The Times of Ignorance, Part 2

Review of the Day of Judgment and the Risen Judge

0:05 The following message was delivered on Sunday evening, April 16th, 1995, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. As we did this morning, so again this evening, I want you to follow with me in your Bibles as I read from Acts chapter 17, the 17th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, and I shall begin the reading at verse 16 and read through to the end of the chapter.

0:42 Luke, recording by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit this incident in the second missionary journey of the Apostle Paul and his companions, we read,

1:00 The Holy Spirit was provoked within him as he beheld the city full of idols. So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day with them that met with him. And certain also of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers encountered him. And some said, What would this babbler say?

1:28 Others, He seems to be a man of the Holy Spirit. He is a setter forth of strange gods, because he preached Jesus and the resurrection. And they took hold of him and brought him unto or before the Areopagus, most likely referring not so much to a place, though there was such a place, but a group, what we would call a professional think tank of philosophers. And Paul was brought before this group of men.

2:01 And Paul was brought before this group of men, saying, May we know what this new teaching is which is spoken by you? For you bring certain strange things to our ears. We would know, therefore, what these things mean. Now all the Athenians and the strangers sojourning there spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing.

2:26 And Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, You may be a man of the Holy Spirit, but you are not a man of the Holy Spirit. You may be a man of the Holy Spirit, but you are not a man of the Holy Spirit. You may be a man of Athens. In all things I perceive that you are very religious.

2:37 For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, To an unknown God. What therefore you worship in ignorance, this I set forth unto you. The God that made the world and all things therein, He being God, the Lord of heaven and earth, dwells not in temples made with hands, neither is He served by men's hands as though He needed anything, seeing He Himself gives to all life and breath and all things. And He made of one every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed seasons and the bounds of their habitation, that they should seek God if haply they should feel after Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us. For in Him we live and move and have our being, as certain even of your own poets have said, for we also are His offspring. Being then the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like another, but we ought to think that the Godhead is like another, but we ought to think that the Godhead is like another, given to gold or silver or stone,

4:05 graven by art and device of man. The times of ignorance therefore God overlooked, but now He commandeth men that they should all everywhere repent, inasmuch as He has appointed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom He has ordained, whereof He will judge the world in righteousness, whereof He will judge the world in righteousness, whereof He has given assurance unto all men, in that He has raised Him from the dead. Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked, but others said, We will hear you concerning this yet again. Thus Paul went out from among them, but certain men clave unto him, and literally certain men were glued to him, and believed, among whom also was Dionysius the Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.

5:17 Now in our consideration of the word of God this morning, we focused our attention on verse 31 in the passage that has been read in your hearing. There as Paul preached at Athens in the midst of the city of Bethlehem, in the midst of an array of pagan idols, in the hearing of a group dominated by people who were professional philosophers, though not obviously exclusively such, as the last verse indicates, there he focused upon what we considered under three simple heads. The day appointed by God, inasmuch as He has appointed a day in the name of God, inasmuch as He has appointed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness. Secondly, the man ordained by God, God will accomplish this work of judgment in righteousness by the man whom He has ordained, who is none other than the God-man, the Lord Jesus Christ. Then having considered the day appointed by God, the man ordained by God, we looked at the assurance given by God, and He has given assurance, a certain pledge and guarantee

6:45 that that day will come, and that that man will be the judge in that He raised him from the dead. And thereby we concluded that the divine pledge of a day of judgment to be administered by God, by Jesus Christ, the risen Lord, is the fact of His resurrection from the dead. And this insistence upon the connection between the fact of the resurrection of our Lord Jesus and His appointment as the judge of the world, is a fundamental note in divinely mandated gospel preaching.

