The Unknown God [Part 2]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright.

That's Pastor Alan Wright. Welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life in a whole new light. I'm Daniel Britt, excited for you to hear the teaching today in the series Unlimited, as presented at Rinaldo Church in North Carolina. If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program, I'm going to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now. It can be yours for your donation this month to Alan Wright Ministries.

As you listen to today's message, go deeper as we send you today's special offer. Contact us at PastorAlan.org. That's PastorAlan.org. Or call 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. Now, more on this later in the program. But right now, let's get started with today's teaching.

Here is Alan Wright. I see the idolatry of the age. It's not the head of Hermes lining the streets. It's billboards and screens and social media and on and on the list goes, it is a culture full of idols, full of promises that if you just had this, then you would be happy. Idolatry everywhere. Godlessness. Godlessness that I would have never imagined I would ever see in my lifetime.

Are you kidding me? Some of the godlessness we see. And it provokes my spirit.

Listen, beloved, I'm just going to say it plainly. If you're a spiritual person, there's going to be something's going to provoke your spirit. Something's going to go, the truth within you, it just gets incensed at lies and hatred and filth. Paul felt that.

He felt that. There is a thing that's righteous indignation. There is something that's like, it should bother you. It should bother you. There's nothing wrong with it bothering you. It does bother you.

But watch what he does. See, what happens I think, I'll say of myself, but let's think about, let's be honest with ourselves. What happens when my spirit gets provoked is that the flesh either wants to just get mad. How dare they ruin my country or just get sentimental.

Oh, for the good old days. And Paul doesn't do either one of those. Watch what he does with his grieved and sense heart. Verse 17. So because he was so grieved in spirit, what did he do? He reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews.

He did this everywhere he went. He went to the Jewish synagogue first and met there and met with people that were God-fearing. And he began to talk to them about Christ and reasoned with them about all of the scriptures were pointing to Jesus. He began to tell them of the Messiah, began to tell them of God's love that has been expressed in the word becoming flesh.

He'd tell them of Jesus and listen to this. And in the marketplace every day with those who happen to be there, he would talk to anyone in the marketplace that wanted to talk. You can see today where the marketplace, which is called the Agora in Greek is known as the Agora. It was a beautiful place and it had colonnaded areas and people gathered here. It was one of the places where people like to come and share the new philosophies of the day and talk with one another. It was an open forum for communication and Paul would go there every day and he would talk to people. So when he was really provoked in spirit, he didn't just get mad and he didn't just withdraw. Instead he went and he began to tell people about Jesus.

That's what he did with it. Verse 18, some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also conversed with him. And some said, what does this babbler wish to say? Others said he seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection. You know, what's interesting is that the Greek word for resurrection, Anastasi, sounds a little bit like a Greek God.

And even the name Jesus in Greek, Iesous, sounds a little bit like Isis. And so scholars think that as the Greeks were listening to him, they thought, is he talking about Isis? Is he talking about some other foreign divinity?

What is he talking about? They call him a babbler. It means it's an image from a bird pecking at the ground for scraps. It means a seed picker is what babbler literally means. And what they were accusing him of is who is this seed picker? He doesn't seem to have, he doesn't have a school of philosophy.

He just, has he just gone and picked little seeds of things and he's babbling about them. The Epicurean philosophy, we don't have time to talk about it much, but it's important to our story. The Epicureans believe that the gods existed, but they were very distant and not involved in human affairs.

And therefore what mattered was the material. And famously, the Epicureans were known for sort of eat, eat, and be merry. The Stoics on the other hand, believe that God was in everything. And they believe that he existed in everything through what was known as the Logos. This is the famous rational ordering principle that the Greeks believed in that when John wrote his gospel, he said in the beginning was the Logos and the Logos was with God and the Logos was God. He was saying in the beginning of John that the ordering rational principle that you think fills everything is actually God, the son of God. So two very different philosophies that Paul was interacting with and Paul is just by the Holy Spirit, he's just a genius.

He's just a genius. N.T. Wright, eminent theologian said, Paul's like a grand master chess player who can play several people in chess at the same time on different boards, thinking ahead many moves on each board. You ever seen that on film or anything? The greatest chess players in the world can play five people and they'll come over here and move and they'll walk over to this table and move and walk over to this table and move and have it all in their mind and be multiple players down the road.

N.T. Wright said that's what Paul was doing here. He's talking to Stoics. He's talking to Epicureans. He's talking to the God fearing. He's talking to the Jews. He is a genius.

This is amazing what's getting ready to happen. Verse 19, they took him and brought him to the Areopagus saying, may we know what this new teaching is that you're presenting. So he's been down in the marketplace and he's talking about Jesus. And they're like, what is this? He's talking about some foreign divinities.

What is he talking about? For you bring some strange things to our ears and we wish to know therefore what these things mean. Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who live there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new. Philosophy, the word philosophy means love of wisdom. And that's what the Greeks wanted to do was talk about the latest wisdom. They loved wisdom.

