Men, this sermon is the third and final installment on Paul's second missionary journey.
And we're actually going to start out in chapter 17 verse 19 if you want to back up a little
bit.
But if you remember when we left off with Paul, he's in Athens, he's waiting for his
buddies to arrive, and he's literally dragged away by the Greeks.
He's spending time preaching in the synagogues, trying to reach the Jews, but the Greeks are
very interested in what he has to say.
They want to hear the gospel, so they actually pull him away and take him onto their turf,
and they ask him about the gospel.
So Paul has this great opportunity now to preach to the Gentiles, which are turning
out to be a lot more receptive than the Jews on these missionary journeys.
Look at chapter 17 verse 19.
And they took him and brought him unto Areopagus, saying, May we know what this new doctrine
whereof thou speakest is?
For thou bringest certain strange things to our ears.
We would know therefore what these things mean.
For all the Athenians and strangers which were there spent their time in nothing else,
but either to tell or to hear some new thing.
So of course, Athens is a hub of philosophy and thought in the ancient world.
And so a lot of people were actually coming there.
The Bible talks about these strangers which were there to spend their time in nothing
else.
They were literally traveling to Athens in order to figure out what do we believe, what's
the nature of the world that we live in, you know, trying to answer the deep questions
of the universe because Athens was known for its schools of philosophy and people are coming
there for that reason.
And you know what?
This is actually still to this day, I think, a part of the Greek culture because one of
the things we noticed when we did the missions trip to Cyprus was that everybody wanted to
talk.
And people loved to sit around talking.
It was a very social culture.
And not only that, but we had multiple times over the course of the couple of weeks we
were there where we'd be sitting at a restaurant and people would overhear us talking about
the Bible and come and just join the conversation like, hey, what do you, you know, they'll
bring us certain strange things to our ears, you know.
May we know what this new doctrine is?
But they would literally come over to us, hey, what religion?
We were at a restaurant.
The manager of the restaurant came over, hey, what religion are you guys?
Your conversation sounds really interesting and they would want to hear, which makes it
a great place to go soul winning.
Because if you're ever in a place where everybody wants to talk, well, that's a great place
to go soul winning because if people are sitting around, relaxing, hanging out with friends,
a lot of times they're pretty open to a conversation about the Word of God.
And so I think that some of that is still carried through even to their modern culture.
So it says that they just always want to sit around hearing some new thing.
Now here's the thing about that.
We don't want to be like that as Christians.
We don't want to be just always craving to hear some new thing.
These are unsaved people.
These are heathen.
They don't have the answers.
They're searching for answers because they don't have them.
Now what I'm saying is that this attribute of, hey, always wanting to hear something
new, that's great to tap into that as a soul winning field.
But it's not a role model for your life, wanting to just spend your time doing nothing else
but just sitting around and talking.
You know, the Bible says in all labor there's profit, but the talk of the lips tendeth only
to penury or poverty.
So we don't want to just sit around and talk and we don't want to be people that are always
seeking a new doctrine, okay?
Here's the saying that I've heard, if it's new, it probably isn't true.
Now there are exceptions to that, but in general, novelty is a sign of false doctrine.
Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines.
So we don't want to just be tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine like the Athenians
were.
Remember, they're not saved.
They're heathen.
Now it's a great place to go soul winning though because they're always ready to hear
something new.
And one of the hardest things about getting people saved is just to get them to listen
to the gospel.
I mean, if you can get people to listen to the gospel, you have a pretty good chance
of getting some of them saved, amen?
So look what the Bible says in verse 22, Paul stood in the midst of Mars Hill.
And remember, Mars is one of their false gods, okay?
So that's the Roman name of their false god, but he stands up and he says, men of Athens,
I perceive that in all things you are too superstitious.
For as I passed by and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, to
the unknown god, whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.
So remember, these people are engaged in polytheism.
So they have a multiplicity of gods and they fear these gods and want to keep these gods
happy and placated so that they'll bless them.
But they're afraid that they might have missed one.
So they have just kind of this generic catch-all altar, like in case we missed you, here's
to the unknown god.
So whatever god's floating around that's not getting enough worship, here you go buddy,
this one's for you, okay?
And that's what they have.
So he's just pointing out the fact that they're so superstitious that not only do they worship
the gods that they know, they're worshiping gods that they don't even know.
Now Paul uses this as a lead-in to the gospel by saying, him therefore, sorry let me get
there in my notes, whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.
So he uses that, here let me tell you about the unknown god, the real god, the true god.
And then he goes on to preach to them.
Now I want to stop at this point and just show you why it's so important that you have
a King James Bible.
Why are we King James only?
Why is that a big deal?
