WEBVTT 00:00:06.959 --> 00:00:12.720 This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota. 00:00:16.719 --> 00:00:21.199 Please take your Bible with me again to the book of Acts, chapter 17. 00:00:21.839 --> 00:00:26.000 Passage that was read for us earlier. 00:00:29.359 --> 00:00:31.039 Acts chapter 17. 00:00:31.120 --> 00:00:34.640 I didn't catch the Q Bible page. 00:00:34.719 --> 00:00:35.679 I apologize for that. 00:00:35.759 --> 00:00:37.039 Do you remember what it was, Webb? 00:00:38.079 --> 00:00:39.039 882? 00:00:39.439 --> 00:00:40.240 Alright. 00:00:40.560 --> 00:00:43.840 If it's wrong, if 882 is wrong, you can blame Webb. 00:00:44.000 --> 00:00:47.359 It's his first first Sunday back after being gone for a while. 00:00:48.240 --> 00:00:57.840 Well, as the 250th celebration of our country winds down, I think it's appropriate to remember the big picture. 00:00:59.119 --> 00:01:05.040 There are around 195 nations in existence today. 00:01:05.680 --> 00:01:07.680 And we are just one of them. 00:01:08.560 --> 00:01:15.680 Each country, each nation has its own flag, its own government, its own borders. 00:01:15.840 --> 00:01:18.400 Most of them have their own language. 00:01:19.040 --> 00:01:26.159 They have their own unique history, a story that's been built and put together that shapes its identity. 00:01:26.799 --> 00:01:48.159 And many of those national stories, all across the world, highlight those peoples and those nations as the heart of the world, presenting their history as the main event, if you will, and their people as quite distinctive. 00:01:48.799 --> 00:01:59.200 The same is true of the ancient and prestigious city of Athens, when the Apostle Paul walked into it around 50 AD. 00:01:59.920 --> 00:02:04.000 Athens, Greece, by that time was past its prime. 00:02:04.560 --> 00:02:10.479 Rome had taken its place, but it was still one of the world's pivotal places. 00:02:11.199 --> 00:02:23.520 Philosophers still gathered in mass in the public squares to argue and debate ideas of all kinds, including religious ideas. 00:02:24.800 --> 00:02:31.840 And, as we heard in the passage read for us, idols were everywhere. 00:02:32.639 --> 00:02:35.680 And I mean everywhere. 00:02:36.159 --> 00:02:46.479 One ancient estimate puts the number of religious statues of altars in the city of Athens around thirty thousand. 00:02:49.280 --> 00:02:54.000 Thirty thousand religious altars in one city. 00:02:55.520 --> 00:03:14.960 So amid all of those thousands of efforts to capture the people's sense of the divine work in their midst, Paul noticed one altar among all of the countless monuments that said to an unknown God. 00:03:15.520 --> 00:03:17.520 I guess they ran out of ideas. 00:03:18.719 --> 00:03:25.039 Either that or they were afraid of missing one. 00:03:27.039 --> 00:03:37.439 Athens had so many gods that it was perhaps afraid that there was some God out there that needed to be appeased that they did not know of. 00:03:38.319 --> 00:03:46.080 So they sort of hedged their spiritual, religious position with an altar to whatever deity might have been overlooked. 00:03:47.759 --> 00:03:52.879 In Acts chapter 17, the Apostle Paul speaks to that issue. 00:03:53.439 --> 00:04:00.479 He stands before them and announces to them the identity of the God they did not know. 00:04:02.080 --> 00:04:11.120 But before telling them about God, he says something about every nation on the face of the earth, including the United States of America. 00:04:11.919 --> 00:04:18.560 And it's an important announcement, I think, as our country celebrates its 250th birthday. 00:04:18.879 --> 00:04:32.959 That announcement, in my own words, is that God himself sovereignly orders the nations so that they might seek him. 00:04:35.519 --> 00:04:44.800 God orchestrates and positions all of the peoples of the world for a particular purpose, so that they would seek him. 00:04:45.040 --> 00:04:47.759 Here's how it's stated in Acts 17, verse 26. 