7:35 For if you will turn back to Acts chapter 10, we find Peter sounding a very similar and even more explicit note. In Acts chapter 10, as Peter is preaching in the household of Cornelius, notice concerning Jesus Christ, verse 38, Jesus of Nazareth, whom God anointed with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil, for God was with Him. Concerning this Jesus, Peter says, And we are witnesses of all things which He did, both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem, whom also they slew, hanging Him on a tree. Him God raised up the third day, and gave Him to be made manifest, not to all the people, but unto witnesses that were before chosen of God, even to us who ate and drank with Him after He rose from the dead. And He charged us to preach unto the people, and to testify that this is He who is ordained of God

9:03 to be the judge, to be the judge of the living and the dead. To Him bear all the prophets witness, that through His name everyone that believes on Him shall receive remission of sins. Peter clearly indicates that the gospel that the risen Christ charged him and the other apostles to preach was a gospel that not only proclaimed the remission of sins, not only heralded a remission of sins to be received by believing upon His name, but it was a gospel that was to sound as a dominant note that the crucified risen Christ through whom there is remission is ordained of God to be the judge of the living and the dead. So that whenever the gospel is preached in the sweetest and the most enticing of its overtones of mercy and kindness and the pardoning heart of God, it must also throb with the solemnity that a day of judgment is coming, and if you come to it unforgiven by Christ, it were better for you that you had never been born.

10:32 And any gospel preaching that does not sound the note of free, full pardon through the work of a crucified risen Christ is no divinely mandated gospel, nor is any gospel that while proclaiming a full free pardon through the death and resurrection of Christ a biblical gospel, if it comes in a light and frothy, take it or leave it kind of an ethos, if it comes not with the shadow of that awesome future day cast over its joyfully solemn declarations, it is something other than the gospel mandated by the Savior Himself. So you see, folks, this is not a matter of a reformed Baptist emphasis. This is not a matter of, well, that's Pastor Martin's thing, you know. He was born with a wrinkled brow, and he sort of got to put a somber note.

11:44 No, Peter says, the risen Christ charged us to preach that He is the appointed judge of the living and the dead, as well as to proclaim remission of sins in His name to all who believe. And so we established from our study of verse 31, and I've simply buttressed it by this additional text by way of review from Acts chapter 10, that God is the God who has validated that the message of Easter is a day of judgment is coming. Now, tonight we focus our attention primarily upon verse 30, the very verse which led into the truths that we contemplated this morning. I liken this morning's text to the foundation on which the command recorded in verse 30 rests. And so we'll study verse 30 tonight under the heading, God's Gracious Commandment, the command to prepare for the judgment assured by the resurrection of Christ. We saw this morning that the judgment

God's Gracious Commandment: The Setting in Human History

13:10 is assured by the resurrection of Christ. Verse 30 is God's gracious command to prepare for that very judgment assured by the resurrection of Christ. Listen as I read the text. Verse 30, and then seek to unpack it in your hearing.

13:34 The times of ignorance therefore God overlooked, but now He commands men that they should all everywhere repent. And the first thing to which our text draws our attention is what I'm calling the setting of this command in human history. The setting of this command in human history. The times of ignorance is a reference to large epochs of human history.

14:14 And to what epochs of human history is Paul referring when he says the times of ignorance? Well, think back through the preceding recording emphases of the sermon. He has just rebuked the practice of these very Athenians saying that since 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 device of man. Why should we make gods of objects that have less dignity than the one who makes them? If we are the image bearers of God, if we are the offspring of God by creation, then surely whatever God is like He is grander, greater and more glorious than the people He created. Why then should we worship something we make when God is obviously greater than what He has created? Why should we bow down to that which we make?

15:31 He has underscored the wickedness and the folly of idolatry. In the previous verses He has spoken of the nature and character of God as Creator and Sovereign Lord and Ruler and Governor of the entire universe and the sweep of human history and the apportionment of the nations and the bounds of their habitations. A God so great and vast and capable of so many things surely cannot be this object that you people have made and set up here on your idol shelves. And what He is doing here is He is referring when He says the times of ignorance therefore God overlooked. He is referring to those epochs in human history prior to the coming of the Lord Jesus when the second person of the Godhead was enfleshed when God in Christ procured a redemption for a vast multitude out of every kindred tribe and tongue and nation and having raised His Son from the dead commissioned His apostles to preach the gospel to the whole creation so that in the gospel

