Living Waters of Grace 11.14.25

This is Living Waters of Grace, the teaching ministry of Clark

Wofford, senior pastor of Calvary Chapel of Westmoreland,

County of Greensburg, PA. Now here's Pastor Clark as he

continues teaching through God's Word.

So that's the message then in the book of the Acts.

That's the message now today that God is commanding every

human being on the face of the planet.

They need to repent, change their mind, and see and believe

in the truth, because He's appointed today in which He will

judge the world and righteousness by the man whom

he's ordained. And of course, that's Jesus

Christ. When he comes back the second

time, He's coming back as the judge.

It feels like whenever we drive, there are warning signs

everywhere alerting us of icy bridges, tight turns, and

crossing traffic that doesn't stop.

It may all seem a bit overwhelming, but Can you

imagine what it would be like if those warning signs didn't

exist? Pastor Clark reminds you today

that God's Word contains a message of hope for humanity,

but it also contains a warning. The Lord will one day judge all

of humanity for its sin, and the only way to avoid his wrath is

to repent and follow Jesus. Now here's Pastor Clark in the

book of Acts Chapter 17 with today's edition of Living Waters

Acts 17 · chapter mention

of Grace. Silas and Timothy are hanging

out in these places to help these new churches develop for a

while. They'll eventually catch up with

Paul, but Paul now is going on his own to Athens now.

Athens, Greece back then as today, is a incredible city.

It's a city of influence. It's a city of intellectualism.

It's a city of philosophy. This is a place of Socrates and

Plato, these philosophers, Aristotle.

This is what caused people to think about a lot of things in

life and whether they were true or false, they were their minds

were stimulated by the the brilliant people that lived

there. It was a city of idolatry.

To this day, there's the Parthenon and the Acropolis and,

and all these kind of places that you can go and actually see

these buildings that have stood the test of time throughout the

centuries of history of some idol and almost every street

corner, but a memorial to some God or goddess who at one time

that the people were influenced to worship Pagan idolatry.

And so Paul, he's, he's here in Athens now.

Verse 16. Now while Paul waited for them

at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him when he saw

that the city was given over to idols.

So he's there like a Taurus maybe initially, but he knows

why he's really there. He's fascinated by what he sees

because like, I can't believe that these people are so deluded

into worshipping all these false gods.

These beautiful buildings they've built, they're void of

truth. They're void of God.

There's no evidence of Christ anywhere here.

He sees and he saw that the city was given over to idols.

That broke his heart. He wasn't judging them.

He was like these people are messed up and they need to hear

the truth. Therefore, verse 17, he reasoned

in the synagogue with the Jews and with the Gentile

worshippers. So again he has this privilege

and this opportunity to go into the synagogue and get some

things going. He also has this opportunity to

deal with the Gentile worshippers.

So you had Jews and Gentiles in the synagogue and and it says he

didn't end there. And then the marketplace daily

with those who happen to be there.

That's interesting. St.

Ministry, how do you do that Nowadays?

Anytime I see St. Ministry, it's never real

attractive because it's some wacko out there with signs

saying God hates fags or he hates this and you're all going

to hell. And it's not like endearing.

I go to State College lots of times on business, and there's

the Willard preacher there who's very gracious and how he stands

outside the science building and tries a dialogue with people

about spirituality and that kind of stuff to build a bridge to be

able to have a conversation with someone who's reasoning out of

philosophy versus the truth of the gospel.

But sometimes you'll see people out there screaming with a

microphone telling all the Penn State students that they're on

their way to hell. You know, that's not the way.

I think you start with the communication of the gospel.

I think you best start with God's love, because that's what

softens the heart. A God who's going to send me to

hell. I don't want to even know who he

is, right? Because I don't even think he

loves me. And when you tell people first

about the love of God and what he did for them, then all of a

sudden the message of the need for repentance to be saved from

hell begins to sink in and make good common sense.

So as they're preaching here, these other philosophers, verse

18, certain Epicurean and Stoic philosophers encountered him.

Some said, what does this babbler want to say?

The Epicureans were developed about 300 years before this

incident took place. They were the people that

believed in the good life, the best wine, the best food, the

best entertainment, the best buildings and property, the

ability to have, you know, the best sensuality or whatever sin

they might be able to experience in their flesh and their body.

It was all reasoned on. This is how we're to live and

enjoy all this good stuff. They didn't want to deal with

any negativity, nothing. It was painful.