00:04:48.160 --> 00:05:00.319 And God made from one man every nation of mankind to live on the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place that they should seek God. 00:05:02.639 --> 00:05:13.199 The word nation there, he made from one man every nation of mankind is the word ethnos, from which we get our modern word ethnicity. 00:05:13.680 --> 00:05:17.360 God made every ethnicity of the human race. 00:05:17.680 --> 00:05:24.560 Now, generally, ethnicities stick together, and those over time form what we know today as nations. 00:05:25.759 --> 00:05:39.920 And beginning from Acts chapter 17, verse 24 through the end of the chapter, we find four truths about God's plan and purpose for the world's nations that are significant for us to keep in mind. 00:05:40.160 --> 00:05:47.199 The first truth is in verses 24 through 26, and that is that every nation comes through one man. 00:05:48.000 --> 00:05:49.439 Comes through one man. 00:05:50.079 --> 00:06:15.920 Says the God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands as though he needed anything, because he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything, and he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place. 00:06:16.160 --> 00:06:32.079 So the Apostle Paul tells this assembly that the God he's describing, the unknown God to them, doesn't live in massive grand buildings like the Parthenon, that part of it still exists today. 00:06:33.519 --> 00:06:42.319 Instead, he's the one who actually gives life and breath to the very people who crafted those 30,000 statues. 00:06:44.160 --> 00:06:54.160 Friends, the person who thinks he can represent the creator of all things in a piece of wood or a piece of stone has seriously misjudged God. 00:06:56.560 --> 00:07:00.160 Then Paul says something about the origin of every nation. 00:07:00.399 --> 00:07:07.279 And he made them from one man to live on the face of the earth. 00:07:08.240 --> 00:07:15.680 Now we tend to hear that phrase from one man as a claim about human origins. 00:07:16.160 --> 00:07:17.120 And it is. 00:07:18.079 --> 00:07:25.279 But to the people of Athens, it was a direct confrontation to their identity. 00:07:26.560 --> 00:07:32.399 It was, in a way, a slap in the face to the story of the Athenians. 00:07:33.040 --> 00:07:36.800 Because they believed that they came from the soil of Attica. 00:07:37.120 --> 00:07:41.199 Attica is the surrounding region around Athens. 00:07:41.519 --> 00:07:51.279 That means they thought of themselves as distinct and special, as if they evolved out of the ground independently of all other peoples. 00:07:51.920 --> 00:07:55.920 Sort of their way of saying, hey, look at us, we're special. 00:07:57.360 --> 00:08:03.040 And one sentence from the Apostle Paul undercuts that ethnic conviction. 00:08:04.079 --> 00:08:10.879 Because he says, every nation of mankind, every ethnicity comes from one man. 00:08:12.480 --> 00:08:16.959 It's most likely that that one man that he's talking about is not Adam. 00:08:17.759 --> 00:08:19.040 It could be. 00:08:19.279 --> 00:08:21.680 I suggest to you that it's not Adam. 00:08:21.920 --> 00:08:28.240 Instead, I think Genesis chapter 10 is the biblical proof for the Apostle Paul's claim. 00:08:28.480 --> 00:08:35.440 Because in Genesis chapter 10, that's one of those chapters early on in your Bible that you tend to skip in your yearly Bible reading. 00:08:35.519 --> 00:08:38.159 Because it's got a bunch of names you can't pronounce. 00:08:38.480 --> 00:08:43.759 In that chapter, there are 70 nations represented. 00:08:44.080 --> 00:08:46.960 We call that chapter the table of nations. 00:08:48.399 --> 00:08:55.840 These are nations, people groups that come from one man, not Adam, Noah. 00:08:57.440 --> 00:08:59.919 And Noah's sons after the flood. 00:09:00.080 --> 00:09:01.360 They're all cataloged there. 