Greetings to you, my friend. In January we promised we would break a twenty-five year tradition and have some guest speakers on In Search of the Lord's Way. And it has taken us awhile to keep that promise, but we are keeping it today with our first one. Stay tuned.
It brings joy to our hearts, friend, to have you study the Bible with us In Search of the Lord's Way to become and to be a Christian. We just hope and pray we will both be blessed by today's message-- and, oh, we believe we will. At the beginning of this year, we promised that we would be having some guest speakers on this program.
And for almost 25 years now, Search has been a ministry of the Edmond, Oklahoma church of Christ. And we thought it would be the appropriate and courteous and well the right thing to do to invite the senior pulpit minister of the Edmond church to be our very first guest speaker. And he is one of the busiest and most gracious men I have ever known. In spite of his great work-load, he graciously accepted our invitation and he is here today. Don Vinzant and his wife, Carol, have been associated with the Edmond church since, well now for 17 years. For several of those years he also taught Bible at Oklahoma Christian University. In 1997, he followed Richard Jones as the full-time preacher at Edmond church. He began preaching in 1953. He studied at Abilene Christian University, Baylor and Southwestern and Austin Seminaries. He and Carol have four children. They were all missionaries in Brazil, the whole family, for about twelve years before Don and Carol came here. Brother Don has chosen to speak to us today about The Unknown God. Oh, you are in for a treat today.
For a free copy, a printed copy or a free CD or audio cassette tape of Don Vinzant's message, simply do as you have been doing: address your request to In Search of the Lord's Way, P.O. Box 371, Edmond, OK 73083; or by e-mail to searchtv@aol.com. Or, feel free to use our toll-free telephone number (1-800-321-8633) to call us. Or still more, you may want to visit our website at www.searchtv.org. Now Ken Helterbrand is going to lead us as we sing praises to the Lord, and then we will be back for Bible reading and prayer.
To set the scene for Don Vinzant’s message on To the Unknown God, we are going to read the paragraph just before. In the book of Acts 17, beginning at verse 16: “Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him when he saw the city was given over to idols. Therefore he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and with the Gentile worshipers, and in the marketplace daily with those who happened to be there. Then certain Epicurean and Stoic philosophers encountered him. And some said, What does this babbler want to say? Others said, He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign gods, because he preached to them Jesus and the resurrection. And they took him and brought him into the Areopagus, saying, May we know what this new doctrine is of which you speak? For you are bringing some strange things to our ears. Therefore we want to know what these things mean. For all the Athenians and for the foreigners who were there spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing.” Now let us go to God in prayer. Holy Father, we are so thankful to You to have brother Don Vinzant with us today to speak to us on this great message recorded for us in your word. We pray your blessings on him and upon us as hearers now. And we pray that we will be drawn closer, closer, even closer to Thee. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Brother Mack Lyon, thank you so much for your kind words and what a joy it has been to become your, not just your acquaintance but your good friend and to be your brother, and we have this wonderful fellowship between the Edmond church of Christ and Search.
Today I want to speak with you on the passage brother Mack read; the great apostle Paul, missionary to the Lord, chosen to be the spokesman to the Greek world. The Greeks (or Gentiles) did not have the deep Old Covenant roots of promises to Abraham nor did they have the Old Covenant knowledge of Moses and the Ten Commandments, one of which prohibited idolatry. The basic Jewish belief was in one God who made Heaven and earth. No idol or likeness of Him was to be made or to be displayed (Deuteronomy chapters 5 and 6). The Greeks lacked that knowledge.
Paul, of course, with a long heritage as a Jew and a dear love for his own ethnic people, understood this. But when God through the Messiah called Paul, He sent a messenger, Ananias, to Him who told him to arise and be baptized and wash away his sins, calling on the name of the Lord (Acts 22:16). Ananias also told Paul that he was to be God’s witness to all men of what he had seen and heard. Then, when the newly-baptized Paul was back praying in Jerusalem in the temple, God said to Paul, “Depart, for I will send you far from here to the Gentiles.”
Paul obeyed that heavenly vision and went on missionary journeys. He got to Athens-- intellectual capital of the Greek world on his Second Journey. Today’s text-- from Acts 17, tells us of his sermon, “To An Unknown God.”
Paul, alone in Athens, is profoundly troubled at that deep fountain of Greek philosophy and idolatry. Paul, true to the Lord’s commission, first preaches in the Jewish synagogue and then in the marketplace to the Greeks; and finds an altar inscribed “To An Unknown God.” Fearing that they might have overlooked some god not yet heard of, they made a safety-plan: to avoid offending any possible deity, they inscribed one altar “To the Unknown God.”
