 Alright, so if you have your maps with you, you'll see that Paul is in Acts chapter 17 on his second missionary journey. He's gone over into Macedonia, which is modern-day Greece. I mean, he's having trouble right away. He's being chased out of several towns, and he's kind of being chased down to the south. You know, these Jews from Thessalonica are just, they're just, they're rabidly against him. They're getting people stirred up, and they're chasing him from town to town here. We're going to pick things up in verse number 10 in Acts chapter 17 and see what we can come up with. Paul goes to see here in just a few minutes, in a few verses, so let's get to that. Verse number 10, the Bible says, and the brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night unto Berea, and who, coming thither, went into the synagogue of the Jews. These were more noble than those in Thessalonica in that they received the word with alreadiness of mind and searched the scriptures daily whether those things were so. So this is of course, you know, the famous Bereans here. You know, this is kind of a great example for Christians. You know, this is why, you know, you'll see that a Baptist church or a proper Bible-believing church will be much different than many other of the false churches that are out there today. Because not only do we preach the whole Bible here, not only do I preach the entire Word of God, but I tell you that you should go read the Bible. You know, this is what the Bereans were doing. It says they received the word with alreadiness of mind, but then they went and they looked at what was being said. They searched the Bible themselves. So that's something to keep in mind. You know, I mean, here's the thing, if Christians would do this today, if saved people would do this today, we wouldn't be in the mess that we're at. If people were just doing what these Bereans were doing, but the problem is that people are, I think it's just, it's based maybe on laziness. You know, people just want to be fed something to believe. They don't want to go and read the Bible and dig into the Bible. But that's why we, that's why have you turned to all these verses, you know, you're turning to, you know, several verses, every single sermon. Go to this verse, go to this verse. You should be searching and reading those things and saying, look, is this really what the Bible says? You know, is this something where somebody is just getting up and just preaching their opinion? No, we're turning to verse, after verse, after verse, after verse, and you should be doing that on your own time. You should be doing that on your own time, searching the Scriptures daily whether those things were so. They were reading the Bible every day. That's what we should all be doing. You know, I mean, that's the problem. I mean, if people just knew what the Bible said, I mean, we wouldn't have all these, these stupid doctrines and all this false doctrine out there today. I read, I read this week, I mean, Christians have no idea what the Bible says. If I read this week that, you know, Christians are saying that, you know, some wicked person that kidnapped and murdered a child should be forgiven. It's like, that's not what the Bible says, but that's what their church says. That's what churches today are saying. This is why, you know, people need to read the Bible because then people would go to a church that says evil things like that and they would not stay in those churches. They would seek out. And then, you know, there would be more Bible believing churches around there. All right. Look, I mean, the Bible, what a wicked thing to teach, by the way. I mean, not to go off, but I mean, what a wicked thing to teach. Turn to Ecclesiastes chapter three in verse number eight. What a wicked thing to teach. And here's the thing, you know, this, this word, this word hate today, this word hate today is completely misunderstood. It's completely misunderstood. People just hear it and they're like, oh, oh, you know, I don't want to be hateful or I don't want to hate. But look what the Bible says in Ecclesiastes chapter three. The Bible is saying that there is a time for that. The Bible is saying that there's a time for that in verse. I would love to ask Christians that have no idea what the Bible says. I would love to ask the pastor of that church or whatever, you know, what this verse means in Ecclesiastes chapter three in verse number eight where the Bible says a time to love, a time to hate, a time of war, a time of peace. The Bible says that there is a time for hate, that there is a time for hate. You know what hate means? You know what hate means? If you look up a definition of the word, I mean, this is how silly this is. This is how wicked this is. Hate means to extremely dislike something. So you see some wicked story on the news of some innocent child that's killed or something. And I don't mean to be graphic, but I mean it's just, and then you say, oh, we're to love and forgive that person. And if somebody would say, if somebody would come out and say, I extremely dislike that person, everyone would think that's normal. But then if you say, oh, I hate that person, which means the exact same thing. Everyone's like, it's crazy. It's crazy. This stuff is why people need to know the Bible. So you're going to see, by the way, you're going to see more and more of this as people know less and less of the Bible. So don't be surprised when you see these things. Because here's the thing, folks, here's the thing. If God's not going to forgive this person and God doesn't love this person and God's not going to forgive, why should a Christian have to forgive him? Are you more loving than God? Are you more forgiving than God? You're like, well, God doesn't forgive everybody? No. No. Think of salvation. Somebody that is not saved and dies, just a normal, not-saved person and dies, they're going to be, they're not going to have their sins forgiven. They're going to be judged by their sins. This is what the Bible says. Then you take somebody that's wicked like that. And that's, you know, I don't have time to go into the doctrine. But I mean, that's an unnatural thing. That's not a natural