Getting to Know the Unknown God, Part 2

Acts 17:25-29

     Now, we are studying in the seventeenth chapter of Acts the familiar portion of the life of Paul, the days t.liat he spent in the city of Athens on his second mis­sionary journey.  We're progressing through the Book of Acts in our study.

     And finding ourselves in seventeen, we find ourselves with Paul alone in Athens.  And when he comes to Athens, he is overwhelmed by the idolatry of the city.  They wor­shipped thousands upon thousands of gods.  Their artwork is all a matter of their religion.  In other words, the gods are the great masterpieces of art.  And so, we see a city that is tremendously cultured, but at the same time, greatly idolatrous.

     Now, when we think about the word idolatry, I don't know what it conjures up in your mind, but if you're like most people, you think idolatry and immediately you think of a whole lot of savages grovelling in some dirt in front of a totum pole. or maybe, you think about a cruel faced statue that you saw in a picture of a Hindu temple. or maybe, you think of whirling dances by the priests of Baal as they skittered around the altar of Elijah.  I don't know.

     But if you're like most people, idolatry is sort of  a remote, low culture kind of thing.  But I think that's wrong.  I think that in the terms of the Greek idolatry of the city of Athens,at this time, it was this tremen­dously sophisticated and cultured society.  They were the philosophical and the intellectual class of the world.  They were the philosophers.  They were the educated people.  They were the people who studied.  They were way ahead of a lot of other of the people in that part of the world or for that matter in any part of the world.  And so, idolatry @,@Dr them wasn't grovelling in the dirt before a totum pole.  It was a very classy, a very sophisticated and a very complicated and complex kind of thing.  All in the framework of various astute "philosophy".

     And I think, we have to recognize today that even in America, as in all parts of the world, we are victims of idolatry.  In the truest sense, nobody really chooses whether to worship a god or not.  You only choose which god you are going to worship.  Everybody bows down some­where.  You say, what about the atheist.  He bows down to himself, which is the most extreme kind of idolatry, the worship of self.  Which is also the most hopeless kind.  Incidently, if you had to look to yourself for the salvation of your soul and the answer to your problems, that's a pretty disastrous view.

     But everything apart from God is idolatry.  And so, idolatry is a part of the Western Civilization.  Billy Graham asked a student at the University of North Carolina if he believed in God, and he said "yes, I have my own private gods".  That's a sophisticated young man.  And I think we see this all about us.  A few years ago, from 25 years on to the present day, we might say that the dominant idolatry of our country, and of Western Civilization, was we were three little deities.  We still bow down to those deities.

     One was humanism.  That man can solve his own problems.  You know, this is the time when science was exploding and we were really being able to conquer all of these problems.  That we were going to solve it.  We were running a little thin on humanism about now.

     The second little deity that everybody worshipped was materialism.  And I think, that the panic of the energy crisis and the panic of a lot of these things that are going on is the panic that somebody is whittling away our little god called materialism.  And we're not going to be able to get all the goodies we want.  And life may reduce itself down to the very dull, boring basics.  And we won't be able to entertain ourselves.  We're a multitude of theives.  And so, little by little somebody is wacking away at at least a few of our little gods, humanism and materialism.

     The third little god that our society worships is sex.  I mean, everything from advertising to zoos is propagated through sex.  It doesn't matter what it is.  Whether it's cars or deodorant or toothpaste or whatever it is.  It all comes the same avenue and, of course, films and books now bear your language.  Like Billy Graham said "they rival the drippings of a broken sewer." And it's true.  We are living in a world where we have our little gods.  And then the little god that dominates everything is self.  You know, we have "in God we trust" on our coins and "me first" engraved in our hearts.  And that's pretty much our little god.  And it's interesting to me, I think, that in the time in which we live now, with this kind of a supernaturalism creeping into our society, we've now gone backwards in terms of culture and people are beginning to go to the old things, like they are actually worshipping superstition and the accult and all this.  And some people even have physical idols that they worship now.  In our society, we're getting back to that.

