If you would, please turn in your Bibles to the book of Acts chapter 17. The last part of this chapter, Paul speaks to the Athenians at the Areopagus. We have spent some time in this text. Today we will read verses 23 through 26. Verse 26 will be the primary focus message today. You would follow along in your copy of God's Word, Acts 17, 23-26. This is the Word of God. For while I was passing through and examining the objects of your own worship, I also found an altar with this inscription, To an unknown God. Therefore what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you. the God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in the temples made with hands, nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we pray that you would bless your word for the building up of your church to your glory. We pray that today you would show us your providence, that we might trust in you more fully, that we might worship your perfections more properly. God, we ask that you would help us, help us to know you, draw centers to yourself, sanctify your people. We pray this in Christ's name and for your kingdom's sake. In this text, Paul is speaking to the Athenians there at the Areopagus, and he's proclaiming to them the God of the Bible, the one true and living God. And we've been following Paul's message here, following the points that he makes, and looking a bit more in-depth at what he declares about God. It's important as we read this sermon of Paul and really all the sermons that are recorded in scripture that we remember what we have in the scripture recorded are summaries of the fuller presentations of what was spoken. So we don't know what details Paul may have gone into as he declared the God of the Bible. We don't know what things he might have felt he needed to say explicitly, or what things he might have known were common notions among the people. And as we read the scripture today, we come with different educations, with different life experiences, with different common notions than the Athenians. So we wanna take the time to look at each of these points, each of these things that Paul said for our own benefit. these points have turned out to be mostly attributes of God that Paul is laying out for the Athenians. We've already considered two of these points, two of these attributes that Paul has given us over the last two sermons from this text. First, we saw that God is ase, and we took that from Paul's point in verse 25, that he is not served by human hands as though he needed anything since he gives to all people life and breath and all things. God needs nothing but gives all things. We learned that God's aseity means that God and God alone exists in and of himself without any input or addition from outside of himself. and nothing else outside of God exists in this way. And that word is ase. Next, we look at verse 24, where Paul extols God as the God who made the world and all things in it. And we considered the biblical account of creation in Genesis, and we saw that the Bible unquestionably teaches six-day creation. Now today we turn to verse 26, we turn our attention here and we see that he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and boundaries and their habitations. And we see here that Paul is speaking of the providence of God. the providence of God, the providential care, the providential work of God. So today we consider providential governance, God's providential governance or governing of all things by his sovereign power. Let me say this first statement that he makes, he made from one man every nation, certainly brings to our minds Adam in the garden and the importance of Adam. Now we're not going to redo that because when we talked about creation, we looked at the importance of Adam. We looked at Adam as a historical figure and the fact that if we can't trust in the biblical account of Adam and Eve and the fall, then we lose passages like Romans 5. We lose the passages that are so basic to what we believe as Christians. So let us just say by way of passing here, he made from one man and that one man is important to us as Christians and important to every person on the earth. At the very outset, I would like to take a brief detour. I know you're thinking, well, we've just got started and we're already gonna chase a rabbit. Yes, we are. But at the very outset, I wanna take this brief detour and it's not the primary truth that is here, but it is a secondary truth that we find in this verse. He made from one man, every nation of mankind, every nation of mankind. And the rabbit that I wanna chase here for just a moment, is the topic of racism, the topic of racism. This is certainly not the first place or the only place in scripture that we could turn to see that racism is sinful and ignorant. But we are here in this text, and it's pretty clear here that racism is sinful and ignorant. Racism is rooted in the belief that one race, one race of humanity is superior to another. One race is better than another. And racism means there's some prejudice, some prejudice based on race. This does not include recognizing and even pointing out differences in races. Pointing out differences in races is not necessarily racism. We see clear distinctions in people. There are some physical characteristics, there are strengths, there are weaknesses that we can recognize. Even Paul, in his writing, points out differences that seem to be prevalent among the Cretans. And if you were in our Bible study hour this morning, you heard that text