Who is the Unknown God?

What is an idol?

I want you to listen carefully. An idol is a God substitute. That's an idol.

It doesn't matter what it is. An idol can be the pursuit of wealth for wealth sake. An idol can be uncontrollable appetite for sex, for drugs, for alcohol. An idol can be religion. An idol can be even a Christian service. Anything that takes God's place is an idol.

Hello and welcome to Leading the Way with Dr. Michael Yussa. Well, the apostle Paul took a trip to Athens, and as he walked through the city, he saw images and statues of gods of every shape and size. He saw them everywhere. But instead of setting up a boycott or telling people he was offended, Paul publicly declared the truth about his knowledge of the one true God. And honestly, that's not unlike today. People are searching to fill spiritual voids with material or physical, even emotional substitutes. Up next, a timeless message from Dr. Youssef on Leading the Way.

Oh, do remember, too, that Leading the Way is listener-supported. So stand with Dr. Michael Youssef in prayer and in financial support when you visit ltw.org. Let me first summarize to you chapter 17 verses 1 to 15. First 15 verses of chapter 17 of the book of Acts. Paul goes to Berea first. He gets persecuted and opposed by the Jews.

He goes to the selenike and they do the same thing to him. He leaves Timothy and Silas and Luke, the writer, the author, the one who's writing the book of Acts by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. He leaves them into selenike and then he goes alone to Athens.

He goes alone to what was known as the cultural capital of the Roman Empire. Let me tell you a few things about Athens. Athens, like so many of our cities today, boasted about its rich philosophical heritage.

They boasted about the universities that they have and the schools of higher education that they have in their city. Athens, like so many of our cities today, were always boasted about the art and the music and the literature. The Athenians lived actually on their past history.

They haven't done anything for the present and the future. I'm talking about the time of Paul. But they lived on their past reputation of being the Empire's intellectual capital, the intellectual center of the Roman Empire. And Paul lands in Athens as a tourist. Because really what they were doing, they just smuggled him out of the selenike because they thought it was going to kill him. So they smuggled him out and he goes to Athens all alone as a tourist, but he ends up being the evangelist.

How did he do that? I have three things I want to share with you and I pray that the Holy Spirit of God is going to imprint those on your heart. Going to imprint them on my heart that Paul's model of reacting to the idolatrous condition of his day, that will be your model and my model in reacting to the idolatrous condition of our day. First of all, Paul became distressed over their idolatry.

Secondly, Paul became determined to introduce him to Jesus. And thirdly, Paul had a definitive message to their empty hearts. Paul's distress over their idolatry, why was he distressed?

Now my beloved friend, I want to tell you something. If you know Jesus Christ and if you are in deep appreciation of the grace of God and the favor of God and the mercy of God that snatched you out of the jaws of eternal death and damnation, you should be, and if you're not there's something wrong with you, you should be distressed over the condition of the unsaved. Paul's reaction should be our reaction when we come face to face with ignorance of the truth. Paul's reaction should be our reaction when we see our societies smothered with idolatry. Look at verse 16 of chapter 17 of the book of Acts. The Bible said that Paul was greatly distressed.

In fact, probably some other translation said Paul was provoked by grief and indignation. Paul was distressed at the fact that men and women who are created in God's own image, that men and women who were created to glorify God, men and women who were created to honor God and bring honor to His name, instead they were honoring statues and idols that are made with hand. What is an idol?

I want you to listen carefully because I'm going to explain to you some more things about that. An idol is a God substitute. That's an idol.

It doesn't matter what it is, whether it's primitive or sophisticated. Any God substitute in the life of an individual is an idol that has to go. An idol is any person or anything that occupies the place that belongs to God alone. An idol can be the pursuit of wealth for wealth's sake. An idol can be political ideology. An idol can be uncontrollable appetite for sex, for drugs, for alcohol. An idol can be a person, a husband or a wife, a child or a father or a mother. An idol can be that endless recreation, an endless desire for pleasure seeking. An idol can be work for work's sake and work for achievement's sake. An idol can be a church, an idol can be religion, an idol can be even a Christian service. An idol can be television, an idol can be sport, an idol can be a leader. Anything that takes God's place is an idol.