Meanwhile, Paul was taken by the Greek philosophers to the Aeropagus (Mars Hill) to explain what they called “this new doctrine”. To them Paul seemed to be a proclaimer of foreign gods “because he preached to them Jesus and the resurrection.” Perhaps, to their untaught ears they were thinking that “Jesus and the resurrection” represented two Gods. These Greeks on a quest for new things, found what they took to be the novelty of the apostle Paul’s preaching.
Paul then on Mars Hill in Acts 17 gives a classic speech of Western Civilization, a classic example of presenting true gospel affirmation to Greeks who had no Biblical background. His listeners had no knowledge of Biblical foundations. Strangely enough, in our own beloved United States of America this ignorance of the Bible is recurring, doubtless due to our having veered away from faith to secular humanism. Christians today face a situation like Paul’s in Athens-- preaching about a God unknown to so many. One of Paul’s great principles of missionary outreach and cross-cultural communication, he stated in I Corinthians 9, “To the Jews I became like a Jew …I have become all things to all men, so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.”
Paul never wavered in the purity of his message-- that the Creator God gave His own Son for us. That being resurrected by God from the dead, this Savior will judge all the world in righteousness. But Paul had to lead them through this masterful sermon on “The Unknown God” to the conclusion demanding their repentance. There is much we can learn from studying, memorizing and applying this message from Acts 17 to evangelism today!
The text is clear; it is accessible; and it will bless us greatly. There is much to learn from it to help us and others. For anyone who wanted an in-depth study book on Acts 17, our own brother Mack Lyon has written an excellent Bible study entitled Paul’s Sermon on Mars’ Hill, published in Nashville, Tennessee by the Gospel Advocate Company. In it, brother Lyon also cites helpful works on Acts 17 written by others as well.
Earlier this year, my wife and I got to stand on Mars’ Hill in Athens, Greece and see the metal tablet placed there with the Greek text of this sermon. What courage and inspiration is evident in Paul’s message! What a task and mission he accepted and obeyed when God made him the apostle to the Gentiles. Standing in the Aeropagus-- the intellectual epicenter of Greek culture. Today, let us look at Paul’s great sermon and as we go through these verses, we will note five important road-markers.
The first road-marker is Paul’s distress with false gods in Acts 17:16 through 18, “While Paul was waiting for them (his colleagues) in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols. So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there. A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to dispute with him. Some of them asked, What is this babbler trying to say? Others remarked, He seems to be advocating false gods. They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.”
The Jewish people in their daily affirmation repeated, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one.” (Deuteronomy 6 and 6) They believed in this one and only God always in their better moments. They would confess Him as Creator and their Redeemer from Egyptian bondage. Coming out of the Babylonian Captivity, the work of the prophets and Ezra-- the Jewish people had largely learned their lessons-- no idols, no idolatry for them-- and to worship God and Him only and to worship Him the way He authorized for them.
In fact, the prophet Elijah in I Kings 18:21 asked, “How long will you hesitate between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow Him; but if Baal, follow him…” Upon detecting zero response from Baal even though the false prophets leaped and shouted, in high irony Elijah taunted them, “Call out with a loud voice, for he is a god; either he is occupied, he is gone aside, or he is on a journey, perhaps he is asleep and needs to be awakened.” Yes, Baal lost the contest on Mount Carmel with the God of Heaven.
Baal lost because he was merely an idol. Isaiah had said in chapter 44, a man plants a tree, he later cuts it down, with some of it he makes a fire to roast meat, with part of the chopped down tree, he makes an idol, he falls before it and says, “Deliver me.” How could this help anyone?
But the Greeks of first century Athens had not learned the folly of worshipping nature or gods of stone and wood. And recently in the area where I live, our newspaper carried the headline: “Local Pagans Welcome Summer.” The article mentioned about 20 local people who focused on earth-centered worship so they danced and celebrated the Summer Solstice. We Christians today have our work cut out for us-- to teach people to worship and honor the one true God. Nature and the Earth, whether you call it Gaia Earth, whatever you call it, can be lovely, but we are not to worship them but their Creator, the one true God.
Secondly in this sermon our road-mark is that we see Paul’s golden opportunity. “A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to dispute with him. Some of them asked, What is this babbler trying to say? Others remarked, He seems to be advocating foreign gods. They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection. Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Aeropagus, where they said to him, May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we want to know what they mean… Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Aeropagus and said: "Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious” (Acts 17, verses 18 through 22).
