Scripture: Acts 17:22-31
17:22 Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, "Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way.
17:23 For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, 'To an unknown god.' What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.
17:24 The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands,
17:25 nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things.
17:26 From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live,
17:27 so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him--though indeed he is not far from each one of us.
17:28 For 'In him we live and move and have our being'; as even some of your own poets have said, 'For we too are his offspring.'
17:29 Since we are God's offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals.
17:30 While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent,
17:31 because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead."
One day God will make the decision He has promised. And the fouled, groaning, pained world we know will stop being what it is. His Son, Jesus Christ, will return to us. Evil will rebel, but evil will lose. That will happen one day, but none of us has any idea when, and Jesus in Matthew 24:36 assured that none of us, not even the Son, knows when.
But rather than becoming weighted down with discovering what we cannot know, as some have done, and many continue to do, we have before us a mission to preach the gospel to every soul on earth. (Mark 16:15-16) And to do it before Jesus returns.
Frankly, that becomes more and more difficult, partly because of the same things Paul found when he entered Athens, as he passed by the ubiquitous square pillars upon which rested the sculpted head of Hermes, the god of roads, gateways and the marketplace, even as he threaded his way through a forest of false gods before the markets, the temples, the houses of pleasure, the homes.
So the question is how – in the midst of what is becoming a post-Christian era – are we any different from what Paul sorrowfully found in the once-great city of Athens? That failing city of the Greeks boasted its Epicureanism and Stoicism with many, many idols. We have secular humanism that relies on scientific empiricism, and the postmodernism of New Age pantheism, along with those who believe in nothing at all beyond the human spirit. At the same time we have made worshipful idols out of sports teams, sports heroes, wealthy business moguls, men and women of fading talent and beauty, and “things.” The acquisition of the newest “thing” drives our very economy. It has become very like a religion.
How do we approach the rampantly increasing post-Christian mind, steeped as it has become in scientific logic, proof, and complete lack of faith? Listen to Paul. These minds across the ages are diverted by different priorities, but the result is the same, and the only answer, the only reasonable answer is proclaiming the Gospel with integrity, which we see Paul doing just before our scripture today, in Acts 17:16-21.
As Paul entered Athens, at that time in history populated by about 10,000 people, its great glory was gone; the city had fallen on hard times, reduced to poverty after the disastrous war with Rome in 146 B.C. The Romans allowed them to remain a “free city” out of respect for their historic past, but Athens remained a city in submission, even though it was still a shining center of philosophy, of architecture, of art, and of religion. The people of Athens worshipped every known idol there seemed to be. But with so many idols to worship, their sense of faith was fragmented. And just to ensure they didn’t miss anyone, they had one altar dedicated to “The Unknown God.”
Comedian Bob Hope used to say that he always played benefits for every religion, even though he was a Jew, because he didn’t want to miss out on eternity on a technicality. Perhaps that was the attitude of the Athenians. Perhaps that is how some people are beginning to feel today. They have no solid grounding that confirms for them the truth of the great “I Am,” the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, so they chase after this god, that idol, or they place their faith in their own human abilities.
Some today who call themselves Christians are confused about the origins of their own religion and, lacking a solid grounding in Biblical inspiration, and for whatever personal motivation, feel it would be a good thing to combine Islam with Christianity. This idea shouts of a complete ignorance of the religion of Islam, which does not co-exist with any other religion, but demands the adherents of other religions abandon their own and join with Islam.
Throughout history Islam has claimed worshippers at the point of a sword, as directed by their Koran. Although not all Muslims are religious extremists, that is still happening around the world. A few months ago, two little girls in India, walking to school, were attacked by Muslims and decapitated. Just a few days ago two of three Christian pastors meeting in what they believed to be a “safe house” in Iran were gunned down by religious extremists as they left the house. One died. Christians are dying in Africa, in Iraq, in China at the hands of Muslim extremists.
Now, there are other religious extremists in this world, and while I have concentrated on notes about Islam here, they are not the only threat to Christianity. In fact, if you know your Bible, you must accept that Islam is less a threat to Christianity and more like an inoculation to build up the Body of Christ. And this is something, as followers of Jesus Christ, we truly need to understand. For Christianity is about love, about forgiveness, about faith and belief in Jesus Christ as the Son of the Living God. As Christians we are not pointed toward anyone or anything in hate, but urged to bring everyone to Christ.
When you go to the doctor’s office for your flu shot, they actually inoculate you with a flu virus, an amount just enough to encourage your body to build up immunities to the virus. Thereafter, any attack by a flu virus is met with built-up immunities to ward off infection.
The Body of Christ, that group of Christian believers which the Book of Revelation refers to as the Bride of Christ, is forever in danger of being overcome by those machinations and strategies of the enemy of God. We are warned by 1st Peter 5:8b, “Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.”
How do we “inoculate” ourselves as part of the Body of Christ? Through scripture. Hebrews 4:12 reminds us that “The word of God is alive and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, dividing asunder the soul and the spirit, and the joints and the marrow, and is a critic of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”
Scripture is God-breathed, inspired of God, and is immensely comforting, giving us hope, guiding us as Psalm 119:105 teaches, helping us understand our growing faith as shown in Romans 15:4, and gives us insight to our circumstances.
We are reminded by 1st Cor. 2:9 that the things God has prepared for those who love Him are such that “no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived.”
“… for those who love Him…” For further understanding of that, we turn to John 14:15-18, where we read, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments. And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. You know Him, because He abides with you, and He will be in you. I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you.”
So perhaps you can see why as children of the King of Glory we can afford to be loving and generous to those who oppose us, those who hate us, those who would do us harm. For God has put us in charge of drawing them to Him. And it’s awfully difficult to tell a man about the loving Lord of Glory when you have your knee on his neck.
There is an old song that goes, “This world is not my home…I’m just a passing through…my treasures are laid up…away beyond the blue.” And so they are. Our job is to bring as many with us as we can, to live so the love of God can show through us.
That great man of peace, the Hindu, Mahatma Ghandi, once said, “I like your Christ. Your Christians not so much.” He needed to know more Christians who practiced what they preached. The lost of this world don’t need to know how much we hate and fear them. They need to know how much God loves them.
The false religions of the world, the false religions of America, are no threat to Christians. The extremists who practice them are sinners like you and I who need to know Jesus Christ. Be the hand of Christ to someone this week. The God we know is omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent, among His other impressive attributes. He can handle whatever we need, and equip us for what lies ahead. Tell someone. Time is passing, and the decision that could stop the world and leave so many out … is coming.
No comments:
Post a Comment