A lot of people think that that's crazy or kookish or ridiculous, but honestly what's
more ridiculous is this attitude that says, oh any old Bible will do, even if it removes
entire verses, even if it just makes these dramatic changes.
That's crazy to think that there should just be hundreds of Bibles, they all say different
things.
I mean God is not the author of confusion.
And the reason that we're King James only is because all of the modern Bibles, all of
them corrupt God's word in a major way.
Now there were Bibles that came before the King James and those are not bad Bibles, they're
not wicked Bibles, they're not evil when we talk about, you know, the Matthew Bible, the
Tyndale Bible, the Great Bible, the Bishop's Bible, the Geneva Bible.
Those were rough drafts.
The King James, the final draft, okay.
So those Bibles were great and they actually, you know, did a lot to get us to having the
King James Bible.
You know, because it's not like the King James Bible just came out of a vacuum.
The Bishop's Bible was the basis for the King James Bible and the Bishop's Bible was a great
Bible version.
Out of all the Bibles that came before the King James, the Bishop's Bible was the best
one by far.
But the problem with the Bishop's Bible was mainly an issue of style, okay.
It had some stylistic problems where it just didn't sound that great.
So the King James really took the accuracy of the Bishop's Bible and spiced it up and
made it a better translation that not only is accurate but it's also very beautiful and
poetic.
So the King James Bible is such an amazing Bible because not only is it totally accurate
but it also is so beautiful and poetic that it makes people think that the Bible was originally
written in English.
And fundamentalists sometimes get made fun of for thinking that, but the reason that
some people think that is just because it's that good of a translation.
Nobody's ever going to confuse the ESV for the original.
It sounds like garbage, okay.
So the point is that the King James Bible is the word of God without error, okay.
God in his providence, God in his wisdom knew that English would be the most important language
in the world, spoken by over 2 billion people and that number is climbing.
Now you go to Europe and in many places of Europe, 30 to even 50, 60% of the population
speaks English now in many of these European countries, throughout Africa, Asia.
It's becoming the universal second language of the world.
God knew that the vast majority of Baptists will be located in the United States of America,
that there'd be great soul winning and missions movements coming out of America and the English
language would be critical and so in his wisdom, in his providence, he allowed this amazing
translation to take place, published in 1611, by 54 brilliant scholars who worked on it
for six years and they were already starting with a great version, the Bishop's Bible and
then just spent six years making it perfect.
And I do believe that it is perfect, that it is without error, it is the inspired, preserved
word of God in our English language.
Now people in other languages, they need the Bible in their own language.
I'm not telling people they need to go learn English.
I'm not James White up here saying, hey, Greek people just need to learn English if they
want to get evangelized.
No, you know, Spanish speakers should hear it in their language, Spanish, Greek speakers
should hear it in Greek, French speakers should hear it in French, right.
Everybody should get the language wherein they were born, when they hear the word of
God preached in a perfect world.
Now if somebody speaks English as a second language, I'm going to try and win them to
Christ, but it's best to get at their heart language, right, their native language.
That's always going to be the best, amen.
So we still should learn other languages and evangelize in other languages, especially
since, you know, if two billion people speak English, that means five and a half billion
don't.
You got to reach them with the gospel too, right?
So we're King James only, okay, because the modern versions are dramatically different.
And let me give you an example right here of how the modern versions just butcher this
verse, okay.
Let me read it to you from the ESV.
You look down at your Bible there in Acts 17, 22.
So Paul says, I perceive in all things that you are too superstitious, right?
Listen to the ESV.
So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus said, men of Athens, I perceive that in every
way you are very religious.
Now that's pretty different.
Whoa, you're too superstitious versus, oh, you're very religious.
One of them is negative and one of them is positive.
The NIV, Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said, people of Athens,
you know, you got to go gender neutral.
I see that in every way you're very religious.
Folks, every modern Bible does this, all of them, all of them say very religious.
Listen to the voice.
This is one of those paraphrases, like the living Bible, the voice it's called.
Athenians, as I've walked your streets, I've observed your strong and diverse religious
ethos, your strong and diverse religious ethos.
You truly are a religious people, dude.
Okay, that's the voice.
The amplified version.
So Paul, standing in the center of the Areopagus said, men of Athens, I observe, with every
turn I make throughout the city, thanks for that little amplification there, that you
are very religious and devout in all respects.
Then the new King James, you say, well, let's just get the new King James, right, a little
easier to understand.
Then Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, men of Athens, I perceive that in
all things you're very religious.
Folks, all the modern versions, including the new King James, do this.
And you say, well, Pastor Anderson, are you sure if they're all saying that, maybe they're
right, maybe the King James is wrong, maybe these modern versions are all right, and maybe
it's the King James that got us wrong.
Here's the thing.
You want to know what the Greek word translated here literally means?