It was an honor to be invited as Paul was to the Aeropagus. There he will speak before a sort of Academy of Philosopher with the Epicurean and Stoic philosophies predominating. Great philosophers had taught at Athens before (Socrates, Plato and Aristotle the principal ones), but at this time, about A.D. 51 or so, the two popular schools of thought were those of Epicurus and Zeno, the founder of Stoicism. Quick summary of Epicureanism is that one should give way to what one enjoyed and find pleasure in that (or “eat, drink and be merry”). Not a full and balanced statement about them, but one that describes them in stark contrast to the Stoics, who found peace and satisfaction in a radical cutting away of wants and desires. This is no occasion, nor was Paul’s day the occasion, for a detailed refutation of first century philosophies, but rather an opportunity to proclaim the gospel. So he commended their search for spiritual things and allows an Athenian inscription to furnish the title for his message. “Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: "Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious.” He said, “For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: To An Unknown God. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.”
So, coming on into his message now, Paul reaches out to his listeners-- third road-mark. He moves, truthfully and tactfully, from their admission on the inscription that there might be a God they did not yet know. And Paul utilizes their title from their altar and makes even the grudging admission stated by one of their prophets: “We are his offspring,” a Greek prophet or poet. So Paul is going to speak on the one whom they admit they do not understand. And he is going to say there is a Creator and we are to recognize that we are the creatures being made by a power higher than ourselves; we then are on the way to the possibility of a Creator who could reveal Himself to the creatures He had made.
Paul’s own words from Acts 17 demand and deserve our hearing, “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. For in him we live and move and have our very being. As some of your own poets have said, We are his offspring.”
Notice that in this God-inspired sermon, the apostle glorifies God’s creative power and points at human inability to confine God to a certain place or temple.
So Paul lifts up the one true God-- the One worth knowing, even citing one of their own poets who said, “For we are also his offspring.” This sermon by Paul is a stimulus to us today in communicating the gospel of Christ. We need to know Scripture and present it to those who urgently need its content, insights and conclusion.
Fourth, Paul is now able to speak of the need to repent because of the Day of Reckoning which is approaching. His grand conclusion, "Therefore since we are God's offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone-- an image made by man's design and skill. In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of all this to men by raising him from the dead.
And fifthly and last, it is now time to look at the varied response of Paul’s listeners to this great sermon. “When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, We want to hear you again on this subject. At that, Paul left the Council. A few men became followers of Paul and believed. Among them was Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus, also a woman named Damaris, and a number of others.” Some ridiculed the message. So it has ever been. Only family members took Noah’s preaching seriously. And the prophet Jeremiah’s preaching was neglected although his earnestness was beyond any question. Some postponed a decision. Always there are those who hesitate-- who want to hear more, read more, reflect more, and that is not always bad. It can be a good sign to be thoughtful and reflective. But to procrastinate, to avoid a decision can mean losing that opportunity. But, thanks be to God there were some on that day and some in our day, who hearing Christ’s Gospel believe it and are willing and ready to obey it. They will turn from their sin in repentance and will confess Christ and put Him on in baptism. Some did this in Athens and some will today. Our task is to present the Gospel clearly and forcefully, and God will give the increase now just as He did then! Let us pray. Our dear Lord, we thank You for this program, for the listeners, for the churches that back it. We pray your richest blessings upon it and trust every increase will come from your generous hand. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Thank you, thank you, thank you Don Vinzant for your very powerful message about the one, the true and the living God. Oh! How grateful we are for your being here and for your message today. He is the first of a series of visitors that we are going to have, guest speakers on this program just as we promised at the beginning of the year. And I have asked them, each one of them to give a message on something that they really feel in their own heart that needs to be said, and that was surely a powerful one.
My friend, I know you are going to want a copy of it on a CD or audio tape or even a printed copy of it, and they are free you know. Just address your request to In Search of the Lord's Way, P.O. Box 371, Edmond, OK 73083. By e-mail it is searchtv@aol.com. By telephone it is 1-800-321-8633, and that is a toll-free number, you know. And, of course, you may read it or hear it or even see it again on our website at www.searchtv.org.
We are here because members of churches of Christ in the area of this station love you and they want you to know the truth about our God. And they would delight in having you to pay them a visit at your first opportunity. Say, we would like that, too. Why not do that? Maybe if you still have time today you can do it. Maybe it will be next Sunday before you can do it. But do be with them, will you? And, if you are in the Edmond, OK area, we would love to have you attend Edmond church of Christ at the corner of Ninth and Bryant-- across from Hafer Park, and that is where Don Vinzant is the senior preacher. And I do need to tell you, that due to the overwhelming response that you gave to the programs in June about churches of Christ, and who we are, what we believe we are repeating those in August, and that will be beginning next week. So if you had to miss some of those broadcasts, and if you did miss some of them here you have an opportunity to catch up, and, of course, they will be made free in printed form, too. Now, we hope you will be with us for all of them, but as many of them as you possibly can anyway. And we know that you will be blessed by them. God bless you now and keep you. We love you. |