16:57 all of the glorious attributes of the God who is are most fully displayed now not in a limited way in types and shadows in one little spot there in the Middle East called Palestine among those people who were God's chosen ones who alone had a temple and a worship and a priesthood instituted by God there was a benevolent forbearance in the heart of God toward the wretched idolatry of the nations in the time prior to the coming of His Son. You find a similar emphasis when Paul is preaching to pagans back in Acts chapter 14 Acts chapter 14 preaching to a group of pagans who want to make gods even of Barnabas and Paul and worship them verse 16 reads who in the generations gone by suffered all the nations to walk in their own ways in other words as Paul is about to issue this gracious command to prepare for the judgment assured by the resurrection of Christ

18:25 he is careful to underscore the setting of this command in human history this command comes after the times of ignorance in which God exercised an unusual benevolent forbearance the times of ignorance therefore God overlooked that does not mean that He did not regard the sins of the idolatrous nations for human history and biblical history is full of the accounts of God's judgments but they were tempered with forbearance and with patience one commentator has written God overlooked the times of the ignorance by looking at Christ and the plan of salvation for the coming ages He bore with the idolatries of the Gentiles He ceased not to reveal Himself to them in nature and in providence and because of their guilty ignorance He made them feel His wrath by giving them over to the effects of this ignorance their depravity but at last the great day for which God had so long been preparing and waiting in patience and in love had arrived

19:52 but redemption was complete the gospel could now go forth to all the world so Paul says and then he quotes the Greek word tanun as regarding things now since a new era has begun for all mankind through Christ now God is passing along the order the command to all men in every place to be repenting and so this gracious command to prepare for the judgment assured by the resurrection of Christ comes in a setting in which the apostle takes account of the fact that he's speaking to these pagan Athenians subsequent to the mystery of Mary's wound subsequent to the miracles and the validated messianic identity of Jesus of Nazareth he is speaking to them subsequent to His crucifixion under Pontius Pilate subsequent to His resurrection validated by many eyewitnesses and therefore this command comes

21:20 with tremendous intensity and with tremendous weight and with tremendous urgency because God is no longer exercising that measure of forbearance which He exercised prior to the coming of His dear Son now do you see the very relevant application of this to those of you sitting here if Paul could say to these Athenian pagans just a matter of a few years after the coming of Christ and the living out of His life and His death and resurrection and ascension back to the right hand of the Father prior to a completed canon of Holy Scripture prior to the church possessing the full final written revelation of the mind of God if he can say to them in that setting the times of ignorance God overlooked but now at this time in this setting when the Son of God has become incarnate when He has lived His perfect life and died His substitutionary death

22:45 and been raised from the dead validating that a day of judgment has come now at this time He commands something you had better pay careful attention to a command that comes in the setting of this epoch of human history you and I live in the most responsible epoch of human history remember how Jesus emphasized it in His own day He said it will be more tolerable in the day of judgment for Sodom and Gomorrah than for those who were privileged to see the living Christ performing His miracles how much more would He say to us with almost two thousand years of church history when we could read out the litany of lives transformed by the grace and power of God whole nations transformed from idol worshipers where murder and rape and every form of social injustice reigned and God has made places on earth veritable havens of peace and love and harmony and equity all through the mighty power of the gospel

24:15 you see God takes cognizance of the historical epoch in which His command to repent comes to us and you sitting here have a solemn responsibility to take note that that command comes in this particular setting of human history but then having looked at the setting of the command in human history note with me in the second place the author of this command our text says the times of ignorance therefore God overlooked but now He God commands men that they should all everywhere repent who is the author of this command and the verb translated command is translated that way consistently through the New Testament the jailer received command to put Paul and Silas in stocks when Jesus gave marching orders to apostles it says He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem but to wait for the promise of the Father

The Author of the Command: The Almighty God

25:40 well who is the author of this command well we have the simple word God but you see the word God is just the three letter word G-O-D in Greek a four letter word theos but you see the word represents a reality and in this setting to Paul when he says but now this God who has overlooked and born with unusual forbearance and patience these epochs of ignorance prior to the coming of the Son of Man this God now commands what God is He talking about? well He's just been proclaiming that God to these who had an inscription to the unknown God they figured I got a God to this one God to this one in case we missed one let's put up a plaque and put up an image and say to the unknown God and remember how He declared that God to them back in verse 24 this God that you worship in ignorance I set Him before you and He begins with the fact that He is the God of sovereign created wisdom might and power the God that made the world and all things therein what a God

