Jehovah wants, and deserves, to be properly worshiped.
Man’s chief purpose – the reason for his creation – was to bring glory to the Lord,
But the Lord deserves our worship because He created us, and because He sustains us.
It is the Lord Who puts food on our tables.
Jehovah deserves to be worshiped because in Him we live and move and have our being.
Therefore: “give unto the LORD the glory due unto his name: bring an offering, and come before him: worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness.”
“Give unto the LORD the glory due unto his name; worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness.”
“O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the LORD our maker.”
“O worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness: fear before him, all the earth” – who?
Even the idolatrous people of Athens, Achaia, Greece SHOULD worship Jehovah.
The Lord wants and deserves to be worshiped – BUT – it must be PROPER worship.
The woman at the well, in John 4, said that she worshiped the Lord there in Samaria,
that the Lord must be worshiped in Jerusalem.
But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.
God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.”
When Paul arrived in Athens his spirit was stirred when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry.
Without trying to justify what they were doing, I think that we can understand what had happened to corrupt the Grecian worship.
They had been foolishly taught to break apart the attributes and actions of the one true and living God,
They worshiped an idol who gave their babies life and another who ruled over death.
They had joyful gods, angry gods, peaceful gods and wicked gods.
And as a result, Paul properly told them that “they were too superstitious.”
They went far beyond the simple and true worship of the Lord into complex and ridiculous adoration for vain and self-justifying foolishness.
I am not forced to force this passage of scripture to come up with a message this morning.
And I am not going to re-preach Paul’s sermon,
His was preached extemporaneously.
Nevertheless, his message was inspired by the Lord in a way which I cannot claim.
So Paul and the Holy Spirit did all the work, and I’m just going to rebundle his thoughts.
Paul probably didn’t have a title to his message,
Our title this morning is: “IGNORANT WORSHIP.”
JEHOVAH is the God who made the world and all things therein.
But just because this is a quote, that doesn’t mean that it has not been sanctified by the Holy Spirit and made appropriate for our use.
This Greek word “offspring” is translated “kindred, kind,” and “stock” in the New Testament.
It concurs with what we have learned from Genesis 1: “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him.”
The religion and philosophies of the Athenians had some confusing ideas about the origins of man.
Some believed that man sprang out of the ground somehow.
They had some of the roots of modern evolution; and there were hints of eastern pantheism.
There were some who believed in various forms of creation, but the Epicureans were rather secular.
And Paul just came right out, as every Christian preacher must, and declared that Jehovah is the Creator.
There is no logical room for an evolutionist wiggle around his mental closet, calling himself “a Christian.”
The Bible does not allow the mixing and melding of evolution and creation,
In verse 25 the preacher said that his God is THE GIVER OF LIFE.
Not only is Jehovah the Creator, the God of Genesis chapter one,
But He is the One who gives life to the baby in womb.
And not only that, but He sustains the life that we all possess.
Whether a man be a Christian, a Jew, an idolater, a creationist or an evolutionist, our next breath and our next heart beat has been ordained and empowered by the grace of God.
That is not an exaggeration or hyperbole based upon some cryptic and isolated Bible verse.
That is precisely what Paul said, God “giveth to all life, and BREATH, and all things.”
Not only does this beneficent God deserve to be worshiped, but He deserves to be worshiped properly.
And not only is Jehovah the Creator and the Giver of life, but He is the GOVERNOR of the universe.
It is He Who has determined the times and seasons, bounds and habitations of men, verse 26.
He is the Lord of Heaven and He is the Lord of earth, verse 24.
In other words, the God worshiped by Paul is SOVEREIGN over all things.
Not only is He, for the lack of a better word, the “owner” of all things:
“Every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills. I know all the fowls of the mountains: and the wild beasts of the field are mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell thee: for the world is mine, and the fulness thereof.”
Not only is the Lord “proprietor” of all things, He sovereignly dispenses all the goods of His warehouse.
Deuteronomy 11 says that it is the Lord who gives us the rain in due season.
“When thou hast eaten and art full, then thou shalt bless the LORD thy God for the good land which he hath given thee.
Lest when thou hast eaten and art full, and hast built goodly houses, and dwelt therein;
And when thy herds and thy flocks multiply, and thy silver and thy gold is multiplied, and all that thou hast is multiplied; Then thine heart be lifted up, and thou forget the LORD thy God, which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage;
Who led thee through that great and terrible wilderness, wherein were fiery serpents, and scorpions, and drought, where there was no water; who brought thee forth water out of the rock of flint; Who fed thee in the wilderness with manna, which thy fathers knew not, that he might humble thee, and that he might prove thee, to do thee good at thy latter end;
And thou say in thine heart, My power and the might of mine hand hath gotten me this wealth.
But thou shalt remember the LORD thy God: for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth, that he may establish his covenant which he sware unto thy fathers, as it is this day.
And it shall be, if thou do at all forget the LORD thy God, and walk after other gods, and serve them, and worship them, I testify against you this day that ye shall surely perish.
As the nations which the LORD destroyeth before your face, so shall ye perish; because ye would not be obedient unto the voice of the LORD your God.”
He deserves to be worshiped – worshiped properly.
And as Deuteronomy 8 reminds us, and as Paul preached to the Athenians, He will ALSO JUDGE the rebellious and wicked portions of His creation.
“He hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by . . . .”