00:09:01.440 --> 00:09:03.360 You can look at them sometime on your own. 00:09:03.519 --> 00:09:07.279 All seventy nations are descended from the three sons of Noah. 00:09:07.440 --> 00:09:11.120 And the chapter, chapter 10 of Genesis, ends with these words. 00:09:11.360 --> 00:09:17.200 These are the clans of the sons of Noah, according to their genealogies, in their nations. 00:09:18.159 --> 00:09:23.919 And from these nations spread abroad on the earth after the flood. 00:09:24.159 --> 00:09:27.440 Seventy nations, all from one man. 00:09:29.279 --> 00:09:38.559 Now, this biblical background undermines some common issues that we find out in the world today. 00:09:38.879 --> 00:09:47.519 One is that ethnic pride and unique status as an ethnicity loses some of its footing. 00:09:48.480 --> 00:09:54.639 Because every ethnic and nationalistic heritage runs back to the same man. 00:09:55.519 --> 00:09:56.159 Noah. 00:10:02.399 --> 00:10:08.159 But it needs to be held with some humility if we all come from one man. 00:10:10.240 --> 00:10:13.519 The error in the other direction is just as much trouble. 00:10:13.840 --> 00:10:25.039 Because every nation and every ethnicity bears the image of God because every nation descends from a man made in God's image from whom God designed the nations and sent them out. 00:10:26.559 --> 00:10:34.159 The diversity of the nations, then, is a divine design, not a basis for conflict and hatred. 00:10:35.600 --> 00:10:39.759 There's one more thing to notice about Genesis 10. 00:10:40.240 --> 00:10:44.480 This is more for the context of our summer study in the end of Genesis. 00:10:45.039 --> 00:10:58.720 When Jacob's family goes down to Egypt later on in Genesis to be with Joseph in Egypt, the text tells us that they numbered 70 people. 00:11:00.720 --> 00:11:08.799 The nations of Genesis 10 are mirrored in the number of people that go down into Egypt. 00:11:08.960 --> 00:11:12.960 They're counted in similar terms, that they're sort of numerically mirrored. 00:11:13.120 --> 00:11:20.559 So the nations are not a backdrop of what God is doing, they are part of what God is working in his world. 00:11:22.080 --> 00:11:28.240 And so the Apostle Paul argues to these philosophers, you're not especially special. 00:11:29.519 --> 00:11:36.879 Yeah, you have uniquenesses, you have identification stories and elements that make you unique. 00:11:37.039 --> 00:11:41.759 But you are not especially special because we all come from one man. 00:11:43.039 --> 00:11:53.120 The second truth that we find is at the end of verse 26, and that is that every nation lives under the same Lord. 00:11:54.480 --> 00:12:05.120 God made every nation from one man to live on the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place. 00:12:06.399 --> 00:12:10.000 So Genesis 10 tells us where the nations came from. 00:12:11.360 --> 00:12:18.159 Genesis 11 tells us how they ended up so divided and suspicious of one another. 00:12:18.960 --> 00:12:24.399 Now you know the standard version of Genesis 11, the Tower of Babel story. 00:12:25.759 --> 00:12:28.960 Standard story is that the builders were too ambitious. 00:12:29.200 --> 00:12:36.480 They wanted to build a tower too high, and that God somehow felt threatened by what they were reaching for. 00:12:38.159 --> 00:12:46.399 But if we read our Bibles a little more carefully, we find that the height of the Tower of Babel wasn't so much the problem. 00:12:47.519 --> 00:12:51.679 The problem was the reasoning behind the building project. 00:12:52.639 --> 00:12:53.919 So think about it. 00:12:54.159 --> 00:13:05.919 You know the story: one language, one people, on a plane in the region of Shinar, all coming together for a single building project. 00:13:06.240 --> 00:13:22.159 And their stated goal in Genesis chapter 11 is to build a tower with its top to the heavens so that they could make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth. 00:13:22.480 --> 00:13:27.840 Now we need to hear that in light of what God had said twice before. 