Anything that had to do with suffering.

Their whole focus was your best life now, right?

You know someone that proclaims that the best life now that's

Epicureanism multi $1,000,000 mansion, expensive jets, the

best clothing, one of the most influential churches in our

country today. And it's all rooted in Epicurean

spirituality. It's it's sad, it's tragic.

And then the Stoics or the other group where they were like real

hard nosed kind of people. They believed in this idea that

God was in everything and good and bad and evil whatever, and

different, and they didn't want to participate in life like

these Epicurean kind of people. Both of these philosophies are

very warped and distorted, but they had their followers at the

time, and so they're calling Paul a babbler now in that

community. At the time, this was known to

discuss heady spirituality, new, new stuff.

So when someone came into the community, they would go up on

Mars Hill and they had the Agora marketplace on the bottom.

And as you went up, there was these rocks these brains would

sit on and they would talk until midnight, I'm sure about their

philosophy of what they think truth is.

And up on the top was a Parthenon.

It was very influential in the in the wisdom of of Greek

mythology, whatever. And so they're here to have a

conversation with him, with Paul.

Others said this is about Paul. He seems to be a proclaimer of

foreign gods because he preached to them Jesus in the

resurrection. They never heard anything like

this before. And so they took him in verse 19

and brought him to the Areopagus saying, may we know what this

new doctrine is of which you speak for you're bringing some

strange things to our ears. So they're, they're sort of

inquisitive here. Therefore we want to know what

these things mean for all the Athenians.

Verse 21. And the foreigners who were

there spent their time and nothing else but either to tell

or to hear some new things. So this was a cool place to go

to. You got an idea of philosophy, a

new religion or called a false teaching.

They're all weird. They want to hear what you have

to say this because it fascinated him.

So he goes up there and addresses them in verse 22.

Then Paul stood in the midst of the Aeropagus and said, men of

Athens, I perceive them on all things.

You're very religious. So he starts with a compliment.

He doesn't condemn them about their idolatry and put them all

down. He's saying, like you guys seem

to be involved in spiritual things, that in all things

you're very religious. That probably puffed him up a

little bit. Well, this guy's pretty cool.

He thinks highly of us. Yeah, we, we got our act

together here. For as I was passing through and

considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar

with this inscription to the unknown God.

Very intriguing way of dialoguing with people about

their need of Christ. Try to find common ground with

someone when you're talking with them to see if there's any

ground that you can have to have a conversation about the gospel.

If there's not a foundation of some kind of place of ground

that you can communicate, you're not going to get too far with

people. But if you're able to listen and

think and ask God for wisdom to to get into their minds and

their hearts a little bit, the Lord will show you how.

And Paul is an ultimate specialist in this kind of

communication. Of course, he's gifted and he's

apostle and the Holy Spirit's in him and all through him and on

upon him. But nonetheless, he says God who

made the world and everything in it, since he is Lord of heaven

and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands.

So right away, these people have these facilities, these

structures that, you know, convey spiritual atmosphere.

You go in and you can say, oh, this is so beautiful.

The gold, the silver, the the artwork, whatever.

This is like really special here, very majestical, whatever.

And maybe that made them feel like there was some sense of a

God that was in the building. And then Paul gradually begins

to explain to them that this Lord of heaven, this Creator

does not dwell in temples made with hands.

Now, how many people in our culture today think that God's

only in the in the house? We come here.

This is where God is. When we leave, he's not here

anymore. I mean, he's not with us

anymore. He's at the house, nor is he

worshiped with man's hands. So they make all this great

stuff. And I'm not putting down, you

know, artwork or beautiful structures and that kind of

stuff. He's educating them here that

that God, it doesn't get excited about everything you built or

made or spent to give people this atmosphere of worship as

though he needed anything. God doesn't need anything.

We can be out on the hillside, we can be out in the

countryside, we can be at the ocean, we can be in the woods,

whatever. You can worship God really

anywhere. If you know who God is, you're

going to be able to worship anywhere.

The benefit of the church is we get to worship God together,

which were called not to forsake the assembling of ourselves

together as a man or some, but exhort one another so much more

as we see today approaching. So we get together and we

encourage each other through the Word and worship and praise, but

God doesn't need anything. We're providing for Him in the

sense of our human ability. It's all what He's given to us.

And so the most you can give God in a way that would honor Him is

to be thankful and to follow the truth of His Word.

It says He gives to all life, breath and all things.

