Acts 17:24-28

Chapter 62

Prayer

Almighty God, thou art the God of gods and the Lord of lords, yea the King of kings; the root of all life; the glory of all light. We know thee not except by our love. We know thee through our holiness, and that holiness is thine own work; for in us that is in our flesh there is no good thing. We are saved, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to thy mercy, by the washing of regeneration, and the renewing of the Holy Ghost. So, what we have of pureness in our hearts is the snow and the wool which thou hast made out of the crimson sin and the scarlet transgression. The blood of Jesus Christ, thy Son, hath wrought this miracle in us. We do not understand it, nor do we ask for it to be explained. We open our hearts and receive the great gospel which we need. We feel our need of it, and when it comes, it fills the heart with a strange glowing of love unfelt before, the very warmth and tenderness of God's own grace. Sweet is the day thou hast set among the days that are common. It has a light of its own; it dawns upon the weary world like no other day. We are glad of its peacefulness; we are thankful for its rest may we enter into it as of right Divine, and enjoy the calm, and be healed and soothed by the heavenly serenity. This is the day the Lord hath made: we will rejoice and be glad in it. We would have all days touched by its glory; we would that into every other day some breath of its peace might quietly steal; so that the tumult of the week might be checked as by a presence from heaven. We thank thee for strength and health and spirit, with which to do our daily work; it is no more a toil to us if thy strength be in our soul. Then we stand upon it, and speak to it, and lift it up, and set it down, and keep it at arm's length; it is no longer our master, because of the kingdom of heaven which rules in our hearts. Thou art bringing us onward a day at a time. We bless thee for the black night when we can see nothing: it is good for us to have no eyes. We bless thee for letting down a great curtain we cannot see through, though our curiosity would peer into the secret so near as to-morrow. This is thy way of teaching us, and behold, we know it to be good. Thou hast brought us to this acquiescence in thy method. Once we chafed as Ephraim, like a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke; but now we have become used to God's light burden. Thou dost also lead us forward into truth a day at a time; thou wilt not allow us to read two lessons at once. We bless thee for this care of our sanity; thou hast many things to say unto us, but we could not bear them now. So we may not turn over one leaf until we have read it well. Thou dost turn the pages not we. Help us to read every syllable, and to print the whole lesson upon our heart, so that we may be able to say it over to ourselves when we walk the earth or travel on the sea; when we are alone in the night-time, or when we are hurried by the crowd. We would that thy truth might be in us part of us; so that we shall feel it to be no burden to carry, but a source of new life and new hope day by day, till the winter of earth is quite gone, its last snowflake melted, and the great warm summer of the eternal heavens is upon us, with infinite beauty and fragrance. By thy good hand upon us, we have conquered another week and set it up amongst our victories. If we feared it, our fear is now forgotten. We have slain every giant not with our own arm, but with thy strength; we have wrestled with the foe and flung him in the encounter, so that he cannot rise again; and this we have done, not by our own skill or power, but by the indwelling strength of God. We come to thee in the sweet spring-time, when the earth is young, and every living thing is going back to its early childhood, and showing all the beauty of its heart. May we, too, feel the vernal breeze in our inmost life and root of thought; and about us may there be an upspringing of things beautiful and good! The winter is past, the rain is over and gone, the voice of the turtle is heard in the land. May our hearts welcome thy descending kingdom, as the earth welcomes the growing light and warmth of the sun! Be with those for whom we ought to pray who are not here to join the common speech at thy throne; the sick ones; the weary toilers who are almost stealing unconsecrated rest today; men who are bringing earth's weariness to be refreshed by Heaven's bounty. Be with our loved ones far away in the little house at home, in the quiet village, in the middle of the wood, in the new country, in the colony unformed, in missionary lands speaking unknown speeches, on the sea, torn between two continents, leaving love and coming to love. Do thou bind up the divided heart, and grant safe landing to those now on the deep. As for those who are beyond our reach, slipping over the brink, dear old friends, who have only now to say good-bye, may they be stronger than those who watch them! In death may there be more than there is in life, and through the closing eyes may the light Divine stream into the waking heart! And when all is over, the battle and the feast, the dark night and the bright day, may we meet through the blood of the everlasting covenant and the washing of regeneration "no wanderer lost" a congregation in the skies! Amen.

Act 17:24-28

24. The God [comp. Romans 1:18 ff.] that made the world and all things therein, he being Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands.

25. Neither is he served by men's hands, as though he needed anything [any additional thing], seeing he himself giveth to all life and breath and all things.

