We live in a world that is becoming increasingly anti-God. Scores of books have been written to discredit the existence of God and His mighty works. Infidels have dedicated their life’s work in trying to take God away from the equation. For centuries, atheists have been attacking our Creator and have caused many to fall into their dangerous pit of unbelief. In his book, The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins affirmed, “I am attacking God, all gods, anything and everything supernatural, wherever and whenever they have been or will be invented” (2006, p. 36). If you are reading this, here’s the question that should be at the forefront of your mind, “Why waste your time attacking God?” Jehovah is the only God and He wasn’t invented by anyone or anything! The apostle Paul explained this bit to a number of pagan worshipers in Athens some 2,000 years ago.
God Made the World and Everything in It
In Acts 17:22-ff, we read Paul’s discourse to the Athenians on the Areopagus. This is one of the locations where the Greeks worshiped the Greek goddess Athena, the God of War. They also had a temple dedicated to “The Unknown God.” Paul was compelled to deliver a powerful sermon about the one true God just a few feet away from the site of idol worship! In verse 24 of Acts 17, Paul tells the people that God made the world and everything in it. That’s a bold statement levied against the Athenians who thought otherwise. Be that as it may, it was, and still is, the truth. If you read the first verse in the book of beginnings, Moses tells us, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1). Man has spent a great deal of time and energy trying to disprove that God made the entire world in just six days (Gen. 2:1-2). Evolution and the Big Bang theory are just a couple of lies that have been told for decades to children in order to get them to believe in something else other than God. One scholar plainly stated, “If you do not want to accept that God exists, you have to be able to explain the existence of the universe without Him creating it. If He is not in the equation, then either the universe created itself or is eternal - there are no other options.”¹ Consider the fact that there has been no evidence to suggest that anything else has caused the world to be in existence. It was nobody but God who created the world and its inhabitants (Rom. 1:20).
He Does Not Dwell in Temples
Continuing in verse 24 of Acts 17, Paul stated that God does not dwell in temples made with men's hands. Surely this confused the Athenians who deemed it their right to worship their gods in temples. But the Bible still says that God is Spirit (John 4:24). Not only that, He is omnipresent (Psa. 33:13-14; Isa. 57:15). Therefore, God has no need to dwell in temples because He is everywhere. This obviously was not the case with the pagan gods those of the Greek world observed in Paul’s day. Many of the temples, such as the acropolis, were huge and ornate buildings, but they were all made in vain since: 1) God never authorized them to be built and 2) we don’t need to worship our Supreme Creator in temples since He is Spirit—we can worship Him anywhere!
He Gives to all Life, Breath, and all Things
As he continued his sermon on the Areopagus, Paul firmly stated that God gives to all life, breath, and all things (Acts 17:25). That was another fact that probably left the Athenians thinking that Paul was beside himself. They were standing at a site of pagan worship after all. But God, being the supreme giver of life, is a fact Paul understood from his childhood. Isaiah tells us that He gives breath to people on the earth (Isa. 42:5). No false god can do that. Evolution can’t do that either. Everything that we have comes from God (1 Cor. 4:7; Jas. 1:17). This includes the breath that’s in our very body! Man has tried to make us think otherwise but their time and effort will prove to be futile.
Conclusion
It’s really astounding how thousands of people have spent their life’s work trying to take God out of the equation. No matter how hard you try, you can’t do it. God reigns supreme and He will always be sitting on His throne. The antagonizers of the truth have got to humble themselves and see God for who He really is—a God who loves us, who created us and wants us to spend eternity with Him one day (1 Thes. 4:17-18). This is the “Unknown God” that the entire world needs to know about.
References
¹ Spencer, Herbert (1882), “First Principles: A System of Synthetic Philosophy”
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