Actes 17:25

Neither is worshipped with men’s hands.

Contrast between God and idols

Idols certainly require the care of human hands. There are still shops in the cities of India and China, with this inscription on their sign boards, “Here old gods are repaired and renovated.” (Leonhard.)

As though He needed anything.

God has no needs

The idol was supposed to be a needy, dependent being, fed by the hands of man. God not so (Psaume 50:1). Notice the main points of comparison.

I. Idols are dead; God lives of Himself and by Himself. He gives--

1. Life. What a gift is life! And what a giver the Author of life!

2. Breath.

3. All things necessary for the sustentation and continuance of both. It is not matter that lives, but God in matter. “This living God” is the Being with whom we have to do; there is a living eye on thee, a judge taking account now.

II. God is the builder of His own temple. The idol is made, then a temple is built, and the idol is put there and chained, that he might not be stolen. God too has a temple; but He is the architect of His own temple, erected it not for Himself but for us; worship is for the benefit of man. It is getting, not giving; receiving, not imparting. Worship may be regarded--

1. As the highest exercise of man’s nature. Man can never be greater than when he stands before God; a creature can never perform a nobler office than when thus holding communion with God.

2. As the purest influence of man’s nature. Sin is put down by this. We must look up, not down; the glance of the eye on the infinite is worth all the talking and troubling our minds about non-essentials in religion. But we must get the principles from the habit of looking up.

3. As the truest happiness. Have you ever felt happiness corresponding to the high demands of your nature? When your soul has been with God, how little did this world appear then!

III. God is the proprietor of His own sacrifice. All dead matter, silver and gold, our body, soul, intellect, affections, hopes, fears, are God’s. When we worship we are teaching ourselves a great truth, instructing ourselves in our own dependence on God.

IV. God is the father of His own worshippers.

1. Paul shows the nature of man. “We are also His offspring.” The tree, the elephant, birds, stars, etc., are not like God. They are far from Him, they are matter; He is mind. They are dead; He is living. But we are like God. We have power to think as He thinks, to love as He loves, to be felicitous as He is felicitous.

2. We have the destiny of this nature. “Seek the Lord, if haply they might find Him.” Seek Him, so as to feel Him touch the soul. Are you in search after God? Whatever pursuit fails, this will not. It is the only study worthy the soul of man. (Caleb Morris.)

God has no needs

I. This declaration sheds considerable light on God Himself, who is underived, unconditioned, everlasting, and the source of all other life throughout the universe. We have to do with a “living God”; therefore let us have no dead souls or dead services.

II. How may this truth apply to the scheme of redemption? God is all fulness of being, excellency, and blessing; yet He has condescended to propose reconciliation to men. The advantage here is altogether on the side of men. And what an advantage it is f It is the fulness, the power, of the rich God spreading Himself out through the entire nature of man; so that he feels he is invested with every attribute God possesses. When man is thus brought into union with the rich God, he receives two things which constitute his spiritual life.

1. A consciousness of his relationship to God. A living consciousness that we are “His offspring, in whom we live and move and have our being.” That feeling is worth the universe. Man is a child of God, whether he feels it or not; he has not lost his relationship to God. What has he lost by sin?

(1) The filial character. All likeness to God’s character.

(2) Sympathy to the Father. He does not love what God loves, nor hate what God hates.

(3) The knowledge of God to a great extent. Not altogether. He is far from God, as an isolated being. Man has not the slightest formal knowledge of Him as his Father.

(4) Every disposition to return to God.

2. But when the poor sinner comes to the rich God what takes place?

(1) There is a quickening sense of his relationship. He says, “I am not worthy to be called Thy son.” Then he says, “Talk to me about my Father.” The soul sympathises with God till it has impressed on it God’s character.

(2) There is a right in all the privileges involved in the relationship (Romains 8:17). Think how Christ is the heir of God; think of His position, offices, glory; then imagine yourselves to be in a state of approximation to Him; and then feel what it is to be enriched with the riches of God.

III. God has no needs. Then He is more than adequate to finish the work of redemption. If He has all power, He is able to work out men’s salvation. Man has not a fixed purpose. God has a clear, definite conception of the Divine scheme of salvation. God is so in love with His purpose of saving man there is no fear of His giving it up. Men often fail in their purposes in consequence of impediments. God, who is the Creator of heaven and earth, has dominion over all things.

IV. God has no needs. Then He could have no motives in redemption but generosity. (Caleb Morris.)

Seeing that He giveth to all life.--

God’s bounty

He giveth--

I. “Life,” and none but He, the Living One. It is a rill from the Fountain of Life. Growth and other qualities belong to plants, such as circulation of sap and respiration by their leaves; but life characterises man--with its voluntary and involuntary functions, its enjoyments and capabilities, its appetites and instincts, its operations on the world without it, and its conscious possession of its powers within it. Pleasure, glory, and usefulness are bound up with its prolongation. So sweet is it that few choose to part with it, and the cessation of it was regarded by the apostle’s hearers as the direst of calamities. He who is our life confers and supports it in His ineffable goodness--for “man liveth not by bread alone.”

II. “Breath,” Which, as the condition and means of life, is, therefore, singled out. Even then the atmosphere was popularly valued as the first of necessary gifts, and, when scientifically examined, its preciousness is not only confirmed, but it becomes a powerful proof of Divine unceasing goodness. For the air we breathe is endowed with many qualities, the loss or disturbance of which must be fatal to life. If it lose its gravity, or if its elasticity be changed or become changeable; if it thicken, and darken, and cease to be an invisible medium; if it be deprived of its compressibility, or if any amount of cold could condense it; if the gases composing it were to vary in their proportions: or if it were not universally present, and what is vitiated by respiration purified and restored--animal existence would be extinguished on the face of the earth.

III. And His bounty is immense, for He giveth “all things.” Whatever we have He has given us--the food on our table, and the raiment on our persons, with ability to win them and health to enjoy them. Nor let any man boast of being the architect of his own fortune; for the materials out of which he builds it, the skill with which he constructs it, and the propitious season which enables him to rear it without pause or discomfiture--are each of them the gift of the one sovereign Benefactor. Discovery, invention, science, art, adventure, commercial shrewdness, literary power, mechanical skill, and political success; the sharp eye that is first to perceive the “tide in the affairs of men”; and the wary enterprise that launches the vessel upon it--are not self-originated. “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of Lights.” (Prof. Eadie.)