They were seekers of wisdom. And the Areopagus was a hill in Athens, this hill right here, which people you can go visit today. The Areopagus is the name of the hill. But meeting on top of this hill regularly was a court of the wise. And that court became known as the Areopagus, even though it was sort of like they became synonymous like if we said Wall Street had a bad week. Well, you don't mean the physical street of Wall Street.

You mean the financial capital of the world on Wall Street. Well, that's the way Areopagus was. So the Areopagus is both the hill and the council, the court that meets there. And they've invited Paul to come up and meet with them.

We're not sure if he was called there to actually testify before an official court because he was going to be accused of something or if they just wanted to talk to him and hear what he had to say and decide whether they were going to file charges against him. Anyway, he came to this place, which was known as the place where the smartest people in Athens would get together and talk about the latest philosophy and would try cases there. And so that hill Areopagus is literally Areopagus is the hill of Eris. Eris is the Greek god of war. And the Roman language he's called Mars.

That's why it's called Mars Hill. So he's gone to Mars Hill, the Areopagus. And what does Paul do when he gets called there? Verse 22.

This is astounding. Paul standing in the midst of the Areopagus said, men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you're very religious. You know what he did? In one breath, he both complimented him and set forth what bothered him most because Paul never advocated a religion. He advocated a relationship with Jesus Christ.

But when he said to them, I see you're very, very religious, it was a compliment to them. That's Alan Wright, and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. Your life is defined by countless moments of God's grace.

Perhaps they've been covered by the sands of time or have just gone unnoticed in the rush of life. But your life is full of God moments. When you make a gift today, we'll send you Pastor Alan's heart stirring book God moments that will lead you on a spiritual treasure hunt to uncover your God moments. It's Alan Wright's timeless book God moments.

Discover your God moments in the past and be filled with fresh faith today. The gospel is shared when you give to Alan Wright Ministries. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support. When you give today, we will send you today's special offer. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries. Call us at 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website PastorAlan.org. Today's teaching now continues.

Here once again is Alan Wright. Do you know that we live in a very religious society? You know, if you go, just sometime do this, if you're in the Barnes and Noble, go and just look at all the bestsellers, both fiction and nonfiction. About half of them will have some sort of spiritual theme to them. This is a generation that loves TV series about witches and loves to talk about spiritual thing. It's a don't think for a moment that our culture has become less spiritual.

Oh, it's spiritual and very religious. And that's what Paul observed. They'd seen everywhere he went at verse 23. They said, I've passed along and observed the object of your worship. So he's just saying, I see you're very religious. Everywhere I look, there's an idol and an altar.

That's what he's saying. I also, verse 23, I found also an altar with this inscription to the unknown God. What therefore you worship is unknown.

This I proclaim to you. You know, we have found more than one altar that is inscribed to the unknown God. Ognosis Theos. Ognosis. Ognosis in Greek, we have a word agnostic, which means not knowing.

An atheist is one who believes there's not a God and agnostic is one who believes we can't know the God who might exist. And here's one right here. You can go see it in Greece today. An altar to the unknown God from that era and time. And he began to speak to them. Verse 24. God who made the world and everything in it being Lord of heaven and earth does not live in temples made by man. I wonder if when he said that, if can you just put, can you find and put that picture back up where the Ariopagus looks out over the Parthenon there? When he's standing here, look at the imposing Parthenon in the Acropolis.

Imagine you're standing there on Mars Hill with Paul. And he's been saying, I see you're a very religious people. He's pointing to idols everywhere. And he says of the unknown God, he said he does not live in a temple. And he points to the temple to Athena probably.

He does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands. I wonder if he later told them what Jesus said, that the son of man came not to be served, but to serve. I wonder if he told them the story of when Peter wasn't going to let Jesus wash his feet. And Jesus said, unless I wash you, you have no part of me.

And Peter said, therefore, not just my feet, but my whole body. I wonder if he told them that as he began to explain to them that the God who made it all came to serve us by giving his life for us. He's not like your gods who live in temples and demand that the people serve them with sacrifices as if they needed any, he needed anything since in the verse 25, since he himself gives, gives, he's the giver, not a taker to all mankind, life and breath and everything.

He's preaching, he's preaching, he's preaching it. And he made from one man, every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth. See, they believed in all these different gods and in all these different functions.

And you say, no, there's one maker of heaven and earth. He said, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of the dwelling place. And he said, he determined that this, that they should seek God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him, that your religiosity, your desire for philosophy, you're seeking God, you're setting up an altar to an unknown God.

It's all part of the way God made you. You were made to seek him until you find him. Yet, he said, he's actually not far from each one of us. He was making it clear to the Epicureans, God's not like your gods who's off in the distance.

He's right here. And he was making it clear to the Stoics that God is not pantheistic. He's not simply enmeshed in the creation. He is the creator. There's a big difference between believing in mother earth and believing in God the father who made the earth.

That's a big difference. We're a very pantheistic society right now. Oh, God's in everything. Everybody's got God.

Everything's wonderful. No, no, he is the sovereign creator of the ends of the earth and there's no one like him. So all in one breath, he's addressing the idolatry, addressing the problems of Epicureanism the problems of stoicism, the issues of the pagans. And then Paul does something that I don't even have a word to tell you how shocking it is.