00:13:28.159 --> 00:13:38.080 In Genesis chapter 1, verse 28, God commanded the very first human beings to fill the earth by multiplying and subduing the creation. 00:13:38.720 --> 00:13:46.960 Then in Genesis chapter 9, verse 1, after the flood, God repeated that command to spread abroad and to fill the earth. 00:13:47.360 --> 00:14:00.799 So the divine design for humanity was to multiply and spread out, exercising their God-given dominion over the earth so that the image of God would be taken into every corner of creation. 00:14:02.159 --> 00:14:08.320 But Babel is the organized refusal to obey that command. 00:14:09.279 --> 00:14:11.919 They don't want to fill the earth. 00:14:12.159 --> 00:14:14.320 They don't want to scatter. 00:14:14.720 --> 00:14:18.480 They want to stay together and make a name for themselves. 00:14:18.720 --> 00:14:28.480 They wanted one city, one culture, one name, one agenda, all aimed at staying exactly where they were on their own terms. 00:14:28.559 --> 00:14:30.480 And God says, Oh yeah? 00:14:32.960 --> 00:14:41.679 In response, God confuses their single language, instantly creating multiple languages, and they scatter and become the nations of the world. 00:14:43.679 --> 00:14:50.399 At the same time, Babel was divine judgment for refusing to obey God's command. 00:14:51.120 --> 00:14:55.360 They refused to fill the earth, so God made them fill the earth. 00:14:56.480 --> 00:15:05.039 So on the other hand, it's God's way of fulfilling his intention, even though they meant it as rebellion. 00:15:06.159 --> 00:15:12.320 And so the Apostle Paul now builds on that reality in Acts 17, verse 26. 00:15:12.879 --> 00:15:24.720 He says that God made the nations from one man, having determined God, the sovereign Lord, determines their allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling places. 00:15:26.399 --> 00:15:31.840 Now, this is the Apostle Paul's interpretation of the Old Testament. 00:15:32.559 --> 00:15:37.840 So this is an apostolic, inspired interpretation of both Genesis and Deuteronomy. 00:15:37.919 --> 00:15:39.279 I'll show you how this works. 00:15:39.519 --> 00:15:51.279 The nations don't settle on the earth merely through the survival of the fittest in ancient migrations, as though God were watching from on high to see where people ended up. 00:15:51.919 --> 00:16:06.240 No, the reality is that God determined their boundaries and he fixed the eras in which each nation would exist, in which each nation would exercise its power, and when it would decline. 00:16:40.080 --> 00:16:55.440 Deuteronomy comes from Deuteronomy 32, verse 8, where Moses says that the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance when he divided mankind and he fixed the borders of the peoples. 00:16:56.559 --> 00:17:04.000 So the scattering at Babel wasn't disorder or things somehow getting out of control. 00:17:05.119 --> 00:17:12.480 It was God's hands shaping the divine dispersion of people when they initially refused to obey. 00:17:13.920 --> 00:17:36.960 So God's people today need to understand that whatever nation, whatever nation or ethnicity currently occupies your thinking, whatever power seems most out of control, whatever era of history alarms you most, it is all happening within the allotted period that God determined and the boundaries that God fixed. 00:17:39.200 --> 00:17:43.279 That can settle some of our worry and anxiety, can't it? 00:17:43.920 --> 00:17:50.720 Because no nation operates or even exists outside of God's own governance. 00:17:52.240 --> 00:18:05.119 So if you feel, if you feel led to be thankful for your nation or your ethnicity, be sure to be thankful mostly that God is working that out. 00:18:06.160 --> 00:18:08.960 Not that man accomplished it. 00:18:10.160 --> 00:18:14.079 That's exactly what Genesis 11 overturns. 00:18:14.640 --> 00:18:31.279 And it's what the Apostle Paul is bringing out to the Athenians, saying, you're not special because of who you are, you're special because God determined Athens, Attica, Greece, God determined the eras and the boundaries. 