Fearing demons.
That's literally what it means.
Fearing demons.
Boy, you guys really fear demons a lot.
Oh, you're so religious.
That's so great.
Folks, that's not religious.
That's superstitious.
Guess what?
The King James scholars, they knew Greek and Hebrew way better than these bozos today that
are cranking out these stupid modern Bible versions, and the King James got it right
when they said superstitious.
Listen to the dictionary definition of superstitious.
Irrational fear of what is unknown or mysterious, especially in connection with religion.
An irrational fear of that which is unknown or mysterious.
Oh, you're so religious.
And in fact, if you take their ridiculous translation of, oh, you're very religious,
it actually changes this whole speech.
It changes the whole meaning.
Because if Paul says, think about this now, if Paul says to them, you have this altar
to the unknown God, well, whom therefore you ignorantly worship, Him I'll declare unto
you.
You're so religious and you're, you know, it almost makes it seem like you've been worshiping
God all along.
You've been worshiping God all along.
You just didn't even know it.
Okay.
And you know, you just add him to the Pantheon, right?
Just go ahead and add Jesus to all these other demons that you're worshiping.
Okay.
Now, if you read it correctly, he says, you're too superstitious.
For as I pass by, I beheld your devotions, verse 23, I found an altar with this inscription
to the unknown God, whom therefore you ignorantly worship, Him I declare unto you.
God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he's Lord of heaven and earth,
dwelleth not in temples made with hands, neither is worship with men's hands, as though he
needed anything, seeing he giveth to all life and breath and all things.
So what he's saying here is, look, you guys are too superstitious, okay?
You've got this altar to the unknown God.
Oh, yeah, let me tell you about the unknown God, okay?
You're ignorant, he says.
You think that God lives in a temple.
You think that God is served with men's hands, as though he needed anything, but he's not.
Now what does he mean by that when he says, you know, you think that he needs something?
Because if you look at people who practice idolatry today, because, for example, we have
a lot of examples of this, in fact, there's one less than a mile from here.
There's this Thai restaurant, it's a really good Thai restaurant, aside from a little
bit of idolatry going on in the foyer.
But anyway, you walk into this Thai restaurant and there's like this little, there's an idol
and then there's like this little dish in front of it with this like old dried up food.
Because that's the food that they're giving to their idol.
Like we got to feed him and it just kind of sits there and rots and gets old.
And then if you look up Hinduism, you'll see them like pouring milk on their idol and like
pouring honey on it, throwing fruit at it and stuff.
And it just kind of sits there and it's like pouring stuff on its head, like, oh, we got
to feed the idol, we got to give it something to drink, like, all right, here you go, have
some drink.
You know, it's a mess.
So then they have to have all these priests just to sit there and clean it up after they
dump all the milk and honey all over it and everything because they can't make it into
the idol's mouth.
Okay.
It's just like, it's like trying to feed a toddler or something.
It's just like all over it, you know, there's more of the food ended up on the ground and
all over it.
So basically you say, look, you don't serve God by feeding him, giving him something to
drink.
He doesn't need anything from you.
He doesn't need any, he's the creator.
We need him.
He doesn't need us.
Okay.
So that's what Paul is explaining here as though he needed anything, seeing he give
it to all life and breath and all things.
Okay.
So he gives us everything.
So we don't need to like build him a house to live in.
And that's why when Solomon built the temple, he said, look, I realize that the whole earth
and the whole heaven can't contain God.
This is just a house where we can worship him and offer sacrifice before him, but they
realize that he doesn't dwell in temples made with hands.
Okay.
He lives in the heavens and he fills the whole universe.
So the Bible says here in verses 22 and 25 that basically it's a correction.
He's preaching against what they're doing.
He's not praising them for being religious.
He's preaching against their superstitions.
Okay.
Then it says in verse 26, and it's made of one blood, all nations of men for to dwell
on all the face of the earth and at determined the times before appointed and the bounds
of their habitation that they should seek the Lord.
If happily they might feel after him and find him though he be not far from every one of
us.
Of course, this verse is ruined in the ESV, other modern versions as well, but I don't
want to get off course too much with that.
So just stick with the King James.
Amen.
So what we've got here is this verse saying that God, and this is a really interesting
thought here, that God determined the times before appointed and the bounds of their habitation
that they should seek the Lord.
So empires, nations, countries, the history of mankind where different things happen at
different times, God is working through those events in order that people would seek the
Lord and that if happily they might feel after him and find him.
So he's doing it so that they'll seek the Lord if happily they might feel after him
and find him.
Okay.
So I think what the Bible is saying here is that if we seek, we shall find.