     Western man with all of his culture, with all of his information, with all of his scientific knowledge is in the same satanic trap that governs the life of an aboriginal individual somewhere in the middle of nowhere who's bowing down to a rock.  We all have our gods, you see.  Everybody bows somewhere.  Idolatry is just that.  Watch it.  Idolatry is worshipping anything but God Himself.  That's idolatry.

     And it comes in all kinds of packages.  But you know, the thing about it that is continually brought to light, I think, is the fact that with all of man's little gods and all of his little deities, he never gets any satisfaction.  And the reason is this.  God has created you and me and every man to know Him.  Do you believe that? Of course.  That's clear in Scripture.  We are made to know God.  Not to know God is not to know what you are made for.  It's not to know what the meaning of existence is.  It's to be totally dis­connected from purpose and significance.  And you may try a lot of none gods and you may try to have your little deities and you may bow down, but there never will be any ultimate satisfaction.  Because as Augustine said "you've got a God-shaped vacuum that only He can fill".  And a zillion other little deals don't bring satisfaction.

     And so we are a world today where all these little gods have failed to satisfy.  And so it's a tremendously frustrated world.  And of course people are taking drugs and they are getting stoned on alcohol and they're killing themselves at a rate like never in history, and the reason is because they cannot cope with the fact that they can have a multiple of things if they bow down before a no satisfaction.

     Now, this is precisely the problem in Athens as we look at seventeen.  They had all the gods imaginable.  Gods all over the place.  But in desperation, they had, in verse 23, an altar to the unknown god.  And I told you the signi­ficance of that is this.  With all their gods they had no satisfaction so they knew somewhere out there there's a god we haven't tapped yet who's going to satisfy us.  And that, of course, is the ultimate agony of idolatry is never gives satisfaction.

     Why? Because man was created to know the true God and until he knows the true God, he knows no peace.  He knows no satisfaction in the truest sense.  And you go back into the Garden, you know, and Adam and Eve were there and God was there and they were having a great time.  And they knew God and all was bliss and beautiful.  And then they fell and bang.  God cut off Himself from them. alhey lost the knowledge of God.  And since that time men @iave been born into the world apart from the knowledge of God.

     And men come into this world and they don't know God.  But it's interesting.  God has a little two-pronged socket that He plugs in.  And every man is plugged into that little two-pronged socket.  It may be only about a 5 watt bulb, but anyway, there is a dim light.  And the two prongs are creation and conscious, right? In other words, even in a world where the lights are out, in terms of the true knowledge of God, there's at least a little 5 watt glowing and it's conscious and creation.  In other words, God has E)lanted within me the knowledge of Himself in my conscious and around me as I look at the world that He has made.  And by those two things, I am both surrounded and indwelled by a limited knowledge of God.

     Now, some people because they love sin so much have pulled that plug.  And then the 5 watts have gone out and they're in blackness.  And the Bible says "they love their darkness rather than light" for the simple reason, not that they're philosophical but that they are sinful.  They love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil.  And so, God has put in this world the knowledge of Himself dimly in conscious and creation.  And if a man will take that light and follow it, he can know the full light of God.

     Now, if you were to ask me, "John MacArthur, I want to know what Grace Community Church exists for", I would tell you, "It exists so that you might know God." That's why we exist.  Because that is the purpose for existence.  There is no other purpose.  For you to live your life apart from the knowledge of God is for you to be a worthless individual.

     Okay, what else do you do? You say, well, what if I help my fellow man? That's fine.  You're going to die and so is your fellow man.  And if all you've done is given him some physical help, you've just prolonged his death.  That isn't consequential ultimately.  Oh, it's consequential in terms of momentary comfort, but it's inconsequential in terms of eternal value.  A person who doesn't know God has no reason to exist.  Because you were made to know Him.  You were made for Him as well as by Him.  And your purpose is to know God and to spend eternity basking in the blessing of such knowledge.

     Now, in Jeremiah, and I'm going to spend sometime in some Scriptures, so you are going to need to keep your Bible handy.  But in Jeremiah 9:23 "Thus saith the Lord, 'Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches; for the one that glorieth, glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth Me that I am the Lord."' Now, in this life you might be smart and you might be strong and you might be rich, but you are nothing unless you know God.  That's what He said.  That is the meaning of existence.  That is the purpose of life.  God made us for fellowship with Him.  That we might know Him.  And I'm telling you, when you come into the knowledge of 1,3od, all of a sudden the whole key to the universe is un­-Locked.  You know what.you're for.

