I don’t think that when Paul went to Lystra it was with the intention of becoming known as a faith-healer. He and Barnabas were on a mission to spread the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. The gospel is about salvation through Christ, not making the world easier or more enjoyable. It was their hope that the Lord would redeem a few of the heathen souls of Lystra and Derby. And of course, the Lord did save a few souls there, one of which became quite well-known. While Paul was preaching, the Lord demonstrated his power by reaching raising up a certain crippled man. I believe that miracles like this were granted by the Lord in those days in order to highlight the gospel. The God who can raise the dead, or miraculously heal the sick, can also restore life to dead souls. That was the purpose of this miracle. But just as fire can bless or destroy; just as the sun can make us comfortable or very uncomfortable;
Just as the Lord’s parables could communicate or exasperate, this miracle proved to some people that Paul and Barnabas were SERVANTS of the Most High God. But it was also misinterpreted by some to suggest that Barnabas WAS the most high god and Paul was his spokesman.
This evening I’d like to use our scripture to expose some of the precepts of heathen theology. In the process, I hope that it will also highlight some true, Biblical theology. What was the theology of the heathen of Lystra?
Heathen theology ACCEPTS THAT THERE IS A GOD.
From what I have read, the denial of God wasn’t anything but a whisper until the middle of the 19th century. Man is a tri-part being, and the spiritual part of each of us cries out for some sort of deity. Someone once said that there is a hole in our soul the shape of which only God can fill. However, that doesn’t change the fact that the world, the flesh and the devil, fight hoof and nail against the recognition of the One True and Living God. Our native depravity constantly denies and rejects any witness of Jehovah.
As a result, from the very gates of Eden, sinful men have be devising and imagining gods like themselves.. We have a need of God and a hatred of God both working in us at the same time. Paul said, “The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.”
Of course, nearly every culture and every society throughout time have had their own particular gods. Many have been similar to the gods of other cultures and societies, like the Romans following the Greeks. Many of these man-made gods, have even borne some of the attributes of Jehovah, but those deistic vanities have always had their flaws, usually associated with unrighteousness and sin.
Atheism, on the other hand, is an anomaly, an oddity that developed as a result of pseudo-science and humanistic education. Even sinners have to work hard to believe that there is no god at all. They may not want to admit that there is a God, and they may live as if there is no God; But even the worst and lowest of the heathen are not atheists.
Second, heathen theology in some ways YEARNS FOR THE DIVINE.
It’s not that the wicked long for the righteousness of the Lord. It’s not that they want to be delivered from their sins; or even from the ultimate penalty of their sins. But the natural man very often still wants God to repair the problems that his sins have created. Men want some sort of god to heal them of their diseases; both those caused by their vices and those that came as a result of the fall. So they beseech their various gods to still the winds and save their ships from crashing on the rocks. They cut themselves and beat themselves pleading with deity to end their droughts and send some rain. Even the wicked sometimes plead for mercy and sometimes even for justice.
I can’t say that the people of Lystra were praying every day that God would walk into their little community, but when they thought that he had, they were delighted and universally rejoiced.
Third, heathen theology ACCEPTS THE VISITATION OF DEITY.
Unlike the days of OUR enlightened stupidity, it didn’t take much for those people to reach the conclusion that the gods were walking among them. There was a reasonably good crowd listening to Paul preach, and a multitude witnessed the miracle. Probably several of those people misinterpreted the miracle and shouted that it was THEIR god who healed the man. Then almost immediately the chant of a handful became the cry of whole multitude and eventually the city. “The gods are come down to us in the likeness of men.”
What if the Lord healed a man as spectacularly today? I believe that the Lord miraculously heals people all the time, but it’s not in the spotlight as it was that day. But if the Lord healed someone as spectacularly today as He did that day . . . how quickly would the people of Post Falls be running into the streets, saying that we have been visited by god?
It doesn’t matter what kind of god our neighbors profess, they still wouldn’t be quite as quick as the heathen of Lystra and Derby. We are too SMART to join them; we KNOW better. But actually, those people in central Turkey two millennia ago, were very close to being correct, far closer than our neighbors would be under the same circumstances today. It wasn’t that the god’s had come down, but only that God had sent His ambassadors.
The heathen theology of Lycaonia longed for a visit from god.
Fourth, heathen theology WORSHIPS SUCCESS.
In some ways modern heathenism differs from its more ancient varieties, but in other ways heathenism never changes. The worship of the miraculous or the successful hasn’t changed, and it never will.
As we said last weekend, those people knew the man upon whom the miracle was performed. There was no room to debate that he who hadn’t ever walked a step in his life was now prancing around like a jackalope. The people of Lystra loved it, and so they RAN TO WORSHIP THE HEALERS. Have you noticed how these heathen reacted a little differently than many of the earlier heathen reacted? In Jerusalem, for example, among the heathen there, instead of bowing in worship, they ran home to gather up other sick folk to be healed. When they were miraculously fed, they began to follow the Lord Jesus, just to get more bread. After the miracle at the Beautiful Gate, the people of Jerusalem began to put the sick in the ugly gates of their houses so that the shadow of Peter might heal them. They didn’t worship, they lusted – for more. I don’t know which reaction was the better one, but neither was perfect. Not the Jews, nor these Lycaonians, wanted to bow before the Lord Jesus, but they did like the miracles.