You know as Jesus said, ask and it shall be given unto you, seek and ye shall find, knock
and it shall be given unto you, for everyone that asketh receiveth, everyone that seeketh
findeth, and to him that talketh, it shall be open unto him.
So what God does is he works through world events to make sure that if people want to
hear the gospel, if people are open to hearing the gospel, if people have a desire to know
the truth, they can find it.
They can get saved.
Okay.
Now, obviously, we have to go out and bring the gospel to them.
We can't just sit back and let this process happen because God uses us to do it.
He commands us to do it.
But he works through events to open doors.
And look, if you just look throughout history, you'll see that this is true.
Like for example, and I'll just give you a couple real quick examples.
I don't want to go into a big history lesson here.
But for example, you know, there's a time when a lot of the world was controlled by
Islam, okay, around the 12th, 13th century AD.
And you have this big area in the Middle East and Asia controlled by Islam.
And then comes Genghis Khan and Genghis Khan's descendants with the Mongolian Empire.
And they conquered all these Muslim cities.
And in the past, in a lot of these Muslim cities, there hadn't been religious freedom
for Christians.
But the Mongolian Empire, even though Genghis Khan is not necessarily a role model that
we would want to be like, being a violent individual, but he actually brought religious
freedom everywhere he went.
So in going through and conquering these Islamic cities, he gave the Christians and
everybody religious freedom.
You know, he didn't care if you're Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, whatever.
He let all those religions coexist in his empire and brought religious freedom to a
mass part of the world at that time.
Not only that, but even his descendants, many of them married Christians and Christianity
became a big thing in the Mongolian capital and in places throughout the empire and allowed
the gospel to go throughout Asia and to go to places like Mongolia and China, et cetera,
at that time in the 14th century.
Not only that, but the Chinese invented the printing press.
Sorry, you know, history books in America that claim that it was invented in Europe.
Sorry, you know, Gutenberg and all you guys.
But anyway, the point is, it was actually invented in China hundreds of years earlier.
And the Mongolians conquering everything from China to Eastern Europe allowed there to be
an exchange of information and technology so that the printing press could come into
Europe at that time, right?
And what's the first thing that was printed on the printing press?
The Bible.
So they started cranking out Bibles in Europe.
So let's, you know, yeah, we still love Gutenberg, amen?
So you know, they start printing the Bible, printing the word of God.
But here's the only problem.
You know, the Bible that they had had been corrupted.
The Latin Vulgate had gotten corrupted.
So they needed to go back to the original languages so that they could create a Bible
that was true to the original because the Latin Vulgate had been corrupted by the Roman
Catholic Church.
So God worked out some other events at that time too.
He caused Istanbul to be conquered by the Turks.
Then you have all these Greeks fleeing Istanbul into Italy, bringing their knowledge of the
Greek language in 1453, I believe.
Then in 1492, not only did Columbus sail the ocean blue, but in 1492, the Jews were all
kicked out of Spain.
So the Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492, and where did they go?
They went into the rest of Europe.
They ended up in places like England and Holland and places.
So now all of a sudden, the King James translators, other Bible translators throughout Europe,
now they've got the printing press.
Now they've got Greek people and Hebrew speaking people, and they can learn the original languages
from these Jews that have come out of Spain, from these Greeks that have come out of Turkey,
and now they've got a printing press.
Oh, it's all just a coincidence, right?
No.
These are all events where God's working through human events so that the Word of God could
be mass-produced, mass-distributed, so that we could have a King James Bible and so that
the other languages of Europe could all get their Bibles as well and actually read the
Word of God, hear it preached.
And look, that's just one quick little example just about the Mongolians and Spain and the
Turks and all these things are going on, but it's all doing what?
It's all working so that people can hear the Gospel if they want to hear the Gospel.
Why has America been raised up and had all this power and everything?
Well, you know, some of that has been so that we could be a base for the Gospel and so that
Baptist churches...
Do you know how many Baptists there are in America?
Fifty million.
There are approximately 50 million people in America who identify as a Baptist.
Now, I'm not saying that they're all saved.
Of course they're not, but 50 million people say, I'm Baptist in the United States of America.
That's a lot.
What, 340 million people total in the country?
So the point is, you know, this country has a Baptist church on every corner, OK?
God's given us the Bible, we've got the prosperity, we've got the money, we've got the Word of
God, we've got the Baptist manpower.
Hey, we should be turning this world upside down with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
With all the resources that we have, right?
God works these things out so that we can evangelize the world.
But what do we do with that power?
We evangelize the world with the Gospel of rock and roll.
I mean, we've gotten that Gospel around the world, haven't we?
Hey, the good news, the good news of Hollywood, the good news of sodomy, the good news of
rock and roll, the good news of fashion designs from Madison Avenue.
Folks, that's not why God gave America the prosperity and the influence and the power
that we have.