27:08 in that short statement the God that made the world and all things when He says God commands us who is this God? is He some little piddling notion that you and I can dispense with in a cavalier attitude? no He is the almighty Creator who when He decided to spangle the empty spaces with galaxies He just opened His mouth and spoke and out of the womb of nothing galaxies came into being and you know how God describes it in the original creation and He made the stars also hmm and He made the stars also that's the God who made the world I lose my breath just looking at some of the wide angled pictures of the mighty mountain rangers mountain rangers at times pictured in my National Geographic the few times I've stood beneath and alongside or flown over some of those mountains they've taken my breath away and the scriptures just says that

28:34 God made the dry land the Matterhorns and the McKinleys God opens His mouth and they come into being with their incalculable tens of thousands of tons of massive rock this is the God who issued this command the God that made the world and all things therein but He's not a deistic God who made it and then went off to fold His hands and watch it work itself out but notice what else He said He being present tense He being Lord of Heaven and Earth He being not only the Sovereign Almighty Creator but the Imminent Present Sovereign Governor of all that He has made in every realm in Heaven and upon the Earth and then He goes on to describe Him in the immensity of His spirituality He cannot be contained in any temple made by man He describes Him in what the old theologians called His aseity God is utterly independent of all of His creation He doesn't need one thing

30:03 from His creation to satisfy Him to fulfill Him to make Him complete to sustain Him the whole notion that God made man because He was lonely is blasphemous what could God ever find in man the creature that He could not find in the infinite fullness and glory of His own inner Trinitarian life what could God find in a worm of the dust that He could not find in Himself it's ludicrous it's blasphemous it's unbiblical neither is He served by men's hands as though He needed anything God never had a twitch of loneliness of unfulfillment God was totally self-sufficient and satisfied within His own glorious ineffable being but He chose to create and He chose to give life and breath to all things you get something of the kind of God that Paul was preaching to these of you was He some cute little comfortable God that they could feel free to snuggle up to and become His buddy

31:31 was He some kind of God that they ought to be persuaded to accommodate because He somehow needed them and they were so important to Him as we hear in all of this babbling nonsense about self-worth and you're so important to God that God is frustrated if He doesn't have your love and your trust nonsense heresy rubbish this God needs nothing yet He has been gracious enough to command us to repent the author of this command is God Himself the almighty God of creative power and wisdom the sovereign Lord of heaven and earth the immense God who cannot be contained in temples the self-sufficient God the imminent God who gives life and breath to all things the sovereign disposer of the nations the God who is knowable and accessible as He says in verse 26 and following this is the author of this command now hear me for a moment do we not regard

32:58 any command that comes to us in direct proportion to our esteem or lack of esteem of the one who gives the command you take the son or daughter who sees mom and dad placed over him or her as God's representative to administer God's rule you take that child whose heart is sensitive to the significance of the fifth commandment honor thy father and thy mother and when mom or dad give commands their response is in direct proportion to the regard they have for the dignity the worth the character and their esteem of the one who gives and as in human relationships so with the living God you see the apostle did not begin his sermon to these Athenians steeped in the ignorance of idolatry he didn't begin by saying God commands you to repent he began by telling them enough about God that when he says God commands you to repent there would be some substantial content to the word God and I ask you young people children adults

34:27 here tonight when you hear that the author of this command is God himself what is your response God shemad heard it a thousand times but when you hear God commands this is the great eternal almighty sovereign creation sovereign creator of heaven and earth this is the Lord of heaven and earth this is the one who holds me in his hands he got the whole wide world he got everything in his hands he got you and me brother in his hands got the whole world and all he needs to do if he gives life and breath all he needs to do is withhold my breath and I've had it this is the God who is commanding so having considered the setting of this command in human history the times of ignorance God overlooked all of the epochs of human history steeped in idolatry prior to the coming of the son of God