It's like you might want to underline that in your Bible.

He gives to all life, breath and all things and he has made from

one blood every nation of men to dwell on the face of the earth

and it's determined to appointed times and the boundaries of

their dwelling. So the sovereignty of God

evidence in these scriptures. God created us from one blood.

We're all descendants of Adam, every nation, doesn't matter

what color of skin or what ethnic background or what

culture people have been from. We all come from this one God,

one blood, every nation of men to dwell on all the faces the

earth. God knows the time that you and

I have. He knows before we get here and

He knows the time and when we're going to go.

So he says in verse 27, so that they should seek the Lord and

hope that they might grow for him and find him, though he is

not far from each one of us. And that's the picture of of

someone in darkness. It's, it's tragic.

Where's the answer to life? I'm feeling here, I'm touching

this, I'm experiencing that, I'm trying this.

I still can't find an answer. People grope.

People groped all day long, all night long, bottles of alcohol

by the bed. They're trying to find an answer

to life. They're depressed.

People take their lives because they're groping.

They can't find the truth. Jesus is the truth, He's the

way, He's a life, and the only way they're going to know is by

you and I and people like Paul and Silas and Timothy telling

these people the gospel so they don't have to grope anymore.

They can find the Lord because faith comes by hearing and

hearing by the word of God. For in him we live, move, and

have our being. Boy, that's a beautiful truth

and insight, as also some of your poets have said.

So Paul uses poetry and he gives this insight that you can read

poetry and and the Holy Spirit can use poetry.

If some of you saw the movie, I heard the bells on Christmas

Day. Anybody see that movie?

If you haven't, I challenge you to see.

It's the history of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, one of the

premier leaders in the civil rights movement for freedom of

slavery back in the Civil War days.

Passionate man for the word of God and the truth of God and the

gospel of Jesus Christ. And he wrote poetry, went

through terrible tragedy in his life.

And I'm not going to give the movie away.

You can do. I knew nothing about Longfellow

other than the name I heard in school one time.

No one ever told me how this guy was and how he lived his life.

Remarkable, remarkable man. But anyway, that's from a poet.

In him we live, move and have our being, for we also are his

offspring. So he's telling this whole crowd

of people here that we're all the offspring of this creator

God. He's using natural revelation to

the pagans. When Paul spoke to the Jews, he

used the Old Testament. When he speaks to the pagans,

he's using natural revelation of the the creation.

And the creation causes our conscience.

And though the Bible tells us in the book of Romans that there is

a God that we're accountable to, therefore, since we are the

offspring of God, we ought not to think that the divine nature

is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and

man's devising. In other words, all this stuff

you guys have developed, this isn't the divine nature of God.

Truly, verse 30, these times of ignorance God overlooked.

There was a time when God understood obviously the way

we're wired, lost and without him, without hope in the world,

He gave the human race a break for a period of time.

Not that He justified what it was they were doing, but He knew

they needed to have transformation and illumination

that can only come from the Scriptures and the truth of the

Word through the apostles and prophets.

Truly, these signs of ignorance got overlooked, but now commands

all men everywhere to repent. So that's the message then in

the book of the Acts. That's the message now today

that God is commanding every human being on the face of the

planet. They need to repent, change

their mind, and see and believe in the truth, because He's

appointed today in which he will judge the world and

righteousness by the man whom he's ordained.

And of course, that's Jesus Christ.

When he comes back the second time, he's coming back as the

judge. He has given assurance of this

to all by raising him from the dead.

So again, he's preaching the gospel, the death, the burial,

the resurrection of Jesus Christ, verse 32.

And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some

mocked while others said, we will hear you again on this

matter. So Paul departed from them.

So no matter where you are, who you are, even if you're an

apostle, some will laugh at you and scoff at you and mock you.

Some will believe and some will say, well, let me think about it

and I might consider this later. And that's what happened here.

So my challenge and yours and application of today's teaching

is what are we doing with our lives right now as Christians?

Are we participants in the building of the Kingdom through

the preaching of the gospel? And that preaching of the gospel

is just not Sundays in church, right?

It's it's an everyday life, the opportunity to find these people

who are groping out there trying to find an answer and they've

never heard the answer, the ultimate answer that we know

that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life.

No man comes to the father, but through him.

The good news here after Paul leaves them, it says some men

join him and believed among them diagnosis the Areopagite and a

woman named Damaris and others with them.