thing. Most normal people don't get up every day and struggle with, you know, I hope I don't kidnap and murder a child today. It's a wicked thing. What, and you know what, the funny thing is, is this is a stumbling block. This just infuriated me when I saw this this week. This is a stumbling block for people to get saved. When you suggest that somebody like that could possibly be in heaven one day. That is, that is, that is offensive to people. Guess what, people extremely dislike that. When they, when they hear this idea that this God that certain people believe in, this God that Christians believe in, is going to, you know, allow somebody like that in heaven. Let me just comfort you. This is the comfort that people need to hear. This is the comfort that people need to hear. God will not allow someone like that in heaven. God extremely dislikes that person. And God will take vengeance on that person for eternity in hell. Now that child is in the arms of Jesus. Hundred percent. That's what people need to hear. That's comfort. That's a just God. That is a God that is a perfect judge. None of this other stuff even makes any sense. Because people have no idea what the Bible says because they don't study it. They just listen to some heretic, feed them garbage, and they just consume it. That's it. But these people studied the Bible daily. They searched the Scriptures daily. And 2 Chronicles 19, don't you remember? Don't you remember 2 Chronicles 19 when Jehoshaphat helped Ahab? You know, the prophet came to him and said, he's like, Therefore, because you help those that hate God, therefore is wrath upon thee. Wrath on you, God's mad at you. God's wrath is on you now. Because you didn't. Because you were loving those that hate the Lord. This is what the Bible actually says. And you know what? The Bible actually makes sense. And it doesn't even, this whole like, never extremely dislike anyone is ridiculous. Because guess what? You know people, you know, leaders and pastors and churches that claim to love everyone. You know what they end up doing? You know who they really hate? They hate innocent children. That's what they hate. I mean, so they're liars. Just by their actions. Just by their actions of just, you know, first of all, nobody doesn't dislike anyone. That's not possible. Some liberal in the news the other day said, I hate conservatives. He just came on and said, I hate conservatives. I hate them. I think they're terrible people. He said, you know, in some interview somewhere. And I'm just like, yeah, that's true. I'm sure liberals do hate conservatives. I don't agree, but I mean, you know, I'm sure, you know, at least he's honest. You know, he extremely dislikes them. That's what he's saying. All right. Look at verse number 12. So look, they're searching the scriptures daily, whether those things were so. They weren't just listening. They were actually looking what the Bible says. And good Lord, if we had that today, we wouldn't be anywhere near where we are right now in this country. Go to verse number 12. Therefore, therefore, and guess what? So because they're searching these people, in verse number 11, they weren't even saved till Paul got there. And Paul, he starts preaching this stuff. I mean, this is the coolest thing about the Bereans. You know, you always see like, that's a popular name for a Baptist church, Berean Baptist. Because you know, that's a Baptist church where they picked that name because they want their people to be reading the Bible and studying God's word, right? But the funny thing is, these people that when they were searching the scriptures daily, they weren't even saved here. They weren't even saved. But because they searched the scriptures daily, guess what? Remember the sermon from Sunday? What did they do? They believed God, right? They believed God. They believed the Father. And then when the Son was preached to them, look at verse 12, they got saved. Just like that. Therefore, many of them, therefore meaning because of this. Because they were the type of people that searched the scriptures daily, when they heard the gospel, they got saved. Because if you believe the Father, you believe the Son. And if you hear about the Son and you already believe the Father, you're just going to believe the gospel, right? That's why so many people that we run into, whether they are Catholics or whoever, you know, if they believe the Bible, that you walk up to their door, you walk up to them on the street, they believe the Bible, they just don't know what it says, and then you preach them the gospel and they believe the Bible and you're showing them the Bible and they just believe in Jesus. It's that simple, all right? So honorable women, which were Greeks and of men, not a few. But here's the Jews of Thessalonica again. They had knowledge that the Word of God was preached of Paul at Berea. And if you look at the map, you'll see that Berea is not that far from Thessalonica. It's just kind of like just inland, just a little bit. They came thither also and stirred up the people. And immediately, the brethren sent Paul away to go as it were to see, but Silas and Timotheus abode there still. So they took Paul and they put him on a ship and they sent him south to Athens. And this is where the story is really going to kick off this evening. And then they conducted Paul, they brought him on to Athens and received a commandment unto Silas and Timotheus for to come to join him with all speed, they departed. Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was stirred in him when he saw a city wholly given to idolatry. Now we get into Paul with the Athenians. And this is just a really great story and just a really great example here. And look at verse 17, it says, therefore he disputed he and the synagogue with the Jews, with the devout persons and in the market daily with them that met him. Then, and if you know the history of Greece and Athens, you know Paul, he just gets right in the middle of it here. Then certain philosophers of the Epicureans and of the Stoics encountered him and some said, what will this babbler say? Other some he seemeth to be set a setter forth of strange gods because he preached unto them Jesus and the resurrection. So there's a lot there in verse number 18. So first of all, just a quick information. So that's the Epicureans and Stoics here. So if you've heard of, these are competing philosophies of the Greeks. The famous Greek philosopher is basically Epicurus just to sum him up in a Cliffsnotes version. He's like the ancient version of secular humanism is what he is. He's preaching secular humanism, preaching isn't the right word. But he's teaching this philosophy to seek personal pleasure. A lot of people would say that compares to hedonism today and just like we need to find tranquility in our lives and find the most pleasurable thing. Basically to sum it up, this guy's a hippie. That's what he is. If you look at what we see today that is close to what Epicurus taught, he's a hippie. He's a new age, he's sitting cross-legged in a field, doing drugs going, we don't like this, right? That's who this guy is. Just after his own personal pleasure, not somebody that you would really, this philosophy is not a philosophy that you would really look at and say, yeah, that's moral in any way at all. So he wasn't really even pushing morality. He was just kind of pushing his own personal pursuit of pleasure, all right? Stoicism, on the other hand, is a little bit more interesting. And it's a little bit more hard to sum this one up than Epicurus. But stoicism, to kind of sum that one up, stoicism is basically, I would compare stoicism to the Enlightenment. Because stoicism, and if you don't know what the Enlightenment is, let me sum that up for you in like 30 seconds. Basically, stoicism was pushing ethics. It was pushing ethics and good behavior, these types of things. But what they did was they removed God, same thing with the Enlightenment. Like if you ever read like a lot of Enlightenment writings from Rousseau, John Locke, these types of people, what are they pushing? They're pushing like nature's law, they're pushing like the social contract. They're pushing these ethics and these morals that many of us and like a lot of Christians kind of get caught up in that thinking, hey, this is good, this sounds good. Look, I've read most of those writings, but the point is the real problem with the Enlightenment thinkers and stoicism is they replaced God with nature. If you want to just kind of sum it up into a problem, right? And they replaced God with nature. You're like, okay, so what's the big deal? At least they're moral, right? At least they're pushing morals, at least they're pushing ethics. That's why a lot of Christians have a hard time with some of the founding fathers that were just deists, right? Look, they weren't saved, they weren't Christian, they were deists, they were kind of along the lines of these Enlightenment thinkers here, right? But we might agree with the morals, we might agree with the laws, all these types of things. So you say, what's the big deal? As long as they're coming up with good laws and they're coming up with good morals, the problem is you can't separate morals from God. They say, why? Why can't you separate morals from God? I mean, look, we're never gonna create a perfect society until Jesus is king, okay? But why can't you separate morals from God? And here's why, just in a sentence or two. You can't separate morals from God, it will never work, okay? Of course those people wouldn't be saved and they're gonna go to hell, they believe that and they don't believe in God. That's not really what I'm getting at, I'm pointing, I'm getting it. Why mechanically won't it work in a society? Why will mechanically it eventually break down into a society? Here's why, because nature has no authority over anybody, see? Nature has no authority. Jesus Christ has authority. God has authority. Nobody is accountable, no matter how much the earth worshipers tell you, nobody's accountable to nature, okay? Even though a storm may come and destroy a town or something, nobody is. Nature is not a being, you know, but this is what, you know, then you get into, you take the enlightenment, and now you get into the new age stuff, and what do they do? Mother earth, they turn nature into an actual being. This is where it comes from, okay? You've removed God, you've turned it into nature, and then you have some offshoots of that that actually make nature a being. But nature is not a being. Nature is a creation of God, okay? It is God that has the authority. Every man is accountable to God, not nature. And nothing that anybody teaches or any philosopher comes up with is gonna change that. So that's why it falls apart, all right? So that's just kind of just who these philosophers were and what they were kind of teaching. But isn't it interesting that I showed you that I showed you that, how did I describe those to you today? I described these ancient philosophers with things that we're seeing today, right? I described Stoicism with something you saw today. I wrapped up Epicurus and his teachings with the modern day hippie, basically. Why? Because there's nothing new, that's why. All right, and we'll get into that in just a couple, just a couple minutes, all right? But again, one more interesting thing that I wanna point out about verse number 18 is this. It says, what does this babbler say? Other some, so some of them, they made fun of them. Others said he seemed to be a setter fourth of strange gods, okay? So right away, there's a lot of the people or some of the people said that this guy is, he's preaching some God, which is interesting because why did they think that Paul was preaching, who was he talking about? He's talking about Jesus, right? He's talking about Jesus, but why did they think that Jesus was a God? Because he preached unto them Jesus and the resurrection. So he's preaching that this man died and rose again from the dead and right away they just assumed, like he's preaching about God or preaching about a God. Right, because like everybody knows that if Jesus rose from the dead, even these unsaved secular philosophers knew that if Jesus, this guy, whoever Paul's talking about rose from the dead, he's a God. He's a God to them. You know, and then Paul of course is saying, yeah, you're sorta