The Essence of the Command: Repentance for All Men Everywhere

35:54 and the proclamation of the gospel among the nations then the author of the command is God himself God defined by Paul's very brief but succinct and powerful summation of many of his attributes but now then thirdly what is the essence of this command look at what is the essence of this command the times of this ignorance God overlooked but now he commands all men or men that they should all everywhere repent the essence of the command let's ask a couple of questions of it to whom does it come our text says it comes to men and sometimes the Greek word used for man means someone of the male gender sometimes it means all mankind male and female young or old of any station and walk in life and obviously it's that meaning in this context that the essence of this command when we ask the question to whom does it come it comes to men but it comes to all men and to all men in every place

37:20 someone has suggested that to capture the sense of the Greek in English we would rightly translate the times of ignorance therefore God overlooked but now he commands all men everywhere to repent all men without distinction good men bad men moral men immoral men religious irreligious all men you see the breadth of this command all men in every place that's the answer to the question to whom does it come but now what does it demand as we look at the essence of this command that all men everywhere repent repent what does the little word repent mean that's what God who made us made the worlds is Lord sovereign Lord of heaven and earth this God who has given us assurance of the day of judgment in that he raised his son from the dead has commanded us to repent what does that mean there's no better uninspired definition of biblical repentance unto life and salvation than that given in the shorter catechism what is repentance unto life

38:49 repentance unto life is a saving grace whereby a sinner out of a true sense of his sin does with grief and I'm sorry and apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ does with grief and hatred of his sin turns from it unto God with full purpose of and endeavor after new obedience what is repentance unto life it is a saving grace yes it is a duty commanded and as with so many other things the very duty God commands is the grace that he imparts for Christ has been exalted we are told in chapter five to be a prince and a savior to give repentance to Israel and remission of sins it is a saving grace in which a sinner out of a true listen sense of his sin doesn't say mere admission of sinnerhood in our day gospel tracts and gospel preachers say well if you'll admit you're a sinner and then you will do this and this you will be saved I've only met one person in my whole life who didn't admit he or she was a sinner

40:16 the problem is not getting people to admit their sinners it's seeing them brought to a true sense sense of their sin that's why Jesus said when he the spirit is come he will reprove the world of sin a true sense of sin that prepares us to embrace the savior is a supernatural work of the spirit of God so that we are brought to the place where we cry out as David did against thee and thee only have I sinned done that which is evil in thy sight a true sense of sin is at the root of all true repentance repentance unto life is a saving grace whereby a sinner out of a true sense of his sin and an apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ in other words gospel repentance can only be exercised in the context of the proclamation of God's way of forgiveness through the bloodletting of the son of God and it's clear that in the subsequent interaction of Paul with those who are willing to listen to him

41:38 he proclaimed this for we read in verse 34 that this man Dionysius believed he came to faith and the object of saving faith is always the Lord Jesus Christ Paul said in Acts 20 21 wherever he preached he preached repentance towards God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ and so implicit in this command is not only that we come to a true sense of our sin but an apprehension not a comprehension how can we ever comprehend that God would so love a bunch of rebel hell deserving wretches as to send his son to die for the likes of us but to apprehend means to lay hold of so true repentance is a saving grace whereby a sinner out of a true sense of his sin and an apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ does with grief and hatred of his sin grief and hatred of his sin Paul says you sorrowed with godly sorrow unto repentance not to be repented of grief and hatred of our sin that which we loved we now loathed

43:04 and we loathed enough to turn from it be divorced from it with a full purpose of an endeavor after new obedience the disposition of a penitent heart is that of the apostle who cried after he was smitten by the risen Christ Lord what will you have needed from here on in Lord you call the shots I've gone out of the God business I've gone out of the plan my own life do my own thing adjust my own schedule business I'm done Lord what will you have me to do now notice the command in its essence says nothing about getting tingles up and down your spine it says nothing about just juggling a few notions in your head about Jesus and the cross it says nothing about bursting into gales of mindless thoughtless irrational laughter and falling on the floor being slain by the spirit that nonsense has nothing to do with repentance and everything to do with a delusive spirit that will damage thousands