Listen carefully what I'm going to tell you. The city of Jerusalem, the city of Jerusalem did not have the idols that the city of Athens had. And yet the Lord Jesus Christ comes up on the Mount of Olive and he looks down upon the city and he was equally distressed and he begins to weep over Jerusalem. He said wait a minute, but Jerusalem had no idol. Oh yes, the idols were worse than those in Athens because the idols of Jerusalem were false religion.

The idols of Jerusalem were false rituals. The idols of Jerusalem were people who were going to church and speaking to God with their lips, but their hearts were far away from him. That's why Jesus wept. And that is why Paul was distressed. Let me tell you something, beloved friends, until you and I become distressed over sin in our society, God will not move.

Until you and I become provoked by idolatry in all of its forms, until you and I are broken over the idolatry with all its forms, until you and I are able to weep over idolatry in all its forms, until you and I can inwardly be indignant over idolatry in all its forms, until you and I become grief-stricken over idolatry in the church of Jesus Christ who deny that salvation is through Jesus alone, until you and I become abhorred by those who claim to be Christians and yet they deny the very heart of the gospel, until you and I are inwardly wounded by the apathy of the Christian community, until you and I come to the point in our lives of doing that, we will not understand Acts 17, 16, that Paul was greatly distressed. But one of the great things about the apostle Paul, he did not allow distress to lead him into discouragement. He did not allow being distressed with sin and idolatry to lead him into despair. He did not allow his distress over idolatry to lead him into depression. He did not allow it to lead him into a sense of hopelessness, no. Which brings me to the second point. Paul's distress made him determined to introduce him to Jesus.

Let me tell you something. If you ever have a sense of distress over the condition in which we live, it's going to lead you either to hopelessness or it's going to motivate you to do something about the situation. Our sense of distress must motivate us to lovingly confront people with the gospel or we will become indifferent and we'll become apathetic. Our sense of inward provocation must lead us to lovingly invite men and women to have an encounter with the living God or else we will be discouraged and become unfruitful, ineffective for God. Our sense of indignation must bring us under the conviction that these men and women are so desperate for what you know, I know. And Paul understood. Paul understood that in a culture where conflicting philosophies and conflicting thoughts that are fighting, that are at war for our minds and the minds of our children, for our hearts and the hearts of our children, that these conflicting philosophies that are fighting is not time for the Christian to retreat. It's not time to say, well, I don't have anything to offer. I don't know how to get into that war.

I can't do anything about it. No, no, no, no. In Athens, Greece, in the time of Paul, there were many conflicting philosophical schools. The two dominant ones were the Epicureans and the Stoics. The Epicurean philosophy was established by Epicurus 342 and 270 B.C.

And he lived at the same time as the founder of the Stoics and I'm going to come to that in a minute. What does the Epicureans taught? Well, the Epicureans taught that indulgence is the key to life. They taught that pleasure is the highest good. The Epicurean professed to believe in the gods. But then they immediately go on and say that the gods are not really interested in mankind. The Epicureans taught that pleasure and the pleasure that is most worthy of pursuing was a life of tranquility, a life that is free from passion and pain and above all free from the fear of death.

And then they go on to teach that there is no life after death when you die it's all over. The Stoics on the other hand almost had an opposite kind of philosophical approach to life. The Stoics were opposite to the Epicureans. This philosophical school was established by a man named Zeno who came from Cyprus and lived in Greece. He lived in 340 to 260 B.C.

give or take. In fact Epicurus and Zeno both were contemporaries. The Stoics were fatalistic.

They were pantheistic. The Stoics taught that God was the world's soul and the world was God's body. At its best Stoicism was marked with moral earnestness but all it was marred was spiritual pride. To the Stoics virtue was the supreme good. Men they said should live above passion.

People should be unmoved by grief or joy or pain or pleasure. I do not make a good Stoic. Some of you do.

I don't. That passed me by. Indifference was a key to life they said. Apathy was the Stoics lot in life. No wonder they called Paul a babler.

No wonder. Both the Epicureans and the Stoics there were aghast at the thought that the God who created the world became a man. And then he hung on a cross and died to pay for the sins of people who believe in him. And then he rose from the dead in order that he comes back one day to judge all of humanity. They were aghast at this preaching. But Paul was determined to introduce them to Jesus. And therefore he preached a definitive message to their empty hearts.