right, except he's the God. But the point is, like people that are like, oh Jesus wasn't God, he never claimed to be God. Just the fact that he rose from the dead, these secular, humanist, hedonist, wicked philosophers are like, yeah, he's definitely preaching about a God here. Because like normal people can't die and like raise themselves from the dead. All right, who else could do that? They knew. Philosophy, philosophy. There's only one time that this word is used in the Bible other than here. One other time I should say, turn to Colossians chapter two. Turn to Colossians chapter two. So you got these philosophers. And they're debating with Paul. Look at Colossians chapter two in verse number eight. Let's just look at this drill into this word philosophy just a little bit. Because I mean, the Bible warns us about philosophy. So let's find out what it is and why we need to be warned about it. The definition of philosophy is the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, existence, and especially when considered as an academic discipline. So it's basically the fundamental, it's the study of nature, knowledge, reality, and existence. Who are we? Why are we here? Basically it's a replacement. It's a replacement study for people that don't know what the Bible says, don't wanna know what the Bible says. So if you get rid of the Bible, here's the thing, here's why philosophy exists. If you get rid of the Bible out of your life, you gotta have something. You gotta have something like a person that has no Bible in their life and no philosophy in their life. They just have nothing but questions. There's no answers. So what they're trying to do is people that don't have like they don't, they're not the Bereans, they don't have the Bible, they don't have the word of God. These are Gentiles and not only just Gentiles, but these people are way off the deep end. They've replaced God's word with just this study of why we're trying to answer all these questions themselves. That the Bible has all the answers to, right? Look at Colossians chapter two and verse number eight. Look what the Bible says. It says, beware, just warning us against this. Lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit after the tradition, this is basically what philosophy is right here, the tradition of men and rudiments of the world and not after Christ. That's such a great verse right there because the Bible is saying, it's like look, just people are gonna come at you and try to come at you with the traditions of the world and not Christ because Christ is the Bible. Christ is the word of God. Like the Bible is Christ. Christ is the Bible. It's the same thing. It's the same exact same. So people are gonna come at you with the opposite of that, which is the traditions of men, like what men think, what men that don't believe the Bible think. And 1 Corinthians 2, 13, I'll just read it for you. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Ghost teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. Again, it's saying man's wisdom is gonna try to come in here and replace what God's wisdom says. This is a spiritual book. Find me another book that you could read a hundred times in your life and you'll learn new things every single time you read it. There is no other book. There's no other book that applies to every person that's ever lived since the beginning. Tell now, no other book. No other book. It's a miracle in itself, just the fact that it exists. But the Bible here is telling us these two verses and we're seeing it like play out with Paul is that when people don't have the Bible, they'll try to replace it with man's ideas. All right, so that's what's going on. That's what philosophy actually is. Go to verse number 19 of Acts chapter 17. So Paul is getting attacked by these philosophers because look, what they're teaching is contrary to what he believes, okay? And what he believes is contrary to what they believe. Look at verse 19. And they took him in and brought him onto Arapaga saying, maybe know what this new doctrine whereof thou speakest is. For thou bring a certain strange things to our ears, we would know therefore what these things mean. They wanna hear them. And then in verse number 21, it explains why. It says, for all the Athenians and the strangers that were there spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing. So here are these people, they're caught up. They can't wait to hear what Paul says in this case because they love to hear new stuff. They love to hear new theories, new what? New philosophies, all right? So look, people still do this today. People do this today. People are arrogant, they're prideful. But here's the thing that we need to understand. The Bible isn't some new invention for us to improve upon. You know, people will try to do this with the Bible. Turn to Ecclesiastes chapter one. There's two problems. All right, there's two problems here. I'm gonna read for you verse 21 again as you turn to Ecclesiastes chapter one. Because there's two problems with people that are coming there, the Bible says here, it says they spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing. So we see two problems here. There's people telling all these new things and there's people listening to them. There's two problems, right? But here's the interesting thing. Ecclesiastes chapter one, written by Solomon. At this point, the wisest man that's ever lived. God gave him all this wisdom. God said, there will never be a wiser person than you. Other than Jesus Christ. I mean, Solomon is the wisest person on the earth. Look at what he says in verse number one or verse number nine, I'm sorry, of chapter number one. This is so interesting about Solomon because when you think about the context of who he is. So he was just a little kid and just to give you the idea where this came from, he's just a little kid and God asked him, what do you want? What do you want? He just became king. I don't know, I think he was probably a teenager at least at that point. But he became king, God says, what do you want? And he said, give me an understanding heart. And God was so pleased that he asked for that and that he didn't ask for