Who are the Paul’s and Barnabas’ of today? Who are the worshiped today? The new wide-receiver who has caught more passes than any other man in football history. The faithful pray to him, “Come and save our sick team.” Or there is the man who has hit more home-runs than any other man in baseball playoffs. He will take us into the world series. Today our heathen neighbors, and sometimes we ourselves, worship the Donald Trumps of the world. We worship the movie star who has made the biggest movies in the last twelve months. We worship the most successful sports figure, or the most popular politician. We are a nation of idolaters. This is heathen theology.
Fifth, heathen theology IGNORES BIBLICAL REVELATION.
How long had Paul been preaching to these people before he cried out, “Stand upright on thy feet?” We aren’t precisely told, but these scriptures may indicate that this was not his first message in Lystra. So how much Biblical truth had he been able to preach there? And how many of the people, thus far, had responded and believed the gospel?
We can be reasonably sure that the mob was still a mob and not a worshipful congregation of believers. And when the crippled man ceased to be crippled, all eyes turned to him, as well they should. Someone in the crowd shouted “The gods are come down to us in the likeness of men.” And that was the message which those lost minds and hearts received. Had Paul yet told them there is but one true and living God? Had he been able to tell them that in the Name and authority of Jesus Christ, people had been healed? Had he told them that he and his friend Barnabas were just servants of the Lord? He probably had, but whatever he had taught them earlier was immediately rejected, and the crowd had returned to its superstitious roots.
Still today, our neighbors hate and reject the Bible, because of their heathen theology.
Conversely, heathen theology LEANS ON TRADITION.
Ovid was one of the more famous Roman poets of that day. Historians tell us that he lived from 43 BC to 17 AD. He wrote a number of books which scored rather high on the Time’s Best Sellers List. One of his books was called “Metamorphoses.” In that publication he described some of the visits that the Roman gods made among the human beings. And one of those stories was set in the country of Lycaonia, where Jupiter and Mercury visited the home of a man named Philemon.
Jupiter was the leader of the Roman gods, and Mercury was his spokesman. They visited the humans more than any of the other Greek or Roman gods. Mercury was believed to be the most eloquent of all the gods. It is interesting to note that the Greek equivalent of Jupiter and Mercury were Zeus and Hermes. It is from the name Hermes that the word “hermeneutics” comes. Hermeneutics is the science and methodology of interpretation, as in Bible interpretation. For what its worth, Hermes was the Greek god of commerce, invention, cunning and theft.
The people of Lystra were looking for the RETURN of Jupiter and Hermes, or Mercury. And it is believed by most scholars that verse 13 indicates that there was temple dedicated to these gods just outside the city. “Then the priest of Jupiter, which was before their city, brought oxen and garlands unto the gates, and would have done sacrifice with the people.” These heathen preferred tradition to God’s revelation, and they had chosen Jupiter to be their patron god. The idea of patron gods or saints is a heathen practice, nowhere condoned by the Bible.
Lastly, heathen theology REFUSES CORRECTION.
The language of the Lycaonians has been studied very diligently by both friends and foes of the Bible, and it remains a mystery. It was apparently not in any way related to Greek or to the language of Tarsus. Paul and Barnabas knew that everyone was excited about the miracle, but they had no idea what they were all jabbering about until the priest of Jupiter got ready to offer some oxen before them. ” Which when the apostles, Barnabas and Paul, heard of, they rent their clothes, and ran in among the people, crying out, and saying, Sirs, why do ye these things? We also are men of like passions with you; and preach unto you that ye should turn from these vanities unto the living God, which made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are therein: Who in times past suffered all nations to walk in their own ways. Nevertheless he left not himself without witness, in that he did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness. And with these sayings scarce restrained they the people, that they had not done sacrifice unto them.” Then as we shall see in the next week or so, the people who were ready to worship Paul and Barnabas, rejected the miracle and their message, and within a few days were ready to kill them.
Why did the people turn on the missionaries so quickly? In addition to the rabble-rousing of some of the Jews from Iconium, wasn’t it because they didn’t like the message that Paul gave them? Wasn’t it because they didn’t like being told that their old worship was vanity? Wasn’t it because they didn’t want to be told that Jehovah was the living God Who created all things? The mob turned ugly exactly as the mob in Jerusalem turned against the Lord Jesus, because they were being told the truth, and they couldn’t handle the truth.
Here in just a handful of verses we have a little picture of corrupt heathen theology. It accepts the idea of deity; it yearns for the visit of deity but only under it’s own terms; It worships success; and it is built on tradition, ignores revelation and refuses correction. Nothing has changed in last 2,000 years.