We should be using it for good.
But, of course, the devil comes along and people start using it for evil and then next
thing you know, God has to punish America just like, you know, he gives all these wonderful
gifts to Israel and Judah and then they misuse their opportunity and then what does he have
to do?
He has to punish them, right?
So we see that God has determined the times that are before appointed, the bounds of their
habitation that they should seek the Lord if happily they might feel after him and find
him, the Bible says.
And it says, though he be not far from every one of us, isn't that great how God is not
far from everyone?
Boy, it isn't hard to find him, is it?
Pretty easy to find the Lord, especially in America.
It's ridiculously easy to find the Lord in America, okay?
For in him we live and move and have our being as certain also of your poets have said for
we are also his offspring.
Now people will point to this right here where he mentions their poetry and says, hey, as
many also of your poets have said, we are also his offspring and say, oh, see, you know,
he's basically giving a nod to their religion or being non-confrontational with them.
Yeah, but he said a lot of really negative things up to this point about how wrong they
are.
And then right after this nod to their literature, in the next breath he says, okay, well then
if we are the offspring of God, right, for as much then as we are the offspring of God,
we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold or silver or stone graven by
art and man's device.
And the times of this ignorance God winked at, but now commandeth all men everywhere
to repent.
You need to change.
You need to stop worshiping these false gods.
You need to stop with the idolatry.
You need to get rid of all this garbage and you need to worship the true God.
This is not some guy who just goes in and says, hey, we pretty much believe the same
things, you know.
You guys have got your poetry, we've got the Old Testament, but at the end of the day,
you know, you guys are worshiping that unknown God and, you know, that's who I worship and
let's all sing Kumbaya.
Folks, no, this is him doing confrontational evangelism, confrontational soul winning.
And look, is he being nice?
I think he's being nice.
I don't think he's being a jerk.
I don't think he's being rude.
I think he's being nice, but he's not going to praise false religion.
He didn't praise and say, oh, man, I just love the Iliad and the Odyssey and I just
love Zeus and, oh, man, I just love.
Is that what he's saying?
Oh, man, it's so great.
No, here's what he's saying.
Here's what it says in your scripture.
Okay, well, here's why that doesn't add up with what you're doing.
You understand the difference there?
He's pointing out, well, if your own religious texts are claiming that we're God's offspring,
if we're the offspring of God, then why would God be inferior to us?
God isn't something that can just be carved in stone and gold and silver because God transcends
us.
He's not below us, okay?
And the times of this ignorance God winked at, but now commandeth all men everywhere
to repent.
So what he's actually doing is he's pointing out to them, look, here's what your religion
teaches that's actually correct, and here's why that's not consistent with your religion,
why you need to embrace the truth.
So he is finding some common ground, and I don't think there's anything wrong with finding
common ground with unsaved people and saying, hey, you know, Roman Catholics, well, you're
already dead on on the Trinity, you know, okay, well, hey, here you go.
Let's get you on faith alone salvation instead of salvation by works, okay?
So there's nothing wrong with finding common ground with people, but you want to make sure
that you're not affirming their religion, okay, and acting like Jesus or being born
again is some kind of an add-on to their religion.
Folks, you can't put new wine into old bottles.
New wine must be put into new bottles, okay?
And we cannot add Christ, we cannot add being born again to a false religion.
You need to repent from the false religion and put your faith and trust in the Lord Jesus
Christ.
You can't say, well, I'm still a Buddhist, but now I'm a born-again Buddhist because
I believe on Jesus.
No.
You've got to stop being a Buddhist.
And you know what?
It's so funny.
I'm always accused of preaching a salvation without repentance.
Isn't that what people accuse me of preaching?
They say, oh, Pastor Anderson preaches a salvation without repentance, a repentance-less gospel
is this word that they've coined.
It's kind of a mouthful to pronounce.
But they claim that I don't preach repentance.
Well, of course I preach repentance because I believe that if you're a Roman Catholic,
you can't just add Jesus to all your holy water and poofoo dust and sacraments and just
say, well, I'm trusting Mary and I'm also trusting Jesus.
No, you've got to repent of the one and trust the other.
If you're a Hindu, you have to stop being a Hindu and you have to believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ.
We're up on the Navajo reservation.
We run into countless people who say, well, I believe in Jesus, but I also believe in
peyote religion.
And they're trusting both.
They're both peyote religion and Jesus.
They're both whatever and Jesus, well, I'm a Muslim and a Christian.
You know, like the nation of Islam tries to be like a hybrid of Islam and Christianity.
No, the repentance that the Bible is teaching is to reject false religion and embrace the
Jesus of the Bible, embrace the salvation that is by grace through faith, that is the
gift of God.