money and riches and the heads of his enemies that God gave him everything. He said, oh, I'm gonna make you the wisest person that's ever lived and I'm gonna give you riches and everything that you've ever wanted. So here's the wisest man that's ever lived. And once he realizes all this wisdom, look what he comes to as a conclusion. This is amazing, I know we've heard this verse before but think about it in that context, look at verse nine. The thing that has been done is that which shall be. The thing that has been, sorry, is that which shall be. He's saying the past will be like the future is what he's saying, okay? And that which is done, that which shall be done. He's saying the thing that is in the past is the same thing that will be in the future and the things that are done, the actions that are taken in the past will be the same actions that are taken in the future and there is no new thing under the sun. And then he says, is there anything where it may be said, see, this is new? It has been already of old time which was before us. So think about this, God downloads on this guy. God like plugs him into all wisdom and just downloads on him and he knows all, like he just knows all this wisdom and what is the conclusion that he comes to? Did he learn a bunch of new stuff? No, he's like, oh, it's all the same. It's all the same. You know, it's just like, look, you know what will give you this same wisdom? You want to be as wise as Solomon? You know it will give you the same wisdom and if you've read the Bible cover to cover, you've gotten this wisdom. If you read the Bible cover to cover and you do it again and again and again, you know what wisdom you will get? This is why the history and the Bible is there, by the way. Because you sit there and you read the Bible and you read the history of the nation of Israel. You know, you read the history as they come out of Egypt. You read the history as they go into the Promised Land. You read the history as they break into two kingdoms. You read the history as the North, you know, goes bad 160 years before the South and then you read how the South goes bad and gets, you know, judged by God as Jesus, God's judgment, God's judgment, God's judgment, God's judgment, and then a page over they get right and then a page over they get judged again and then a page over they get right and a page over they get judged again. You're just like, man, you think God's trying to show you something here. He's trying to show us that men with men, nothing is new under the sun. So why? So we can look at that and we can look at ourselves and be like, what are we gonna do? What's gonna be the future of the civilization that we're living in right now? You know what the future of the civilization that we're living in right now is gonna be what happened in the past. What's coming to us is what came to them. If we do, I mean, you look at all the things that we're doing. You look at all the things, I mean, there's nothing new. They used to actually teach this in public school in the 80s, in social studies. They taught, they can't teach it now. There's no way they could teach it now. But they're teaching like, they used to teach like the cycle. It wasn't from a biblical standpoint, but it's basically what Solomon is saying. They're saying the cycle of civilizations in their fall is the same every time. And in there was a fall for morality, was a fall from morals, whatever they call that. A fall from the natural state of men or whatever. Whereas the Bible would say, going against God's word, right? Or perverting God's word or whatever you wanna do. But look, the point is, that's why the history is there. God gave it to us because if we get that knowledge we realize, hey, we're gonna repeat this. He's trying to show us this. We're doing the same that they did. That's what God is showing. That's what Solomon was saying. I mean, he's trying to show you. You look around and you know, we're like, man, I mean, because you look around today, you look around today, it seems like every month it's worse. You're like clown, the world's getting crazier and crazier. Men are women, women are men. You know, we're loving child killers. I mean, you're just like, it's going crazy, but here's the thing. We're accepting all kinds of perversion. Let's put the perversion in the school. Let's put all the sickos as many sickos as we can in the schools with all the kids. Like we're hating children, all these things. And another thing you'll find with all these civilizations that have fallen, the people that suffer the most and suffer first are the children every single time. From Manasseh all the way back to Babel all the way to today. It's all the same thing. That's what Solomon's saying. God downloads everything on him. He's like, oh man, all this new stuff I learned. No, he's like, oh, it's all the same. It's like men are really unwise because it's just repeating the same patterns over and over and over. So look, you don't have to like, I mean, yeah, be shocked at all the things and how bad it's gonna get, but you don't need to really be surprised because what's gonna happen tomorrow? Well, same thing that happened to them. It's the same thing. There's nothing new. So the problem is that people like to come up with new things, back to the sermon. People like to come up with new things. That's the first problem, okay? As you get the people that wanna look at the Bible, especially, this is the worst. I've told many of the guys that preach here. The only real advice that I've given to people that preach here, like the guys at the church, is like, hey, just grab a basic doctrine and preach on it. That's it. You always find the guy that's gotta find some new weird thing in the Bible and like, quite frankly, I worry about those people because there's reasons that people want to go and find some new thing and it's usually vanity, want people to think how smart you are or whatever, but yeah, you better not be playing that game with the Bible, right? Because the Bible, there's no new thing in the Bible. All right? I mean, yes, there's different perspectives and there's different, it's always nice to hear different people preach for me