00:18:31.440 --> 00:18:37.279 And that brings us now to our third element in Acts 17 that we find in verses 27 and 28. 00:18:37.599 --> 00:18:41.759 That every nation is searching for the same God. 00:18:43.279 --> 00:18:46.799 Consider the purpose clause that explains this whole argument. 00:18:46.960 --> 00:18:48.400 It's in verse 27. 00:18:48.880 --> 00:18:51.519 That they should seek God. 00:18:52.880 --> 00:18:56.799 And perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. 00:19:08.160 --> 00:19:10.559 He's not saying they will, he's saying that they might. 00:19:10.720 --> 00:19:12.079 Hopefully they do. 00:19:13.279 --> 00:19:18.960 But God's design is that every nation seek God. 00:19:20.960 --> 00:19:31.519 So God's placement of the nations in their territories and in their eras was aimed at a very specific outcome. 00:19:32.799 --> 00:19:35.279 That they would look for God. 00:19:37.359 --> 00:19:59.759 So the continued uncertainty and the searching of human beings through religion, the thirty thousand statues in Athens and an altar to the unknown God is evidence of a God who built that longing into every nation, to every people. 00:20:00.160 --> 00:20:12.000 He made the nations, he scattered them, he placed them in times and in territories he chose, and he built into them a longing for him that only he can fulfill. 00:20:13.920 --> 00:20:24.640 Now that phrase, feel their way, describes someone reaching in the dark, trying to locate something that they can sense but can't quite see. 00:20:25.359 --> 00:20:30.240 So imagine waking up in the middle of the night and trying to find the bathroom light, right? 00:20:30.960 --> 00:20:37.119 You're feeling on the wall and you're trying, you're half asleep, and that's the image, right? 00:20:39.119 --> 00:20:44.880 Every nation, every people group, every ethnicity has a built-in searching mechanism. 00:20:46.880 --> 00:20:49.279 They know they need to find it. 00:20:51.359 --> 00:21:00.640 But because of sin, they end up groping around in the dark for someone they they can't exactly identify. 00:21:02.480 --> 00:21:06.480 Their search is based on some kind of awareness. 00:21:06.799 --> 00:21:20.400 For the apostle Paul quotes two of the Athenian poets, saying, He's not far from each one of us, for in him we we live and move and have our being. 00:21:22.720 --> 00:21:27.119 He says, one of your own poets has said, for we are indeed his offspring. 00:21:27.440 --> 00:21:31.440 He quotes their own poets and philosophers back to them. 00:21:31.680 --> 00:21:33.039 That's significant. 00:21:33.759 --> 00:21:52.240 Because what he's doing is saying, even the most brilliant thinkers who have no scripture available to them, who have no divine revelation, even they have perceived that human existence is grounded in something beyond us. 00:21:53.680 --> 00:21:59.200 And the one in whom our existence is grounded is actually not far from anyone. 00:22:00.480 --> 00:22:07.359 So he's he's near, but he's pursued through the wrong objects. 00:22:08.240 --> 00:22:17.440 He's present, but he's mistaken for something that we can mold and fashion in our own ingenuity. 00:22:19.119 --> 00:22:20.880 Think about that for the converse. 00:22:21.039 --> 00:22:24.400 Think about what that means for the conversations you have with people. 00:22:26.400 --> 00:22:31.200 God installed a spiritual hunger in the people around you. 00:22:33.039 --> 00:22:45.119 So that the person constructing their spirituality around whatever feels right, that comes from God putting in them a desire to seek Him. 00:22:45.359 --> 00:22:50.559 Or the person who senses that there's something more but doesn't really know what it is. 00:22:51.200 --> 00:22:56.079 They're doing exactly what God designed the nations to do. 00:22:56.720 --> 00:23:01.440 They're reaching, they're groping around in the darkness for the light switch. 