I can't even, I can't even describe how shocking this is that he did this. He quotes an idolatrous prophet, a Greek pagan at verse 28. He says, for in him we live and move and have our being as even some of your own poets have said, for we are indeed his offspring. This, which is one of my favorite lines in scripture, one that I quote often, I pray often and I love was actually first written in a hymn to Zeus and he quoted it. I don't even know.

I don't even know what to compare it to. I, you know, what came to mind would be like me quoting in a sermon or talk, talking to the public about, about God and quoting George Harrison, the ex beetle, quoting his song, my sweet Lord, which was written by George Harrison and praise of the Hindu God, Krishna. I really want to know you. The lyric goes, I really want to go with you. I really want to show you Lord.

And then after an instrumental break, the lyrics continue, Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna. It'd be like me quoting that and a positive way in a positive way relating to the culture. It'd be like one of your own idols, a beetle once said, my sweet Lord, I really want to know you.

I really want to go with you. Be like that. I'll tell you, you know, I mean, it's actually more offensive than that. I'm trying to think of the most offensive thing I could think. I mean, remember his spirit was provoked. He was incensed by the idolatry and then he turned around in an amazing relevance to his listeners and quoted one of the very pagan prophets that had been part of what it would incense his spirit. This doesn't mean, I don't understand this.

I thought, you know, what would be offensive, maybe I don't think this goes too far. It'd be almost like if I were talking to non-Christians and trying to relate something about their life and about how God has a destiny for them. And maybe I would say it's like one of your own prophets, Hugh Hefner once said, life is too short to be living somebody else's dream.

Can you imagine that? Let me go out and quote the man who wanted to introduce lust into every home in America and quote him. I'm just trying to tell you how shocking this is what Paul did. In him we live and move and have our being and we are his offspring was actually written in a poem by a figure named Epimenides in the 6th century BC.

Now this is where it gets fascinating even more. Epimenides is behind this whole story. Epimenides was a real man but he became a legendary figure because it was said of Epimenides that he went into a cave and fell asleep for 57 years like Rip Van Winkle.

And that when he came out of the cave 6 centuries before Christ he was 57 years wiser but he was as young as he was before. And therefore he became this legendary figure of great wisdom who was able to solve big problems for whole cities. Well in the 6th century Athens in an ironic twist of relevance for us was in a midst of a pandemic. A terrible plague had hit Athens and all the philosophers had tried everything they knew. All the religious leaders tried everything they knew.

All the scientists tried everything they knew and everybody's dying in Athens. And so according to the story that is recorded by a Roman historian, a Roman historian Diogenes Laertes wrote this down. Here's what happened. I'm going to read it to you verbatim from Laertes because this is you can't make this stuff up. This is what this is what this is what was told happened. They sent a ship to Crete to invite Crete Island Crete where Epimenides was he was he was Cretan invite Epimenides this mythical this legendary wise man to come to Athens and he coming there in the 46th Olympiad purified the city and eradicated the plague for that time Alan Wright our good news message the unknown God in the series unlimited and I encourage you to stick with us Pastor Alan is here and we're back in a moment sharing his parting good news thought for the day stick with us unlock the power of blessing your life discover God's grace-filled vision for your life by signing up for Alan Wright's free daily blessing if you want to fill your heart with grace and encouragement get Alan Wright's daily blessing it's free and just a click away at pastor Alan.org God's always been there in every moment you narrowly escaped from danger in every moment you were surprised by a blessing in every moment you just knew the direction to take God was there your life is defined by countless moments of God's grace perhaps they've been covered by the sands of time or have just gone unnoticed in the rush of life but your life is full of God moments when you make a gift today we'll send you Pastor Alan's heart-stirring book God moments that will lead you on a spiritual treasure hunt to uncover your God moments it's Alan Wright's timeless book God moments discover your God moments in the past and be filled with fresh faith today the gospel is shared when you give to Alan Wright Ministries this broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support when you give today we will send you today's special offer we are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries call us at 877-544-4860 that's 877-544-4860 or come to our website pastor alan.org back here now with Pastor Alan sharing a parting good news thought for the day I think the good news is the unknown God became known to us through Jesus Christ and that changes our whole destiny right it changes everything if you'd never heard this history before about this philosopher and historical figure Epimenides and how it was thought that he was to come to Athens and help them solve this plague and how they were setting up idols to and offering sacrifices to any place where they felt like that they needed to offer and if there was no known God in that vicinity then they just would offer it to the unknown God and here comes Paul all these years later and he says you know he sees this to an unknown God and in their history there had been sacrifices that have been made to the unknown God he taps into all of that Daniel and he takes a familiar story and he relates it to the gospel and he says you're a religious people and you wanted to be religious and let me tell you who this unknown God is I just think it's amazing and it and it tells us that God can use us in any situation and that God has a way of getting through to people in any situation and that's exactly what he does here through Paul all about the unknown God who has become known to us in Jesus Christ. This good news message is a listener supported production of Allen Wright Ministries.