because I like, oh, sometimes people will explain a verse different and things like that, but I mean, the doctors, they're there, they're the same and you know, there you go, right? But the problem is, number two is with these Athenians is not only are there people that are always kind of coming up with new things for vain reasons, is that there's people willing to listen to it. There's people willing to listen to these people. I mean, if there's a church full of Bereans and somebody got to preach some new thing, the Bereans are gonna be like, ah, that's not what the Bible says. You know, then, you know, if I get up and start preaching some weird new thing, hopefully the people in this church that study the Bible and read the Bible are gonna be like, hey, that's not what the Bible says. And hopefully you're with the Bible. You know, you're with the word of God, all right? Go back to verse number 22 of Acts chapter 17, verse number 22 of Acts chapter 17. There's nothing new. There's nothing new under the sun. And Paul knew this, he walks in and all these people are just, I mean, at least it's why they wanted to listen to Paul, because it was something that they hadn't heard before. Look at verse number 22 of Acts chapter 17. It says, then Paul stood in the midst of Mars Hill and said, ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious for as I pass by and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription to the unknown God, whom therefore you ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you. You know, you can kind of compare the unknown God to nature, to Mother Earth or to whatever else people are replacing with God. I mean, you have these people, they literally have a monument that says to the unknown God, we're like, we don't know who God is but they're worshiping this anonymous thing. And Paul's just like, what? He says that God that made the world in all things, therein seeing that he is the Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands. He's like, Paul says God, like God, like Jesus God is the one that made all this stuff. He's like, you're worshiping what? The creation, right? They're worshiping the creation and not the creator. But he calls them superstitious. Why? What does superstition mean? What does that word superstition mean? He says they're superstitious because basically what they're doing is they're part of these people at least that were taking this philosophy and they were trying to make some divine thing out of it, you know, like nature, like this unknown God, but basically superstition what it means is an excessive belief in supernatural causation. So it's this excessive belief that everything is caused by, it doesn't have to be God. I mean, it could just be anything. This is people who have like, this is why, like Christians really shouldn't be like relying on luck. Christians really shouldn't say, oh, you know, I mean, I know it's a common saying like, oh, that was lucky or whatever, but I mean, Christians really shouldn't believe in luck and be relying on luck because that's, it's superstitious. It's superstitious, it's belief that there's some, you know, unknown luck force out there that if I do something a certain way, you'll see like people that are really like addicted to gambling or like this. Like they'll do things a certain way, they'll put their favorite lucky pants on or whatever it is and you know, go and think that they're gonna make all kinds of money. I mean, the casinos must love that. But I mean, the point is like, they rely on this just superstition, you know, oh, don't say that, you know, you tell some people like, hey, it's gonna be a great day today. Oh, you just jinxed it. It's like, what in the world? You can't even be a positive person. Like it's a superstitious person, right? Some people are really, really superstitious. I mean, you'll find even some like, I mean, Catholics are very superstitious, very superstitious. I mean, they're very superstitious about idols and they're very idolatrous. Like they must have these things with them and like it can get really strange, right? But here's the question for you. Paul is like kind of, you know, chastising these people for being superstitious. Let me ask you this, can Christians be superstitious? The answer to this question is absolutely. And what does that mean? What do I mean? It means this excessive belief in supernatural. So for the Christian, it would be in causation by God. So like, I think that God just like, I'm gonna give you two examples of Christians, how Christians can be the type of people that can be superstitious that are actually saved people. You're like, what do you mean? You mean, just give you some examples. People that are just like an extreme way and extreme person that's superstitious and saved is like, God told me to do this. God told me to go here, God told me to turn left and God told me to go here. And you know, look, we all have the Holy Spirit in us and I hope the Holy Spirit leads you in your life and you should be led of the Holy Spirit and not of the flesh. But when you're literally saying to people like, God like verbally spoke to me in my car and told me to turn at this stoplight, you know, that's a superstitious person. All right? Then there's this guy. It's just that any opportunity that ever has been put in front of me is of God. That's a superstitious person. That's a superstitious person and you say why? Well, first of all, there's two reasons why Christians will do this. The first one in my experience is this. They're just lying to sound more spiritual. You know, I mean, I want you to think that I've heard pastors do this. Like get up and be like, you know, I just knew that the Lord just put that song on my heart and then the choir sang it. It was just miraculous. You know, just trying to like make themselves sound like more, no pastor that I'm friends with, okay? But I mean, the point is like, I've heard this kind of stuff, you know, from the pulpit but what are they trying to do is trying to make themselves look very spiritual. You know, somebody that talks like that, like God just told me and God just led me down, just constantly talks like that, is trying to