read where Paul points out some things about the Cretans. But it's evident as we read Paul pointing out these distinctions that he's not saying those Cretans are terrible sinners, and we Jews, we're wonderful people. He's not making that point at all, and we know that. If you'll remember in Romans chapter one, Gentiles are sinful, that Gentiles are sinners. But then in Romans chapter two, he makes the point about the Jews, that Jews are sinners, that Jews are sinful. And then in chapter three, he summarizes, he brings it all together. And we read there that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. racist in pointing out the difference he's just pointing out the differences that he sees and we have to mention also as we speak about racism that in our day especially as far as I've seen in the past several years there have been some ridiculous notions in the name of racism the absurdity that is critical race theory seems to know no bound or fact, but we need to recognize also that there are those who are racists. And when we look into our history, we find racism, milder racism that is just prejudices or discriminations of the milder type based on race and other more harsh racism where people hate other people, listen to that, where people hate other people simply based on race. I wanna be careful here, since we did last time talk about creation and we juxtaposed six day biblical, six day creation with the religion of the world that is evolution, I wanna say very carefully, Racism is sinful and wrong, and it should be known by all people that it is wrong, that it is sinful. But I do want to mention that those who hold an evolutionary view, a survival of the fittest or domination of the strongest view of the origins of life, for them, racism, it seems to me, could fit into that system. I am not saying that all evolutionists are racists. I'm not even saying that most evolutionists are racists, but I am saying I think there is a justification for racism that is available in the evolutionary scheme, but not so in Scripture. Anyone who wants to come to the Bible to justify racism has to take the Bible out of context, has to twist what the Scripture says, And Paul here directs our attention to the fact that God made one man and one woman and all other people come from them by ordinary generation. By mamas and daddies having babies. So all races, all ethnic groups, all peoples of the earth have the same root. have the same starting point. So Christians, how can racism make any sense? How is there any logic or reason in racism if we all come from a common father and mother? And hatred of people, people made by God, is sinful. So back to the main point here, the provenance of God that we see in this text. In Athens, if you'll remember back in verse 18, Paul was encountered by the Epicureans and the Stoics. They said, we wanna see what this babbler has to say. He was encountered by these two groups, The Epicureans believed that the world is governed by chance. Epicureans believed, and surely some still believe today, that the world is governed by chance. Unpredictable, random incidents. That's how the world is governed, if you can even call that governance. Stoics believed that the world was governed by fate. Faith being a predetermined pattern based on causation of previous events. Paul does not play nice with the Epicureans and the Stoics. Knowing what they believe about the governance of the world, he comes and he declares that the world is governed by the providence of God. Christians, we need to take a note here from Paul. We hear people speak every day about luck, about karma. We hear these things and they're nothing more than rebranded chance and fate. There's nothing new under the sun, but Christians, we need to be reminded that Paul doesn't let that stand. We need to speak. when we hear about luck and about chance, and we need to remind those around us that God governs the world by providence. Just this week, I found myself in a conversational conundrum. I said something like, well, we'll see how that turns out, it's really a roll of the dice. And then I thought, well, is it a roll of the dice or is it the providence of God? Well, isn't a roll of the dice the providence of God? So I had to say to the people I was speaking to, well, you know, even the roll of the dice is in God's hands. And we Christians, we need to recognize that everything is under, all things are under God's providence, under his providential hand, under his providential care, and we need to remind people. We need to remind one another of that from time to time. The providence is a word that we may think we understand and we probably have some idea of it, but it's helpful for us to take a closer look sometimes at a word and see all the things that are included in providence. We should think of providence and when we think of that word, we should also think of the word provision. Providence is God's provision or God providing all things with what is needed to accomplish his will. Providence is God providing all things and everything is under God's providence. But we can also break the word down and we can see P-R-O, providence, and we can see that the pro part means before or for, F-O-R-E. And when we see Providence, see the word video or the word vision? This word means seeing ahead of time, seeing before. Seeing what is needed and what will be needed and providing based on that knowledge of what will be needed. Listen to this note from Dr. James Dolezal about