00:23:03.039 --> 00:23:12.640 And most importantly, he didn't build that longing in them just to leave it empty, unsatisfied. 00:23:14.480 --> 00:23:16.880 That's the whole point of the book of Acts. 00:23:17.279 --> 00:23:26.400 That's why the book of Acts shows God's work of sending the gospel to the ethnos, to the nations. 00:23:27.200 --> 00:23:33.200 In Athens, Paul is identifying the God that they were searching for but hadn't yet found. 00:23:33.920 --> 00:23:45.359 He's declaring to them the gospel of Jesus Christ answers that longing that every person, every nation, every heritage, every ethnicity possesses. 00:23:47.200 --> 00:23:56.160 The gospel reaches people who are in one way or another already searching, even though they may not know it. 00:24:00.640 --> 00:24:12.960 Now at the end of the chapter, verses 30 and 31, we find the Apostle Paul's reasoning for why this is significant. 00:24:13.920 --> 00:24:15.359 That's great and all. 00:24:15.599 --> 00:24:16.160 Wonderful. 00:24:16.240 --> 00:24:24.640 You've given us some background, you've given us some basis for how we fit into all of world history and God's program and God's purpose. 00:24:24.799 --> 00:24:26.079 Thanks, Paul. 00:24:27.680 --> 00:24:28.559 So what? 00:24:30.000 --> 00:24:34.079 Well, he tells them in verse 30 and verse 31. 00:24:34.559 --> 00:24:46.720 He says this is important because every nation, and by implication, then every person is going to be summoned to appear before the judge. 00:24:57.680 --> 00:24:59.359 God is overlooked. 00:24:59.839 --> 00:25:03.039 But now, see the switch there? 00:25:04.000 --> 00:25:05.920 He's flipping the light switch. 00:25:06.559 --> 00:25:08.720 Now the light's on. 00:25:08.880 --> 00:25:22.960 And now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because here's the reason, he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man that he has appointed. 00:25:23.359 --> 00:25:35.279 And of this he has given assurance to all, to all the Ethnos, to all the nations, to all the peoples, by raising him from the dead. 00:25:39.839 --> 00:25:50.880 Imagine how fearful it would be to not know the God who will judge you. 00:25:54.799 --> 00:26:00.880 So he's standing there, probably, before the unknown altar, the altar to the unknown God. 00:26:01.599 --> 00:26:06.559 This is the God who will judge all of you in righteousness. 00:26:07.119 --> 00:26:08.799 And you don't know him. 00:26:10.960 --> 00:26:12.880 Every nation was made by him. 00:26:13.200 --> 00:26:18.000 Every nation was made to bear his image, positioned to seek his face. 00:26:18.640 --> 00:26:27.200 And every nation's natural response has been to take the God it was made to know and to reconstruct him in their own image. 00:26:28.400 --> 00:26:41.599 So the creature that was made carries its creator's image, and yet it tries to remake the creator in its own image. 00:26:42.960 --> 00:26:52.880 Athens' 30,000 statues are an example of that problem that runs through every culture and every civilization in history. 00:26:55.119 --> 00:26:58.160 And then the Apostle Paul narrows his argument. 00:27:00.480 --> 00:27:06.480 He says, Now listen, God's overlooked your ignorance. 00:27:06.880 --> 00:27:10.000 It's good that you had this altar to the unknown God. 00:27:10.720 --> 00:27:14.960 It's good that you were seeking that, seeking him. 00:27:15.599 --> 00:27:17.519 God made you to do that. 00:27:19.440 --> 00:27:23.200 But that seeking of something that's unknown is ignorance. 00:27:23.359 --> 00:27:25.519 It's the lack of knowing. 00:27:26.640 --> 00:27:39.279 I'm here to tell you now so that you know and that you respond to what you know because God has not only appointed a judge, but he's given proof that that man will judge. 