And so when he says here, the times of this ignorance God winked at, but now commandeth
all men everywhere to repent, what's he telling them to repent of?
What's he telling them to repent of?
Worshipping false gods, having these altars, right?
Thinking that God or the Godhead or Godhood or divinity can be represented in gold, silver
and stone, repent of that ignorance.
Repent of that.
Look, you ignorantly worship, he said.
And then later he says, the times of this ignorance God winked at, but now commandeth
all men everywhere to repent.
What do they need to repent of?
This is not a hard passage to understand, but you know what?
I can't even count how many times I've seen a gospel tract that will literally quote Acts
chapter 17 verse 30, God now commandeth all men everywhere to repent.
And they'll say, you need to repent of your sins, be willing to stop drinking, be willing
to stop fornicating, be willing to turn your whole life around and start following Christ
with your life.
So now it's not faith, it's works.
Because guess what, following Christ and turning your whole life around, stopping sinning,
stopping fornicating, stopping drinking, stopping smoking, you know what, that's hard work.
It's work.
The Bible says God saw their works that they turned from their evil way in Jonah 3.10.
And so this turnover a new leaf gospel is a works-based salvation.
And you know what?
These people who claim, Pastor Anderson preached a repentance-less gospel, translation, Pastor
Anderson preaches that repentance has to do with where your faith and trust is and what
your religion is, whereas word teaching, it has to do with whether you're living a good
clean life by our standards.
Because they don't repent of all their sins, do they?
Because they'll be like, well, nobody's perfect, but, you know, you got to repent of that thing
that I'm not doing, you know what I mean, because everybody's got their own sins.
Look, certain sins are easy for us to abstain from and certain sins are hard for us to abstain
from and for everybody it's different.
Like for me, I'm not just craving cocaine or something.
That's not even a thing for me.
But you know what?
Some people are craving cocaine.
Some people are craving heroin.
I'm not just, oh man, I got to have a cigarette, I got to have a cigarette.
But there are some people probably even right now in this auditorium who are craving a cigarette
right now.
I'm not going to ask for a raise of hands, but it's out there.
So what I'm saying is there are certain sins that are really hard for certain people.
Some people are going to struggle more with drunkenness than others.
Some people are going to struggle more with fornication than others.
Some people are going to struggle more with gambling than others.
For me, the only gambling that I ever got into was just on Zelda, just getting more
rupees on the original NES Zelda.
That was the closest thing to gambling that I really got into.
So the point is that different people are going to struggle with different sins.
Some people are going to be more naturally prideful.
Other people are kind of a meek personality and that's not really a big thing for them.
Everybody has their sins they struggle with.
So what you have is certain people that struggle with one sin pontificating about how when
I got saved, I got all the way saved because they don't crave X, Y, and Z, but they do
crave A, B, and C. And A, B, and C stands for Applebee's, Burger King, and Carl's Jr.
a lot of times because they sit there and say, oh God took away them cigarettes from
me, never smoked another cigarette, never wanted to smoke another cigarette.
It's funny how much trans fat you wanted after that though, but the thing about that is that
you know what?
Here's the thing.
Some people I've talked to, they said quitting smoking was easy.
Other people quitting smoking is really hard.
Hey, we had members who came to our church here and were dedicated, godly, soul winning,
fired up members for years while smoking cigarettes every day because they're just like, I'm trying
to quit, I'm trying to quit, I'm trying to quit.
And then other people, for them it's easy to stay thin, but other people, man it's hard
to lose weight and it's super hard.
So look, everybody struggles with different things.
For one person, gluttony is a struggle.
Another person, you have to fight them to get them to finish their food.
Who's had their kids and they just eat like a bird and you're just like, eat more food.
Put up your hand.
It's got to be more than that.
It's like, right?
Am I right?
Yeah, my wife's got both hands up now.
When you have 10 kids, you can put up like, you know, you can put up a few different hands.
Look, some kids, you're fighting them to get them to eat their food.
I doubt gluttony is going to be a struggle in that child's life when you're trying to
get them to eat, trying to get them to eat, okay.
Someone else, you know, and look, the Native Americans struggle with alcohol.
They struggle with obesity and alcohol.
Part of the reason is the chemistry of their body because for hundreds of years, they didn't
eat simple carbs, they didn't drink alcohol.
So this is a struggle for them.
And the Bible says, some men's sins are opened beforehand, going before the judgment.
Some men, they fall after.
Likewise also, the good works of some are opened beforehand and they that are otherwise
cannot be.
These repentance preachers, they're so fake, they just get up and want to point out all
the open and exposed sins that they're not doing.
But then their sins somehow get a pass, like they can still be saved and do the sins that
they're into, but the sins that you do, well, you didn't repent of those, so you must not
be saved.