The Issue at Stake: Preparation for Judgment

44:33 rather it's an experience of a radical and pervasive change of mind concerning God and sin and Christ and the way of salvation and Paul says the God who at this epoch in human history no longer deals as he did in the times of ignorance this God now commands all men everywhere that they should repent and having looked at the setting of the command the author of the command the substance of the command fourthly what's the issue at stake as you consider the commands what was the issue at stake there at the areopagus in the midst of that philosophical think tank and others who were gathered there to listen to Paul as you contemplate this command what is the issue at stake well that's what we studied this morning verse 31 in as much he commands all men everywhere to repent in as much in the light of the fact that there's a day appointed with a judge chosen and the fact of it all validated by the open tomb you see the problem with some of you that sit under the gospel week after week

46:02 and month after month you won't stop and think of the issues at stake as you consider the command that comes not from a mere mortal this was Paul the former murderer and persecutor of the church but when he said God commands you to repent he was the mouthpiece of the living God and the issues at stake are nothing less than being prepared or ill prepared for the day of judgment that's why he graciously commands all men everywhere to repent why because he's appointed a day in which he's going to judge the whole world all men everywhere and if they come to that judgment impenitent and unbelieving and untransformed they come to the judgment only to be publicly identified as goats publicly identified as the wicked who should be bound hand and foot and cast into outer darkness and that some of you would only take a half an hour to sit with no TV on no headphones on no magazine no newspaper in front of you and bring near that day

Recorded Responses to the Command: Mockery, Delay, and Belief

47:29 and you will stand before the living God I doubt you'd go to your bed unconverted then since we expounded that text I pass over it and come fifthly and finally now to the recorded response to this command what happened when it was preached we have the recorded response in verses 32 to 34 three different responses some mocked some politely excused themselves from immediate obedience and some attached themselves to the servant of God and believed his message look at it now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead some mocked and apparently they must have been the ones who showed their colors first and the only other place this word mocked this verb is found in the New Testament is in Acts chapter 2 when the disciples after being filled with the Spirit began to speak in languages that they had not acquired in the New Testament in our normal way and the visitors there at Jerusalem heard every man in his own language the mighty works of God being spoken it says some mocked saying these men are full of new wine they mocked they pooh pawed all of this they did not want to see in it the hand of God

48:56 the hand of God was so evidently in it you see usually the one who is so quick to mock is the one whose conscience has begun to be so active he must begin to mock to try to still its voice and often the quickest and the loudest mockers are those who if they would be honest are beginning to have serious doubts about their unbelief and their skepticism you see mocking these realities won't make them go away all the mocking of the resurrection of the dead won't put Christ back in his tomb and the fact that he came out of that tomb is God's assurance that he's on his throne and one day you and I will stand before that throne and be judged by him now you could if possible gather all four and a half billion inhabitants of the world in one place and all mock in unison it won't take Christ off his throne and put him back in his tomb they heard the rumors of the resurrection resurrection of who? resurrection of Christ Paul had just said he's given assurance unto all men

50:23 in that he raised him from the dead and to these pagans the concept of the resurrection of the body was something totally outside the sphere of their belief system some of them believed in the immortality of the soul but the concept of the resurrection of the body totally outside the sphere of philosophical acceptance and so they mocked well I say mockery does not affect reality and reality is that Joseph's tomb is empty and the throne at the right hand of God is up don't mock and go out of here and under your breath and with your buddies and with your girlfriends say hey wasn't that something hey oh Pastor Martin he still gets all worked up and he hollers and he stomps and he does his best to get to us

51:24 mock all you want there's an open empty tomb in Palestine and there's a throne at the right hand of God and your mockery won't cancel reality some mocked but look what the second group did it says of them but others said we will hear you concerning this yet again we can interpret that point probably at least two ways it may be that they began to be interested but the very fact you see that they said we'll hear you yet again while they still have Paul there he hadn't left yet the next verse says thus Paul went out from among them if you've got a man of God who knows God and is preaching the word of God and the way of the salvation of God and you're serious you don't say manana you say like that Philippian jailer did in the middle of the night springing in crying for life sirs what must I do to be saved I know this is an inconvenient time for an evangelistic house meeting but I've seen the power of God in your lives I've seen the power of God in the earthquake in this prison I've seen the power of God restrain the prisoners