     And so, the purpose of man is to know God.  That's simply it.  Now, God doesn't even want your worship and your religion.  He wants you to know Him.  You remember in Hosea He said, "I'm not interested in your sacrifices. .E want you to know Me." And there's all kinds of religion going on and people who are talking about God but they don't know God.  It's one thing to know about God.  It's another thing to know God.  You see.

     It's like if it's one thing to know about holiness.  It's another thing to be holy.

     Now, God doesn't tolerate any rivals because the single purpose of man is to know Him.  Therefore, any rival violates man's purpose.  And listen, beloved.  It's not that God is some kind of nasty ogre.  It's that God knows what you were made for and He knows that you will never be satisfied until you come to that knowledge.  And so God gets really uptight when other gods are introduced that suck men off from their true purpose.  And that's why in Exodus 20:3 God said, this is in the Ten Commandments, "Thou shalt aud no other gods before Me." Why? Is that just because God is selfish? No. That isn't the main point.  The main point is it is a vio­lation of his creation.  You shouldn't be sucked off to worship anything but the true God.  Verse 4. "Thou shalt not make unto thee any carved image or any likeness of any­thing that is in heaven above, that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth.  Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them nor serve them for I, the Lord thy God, am a jealous God." Did you get that? "I am a jealous God." God says I tolerate no rivals.  You were made to know Me.  You are mine.  I made you for that purpose.  I tolerate no intruders.

     Now, I just want to give you an idea.  You say, well, I know a lot of nice people and they don't know God, but they're such nice people.  Well, I know a lot of nice people like that, too.  But, you know, they're nice people who haven't got any reason to live.  Absolutely none.  Listen to this.  It's just a very provocative verse.  I Samuel 2:12.  And you've probably never even read it before.  But listen to it.  It says this: "Now the sons of Eli were worthless men." Now, let's try to get over the hump of the inadequacies of English, because we've overdone it.  When you see the word worthless, what does that mean? Just that.  They're no good for any purpose.  They're strickly useless.  The sons of Eli, Eli was a nice guy, a loosy father.  You can read about that.  But "the sons of Eli were worthless men." Now, would you like to be a worthless individual? I mean, would you like to say as you come to the end of your life and God writes l,our epitaph "Here lies worthless.  Here lies no value.  Here lies pointless." Jesus said of Judas, "Better for him if he had never been" what? "Born." Better if he had never been born.

     Okay, what is that worthless, how does a man become worthless? Now, the sons of Eli were worthless men.  Listen.  They knew not the Lord.  Do you know why they were worthless? Why? They knew not the Lord.  For a man to exist apart from the knowledge of God is for that .al-tn to render himself worthless.  Why? Because you were created to know God.

     In I Corinthians 15:34 Paul says, "Some of you know not God and I speak it to your shame." Now, God is a jealous God.  And, you know, some people say"oh, God is some kind of, how could you say God is jealous? That's a negative factor.  That means God has an evil capacity if He can be jealous." No. Jealousy isn't always evil, is it? But when God brought Israel out of Egypt to Sinai, gave them the laws, already He said I am a jealous God.  Later on He made a shocking statement to Moses.  He said in 34:14 of Exodus, he said this: "The Lord" what? "Whose name is jealous is a jealous God." I mean, He even said not only am I jealous, that's My name.  Boy, I mean, that's heavy.  You know, they used to name people commensurate with the kind of person they were.  God says My name is jealous.

     You say, God, what are You so uptight about? I mean, there aren't any rivals.  Oh, yes, there are.  There aren't any rivals who are true rivals, but there sure are a lot of little nothings picking away.  God's in effect saying this. TA'atch.  I made men.  Every man that ever was made, I formed him from the womb.  Is what He said.  I made him.  Donit y-ou believe it all happened in an evolutionary process.  God ntade men and He says, I made them and they are mine.  And anybody who takes them apart from the knowledge of Me is an intruder.  And God has a right to be jealous.