This is all nonsense because salvation has nothing to do with what sins we do or don't
do.
You know what salvation has to do with?
Whether or not we believe on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
That's what it comes down to.
You can smoke like a chimney and go to heaven.
You can weigh 900 pounds and go to heaven.
You can do all manner of sins.
You can, but why?
And I'm not giving you a license to sin, folks, and I like what somebody said, oh, Baptists
are giving a license to sin.
Well, how are you doing without the license?
Because they're still sinning.
You're sinning without a license.
You're going to hell.
Yeah, I'd rather have a license than be without the license because you know what?
We're going to sin no matter what because there's not a just man upon the earth that
doeth good and sin is not.
There's none righteous, no, not one.
For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.
Even the apostle Paul said, man, I do things that I hate and then the good things that
I want to do I end up not doing.
Folks, we're not saved by works.
We're saved by grace through faith.
So don't let this repentance become a Trojan horse, speaking of ancient poetry, to bring
in works-based salvation.
They put it in and they sneak it in and they dress it up as just, well, you don't have
to stop sinning.
You just have to be willing to stop sinning.
Then I've heard them then get up and say, well, you've got to be so willing that you
will.
If you're willing, then you will do it.
Then it just becomes confusion and you have all these people doubting their salvation.
Look, these things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God
that you may know that you have eternal life and that you may believe on the name of the
Son of God.
If it were based on us, we wouldn't know.
I don't know.
So what's repentance in regard to the Gospel?
Repentance is turning from whatever false god you're trusting in and turning to the
true and living God.
First Thessalonians 1 says you turn from God to idols to serve the living and true
God.
That's repentance in regard to salvation.
You've got to turn from the idols to God.
You have to turn from a works-based salvation to faith in Christ.
But here's what they say.
Turn from sin to God.
What?
How is sin a replacement for God?
Is works a replacement for faith?
Yeah, so you turn from works to faith.
Are idols a replacement for the true God?
Yeah, so you turn from God or excuse me, that would be bad, but you turn from idols to God.
Why?
Because these are both in the same category.
In this corner, we have idols.
In this corner, we have God.
So you turn from idols to God.
Doesn't that make sense?
What if I think I'm saved by works and I turn from trusting in my works, now I'm trusting
in salvation by faith.
I turn from religion A, Hinduism, to religion B, Christianity.
Doesn't that make sense?
Do you see how these things are the same category?
That's repentance.
So repenting from sin would be like, I turned from living a dirty life to living a clean
life.
Now those things are both in the same category, right?
I turned from being a drunk to being a teetotaler.
See, these things make sense, but what they're doing is they're mixing them.
You're turning from sin to God.
As if that'd be like saying, I switched from Chevron to Chipotle.
Does that make any sense?
And don't give me some joke about gas, all right?
I'm not interested.
You know, sit there and say, like, hey, I turned from Walmart, I switched from Walmart
to Geico.
Does that make any sense?
Those things aren't in the same category.
Do you see what I'm saying?
Well, I turned from sin to Jesus.
What?
Those aren't in the same category.
That doesn't make any sense.
That's not logical.
And you know what it implies is that you can't be in Christ and sin.
But guess what?
The Apostle Paul was in Christ, and he still sinned.
Folks, do these people think that they're sinless?
And then when you start saying, what are you teaching?
Sinless perfection?
Oh, no, no, no, no.
No, no, no, no, no.
This is not sinless perfection.
It's like, well, then what is it?
It's a mess is what it is.
It's confusion is what it is.
Folks, the gospel is so simple, a little child's supposed to be able to understand it.
It's faith in Christ.
By grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it's the gift of God,
not of works, lest any man should boast.
And so this is the repentance.
How can anyone reading this passage in context walk away saying, oh, it's repent of your
sins from chapter 17, verse 30?
Folks, did he ever, he didn't even mention, man, you guys, you guys are so drunk in this
town.
Boy, you men of Athens, you're hitting the ouzo, and you're drunk, and you're fornicating,
and I don't like the way you dress, and you guys are into gambling, and you need to, it's
time to repent, guys.
Time to repent of your sins.
Is that what he said?
You're taking God's name in vain.
You're looking on a woman to lust after her.
You're bearing false witness against your neighbor.
You're having abortions.
And you know what?
You need to repent now.
What did he say?
Folks, he's saying, you have the wrong God.
You need to repent and turn from the wrong God to the right God.
So if, well, Paul preached repentance, well, you know what, I preached repentance the same
way Paul preached it in chapter 17, verse 30 of Acts.
And we could go to all the other mentions of repentance in Acts, and you know what you're
gonna find?
The same thing.
The context determining the repentance, and it's never telling them to clean up a life
of sin or be willing to do so.
It's nonsense.