26. And he made of one? ["blood" had offended these autochthonous Greeks] every nation of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed seasons, and the bounds of their habitation;

27. That they should seek God, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.

28. For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain even of your own poets have said [ Ovid said of the Cilician Oratus that his astronomical poems would make him immortal "as the sun." But to this half-line from Phœn. 5, quoted by his countryman on this occasion, he owes his rescue from oblivion. The Stoic poet Cleanthes in Jov. 5, and a number of other Greeks, had expressed the thought]. For we are also his offspring.

Paul's Theistic Argument

HOW to address a reluctant assembly; how to conduct a difficult case in the presence of men who are filled with unbelief? This was Paul's task. He is now in comparatively new circumstances. He could fight with Jews; he could bear opposition; he had an answer to the tempest of antagonism how will he deport himself under the pressure of indifference? This will try his mettle, and he will fail! Indifference will kill him antagonism never! Athens will be too many for Paul, because Athens will not fight. Athens will go home to its dining and refining and speculation. Indifference has killed many a noble soul. It is killing many of you, mayhap, at home. You do not feel it because you are not public characters as Paul felt it, but you may have some idea of it in the domestic sphere. You could get through a controversy, but the indifference that never looks at you, never caresses you, never speaks one gentle word to you, the Athenian coldness that never appears to live, except when it sneers, will kill the youngest, freshest heart amongst you.

How does Paul begin his work? Like a master builder. He lays before himself one clear, distinct purpose which is to be accomplished. He takes the text from his congregation and says: "Whom, therefore, ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you." Jesus Christ always found his texts in the congregation. When a man looked at him, he saw in that look the beginning of a new discourse. Paul did not open a scroll which had no relation whatever to Athenian tradition and Athenian education; he read the marble slab, and said, in effect: "You shall be your own Bible; I begin where you have ended; I will supersede that inscription, 'To the Unknown God,' by revealing him to every one of you." Find in the man himself the beginning of your speech. Find in the little child, in home or school, the text. The child will then follow you with interest. Do not lay a heavy volume upon its young head and say: "You must carry all this." No. The child will smile, or cry, or sigh, or look, or lay its little hand upon you. In every one of these actions find your initial Bible, and bring the other Bible in now and again as you go along; but begin with natural instinct, inborn reason, conscious necessity, dumb prayer, sighing that has in it the beginning of supreme religious desire. Paul said, "You are in search of a God, and I have brought you one." Instantly attention was arrested. Had Paul begun at the Christian end of the argument, the people would have turned away from him with unbelief; but Paul was a workman not needing to be ashamed, handling the word skilfully; so he began where Socrates himself might have begun, he joined the great speculation just where the door happened to open. Christianity identifies itself wherever it can with ancient thinking, and current systems, and traditional practices; and from these starting-points, supplied by others, it works its way up to its own Cross and its own heaven! We should be crafty in this business; herein men should be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. This was Paul's purpose. Paul announced his text and kept to it. Let us hear him.

The twenty-fourth verse is the first chapter of Genesis and the first verse over again. How often in our teaching have we seen that there is but one verse in the Bible, and that the very first! The other verses are all "Amen." Away they pass like many-coloured and many-toned anthems; but they come back again to the original note, and constitute in relation to the opening verse in the Bible one all-reconciling and all-contentful Amen. Listen to Paul's retranslation of the Bible's opening words: "God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth." That is Moses. All complete preaching must begin with Moses and go on to the Lamb. What other names are there in heaven or on earth but "Moses and the Lamb"? law and grace, stern beginnings; tender endings, foundations of granite, pinnacles tipped with light. This is ideal, because Divine, completeness.

Paul revealed the spirituality of God, saying, "He dwelleth not in temples made with hands." No explanation was attempted. To explain is to lose. Religion is not a thing of explanations, a riddle with an answer; but the Divine angel has been debased into a church conundrum with a clever answer! On the contrary, we should have said, "God is a Spirit." What is the meaning of "Spirit"? It has none to us in our present fleshly condition. What is God? No man can tell. It is the Mystery of being; the Glory of light; the Secret of all things. There is no explanation. He who attempts to explain God blasphemes the God whom he explains. The best explanation is silence. The noblest prayer is a speechless look. How far you have realized the true spirituality of God will appear in your life. The proof is not intellectual but practical. By noble character, by charity of soul, by love that would die for its object, you will know whether your God is a nightmare or an inspiration. This is not an affair of words. You have none other than an Athenian marble god if you have a marble heart. If you can forgive till seventy times seven a thousand multiplied, then you have the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ glowing in your heart like an infinite fire which burns but does not consume. The marble heart always means a marble god. The proof of your deity is in your spirit. Some doctrines are not to be explained as some spaces are not to be used. How little even of the universe that is about us do we use! Whatever we have to set down we are obliged to set down on the ground. Yes, now I think of it, that is true. I wanted to hang something upon the horizon, and I could not reach it! What a magnificent ring for hanging things on is the horizon! And yet we, who can see it and talk about it, are obliged to set down everything on the cold ground! The flying bird dear little self-deceiver! thinks it is suspending the law of gravitation when it goes up to sing in the air. It says, as it flaps its tiny wings, "You talk about things seeking the centre of the earth; I know nothing about your centripetal force see! I am going away from the centre of the earth all the time." Sweet rationalist! Watch it. It is coming down again why come down? Because the centre of the earth is stronger than any wing that ever attempted to compete with its infinite pressure. At night the bird will be glad to rest in the earth which in the morning it avoided with a song! There will be a good deal of coming back again amongst many flying minds; let us not object to their flying in the meantime. Learn that the air is but a larger earth.