providence. Originally, providence was discussed on the topic of God's decree as it simply meant foreseeing, providing, giving consideration in advance. It denoted God's plan for ordering things to an end. The plan itself was distinguished from its execution in time, which is more specifically called governance. The word later was used to refer to the divine activity of preservation and governance itself. Eventually, the discussion of providence was restricted to those aspects of God's action in time by which he preserves and directs all creation to its intended end. Now you heard me say, directing, God's directing all things according to his will. Well, all things are intended in is his will. Some theologians have looked at providence and the doctrine of providence and they felt the need to tweak it slightly in order to protect God, in order to protect God's holiness specifically. And in trying to tweak the doctrines of God, they go too far. so strongly believing that the holiness of God is important and must be protected, they develop a doctrine of holiness that does violence to the doctrine of providence. They want to avoid the appearance that God might perhaps be responsible for sin and the sin of man, so they overemphasize free will and deny absolute providential rule of God, especially over the sinful actions of men. We want to be careful not to do that. Augustine rightly understood the scripture, and he led the way in developing this doctrine that all things are preserved and governed by the sovereign, wise, and beneficent will of God. All things. Our Baptist Catechism helps us in understanding this, and it gives us this statement in answer to the question, what are God's works of providence? What are God's works of providence? And some of you already know the answer. God's works of providence are his most holy, wise, and powerful, preserving and governing all his creatures and all their actions. Let me just pause here and insert a commercial. Just a little commercial for our catechism. As we raise our children, I'm assuming that most of you, with very few exceptions, most of you, like me, were raised not being catechized, not having these truths in our memory. I have work. Old and rusty. It's harder when you get older, but I have worked to memorize a few of our catechism questions and answers. And I want to tell you, especially ones like, what are the decrees of God? And what are the works of God's providence? These things are so helpful. They are so helpful. And I am surprised, I'm amazed at how many times I recall those questions and answers to help me in conversation or to help me in figuring out what I'm seeing in scripture. So I wanna say, especially with the rearing of your children, catechize your children, catechize your children. What are God's works of providence? God's works of providence are his most holy, wise, and powerful, preserving and governing all his creatures and all their actions. I just told someone last week, when I first, came across this answer, God's works of providence are His most holy, wise, and powerful. I questioned it. I pushed back a little. Really? Really? What about creation? Creation is so wonderful. But here's the thing, creation, God made all things from nothing. God made all things from nothing. But in providence, all things that are made, all things that are moving, all things that are growing, all things that are changing, and women and children with their attitudes and their opinions, all of that is in play, and God works, not around it. He works through it, and he works it to accomplish his will and his purpose. I have come to believe that God's works of providence are his most holy, wise and powerful, and they leave us in awe. And there's no qualifier. When we speak of God's providence, there's no qualifier for us. God's providence, God's control is over all things. All things. Good and evil alike. God is provident over all things. A biblical doctrine of providence maintains that while God is in control of all things, he is nevertheless perfectly holy. Perfectly holy. God cannot sin, God does not sin, and he does not tempt any man. He is perfectly holy. Our doctrine of providence provides for God's holiness and It also preserves the responsibility of man for his own sin. So there's nobody that's gonna say, well, I went and sinned, but you know, it was under the providence of God, so I couldn't help it. No, you are responsible for your sin. Augustine's biblical view of providence was broadly accepted. It was the broadly accepted view of the church throughout the Middle Ages. there's no record of any dispute or any argument, any pushback to the contrary until Pelagianism came along. Pelagianism came along and taught that God is not provident over man's ethical choices. And then Pelagianism is pronounced heretical and semi-Pelagianism, is that only semi-heretical? It's a discussion for another day. Semi-Pelagianism doesn't go quite as far, but still they leave certain actions of men under the control of man and not under the providential governance of God. Providence. God is provident over all things. Let's get a little perspective. We need to see where providence fits in How does providence fit into things? We speak of God's decree. God's decree is his eternal will whereby he has foreordained whatsoever comes to pass. Now I'm shortening our catechism question and answer. The decrees of God are His eternal purpose according to the counsel of His will, whereby for His own glory He has foreordained whatsoever comes to