has made all men of one blood and determined the times and bounds of their habitation - why? That they might seek the Lord, perhaps reach out for Him and might find Him, because He’s never far from each one of us! Verse 27. Paul is saying, God is here, you don’t need these statues, you don’t need to light candles, you don’t need to wear crosses, you don’t need the symbolism and the ceremonies – we need the reality of Jesus who is alive and dwells with us. Jesus lives in me!
I will never forget my first visit to New York when I went to meet with David Wilkerson who wrote the ‘Cross and the Switchblade”, and pioneered the drug rehab programme. One of those young lads, coming out of drugs, cold turkey, had written on the wall, “I know Jesus is alive because I talked to Him this morning.” That’s the reality. We’ve got to get away from the symbolism and ceremonial and come back to the reality that Jesus rose from the dead, and we who believe in Him, have died to self, we’re born again in Him – and we will rise with Him! Do you understand the importance of resurrection?
Paul continues in v28, In Him (Christ), we live and move and have our being. We are His offspring. V29, therefore since we are God’s offspring (His children), we ought not to think that God is like unto gold or silver or stone, graven by any man’s image… In the Church there is too much emphasis on the images and symbols, whatever they are. God is not ‘made by man’. In times past, v30, God overlooked, turned a blind eye to such ignorance, but now He commands all men everywhere to repent, because, v31, He has appointed a day in which He will judge the world.
The challenge today is of a real repentance. If there is no repentance, you don’t have Christ. You have to repent, be converted, changed, you have to die to the old – that’s why we have believers’ water baptism by full immersion – you die, you are buried in Christ, and you are born again into the Kingdom of God! We worship a living God who is alive, whom we can contact – I talk to Him every day, all the time, because He’s my friend – I walk with Him, I talk with Him. There’s an old song they don’t sing anymore which goes like this: ‘I go to the garden alone, while the dew is still on the roses, and the Voice I hear, falling on my ear, the Son of God discloses. And He walks with me, and He talks with me, and He tells me I am His own. And the joy we share as we tarry there, none other has ever known!’
Let’s get back to the reality of what Paul knew! God bless you!