Please listen to me carefully. The reason men and women anywhere do not believe, worship, and obey the true God is because they do not want to know, believe, and worship the true God. It's their choice. God made himself known in so many ways, but people deliberately and consciously reject him. And they don't want to believe in him as the true God.

I want to illustrate what I mean here. Look at American society. More than 90% of the population claim to believe in God. But if you would go up to one of those people and you say to them, God will judge you and you will stand before his judgment seat one day. Probably 60% of them would say, oh no, not this God. Uh-uh, not this God.

If you would go to them and say that anyone who rejected the Lord Jesus Christ as the only way to heaven, as the only Savior and Lord. And if you reject him, you're going to spend eternity in torment. You're going to spend eternity in pain. You're going to spend eternity in regret.

You're going to spend eternity in damnation. Oh no, not that God. We don't want a judgmental God. They want a God that they designed, you see, so that he is designed the way they want him. They want a God that they can fashion the way they want him fashioned. I mean, you know, just like you have a designer jeans, you know, you get a designer God. It's that easy. Well, do you have a Versace God or you have a Calvin Klein God?

That's our culture today. And Paul's message was in effect. Though you rejected the God who revealed himself in his creation and chosen instead to worship the creatures and worship other gods, yet your hearts are empty and you are discontented with your gods. Though you refused to worship the creator and yet you continue to worship his creatures and his creation. Though you try to fill your minds and your hearts with all sorts of philosophical thought about God, and yet you have a God-shaped vacuum in your life that only the creator God can fill.

And that is why Paul goes on to say, and that's the reason why there will be no excuse in the day of judgment. Nobody can ever stand in the day of judgment and say, God, you gave me a raw deal. No one. No one.

Listen carefully, please. The sun worshiper will be asked on the day of judgment, why did you reject the creator of the sun? The pleasure seeker will be asked on the day of judgment, why did you not worship the one who created all pleasures for us?

Those who worship at the shrine of science and technology will be asked on the day of judgment, why did you not worship the God who placed all knowledge on earth for our enjoyment and for our convenience and for our blessings? There is no excuse for anyone on the day of judgment, says the apostle Paul. And Paul's message begins with the creator God and ends with calling them to repent of the sin of rejecting God. Paul's message begins with the creator of life, the sustainer of life, the ruler of life, and he ends up with the rightful demand by that creator to be worshipped alone. Paul's message begins with the owner of all creation and ends up with that owner's rightful demands for response from those whom he made, those whom he created, and those whom he sustained. Paul's message is this, that all idolatry, whether it is primitive or sophisticated, all idolatry, whether it is metal or mental, all idolatry, whether material or imaginary, all forms of idolatry, inexcusable by God. You know, one of the biggest idolatry of our day is the trying to minimize the gulf between the creator and his creation. Minimizing the gulf between the creator and the creatures so that we can bring him under our control.

But the truth is this, beloved friends, listen carefully. Modern day idolatry that says that we are gods with a small g will be severely judged by God. Modern day idolatry that says that God is in us all and we all in God will be severely judged on the day of judgment. The Athenians have acknowledged that in having that inscription in that altar that says to the unknown God, they have acknowledged their ignorance of the true God. And here the apostle Paul had just provided them with the evidence for their ignorance. Look at verse 30 of Acts 17, verse 30. Here's what Paul said, ignorance is no excuse.

That's a use of translation, but that's exactly what it means. Ignorance is no excuse, for God never, never left himself without a witness. But it is in his mercy God is giving them a second chance. It is in his mercy that he's giving them another opportunity to repent and ask for his forgiveness. It is in his mercy that he's going to withhold his judgment a little longer in order to give them one more time to repent and seek his forgiveness.

I am so glad he gave me a chance. But not only that, Paul said God provided proof that the day of judgment is coming and that the judge is going to be no other than Jesus Christ and their greatest proof was to raise him from the dead after three days in the tomb. Paul is saying the resurrection is God's ultimate proof. The judgment is coming upon the living and the dead.

Every one of us is going to face the judgment of God. There may be someone here today who said, I thought all religions are the same. I thought all roads lead to heaven.

I thought all things are just equal. And today I heard there's only one way to God. You've been confused by all the idolatry in our culture and all the philosophical mumbo jumbo in our culture. And you've been ignoring the Lord of life. He's calling you today to surrender to him, to repent of your sins and receive his forgiveness. You're listening to Leading the Way with Dr. Michael Youssef.

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