pass. So this is the decree of God, the plan, if you will, the plan of what will happen, of what will come to pass. Decree says that God is sovereign and all things operate according to His plan. God has this decree, but God executes his decree. How does he bring that about? Let me say this, the decree of God, the plan of God, that is within God. We would use the phrase ad intra. It begins and ends within the person of God, within the triune God. So how does that get outside of the triune God and get executed? on earth in time, what we would call an extra, outside of himself. God executes his decree. He puts his plan into action by two add extra actions, two add extra powers, two actions that terminate outside of himself. God executes his decree, number one, in the works of creation. He planned. And then by creation, he made the world and all things in it. And God executes his decree, number two, in the works of providence, preserving and governing all that he has created in creation. Creative work, God's creative work has ended, and what we see now is God's providential work, God's providence. So decree, and we also speak of God's sovereignty, his plan and his power, decree and sovereignty are invisible. We wouldn't see those attributes. They're not made visible until we look at God's work of creation and providence. Our catechism reminds us too that God's works of providence are for his own glory. for His own glory. So God's work of providence is the execution and the manifestation of His decree and His sovereignty in the world. Now as we speak about providence, there are some errors that we need to avoid, errors that some fall into when speaking about providence. Some speak of the providence of God as though it was only a pre-knowledge, a prescience. Some people speak of the providence of God like it just means that He knew things before they would happen. But we want to be very clear, the providence of God is more than just knowing what will happen. It's making things happen. When we speak of the providence of God, it's not just the knowledge of future things. Rather, we are speaking of God's continued activity continued involvement in the world, accomplishing his plan, accomplishing his decree. He's not just aware of what will come to pass. His providential work brings about what will come to pass. He accomplishes all things. Another error. when speaking of providence would be the error of deism, which teaches that God's providence in the world is just a general notion, just a general thing. It's like he creates the world, spins it into motion, and then steps back and lets nature take its course. Let's nature. So if you're holding to this error, you might speak of things like the law of gravity, other laws, the law of centrifugal force, laws of thermodynamics. We might speak of those laws, but the classical Orthodox Christian view is that gravity and centrifugal force and thermodynamics, they're all continual providential works. God didn't just kick gravity off and step back. He is upholding all things by the power of His hand. It becomes clear that you can't cover everything about Providence in one sermon. The Bible clearly teaches God God's providential control, his providential care over all things. And I wanna just go through kind of rapid fire, some texts of scripture, just a few verses that speak of providence. Now there are different categories of providence as we look at this, God's providence over men and women, God's providence over nations, God's providence over nature, and all of these will be included and kind of mixed up here. Proverbs 16.33, the lock is cast in the lap, but every decision is from the Lord. You thought I made that thing about the role of the dices in God's hands up, didn't you? No, the lock is cast into the lap, but every decision is from the Lord. Psalm 4.8, in peace I will both lie down and sleep, for you alone, O Lord, make me to dwell in safety. Psalm 75.7, God is the judge, He puts down one and exalts another. Psalm 103, 19, the Lord has established his throne in the heavens and his sovereignty rules over all. Psalm 104, 14, he causes the grass to grow for the cattle and vegetation for the labor of man so that he may bring forth food from the earth. Psalm 104, 21, the young lions roar and roar after their prey and seek for their food from God. The young lions roar after their prey and seek their food from God. Psalm 135, six, whatever the Lord pleases, he does in heaven and in earth, in the seas and in all depths. Job 12, 23, he makes the nations great, then destroys them. He enlarges the nations, then leads them away. Matthew chapter five, verse 45, for he causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good. He sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. Matthew 10, 29, two sparrows are sold for a cent, and yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your father. Let me just say something about that. There are verses of scripture that we know. Maybe that one's familiar to you. That one's familiar to me. All my life I've known about that verse, but I've known about it incorrectly. I would have said not one sparrow falls that it escapes the knowledge of the Father. That's not what the verse says. Not one sparrow falls to the ground apart from your Father. Apart from what? Apart from his providential control, his providential care, his providential hand. Romans 8, 28. And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose. God causes all things to work together. It's God's