make you think that they are spiritual, all right? Look, God speaks to me for real. God speaks to me. He speaks to me through the Bible. He speaks to me, you know, I speak to God through prayer and God, if we can all get our flesh and the sin and get right with God and get, you know, get the sin out of our lives, God and the Holy Spirit will lead you in your life. Don't get me wrong, okay? But the minute I stand up here and say that, you know, God speaks to me audibly every Saturday night, you know, that's, God speaks to us through the Bible, okay? And look quite frankly, there's nothing else that he needs to say to us, right? He's still gonna be active in our lives. Miracles are real. All these things are real. God is active on this earth, don't get me wrong, but that's one reason that people are suspicious. They're just, you know, or superstitious is, they're just trying to look spiritual. That's number one. The second one is just immaturity, is just spiritual immaturity in your Christian life. And I'm not talking about how old you are or even how many years you've been saved. I'm just talking about how mature you are as a Christian because if you think that every opportunity that comes your way is of God, then you are a very immature Christian. You are a babe in Christ, okay? Because look, I hate to break it to you folks, but the devil can put opportunity in front of you too. I mean, the devil walking on this earth. Look at Job. The devil is on this earth making things happen. There are demons on this earth that are working for him. So the problem is, is like when people say, oh, God opened this door for me or God showed me this and they just assume that it's God. I mean, really what it is is people just, you know, they just want to know, you know, they just want to justify what they really want to do anyway. You know, so they pin it on God, right? Turn to Jeremiah chapter six. Let me give you an example. There's a lot of examples in this in the Bible. But the answer, you say like, how am I gonna know what's of God and what's not? It's very simple, I'm gonna show it to you. All right, but let me give you an example of people that they're just blinded. They're blinded and it gives you the reason why they were blinded and they just like made up. They just made up to themselves what their reality was. Look at Jeremiah chapter six and verse number 10. Jeremiah chapter six and verse number 10. Look at it like superstitious people and people that are just like everything's from God. Everything that comes my way is from God. Look at verse number 10. It says, to whom shall I speak and give warning that they may hear, hear. Behold, their ear is uncircumcised. Meaning they're not listening to spiritual things and they cannot hearken. Behold, the word of the Lord is unto them a reproach. They have no delight in it. So these people do not know the word of God and they don't wanna know the word of God. All right, they are the opposite of the Bereans. Verse 11. Therefore I am full of theory from the Lord. I am weary with holding in. I will pour it out on the children abroad and on the assembly of young men together for even the husband with the wife shall be taken and the aged with him that is full of days. And their houses shall be turned unto others and their fields and wives together. I'll stretch out my hand upon the inhabitants of the land, say, at the Lord. From the least of them, even unto the greatest of them, everyone is given to covetousness. And from the prophet, even unto the priest, everyone dealeth falsely. So these people, they love mammon. So now, we kinda get a reason in verse number 13 of why they didn't wanna hear the word of God. They didn't wanna hear the word of God because they're covetous, they're in the world. They love mammon, which means they hate God. They extremely dislike the word of God, all right? They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying peace, peace when there is no peace. So these people, so God's saying all this judgment, let me just break this down for you so you understand what I'm trying to say. In verse number 10, they're not listening to God. Jeremiah's like, they're not listening. They don't even wanna hear, they don't wanna know what the word of God says. And then in the next couple of verses, it just talks about how the judgment of God is gonna come upon them. I mean, there's a lot of trouble coming to these people. If you read those verses again, there's a lot of trouble coming to these people who have these uncircumcised ears and won't listen to the word of God. And then he says, he gives the reason for why they're like that because they're covetous, they're in the world, they don't care about the word of God. They only care about money, they only care about those thorns wrapped around their neck. But then it says what they tell the people. What they tell the people. They tell the people, everything's great. This is so common in the Bible when it talks to people that are about to be judged. They're like, God doesn't care what's going on down here. That's what they're telling the people. But let me ask you something. When they say peace, peace, is there really peace? When they say peace, peace to the people, and it says people were comforted with that. So people were comforted when these wicked people that didn't wanna hear the word of God came to them and said, it's fine, it's okay. You know, there were some people that were maybe raising up questions, raising up concerns about how the country was going. And they're just like, it's fine, it's fine, it's fine. Peace, peace. But guess what? There was no peace. Because every single good thing that is put in front of you is not necessarily good. So you gotta be careful when opportunities pop into your life and come into your face and you're just like, this seems like it's something that I really want. And this opportunity comes and maybe there's a bunch of people behind that opportunity that say, this is great, great job. You deserve it, peace, peace. But if you don't know what the Bible says, there could be no peace there. It could be the opposite of peace. You could be walking right into God's judgment. So you're like, now