     Now, there's two kinds of jealousy.  One kind of jealousy i,s this kind.  I want what you have and because you have an -@.dol, I hate you.  Right? That's covetness gone wild.  But there's another kind of jealousy.  That kind of jealousy says you are mine and I love you and I don't want anybody t.o take you from me.  Now, that is what I call pure virtue.

     Tasker (?) said, and I quote, "Married persons who felt r,o jealousy at the intrusion of a lover or an adulterer into their home would surely be lacking in moral perception.  For t@he exclusiveness of marriage is the essence of marriage." C@od has made us for Himself and God gets very, very upset about intruders into His area.  In fact, if you're going to i-ead a verse that probably says it as heavily as any it's I. Corinthians 10:22.  "Are you going to provoke the Lord to jealousy", it's a question.  Do you provoke the Lord to jealousy or do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? If you do, then listen to this.  "Are we stronger than He?" What does t-.hat imply? That implies if you provoke the Lord to jealousy, He's going to do something.  And you better be stronger than He is or you're going to get it.  God is very, very possessive ELbout His own.  And He has created man in His own image.  And man cannot know his meaning until he knows God.  And any kind of idolatry, you see, sidetracks from that.  Ezekiel I think it's chapter 8 and verse 3, it says there that there is a particular image and it calls this image the unage of jealousy which provokes jealousy.  Idols make G,od jealous.  And when God gets jealous, that's not good, because God will move to protect His own and He will move vengence upon the intruder.

     So, you see, basic to the life of any man is the knowl­edge of God.  And incidentally, in II Thessalonians 1:7, 8, it says that Jesus will return from heaven in flaming fire to take vengence on them that know not God.  So ultimately it's a disaster not to know God.  It's not just a question of dying a worthless life, it's a question of spending eternity in hell.  To know not God.

     Now, you say, well, John, can everybody know God.  Yes.  Because everybody's got that little 5 watt plugged in with a two-prong conscious and creation, so much so Romans 1 says that there's enough knowledge of God available in you and around you so that you are without excuse.  Romans 1:20.  F,.emember that verse? No man is excusable.  God has plugged that little light in in every man's life;the knowledge of C@od is available.  And some people choose to see the little l.ight,.follow the little light and they know God.  And they

meet Him fully.

    Now, getting to know God is so important that Paul  says riow I know you guys have an unknown god and you haven't plugged into him yet.  You've got the little light glower.  At least you've got the idea that he's there.  Verse 22.  Paul stood in the mists of Mars' hill, Areopagus.  This is the name of a court.  These were the really sharp guys.  These were the best of the Athenian society, the court that stood in judgment on many matters.  And he said, "You, men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious." You guys are a religious bunch, and that's obvious.  You've got stuff everywhere.  "For as I passed by as you had your devotions, I found an altar of this inscription to the unknown god." And this is really a shot.  You are very religious and I found that among the things you worship is an unknown god, whom therefore you ignorantly worship.  If he's unknown and you're worshipping h.i-m in ignorance, I would like to declare him unto you.  Now, there's his platform.  I'm going to tell you who the unknown god is.  So, we call this sermon "Getting to know the unknown God".

     Now, isn't it again interesting that all of this time with all of these gods there was no satisfaction.  There's a verse I love.  And I can't even remember the reference off hand.  I just know that it says "Happy is the people whose God is the Lord." "Happy is the people whose God is the Lord." You see when your God is the true God, you're happy.  There's satisfaction.  Apart from that, no satisfac­tion.  And it doesn't matter what the circumstances are. 