And we could go to any of those verses.
So he says in verse 31, we're not gonna get through the whole third missionary journey,
so don't worry.
Because he had appointed a day in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by
that man whom he had appointed, or ordained, sorry, I'm using the see and say method here,
the world in righteousness by that man whom he had ordained, whereof he hath given assurance
unto all men, and that he hath raised him from the dead.
And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked.
And others said, we will hear thee again of this matter.
So many people when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, they mocked because they were
carnally minded.
Their goal in coming to Athens and studying philosophy and hearing some new thing was
to learn about the best way to live their life.
They want to live their life, they want to live their best life now.
And they want to get the blessings now.
They're not interested in the afterlife or the resurrection from the dead.
So when they hear about Christ raising from the dead, they scoff at this.
They don't believe in this.
But others said, we'll hear thee again of this matter.
So some people are interested, right?
They're interested, the seed has been planted, they're not going to get saved today, but
they're interested.
And then he says in verse 33, so Paul departed from among them, howbeit certain men clave
unto him, that means they are joined unto him, just like the Bible says man should cleave
to his wife.
They clave unto him, meaning that they're following him now.
They're joining the church, they're going to be a part of his crew now going forward.
So certain men clave unto him and believed, among the which was Dionysius the Areopagite
and a woman named Damaris and others with them.
So there were some people who got saved.
I think the majority of people probably said, hey, we'll hear thee again of this matter.
They might need to hear it a few times.
But there are some that just immediately mocked it, others that immediately got saved.
And that's how it's going to be when you're out-souling.
Some people are immediately going to get saved, some people are going to scoff.
Others people will say, hey, let me think about it.
So look, we don't want to be too harsh on the people who need to think about it.
If somebody says, hey, I need to think about it, I think it's good to try to encourage
them and say, hey, well, the Bible says now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation.
So I would try to get people to receive Christ immediately.
But if they're not going to, you don't want to just start badgering them and just start
shaking the dust off your feet because that's not an outright rejection of the Gospel.
So it's not a shaking the dust off your feet situation.
So in that situation, you want to leave them on a positive note and leave them something
to think about.
Let that seed be planted.
Let them chew on that.
Leave them on a good note so that a year later, six months later, two years later,
some other soul winner knocks on their door or some friend at work or some friend, you
know, gives them the Gospel.
Now that seed has had a chance to germinate a little bit and they're not going to be turned
away because the person who planted that seed treated them so badly.
Oh, I don't want to have this conversation again.
So try to leave people on a positive note if they're receptive.
They don't have to get saved today.
They could get saved tomorrow.
Now this is the best time to get saved is right now.
So if you're not saved, man, don't put it off because you don't know, you know, when
your life is going to end and you don't know when, when you're going to lose your opportunity
to get saved.
So you got to seek the Lord while he may be found.
So these are the reactions that he got and then it says in verse one of chapter 18, after
these things, Paul departed from Athens and came to Corinth and we'll have to get into
that next time because of just sake of time, this chapter 18 opens up a whole nother can
of worms, but basically he's just going deeper into Greece on the second missionary journey.
God pulled him out of Asia Minor because he'd already been there and preached there.
He wanted to go to some fresh territory.
He went through Philippi and Macedonia.
He came down from Macedonia and Northern Greece down into Akia or Southern Greece, right?
He went through Athens.
Now he's moving on to Corinth and in Corinth, he's going to end up seeing a lot of people
saved and this is going to end up being a big church, which is why there is so much
scripture written to the church of Corinth, 16 chapters in first Corinthians, 13 chapters
in second Corinthians.
So Paul is about to have a major success in Corinth of reaching a ton of people and there's
going to be a great church established in Corinth right fresh off of this preaching
in Athens.
So let's bow your heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord, and we thank you for salvation, Lord,
and there are so many people out there that teach a wrong salvation.
Help us, Lord, not to be carried away from the simplicity that's in Christ and not to
be beguiled with these false teachings about repent of your sins, turn from your sins,
turn over a new leaf style salvation, lordship salvation as it's often called.
Help us to stick with the faith alone gospel that Jesus paid it all, Lord.
Thank you for that unspeakable gift that you've given us, Lord.
And Lord, help us also not to be carried away with false versions of the Bible, Lord.
Help us to stay with the traditional English Bible that we've had for 400 and some years,
the King James Bible.
And Lord, help us not only to read the King James and preach the King James, but help
us to have total confidence in the King James and realize that you have providentially preserved
it for us in our English language and that we don't have to wonder whether what it says
is right and need somebody to go back to the Hebrew and go back to the Greek to tell us
what it really means.
Help us to realize that it's been translated accurately in the King James and read it,
love it, study it, and may our lives be changed for the better.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.