Paul didn’t actually get the finish his thought, as he was moving toward the person of the Lord Jesus.
But God the Father, has ordained that God the Son will one day judge us all.
The Psalmist, perhaps it was David who said,
Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad; let the sea roar, and the fulness thereof.
Let the field be joyful, and all that is therein: then shall all the trees of the wood rejoice
Before the LORD: for he cometh, for he cometh to judge the earth: he shall judge the world with righteousness, and the people with his truth.”
The Lord Jesus spoke of Himself when He said, “the Son of man shall come in his glory,
And before him shall be gathered all nations:
and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats.”
And in John 5 He said, “For the Father loveth the Son, and sheweth him all things that himself doeth: and he will shew him greater works than these, that ye may marvel.
For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son:
That all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father.
He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father which hath sent him.
Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.”
In Romans 2 this same Paul wrote: “For there is no respect of persons with God.
(For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified.
For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves:
Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another;)
In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel.”
This God deserves to be worshiped.
YOU need to worship Him; I need to worship Him;
and even the idolatrous people of Athens needed to worship Him.
Although, like the majority of the world, the people of Athens were worshiping God ignorantly (adverb),
Literally, what Paul said was: “Him – of Whom you are ignorant – Him, I declare unto you.”
Paul does point out their ignorant forms of worship, but first he pointed Him of Whom they were ignorant.
As to methods of worship, first, God is not worshiped with the products of men’s hands.
“God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; neither is worshiped with men’s hands.”
For example, God does not need a house in which to dwell, and therefore He doesn’t need temples.
Yes, it was the Lord Himself, who ordered and ordained the construction of a portable temple which He called the Tabernacle of Witness.
But these were not places in which the infinite God was to live
and there was no guarantee that when worshipers came to these places that they would find the smile of the Lord there.
The temple of God and the Tabernacle in the wilderness were places where sinful men could come to worship and to meet the Lord.
They were places where sacrifices were to be made,
However, it must be remembered that it was the blood that made the worshiper acceptable,
not the temple in which it was offered.
And the Lord of heaven and earth dwelleth not in temples made with hands.
Furthermore, the idea that the infinite God could be confined to the craftsmanship of a woodcarver, a silversmith or a goldsmith is the height of foolishness.
“Forasmuch 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.”
There are few things more stupid or foolish than to think that the Creator can be confined to an idol or icon.
And for those who think that idols don’t actually contain God, but only represent or illustrate God, those people are practicing something which was clearly and flatly forbidden by the Lord.
As I pointed out last week, the first and second commandments forbid the manufacture and worship of idol representations of God.
To bow before a Catholic shrine, whether it be supposedly of Mary, Jesus, one of the apostles or one of the prophets, is nothing but christianized paganism.
It is condemned by God, condemned by the scriptures, and should be condemned by logic.
If you think that I’m being harsh, then you need to pick up a Bible and learn that this harshness comes from the Lord Himself.
But of course, the Athenians weren’t even pretending to worship Jehovah, or the Lord Jesus, with their idols.
They were honoring Zeus, Athena, Hera and the rest of the Olympian pantheon.
They might have thought that Zeus was the king of the Gods or that together they were omnipotent.
Paul was only being polite in letting them think that their worship was of the Lord.
And when someone built an altar to the “Unknown God,” if that man was really sincere then he should have been the first to welcome Jesus to the city.
None of the people on Mars’ Hill that day were spiritually honest, or they wouldn’t have mocked and spurned God’s prophet.
No, the one true and living God is not necessarily worshiped through temples and definitely not through idols.
Such things are a part of ignorant worship,
and unfortunately ignorant worship hasn’t even begun to pass away today in the 21st century.
It doesn’t appear to me that Paul was given the opportunity to finish his message,
but he did get to the first point of his conclusion.
Proper worship of the Lord begins with REPENTANCE.
“The times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent.”
God WINKED at their foolishness and ignorance.
He had every right, as deserving proper worship, to instantly destroy those idolaters,
But He had graciously overlooked their stupidity and given them life and breath up to that moment,
In order that they might hear the true message of God which Paul had brought to them.
This wink of the Lord was gracious, but it was temporary.
“The times of this ignorance God winked at; but NOW commandeth all men every where to REPENT.”
To repent is to have a change of mind and a change of heart.
To repent is to humble ourselves before the Lord.
To repent is to divest ourselves of everything that we have and hold spiritually precious.
To repent is perhaps the most serious and important thing that any sinner can ever do.
It was the first message of the Lord Jesus, when He came to give His life as a ransom for many.
“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel.”
“Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.”
And if he had been given the opportunity to finish his message,
Paul would have gone on to say that proper worship of God must be through the One whom he hath ordained to judge the quick and the dead.
Of course, we know where Paul was going with this.
He was prepared to tell those people about Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God.
He was going to say that He had been crucified by the Romans, because they didn’t realize Who He was.
But he had been ordained by God to die as the substitutionary sacrifice that the sins of men require.
He died on the cross as the lamb of God,
But it’s not the physical globe, the earth, the world which will be judged.
Christ is coming back to judge the people of this world.
Paul was trying to prepare those Athenians for that judgment, just as I am trying to prepare you.
You must give up your ignorant worship.
You must repent of your sin.
And you must believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, loving and trusting Him as your Lord and Saviour.
Paul was trying to prepare those Athenians for that judgment, just as I am trying to prepare you.
Are YOU ready?