 To really know God is what life is about.  And then circum­stances may come and go.  The knowledge of God abides.  I always think of those three guys that I like Shadrach, meshach and Abednego.  And you know, back in the Book of Daniel, Nebuchadnezzar, who thought himself to be some kind of a hot shot, demanded everybody worship him.  And they had this idol built, this big image, and so forth.  And everybody's supposed to bow down.  So he comes to these three guys, Daniel's three friends, and he says in verse 15, "Now if you be ready, that at that time that you hear the sound of the horn, the pipe, the lyre, the sackbut, the psaltery, and dulcimer",that's a little combo they used to have in those days, "and all kinds of music to fall down and worship the image which I have made." Okay, in other words when you hear the music, you fall on your worship, okay.  If you worship not, you shall be cast the same hour to the mist of a burning firy furnance.  And then he says this, "And who is that god that shall deliver you out of my hand." Boy, did he have an exulted opinion of himself.  Ha, do you think that your god is going to get you out of my hand.  Listen to this.  Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego answered and said to the king, "O Nebuchadnezzar, weire not careful to answer thee in this matter." In other words, sir, we don't mind just telling the truth.  What? "If it be so", if we get thrown in there, "our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the firy furnance." Now, he didn't say "our God will deliver us", he said our God, what? Is able to deliver us.  He left the prerogative with God.  He's able to deliver us.  And He will deliver us out of thine hand, 0 king, if He so chooses.  But if not, be it known unto thee, 0 king, that we still will not serve thy gods nor worship the golden image which thou set up. Boy, that's terrific, isn't it? Look, if we're going in there, our God may deliver us, but if not, we still won't bow.  Why? They knew they had the right God.  They feared nothing.  Now, that's the confidence, the satisfaction and the blessedness that comes to the life of one who knows the Lord.  And no substitute can bring that.

     Someone wrote "Lord, it belongs not to my care whether die or live.  To love and serve Thee is my share and this -Chy grace must give.  If life be long, I will be glad that I may long obey.  If short, then why should I be sad, the sword to endless day." That's confidence in the right God.  Now, Paul is going to present how they can know God.  Now, there's three things involved.  We started on these last time.  We're not going to get much further than where we

started.  But anyway.

     one is recognize God is.  Two--recognize who God is.  Three--recognize what God is saying.  In order to know God, you've got to start with number one, recognize God is. At the very beginning a person must recognize God is.  And isn't it good that they did.  They actually had an altar to the unknown God.  They didn't know who He is and they didn't know what He was saying.  But they at least believed He was there. 

     God is.  Hebrews 11:6.  What did we say it was last week? "Him that cometh to God must believe that He is." The fool is the guy who denies God is.  And there are always people who deny God.  They, some of them are atheists.  The atheist denies God.  That is such a ridiculous position.  Atheism.  I mean, to me it's like a cactus sitting in the desert telling another cactus that there is no ocean.  What does he know? You know.  He looks around and he sees the sand and he figures that's the way all is.  It's the atheist -@,ho stands and says there is no God.  You see, he stands on one infinitesimal peanut point in the mists of an endless universe.  It doesn't make sense.  But there are those who come to that conclusion that there is no God.  And it's an accommodation for their sin.  They like to do what they want to do and they don't want to live with the prospect of judg­ment so you get rid of God, you get rid of the potential of judgment, you can live easier.

     And secondly, there's agnostism.  And agnostism is the guy who doesn't know, but it's usually not I can't believe, it's I won't believe.  He just doesn't want to believe there is a God.  Then, there's evolution.  And evolution is somebody who thinks oh, there may be some God, maybe some cosmic intellegence, etc. etc., but the whole thing is God has never manifested Himself.  Everything is an accident.

    Then, there is the polytheist.  The polytheist says there are many gods, all over.  And that's what's being propagated in America today.  It's so vast it's unbelievable.  T.he spirit beings.  The demons are propagating stuff that you can't even believe.  Listen, I have been reading some books in the last few days that have spun my heac.. around and around.  It's amazing.  You know, that all the spirits, the books about the spirit world not written by Christians b-ut written by demons, you know, dictated by demons, and it tells about all the heirarchy of the many gods and the prince of Venus and this ruler over here and this ruler over here.  And, you know, they've got a whole strategy.  They've got even this one thing illustrates they've got a strategy for the rapture, about what they're going to say when the rapture happens.  We've often wondered what's satan going to do when the rapture goes on are people going to immediately believe.  The world is going to get dominated and it's fast getting dominated by this whole meditation bit.  Right? The Eastern religion.  And they're trying to get everybody to get to a higher level of consciousness.  Raise everybody out of the third dimension to the higher level of conscious­ness.  Meditate.  Transcend.  Transcend.  Transcendental meditation.  Get out of this thing.  And when the rapture happens, the announcement by all the demons is going to be well, these people were holding back the whole world from transcending and so we eliminated them.