I'm confused. How would I possibly know? Well, be a Berean. Let's bring it back to where we started. Be a Berean. Don't be wrapped up in the world. Don't be covetous. And then you'll easily want to know and it's easy to know. Look, when something, here's the test. When something comes in front of you, when something comes in front of you, all you have to ask yourself is will this help or will this hurt the kingdom of God? That's it. Will this help or will this hurt the kingdom of God? As if God is not capable of blessing us and keeping us in the Christian life at the same time. It's a really easy test. But the problem is, sometimes we want something so bad that we get superstitious about it. And we're like, yeah, there's just no way. There's no way that that guy could have quit that job at that time and then they could have moved this department over here and then asked me to fill that position. And now I have to move somewhere where there's no church. But that was of God, because that was, it's not of God. How do I know it's not of God? Because you getting out of church, it hurts the kingdom of God. Because you moving your family to somewhere where there is no church, hurts the kingdom of God. That's how you know it's not of God. Turn to Matthew chapter 12. Because God, let me tell you something about God. Let me tell you something I know for sure about God. He will never contradict himself. So if the voice you're hearing in your head doesn't match the words of the Bible or what's coming in front of you and the opportunities that are set in front of you doesn't match what God says in the Bible? It's not God, my friends. It's not the Lord. Look at Matthew chapter 12 and verse number 24. Jesus points this out to the Pharisees. I love these three verses in the Bible right here. Look at these three verses. Jesus had a sense of humor. He was very clever. I mean, of course he's God. That's a silly thing to even say. But he's very clever with the way he dealt with people. Look at verse number 24. It says, but when the Pharisees heard it, so Jesus, Jesus just cast out a demon from somebody. There was this demon possessed person. He just cast out a demon. When the Pharisees heard it, that he cast out this demon, they said, this fellow does not cast out devils but by Beelzebub, the prince of the devils. You know what he's saying? He's like, Beelzebub's like Satan. So they're saying like, you know how he's casting out devils by the power of Satan? And Jesus is like, what? He's like, what, are you morons? No, he doesn't say that. But look what he says. And Jesus knew their thoughts and said unto them, every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation. And every city or house divided against itself shall not stand. Then he says, if Satan cast out Satan, he's divided against himself. How shall then his kingdom stand? He's like, you think that Satan's going around like destroying his own kingdom? He's like, what? He's like, what in the world? That doesn't even make any sense. But the point is Jesus is literally saying here is like, look, God's not gonna ever tell you something that's against the Bible. That's why there's all these rules. You know, there's this structure that God gave. There's this structure of the church, Jesus Christ, you know, pastor, there's a structure of the family. There's the husband who has a wife that submits to the husband and then the children are below their parents. But notice how it says like when the children obey their parents, there's always that caveat in there, like in the Lord. Because God would never contradict himself. So it's not God's not gonna ever tell the child like, hey, hey, you have to obey your parents even if they're telling you something against the Bible. Because God is always putting that complete direction in there. Same thing with the wife. You know, my wife has to submit to my authority. My wife has to submit to me as a biblical wife. But not if I'm telling you something that's unbiblical, then it's Romans 13, always the higher powers. Because God, I mean, God's not gonna contradict himself. He's not gonna say, hey, this is how the, this is my complete word and direction to you. And then put some child under the authority of some wicked parent and be like, yes, they just have to listen to everything that they say no matter what. Because that would be God contradicting himself. So he covers all that in the Bible. I mean, God can't be against his own kingdom. So back to the point when you want to feel superstitious and think that everything that ever happens to you God laid at your feet, measure it against his kingdom, always. And you measure it against his kingdom. Look, it's not that hard, especially bringing it back to where we started if you're a Berean. Because you can't really measure it against something. You'd be like, ah, does this contradict what God would want if you have no idea what God wants? But you're somebody that knows what the Bible says. You're somebody that studies the Bible. You're somebody that reads the Bible. You're somebody that understands the word of God that he's given you, that he has spoken to you through his word, through his son. And as something comes to you and you're just like, oh yeah, look, it's like a five minute thing, man. I'm telling you, it's easy. It's easy, but you gotta know what it says. But people that get up in covetous, just like Jeremiah chapter six, they lie to themselves. They lie to themselves. Just know the Bible and follow it. All right, so look, we're gonna stop here for tonight. Paul's debating these modern philosophers. He's debating these modern philosophers. Thank goodness that they wanted to hear a new thing because a few of them got saved. But the point is our answer, it really our answer to dealing with philosophy, dealing with deceit, dealing with all these things, dealing with superstition in our lives, it just comes back to verse number 11, which is to just, you'll receive the word of God if you're not into a bunch of sin and then just search the scriptures daily. It's that simple. It's such a great example of how we should be in our lives. So let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.