00:27:39.839 --> 00:27:46.880 You see, God was patient while the nations wandered around in the darkness searching for him. 00:27:48.960 --> 00:28:00.319 Have you ever been to somebody's, spent the night at somebody else's home or maybe in a hotel where you're unfamiliar and you can't remember on which side the light switch is? 00:28:02.559 --> 00:28:04.799 You're feeling it's gotta be here. 00:28:06.480 --> 00:28:08.559 But it's not on that side. 00:28:09.359 --> 00:28:10.400 Because you're ignorant. 00:28:10.480 --> 00:28:13.920 You don't know that it's not on that side, but it's on this side. 00:28:16.000 --> 00:28:20.799 God's patient while you're wandering around, feeling around on the wrong wall. 00:28:21.599 --> 00:28:24.480 But I'm here to tell you the light switch is over here. 00:28:27.680 --> 00:28:33.920 And God Himself is now available and ready to be found while you're reaching. 00:28:34.640 --> 00:28:40.000 You see, the day came when God didn't merely remain near to them. 00:28:40.720 --> 00:28:44.960 The day came when he entered their world. 00:28:46.079 --> 00:28:47.599 He came himself. 00:28:49.680 --> 00:28:53.680 Back in verse 26, God made every nation from one man. 00:28:53.839 --> 00:28:57.759 Now in verse 31, God will judge the world by one man. 00:28:58.640 --> 00:29:06.480 The first man, the very first one, Adam, is the origin of every person's wandering that extended through Noah to all of the nations. 00:29:06.640 --> 00:29:09.440 They carried it with them all across the world. 00:29:10.160 --> 00:29:19.200 But the one man now that God has appointed, Jesus, is the answer to everything that Genesis set in motion. 00:29:21.200 --> 00:29:30.319 The consequence of Adam's failure runs through the history of nations groping around in the dark on the wrong wall. 00:29:31.440 --> 00:29:36.000 They know they need to find the light switch, but they have no clue where it is. 00:29:38.559 --> 00:29:42.720 The problem is that they are still answerable. 00:29:43.519 --> 00:29:45.359 And they are without excuse. 00:29:46.079 --> 00:29:54.960 And that God has appointed Jesus Christ, the Lord of all, to judge all people of all ethnicities of all nations. 00:29:56.720 --> 00:30:02.640 That's a problem for those who are groping around in ignorance. 00:30:04.720 --> 00:30:11.440 Did you know that in a unique way, Acts chapter 2 in the day of Pentecost is Babel backward? 00:30:13.359 --> 00:30:28.640 The Spirit comes to the disciples in Jerusalem, and there are a whole bunch of nations represented in one city on that religious holiday, hearing the good news of the man appointed to judge the world and hearing it in their own language. 00:30:30.000 --> 00:30:40.720 So the confusion of languages that scattered humanity sort of reverses in one morning where they're now all hearing the one message designed to save them. 00:30:41.680 --> 00:30:46.240 The long search without actually finding has an answer. 00:30:47.279 --> 00:31:08.880 And the one who can fill what the nations have been reaching for across every culture, across every century, every altar to an unknown God, the answer is the resurrected Jesus whose appointment God confirmed by raising him from the dead. 00:31:10.000 --> 00:31:16.319 If the tomb was still full, you could go about your life thinking, yeah, that good luck with that. 00:31:16.400 --> 00:31:18.480 I'm not going to stand before that judge. 00:31:19.519 --> 00:31:26.640 But because the tomb is empty, it confirms that God has appointed him as judge. 00:31:27.839 --> 00:31:38.160 Therefore, it's time for every nation, every ethnicity, and every person to repent and turn to him in humble faith for the salvation of their sins. 00:31:38.880 --> 00:31:42.640 Because the unknown God is no longer unknown. 00:31:45.519 --> 00:31:56.079 Our summer study in the life of Joseph is sort of one chapter in God's long campaign of pursuing the nations. 00:31:58.319 --> 00:32:04.960 God places Joseph in Egypt, the dominant world power at the time. 00:32:05.599 --> 00:32:25.200 He positioned him there in a position of slavery and then in prison, working through every element of treachery and suffering that Joseph endured, God arranging it all toward a purpose that reached far beyond the reconciliation of that one broken family of seventy people. 