      Now, think about that's pretty smart.  Pretty smart.  Because you see, you've already got the whole world to believe that meditation is where it's at and Christians are the hang-up, and so, we just got rid of them.  And then their going to rule in the tribulation.  And, boy, t.lie world's going to be ready to buy that whole bag aren't they? And so, you see, course there are there are many gods everywhere spirit, and you're a god and everybody's a god.  A guy was in my house the other night and he told me that he went to one of these, one of these meditation teachers.  That after several lessons why she told him "you are Jesus Christ".  And he said, "I'm not".  And now he's a Christian.  He said, "I knew one thing.  I knew I wasn't Jesus Christ."

     So polytheism is being propagated tremendously todav, and this is a position that, you see, there's no god.  There's just gods all over everywhere.  And then there's one called pantheism.  Pantheism is a different kind of atheism.  Instead of saying there is no God, it says everything is God and that's just like there is not God.  If everything is God, then God isn't anything.  Another view that's kind of atheistic is deism.  You know what deism is? That's the view that God there is a God somewhere and He wound up the world, made it.  It was kind of a little fun thing for Him.  So He made it wound it up and He went away and let it run down.  And He's totally uninvolved. All those are forms of the denial of the true God.  To begin to come to God you must believe that -lod is, and  that God is knowable.  You see? That God is and that He is knowable.  You see, well, John, what's the evidence for that? Well, I told you conscious.  That's written in your mind.  A man who becomes an atheist or denies God has to reason against his own nature.  Not only there, it's in creation.  You look around and the Psalmist said "the heavens declare" what? "The glory of God."

     Oh, listen, you could look, you could get your science book out and you read about the macrocosm, the unbelievable intricacy of space and the stars.  And, you know, I could @.alk for an hour just on science and its phenomenon, and that's what people always say when they don't know anything right off the top of his a . . . but anyway.  But there's so much material available just in the span of your mind to understand the fantastic intricacies of space.  And to say that it all just happened, it just hap, it just doesn't happen that way.  So there's science, I mean, so there's conscious and so there's creation that are testimony to God.  But let me just say this.  That's fine, but I think the greatest testimony to God is right here in this Book.  I think this is the testimony to God.  And the Bible in Deuteronomy 6:4 stated it.  "Hear, 0 Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord." That's it.  There's no other.  That's all.  God is God.  There is no other beside Him.

     Now there are many Scriptures on this and I want to take a minute to show them to you because this is the heart of Christianity.  Listen.  Deuteronomy 4:35.  "Unto thee it was shown that thou mightest know that the Lord he is God;" listen, "there is none else beside him." Don't you like that? There is none beside him.  He is God.  Now, Isaiah has some of the greatest statements regarding God's character and nature in the 40th chapter and following chapters.  But in chapter 42, verse 8, listen.  "I am the Lord: that is my name." Boy, do I like that.  That's authoritative kind of thing.  "And my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to carved images." That's all in relation to idols.  He alone is God.

     Listen to 44:6, Isaiah 44:6.  "Thus saith the Lord the Ning of Israel, and his redeemer the Lord of hosts." Two persons of the trinity joining together,you hear.  "I am t.he first, and I am the last; and apart from me there is no -Zod." Do you get that? Boy, that is powerful.  There i.s no God.  And hear verse 8. "Fear not, neither be afraid: have not I told thee from that time, and have declared it? ye are even my witnesses." Listen.  "Is there a God beside nie? yea, there is no God; I know not any." And believe me, i-f God doesn't know of any, there aren't any.

     Now, some people don't realize that there's only one God.  Boy, there's all kinds of people caught up in the accult.  They think there's all kinds of gods.  All kinds of spirit beings.  And they're right, but they're not gods, I:hey're demons.  Believe me, there are all kinds of gods-­