So this the the wonder of this guy, his simple heart and loving

God and doing what Jesus said go into all the world, preach the

gospel to every living creature. That is the foundation and the

ultimate command that Jesus left with His church, His disciples,

His apostles, before He ascended into heaven, right?

How are we doing with sharing the gospel?

Personally? How are we doing with sharing

the gospel as a church? We have a radio station and

thank God it's out there and people are listening and

believing and some of you have found the church because of

that. But that's on the air.

You got to find 100.3 FM. They actually hear anything,

right? You and I are a 24/7 living

broadcast person or people to be able to communicate to people in

live time, wherever we are, the good news of the gospel.

I think of Longfellow when I watched that movie and I said to

my wife last night, I said I want to live for something

that's bigger than myself. I get caught up in my life like

you do too. And making a living or doing

whatever we got to do every day and thank God for our careers

and our, you know, the things God allows us to accumulate

whatever. But at the end of the day, I

want my life, and I know you do too, to, to account for

something that's way beyond this natural realm.

And so my prayer for me as well as you today.

And that we have more love in our hearts, more care, and more

concern for people who need a Savior.

Inviting people to church, inviting people to listen to

YouTube, giving people a Bible. We got Bibles out there to give

to people to read and and define that that God is the promise

keeper and the people would come to faith in Jesus Christ.

Lord, you did this for me. You shed your blood, You gave

yourself on the cross for my sins.

What is it you want of me? He wants more of us.

He wants more of our hearts or our lives.

And He doesn't demand. He woos us to Himself.

He causes the Word of God to soften our hearts and to cause

us to know we need more of Jesus every day.

We need to be sensitive to His Spirit and how He wants to use

us in our lives, in our homes and our marriages and our kids,

our families, neighborhood, community, church, world,

remembering what He did for us. And then we leave here,

hopefully with a sense of deeper understanding of what it means

to be a witness of Jesus Christ. How can we be a more influential

witness? And that's the work of the Holy

Spirit in each of our lives. That's not something you or I

figure out. Well, I'm going to do better at

this or try harder at this. No, it's like, Holy Spirit, you

live in me. Take my personality, my gifts,

my abilities, my talents, my resources, and use them for what

will count for eternity, right? Only one life will soon be

passed. Only what's done for Christ will

last. Father God, we come and we are

humbled, Lord, by your word today.

Lord, we're thrilled when we see this testimony and this history

of these two guys, this going out and sharing the gospel and

what you do as a result of the gospel being shared.

You save souls, Lord, who've chosen the the preaching of the

gospel is the power of God and to salvation to all those who

believe to the Jew 1st and also to the Greek Father, I pray you

would make us a a witnessing church, a witnessing people that

Lord as we do our lives, Lord, that we look for opportunities

as Paul did and he walked around the streets of Athens who who

might be groping who might be desperate for a Savior.

Lord, we surrender our lives to you again today afresh soften

us, Lord, cause us to be enthralled with your love and

your grace and your majesty. Make us gracious people, Lord,

make us loving people. Make us caring and compassionate

people for those who are without you.

Lord, bless my brothers and sisters as we're on this journey

together, Lord, learning more about you, learning how to to

serve you, Lord. And we pray, Father, that all

that we do and all that we say would all give honor and glory

to You. Thank you for listening to this

edition of Living Waters of Grace.

Pastor Clark is teaching us about the book of Acts in this

series. Acts is a powerful and unique

part of Scripture, not just because it records the spread of

the gospel geographically from Jerusalem to the ends of the

earth, but also culturally. Acts shows us how the message of

Jesus moved beyond its Jewish roots and began to reach the

Gentile world. What started with Peter leading

a small group in the Upper Room became a global movement with

Paul taking the gospel to cities, synagogues and

marketplaces across the Roman Empire.

Acts captures this vital transition and reminds us that

the good news of Jesus is for all people in every place.

May we be inspired to carry that same gospel boldly into our

world today. Living Waters of Grace comes to

you from Calvary Chapel, Westmoreland.

If you're in the Greensburg, PA area, you can listen to Grace FM

on the new 91.7 frequency. Pray about helping support the

new station that will reach thousands more listeners.

Send gifts to Grace FMPO, Box 716, Greensburg, PA 15601 also

invite you to join us in person this Sunday at 10:30 AM at 400 E

Pittsburgh St. Unit 6B.

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joined us today. Be sure to tune in to the next

edition of Living Waters of Grace.