52:52 who are not held in prison by shackles but by the constraint of God and I'm not ready to meet this God and it's the wee hours of the morning but oh servants of God tell me what must I do to be saved no I believe this response when they said we will hear you concerning this yet again was a polite way of trying to persuade themselves that they were not utterly rejecting the message in the messenger there is a possibility that there was the inkling of a little desire but oh how foolish to presume that they'd have another time for the scripture says boast not thyself of tomorrow for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth behold now is the accepted time behold now is the day of salvation some mocked some politely excused themselves from immediate obedience but now notice the third group some were attached to the servant of God and believed this message this is one of the most fascinating texts in the Bible and I never realized it till I was studying to prepare for tonight's message and was studying it in the Greek text this is the way it would read literally

54:19 but certain men were glued unto Paul now what's the difference between an active and a passive verb? there's my glass of water if I say I took the glass of water and drank from it that's an active verb I am the subject I act upon the glass of water if I say the glass of water was taken by me and drunk the subject is the glass of water it was acted upon by me that's a passive verb a passive use now here you have an aorist passive of the verb that means to attach to be glued to to join to it's the verb used in Acts 5.13 no man dared join himself to them attach himself to them it's the verb used of Paul when he came to Jerusalem in Acts 9.26 and he sought to join himself to the disciples it's the verb used in Romans 12.9 when Paul says cleave attach yourself to that which was good but here the Holy Spirit says but certain men were glued attached to him

55:45 to Paul well who was the actor who was the one who attached them Luke doesn't tell us here but he does tell us in other parts of the book of Acts whose heart the Lord opened so that she attended to the things that were spoken by Paul I think it's a subtle stroke to underscore again that in the midst of this crowd to whom Paul was preaching there was another one present very active God the Holy Spirit and while some were given up to their native unbelief and mocked and others given up to the folly of tentativeness and delay and procrastination there were certain ones whom God by his mighty power glued notice not to Christ but it says unto him that is unto Paul the messenger of God and then it says they believed that God the Lord had spoken to them and they were drawn to him and they were made one with the Holy Spirit and they were called to him

57:11 and then to Paul and that is including this in the text of Acts and also in the book of Acts and John and John talks about the prophecy and there is written about it through the same scripture I find it very interesting I find it fascinating because it reveals a very vital principle not your message, he says, he that receives you receives me. Why did he say he that receives you? Because we are so constituted that if we don't receive the messenger, we will not receive his message. And that's why the devil does his dead level best to put suspicion and disaffection in your heart to your God-given messengers. He'll give you tons of love for a thousand other preachers who don't bring the word of God to you. But if he can distance you from the mouthpiece God puts among you, he knows he'll cut you off from the message

58:27 which his mouthpiece conveys. That should say worlds. To all of you, as it should say worlds to me. The text says I didn't write it. The text says certain men were glued onto him and in that attachment to him. What do you think Paul did? Start a personality cult? A fan club? Oh no. He'd been cut off in the middle of his message. He hadn't even got to talking about the cross and the blood of Christ. And when they said, Paul, I don't believe you. I'm bringing the truth through a messenger of God. I can just imagine the delightful

59:18 hours Paul spent opening up the glorious truths of the gospel until what happens. It says these certain men who were glued onto him believed. They turned from their sins to this great and glorious God. They, in the language of 1 Thessalonians, turned unto the living God from their idols.

59:42 To serve the living God and to wait for his Son out of heaven. And this is given, I think, to encourage us. God could have left the record there and certain men were glued onto him and believed. But then the Holy Spirit moved Luke, who just gives these little summaries of gospel endeavors. He singles out two names, among whom also was Dionysius, the Ariadne, and Paul. The Areopagite. He was one of the ruling council of twelve hotshots in this philosophical think tank that composed the Areopagite. What's that tell us? That tells us that God the Holy

60:33 Spirit can penetrate into the mind of a man that has a thousand walls against the truth, and that he is our cause. Though he has been preached with the Holy Spirit, he is not truly a man, nor is he a man of the spiritual world, nor a man of the truth. This is our time, and our time is not yet over. Now, as we continue on, let's have a look at John 1-9.