00:32:27.680 --> 00:32:38.720 It's through God's work in Joseph that God preserved the lives of many people in the world's nations. 00:32:40.480 --> 00:32:49.680 Through the seventy, God saves many from the seventy nations in Genesis 11 and 10. 00:32:50.160 --> 00:32:52.480 God appointed Joseph to save people. 00:32:52.720 --> 00:32:56.799 Pay attention to that thread throughout the few, the remaining weeks in the summer. 00:32:57.039 --> 00:33:04.720 Every time God moves in Joseph's story, something bigger, larger, grander in scale is taking place. 00:33:05.039 --> 00:33:19.119 And since Jesus is the ultimate Joseph who was sold by his brothers and killed, the world's nations wouldn't just get grain from an Israelite. 00:33:20.079 --> 00:33:23.440 They'd eventually get the bread of life from the Son of God. 00:33:25.759 --> 00:33:33.920 So understand then that the nations, the nations of the world, the United States of America, are not accidents. 00:33:35.599 --> 00:33:41.279 They're not just grand experiments that happen to achieve something. 00:33:43.039 --> 00:33:46.319 God made the nations from one man. 00:33:46.960 --> 00:33:53.519 He scatters them with the intention to take his image to the far reaches of the earth. 00:33:54.079 --> 00:33:57.039 He fixes their times and their borders. 00:33:57.279 --> 00:34:05.680 He arranges the whole of human history so that every nation would be positioned to search for the God who made them. 00:34:07.519 --> 00:34:15.840 And that invitation in the book of Acts has now gone out from Jerusalem to reach all of the world. 00:34:17.119 --> 00:34:25.280 All people, everywhere, are now commanded to find in Jesus Christ the God they've been reaching for since Babel. 00:34:27.280 --> 00:34:43.280 That is the invitation to every person, whatever nation has shaped you, whatever family history brought you here to this day, you were made to seek Him. 00:34:44.239 --> 00:34:52.960 The United States of America, whatever nation we put in that spot, was made to seek God. 00:34:54.880 --> 00:34:59.440 And perhaps more importantly, God has now made himself known. 00:35:00.079 --> 00:35:02.639 There's no need for ignorance anymore. 00:35:02.960 --> 00:35:05.199 The searching can end. 00:35:06.400 --> 00:35:07.280 Pray together. 00:35:07.440 --> 00:35:13.679 Lord Jesus, we pray for this country in which we are worshiping freely this morning. 00:35:13.920 --> 00:35:23.519 We pray for every country around the world, every ethnicity of people, whatever their story might be, their language might be, their culture might be. 00:35:23.760 --> 00:35:28.719 Lord, would you convict them of their need to repent and turn to Jesus? 00:35:30.000 --> 00:35:35.519 Lord, fulfill in them that longing that can only be filled by you. 00:35:37.519 --> 00:35:40.400 Fulfill your purpose for them. 00:35:41.519 --> 00:35:48.000 Draw them to yourself so that they might no longer be groping in the dark, but find you. 00:35:50.719 --> 00:35:55.039 And not only to find you, but to trust in you. 00:35:56.159 --> 00:36:09.840 The one who entered this world, died, was buried, and rose again, and trust you as the judge of all the earth, who rescues his own from eternal judgment. 00:36:10.639 --> 00:36:20.239 Lord, may we all be those kind of people who are no longer ignorant, but can say we have found him. 00:36:21.199 --> 00:36:22.880 In your name we pray these things. 00:36:23.119 --> 00:36:23.760 Amen. 00:36:25.840 --> 00:36:29.599 That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Free Church. 00:36:29.760 --> 00:36:36.639 Our mission is to declare the Word of God and disciple believers into mature, devoted followers of Jesus. 00:36:36.880 --> 00:36:40.960 You can learn more by visiting our website at faithfree.com.