PT-1 "Intro to Acts 17:16-34"

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/12/2018 8:23 AM

My Worship Time                                                                    Focus:  PT-1 Intro to Acts 17:16-34

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Acts 17:16-34

            Message of the verses:  “16 Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was being provoked within him as he was observing the city full of idols. 17 So he was reasoning in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Gentiles, and in the market place every day with those who happened to be present. 18 And also some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers were conversing with him. Some were saying, "What would this idle babbler wish to say?" Others, "He seems to be a proclaimer of strange deities,"-because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection. 19 And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, "May we know what this new teaching is which you are proclaiming? 20 “For you are bringing some strange things to our ears; so we want to know what these things mean." 21 (Now all the Athenians and the strangers visiting there used to spend their time in nothing other than telling or hearing something new.)

    22 So Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, "Men of Athens, I observe that you are very religious in all respects. 23 “For while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription, ’TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.’ Therefore what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you. 24  "The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands; 25  nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things; 26 and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, 27 that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; 28 for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ’For we also are His children.’ 29 “Being then the children of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and thought of man. 30 "Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent, 31 because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead."

    32 Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some began to sneer, but others said, "We shall hear you again concerning this." 33 So Paul went out of their midst. 34 But some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them.”

            I will begin this SD the same way that John MacArthur begins the 10^th chapter of his second commentary on the book of Acts which covers chapters 13-28 of the book of Acts.  He entitles this 10^th chapter “Getting to Know the Unknown God,” and as we go through the verses that go along with this section of Acts we will perhaps see that people today certainly need to hear the words that are in this wonderful sermon that Paul preaches to a group of idol worshipers from the city of Athens.  MacArthur begins his commentary on this section by quoting a couple of paragraphs from Charles Haddon Spurgeon’s morning message that he preached on January 7, 1855:

“It has been said by someone that ‘the proper study of mankind is man.’  I will not oppose the idea, but I believe it is equally true that the proper study of God’s elect is God; the proper study of a Christian is the Godhead.  The highest science, the loftiest speculation, the mightiest philosophy, which can ever engage the attention of a child of God, is the name, the nature, the person, the work, the doings, and the existence of the great God whom he calls his Father…..

“Would you lose your sorrows?  Would you drown your cares?  Then go plunge yourself in the Godhead’s deepest sea; be lost in his immensity, and you shall come forth as from as from a couch of rest, refreshed and invigorated.  I know nothing which can so comfort the soul; so calm the swelling billows of grief and sorrow; so speak peace to the winds of trial, as a devout musing upon the subject of the Godhead.” 

            MacArthur further comments on this sermon:  “Although spoken well over a century ago, Spurgeon’s words speak forcefully to today’s church.  In this age of liberalism, neoorthodoxy, pragmatism, psychology, emotionalism, experientialism, and man-centered theology, the church desperately needs a proper perspective God.”  I will have to admit that MacArthur’s words that he has written here are what I was trying to say, but he says them more eloquently. 

            The message that Christ gives through His gospel (good news) is what the world needs most of all.  The things that mankind does to give him temporary pleasure is as stated only temporary and actually does not satisfy the soul.  The good news of Christ gives a person what is needed and that is a relationship with the triune God, something that was lost when Adam sinned in the garden, and something that mankind can never, ever get back on their own.

            I have often said in my Spiritual Diaries and also in my Sunday school class that the very best thing that a new believer can do, and this by the way is a lifelong process, and that is to get to know the God who saved you.  The study of God’s attributes from the Scriptures is the best way to learn who God is, but before this can happen a person has to realize that they were born a sinner, and are in need of salvation that can only come from confessing your sin to the Lord and then to believe with all your heart that God has provided salvation for you through sending His Son to planet earth to take your place on the cross (and while hanging on the cross God took out His holy wrath on Him for those three darkened hours) and accept what Christ did for you and you will go from darkness to light.  You will become a new creature in Christ and will be assured of heaven where you will live with Christ forever.

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I desire to continue to study who God is by a continued study of His attributes as I see them in my study of His Word.

My Steps of Faith for Today:  Trust that as I study for my Sunday school class that God will put onto my heart the things that He wants me to bring out in our study of the fifth seal judgment from the 6^th chapter of Revelation.

Answer to yesterday’s Bible question:  “Jesus” (Matthew 22:21).

Today’s Bible question:  “What was the land later known as Palestine called during the time of Abraham?”

Answer in our next SD.

5/12/2018 8:59 AM