This nobility of expression on the part of Paul does not interfere with the solemn roll of his logic. "Seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed anything." A spiritual God requires spiritual worship. That is the philosophy of the whole case. You determine your worship by the nature of the object which is worshipped. Do you worship a marble slab? You will be as cold as the marble. Do you follow a God that answereth by fire? Then there will be fire in your prayer, and there will be fire in your pure and purifying life. Men like a god they can patronize. To be able to "do something" for God pleases the little vanity of little minds. But we cannot do anything for the God of the Bible except obey, and we cannot obey unless we love. You cannot keep the law in the letter; he who keeps the letter of the law breaks the law itself. The law can only be kept by love. You may do it all, and do nothing of it. A regulation-life is a life of self-idolatry.

Another view of God is given in these wondrous words: "Seeing he giveth to all life and breath and all things." How infinitely Paul has gone beyond the point which he found in the text! The Athenians had wrought their way up to Unknown; Paul makes the dumb speak; he turns the store into a living revelation. Read the words again, for in their repetition you find their best explanation: "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." And this was said on Mars' Hill! This was said in the presence of the Parthenon! This was said in presence of pillared temples and majestic edifices, raised to deities fancied and unknown. "Neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed anything, seeing he giveth to all life and breath and all things; and hath made of one blood all nations of men to dwell on all the face of the earth." Who could read these words without feeling that they carry with them their own proof? This is the peculiarity of the Gospel. It brings with it its own fire; it carries along with it its own eloquence. The Gospel only asks to be stated or preached that it may be heard in its own tongue. In Paul's speech there is no uncertainty of speculation; there is no hesitancy of doubt, as if the speaker ventured to make a mere suggestion in elucidation of another scheme of cosmogony.

Paul stands on Mars' Hill in another sense than that which is indicated in the mere letter of the text: he stands above it, and looking from the heavens down upon Areopagus, the Acropolis shrinks into a handful of dust, and is viewed by the inspired and heaven-illuminated eyes with contempt and disdain. Athens had to climb its Mount Zion foot by foot, yard by yard, up to its top; but the Christian revelationist came down upon it from the clouds, stood upon it for a moment, and reduced it to contempt by the eloquence of an infinite contrast. Your god will determine your prayer; your god will be the measure and force of your preaching. If you have come to pit one little god against another, then you will be but jostling a whole crowd of godmongers, and you will be poor preachers, not deserving sleep when night comes, for you have toiled in a bad cause; but if upon every infidel Areopagus, every speculative rock, you come down from immediate face-to-face talk with God, your face will burn and your voice will be charged with a tone which will throw all other tones into grating discord. The Church will be worsted through not knowing God. If the Church has been patronizing God, she has not been living in the heavens. If the Church betake herself to the revelation of God, rather than to his explanation, she shall always have a hearing in the world.

I hold God because I need him. I do not explain him, because I cannot; I do not defend him, because he needs no defence. I prove him by reasoning higher than formal logic: by the reasoning of a life that goes upward in daily prayer, and outward in continual sacrifice. This may give peace perhaps to some disquieted minds who have imagined that mechanical theology was to be mastered before Divine communion could be realized. Have nothing to do with mechanical theology. You can make nothing of it, neither can any man. Theology-making is an attempt to serve God with hands, and God is not worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed anything. All mechanical theology is untrue, because it is incomplete. What you have to struggle after is to feel God a rebuke to all evil, a judgment of all crookedness, an inspiration to all nobleness, the fountain of purity, the pavilion of defence. Do you so feel your need of God? Then the only explanation you can now have of him is to be found in Jesus Christ. He that hath seen Christ hath seen the Father; no man hath seen the Father but the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal him. So we must go to Christ's words, Christ's life, Christ's whole priesthood; and there we see the beginning of a light which the universe is too small to contain or express in all its intensity and fulness. A little ray comes down to gild the disc of time, but for the whole glory we shall want the immeasurable fields of eternal duration.