Acts 14:18

‘And with these sayings scarce did they restrain the large crowds from doing sacrifice to them.'

Thus they sought to turn the people from their foolish path by facing them up to the truth about the living God, the Creator and Sustainer of heaven and earth (compare Colossians 1:15), thus indicating that they could not be Zeus and Hermes because as there is only one God at least one of these could not exist. And yet such is man's willingness to worship anything and everything but the true God, they were scarce able by these means to prevent the men from worshipping them.

Had the listeners shown any inclination to respond to the message he would no doubt have continued by giving the full facts of the coming of Christ and His death and resurrection but the unfortunate truth was that because of what had happened he had had to interrupt them at the point of their fervently worshipping their two favourite gods, by denying their existence. This was hardly likely to curry favour with them.