61:02 John 1-9 John 1-9 John 1-9 John 1-9 John 1-9 John 1-9 John 1-9 John 1-9 John 1-9 John 1-9 can bring sinners to life. He can lay hold of a Dionysius, someone who comes into this building full of skepticism and a thousand walls of so-called intellectual barriers and all the kinds of barriers. And when God says, I'm going out to get my man, he gets him. And then it says, and a woman, and a woman, to let us know that though this philosophical think tank was made up of men, somehow some women got in on this, and a woman named Damaris. And the scholars like to debate who was she, why is she named, and at the end of the day, as far as I know, they don't know any more at the end of the day than they did at the beginning of the day. All we know is that God's grace that can break down the prejudice and the pride of a man can seize hold of the peculiar, sinful bent of a pagan woman in a pagan city brought up immersed in the worship of pagan gods and save her too. Maybe she was a woman of some note,

62:29 maybe a woman of some influence in the town, but then less people think, well, maybe only God saves the big sharks. Look at the last phrase in the text, and others with them,

62:44 and others with them, others with them.

The Encouragement of God's Grace and the Call to Obey

62:49 Maybe God's grace, maybe some teenagers sneaked in, maybe some boys who were accompanying their dads, being apprenticed to be part of the philosophical think tank, I don't know, it just says, others with them. And there you can let your imagination run wild, and put in any sinner of any age, and any background, and any moral and religious strife, and say, there's room for others with them, others with them. And all who would obey the divine command to repent, taking seriously that there's an appointed day, and there is a marked out man, and there is valid proof because of his open tomb, and all who acknowledging they are not ready for that day, and flee in repentance to the living God and faith in his Son, the Lord Jesus, they are welcome. My friends, if this ain't Easter, I don't know what is.

63:58 A risen Christ lays hold of dead, hell-deserving sinners, and brings them into the orbit of his gracious salvation. Oh, that this day I might persuade some of you to heed this gracious command. You see, it's a gracious command. If God were not ready to forgive, why would he command you to repent?

64:24 Because he promised, that all who repent will be forgiven. And if he were not ready and anxious to forgive, he might invite you to repent. But when he commands you to repent, he is making it so plain that he stands ready to forgive.

64:43 Oh, that you would this day obey this gracious gospel command, recognizing you stand in a place of unique privilege and redemptive history, and God, God has sent his Son and raised him from the dead, and his resurrection has been validated by the eyewitnesses, and the record is here in the word of God. May God grant that this day you may lay hold of the risen Savior and all of the marvelous salvation that is in him. And if by grace you have been a Damaris or a Dionysius or one of those unnamed others, what a blessed thing to think of the day of judgment with no fear, with no fear. Because Jesus said verily, verily, I say unto you, he that hears my word and believes on him that sent me shall not come into judgment but is passed from death unto life. There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. Who is he that condemneth?

66:11 It is Christ that died, yea, rather that is risen from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us, who shall separate us from the love of God. I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor things present, nor things to come, even the day of judgment, shall separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. That day of judgment will be the day of the public validation of what we are now. Justified, adopted sinners, it will be the declaration before the whole moral universe that we believe, belong to Christ, and he will own us without shame. Even so, Lord Jesus, let us pray. Our Father, how we thank you for such a glorious gospel. Thank you for this portion of your word we have been privileged to study today.

67:34 And how we plead with you that by the mighty ministry of the Spirit you would so work that some this very night to heed this gracious gospel command to repent and to lay hold of the offered Savior. May none join the ranks of the mockers. May none be so foolish as to presume upon another day. But oh, may the urgency of the issues so grip them that this day they will flee to Christ.

68:17 May the enemy not be able to snatch it away, but may it be enfolded in our hearts and bring forth fruit. And in those who are yours, who, like these named in the latter part of the chapter, were wrought upon by your Spirit, Lord, give us a renewed sense of the wonder and the glory of our salvation, a renewed sense of urgency as we think of all men everywhere who are yet in their sins, who are yet facing that day of judgment with no hope, with no solid ground of assurance that they will be anything other than indicted, condemned, and banished. Increase our burden, increase our passion to bring this message to their ears, and we beg of you to take it to their hearts. Dismiss us now with your blessing as we give you thanks for this day in your courts. Through our Lord Jesus Christ we pray. Amen.