providential hand. Philippians 4.19, and my God will supply all of your needs according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. In our text for today, speaking of God's providence, he has made from one man every nation of mankind to live on the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitations. Paul declared to the Athenians that the God of scripture, the one true and living God, is working by his providential hand to determine all things. The things that he specifically mentions here is the providence of God in the lives of men, determining their appointed times. Determining their appointed times. Think about that. The day of your birth was determined by God. Wow, we deny that, don't we? We have a lot of babies that are coming. Babies that are here and babies that are coming. And what do we say? Babies come on their own schedule. Now we'll probably continue to say that, won't we? But let's correct one another. Babies come on the schedule of the Lord. The Lord determines. So if you ever heard someone say, maybe you've thought this yourself, I was born in the wrong century, or I was born in the wrong decade. No, you weren't. You weren't born in the wrong month. You weren't born in the wrong minute. when God determined the time of your birth? How many of our times during our life are determined by God? Your wedding day, the day your child is born, the day your parents die, or a sibling dies, or a spouse dies, or a friend dies? even the involvement in your life that your parents have? Now there's no question, and men are responsible for their sin, and there's no question that there are sinful circumstances that may be the second causes of someone being raised without a father in the home, or without a mother in the home, or that person being adopted for whatever reason, whatever your parental specifics are, there may be sin involved in that, But God is not responsible for the sin, but he is provident in the events which have come about in your life. God is provident. God has determined the day of your death. God has determined the day, again, the moment of your death. And you cannot extend that by diet and exercise, by vitamin supplements. You can't change that at all. God has determined your appointed time. Now you have the responsibility to redeem the time that God has given you. You have that responsibility, but it doesn't change the times that God has appointed in your life. He has appointed our times and he has appointed the boundaries of our habitations. The boundaries of our habitation. When I think about God appointing boundaries, I think, well, the scripture definitely tells us that God determines the boundaries of the sea. Scripture tells us that explicitly, that he determines the boundaries of the sea. But we can also know that God providentially oversees the boundaries of other things, like our atmosphere. The ozone layer is in the providential control of the Lord. But also your personal boundaries are in God's hands as well. But what should we do with that? Shouldn't we be comforted? Shouldn't we be satisfied and thankful? Why are we so often not content to live in God's providential care? God, I know you're provident over all things, but I'm not happy with the way things are right now. Why do we murmur and complain about our state of our lives? May we learn to be satisfied in what the Lord provides. to say with the apostle, I have learned in whatever state I'm in there and to be content. Now, listen, I'm not saying be so content that we become lazy and irresponsible. We need to work as God provides and seize the opportunities that the Lord gives to us. to better things, to better ourselves and to better the lives of our Christian brothers and sisters and those around us. We should do that. But no, even then, even when we have those opportunities and we work and we make things better in our own lives and the lives of others, even then, that is God's providential hand. Every good and perfect gift is from above and comes down from the Father of lights. let's pray that God would grant the changes that we desire. But even more, as a priority, let's pray that God would give such things that are good for our faith and our sanctification and our growth. Then, let us pray for God's help that we would be content, that we would be satisfied And Christians, don't hear this. Don't hear me say we should learn to be content with the things God gives us. No. Christians, let us learn to be content with God. Let us learn to be content with Him. Not just with the stuff. Great triune God. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we come now asking your help. Asking that you would apply your word to our hearts. Asking that you would help us to worship and praise you for your works of providence. The works by which you execute your decree, your perfect plan, your perfect will. Help us to worship and praise you for these works of providence. Calm our fears. God, as we fear about the things that we don't have, the things that we may not be prepared for, the things that we did not foresee, the things that we have not been providential over, calm our fears as we trust in your providence. Calm our fears as we rest in you. Lord, help us. Help us to be content. Help us to be content with what you have done in our lives. Help us to be content with what you have given us. Help us to be content with the work that you give us to do. Help us to be content. and the times that you have determined. It's in Jesus' name that we ask these things.